Black southerners and their allies were experiencing the brick and mortar of Jim Crow being installed in real time. Racial terror killings had been climbing, lynchings were becoming more shocking and segregation was gaining traction.

And through all this, Black people were still fighting to find a strategy for surviving the afterlife of slavery so they could achieve the Promised Land of their ancestors’ dreams. Black people had to decide what that strategy was going to be for them and for Black folk beyond their lifetimes. And they were not always in agreement.

Conservatives like Booker T. Washington, moderates like W.E.B. Du Bois, and radicals like William Monroe Trotter and Ida B. Wells-Barnett were each confident that they had the best strategy to secure black people’s future by dismantling Jim Crow. And they were each determined to have their own way.

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Episode Artwork by Lyne Lucien. Transcripts, resources, list of voice talent and more available at seizingfreedom.com.

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This episode of Seizing Freedom is supported by Home. Made., a podcast that explores the meaning of home and what it can teach us about ourselves and each other. Listen to episodes of Home. Made. at https://link.chtbl.com/homemade?sid=podcast.seizingfreedom

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Interview: Kelly Brown Douglas