Africans in America Interviews

Broadcast in October 1998, this six-hour, four part series explored the central paradox that is at the heart of the American story: a democracy that declared all men equal but enslaved and oppressed one people to provide independence and prosperity to another. The series opens in the 16th century on Africa's Gold Coast with the European and African trade, and ends on the eve of the American Civil War in 1861. Africans in America examined the economic and intellectual foundations of slavery in America and the global economy that prospered from it. The series revealed how the presence of African people and their struggle for freedom transformed America.

The interviews offer an in-depth examination of the social, economic, and intellectual foundations of slavery and the ways in which African people changed the United States. Guests include descendants of enslaved people and slave-owners, authors, professors, historians, and statesmen, including Colin Powell, retired four-star general and the first African American on the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Karen Hughes White, a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and founder of the Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County; Catherine Acholonu, a Nigerian author and Associate Professor of English Literature, Awuku College of Education; and Jeffrey Leath, Pastor of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, Philadelphia. Topics covered include Christianity and English Protestantism, George Washington, Toussaint Louverture, the American Revolution, Nat Turner's Rebellion, gender conventions, racism, violence, economics, family, and enslavement.

53 original, full-length interviews comprising more than 55 hours shot for Africans in America are available in this collection.