The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Featured Interviewees
Episode Three: Into the Fire (1861-1896)
Tuesday, November 5, 8-9 p.m.
Into the Fire examines the most tumultuous and consequential period in African American history: the Civil War and the end of slavery, and Reconstruction’s thrilling but tragically brief “moment in the sun.” From the beginning, African Americans were agents of their own liberation, forcing the Union to confront the issue of slavery by fleeing the plantations and taking up arms to serve with honor 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. Just a few years later, however, 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 would remain very much alive in the collective memory of the African American community.
Vincent Brown, Charles Warren Professor of History at Harvard University
Location: New Orleans, LA
Kendra Field, assistant professor of history, University of California at Riverside
Location: Cambridge, MA
Thavolia Glymph, associate professor of African and African American studies at Duke University
Location: Cambridge, MA
Darryl Johnson, local historian
Location: Mound Bayou, MS
Kennedy Johnson, Mayor of Mount Bayou
Location: Mound Bayou, MS
Hari Jones, assistant director and curator of the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum
Location: Washington, DC
Cassandra Newby-Alexander, associate professor at Norfolk State University
Location: Fort Monroe, VA
Eulah Peterson, local historian
Location: Mound Bayou, MS
Keith Plessy, president of the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation and descendent of Homer Plessy
Location: Free People of Color Museum, New Orleans, LA
Bernard Powers, professor of history at College of Charleston
Location: Brown Fellowship Cemetery, Charleston, SC and Avery Research Center, Charleston, SC
John Stauffer, professor of English and professor of African and African American Studies and Chair of the History of American Civilization Program, Harvard University
Location: Cambridge, MA
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