Leslie Asako Gladsjo
Description
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. embarks on a deeply personal journey through the last fifty years of African American history. Joined by leading scholars, celebrities, and a dynamic cast of people who shaped these years, Gates travels from the victories of the civil rights movement up to today, asking profound questions about the state of black America, and our nation as a whole.
Description
Episode Two traces the guests' lineages back through the late 1800s to the Civil War, featuring such stories as Chris Rock's great-great grandfather, a black Civil War veteran who was twice elected to the South Carolina State Legislature, and Don Cheadle's great-great grandparents, who, as Chickasaw Freedmen, struggled to build lives for themselves in Oklahoma.
Description
Explore with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developed-forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds.
Description
This program looks at how African-Americans defined their freedom after slavery. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. reviews courthouse records of land acquisitions, documents from the Freedmen's Bureau and the 1870 census--the first in which African-Americans were counted as citizens, not property--to trace his subjects' lineages through Reconstruction. A vein that continues throughout the series is Gates' personal story, and in this episode he seeks to confirm...