Hello you're listening to the BBC World Service. This is America beyond black and white,

and I'm Regina Vydinavin. For months the world's been focused on a deadly virus,

a virus which in the United States has

disproportionately affected black Americans.

We have power, you have power, you have power, you have power, we have power,

you have power. This week the conversation shifted as outrage grew over the death of one Black American George Floyd.

Millions have now seen the video.

A white police officer kneeling on George Floyd's neck

as he struggles to breathe.

The inhumanity in that sparked protest not just in America but around the world.

With millions asking, how could this happen in the world's richest and most powerful country?

It's the same question I asked five years ago after the death of other young black men at

the hands of the police.

For a documentary series here on the BBC World Service, I

travelled across America to dig deeper into the country's complicated history of racism,

speaking to a range of people, from policemen to

policy makers, artists to attorneys. There's a balance of power that's going to

shift a little bit. There's still segregation here.

You can't force people to feel something that they don't,

but I can.

And back then I wondered whether America could move on

from its racial past, or would it, in the words of the great African American writer

...