Dempsey Travis presents a jazz program and discusses the life, the music, and the community of Chicago jazz from before The Great Depression until World War II. Travis discusses 1920s-1930s Chicago for Black families including rent parties, breakfast dances, employment opportunities, union strikes, and jazz.

Dempsey Travis, real estate entrepreneur and civil rights activist turned historian and author, recalls his earlier days meeting and listening to many of the African American jazz artists. Some of the musicans mentioned are Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Art Tatum, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, and Benny Goodman.

Abena Joan Brown, President of ETA Creative Arts Foundation, a Chicago-based African American cultural performing arts institution discusses some upcoming shows and past activities. Artists, Paul Robeson, Mahalia Jackson, Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke and poet Angela Jackson are discussed.

A discussion with sociologist and anthropologist St. Clair Drake at the time of his receiving an honorary award from Roosevelt University on the themes of his convocation address. A fascinating deep-dive into race relations from the Revolution to the Bicentennial, touching on the contradictions, crises, and struggles that led to Black institutions and liberation. Studs plays several excerpts from previous programs with St.

Using the backdrop of James Baldwin's "Nobody Knows My Name" and Baldwin's feelings that Blacks were ashamed of where they came from, Terkel interviews Professor and Chairman of the Political Science Department of Roosevelt University on his book coauthored with Stokely Carmichael entitled" Black Power: Politics of Liberation in America". Hamilton states that Blacks were taught to hate themselves and leave school believing that. Institutional racism and the deliberate oppression it creates, holds blacks back. Blacks are left out of crucial decision making processes that concern them.

As members of CAP (Citizens Action Program), Bernie Willow, Hazel Montgomery and Stanley Nappolomi all have their questions and concerns about the communities in which they reside and who gave the banks the right to determine which neighborhoods and communities are deteriorating. An outspoken, almost militant member, Bernie Willow, points out that the charters of savings and loans institutions was to loan money out so people could reside in the neighborhoods. Many of the establishments, Willow says, have dropped the word “Loan” from the businesses.

Renault Robinson, founder of the Afro-American Police League in Chicago and Chicago Housing Authority board member, discusses police programs in public housing projects. He discusses how public housing breeds crime because families are struggling and the building conditions are terrible, and how a new police program can help fix problems.

Renault Robinson, founder of the African American Patrolman's League in Chicago, and Robert McClory, journalist and author of a biography of Robinson, "The Man Who Beat Clout City," discuss Robinson's life and court case, Robinson v. Chicago Police Department. Robinson recalls how he was seen as a model policeman until he created the Afro-American Police League, when the Police Department started treating him differently.

Edward T. Hall talks about his beliefs on culture. The discussion includes how cultures differ between countries with a focus on Vietnam. They also discuss the cultural differences in America. Hall also explores how technologies, such as computers and vehicles change culture and cause people to become more like the machine itself. The end of the interview includes a short reading of "Beyond Culture".