Destination Freedom — 1948
26 episodes broadcast in 1948.
Dramatizes the life of Crispus Attucks, the dockworker of African and Native descent felled at the 1770 Boston Massacre and remembered as the first to die for American independence.
Harriet Tubman's early years -- the escape from bondage that set her on the road to becoming the fearless 'Moses' of the Underground Railroad.
Set in 1541 Peru after the death of Francisco Pizarro, two enslaved gravediggers -- an African teacher and an Indian -- recall the Black and Native explorers who opened the New World.
The story of Denmark Vesey, who won his freedom by lottery and, two decades before the Civil War, planned the 1822 Charleston slave revolt. (Durham's script was restaged in 1957 on CBS Radio Workshop as 'Sweet Cherries in Charleston.')
Part one of the life of Frederick Douglass, the enslaved boy who taught himself to read on the road to becoming an abolitionist orator.
Part two concludes the story of Frederick Douglass as editor, abolitionist, and internationally known spokesman for human rights.
The pioneering heart surgery of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and Dr. Ulysses Grant Dailey, told through a stabbing victim whose life hangs on a then-unthinkable operation.
Dramatizes Sojourner Truth, the formerly enslaved abolitionist and women's-rights orator who carried her testimony to Washington.
The polar expeditions of Matthew Henson, the explorer who stood with Robert Peary at the reach for the North Pole.
The story of Charles Caldwell, the Mississippi state senator of the Reconstruction era who had himself been enslaved.
James Weldon Johnson -- teacher, poet, editor and NAACP leader -- and his fight for a federal anti-lynching law.
Dramatizes W. C. Handy, the composer and bandleader crowned the 'Father of the Blues.'
Dramatizes Dr. J. Ernest Wilkins, the mathematician and public servant, as a boy set on an improbable dream.
The life and verse of Langston Hughes, the Harlem Renaissance poet, illustrated with several of his own works.
Dramatizes Toussaint L'Ouverture, the general who led the Haitian Revolution and broke slavery on the island.
The rise of Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion whose ring victories carried the weight of a people's hopes.
George Washington Carver, born into slavery and once 'traded for a horse,' who grew into the great scientist of Southern agriculture.
October 31, 1948
The Heart of George Cotton
Duke Ellington and the assembling of the orchestra that turned Harlem's sound into an American art form.
Dramatizes Mary McLeod Bethune, the educator who built a college from almost nothing and advised presidents.
The story of Jackie Robinson, breaker of baseball's color line, told partly in verse.
Dramatizes Walter White, the NAACP leader whose fair complexion let him investigate lynchings from the inside.
Dramatizes Dorie Miller, the Navy messman who manned a gun at Pearl Harbor and won the Navy Cross.
Dramatizes the reformer Albert Merritt in a contest of conscience framed against Paul Revere's legend.
Dramatizes Marian Anderson, the contralto barred from Constitution Hall who sang instead to the nation from the Lincoln Memorial.
Dramatizes the Chicago novelist Willard Motley, author of 'Knock on Any Door.'
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