In 1962, a riot broke out in the University of Mississippi after African American student, James Meredith is enrolled. It essentially becomes the last stand of the Civil War, with people turning up with old Civil War muskets to defend the favoured institution of Southern elites. It would help transform the kinds of opportunities available to black people in ... Show More
Jun 2023
China's Under Martial Law
It’s the penultimate episode, and Billy’s taken us back to China to talk about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and the massacre that followed. In classic To this day, discussion of the events are strictly censored in China but in this episode we’ll explore it all. What happen ... Show More
1h 1m
May 2019
President Ulysses S Grant
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of Grant's presidency on Americans in the years after the Civil War in which he, with Lincoln, had led the Union Army to victory. His predecessor, Andrew Johnson, was prepared to let the Southern States decide for themselves which rights ... Show More
55m 12s
Oct 2018
Civil Rights - Strides Towards Freedom | 2
In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation was legal, on a “separate but equal” basis. But for more than five decades, life for black and white Americans was seldom equal, but always separate.To fight segregation, the NAACP and others exposed the dismal and debasing c ... Show More
35m 53s
Jun 2020
Freedom Summer, 1964
June 21, 1964. James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, three civil rights activists in their early twenties, are reported missing in Mississippi. They are part of the first wave of Freedom Summer, a massive voter registration campaign in the racist heart of the South, ... Show More
28m 57s
Feb 2020
When Black Men Won the Vote
February 3, 1870. The 15th Amendment is ratified, which establishes the right to vote for black men in America. While Jim Crow laws would grip the south by 1877, there was a brief, seven-year window of opportunity. Half a million black voters turned out at the polls, and 2,000 bl ... Show More
19m 41s