Professor Marshall Poe interviews Mark Bradley, author of Vietnam at War, a text that examines the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese point of view, particularly the North Vietnamese.

Kansas Museum of History curators look at a story cloth, brought to Kansas by Hmong refugees from Laos. The cloth depicts the escape of Hmong from Laos across the Mekong River, fleeing attacks by the communist group Pathet Lao, after the U.S. military pulled out of Laos in 1974. The cloth, designed to appeal to a Western audience, represents a piece of Vietnam War history and a reminder of global contact and the impact of international relations on the lives of individuals.

Alice Kessler-Harris reads a paper by John Hopkins University's Blanche Wiesen Cook at the Organization of American Historians 2009 meeting. The paper relates Cook's experiences as a John Hopkins student during the civil rights movement, fighting for desegregation.

Fred Israel of City College of New York, speaking at the Organization of American Historians 2009 meeting, discusses his work with Gallup public opinion data and the history of the Gallup Opinion Poll. He looks at changes in public opinion on the acceptability of diverse candidates for the presidency, as indicated by the polls.

Professor and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Clayborne Carson, speaking at the Organization of American Historians 2009 meeting, talks about his perceptions of the 2008 presidential campaign and the election of Barack Obama, as a participant in the civil rights movement. He examines the place of race and ethnicity in the campaign and the civil rights views, events, and figures that led up to the present day and Obama's election.

Wendy Wick Reaves looks at two self-portraits by the artist Isabel Bishop (1902-1988), who focused on portraying women in the New York urban environment she worked in.

Donald L. Miller, with Waldo E. Martin, Jr., and Virginia Scharff, looks at the 1960s in the U.S., including the taking-off of the Civil Rights Movement, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson's views of the movement, the Vietnam War and protest that arose against it, and the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's resignation.

Donald L. Miller, with Douglas Brinkley and Virginia Scharff, look at the war against Japan in the last years of World War II, including the fighting on Okinawa, the fire-bombing of Japan's main islands, and the development of the atomic bomb and the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The presentation then examines life after the war—Bill Levitt and mass-produced housing and the growth of suburbs; Eisenhower and the beginning of the Cold War; the emergence of teenage culture; Elvis Presley's popularity; and the swelling of the civil rights movement.

From the Library of Congress website:

"As an illustrator and journalist, Tracy Sugarman covered the nearly one thousand student volunteers who traveled to the Mississippi Delta to assist black citizens in the South in registering to vote. Two white students and one black student were slain in the struggle, many were beaten and hundreds arrested, and churches and homes were burned to the ground by the opponents of equality. Yet the example of Freedom Summer resonated across the nation. The U.S. Congress was finally moved to pass the civil rights legislation that enfranchised millions of black Americans.

Blending oral history with memoir, We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns chronicles the sacrifices, tragedies and triumphs of that unprecedented moment in American history."

Rachael Penman of the National Museum of Crime and Punishment discusses the persuasive technique and presence of Lyndon B. Johnson, both during and before his presidency.