Part one : African-Americans in the Antebellum period. Slavery : the peculiar institution -- Free blacks in the Antebellum period -- Abolitionists, antislavery movements, and the rise of the sectional controversy -- Part two : forever free : emancipation and beyond. The Civil War -- Reconstruction and its aftermath -- The Booker T. Washington era -- Part three : and the pursuit of happiness. World War I and postwar society -- The Depression, the New Deal, and World War II -- The civil rights era