Classroom| The Rise of the Black Middle Class
New political gains like affirmative action combined with changing social attitudes to nurture a growing African American middle class, but the government continued to fear a more extreme black nationalism. This video is an excerpt from Episode Six: A More Perfect Union (1968 – 2013), the final episode of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Episodes
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Classroom | Fighting the Power: Hip Hop
6m 47s
Hip Hop gave voice to a new generation of African American youth disenfranchised from the American Dream enjoyed by a select few black celebrities.
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Classroom| The Rise of the Black Middle Class
4m 46s
New political gains like affirmative action combined with changing social attitudes to nurture a growing African American middle class, but the government continued to fear a more extreme black nationalism. This video is an excerpt from Episode Six: A More Perfect Union (1968 – 2013), the final episode of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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Classroom | The Limits of Rights: Economic Injustice
4m 8s
Despite growing political power in the 1970s, African Americans continued to face daunting economic challenges made worse by the deindustrialization of their urban communities.
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Classroom | Black Power: Demanding a Brilliant Future
5m 17s
In the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the Black Panthers advocate armed resistance and self-sufficiency for African Americans. This video is an excerpt from Episode Six: A More Perfect Union (1968 – 2013), the final episode of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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Classroom | Casualties of the War on Drugs
5m 12s
President Reagan's "War on Drugs" fell disproportionally hard on black communities as new mandatory drug sentencing laws put a generation of young African Americans in prison. This video is an excerpt from Episode Six: A More Perfect Union (1968 – 2013), the final episode of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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Classroom | Yes We Can: Barack Obama
6m 23s
Barack Obama's election to the presidency exemplifies changing attitudes about race even as problems of institutional racism persist. http://s3.amazonaws.com/pbs-ingest/wnet/MRTC/Ep6_Yes_We_Can_Output-mezz…
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Classroom | Black is Beautiful: Afrocentricity
4m 42s
Black Power helps create a new African American cultural identity which resonated throughout American culture. This video is an excerpt from Episode Six: A More Perfect Union (1968 – 2013), the final episode of The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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Classroom | Preparing for Sit-Ins
3m 28s
Non-violent passive resistance in the civil rights movement required much preparation and mental strength. Non-violence was a technique used to end segregation in America. This video is an excerpt from Episode Five, Rise!, from the series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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Classroom | Ruby Bridges
3m 28s
In an act of desegregation, six-year-old Ruby Bridges’ entry into a formerly all-white school provoked outbursts of hatred that mobilized the movement. This video is an excerpt from Episode Five, Rise!, from the series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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Classroom | Rosa Parks
4m 1s
Rosa Parks was a seasoned activist whose actions on the Montgomery bus were well planned. This video is an excerpt from Episode Five, Rise!, from the series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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Classroom | Separate and Unequal
6m 30s
Learn about the efforts of lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston and writer Victor Hugo Green, both of whom fought for equality for African Americans. This video is an excerpt from Episode Four, Making a Way Out of No Way, from the series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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Classroom | The Great Migration
1m 44s
Learn about the Great Migration, when African-Americans left the South in large numbers for the North and West. This video is an excerpt from Episode Four, Making a Way Out of No Way, from the series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Extras + Features
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A More Perfect Union (1968-2013) - Preview
S1 E6 - 30s
From Black Power to a black president, a look at African American lives after the landmark court case victories.
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Black is Beautiful
S1 E6 - 3m
Black pride is highlighted in the afro hairstyle, the Black is Beautiful message in advertising campaigns, and in Don Cornelius' music and dance program, Soul Train, which brought images of black youth to national television. Musician Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson believes Cornelius used the show's ads to promote Afro-centricity and that the show taught the important lesson of self-love.
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Civil Rights Movement Leaders in Conversation
S1 E5 - 1h 18m
In an engaging conversation about the Civil Rights Movement, civil rights pioneers Rep. John Lewis, Georgia 5th District; journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault; and Julian Bond, Chairman Emeritus of the NAACP, look back and ahead with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. They also answer questions from the audience in a lively Q&A.
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Rise! (1940-1968) - Preview
S1 E5 - 30s
Examine the long road to civil rights, when the contradictions in American society became untenable.
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Ruby Bridges Desegregates a School
S1 E5 - 2m 59s
Six-year-old Ruby Bridges integrated an all-white elementary school in New Orleans in 1960, escorted by federal marshals. Six years earlier, the NAACP had won a major legal victory with Brown vs. the Board of Education. That case declared the doctrine of separate but equal schools was unconstitutional.
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Making a Way Out of No Way (1897-1940) - Preview
S1 E4 - 30s
During the Jim Crow era, African Americans struggled to build their own worlds within the harsh confines of segregation. At the turn of the 20th century, a steady stream of African Americans left the South, fleeing racial violence and searching for better opportunities in the North and the West. At the same time, there was an ascendance of black arts and culture, such as The Harlem Renaissance.
