The Second American Revolution

2 episodes, 58 minutes each
Source: Social Studies School Service

This film explores the long struggle for black civil rights, reminding us that the pace of progress is often accompanied by conflict and compromise.

Part One begins with the Emancipation Proclamation and moves to the early 20th century. The lives and markedly different approaches of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois are addressed.

Part Two illustrates a spectrum of civic behaviors that make democracy work, from civil disobedience to the exercise of free speech and assembly, to use of the electoral process. Models of change include Justice Thurgood Marshall, who led the battle in the Supreme Court to overturn Jim Crow laws; psychologists Mamie and Kenneth Clark, who proved a connection between segregation and low self-esteem among children in a test called the Doll Study; E.D. Nixon and Rosa Parks and the Birmingham bus boycott; Malcolm X; and Martin Luther King. It concludes with Martin Luther King’s March on Washington exactly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.