Colin Powell on The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (PBS) The history of the African American people seems far too wide, deep and complex to boil down into 6 television episodes, but that’s what Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research at Harvard University, has done with the series he has written and directed for PBS. The series begins with the origins of slavery in Africa and covers five centuries of historic events right up to the present by highlighting 70 stories developed in collaboration with 40 historians. As the series host, professor Gates travels throughout the United States, leading viewers on a journey through African-American history. He visits key historical sites, debates with some of America’s top historians and interviews eyewitnesses. Beyond providing a comprehensive ...
