Oliver Howes discusses his thoughts on racism in England, his daily life, and what he wants out of life. Audio is distorted from 15:39 to 35:42; part 2.

Ola Belle Reed folk singer, songwriter and blue grass musician talks about her childhood in the Appalachians as well as her musical influences that inspire her musical career.

Odetta (often referred as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement") talks about her music career and sings to Studs Terkel. The interview segments are between songs. This record is part of the Studs Terkel Almanac.

Folk singer Odetta joins Studs to talk about her life and music, including her songs "Riding in My Car (Car Song)," "Gallows Pole," and "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," among others.*Please note: some sections have been edited out from the original recording due to copyright considerations 

Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau discusses man's effect on the planet. Includes a clip with whale sounds and statements by Joan McIntyre.

Ntozake Shange discusses her play, "for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf." She goes on to discuss her advocacy for more Black authors and poets, especially in experimental artistic endeavors.*Please note: some sections have been edited out from the original recording due to copyright considerations 

Content Warning: This conversation includes racially and/or culturally derogatory language and/or negative depictions of Black and Indigenous people of color, women, and LGBTQI+ individuals. Rather than remove this content, we present it in the context of twentieth-century social history to acknowledge and learn from its impact and to inspire awareness and discussion. Almost all the characters in Robert Kotlowitz's book, "The Boardwalk" are fictitious with the exception of Teddy, a Jewish, 14-year-old boy, who Kotlowitz explains is Robert Kotlowitz.

Noted Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl discusses his most recent book "The Tigris Expedition: In Search of Our Beginnings" in which Heyerdahl and a crew of 10 men built a reed boat in Iraq and sailed it through the Persian Gulf, around the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and eventually the Red Sea. Their goal was to prove that the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley could have been in contact through marine trade and migration.

Norman Wallace discusses his music career. Norman Wallace discusses his occupations as a pianist and a songwriter.

Interviewing Norman Thomas on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

According to Norman Thomas, things in life are not as great as they used to be and there's nothing wrong with dissenting. Thomas chose 5 dissenters to write about, Socrates, Galileo, Thomas Paine, Wendell Phillips and Gandhi. Of of all of them, Gandhi was the biggest dissenter of our time, said Thomas.

Socialist Party leader and Presbyterian minister Norman Thomas discusses social progress, his political views, and where society is headed with Studs Terkel. This is the final part of his interview.

Content Warning: This conversation includes racially and/or culturally derogatory language and/or negative depictions of Black and Indigenous people of color, women, and LGBTQI+ individuals. Rather than remove this content, we present it in the context of twentieth-century social history to acknowledge and learn from its impact and to inspire awareness and discussion. Lillian Smith's father taught her that we're all human beings and that no one was better than another person.

Norman Mailer discusses how recent trips to the moon fit into the American consciousness, technology and machines in modern life, individuality, and the future of space exploration. Studs and Mailer read excerpts from "Fire on the Moon."

Norman Mailer discusses his writing, literary criticism, and American life. Other topics of conversation include Mailer’s thoughts on “affirmative” literary works, apathy and a lack of passion in modern life, beat writers and their reception in the United States, and many of his contemporary writers.