Episodes

1. South: The Black Belt

Gates travels to Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta—civil rights battlegrounds in the 1950s and '60s—to explore how much they really have changed.

2. Chicago: Streets of Heaven

Gates goes inside the notorious housing projects on Chicago's South Side to find out what life is like for America's "underclass." Is there any hope for the fifth of black Americans who are caught up in a culture of criminality, poverty, and despair?

3. East Coast: Ebony Towers

The existence of a small group of African Americans at the heart of the political establishment and the pinnacle of corporate America is something that seemed unimaginable just two decades ago. How did they get there, and what is the significance of their success? Gates travels to Washington, DC, and New York to ask whether this new black power elite represents genuine progress for black America as a whole.

4. Los Angeles: Black Hollywood

Gates asks whether America's entertainment industry is institutionally racist or whether it is becoming increasingly color-blind in pursuit of the box-office dollar.

Overview

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard's chair of Afro-American Studies, travels the length and breadth of the United States to take the temperature of black America at the start of the new century. He explores this rich and diverse landscape, social as well as geographic, and meets the people who are defining black America, from the most famous and influential to those at the grassroots.

Details

Cast

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.