Name: African American Lives
Released: 2006-02-01T00:00:00.000Z
Cast: Henry Louis Gates

TV Show · Documentary · History

A groundbreaking series combining genealogical research and genetic analysis. Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores African American history and shares the family trees of prominent black Americans.

2006 · 53m

Starring Henry Louis Gates

EPISODE 1

Listening to Our Past

Black families migrate from the South to Northern cities after World War I.

53m
EPISODE 2

Discovering Roots; The Promise of Freedom

Defining freedom after slavery; tracing the participants' lineage through the Reconstruction Era; the importance of literacy.

53m
EPISODE 3

Searching for Our Names

Research from the Civil War back through the Colonial period; war service records and the recording of property help fill in family trees.

53m
EPISODE 4

Before the war; Beyond the Middle Passage

Scientists use DNA analysis to trace ancestral roots; historians on the slave trade; Dr. Gates and one participant go to Africa.

53m
EPISODE 1

The Road Home

Tom Joyner's great-uncles are executed in 1915 for a crime they may not have committed.

52m
EPISODE 2

A Way Out of No Way

Chris Rock's great-great-grandfather was elected twice to the South Carolina Legislature; Don Cheadle's great-great-grandparents struggled in Oklahoma.

52m