What do Lucille Ball and Malcolm X have in common?
They’re both part of Studio 360 American Icons series. This fall, we’ve traced the impact of The Autobiography of Malcolm X on race relations and glimpsed the dawn of the American sitcom with I Love Lucy. Last week we visited Monticello – Thomas Jefferson’s home in Virginia – and in wandering the building and the grounds, confronted some lingering questions about the country and its founding.
Monticello (photo by Geoff Kilmer / Monticello)
Now we’re turning to you for a little “listener support.” No, it’s not a pledge drive (though we encourage you to support your local station…).
Tell us what we’ve missed. We’ve produced nine new Icons — we want you to decide the tenth. If your pick is selected, we’ll make a radio story about it — and you could be a guest on an episode of Studio 360.
We put out the call a few weeks ago, and our listeners have already come up with some surprising and impressive ideas. They range wide across America’s cultural landscape: from My Antonia and The Sound and the Fury to Bugs Bunny, from the Airstream Trailer to Apollo 11. Daniel Leathersich, of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, suggested Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” because it’s a “quintessential song of the dreams of youth, the wonder of escape, and what people become from their memories.”
We need to hear from you. Tell us your ideas…and listen for our tenth American Icon!
- Michael Guerriero
How about baseball? Or a food item?
FDR.
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.”
Perhaps a certain American man in office today could take a peek at this speech and get some inspiration/backbone/cojones…..
Vin Scully, without a doubt. Baseball isn’t quite baseball without him, even if he has stopped calling national games.