Writer Gore Vidal discusses his novel “1876” and how the political corruption and social atmosphere of the 1870s inspired its plot. Vidal reads several excerpts from the book. The song, “Tilden and Reform,” is played.

Dr. John Hope Franklin, professor of history at University of Chicago, outlines the history of reconstruction during the American Civil War and briefly his experience at the March to Montgomery; part 1.

Dr. John Hope Franklin, professor of history at University of Chicago, discusses the political history of reconstruction after the Civil War, along with which political decisions led to a power imbalance and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the southern states; part 2.