Matilda Joslyn Gage
Matilda Joslyn Gage cofounded the National Woman Suffrage Association with Susan B. Anthony. Matilda’s daughter, Maud Gage married L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Trailer | American Oz
By 1900, when The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published, L. Frank Baum was 44 years old and had spent much of his life in restless pursuit of success.
L. Frank Baum
L. Frank Baum was an American actor, businessman and writer. He published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900 that became a best-seller, a theater smash hit and a film classic.
Extended Trailer | American Oz
Explore the life and times of author L. Frank Baum, the creator of one of the most beloved, enduring and classic American narratives. By 1900, when The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published, Baum was 44 years old and had spent much of his life in restless pursuit of success.
The War at Home
Booker T. Spicely was a Black soldier shot by a bus driver in 1944 for resisting his order to move to the back of the bus in Durham, N.C.
Chapter 1 | The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind.
Judge Julius Waties Waring
Julius Waties Waring presided over the trial of a white police chief who brutally beat and blinded Black soldier Isaac Woodard in 1946. He became an unexpected civil rights champion with rulings on several pivotal cases in the 1940s.
Isaac Woodard
Isaac Woodard entered the military in 1942 and served in the 429th Port Battalion as a longshoreman. After the war, he was honorably discharged on February 12, 1946 and headed home.
Extended Trailer | Blinding of Isaac Woodard
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind.
Trailer | Blinding of Isaac Woodard | American Experience
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind.
The Voice of Marian Anderson
In 1925, 28-year-old Marian Anderson won a New York Philharmonic competition that drew national
attention. But most signing opportunities in the U.S. remained closed to Anderson because she was Black.
Extended Trailer | Voice of Freedom | American Experience
Hailed as a voice that “comes around once in a hundred years” by maestros in Europe and widely celebrated by both white and black audiences at home, Marian Anderson's fame hadn’t been enough to spare her from the indignities and outright violence of racism and segregation.
Walter F. White
In 1930, Walter White took over as executive secretary of the NAACP. When the Daughters of the American Revolution barred Marian Anderson from singing at Constitution Hall. White had an inspiration that transcended the whole debate: a free, outdoor concert on the Lincoln Memorial steps.
Chapter 1 | Voice of Freedom
On Easter Sunday, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stepped up to a microphone in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Inscribed on the walls of the monument behind her were the words “all men are created equal.”
Trailer | Voice of Freedom | American Experience
Barred from performing in Constitution Hall because of her race, Marian Anderson would sing for the American people in the open air.
Trailer | Goin’ Back to T-Town | American Experience
The story of Greenwood, an extraordinary Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that prospered during the 1920s and 30s despite rampant and hostile segregation. Torn apart in 1921 by one of the worst racially-motivated massacres in the nation’s history, the neighborhood rose from the ashes.
Chapter 1 | Goin' Back To T-Town
The story of Greenwood, an extraordinary Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that prospered during the 1920s and 30s despite rampant and hostile segregation.
Greenwood
In the early 1900s, a group of black businessmen purchased land in the northeast section of Tulsa, Oklahoma. They called their community Greenwood.
Extended Trailer | The Codebreaker | American Experience
The Codebreaker reveals the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst whose painstaking work to decode thousands of messages for the U.S. government would send infamous gangsters to prison in the 1920s and bring down a massive, near-invisible Nazi spy ring in WWII.
Elizebeth Friedman: Cryptanalyst Pioneer
Elizebeth Smith Friedman was an American codebreaker from Indiana. During Prohibition, her decrypts and testimony brought down international drug rings and liquor smugglers. Friedman’s codebreaking in WWII enabled the US to win the “Battle of the Atlantic” and smash Nazi spy rings.
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