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Aural History Productions

The Radio Archive ~ July - December, 2008

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December 25, 2008
Joshua Freeman: New York City Labor History
Part 1:

Real Media.

MP3.Time: 30:53.
Part 2:

Real Media.

MP3.Time: 18:20.
While we take our winter holiday break, we offer you this previously broadcast interview with Professor Joshua B. Freeman of CUNY, conducted by Gerald Zahavi back in the summer of 2002. The interview focuses on the history or New York City unions and workers. Freeman is the author of Working-Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II (2000), In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966 (1997, revised ed., 2001), and a co-author of Vol. 2 of Who Built America?: Working People and the Nation's Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society: From the Gilded Age to the Present. Produced at the University at Albany.

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December 18, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "Doris Kearns Goodwin on Lincoln and His Cabinet. 2007)"
PART I: Real Media. MP3. Time: 26:14.
PART II: Real Media. MP3. Time: 22:41.
As President-elect Barack Obama is putting together his future cabinet, we revisit an older broadcast that came to us from Prime Time Radio, in which historian Doris Kearns Goodwin joined host Mike Cuthbert for an hour-long conversation about her 2005 book, Team of Rivals. In the book, Goodwin explored "how Lincoln made allies out of enemies to successfully maneuver the nation through its most trying time, the Civil War." The book appears to have had an important impact on Obama's approach to building his own cabinet. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is the author of several books on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and the Kennedys.

Segment 2 ~ From the Archives: "Old Uncle Abe" (lyrics and music originally published in 1860).

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 8:02.
There were numerous campaign songs generated during the election of 1860. Here's a selection from a modern performance of one of them, a lovely little gem from the 1860 election titled "Old Uncle Abe," and comes to us from the wonderful Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project at Northern Illinois University. This particular song was performed by Leslie Beukelman (vocals), and Tara Dirst (banjo), with recording engineer Matt Dotson. It comes from The Democratic Campaign Songster (New York: P. J. Cozans, 1860). For copyright reasons, we can only offer you a short excerpt here. For the full song and for more songs from the Lincoln era, go to the Project's Web site and explore: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/Songs/democraticcampaign.html.

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December 11, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "From the Oral History Association 2008 Meeting: An Interview with Stetson Kennedy (October 16, 2008)."

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 23:44.

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 19:32.
Stetson Kennedy, born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1916, is a writer, journalist, social and political activist, and a former administrator of the Florida Federal Writers Project (1935-39). Influenced by the documentary tradition that was emerging with and without federal government sponsorship during the Great Depression, and by such books as Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White's You Have Seen Their Faces (1937), he sought to insure that on his state's level, the Florida Writers Project would contribute to that emerging tradition. After his years with the Project, he became an investigative journalist and established a strong reputation for his anti-racist writings, writings that came to include: Southern Exposure (1946), Forced Labor in the United States (1953), I Rode With the Klan (1954), Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A. (1959) and The Klan Unmasked (1990). In his battles with the southern Ku Klux Klan, Kennedy not only exposed their violent work in print, but also through radio. He successfully encouraged the producers of The Adventures of Superman, an enormously popular radio show, to shift Superman's enemies from the WWII Nazi's and Japanese, to more domestic targets, like the Klan. He fed Superman's scriptwriters secret information about Klan rites and rituals, which were then utilized n the air. The result was a series of sixteen 15-minute broadcasts in which Superman fought the Klan. In today's audio program, we present an edited (for length) portion of Kennedy's presentation at the October 16, 2008 Oral History Association meeting, which took place in Pittsburgh, PA. Stetson was introduced and interviewed in front of a large audience by David A. Taylor, head of Research and Programs with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and director of the Center�s annual field school for cultural documentation.

Segment 2: "From the Archives: Charles L. Todd and Sobert Sonkin and the FSA's Aural Documentary Work (1940/41)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 10:19.
Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin, both from the City College of New York, worked under contract for the Farm Security Administration. In 1940-41, utilizing early field disc recording equipment provided by the Library of Congress' Archive of American Folk Song, they documented the life and culture of the inhabitants of the numerous Farm Security Administration work camps that were established in the late 1930s to house the tens of thousands of Dust Bowl refugees that were streaming into central California. The Farm Security Administration was one of the miriad New Deal programs created as part of FDR's New Deal initiatives, and replaced to take over some of the functions of its predecessor, the Resettlement Administration, when the latter was shifted to the Department of Agriculture in 1937. The FSA's specific charge was to provide assistance to the rural poor and to migrant agricultural workers. But along with this mission, it also took on a documentary function, establishing a photographic section to record and preserve the plight of dispossessed workers. The many photographers employed by the FSA, including Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, left behind an immense body of photographic work that is now widely studied, respected, and generally considered one of the high points of 20th century photography. The aural documentary work of Todd and Sonkin added greatly to the cultural legacy left behind by the FSA. The two field researchers visited Arvin, Bakersfield, El Rio, Firebaugh, Porterville, Shafter, Thornton, Visalia, Westley, and Yuba City, California and recorded a variety of spontaneous and staged "aural" events: camp council meetings, interviews, storytelling sessions, songs, poetry recitations, dance and party calls, and much more. They left leaving a rich aural archive, much of which is now available on line at the Library of Congress' American Memory Web site (http://lcweb2.loc.gov.ammem). The audio available above is a single sample of one of the many treasures they collected. It's a cowboy narrative poem titled "Colorado Morton's Last Ride."

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December 4, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "BackStory - Tolerance: A History of Drink. (2008)"

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 31:25.

