Abstract: 'The Word' with commentary by professor and historian A.B. Spellman focuses on the pardon and immunity granted to President Richard M. Nixon, based on a plea of depression. Spellman compares this to the treatment given to African Americans facing time in jail.
Abstract: In 1971, foreign-policy analyst Daniel Ellsberg became the most important whistleblower of the 20th century when he leaked the Pentagon Papers to the national media -- setting in motion a chain of events that unraveled the Nixon presidency and eventually brought an end to the Vietnam War.
On Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2002, in UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, he told his inside story and, with a panel of noted scholars, discussed how the lessons of the Vietnam era apply today.
Abstract: What does it mean to be an American? Far from being a fixed concept, over the past 150 years American identity has been constructed and reconstructed through the conflicts, interchanges, and negotiations between different ethnic, cultural, and religious groups. In this course, we will pay particular attention to two major transformations in American identity: the shift from a conception of citizenship grounded on race to one grounded on shared democratic ideals; and the development of the United States from a colonial backwater to a global superpower. Through a combination of lectures, readings, films and small discussion groups, we will examine the past as both a “foreign country” with its own customs, mores and rituals, and the source of deeply rooted patterns that continue to play out in contemporary society. Beyond covering just facts and figures, this course will focus on how the everyday lives of Americans looked, sounded, smelled, and felt. By the end of the semester, you will have a basic understanding of the major ideas, events, cultures, peoples, and personalities that have shaped the United States from the Civil War to the present day. Perhaps most importantly, through the required weekly discussion section meetings you will learn to question and evaluate historical sources and evidence, in the process becoming informed thinkers and critical readers, rather than passive recipients of conventional wisdom. You will also develop a sense of how historians analyze and interpret the past, and through the writing of a historical research paper, try your hand at the craft of history.
Abstract: A.B. Spellman comments on the pardon granted to President Richard Nixon. Say Brother presents the musical group Tavares, who perform in-studio before an audience. The Tavares brothers (Arthur Tavares, Ralph Vierra Tavares, Perry Lee Tavares, Antone Tavares, and Feliciano Tavares, aka Chubby, Tiny, Ralph, Pooch, and Butch) sing 'Am I Too Late,' 'Strangers in Dark Corners,' 'If That's the Way You Want It,' and 'Check It Out' with supporting musicians. Additional program segments include a mime performance by Halim Adbur Rashid (Fred Johnson), 'Access' (on the services of the Roxbury Defenders Committee, Inc.), 'Information' (on rent control and rent increases), 'Blast From the Past' (with an excerpt from a 1968 Say Brother interview with musician Smokey Robinson), 'The Word' (with commentary by professor and historian A.B. Spellman on the recent pardon granted by President Gerald Ford to President Richard Nixon on September 4, 1974), the 'Community Calendar,' and 'Commentary' by Producer Marita Rivero. Directed by Conrad White.