Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00♪♪
00:00:10-♪♪
00:00:26Thank you so much.
00:00:30I'm the son of a black man from Kenya
00:00:33and a white woman from Kansas.
00:00:37I am married to a black American
00:00:39who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners.
00:00:46For as long as I live, I will never forget
00:00:49that in no other country on Earth
00:00:52is my story even possible.
00:00:56Most of us know this man's story
00:01:00and about the struggles
00:01:02in the streets and in the courts
00:01:05that made it possible.
00:01:06All in favor, let it be known by standing on your feet.
00:01:10-♪♪
00:01:20-♪♪
00:01:26But what many of us don't know
00:01:28is what came before all of this.
00:01:31People need to understand
00:01:34we have come a long way.
00:01:37And these young folks don't know what we came to.
00:01:41For 100 years after the Civil War,
00:01:44millions of black Americans
00:01:46live lives of nobility, defiance,
00:01:50hope, shame, and inspiration.
00:01:54Regrets? None.
00:01:56I think those experiences in America,
00:02:01it really strengthened me.
00:02:04Yeah, I remember those days.
00:02:07You would feel bad,
00:02:09but there was nothing you could do about it.
00:02:13It didn't mean nothing to be a man.
00:02:16There were times of despair
00:02:19and times that you would question your faith,
00:02:22but I never, I never lost hope.
00:02:26Yes, I got to a point whereby
00:02:28I thought it was hopeless from time to time,
00:02:31but I never gave up
00:02:33because I felt that a better day was coming.
00:02:36There's all the stories we don't know,
00:02:39but we should,
00:02:41because they are how we got here,
00:02:44and this is what it was like.
00:02:47♪♪♪
00:02:59The story of the black experience in America
00:03:02begins with an ending,
00:03:04the end of slavery,
00:03:06made official by the 13th Amendment
00:03:09to the Constitution.
00:03:11But it would take more than words on paper
00:03:14to deliver America's slaves from bondage
00:03:18to real freedom.
00:03:22♪♪♪
00:03:31It's 1865 in Big Spring, Tennessee,
00:03:37just four months after the end of the Civil War.
00:03:42Without slavery, there's no more free labor,
00:03:46and the harvest is coming in.
00:03:50So some white plantation owners ask men they once owned
00:03:55to come back to work,
00:03:58this time for pay, very little pay.
00:04:02This is how one former slave responds.
00:04:06Dear sir, I got your letter.
00:04:09I thought the Yankees would have hung you,
00:04:12and I'm glad you're still living.
00:04:15Mandy and I are doing tolerably well here in Ohio.
00:04:19I get $25 a month, and we are kindly treated.
00:04:24Mandy says she would be afraid to go back
00:04:27without some proof that you will treat us justly and kindly.
00:04:32So we have concluded to test your sincerity
00:04:35by asking you to send us our wages
00:04:38for the time we served you.
00:04:40At 25 years for me and 20 years for Mandy,
00:04:45by my calculations, our earnings would amount to $11,680.
00:04:55P.S. Say howdy to George Carter
00:04:59and thank him for taking the pistol from you
00:05:02when you were shooting at me.
00:05:05From your old servant, Jordan Anderson.
00:05:09Jordan Anderson will spend the remaining 40 years
00:05:12of his life in Dayton, Ohio.
00:05:14He never returns to the South.
00:05:18Others never leave.
00:05:23You just go ahead and talk away there.
00:05:26My name is Fountain Hughes.
00:05:30I am 101 years old.
00:05:34This is an audio recording of a former slave.
00:05:37He was born in Virginia in 1848.
00:05:42Just after an educated slave there
00:05:44organized a bloody rebellion against his master.
00:05:51After that, it was illegal to teach a slave to read
00:05:54in the state of Virginia.
00:05:56After freedom, you know, colored people didn't have nothing.
00:06:01We didn't have nowhere to go.
00:06:04We didn't have no home.
00:06:07We just turned out like a lot of cattle in the pasture.
00:06:12Just like a lot of wild people.
00:06:19And we didn't know nothing.
00:06:22Wasn't no school.
00:06:26So we had horse and dog and got it, yeah.
00:06:34Oh, they had a terrible time.
00:06:38But colored people of the slave,
00:06:40you ought to be awful thankful.
00:06:44Be thankful to the Lord.
00:06:48You ought to be thankful to the Lord.
00:06:53Be thankful to the Lord.
00:06:58After freedom, millions of former slaves
00:07:01like Fountain Hughes stay on.
00:07:05In white people's homes and on their farms.
00:07:09Doing much of the same work they did as slaves.
00:07:13And although constitutional amendments
00:07:15give them citizenship and the right to vote,
00:07:19for most, life continues to look a lot like it did
00:07:22before freedom.
00:07:24And it will stay that way for generations.
00:07:29These images were recorded in Mississippi
00:07:32nearly a century after the Civil War.
00:07:36What was your question?
00:07:38Could you describe how it was growing up?
00:07:43Yeah, I can describe.
00:07:49We were living on the farm.
00:07:52Out there in the country.
00:07:55Chopping cotton, plowing the mule.
00:07:58You know, sale crop.
00:08:04And that white man, he was the boss of everything.
00:08:09It wasn't complete slavery,
00:08:12but it wasn't much different at that time.
00:08:17And we made it through by the help of God.
00:08:23That's all.
00:08:42For three centuries,
00:08:44faith had seen people through slavery.
00:08:47Now, we need it to see us through freedom.
00:08:52This is how you treat me
00:09:10It's June 19, 1900 in Austin, Texas.
00:09:14This is how, boy!
00:09:16These photos are the oldest known pictures
00:09:18of Austin's annual Juneteenth celebration.
00:09:21Commemorating the day in 1865
00:09:25that slavery ended and freedom began in Texas.
00:09:29And for Texans like Dora Adney,
00:09:33it's like a Black Fourth of July.
00:09:36Red represented the blood that was shed during slavery.
00:09:40It had red pop, red velvet cake,
00:09:43ice cream, and barbecued ribs.
00:09:46It was a joyful thing.
00:09:49The Juneteenth tradition was spread from Texas
00:09:53to Black communities in Arkansas, California,
00:09:57Louisiana, and Oklahoma,
00:10:00where this footage was shot.
00:10:036,000 former slaves settled here after the Civil War.
00:10:08And now there are more all-Black towns in Oklahoma
00:10:12than anywhere else in the country.
00:10:15Here, the Davis family, the Walkers, and the Murdoffs
00:10:21are living the American dream
00:10:24decades before that phrase would even exist.
00:10:29Langston City is a Negro city,
00:10:33and we are proud of that fact.
00:10:36We have a good society.
00:10:39We have a good culture.