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Racist Images and Messages in Jim Crow Era
S1 E4 - 2m 25s
Racist images in the Jim Crow era were used as propaganda to demean African-Americans and legitimize violence. A visit to the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University in Michigan reveals racist memorabilia and messages in all forms, from kitchen items to postcards featuring public whippings. Learn more about the redefinitions of racial stereotypes in Episode 4, "Making a Way Out of No Way."
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Robert Smalls: A Daring Escape
S1 E3 - 3m 8s
Robert Smalls was enslaved and working on a ship used by the Confederate forces during the Civil War. In a daring escape past Fort Sumter, he sailed the ship full of fellow crew members and their families to freedom. He delivered the ship to Union forces and served with the Union during the war before becoming a South Carolina Representative to Congress.
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Into the Fire (1861-1896) - Preview
S1 E3 - 30s
Survey a tumultuous period in African-American history: Civil War, slavery’s end and Reconstruction.
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The Cotton Economy and Slavery
S1 E2 - 3m
Many stakeholders benefited from the cotton economy that fueled slavery's expansion. It increased the number of slaves in America and led to cotton plantations spreading across the Deep South to Texas. As African Americans were uprooted from the Upper South to the Deep South, this created the second largest forced migration in America's history. Learn more in "The Age of Slavery," episode two.
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The Age of Slavery (1800-1860) - Preview
S1 E2 - 31s
The Age of Slavery illustrates how black lives changed in the aftermath of the American Revolution. For free black people in places like Philadelphia, these years were a time of tremendous opportunity. But for most African Americans, this era represented a new nadir. King Cotton fueled the rapid expansion of slavery into new territories, forcibly relocating African Americans into the Deep South.
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America's Earliest Africans
S1 E1 - 1m 19s
Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. discusses two of the earliest Africans to arrive in North America---free men who journeyed to this continent a century before the first Africans who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. Both were explorers who found hope and opportunity in this new land. But things changed quickly for those who followed them.
Schedule
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Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
The Black Atlantic (1500-1800)
Wednesday
Feb 1
1 Hour
The earliest Africans, both slave and free; the emergence of plantation slavery in the American South; freedom movements abound in the late 18th-century. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
The Black Atlantic (1500-1800)
Thursday
Feb 2
1 Hour
The earliest Africans, both slave and free; the emergence of plantation slavery in the American South; freedom movements abound in the late 18th-century. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
The Age of Slavery (1800-1860)
Thursday
Feb 2
1 Hour
Black lives change dramatically following the American Revolution; individuals including Harriet Tubman, Richard Allen and Frederick Douglass push the issue of slavery to the forefront of national politics. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
The Age of Slavery (1800-1860)
Friday
Feb 3
1 Hour
Black lives change dramatically following the American Revolution; individuals including Harriet Tubman, Richard Allen and Frederick Douglass push the issue of slavery to the forefront of national politics. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Into the Fire (1861-1896)
Friday
Feb 3
1 Hour
Blacks flee plantations to serve in the United States Colored Troops; after emancipation, blacks seek economic, political and civil rights. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Into the Fire (1861-1896)
Saturday
Feb 4
1 Hour
Blacks flee plantations to serve in the United States Colored Troops; after emancipation, blacks seek economic, political and civil rights. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Into the Fire (1861-1896)
Saturday
Feb 4
1 Hour
Blacks flee plantations to serve in the United States Colored Troops; after emancipation, blacks seek economic, political and civil rights. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Making a Way Out of No Way (1897-1940)
Tuesday
Feb 7
1 Hour
Blacks search for opportunities in the North and the West; black arts and culture grow in spite of Jim Crow. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Making a Way Out of No Way (1897-1940)
Wednesday
Feb 8
1 Hour
Blacks search for opportunities in the North and the West; black arts and culture grow in spite of Jim Crow. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Rise! (1940-1968)
Wednesday
Feb 8
1 Hour
Blacks returning from World War II continue to face racial violence on the homefront; Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a city bus in 1955; Martin Luther King Jr. promotes a nonviolent approach to integrate blacks and whites. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Rise! (1940-1968)
Thursday
Feb 9
1 Hour
Blacks returning from World War II continue to face racial violence on the homefront; Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a city bus in 1955; Martin Luther King Jr. promotes a nonviolent approach to integrate blacks and whites. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
A More Perfect Union (1968-2013)
Thursday
Feb 9
1 Hour
Class disparity threatens to split the black community in the late 1960s; economic and political forces isolate the black urban poor; many issues remain unresolved, despite the election of America's first black president in 2008. -
Image
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
A More Perfect Union (1968-2013)
Friday
Feb 10
1 Hour
Class disparity threatens to split the black community in the late 1960s; economic and political forces isolate the black urban poor; many issues remain unresolved, despite the election of America's first black president in 2008.
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