WORLD Channel, in partnership with PBS’ Independent Lens, presents a new animated musical series about America’s reckoning with race and injustice. The History Of White People In America takes the audience on a journey through American history, starting in the 17th century, and in particular looks at how the crafting of the idea of the white race — of whiteness — helped shape the nation’s history, designating other groups for subjugation and having wide-ranging ramifications on social class and life experience that exist to this day.

Episode One, "How America Invented Race," explores how the white “race” was invented by rich Virginians in 1676 in the aftermath of a populous rebellion of impoverished, indentured, and enslaved Africans and Europeans now known as Bacon’s Rebellion.

I spoke with producer/writer Jon Halperin and animator Ed Bell to learn more about how they created this series and developed its unique visual style.

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