Making Black America

Despite the gains of legal desegregation, hour four reveals how Black political and cultural movements - from Black Power to Black Twitter - provide a safe space to debate, organize and celebrate.

To survive economic disaster, hour three shows how African Americans relied on informal economies, grassroots organizations and cultural innovations behind the color line to dismantle the oppressive realities of Jim Crow.

This episode looks at the idea of the “Black Metropolis” – a Black city within a larger city – and explores the black businesses, churches and entertainment of Harlem.

As Jim Crow laws went into effect, African Americans built a “life behind the veil” to meet their educational, economic, political, and cultural needs. Hour two explores the genesis of these organizations and networks that paved the way for Black life to flourish. Host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. highlights the progress Black people made during the early 20th Century.

Madame CJ Walker's daughter, A’Lelia Walker, made an astounding impact building Black community and Langston Hughes crowned her “the joy goddess of Harlem’s 1920s.”

Since 1837, more than 100 HBCUs have been founded in the United States – most in the half century following the Civil War.

"Making Black America" explores how Annie Malone and CJ Walker built their beauty empires. Both women envisioned their businesses as more than money-making enterprises, and also operated as a vehicle to create economic opportunity for Black women and a home for culture and community.

The first episode of "Making Black America" includes an exploration of the evolution of Black Literature, including a discussion on poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. She influenced her fellow Black writers to expand the subjects of their work to include universal feelings, such as love, loss, aspiration, to showcase the Black experience beyond oppression by White people.

"A love that allows for grace... creating spaces for one to be their whole self, all the time."
"Radical love... radical empathy."
-- These are some of the ways "Making Black America" panelists respond when Henry Louis Gates, Jr. asks, "What is Black love?"

Making Black America: Through the Grapevine is a four-part series hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., that chronicles the vast social networks and organizations created by and for Black people -beyond the reach of the “White gaze.” Professor Gates sits with noted scholars, politicians, cultural leaders, and old friends to discuss this world behind the color line and what it looks like today.