Instill Respect For Teachers.

The Biggest Surprise For Me, Without A Doubt, Was That The First Black People Who Came To The United States Weren't The 20 Who Arrived In Jamestown In 1619. All Of Us Had Been Taught That. Well, Guess What? The First African Came To Florida In 1513. And The Huge Shock Is We Know His Name, Juan Garrido, And That He Wasn't A Slave. He Was Free! This Brother Was A Conquistador Who Came With Ponce De Leon. He Was Looking For The Fountain Of Youth Just Like The White People Were.

What Happened In The Interim Is, Billions Of Records Have Been Digitized. Historians And Scholars Have Always Used Genealogical Records To Tell The Story Of American History. It Takes Months And Years Of Research. I Can't Even Tell You How Laborious That Is. You Have To Be Somebody Who Has A Lot Of Free Time, Like A Professor Who Can Take Tenure Or Someone With A Great Deal Of Leisure.

In A One-hour Documentary, You Can Tell Maybe Ten Stories. That's How The Documentary Is Structured. I Wrote To Forty Of The Greatest Historians Of Both African And African-american History, And Hired Them As Consultants. I Had Them Submit What They Thought Were The Indispensable Stories, The Ones They Felt This Series Absolutely Had To Include.

The Bottom Line Is That Wanda Sykes Has The Longest Continuously Documented Family Tree Of Any African-american We Have Ever Researched.

Censorship Is To Art As Lynching Is To Justice.