Episode two travels back to the end of the Civil War to look at how African Americans defined their freedom after slavery. Gates reviews courthouse records of land acquisitions, documents from the Freedmen's Bureau and the 1870 census -- the first in which African Americans were counted as citizens, not property -- to trace his guests' lineages through Reconstruction. Gates' personal story continues as he seeks to confirm a family legend -- that a white slaveholder is one of his 19th-century ancestors.