ira aldridge. any questions? >> when you were talking about aldridge being in england and russia, i was thinking of all robeson -- paul robison. was he aware of adridge an inspired by him? jim baker: i can't answer that, but he could have been aware of him. any number of african americans were aware of ira aldridge. americans don't remember ira aldridge, but europeans more or less to. he met richard wagner, the great german composer, and whatnot. he is one of these characters like george c. marshall. if you ask high school students in america who was george c. marshall, the men that winston churchill said won world war ii, if you ask american high school students, they may not know george c marshall, but if you asked german students, they know he was the man behind the great marshall plan after world war ii. there are certain americans almost better known in europe than they are in this country. i think ira aldridge is certainly one of them. ian cooke: thank you all for coming. next month jim barber with everett d

lee, ira aldridge both born in 1807. both men, again, knew exactly what they wanted to do, lee being a soldiers aldridge being an actor next month we're going to look at -- we're going to follow the african-american heritage a little more and we'll look at everett dirkson. he made the cover of "time" magazine a number of times and the r magazine has the collection and we have a coverage of everett dirkson on display. and we'll look at dirkson. senator dirkson basically was the catalyst of moving the historic civil rights legislation through the senate and congress in january -- just this time in january/february, the winter of 1964 that legislation would eventually be signed by president johnson on july 2 of 1964. and that's, of course, the historic civil rights act of 1964. so it took another hundred years from the time -- the end of the civil war to really begin to see some of the social equity and the civil rights for blacks that whites had enjoyed since the beginning. so ira aldridge would have -- a hundred years lat

with curator jim barber who gives us an in-depth look at one of the oil paintings of ira aldridge an. he was born free in new york in 1807 and became famous in after being unable to find work in america. this program is part of a series called "face to face" about important players in the struggle for justice in american history. jim barber: hello and welcome. i am ian cooke of the national portrait gallery. it is an article of faith that every picture tells a story. this series exists to connect some of the thousands of stories we have on hand and make one step from stories to history. our presenter today is jim barber, and historian at the particularly -- portrait gallery. jim has lectured extensively on the civil war.

historian and curator jim barber who gives us an in-depth look at one of the oil paintings of ira aldridge, an early 19th-century african american actor. he was born free in new york in 1807 and became famous in after -- in europe after being unable to find work in america. this program is part of a series called "face to face" about important players in the struggle for justice in american history. ian cooke: hello and welcome. i am ian cooke of the national portrait gallery.

why ira aldridge? and with this face to face series we connect three different people throughout three consecutive months so that we began last month with pocahontas and this month is ira aldridge and the connection is, the thread back in 2007 the state of virginia celebrated or commemorated two huge anniversaries, one the -- the older one being the 400th anniversary of the founding of jamestown. and the second anniversary was the 200th anniversary of the birth of robert e. lee. and one of the hardest things for anyone to do, teachers, historians, you name it, is to give a sense of time. so think back 2300 years if you can to robert e. lee's era. and then another 200 years back to jamestown. and that's hard to do. if someone just says, oh, you know 400 years ago. we just -- we can't really envision that so is thread is jamestown. in 1619 -- it was founded in 1607 and in 1969 the first african-americans arrive at jamestown. now they're not slaves yet. they're for the most part indentured servants. slave

and along with ira aldridge, robert e. lee is going to shadow aldridge, so i'll mention lee throughout this too, as we go along. ira aldridge free black, not many opportunities for free blacks. one of the biggest challenges was just to stay out of the hands of kidnappers and to be taken back into slavery. ira would go to the free black school in downtown manhattan and that's where he really becomes introduced to the performing arts and theater. in a nutshell ira is known foremost as the great black african american shakespearean actor of his age. and he was one of the most visible black people of his era. not so much in this country, but mainly in europe in england, which we'll get to in a minute. in any event, he goes to school in new york city he will then in his early teens be -- will start his acting at the african grove theater which was really the first african-american theater in the united states. and what amazes me is that how this young man in his early teens, i'm talking about 13 14, knew what he wanted to do in