MSNBC Acquires Rachel Maddow Documentary ‘Andrew Young: The Dirty Work’; Watch Trailer For Project On Living Civil Rights Legend

EXCLUSIVE: MSNBC has acquired Rachel Maddow’s new documentary Andrew Young: The Dirty Worka film about the legendary Civil Rights Movement leader who became a right-hand man to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and later emerged as a political force in his own right on the national and world stage.

We have your first look at the documentary in the exclusive trailer above. MSNBC host Maddow executive produces alongside a team including Phil Griffin and Rashida Jones. Andrew Young: The Dirty Workdirected by Matt Kay, will air on MSNBC on Friday, October 17 following a special edition that night of The Rachel Maddow Showthe news network’s flagship broadcast.

“Andrew Young: The Dirty Work is an unprecedented behind-the-scenes story, exclusively told by Andrew Young,” notes a release, “a visionary strategist, tireless negotiator, and trusted friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who rose from the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement to the corridors of global power. Young, reflecting in his own words at 93 years old, redefines ‘the dirty work’ – the quiet, difficult labor that makes landmark change possible.”

Maddow said in a statement, “At a time when confrontations with the government and grassroots protests are back at the center of American political life, the civil rights movement is more than just a moral cornerstone for our country – it’s a living, breathing, practical manual for how to fight for what’s right, and win that fight, and maybe even save your own soul in the process. Andrew Young’s story is not gauzy or romantic, it’s the gritty truth of what it takes to build and sustain a winning movement. Andrew Young: The Dirty Work is about how hard it is to be a hero, and how beautiful, too.”

In the trailer, Young reflects on the time more than 60 years when King asked him to join his movement of nonviolent resistance to combat entrenched and vicious racism and segregation.

“It didn’t look like a promising job,” Young recalls wryly. “Nobody really wanted to go work for Martin Luther King. He had been stabbed, bombed, jailed, and he didn’t have any money… Martin Luther King was looking for an assistant to do all the dirty work. When there was something to be done and nobody wanted to do it, that was my job.”

Young movingly recalls King’s murder at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. on April 4, 1968, and realizing the civil rights hero could not survive an assassin’s bullet. And he reflects on his entry into elective politics as a U.S. Congressman and later mayor of Atlanta, and his service during the Carter administration as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN.

“I was born at the right time,” Young observes, “and happened to be at the right places to be part of the Civil Rights movement that helped change America.”

The acquisition announcement comes as MSNBC prepares to split from NBC as part of parent company Comcast’s move to spin off its cable properties into a separate company, to be called Versant. The split becomes official on October 20; at that point, MSNBC will be rebranded as MS NOW, an acronym for “My Source for News Opinion and the World.”

Maddow is expected to share footage from Andrew Young: The Dirty Work Maddow at MSNBCLIVE ‘25: This Is Who We Are, the network’s second annual community-focused fan event on Saturday, Oct. 11, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan.

The documentary, from Maddow’s Surprise Inside production company, constitutes “the latest project in Maddow’s expanding multi-platform portfolio within MSNBC,” according to a release. That encompasses her MSNBC primetime show, The Rachel Maddow Showfour MSNBC original podcasts including Bag Man, Already newsand Ultra (which received a 2025 Edward R. Murrow Award), two feature length films in development, the Emmy-nominated documentary feature From Russia with Levbooks, scripted projects, and more.

Watch the trailer for Andrew Young: The Dirty Work above.