00:10:42We have a good society,
00:10:45church privileges, school privileges,
00:10:48and last but not least,
00:10:51the enjoyment of every right every other man
00:10:55enjoys under the Constitution.
00:10:58What more do you want?
00:11:01All-Black towns like these inspire pride.
00:11:07And when the country goes to war in 1917,
00:11:11nearly 20,000 young Black men from Oklahoma will serve.
00:11:24One week after the U.S. enters the war,
00:11:28the War Department's quota for Black volunteers is already filled.
00:11:33Filled by people like 17-year-old Edward Nichols of Minnesota,
00:11:38who lies about his age to a miss.
00:11:42Mr. Nichols, what type of unit were you in?
00:11:47I was in a surrogate unit,
00:11:50training in Camp Hill, Virginia.
00:11:54And this was the thing I remember so well.
00:11:59When the question come up
00:12:02as to whether they should arm the Black troops,
00:12:06the Southern senator said,
00:12:09well, you can give them the guns,
00:12:12but who's going to take them away from them?
00:12:16So we're trained with the wooden guns, yeah.
00:12:21But some Black units see combat with real guns.
00:12:27These men are the 369th Infantry Regiment from Harlem.
00:12:34They will spend 191 days under continuous fire,
00:12:39more than any other unit, Black or white.
00:12:43They never lose a foot of ground
00:12:46and never have a man taken prisoner.
00:12:50The French will later erect monuments in their honor.
00:12:55And when they return home in 1919,
00:12:59they hope to enjoy the full rights of American democracy.
00:13:05But what they'll find instead are angry white people,
00:13:09frustrated that there aren't enough jobs or housing to go around.
00:13:15Uh, I remember after the war, I come to Duluth.
00:13:22The mob said they were going to run all the niggers out of town.
00:13:29By the daybreak, they lynched three.
00:13:33It happens in Duluth, Minnesota,
00:13:37and in 24 other cities and towns across the country.
00:13:42There had been racial violence before,
00:13:45but this time, Black citizens, many of them veterans,
00:13:49pick up their guns and defend themselves against the white mobs.
00:13:55We have been through the war
00:13:57and given everything, even our lives.
00:14:01And now we are going to stop being beat up.
00:14:06The defiance of America's Black population after the war
00:14:13surprises nearly everyone,
00:14:16and people all over the world take notice.
00:14:21The disorder of the Black population
00:14:24has become a global problem.
00:14:27Surprises nearly everyone,
00:14:30and people all over the world take notice.
00:14:35The disorders now reported are just the beginning.
00:14:39If the negroes can find a leader,
00:14:42we may yet experience all sorts of things.
00:14:46Perhaps someday, even a Black president.
00:14:53Oklahoma, 1925.
00:14:57A Black Baptist minister shot this film
00:15:00only a short time after whites in Tulsa
00:15:03attacked a thriving Black community there
00:15:06and burned it to the ground.
00:15:09Many Black families like these lost everything they had built.
00:15:15With hard work and faith,
00:15:17they would build new lives and new communities,
00:15:21where they would raise children and grandchildren,
00:15:25some of whom will help elect the first Black president.
00:15:31But that day is nearly nine decades away.
00:15:35Right now, it's 1925,
00:15:38and things will get a whole lot worse before they get better.
00:15:45It's 1925.
00:15:49And New York City is now the biggest city in the world.
00:15:54A building boom means you can watch skyscrapers go up
00:15:58practically overnight,
00:16:00from the Battery to the Upper East Side.
00:16:04And if you head north up 7th Avenue,
00:16:07you might be surprised at another boom that's taking place.
00:16:11Because beginning around 125th Street,
00:16:14for the next 50 blocks up,
00:16:16the shoppers, the people sitting in the restaurants,
00:16:19coming out of the theaters and looking out the windows
00:16:23are practically all Black.
00:16:33Since before World War I,
00:16:35Southern Negroes have been heading north
00:16:38in search of better opportunities.
00:16:41The ones who arrive in New York quickly learn
00:16:44that most of the city's landlords won't rent to Blacks,
00:16:48except in Harlem.
00:16:55By the late 20s,
00:16:56Harlem contains more Negroes per square mile
00:17:00than anywhere else in the world.
00:17:03That was roughly the time
00:17:06That was roughly the time, too,
00:17:08of the high point, I might say, in Harlem.
00:17:13In 1928, 1929,
00:17:16I mean, Harlem was a fantastically interesting place
00:17:20in those days.
00:17:23Harlem was really a cultural center in this town.
00:17:28Because it got to be in vogue.
00:17:31It got to be a fashion.
00:17:35In exclusive neighborhoods like Sugar Hill and Stryver's Row,
00:17:40there are doctors and lawyers,
00:17:42fine homes and restaurants.
00:17:45Also within Harlem's 150 blocks
00:17:48are as many as 140 churches,
00:17:54as well as drug dealers, bootleggers,
00:17:57prostitutes, and numbers runners.
00:18:01And for a young Black man like Harold Slappy,
00:18:04for me, this is the Garden of Eden.
00:18:08Yeah, it is.
00:18:21We used to go to Savoy Ballroom every Saturday.
00:18:25We used to save up our nickels and dimes
00:18:28and give them to our favorite hostess
00:18:31and spend the night dancing with her
00:18:33and trying to make love to her.
00:18:36We used to say, come back in ten years when you grow up.
00:18:41The nightlife was fabulous.
00:18:44The corner saloons, back rooms, jumped.
00:18:48You could see anyone who was anyone in Harlem.
00:18:51You know, you go into places like Hacha,
00:18:54Bobby Henderson was playing the piano,
00:18:56Billie Holiday was singing.
00:19:00You go across Lenox Avenue,
00:19:03Art Tatum was playing the piano,
00:19:06Ethel Waters was there.
00:19:08The place just jumped.
00:19:12I remember Dickie Wells' place,
00:19:15Connie's Inn in Los Malmos,
00:19:19and the Cotton Club.
00:19:22That's when downtown came very often to Harlem.
00:19:30Harlem is a place where everything taboo is easily available,
00:19:35and that begins to attract whites from lower Manhattan,
00:19:39the ones who have a taste for the exotic
00:19:42and the money to spend on it.
00:19:47To entertain this new clientele,
00:19:49whites-only establishments like the Cotton Club
00:19:52begin to feature jungle and plantation-themed acts,
00:19:57along with racist stereotypes,
00:20:00like Sambos and Mammies.
00:20:05Sometimes the black talent even performs in blackface.
00:20:14White people began to come to Harlem in droves,
00:20:18where formerly only colored people laughed and sang.
00:20:23Now the strangers are given the best ringside tables
00:20:27to sit and stare at the Negroes,
00:20:30like amusing animals in a zoo.
00:20:35For whites from downtown, it's just a wild night out.
