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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-09-10
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Marvin Surkin
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Marvin Surkin is a scholar, author, and specialist in comparative urban politics and social change. He worked at the center of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. Dr. Surkin is the author of Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":7043,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Marvin Surkin is a scholar, author, and specialist in comparative urban politics and social change. He worked at the center of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. Dr. Surkin is the author of <em>Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution</em>. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University.</span>
Digital Publisher
BInghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; TV in the Nineteen fifties; Segregation; \nCivil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Summer of Love."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,11791078],"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; TV in the Nineteen fifties; Segregation; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Summer of Love; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Republicans; Vietnam War; Detroit Riots; Dr. Martin Luther King; Black Power movement; Detroit in 1960s; Black Manifesto<br /></span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
106:59
Subject LCSH
Scholars; Authors; Social change; Metropolitan government; Surkin, Marvin--Interviews
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
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Title
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Interview with Dr. Marvin Surkin
Contributor
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Surkin, Marvin ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
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Scholars; Authors; Social change; Metropolitan government; Surkin, Marvin--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Marvin Surkin is a scholar, author, and specialist in comparative urban politics and social change. He worked at the center of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. Dr. Surkin is the author of <em>Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution</em>. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2010-09-10
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.115
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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106:59
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-05-26
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Maurice Isserman
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Maurice Isserman, born in Hartford, Connecticut, is a professor at Hamilton College and an accomplished author. He got his Bachelor of Arts in History from Reed College and his Master of Arts in American History and his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. Dr. Isserman specializes in modern U.S. History, American radical movements, and global exploration and mountaineering."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,16777215],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Maurice Isserman, born in Hartford, Connecticut, is a professor at Hamilton College and an accomplished author. He received his Bachelor's in History from Reed College and his Master's degree in American History and his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. Dr. Isserman specializes in modern U.S. History, American radical movements, and global exploration and mountaineering.<br /></span>
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam War; Baby boom generation; Beat writers; Activism; Volunteerism; Kent State; Jackson State; Woodstock; Counterculture; Hippies; Yippies; Weathermen; Beat generation; Sexuality; Women's Rights Movement; Students for a Democratic Society."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5041,"3":{"1":0},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Vietnam War; Baby boom generation; Beat writers; Activism; Volunteerism; Kent State; Jackson State; Woodstock; Counterculture; Sputnik; Beatnik; Hippies; Yippies; Weathermen; Weather Underground; Beat generation; Sexuality; Women's Rights Movement; Students for a Democratic Society; Participatory democracy; Nat King Cole; Bob Dylan; Aretha Franklin.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
145:25
Subject LCSH
College teachers; Hamilton College (Clinton, N.Y.); Radicalism--United States; Isserman, Maurice--Interviews
Accessibility
Copy/Paste below:
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Maurice Isserman
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 26 May 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:06):
Testing one, two, testing. I will be checking this.
(00:00:13):
Could you tell us a little bit about your background? I have read about it in the web and everything, and what fascinates me is several things that I would like you to comment on. You had an Uncle Abraham who took you to the 1967 protest at the Pentagon, that was when they levitated.
MI (00:00:34):
Right.
SM (00:00:34):
I would like you to mention that experience and how important he was. And secondly, your college experiences when you were out in Portland. You were joining the Students for Democratic Society and becoming involved with the Portland experience.
MI (00:00:50):
Right. Well, I was born in 1951, so I am smack dab in the middle of the Baby Boom. And grew up in a small town in Connecticut, which was really not on the cultural or political cutting edge of the era. But I came from a family that was marked by, not one, but two dissenting traditions. One was on my father's side, well, he was Jewish. But in the case of my uncle and to an extent my father as well, influenced by participating in the Communist Party in the 1930s and thereafter. My father was not a communist, but he certainly was sympathetic. And on my mother's side, a Quaker background, she was the daughter of, and the sister of Quaker ministers. People are sometimes surprised to hear the Quakers have ministers, and in the East they tended not to, but in the Midwest, they do. So both of those traditions, I think were influences even before the 1960s, sort of picked me up and threw me in front of the on-rushing train of history. So in the summer of 1967, I was on an American Friends Service Committee work project in Indianapolis, which is where my uncle was a Quaker minister at the time. Bonnie Raitt was on that work project. She was not yet Bonnie Raitt, she was just a high school kid who played guitar. We sang a lot of folks songs that summer. That was high school kids doing good works kind of project, but it was also in that context, it was a lot more because it was the summer of Sergeant Pepper and we were these long- haired kids coming into conservative Indianapolis and getting involved in anti-war protests there, such as it was. I remember we had Vigil Hiroshima Day and reading and talking and thinking about stuff. On the project, that is why I read Michael Harrington's "The Other America" for the first time, and the "Autobiography of Malcolm X." So that was one influence. Then going into that fall, I had been in my first anti-war protest the previous spring in New York City, the spring mobilization, which knocked my socks off to be coming from a little town in Connecticut, to be suddenly marching with 300,000 people down to the United Nations from the Central Park and hearing Martin Luther King speak.
SM (00:03:51):
Wow.
MI (00:03:51):
I am getting my chronology all jumbled here.
SM (00:03:54):
But still those are-
MI (00:03:55):
So there was the spring mobilization, then there was the Summer of Love, which I happened to spend in Indianapolis with the AFSC. Then in the fall I went down to the Pentagon with Uncle Abe. My parents were not entirely on board with this going off to anti-war protests. But somehow because my uncle was taking me, it was... When I say my parents, in that case, my mother and stepfather. So with Abe escorting me, we marched from Washington to the side of the Pentagon. And of course what happened at the Pentagon was not part of the program, which was that there was somehow a line where the MPs were not strong or were not there at all. Somebody tore down a cyclone fence and suddenly 5,000 of us tore up the hillside, were right next to the Pentagon building. Abe, I did not come all the way up to the Pentagon with him, I kind of waved goodbye to him. I was there for several hours. And finally the MPs were picking off small groups of protestors. Actually I think it was federal marshals in this case. The MPs were just standing in a line. I was gassed and thrown down the embankment, then I walked back across the Arlington Bridge to Washington and to the hotel where my uncle was staying. I wrote an article about it, which you may have seen for the Chronicle, and said that all in all, it had been the best day of my life.
SM (00:05:33):
Was that your awakening, you were awakened by other things, but the true awakening, was that it?
MI (00:05:40):
Well, I am not sure. That seems a little melodramatic, but I was certainly awakening for several years there in the mid-(19)60s. Already by 1965, (19)66, I was flipping The Times religiously of articles about Vietnam. I remember Harrison Salisbury reports from Hanoi, which established for American readers for the first time, the fact that it was very heavy bombing of civilian neighborhoods going on in Hanoi and other North Vietnamese cities. I would cut out these articles and put them up on my bedroom wall. So even before I was in the streets, I was increasingly aware of what was going on in Vietnam. Before that, the Civil Rights movement, which I had no direct participation in, but was sympathetic to. I mean, I remember watching in 1963, the March on Washington was broadcast live, and I watched King give his speech. We would get Life Magazine every week and there were these pictures of Sheriff Price and the other officers in Philadelphia, Mississippi who had kidnapped Schwerner, Cheney, Goodman. They were sitting at their trial, big fat stereotypical southern sheriffs, laughing and chewing tobacco. I knew which side I was on that one. Then it being the (19)60s, listening to the Beatles and all that was going into the mix. So by 1967, awakening, yes, I was certainly awakened, although I do not think any single event is key. I was also working at my teenage identity and establishing independence issues, going into New York or going down to Washington on my own was a way of showing my parents that I could take care of myself. In 1968, I graduated from high school in June, I am not sure the exact dates, but June 14th, let us say. That night got on a train to go down to Washington for Solidarity Day. King had been assassinated in the spring. The SCLC was calling for people to come down in solidarity with the Poor People's Movement, Resurrection City, the shanties built around the reflecting pool on the mall. So I told my parents I wanted to go down, support this, and they thought, okay, big public March in favor of poor people. What was so bad about that? So I took the train down overnight and took part in the demonstration and then wound up hanging out with the Resurrection City people for the next week, which had not been part of my parents' plan at all. I had some friends in Washington, so I stayed with them. So every day there were marches, I remember Jesse Jackson leading a march to the Department of Agriculture so I was going along. Of course, I was sort of an imposter. I was not a poor person, but in solidarity. Then the announcement was made the next day, a week after I had arrived that the feds were going to close down Resurrection City, that they had had enough of this festering mess in the middle of the Capitol.
SM (00:09:28):
Because it was raining too, was not it?
MI (00:09:29):
It was raining, it was muddy and so forth. So I called up my parents and I said, "I am going to go get arrested tomorrow." And they said, "No, you are not, you are coming home." I said, "No, this is what I got to do." First time I ever hung up on my parents. So I went down to spend the last night at Resurrection City. I went to the main gate and they said, "Well, have you been staying here are you a registered poor person protestor?" And I said, " No, just a supporter." They said, "Well, you cannot come in." So I had my knapsack and I walked down the fence and I propped myself under a tree preparing to spend the night there. It was Washington in June at this point. Somebody looked over the fence and said, "Hey kid, what are you doing?" I said, "Well, I wanted to get in, but they would not let me in." They said, "Oh, here." So they took me through a gap in the fence or something, and they took me to their little shanty. It turned out this was a Blackstone Ranger, which was a notorious Chicago Street gang, which I probably read about it in one of the books for the AFSC, except they were enlisted in the cause of the Poor People's March. So I spent the last night of Resurrection City in a shanty with a bunch of Blackstone Rangers, which is not the kind of company that most suburban kids from Connecticut actually might spend any time with.
SM (00:10:57):
Oh, no.
MI (00:10:58):
They were very pleasant. The next morning we all had breakfast and marched off to the Capitol and demonstrated on the Capitol grounds and were arrested, because it was illegal to demonstrate on the Capitol grounds, and was sentenced to seven days in jail, sent off to a minimum-security prison in Virginia. It was great. It was like an all-day-long political seminar, sitting out on the grass talking with Civil Rights veterans, singing freedom songs with this whole stock of freedom songs. Was talking about nonviolence versus violence and all kinds of issues [inaudible] the movement at the time, eating better than we did when I went off to college the next September, food in prison was much better. So I thought it was this great experience. When I came back and my parents lionized me because I made this heroic sacrifice on behalf of the poor, which they had forbidden me to do, but they knew I survived it.
SM (00:11:59):
How long were you in jail?
MI (00:12:00):
Seven days. But it was like this great adventure. What was I? Summer of 1968, I was 17 years old, turned 17 in March. Then I went off to college in the fall of (19)68. So of all times to go off to college. I had gone to England that summer for a month, which was my reward for graduating school, with a friend and his family, and hooked up with the British Left. So I met Tariq Ali, who-
SM (00:12:35):
Oh yeah, he has written several. I got a couple of his books.
MI (00:12:39):
Led the demonstrations against the American Embassy of Grosvenor Square, which took place in the previous spring when I was not there. Traveled around London, went to several demonstrations I guess about the war. But then while I was there, the Soviet Union invaded, or the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia. The British New Left, as well as a lot of Czech students who were studying in London, were of course outraged. And so there were three nights of demonstrations in the London streets marching on the Soviet Embassy and the Czech students waving the Czech flags. So when I hear charges that the New Left was pro-Soviet, [inaudible] demonstrations, which was clearly anti-imperialist, whether imperialism was our own or the Soviet version. I also was impressed by the London bobbies, and this was a pretty anarchistic crew that was turning out. This was the summer of (19)68. It was after the May (19)68 riots. So people were pretty in the streets and they were not throwing things, but they were truly not obeying the traffic laws. The London bobbies would remove people, but do it quite gently without guns and billy clubs, so it was a model of good crowd control.
SM (00:14:18):
Did you happen to see at the Pentagon in (19)67, the guy that burned himself to death? Were you aware that there was a man there that did it and he did it with McNamara looking out the window?
MI (00:14:29):
Yeah, but that was earlier. That was Norman. What was his name?
SM (00:14:34):
Was that another protest?
MI (00:14:35):
Yeah, he did that as an individual protest and that was a 1965.
SM (00:14:40):
Okay. Yeah.
MI (00:14:41):
Norman Morrison. I was certainly aware that that had happened, but it was on a different occasion.
SM (00:14:49):
Right. You have written some unbelievable books, of course, the one in the (19)60s, but what did you learn from all of your research on the war between the New Left of the (19)60s and the (19)70s?
MI (00:15:10):
Okay. Well, in "America Divided," and when I lecture to students about the era, I make a number of points. One is that although it seemed like all the thunder was on the left in the 1960s, we remember the decade in terms of a series of iconic images connected to Civil Rights protests, anti-war protests, counterculture. The decade also has to be seen as the seed time of a conservative revival that would dominate American politics for the remainder of the 20th and be certainly the beginning of the 21st century, starting with the Goldwater campaign in 1964 and the George Wallace insurgency within the Democratic Party, the rise of a right-wing populist reaction to particularly the Civil Rights, but also to counterculture and the anti-war protests. It was not something that was apparent to me at the time, but looking back, it was obvious that as significant, if not more significant than the left-wing story of the (19)60s is the right-wing story of the 1960s. Ever since, the (19)60s have been a touchpoint, as you suggest, for conservatives who are nostalgic for what they imagine to be the stability and order and morality of the patriotism of pre-1960 America, which I think is a construct. It is a Golden Age, and it is a myth, but it is a powerful argument. I mean, in fact, the 1950s were certainly not a Golden Age if you were Black in America. If you had not had the insurgencies in the 1960s, you would still be having Jim Crow society. So you cannot simply look back and say, "Oh, it was all terrible." But the problem with that right-wing argument is that the forces for the dissolution of the family, or for new family structures to emerge were already coming into place in the 1950s. Moreover, they were not restricted to the United States. If you look at single parent families and so on and so forth, any kind of social parameter you want to use, this is something that is across the industrial democratic West, and even to Eastern Europe as well, which did not have a (19)60s. But these are changes that are somehow connected to, and we do not yet have, not far enough away from it to have a satisfactory historical explanation, but something with modernity, something with what has been happening in industrial and post-industrial society, certainly the decline in the birth rate. The Baby Boom itself is an aberration. That temporary expansion of marriage rates, lowering of the age of marriage, increase in the number of children per family, and so on and so forth, which we now take as the norm is an aberration from well over a century of just the opposite, that women were getting married at older ages, having fewer children and so forth, stretching back into the 19th century. Then for particular historical reasons in certain places, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, you see this Baby Boom phenomenon. Again, it is illusory to see that as somehow being the norm. So powerful cultural forces were coming along and were going to change the family. One of the most important reasons why the family has changed is because of the decline in real wages for industrial workers. When you had a secure, stable, industrial base in this country where a male breadwinner could support a family, then you could have women stay at home and be primary childcare providers and cook a hot meal every night that the whole family sat down to eat. Once that is removed starting in the late 1960s and for the last four decades, you see a decline in real wages means women go out to work. If women go out to work, it means that first of all, they have more financial independence so they can contemplate getting a divorce if they are in an unsatisfactory marriage. It also means you are not going to have the Betty Crocker kind of housewives that you had in the 1950s. Families are going to not eat together. They are going to eat more fast food. I mean, the obesity epidemic is probably a byproduct of this. So it is a really complex mix that has something to do with the cultural insurgencies and the counterculture, the 1960s. But only something. I was just reading a piece in the New York Times the other day that pointed out that teenage birth rates, a single parent, unmarried teenage women having babies are much higher in the red states than they are in the blue states. That has something to do with the availability of abortion. There might be more pregnancies in the blue states, but they are not being carried to term. But it has also something to do with the availability of contraception. All you have to do is look at Sarah Palin's daughter, who's now going around as an advocate of teen abstinence.
SM (00:21:34):
She did not do it.
MI (00:21:35):
Well, not really a role model for that. So it is not simply decadent places like Berkeley and Cambridge and New York City where cultural patterns have changed. It is precisely in places where you still have, at least this kind of strong norm for church, family, patriarchal authority, where in fact, the family structure breakdown is most evident, at least as measured by teen pregnancies. So it is a bogus argument.
SM (00:22:13):
It is interesting too; the Boomers for years have said that we are the largest generation in American history. We are not anymore. There are more Millennials now than there ever were Boomers. There is a brand-new book on, I was perusing through it, and it states that it is very difficult to state the exact number of Boomers, anywhere from 74 to 78, but they do know that there are close to 80 to 81 million Millennials now. So to say that Boomers are the large generation of American history isn't true.
MI (00:22:51):
Well, that might have something to do with immigration.
SM (00:22:53):
Yes, you are probably right there too. Obviously, I have interviewed a lot of people and a lot of them give their reasons, but I put down six here, but I would like your thoughts on these. What event in your eyes was the number one reason with respect to why the Vietnam War ended? And here is the six that I am listing. Tet. Number two, Kent State and Jackson State in 1970. Tet was in (19)68. Number three, when middle America, like Ohio, their sons were coming home in body banks. Number four, funding was cut off by Congress. Number five, student protests on college campuses, major effect. And number six, the wrong military strategy.
