oklahoma african-american experience is unique. you have five civilized tribes that all owned african-american slaves. we also participated in all six land runs. those three migration patterns are how african-americans settle oklahoma. those that were involved in slavery and their children received 40 acres of land. so that is something that's still historically unique for oklahoma. it is unique for the united states that these former slaves did receive something other than just freedom. land ownership was the true social avenue of progress. if you owned the land you worked, you were able to truly

make a better way for your family. a lot of towns make oklahoma unique, over 30 odd settlements of black towns in this state, what would occur, relatives would pool their resources together and say we got a community, we got a school. now let's incorporate and form a black town, an all black town, like langston, red bird, lima. uniqueness of oklahoma, old black town experience. but land ownership, keep in mind same time frame, mississippi, alabama, some parts of texas, arkansas, louisiana, georgia you

were a share cropper. couldn't own land. couldn't own land. a lot of times that was the foundation of could you vote. couldn't vote, you couldn't represent your people of authority in terms of government. so land ownership was the backbone, the foundation of social progress. reverend jones was born a slave in tennessee. around 1856 or so. just a kid. so he was about roughly nine or so once emancipation took place. and he he migrated to oklahoma, muskogee area. he became an ordained baptist minister. what is so phenomenal about the life and times of reverend ss jones, not only he was a circuit

black baptist preacher, he was able to document it on film. and from about 1925 to 1928, reverend jones traversed all of oklahoma. he covered more black towns and cities than any individual as far as recording events, came here to langston, commencement in the early '20s. came here to langston, covered a football game and the fans in the stands. first recording of that anywhere. that's unheard of for a former slave, a person born into slavery to have that kind of foresight and wisdom. to restore a story let alone any

whites would do. i have been fortunate to gain quite a name in the collecting community. so i received a phone call on my cell phone from a white dealer out of tulsa. and the gentleman said over the phone are you curry ballard? i said yes. he said do you collect that black stuff? i said yes, what do you have. and he proceeded to talk about these cannisters of film. he says his grandfather was a large land owner in the city of tulsa, owned many homes. well, part of his inheritance was this particular home in which he went into the attic and found all 27 cannisters.

we met halfway between tulsa and langston in a community, willie guthrie's hometown, and i looked at the cannister. i was familiar with reverend ss jones on two counts. had he a church in muskogee, part of the black town tours that a good friend of mine, we would congregate, people from all over the country would come to this black town tour and the headquarters we did this out of was muskogee. well, we would meet in reverend jones' church, had on the cornerstone his name on it, ref recommended ss jones. just one of those things i never forgot. i thought i'm familiar with this person. secondly, about ten years before, through department of tourism here in oklahoma a friend of mine that worked there shared with me someone had

mailed them all of about a minute of reverend jones clip. and i was so intrigued with that. i could never put that out of my mind. so i had kind of one up on the seller. i'm familiar with jones. so as a result, we negotiated a price. he was on the moon. i finally got him down to earth. but the risk was was the film any good, after the film had been up in an attic for 70 years, you know, it is nie trait film. i could have been buying something that was virtually useless. i took the risk. it was a leap of faith. and as a result of that, got it transferred, sent it onto scottsdale, arizona, where they digitized it, et cetera, et cetera. and eventually it was sold in

new york city through my agent to yale university. a picture speaks a thousand words. a moving picture speaks a million words. it had happened nowhere else. you might have had an element of someone similar to doing a reverend jones in harlem, new york, but not in the southwestern region of the country. everyday life. special events, of communities, parades and commencements and the home makers group canning things. it's a slice of life that he, if he had not had the wisdom to capture via film would have been lost forever. i've never seen any film before

in my life, blacks that own oil wells here in oklahoma. covered several families. and i'm not talking about dozen, two, three dozen barrels a day. talking two to three thousand barrels the families were making. these people got wealthy, not rich, wealthy. those were members of his congregation. again, oklahoma is such a unique situation when it comes to the black experience. and reverend jones again, we were blessed to have a person like that to be able to chronicle that. on the technology of the day called film. i was a child of the '60s. i grew up in the watts section of los angeles in the 1960s. and i'm going to give you a little illustration here.

