Exploring African-American History Journey

[Music] I've spent much of my life searching for the stories of the African-American people our first notation of Anthony Johnson essentially defines him as Antonio the Negro I've always wanted to tell their history five centuries in the making it's a living history and I've traveled around the country and across the globe to Chronicle itam alikum did any of you receive wealth inherited from the slave trade black people changed American society America probably wouldn't have much of a popular culture without black people we black ified it we took we took everything and made it like made it better you're good man black people redefine the American dream Robert Small's epitomized as American come from nothing and to be a success they held the country to its ideals even when it abandoned them in these 6 hours I'll tell the stories of some of the people places and events that made black history we want black we want black stories of courage [Music] determination and the power of Hope are you prepared to take the oath Senator I [Music] am begin [Music] [Music] [Music] the African-American Story begins here on the Atlantic Ocean Africans crossed these Waters with the very first European explorers and their stories show that right from the start the black people who came to this land nurtured aspirations and dreams dreams that would never disappear even in the long night of slavery dreams that would help them endure and [Music] overcome Florida the first known African in America came here with Spanish explorers in 1513 his name was Juan gito he was free and he left his mark on the new world gito helped Cortez take Mexico then he headed for California searching for [Music] gold 20 years later a black man struggled to cross this Texas desert he was called estabon the Moore he was one of just four survivors of a Spanish Expedition that went horribly wrong estabon served as a guide and a translator for his companions negotiating their way to safety across this forbidding landscape by the year 1536 they had walked 15,000 mil they had seen more of the North American continent than any explorers would until Lewis and Clark gito and estabon were among the first African an in our country they found Hope and opportunity here but things changed [Music] quickly Jamestown Virginia the first British colony in what became the United States in 1619 this was the ultimate Frontier Town crude fortifications bordering a muddy malarial swamp then one morning in August a ship appeared it was carrying African slaves part of a small group that had just landed at Port Comfort a few miles from here that's how slavery began in the English colonies plantations as we imagined them didn't exist yet this was just a fragile Outpost in the wilderness lives in in colonial Virginia were very precarious they were really stuck at the edge of of survival whoever was trying I've come here just a few miles from Jamestown to look for traces of a man named Anthony Johnson a man whose life shows how slavery evolved in Virginia our first notation of Anthony Johnson is from the early Virginia muster roll which essentially defines him as Antonio the Negro so his Blackness was part of his his name his title exactly despite his skin color Johnson found opportunities in Jamestown he worked side by side with his owner and forged the bond based on necessity in order for the master to survive he needed Anthony Johnson to make a farm in this kind of environment it was all about manual labor so Anthony Johnson earned his way to his own freedom and his master actually provided him with sort of a startup if you will we even gave him a little cash some land some yeah some land it seems yes Anthony Johnson soon began to prosper he owned a 250 acre tobacco farm he had white indentured servants and and he even had an African slave of his [Music] own but as Johnson prospered so did Virginia within decades Jamestown had become the center of a booming tobacco economy that was desperate for labor and this transformed slavery from a loose informal Arrangement into a rigid racial system a system in which a life like Anthony Johnson's would be inconceivable Johnson's Blackness his africanness these things Define him Mark him uh as an outsider the stigma of Blackness the stigma of Blackness and the fact that the status was tied to that that observable um trait was one which is very difficult to surmount after Johnson died a Court ruled that he was quote a negro and by consequence an alien and then the colony of Virginia seized his family's [Music] land Johnson's story marked a new era in the British colonies from this point on slavery would be solely based on race and the acquisition of slaves would be Central to the acquisition of wealth in effect the British were simply trying to do what many Europeans had already done by the time Anthony Johnson arrived in Jamestown in the early 1620s more than half a million enslaved Africans had already been spread across the new world into Brazil Mexico and the Caribbean the Free Labor of these slaves was making fortunes for the Portuguese and the Spanish now the British wanted to get in on the action most of the largest cities of the Americas were dominated by Africans there were more Africans in those cities than there were Europeans here I'm talking about places like Mexico City Lima Panama City Havana so when Jamestown is founded all of those colonists understood a world in which Africans were the primary labor force for producing wealth for Europe I think it's important to understand the British or not innovating when they settle Jamestown they're trying to catch up American historians sometimes treat the emergence of slavery as a mystery right all some people how did all these Africans get here the real mystery would have been if slavery had not developed in Virginia a brutal equation ruled the new world black equal slave and to fulfill their hunger for slaves the British turned to the place that many of Europeans had turned already Africa Sierra Leon was once a major hub for the slave trade more than 300,000 people were taken from here and shipped to the new world in bondage but the first slave traders in this place weren't Europeans they were other black Africans [Music] Africans practice slavery long before they ever saw white person all across this continent slaves were part of a system based not on Race but on ethnic difference and brute power a system involving an enormous array of monarchs merchants and mercenaries African kingdoms were at war with one another war was a theme in African Act Europe as well for many many years and so as a part of these wars as a result of these Wars people were taken hostage and made into [Music] slaves I've come to Port Loco a Rivertown in Sierra Leon and the long-standing home of the T people for centuries the T here collected captives who had been taken in war they tied them packed them into small boats and sailed them Downstream where they were sold to Europeans for [Music] profit we sometimes romanticize Africa we think that Africa was idealic until the white man came but there were deep tensions between ethnic groups here black Africans didn't necessarily feel the bonds of skin color any more strongly than say white Europeans did slavery was ongoing before the Europeans came it was just a common business they come here in this W here is the The Landing part for the boat who were the slave Traders the slave Traders were great warriors strong men Chiefs they do this business a lot of misery loaded on these boats yes but our people we are not thinking about mus it was a lucrative business [Applause] mham Gates I was surprised to find out that in Port Loco today there are still many families whose ancestors profited from the trade and some of them were willing to tell me about it good speak from your heart did any of you receive wealth inherited from the slave trade 500 500 my God so he was very rich yes our people we are rich and would Chiefs wage war just to get slaves oh yes in America we think black men were selling black people to the white man but when you see it do you see it as T were buying Loco mende were buying T Etc is there a difference well where all black people black only B it's true black people are black we don't speak the same language I don't like what you like my name you know we don't just live in harmony do some find it difficult to face the crucial role of Africans in the slave trade is now well documented historians estimate that the overwhelming majority of the slaves shipped to the new world were captured and sold by African kingdoms but Africans did not invent slavery it existed everywhere dating back to the most ancient civilizations norded Africans envisioned slavery as something that would be passed on from one generation to the next something based exclusively on Race that was a European