00:20:41But Harlem in the 1920s is exploding with black music,
00:20:45dance, painting, sculpture, and poetry.
00:20:53This was the first time I'd seen any examples of African art.
00:20:58I was fascinated with them.
00:21:03There was this very definite consciousness and great pride.
00:21:09It was a Negro pride.
00:21:11It was the New Negro.
00:21:18For generations, in the mind of America,
00:21:21the Negro has been something to be argued about,
00:21:24condemned or defended,
00:21:27to be kept down or in its place.
00:21:32But the pulse of the Negro world now beats in Harlem.
00:21:52For those of us living in the white world
00:21:55outside of Harlem in the 1920s,
00:21:58things haven't changed much at all.
00:22:01I'm going to take a trip in that old gospel ship
00:22:06I am going far beyond the sky
00:22:13I'm going to shout and sing
00:22:17I'm going to shout and sing
00:22:22I bid this world goodbye
00:22:26Here in Indiana, white people continue with kin reunions,
00:22:30afternoon teas, and church socials,
00:22:34many of them through the Methodist Church,
00:22:36the state's leading denomination.
00:22:39But there's one white organization
00:22:41that's even bigger than the Methodists
00:22:44and growing.
00:23:15Here in Muncie, Indiana,
00:23:18it is said that the Klan is enrolling citizens so fast
00:23:23that they ran out at night games three times.
00:23:45Them had their gatherings there.
00:23:57I could go upstairs, open my window up and look down
00:24:02and see all these Ku Klux Klan burning crosses.
00:24:07I remember some nights I'd see them watching me.
00:24:15And this is Indiana,
00:24:18a state that played a central role
00:24:21in helping slaves escape to freedom in the North.
00:24:25And yet, by 1925,
00:24:28one out of every four native-born white men here
00:24:32are members of the Klan.
00:24:36So you can only imagine what it's like in the South.
00:24:50The Yazoo Delta, Mississippi, in the 1920s.
00:25:01Babies here are like babies everywhere.
00:25:04Sleeping, eating, and crying.
00:25:07Soon, they'll learn how to walk and talk
00:25:11and say please and thank you.
00:25:15But if they're born black, like Maurice Lucas,
00:25:19they'll also have to learn how to be black in Mississippi.
00:25:24Well, I can remember when I was a little bitty child,
00:25:31there'd be a black guy hanging on a pole
00:25:34on the south end of town.
00:25:40One hanging on a railroad pole on the north of town.
00:25:44Some white folks would lynch him.
00:25:52Now I understand.
00:25:54Mm-hmm.
00:25:55You black and they white.
00:26:01Oh, yeah.
00:26:11Were there places that you couldn't go?
00:26:14Oh, yeah, it was common knowledge.
00:26:17White side and black side.
00:26:21Was there something that you know
00:26:23that you were going from one side to the other?
00:26:27Oh, yeah.
00:26:31The railroad track.
00:26:36Damn near every community in the south
00:26:38has a railroad track.
00:26:40They had colored on one side, white on the other.
00:26:44The railroad track, yeah.
00:26:52Um, it's not so nice to say it,
00:26:55but you knew your place.
00:27:00I knew to say yes or no to a white person.
00:27:06And if you did it, you didn't have any, you know, trouble.
00:27:15For people like Ann Pointer,
00:27:17who work inside white people's homes,
00:27:20the rules are even more clearly defined.
00:27:24If you work in a white person's house as a maid,
00:27:28you got the whole house in charge.
00:27:35From the cooking to the buying the groceries
00:27:38to cutting hair, everything.
00:27:42You know what I'm saying?
00:27:45But you dare not go in the front door.
00:27:49You got to go in the back door.
00:27:52Wait a minute.
00:27:54I'm gonna make your bread with my hands.
00:27:57And I'm good enough to serve you.
00:28:00But you think I ain't fit to sit beside you
00:28:04with what you can eat out of my hand.
00:28:07That's the irony in the whole thing.
00:28:27Everyone, black and white,
00:28:29is expected to follow the rules that keep the races separated.
00:28:34But somehow, these boundaries keep getting crossed anyways.
00:28:39Now listen.
00:28:41I had a cousin.
00:28:43He was maybe in his early teens.
00:28:47And I was a white girl.
00:28:50And we loved each other.
00:28:55But then here's what happened.
00:28:58The white people saw him together one time.
00:29:02And the girl told him, you know, I love her.
00:29:07But the white people were mad.
00:29:15And so they took him out and, uh...
00:29:20they killed him.
00:29:24They left him on the railroad track.
00:29:30I'm sure I'll see you come again.
00:29:34Pray tell me what it's for.
00:29:37I thought I told you on yonder's hill
00:29:40you need not come anymore, anymore.
00:29:43You need not come anymore.
00:29:46It's different when white men break the rules.
00:29:49In fact, it happens so often, there's a name for it.
00:29:53In the black part of town, they call it nighttime integration.
00:29:58Was that common, the white men pursuing black women?
00:30:01Yeah, for sure.
00:30:05That night coming, you'll see all these white fellas get running.
00:30:09It's colored women.
00:30:13Your daughter or your wife.
00:30:16Every damn night.
00:30:19Yes, sir.
00:30:22Man, them white people been doing some slavery.
00:30:29Man, in any case,
00:30:31you ever see real pale-colored children
00:30:35and the parents die?
00:30:38You know, that's the white man messing around.
00:30:50I'm a-rolling
00:30:54I'm a-rolling
00:30:57Through this unfriendly world
00:31:01I'm a-rolling
00:31:03For blacks in the South, the way out is by train.
00:31:08Through this unfriendly world
00:31:12I'm a-rolling
00:31:14Through this unfriendly world
00:31:17I'm a-rolling
00:31:19For blacks in the South, the way out is by train.
00:31:24Through this unfriendly world
00:31:29I'm a-rolling
00:31:31Through this unfriendly world
00:31:35I'm a-rolling
00:31:37Through this unfriendly world
00:31:41In the 1930s and 1940s, Bean
00:31:54works as a poolman pourer,
00:31:56serving whites on railroad
00:31:58sleeper cars.
00:32:00The Poolman Company built these
00:32:02five-star rolling hotels at the
00:32:04end of the Civil War and hired
00:32:06former house slaves who were
00:32:08experienced in taking care of
00:32:11When you were hired,
00:32:13you had to go through routines
00:32:15to see how you'd react.
00:32:19They say, when a passenger
00:32:21gets on and calls you
00:32:23nigger, what would you do?
00:32:27You knew the answer you
00:32:29were supposed to give.
00:32:31It was never to tell the passenger
00:32:33what you were thinking.
00:32:36The passenger called me
00:32:38everything but a child of God,
00:32:40but I laughed it off.
00:32:42I didn't get insulted.
00:32:44You'd be surprised how proud
00:32:46a poolman porter is.
