DescriptionEssie Mae Washington-Williams is the daughter of the late Senator Strom Thurmond and one of his family's African-American maids. Thurmond, once this country's leading voice for racial segregation, refused to acknowledge her publicly but had a strong ongoing private relationship with her. Mrs. Washington-Williams discusses this relationship and the contradiction between the father she knew and his public image in this visit with Dr. Gail Saltz at the 92nd Street Y. This event took place on January 30, 2006.
DescriptionIn 1955, Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress, had no idea she was changing history when, fed up and tired, she refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a bus in segregated Alabama. Today, she is immortalized for the defiance that sent her to jail and triggered a bus boycott that catapulted Martin Luther King, Jr. into the national spotlight. Who was she, before and after her historic act, and how did that act sound the death knell for Jim Crow? Historian Douglas Brinkley brings mid-20th century America alive in this brilliant examination of a celebrated heroine in the context of her life and tumultuous times. Here is the quiet dignity, hope, courage, and humor that have made this every-woman a living legend.
DescriptionIt is 1945 in Mississippi's cotton country, and Missy Parker is seven years old, strong willed, and very precocious. Her best friend, Junior Washington, lives across Cat Lake from the Parker's plantation. Missy, her big brother, Bobby, and Junior are inseparable. However, the Parkers and the Washingtons are of differing faiths and different races. Against the background of the dynamic relationships between these rich characters, an enthralling struggle between good and evil emerges when a demon targets Missy and creates havoc throughout her family and community. This first book in The Black or White Chronicles relates the sweeping saga of a young girl's battle with one of hell's minions determined to destroy her and those closest to her.
DescriptionFor much of the 20th century, African-Americans endured a legal system in the American South that was calculated to segregate and humiliate them. Producers/Correspondents: Stephen Smith, Kate Ellis, and Sasha Aslanian Project Directors: Misha Quill, Nancy Fushan, and Matt Weiland Production Assistance: Stephanie Curtis, Tina Tennessen, Rachel Miller, Seth Lind Editor: Deborah George Executive Producer: Bill Buzenberg Major funding for American RadioWorks. is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Funding for Remembering Jim Crow was provided in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. American RadioWorks is the documentary project of American Public Media.
DescriptionWriter John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) decided to perform an experiment in order to learn from the inside out how one race could withstand the second class citizenship imposed on it by another race. Through medication, he dyed his skin dark and left his family and home in Texas to find out. The setting is the Deep South in 1959. What began as scientific research ended up changing his life in every way imaginable. When he decided the real story was in his journals, he published them, and the storm that followed is now part of American history. As performed by Ray Childs, this first-ever recording of Black Like Me will leave each listener deeply affected. John Howard Griffin did the impossible to help bring the full effect of racism to the forefront of America's conscience.
