This 28-minute mini-documentary, intended for 11th and 12th grade students, focuses on the stories of young people who took part in the civil rights movement protests of the 1950s and the 1960s. It begins with the story of the Little Rock Nine, the first African American students to attend Central High School, AR, following Brown v. Board of Education; continues with interviews with people who participated in the movement as children and teenagers; and ends with present-day examples of struggles for civil rights.

Curriculum to complement the video is available at the same URL as the video, below.

University of Iowa associate professor Marshall Poe interviews Steve Gillon, Resident Historian for the History Channel and University of Oklahoma professor, on his book The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After: Lyndon B. Johnson's Pivotal First Day as President.

Professor Matthew Pinsker looks at the state of Lincoln studies, commenting on recent Lincoln texts and the growing number of digital resources on Lincoln available.

To listen to this presentation, follow the link below, scroll down to "Lincoln Theme 2.0" and click on the title, scroll down to September 2009 and click on the file link "200909.mp3."

From the Constitution Center website:

"2009 marks the 70th anniversary of one of the most dramatic concerts in American history: world famous African American contralto Marian Anderson's concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. In a conversation moderated by scholar Sheldon Hackney, award-winning historian Raymond Arsenault tells the story of Marian Anderson, one of the most enduring and iconic figures of the civil rights movement. Through immense raw talent and unrelenting determination, Anderson overcame racial prejudice to inspire all Americans and to become one of the greatest singers of her time."

To listen to this lecture, scroll to the August 12th, 2009, program.

From the Library of Congress website:

"The John W. Kluge Center held a panel discussion on 'Building the Bomb, Fearing Its Use: Nuclear Scientists, Social Responsibility and Arms Control, 1946-1996.' Speakers were Mary Palevsky, Black Mountain Institute fellow at the Kluge Center, along with Hugh Gusterson, William Lanouette and Martin J. Sherwin. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, statesmen and scientists confronted the unprecedented destructive power of nuclear weapons, according to Palevsky. Early postwar efforts for international control of atomic energy failed, and by the mid-1950s both American and Soviet scientists had invented the hydrogen bomb, a weapon of greater destructive potential than the atomic bomb. Yet arms-control efforts were ongoing even during the Cold War's darkest days. Within a year of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in outer space.

International treaty negotiations directly affected the daily lives of thousands of American scientists, engineers and support personnel who designed, built and conducted the tests of new weapon designs. Some of the questions that these scientists and statesmen encountered still exist today, and those questions are the basis for the panel discussion."

Eighth-grade history teacher Eric Langhorst gives teachers and tourists some advice on walking Boston's Freedom Trail, a tour of 23 Revolutionary War historic sites that stretches for three-and-a-half miles, one way.

Professor Marshall Poe interviews Charles Postel, author of The Populist Vision, which examines the Populist Party, a turn-of-the-19th-to-20th-century party anchored by western farmers.

Kansas Museum of History curators look at a playbill fragment purportedly stained with Abraham Lincoln's blood right after he was shot in Ford's Theatre.

Susan Brewer, author of Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq, in this interview conducted by professor Marshall Poe, discusses presidential efforts to secure support for wars and citizens' responses.

The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's Laura Simo discusses a life portrait of George Washington by English artist Robert Edge Pine (1730-1788). Simo focuses on Pine's life, looking at his sympathy for Americans and their cause that brought him to the newborn U.S. in 1784 and the events that brought him to paint Washington's portrait.