Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Du Bois Institute at Harvard, discusses the African and African-American experience from W.E.B. Du Bois to John Coltrane in a comprehensive study, with an emphasis on Du Bois's concept of the "Encyclopedia Africana"—an encyclopedia of all Black culture and history—as a weapon against racism.
A slideshow gives examples of presidential photography by three White House photographers: Cecil Stoughton, photographer for Kennedy and Johnson; David Hume Kennerly, for Ford; and Diana Walker, for Reagan and Bush, Sr. The presentation also includes photo coverage and commentary on other presidents, including Clinton and a discussion with the photographers which follows the slideshow.
According to the WGBH website:
"Charles Hammond Gibson, Jr. (1874-1954) was a Boston writer and bachelor bon vivant, best known for having preserved his family's Beacon Street home as a museum of Victorian style and taste. The Wounded Eros, a short documentary film by Todd Gernes, explores the aesthetic relationship between Gibson's literary production and the material culture contexts of his museum and library, set within the social history of turn-of-the-century gay Boston. Following the film, a dramatic reading, These Four Walls: A History of a Romantic Friendship, directed by Jacqueline Romeo and featuring John Anderson and Aleksander Feliks Wierzbicki, will extend the exploration of Gibson's life by depicting his enduring relationship with the eccentric self-styled "Count" Maurice de Mauny Talvande."
Several panelists involved in the original reportage of the Cuban Missile Crisis discuss and debate their coverage of the Crisis and how the media might cover such a situation today. The presentation includes audio clips from original coverage of the Crisis.
Concluding the discussion and debate on Harry S. Truman's presidency began in the lecture "The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, Part One," Truman's grandson Daniel Clifton Truman narrates his memories of Harry S. Truman.
Video and audio options are available.
Following a short film on Harry S. Truman's pre-Presidency years, three panelists, including two university history professors and Truman's grandson, discuss and debate Truman's presidency and policies, partially in comparison to today's global political situation.
Video and audio options are available.
Author Robert Dallek examines the relationship between Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, drawing on recently-released documents and tapes.
Theodore Sorensen (speechwriter for President Kennedy) and Ted Widmer (speechwriter for President Clinton) join Nixon and Bush, Senior's presidential speechwriters to discuss the art of capturing the president's voice, communicating his ideas, and inspiring the public. They share memories of the presidents with whom they worked and clips from their favorite speeches.
A series of historians pays tribute to Arthur Schlesinger, special assistant to John F. Kennedy and Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian and biographer. Schlesinger is a guest on the panel.
Professor Priscilla McMillan examines the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist and director of the Manhattan Project. McMillan focuses particularly on his post-World-War-II opposition to development of the hydrogen bomb, the 1954 trial in which his security clearance was revoked, and the context of these events at the beginning of the USSR-U.S. arms race.