History professor Marcus Rediker teaches a course on Colonial America at the University of Pittsburgh. Today’s lecture focuses on the origins of the slave trade to the Americas between 1640 and the early 1800s.

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We visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon, where visitors find newly re-interpreted slave quarters and a more historically accurate and nuanced depiction of slave life in 18th century Virginia. We hear from Dennis Pogue, Vice President of Preservation, and curator Susan Schoelwer, who tell us what archaeological research reveals about the enslaved people who worked Washington’s plantation.

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This week we join Virginia Tech History Professor Beverly Bunch-Lyons as she teaches a university class on women and slavery, and how they resisted. Professor Bunch-Lyons and her students read first-hand accounts from former slave women about their experiences. Virginia Tech is in Blacksburg, Virginia.

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James Madison, the fourth President of the United States & often referred to as the "Father of the Constitution," owned about a hundred slaves at Montpelier, his 4600- acre estate in Orange County, Virginia.  American History TV traveled 90 miles south of the nation's capital to learn about an archaeological project investigating the enslaved communities of James Madison's Montpelier.

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50 years ago, on April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” while being held in prison for his involvement in a city-wide civil rights protest called the Birmingham Campaign. King’s daughter, Bernice King, CEO of the King Center in Atlanta, joins Alabama’s governor, Birmingham’s Mayor and others for the unveiling of a historical marker aside the Birmingham Jail.

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham civil rights campaign. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his famed “Letter from Birmingham Jail” after being arrested for taking part in the protests. The campaign gained national attention after local officials used dogs and water cannons on kids after they took to the streets in what was known as the “Children’s Crusade.” A panel of authors and historians recall the turmoil of the time, as well as how Birmingham has chosen to remember its past. This event was part of the Alabama Historical Association’s annual conference.

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At the direction of Congress, the voices and experiences from the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20^th century are being documented in an oral history project. This effort is a collaboration of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, the Library of Congress and the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham Civil Rights Campaign in Alabama. The protests gained national attention after local officials used dogs and water cannons on kids after they took to the streets in what was known as the “Children’s Crusade.” This event features first-person accounts of the events in Birmingham that spring, including remarks by those who took part in the children’s protest, as well as student leaders of a boycott of segregated businesses. The discussion took place at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. 

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June 10th marks the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s commencement address at American University, when he called for high-level negotiations with the Soviet Union, a nuclear test ban treaty and an end to the Cold War.  This is a conversation with two veteran journalists, Tom Brokaw and Nick Clooney, on the Kennedy presidency and the significance of his “Peace Speech.”  This program is hosted by American University’s School of Communication and the Newseum, which is featuring two new exhibits on the Kennedy presidency – “Three Shots Were Fired” and "Creating Camelot".

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