Beaufort is going to be in a PBS documentary. Here’s when to watch
An Emmy award-winning filmmaker will be in Beaufort this week for an early look at his documentary featuring the area’s role in the era during and after the Civil War.
Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor and documentarian, will attend a preview screening of “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War” at Technical College of the Lowcountry at 6 p.m. Thursday. A panel discussion will follow.
The screening is free but registration was full and no longer open online Wednesday. People who want to attend can sign up for a waiting list at www.eventbrite.com by searching “Reconstruction.”
Those who can’t attend the screening can catch the film when it airs on PBS.
The four-hour series begins with two episodes at 9 p. m. April 9, with the second half airing April 16. Gates visited Beaufort in 2018 to interview noted Reconstruction historian Eric Foner.
“Reconstruction is one of the most important and consequential chapters in American history,” Gates said in a statement introducing the documentary last year. “It is also among the most overlooked, misunderstood and misrepresented.”
Gates will also lead a virtual classroom discussion Friday morning at the South Carolina ETV studio in Beaufort that will be broadcast to schools throughout the state. The event isn’t open to the public but can be viewed at www.scetv.org/reconstruction.
Gates is known for his PBS genealogy show, “Finding Your Roots.”
He also wrote, produced and hosted “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates Jr.,” a 2013 series that included Beaufort County. The film won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program — Long Form, as well as the Peabody Award, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, and NAACP Image Award.