MI (00:23:40):
Number one, in a broader sense, which is to say that the war was never winnable. I mean, you could annihilate all Vietnamese, you could drop atomic bombs, but you could never build a stable South Vietnamese government there. The material simply was not there to do it. If you did not win politically, did not matter what you did militarily. The Vietnamese were not going anywhere, it was their country. They knew, just like the Americans knew in 1776, that eventually the British would get tired and go home, which was also the Confederate strategy in 1861, except in that case, the North was closer to the South. They were neighbors. But we were not neighbors to Vietnam, so we were never going to win. You could stretch it out, you could increase the number of amount of bloodshed, but at some point, there was going to become a breaking point. Tet was the symbolic breaking point, because thereafter, American people as a whole decided that it simply was not worth fighting in Vietnam. The only way you could fight in Vietnam, as Richard Nixon discovered, was by saying, we were fighting to get out as to say of this Vietnamization program, in fighting for peace with honor, we want to get back our POWs, which was a sort of self-reinforcing rationale for the war, because the longer you fought, the more POWs there were to get back. But in the end, that too was going to run out as a rationale for the war. American people after 1968 simply did not believe the game was worth the candle. Nixon and Kissinger understood that too. This is not a secret. They have this new revisionist history about how we were really winning after 1969. Well, that would have been news to Nixon and Kissinger, who on a number of occasions in the secret White House tapes said, "We cannot win this. We know we cannot win this. We are stretching it out. We want to pass it on. We want the collapse to come after we are out of office. We want a decent interval between the final withdrawal of American troops and the collapse of the Saigon regime." In 1972, they almost lost it. American troops had been wound down. It was only by a massive air expansion of the Air War, bringing the B52s from Guam, that a South Vietnamese route was halted in the summer of 1972 offensive. Two years later signed the Paris Peace Accords, or actually January (19)73, signing the Paris Peace Accords. At that point, even that air offensive was no longer politically possible. So in 1975, when the North Vietnamese again on the offensive, the entire house of cards collapses. When Nixon and Kissinger agreed that both sides would keep their forces in place, they signed South Vietnam's death warrant. Again, you could prolong it if Congress said, "Yeah, here, take another $500 billion, rush aid to South Vietnam." Maybe the final collapse would have come in 1977 instead of 1975, but there was no way it was going to be [inaudible]. So again, that is a long way of saying that, yes, Tet was the most important turning point because at that point, realization dawned on the American people that this was not World War II all over again. There was not a satisfactory narrative that it was going to end in American victory. And it was only a question of how and when we get out, and how many more American lives would be squandered. In the case of Nixon, it could have spared 20,000 American lives and a million Vietnamese lives. The peculiar thing is that if Nixon had simply come into office in 1969 and said, "I would like to win in Vietnam, we all would. But my predecessors have so screwed up everything that we are just going to go to the peace table when we are going to get out," he would have been a hero. He would have been politically invulnerable in the same way that he was when he went to China. No Democrat could open the door to China, but Richard Nixon could have-
SM (00:28:10):
You are right.
MI (00:28:10):
...could have used to get that Communist credentials. And had he done that, there would have been no Watergate, because Watergate was a direct outgrowth of his desire to keep fighting the war, expanding the war in terms of the Air War secretly, while pretending to the American people that the war was winding down. The plumbers were created to fix the leaks in the State Department. That was where the first illegal wiretaps were on the state department's personnel to see who was leaking information about the secret bombing of Cambodia. So Nixon would have gone down in history as the great unifier, the great peacemaker, no Watergate scandal, but instead, he decided he was going to prolong the war for whatever reason.
SM (00:28:58):
What was amazing about him as a person who was... I am only three years older than you are, and what is amazing is that I was in college at the time, what I considered the arrogance of Richard Nixon, that even though he may have been trying to Vietnamization process and have the peace talks and all the other things, he boldly said that no protestor is ever going to influence me.
MI (00:29:26):
Right.
SM (00:29:27):
No one protesting. And he was referring to college students, but I think he, he is referring to more than that, I think anybody. And that was just pure arrogance, was not it?
MI (00:29:35):
Right. But it also was not true because they were very aware of protests. And when he overlooked that with the invasion of Cambodia in May of 1970, that was the last time he used American ground forces to expand the war. He had suddenly understood the limits of his mandate because that strike in May 1970, I mean, again, the Vietnamese won the war in Vietnam, and it had nothing to do with protests at home. If there had been no protest... That had nothing to do with protests at home. If there had been no protests at home, the war still would have been lost for the U.S. However, it did set some constraints on policy. That strike in 1970 is significant because it was not simply places like Harvard and Wisconsin and Michigan and Berkeley that went on strike. It was places like Kent State, which is a commuter school, a working-class school, in the middle of Ohio in the heartland. It was places like Notre Dame, Catholic colleges, Southern colleges, community colleges, even some of the service academies. The Merchant Marine Academy had a protest. It was the entire younger generation in college that was rejecting war, and a lot of other people in addition, and Nixon never risked that again. Even though basically after the spring of 1970, the anti-war movement continued, it was never as powerful again. The protests between 1967 and May of 1970 created a specter of what could happen if you escalated before.
SM (00:31:22):
I am hearing something. You had been very critical of the current Students for a Democratic Society. I know several students at my former school that are in the current SDS, that they glorify the extreme radicals of that particular period, the Bernardine Dohrns, the Mark Rudds, the Bobby Seales. I find that interesting because there is truth to that, because I just got back from Kent State after being there four days. The main speakers were Bobby Seale, Bernardine Dohrn. Mark Rudd, though, I will say about Mark Rudd...
MI (00:31:59):
Mark is very self-critical. I brought to Mark speak here.
SM (00:32:00):
Yeah. I like Mark. He admits he was wrong and he admits that they destroyed a good thing, which was SDS. Sometimes Bobby is confusing, because Bobby says real good things. I do not see the anger in him anymore, but I do see the... what is the word here? He defends that they were not violent in any way. Bernardine Dohrn, to me, has never said anything to apologize for what has been done.
MI (00:32:30):
No. She has forgotten nothing and learned nothing.
SM (00:32:32):
Yeah. Well, your thoughts on why. Kent State was very important, because you had Alan Canfora there and Chic Canfora, and they were students that experienced it, and some of the more radical students at Kent State. They were there when all this happened. Just your observations on why that group is being idealized more than any others by some of the younger anti-war activists today.
MI (00:33:02):
Well, that is a big question. I think people are drawn to iconic figures. Angela Davis, say, or Bobby Seale, would have a great appeal. They are appealing public personalities in a way that say David Harris is not, or he has not chosen to play that role. One of the things I talked about in my (19)60s seminar is the leaders who chose not to be leaders in the 1960s. One of them is a Hamilton alum. Bob Moses is a critical person in the history of the (19)60s, the Freedom Summer.
SM (00:33:55):
He is the math guy too, isn't he?
MI (00:33:59):
Yes, and spoke at the first SDS anti-war march, and the people of 1965 knew. Really a central figure, who pulled out of the movement and went into self-imposed exile for a while. It was a draft business, but I do not think he felt comfortable in the way that the movement was developing. He was not a Stokely Carmichael. John Lewis, another person. Nobody was as important in the history of the civil rights movement as John Lewis, from the Freedom Rights to the march on Washington in (19)63 to the marches in Selma and in Montgomery, leading the march across the bridge. Lewis pulled out. I mean, he was displaced as SNCC chairman by Stokely Carmichael, but he did not try to out-militant Stokely Carmichael. That would have been difficult. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement...
SM (00:35:00):
Mario Savio.
MI (00:35:00):
...Mario Savio, he continued to be politically engaged, but he pulled out of leadership. He had some problems. I just read a biography.
SM (00:35:10):
Oh, I have read it too. It is a great biography.
MI (00:35:12):
It is a very good bio.
SM (00:35:13):
Robert Cohen, I believe.
MI (00:35:14):
Robert Cohen. There were all kinds of interesting, thoughtful people who simply did not fit in with and could not bring themselves to do the celebrity militant politics of the late (19)60s. What we are left with in terms of public memory are the people who did not have a problem with that, people who were not self-doubting in any sense and have these big extroverted personalities and egos to match, and who are happy to offer themselves up to the later generations as the model (19)60s radical. One of my problems with the idea of creating a new SDS was who in SDS were they looking to as leaders. Not the ones, in my mind, who exemplified the best of the movement, but actually those who killed the movement, who killed SDS, as Mark Rudd says. The second problem with the idea of a new SDS is that the essence of SDS, the reason SDS took off, was because it looked back at previous left-wing movements, and some of these kids were coming out of red-diaper-baby backgrounds. Some of them were coming out of pink-diaper-baby backgrounds, Socialist Party backgrounds. They said, "What came before does not suit us anymore. We have to do something new." SDS grew out of the Student League for Industrial Democracy. Well, what did the League for Industrial Democracy mean to young people at the start of the 1960s? It meant nothing. Industrial democracy meant nothing. They brilliantly renamed themselves as Students for a Democratic Society, which did mean something, and they [inaudible] their own statement, which owed nothing, owed little, to previous left-wing manifestos or ideas. They brilliantly recreated a Left that was relevant to their era and their generation, unlike SDS, which is a brand name. Yes, who would not want to belong to SDS? I would like to belong to the Industrial Workers of the World, but they had their moment in the past. I thought there was an irony involved in paying homage to SDS by doing something very un-SDS-like.
SM (00:37:42):
With Mark, did you talk about that in the class?
MI (00:37:49):
We did talk about that, yeah.
SM (00:37:50):
I interviewed Mark on the phone, then I had dinner with him at the conference. We spent some time together and then the rest of the time, as soon as Bernardine and that group came in, I kind of distanced myself. He has an intellectual, and he likes intellectual conversations. When I interviewed him, he said, "I do not want these fluffy questions. I want something where I can deeply think about it." He is the real deal. He is the real deal, and with respect, he has done some deep thinking about the mistakes that were made. He really admits he is wrong and it destroyed something that he loved deeply, which was SDS.
MI (00:38:27):
Kathy Wilkerson's book is good.
SM (00:38:29):
I have it. I have not read it.
MI (00:38:31):
It is good. I mean, there is problems with it. There is a disconnect at a certain point between her actions. It is hard to see from the book how she changed so dramatically. She came out of Quaker background as well, as did actually quite a number of people in the Weathermen. Jeff Jones, coming out Southern California, I think he had a Quaker-ish background or a pacifist background.
SM (00:39:05):
Well, I know that Thomas Powers wrote the book on Diana Oughton. I have the book, because she is one of the three that died. She was actually the girlfriend of Harris, who ended up marrying Bernardine Dohrn. Not Harris. He wrote a book too.
MI (00:39:24):
Bill Ayers.
SM (00:39:27):
Bill Ayers, yeah, President Obama's friend. I did not realize how close they were.
MI (00:39:32):
Oh, yeah.
SM (00:39:32):
Boyfriend and girlfriend. Okay, we are pretty close to the first half here. How did the New Left of the (19)60s differ from the old left of the (19)30s and the (19)40s? I know personally from what I have read, but what were the defining characteristics in a generation of 74 million? What was the New Left? How did they differ? I say this because I mentioned Mark and how he talked about how he read Che Guevara and these were important ideas. It was all about ideas. When he talked about Mario Savio at the Free Speech Movement, he said, "We are about ideas. We are not about just being here for the corporations. The bottom line, the university's about ideas." The Old Left was more about just pure politics, was not it?
MI (00:40:33):
Well, it was about ideas too, when they were reading their Marx and Lenin. There are a number of crucial differences. One is that the Old Left looked to the industrial proletariat as the agent of social change, so workers organizing around their economic interests would inevitably, through a scientific process that could not be stopped, come to realize their interests were in opposition to that of the employers and eventually they would make a revolution, whether peaceful or violent. People dispute it, but inevitably they would turn to Socialism and seize control of the means of production. That was their idea of who the agent of change was. In the 1960s, the agent of change was young people themselves. Instead of youth organizations like Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, being the affiliates of adult organizations, which had always been the pattern ...the Socialist Party had the Young People's Socialist League, the Communist Party had the Young Communist League, the League for Industrial Democracy had the Student League for Industrial Democracy. Instead of seeing themselves as the affiliate supporting this adult project, rather, they said ...C. Wright Mills famously wrote in a letter to the New Left, "Look around the world. Who is in motion? Who is demanding change? It is young people," young intellectuals, young workers and so forth, so there was a generational cast to their politics. "We are people of this generation, uncomfortably inhabiting a world we did not make," something like that. It is the opening lines of the Port Huron Statement. That was one thing. The other thing was organizational. The Old Left was hierarchical. In the case of the Communist Party, it was hierarchical and authoritarian. In the case of the Socialist Party it was more democratic, but still there were national chairs and presidential candidates and so on and so forth. The New Left developed a much more ultra-democratic, unto anarchistic ... not in the violent sense but in the sense of being distrustful of all authority, even authority within their own organizations ...which created a very different movement, a very localized movement. A movement, again, without a formal hierarchy, which had a lot of strengths at times, and also made for an impermanent movement and also opened up the movement for infiltration by people like the Progressive Labor Party, who had their own agenda. Ironically, being ultra-democratic meant that the authoritarians could sneak in the back door. That too, in the sense of who was the agent of social change and what was the correct proper organizational strategy, the New Left was fundamentally different than what had come before.
SM (00:43:57):
I know I see it in the current SDS at my university before I retired, is it takes forever to make a decision.
MI (00:44:04):
All process. Process.
SM (00:44:05):
Oh, it is all process, process. Everybody's got to be included. Well, they never make any decisions. That is frustrating.
MI (00:44:12):
Well, that is where it can lead. It is not an adult form of organization. There is a famous story about SDS had projects called the ERAP, Economic-something-something Action Project. One of the projects... I think it was in Cleveland... spent 24 hours debating whether it should take a day off from work to go to the beach. For young people, who have endless amounts of time and patience for that kind of thing, it is a good form of organization. For grownups, that drives you crazy.
SM (00:44:50):
Yeah. Actually, I was driving a few students crazy to join. They did not know. I think they were remembering the history or studying the history.
MI (00:44:59):
Well, there is a third element, and that is I think the pacifist movement was actually very influential in a number of ways. Not that by the end of the 1960s the New left was pacifist. Increasingly it was turning not to violence but at least to the rhetoric of violence, violent imagery and Black Panthers. The notion of a prefigurative politics, that is to say that your movement should embody the values that you hope to create in a new society, came out the pacifist movement. It came out of groups like the Catholic Worker, but others as well. I think was very influential and shaped, particularly in the mid (19)60s, SDS. You see that.
SM (00:45:46):
Hold that line. Hold that line. Very good.
MI (00:45:56):
We were talking about the impacts of the pacifist movement. You see that kind of prefigurative politics, that your movement itself should embody a more harmonious, a more humane, a more communal atmosphere. That is why these kind of campus takeovers, building takeovers, were so important, because at a place like Columbia, for the five days before the police stormed in, the occupied buildings themselves became a kind of model of what a university could be or what a decent society could be. Of course there was a lot of silliness and utopianism and so on and so forth, but it was an interesting moment. If only the world could be like that.
SM (00:46:49):
You talked about there is two different qualities and I am going to address them now, the issue of healing and the issue of trust or lack thereof. You mentioned that in the New Left, that they did not trust anybody. When you look at the generation as a whole, there is a perception out there that the generation, whether they were involved or not, just did not trust anybody in positions of leadership or responsibility, whether it be a university president as a college student, anybody in leadership roles, whether it be a church or synagogue. Because I know my fellow students at SUNY Binghamton did not trust anybody in the religious community, the corporate community, the university community or the political community. They did not trust anybody in leadership roles.
MI (00:47:32):
Right.
SM (00:47:32):
Do you see that as a major characteristic of the boomer generation overall, and by having that characteristic, it is transferred into their lives over the last 60 years and maybe into their children and into their grandchildren, and is that good?
MI (00:47:52):
I do not know if it is good, but it is certainly a fact. It is a fact. I mean, they were taught that by Lyndon Johnson, and they were taught that by Richard Nixon. The publication of the Pentagon Papers and publication of the Watergate transcripts demonstrated the absolute chasm between the public rationale and justification for issues as important as war and peace and what the private position of the policymakers were. John McNaughton, Assistant Secretary of Defense, writes a memo to Robert McNamara and lists statistically... very significant because statistics were the end-all and be-all of the McNamara defense fund... he gives a statistical breakdown of the reasons we were fighting in Vietnam. "Why are we fighting in Vietnam? It is 80 percent to protect our reputation as a guarantor, that is for credibility, 10 percent because we do not want the Red Chinese to take over South Vietnam, and 10 percent because we want the people of South Vietnam to have a free, democratic form of government," which inverted the public rationale, which is like fighting the Nazis, that we are fighting for democracy and free French, and so on and so forth. The lesson was taught, not just to the baby boomers but to their parents as well, that people in Washington would lie to you. At the start of the 1960s, public opinion polls, the Gallup poll or whatever, would ask every year, "Can you trust people in Washington to do the right thing?" 75, 85 percent of Americans, said, "Yeah, you can trust that." "How about corporations?" "Oh, yeah." At the end of the decade, you could not get 30 percent of people to believe that, because they had been through Vietnam, they had been through Watergate. There was a massive collapse in the legitimacy of institutions and leaders, which in one way was a healthy skepticism. You know, you should not trust what public authorities tell you if you do not verify. Trust but verify, as Ronald Reagan once said. On the other hand, I think it also bred a deep cynicism about politics. "Well, if they are all so corrupted they are all liars anyway, the hell of it. I just will not participate." The other thing you see is not only the number of people who trust people in Washington goes down, but voter participation drops down to 50 percent or below. I think by the mid 1970s, it is every election. Richard Nixon wins a landslide election in 1972, but about 10 percent fewer voters are participating than took part in the election 10 years earlier. That was one of the real legacies of the 1960s. That is bounced back a little. One of the interesting things about the Obama campaign is the involvement of young people and really the political participation of young people, which is always lower than that for older people [inaudible] sustained.
SM (00:51:09):
No one believes anybody in Washington today. What is interesting is that the boomer generation, whether they were protestors or not protestors, had I think an attitude that we are going to bring peace to the world. We are going to be different than any other generation, that we are going to end racism, sexism, homophobia. We are going to ... I forget the name of the book. Panacea, this book that we had to read in grad school. Basically, this generation was going to change things. It does not seem to have changed anything. In fact, it seems to have gotten worse. The question is, has the boomer generation as a generation been a failure in terms of their idealism, their hopes and dreams?