Innovation Europeans had actually developed an idea over several centuries that they should not enslave each other they could kill each other torture each other fight each other in Wars but Europeans did not enslave other Europeans because Christians did not enslave other Christians the great advantage of Africans is that they were outside the European community and so it was possible to use race as a way of providing a marker of who's enslavable and who's not sailing in ships of radical new design armed with new weapons and new technologies Europeans transformed slavery into a business far larger and far cruler than anything the Africans had ever done of course it didn't happen overnight the dehumanization of an entire race was a process requiring many steps one occurred here this beautiful island shrouded in fog is home to what was once a fortress built by the British in the 1670s out there is the mouth of the PCO Creek African middleman used to bring their slaves and goods down the putco creek through the mouth of the putl creek out there all the way to this Beach here so they came right through that Gap right there they would bring them here they March them straight up there and up this hill onto the Trea in area though its walls have long crumbled I could still get a sense of how this place once worked this was the main entrance into the for it had a double folding door with a little room patch on top British officers lived here in a lavish two-story mansion that's a fireplace a fake fireplace because there is no flu this is the tropics we you don't need a fire in the tropics but it was an attempt by the slave traders that lived here at elegant a little Touch of Home a little Touch of Home how many men the British enjoyed parties here even a small Golf Course slaves meanwhile were hurted like cattle in here is the Women's and Children's slavey they were branded then held in for shipment to the new world so the men were over there and the women and children were right here so they could hear each other's cries definitely they could have had each other's cries and they could not help each other in fact let me show you the main slave yard it's right through these Doors by the time they got here we very terrified and then they were examined like their eyes teeth and then when the slaves were taken out to be put on board the slave ships they were burning with the letter s on their left breast to denote that they from from Sierra Leon this place was not unusual there were dozens of forts like this up and down the African Coast we're not even sure exactly how many slaves passed through this island 50,000 at least we know the names of a handful and in the stories of a precious few in 1756 a British ship named the hair set sail for Charleston carrying 80 African slaves one of them was a 10-year-old girl we don't know where she was from we don't know her parents' names but we do know the name that her master gave her [Music] Priscilla Priscilla was at the start of a journey that would change her life forever the dreaded Middle Passage the entire experience is so horrific and so just brutalizing in ways that are just unimaginable for contemporary audience you have public floggings you have decapitation being immersed in your own bodily excrement it is complete lost of control over your life in every way possible think about a a eight a 9 a 10y old it is something that you're never going to forget and it's going to be etched in your memory women on the ship even girls as young as Priscilla faced an added danger they were completely at the mercy of the male crew women were considered to be available pre at any given moment for the entire ship crew throughout the passage so some women would commit suicide and some women did decide that I don't want to bring a child into this world so they inserted some sort of piece of wood or nail or something to you know cause violence upon their body and and you also find that some women would actually die from from these these attempts Priscilla spent 10 weeks on the ship she saw 13 of her fellow Africans die along the way their corpses thrown into the ocean death was so common on slave ships that sharks followed in their wake feasting on the dead bodies as the ship Drew close to shore the slaves were rubbed with a mixture of gunpowder in oil to make them look healthier hiding the wounds from their beadings and chains then prisilla stepped into a new world Charleston South Carolina this was once the center of the slave trade in the 13 colonies over 40% of all the slaves who entered our country came through this city in Priscilla's time South Carolina had more black slaves than white citizens in fact it was called negro country slave auctions were held on the streets of Charleston almost every day Priscilla was bought at one of these auctions by a rice planter named Elias [Music] ball we're on the way to the the ball Plantation which consisted of 1 half of [ __ ] Tea Plantation and about 25 African-American slaves Edward ball is the fifth great grandson of the man who purchased Priscilla he's brought me to the land where his family ran rice plantations for almost two centuries landlord with a thousand acres so this would have been maybe one little road running through it yeah the rice fields were off the river ever they were right around here ball told me he had spent years wrestling with his family's past Priscilla is just one of 4,000 people that they owned my dad used to talk about the plantations and Elias ball and all of the the prosperity that our family had lived through uh but he never talked about the slaves he said there are five things we don't talk about in the ball family religion sex death money and the Negroes Priscilla arrived here in July 1756 she was 10 she came as an orphan MH no parents no language no home this was her inter uction to the rest of her [Music] life Priscilla's New Life centered around this house and the white family that owned it though a ruined today the ball Plantation was once thriving thanks to the labor of its slaves the second Elias who bought Priscilla brought six children none of them older than 10 he liked buying children in fact he wrote a little memoir in which he said do two things with your money buy land and buy Young slaves H why why better long-term investment the white folks lived here the black folks lived about a quar mile away the rice fields were about half a mile down that road and that's where all the work of producing the money took place rice that's why Priscilla was here rice fields like these were making a fortune for slave owners don't let their beauty fool you these places were death traps the swamp ground was covered with snakes the tropical air was filled with malarial mosquitoes a third of South Carolina's slaves died within a year of their arrival and nearly 2third of all children were dead before they turned 16 but Priscilla beat the odds she and her family survived the balls were fanatical about keeping records They had books that listed the birthdays of all the slave Children books that listed the deaths of all the slave adults and all of this stuff is collected in an archive of about 10,000 Pages my God Edward B spent 3 years pouring over his family's records here in the South Carolina historical society Hampshire Gambia ditto ditto ditto all of these men and women from Gambia London ball was trying to piece together the stories of his family slaves Jack for most he found no story at all they survived only his names on a page Christmas people consumed by the brutality of slavery Samson there was an ordinance where if you ran away and you were caught you had to have two toes amputated if you ran away again and you were caught you had to have your ears amputated and if you ran away a third time the punishment was castration oh man law of the land they were not joking they were not getting around yeah as ball scanned page after page he began to see one name repeated Priscilla's 10 years old when she comes to cuming te Plantation and 10 years later she's having her own children monimia Priscilla's daughter was born and monimia becomes the matriarch and her grandchildren have children ball was able to trace Priscilla's family tree down Generations stretching from the 1750s all the way to today for an African-American this is extraordinarily rare now how are you related to braila she is my great great great great great grandmother through your mother's my father my father's so your father this is tomin polite she and her husband Antoine are carrying on a family line that began in Sierra Leon more than 20 50 years ago I was 19 years old when I first found out it really hit me like oh my gosh you know this was my fifth grandmother grandmother yeah but she had to be tough she had to be she had to be I got some of that from her I I was going Tomlin is remarkably lucky she actually