America Beyond the Colour Line

Latest Episodes

• South : The Home Place

  Professor Louis Gates Jnr concludes his travels around the country to discover the issues facing black Americans today, meeting celebrities and influential people. He begins by examining why many people are choosing to return to the southern cities abandoned by their ancestors at the height of segregation, and talks to actor Morgan Freeman and writer Maya Angelou about the lure of what they consider to be their spiritual homes

• Ebony Towers

  Professor Henry Louis Gates Jnr travels to the East Coast to seek out successful black Americans and ask if they consider their achievements significant to the country as a whole. He meets Secretary of State Colin Powell, civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley : who found fame in an area previously dominated by white men : and Def Jam founder Russell Simmons, who popularised the music and fashion of the ghetto

• Streets of Heaven

  Professor Henry Louis Gates Jnr explores Chicago's poorest black neighbourhoods, where one in five men in their twenties is in prison and less than half the adult population are in regular work. He attempts to learn why so many individuals are drawn into the spiral of crime and drugs, and visits housing projects including Robert Taylor Homes, where one family have lived for three generations. Gates also meets the city's famed civil rights leader, the Rev Jesse Jackson, who reveals why his message of hope is as relevant now as it has ever been