00:32:48A poolman porter's a proud man.
00:32:52It was the worst job
00:32:54on the train,
00:32:56but it was just about the best
00:32:58job you can get in the black
00:33:00community.
00:33:03I love the job
00:33:05because I like to travel
00:33:07and I love the people.
00:33:09Admit that I can take care
00:33:11of my family, feed them,
00:33:13send them to school.
00:33:15The job's been hot to me.
00:33:17I'm a poolman porter.
00:33:19I'm a poolman porter.
00:33:21I'm a poolman porter.
00:33:23I'm a poolman porter.
00:33:25I'm a poolman porter.
00:33:27I'm a poolman porter.
00:33:29I'm a poolman porter.
00:33:31It's been good to me.
00:33:39But at the end of the 1930s,
00:33:41the comfortable life
00:33:43Ernest Bean provides for his
00:33:45family back in Oakland
00:33:47is something most blacks
00:33:49can only dream of.
00:33:51Because even though
00:33:53emancipation was achieved
00:33:5570 years before,
00:33:57America hasn't yet begun
00:33:59and her promise to the Negro.
00:34:09The March of Time.
00:34:18A familiar sight, the length and breadth of Dixie
00:34:21as the Negro, and the shack which is his home.
00:34:26This newsreel was produced in 1939,
00:34:3075 years after an amendment to the Constitution
00:34:34promised black Americans full citizenship.
00:34:38And most of us are still waiting for it.
00:34:42Though here as everywhere the Negro finds himself
00:34:44in the lowest of all income levels,
00:34:46he and his race have made a brave struggle
00:34:48to better their lot.
00:34:51But there are places where it's better,
00:34:56even in Dixie.
00:35:09This is Gorene Beauty College,
00:35:12founded by Mrs. Gold S. Morgan Young.
00:35:16These are the more than 30 employees
00:35:18of the Union Protective Assurance Company,
00:35:21led by President H.D. Whalum.
00:35:25The owners of Stories Watch and Jewelry Repair.
00:35:29The founders of the Tri-State Bank.
00:35:33All are successful black-owned businesses
00:35:35in Memphis, Tennessee.
00:35:40And all were filmed by the Reverend L.O. Taylor
00:35:43of the Olivet Baptist Church.
00:35:48♪ Yon-a-thum-dee-na-hoo-dee
00:35:51♪ Yon-a-thum-dee-na-hoo-dee
00:35:54♪ Yon-a-thum-dee-na-hoo-dee
00:35:58Taylor shot the footage you're seeing now
00:36:00as a record of black Memphis,
00:36:03a place white Memphis never even saw.
00:36:10It's the same in other southern cities, too.
00:36:13Atlanta, Richmond, and Birmingham.
00:36:17Separation of the races have created thriving,
00:36:20but separate, cities within cities.
00:36:24But soon it won't matter whether you live
00:36:26in the black one or the white one.
00:36:32Because in late 1941, our country will need us all.
00:36:43We interrupt this program to bring you
00:36:45a special news bulletin, gentlemen.
00:36:47A Japanese bomb killed at least five persons
00:36:50and injured many others.
00:36:51And separation of the races
00:36:53will become impossible to maintain.
00:36:55A Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor
00:36:58naturally would mean war.
00:37:0319-year-old Ray Carter signs up with the Navy
00:37:07the day after Pearl Harbor.
00:37:10I felt very gung-ho and very proud of myself
00:37:14for getting into the fray immediately.
00:37:21During our boot camp training,
00:37:23we were given these little white coats.
00:37:27I wondered what they were for.
00:37:34I soon found out that the mess attendants
00:37:37wore these little white coats
00:37:40to wait on the officers.
00:37:45Here I had enlisted to fight for my country,
00:37:48and my great contribution to the war effort
00:37:52was to wait on whites.
00:37:58It made me angry as hell.
00:38:02I don't want no sugar in my coffee.
00:38:05I don't want no sugar in my coffee.
00:38:09It make me mean love.
00:38:12It make me mean love.
00:38:15Some of the black men who enlist come from the North.
00:38:18I don't want no sugar in my coffee.
00:38:24For them, basic training
00:38:26is often their first experience in the South.
00:38:30I wanted to ask you,
00:38:32so what was it like?
00:38:35When I was a private in training?
00:38:37Mm-hmm.
00:38:41Well, at Fort Lee, Virginia,
00:38:45it was the most segregated,
00:38:47the most prejudiced camp in the United States.
00:38:51The general was a Southerner,
00:38:53and most of the officers were Southerners.
00:38:58The telephone operators,
00:39:00if they talked to your voice,
00:39:02they'd go, and...
00:39:04he'd insult you.
00:39:11And if you walked down the street,
00:39:14you'd be shot.
00:39:17And if you walked down the street,
00:39:20the white soldiers would insult you.
00:39:26They were harassers.
00:39:28They called them niggers.
00:39:32It was very bad.
00:39:35And, uh,
00:39:37there were many rods, race rods.
00:39:47I was so proud that I had volunteered
00:39:50to fight for my country,
00:39:52this great democracy of ours.
00:39:57Here I am,
00:39:59spoiling for a fight with the enemy,
00:40:02and the question I ask myself is,
00:40:05just who the hell is the enemy?
00:40:08I'm not sure.
00:40:10I'm not sure.
00:40:12I'm not sure.
00:40:14Who the hell is the enemy?
00:40:26By 1943,
00:40:28close to one in ten enlisted men are black,
00:40:32all served in segregated units.
00:40:38But until they arrive overseas,
00:40:40none of them knows exactly what to expect from this war.
00:40:45Bill Stevens is deployed to Guadalcanal
00:40:48with the 93rd Infantry Division.
00:41:0393rd came ashore.
00:41:06But we found out that the real fighting
00:41:09ended when we arrived.
00:41:12And so the division was split up,
00:41:14put to work unloading ships,
00:41:16under the guise of keeping us physically fit.
00:41:30With all the white casualties our side was sustaining,
00:41:33it seemed like a hell of a waste of an infantry regiment.
00:41:40Most black servicemen are assigned to supply and support roles,
00:41:45but not all.
00:42:04Elvin Davison serves in the 370th Regiment
00:42:08of the 92nd Infantry Division.
00:42:12We were informed about our battalion commander.
00:42:16He said, gentlemen, we are going to prove to people
00:42:20that we're as good as anybody else.
00:42:24We're going to combat.
00:42:34Davison and his men do not disappoint.
00:42:39They penetrate the infamous Gothic line in the Italian campaign
00:42:44and help to capture nearly 24,000 prisoners.
00:42:497 p.m. Eastern Wartime, Bob Trough reporting.
00:42:54This, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of the Second World War.
00:43:00The war is over.
00:43:02The war is over.
00:43:04The war is over.