knows the name of her original African ancestor I don't know anyone else who could do this for nearly all African-Americans including me our original ancestors will remain forever Anonymous and invisible this was not an accident removing people from genealogy is very important to making a slave so if I only call you by your first name and never by a family name I'm indicating to everybody right that you have no family right you're just Jimmy you're just Sam you're just Sarah right so they'll occupy a station that everybody will publicly recognize is at the lowest rung of society Masters worked methodically to erase the identities of their slaves so that they would be more productive and these tactics were quite effective slaves built this country [Music] they built roads and bridges factories and Farms towns and cities but they built something else as well something all their own a culture as much as slave masters tried to control the worlds of their slaves they were vastly unsuccessful there was a persistence in history and culture and names that went across the Atlantic despite the best efforts of Europeans we tend to assume that the slave is a cipher right because that's ideology that's the ideology of slavery that the slave is simply an extension of the Master's will that's the plan that's the idea but that's not really what you can ever do to a human being human beings always find a way to assert their own prerogatives so black people create new kinds of cultural patterns that didn't obtain in Africa that weren't those of the whites but were something new in the Amer Amer this Garden signifies crops that enslaved African-Americans would have grown would have been one of the most enduring expressions of any culture is food even today we can try to access the world of our ancestors by tasting it afrian what do we have here Michael well you have a late 18th early 19th century Feast without the ochra just for you all right Michael Twitty is a food histori we have kala conri which are basically black ey peers from New Orleans and then a lot of people in this region had three salt herrings a week he's cooked me an 18th century meal to show how slaves from different parts of Africa crafted a distinct africanamerican Cuisine so you get a taste Harmony or mush Ash cakes H cakes Etc would have been the staple of your diet me some hot gum oh you got to have that good cook man thank you sir this came out of my garden yesterday afternoon wow from Spartanburg South Carolina but all those recipes there straight out of history books people are great mhm when in the history of humankind has an enslaved people revolutionized the way the people who enslaved them ate drank believed the way Africans did and the Americas that's sorghum this is the first time I've ever seen you see it looks just like corn Twitty has traced the roots of food that connect Africa the Caribbean and the Americas in a vast black Atlantic culture a culture the slaves even propagated among their white Masters it amazed me one reference was one of the former governors of Virginia his wife said that no one bakes a ham better than a big fat negro Mammy oh really and you think about this the ham ham is a is a food was not invented in Africa no but somehow we got our hands on the sugar cane and I answer say black aied it we black aied it we took we took everything and made it like made it better and made it made it more Soulful if you will let's put a little pineapple cherries on there put Maple syr brown sugar now you know maple syrup we don't do Maple excuse me Brown su su BR sugar it's a calization process so while the okra soup and the black ey peas and hoop and John and the red rice and jambal and gumbo blah blah blah is going to the Master's house mhm those cooks are bringing European Western dishes into the slave quarter the flow is going both ways the flow is going both ways and what we have to recognize is everybody puts their stamp on it food was not the only thing flowing throughout the Atlantic world so were ideas ideas about music dance religion but especially ideas about Freedom even if the Masters wished otherwise black people knew they were people whether whites thought it or not they knew they were people and so if you hear words about Liberty and and freedom things that they wanted of course they would think it would apply to them St Augustine Florida this is the oldest city in the United States built by the Spanish in the 1560s and held by Spain almost continuously until 1821 this beautiful place has special meaning for African-Americans because as slavery's grip tightened in the British colonies Spain declared that runaway slaves could come here and be free why politics Colonial Spain was locked in a ferocious rivalry with Colonial England so they welcomed any fugitive slaves who would convert to Catholicism swear loyalty to the Spanish crown and serve in the colonial militia suddenly slaves in the British colonies simply had to make it across the St Mary's River into Spanish Florida and they would be free they knew the geopolitics of the region that the English and the Spaniards were enemies enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of thing and we often find that they get their information from the Indian groups who have gone back and forth so they then say Hey you black people you get on the boat you get down a place called St Augustine you'll be cool you'll be free well they wouldn't have known that but they' have known where St Augustine was and they would have known the Spaniards and the English were at War M that the Spaniards didn't like the English being there and they took their lives in their hands they get in a boat and they make it soon there were so many black people in St Augustine that the Spanish built them their own town town called Fort MOS just a few miles to the north nothing remains of Fort MOS it is sunk entirely into the swamps of the Atlantic coast but this was the first all black settlement in what would become the United States an outpost of freedom in a slave land I'm trying to imagine what it must have felt like to arrive here after traveling through swamps across rivers and through the Wilderness finally gaining your freedom at Fort mosay slavery breeds dreams of freedom in every human breast African-American culture is full of references to the day of Jubilee to making it to the promised land well for African slaves Fort mosay was the promised land and Crossing St Mary's River well that was like crossing the river Jordan so many slaves tried to run here that the British started executing them in public to staunch the flow but even that couldn't stop [Music] them 300 mil north of Fort MOS just outside of Charleston runs the Stono River when word of the fort reached this place it inspired one of the biggest slave revolts in the history of the British colonies it all started right here the site of what was once a general store called Hutchinson's Sunday morning September 9th 1739 h store had been looted its guns and ammunition had been stolen two shopkeepers lay dead their severed heads lying on the steps of the store plantations on either side of the river were burning an army was on the move an African [Music] Army they were headed for Fort Mosaic they set out before Dawn a a group of roughly 20 men their tactics were simple they surrounded plantations then burned them to the ground the ring leaders came from the kingdom of Congo a powerful African State some had military training and they had a plan slaves marched over to ponpon road which was a road that if you took it South it would take you down into Georgia down into Savannah and ultimately all the way down to [Music] Florida they were beating drums now the beating of the drums is terribly important because that shows us that they were attempting to draw other Africans into their midst by afternoon the rebel Army had grown to nearly 100 and they kept moving south along what today is this highway which still leads from South Carolina to Florida but they didn't make it just 20 M outside of Charleston an armed militia caught up with them in a clearing in these Woods the survivors faced a gruesome fate a number of the people who were were captured they'd be beheaded beheaded they they would be beheaded by the militia men and as was a usual practice during the time period their severed heads were placed on top of posts along the highway so right along here yes we would have seen the heads yes of these Rebels yes that's right and that was meant to instill fear and to teach a lesson to all who observe to try to uh discourage people from from from rebelling this must have been the Planter's worst nightmare it was absolutely worse than the worst nightmare they could imagine that these Congo Africans knew anything about guns and ammunition that's right that's right that's right absolutely right this was the