Celebrate Juneteenth!

This site contains an archive of Juneteenth Jamboree episodes from Austin PBS. The show illuminates the significance of the Juneteenth holiday and shares stories about black culture and history.

Documentary. 2004. 55 minutes.
Episode four looks at Civil War and Reconstruction through the experiences of South Carolina slave Robert Smalls. It chronicles Smalls' daring escape to freedom, his military service, and his tenure as a congressman after the war. As the events of Smalls' life unfold, the complexities of this period in American history are revealed. The episode examines the black contribution to the war effort and traces the gains and losses of newly freed African Americans during Reconstruction. The 13th amendment abolished slavery in 1865, the 14th and 15th amendments guaranteed black civil rights, and the Freedmen's Bureau offered aid to former slaves throughout the 1870s. Yet simultaneously, the formation of militant groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan threatened the future of racial equality and segregation laws began to appear across the country. Slavery's eradication had not brought an end to black oppression.

Eyes on the Prize is a 14-part documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Created and executive produced by Henry Hampton and narrated by Julian Bond, the series uses archival footage, stills and interviews of participants and opponents of the movement. The title of the series is derived from the folk song "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," which is used in each episode as the opening theme music. The first part, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965, chronicles the time period between the United States Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education (1954) to the Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965. It consists of six episodes, which premiered on January 21, 1987 and concluded on February 25, 1987. The second part, Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985, chronicles the time period between the national emergence of Malcolm X during 1964 to the 1983 election of Harold Washington as the first African-American mayor of Chicago.

Documentary. 2013. 56 minutes.
This program examines the most tumultuous and consequential period in African-American history: the Civil War and the end of slavery, and Reconstruction’s thrilling but brief “moment in the sun.” From the beginning, African Americans were agents of their liberation—by fleeing the plantations and taking up arms to serve in the United States Colored Troops. After Emancipation, African Americans sought to realize the promise of freedom—rebuilding families shattered by slavery; demanding economic, political and civil rights; even winning elected office—but a few years later, an intransigent South mounted a swift and vicious campaign of terror to restore white supremacy and roll back African-American rights. Yet the achievements of Reconstruction remained in the collective memory of the African-American community.

This collection centers on documentaries about the experiences of the Black community in the United States. Tubi is an ad-supported video-on-demand service with movies and television shows that are free to stream. Tubi is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Mexico.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Reconstruction begins as a time of great hope for the devastated South. When political turmoil continues and the Reconstruction efforts fail, a new era of segregation begins. In the Supreme Court decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, "separate but equal" becomes the law of the land.