The NAACP and Its Architects

American Experience

History Series / 15 Seasons

American Experience, TV's most-watched history series, brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

Watch Latest: S37 E1

1h 52m / TV-14

Trailer | Change, Not Charity: The Americans with Disabilities Act

2m 24s

The dramatic story of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. The film highlights the determined people who literally put their bodies on the line to pass the legislation that changed the lives of all Americans.

Trailer | Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP

2m 15s

The story of civil rights hero Walter White — one of the most influential Black men in mid-century America and leader of the NAACP from 1929 to 1955, yet one of the least known figures in civil rights history.

Trailer | American Coup: Wilmington 1898

2m

American Coup: Wilmington 1898 tells the little-known story of a deadly race massacre and carefully orchestrated insurrection in North Carolina’s largest city in 1898. Stoking fears of “Negro Rule,” self-described white supremacists used intimidation and violence to destroy Black political and economic power and overthrow Wilmington’s democratically-elected, multi-racial government.

How the vice presidency went from pitiful to powerful

2m 33s

America’s first vice president, John Adams, called his job “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived.” But that would change dramatically over the next two and a half centuries.

Gerald Ford's First White House

1m 37s

When President Gerald Ford was inaugurated in 1974, the Nixons hadn’t had time to move out of the White House yet. So for ten days, the “White House” was an unassuming colonial home in suburban Alexandria, Virginia.

Trailer | The American Vice President

2m 3s

The American Vice President tells the little-known story of the second-highest office in the land, tracing its evolution from a constitutional afterthought to a position of political consequence. Focusing on the fraught period between 1963 and 1974, the film examines the passage and first uses of the 25th Amendment and offers a fresh perspective on succession in the executive branch.

Trailer | The Riot Report

2m 20s

When Black neighborhoods across America erupted in violence in the summer of 1967, President Johnson appointed a commission to find the cause for the unrest. Their findings offered an unvarnished assessment of American race relations.

Earthkeeping: Toxic Racism

4m 33s

Learn about the beginning of the environmental justice movement in this video segment adapted from Earthkeeping: Toxic Racism. Meet various experts and leaders who describe the issues of environmental racism and justice, and learn about the watershed event—the controversy over the location of a toxic landfill in Warren County, North Carolina—that brought the issues to national attention in the ear

Trailer | Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal

2m 34s

In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY discovered their neighborhood had been built on a former chemical waste dump. Housewives activated to create a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.

Trailer | The Cancer Detectives

1m 35s

The Cancer Detectives tells the untold story of the first-ever war on cancer and the coalition of people who fought tirelessly to save women from cervical cancer: a Greek immigrant, Dr. George Papanicolau; his intrepid wife, Mary; Japanese-born artist Hashime Murayama; Dr. Helen Dickens, an African American OBGYN in Philadelphia; and an entirely new class of female scientists.

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