President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves in much of the South. But the road to freedom—true freedom—would take generations longer for most black Americans.In this new six-part series, we investigate their struggle, beginning in the heady post-war years of the Forties. Segregation was endemic; it wa ... Show More
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
Oct 2018
Civil Rights - Prairie Fire | 4
As the Civil Rights movement entered the Sixties, a new generation of activists took the fore. Frustrated by the pace of progress but emboldened by strides made in the previous decade, students embraced “nonviolent direct action,” protest techniques that were provocative but peac ... Show More
38m 17s
Jun 2021
Juneteenth and the Constitution
On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had been issued over two years earlier, and the South had ... Show More
57m 15s
Jun 2025
What is Juneteenth, and why is it important? | Karlos Hill and Soraya Field Fiorio
At the end of the Civil War, though slavery was technically illegal in all states, it still persisted in the last bastions of the Confederacy. This was the case when Union General Gordon Granger marched his troops into Galveston, Texas on June 19th and announced that all enslaved ... Show More
6m 59s
May 2022
Reconstruction IV: Voting Rights At Last
May 26, 1965. One hundred years after the Civil War, Congress is debating a bill whose goal is to enforce the 15th amendment, which, in 1870, promised the right to vote regardless of race. But that’s not what happened. Now the Civil Rights movement is saying: It’s time to make re ... Show More
41 m