Choose Your American Icon

What do Lucille Ball and Malcolm X have in common?They’re both part of Studio 360American Iconsseries. This fall, we’ve traced the impact ofThe Autobiography of Malcolm Xon race relations and glimpsed the dawn of the American sitcom withI Love Lucy. Last week we visitedMonticello– Thomas Jefferson’s home in Virginia — and in wandering the building and the grounds, confronted some lingering questions about the country and its founding.

Now we’re turning to you for a little “listener support.” No, it’s not a pledge drive (though we encourage you to support your local station…).

Tell us what we’ve missed. We’ve produced nine new Icons — we want you to decide the tenth. If your pick is selected, we’ll make a radio story about it — and you could be a guest on an episode of Studio 360.

We put out the call a few weeks ago, and our listeners have already come up with some surprising and impressive ideas. They range wide across America’s cultural landscape: from My Antonia and The Sound and the Fury to Bugs Bunny, from the Airstream Trailer to Apollo 11. Daniel Leathersich, of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, suggested Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” because it’s a “quintessential song of the dreams of youth, the wonder of escape, and what people become from their memories.

We need to hear from you. Tell us your ideas…and listen for our tenth American Icon!