The series begins at a crucial turning point in American history: the Selma marches that led to the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the urban rebellion that broke out in Watts just a few days later. Watts marked a new phase in the black struggle, revealing that our nation's racial issues were not confined to the Jim Crow South - and that true equality would not come through laws alone. African Americans wanted access to better jobs, housing and education, and an end to police brutality, and they felt emboldened to try new strategies for achieving those goals. Gates travels from Watts to rural Alabama, where he learns how Stokely Carmichael helped African Americans form their own political party - the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, which ran an all-black ticket and sought political power in the face of white terror. In Chicago, activist Prexy Nesbitt tells Gates how Martin Luther King, Jr., inspired by the changing times, waged war on housing segregation and economic injustice in the urban north, meeting fierce resistance. In Oakland, Kathleen Cleaver reveals how radical groups like the Black Panthers, impatient with the nonviolent tactics of the past, confronted white authority with a new spirit of defiance. Reverend Jesse Jackson recounts the shocking assassination of Dr. King in 1968, which unleashed a massive wave of rage and mourning, raising fears that civil rights had suffered a lethal blow. The wheels of progress were already in motion, however. African Americans like Gates and his Yale classmate Sheila Jackson Lee discovered a widening field of opportunities thanks to affirmative action and the crumbling of racial barriers. Popular music, films, and television shows increased the visibility of African Americans, and conveyed a new message: Black is beautiful. At the same time, the rising call for Black Power inspired artists like Sonia Sanchez and athletes like Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to redefine American culture, politics, and society - and to see themselves in a new way.