Encyclopædia Britannica: Immigration to the U.S.A. (1946 video)


This 1946 educational film from Encyclopædia Brittanica presents a period look at immigration to the New World. “Negroes” are mentioned once, Native Americans are invisible, and Mexicans don’t show up until the very end, but it’s an interesting film pitching the “nation of immigrants” meme. Good public schools are important for the Melting Pot, they note, the quest for freedom brought many persecuted refugees here, Congress started blocking “undesirables” (Asians, Southern and Eastern Europeans) in 1924, and yet there’s the Statue of Liberty who lifts her lamp beside the golden door. History: You’re soaking in it.

Rover on Mars, Negroes in space and ‘Whitey on the Moon’ (videos)


As NASA’s rover Curiosity blazes new trails on Mars, POCHO recognizes the space agency’s racial advances since the early days, ’57 or ’58.  It was a different time. (NSFW language.)

And it was a different time in the 1970s when poet Gil Scott-Heron recorded his rap/poem Whitey On the Moon as well. Or not so much:

Mas…Rover on Mars, Negroes in space and ‘Whitey on the Moon’ (videos)