MI (00:52:00):
Well, I think it has changed tremendous amounts culturally, if not always politically. I tell my students, "Whatever your politics are, Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative, you would not like the 1950s. You would feel really out of place in the 1950s at the level of the assumption that this was a white society. Blacks are simply invisible. Go back and read Life Magazine. Try and find blacks in the advertisements or in the news stories. The expectations about women's roles." If you go back and read the Smith or Wellesley yearbooks for the late 1950s, they would list all the people who had their, "Mrs. degree," or the number of people who were pinned or who already married, as they were going out into the world at the age of 22. The notion that women would have a career was simply not thought of, so the kind of double standard in sex and sexuality. In many ways, we are a freer, better, more egalitarian, more humane society as a result of the changes that began in the 1960s, that Rand Paul gets shellacked because he says, "I am not sure I would have voted for the Civil Rights Act." Americans might be anti-government and they might be free marketeers and all that, but the idea that a restaurant owner could discriminate on the basis of race is simply no longer possible to sustain. If you cross that line, you get slapped down, as he did. I would have to say that the (19)60s changed an enormous amount in that, in that disillusionment that followed Vietnam and Watergate, there was a disillusionment with government, and that worked against liberals and that worked against the Left. That worked against the Democrats because the Democrats are the party of government, so people did not simply conclude that government was bad because it lied us into Vietnam and could not win in Vietnam. It generalized, that the government is bad no matter what it tries to do. Regulation is bad. Workplace safety regulation is bad. Glenn Beck says fascism grew out of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, so progressivism is the beginning of fascism. I mean, you could not possibly have sold that idea at the start of the 1960s. When people thought about big government, they thought about the New Deal and Social Security and workers' rights to organize and so on and so forth. Once that idea of government as benevolent and competent was tarnished in the 1960s, it allowed the Reagan Revolution to establish a new common wisdom, which was the government's not the solution to problems, government is the problem.
SM (00:55:26):
Yeah. Then one thing when you talk about the Free Speech Movement in (19)64, (19)65 in Berkeley, when you talk about the students demanding to be part of the governance of the university and getting a better understanding of the money coming in and the money going out, the donations and everything, this link to the corporate world was talked about at Berkeley in (19)64, (19)65. You even see Clark Kerr, in a major speech he gives about the corporate, the multiversity and everything. Students at that time were coming in saying, "I do not want to be that IBM person."
MI (00:56:03):
The knowledge factory.
SM (00:56:04):
Yeah, the knowledge factory. You had that happening in the 1960s, and yet today... and that is the beginning of the Research Institute too. I interviewed Arthur Chickering, who wrote Education and Identity, the great scholar who was the Seven Vectors of Development. Integrity was the seventh one. I interviewed him. My degrees are in higher ed, and I basically said, "Is there anything about the universities today that you criticize?" He said, "Yes, that the universities are again under the control of the corporations." That scares him. Correct me if I am wrong, because someone I interviewed said that when you have universities and corporations in control, you have fascism.
MI (00:56:54):
That seems like an exaggeration.
SM (00:56:58):
That the ideas are being controlled from outside rather than inside.
MI (00:57:03):
Well, universities have sort of returned to a credentialing industry for career advancement. I mean, even in the (19)60s, many more people were business majors than [inaudible] history majors. One of the things on which the 1960s protests depended was this sense, that was not universal at the time, that economic prosperity was a permanent fact in American life, that things were going to get better and better. If you talked about poverty, you talked about poverty thinking it is terrible that these people are not sharing the general affluence. "We are a really affluent society. Why cannot everybody have access to it?" If you are a kid in college, you can think, "Well, I do not have to rush towards the degree." First of all, college is very cheap. I got out of college without any debt whatsoever. We were not from a wealthy family by any means, but what was my tuition, $2,000 a year or something? You could take time off, you could drop out, you could experiment, you could go into public service, you could be a schoolteacher or whatever. You did not have to go think of yourself as being a hedge fund manager so you can pay back your college debts. The underpinnings of that economic prosperity collapsed in the late (19)60s and the start of the 1970s with the energy crisis, stagflation, declining real wages and deindustrialization, none of which were thought of as possibilities at the start of the 1960s, but which became the economic reality through the 1970s and thereafter. Much greater instability, a much greater sense of, "You really need to buckle down, because it is a rat race out there." The number of history majors goes down and down and down, and the number of people going to take classes that they think will get them jobs with a hedge fund just goes up and up and up. I forget what the starting point for this question was. Oh, so the state of the university today. Well, I teach at what is a little outpost of the declining ideal of the liberal arts. Very few students. There are millions of college students, but probably 5 percent of them go to colleges like Hamilton, which is not vocational. I mean, you cannot take a business administration... I mean, you cannot take a business administration. You can take economics, which is what a lot of them do. You know where the ideal is, you are going to be schooled to be a better person, a better citizen, a better thinker. Where most of your teachers are tenured or tenured track. You are not being taught by adjuncts. It is a four-year residential program. I mean, that just does not describe the 95 percent of the college and university student population today. Hamilton used to be the norm. It is no longer that. It is a relic and we know that. And even at Hamilton, I am probably part of the last generation to enjoy the benefits of being a tenured faculty member at a place like Hamilton, where life isn't so bad. At least, I remind myself it is better than working in a coal mine.
SM (01:00:59):
I went to Harper College, Arts and Sciences there. I identified more with Harper College, within the school of Binghamton University, than anything. This is the other very important question I wanted to ask. Let me preface this by saying that, in 1995, I took a group of students to Washington DC to meet the late Senator Edmund Muskie, who was part of our Leadership On the Road programs. He had not been well, and we were still able to secure him through Gaylord Nelson, at the Wilderness Society. Took 14 students down there and they came up with the questions. And one of the questions was, they had looked at 1968, they knew he was the vice-presidential Democrat, running mate with Hubert Humphrey. The nation at that time looked like it was coming apart. The nation was torn apart with assassinations that year with the terrible confrontations in the streets of Chicago. The president withdrawing from the race. And then of course, looking at the (19)60s and all the other things going on. But the question is, "Is this generation going to its grave, the boomer generation, comparable to the Civil War generation, that went to its grave not healing, due to all the unbelievable divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who are against the war, supported the troops or against the troops?" It comes down to a lot of things. I even add on here, through the interviews that I have had with people, the divisions also included, certainly between Native Americans and white people and Latinos and the hard hats against the college protestors. The list goes on and on. I will tell you what Senator Muskie said in response to that question, "What is your question? Do you worry that this generation of 74 to 78 million, maybe they do not have a problem, but that they are going to go to their graves without healing from all these divisions because the division still exist?"
MI (01:03:13):
Well, interesting. I guess healing is not a word I would use, as if growing up is a therapeutic process. I would say that the significant portion of that generation was indelibly marked by the 1960s. My politics, whatever year we are in, 2010 are not my politics in 1968 or 1970. But you can certainly see the influence on the way I understand the world, on the way I understand personal responsibility and the morality. All those things are affected by the 1960s. In the aftermath of the Civil War, people voted as a shot. So for the next 40 years, American politics were dominated by that Civil War generation, north and south, and the political allegiances and conclusions that they drew on the basis of the experience of living through that kind of war. We lived through a war too. Now, oftentimes I will ask my students, "What did your parents do in the 1960s?" Actually depressingly, increasingly, their parents were not alive or were just very young during the 1960s. But when I could ask that question with reasonable assurance that their parents were my contemporaries, sometimes they would call home and say, "What did you do in the (19)60s?" And their parents would say, "Well, I missed the (19)60s. [inaudible] nursing school or I had a young child at home. Or I got married at 21. Or I was living in Dubuque and we did not have the (19)60s until the (19)70s." So one wants to avoid generalizing too much about that experience. Some people simply sailed through it. Most people are not involved in public affairs. It is not important to them. It might, every four years, sort of attract their attention, but most people are focused on home and family and relationships and work and so on and so forth. But for those of us who were involved one way or the other, on one side or another, went to Vietnam or protested against Vietnam, sometimes those are the same people. I think we will carry those influences for the rest of our life to our grave. I do not think that is a bad thing. I do not feel like I need to heal from the 1960s. I think we, as a country, need to understand the lessons of the (19)60s, the meaning of the (19)60s, and not simply reduce it to a set of iconic images and a few stereotypes, whether favorable or unfavorable.
SM (01:06:08):
I think originally when I had talked to the students, I think they were a little influenced by me. Because I think what they were really talking about is what you just mentioned, those who protested against the war and those who served in that war. And thinking that when those who protested the war bring their kids or their grandkids to the wall in Washington DC, are they having second thoughts about, "Maybe I should have served. Maybe I should have been involved. Maybe I should not have gotten a deferment." The questioning, because sometimes kids and grandkids ask questions that really make the parents think even deeper about something.
MI (01:06:53):
Well, I never think that when I go see the wall and I go pretty often. I think, what a terrible tragedy that 58,000 lives were thrown away, not to mention 3 million Vietnamese lives, for nothing. And one of the great stereotypes about the 1960s is that anti-war protestors hated soldiers, hated veterans. It simply was not true. When I got involved, when I went to college in (19)68, I started meeting large numbers of Vietnam Veterans who were protesting the war. Vietnam Veterans against the war had just come into existence. And those guys were our heroes. We assumed, maybe [inaudible], that most people going through that kind of war, being of the same generation, would come back opposing the war. And in fact, there were war protests in Vietnam. People wore black armbands, people wore peace signs. People increasingly refused combat duty. I mean, one of the reasons the war came to an end is because it was destroying the American Army, collapsing morale, drug abuse, [inaudible], AWOL's and so on and so forth. The longer you stayed in Vietnam, the less of an Army you were going to have, in any sense, combat ready. So I do not see... Obviously, there were veterans who came back who hated hippies. I do not doubt that there were a few of them who were spat upon. Although, I think that is also one of the great myths, lots of people were being spat on in airports. I certainly remember anybody who spat on a veteran or somebody in uniform. If you think about it is inherently unlikely, given that hippies tend to be sort of not fighters. And these guys are just coming back from Vietnam. You do not hear about the people being sent to the hospital with broken jaws. Which is what you would expect me hear if somebody spat on you, coming to the airport back from Vietnam. So I do not see that as one of the great divisions in that sense.
SM (01:09:04):
What has the wall done? Obviously, the wall was built to heal the Vietnam Veterans and their families and to pay respect for those who paid the ultimate price. And when Jan Scruggs wrote his book, To Heal a Nation, his goal was to heal those families who had lost the 58,000 plus and all Vietnam Vets, to recognize that when they came home, they were not welcomed. They had another war, but that their service was something to be honored. But in the book, itself also, he talks about the fact that, "He hopes it spreads beyond the veterans to really the nation itself." Do you think it is done a good job there?
MI (01:09:47):
Well, again, I am not crazy about the word, "Heal." After the Civil War, every southern town put a memorial to Confederate dead in the town square. And every northern community put a little model of a statue of a Civil War soldier in the town square. It was a memorial. It is a recognizing the sacrifice of the soldiers who fought on one side or the other. Memorial Day itself began as an annual occasion of putting flowers on the graves of Civil War Veterans specifically, and then it became like Iran sort of general occasions to honor veterans of all American wars. So I think that the Vietnam Memorial has to be understood as that, as a memorial, not as a therapeutic device. But in the design, interestingly, there is an ambiguity that is present in those simply heroic statues of generals or private soldiers, which is, that there is a kind of sadness to it and a contemplative. You can see your reflection in the shining stone, and plus seeing all of the names, of course, it is obviously a powerful device. Initially, it was opposed by some veterans groups who said, "It was a black gash of shame," and so forth. They wanted a more traditional statue, and eventually they put up-
SM (01:11:25):
The three-man statue.
MI (01:11:26):
...three-man statue, which to my mind, it detracts from the effect of the original. But the wall has become the most popular tourist site in Washington. So clearly, people do see it as an appropriate memorial to the Vietnam War.
SM (01:11:47):
The Muskie response was that he did not even comment about 1968, which the students thought he would talk about. His comment said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And dealing with the issue of race, he said, "When 430,000 Americans lose their lives and almost an entire generation is wiped up, particularly in the South, that is a tragedy." And you go to Gettysburg and you see oftentimes the flags on the Southern side. Is there some... Is that a train?
MI (01:12:24):
No, it is the fire siren.
SM (01:12:27):
Oh.
MI (01:12:27):
Tell you also when there is an accident. I hate it.
SM (01:12:32):
This is a question that is kind of different. Is there something about the (19)50s, the (19)60s, and (19)70s, the time when boomers were young, that is rarely discussed, but important in your eyes, with respect to the overall impact that had on 74 million? Something that is rarely discussed but important?
MI (01:12:53):
If it is rarely discussed, I probably have not thought about it or have not discussed it. Well, I do not know if it is rarely discussed, but you often see the baby boom generation counter pose to the Greatest Generation. And recently, we have been living in sort of this Greatest Generation boom let, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, and [inaudible], The Pacific. I think what has to be understood about the (19)60s generation is of course, they are the children of the World War II generation. And World War II was enormously influential for thinking and worldview. When I grew up, when I was 10, every adult authority figure I had, from my father, to my sixth-grade teacher, to the President of the United States was a World War II Veteran.
SM (01:14:10):
Same here.
MI (01:14:14):
And the war was endlessly celebrated, Longest Day, Great Escape, television shows like Combat and Gallant Men.
SM (01:14:24):
Victory at Sea.
MI (01:14:25):
Victory at Sea, even earlier, Sergeant Rock. So you are kind of living in this. And children's play, Tom Engelhardt has written a good book called, Victory Culture about the way children's play-
SM (01:14:37):
That is with the cowboy on the cover.
MI (01:14:39):
What is that?
SM (01:14:39):
Is a cowboy on the cover? I think there is a cowboy on-
MI (01:14:43):
Oh yeah, I guess.
SM (01:14:44):
...of course. Yeah.
MI (01:14:44):
I guess so, because he takes it back to the narrative victory culture goes back to the Western. But that was the world we inhabited, and there was a tremendous amount of idealism about the United States role in the world as a liberator, liberating force, winning the war as we thought. Because we did not think much about the Soviets. A good war and so on and so forth. I think that idealism carried over into the (19)60s generation just was put into different directions, which was to instead of simply endlessly celebrating American virtues and triumphs, it was to get America action to exemplify the values at its best, it had represented in the past. So lots of people went from being excited about John Kennedy, war hero PT 109, to being excited about the moral qualities of the Civil Rights protestors, people like Bob Moses. And to being disappointed about when America and Vietnam its actions and value, seems so at odds with those World War II values and actions. So World War II did not go away. World War II went away in the 1970s. It would reappear in disguised ways, like the Star Wars Imperial Storm Trooper in helmets, like Nazi helmets and so forth. So it disappeared because of the general war movies went away. People did not want to see movies about war, they had just been through Vietnam. And then at the end of the century, as the veterans were dying off, you quickly realized this generation was not going to be around anymore, then suddenly it returned to the vengeance. But I do not know what I am going to say.
SM (01:16:50):
You made a point there. Why did the children of the World War II generation in the 1950s, all they saw were Westerns, cowboys and Indians. Indians, and guys wearing black hats were the bad guy. And the good guy was always Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, Matt Dillon, that whole group. What was the psyche there? Because we grew up as kids with cowboys and Indians, the movies, everything was Cowboys and Indians.
MI (01:17:24):
Well, that had pretty much been the case since the 1890s. I mean, the story of America was the story of Western expansion. And the conflict in Western expansion was the conflict between the cowboys and the Indians or the whites and the Indians. There was little doubt that who was the good guy in that conflict. So it was a powerful story. Hollywood was drawn to it, created its own icons like John Wayne, cowboys and Indians went away in the 1970s.
SM (01:17:56):
Yes, they did.
MI (01:17:58):
Or they changed where the Indians became the good guy, suddenly. That was a product of Vietnam as well.
SM (01:18:07):
Who do you think were the personalities of the Boomer Generation that both good and bad, that had the greatest influence on them, whether they be politicians, activists, writers, you name it, entertainers? Were there things that stood out that really, yes, this was the impact. This person in that group had the greatest impact on everyone, regardless of their politics.
MI (01:18:40):
Well, rock and roll.
SM (01:18:42):
Right.
MI (01:18:42):
I mean, I do not have anything surprising to say about that. But certainly, a lot more people took their politics from music than they did from sitting down and reading a report here on statement. And Dylan, even when he left behind his protest, Woody Guthrie persona for his other personas, he was changing personas every a couple years, but the sort of angry alienation of the mid 1960s music, the, "Do not follow leaders watch the parking meters," was still very expressive of a political worldview. So you cannot underestimate the influence of those pop-cultural figures.
SM (01:19:39):
I know that when I read the March book, Underground, he talked about the importance of Che Guevara. He read about him and thought about him a lot. But why did many of the new left read not only Che, but Mao, David and John Paul [inaudible], Camus? Bertrand Russell, who I loved to read. In fact, the opening of his biography, that first couple lines there, the purpose of his life. I do not know if you remember that line.
MI (01:20:10):
I bet a lot more people wore the T-shirt, than actually sat down than read Che. I bet a lot more people bought and carried around a little red book as a cultural icon, which I did, than actually sat down and read Mao. He was pretty boring. So I do not think, certainly by the late (19)60s, that those figures were so much important as intellectual influences, as they were just as images of heroic gorillas and so forth.
SM (01:20:52):
It is like the thought that a revolutionary can create a revolutionary society. And that socialism, we keep hearing that word today of being labeled against President Obama, which is ridiculous. But that they believed that revolution should happen in the United States. What were they meaning, "Revolution should happen in the United States?" Was it ideas? They were reading this before violence was part of the anti-war effort, before the Weatherman became part of SDS, or they took over SDS, the Black Panthers, the Young Lords in the Latino community, the violence even at the Wounded Knee, which was different than the takeover of Alcatraz in (19)69. So what were they saying here? This was even before violence.
MI (01:21:46):
Well, one of the most powerful texts to come out of the 1960s, published right in the middle of the decade, was the autobiography of Malcolm X. And sales, no doubt, helped by the fact that Malcolm X was assassinated before the book came out. And Malcolm X's story, Malcolm X famously said, "By any means necessary." But he was not himself a violent revolutionary. He simply said, "If that is what it takes to win freedom, then that is what we will do." But the story is really a story of personal transformation, of creating a new identity. He had been a pimp and a drug dealer and a drug addict and a convict who remade himself into this powerful spokesman for Black power, Black pride. And in doing so, it was a very American story. I like to compare it to the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which is also a story of his recreation. He runs away from Boston and goes to Philadelphia [inaudible] two pennies in his pocket and becomes one of the most important businessmen and inventors and philanthropists, and then later, a revolutionary, a different revolution. I think that that was a very (19)60s message. That idea that you could remake yourself, become a new person, take on a new name. Malcolm Little becomes Malcolm X. So that text strikes me as much more authentically representative of what was driving the politics in the (19)60s, which were a lot about self-transformation, for better or worse. Then Che Guevara's Bolivian notebooks or [inaudible] Revolution, or certainly the Little Red Book, which again, I do not think anybody actually read.