00:43:06The war is over.
00:43:08The war is over.
00:43:10The war is over.
00:43:12The war is over.
00:43:14The war is over.
00:43:16The Second World War.
00:43:22Officially, the military is segregated,
00:43:26but those rules were sometimes broken to win the war.
00:43:34By the end, thousands of black and white servicemen
00:43:37have shared not only combat, but also day-to-day routines,
00:43:42many of them for the first time.
00:43:47We did everything together.
00:43:54You grow up swimming together.
00:43:57We went to the mess, and we ate together.
00:44:02We're playing cards together.
00:44:07I'm just trying to say how we got along.
00:44:11A white brother was no different than a black brother.
00:44:15It was the greatest surprise I ever had in my life.
00:44:19It was.
00:44:22But these small victories abroad don't guarantee victory at home.
00:44:33My best friend while I was in the Pacific was white.
00:44:38We went through hell together and came back together.
00:44:45Until we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge,
00:44:48and my buddy disappeared.
00:44:52I never saw him again.
00:44:56Disillusioned? Hurt? Not really.
00:45:00We were home again.
00:45:03Back to reality.
00:45:06America has succeeded in making first-class soldiers
00:45:09out of its second-class citizens.
00:45:11But what no one knows yet
00:45:14is that for these soldiers, there's no going back.
00:45:35In the years after World War II,
00:45:37America is entering an era of unequal prosperity.
00:45:42And jobs, housing, manufacturing, even babies are booming.
00:45:48But whether you can participate fully in the American dream
00:45:53depends on which side of the color line you're on.
00:45:57Because for generations now,
00:46:00there have really been two Americas.
00:46:08By 1951,
00:46:11the state of Texas forbids interracial boxing matches.
00:46:16Florida doesn't allow white and black students
00:46:19to use the same edition of textbooks.
00:46:22In Alabama, a white female nurse
00:46:26can't take care of a black male patient.
00:46:29In one state, blacks and whites can't play checkers together.
00:46:33In six states, white and black prisoners can't be chained together.
00:46:39In seven states, parks, playgrounds, pools, amusement parks,
00:46:45racetracks, pool halls, circuses, theaters, and public halls
00:46:51are segregated by law.
00:46:55And in 11 states, segregated schools are maintained
00:46:59even for the blind.
00:47:02Blacks and whites aren't allowed to share the same space
00:47:06even if we can't see each other.
00:47:09And separate has never been equal.
00:47:30We had an old saying,
00:47:33you can tell where a white neighborhood ends
00:47:37than the black neighborhood begins
00:47:40because that's where the pavement run out.
00:47:42Stay on peace
00:47:45Because this morning in my mind
00:47:49Stay on peace
00:47:52Hallelujah
00:47:54Hallelujah
00:47:57It just seemed like you were up against the impossible.
00:48:01All I've ever known all of my life was segregation.
00:48:06Hallelujah
00:48:08And as far as I was concerned,
00:48:12you know, it would always be.
00:48:17But this is the year that that will begin to change.
00:48:21It's 1954.
00:48:35In Memphis, here at the 41st All-Black Tri-State Fair,
00:48:39you can find vegetable growing competitions,
00:48:43baby beauty contests,
00:48:47teen talent shows,
00:48:54and a parade through the center of town.
00:49:09For these people, and people like them all over the South,
00:49:13mixing with the white people isn't the goal.
00:49:17What they want is for their children to have the same opportunities
00:49:22that the white children have.
00:49:28You get a different perspective about life when you go to a black school.
00:49:32You know, we didn't have running water.
00:49:35We didn't have lights. We used candles.
00:49:40And do you know, I can't ever remember getting a new school book.
00:49:45No, sir.
00:49:52The teachers used to pray for a better day and all.
00:49:55Being young, I couldn't see a better day coming.
00:50:01But my parents believed that something was going to happen.
00:50:07And they believed that their education was the key.
00:50:12A better day comes on May 17th, 1954.
00:50:17A white boy is born.
00:50:20A better day comes on May 17th, 1954.
00:50:26When the Supreme Court issues a ruling
00:50:29that will trigger the greatest social upheaval of the 20th century.
00:50:34Good afternoon.
00:50:36A unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court.
00:50:39The court said,
00:50:41segregation in schools is a denial of the equal protection of the law.
00:50:46The Constitution prohibits the states
00:50:49from maintaining racially segregated public schools.
00:50:54The court's ruling in Brown v. The Board of Education
00:50:58is a necessary first step towards an integrated society.
00:51:03But it also means that first step
00:51:06will be taken by children.
00:51:09That morning when we were getting ready to go to school,
00:51:13my mother asked me what was wrong.
00:51:17And I told her,
00:51:19I was scared.
00:51:21And she said,
00:51:23what are you afraid of?
00:51:39Let me tell you something.
00:51:42I would have never sent my children down there.
00:51:45You hear me?
00:51:49And I tell you right now,
00:51:51the only way I'll send them down there to school,
00:51:54I'll go every day with them.
00:51:59And I'll be sitting there with a pistol
00:52:01because if anybody touch one of them,
00:52:03I'll blow their brains out.
00:52:04And I meant it from my heart.
00:52:09I'll set this damn place on fire.
00:52:31August 19th, 1992.
00:52:341955.
00:52:37A mutilated body of 14-year-old Emmett Till
00:52:40is pulled from the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.
00:52:47He was beaten, tortured, and then killed
00:52:51for being a black boy who sassed a white woman.
00:52:56The men who did it
00:52:58would never serve a day in prison for their crime.
00:53:04Emmett Till's mother insists on an open casket funeral.
00:53:0950,000 people come to view the body.
00:53:14Millions more see it
00:53:16when Black-Owned Jet Magazine publishes the photos.
00:53:23I first saw it in the magazine.
00:53:26The beaten, broken, loaded body.
00:53:29It almost felt like it was me.
00:53:32I could almost change places with it.
00:53:35There was not a lot of difference between what I saw as Emmett Till
00:53:39and what I saw as me.
00:53:44Because of Emmett Till,
00:53:46an entire generation of Americans begins to wonder
00:53:51if they can even survive being black,
00:53:54especially in the Deep South.
00:53:57Well, I'll tell you, bro.
00:54:00Yeah, I imagine you read about Emmett Till
00:54:03getting killed up here in Mississippi.
00:54:08Yeah, you know, that was it.
00:54:10That's when I left here in 55.
00:54:15Packed up my clothes and went to Chicago.
00:54:19What people like H.J. Williams will learn
00:54:23is that a lot of times,
00:54:25when it comes to the way the Negroes are treated,
00:54:27the only difference between the North and the South
00:54:31is the weather.
00:54:39It's the 1950s,
00:54:42nine decades after slavery,
00:54:45deep in Mississippi's cotton fields.
