comedy where you figure out how to get along with people and you could sit down and have a drink with them. that is the spirit of the bar and the spirit we all bring to the coasters. we will suspend our political opinions and say that for our -- save that for our political cartoons. in this case, we will have lighthearted fun with the caricatures and the coasters. sunday on 1968, america in turmoil, liberal politics. greatk back to lbj's society and liberal activists redefining the role of the federal government and challenging traditional values. our guests -- the 1968 election and the politics of division.

turmoil68, america in "n c-span's "washington journal and on american history tv on c-span3. >> the university of oklahoma is home to the carl albert center. we will learn more about this former speaker of the house and see collections from other oklahoma commerce meant. >> today, we are at the carl albert research center at the university of oklahoma. the center was founded in 1979 by ron peters. peters thought we have this powerful member of congress, we need to do something at the university to memorialize his ideals about congress, about legislating, about governing. collections of60 members of congress and 20 political collections.

today, we will look at the carl albert collection, we will look at the robert s kurt collection. was speaker of the house from 1971-1977. prior to that, he was majority , and just was whip a regular member of congress. there he is in the speaker's office. pictures,rniture, other stuff that came from carl albert's office in d.c. these are things that he used. this is where he would work. carl albert was not a very tall man. in order to raise himself up a bit, he had someone built for so helittle footstool

could sit a little taller at the desk. one of the highlights of speaker albert's career was bringing in queen elizabeth for the bicentennial. here's albert showing the queen some photographs. she brought a copy of the magna carta to give to albert. she is sitting in this chair. the chair is still here. we let guests sometimes sit in the chair the queen sat in. we have some pictures. this is speaker albert in his freshman class. you can find future president nixon and future president kennedy. kennedy came to oklahoma. here, he's opening up an intersection. he came because robert s kerr

wanted him to come. furniture from his various offices. here's the queen's chair again. speaker albert was napping on the so but when he found out spirit agnew -- spiro agnew resigned. some of the liberal democrats had a plan to get albert into the presidency. was a democraton and speaker albert. albert was opposed to this. he was prepared. this document here is a memo sorensen toed speaker albert. it lays out what albert should do if he becomes president. you can look. it says step one, take the oath

of office. step two, physically taking over the office. step three, resign from the house. he would have to resign his speakership. it would only be temporarily. this is an interesting piece of history that people don't know about. we think about nixon and impeachment. we don't think about the things that could have potentially happened during that time peirod. -- that time period. in ada, kerr was born oklahoma. he was born in this wonderful log cabin here. he grew up very poor. he worked his way up. had ain the senate, kerr lot of priorities. the number one priority was the arkansas river bed project.

the arkansas river runs through part of oklahoma. it goes through tulsa. eventually winds its way to colorado on one end and connects with the mississippi river. there's a lot of things he wanted to a with the arkansas river bed project. oklahoma has a lot of problems with the weather. we have tornadoes. we also have droughts and floods. we try to make up for our droughts with a week's worth of rain per year. the project would help with flooding, help get some dams and get some energy and helps navigate through the arkansas river's a good get materials from tulsa and other areas to the mississippi. and wasn't fully funded until after he died in 1963. he was able to accomplish a lot of this, eventually becoming the chair of the public works committee.

it's a classic pork committee where it's job is to get funding delivered back to different states. this map lays out the changes they are going to make. oklahoma doesn't have a lot of natural lakes. in. have to put dams for have to make canals some part of the river to make it navigable. he was able to work with eisenhower to get funding for the project. as the chair of the public works committee. he was able to get it funded. if anyone else in congress wanted harbor legislation, he would say sure, go ahead. everyone gets a little bit and you're able to fund these projects. in 19 succeed three, it is fully funded. -- in 1963, it is fully funded.

he became chair of the nafta committee. kerr takes over when lyndon johnson assumes the vice presidency. this is like a classic pork barrel project you can do. we need to be the russians to space. -- beat the russians to space. buildhought we could parts for rockets in oklahoma. they need a lot of fuel and medications satellites -- communications satellites. he was able to grow the budget for nasa. another move he was able to make, he was able to get jim webb to be an administrator for nasa. of an oiln employee company prior to his service and government.

mcgees part owner of kerr- oil company. this was seen as a coup for kerr to get his man into nasa. they would give these rockets to kerr hoping to get money for their programs. the pioneer rocket, the jupiter, but also some ballistic missiles as well. this one comes on its little cart here. this moves missiles around the country. this is one of my favorite pictures and the collection. we have lyndon johnson, robert s kerr, the back of kennedy's head. they are all looking at alan shepard, who is an astronaut. they are all paying attention to alan shepard. the next collection is the mike

steinhauer collection. he's pretty liberal. he's elected first in 1978. he's only 28 years old. he was a fighter. he took on big tobacco. he fights with the nra. he's not afraid to take on the big issues. he eventually gets hurt politically. he ends up losing in the democratic primary in 1994. his opponent up funding from the nra and big tobacco. his big fights came back against him politically. he wanted to do the right thing. he always said he would go to congress to take the heart to congress, not to shy away from the problem. the other collections are a little sanitized. his collection came to us as is.