worst Insurrection to occur in 18th century British Colonial North America in the wake of the Rebellion South Carolina imposed harsh new slave laws they banned drumming and literacy and set drastic punishments on runaways but no laws ever could force the slaves to accept their Fates slaves ploted volts all over the Atlantic World in Jamaica and Virginia Barbados in Georgia even in New York City most of them failed but that didn't stop the slaves from trying they were always searching for a chance at freedom and as time passed Freedom seemed to be Drawing Near the American Revolution brought immense hope to the slaves they heard the Patriots talk of Liberty and equality and it ignited their own dreams but for the most part those dreams were ignored even the greatest champion of Freedom was hesitant to extend it to black [Music] people this is Mount Vernon George Washington's estate for so many of us an icon of American independence but for more than 100 African-Americans this was a plantation where from sun up to sun down they toiled as [Music] slaves the father of our country was also one of its largest slave owners slaves tended his fields and watched over his every need one worked in these Stables a groomsman named Harry Washington Harry heard the talk around Mount Vernon about Liberty and Independence but he sensed it wasn't meant for slaves so like many black people he decided to take his chances with the British once the war comes there are enslaved men and women saying hey we'd love to help you out if you would help help us out we'd be happy to help you suppress this rebellion in Massachusetts if you will grant our freedom in return Harry joined a loyalist regiment called the black pioneers and he wasn't the only one roughly 20,000 slaves ran away to the British lines far more than joined the Patriot cause there were a lot of Harry Washingtons in the British Army in fact it's probably fair to say that especially in the southern colonies the British army effort could not have been as successful as it was for a time without the assistance of former slaves unfortunately most of these black loyalists were ravaged by the war many of them died many of them contracted small poox they met terrible Fates many of them but you can understand why they opted for it that gives you a measure of what slavery was like that people would take that kind of risk Harry Washington was one of the lucky few in the waning days of the War the British put him on a ship and evacuated him to Canada the British definitely wanted to use the blacks to help them in their struggle against the colonist but they did not want to had no intention of actually making them you know equal uh to them and bringing them and making them part of British Society so dropped them off their and let them make their way Harry didn't stay long in Canada he and his fellow black loyalists were barred from voting and exploited by local whites so when the British set up a colony for former slaves back in Sierra Leon Harry was among the first to immigrate he ended up near here one of the very few slaves who ever made made it back to Africa but Harry didn't necessarily want to go back to Africa you know what har he wanted he wanted what his old Master George wanted Freedom the right to do as he pleased unfortunately he did not find it here the British government in Sierra Leon tried to limit the property rights of the black settlers Harry fought back and and was banished for insubordination after that he [Music] disappeared Harry was a rebel to the end and it's probably best that he turned his back on America because he wouldn't have liked what America [Music] became the founding fathers built a country committed to slavery the site of Washington DC was chosen as our capital in order to appease southern slave owners and why not they held an enormous amount of power none of it exists without slavery there are no settlements there is no 13 colonies without slavery there is no United States without slavery there's no Independence Movement without slavery the whole thing is built upon slavery that's why they didn't abolish it slavery was part of American society from the very beginning when the Declaration of Independence was signed slavery was legal in each of the 13 colonies and take this building here our magnificent Capital slaves quarried and cut its oldest Stones its innermost bricks were laid by slaves you see the statue of the Native American on top symbol of Freedom one of the people who cast it was a slave but even if the ideals of the American Revolution were perverted by slavery the ideals themselves endured they lingered in the hearts of black people and they spread throughout the Atlantic [Music] World sand deang at the close of the American Revolution this was a French colony it was the world's largest producer of coffee and sugar and it had the largest concentration of slaves in the Western Hemisphere almost twice as many Africans were brought here as were brought to the entire United States in essence this was the epicenter of slavery in the new world but in August of 1791 this colony began to collapse as the slaves rose up against their hated [Music] Masters inspired by the same ideals as the American Patriots they fought off European armies and founded a new nation Haiti the world's first black Republic never before in history had slaves overthrown their masters the haian revolution becomes this great Beacon of Hope right for what's possible another world is possible slavery can end how in the world would a slave completely illiterate stuck on a plantation hear about the Haitian revolution well illiterate doesn't mean ignorant right that's the first thing we have to understand which is that news is traveling all around aboard ships right so Sailors they're spreading news about what's going on and then the slaves here ideas about freedom and equality and Liberty that are incredibly important to black people and so they raised hopes to an extremely high level unfortunately here in the United States those hopes were dashed African-Americans had to wait almost a century for their freedom but even so Haiti had a profound impact for Generation after generation Haiti was a source of immense Pride a free black nation in a world that thought black people were fit only to be slaves that Pride can still be seen today if you know where to look these men are part of a celebration that stretches back almost two centuries a celebration of our living connection to Haiti they get up before Dawn on marra morning and parade through New Orleans waking the city to celebrate with a Haitian vodun tradition enjoy life I can dig that know you might you might not wake up tomorrow that's right so they make sure that everybody wake up on Mighty day so if they don't wake up they dead if they don't wake up dead that's the message if you don't to wake up you dead so that's their job to wake everybody up and make sure that you enjoy they've been doing this since 1819 soon after a group of Haitian refugees came to New Orleans via Cuba and started the tradition it's one of the oldest parts of martig and a living reminder that African-American history isn't limited to the story of the United States it's part of a much wider history the history of a people scattered like sand throughout the Atlantic world the way we think of history is in National terms so US history is US history and it's discreet from Jamaican History or haian history or British history or French history and it turns out that National History really emerges in these Atlantic cross currents right that involve Africa the Caribbean South America Europe and North America [Music] African-American culture was born in the mixing of people and ideas from all over the Atlantic World mixing made us strong it gave us hope it sustained [Music] us less than a mile from the Marty GR parades runs the mighty Mississippi River in the decades after the Haitian revolution this River became the sight and symbol of a new phase in American slavery the violent rise of the Deep South but the memory of Haiti was never forgotten it was mixed into the fabric of African-American culture it became an inspiration for countless numbers of black people who darare to dream of their freedom they would need that inspiration in the harsh and Dreadful years to [Music] come next time on the African-Americans the struggle for Freedom continues the Underground Railroad makes me want to claim slaves as my ancestors here's the coverage that Sam hid in my God it's just so tiny the African-Americans many rivers to cross the African-American story continues online at pbs.org/manyrivers with streaming video and more the African-Americans many rivers to cross is available on DVD for $34.99 the companion book is also available for $34.95 plus shipping to order call 1 1800 3361 917 [Music]

