HOUR ONE:
From April to November 1919, white mobs led race riots and lynchings across the country, from Bisbee, Arizona to New York City. Attacks occurred in more than three dozen cities and by the end of it, hundreds of blacks were dead. Cameron McWhirter writes about this little-remembered period of history in his book, Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and The Awakening of Black America.
One of the most famous photographs to come out of the Civil Rights era is of a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of Little Rock Central High School, while behind her stands a white girl screaming racial epithets, her face twisted in rage. The two girls are now grown women. In 1962, Hazel Bryan Massery tracked down Elizabeth Eckford and apologized, and the two had a public reconciliation in 1997. Journalist David Margolick tells the history of their lives and complicated relationship in his book, Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock.
HOUR TWO:
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated by members of The Nation of Islam – an organization that he had just left and denounced. We’ll remember the life and work of the civil rights activist 50 years after his death. We’ll hear archival tape and memories from former guests Clarence Jones, Peniel Joseph and Belva Davis.
Peanuts and the gang are some of the most beloved comic characters of the American newspaper. Their creator, Charles Schulz drew their antics and quips for fifty years, until his death in 2000. Bob talks with both Schulz biographer David Michaelis and PBS director David Van Taylor about their surprising discoveries of the life of Charles Schulz.