you cannot tell the story of every run away slave so you pick harriet tubman. you can't do every riot so we do the l.a. riots. this story of solomon northup which has been -- so many americans have seen in "12 years a slave." we picked karen stevens, the black man who was framed for drug possession on a greyhound bus, has m.s., in a wheelchair and served in prison for 11 years before he was pardoned. >> ifill: there's a theme that runs throughout all six parts of this that african americans, no matter how they came to this country, managed to create something out of nothing. whether it was culturally, historically, whether it was food, somehow created something out of nothing. >> yeah, i wanted to achieve two effects. one to show the effects of black agency. the fact that our people had a will to survive. we call one episode "making way out of no way." which you know is fundamental to the black tradition, that expression. and our ancestors deferred gratification. they had no idea that slavery would actually end. but they functioned as if it would. the they coul