ALAN LOMAX AND "WHERE THE SONGS LIVE"
The songs came and went but Alan Lomax hunkered down and caught them — for all time and for all people.
THE WOMAN WHO SAID 'NO' TO MCCARTHY
Bullied into silence, Congress got a lesson in integrity from Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME).
JACOB LAWRENCE -- BLACK AND WHITE IN COLOR
The history was black. The colors were Harlem. Jacob Lawrence interwove them and lit up the past.
MR. FEYNMAN GOES TO WASHINGTON
When the physicist investigated the Challenger, America got a lesson from a master.
NELLIE ON THE FLY
Long before journalists were “embedded,” Nellie Bly amazed readers from inside an asylum and by circling the globe — in 72 days.
DUELING HISTORIES (VIDEO)
Why are Americans so divided? Whole books have tried to answer. The Attic explains it in three minutes (and change.)
AMERICA'S DIY MUSIC -- JUG BAND
Got the blues? Listen to its offspring and try not to smile. And hear six jug band tunes in “I Hear America Singing.”
CAROL GILLIGAN AND THE BOOK THAT LISTENED TO GIRLS
The study said… The study said… Then Carol Gilligan realized. The study had only studied boys. Might girls speak “In a Different Voice”?
FANNIE LOU HAMER -- IS THIS AMERICA?
Fannie Lou Hamer was the soul of Mississippi’s civil rights movement. Soon all of America would hear her voice.
JEANNETTE RANKIN -- THE WOMAN WHO SAID 'NO' TO WAR
As the first woman in Congress, Montana's Jeannette Rankin had many goals. But war intervened -- twice.
HELEN KELLER'S MOMENT
Deaf, dumb, and blind, she lived “at sea in a dense fog.” And then her teacher came. (As seen in “The Miracle Worker.”)
W.E.B. DUBOIS -- LIFTING THE VEIL OF RACE
Long before Martin Luther King, W.E.B. DuBois had a dream.
KEROUAC'S SUMMER ON THE BRINK
On Desolation Peak, Jack Kerouac expected to find God. Instead he found himself, and his best book, The Dharma Bums.
THE AMAZING TOWERS OF WATTS
One man. A vision. Thirty years working in his backyard. The Watts Towers are "as pure a work of art as this country can rightly call its own."
HARVEY MILK -- OUT OF THE CLOSET, INTO THE HEART
Loss after loss, Harvey Milk kept battering at the door. If he could only “give them hope.” (As seen in “Milk.”)