Troy Maxon, a strong, hard man who has learned how to be Black and proud in the 1950's, finds the changing spirit of the 1960's hard to deal with.

When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever." The story tells of a Black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances...

Investigates the true story of the Port Chicago Navy base, which in World War II was used as a bomb-loading base for the Navy in the Pacific. Segregation was in effect, and every serviceman loading the bombs was black. When an explosion due to unsafe working conditions killed over three hundred servicemen, fifty black sailors refused to return to work until the unsafe conditions were dealt with, launching an early event in the civil rights movement....

"Eve Mann arrives in Ideal, Georgia, in 1972 looking for answers about the mother who died giving her life. A mother named Mercy. A mother who for all of Eve's twenty-two years has been a mystery and a quest. Eve's search for her mother, and the father she never knew, is a mission to discover her identity, her name, her people, and her home. Eve's questions and longing launch a multigenerational story that sprawls back to the turn of the twentieth...

Awakenings (1954-1956) : Covers two events that helped to focus the nation's attention on the rights of black Americans: the 1955 lynching in Mississippi of 14-year-old Emmett Till and the 1955-56 Montgomery, Ala. boycott. Also shows southern race relations at mid-century and witnesses the awakening of individuals to their own courage and power. Fighting back (1957-1962) : Covers stories detailing the confrontation between state and federal governments...

Power! (1966-1968) : Across America, the call for "Black Power" mobilizes communities for change in strikingly different ways as told through the perspectives of Black Panther Party members, teachers, and politicians. -- container. Promised land (1967-1968) : Hear leaders and activists reflect on Martin Luther Kings, Jr's crusade to overcome the fragmenting civil rights movement. -- container.

Ain't scared of your jails (1960-1961) : Covers lunch counter sit-ins and their impact on the Kennedy and Nixon presidential race of 1960, the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and the freedom rides of 1961. No easy walk (1961-1963) : Visits the cities where the tactics of nonviolent protest met both success and failure. Also covers the high point of those emotional times, the 1963 March on Washington, and the violence...