[Music] I've spent much of my life searching for the stories of the African-American people our first notation of Anthony Johnson essentially defines him as Antonio the Negro I've always wanted to tell their history five centuries in the making it's a living history and I've traveled around the country and across the globe to Chronicle itam alikum did any of you receive wealth inherited from the slave trade black people changed American society America probably wouldn't have much of a popular culture without black people we black ified it we took we took everything and made it like made it better you're good man black people redefine the American dream Robert Small's epitomized as American come from nothing and to be a success they held the country to its ideals even when it abandoned them in these 6 hours I'll tell the stories of some of the people places and events that made black history we want black we want black stories of courage [Music] determination and the power of Hope are you prepared to take the oath Senator I [Music] am begin [Music] [Music] [Music] the African-American Story begins here on the Atlantic Ocean Africans crossed these Waters with the very first European explorers and their stories show that right from the start the black people who came to this land nurtured aspirations and dreams dreams that would never disappear even in the long night of slavery dreams that would help them endure and [Music] overcome Florida the first known African in America came here with Spanish explorers in 1513 his name was Juan gito he was free and he left his mark on the new world gito helped Cortez take Mexico then he headed for California searching for [Music] gold 20 years later a black man struggled to cross this Texas desert he was called estabon the Moore he was one of just four survivors of a Spanish Expedition that went horribly wrong estabon served as a guide and a translator for his companions negotiating their way to safety across this forbidding landscape by the year 1536 they had walked 15,000 mil they had seen more of the North American continent than any explorers would until Lewis and Clark gito and estabon were among the first African an in our country they found Hope and opportunity here but things changed [Music] quickly Jamestown Virginia the first British colony in what became the United States in 1619 this was the ultimate Frontier Town crude fortifications bordering a muddy malarial swamp then one morning in August a ship appeared it was carrying African slaves part of a small group that had just landed at Port Comfort a few miles from here that's how slavery began in the English colonies plantations as we imagined them didn't exist yet this was just a fragile Outpost in the wilderness lives in in colonial Virginia were very precarious they were really stuck at the edge of of survival whoever was trying I've come here just a few miles from Jamestown to look for traces of a man named Anthony Johnson a man whose life shows how slavery evolved in Virginia our first notation of Anthony Johnson is from the early Virginia muster roll which essentially defines him as Antonio the Negro so his Blackness was part of his his name his title exactly despite his skin color Johnson found opportunities in Jamestown he worked side by side with his owner and forged the bond based on necessity in order for the master to survive he needed Anthony Johnson to make a farm in this kind of environment it was all about manual labor so Anthony Johnson earned his way to his own freedom and his master actually provided him with sort of a startup if you will we even gave him a little cash some land some yeah some land it seems yes Anthony Johnson soon began to prosper he owned a 250 acre tobacco farm he had white indentured servants and and he even had an African slave of his [Music] own but as Johnson prospered so did Virginia within decades Jamestown had become the center of a booming tobacco economy that was desperate for labor and this transformed slavery from a loose informal Arrangement into a rigid racial system a system in which a life like Anthony Johnson's would be inconceivable Johnson's Blackness his africanness these things Define him Mark him uh as an outsider the stigma of Blackness the stigma of Blackness and the fact that the status was tied to that that observable um trait was one which is very difficult to surmount after Johnson died a Court ruled that he was quote a negro and by consequence an alien and then the colony of Virginia seized his family's [Music] land Johnson's story marked a new era in the British colonies from this point on slavery would be solely based on race and the acquisition of slaves would be Central to the acquisition of wealth in effect the British were simply trying to do what many Europeans had already done by the time Anthony Johnson arrived in Jamestown in the early 1620s more than half a million enslaved Africans had already been spread across the new world into Brazil Mexico and the Caribbean the Free Labor of these slaves was making fortunes for the Portuguese and the Spanish now the British wanted to get in on the action most of the largest cities of the Americas were dominated by Africans there were more Africans in those cities than there were Europeans here I'm talking about places like Mexico City Lima Panama City Havana so when Jamestown is founded all of those colonists understood a world in which Africans were the primary labor force for producing wealth for Europe I think it's important to understand the British or not innovating when they settle Jamestown they're trying to catch up American historians sometimes treat the emergence of slavery as a mystery right all some people how did all these Africans get here the real mystery would have been if slavery had not developed in Virginia a brutal equation ruled the new world black equal slave and to fulfill their hunger for slaves the British turned to the place that many of Europeans had turned already Africa Sierra Leon was once a major hub for the slave trade more than 300,000 people were taken from here and shipped to the new world in bondage but the first slave traders in this place weren't Europeans they were other black Africans [Music] Africans practice slavery long before they ever saw white person all across this continent slaves were part of a system based not on Race but on ethnic difference and brute power a system involving an enormous array of monarchs merchants and mercenaries African kingdoms were at war with one another war was a theme in African Act Europe as well for many many years and so as a part of these wars as a result of these Wars people were taken hostage and made into [Music] slaves I've come to Port Loco a Rivertown in Sierra Leon and the long-standing home of the T people for centuries the T here collected captives who had been taken in war they tied them packed them into small boats and sailed them Downstream where they were sold to Europeans for [Music] profit we sometimes romanticize Africa we think that Africa was idealic until the white man came but there were deep tensions between ethnic groups here black Africans didn't necessarily feel the bonds of skin color any more strongly than say white Europeans did slavery was ongoing before the Europeans came it was just a common business they come here in this W here is the The Landing part for the boat who were the slave Traders the slave Traders were great warriors strong men Chiefs they do this business a lot of misery loaded on these boats yes but our people we are not thinking about mus it was a lucrative business [Applause] mham Gates I was surprised to find out that in Port Loco today there are still many families whose ancestors profited from the trade and some of them were willing to tell me about it good speak from your heart did any of you receive wealth inherited from the slave trade 500 500 my God so he was very rich yes our people we are rich and would Chiefs wage war just to get slaves oh yes in America we think black men were selling black people to the white man but when you see it do you see it as T were buying Loco mende were buying T Etc is there a difference well where all black people black only B it's true black people are black we don't speak the same language I don't like what you like my name you know we don't just live in harmony do some find it difficult to face the crucial role of Africans in the slave trade is now well documented historians estimate that the overwhelming majority of the slaves shipped to the new world were captured and sold by African kingdoms but Africans did not invent slavery it existed everywhere dating back to the most ancient civilizations norded Africans envisioned slavery as something that would be passed on from one generation to the next something based exclusively on Race that was a European Innovation Europeans had actually developed an idea over several centuries