Apm Reports Documentaries

Equal access to transportation was once a central issue of the Civil Rights Movement. But today, disparities still persist.

Mississippi led the South in an extraordinary battle to maintain racial segregation. Whites set up powerful citizens groups and state agencies to fight the civil rights movement. Their tactics were fierce and, for a time, very effective.

Spanning the 20th century, this collection is a vivid account of how African Americans sounded the charge against racial injustice, exhorting the country to live up to its democratic principles.

Titled after the classic 1969 James Brown anthem, "Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud," this anthology illuminates the ideas and debates pulsing through the black freedom struggle from the 1960s to the present. These arguments are suffused with basic questions about what it means to be black in America.

Teachers matter. A lot. Studies show that students with the best teachers learn three times as much as students with the worst teachers. Researchers say the achievement gap between poor children and their higher-income peers could disappear if poor kids got better teachers.

When Lyndon B. Johnson became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he put the power of his presidency behind a remarkable series of reform initiatives. The legislation was geared toward boosting economic opportunity, a theme captured by his administration's catchphrase, the Great Society.

What should children learn in school? It's a question that's stirred debate for decades, and in 1974 it led to violent protests in West Virginia. Schools were hit by dynamite, buses were riddled with bullets, and coal mines were shut down. The fight was over a new set of textbooks.

A new movement turns conventional wisdom on its head, and makes a job the ticket to an education. The idea is to turn workplaces into classrooms and marginal students into productive workers.

The United States is facing a dramatic demographic challenge: Young Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the population, and they are the least likely to graduate from college.

The Perry Preschool Project is one of the most famous education experiments of the last 50 years. The study asked a question: Can preschool boost the IQ scores of poor African-American children and prevent them from failing in school?

Producer Laurie Stern talks with Stephen Smith about wrapping up their documentary Hard Times in Middletown.

Producer Catherine Winter talks with Stephen Smith about wrapping up the documentary Bridge to Somewhere.

Producers Kate Ellis and Ellen Guettler talk with Stephen Smith about wrapping up their documentary A Better Life: Creating the […]

Producer Krissy Clark talks with Stephen Smith about life after the her documentary.

President Barack Obama wants to create jobs by building infrastructure. So did another president. Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to put people to work by building roads, bridges, dams, sewers, schools, hospitals and even ski jumps. The structures that New Deal agencies built transformed America.

ARW editor Peter Clowney talks with Stephen Smith about the processing of editing radio documentaries.

The "American dream" has powered the hopes and aspirations of Americans for generations. But what exactly is the American dream? How did we come to define it? And is it changing?

ARW producers Ellen Guettler and Kate Ellis discuss the “American dream.” It began as a plain but revolutionary notion: each […]

ARW Executive Editor Stephen Smith hosts a panel discussion on the political, financial, and cultural sides of America during the […]

For almost a century, Muncie, Indiana has been known as "Middletown," the quintessential American community. But now, as the rust-belt city grapples with deepening recession, many residents are losing their hold on the middle class.