00:54:50While the sun is high in the sky,
00:54:53while the sun is high in the sky,
00:54:57things look pretty much the same as they always have been.
00:55:03But that will change after dark.
00:55:11Well,
00:55:13they always had them clubs.
00:55:16Yes, sir.
00:55:18That's what everybody used to do to go to parties.
00:55:23For two days, we were the ball.
00:55:25We were in charge.
00:55:26And now, we're the fun.
00:55:51Juke joints like this one
00:55:54stay open for two days straight.
00:55:56selling homemade liquor, home-cooked food, live music,
00:56:01sometimes even a pretty girl.
00:56:03♪ Can't get over that one day ♪
00:56:07♪ Can't get over that one day ♪
00:56:10♪ Can't get over that one day ♪
00:56:12♪ Can't get over that one day ♪
00:56:15Coming here is a way to escape from the daily brutality
00:56:18that comes with being black in the Deep South.
00:56:23The only other way is to leave.
00:56:26♪♪
00:56:36For the better part of the 20th century,
00:56:39millions of black people pack up
00:56:41and leave behind all that they've ever known.
00:56:46If you're one of them, where you end up
00:56:50usually depends on where the train is heading.
00:56:52♪♪
00:56:57If you board in Florida, Georgia,
00:57:00the Carolinas, or Virginia,
00:57:02you're headed east to Washington,
00:57:05Philadelphia, or New York.
00:57:09If you get on in Louisiana or Texas,
00:57:12you go to the West Coast,
00:57:14usually Los Angeles or Oakland.
00:57:17And if you're from Arkansas, Alabama, or Mississippi,
00:57:22you'll board the Illinois Central,
00:57:24headed for Cleveland, Detroit, or Chicago.
00:57:29That's the one they call the fried chicken special.
00:57:35We left the South when I was 11,
00:57:37when we rode the train in an all-color car.
00:57:41And I thought this was the greatest thing
00:57:42because now I'm in a car with all my people,
00:57:45and they got the brown paper bag
00:57:47with the greasy chicken and the sandwiches,
00:57:50and we having a good time.
00:57:53Colored passengers like Jim McFarlane
00:57:55can't count on getting served in the diner cars,
00:57:59so they bring shoe boxes filled with fried chicken,
00:58:02hard-boiled eggs, and biscuits for the trip.
00:58:06And the further they get from the Mason-Dixon line,
00:58:09the more it tastes like freedom.
00:58:12♪♪
00:58:23Jesse Johnson came to Chicago from Mississippi.
00:58:29When I got off the train in Chicago,
00:58:33a white policeman came up to me
00:58:36and started a friendly conversation.
00:58:40A white man.
00:58:43And I thought it was wonderful
00:58:46because I'd never had that experience in my life.
00:58:50A white man.
00:58:51♪♪
00:58:55Of the half-million blacks who end up in Chicago,
00:58:59most settle along a seven-mile stretch
00:59:01on the city's south side.
00:59:04So many, they start calling it Bronzeville.
00:59:08♪♪
00:59:24Here, doctors, entertainers, and railroad porters
00:59:29live alongside housemaids and janitors.
00:59:33Everyone lives together here
00:59:35because there aren't many other places in the city
00:59:39where they're welcome.
00:59:41♪♪
00:59:44It is a little different in Chicago.
00:59:48For example, they wouldn't come out in the bowl
00:59:51and talking about hanging Negroes and lynching
00:59:54and so on like that.
00:59:58But now, it's just more discrimination up north here
01:00:03than anywhere else.
01:00:05♪♪
01:00:08A black man is a black man regardless of where he go.
01:00:12It's just like that.
01:00:15No matter how far away the train takes them,
01:00:19they can't escape the South
01:00:21any more than they can escape being black.
01:00:25♪♪
01:00:30My mother, what she would do
01:00:32is she would get the Chicago Defender newspaper
01:00:36and read for me the very stories.
01:00:39♪♪
01:00:42All these stories, stories of brutality
01:00:45against black people in the South.
01:00:48Northerners like Scott Smith
01:00:50remain connected to the South by blood and memories.
01:00:56Come on, y'all.
01:00:58There was something deeper than I could understand
01:01:00that older people felt.
01:01:03It was about their experience in the South
01:01:06and what they knew was going on.
01:01:08♪♪
01:01:11Someone said something happened to somebody in Tennessee.
01:01:17Something happened to somebody in Louisiana.
01:01:20Something happened to somebody in Georgia.
01:01:22All over the place.
01:01:24♪♪
01:01:27In the mid-1950s, blacks from down South
01:01:31read the Negro-owned Chicago Defender.
01:01:34They learned that three other black men
01:01:37were lynched in Mississippi the same year as Emmett Till.
01:01:42And more than 100 men in sheets
01:01:44raided the black part of Maplesville, Alabama,
01:01:48leaving six Negroes injured.
01:01:50♪♪
01:01:53And about the castration of a Negro handyman in Birmingham
01:01:58as part of a Klan ceremony.
01:02:01And then another story.
01:02:05This time, something was happening
01:02:07for black people by black people.
01:02:10Good evening.
01:02:13Most Negroes in Montgomery, Alabama
01:02:15are boycotting the city buses
01:02:19because a woman who refused to take a segregated seat
01:02:22was fined and arrested.
01:02:25The issue may generate as much heat
01:02:27as the Supreme Court ruling abolishing segregated schools.
01:02:30♪♪
01:02:36What's happening here in Montgomery, Alabama
01:02:39in December of 1955
01:02:42is part of a growing movement.
01:02:45Every day, they are preparing to do non-violent battle
01:02:48for civil rights in the streets and in the courts.
01:02:53It has dedicated organizations and inspirational leaders.
01:02:59Let me have your attention just a minute, please.
01:03:01Just a minute.
01:03:03Now, let me say this to you.
01:03:06You don't not only have a right to be free,
01:03:08we have a duty to be free.
01:03:09Yes.
01:03:11Because as long as you sit in the back,
01:03:13you have a false sense of inferiority.
01:03:17And so long as you let the white man sit in the front
01:03:19and push you back there,
01:03:21he has a false sense of superiority.
01:03:24-♪♪
01:03:30But the struggle for freedom will also happen
01:03:33spontaneously,
01:03:36individually,
01:03:38house by house,
01:03:40and family by family.
01:03:48And now let's go to Levittown,
01:03:52a modern garden community,
01:03:55a community designed for modern living,
01:03:58designed to last a lifetime,
01:04:01a trouble-free lifetime.
01:04:04Oh, it is attractive.
01:04:05Yes, and it'll stay that way, too.
01:04:07That's what I like about it.
01:04:11Here in Levittown, Pennsylvania,
01:04:14for a $100 down payment,
01:04:17young families can purchase homes
01:04:19in this brand-new suburban development.