SM (01:23:52):
So you saw that with Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali. And then you saw that with Lew Alcindor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They were all somewhat linked to right Elijah Mohammad. They were never [inaudible].
MI (01:24:03):
Right.
SM (01:24:09):
But anyway, I do not know if you ever had a chance to read Theodore Roszak's book, The Making of a Counterculture and Charles Reich's, the Greening of America. To me, (19)67 to (19)71, they were classic books that we were required to read in our graduate program at Ohio State. And they had a tremendous impact on me. When think of the counterculture and what was happening, would you consider those two of the greatest books to really describe the young people of the era?
MI (01:24:45):
No. I mean, I think they were attempts by well-meaning academics to account for this change. I think if you went back and read them now, they probably would not stand up. I mean, millions of people read them because they wondered, "What the [inaudible] is going on with these kids?" Again, I guess I would turn to novels for one. I turned to a book like, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey. Kesey is an interesting, significant figure. Or Doris Lessing's, Golden Notebooks, especially lots of women, but lots of men were reading Lessing. Again, books about social transformation, identifying with outsiders, people on the margins, On the Road.
SM (01:25:45):
Oh, yeah.
MI (01:25:45):
On the Road was published in 1957 and sells okay. It remains in print, but it is real moments in the 1960s. And what is On the Road? On the Road is an account of this journey of self-discovery, which is in part going to the West, a great American story, but it is also going to the margins. I think a lot of (19)60s politics, youthful (19)60s politics needs to be understood in terms of the identification with people who were on the outs.
SM (01:26:21):
The Beats.
MI (01:26:22):
Well, the Beats, but migrant farm workers. Sal Paradise goes off and picks beans and in Imperial Valley or picks cotton, jazz musicians and so forth. Especially when Kerouac was writing that book, were mostly invisible to most Americans. And the idea that true wisdom, true spirituality... Because Kerouac is nothing if not concerned with things of the spirit, Beat. Beat is the root of beatific and also beaten down. That those notions that you could find truth among people who did not share in that sort of cornucopia of American consumer culture, were not white and middle class and living in suburbs, that was at the center of a lot of (19)60s politics. And so when sharecroppers coming along in the early 1960s trying to register to vote, it was an incredibly evocative image for young people, white and black. That is why Fannie Lou Hamer, who becomes a heroine, because it is this, "Illiterate woman," as LBJ referred to her, stood up to the sheriffs. They beat her and she would not back down. And she says, "If these things can happen, I question America." Well, that had a lot of power. Now, that could translate into things, which looking back, I think we are pretty bad, which is the identification of the Black Panthers, the brothers on the block. Well, they must know something we do not know because they have this gritty, urban, authentic experience. And in fact, [inaudible] about what was going to change America. And in fact, their vision was rejected by most black people. Most black people followed Martin Luther King, they followed Bobby Seale. Black Panthers had 5,000 members at their height.
SM (01:28:30):
Well, can we go over maybe 15 or 20 minutes?
MI (01:28:33):
Sure.
SM (01:28:33):
Because I got about five here. One of the things at the very end, I am going to mention just some names and personalities for just quick thoughts. But when you look at this, this was also a protest generation, or at least protest was very important part. Obviously, you had all the rights movements, from the Civil Rights and Women's Rights, Native American, Latina, environmental groups, certainly the anti-war groups. And they even had, which has led into some of the things today, dealing with ageism and mental rights issues and disability rights and so forth, so it is carried on. And that is a very important part of the... I am getting a lot, [inaudible] here. Of all these movements, and there were a lot of them... The Civil Rights Movement is historic, so I am not even really talking about that. And the anti-war movement, we have talked about. And the Women's Movement somehow was a shoot off because of the fact that there was so much sexism going on in the Civil Rights and in the Anti-War Movement. But of all the movements that took place during that period, and as we have gone into the (19)70s and the (19)80s and the (19)90s, and now in the tens, which of the ones are the most successful in terms of consistency and being on-going? Most successful in terms of consistency and being ongoing in their fight and struggle. Are they all that way or have some kind of taken the back burner? They are not as important anymore, or they do not have the leaders like we had before?
MI (01:30:16):
Well, the civil rights movement was prime formative as, say if you take away the civil rights movement in the (19)60s, it would not have been an anti-war movement. There would not have been witness movement, would not have been in the left counter for anything, would have been small groups like in the (19)50s. But there would not have been movements. It established, it was an inspiration, it was an organizational model. It showed that small groups of people, totally committed, could actually change history. So if you are asking me to rank the movements in terms of importance, I would have to say both in terms of the issues and in terms of the influence that the civil rights movement was the first among equals. Movements can only sustain themselves at that fever pitch of kind of Christ's politics for so many years. The labor movement begins, well just beginning 1930s, but it takes off in the 1930s with the sense that labor is the great news force that is going to transform. Okay. All right. Oh, the labor movement. So the labor movement begins in this kind of fever pitch of commitment idealism and sit down strikes and whatnot. It is going to transform on the world and it becomes institutionalized. It survives, it provides a service function, and in some ways, it becomes bureaucratic in some cases becomes corrupt because you cannot simply be at that crisis edge for forever, wear yourself out. But the moment passes. It is an interesting question. What would have happened to Martin Luther King if he had not been assassinated before 1929? He could well have lived while he had a kind of unhealthy diet, but theoretically he could still be with us today. Would he still be Martin Luther King? Would he be a national icon? Would he be a national holiday after he died? Probably not. Because he would have had to settle down. He would have had to have a life post movement. The people who are around and productive, who came out of that era found a post. John Lewis became a congressman. Loads of good stuff.
SM (01:32:52):
I have interviewed him. He was great.
MI (01:32:52):
[inaudible] (19)60s. Yeah. So you cannot sustain, it is an illusion to think that, oh well, civil rights movement, it is not what it used to be. Well, it could not possibly be. It had its moment. Anti-war protest is waxed and waned in the decades since. There were certainly protests against the Iraq war, although interestingly, the biggest ones were before the Iraq War. Somehow it was hard to sustain once the Iraq War actually came and lasted and lasted and lasted. So I am not surprised, and I do not think it is a commentary on the movements of the 1960s that they are not still around in full force and full throat 40 years later. That is the life of social movements, they come and go.
SM (01:33:44):
One of the criticisms of the social movements today though, is that when protests took place in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, you would see, say for example on Earth Day. Earth Day, Gaylor Nelson consulted with the leaders of SDS before they had the Earth Day on April 22. There was a cooperation and agreement. We do not want us to outshine you, but we would like you to be a participant. There seemed to be signs of all the groups at some of the rallies. Now, this is just my observation. Now, it seems so insular that the gay and lesbian movement is just the gay and lesbian movement signs. The women's issue, just women's movement signs. And civil rights, you do not see any other group. It is all so insular now.
MI (01:34:32):
Okay. Civil rights movement, for a brief moment, to sort of, I am getting coin the phrase, but the we shall overcome moment of basically 1963, 1965 succeeded to the extent that it seemed to embody not simply the needs interests of black Americans alone, but of all Americans. It is to say white Americans who wanted to live in a true democracy, felt that their interests were being represented by the Civil Rights group. They identified with it. What happens post (19)60s, and this is again part of the rise and fall social movements, is that rather than any movement embodying a kind of larger vision, they fragment and they become interest groups, identity politics, is the phrase that is often used. And it is left to the right to pick up that banner. So Ronald Reagan, speaking about his morning in America and government is not the solution. He is the one who has the compelling narrative that this is about all of us, not just about the interest. And part of the problem with Democratic Party, is that it is political platforms and political message seems to become simply a laundry list of the demands of this or that group, without convincingly portraying itself as speaking in the interest of all Americans. And that is why Barack Obama talks about the need for the post (19)60s political paradigm and also kind of reinvent politics. And they will get past those divisive tags left over from the decade, and I wish them luck. Because it does not seem to be happening at the moment.
SM (01:36:27):
He is sometimes labeled by his opponents as the epitome of the reincarnation of the (19)60s.
MI (01:36:33):
Which of course he has no real interest in. I mean Barack Obama is essentially a moderate Republican of the early 1960s. Thinks there is some role for government, it is not central to his vision, thinks some regulation, but he is also a pro-business. I mean, it is ludicrous that people get away with calling it a socialist or a communist, let alone a Nazi dictator. Oh, my God. Do not give me started.
SM (01:37:02):
Yeah, I know. I hear from some of my relatives. I have to walk out of the room.
MI (01:37:09):
Yeah, it is insanity. So anyway, so I am not surprised that the civil rights movement is not what it was or the anti-war movement. If people studied in the 1960s, students studied in the 1960s. I hope what they conclude is that, not that they missed everything, but that you can learn from the example, if not the model. It is certainly not the organizational trappings like becoming from SDS. You can learn how social change happens. Just small groups of people study their situation, understand the need for new kind of politics, new kind of movement, devote themselves to a great cause.
SM (01:37:54):
So many notes here. This is a broad question here, maybe too broad, but what accomplishments lay at the hands of the boomer generation and what disasters lay at the hands of the boomer generation? I think you have already commented on quite a few of them. Anything you want to add to that?
MI (01:38:19):
No.
SM (01:38:20):
Technology, would you say technology is a big plus for this generation?
MI (01:38:24):
Well, not me. I am a technophobe, but I do not even have a cell phone. Right. My children call me a hippie technophobe.
SM (01:38:34):
I have had it for a couple of years. One of the questions back on here, and this is I have asked quite a few people, this particular, not everybody, but in your own words, describe how the following timeframes influenced and developed the boomer generation, between those born between (19)46 and (19)64. I have known already that people told me you cannot generalize. And when we talk about the first 10-year boomers and the second 10-years, it is almost the difference of night and day. But in terms of these periods, just if you were to briefly describe, if you were in a classroom and the students were asking you, professor, would you describe how 1946 to 1960 shape the boomers, just in a couple sentences, what would that be? 1946 to 1960?
MI (01:39:21):
Well, I think it has a lot to do with that post World War II period, the great influence of the war, the prosperity sense of a rising expectations. Sense that anything was possible in your own life. Sense of dissatisfaction with disparity between the idealism absorbed from your parents' experience of World War II and some of the senior sides of American life. And then of course the war itself. The war in Vietnam.
SM (01:39:58):
How about 1961 to 1970?
MI (01:40:01):
Oh, I cannot break it down like that.
SM (01:40:03):
Or (19)71 to (19)80.
MI (01:40:07):
Well, again, my wife was born in 1961. She is a boomer. She got to college in 1979 or 1978. Her life, her experience as a student, her expectations of the world were different to mine. Made a difference, whether it became along the start, middle or the end, used to drive me crazy speaking to when I was doing this kind of interviewing myself with some of the founders of SDS. And they said, "Oh, it is too bad you came along when you did. Too late. You missed everything." Said, "I went to college in 1968. What do you mean I missed everything?" I had to be there in 1962. Really? It was very aggravating. But the experiences were different.
SM (01:40:51):
Well, there is no question though, that when you talk about that period 1980 and beyond, it is as if the whole world of the boomers and it was all when they were young, nothing mattered really when they were older. Because the era of Reagan is 1980 and beyond. Seems like everything has been influenced by him since.
MI (01:41:14):
Right.
SM (01:41:15):
Boomers, instead of criticizing that generation or criticizing the Democratic Party like Barney Frank did and his book, Speaking Frankly, you have got to disassociate yourself from the anti-war and the left wing of the party. Is there anything you can say about the (19)80 to 2010, the last 30 years, in terms of the influence on that generation?
MI (01:41:41):
I mean, again, the pendulum does not swing. We have this tendency to think in terms of decades. So 1980s is the decade of Reagan, just like the 1960s is the decade of John Kennedy and Malcolm X. But I mean, we forget for example, that 1982, the largest war protest in American history, dwarfed the anti-war protests in 1960s took place, people were terrified Reagan’s getting ready to fight nuclear war, nuclear freeze movement was expanding dramatically. And in June of 1982, 3/4 of a million people marched in Washington, not Washington, in New York City. It was the start of the UN session on nuclear disarmament or something to protest Reagan policies. So our history, our selective memory of the past eliminates it. It is like it did not happen. Or in 1981 crushes the [inaudible] strike. Half million people, summoned by the AFL-CIO, go to Washington on Solidarity day, which was in September, maybe late August of (19)81, to protest the crushing of the strike and that gets airbrushed out too. AFL-CIO, it never had a happening in the streets of Washington. Pete Seager was there, singing Solidarity Forever. He was not usually a feature of AFL-CIO, public events. So it is much too simple to say, okay, well boomer generation or the left wing of the boomer generation, has its moment and then sort of packed its bags and went back in its tent and sulked. And things were going on and also, lots of younger people were involved obviously as well. It was not people who gotten their start in the 1960s. I mean, America has never gone, the pendulum has never swung back to where it was in the 1950s. Things remain contested. And certainly Ronald Reagan changed the equation and spoke to a great public disillusionment of the government, which was itself partially a product. Largely a product in the 1960s, Vietnam and Watergate. But it is not simply that the boomers went away.
SM (01:44:17):
A lot of the critics of the boomers say they did. But overall, not everyone, because he cannot generalize.
MI (01:44:24):
So Jerry Rubin started running the meat and meat business so that, you get one sort of iconic figure and you say, oh wow, that is representative of all.
SM (01:44:35):
And Bobby went off, Bobby Seale went off and did a cookbook.
MI (01:44:39):
Well, that is wrong with that? Cooking was a big part of [inaudible].
SM (01:44:42):
He would talk about that at the conference.
MI (01:44:44):
I would talk, actually that reminds me of something, which is food. Food in the (19)50s stank. Food in the (19)70s actually got interesting. And today the concern about food, the local food movement and the slow food movement and the Alice Waters and Michael Pollen and all, that is a product of the 1960s. We were in 1971 when I was in a collective, our Bible and our cookbook was Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe. He is still around and still writing, which was about how you could not sustain a meat-based diet. It was going to be bad for the Earth. It is going to lead global warming because the clearing of land in the Amazon for grazing cattle and so on and so forth. I mean, all of that was a product of the 1960s. And there was a movement that was enormously influential, even on people helping of themselves as part of the counterculture part of the left. But white would like to eat healthfully. That would not have happened if it was not in the (19)60s.
SM (01:45:53):
When you mentioned about food in the (19)50s, I think of two things that immediately come to mind. Number one, milk was brought to your door. Remember they leave milk and then the second thing, they did not have fast food places, but you could not go out and get chicken in the basket. Do you remember that? And that was very popular. What do these things mean to you? These are just quick responses. You already talked about the wall. What does Jackson State and Kent State mean to you?
MI (01:46:20):
Well, personally was sort of the height of the 1960s. All what happened in 1970 was the moment when it seemed like all things were possible. You could stop the war, you could change America. And you know that it was a deadly serious moment, four dead in Ohio.
SM (01:46:46):
What is Woodstock mean to you?
MI (01:46:48):
Well, it means I was 18, I met my girlfriend at Woodstock.
SM (01:46:51):
You were there?
MI (01:46:51):
Yeah. I was there.
SM (01:46:51):
Full four days?
MI (01:46:56):
No, I was only there for a day and night because I was stupid. Because when you went to it, you did not know it was like this historical event. I mean, I bought tickets for a day. I could not afford to buy tickets for the whole time. Nobody bothered to collect your tickets. And then once I got there, it was really cool and really neat. But you did not realize it, 40 years later, be a museum there. And the Jimmy Hendrix would know, sort of have this defining moment on the very last day if I had known that it would have stayed.
SM (01:47:28):
Now what entertainers did you actually see and hear?
MI (01:47:32):
I wrote a piece for the Chronicle Higher Education about them. I had to go check the playlist on Wikipedia. See, I had seen the movie so many times. I was a little confused. But I saw Santana.
SM (01:47:44):
Oh, what a great piece they did, that one.
MI (01:47:45):
I saw Jefferson Airplane and I saw Janis Joplin and I saw Sly and the Family Stone. And those are the ones that spring your mind. Oh, and Country Joe. Although there was a dispute about, on different websites about when Country Joe actually performed. But the website I read that persuaded me was he was after he performed.
SM (01:48:17):
Yeah. And that is where he said, give me an F, give me an O.
MI (01:48:20):
Well he performed twice was the thing.
SM (01:48:22):
How far away were you parked? Did you have to walk miles to get to it?
MI (01:48:26):
Few miles, yeah. I was in the parking lot. Muddy field.
SM (01:48:30):
What do the hippies and the yippies mean to you? The hippies and the yippies, two different groups.
MI (01:48:36):
Well, the yippies were sort of the Abby Hoffman, Jerry [inaudible] for the Chicago Democratic Convention. And it was never really an organization. It was just the people who identified with Hoffman who did in politics, which I did not, especially. The hippies were kind of much broader, diffuse. I mean, when I teach this, I draw circles on the board, overlapping circles. And I would say, okay, hippies, do you mean leftist, anti-war protestors? Here is one circle though, hippies. There is another circle that is a new left. A part of new left, the hippies, here is another circle, it is the anti-war movement. Part of the antiwar movement, were hippies and new leftists, but a lot of them were, so they were not all the same category.
SM (01:49:27):
I interviewed Steven Gaskin, who was a great interview about the farm. Very proud to be a hippie. And they have done unbelievable things too. Inventions. What does Watergate mean to you?
MI (01:49:41):
Well, Watergate proved we were right all along.
SM (01:49:45):
Vietnam, veterans against the war?
MI (01:49:47):
Were central to my understanding of the war. And were heroes to the anti-war movement. And repudiate the motion that there was a split between anti-war protestors, in the one hand, Vietnam veterans on the other.
SM (01:50:03):
What do the communes mean to you?
MI (01:50:05):
Well, lots of us were in communes and thinking that this was an alternative to family and work life and home life, that would sustain itself forever. Of course, it did not but it was certainly an interesting moment. I still find it difficult to cook for less than 13 people because I learned to cook mostly rice and vegetables. But I was cooking for the 13 people I lived with.
