The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. | PBS

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Henry Louis Gates Remembers Rev. Pickney

Illustration from The Black Atlantic episode

Episode 1: The Black Atlantic

The Black Atlantic explores the global experiences that created the African-American people. The episode portrays the earliest Africans, slave and ...

Cotton plantation illustration

The Cotton Economy and Slavery

Slavery was the fuel for a global cotton economy. The spread of plantations in the Deep South led to the forced migration known today as slavery's ...

Robert Smalls

Robert Smalls: A Daring Escape

The future South Carolina Representative to Congress made a daring escape from slavery when he sailed a war ship past Fort Sumter.

Racist Images and Messages in Jim Crow Era

Racist images in the Jim Crow era demeaned African Americans and legitimized violence against them. A visit to the Jim Crow Museum in Michigan.

Ruby Bridges as Young Girl

Ruby Bridges Goes to School

Ruby was one of six children who desegregated several all-white elementary schools in New Orleans in 1960.

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Episode Six: A More Perfect Union

A More Perfect Union (1968 – 2013). Full Episode

From the Black Power movement to the first black president of the United States.

Conversation with Rep. John Lewis and Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Civil Rights Movement Leaders in Conversation

Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Chairman Emeritus of the NAACP Julian Bond.

Black is Beautiful

Episode Six Clip

Black is Beautiful

“Black is Beautiful” came out of the Black Power movement and into the mainstream, such as on "Soul Train."

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro

Was Jackie Robinson Court-Martialed?
Robinson's struggle for equality began in the Army, before he integrated baseball.
Who Were the Harlem Hellfighters?
These black soldiers returning from World War I received a hero’s welcome, by blacks and whites alike, in New York City.
Did African-American Slaves Rebel?
The five greatest slave rebellions in the United States.
Free Blacks Lived in the North, Right?
During slavery, why did free blacks stay in the South?
What Was the Second Middle Passage?
The growth of the cotton economy and the internal slave trade in America forced families to separate and migrate once again.

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The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross is a film by Kunhardt McGee Productions, THIRTEEN Productions LLC, Inkwell Films, in assocation with Ark Media.