different. history is all about contingencies. and we ended up with a person who was strong enough to stand for union and understood the importance of the union, but because of his own personal character, a character issue, was unable to see through the transformation of the south because, to him, that was against everything that he believed. >> please join me in thanking an annette gordon-reed. ♪ >> so, basketball started in 1910. it won its first national championship in 1957 with an undefeated 32-0 season.

>> win 54-53, north carolina did it. north carolina wins the championship! >> it's won 7 national championships, 6 ncaa championships, 18 acc championships, coach of the year, olympians, and a lot of great nba players have come out of the university of north carolina. 52 former tar heels have been drafted in the first round of the nba. there's great history on the college and professional level. we're standing in the kaur carry basketball museum which is in the building immediately adjacent to the center where the carolina basketball team plays home games. the purpose is to tell the story of north carolina basketball. dean smith donated his entire collection of basketball memorabilia, which was quite extensive, to the university. and this basketball museum is sort of the one place that houses all of that history.

>> we decided we wanted to start off with how the uniforms have evolved through the years. one of the things that people get a kick out of when they see the museum is the number 10 jersey. that's lenny rosenbluth who was the national player of the year in 1957 when we won the national championship. people are stunned to see there's red in the carolina basketball jersey. frank mcguire was a fashion plate out in new york city and he wanted to jazz up the uniforms a little bit. so, put a little bit of a red trim in there. people were really surprised because obviously through the years, there isn't much red in the carolina basketball uniforms. that's the color of one of our big rivals, nc state, so now our uniforms are blue and white and that's it. the blue and white came out of way back when -- there were a couple of literary societies at unc in the 1800s and one's colors were white and one's colors were blue. that's how the colors came to be light blue and white.

north carolina basketball took off in the '40s and '50s and has become one of the top programs in all of college sports, not just basketball. but carolina basketball is one of those marquee programs, both in the atlanta coast conference and across the country. basketball has changed across the years. the biggest change is with integration. back in 1910, it was an all-white team. the first black basketball player here at fix income was charlie scott in 1966. became a great player in the network, also a hall of famer. we've had tremendous former black players, james worthy, michael jordan, a lot of great success has come from black players. it was an all-white team in 1910. when the acc was formed in 1953, that really kind of set in motion what is now known as acc basketball. about four years into the acc, north carolina went 32-0,

undefeated national champions, beat wilt chamberlain at kansas in triple overtime, and that game changed college sports. it changed sports at the university of north carolina and changed basketball at the acc. when north carolina won that game, there were 10,000 people at the airport when the team came back and it was one of the first -- it was the first televised game in the state of north carolina, the national championship game. so, for a lot of reasons, it really took off in the '50s with that national championship team, rosenbluth and tommy kerns and the great tar heels from that team. dean smith began his program five years after that. and coach smith became the winningest coach in college basketball history and is a legend here in chapel hill. dean smith was our head basketball coach from 1961 to 1997. when he retired he was the winningest coach in college basketball history. he helped the united states win back the gold medal at the

olympics in 1976. he won two national championships. more than that, he built a great program. the carolina way of play hard, play smart, play together. those are themes that all the coaches that have come after coach smith, now roy williams, they play hard, play smart, play together. that's what coach smith lived by. you know, this sort of greecian style urn is sports illustrated sportsman of the year. it's one of the top awards in all of sports each year. coach smith won that in 1997. it was a great story about how he got that artifact for the museum. he had listed it on the inventory of items that he was donating to the university, but we couldn't find it. so, we looked everywhere. we looked in every cloz etd, in the basketball office and even at his house and nobody could find it. somebody who had visited his

house five years earlier had said, i think i know where that is. and so they went to the house. they looked on top in the dining room of a cabinet, and there tucked in between two plants was one of the most prestigious awards that is given in sports each year. the other one that's very prominent is the presidential medal of freedom that president obama bestowed upon coach smith several years ago. that's a photo of his family members as well as coach guthridge on the left and coach williams on the right with the president michelle obama. that's -- people at the university of north carolina took tremendous pride in coach smith receiving that award. basketball awards are great, but the presidential medal of freedom is probably the top thing. to me, it's the most prestigious artifact that's here in the museum. there are three players who have their own cases here at the carolina basketball museum.

phil ford, who is a great point guard here in the '70s, tyler hance bro who head us to a national championship in 2009, and of course michael jordan who many people believe and we think here at the university of north carolina is the greatest basketball player of all time. michael was good enough to loan ugs several items from his collection. we also found great artifacts here in our own collection, our own files, of letters that coach smith sent to michael of things that he wanted him to work on, a recruiting card that coach smith kept on every player that he ever recruited. and one of the great things about that card is first of all on the card it's michael, not michael. and second is magic jordan, his nickname magic, like magic johnson. until people saw that card, lite of people didn't know that in high school, michael's nickname was magic jordan. on the other side of the case, we were fortunate that michael let us go to his home in chicago

and pick out several items to put here in the museum. whether it was nba all-star game trophies, mvp of the all-star game, national player awards he won here at north carolina. one of the items that gets a lot of mention is a recruiting letter that the coach at duke sent michael. it's one of the most talked about items because of the great respect michael has for him and the duke program has gone on to great heights as well. it's one oof those pieces that people come in and go why is there a letter from duke university and they see it's a letter from coach k. to michael about his recruitment. obviously michael is a great ambassador for the university of north carolina and one of the greatest players of all time, not just as a tar heel but in all of college basketball history and all of basketball history. basketball is important not just at unc, but in this state, in this region, in our community

and definitely here on campus at unc. the acc has grown. it was called tobacco road because so many of the programs were based here in north carolina. basketball is very important. it's part of the culture. it's part of when you come to school at north carolina. a lot of people that come here come because they want to be part of carolina basketball, men's basketball, women's basketball, carolina athletics in general. athletics is not the primary reason people come to the school. getting a great education is always going to be the primary mission at unc, but basketball is part of that. it's part of the fabric of the community, part of fabric of life in the acc, and people do take it seriously here at north carolina. american history tv on c-span3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. and coming up this weekend, saturday at 1:00 p.m. eastern,

we'll mark the 57th anniversary of the march on washington with the nbc news broadcast, the american revolution of '63, which aired less than one week after the 1963 march and dr. martin luther king, jr.'s "i have a dream speech." "screening reality," how documently filmmakers reimagined america, which explores the history of non-fiction films to 21st century reality tv. at 4:00 p.m. on "reel america" we'll feature two programs from the c-span archives on civil rights leaders starting with james baldwin at the national press club on racism in america followed by a 1992 c-span american profile interview with former congresswoman shirley chisholm. at 6:00 p.m. on "american artifacts" a look at women in congress with matthew wasniewski

and farrah elliott using artifacts and photographs from the election of jeanette ranking to stories about margaret smith, clair booth, and lindy vosz. watch on c-span3. up next on american history tv, robert merry, former ceo of congressional requestl congressional quarterly. recalls the presidency of william mckinley. this is just over an hour. ♪