SM (01:50:34):
So, you were probably responsible for cooking a meal a week. And then, yeah, because I visited a commune up in Boston, when my brother was a diabetic and everyone responsible for one big dinner a week.
MI (01:50:51):
And you had to clean up too. And that was good training because it meant be cleaned as you cooked. So a big cleanup still.
SM (01:51:01):
How about, what does the counterculture mean to you? And that is counterculture, often defined as the music, the long hair, the clothes, the drugs, the sex, the whole thing.
MI (01:51:12):
Yeah. Well, you just said it.
SM (01:51:13):
Okay. What does the Black Panthers and black power mean to you?
MI (01:51:20):
Well, black power was much broader than Black Panthers. Black Panthers, one organizational expression of it, who unfortunately I think had a very negative effect on terms of their sort of gun idolatry and street thug language, which we took to be represented revolutionary authenticity, but was actually just a sort of cult.
SM (01:51:46):
How about My Lai? What did me My Lai mean to you?
MI (01:51:51):
My Lai was not exceptional, it was representative. I mean, it is not like people were not being killed every single day in terrible ways in Vietnam. It is just the one that we learned about.
SM (01:52:04):
And Tet?
MI (01:52:06):
Tet was the turning point.
SM (01:52:11):
The last part here is, where is my list at? These are just responding very few words. So these personalities or terms? Oh, I do have one question before the final thing here. In about the last 30 to 40 interviews, I have said that there are three slogans that I personally think kind of identify the boomer generation. And the other people had said, we shall overcome. And I wish I did not have on there some. But they are, the more violent aspects of this period are symbolized by Malcolm X, by any means necessary.
MI (01:52:48):
Okay.
SM (01:52:48):
Second is the quote that Bobby Kennedy used. It was a quote from another author, obviously. And that is, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not." Which is symbolic of an activism, a positive mentality, non-violent protest. Seeing injustice and wanting to create justice wherever you see it. And the third one is kind of a hippie mentality, that was on a lot of the posters. The Peter Max posters were great for that counterculture in the early (19)70s. And I had one hanging in my room at Ohio State, and that was, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, that will be beautiful." Which was a hippie mentality. And then of course the civil rights mentality was, we shall overcome. And the only other one that people have mentioned was Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." And then the other one was Timothy O' Leary, "To an intern on dropout." Are there any other slogans you think really symbolize? Does that cover it?
MI (01:53:53):
Bob Dylan lyrics are endlessly mineable for insights in these (19)60s. I think I already mentioned, "Do not follow leaders, watch the parking meters."
SM (01:54:01):
Right.
MI (01:54:02):
"You do not need a weather man to know which way the wind blows." And so forth.
SM (01:54:05):
Oh yeah.
MI (01:54:06):
Subterranean homesick blues. We used to sit down and play it endlessly and analyze it over and over again.
SM (01:54:13):
Who were your favorite, besides Bob Dylan, who were your favorite rock musicians? Did you have to have a message in your music or did you just, you would like the combination of message and just great sound?
MI (01:54:31):
Well, I mean the Doors, not political group a message except sex is a message. The approach of the apocalypse is a message. So nothing would surprise you. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Credence Clearwater, Country Joe.
SM (01:55:01):
Were there any Motown performers that you really dug?
MI (01:55:05):
Not so much. I mean, although I think that is a weakness in my musical education, but I mean, I am certainly hear about all the time. So it was part of the musical backdrop.
SM (01:55:16):
Did you ever listen to what is going on by Marvin Gay, which is just one of the greatest? We will end with these, history responded with a very few words to these people or [inaudible].
MI (01:55:28):
Actually one local group, local to the West Coast, Joy of Cooking. You do not hear much about them, they were a Berkeley group. Came, when I was in Portland. They would come up and play, were sort of cult followers of Joy of Cooking, partially because they had women lead guitarists, which was quite unusual in those days.
SM (01:55:45):
You were at the Summer of Love too, were not you? Did you say you were there or no?
MI (01:55:48):
I was in Indianapolis.
SM (01:55:51):
Oh, okay. That is right. That is right.
MI (01:55:52):
We were conscious, that was going on. Everybody laughed at the Scott Mackenzie song, which is now sort of seen as this anthem of the Summer of Love. Sergeant Pepper was really the soundtrack for that summer.
SM (01:56:06):
How about, my first one is Tom Hayden. Thoughts on Tom Hayden?
MI (01:56:08):
Tom is a smart guy. I interviewed him myself, many years ago. And I think he had a sort of complicated politics, years that followed. Sometimes it is true, there are no second acts in American lives. And I think he is an example of it.
SM (01:56:32):
He has written a lot of good books though.
MI (01:56:33):
Yeah, well he was absolutely essential in 1960s. Very brave guy. I was a young reporter from an underground newspaper and I was trying to formulate a question. I could not come up with a way of doing it. He very sort of gently steered me to the formula I still use. He said, "Well, some people would argue this. What would you say to that?" Shaping the question for him. Oh, yes. See, I was floundering. He had been a reporter, student reporter, for the Ann Arbor Daily. So whenever I use that formulation, I think of Tom.
SM (01:57:07):
I will remember that.
MI (01:57:07):
Some people would argue. What do you think?
SM (01:57:12):
Jane Fonda?
MI (01:57:14):
Well, Jane got a bad rap. I actually met Jane Fonda. Jane and Tom, in fact, came from Portland and part of the China Peace campaign in 1973. I washed her dirty laundry. That is fine. She is the most stunningly beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life at that point. She was 30 and I was just a kid. So I had never met a Hollywood star. And it is true, they are kind of incandescently walk into a room. Also, your jaw drops.
SM (01:57:44):
And she had lived with what is his name for a long time before she met Tom.
MI (01:57:49):
Roger Vadim.
SM (01:57:50):
Yeah. Roger Vadim. And she did Barbella.
MI (01:57:53):
Barbarella. So I mean, all the stuff about her being Hanoi Jane. Had one bad photograph taken, but lots of people were traveling to Hanoi. John Baez traveled to Hanoi, actually got caught in an American bombing raid. So it was not a treasonous act.
SM (01:58:14):
How about the Kennedy brothers? Just quick thoughts on John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy.
MI (01:58:18):
Yeah. Well, John Kennedy was a figure in the (19)50s, not the (19)60s, and did not care about domestic reform and was remembered as a reformer, but because of the civil rights movement, picked him up and pushed him in a direction he would not have gone himself. I think Robert Kennedy, under a much more fundamental transformation. He was younger, more attuned to the moment. And it is an interesting question. If Sirhan Sirhan's elbow, had been jostled at the last moment, I think Robert Kennedy would have received democratic nomination in (19)68, and we would not be talking about the onset of the conservative era with Richard Nixon. One of those moments of contingency as we historians, like you say, where a historical accident changes what followed.
SM (01:59:15):
How about LBJ and Hubert Humphrey?
MI (01:59:20):
Well, they are both kind tragic figures. They wanted to be domestic reformers and they wound up creating and apologizing for terrible work.
SM (01:59:36):
Dwight Eisenhower?
MI (01:59:39):
Eisenhower looks better, as the years pass. Partially because the Republican presidents who followed him were so terrible. This is not my insight, but political scientists, what is his name? He said that the New deal was ratified by Dwight Eisenhower because... The New Deal was ratified by Dwight Eisenhower because when he came into office, he did nothing to dismantle it. He was not an anti-government crusader, he in some ways expanded it. The largest public works projects in the history of the United States were the Federal Highway Act of 1956, which he pushed for.
SM (02:00:19):
Right. And the Eisenhower Locks up in the North.
MI (02:00:21):
Yeah. And again, in terms of foreign policy, although John Foster Dulles talked a mean game about rolling back communism, Eisenhower was pretty cautious.
SM (02:00:32):
What about Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew?
MI (02:00:38):
I tell my students that you only really hate one president in your life, so choose carefully. Because I really utterly, totally loathed Richard Nixon. And there have been Presidents since whose policies I have found repellent, but I cannot summon the level of vitriol that I did for Richard Nixon. And Agnew was joined at the hip with him.
SM (02:01:04):
Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern?
MI (02:01:08):
Well, I have met McGovern, brought him here to speak. And he was the first Presidential candidate I voted for in 1972. I think he would have been a good President. McCarthy had the courage that Bobby Kennedy lacked to challenge a sitting incumbent Democrat, so it is an admirable act.
SM (02:01:30):
You have already talked about Malcolm, but just comparing thoughts on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
MI (02:01:36):
Well, King was a great... They are often thought of as the moderate and the radical. But King was, to my mind, the better radical. And he really talked of... First of all, he was more realistic politically. He could build coalitions which Malcolm X could not do. And lead great consent, and actually risked his life, while Malcolm was killed by his own followers or ex-followers of the nation of Islam, whereas King was on the front lines of endless confrontations and responded non-violently. King was a real radical, and we forget that the slogan of the (19)63 March on Washington was not just Freedom Now, it was Jobs and Freedom. In the beginning, he wanted to link economic change with social and political change, and that was what he wound up doing at the end. We also forget how unpopular he was. Now, we are so in love with King, we think he is so wonderful. But many Americans hated him for opposing the war. His coming out against the war in spring of 1967 was enormously influential and legitimizing for people like us who were just beginning to cover anti-war politics.
SM (02:02:49):
But of course, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and George Bush the first. I make a comment on Ronald Reagan when he came in, he emphatically said, "We are back," which means that the military is going to get stronger again. We are going to change the military. And then of course, Vietnam syndrome is over. And I remember George Bush saying, number one, saying that. So those three, Bush, Ford, and Reagan.
MI (02:03:16):
Well, Ford was an accidental President and was not in office long enough to move or do anything too bad. Reagan's politics, again, I find the antithesis of my own, both domestically and in terms of foreign policy. But Reagan is actually remembered as having won the Cold War. Well, I think he contributed to the end of the Cold War in the sense that he actually made an opening to Gorbachev, allowed Gorbachev to be Gorbachev. It was not by saber-rattling or building expensive, useless systems like Star Wars that he brought about the end of the Soviet Empire. Rather it was by seeking agreements. Reagan and Gorbachev signed the only arms limitation agreement which actually is an arms reduction agreement. The IMF, I believe in 1987, all the others, assault ones, simply said, "Okay, you can build more bombs, but you have to stop at this point." And Reagan, again, this is sometimes forgotten, at one point, meaning I think it was at Reykjavik or Reykjavik, however you say that said to Gorbachev, "Why do not we just do away with nuclear weapons all altogether?" Which horrified his own hawkish advisors, Reagan's advisors. Because he actually had this utopian streak. He actually really loathed nuclear weapons, and the idea of nuclear warfare he found genuinely horrifying. And we forget that. So Gorbachev thinking, "Okay, I have got this soulmate in Washington," was then able to step back from Afghanistan, from Eastern Europe. In 1989, the Soviets had 400,000 soldiers in East Germany. And Gorbachev said, "Stay on your bases. Do not interfere." If they wanted to crack down on what was going on in East Germany, they could have put an end to that real quick. But Gorbachev said, "It is a new world. We have to get used to it. If we lose Eastern Europe, we lose Eastern Europe."
SM (02:05:24):
Do you talk to your students at all in the (19)60s course about Ronald Reagan's coming to power as governor of California?
MI (02:05:31):
Yeah.
SM (02:05:32):
And what is really-
MI (02:05:33):
It is another of those ways in which the (19)60s were seed time for the conservative revival.
SM (02:05:40):
I interviewed Ed Meese, and it was great because he was the Assistant District Attorney of Alameda County. And at the time of the free, excuse me, yeah, Free Speech Movement. And he was not working for Reagan at the time, but he heard about him and they did not know each other. And then, of course, he had appointed him to be in his administration. And of course, he was involved with the People's Park crackdown and heavily involved in that. And of course, Reagan came to power dealing with the students.
MI (02:06:15):
Yeah, I will tell you a (19)60s story that has something to do with People's Park. Hamilton had compulsory chapel, been a part of the college since the beginning and had been whittled down over the years so that by 1964, there was only one... You only had to go on Sunday. We used to have to go twice a day every day of the week. But in 1964, Hamilton, which again is a sort of small, isolated men's college in upstate New York, but not the cutting edge of politics. But in spring of 1964, a freshman by the name of Daniel Steinman wrote a letter to the Spectators, this college newspaper, saying, "This is ridiculous. Why do we have to do this? It is an infringement on our conscience, and religious freedom and so on and so forth. I call on my fellow students to refuse to go into chapel on next Sunday, instead sit non-violently, not blocking way, to sit on the chapel steps instead." And 150 Hamilton students did so.
SM (02:07:14):
Oh, my God.
MI (02:07:14):
It is not like this was a hot bed of radicals.
SM (02:07:15):
Oh, yes.
MI (02:07:19):
Most of the people that did so just did not want to go to compulsory chapel. And a month later the trustees said, "Okay, no more compulsory chapel." So this 150-year-old tradition came to an end because this one college freshman said enough is enough.
SM (02:07:33):
That is student empowerment, really. That is the...
MI (02:07:37):
There is a correlation to this.
SM (02:07:38):
Okay.
MI (02:07:40):
So three years later he graduates and he goes off to the University of California to start law school at Bull Palm. And he was elected as the president of ASUP, Associated Students University of California. And at a rally in May of 1969, he is the guy who says, at the end of his speech, "Let us go take the park." So Daniel Steinman, who had gotten his start in radical politics leading a sit-in on the front steps of the chapel was the one who sent the mob marching on People's Park, which resulted in a month of civil disturbance, helicopters, James Rector getting killed, helicopters dropping CS gas on Sproul Plaza.
SM (02:08:19):
That is right. Yeah.
MI (02:08:21):
So I do not know whether he was happy with that distinction, but...
SM (02:08:25):
That is irony, though. He is a historic figure then really, when you think about it.
MI (02:08:30):
Yeah.
SM (02:08:30):
Are they proud of him here at Hamilton?
MI (02:08:32):
I do not think they-
SM (02:08:34):
They hide it.
MI (02:08:35):
Well, neither. I am writing the bicentennial history of the college. I just finished writing it, and I put him into the book just because I thought it was an interesting sideline.
SM (02:08:43):
That is an interesting sideline.
MI (02:08:45):
But I do not know how I stumbled on that fact.
SM (02:08:47):
But that, because I had mentioned People's Park with Ed Meese.
MI (02:08:49):
Right. But I do not know how I found out about Steinman's role, but I thought it was quite interesting. He still practices law. I look him up on the website.
SM (02:08:57):
When I am done with my interview, I want tell you a story that Ed Meese told me. I do not want to ruin it here now, though. The Berrigan brothers, Phillip and Daniel Berrigan and Dr. Benjamin Spock.
MI (02:09:09):
Well, the Berrigan brothers kind of emblematic of the Catholic Left, which also often gets left out of the story. And some relationship to, though independent of the Catholic worker movement, were very significant figures. And of course, Philip Berrigan was... There were crimes that they committed. Crimes? They threw blood on draft records. But Philip Berrigan was at the center of one of these alleged conspiracies, which jurors were rejecting. The Harrisburg Seven were acquitted, like the Gainesville Eight. Nixon Justice firm was setting up these elaborate conspiracy indictments against different groups, Catholic Left and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. And by the early 1970s, ordinary jurors, middle-aged, middle class jurors simply were not buying government propaganda, throwing those things out of the court.
SM (02:10:11):
How about Spock?
MI (02:10:15):
I was raised as a Spock baby. Simple version of that is permissiveness. Dr. Spock created this whole generation of so on and so forth. But actually just continued to trend towards child-centered families that had been developing since the early 19th century.
SM (02:10:34):
In my job at the university, we brought Daniel and Phillip to the campus. We brought Daniel, and then we brought Phillip, and Elizabeth McAllister, his wife, and he gave his last presentation in Phillip's library three weeks before he died, his last public presentations at Westchester University.
MI (02:10:52):
Interesting.
SM (02:10:53):
I went, because we had honored Frederick Douglass, who gave his last speech in 1895 at Westchester University. And I went to the administration and I said, "I think we need to put a plaque inside the room that this was the location where Phillip Berrigan gave his last speech." You can guess what they told me to do. Take a hike and jump off a bridge.
MI (02:11:24):
Do you have a watch on?
SM (02:11:24):
Oh, yeah.
MI (02:11:24):
Just to make sure of the time. At some point I [inaudible].
SM (02:11:24):
Yeah. It is 4:00. I only got maybe five, six more minutes here.
MI (02:11:28):
Okay.
SM (02:11:28):
The other ones are certainly the Black Panthers, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, H Rap Brown, Huey Newton, that group, they were all unique and different personalities, but they were all part of that group.
MI (02:11:42):
Right. Well, I think overall the impact of the Black Panthers was very negative on the Black left and on the white left as well, with the sort of gun idolatry and the adventurous politics that they represented.
SM (02:12:05):
The others, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
MI (02:12:09):
Ellsberg was central, the original whistleblower, and also a boon to historians. Most histories of the Vietnam War down to the present are simply glosses on the Pentagon Papers. And that was the basic documentary record.
SM (02:12:25):
Angela Davis, she was not a Black Panther.
MI (02:12:28):
No. Well, I think Angela Davis went to Paris on the Hamilton Junior Year Abroad program. She was a Brandeis student, so she had a Hamilton connection. A very charismatic figure. I think she was guilty as health. She was another acquittal, but I have no doubt that she was involved with buying the guns that were used in the Marin County Courthouse Shootout.
SM (02:12:55):
That is the one where George Jackson's brother was involved.
MI (02:12:58):
Dr. Jackson.
SM (02:12:58):
He got killed, did not he? I think.
MI (02:12:59):
He was killed.
SM (02:13:00):
Yeah. Let us see, just a few more here. Robert McNamara and Woodward and Bernstein.
MI (02:13:09):
Well, McNamara, he saw what he had done. He was horrified by it. He was weeping in his office in the Pentagon, but he kept his mouth shut for 30 odd years. And then when he spoke out finally in 1995 about what he really thought, he found himself loathed both by the left and the right, both by people who had supported the war and people who opposed the war. And was not an admirable figure. He was the architect of the war. Kept silent when speaking out might actually have made a difference. On the other hand, you cannot imagine Donald Rumsfeld ever 30 years later saying, "Gee, the Iraq War was not such a good idea after all."
