Oral Histories and Films from the Civil Rights Movement; JFK and "Two Days in June"

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Discover the people and events that help document the American story.

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Courtland Cox,
Civil Rights Oral History Project
on Oral Histories

Watch it: 2 pm ET Saturday

Watch a preview.

This interview with Courtland Cox covers his time attending Howard University, his involvement in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, participating in the 1963 March on Washington, and serving as the secretary general of the 1974 Sixth Pan-African Congress. This is from an oral history project on the civil rights movement initiated by Congress in 2009, conducted by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

“Washington was a very segregated city — whether you're talking about housing, whether you were talking about black and white ads in the Washington Post, whether you were talking about the police department, whether you were talking about trying on clothes in the various department stores. All those things existed. I was faced with it in a way I wasn't faced with it in New York.”—COURTLAND COX

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“The American Revolution of ’63” — NBC News Report on Reel America® Watch it: 10 pm ET Saturday, 4 pm ET Sunday Watch a preview. On Sept. 2, 1963, NBC News broadcast a three-hour program on the status of the civil rights movement. Reporting from 75 locations throughout the United States, the program includes appearances by well-known activists, scenes from historic civil rights events and comments from integration opponents. This is the first 70 minutes of the report, which covers protest movements in Albany, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Cambridge, Maryland; and in the northern cities of Englewood, New Jersey; Chicago; and Brooklyn. It also looks at the history of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Congress, Political Parties & Polarization Watch it: 7 pm and 11 pm ET Sunday Watch a preview. The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia hosts a discussion on Congress, political parties and polarization from the time of America’s founding to today. Speakers include historians Edward Ayers and Joanne Freeman, as well as political scientist Norman Ornstein. JFK – The Nuclear Arms Race & Civil Rights on The Presidency Watch it: 8 pm & midnight ET Sunday Watch a preview. Andrew Cohen talks about two successive days in JFK's presidency — June 10 and 11, 1963 — that defined his response to the nuclear arms race and civil rights. Mr. Cohen is the author of Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History. The White House Historical Association hosted this event. Next Week in Prime Time: Landmark Cases Join American History TV next week for an encore presentation of the C-SPAN series Landmark Cases. Tune in for two programs every night, starting at 8 pm ET. Monday — Marbury v. Madison (1803) and Scott v. Sandford (1857) Tuesday — Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) and Lochner v. New York (1905) Wednesday — Schenck v. United States (1919) and Korematsu v. United States (1944) Thursday — Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) Friday — Mapp v. Ohio (1961) and Baker v. Carr (1962) About the series This two-season history series — produced in cooperation with the National Constitution Center — explores the issues, people and places involved in some of the most significant Supreme Court cases in our nation’s history. The 90-minute programs use C-SPAN’s signature format of studio guests interacting with viewers, interspersed with visits to historic sites, to examine rulings that changed American society, the plaintiffs who sparked these cases, and the justices and lawyers who were key to the Court’s review. Read more about the series and the National Constitution Center here. On the go? Get Landmark Cases as a podcast — available here or wherever you get your podcasts. Are you a teacher? Find FREE C-SPAN Classroom video resources to complement your lesson plans on the Supreme Court. Love nonfiction books? There's a newsletter for that, too! Get more programming highlights delivered to your inbox by signing up for our weekly Book TV email — and more About American History TV Every weekend on C-SPAN3, American History TV features 48 hours of people and events that document the American story. Hear from eyewitnesses to history. Come along with our cameras to museums and historic sites. Watch archival speeches from former presidents and other national leaders. We'll take you to the classrooms of leading history professors and to lectures and symposiums featuring prominent historians. Every Saturday at 8 am ET through Monday at 8 am ET  Listen on the go: Download our free app to listen to C-SPAN Radio and the many C-SPAN podcasts — including American History TV's Lectures in History — anywhere, anytime.