The iconic images and sounds associated with America’s civil rights movement are well-known. By now, several generations of school children are familiar with the “Colored” signs on water fountains, the March on Washington, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. But what happened before the heroes and protests, court orders and riots? We’ve come a long way, but how did we get here?
“Stories from the Road to Freedom,” a new two-hour special narrated by Deon Cole, premiering on Saturday, February 16 at 8 p.m. on HISTORY, gives a fresh perspective of the black movement in America, from emancipation to the civil rights era. The special uses first-hand accounts, rare audio recordings, never-before-seen archival footage, and home movies to chronicle African-American life as lived by regular people, in their own words, through 150 years of social upheaval.
“Stories from the Road to Freedom” features an extraordinary collection of source material. In one of the only known recorded interviews of its kind, former slave Fountain Jordan describes the early days of emancipation. There is recently-discovered, never-before-broadcast footage of Ernest Beane, a Pullman Porter who documented his life on the rails, and an audio recording of an interview with World War I veteran Edward Nichols, who witnessed the 1919 Red Summer Riots in Duluth, Minnesota.
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