The Africans in America website is a companion to Africans in America, a six-hour public television series. The website chronicles the history of racial slavery in the United States - from the start of the Atlantic slave trade in the 16th century to the end of the American Civil War in 1865 - and explores the central paradox that is at the heart of the American story: a democracy that declared all men equal but enslaved and oppressed one people to provide independence and prosperity to another.