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 18:54.
From Backstory's the History Guys in Virginia -- Brian Balogh, Peter Onuf, and Ed Ayers: "This month marks the 75th anniversary of Prohibition�s Repeal. Today, we tend think of the �noble experiment� as a colossal failure. But at the time, a significant portion of the American population was 100% behind Prohibition. If the Depression hadn�t come along, it might have lasted a lot longer. On today�s show, the History Guys explore the colorful history of alcohol in America. Booze was integral to the social life and economy of Early America�.so when did drinking become a sin? How did alcohol become a state-regulated moral issue, rather than simply an economic one? When did we start seeing over-consumption as a disease?" These and many other questions are explored in this week's show.

Segment 2: "From the Archives: Eliot Ness and the Bureau of Prohibition (1959)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 4:23.
The Prohibition era, among other things, helped expand the U.S. federal government bureaucracy by increasing its police functions. In this archival audio selection from "The Untouchables: The Scarface Mob," first aired on April 20, 1959 and starring Robert Stack as Eliot Ness and Neville Brand as Scarface, we offer a fact-inspired, but nonetheless fictional, glimpse into the work of one of the expanded realms of government: the Bureau of Prohibition. Eliot Ness, whose autobiography (written with the assistance of Oscar Fraley) was the basis for the film and television series "The Untouchables," was one of the more famous prohibition agents employed by the Bureau of Prohibition. The Bureau was a federal law enforcement agency that was established specifically to enforce the Volstead Act of 1919 (passed in the shadow of the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages). First created in 1920 (and then known as the "Prohibition Unit"), the agency was housed in the Bureau of Internal Revenue for seven years until, in 1927, it became an independent entity within the Department of the Treasury. In 1930, the Bureau had yet another home change; it was transferred from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice. But after the end of national Prohibition in 1933, it was removed from the Department of Justice and the FBI and transferred once again back to the Treasury Department -- first as the Alcohol Tax Unit of the IRS and finally as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

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November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving 2008 ~ No Show.
We took the day off. If you're interested in listening to a program about the historical roots of our contemporary Thanksgiving celebrations, check out the Backstory ~ American History Guys' Web site at: http://www.backstoryradio.org/.

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November 20, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "Backstory: Coming Home ~ A History of War Veterans. (2008)"

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 31:25.

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 18:54.
Though a bit late, we bring you this Veterans Day special look at the treatment of war veterans in U.S. History. It comes to us from Backstory's the History Guys in Virginia -- Brian Balogh, Peter Onuf, and Ed Ayers. Here's their summary of the show: "Between the election and the economy, news about the war in Iraq has become scanty at best. And what little coverage there is tends to focus on developments overseas; the war's impact on the men and women fighting it has become all but invisible to the rest of us. Has it always been thus? How much attention have war veterans gotten in previous wars? How much depends on the politics of the war? Are vets only as popular as the wars they've fought in? In this special Veterans Day edition of BackStory, the History Guys take on these questions and others about the treatment of veterans through American history. Highlights include: Historian Rebecca Plant discusses the changing expectations for veterans' wives & mothers; the "Chief of Heritage Defense" for the Sons of Confederate Veterans makes a case for separating the politics of war from our remembrance of its veterans; a psychotherapist with decades of experience counseling veterans talks about the history of PTSD, and how psychological trauma was seen in a pre-psychological age; and, BackStory listeners call in with their questions and comments on the topic."

Segment 2: "Barry Sadler's 'The Ballad of the Green Berets' (1966)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 4:23.
Most listeners are probably quite familiar with the vast number of anti-War and anti-militarism songs that came out of the anti-war movement of the 1960s and early 1970s - songs like: "Simple Song of Freedom" by Bobby Darin (1969), "The War Drags On" by Donovan (1965), "I Ain't Marching Anymore" by Phil Ochs (1965), "Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation" by Tom Paxton (1965) "Bring Them Home" by Pete Seeger (1966), "Requiem for the Masses" by The Association (1967), "Saigon Bride" by Joan Baez (1967), "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" by Pete Seeger (1967), "The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" by Country Joe and the Fish (1968), "Volunteers" by Jefferson Airplane (1969), "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969), Arlo Guthrie's 18-minute "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (1970), and many others. But the 1960s and early 1970s also brought with them a counter counter-culture musical tradition, coming from the political right and supportive of the War in Vietnam. Barry Sadler's "The Ballad of the Green Berets" (1966) was perhaps one of the best known and best selling songs representative of that tradition. Written by the Vietnam War veteran and selling more than two million copies in the five weeks after its release, the song brought Sadler instant fame. He was written up in Life, Time, Newsweek, Variety, and many other publications, and even appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Today we air two well known versions of the song; there were many others. For more information about Sadler, who served as a Green Beret medic and Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and who went on to a career as a writer of the miltary-themed "Casca" novel series before his tragic shooting 1988 and subsequent death in 1989, see his obituary in the New York Times, and the following short biography at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Sadler.

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November 13, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "Born and Raised on Tobacco Fields."

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 31:08.

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 27:01.
"Born and Raised on Tobacco Fields," a documentary written by Carrie Nobel Kline and Adam Nordell, and engineered by Michael Kline, brings together fourteen voices to "weave together a richly textured tapestry of reflections on a rural American way of life as old as our nation's history. Winner of the 2005 Oral History Association's Non-Print Media Award, the documentary looks at "what made some people rich and kept others as poor as the sandy soil they worked. . . . Fourteen voices weave together a richly textured tapestry of reflections on a rural way of life as old as our nation's history, tobacco farming in Southern Maryland. In the wake of the Maryland State Tobacco Buyout of 2000, traditional agricultural landscapes are being transformed at a dizzying rate by suburban sprawl, leaving little trace of a rural culture and economy dating back more than 350 years to Maryland's colonial beginnings. These impassioned voices, augmented with poignant music and ambient sounds, take listeners on a foray into the farms and auction houses of American agriculture. The Voices: Christine Bergmark, Gilbert "Buddy" Bowling, S. L. Brady, Cassandra Briscoe, Butch Cantor, David Conrad, James W. Diggs, Helen I. Gray, Earl "Buddy" Hance, Carrie Kline, Michael Kline, Judy Leavitt, Elmer Mackall, John C. Prouty, Lindsey W. Reid, Kristi Uunila, Walter Wilkerson, and Frank Wood." For more information about this production and about Talking Across the Lines, the team that produced it, go to: http://www.folktalk.org