that they should not enslave each other they could kill each other torture each other fight each other in Wars but Europeans did not enslave other Europeans because Christians did not enslave other Christians the great advantage of Africans is that they were outside the European community and so it was possible to use race as a way of providing a marker of who's enslavable and who's not sailing in ships of radical new design armed with new weapons and new technologies Europeans transformed slavery into a business far larger and far cruler than anything the Africans had ever done of course it didn't happen overnight the dehumanization of an entire race was a process requiring many steps one occurred here this beautiful island shrouded in fog is home to what was once a fortress built by the British in the 1670s out there is the mouth of the PCO Creek African middleman used to bring their slaves and goods down the putco creek through the mouth of the putl creek out there all the way to this Beach here so they came right through that Gap right there they would bring them here they March them straight up there and up this hill onto the Trea in area though its walls have long crumbled I could still get a sense of how this place once worked this was the main entrance into the for it had a double folding door with a little room patch on top British officers lived here in a lavish two-story mansion that's a fireplace a fake fireplace because there is no flu this is the tropics we you don't need a fire in the tropics but it was an attempt by the slave traders that lived here at elegant a little Touch of Home a little Touch of Home how many men the British enjoyed parties here even a small Golf Course slaves meanwhile were hurted like cattle in here is the Women's and Children's slavey they were branded then held in for shipment to the new world so the men were over there and the women and children were right here so they could hear each other's cries definitely they could have had each other's cries and they could not help each other in fact let me show you the main slave yard it's right through these Doors by the time they got here we very terrified and then they were examined like their eyes teeth and then when the slaves were taken out to be put on board the slave ships they were burning with the letter s on their left breast to denote that they from from Sierra Leon this place was not unusual there were dozens of forts like this up and down the African Coast we're not even sure exactly how many slaves passed through this island 50,000 at least we know the names of a handful and in the stories of a precious few in 1756 a British ship named the hair set sail for Charleston carrying 80 African slaves one of them was a 10-year-old girl we don't know where she was from we don't know her parents' names but we do know the name that her master gave her [Music] Priscilla Priscilla was at the start of a journey that would change her life forever the dreaded Middle Passage the entire experience is so horrific and so just brutalizing in ways that are just unimaginable for contemporary audience you have public floggings you have decapitation being immersed in your own bodily excrement it is complete lost of control over your life in every way possible think about a a eight a 9 a 10y old it is something that you're never going to forget and it's going to be etched in your memory women on the ship even girls as young as Priscilla faced an added danger they were completely at the mercy of the male crew women were considered to be available pre at any given moment for the entire ship crew throughout the passage so some women would commit suicide and some women did decide that I don't want to bring a child into this world so they inserted some sort of piece of wood or nail or something to you know cause violence upon their body and and you also find that some women would actually die from from these these attempts Priscilla spent 10 weeks on the ship she saw 13 of her fellow Africans die along the way their corpses thrown into the ocean death was so common on slave ships that sharks followed in their wake feasting on the dead bodies as the ship Drew close to shore the slaves were rubbed with a mixture of gunpowder in oil to make them look healthier hiding the wounds from their beadings and chains then prisilla stepped into a new world Charleston South Carolina this was once the center of the slave trade in the 13 colonies over 40% of all the slaves who entered our country came through this city in Priscilla's time South Carolina had more black slaves than white citizens in fact it was called negro country slave auctions were held on the streets of Charleston almost every day Priscilla was bought at one of these auctions by a rice planter named Elias [Music] ball we're on the way to the the ball Plantation which consisted of 1 half of [ __ ] Tea Plantation and about 25 African-American slaves Edward ball is the fifth great grandson of the man who purchased Priscilla he's brought me to the land where his family ran rice plantations for almost two centuries landlord with a thousand acres so this would have been maybe one little road running through it yeah the rice fields were off the river ever they were right around here ball told me he had spent years wrestling with his family's past Priscilla is just one of 4,000 people that they owned my dad used to talk about the plantations and Elias ball and all of the the prosperity that our family had lived through uh but he never talked about the slaves he said there are five things we don't talk about in the ball family religion sex death money and the Negroes Priscilla arrived here in July 1756 she was 10 she came as an orphan MH no parents no language no home this was her inter uction to the rest of her [Music] life Priscilla's New Life centered around this house and the white family that owned it though a ruined today the ball Plantation was once thriving thanks to the labor of its slaves the second Elias who bought Priscilla brought six children none of them older than 10 he liked buying children in fact he wrote a little memoir in which he said do two things with your money buy land and buy Young slaves H why why better long-term investment the white folks lived here the black folks lived about a quar mile away the rice fields were about half a mile down that road and that's where all the work of producing the money took place rice that's why Priscilla was here rice fields like these were making a fortune for slave owners don't let their beauty fool you these places were death traps the swamp ground was covered with snakes the tropical air was filled with malarial mosquitoes a third of South Carolina's slaves died within a year of their arrival and nearly 2third of all children were dead before they turned 16 but Priscilla beat the odds she and her family survived the balls were fanatical about keeping records They had books that listed the birthdays of all the slave Children books that listed the deaths of all the slave adults and all of this stuff is collected in an archive of about 10,000 Pages my God Edward B spent 3 years pouring over his family's records here in the South Carolina historical society Hampshire Gambia ditto ditto ditto all of these men and women from Gambia London ball was trying to piece together the stories of his family slaves Jack for most he found no story at all they survived only his names on a page Christmas people consumed by the brutality of slavery Samson there was an ordinance where if you ran away and you were caught you had to have two toes amputated if you ran away again and you were caught you had to have your ears amputated and if you ran away a third time the punishment was castration oh man law of the land they were not joking they were not getting around yeah as ball scanned page after page he began to see one name repeated Priscilla's 10 years old when she comes to cuming te Plantation and 10 years later she's having her own children monimia Priscilla's daughter was born and monimia becomes the matriarch and her grandchildren have children ball was able to trace Priscilla's family tree down Generations stretching from the 1750s all the way to today for an African-American this is extraordinarily rare now how are you related to braila she is my great great great great great grandmother through your mother's my father my father's so your father this is tomin polite she and her husband Antoine are carrying on a family line that began in Sierra Leon more than 20 50 years ago I was 19 years old when I first found out it really hit me like oh my gosh you know this was my fifth grandmother grandmother yeah but she had to be tough she had to be she had to be I got some of that from her I I was going Tomlin is remarkably lucky she actually knows the name of her original African ancestor I don't know anyone else who