"An essential, surprising journey through the history, rituals, and landscapes of the American South -- and a revelatory argument for why you must understand the South in order to understand America." -- Provided by publisher.

Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this **Peabody Award**-winning documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek nomination for the highest office in the land. Shunned by the political establishment and the media, this longtime champion of marginalized Americans asked for support from people of color, women, gays, and young people newly...

The lives, times and music of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Ethel Waters and other legendary women illustrate how the blues became a vital part of American culture. Wild Women Don't Have the Blues shows how the blues were born out of the economic and social transformation of African American life early in this century. It recaptures the lives and times of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters and the other legendary women...

Chart the ways in which the bloodiest battle in U.S. history, and the ensuing peace, forever changed a nation. African Americans found ways to push for change. Women's suffrage gained converts, and America stepped onto the world stage.

The current angry debates around affirmative action too often ignore their historical roots: how prior to government intervention African Americans were confined to the most back-breaking, dangerous and low paid work. Struggles in Steel documents the shameful history of discrimination against black workers and one heroic campaign where they won equality on the job. The film is the result of a unique collaboration. Black steelworker Ray Henderson was...

"Inspired by true events that rocked the nation, a profoundly moving novel about a black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible wrong done to her patients, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench. Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help...

World War I was sparked by nationalism and a complex web of political and military alliances. Soldiers in Europe fought the first modern war as industrial-age ingenuity sparked terror in the guise of warplanes, flamethrowers and chemical weapons. On the U.S. home front, women assumed new roles, the suffrage movement gained steam, and African Americans migrated to fill jobs in the North. Other changes were less positive, as racial tensions and the...

Look first at the right to vote in the United States, including the history of women's suffrage, African-American suffrage, and suffrage for 18-year-olds. Study voter turnout in elections, and how we can account for consistently low voter turnout. Consider what determines a person's likelihood to vote, the gender gap in voting, and the need of candidates to be appealing to median voters.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave...

Two friends, Susan B. Anthoy and Frederick Douglass, get together for tea and conversation. They recount their similar stories fighting to win rights for women and African Americans.