Segment 2: "Allen Ginsberg Reciting Fernando Pessoa's Tobacco Shop (1928); 1981."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:17.
This is a selection -- a reading -- from a 1981 Allen Ginsberg class on "expansive poetics," taught at Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado. The recording comes to us from the vast Naropa University Archive Project, now a part of the Internet Archive (www.archive.org). In the course of the class Ginsberg turned to a discussion of the works of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. One of Passoa's poems that he read is titled the "Tobacco Shop," an existential poem about embracing life while acknowledging the transitory state of self and all material and spiritual things (Ok, so I've simplified the poem somewhat! Just go read it; see the link below). The selection of "The Tobacco Shop" for this week's Talking History is an appropriate one, though a wee bit of a stretch; but -- to justify our choice -- besides the link in the title to the main segment of today's show, the underlying theme of the poem also links well to the theme of "Born and Raised in Tobacco Fields," the passing of a way of life in southern Maryland. A product of Pessoa's most famous heteronym, �lvaro de Campos, "The Tobacco Shop" is a powerful poem that resonates today as powerfully as it did when Pessoa first wrote it in 1928. For the full text -- in both the original portuguese and in translation -- go to: http://www.tabacaria.com.pt/portuguese/F_Pessoa/Tabacaria/Tabacaria.htm. For more information abour Pessoa, see the fine Wikipedia entry on him at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa . For a short biography of Ginsberg, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg.

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November 6, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "Studs Terkel: The Spoken Century."

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 22:09.

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 36:11.
This is a tribute prepared recently by Pacifica Radio's From the Vault: "Stud Terkel, a great American has passed. In Stud�s memory, therefore, and culled from the vault of the Pacifica Radio Archives we present a compilation of Studs Terkel�s work. Told in the first person by Studs himself, his narrative takes us from the birth of the recording industry through the great depression; from the rise of unions, through two world wars, Korea, and the McCarthy era; from the 1960�s Civil Rights Movement, through the war in Vietnam. As a tribute to Studs Terkel whose life was dedicated to chronicling American history in the moments of its creation and who recounted it with great insight, wit and humor, the Pacifica Radio Archives is proud to present Studs Terkel: The Spoken Century."

Segment 3: "Ayn Rand"
Real Media. MP3. Time: 14:56.
Only days before his death, oral historian and radio personality Studs Terkel was interviewed on the phone by Edward Lifson for The Huffington Post. In the course of their conversation about Barak Obama's anticipated victory in the general election, he told Lifson, "I was just watching Alan Greenspan, he's an idiot, and by the way so was Ayn Rand!" That comment led us to this piece by Ayn Rand, hardly someone respected by Terkel. In the late 1960s, Rand broadcast a weekly commentary on WBAI-FM in New York City focusing on international politics, current affairs, and human thought. On October 30, 1968, her topic was the Invasion ff Czechoslovakia and "the quietly aggressive tactics of Communist Russia, as a wolf in sheep's clothing." This is a selection from that broadcast; it comes to us from the Pacifica Radio Archives.

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October 30, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "Backstory: Early and Often ~ Voting in America" (2008).

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 31:31.

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 18:53.
Here's another segment from Backstory and the American History Guys -- Brian Balogh, Peter Onuf, and Ed Ayers: "Although the memory of hanging chads still clouds the electoral mood, American elections have come a long way. Before the adoption of the secret ballot in the late 19th century, voting was anything but a private matter, and often involved trickery, extortion, and large quantities of alcohol. And for decades after that, the right to vote continued to be limited to a minority of the American citizenry. Join the American History Guys for a special Election Day episode of BackStory. Over the course of the hour, they will consider how our "fundamental right" has evolved, and take listener calls on the subject. How did Americans used to elect their leaders? What did the Founders think democracy entailed, and how have we tweaked their system since then? Have our reforms really improved things, and if so, why do so few people vote? And finally -- what was the point of the Electoral College, anyway?"

Segment 3: "Aristotle's Politics (Book 3). A LibriVox Reading."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 10:55.
Aristotle's Politics, written around 350 BCE, is one of the foundational works in the development of western political science. It summarizes many of the lessons that the Greek philosopher and scientist learned in his travels in Asia Minor and Lesbos and in service to the courts of King Philip II of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great. Around 335-323 BCE, he wrote or at least completed some of his major treatises, among them the Politics. Unlike the idealistic political philosophy laid out by Plato in The Republic, Aristotle was far more of a realist and pragmatist; it's reflected in the Politics, a work originally intended to guide rulers and statesmen. In Book 3, chapters 6-7 -- a partial reading of which (from LibriVox) is included here -- Aristotle establishes his famous classification of six types of "good' and 'bad' rule: monarchy, aristocracy and polity, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. According to Aristotle, good government rules in the common interest while corrupt or 'bad' government rules in its own interests -- the selfish interests of the rulers.

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October 23, 2008
Segment 1: "Dialogue: The Defining Moment" (2008).