could do this for nearly all African-Americans including me our original ancestors will remain forever Anonymous and invisible this was not an accident removing people from genealogy is very important to making a slave so if I only call you by your first name and never by a family name I'm indicating to everybody right that you have no family right you're just Jimmy you're just Sam you're just Sarah right so they'll occupy a station that everybody will publicly recognize is at the lowest rung of society Masters worked methodically to erase the identities of their slaves so that they would be more productive and these tactics were quite effective slaves built this country [Music] they built roads and bridges factories and Farms towns and cities but they built something else as well something all their own a culture as much as slave masters tried to control the worlds of their slaves they were vastly unsuccessful there was a persistence in history and culture and names that went across the Atlantic despite the best efforts of Europeans we tend to assume that the slave is a cipher right because that's ideology that's the ideology of slavery that the slave is simply an extension of the Master's will that's the plan that's the idea but that's not really what you can ever do to a human being human beings always find a way to assert their own prerogatives so black people create new kinds of cultural patterns that didn't obtain in Africa that weren't those of the whites but were something new in the Amer Amer this Garden signifies crops that enslaved African-Americans would have grown would have been one of the most enduring expressions of any culture is food even today we can try to access the world of our ancestors by tasting it afrian what do we have here Michael well you have a late 18th early 19th century Feast without the ochra just for you all right Michael Twitty is a food histori we have kala conri which are basically black ey peers from New Orleans and then a lot of people in this region had three salt herrings a week he's cooked me an 18th century meal to show how slaves from different parts of Africa crafted a distinct africanamerican Cuisine so you get a taste Harmony or mush Ash cakes H cakes Etc would have been the staple of your diet me some hot gum oh you got to have that good cook man thank you sir this came out of my garden yesterday afternoon wow from Spartanburg South Carolina but all those recipes there straight out of history books people are great mhm when in the history of humankind has an enslaved people revolutionized the way the people who enslaved them ate drank believed the way Africans did and the Americas that's sorghum this is the first time I've ever seen you see it looks just like corn Twitty has traced the roots of food that connect Africa the Caribbean and the Americas in a vast black Atlantic culture a culture the slaves even propagated among their white Masters it amazed me one reference was one of the former governors of Virginia his wife said that no one bakes a ham better than a big fat negro Mammy oh really and you think about this the ham ham is a is a food was not invented in Africa no but somehow we got our hands on the sugar cane and I answer say black aied it we black aied it we took we took everything and made it like made it better and made it made it more Soulful if you will let's put a little pineapple cherries on there put Maple syr brown sugar now you know maple syrup we don't do Maple excuse me Brown su su BR sugar it's a calization process so while the okra soup and the black ey peas and hoop and John and the red rice and jambal and gumbo blah blah blah is going to the Master's house mhm those cooks are bringing European Western dishes into the slave quarter the flow is going both ways the flow is going both ways and what we have to recognize is everybody puts their stamp on it food was not the only thing flowing throughout the Atlantic world so were ideas ideas about music dance religion but especially ideas about Freedom even if the Masters wished otherwise black people knew they were people whether whites thought it or not they knew they were people and so if you hear words about Liberty and and freedom things that they wanted of course they would think it would apply to them St Augustine Florida this is the oldest city in the United States built by the Spanish in the 1560s and held by Spain almost continuously until 1821 this beautiful place has special meaning for African-Americans because as slavery's grip tightened in the British colonies Spain declared that runaway slaves could come here and be free why politics Colonial Spain was locked in a ferocious rivalry with Colonial England so they welcomed any fugitive slaves who would convert to Catholicism swear loyalty to the Spanish crown and serve in the colonial militia suddenly slaves in the British colonies simply had to make it across the St Mary's River into Spanish Florida and they would be free they knew the geopolitics of the region that the English and the Spaniards were enemies enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of thing and we often find that they get their information from the Indian groups who have gone back and forth so they then say Hey you black people you get on the boat you get down a place called St Augustine you'll be cool you'll be free well they wouldn't have known that but they' have known where St Augustine was and they would have known the Spaniards and the English were at War M that the Spaniards didn't like the English being there and they took their lives in their hands they get in a boat and they make it soon there were so many black people in St Augustine that the Spanish built them their own town town called Fort MOS just a few miles to the north nothing remains of Fort MOS it is sunk entirely into the swamps of the Atlantic coast but this was the first all black settlement in what would become the United States an outpost of freedom in a slave land I'm trying to imagine what it must have felt like to arrive here after traveling through swamps across rivers and through the Wilderness finally gaining your freedom at Fort mosay slavery breeds dreams of freedom in every human breast African-American culture is full of references to the day of Jubilee to making it to the promised land well for African slaves Fort mosay was the promised land and Crossing St Mary's River well that was like crossing the river Jordan so many slaves tried to run here that the British started executing them in public to staunch the flow but even that couldn't stop [Music] them 300 mil north of Fort MOS just outside of Charleston runs the Stono River when word of the fort reached this place it inspired one of the biggest slave revolts in the history of the British colonies it all started right here the site of what was once a general store called Hutchinson's Sunday morning September 9th 1739 h store had been looted its guns and ammunition had been stolen two shopkeepers lay dead their severed heads lying on the steps of the store plantations on either side of the river were burning an army was on the move an African [Music] Army they were headed for Fort Mosaic they set out before Dawn a a group of roughly 20 men their tactics were simple they surrounded plantations then burned them to the ground the ring leaders came from the kingdom of Congo a powerful African State some had military training and they had a plan slaves marched over to ponpon road which was a road that if you took it South it would take you down into Georgia down into Savannah and ultimately all the way down to [Music] Florida they were beating drums now the beating of the drums is terribly important because that shows us that they were attempting to draw other Africans into their midst by afternoon the rebel Army had grown to nearly 100 and they kept moving south along what today is this highway which still leads from South Carolina to Florida but they didn't make it just 20 M outside of Charleston an armed militia caught up with them in a clearing in these Woods the survivors faced a gruesome fate a number of the people who were were captured they'd be beheaded beheaded they they would be beheaded by the militia men and as was a usual practice during the time period their severed heads were placed on top of posts along the highway so right along here yes we would have seen the heads yes of these Rebels yes that's right and that was meant to instill fear and to teach a lesson to all who observe to try to uh discourage people from from from rebelling this must have been the Planter's worst nightmare it was absolutely worse than the worst nightmare they could imagine that these Congo Africans knew anything about guns and ammunition that's right that's right that's right absolutely right this was the worst Insurrection to occur in 18th century British Colonial North America in the