Drawing on their collective scholarship, activism, and teaching experience, the panelists will discuss the ways in which African Americans have shaped the struggle for democracy in the United States and broader liberation struggles during the twentieth century. They will also consider the limited extent to which this history has been incorporated into the study and teaching of American history. Topics to be considered include Black Thought and Activism in the Depression/New Deal era; Movement building in the South during the 1950s and 1960s, and its national and international dimension; the Southern-based struggle, joining African America communities and a cadre of civil rights lawyers, to secure the enforcement of 1965 Voting rights Act and its extension during the 1970s and 1980s; the role of Black cultural politics—the cultural wing of the Modern Black Freedom Struggle--in a continuing Black Freedom struggle, the history of the U.S., and the global struggle for freedom in the last half of the twentieth century.