Harlem was the first black metropolis. It catered to the black community in northern urban cities that had informal segregation. Rent parties became the solution to low wages and high rents set by white proprietors. Distributed by PBS Distribution.
This episode explores the post–World War I “Great Migration” of African-Americans to northern cities like Detroit and Chicago as well as those who stayed in the South during the period of Jim Crow segregation. Henry Louis Gates Jr. also begins an intriguing examination of his own family’s past, recounting the discovery of a box of photographs and heirlooms that sparked an obsession with his ancestry. Distributed by PBS Distribution. Part of the series African-American Lives. (54 minutes) Distributed by PBS Distribution.