America 250

Part Two: From Spirituals to the Birth of Jazz, How African American Music Became the Foundation of Modern America. Reconstruction promised freedom, but equality remained elusive. Amid uncertainty, violence, and economic hardship, one enduring source of strength remained: music.

Long before the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia in 1776, before jazz echoed through the streets of New Orleans, before Elvis Presley stood before a microphone at Sun Studio, before Aretha Franklin transformed pain into power, before Kendrick Lamar turned poetry into protest, there was music.