and you know, again, there was a very popular tv program that nbc produced called "i spy." robert cull, bill cosby. as a kid in the '60s, if you wanted to clear the streets, i spy would come on tv. everybody was in front of a tv set. we were so hungry for our image, to see a positive image of ourselves via bill cosby on tv that you never worried about mom and daddy saying y'all need to get on in here. oh, no. he, born into slavery, had saw the worst of america's treatment of americans. and as a result of that, he knew there were other sides of us.

now again, these were showed in his church and what have you. they were showed in black formats, okay? so what he wanted to do was uplift black folk, and say yeah, you're from cotton patch x, y, z. but in langston, oklahoma, they got a university there. let me tell you what they doing in bowling, oklahoma, they got a railroad station there. oh. ain't nothing like showing you're somebody. you're beyond the situation you currently in. you're struggling now, but boy, there's a goal, there's an aim, there's an ambition that goes beyond, far beyond where you currently are. hosted by our cox communications cable partner,

cspan's local content vehicles recently visited many historic sites in oklahoma city, the capital of oklahoma. learn more about oklahoma city all weekend long on american history tv. my name is bill clark. welcome to the state capitol of oklahoma. spend a little time taking a look at a very beautiful building. start here with solomon laten, the principal architect on the capitol. this is a 1915 drawing of the capitol, and i show this to folks just so they understand the dome really was a part of the plan in the beginning. the building was built without the dome between 1914 and 1917. did not build the dome then because they ran out of money. but they had built all of the supporting sub structure for the dome. so when we got around to building the dome, beginning in

2001, we were able just to start at the roof line and go up. the base of the building is covered with pink and black granite that comes from oklahoma. white indiana limestone on the main part. the dome is covered with a man-made stone, and that's how they were able to match the building as well as they did. the floors of the capitol are alabama marble, chosen for its durability. you'll see vermont marble in the base boards, you'll see it in steps and in pillars throughout the building. through the efforts of senator charles ford, we have added some 100 new pieces of artwork throughout the capitol, and he's quick to add at no cost to the state of oklahoma. this particular piece is by wayne cooper called the magic of petroleum. and they're taking water that has oil in it to make medicine for arthritis and other diseases.

this is governor mary fallen's office. governor fallen is the first, not only first woman, she was also the first woman and first republican lieutenant governor in 1995. right around the corner from her office, lieutenant governor todd lam's office. they're elected separately, could be from different political parties. they are both republicans this time around, and both are elected for four-year terms. this is the guardian. sculpted by a senator, one of the former state senators. senator haney is a full blood seminole creek indian. but this statue represents all of the indians of oklahoma. there are 39 tribes that have headquarters in oklahoma. looking at the general population, it is probably something in the neighborhood of 60s tribes.

notice the speer he has driven that sphere through his leg and the ground. that means he is staying to protect the state capitol. >> is this image of a particular person? >> no. it is as generic as he could make it so that it represented all of the indians of oklahoma, rather than a particular person or even a particular tribe. >> where is this? >> this is the hall of governors. we have each of the former governors, all except for the last three on the right were done by leonard mcmurray for the 75th state hood anniversary in 1982. of the governors, welcome murray is probably my favorite, because he has more stories to be told about him than any other governor i think in the group. he was the president of the constitutional convention. he was the first speaker of the

house of representatives. had to wait awhile before he became governor. in four years he was governor, he called out the oklahoma national guard more than 40 times. more than all the rest of them put together. and over all kinds of things. there was a free bridge built across the red river to texas. the folks that had the toll bridges had a court injunction to keep that bridge closed. he took the national guard down. they opened the free bridge and closed the toll bridge. during his administration, the price of oil dropped to 18 cents a barrel, and he said we're not pumping oil until it goes back to at least a dollar. the one i get a big kick out of, the problem with people scalping football tickets at the university of oklahoma. on football weekends, he was sending part of the guard to norman to be sure nobody made money on their football tickets. 20 years after he was governor, his son, johnston, was governor, and they're the only father and

