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.

All Video FEATURED VIDEO

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

What Was the Civil Rights Movement?
A report shows too few U.S. high-schoolers know about the Civil Rights movement.
How Many Slaves Landed in the U.S.?
Just a tiny percentage of Africans shipped to the New World landed in North America.
What Was America’s First Black Town?
Spanish Florida was the African-American slaves’ first Promised Land.
The Truth Behind ’40 Acres and a Mule’
Find out who came up with this promise to freed slaves after the Civil War, and how it fell through.
‘Plessy v. Ferguson’: Who Was Plessy?
Who was the Plessy in the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case that established the separate-but-equal policy for separating the races?

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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.