Ray Smock talked about Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), who on November 18, 2009, would become the member with the longest continuous service in Congress in the history of the country. Mr. Smock was interviewed on November 11, 2009, at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where he is the director of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies. The center is a private, educational organization whose mission is to promote a better understanding of the United States Congress by conducting lectures, conferences, and workshops. The Robert C. Byrd Center is one of over 30 such institutions nationwide, many named for politicians such as Howard Baker, Carl Albert, Richard Russell, Bob Dole, Everett Dirksen and others, which belong to the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress. Mr. Smock is a former president of the association and is also former historian of the U.S. House of Representatives. Other topics included his latest book, Booker T. Washington: Black Leadership in the Age of Jim Crow. With Louis Harlan, he co-edited the fourteen-volume Booker T. Washington Papers. Photographs and video clips were shown throughout the program.