American Experience - Season 33 (2020)

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The work of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, America's first female cryptanalyst, brings down Al Capone, breaks up a Nazi spy ring in South America, and lays the foundation for the National Security Agency (NSA).

On Easter Sunday, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stepped up to a microphone in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Inscribed on the walls of the monument behind her were the words "all men are created equal." Barred from performing in Constitution Hall because of her race, Anderson would sing for the American people in the open air. Hailed as a voice that "comes around once in a hundred years" by maestros in Europe and widely celebrated by both white and black audiences at home, her fame hadn't been enough to spare her from the indignities and outright violence of racism ...

The Blinding of Isaac Woodard: How a horrific incident of racial violence became a powerful catalyst for the civil rights movement. In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard ...

The life of author L. Frank Baum, creator of the classic novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," which has inspired films, books and musicals.

Billy Graham explores the life and career of one of the best-known and most influential religious leaders of the 20th century. From modest beginnings on a North Carolina farm, Graham rose to prominence with a fiery preaching style, movie-star good looks and effortless charm. His early fundamentalist sermons harnessed the apocalyptic anxieties of a post-atomic world, exhorting audiences to adopt the only possible solution: devoting one's life to Christ. Graham became an international celebrity who built a media empire, preached to millions worldwide, and had the ear of...

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