Tube Notes

By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service

TONIGHT'S MUST-SEE

"American Experience: The Murder of Emmett Till" (9 p.m.) and "P.O.V.: Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin" (10 p.m.), both PBS. In 1955, a 14-year-old boy visiting from Chicago was in the Mississippi Delta when he stopped at a store in Money, Miss., bought bubble gum, and whistled at the woman behind the counter. He had unwittingly broken a Southern rule. That night he was murdered.

The men who killed him were acquitted and shortly afterwards they sold their story to a magazine. With old footage and new interviews, "Experience" tells of a case that helped propel the civil rights movement. Afterward, "P.O.V." wraps up this Martin Luther King Jr. Day double feature with a look at one of the men behind King's movement. Bayard Rustin, who grew up in a Pennsylvania town where segregation lingered, became a master of passive-resistance protests.

Often controversial because of his homosexuality, Rustin was ousted from several movements. Still, his work with King and with A. Philip Randolph helped shape the civil rights drive.

OF NOTE

"My Life is a Sitcom" premiere, 6 p.m., ABC Family. Each week this show visits a different family and after seeing eight, it will choose one as the basis of a scripted situation comedy. Tonight, we meet the Mozians in Old Greenwich, Conn. Joe is a playful chap who sort of takes care of his home and two sons while his wife goes to work.

"The Rock" (1996), 7 p.m., ABC. A biochemist (Nicolas Cage) hooks up with the only man who escaped from Alcatraz (Sean Connery). They sneak into the prison now controlled by terrorists.

"The It Factor" season-opener, 7:30 & 11 p.m., Bravo. We meet a new batch of struggling actors in the start of a 13-week reality series.

"Joe Millionaire," 8 p.m., FOX. Having trimmed the field down to five, the pseudo-millionaire begins taking each of the women on a date.