American Experience (season 21)

Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	9
Release
Original network	PBS
Original release	January 26, 2009 (2009-01-26) – May 11, 2009 (2009-05-11)

Season twenty-one of American Experience originally aired between January 26, 2009 and May 11, 2009, and contained nine episodes, beginning with "The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer."

Episodes

See also: List of American Experience episodes

No. in series	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Categories	Original air date
246	1	"The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"	David Grubin	Biographies, Technology, War	January 26, 2009 (2009-01-26)
247	2	"The Polio Crusade"	Sarah Colt	Popular Culture, Technology	February 2, 2009 (2009-02-02)
248	3	"The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln"	Barak Goodman	Presidents	February 9, 2009 (2009-02-09)
249	4	"A Class Apart"	Carlos Sandoval	Civil Rights, Popular Culture	February 23, 2009 (2009-02-23)
250	5	"We Shall Remain: After the Mayflower (Part 1)"	Chris Eyre	Civil Rights, Native American History, Politics, The American West	April 13, 2009 (2009-04-13)
In 1621, Wampanoag leader Massasoit negotiates to provide help to the ailing Pilgrims from the Mayflower, on the brink of disaster, because he thinks this alliance will ensure protection for his tribe from the threatening Narragansett tribe. For the next fifty years, it will become more and more clear that Massasoit was wrong as continuing European immigration, widespread diseases and overuse of natural resources push the interaction between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims to war led by Metacomet, Massoit's son.
251	6	"We Shall Remain: Tecumseh's Vision (Part 2)"	Ric Burns, Chris Eyre	Civil Rights, Native American History, Politics, The American West	April 20, 2009 (2009-04-20)
In 1805, plains Indians in the Midwest were feeling the threat of westward expansion by white pioneers. Tecumseh, a member of the Shawnee tribe, used the growing worry of disparate tribes to bring them together into a confederacy with the common goal of saving their ancestral land. The dream of a separate Indian nation state would die along with Tecumseh when he was killed in battle in 1813.
252	7	"We Shall Remain: Trail of Tears (Part 3)"	Chris Eyre	Civil Rights, Native American History, Politics, The American West	April 27, 2009 (2009-04-27)
For many years, the Cherokee nation sought to gain respect from the United States Government by adapting Western-style religion, government and education in the hopes of receiving recognition of their ancestral land as a sovereign nation. On May 26, 1838, the United States Government had troops forcibly remove members of the Cherokee tribe from their land in the Southeastern US to Oklahoma. More than 4,000 people would die of disease and starvation along the way of the Trail of Tears.
253	8	"We Shall Remain: Geronimo (Part 4)"	Dustinn Craig	Civil Rights, Native American History, Politics, The American West	May 4, 2009 (2009-05-04)
Apache Geronimo and his fierce band of warriors refused to accept the expansion of the United States and Mexican into his tribe's land and earned the distinction of being one of the last major forces of Native American resistance before their eventual surrender in 1886. It earned Geronimo the distinction of being the most famous Native American of his time.
254	9	"We Shall Remain: Wounded Knee (Part 5)"	Stanley Nelson	Civil Rights, Native American History, Politics, The American West	May 11, 2009 (2009-05-11)
The American Indian Movement's last stand at Wounded Knee in 1973 brought attention to the desperate conditions of Indian reservation life when around 200 American Indians engaged in a 71 day stand off with the US government demanding redress for grievances, some dating back over 100 years.