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 27:43.
George Liston Seay examines FDR's first hundred days in office in this conversation with Johnathan Alter, author of The Defining Moment � FDR�s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (Simon & Schuster, 2007): "When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1932 the United States was entering a dark night of economic depression and growing world tensions. Within days Roosevelt embarked on a legislative whirlwind that history has enshrined as 'the first Hundred days.' What is remarkable about that period is the experimental energy F.D.R.�s administration displayed. That energy combined with Roosevelt�s reassuring charisma calmed a nation that was badly shaken and fearful of the future. Journalist Johnathan Alter explains how he did it."

Segment 2: "From the Archives: The Chicago 7 Trial Remembered." (1971, 1970)"
Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:20.
Here are excerpts from the oral accounts of two participants in the infamous Chicago Seven (or Eight) trial of 1969-70. The trial was a response to the actions of a group of demonstrators who organized the street protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention held in late August in Chicago. The massive demonstrations got somewhat violent with daily confrontations between protesters and the Chicago police; the violence helped ignite what was later officially ruled a "police riot." Following these events, a grand jury indicted eight demonstrators and eight police officers. The eight demonstrators included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. Seale, due to his courtroom antics, was removed from the proceedings and received a sentence of four years in prison for contempt from judge Julius Hoffman, leaving seven defendants; hence, the trial is sometimes referred to as the "Chicago 8" as well as the "Chicago 7" trial. In this recording, a short excerpt from audio on ten reel-to-reel tapes donated to the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) School of Law by the office manager of the Chicago Seven defense firm, we first hear the voice of the defendents' main attorney, William Kunstler (from a 1971 tape), followed by the voice of Abbie Hoffman (from a 1970 recording). For more excerpts, go to: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/audio.html. For more information about the trial and the events that led up to it, see the account of Douglas O. Linder, professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/Account.html.

Segment 3: "Those CCC Boys (2008)."
Real Media. No MP3 version available, by producers' request. Time: 22:27.
Steve Delaney and Lynn McCrea (Vermont Public Radio) produced this examination of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Vermont: "In 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps was formed to work on critical conservation-related projects in the U.S. From 1933 to 1942, 3.5 million men served in the Corps. More than 40,800 worked on projects in Vermont's forests and state parks. According the Agency of Natural Resources, their work is still visible today. If you've ever hiked a mountain trail in Vermont and used a lean-to, a fireplace, or a picnic shelter you may have experienced their handiwork. You may also have driven on roads they built or used beaches they constructed. The American landscape was forever changed by the CCC. VPR explores how those changes occurred and how the Corps� legacy still resonates in America in the documentary Those CCC Boys. We'll spend time with some of the original members to hear their stories." For a full transcript of the program, go to: http://www.vpr.net/uploads/files/cccboysscripta_17.pdf.

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October 16, 2008
Segments 1: "Dialogue: Goverment for the People ~ An Insider's View of the John F. Kennedy and Johnson Administrations." (2008).

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 27:50.
George Liston Seay examines the administrations of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, covering "one of the most fateful periods of the 20th century. Abroad, the pressures of the Cold War were mounting. At home an epochal battle over civil rights was taking shape. Both administrations were remarkable for the talent and energy of the people who staffed them. Lee C. White was one of them. He describes the atmosphere in both administrations as recounted in his book Government for the People."

Segment 2: "The Final Frontier."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:54.
Pacifica Radio's From the Vault presents this examination of "two visionary thinkers, both writers of the future who have guided humanity by daring us to exercise our imagination - Ray Bradbury and Gene Roddenberry - as they address the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention held at the Hotel Claremont in Berkeley California."

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October 9, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "From the Vault: Salavadore Allende and the Coup in Chile" (2008).

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 28:27.

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 28:52.
Here's another program from Pacifica's From the Vault. It examines "the historic election of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1970 and the forces that conspired to overthrow his socialist government in 1973." The program -- relying on many historical recordings from the Pacifica Radio Archives -- explores "the years leading up to the election of Salvador Allende as president, framed by the tremendous social movement of workers, students, activists, artist, professionals, politicians, and intellectuals that resulted in Allende�s rise to national leadership," the Allende presidency itself, from 1970 to 1973, and, finally, the coup of September 11, 1973 and its aftermath.

Segment 2: "Mark Twain vs. the Imperialists " (selection, 2008).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 4:51.
Carl White portrays Mark Twain in this selection from a recent edition of the monthly series History Counts, produced at Pacifica Radio affiliates WPKN 89.5 FM (Bridgeport, CT) and WPKM 88.7 FM (Montauk, NY). White, relying on Mark Twain's anti-imperialist writings from the turn of the 19th-20th century, explains to program host Ken MacDermot Roe why he (Twain) became such a fervid anti-imperialist activist in reaction to the Spanish-American War, and particularly to the U.S. occupation of the Phillipines. For more information about this piece and History Counts, visit their Web site at: www.historycounts.org.

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October 2, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "Backstory: Aliens from... Inner Space? Outsiders in America" (2008).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 32:11.
Real Media. MP3. Time: 18:58.
Backstory with the American History Guys -- Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh -- returns to Talking History with an examination of xenophobia in American history: "Americans have always feared 'alien' invasions, especially those by other earthlings. Fearing French radicalism in 1798, the US passed its first deportation legislation (some of which remains today), but it wasn't until the late 19th century that we started stopping foreigners at the border. Why should a country populated by immigrants be so wary of immigration? Is it xenophobia or protection of the economy or public health? Who have been the targets of exclusion acts? And how native were the Nativists? What do you think? does our melting pot runneth over?"

Segment 2: "From the Archives: 'Don't Bite the Hand That's Feeding You" (1915)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 2:41.
"Don't Bite the Hand That's Feeding You" (1915) was a popular anti-immigrant song from World War I written by Thomas Hoier, with music by Jimmie Morgan. It reflects the growing distrust of "disloyal" immigrants, a distrust that grew through World War I and led to the passage of landmark immigration restriction acts in the years after the war -- the 1921 Emergency Quota Act and the Immigration Act of 1924 (or Johnson-Reed Act). Billy Murray performs this version.

