Summary: Reaching back across the centuries, this program sheds light on historical attitudes toward human differences. It assesses the significance of Biblical narratives, including the "curse of Ham," in the evolution of European concepts of race, and goes on to examine the basis of institutionalized racism-entwined with fervent capitalism-on which the transatlantic slave trade operated. The...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Did racist atrocities in the 19th and 20th centuries bring Western society to an ethical and ideological turning point? Or has racial oppression simply assumed other, more insidious forms? Pursuing answers, this program focuses on a pattern of segregation and genocide evident in King Leopold's Belgian Congo rampages, South Africa's apartheid rule, the terrorism of Jim Crow, and less obvious...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: During the 19th century, racial categorization took on a pseudoscientific stance. This program shows how the academic racism of the period helped to spread imperialist policies across the globe. Sifting through the "science" of eugenics and its link to social Darwinism, the film juxtaposes the racial hygiene theories of Robert Knox, Francis Galton, and Eugen Fischer with racial warfare in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: In the aftermath of the Civil War, Reconstruction begins as a time of great hope for the devastated South. When political turmoil continues and the Reconstruction efforts fail, a new era of segregation begins. In the Supreme Court decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, 'separate but equal' becomes the law of the land.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002
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Summary: Significant. "Moving." "Devastating." These are words that were used to describe this news report on African-American history when it aired in July of 1968. In fact, this program was so highly acclaimed that CBS NEWS rebroadcast it, again in prime time, only three weeks later. Featured segments spotlight the changing image of black Americans through film and TV clips ranging from The Birth of a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Heroic soldiers in blue and gray endure the bloodiest battles ever fought on American soil, as the country fights a civil war over the future of slavery. Grim battles unfold: Bull Run, Antietam, and Gettysburg. Famous generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee lead the war between the North and the South. Lincoln speaks eloquently at Gettysburg, and just a year and a half later is brutally...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002
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Summary: The Declaration of Independence stated 'all men are created equal,' but the nation’s slaves were a glaring exception. The colonial slave trade and brutal life for African-Americans on Southern plantations spark the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad. This episode explores the role of Frederick Douglass, and then looks at the impact of the Lincoln-Douglas debates on the westward...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the early 20th century, blacks moved north in hope of a better life with little more than a prayer and the shirts on their backs. In this program, poet Maya Angelou, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, and a host of other African-Americans recount the story of the migration, of separated families, and of the hardships, prejudice, and struggle for acceptance in the North that resulted in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006