01:04:24It's a community that's been planned down
01:04:26to the last sewer grate and shrub.
01:04:30There are no more than four house models to choose from.
01:04:34No child ever has to cross a busy street
01:04:37to get to school.
01:04:40And no black families allow.
01:04:44It's August, 1957,
01:04:48and a new family just moved in on Deep Green Lane.
01:04:52All right, anytime.
01:04:55At 10.40 this morning,
01:04:57William Myers, his wife and baby,
01:05:00moved into this home here at 43 Deep Green Lane
01:05:04in the Dog Hollow section of Levittown.
01:05:06It's a beautiful home,
01:05:08and it's a beautiful community.
01:05:12Now, up to this point,
01:05:14there have been no demonstrations, no crowds here.
01:05:16However, police are on hand, state troopers,
01:05:19about three cars of state troopers here,
01:05:21waiting for developments this morning here in Levittown.
01:05:25Oh, my God!
01:05:28Oh, my God!
01:05:31Oh, my God!
01:05:34Oh, my God!
01:05:37Oh, my God!
01:05:41Oh, my God!
01:05:46Mr. Myers, have you ever
01:05:49moved into an all-white neighborhood before?
01:05:54No.
01:05:56Well, did you have, uh,
01:05:59necessarily an all-white neighborhood in mind,
01:06:01or was it just you were looking for a house in any neighborhood?
01:06:04I was looking for a house in any neighborhood.
01:06:07Well, as far as I can define the word nigger,
01:06:10The word nigger means thief, it means undesired, it means that they're just not wanted around anywhere, they cannot be trusted.
01:06:19Yes, sir?
01:06:20Well, let's put it this way. If the Leviton is migrated in hordes of Negroes, which they have a right to come here, but if something had happened that way, pretty soon my neighbor will be having a Negro son-in-law or a daughter-in-law. How would that look?
01:06:35How about you?
01:06:36We don't want any violence here, and if the colored people will move out, it will be all over.
01:06:51They ought to get out, that's all I have to say.
01:06:54How about you?
01:06:55It seems like all these state cops are up here protecting one colored man. What about us white people? How about giving us a little protection?
01:07:07Mr. Myers, why did you decide to buy in Leviton? You knew at the time that it had been an all-white community.
01:07:17I'm a veteran of the Second World War, and I feel as though I have as much right as anyone to purchase a home of my choosing and a place of my own selection.
01:07:36That same summer of 1957, another young family was also trying to cross the color line, but in a different way.
01:07:56Mrs. Loving, how do you feel about what happened?
01:08:00I think that marrying who you want to is a right that no man should have anything to do with. It's a God-given right, I think.
01:08:12Mildred Loving lives in Central Point, Virginia.
01:08:16Just after the birth of her first child, she married the baby's father, and that's when her family's trouble begins.
01:08:27You know, the white and colored ones, it's grown different, and they couldn't go in the same restaurant. I knew that, but I didn't realize how bad it was until we got married.
01:08:43Mildred and Richard Loving are quiet people. They aren't out to change the world, but in the eyes of the state of Virginia, their marriage is a crime.
01:09:07And it will remain so until 1967, when the Lovings take their case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. And when...
01:09:38Whether or not they want to be, these families have become part of the struggle.
01:09:48We know today that they are on the right side of history, but they don't, because for them, it's only the late 1950s, and that history is still being written.
01:10:07It's 1961 in Charleston, South Carolina.
01:10:29100 years ago, the Civil War began here at Fort Sumter. Ultimately, 11 states broke from the Union and formed the Confederacy.
01:10:42Now those states are joining together again to celebrate the Civil War centennial.
01:10:55This reenactment is only one of the planned events.
01:11:01As part of this four-year commemoration, you'll see grand balls, plantation tours, and thousands of costumed Confederate soldiers reenacting historic battles like Manassas and Andrews Ray.
01:11:20What you won't see here are Negroes, or any mention of slavery as the reason the Civil War was fought in the first place.
01:11:30Northern journalists who come down to cover the celebration find that for whites here, old traditions die hard.
01:11:51I would like you to explain to us the workings of the South and the Southern people.
01:12:00There's a lot of white people here that say this, that even the dumbest farmer in the world knows that if he has white chickens and black chickens, that the black chickens do better if they're kept in one yard to themselves, and the white chickens do better if they're kept in a separate yard to themselves.
01:12:15They each do better under those conditions.
01:12:18Now everybody just move out, move out.
01:12:21Are you personally aware of prejudice in Birmingham?
01:12:24I'll tell you, we have a good set of Negroes here, and they don't want to be disturbed.
01:12:33Of course there are some getting some ideas, and that's all right, that's progress.
01:12:41But for black Southerners, there is too little progress happening too late.
01:12:48One thing is clear, any doors black people want open will have to be forced open.
01:12:57A group of freshmen from Greensboro's Old Negro College wrote a new page of set in history.
01:13:04They seated themselves at a segregated lunch counter.
01:13:09More than 400 federal marshals have been sent into Montgomery, Alabama after yesterday's violence, in which a mob attacked a group of Negro bus riders protesting segregation.
01:13:27By 1962, eight years have passed since the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. The Board of Education, and less than 2% of segregated school districts have experienced any integration at all.
01:13:47And the ones that have were often given no choice.
01:13:54Today there were riots at the University of Mississippi. Federal troops used tear gas and fixed bayonets in an effort to quell the mob.
01:14:05Two persons were killed, more than a score injured, 150 persons arrested.
01:14:12All of this so that one man might have an education.
01:14:19As far as some white Southerners are concerned, if black people are unhappy here in the South, they can leave.
01:14:29One-way bus tickets to the North, along with $5 spending money, are being offered to Negroes in Shreveport, Louisiana, Montgomery, Alabama, and Megan, Georgia.
01:14:44But by now, there aren't too many black Southerners who still believe that the North is the promised land anyway.
01:15:15It's like hell to live up here. Well, the condition, the housing condition, is something terrible.
01:15:25The rats, the mice, the roaches. It is very pleasant, I can tell you that.
01:15:33Here in the North, black Americans may have the same legal rights as white Americans, but housing discrimination confines them to slums, where up to 70% of young people are out of work.
01:15:49We have a lot of problems here, and the majority of the stores that you have are all owned by white people, and we really don't have jobs, opportunities.
01:16:04The salaries are small, the rents are big.
01:16:11That's why you find people walking the streets, trying to do things illegal and otherwise.
01:16:21The people want to have something to hold on to, but they have nothing.
01:16:28Nearly a century after the Civil War, America has failed on its promise to provide equality for all its citizens.
01:16:38And those citizens won't wait anymore.
01:16:59If you're looking for a place where the suppression doesn't occur, basically, that's up North.