the documents here show who mike steinhauer is. they show who his staff are. we gotten to know his staff over the years as well. one thing steinhauer was known -- under thease reagan administration, congress that ceded power from the comptroller general to cut the budget if congress wasn't able to meet certain goals they wanted to make. congress isn't good about cutting spending. this act ceded power to the comptroller. steinhauer thought this was wrong. he said this was wrong. congress should be the one to cut the budget. we shouldn't see the powers to somebody else. he sued the government.

comptroller and d steinhauer was the one suing the government. vince is one of his staffers. this was given to him when the trial was going on. this shows a bit of his personality, the personality of his staff. they were a real team. there are some members of congress people are excited to work for that aren't excited to work for -- people aren't excited to work for, but people were excited to work for mike. these are theere, people who worked on the case. in the back, there's tom morrison. he's the one who presented the case to the supreme court. we had him come out last year to

talk about what happened, the legal strategies he used. --irs mike at the microphone there is mike at the microphone. we have some other documents here. there a press release from the ap. one of the few cases where the ruling leaked from the supreme court. the supreme court is usually tightlipped. steinhauer wins. the court rules that you can't see this power -- cede this power. these are the arguments, the briefs that were presented, the schedule, what mike is going to do. this document here plays up the personality. he's going to appear on tv. if there's any problems -- mike

comes down with laryngitis, here's what you should do. some staff don't have the personality that some of these folks do. this is the dick army collection. he's from texas. why is this at the university of oklahoma? he has a phd in economics from the university. we are a very professional archive, we process collections. you give your papers to us, you know we will keep them forever. stateeople from out of might look to us as a place to give their collection. dick army is elected in 1985. he's part of this wave of republicans who wanted to fight

back against democrats. under the bob michael leadership delay and gingrich and are trying to fight with democrats. in the lead up to the 1994 election, one of the important -- it was a series of legislation that the republicans would pass in the first 100 days once they were elected. 's list.rmy they were able to pass some of these dealing with budgetary issues or the rules at the house. they wanted to pass term limits for the u.s. congress. the line-item veto, not constitutional. we have that in oklahoma, but not able to do at the federal level.

here's the press conference dealing with the contract. boehner, younger john dennis hastert. all the leadership in the republican party was behind the document. we've seen the strength of congress has waxed and waned. congress is a powerful body, probably more dominant than the president. over the years, may be seated power to the president or strengthened the power of the leadership. your average congressman has less power. they strengthened the rules committee, they did away with seniority rule. it, but we't use think of speakers today, they use those powers that came through when albert was speaker. we are bipartisan, focused on

history, focused on telling stories, focused on teaching. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to norman, oklahoma to learn about its rich history. learn more at www.c-span.org /citiestour, you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. american history tv is on

c-span3 every weekend, featuring museum tours, archival films and programs on the presidency, the civil war and more. here's a clip from a recent program. i'm asked, what are your favorite items in the museum? anh 3100 on exhibit and inventory of 100,000 to pick from, it's hard to say what that is. there is one. it's this one right here. ward,is julia howell who wrote a poem at 2:00 in the morning at the willard hotel. stub ofays, she took a a penciled by the candlelight available to her and wrote down

what she said god gave her to write down. she showed it to her daughter the next morning and it was all scripture she had written down, but it formed a poem. her daughter said, mom, you should have this published. she took it to a publisher and he published it. she created the battle hymn of the republic. that one piece of paper that she that is now considered one hymns in theung united states ever, we own. this is the original letter she wrote. in this area, we have music that deals with amazing grace and the battle hymn of the republic and other pieces of music that represent the struggle of what's

going on. this is one of my favorites because it is a very unique story. you don't realize the words themselves are all taken from biblical texts she says she was given to write down. you using that song -- when sing that song, you will recognize it. you will hear the bible being quoted in her song. >> you can watch this and other american history programs on our website, where all of our video is archived. that's www.c-span.org/history. in memphis, tennessee earlier this week for coverage of events commemorating the 50th anniversary of martin luther king junior's assassination on

april 4, 1968. next, an outdoor ceremony in front of the preserved lorraine motel. motel where the reverend king was mortally wounded. remarks from religious and civil rights leaders. he was with martin luther king at the time of the shooting. the commemoration and's with the tolling of a bell exactly 50 years after the assassination. [indiscernible] ♪