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Sept. 25, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "Bella Abzug" (2008).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 31:36.
Real Media. MP3. Time: 18:51.
Here are some more gems from Pacifica Radio Archives' From the Vault -- talks delivered by one of the more politically outspoken female political leaders in the late 20th century, Bella Abzug. Abzug was "best known for her relentless efforts to elevate women's issues to a level of inclusion while in Congress from 1971- 1977. In that time the Equal Rights Amendment made a rare appearance on the floor of Congress, Roe Vs. Wade decision was passed upholding women's right to choose to terminate her pregnancy, and the Feminist Movement was gaining unprecedented strength. On July 27, 1971, in the first year the National Press Club opened it's doors to women, Bella Abzug fielded questions by Press Club President Vern Louviere. In 1976, Bella Abzug gave up her House seat to run for the US Senate. She was narrowly defeated by a mere 1% by Daniel Patrick Moynahan... In 1977 she ran an unsuccessful bid for Mayor of New York, losing to collegue Ed Koch. Although she would run for office throughout the next 2 decades, her life as an elected public servant was essentially over. Mrs. Abzug then turned her attention to women's rights issues and in 1977 was a featured presenter at the first National Women's conference in Houston. Legislation that Bella Abzug helped pass funded this conference." Also included in this compilation is a 1981 talk given on the campus of UCLA in 1981, where Abzug reflects on her political activism.

Segment 2: "From the Archives: FDR on the Banking Crisis, March 12, 1933."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 4:27.
In the early 1930s, as the Great Depression worsened, thousands of banks began to fail. By 1933, billions of dollars had been wiped out in bank failures. In early 1933, faced with widespread public panic, state governors across the country began to close banks and declare bank holidays. When, in March 4th, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt took office, he followed suit and on a national level closed all banks and kept them closed until he was able to get Congress to pass emergency legislation to deal with the crisis. On March 9, the FDR administration introduced the Emergency Banking Act; it was signed into law that same day. It placed banks under direct Treasury supervision and allowed banks to re-open only if and after they had been declared sound. Federal loans were also made available to many of them, to insure their soundness. Within three days, around 75% of all Federal Reserve System banks reopened and the banking system was effectively stabilized. On Monday, March 13, 1933, FDR delivered his first "Fireside Chat," explaining his actions tot he public.
In all, around 4000 banks were permanently closed during 1933; many were merged with larger banks. As a longer term solution, Congress created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in June, with the passage of the Glass-Steagall Act.

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September 18, 2008

Segment 1: "The Unknown Black Book."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:42.
From Dialogue and George Liston Seay, we bring you a a conversation with Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast Regional director of Amnesty International and Co-Editor--with Ilya Altman--of The Unknown Black Book the Holocaust in the German Occupied Soviet Territories. As summarized by Dialogue: "The dreadful drama of the Holocaust opened with the slaughter of Jewish populations in the occupied lands of the Soviet Union. From Latvia to Crimea millions of Jews were tortured, murdered and buried in cities, towns and rural areas. A special note of depravity owes to the role played by ordinary citizens who aided the S.S. and Gestapo in these atrocities. The torching accounts of survivors, captured in the Unknown Black Book, reveals the horror. Co-editor Joshua Rubenstein provides the book�s background and significance."

Segment 2: From the Archives: "W. E. B. Du Bois on Socialism and the American Negro (1960)." [Preview selection].

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 5:01.
Here is an elderly W. E. B. Du Bois, recorded 4-9-1960 in Madison, Wisconsin, speaking about "Socialism and the AMerican Negro." A year later, he formally joined the Communist party. This is a short segment -- a preview of sorts -- of the full speech, which we will be airing in a few weeks.

Segment 3: "The Nixon Tapes."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:00.
Pacifica Radio's From the Vault assembled this compilation of audio segments related to Richard M. Nixon's career as 37th president of the United States, inlcuding a 1974 reading by Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, "Mama" Cass Elliot, Christopher Guest, and Peter Boyle of the Nixon Tapes.

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September 11, 2008

Segment 1: "Julian Bond on Race (2004)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 28:46.
Sarah McConnell (With Good Reason) interviews Julian Bond, chair of the NAACP, about race and race relations in America since the rise of the Civil Rights Movement: "Julian Bond has been at the cutting edge of social change since he was a college student leading sit-in demonstrations in Atlanta in 1960. The civil rights leader faced jail for his activism and helped create the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. After 20 years as a Georgia lawmaker, Julian Bond is now a writer and the chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In Spring 2006 he announced his retirement from the University of Virginia. In this candid interview Bond, whose grandfather was born into slavery, talks about race in America fifty years after the Brown v. Board? decision by the U.S Supreme Court." This program was produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities for the Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium (Sean Tubbs, associate producer. Andrew Wyndham, executive producer).

Segment 2: William Howard Taft on "Organization" in American Life (1912).

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 2:45.
A divided Republican party in 1912 led to the formation of a third, breakaway party, the Progressive ("Bull Moose") party headed by Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt had grown disenchanted with his erstwhile protege, William Howard Taft. The division between Taft and Roosevelt helped throw the election to Wilson (though Wilson would still have dominated the electoral vote had the two former allies not split). This was one of the earliest national elections that was in part documented by sound recording. Here, from the 1912 election, is one of Taft's campaign speeches, focusing on the threat of the growing domination of labor and business organizations in modern life.