01:17:08In 1960, I wanted everything that I'd been denied.
01:17:15I wanted the job that the white man had. I wanted his woman.
01:17:20I wanted a white car. I wanted a house that was white and all of it.
01:17:26So I was on my way to doing it, you know, working.
01:17:31I'm on my way. I'm on my way up.
01:17:35And then in 1963, they bombed that church.
01:17:39On what began as a quiet Sunday morning, a bomb exploded in a Negro church in Birmingham, killing four young girls.
01:17:48They blew those girls up.
01:17:55My life passed in front of me.
01:17:59They didn't just blow up four girls.
01:18:01They blew up black.
01:18:16So from there on, I'm not interested in the White House, in the white woman, in the white job, any of those things.
01:18:25I'm interested in fixing this injustice that's coming at us.
01:18:29Just because we're black.
01:18:41Let me tell you something, honey.
01:18:44My father, he always said, a fish doesn't open his mouth, he would never get caught.
01:18:50Do you hear me, what I'm saying?
01:19:00As far as these marches and all of that, I never demonstrated nothing.
01:19:08But my son told me, he said, Mother, it's a different era.
01:19:16Let me tell you something.
01:19:18Regardless of what you don't want, regardless of what I don't want,
01:19:24our children will do what they want to do.
01:19:29My, my baby.
01:19:32My heart.
01:19:33Ever since emancipation, we had hoped for a better day.
01:19:39Now, we were demanding that America make good on its promise of equality.
01:19:47It was time.
01:19:49The time has come.
01:19:52We just had a feeling, it was a beginning.
01:19:55To Americans who say, slow down, change takes time.
01:20:01The movement says, it has taken my father's time, my mother's time,
01:20:08my brother's and my sister's time, my grandfather's and grandmother's time.
01:20:15How much time do you want for your so-called progress?
01:20:25Birmingham's Negroes began this afternoon's protest against segregation
01:20:28with a parade of 25 schoolchildren.
01:20:30They carried signs, one reading, God is love.
01:20:34You and I have to be right there breathing down their throat.
01:20:38Every time they look over their shoulder, we want them to see us.
01:20:43If something isn't done, you will have a racial explosion,
01:20:46and a racial explosion is more deadly than an atomic explosion.
01:20:51We intend to end this fight with love.
01:20:58The march on Washington on one of the most historic days in the nation's history.
01:21:03Today has been remarkably peaceful and quiet.
01:21:06Only three arrests.
01:21:08Congress passes the most sweeping civil rights bill ever to be written into the law,
01:21:12the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
01:21:16Civil rights advocates, they're under no illusions about this.
01:21:19They know that neither laws nor lawsuits change hearts.
01:21:24Now here is a development.
01:21:26Tonight in Washington, the FBI announced
01:21:29the finding of three bodies near Philadelphia, Mississippi,
01:21:32where three civil rights workers disappeared a month ago.
01:21:40Selma sprang overnight from an obscure southern town
01:21:43to the front pages of world newspapers.
01:21:46With the outrage of Selma still fresh,
01:21:51we enacted one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom.
01:21:58The Voting Rights Act will ensure Negroes the right to vote.
01:22:06Black lives matter, and I believe in nothing but it.
01:22:08I believe in nothing but it.
01:22:11On the other hand, I believe that our people should stop getting killed.
01:22:21The first fatality after three nights of bloody rioting
01:22:24in a Negro neighborhood called Watts on the south side of Los Angeles.
01:22:29Is this Negro who fights back a new Negro?
01:22:33I think that the history books have deleted that Negro from American history.
01:22:37No, I don't think he's new at all.
01:22:45Nobody's going to make me afraid,
01:22:47for death is not the ultimate evil.
01:22:50The ultimate evil is not to have something that you believe in so strongly
01:22:54that you will die for it.
01:22:57We want black power!
01:22:59We want black power!
01:23:01We want black power!
01:23:04In this summer of social unrest and increasingly violent confrontations,
01:23:09people are taking the talk of an armed revolution seriously,
01:23:13especially the police.
01:23:16As more police arrived, the temper of the crowds grew worse.
01:23:20So did the temper of the police.
01:23:21We want black power!
01:23:23You're shooting up our sons, trying to destroy the Negro seeds.
01:23:29But I'll tell you one thing, you're going to have to destroy us mothers too,
01:23:34because we're not going to stand for it.
01:23:36We want black power!
01:23:37We want black power!
01:23:39There have been more incidents, and the troubles are as yet unresolved.
01:23:46It is generally believed that things will get much worse before they get any better.
01:23:51We want black power!
01:23:57What Dr. Martin Luther King called his beautiful dream
01:24:01was shattered tonight in Memphis, Tennessee, by an assassin's bullet.
01:24:07In Memphis and in New York, in Boston, Raleigh, North Carolina,
01:24:11there are reports of angry reactions to the killing of Dr. King.
01:24:22I think very simply that the greatest leader, or one of the great leaders, is dead.
01:24:28I'm afraid now that the civil rights movement is also dead.
01:24:43I think it's a great mistake for anybody to go and kill Dr. King like that.
01:24:47The colored people should blame all white men, that's what I feel about.
01:24:52I don't know, I think it's just going to be an all-out battle.
01:24:57So, I don't know, everyone's getting ready, so it'll be pretty bad.
01:25:22It's 1968.
01:25:26And now everyone, black and white,
01:25:31wonders how the races will ever come together,
01:25:36or if they even can.
01:25:39Over the next four decades,
01:25:42some of the hopes of the 60s will be fulfilled.
01:25:46Small gains are made,
01:25:48in education, in politics, and income disparity.
01:25:54But not nearly as many as we had hoped.
01:26:01And then something shocking happens in November 2008.
01:26:06It is Tuesday night,
01:26:09and you are looking live at Grant Park in the city of Chicago,
01:26:13and the celebration is what they are celebrating.
01:26:16And the celebration is what they are getting.
01:26:19That crowd on its feet tonight, they are tens of thousands of people.
01:26:23And we have news.
01:26:25A seismic shift in American politics.
01:26:28An African-American has broken the barrier as old as the republic.
01:26:33You are looking at the 44th president of the United States.
01:26:38An election.
01:26:42The fact is, there is complexity of race in this country
01:26:45that we've never really worked through.
01:26:48A part of our union that we have not yet made perfect.
01:26:56What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination,
01:27:01but how many men and women overcame the odds.
01:27:05How many were able to make a way out of no way
01:27:09for those like me who would come after them.
01:27:12What we know, what we have seen,
01:27:16is that America can change.
01:27:19That is the true genius of this nation.
01:27:25What we have already achieved gives us hope
01:27:28for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
01:27:43For more UN videos visit www.un.org
01:27:46Like, share, subscribe
01:27:49Thanks for watching