SM (02:13:55):
And Woodward and Bernstein?
MI (02:13:58):
Well, they did not bring down Nixon by themselves. Judge John Sirica was probably much more instrumental in that. But they got on the story early and they pursued it. And they owned it in a way that...
SM (02:14:10):
Timothy Leary.
MI (02:14:12):
Showman, opportunist, obviously influenced a lot of people.
SM (02:14:20):
Muhammad Ali.
MI (02:14:23):
Very important figure, again, in that sort of sense of personal transformation. So central to (19)60s politics and (19)60s culture. Great fighter.
SM (02:14:34):
The female leaders, which Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, some of that group of politicians.
MI (02:14:42):
Yeah. If you go back and you read the Feminine Mystique, in much the same way as we were talking about the Civil Rights movement, it is not really just about women. It is about what kind of families do we want to have? What kind of society do we want to have? And I think part of its success, its influence was that lots of people can identify with it. Obviously, women were her main constituency and readership, but it was one of those moments when the feminism was speaking with a universal appeal.
SM (02:15:25):
SDS and the Weathermen, I think you have already talked about them. How about the American Indian Movement? Your thoughts on... That was a four-year phenomenon, really.
MI (02:15:34):
Yeah. It was an example of the influence of the civil rights movement that all kinds of other subgroups suddenly began to see themselves as having rights that needed to be defended in a confrontational style. They skirted. Well, they did not skirt, they embraced the violent politics, which I think worked against them. And their leader is still in jail many decades later.
SM (02:16:01):
Barry Goldwater and William Buckley.
MI (02:16:05):
Reinvented American conservatism.
SM (02:16:09):
Jackie Robinson.
MI (02:16:13):
Obviously, major figure in terms of the idea that American athletics was all white up through the end of the 1940s is kind of astounding in a sense.
SM (02:16:26):
He was a supporter of Richard Nixon. I could not believe that.
MI (02:16:31):
Right. Well, Nixon, for a while, Martin Luther King thought that Nixon had really good racial politics in the 1950s.
SM (02:16:41):
Chicago Eight.
MI (02:16:48):
You would have to separate them out. Some of them I think were incredibly important. And responsible figures like Dave Bellinger, Hayden obviously left. Jerry and Abby were entertaining clowns.
SM (02:17:03):
Bobby Seale was.
MI (02:17:05):
Bobby Seale.
SM (02:17:05):
Lee Weiner was in that group. He is still an activist. I think he is an environmental activist. And he has actually been involved in Jewish rights all over the world. I am trying to find the two that you do not hear about are Lee Weiner and the professor out in California, the eighth person.
MI (02:17:26):
Yeah, I know.
SM (02:17:27):
Anyways. But they are both still involved.
MI (02:17:29):
Right.
SM (02:17:30):
But you do not hear about it as much. And I guess we will finish with how important you feel the Free Speech Movement was overall and the Peace Corps.
MI (02:17:43):
Well, the Free Speech Movement sort of established a paradigm for campus protestors. Just to say that up to that point, protests had been launched from campuses, but not directed at university policy. And thereafter, university policy would become a central concern of new left activists. The difference was that the Free Speech Movement thought of itself as defending the best principles of the university with general intellectual and liberal arts principles as opposed to sort of the corporate shill aspects of the university. Later on-
SM (02:18:22):
Okay.
MI (02:18:23):
I was saying the Free Speech Movement identified with the universities, even while challenging university policy. But later on, I think unfortunately the universities came to be identified as, he was caught in the bushes, as the enemy, as part of the war machine and just shut it down.
SM (02:18:47):
And the Peace Corps, is this times of service?
MI (02:18:51):
Still here, part of the inspirational, idealistic side of the Kennedy administration.
SM (02:19:00):
The only last ones I have here is, of course, 1963 was the assassination of President Kennedy. Where were you? Do you remember the exact location where you were when you heard he had been killed?
MI (02:19:12):
Yeah, I was in eighth grade. I was in art class. Our teacher, Mrs. Williams, walked in the door and she was weeping, which impressed the heck out of me. I knew something important happened, because I had never seen an adult authority figure, let alone a teacher, crying. So we were all sent home, watched television the next four days, including Oswald's assassination.
SM (02:19:37):
Yes. You saw it live, too.
MI (02:19:38):
Well, I do not think I saw it live.
SM (02:19:39):
I did.
MI (02:19:40):
I saw in endless loop thereafter.
SM (02:19:42):
Yeah.
MI (02:19:43):
And then the funeral, the state funeral on...
SM (02:19:49):
He wants to go in. He wants to go in. I am down to my last three here. Okay. Let us see where my... Yeah. And the second one, do you remember where you were when you heard that Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed? Exact moment.
MI (02:20:21):
I do not remember Martin Luther King. I remember it happened. And I remember hearing about Kennedy's assassination the next morning on television. And by that point, assassinations had become so commonplace that I just sort of thought, "There is another one."
SM (02:20:46):
Were you in front of-
MI (02:20:47):
It was so much less powerful an experience than hearing that John Kennedy had shot, which itself is testimony to how common assassination had become.
SM (02:20:59):
Were you very fearful on the Cuban Missile Crisis that we-
MI (02:21:02):
I was not aware of it.
SM (02:21:05):
Okay. And the last one I have here is just the black and white TV of the fifties, which is Walt Disney, Howdy Doody, Hopalong Cassidy, those kinds of television shows. What were your favorite shows as a kid? Did you watch all those, too?
MI (02:21:21):
Sure. I was totally swept up in the Davy Crockett craze, which was the first great-
SM (02:21:26):
And Fess Parker just passed away recently.
MI (02:21:27):
I saw that. I played something for my students from YouTube with Fess Parker David Crockett.
SM (02:21:33):
Oh, wow.
MI (02:21:34):
I could sing all the words when I was five.
SM (02:21:35):
King of the wild frontier.
MI (02:21:40):
King of the wild frontier. Born on the mountaintop in Tennessee.
SM (02:21:42):
Greatest state in the land of the free.
MI (02:21:44):
Yeah. Killed in a bar when he was only three. Lived in the woods, so he knew every tree. Killed in a bar when he was only three.
SM (02:21:49):
Davy, Davy Crockett. Buddy Ebsen was his sidekick.
MI (02:21:52):
Yep. So yes, obviously. And all those westerns, I could bore you by singing theme songs to at least a half a dozen of them.
SM (02:22:03):
Have Gun Will Travel reads the card of a man.
MI (02:22:03):
A knight without honor in a savage land.
SM (02:22:03):
Yep.
MI (02:22:03):
So yes, I was a child with the television.
SM (02:22:13):
And those TV shows, those family, Donna Reed Show, Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver. Well, that was the ideal family of the fifties, but, boy, it was really hiding what was reality in the-
MI (02:22:29):
Yeah, I had a working mother, so it did not seem to describe my family. She was not standing around the kitchen in pearls and high heels washing the kitchen floor. Also, our kitchen would not look like theirs.
SM (02:22:42):
The last two Presidents are the Bill Clinton and George Bush. What are your thoughts on them? Because they are the only Boomer presidents.
MI (02:22:49):
That is right.
SM (02:22:49):
And someone said, "When you see their weaknesses, you are saying you can tell they are Boomers." I have had a couple people tell me that. Can you say that they are Boomers by looking at their life and their-
MI (02:23:03):
No. George Bush missed the (19)60s. He was a (19)50s character. He was consumed with his fraternity of skull and bones, or whatever it was.
SM (02:23:14):
Right.
MI (02:23:17):
So he was not really a (19)60s character at all. Clinton, sure, he was a (19)60s character. He was also... It is not like everybody who came out of the (19)60s was a womanizer with a taste for women with big hair. He was who he was. He is like a lot of politicians, which is an interesting point. Compare him to John Kennedy. John Kennedy makes Clinton look like a piker. Bill Clinton only had one affair while he was in the White House. John Kennedy had hundreds of women cycling through. So Clinton famously met Kennedy. He thought the rules had not changed. He thought he could be John Kennedy, the open zipper presidency.
SM (02:23:59):
Wow.
MI (02:24:00):
So was John Kennedy a typical boomer? Hardly.
SM (02:24:08):
Yeah. This is the absolute last question. And that is, when the best history books are written, or sociology books you know as a historian, they are often written 50 years after an event. And my question is when the best history books or sociology books are written on the Boomer generation after the last Boomer has died?
MI (02:24:31):
Probably so.
SM (02:24:32):
Yeah. What do you think history will say about that generation?
MI (02:24:40):
Well, that is one of those impossible questions, isn't it? I think we have much better histories of the Civil War being written now than were written when a Civil War veteran was alive, so I think that is true. We will understand the (19)60s finally when we are all gone. But it is precisely because I am part of the moment. And when I teach this course, I say to my students, "You have to be able to separate out when I am speaking with my historian's hat on and when I am speaking as an artifact." And you can learn from both, but there are some different messages involved.
SM (02:25:16):
Very-very good. Is there a question I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask?
MI (02:25:20):
No.
SM (02:25:20):
Well, thank you very much.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Maurice Isserman
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Isserman, Maurice ; McKiernan, Stephen
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College teachers; Hamilton College (Clinton, N.Y.); Radicalism--United States; Isserman, Maurice--Interviews
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Dr. Maurice Isserman, born in Hartford, Connecticut, is a professor at Hamilton College and an accomplished author. He got his Bachelor of Arts in History from Reed College and his Master of Arts in American History and his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. Dr. Isserman specializes in modern U.S. History, American radical movements, and global exploration and mountaineering.
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.130a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.130b
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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145:25
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/224bf36e72b71c637343a9268dd4e0a8.jpg
e6c7d56c52b2a3e78f2eca2b97389a42
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/edbc614873d4137fc049bb6701ef4f08.mp3
6df18ab684ff70583796da5d5aa9ce1f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2009-12-11
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Meta Mendel-Reyes
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Meta Mendel Reyes is a professor at Berea College and she teaches Peace as well as Social Justice. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. She loves to be a community service worker for people in California and she helps people in Philadelphia with race-related issues."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13059,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Meta Mendel Reyes is a professor at Berea College, where she teaches Peace as well as Social Justice. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. She loves to be a community service worker for people in California and she helps people in Philadelphia with race-related issues.</span>
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
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Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Kent State; Assassination of John F Kennedy; Baby boom generation; Women's movement; Civil Rights Movement; Anti-war movement; Chicano Movement; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Vietnam War; Activism; College campus; Vietnam Memorial."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":16370588},"12":0}">Kent State; Assassination of John F Kennedy; Baby boom generation; Women's movement; Civil Rights Movement; Anti-war movement; Chicano Movement; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Vietnam War; Activism; College campus; Vietnam Memorial.</span>
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71:15
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College teachers; Berea College; Social justice; Mendel-Reyes, Meta--Interviews
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Interview with Dr. Meta Mendel-Reyes
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Mendel-Reyes, Meta ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
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College teachers; Berea College; Social justice; Mendel-Reyes, Meta--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Meta Mendel-Reyes is a professor at Berea College, where she teaches Peace as well as Social Justice. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. She loves to be a community service worker for people in California and she helps people in Philadelphia with race-related issues.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2009-12-11
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In copyright
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.98
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
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71:15
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/0c1104ed0fb3a0a1e44aa826908d9bcf.jpg
6ece1a61dab48f9a1fbf3271a03ac523
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/32917909293bb94458f8389ee5f641d2.mp3
66d45c3b65f66d3125cca06306c3f673
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
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</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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English
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Date of Interview
2011-02-12
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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Michael Kazin, 1948-
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English
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<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Michael Kazin is a historian and professor at Georgetown University. Kazin's research focuses on the American social movements from the 19th and 20th centuries. He received a Bachelor's degree in Social Studies from Harvard, a Master's degree in History from Portland State University, and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford University. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":7043,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Michael Kazin is a historian and professor at Georgetown University. Kazin's research focuses on the American social movements from the 19th and 20th centuries. He received a Bachelor's degree in Social Studies from Harvard, a Master's degree in History from Portland State University, and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford University. </span>
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Binghamton University Libraries
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<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"George McGovern; Foreign policy; Conservatism; Generation gap; The Wounded Generation: America After Vietnam; Vietnam War; McCarthyism; Montgomery Bus Boycott; The moon landing; John F. Kennedy inaugural address; Neo-liberal; Radicals; Higher education; African Americans; Pop culture of Nineteen sixties; Richard J. Hughes; New Leftist; Harvard University; Students for a Democratic Society."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14275305}}">George McGovern; Foreign policy; Conservatism; Generation gap; The Wounded Generation: America After Vietnam; Vietnam War; McCarthyism; Montgomery Bus Boycott; The moon landing; John F. Kennedy inaugural address; Neo-liberal; Radicals; Higher education; African Americans; Pop culture of Nineteen sixties; Richard J. Hughes; New Leftist; Harvard University; Students for a Democratic Society.</span>
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1:54:16
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Historians; College teachers; Georgetown University; Social movements--United States--19th century; Social movements--United States--20th century; Kazin, Michael, 1948--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Michael Kazin
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 12 February 2011
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:02):
Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing.
MK (00:00:11):
[inaudible] if you rather, but this is more comfortable.
SM (00:00:12):
That is fine. It carries pretty good.
MK (00:00:16):
You got two of them, huh?
SM (00:00:17):
Yep.
MK (00:00:17):
Stereo.
SM (00:00:18):
For the last maybe hundred interviews I have had two, because Peter Goldman gave me some advice there too. He said, you need to have two interview tapes because if you are redoing the tape and something that happens to one, you got a second one. Could you tell me a little bit about your growing up years? I know you had a famous dad who was a literary critic and a very well-known critic, but what were your early influences? Who were your role models, teachers, historians, and how important was your dad in shaping who you became?
MK (00:00:53):
Well, I will deal with him first, I guess. I was born in 1948. My parents were actually divorced when I was one and a half. I have no memories of them living together. So direct influence in terms of being by the house, there was not any, I saw him once a month or so. We had a difficult relationship. He was not very good with little kids. He was only comfortable with people if he could talk about books and ideas. And when you are five years old, you do not really do that. So, we had a difficult time, but by the time I started at junior high or high school, at least, I do not remember exactly when people said, "Oh, are you the son of Alfred Kazin?" He was part of this world of what Irving Howe called the New York Intellectuals. And I grew up in a suburb of New York, Pinewood, New Jersey, near just a one exit off the South East Parkway from George Washington Bridge.
SM (00:01:53):
It is Englewood, is not it?
MK (00:01:54):
Yeah, Englewood. So I kept hearing about him. I read his work when I was in high school and we argued about politics. When I was in high school. He was a Cold War liberal, and I was beginning to be an anti-war liberal. And then of course, later on, a radical. So I think the conflict between us, which was partly personal and partly political, was constructive, I think, to teach me how to argue about politics with someone who is very smart. And also I learned to take ideas very seriously. And also, without thinking about it at the time, I certainly learned that you could have a pretty good life being a teacher and a writer, which of course is what he was. He was more writer than teacher. He taught all the time, but his real passion was for writing. He taught only because he could not make enough money writing. If he could have made enough money writing, he would not have taught. Which is not true for me. I love teaching. So other influences. My mother, of course, who I grew up with, who was on the left politically. She had gone to Russia in 1936 when American liberals as still thought Russia was a pretty good place, at least a lot of them did. And just as a tourist, she went. And she had been involved in various popular front groups in the thirties, a fellow traveler, old term for that. And she had friends who I met, some of whom were emigres from Nazi Germany, who got out just in time in the thirties, and I met them growing up. And our next-door neighbors were left-wingers. They subscribed to a magazine [inaudible] called the National Guardian, which was a left-wing magazine. You might know of it. Again, late (19)40s. In fact, one 4th of July they had a barbecue, and they had The Weavers over to sing-
SM (00:03:59):
Oh my God.
MK (00:03:59):
In the backyard next door.
SM (00:04:01):
Pete Seeger.
MK (00:04:03):
That was pretty cool. This is, I forget exactly the year, sometime in the (19)50s. So I grew up in, what I understood later was a particular kind of left liberal background, people who had been close to the Communist Party at one point, but no longer were, it was mostly Jewish, not all Jewish, certainly. And my schools, I will not go into great detail, but my schools were influenced too. I went to a public school until seventh grade in my hometown, in Englewood, New Jersey. And it was an integrated school. And in fact, my first two teachers were Black, first grade and second grade teachers. And so, I think, again, in retrospect, I never had an experience of seeing Black people always under me. And I was a great baseball fan, still am. And I used to go to games in the [inaudible] grounds in Englewood and crowd was almost half Black at that time. Baseball was a very popular sport among Black people then, much more than this now. And that was important too. I was a Dodgers fan. The Dodgers had signed Jackie Robinson. So this was all part of the gestalt of politics and culture at the time. So, I would not say I had any role models per se, but clearly my parents were the biggest influence on me and being part of this whole milieu. I met my father's friends. I met Norman Mailer, met Robert Loeb, Richard Hofstadter, who was his best friend. These, in retrospect, very important intellectuals. But at the time, I just thought were my father's friends. And I identified very early with left-wing causes, civil rights movement. There was a sit-in Englewood for integrated schools. And my mother would not let me go, but I talked about it at my school.
SM (00:06:19):
How old were you at that time?
MK (00:06:20):
14, I think.
SM (00:06:20):
Okay. Wow.
MK (00:06:22):
She was afraid of violence. I wanted to go to the March on Washington (19)63. I forget why I did not go, but I did not for some reason. But I started to go to anti-war demonstrations very early in early (19)65. And also my stepfather, Mario Salvadori, who was a professor of engineering Columbia, helped to sponsor the anti-war teach-in at Columbia. It was one of the first anti-war teach-ins in, I think it was January (19)65, February (19)65. I do not know exactly when. And I ran for a school president at one point too. And I was [inaudible] because I had talked about my views about the war and so forth. And I remember one poster of the candidates who ran against me showed Khrushchev on one side, Castro on the other side and me in the middle all of us shaking hands. So, I lost, that is why I lost. And also, I worked on political campaigns. I worked on John Kennedy's campaign as a 12-year-old in Englewood. And at the time, when Englewood was basically Republican and Nixon was very popular. I worked on Johnson's campaign in (19)64. I was head of a group called Young Citizens for Hughes. Richard Hughes was running for reelection as governor of New Jersey. So I was not a new leftist yet. I was still a liberal Democrat. But I like a lot of people I knew, there was a continuum in some ways between being a liberal Democrat, at least there and being leery about the Cold War. My mother took me to a SANE nuclear policy, the group SANE rally in Madison Square Garden in I think (19)58, which was part of their campaign for a nuclear test ban treaty. And I heard Dr. Spock speak, he was a lead speaker at the time.
