Clint shares a lesson about the story of Emmett Till and the jarring images of his funeral shocked the nation and were a vital catalyst in turning the civil rights movement into a nationwide phenomenon.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, March 12, 2022
Clint shares a lesson about how the NAACP's legal defense fund (led by Thurgood Marshall at the time of the Brown Decision) pursued a strategy of bringing cases to court that would expand the civil rights of Black Americans.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, February 11, 2022
Clint shares a lesson about Randolph, Bayard Rustin, the march they planned, and the movement it inspired. We'll also talk about how the dream of the 1941 march was ultimately deferred for more than 20 years.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, January 28, 2022
Clint shares a lesson about the experience of Black Americans in World War II. We'll look at the ways Black men and women served in the armed services during the war, and look at life on the homefront.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, January 15, 2022
Clint shares a lesson about one of the most interesting minds of the time, Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston was an anthropologist by training, and spent much of her career studying and documenting the lives of Black people in the southern US.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, January 8, 2022
Clint shares a lesson about the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 until the US entered World War II. This depression profoundly changed the US economy, and we'll focus on how the depression impacted Black Americans.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, December 11, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, a shameful example of racism in American medicine, and a tragedy that still impacts how many Black Americans think about healthcare today.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, December 24, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about Black thinkers with different ideas about civil rights, fair labor practices, and Black nationalism.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, December 4, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about some of the writers, artists, and musicians who turned Harlem into a world-renowned hub of art and culture, and delve into the factors that brought them all together in the first place.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, November 19, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about how post-war tension over jobs and civil rights and populations shifts like the Great Migration led white Americans to lash out.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, November 12, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about how the Great Migration shaped 20th century America in countless ways.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, November 6, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about the origins of these Black women clubs and some of the notable women who drove this movement.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, October 29, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois who were searching for ways to think about how and where Black Americans would fit into a post-slavery society.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, October 23, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about one of the most consequential Supreme Court decisions was the 1896 case of Plessy v Ferguson, which set the precedent that segregating people by race was acceptable.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, October 15, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about the life story of journalist, orator, teacher, suffragette, and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, October 8, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about the Reconstruction amendments, the Freedman's Bureau, and the election of 1876, among other things.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, September 24, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about how Black people fought and participated in the war, the Emancipation Proclamation, and lots more.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, September 17, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about one of the most famous writers, orators, and advocates of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, September 10, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about the US Supreme Court decision in Scott vs Sanford, handed down in 1857.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, September 4, 2021
Clint shares a lesson about the origins of the Underground Railroad, the systems that helped people escape, and the people who helped along the route.
By Clint Smith
Crash Course, August 27, 2021