As executive vice-president for Blackside, Inc., he supervised documentary film projects, including the production of the national PBS series The Great Depression and Malcolm X: Make it Plain, which he also produced and directed. In addition, Bagwell produced two films for Blackside’s internationally celebrated Eyes on the Prize,, Mississippi: Is This America? and Ain’t Scared of Your Jails. Each was awarded the Columbia School of Journalism’s Alfred E. duPont Award and the Peabody Award.
Creator of the Civil Rights Video Wall, a permanent exhibit for the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, Bagwell also produced and directed a multi-channel video installation In Search of Sacred Music based on the work of renowned musicologist and historian Bernice Johnson Reagan for the Smithsonian Institution.
Bagwell, whose career focus has been on America’s struggle to reconcile its promise with its contradictions, has earned numerous additional credits and awards as a cinematographer, editor, director and producer on many documentary and dramatic films.