WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s "Reconstruction: America After the Civil War" _ which began last week _ ends Tuesday, with the first hour covering the period 1877 to 1896, and the rise of the so-called New South, built on the myth of the Lost Cause. This period sees the furious rollback of progress that had been made immediately after the Civil War, as well as rise in prominence of figures like Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells, who reported on the scourge of lynching, with thousands murdered _ including a close friend of hers. It also charts the rollback of the so-called "civil rights cases" by the U.S. Supreme Court, most egregiously with the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which encoded "separate but equal" as the law and helped to perpetuate Jim Crow culture for decades to follow.
The fourth hour effectively charts the nadir _ the beginning of the 20th century which saw the rise of minstrelsy, and the subjugation of blacks through the power of popular culture, notably the new technology of motion pictures. A nadir is truly reached when Woodrow Wilson _ a new president whom civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois initially hoped would become a force for progress _ sponsors a White House screening of "The Birth of a Nation," D.W. Griffith's virulent, and hugely popular, racist screed.
For viewers who missed the first two hours, all four hours are now posted at pbs.org.
