Bay State Banner, August 2026
As America marks 250 years since independence, a new docuseries looks to tell Boston’s untold African American history since the Revolutionary period. “Chains to Change,” produced by The Loop Lab media nonprofit and hosted by Paris Alston of GBH News Rooted, will premiere on PBS this fall to tell a more complete story of the country’s origins. By exploring local landmarks that illuminate generations of activism, resilience, and community building, each episode will uncover the stories of Black people historically sidelined from Boston’s mainstream Revolutionary narrative who pushed the nation closer to its ideals.
Made possible through MA250 with the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism and Bloomberg Connects, “Chains to Change” aims to enrich the portrait of Boston, showing how the very lives that shaped and expanded the city ultimately helped America shape itself. Its debut episode, co-hosted by Dr. Joyce Hope Scott, walks viewers through the cobblestones upon where the Civil War memorial of Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment to the Kings’ Embrace on Boston Common sits. It also memorializes Revolutionary figures like Crispus Attucks, known as the first man to shed blood for American independence.
