Episode description

Cortney Wills dives into HBO’s ‘The Gilded Age’ with one of its stars, Audra McDonald to discuss how the show is exploring the often-overlooked experiences of the Black elite in the 1890s. The pair will highlight the little-known plight of the people who went North after slavery and how they built careers, accumulated wealth, and cultivated communities that were thriving in the North while Jim Crow was busy wreaking havoc in the South. Cortney also sits down with one of the show’s executive producers and historical consultant, Erica Dunbar, who illuminated the real history that informs this groundbreaking project that reminds us that the Black experience consists of much more than we’ve been told and Black wealth is nothing new.