Segment 3: "John Milton Cooper on Woodrow Wilson in War and Peace."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:39.
John Milton Cooper, E. Gordon Fox Professor of American Institutions at the University of Wisconsin and Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is George Liston Seay's guest in this segment of Dialogue. They discuss the "The 28th President of the United States," who "personally embodied the world of ideas and the world of affairs. During his tenure as President of Princeton University Woodrow Wilson honed much of the political philosophy and style that would later serve him as American�s Leader. By the time of his election in 1912 he was well schooled in the progressive political ideals that marked his presidency and his legacy. John Milton Cooper presents the story of Wilson�s Life and its meaning."

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Sept. 4, 2008
Segments 1: "BackStory - Racial Purity: A History of Black and White." (2008)
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 31:36.
Segment 2:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 18:51.
This week, we bring you another segment from the new history show titled "BackStory," featuring U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh. Each week, they explore a topic drawn from recent headlines -- probing its historical roots. In this segment they examine the history of racial identity: "In America, we tend to see race in black and white. And for much of our history, a single drop of African blood was enough to label you unequivocally 'black.' But dig a little deeper, and things quickly get mixed up. This week on BackStory, we explore the historical roots of America's most stubborn color line. We talk to Annette Gordon-Reed, who has some intriguing insights into Thomas Jefferson?s relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings. Then Daryl Scott brings us closer to the present, arguing that pre-20th Century ways of thinking about race have persisted into the 20th Century and beyond."

Segment 2: "Julian Bond (a preview segment; 2004)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 4:27.
This is a preview of the full program to be aired next week. Sarah McConnell (With Good Reason) interviews Julian Bond, chair of the NAACP, about race and race relations in America since the rise of the Civil Rights Movement: "Julian Bond has been at the cutting edge of social change since he was a college student leading sit-in demonstrations in Atlanta in 1960. The civil rights leader faced jail for his activism and helped create the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. After 20 years as a Georgia lawmaker, Julian Bond is now a writer and the chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In Spring 2006 he announced his retirement from the University of Virginia. In this candid interview Bond, whose grandfather was born into slavery, talks about race in America fifty years after the Brown v. Board? decision by the U.S Supreme Court." This program was produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities for the Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium (Sean Tubbs, associate producer. Andrew Wyndham, executive producer).

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August 28, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "Barbara Epstein on the Minsk Ghetto" (2008).
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:38.
Segment 2:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 22:34.
This piece -- a lengthy interview with historian Barbara Epstein -- comes to us from Pacifica Radio's Against the Grain and focuses on the resistance movement against the Nazis in Belorussia: "In Poland, Lithuania, and elsewhere in Nazi-occupied Europe, Jews imprisoned in ghettos fought back valiantly yet with little support from non-Jews. But, as historian Barbara Epstein narrates, a very different story took place in Belorussia, orchestrated by a grassroots communist-led underground." Epstein is the author of The Minsk Ghetto 1941-1943: Jewish Resistance and Soviet Internationalism (U. of California Press, 2008). She is currently a Professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Segment 2: "The Story of Sosua."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 9:58.
Sosua: Haven in the Caribbean is a 1941 film produced by the Dominican Republic Settlement Association. It tells the (incomplete) story of a Jewish war refugee community established in the late 1930s in the Dominican Republic, with the blessings of its dictator, Rafael L. Trujillo. Trujillo, hardly known for his human rights record, took advantage of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's call for an international conference to address the plight of European refugees -- particularly Jewish refugees. A 32-nation conference to address the problem was convened in �vian, France in 1938. Only the Dominican Republic made a firm commitment to admit refugees, and soon afterwards took in around 500 Jews. Trujillo's motives were hardly humanitarian: he was not only trying to redeem his reputation as an ethnic cleanser (the term was not used then), but he also sought to racially transform his people. Trujillo had adopted a policy that strove to "whiten" the Dominican population and had practiced a vicious policy of racial discrimination against mostly-black Haitians -- one that came to be known as "antihaitianismo." In 1937 he ordered the massacre of thousands of Haitians residing in the Dominican Republic. The admission of white Jews -- the victims of racism in Germany and Austria -- served Trujillo's racist goal of "whitening" his own nation. Here, we present the sountrack from this archival film as a springboard to tell the story of Trujillo's racial policies and the fate of the lucky 500 Jews who were ironically saved by it.

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August 21, 2008
Eric Foner: "Abolitionism and the Idea of American Freedom" [ORIGINALLY BROADCAST ON AUGUST 20, 2002; OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED SEGMENT WAS PRE-EMPTED BY A SPECIAL WRPI-FM PROGRAM. WE'LL BE BACK WITH A NEW SHOW NEXT WEEK.]
Part 1: Real Media. MP3. Time: 19:22.
Part 2: Real Media. MP3. Time: 22:41.
Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and former president of the Organization of American Historians (OAH), talks about the contributions that the 19th century Abolitionist Movement made to the development of American ideas about freedom. Foner is the author of a number of books, including: Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (1970), Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (1976), Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War (1980), Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983), Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988), Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction (1993), The Story of American Freedom (1998), and Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (2002). Foner delivered this talk in Elizabethtown, New York, on August 11, 2002 as part of the John Brown Lives! lecture series. [Recorded, edited and produced by Talking History ~ University at Albany.]