SM (00:08:25):
William Sloan Craws was connected to that.
MK (00:08:25):
So as I said, there was a lot of stuff going on.
SM (00:08:28):
Did you talk to your dad? When I looked at what your dad, the people that he liked the most, Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, they were the really big thinkers of the 19th century that he, and, of course, they were role models to a lot of people on the left, especially Thoreau and Emerson. Did he ever talk to you about them?
MK (00:08:45):
Not so much. Part of our conflict was that I tried to stay away as much as possible from people he liked. He loved Henry Adams, I did not meet Henry Adams until I was much older. He loved Dreiser loved. I did not meet Dreiser until I was much older. So if my father wrote about somebody, I made a point of not reading until I was older.
SM (00:09:00):
I can understand.
MK (00:09:01):
We read Thoreau and Emerson High School a little bit.
SM (00:09:07):
How did you end up at Harvard? How did you pick Harvard?
MK (00:09:12):
Well, it was Harvard. Obviously, back then, if you get into Harvard, you would try. And also, my father had always wanted to teach there. He was a great admirer of people. He was friends with [inaudible] Junior. He looked up for Perry Miller, a great scholar of the Puritans who was a Harvard teacher. And he would have wanted to teach at Harvard if he could have. So certainly, to get into Harvard back then for a upwardly mobile intellectual Jewish kid was the pinnacle of academic success. So that is why I applied. I did not think I would get in, but I did. I applied other schools. I did not get in everywhere. I did not get into Stanford where my daughter goes Now, I did not get into Haverford, but I think I was very political. Harvard probably liked that in my application. I think my statement I wrote about why I wanted to be US Senator. I said, "I do not want to be president because it is not time for a Jewish kid to be president yet. But I would like to be Senator."
SM (00:10:27):
Was Chuck Schumer in your class?
MK (00:10:30):
He is one year younger, I think.
SM (00:10:31):
And was David Eisenhower also there at that time?
MK (00:10:39):
Yeah, actually, no, he went to Amherst, I think. He did not go to Harvard. But in my freshman dorm, he was friends with one of the kids in my freshman dorm. And we used to have parties and he and Julie Nixon would come to these parties and bring their own bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Like the secret of service, they do not drink from anybody else's.
SM (00:10:58):
I remember years ago reading about him that Fred Grandy, the actor, his father had picked him to be kind of the role model for David when he went there as a first-year student.
MK (00:11:10):
I think it was Fred's room where the parties were.
SM (00:11:13):
Yeah. Fred was a year older than him. Anyway, now, you were very active at Harvard and you became president of the Students for a Democratic Society, which had one of the largest-
MK (00:11:23):
Co-chairman was the actual name.
SM (00:11:26):
That was one of the largest chapters. Even I remember this back then, it was the one of the largest chapters of SDS, I think, in the country at that time.
MK (00:11:34):
I am not sure.
SM (00:11:37):
What was your student life like? I really want you to talk about the experience of the Harvard Yard experience because that is a historic event. When you think of Columbia of (19)68, when you think of Harvard in (19)69, when you think of Ken State in (19)70, these are really historic events to me, as a person who studied the (19)60s. What was the main issue? Describe what was going on there in (19)69, how this all evolved.
MK (00:12:08):
Well, of course, this happened after the student of the left had been growing for a couple years, beginning with in many ways, with the free speech movement from Berkeley in (19)64 and going onward. And of course, things got really amped up with the escalation of the war. And then with the Columbia strike in the spring of (19)68. In Some ways there was a kind of emulation competition going on. I think without emphasizing it too much, we felt, "Well, Columbia SDS can shut down their school. How come we cannot shut down our school?" Because I had a lot of friends in Columbia SDS, some of whom died in the townhouse explosion. Ted Gold and I was friends with Mark Wood. We worked together at SDS regional office in New York in (19)67. So, I knew a bunch of people. But anyway, the key issue, of course, was the war as it was everywhere. That is why you had a large new left as you know. It would not have happened without that. And we were very responsible, I think, contrary to the image that a lot of people have about the students running amok and going crazy and smashing things. We believed in organizing. We had a careful campaign, which is probably detailed in that WHRP book. We began in the fall of (19)68, some ways coming off the Democratic Convention in Chicago where I was and got arrested. And we decided, "Well, what is the main tentacle of the octopus of the war machine on campus? Well, it is RTC." Now, there was not much. RTC maybe had 30 people in it. It was not a big deal. But other people in the country were attacking RTC. It was one way we could localize issues of the military and the war. So, we started petition to, in a very responsible way, to try to get the administration to abolish RTC on campus. And they refused. And so we kept going to meetings and making some noise, faculty meetings, and some people got arrested for disrupting a meeting. But in the end, we got, I do not remember how many, but we had many thousand signatures because the war was very unpopular at Harvard, as it was a lot of campuses like that around the country, so it was not a problem. And then had house meetings at the Harvard houses. We had house meetings in Harvard Yard where the freshmen lived. We did what organizers have always done. I spent probably, that was my junior year, I spent most of the year organizing, not much time on classes. And we basically had The Crimson on our side, the daily newspaper, which was useful, of course. They would report on our meetings. I do not want to go into great detail about this, but we had two pretty antagonistic factions within SDS as you probably read about. One was my faction, which is we sort of called the new left faction. It was sort of loose. We liked rock and roll, and we thought there was nothing wrong with smoking dope. And we wanted a sort of vaguely radical democratic society. Was not too sure what that might mean. We were very pro Vietcong, we were pro the Cubans, but we were very supportive of Black Panthers and other Black power groups. But we were very critical of what we saw as sort of dogmatic Marxism. And of course, the other side was the Progressive Labor Party, which was a group, as you probably know, that was [inaudible] for the Communist Party in the early (19)60s over supporting the Chinese and the Sino-Soviet Split. And they were very hard-nosed about how you have to organize workers and do strike support and men should cut their hair, women should wear dresses and very counter-culture of all kinds. So we had a lot of divisions and they tended to be actually on campus actions more militant than we were. So when it came down to deciding, when the faculty did not agree to abolish RDC, we had to decide what to do. And at first, people in our faction were not in favor of taking a building, taking University Hall, which was the administration building on campus, the main one. But the PL group called the Workers Student Alliance always was in favor of it. They believed in being more militant. And also they wanted to build their faction nationally. And they knew, if they were the leaders of a chapter which shut down Harvard, this would be a feather in their cap. And there were three co-chairs of SDS. I forget exactly why we had three, but that is the way it evolved. Two of them were from their faction. I was the only one from our faction. But PL because they were so hard line on dogmatic had a certain, was not as popular in the wider student body as our faction was. So, a lot of people who were not in SDS looked to me, I think more as a leader than they did to those people. So again, and this, of course, is always true at the time, if you want to have a militant action, you do it when the weather is nice. And, of course, up in the Boston area, it did not really start until April. So April 9th I think is when we took over University. Again, this is all detailed in these books. But we had a very tempestuous meeting the night before going back and forth. And I thought we had to seize the moment or seize the time as the Black Panthers used to put it. And so if we were going to force the issue, we had to do it then. So, I was always in favor of taking the building, even though the first votes in this meeting were not in favor. So somewhat manipulatively, I must admit, I kept the issue alive. And PL was prepared with that too. So in the end, I think the vote was inconclusive. I forget exactly what the vote was, but I have not gone back and looked at these books to check. But we decided we were going to have a march after the meeting was over that night, I guess April 8th it was and march through campus. And I had a list of our demands. And I, the historian already, nascent historian, I knew about Martin Luther tacking these 95 theses up on the door of the cathedral in Germany. So, I decided to go to the President's office and tacked the demands up on his door and made some little speech of some kind. And then as we walked around Cambridge after that, our faction and the PL faction decided we were going to take the building. So we spent much of the night putting together leaflets, passed them out on campus. And at noon we went to University Hall and kicked the deans out. PL people picked the deans up and took them out. They wanted to show them a little of who they were, which in the end they got arrested. Some of the people who did, they got arrested for that. And you want me to go into University Hall, what happened there?
SM (00:19:41):
Yeah, you took over the hall. How long did it take?
MK (00:19:45):
We were there for basically from noon until about 6:00 AM the next morning when the police came in. And there was a big debate. Actually, I was not inside University Hall when the police came in. I thought someone should go out of the hall and first of all see if they were in and if they were, tell people that the police were coming. And then I thought I would go back in the hall. But I went outside and the police started to come in almost as soon as I got outside. So, I said, "Well maybe I will stay outside and not get arrested and get the stuff going." And also, to be honest, in retrospect, I was a little scared too. I did not like the idea of just sitting there and getting my head beaten. And again, I think it was probably a good decision because the other leaders of the chapter were arrested. So I was able to start a rally on the steps of Widener Library right in Harvard Yard, denouncing the police and calling for a student strike as other people were doing too. And the student strike basically started spontaneously, in large part, not necessarily because everybody at Harvard thought we had done the right thing by taking the building. There was a lot of people... Got the dog on your tape there?
SM (00:21:05):
Yeah [inaudible].
MK (00:21:06):
A dog passed by [inaudible], but it is her turf.
SM (00:21:08):
Brody does the same thing.
MK (00:21:10):
Zoe shut up.
SM (00:21:13):
Brody just barks because he does not want anybody to leave.
MK (00:21:15):
Really? She gets upset when we go on a trip. As soon as we bring her back downstairs, she knows what is going there.
SM (00:21:22):
Oh, boy. Does she bark?
MK (00:21:23):
No. Sits in front of the front door and says, "You are not getting past me." Where were we? Oh yeah, the strike. So as often happened, it happened at Columbia too, other places, the student movement grew large partly because students were in support of our basic anti-war position, even if they were not in support of our specific politics, dogmatic imperialism, supporting the people fighting American troops and so forth. But they really got active when they saw their friends getting clubbed by police. And we would not have had a huge, good strike without that if we just sat there. In fact, ironically, if the administration just let us sit in that building and they just waited us out, we probably would have had to leave in defeat. But in the end, the calling the police in, which of course they had a legal right to do, galvanized the student strike. And we had big meetings at the Harvard stadium across the river, 10,000 people, 12,000 people, obviously the cover of Black Magazine because it was Harvard. Now, what we were doing was not all that different really from what was happening on hundreds of campuses around the country.
SM (00:22:45):
In happened in Hamilton too.
MK (00:22:45):
It was Harvard. That is the reason it was a big deal. And we knew that. We knew we would make a splash by doing this. I must say though, one of the things that I realized, and I have written about since then was, you can see how happy or glad I should say, the police were to bust our heads when they came in. And this a [inaudible], the idea of driving their cruisers into Harvard Yard, leaving deep ruts in the grass of Harvard Yard. These were mostly middle class white guys from Cambridge, from other parts of the Boston area who all thought Harvard was these stuck up, privileged, rich people. And to them, I think, even though all of us certainly were not rich, lots of [inaudible] kids and so forth, but to them it was pretty clear, they took a certain glee I think in smashing into Harvard and smashing up these unpatriotic freaks who had [inaudible].
SM (00:23:48):
James Fallows was there too, I believe around that time.
MK (00:23:50):
Yeah. [inaudible] here now.
SM (00:23:52):
And then, of course, just recently, the death of John Wheeler, the murder. And I had interviewed him for my book. And he had been at Harvard too later on after he had served in Vietnam.
MK (00:24:02):
Jim was president of Crimson. I am not sure if it was that year, but maybe the year before.
SM (00:24:09):
And he had written a lot about how guilty he felt about avoiding the draft.
MK (00:24:12):
[inaudible].
SM (00:24:12):
Yeah, yeah. And of course he became close friends of Jack Wheeler over time, The Long Green Line, the book that was written. You went on to Portland State and then you went on to Stanford. Were you as active politically on those campuses?
MK (00:24:25):
Oh, yeah.
SM (00:24:26):
Now when-
MK (00:24:27):
Did not have much at Stanford. By then it was the mid (19)70s. And if you are getting a PhD, you do not have much time. But I got active in the early (19)80s again in the nuclear freeze movement. But Portland State, well first of all, I went to Portland not to go to school, not to go to university, but because I was kicked out of Harvard in the fall of (19)69 for leading a demonstration against the people of the Center for National Affairs, which Henry Kissinger had set up, sort of a think tank/elite department. And I went to New York, started work on Liberation Mews Service, this underground press service, sort of like the AP of the Radical Press and long story. But basically they had taken a feminist turn. There were too many men on the collective. They said I could work there, but I could not join the collective. My girlfriend who I met there was not happy about it, but basically, I would not be able to stay there as a man. So, they liked my work a lot. So, I looked at all the papers that were coming to the office there from all around the country, all over the world, for that matter. And the one from Portland, Oregon was a really nice paper. And I always like the idea of living on the West Coast for a while. I had lived in Berkeley for a while, in the summer of (19)69. Actually. Oh, it was (19)68. And so I called up the Portland paper, I said, "Do you need a staff member?" They said, "Sure, $25 a week." And so I hitchhiked out to Portland. And while I was there, the paper, long story, it fell apart basically after about a year. And I had a few jobs, working restaurants and working at Portland State University and Tate Library. And I said, "Well, I always liked history. The revolution might not be happening. I would better think of something to earn a living. I do not want to be short order cook for the rest of my life." So, I applied to Portland State history program just to try it out.
SM (00:26:41):
And then you went on and got your PhD?
MK (00:26:42):
Yeah, but while I was there, I was involved in the anti-war movement, which, of course, still going on.
SM (00:26:47):
A very liberal area out there too, Portland.
MK (00:26:51):
Yeah. And of course, we had that newspaper that I helped edit, called the [inaudible] Bridge. And I got involved in a free clinic. I was involved with a group called Medical Committee for Human Rights, which was in favor of national health insurance. And actually, it had been originally started by this guy, Howard Levy, who was an army doctor who turned against the war. And I was also involved in, we had a little campaign to impeach Nixon during Watergate. So whatever was going on, I was involved in. And I worked for McGovern, which was sad. But I did for a short time.
SM (00:27:26):
That was quite at a defeat. I saw McGovern in 1972 when he flew into Columbus, Ohio. He got off the plane but never really left tarmac. And I could not see him very well, but I heard him, Ohio State had a big contingent there. Big.
MK (00:27:39):
Is that where you went to school, Ohio?
SM (00:27:43):
Yeah, grad school. I was there for five years I noticed that you had been a professor, and adjunct professor at a lot of different schools from San Francisco State, Stanford, Santa Cruz, even went to Europe for a while and taught there. And then of course-
MK (00:27:59):
I went to Europe; it was after I was already a tenured professor.
SM (00:28:03):
And that of course, you have taught at American and now at Georgetown. When you look at your peers, and you have probably been asked this before, and it was not any condemnation of the two generations that have followed the Boomer generation in terms of... But when you compare the students from your era, the students that you went to class at Harvard and Portland and so forth and the students that you have been teaching over the years, do you see a big difference within the generations? And what would those differences be? Because I like the millennials that are today. I know they are doing a lot of things, but...
MK (00:28:43):
I do not think as deeply about generations as some people do, I guess. I think about groups within generations and they have to all... We know from polls today that Boomer generation is probably more conservative on a lot of issues and has been for a while than younger generations are, certainly on issues like gay marriage, on abortion, on US foreign policy. So, the image that people often have that the Boomer generation was full of leftists, it was not true then, and it is not true now. There was a certain group within it who certainly were, and college students tend to be more than people that did not go to college. But I often tell my students that the most popular candidates in 1972 among people who were from my generation, a lot of them had been voting for the first time, were both for George McGovern and George Wallace. So rebellious figures were popular, it was just not necessarily rebellious figures on the left. And I have written a little about this in my book on populism. So, there is a real division within the generation, I think, more than there was some lock step. One of the things which is true though, and of course, I see these younger generations mostly through my kids who are now 19 and 22 and through my students over the years, and one thing I have noticed since I have been teaching for, wow, 35 years now in college and some in high school too. I taught some high school in the late (19)70s. One of the things I see is that there is less desire, I think, to mix it up ideologically, less desire to really fight over essentials, more inclination to be civil towards other people's opinions, sometimes to a fault, I think. I am always trying to get my students and talk my kids too, to really see that that is a lot at stake in these different points of view. And there is nothing wrong with having sharp arguments about these things. But I notice, especially kids my age, to a certain degree, I have noticed this for the last 10, 15 years of my students too, that they are loath to really take on someone from their own generation, really argue fiercely with them about issues. They feel somehow being impolite or perhaps that in the end, the differences do not matter as much as getting along matters. And that is very different from our generation's feeling as you know. We can be accused of a lot of things, but not taking politics seriously is not one thing we cannot be accused of.
SM (00:31:48):
Kind of the Rodney King mentality, cannot we all just get along?
MK (00:31:50):
Yeah. And it is fine. I am not in favor of revolution. I have not been for many, many years now. I am a liberal democrat basically today and I think conservative Republicans have terrible ideas. And I think if they do not explain why I think they do is fine. And I have considered this with my class and I am very empathetic with them. I draw them out, evaluations they give me show that they respect that, and they know I do not agree with them, but they do not argue for conservatism as much as I would like them to, to be honest with you. There is a lot of lazy liberalism on my campus anyway, and my views in general. And I think it is important for my liberal students to hear arguments well-articulated and well defended and vice versa. [inaudible].
SM (00:32:42):
I was feeling, when I read the first biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton, I remember when she was in high school, her teacher-
MK (00:32:49):
In Illinois?
