A lot has happened since my last post. George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officers, protests against his killing are being carried out across the country (and around the globe), and many cities have imposed curfews.

We’re a nation in crisis, but there are 400 years of history behind this crisis. And not all of us were taught that history in school. This week, many fellow non-Black people on my Facebook feed have expressed a desire to learn about it. I need to learn more about it, too.

I’ve seen a spate of posts about books and articles white people can to read to better understand the history of racism in the United States. That’s a great thing. But some people have trouble reading that much material. Are there audiovisual things people can reference?

Yes! Marie Claire suggests Documentaries About Black History to Educate Yourself With.

There are podcasts that can help, too. I’ve talked about my love of the podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class in at least one previous post. Since I happen to know that podcast well, tonight I put together a list of episodes on African-American history. That doesn’t mean this is the One True History Podcast–just the one I know best and could put together a cheat sheet for in a few hours. I hope it helps someone!

Black American History Episodes of Stuff You Missed in History Class

This list is in roughly chronological order by when the events occurred. Starting with Bacon’s Rebellion may not seem intuitive, but it sets the context for the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.

All of the episode descriptions were taken from the podcast metadata.

 

• Bacon’s Rebellion, Part 1
  • For a long time Bacon’s Rebellion was primarily interpreted as a precursor to the Revolutionary War, with patriotic colonists rising up against the tyranny of the British colonial government. But there are a lot more moving parts than that. This first part sets the scene and establishes the context of the rebellion.
• Bacon’s Rebellion, Part 2
  • Last time, we talked about the many reasons Virginia colonists were frustrated by the 1670s, including the price of tobacco, taxation, and disparities between the richest colonists and everyone else. But another issue actually sparked the rebellion.
• They Were Her Property: An Interview with Stephanie Jones-Rogers
  • Holly was lucky enough to chat with historian Stephanie Jones-Rogers, author of “They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South,” which pieces together details that add new understanding of slavery in the U.S.
• Double Agent James Armistead and the American Revolution
  • James Armistead was a slave in Virginia, but got his master’s approval to enlist when the Revolutionary War came. Armistead worked as a spy, and his story is one of many free and enslaved African-Americans who fought in the Revolutionary War.
• Phillis Wheatley
  • Perceptions and interpretations of Phillis Wheatley’s life and work have shifted since the 18th century. This episode examines Wheatley’s published writing while enslaved, and how her place in the world of black literature rose, fell, and rose again.
• Sojourner Truth, Part 1 and Part 2
  • Sojourner Truth was an abolitionist and women’s rights activist in the 19th century. But because a speech most famously associated with Truth is a version rewritten by someone else, she’s commonly imagined as a different person from who she actually was.
• Frederick Douglass
  • Frederick Douglass was an orator, writer, statesman and social reformer. His early life shaped the truly remarkable advocate he became, and the two primary causes he campaigned for — the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage.
• Belinda Sutton’s Post-enslavement Petitions
  • After she became a free woman, Belinda Sutton successfully petitioned for compensation for her years of enslaved labor. This was one of many legal efforts of enslaved and formerly enslaved people to advocate for themselves in Massachusetts courts.
• John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
  • John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, set out to create an armed revolution of emancipated slaves. Instead, it became a tipping point leading to the U.S. Civil War.
• Leading the Charge – The Massachusetts 54th
  • A 1792 law prevented African Americans from taking up arms in the Civil War. As attitudes against blacks serving changed, black regiments were formed. But prejudices remained until the heroism of black soldiers won the attention of the nation.
• The Incredible Escape of Robert Smalls
  • Robert Smalls was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1839. He escaped from enslavement during the U.S. Civil War, in a particularly dramatic fashion.
• Robert Smalls: From Contraband to Congress
  • After his daring and impressive escape from slavery, Smalls was considered to be contraband, which was a term used for formerly enslaved people who joined the Union. But this was the beginning of an impressive career as a free man.
• U.S. Contraband Camps
  • When three escaped slaves showed up at a Union position during the U.S. Civil War, the decision of how to handle the situation fell to Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler. His actions led to a situation for which the government was simply not prepared.
• How the Underground Railroad Worked
  • The Underground Railroad may have saved as much as 100,000 slaves. Tune into to this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn how the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act and a secret network of abolitionists led to the creation of the Underground Railroad.
• Harriet Tubman & the Underground Railroad (Part 1)
  • Most people are familiar with her involvement with the Underground Railroad, but Harriet Tubman was also a spy for the Union during the Civil War, among many other things. Untangling the truth from the myth is the trickiest part of her story.
• Harriet Tubman, Union Spy (Part 2)
  • There was a whole lot more to Harriet Tubman’s life and work than her time as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. During the United States Civil War, she worked as a Union spy, eventually earning the nickname “General.”
• Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation with John B. King
