Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise Season 1 Episodes

Episode 1

Out of the Shadows

Tue, Nov 15, 201655 mins

The series begins at a turning point in American history: the Selma marches and Watts riots that marked a new phase in the black struggle. Gates explores the rising call for Black Power, redefining American culture, politics, and society.

Episode 2

Move on Up

55 mins

The second hour dramatizes the diverging paths for African Americans and outbursts of white backlash that emerged in the 1970s and early '80s. Gates explores how African Americans found new sources of hope from the creation of hip-hop.

Episode 3

Keep Your Head Up

56 mins

The third hour reveals profound fissures within the country-and within black America-that deepened through the 1980s and '90s, just as African Americans were becoming more visible than ever.

Episode 4

And Still I Rise

The final episode deals with Hurricane Katrina and the response to it, including how slow the federal government was to respond to a crisis with mostly African-American victims and how white police and citizens in New Orleans suburbs used guns to physically block African-American refugees from Katrina from entering their cities. It also covers the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American U.S. President and the rise of the "Black Lives Matter" movement in response to police shootings of unarmed African-Americans like Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Among the interviewees is Robert Day, former drug dealer and currently co-head of the Fortune Society, a group aimed at helping young Black prisoners re-enter society and find legitimate work, who talks about the continued criminalization of young Black men, who make up 50 percent of U.S. prison inmates even though they're only 6 percent of the U.S. population.