Africans in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery

The Africans in America website is a companion to “Africans in America,” a six-hour public television series.

The website chronicles the history of racial slavery in the United States — from the start of the Atlantic slave trade in the 16th century to the end of the American Civil War in 1865 — and explores 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. “Africans in America” examines the economic and intellectual foundations of slavery in America and the global economy that prospered from it. And it reveals how the presence of African people and their struggle for freedom transformed America.