  • Secretary of Education Dr. John B. King Jr. discusses the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which gave rebelling states 100 days to return to the Union or have their enslaved population freed during the U.S. Civil War.
• Mary Ann Shadd Cary
  • She was a black Canadian-American who became the first woman in North America to publish and edit a newspaper. She advocated against slavery, for better lives for free black people, and for women’s rights.
• Dred Scott v. Sandford, Part 1
  • Dred Scott v. Sandford is one of the most notorious Supreme Court cases of all time. It wasn’t just about Dred Scott. It was also about his wife Harriet and their daughters Eliza and Lizzy. This episode covers Dred and Harriet, how they met, and what their lives were like before petitioning for their freedom in 1846.
• Dred Scott v. Sandford, Part 2
  • When Dred Scott v. Sandford was decided in 1857, the court decision ruled that enslaved Africans and their descendants weren’t and could never be citizens of the United States, whether they were free or not. But before that, Scott and his family had been free by a jury in 1850.
• Elizabeth Jennings Graham
  • Today’s topic is a person who is sometimes called a 19th-century Rosa Parks. When Elizabeth boarded a horse-drawn streetcar in Manhattan in 1854, a chain of events began which became an important moment in the civil rights of New York’s black citizens.
• Edmonia Lewis
  • The American sculptor was a celebrated artist in her day, but she receded from the spotlight; her final years remained a mystery for quite some time. Her marble works are striking examples of the neoclassical style popular at the end of the 19th century.
• Ida B. Wells-Barnett
  • Ida B. Wells-Barnett connects to a lot of episodes in our archive. She fought against lynching for decades, at a time when it wasn’t common at all for a woman, especially a woman of color, to become such a prominent journalist and a speaker.
• Interview: Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso
  • Kali Nicole Gross joins Tracy to discuss a murder that took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1887. The details of the investigation and trial offer insight into the culture of the the post-Reconstruction era, particularly in regards to race.
• Plessy v. Ferguson
  • The ruling in this infamous U.S. Supreme Court case stated that segregation was legal as long as the separate facilities were equal. But most people are more familiar with the name of the case than with the actual events that transpired around it.
• Who Was the Real Lone Ranger?
  • The Lone Ranger has traditionally been portrayed by white actors, but many believe this character is based on a former slave named Bass Reeves.
• The Wilmington Coup of 1898, Part 1
  • Open racism and hotly contested elections led to a climate of unrest and white supremacist violence in late 19th-century Wilmington, North Carolina.
• The Wilmington Coup of 1898, Part 2
  • In 1898, a mob of armed white men enacted a violent plan against Wilmington, North Carolina’s black community and elected government.
• The Harlem Hellfighters and Henry Johnson
  • In WWI, a black U.S. Army unit became one of the most decorated of the war. When these soldiers returned home, they were greeted as heroes, but were still targets of segregation, discrimination and oppression.
• Red Summer, 1919
  • In the summer of 1919, a wave of racist violence played out in the U.S. In many ways, the violence of Red Summer was a response to (but NOT caused by) two earlier events: the Great Migration and the return of black soldiers who had fought in World War I.
• The Tulsa Race Riot and Black Wall Street
  • “Black Wall Street” was a nickname for Greenwood, a vibrant suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was destroyed in a race riot in 1921. And while Greenwood’s destruction was definitely the product of racial tensions, the event was much more one-sided.
• The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
  • The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the first African-American labor union to be recognized by the American Federation of Labor. What started as a campaign for more money and better treatment became an important force for social change.
• The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
  • The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is one of the modern world’s most infamous incidents of unethical medical research. The study’s researchers told its participants that they were being treated for syphilis, but in reality, they weren’t.
• A Brief History of Redlining, Part 1
  • Redlining is a word used to describe a lot of different patterns of economic discrimination. But during the Great Depression, real estate-related discrimination included systemized grading of neighborhoods based on the races that lived there.
• A Brief History of Redlining, Part 2
  • Part two of this discussion of redlining explores the language that assessors used when making color-coded maps of neighborhoods in segregated cities. These maps were used to determine whether mortgage lending in those neighborhoods was desirable.
• Marian Anderson
  • Today’s show returns to Marian Anderson. An acclaimed contralto, Marian Anderson was barred from singing in Constitution Hall because of her race. The concert she sang at the Lincoln Memorial instead influenced a young Martin Luther King Jr.
• How the Tuskegee Airmen Worked
  • The Tuskegee Airmen made up the first African American air squadron. Tune in to this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to learn more about desegregation in the American army and how the Tuskegee Airmen helped win World War II.
• 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion
  • The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was part of the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. The 6888th was the only battalion of black women from the U.S. to serve in Europe during World War II.
• Frankie Manning and the Lindy Hop, Part 1
  • Frankie Manning grew up loving dance, learning and practicing in ballrooms and private parties in New York. His innovations in creating new moves for the Lindy hop led him from dancing as a hobby to a career as a performer.
• Frankie Manning and the Lindy Hop, Part 2
