Race: The Power of an Illusion

Ira Berlin (1941-2018) was a Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Maryland. Among his many books are, Generations of Captivity: A History of African American Slaves and Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in America.

interview

Audrey Smedley

How is race a modern concept? Why were Africans enslaved? What role did 19th century ethnologists and race scientists play in shaping our understanding of race?

Audrey Smedley is currently (2019) Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University in anthropology and African-American studies. She is the author of Race in North America: Origins of a Worldview.

interview

Karen Ordahl Kupperman

How did the English and Native peoples of America view themselves and each other at the time of their first encounter? Why did the English colonize North America?

Karen Ordahl Kupperman is currently (2019) Professor of History at New York University. She is author of Indians and English: Facing Off in North America and Roanoke: The Lost Colony.

interview

Robert Rydell

What do the world's fairs tell us about our ideas of race? How did Americans at the start of the 20th century view themselves and others? Why were indigenous peoples from around the world put on display?

Robert Rydell is currently (2019) Professor of History at Montana State University. He is a specialist on world's fairs, and author of All the World's a Fair.

interview

Theda Perdue

How did ideas of race change and affect the treatment of Native Americans and the self-identity of tribes like the Cherokee, from the early encounter with British colonists to today?

Theda Perdue is currently (2019) Professor Emerita of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Among her books are The Cherokee; Cherokee Women; and the forthcoming "Mixed Blood" Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South.

interview

James O. Horton

A look at the fluidity of racial identities in early colonial America, the long history of slavery not based on race, and how the rationalization of slavery continues to affect us today.

James O. Horton (1943–2017) was Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University, and Director of the Afro-American Communities Project of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.

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Copyright 2018-2019, California Newsreel and Regents of the University of California. This website was jointly produced by California Newsreel, the Othering & Belonging Institute, the U.C. Berkeley Library, and the American Cultures Center at U.C. Berkeley, based on original material created by California Newsreel in 2003.