wake of the Rebellion South Carolina imposed harsh new slave laws they banned drumming and literacy and set drastic punishments on runaways but no laws ever could force the slaves to accept their Fates slaves ploted volts all over the Atlantic World in Jamaica and Virginia Barbados in Georgia even in New York City most of them failed but that didn't stop the slaves from trying they were always searching for a chance at freedom and as time passed Freedom seemed to be Drawing Near the American Revolution brought immense hope to the slaves they heard the Patriots talk of Liberty and equality and it ignited their own dreams but for the most part those dreams were ignored even the greatest champion of Freedom was hesitant to extend it to black [Music] people this is Mount Vernon George Washington's estate for so many of us an icon of American independence but for more than 100 African-Americans this was a plantation where from sun up to sun down they toiled as [Music] slaves the father of our country was also one of its largest slave owners slaves tended his fields and watched over his every need one worked in these Stables a groomsman named Harry Washington Harry heard the talk around Mount Vernon about Liberty and Independence but he sensed it wasn't meant for slaves so like many black people he decided to take his chances with the British once the war comes there are enslaved men and women saying hey we'd love to help you out if you would help help us out we'd be happy to help you suppress this rebellion in Massachusetts if you will grant our freedom in return Harry joined a loyalist regiment called the black pioneers and he wasn't the only one roughly 20,000 slaves ran away to the British lines far more than joined the Patriot cause there were a lot of Harry Washingtons in the British Army in fact it's probably fair to say that especially in the southern colonies the British army effort could not have been as successful as it was for a time without the assistance of former slaves unfortunately most of these black loyalists were ravaged by the war many of them died many of them contracted small poox they met terrible Fates many of them but you can understand why they opted for it that gives you a measure of what slavery was like that people would take that kind of risk Harry Washington was one of the lucky few in the waning days of the War the British put him on a ship and evacuated him to Canada the British definitely wanted to use the blacks to help them in their struggle against the colonist but they did not want to had no intention of actually making them you know equal uh to them and bringing them and making them part of British Society so dropped them off their and let them make their way Harry didn't stay long in Canada he and his fellow black loyalists were barred from voting and exploited by local whites so when the British set up a colony for former slaves back in Sierra Leon Harry was among the first to immigrate he ended up near here one of the very few slaves who ever made made it back to Africa but Harry didn't necessarily want to go back to Africa you know what har he wanted he wanted what his old Master George wanted Freedom the right to do as he pleased unfortunately he did not find it here the British government in Sierra Leon tried to limit the property rights of the black settlers Harry fought back and and was banished for insubordination after that he [Music] disappeared Harry was a rebel to the end and it's probably best that he turned his back on America because he wouldn't have liked what America [Music] became the founding fathers built a country committed to slavery the site of Washington DC was chosen as our capital in order to appease southern slave owners and why not they held an enormous amount of power none of it exists without slavery there are no settlements there is no 13 colonies without slavery there is no United States without slavery there's no Independence Movement without slavery the whole thing is built upon slavery that's why they didn't abolish it slavery was part of American society from the very beginning when the Declaration of Independence was signed slavery was legal in each of the 13 colonies and take this building here our magnificent Capital slaves quarried and cut its oldest Stones its innermost bricks were laid by slaves you see the statue of the Native American on top symbol of Freedom one of the people who cast it was a slave but even if the ideals of the American Revolution were perverted by slavery the ideals themselves endured they lingered in the hearts of black people and they spread throughout the Atlantic [Music] World sand deang at the close of the American Revolution this was a French colony it was the world's largest producer of coffee and sugar and it had the largest concentration of slaves in the Western Hemisphere almost twice as many Africans were brought here as were brought to the entire United States in essence this was the epicenter of slavery in the new world but in August of 1791 this colony began to collapse as the slaves rose up against their hated [Music] Masters inspired by the same ideals as the American Patriots they fought off European armies and founded a new nation Haiti the world's first black Republic never before in history had slaves overthrown their masters the haian revolution becomes this great Beacon of Hope right for what's possible another world is possible slavery can end how in the world would a slave completely illiterate stuck on a plantation hear about the Haitian revolution well illiterate doesn't mean ignorant right that's the first thing we have to understand which is that news is traveling all around aboard ships right so Sailors they're spreading news about what's going on and then the slaves here ideas about freedom and equality and Liberty that are incredibly important to black people and so they raised hopes to an extremely high level unfortunately here in the United States those hopes were dashed African-Americans had to wait almost a century for their freedom but even so Haiti had a profound impact for Generation after generation Haiti was a source of immense Pride a free black nation in a world that thought black people were fit only to be slaves that Pride can still be seen today if you know where to look these men are part of a celebration that stretches back almost two centuries a celebration of our living connection to Haiti they get up before Dawn on marra morning and parade through New Orleans waking the city to celebrate with a Haitian vodun tradition enjoy life I can dig that know you might you might not wake up tomorrow that's right so they make sure that everybody wake up on Mighty day so if they don't wake up they dead if they don't wake up dead that's the message if you don't to wake up you dead so that's their job to wake everybody up and make sure that you enjoy they've been doing this since 1819 soon after a group of Haitian refugees came to New Orleans via Cuba and started the tradition it's one of the oldest parts of martig and a living reminder that African-American history isn't limited to the story of the United States it's part of a much wider history the history of a people scattered like sand throughout the Atlantic world the way we think of history is in National terms so US history is US history and it's discreet from Jamaican History or haian history or British history or French history and it turns out that National History really emerges in these Atlantic cross currents right that involve Africa the Caribbean South America Europe and North America [Music] African-American culture was born in the mixing of people and ideas from all over the Atlantic World mixing made us strong it gave us hope it sustained [Music] us less than a mile from the Marty GR parades runs the mighty Mississippi River in the decades after the Haitian revolution this River became the sight and symbol of a new phase in American slavery the violent rise of the Deep South but the memory of Haiti was never forgotten it was mixed into the fabric of African-American culture it became an inspiration for countless numbers of black people who darare to dream of their freedom they would need that inspiration in the harsh and Dreadful years to [Music] come next time on the African-Americans the struggle for Freedom continues the Underground Railroad makes me want to claim slaves as my ancestors here's the coverage that Sam hid in my God it's just so tiny the African-Americans many rivers to cross the African-American story continues online at pbs.org/manyrivers with streaming video and more the African-Americans many rivers to cross is available on DVD for $34.99 the companion book is also available for $34.95 plus shipping to order call 1 1800 3361 917 [Music]

Transcript for:Exploring African-American History Journey

Transcript for:
Exploring African-American History Journey