One Thousand Years of Slavery

For many, the wounds left by slavery in the U.S. are too hard to face, but at the same time too important to ignore. In this episode, we follow two acclaimed actors on their deeply personal investigations into how the slave trade affected their ancestors. Actor David Harewood ("Homeland") travels to the Caribbean and discovers how the roots of a brutal system became the blueprint for slavery in America while Hugh Quarshie ("Star Wars") heads to Ghana to find out more about the dark history of the slave trade in West Africa.

There are few parts of the world that haven't been touched by slavery. Over the last thousand years, slave trade networks have stretched across the globe, from Venice to Tanzania. In this episode we bring the realities of the global slave trade to human scale, following the sister of British prime minister Boris Johnson to Istanbul, where she makes a startling discovery about her great, great grandmother. Meanwhile, conductor Karen Gibson travels to Lisbon to explore the exceptional story of 18th century African musician Joseph Emidy.

America abolished slavery in 1865, but its legacy of racism has lived on in the form of segregation, intimidation, and violence. In this episode, we explore racial inequality and injustice, yesterday and today. In South Carolina, award-winning writer Edward Ball confronts his family's involvement in slavery, while in New York, Frederick Douglass' three-times great grandson explores the role his ancestor played in the fight for freedom. And finally, the daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. reflects on the continuing struggles activists face today.