ARCHIVE of past programs

We relive the rich musical past of Petersburg. Home to a nationally-known music festival in the 1880s, the city later nurtured great African-American musicians and composers, including Undine Smith Moore. Music historian Ethel Norris Haughton (VSU) chronicles the city's musical history. Also featured: From Lauryn Hill, winner of five Grammies in 1998, to Puff Daddy, more young people than ever are rapping their way to the top of the hip-hop music industry. But what about the origins of the genre? Ethnomusicologist Kyra Gaunt (UVa) says the roots of hip-hop rhythms are in playground games of children.

While some critics say that Black theater didn't come into its own until the 1960s, drama professor Marvin Sims (VCU) argues it dates back to the 18th century. He says the genre continued to grow through the artistic explosion of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance and to the 1959 debut of Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun," - the first time African-American drama reached a mass audience. Also featured: We recall the heyday of Norfolk's Crispus Attucks Theatre, the oldest playhouse in the United States -- designed, constructed, owned and operated by African-American businessmen. Built in 1919, the theater played host to such greats as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Bessie Smith before it closed in 1953. Historian Tommy Bogger (NSU) looks at the role the theater played in the lives of Norfolk's African-Americans during segregation. And theater expert Clarence Murray (NSU) offers his vision of the role a renovated theater could play for Norfolk residents today.

Juvenile humpback and fin whales in the early '90s began feeding off the Virginia coast during the winter months, rather than following the adults to the breeding grounds farther south. Host Sarah McConnell and 88 ninth graders from Henrico County board the "Bobbi Lee" for a two hour whale watching cruise close to the shores of Virginia Beach. Marine biologist Susan Barco (ODU) details her research on this whale population.

Policing has grabbed headlines in the past year. In Los Angeles, a corrupt precinct. In New York, the shooting of an unarmed civilian and the conviction of officers for an attack on a detainee. Some say such headline-grabbing incidents are the results of get-tough-on crime policies gone too far. Others say, they're the rare exceptions in a field that requires increasingly high-levels of training. Criminal justice professors Tom Dempsey (Christopher Newport) and Stephen Mastrofski (GMU) discuss the state of American policing and efforts to improve relations between officers and civilians. Also featured: Corrections officials in Virginia are considering use of hair samples as a way to test for drug use among parolees and probationers. The tests, they say, are more reliable than urinalysis. Probation officer Rick Callahan, criminal justice professor Michael Kaune (Radford) and Rick Slavings (Radford) discuss their studies of the effectiveness of hair testing.