Louisiana's African-American History now available online

From segregation to civil rights and celebrities to sermons, Louisiana Public Broadcasting's long-running series Folks (1981-1990) covered it all. Now 210 episodes of the minority affairs series are available for streaming. There is no cost to watch the programs, which featured an in-depth look at a wide variety of social issues that impacted minority communities in Louisiana in the 1980s.

While Folks principally highlighted issues related to African Americans, it also featured stories on other minority groups including women, Native Americans, people with disabilities, and senior citizens. The look may be "historic" but some of the harder-hitting issues covered in 1980s Louisiana still resonate today: unemployment, domestic violence, child abuse, and substance abuse.

The series also features profiles of African-American trailblazers as well as stories highlighting the arts and culture of the time. Browse through profiles on 1984 presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, journalist Ed Bradley, authors Alex Haley and James Baldwin, actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and jazz great Dizzy Gillespie.

This series as well as thousands of hours of other historically significant video, are available through the Louisiana Digital Media Archive, the online home of the Louisiana Public Broadcasting Digital Collection and the Louisiana State Archives Multimedia Collection. The ever expanding site contains a combined catalog of thousands of hours of media recorded in Louisiana in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and it’s all freely available for streaming.

The 210 episodes of Folks can be accessed at http://www.lpb.org/folks.

Contributed by LPB