Special Features
- Bonus Video: The Abolitionists, Part 3, Chapter 1
- Photo Gallery: Significant Abolitionists
- Bonus Video: The Abolitionists, Part 1, Chapter 1
- Video Gallery: Clips from Part One
- Video Gallery: Clips from Part Three
- Bonus Video: The Abolitionists, Part 2, Chapter 1
Premiering January 8, 15 & 22, 2013. Abolitionist allies Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown and Angelina Grimké turned a despised fringe movement against chattel slavery into a force that literally changed the nation.
My American Experience
Share Your Story
What aspect of the abolitionist movement moves you the most? Is there an event you wish you could have witnessed in person? A story you love? A person you admire or can relate to? Share your story with American Experence.
Series Blog
Why Celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation?
On New Years Day, 1863, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and countless other abolitionists across the nation waited anxiously for word on the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. In grade school, I learned that it freed the slaves. But when I later read the document, I realized that it was not that simple: Lincoln only freed the slaves on Confederate soil, exempting those states under Union occupation and those fighting for the Union. Why, then, on January first, 1863, did abolitionists celebrate the news of partial emancipation as if it fulfilled the very core of their mission?
Malcolm X - Make It Plain
Malcolm X, a man who both terrified and inspired, expressed the anger and struggle of black people for freedom in the 1960s.
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That Rhythm, Those Blues
The evolution of rhythm and blues through the careers of singers Ruth Brown and Charles Brown, with contemporary performances by both.
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JFK
Forever enshrined in myth by an assassin's bullet, Kennedy's presidency long defied objective appraisal. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.
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Amelia Earhart
The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, Earhart disappeared in 1937 during an attempt to circumnavigate the world by airplane.
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The Wizard of Photography
George Eastman introduced the Kodak and Brownie camera systems and transformed photography into something anybody could do.
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Truman
Harry Truman was responsible for finding America's place at the start of the Cold War. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.
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Eudora Welty - One Writer's Beginnings
A writer's childhood and the development of her photography and writing about the American South.
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George H. W. Bush
A biography of the 41st U.S. president, from his service in World War II to his days in the Oval Office. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.
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