Book TV (C-SPAN 2) and American History TV (C-SPAN 3) have a full schedule of North Carolina-based programming this weekend. C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicle staff spends a week in towns around the country to film stories about history and literary culture in the area.
In addition to having pieces sprinkled in throughout the weekend on the respective networks, American History TV and Book TV will have a block of programming where all of the pieces will air. The programming will play on Book TV June 15 at noon and June 16 at 5 p.m. Eastern and include the following highlights:
American History TV:
- Tour the North Carolina State Capitol with Site Administrator Deanna Mitchell. Hear about the building’s unique Greek revival architecture and the stories about some of the interesting legislators who served there.
- See North Carolina’s archives, including the Carolina Charter of 1663, the state’s copy of the Bill of Rights and a letter from George Washington welcoming North Carolina to the union as Archives Director Sarah Koonts takes us into the vault to view some of the state’s treasures.
- Learn the history of Shaw University, the South’s oldest historically black college, from President Dorothy Cowser-Yancy. Established in 1865 to educate freed men living in Raleigh, Shaw includes such notable firsts as Leonard Medical School, the South’s first four-year medical school for black doctors and pharmacists, and Estey Hall, the first building constructed in the United States for the higher education of black women.
- Hear North Carolina and the state’s political history from Governor Pat McCrory (R-NC).
- Visit the David Marshall “Carbine” Williams exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, and learn about David Marshall Williams, also known as “Carbine,” whose designs changed weaponry in the 1940s. Williams also contributed to the M1 Carbine (rifle), the standard firearm for the United States military during World War II and the Korean and Vietnams Wars.
- Relive the “Birthplace of Raleigh” at the historic Joel Lane Museum House, built in 1769 and today restored to Joel Lane’s time. Tour the plantation manor with curator Belle Long, who explains why Lane is known as the “Father of Raleigh” and what life was like in the late 18th century for his family and enslaved people.
- Take in the life of Anna Julia Cooper, author, educator, speaker and a top, black U.S. history scholar, who was born into enslavement in Raleigh. Director of the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission Michelle Lanier shares Cooper’s remarkable story.
- Discover the Research Triangle with Bob Geolas, president and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, who explains what the triangle entails and how it transformed North Carolina’s economy in the 1950s.
- Hear about Septima Poinsette Clark, an educator and activist whose work on voting and civil rights for blacks is an important part of the American Civil Rights Movement, from Katherine Mellen Charron, author of “Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark.” Clark’s citizenship training program in the mid-1950s enabled thousands to register to vote and seize the power of the ballot.
- See Frederich Tippman’s entomology collection of books and drawings in the North Carolina State University Rare Collections Library. Head of the Special Collections Research Center Eleanor Brown shows us part of his vast collection, which includes some of the world’s rarest entomological works.
- The first-ever program to provide artificial limbs to confederate soldiers from Ansley Wegner, author of “Phantom Pain: North Carolina’s Artificial-Limbs Program for Confederate Veterans” is featured. Wegner talks about how the amputees responded to their new limbs, the types of artificial limbs patented during the Civil War, and how North Carolina’s program compared to that of other states.
- Listen to “Financing our Foodshed: Growing Local Food with Slow Money” from Carol Peppe Hewitt, business owner, social entrepreneur, activist and co-founder of Slow Money NC, which connects entrepreneurs small and large with local growers. Hear Hewitt talk about how she watched working farms disappear and why she’s working to reverse that trend in North Carolina today.
- Hear “The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics: The Personalities, Elections, and Events That Shaped Modern North Carolina” with author Rob Christensen, who takes us through a century of North Carolina’s political history and details how one of the South’s most vibrant and competitive states rose from 19th-century poverty to a modern leader in research, education and banking.
- Visit Quail Ridge Books and Music Store and hear about owner Nancy Olson’s passion for books and her community. Learn what it’s like to own an independent bookstore today, and what Olson thinks is the future of such stores.
- Listen to Holocaust survivor, Morris Glass, talk about his life story when World War II broke out and Germany occupied Poland. He survived four and a half years in Jewish ghettos in his hometown, Pabianice and Lodz, two months at the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau, and eight months in the Dachau camp system. Liberated by the American army in 1945, he immigrated to the United States and is a public speaker about why it’s important for his story to be known. Glass was the focus of author Carolyn Murray Happer’s book “Chosen for Destruction: The Story of a Holocaust Survivor.”