Episode three challenges the convenient fiction that the racial conflicts of the past were born solely from white supremacist bigotry. Through careful inquiry, the cast uncovers how Communist operatives used agitation and provocation to deepen racial divides and exploit them for ideological ends. Drawing on archival evidence, investigative scholarship and firsthand accounts from figures such as the late Communist functionary, Mortimer Daniel Rubin, and twentieth-century journalist, George Schuyler, the episode reveals that many who claimed to champion black civil rights also helped ignite the very hostilities that oppressed them.