son governor so far. i think it is kind of ironic that bill opened that free bridge. johnston opened oklahoma's first turnpike. the painting in the archway beyond the centennial by carlos teo, different in style from all of the rest of the artwork in the capitol, but it has a lot of oklahoma symbolism in it. first of all, the big red figure in the middle represents the universal man or all oklahomans. they have two words that mean red man. there's the red man. lower left-hand corner, you have the state wild flower, indian blanket. above that purple area, a red bud tree, the state tree. the state bird, and by his other hand, an astronaut. there have been more astronauts go into space from oklahoma than any other state in the union.

we come into the senate chamber. oklahoma's legislature meets the first monday of february, has to be finished by last friday of may. in session four months out of the year. we have 48 state senators elected for four years. the lieutenant governor is the president of the senate, but not active in that role, probably in 70 years now, so the president pro tem really is the leader. and a little bit of our history from 1907 to 2006, the democrats had the majority, so the pro tem was a democrat. 2006 we had a tie. so they elected a democrat and a republican, and they alternated days who was conducting the business of the senate. i thought if the lieutenant governor was ever going to be involved, that would be it. turned out the first year of that session there were no tie votes at all. in the second year, there were openly four, so they really made

that situation work. the picture is the constitutional convention. that was held in guthrie in 1906 and 1907 there were 112 men from oklahoma territory and other regions that gathered there. in the centerpiece, we have the original oklahoma state constitution. 110 pages long, making it the longest state constitution in the country as it was originally written. i would like to compare it to the united states constitution in its original form, it was four pages long. welcome murray who presided later on said probably 40 of the first 48 sections should have been done by the legislature. section 17. roughly half the document, the description of county boundaries, names of county seats and method for changing county boundaries. probably will not find that in another constitution in the

country. then over here, we have the great seal that was used when the capitol was in guthrie. if you go to guthrie, they'll tell you that we stole this from them. i'm of the opinion it was not stealing because we did have an election in 1910. the people voted to move the capitol from guthrie to oklahoma city. the story about the midnight ride of the state seal, several versions of that story, and all of them seemed to say in the middle of the night, truth of the matter, they had car trouble on the way, didn't get there until the next morning and brought the seal back that next day. this is the supreme court of the state of oklahoma. originally, five justices elected by the people. today, there are nine. and they're appointed by the governor.

once they are appointed, in the next general election, their name will be on the ballot, and we vote whether to retain them for six years, and then every six years after that, their name will be on the ballot. a little bit about the room. the wood work throughout this room is solid mahogany, imported from the west indies in 1916. the pillars are one piece of solid vermont marble. each of these pillars weighs about 10,000 pounds. brought in on the railroad, that was the way to bring in things in the 1910s. the ceiling and decorative places on the wall, that's cast plaster, done by mcnoel tee brothers of chaugs. they meet mondays and thursday. they don't meet in the courtroom often. most work is based on written records, so they meet in a conference room. only when they have a case with a lot of public interest will

they meet here in the courtroom. this court will probably handle something in the neighborhood of 2,000 cases per year. most of the work of this court is how the lower courts are doing their work. so it's not the kind of thing where you have to have oral arguments. a lot of it can be handled just on paper. >> is it common to have the supreme court housed in the capitol building? >> my understanding is until the people of the court moved out last summer that we were one of the very few states where all three branches of government were still in the capitol building, so apparently it is unusual for the supreme court to be housed in the capitol. the great seal has a lot of our history in it. there are 45 small stars. stand for the 45 states before oklahoma. and the large star symbols five

of the many tribes that were forced to come to indian territory. starting at the top. chickasaw, chalk tau, seminole creek, and cherokee. inside the green wreath, farmer and the indian shaking hands makes a good picture of the combining of oklahoma territory and indian territory to make the state of oklahoma in 1907 we're on the fourth floor row tunld a. above there, there's a purple ring, that marks beginning of new construction. everything above that line was completed in october of 2002, so we have had a dome on our capitol about nine years now. >> how long did it take for them to add the dome? >> 16 months. started in april of '01. they were finished by october of '02. so 16 months.