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August 14, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance: America's National Party Conventions (Part 2)." (2004).
Segment 1:

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 26:25.
Segment 3:

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 23:28.
This is the second and final part of a two-hour documentary (which we have slightly edited for length) narrated by Amy Goodman and produced in 2004 by the Pacifica Radio Archives and featured recently on Pacifica's From the Vault. As described by the Archives: "From the formal speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, to the battles inside and outside the Chicago 1968 convention and to the radical sounds of Rage Against the Machine in the streets of Los Angeles in 2000, the two-part radio/TV documentary on America's national party Conventions showcases the Pacifica Network's progressive reporting at its most daring. A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance includes highlights of the Republican and Democratic conventions, the Mississippi Freedom Party convention in the 60�s, and the Shadow Conventions of 2000, with the voices in the streets of those protesting outside convention halls." To obtain a copy of the full documentary, contact Pacifica Radio Archives at http://www.pacificaradioarchives.org

Segment 2: "'Happy Days are Here Again' and the Democratic Party."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:19.
"Happy Days Are Here Again," composed by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen -- ironically, just before the 1929 stock market crash -- became the theme song for the Democratic Party during the 1932 election. The song came to suggest the promise of national economic recovery under an FDR administration. It continued to be closely identified with the Democratic party throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. The version we are making available here was released by Ben Selvin and the Crooners in 1930 -- two years before the song was adopted by the Democratic party. For more information about the 1932 convention and election of FDR, see Steve Neal's Happy Days Are Here Again: The 1932 Democratic Convention, the Emergence of FDR--And How America Was Changed Forever (HarperCollins, 2004). For information about Ager and Yellen and the song "Happy Days Are Here Again," see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days_Are_Here_Again.

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August 7, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "A Mushroom Cloud" (2008).
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 22:12.
Segment 2:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:01.
This piece comes to us from the series Hearing Voices; it focuses on the many ways in which the Cold War and nuclear weapons permeated our culture. Here's a summary: "'Enola Alone' Antenna Theater interviews bomber pilots, bombing victims, and Colonel Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay. Political speeches and popular songs chart our changing attitudes towards the 'Atomic Age.' Residents recall the 1950s Nevada and Utah nuclear bomb tests in Claes Andreasson series 'Downwinder Diaries.' Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has 'Wild Dreams of a New Beginning.' Americans across the country answer Scott Carrier's question: 'What Are You Afraid Of?' The band Lemon Jelly presents 'Page One,' presents the Big Bang with a beat. And we select some 'Atomic Platters: Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security' compiled by CONELRAD.com."

Segment 2: "John Hersey's Hiroshima: A Dramatic Reading."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 51:50.
Here is long selection from a 2003 dramatic reading of John Hersey's journalistic masterpiece "Hiroshima" written following his journey to Japan in the months following the U.S. atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945. Produced by Brian DeShazor and Mark Torres, in association with Artists United and The Feminist Majority. Adapted for radio by John Valentine. Directed by Michael Haney. Music by Mark Snow." Readings by Tyne Daly, Ruby Dee and Roscoe Lee Brown, Daniel Benzali, Roscoe Lee Browne, Esther K. Chae, Michael Chinyamurindi, Tony Plana, Jeanne Sakata, Chris Toshima and John Valentine. For information about John Hersey and Hiroshima, see http://www.herseyhiroshima.com/hiro.php. For information on how to obtain the entire program, contact Pacifica Radio Archives at: http://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/welcome.html.

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July 31, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance: America's national party Conventions" (2004).
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 31:48.
Segment 2:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 24:05.
This is the first part of a two-hour documentary narrated by Amy Goodman and produced in 2004 by the Pacifica Radio Archives and featured recently on Pacifica's From the Vault. As described by the Archives: "From the formal speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, to the battles inside and outside the Chicago 1968 convention and to the radical sounds of Rage Against the Machine in the streets of Los Angeles in 2000, the two-part radio/TV documentary on America's national party Conventions showcases the Pacifica Network's progressive reporting at its most daring. A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance includes highlights of the Republican and Democratic conventions, the Mississippi Freedom Party convention in the 60�s, and the Shadow Conventions of 2000, with the voices in the streets of those protesting outside convention halls."

Segment 2: "From the Archives: The U.S. Supreme Court and the Regulation of Electoral Primaries ~ The Case of Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 19:47.
Here is a selection from the oral arguments delivered before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Tashjian v. Republican Party Of Connecticut. The case is our springboard to a discussion of the history of Supreme Court rulings regulating primary elections in American politics. Her is a selection from the court summary of the case: "A Connecticut statute (� 9-431), enacted in 1956, requires voters in any political party primary to be registered members of that party. In 1984, appellee Republican Party of Connecticut (Party) adopted a Party rule that permits independent voters -- registered voters not affiliated with any party -- to vote in Republican primaries for federal and statewide offices. The Party and the Party's federal officeholders and state chairman (also appellees) brought an action in Federal District Court challenging the constitutionality of � 9-431 on the ground that it deprives the Party of its right under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to enter into political association with individuals of its own choosing, and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The District Court granted summary judgment in appellees' favor, and the Court of Appeals affirmed." The recording comes from the National Archives via The Oyez Project. For more information about the Oyez Project, go to: www.oyez.org.

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July 24, 2008
Segments 1: "BackStory: Serving Time ~ Punishment in America." (2008)
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 25:14.
Segment 2:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 25:11.
This week, we bring you another segment from the new history call-in show titled "BackStory," featuring U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh. Each week, they explore a topic drawn from recent headlines -- probing its historical roots. In this segment they examine the history of incarecation in America: "For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is behind bars. For black men between the ages of 20 and 34, that figure is one in nine. Our incarceration rate dwarfs that of every other nation, but our overall crime rate is average for Western countries. How did we get to this point? How did Americans used to punish wrongdoers, and what does that have to do with today?s prison-industrial complex? Have the various prison reform movements worked? Or have they made things worse?"