  • Once Manning became a professional dancer and choreographer, his work took him all over the world. After WWII derailed his swing dancing, he had a hard time returning to a world where musical tastes had changed. Read the show notes here.
• The Port Chicago Disaster
  • This was the worst stateside disaster in the United States during World War II. Apart from being a horrific tragedy, the disaster itself and its aftermath were threaded through with racism and injustice.
• Was Satchel Paige the greatest pitcher in history?
  • Born in Alabama in 1906, Satchel Paige rose through the ranks to become one of the most popular baseball players in the Negro Leagues. Tune in as Sarah and Katie explore the career of one of baseball’s greatest pitchers.
• The Vanport Flood
  • On May 30, 1948, a flood destroyed Vanport, Oregon. What really makes the story more than a historical footnote is how it tied in to the racial makeup of both Portland and Oregon at the time.
• The Motherhood of Mamie Till-Mobley
  • The reason Emmett Till’s murder played such a consequential role in the Civil Rights movement is because of choices of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. For more than 45 years after his murder, she continually worked to make sure he did not die in vain.
• The Road to Brown v. Board
  • It would be next to impossible to have ever had a class on American history or the American Civil Rights Movement and not heard about Brown v. Board. But the case is much more complicated than just one child in one segregated school system.
• The Aftermath of Brown v. Board
  • Though the Brown v. Board ruling overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, it didn’t suddenly solve the segregation problem and end racism in the United States.
• Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Part 1
  • Anyone who has ever heard about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States is sure to know that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus. But that’s but a tiny sliver of her life story
• Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Part 2
  • Rosa’s arrest for breaking bus segregation laws catalyzed the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the keystones in the American Civil Rights Movement. It was widely covered in the national media, which brought more attention to the struggle for equal rights.
• The Lunch Counter Sit-Ins, Greensboro and Beyond
  • On Feb. 1, 1960, four students sat down at a segregated lunch counter at the F.W. Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. It started with just four of them, but others joined, and sit-ins were taking place around the U.S.
• Six Impossible Episodes: Other Ins
  • We’ve talked about sit-ins on the show before. This time, we’re looking at other -ins – direct action demonstrations and similar protests that have some similarities to the sit-in movement.
• Freedom Riders
  • The Freedom Rides were happening at about the same time as the sit-in movement of the 1960s that we talked about this week – and involved some of the same people. Previous hosts Sarah and Deblina did two episodes on the Freedom Rides in the U.S. in September of 2011, and we’re playing them both together.
• Loving v. Virginia, Part 1 and Part 2
  • Mildred and Richard Loving’s relationship went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court when they were arrested for breaking Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws. On June 20, 1963, Mildred wrote a letter to the ACLU asking for help.
• Shirley Chisholm
  • From her college years, Chisolm was politically active. Her drive and desire to make positive change led her to many political firsts, including being the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
• Bayard Rustin, ‘Angelic Troublemaker’ (Part 1)
  • Bayard Rustin was an openly gay black man born in 1912. He spent his life working tirelessly for equal rights, peace, democracy, and economic equality, including being one of the primary planners of the 1963 March on Washington.
• Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement (Part 2)
  • Because of his previous ties to the Communist Party, his race, and his sexual orientation, the McCarthy era was extremely dangerous for Rustin. This was one of many reasons why his activism focused on other countries in the 1950s.
• The Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike
  • Memphis sanitation workers stayed off the job starting January 12, 1968 in a strike that lasted for nine weeks. This was the strike that brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, Tennessee, where he was assassinated on April 4 of that year.
• Audre Lorde, Part 1
  • Audre Lorde called herself a “black feminist lesbian mother poet warrior,” but for a lot of people, she’s best known for the “poet” part. She was way ahead of her time on a lot of social fronts, including feminism, gay rights, and the sexual revolution.
• Audre Lorde, Part 2
  • In addition to being a poet, Audre was a teacher, speaker, wife and mother, and become an influential presence in the feminist movement. She also wrote candidly about her battle with cancer in her groundbreaking work, “The Cancer Journals.”
• Life at Attica, 1971 (Part 1)
  • Attica Correctional Facility originally opened in rural, upstate New York in 1931. In 1971, conditions at the prison were at a point where they were humiliating, dehumanizing and counterproductive to rehabilitation.
• The Attica Prison Uprising (Part 2)
  • The riot at Attica Correctional Facility in September 1971, demanding better living conditions and basic human rights, remains a significant moment in the history of the U.S. prison system. But many of the problems that catalyzed it persist.
• The Philadelphia MOVE Bombing
  • The MOVE organization is often labeled as a black liberation group or a black power group, but it’s more complex than that. After a protracted, contentious relationship with Philadelphia police, MOVE’s home was bombed in 1985.
• Alabama Governor George Wallace
  • Wallace was one of the most prominent voices against the Civil Rights Movement and its objectives. He spent multiple campaigns for both governor and president on an explicitly pro-segregation platform.
• Mary Winston Jackson, NASA Engineer
  • Jackson is most well known as the first black woman to become an engineer at NASA. But she also worked to clear the way for other underrepresented people at NASA, in particular black women.