May 7, 2021 • 14m
Today we're learning about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which brought millions of captive Africans to the Americas between the ...Read more
May 15, 2021 • 11m
In the 17th century, as the British colonies in the Americas were getting established in places like Jamestown, VA, the system of ...Read more
May 22, 2021 • 8m
The legal system can seem like a complicated tangle of arcane rules and loopholes, and it can sometimes seem like it is designed t...Read more
May 29, 2021 • 8m
Slave codes were a method of protecting the investment of white enslavers in the Colonies by restricting the lives of enslaved peo...Read more
June 5, 2021 • 11m
In 1688, in Pennsylvania, a group of four men created the Germantown Petition, which made the case that slavery was immoral, and t...Read more
June 12, 2021 • 12m
Enslaved people resisted their condition in a range of different ways. Oftentimes those ways were small and personal. There were a...Read more
June 18, 2021 • 12m
Despite all the hardship of being a Black person in Colonial America, some Black people were able to defy the harsh conditions and...Read more
July 2, 2021 • 11m
When we talk about the American Revolution and Revolutionary War, the discussion often involves lofty ideals like liberty, and fre...Read more
July 10, 2021 • 10m
The drafting and adoption of the United States Constitution recalled many of the high ideals of liberty and freedom that were espo...Read more
July 23, 2021 • 11m
One of the ways that the US Constitution baked the institution of slavery into the very core of the new United States was through ...Read more
July 31, 2021 • 12m
Slavery was inherently cruel and unjust, and it was cruel and unjust to different people in different ways. Today, Clint Smith tea...Read more
August 6, 2021 • 12m
Uprisings of enslaved people in the United States were not uncommon, and they had a big influence on how the institution of slaver...Read more
August 13, 2021 • 12m
Cotton is everywhere in our modern world, and it became a hugely important crop in the 19th century United States. Cotton was a h...Read more
August 20, 2021 • 12m
Clint Smith teaches you about Maria Stewart, a Black woman who lived in the 19th century, and was a pioneering abolitionist, write...Read more
August 27, 2021 • 13m
Escape was one of the many ways that enslaved people resisted their captivity in the system of American slavery. The Underground R...Read more
September 4, 2021 • 12m
In this video, we'll learn about the US Supreme Court decision in Scott vs Sanford, handed down in 1857. The case ultimately rejec...Read more
September 10, 2021 • 12m
Clint Smith teaches you about one of the most famous writers, orators, and advocates of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass. Doug...Read more
September 17, 2021 • 14m
The American Civil War is one of the deadliest in US History, and let's just get this out of the way: it was about slavery. In the...Read more
September 24, 2021 • 14m
The American Civil War is one of the deadliest in US History, and let's just get this out of the way: it was about slavery. In the...Read more
October 8, 2021 • 12m
In this video, we'll learn about the life story of journalist, orator, teacher, suffragette, and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wel...Read more
October 15, 2021 • 11m
The United States' Constitution is not a very detailed document. It lays out the basic structure of government, and the details ar...Read more
October 23, 2021 • 11m
As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, Black Americans were searching for ways to think about how and where they would fit into...Read more
October 29, 2021 • 11m
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black American Women were struggling with both racism and misogyny as they fought for t...Read more
November 6, 2021 • 13m
In 1910, 90% of Black Americans lived in the South. By 1940, around 1.5 million Black Americans had left their homes, and 77% live...Read more
November 12, 2021 • 13m
During the Red Summer of 1919 violence against Black people broke out across the United States. Black people and neighborhoods wer...Read more
November 19, 2021 • 13m
The Harlem Renaissance was one of the richest, most vibrant, and most culturally generative artistic periods in American history...Read more
December 4, 2021 • 14m
When we think about the Harlem Renaissance, the arts come immediately to mind. But new political theories were also blossoming dur...Read more
December 11, 2021 • 12m
During economic crises, marginalized communities are more susceptible to the harms and struggle that come with these downturns. To...Read more
December 24, 2021 • 14m
From 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention operated an extremel...Read more
January 8, 2022 • 10m
The Harlem Renaissance produced many remarkable artists, writers, and thinkers. Today we'll talk about one of the most interesting...Read more
January 15, 2022 • 13m
Black Americans have long fought in America's wars, very often fighting for a country that doesn't always fight for them. Today we...Read more
January 28, 2022 • 13m
The March on Washington of 1963 is an enduring and widely-known event of the Civil Rights movement. But the March has its roots in...Read more
February 11, 2022 • 12m
In 1955, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that public schools should be racially integrated, and overturned the separate but eq...Read more
March 12, 2022 • 12m
In 1955, a 14 year old boy named Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi. The white men who murdered him killed hi...Read more
March 26, 2022 • 13m
For 381 days in 1955 and 1956, the Black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama boycotted the city bus system. Black riders had been mist...Read more
April 9, 2022 • 13m
Today we're going to learn about perhaps the best-known leader in the Civil Rights Era, Martin Luther King, Jr. From his rise to n...Read more
April 23, 2022 • 13m
A wide range of Americans contributed to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Students and young people were a promin...Read more
May 10, 2022 • 14m
In the late 1950s and the early to mid-1960s, a Muslim minister named Malcolm X rose to prominence in the United States during the...Read more
May 24, 2022 • 14m
Many organizations have made it their mission to expand the rights of Black Americans. The NAACP and the Urban League are examples...Read more
June 14, 2022 • 11m
Women have been a powerful (and largely underappreciated) force in the movement for Black equality in the United States. The Black...Read more
June 30, 2022 • 12m
Today we’re learning about Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall rebellion. Serving as a pivotal moment in the modern Gay Rights Mov...Read more
July 13, 2022 • 13m
The War on Drugs is a decades-long United States policy intended to curb illegal drug use and trafficking. Long story short: it ha...Read more
July 27, 2022 • 12m
In 1972, Shirley Chisholm ran for president of the United States of America as a Democrat. She didn't win, but this was not the be...Read more
August 9, 2022 • 12m
Today, Clint Smith is teaching you about the Civil Rights activist and Icon, Reverend Jesse Jackson. Jackson began his career work...Read more
August 26, 2022 • 12m
In this episode of Black American History, Clint Smith teaches you about the complicated history of racial tension in South Centra...Read more
September 7, 2022 • 12m
Today, Clint will teach you about the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas. During the screening process, Anita H...Read more
September 20, 2022 • 15m
Music is an integral part of Black American culture. Today, Clint Smith will teach you about rap & hip hop, and the cultural signi...Read more
October 6, 2022 • 12m
Today, Clint Smith will teach you about the legendary writer Toni Morrison. Morrison is best known for her novels which chronicle ...Read more
October 19, 2022 • 15m
In this episode, Clint Smith details his experience as a teenager in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005. The...Read more
November 2, 2022 • 15m
Barack Obama was the first Black man elected President in the United States in 2008. In this episode, Clint Smith will explore the...Read more
November 9, 2022 • 13m
In the final episode of Crash Course Black American History, Clint Smith teaches you about the Black Lives Matter movement. We'll ...Read more