(soft music) DR. SANDERS: Education has always been central to the black freedom struggle.

TINA McDUFFIE: For years, under America's system of segregation, Black Americans who wanted advanced degrees had to travel north.

SANDERS: Traveling while Black during the age of Jim Crow, was often an experience in humiliation.

What cities will I be able to buy a cup of coffee and not be lynched?

So when African Americans are demanding the opportunity for graduate study, what they're saying to southern state governments is "We are citizens."

And in the same way that you provide opportunities for white Americans, we demand opportunities for ourselves.

TINA: With advanced degrees, they often returned home.

SANDERS: It's graduate and professional education that creates a class of race leaders, a professional class of doctors, and lawyers, and attorneys, and pharmacists, and teachers and nurses, who are gonna serve Black communities, who are gonna lead Black communities.

This is a story about Black determination and Black perseverance.

TINA: Segregation Scholarships on Local, USA.

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