Editor's note

Hello everyone,

It’s been a great few weeks for the Heat and Light podcast.

First up, we now have 4 episodes available:

Revolution Starts on Campus – The student occupation of Columbia University.

Fear of a Non-Nuclear Family – How a feminist protest of the 1968 Miss America pageant stoked conservative anxieties.

An Interracial Kiss – on Another Planet – The significance of the first interracial kiss on American television.

Detroit is Burning – Two native Detroiters discuss race in the North. Guest Jeff Horner also wrote a new piece in The Conversation about the Detroit Uprisings; it’s linked below.

Also, we’re giving away free Heat and Light t-shirts. You can go here to enter.

Finally, we’d like to do something a little special starring you, our listeners, and your personal stories about the year 1968. Did you take part in a student rally? Did your uncle have tales of returning from Vietnam? Or was your mind blown by TV’s first interracial kiss on Star Trek?

We hope to hear from you and add your tales from this unique period in US history to our own. Call us at 1-617-329-5248 and leave your name, phone number, and story.

You can download all four episodes from your service of choice below:

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Stitcher Listen on RadioPublicListen on TuneIn

Jason Lindley

Media Outreach Coordinator

Shooting victims are removed from the Algiers Motel in Detroit, July 26, 1967. AP Photo

Police killings of 3 black men left a mark on Detroit’s history more than 50 years ago

Jeffrey Horner, Wayne State University

Efforts to keep the city segregated led to one of the largest civil rights rebellions of the 1960s, and interactions between citizens and police turned deadly.
Nervous about how southern television viewers would react, NBC executives closely monitored the filming of the kiss between Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner. U.S. Air Force

TV’s first interracial kiss launched a lifelong career in activism

Matthew Delmont, Arizona State University

The career arc of Nichelle Nichols – the first black woman to have a continuing co-starring role on TV – shows how diverse casting can have as much of an impact off the screen as it does on it.
Black power militant H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael (right) appeared at a sit-in protest at Columbia University in New York City on April 26, 1968. AP

1968 protests at Columbia University called attention to ‘Gym Crow’ and got worldwide attention

Stefan M. Bradley, Loyola Marymount University

The 1968 protests at Columbia University led the institution to abandon a gym project that residents considered racist and cut off its defense work – and generated worldwide attention in the process.
The poor treatment of Vietnam War veterans, many of whom had PTSD, angered Natasha Zaretsky’s Midwestern students. REUTERS/Mike Theiler

Red-state politics in and out of the college classroom

Natasha Zaretsky, Southern Illinois University

A scholar raised by leftist San Francisco parents in the 1970s ends up teaching in the heartland, where her students represent a very different kind of politics. What she learns from them is profound.