the cost to build this dome was $22 million. of that, some 20 million is privately financed. from the beginning, there was always a group of people that wanted to finish the capitol and build the dome. through the years, different groups have tried to raise money. governor keating put the right group of people together to raise the money, and his goal was to have the dome on the capitol by the centennial so that we would have the capitol looking like it was supposed to look, as it was originally designed. the large paintings are by charles banks wilson. and he starts with the history of oklahoma, coronado and the spanish going across the panhandle in 1541. on their way to the lost cities of gold. this is on the early frontier.

one of the interesting things about wilson, he does not make things up. so all of the people in his paintings are real people. all of the background scenes are actual oklahoma locations. the big indian in the middle is joe benny mason, probably will never forget that because i had his twin granddaughters on tour one day, and they made sure that everybody knew that was their grandpa. this is the indians coming to indian territory. wilson actually calls it the indian immigration, which to me made it sound like they wanted to come here, and i never have understood that. kind of in the upper right-hand corner, you'll see a depiction of the trail of tears. the reason there's a steam boat in the middle of that painting in the background. actually some of the chalk tau were wealthy enough they were able to come up the arkansas river by boat. the artwork i think is what draws people, what draws me to

the building, what sets the building apart. and just the stories that go with the artwork. you know, across the way, we have will rogers. will was an actor, a cowboy, a humorist, goodwill ambassador to the world. people need to know will rogers is from oklahoma. around to the left there, we have sequoia, a cherokee that developed the cherokee alphabet or sill a berry. just a wonderful story. he was not literate in another language, and came up with what ling wiss say probably the best way to write down the cherokee language. but i really would say the stories behind the artwork would be one of the most important things for people to get out of their visit. come to the capitol. come to the oklahoma state capitol, see the beautiful building.

hear the stories. see what's going on in the capitol. all week long we are in oklahoma city, oklahoma to explore its history. you're watching 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. we want to welcome you to the carl albert research center. it is one of the largest congressional archives in the country. we hold the papers of 55 members plus of congress as well as staff and other individuals and it is a really unique resource for scholars who are interested in representative government and the congress in particular. my name is cindy simon rosenthal, i am the director and cure atore of the carl albert research center. >> let's go inside. >> welcome you back. this is the heart and soul of

the archives. this is essentially what is the finished product of the work that we do. the center has really a broad mission. the mission includes research and our archives play a significant role in that, in that this is available to academic scholars, jeannie obviously gists, historians, people interested in policy history. also have a teaching mission at the carl albert center, and a public service mission as well, which reaches out into the community to engage communities in discussions about public policy and just the health of our institutions, our representative government, and the congress obviously being part of it. we are also interested in state legislative bodies, city councils, et cetera. when we get a collection from a member, it is deeded to us and we then become the stewards of that collection, and we spend an

enormous amount of time arranging, describing, and then cataloging the item often times to the item level, but at least to the folder level the things that are of significance in a particular folder so that a scholar can go online and search our inventories and identify those things that they wish to have copies of, or if they're going to spend a significant amount of time here, they'll identify boxes that they want to look into as they come and visit the center to do their research. >> how did the center get its name? >> it is of course named after carl albert who was speaker of the house of representatives, highest ranking position held by an elected official from the state of oklahoma. he was third in line to succession, and he served from right after the war, after world war ii, he ran for the congress,

and he served until 1977, and he rose through the ranks of the leadership to be the whip, majority leader and speaker from 1971 to 1977 so the center is named after him because we were established with a congressional appropriate agency as well as state appropriate agency to be the repository for his papers and other oklahomans over the years. we have a collection that's among the largest in the country in terms of congressional papers that you can go to one place and do research on congressional history. let me show you a couple things. start with perhaps one of the older files. this would be from alfalfa, bill murray, and he was governor of the state of