In 1971, black filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles had a vision: A black man should be able to stand up to the Man on film and come out on top. After being turned down by every studio he could think of, he risked everything to self-finance his third film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. The first hero to explode out of the ghetto paved the way for Shaft, Superfly and Foxy Brown and the many powerful black characters with soul that populated cinema and television for the rest of the 20th century. See what else is in theaters in the Summer Movie Guide!