History 233: African American History

Full series - 6 videos

This program explores the global experiences that created the African-American people. Beginning a century before the first documented “20-and-odd” slaves who arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, the episode portrays the earliest Africans, slave and free, who arrived on these shores. The transatlantic slave trade soon became a vast empire connecting three continents. Through stories of individuals caught in its web, the episode traces the emergence of plantation slavery in the American South and examines what the late 18th-century era of revolutions—American, French and Haitian—would mean for African Americans and slavery in America. (56 minutes)

This film illustrates how black lives changed dramatically in the aftermath of the American Revolution. For free black people, these years were a time of opportunity, but for most African Americans, the era represented a new nadir. King Cotton fueled the rapid expansion of slavery into new territories and the forcible relocation of African Americans to the Deep South. Yet as slavery intensified, so did resistance. From individual acts to mass rebellions, African Americans demonstrated their determination to undermine and ultimately eradicate slavery. (56 minutes)

This program examines the most tumultuous and consequential period in African-American history: the Civil War and the end of slavery, and Reconstruction’s thrilling but brief “moment in the sun.” From the beginning, African Americans were agents of their liberation—by fleeing the plantations and taking up arms to serve in the United States Colored Troops. After Emancipation, African Americans sought to realize the promise of freedom—rebuilding families shattered by slavery; demanding economic, political and civil rights; even winning elected office—but a few years later, an intransigent South mounted a swift and vicious campaign of terror to restore white supremacy and roll back African-American rights. Yet the achievements of Reconstruction remained in the collective memory of the African-American community. (56 minutes)

This program portrays the Jim Crow era, when African Americans struggled to build their own worlds within the harsh, narrow confines of segregation. At the turn of the 20th century, a steady stream of African Americans left the South, fleeing the threat of racial violence and searching for opportunities in the North and West. Leaders like Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey organized, offering different strategies to further black empowerment and equality. The ascendance of black arts and culture showed that a community with a strong identity and sense of pride was taking hold in spite of Jim Crow. The Harlem Renaissance redefined how America saw African Americans — and how African Americans saw themselves. (56 minutes)

This film examines the long road to civil rights, when the deep contradictions in American society finally became unsustainable. African Americans who fought fascism in World War II came home to face the same old racial violence.The success of black entrepreneurs and entertainers fueled African-American hopes and dreams. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, heralding the dawn of a movement of resistance, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as its public face. Before long, masses of African Americans practiced this nonviolent approach to integrate public schools, lunch counters and more. In 1968, Dr. King was assassinated, unleashing a new call for “Black Power” across the country. (56 minutes)

After 1968, African Americans set out to build a bright future on the foundation of the civil rights movement’s victories, but a growing class disparity threatened to split the black community. As African Americans won political office across the country and the black middle class made progress, larger economic and political forces isolated the black urban poor. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, many hoped that America had finally transcended racism. By the time of his second victory, however, it was clear that many issues, including true racial equality, remain to be resolved. (56 minutes)

In this first episode, Zeinab Badawi travels across Africa examining the origins of humankind; how and why we evolved on the continent. Africa is the greatest exporter of all time: every human being originated from there. During her journey Zeinab is granted rare access to the actual bones of one of the most iconic discoveries in the field of paleontology, ‘Lucy’ in Ethiopia, or as she is known in Amharic, ‘Dinkenesh’, which means ‘you are marvellous’. Zeinab also spends time in Tanzania with an ethnic group that is unique in the world because they live in the way our ancestors did: as hunters of big animals and gatherers. This community, who have rarely been filmed, provide a fascinating insight into how we humans have lived for most of our history. (45 min.)

Zeinab Badawi continues her journey through the history of human development travelling to meet the Maasai of east Africa – one of the best known of the continent’s ethnic groups. They help explain how human beings began to domesticate animals and become pastoralists. Then in Zimbabwe with one lively farming family, Zeinab examines how humans also began to settle and make a living from farming. And she also looks at how the Iron Age transformed life in Africa and paved the way for the development of rich urban civilisations. (45 min.)

Full series, 6 videos.

Journey with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to Kenya, Egypt and beyond as he discovers the origins of man, the formation of early human societies and the creation of significant cultural and scientific achievements on the African continent. (52 min.)

Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. charts the ancient rise of Christianity and Islam, whose economic and cultural influence stretched from Egypt to Ethiopia. Learn of African religious figures like King Lalibela, an Ethiopian saint, and Menelik, bringer of the Ark of the Covenant. (52 min.)

Henry Louis Gates Jr. uncovers the complex trade networks and advanced educational institutions that transformed early north and west Africa from deserted lands into the continent’s wealthiest kingdoms and learning epicentres. (52 min.)

Gates explores the power of Africa’s greatest ancient cities, including Kilwa, Great Zimbabwe and Benin City, whose wealth, art and industrious successes attracted new European interest and interaction along the continent’s east and west coasts. (52 min.)

Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the impact of the Atlantic trading world, giving rise to powerful new kingdoms, but also transatlantic slave trade. Learn of the revolutionary movements of the 18th & early 19th centuries, including the advent of the Sokoto Caliphate. (52 min.)

Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the dynamism of 19th century Africa, the “scramble” by European powers for its riches, and the defiant and successful stand of uncolonized Ethiopia. (52 min.)

A one-hour, unblinking, and fact-filled look at the real history of slavery, as revealed in "Roots." This documentary features leading historians unpacking the history behind Africa at the time of Kunta Kinte, the Middle Passage, and slavery on plantations. (43 min.)

Full series - 8 videos

Kunta Kinte, a headstrong and clever teenager growing up in the Kingdom of Niumi in the 1760s, debates whether to follow in the footsteps of his father and become a Mandinka warrior or forge his own path as a student in Timbuktu. (49 min.)

After landing in America, Kunta is sold to an ill-tempered tobacco plantation owner named John Waller. Waller assigns Fiddler, the talented violinist and favored slave, to break Kunta of his pride and accept his slave identity. (42 min.)

After a few years on Waller’s farm, Kunta Kinte’s spirit and thirst for freedom remain unbroken. When the Revolutionary War breaks out, he joins the British in pursuit of emancipation. (49 min.)

Kizzy is an extremely bright and curious child. She learns to read from her master’s niece, Missy, but must hide her knowledge since it is illegal for slaves to be literate. (42 min.)

Chicken George, the 10-year-old rascal son of Kizzy and grandson of Kunta Kinte, is drawn to the beauty of game hens. His father and master, Tom Lea, assigns him to work with fellow slave Mingo take care of the fighting birds against his mother’s wishes. (43 min.)

Tom Lea promises that he will give George the opportunity to buy his freedom someday. Meanwhile, Kizzy’s love interest, Marcellus, offers to purchase her from Tom but he refuses to let her go. (47 min.)

Chicken George returns to America as a free man after twenty years of cockfighting in England. He finds Tom Lea who has sold his family to the Murray farm in North Carolina. (45 min.)

After witnessing Secessionist troops rape his wife, Tom agrees to help Nancy with a plot to kill an officer and abscond with military intelligence. (46 min.)