The Future of America's Past

What does “freedom” mean to those outside the halls of power — and what did it mean during the American Revolution? Ed visits sites in Boston and Philadelphia to put that question to curators, museum educators, a playwright, and a tribal preservation officer. He learns about the ways in which women, Native Americans, and African Americans made the words of the Revolution come true in their lives.

For a week in 1919, long-simmering tensions between white and black residents in Chicago erupted in violence. Its aftermath shaped laws and housing for generations. Ed visits Chicago during the 100th anniversary of what is known as the “Red Summer.” He meets a poet, performance artist, museum educator, and young people who are creating living memorials to a long-ignored past.

High in the Utah desert in 1869, a ceremonial golden spike marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. On the 150th anniversary of this feat, Ed speaks with a National Park Service ranger, a poet, a descendant of a Chinese American railroad builder and a Native American tribal leader. Together, they paint a portrait of technological triumph—and its human and environmental costs.

In the rural district of Prince Edward County, Virginia, young people staged a strike in 1951—an effort that culminated in the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board that outlawed segregated schools. Ed meets participants of that strike, as well as a museum educator, author, and librarian. He learns about the resilience of local black families when segregationists closed public schools for five years—and how that legacy lives on today.