Segment 2: "From the Archives: Jeremy Bentham on 'Offenses Against One's Self (1785)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 17:54.
Here is a short excerpt from a reading of a 1785 manuscript written by the founder of Utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham. "Offences Against One�s Self: Paederasty" is an early defense of the decriminalization of homosexuality. Bentham evaluated homosexual acts on the same basis that he evaluated all social practices: whether they produce "the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people." He argued that that sexual behaviors outside the mainstream should in fact not be prohibited since they do little harm and bring pleasure to some. Bentham's position on this issue -- as on others -- was quite outside the mainstream for late 18th century England, when homsexual acts were still punishable by death. In fact, "Offenses Against Oneself" was not even published until 1931! This excerpt comes to us from LibriVox.org and we thank them and their many volunteer readers again for the wonderful work they do in bringing so many literary classics to life in audio. For more information on Jeremy Bentham's life and contributions, see: http://www.iep.utm.edu/b/bentham.htm and http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/info/jb.htm.

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July 17, 2008

Segment 1: Douglas Blackmon: Slavery by Another Name.
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:00.
In this edition of Building Bridges, Recorded on July 7, 2008, Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg speak with Douglas Blackmon, author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Blackmon discusses how his discovery of an unmarked African American burial ground on land owned by U.S. Steel led to his quest to explore the policies that were responsible for the Post-Reconstruction re-enslavement of Blacks.

Segments 2 and 3:
"The Poor People's Campaign of 1968: The Reverend Ralph Abernathy at Resurrection City Opening Ceremonies."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 17:15.
"The Poor People's Campaign of 1968: The People's Voices."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 41:36.

The previous two segments come to us from the Pacifica Radio Archives and From The Vault as part of their ongoing look at the many events of 1968 and their lasting impact. "In 1968, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was planning The Poor People�s March on Washington D.C. as part of the War on Poverty. Dr. King was adamant that the Poor People�s March and campaign did not focus just on poor African Americans but included poverty-stricken people without deference to race, creed or color. He planned to lobby congress for an Economic Bill of Rights which would include affordable housing and a guaranteed annual income for the poor of this country.

Dr. King would not live to see the March. But thanks to the efforts of the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, who took over the leadership role of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and others such as Jesse Jackson, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, poor people from around the country began their trip to Washington, DC by any way they could manage. For most of these poor people, this trip was an enormous financial sacrifice, yet a necessary burden - they would hand-deliver their message to Washington. Some of this journey was recorded by Pacifica producer Arthur Alexander along the road from Memphis Tennessee to Washington DC.

Once in Washington DC, activists constructed an encampment on the Washington Mall dubbed Resurrection City. This was used as a base camp for strategy meetings, teach-ins and speeches. On May 13th, 1968, the first sojourners arrived at Resurrection City, and Pacifica producer Ellen Kohn was there to record the events as they unfolded and to interview those who were there. Kohn captured the opening ceremonies, where the new president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Abernathy - now dubbed �Mayor of Resurrection City�) delivered a moving address. But perhaps the most powerful moment of the campaign was when the Reverend Jesse Jackson lead residents of Resurrection City� in his call and response Anthem: I Am Somebody.

Mid-June of 1968 saw the population of Resurrection City peak at 50,000 people; but after heavy rains, dampened spirits, confused agendas and the assassination Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Resurrection City was closed on June 24th, 1968. Although the campaign is viewed as a failure, the experiences of those who took the journey� recorded, preserved, and made accessible by Pacifica Radio Archives � is critical to the dialog of race and poverty in America."

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July 10, 2008
Segments 1: "BackStory: Environmental Crises." (2008)
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 31:36.
Segment 2:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 18:54.
This week, we bring you a segment from a new history call-in show titled "BackStory," featuring U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh. Each week, they explore a topic drawn from recent headlines -- probing its historical roots. In this segment they examine enviromental crises. Here is their description of the segment: "It seems that Americans are finally waking up to the reality of climate change, but scientists tell us it may be too little, too late. This may be the most far-reaching environmental threat Americans have ever faced, but it's certainly not the first. In this hour, we consider the history of American anxieties about the environment. Historian Bill Cronon weighs in on when 'nature' became a thing to protect and not to fear. And we travel up into Virginia's Shenandoah National Park to look for remnants of the communities that were displaced to make way for Nature. Also: calls that tackle Mother Nature's gender, Populist politics, and the merits of an apocalyptic mindset."

Segment 2: From the Archives: "W. E. B. Du Bois and the Origins of Pan Africanism." (1937).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:32.
Here is a short excerpt of a 1964 recording of W. E. B. Du Bois recalling his involvement with the establishment of the earliest Pan African Congresses in the post-World War I era. Recording date: 4-24-1964. For more information about W. E. B. Du Bois and Pan Africanism, see: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741500827/pan-africanism.html.

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July 3, 2008
Segments 1: "The Zeeland Flood of 1953." (2003)
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:14.
This documentary comes to us from Radio Netherlands. "For centuries, the Dutch have reclaimed land from the sea. But in February 1953, the sea tried to take back a huge portion from the province of Zeeland in the south of The Netherlands. The worst flood in centuries surprised residents in the middle of the night. Houses were swept out to sea; livestock and farmland were destroyed; and more than 1800 people lost their lives. This historic disaster is recreated with the eye-witness accounts of survivors and the on-scene reports of Radio Netherlands� journalists who brought news of the tragedy to the world over fifty years ago." Produced in 2003.

Segment 2: From the Archives: "Father Charles Coughlin on the Christian Front and the Popular Front." (1937).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 24:10.
Father Charles Coughlin, known as "The Radio Priest," was a prominent voice on radio in the 1930s. First supportive of FDR and the New Deal and then turning against it, he promoted various conspiracy theories and was a rabid anti-semite and anti-Communist. Here, in this broadcast, we present an example of his anti-communist rhetoric. For a short biography of Coughlin, see: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcoughlinE.htm.

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