SM (00:32:51):
Yeah, in Illinois. She was a Goldwater girl, and her friend was a big supporter of LBJ. They had a project, you probably know, have heard about this, and she wanted to debate her friend representing Goldwater. Well, he said, "If you are going to learn about the other point of view and the positions of the people that you are opposing, then you need to learn backwards and forwards what they stand for. So you are going to represent LBJ and your friend's going to represent Goldwater in the debate." And as a result of that experience, Hillary became a liberal. That is a true story.
MK (00:33:26):
I did not know that.
SM (00:33:27):
And it was all based on this teacher who realized the true learning and we tell this to students all the time that you can be emotional about your feelings, but knowledge is just power. Know the issues. When you hear Newt Gingrich make statements about President Obama, well you study President Obama and where he stands on things, but you need to study Newt Gingrich too. Just do not take a line here and then-
MK (00:33:51):
I started to write about conservatism about 20 years ago and it was partly because I wanted to understand why they were doing so well, for someone who did not agree with them. But also it is useful because you learn to not demonize the other side and actually-
MK (00:34:03):
It is useful because you learn to not demonize the other side. And actually it leads to more civil dialogue, I think. It does not mean you agree with them more, but you at least understand why they have come to that position.
SM (00:34:13):
Do you like the term, the Boomer generation? I get a sense you like groups within the generation as a-
MK (00:34:20):
I mean obviously generations matter. I mean they listen to some similar kinds of music. They are affected at the same time of their lives by certain kinds of events. So, I am not saying generations do not matter. I just think this is a big, big country and it is also a big, big world. And to assume that somehow generational experiences are all the same, that is just not the history. I mean also more and more historians; it is just sort of transnational ways of looking at things. And I do that some too and obviously the generation I was part of, especially the cohort of it, there were people in Italy and France, and Germany and Britain, and Japan and Argentina, and Mexico were going to a lot of the same experiences. And to generalize about how the experiences affected them would be presumptuous. What I really know about without studying it, about what a kid growing up in Tokyo who happened to join Jim [inaudible], the Japanese left-wing kids’ organization. What specifically was driving that person? Was it same thing as driving me as a Jewish liberal New Yorker? Probably not. Some things, yes, some things, no.
SM (00:35:34):
The generation gap is a term we all know. It was defined as the disagreement between the older generation, the younger generation or between parent and child. And if you remember 1968, Life Magazine had that front cover with a guy with glasses on. It was kind of a black silhouette with the fathers pointing at the son and the son pointing at the father. So the Generation Gap was well known. But in the book, the Wounded Degeneration, which was a book that came out in 1980, there was a symposium that included James Fallows, Phil Caputo, Jack Wheeler, a young man then. Who else? Bobby Mueller and Jim White was an unbelievable symposium. And basically they were talking about a lot of different things, generation gap. And they brought up this very important thing.
MK (00:36:22):
All men are all white.
SM (00:36:24):
Yeah. And there was another writer that I cannot remember, he was a columnist though, not a vet. And the issue came up and said that the boomer generation has always been labeled as a service generation. That is not what your country can do for you. That Kennedy inspired so many people in the Peace Corps Vista. Well one of the gentlemen in the conversation said that this is a myth, that this generation is a service generation. The reason it is a myth is because they did not serve in the war in Vietnam. A service generation is one when your country calls, you go. And this was Jim Webb I believe, who was the at the time was... And so, he said when we start talking about the generational gap between parents and children, I think it is equally important to talk about the intra generational gap between those who went to Vietnam and those who did not.
MK (00:37:19):
And those were in the military, and those who did not. As you know, most people went in the military, did not actually go to Vietnam. And that chart, that was chance of circumstances, other charts since then, I always show my students because they have the sense of you in the army and you in combat. Not true. But obviously the idea of being in the military and making that decision when if you are from a certain background like my background, you could get out of it, which I did. That was a huge division as well. I always tell my students about when I had my physical in 1970, it was May 18th I think 1970 if I remember exactly, it was in the middle of the student strike after Ken State, after Jackson State, the biggest of student strike in American history. And I would come from Cambridge, I dropped out of Harvard, but I was a student anymore. But it was clear they did not want anybody from Cambridge like me. And I got out, I will not go into the details of how I got out, but it was not hard and walked out. There was this guy sitting there, short hair, looked pretty gloomy. And I believe that counselor, I said, "Hey, I just got out. You want me to help you get out?" I said, "Where are you from?" He said, "I am from South Boston." Irish, catholic kid probably, I am not sure. And I said, "Get out. Hell, I do not want to get out. If I do not pass this physical, my parents' going to kill me." Because everybody's family had had been in the military and he actually was afraid he would not pass, because he would bring disrespect on his family. So that was an important experience to me to have that interaction.
SM (00:38:57):
Did you have any conflicts with any of your fellow students in Harvard or Portland regarding over the war or any of the other issues? That would be the intergenerational battles. And then did you have battles within your family with your mom?
MK (00:39:10):
No, my mom was very-
SM (00:39:11):
And your dad.
MK (00:39:12):
My father was opposed to the war. By the time I was eligible for draft, it was (19)66. Because I had a two S for a while, then I burned my two S card. Actually, I am sure you will love this for the book, I actually rolled a joint in my two S card and smoked it.
SM (00:39:30):
Oh my gosh. That is a magic moment. You cannot go to jail.
MK (00:39:41):
Yeah, right. Well it was a party. It was party. I got pretty stoned in my dorm. But I mean I thought, again, it is a class thing that Fallis talked about in an essay. I thought the draft system was the cemetery against other class people, which it was. And so, I wrote to my draft board and said, I understand I am doing my draft, but I said, "I am giving up my two deferment and this is a terrible system." And of course the draft boards were all local. So they wrote to my mother or my father, I forget who in the state. "He is putting himself up eligible for draft." And I said, fine. So I went to physical but then failed. I purposely failed the physical. It is not that I wanted to go, it is just that I did not think it was fair for me to have a legal way out when a lot of other people did not. So where were we? So basically, yeah, so that was my experience with that par generation gap. And I went to a private high school in New Jersey, Englewood School for Boys, it was then called. Now it is called Dwight-Englewood School. And there was only one kid I knew who went to my high school, who went to the military and he enlisted, he became an officer. But clearly, I mean that itself shows, I mean this is a whole generation of people. When the draft was on, none of whom, as far as I know, were actually even drafted. He enlisted.
SM (00:41:01):
Wow. I got so many different angles here. I am coming with this interview. And in your opinion as a historian, a person who studied social movements, I was going to have you do comparisons here, but I am really going to concentrate on the movements of the late (19)60s and (19)70s. But the first question I want to ask, is there any link between McCarthyism of the (19)50s and the red baiting in the late (19)40s and (19)50s that we all know about? Because there is a lot of fear of speaking up. People sometimes felt they were being watched and many were reported and people that were all fear of being linked to somebody or something connected to being a communist. Is there something between what was happening in the (19)50s and what we call in the six (19)60s where we have seen more and more people speaking up and thus, we see these great movements because there is no McCarthyism happening now.
MK (00:41:56):
Well, there is an attempt. They did not fail.
SM (00:42:00):
Yeah, it is an attempt. We have seen precedence in, we know that there is prices that people pay for standing up for the beliefs. We know that. So many of the anti-war people that I have talked to believe that they are veterans as well as the people that served in Vietnam. Not in terms of military veterans, but in terms of the damages, broken noses. I have had a few people that-
MK (00:42:19):
Even though I am supportive of most of what I did then-
SM (00:42:22):
You are not going to go that far.
MK (00:42:25):
Got the stretch. I mean we purposefully put ourselves in danger. So whereas if you were drafted into the army and sent to Vietnam, you might not like it, but you had orders. Nothing.
SM (00:42:36):
Those movements really could not have happened in the (19)50s though. Could they? Even civil rights was happening and people were taking the risks and Dr. King and-
MK (00:42:46):
That is a different matter. That is a different matter. I am talking about people like me, white middle class kids who were in the [inaudible ]. That was a different matter? No, of course if you were a black person in Mississippi or Alabama and you took your left hand if you wanted to, wished to vote. I mean that was very different. That was very different. Well, I think that the impact of McCarthyism did not last really much since the (19)60s. As you know there was this famous demonstration, Francisco City Hall to protest The House Un-American Activities Committee hearing 1960. And the people who were supportive of the committee, made a film, Operation Abolition, which they thought would expose the communist threat trying to abolish this stolen, patriotic anti-communist committee. And the film was left at it, it felt completely flat. And more people saw the film, said, "Hey, that is a kind of cool kid protesting." And the police attacked them and so forth. So it was a backlash. Todd Gitlin has written his book on the 60s talk about this. Todd's a friend of mine. And so I think that certainly in the south, the civil rights movement with the COINTELPRO program, really with Hoover trying to tar... King with being a communist. So his aid, Stanley Levison having a communist of course has to basically get out of the inner circle and so forth. Under all that was going on, Hoover was still a powerful figure. But among people I worked with, sort of middle class whites, especially in places like New York City and the Bay Area in Chicago, college towns and Swarthmore and Wellesley, and even some places like Chapel Hill, Madison, Wisconsin, McCarthyism was not a cause. These were liberal places would never like McCarthy anyway, and never liked Hoover anyway. And so, the real division was between people who were supporting the Democratic administration and people like us who were denouncing it. So that conservative anti-communism did not really have a place there. I remember there was this guy, Joe Mulotmuraz, his name was, he was from Hungary and he had immigrated after the revolt of (19)56 have been put down by the Soviets and their allies. And he used to show up at every FDS meeting, every FDS rally at Harvard, anywhere in Boston home of the Hungarian Freedom Fighter. He is also an anti-Semite, which has a long history in Hungary. And he had a sign saying communism is Jewish and denounced this. And it was a joke. I mean no one took this guy seriously and he was not the antisemitic, he was like the crazy right wing anti-communist who always showed up. And after a while it became a sort of pat. It was like, "Hey Joe, we missed you last time." I mean he was so serious and he was not convincing anybody.
SM (00:46:06):
How important were the following events and shaping the times that boomers were alive? And what I am referring to here is, it is amazing how people book state the number of boomers there are, I think 79 million is the actual figure. I heard 74-
MK (00:46:22):
I think about the (19)60s as well as was active in it. That number, I do not know.
SM (00:46:26):
79 is, let us give or take a few amount. But what I am trying to get at here is we know that the new lesson, we know that the anti-war movement was a small number of people comparison to the entire generation. And basically, what I am trying to get at with this question is not so much that these particular events influence and created protests, but that it is subconsciously affected the entire generation in terms of their lives as young people and their lives since as the oldest Boomer turns 65 this year. So, I am listing these events and just simply say which ones are few that you feel really get all of a generation. Congresses Board of Education in (19)54, the Montgomery Bus Boy Act in the (19)50s, the lunch counter protest in (19)60, freedom Summer in (19)64, the Free Speech Movement in (19)64, (19)65. Kennedy's election and his inaugural speech in 1961, Sputnik in 1957, the Kennedy assassination in (19)63.
MK (00:47:36):
You want me to go each one?
SM (00:47:38):
Oh no, no, not each one. I am just saying which ones you feel really affected all. And some of them may not affect all, they might affect the new left more than the Civil Rights Act of (19)64, (19)65, the year 1968 when Nixon was elected and certainly Ken State and Jackson State in 1970. And the election or loss of George McGovern in (19)72. And certainly, the escalation of the Vietnam and Reagan's election in (19)80.
MK (00:48:04):
Well make course without doing research specifically about that, I am just going to speculate because again, it would be great research project to take and maybe someone is doing it to take a scientific cross section of the boomer generation, different cohorts chronologically, different regionally, racially, men and women, et cetera. Yeah, as far as I know, no one has done that. It would be interesting to do that. Someone should do it. Or maybe someone is doing it. Maybe someone has. I should know. But again, just speculating pretty wildly because I believe in research. Clearly the most important events that influenced everybody were ones that influenced all Americans, which is presidential elections. I mean, you forgot about things like the moon landing for (19)69, Woodstock, which probably more if people think about what they still think was important about the (19)60s, those things are more important than any of the things you mentioned except perhaps Kennedy's election. And so Kennedy's inaugural. But again, at the time, how many people actually watched it? Probably not that many. Well a lot did, but there was in American Divided at the end, I think we found a poll done late (19)90s. I think when the first edition of our book came out, people actually, Americans were asked which these things about the (19)60s are most influential to you. And it was the Beatles, Woodstock, and the moon landing, none of them specifically political events. And that is important to realize, partly because people like to remember things that made them feel good. And all the things made people feel good. I mean, human beings are like that. Our lives are fairly short. We rather think about the Beatles than think about Vietnam. And that is probably true of people in Vietnam too. So I mean clearly the war, everyone knew the war was going on. All young men, unless they had some easy out had to think about, do I want to go in or not? And the civil rights stuff you mentioned clearly was any black person, any African American, could not be influenced by those things in one way or another. They were all over the black class, all over. People knew people who were involved in them. Whites, again, I do not know for sure again the research project to figure that out. But if you were in Greensboro, North Carolina, then obviously, or around near any place, citizens were taking place in 1960 that mattered If you were involved in a school that was beginning to be desegregated sometime after Brown, as it took a while, yes. For that to happen, all the liver speed was meant really slow most places and so close cases to actually make it happen after that. I think I am always amazed. I have my students in my 1960s lecture course, which I am teaching right now. I have taught it many times, have them do oral histories. Someone like you are doing with someone from the (19)60s and they have to put in a more demo context. Really do it about race, and they do it with a white person and race is central to it. I am almost amazed how unaware most whites were about what was going on in these terms. I mean, again, most people are making their own lives. They do not feel themselves being involved in making history. Dick Flacks you might know is-
SM (00:51:54):
Oh yeah, I interviewed Dick.
MK (00:51:55):
Yeah. He wrote an essay called, Making History. And then he wrote about and read his book on the left, he read his book. And he talked about that. And it is obvious in ways, but somehow a lot of historians forget that, that people do not see themselves as part of this world, historical things. They think about their family, they think about maybe their ethnic group, they think about their church and their religion, but basically they neither have time nor interest in thinking about the larger world and politic people somehow forget that. After the Democrats lost the house in (19)94, I had lunch with Dick Gephardt who had been the majority leader and would have been the speaker of the house if they won. And with some other people, was not just me, in his spacious office, he was about to lose because Republican was taking over. And he said sort of tongue in cheek, he said, "We have polls which showed that 75 percent of the American people neither consume nor wish to consume politics." And that sort of stuck with me. And he was a pretty skillful politician and he understood that most people really, really, we just assume politicians go away and politics go away.
SM (00:53:12):
In your own words, can you describe... The boomers are reaching 65 this year, the front edge boomers, I think I read that 3,500 people a day are going to be turning 65 until the last Boomer turns 65 from the group from 64. And so, the question I am trying to ask you-
MK (00:53:39):
I just say, just one quick thing about that, again, the generation really 18 years, I always question that. Barack Obama is a boomer, but is his experience of the (19)60s is really, really much like that of yours and mine? I do not think so.
SM (00:53:54):
That is what Todd said. And many others besides Todd. Todd said he does not like generations period. He does not like the greatest generation, but Tom Brokaw kind of emphasized, did not like Generation X and you did not like anything. He was like, what you were saying, things within generation. I have learned from this project that the people that were born between 1937, (19)38 and 1945 are closer to the first 10-year boomers, the first front edge boomers than the last 10 years in the boomers.
MK (00:54:23):
No-
SM (00:54:26):
Because if you can remember as students, one of the first things you learned and I learned in grad school when I went to Ohio State is the Harry Edwards book where he breaks down the differences between the radicals, the activists, the anomic activists, the militants and so forth. And the revolutionary. And he talked about it and he said a lot of the young people in college, they were being led or inspired by graduate students, students who were in their mid to late twenties. Now those are people born between (19)40 and (19)45. And one thing I have learned from Missy Havens, Richie says, "I am a boomer. I was born in 1941, but I am a boomer and it is because of the spirit of the times that has nothing to do when I was born. It is the spirit." George Hower was born in 1916. He is part of the spirit of the time. So that is one thing I think you really hit the mark. And this is one thing I really learned by doing this book is-
MK (00:55:30):
Well, I think Mr. should be better sociologist often than, and one of the things sociologists teach is that who influence you the most in politics, as you say, people who are just a little bit older than you. It is peers and people who you see as leaders. And Todd, he is five years older than me, Tom Hayden is maybe six or seven years older than me. I am not sure. I mean, I was in FDS. The people who founded FDS were obviously going to be my mentors in a way. And they were all, as you say, were born before (19)46.
SM (00:55:59):
Yeah. Rennie Davis was the same. And that whole group is there. I would like your feelings though, in terms of, just as a historian, you teach the (19)60s. When you teach the (19)60s, you have to talk about the (19)50s and certainly the late (19)40s.
MK (00:56:15):
The first lecture I did was on the (19)50s.
SM (00:56:15):
And between (19)46 and (19)50 too. Cause when we started being born at that timeframe. Just in your own words, describe America in terms of whether it be culturally, politically activists wise between 46 and 60?
MK (00:56:33):
That is a good question. Well, it is a combination of clearly economic growth and shared economic prosperity. More shared than any other time and American history. Any other time in world history actually, we know now, given what is happening in Europe and Japan, even in the Soviet plot. Eric Hobsbawm, his book Age of Extremes, wonderful book, which is a world history of 1940, 1989. And he calls these years the golden age, late (19)40s, early (19)70s. It began after World War II, of course. But at the same time there was a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear that nuclear war had happened, that communists were gaining. There was a lot of racial tension in the cities in the north as much as south. My friend Tom Sugrue has written a book that sort of a very important book called, the Origins of the Urban Crisis. I do not know if you know that book.
SM (00:57:39):
I know Tom Sugrue, but... S-U-G-R-U-E, right?
MK (00:57:43):
S-U-G-R-U-E. Yeah. And he points out that about Detroit. Other people have written about this in other cities at the time. If black people tried to move into white neighborhood in late (19)40s, early (19)50s, they often would meet with mobs saying, forget about it. And even though civil rights laws were on the books and some of these states from late 1940s on, it was very hard to, if you are a black person, to get an apartment or a house in a white neighborhood, realtors and final council. And then if they decided, of course, famous block busting-
SM (00:58:19):
Got 30 minutes, I think we still got 30 minutes.
MK (00:58:23):
Yes.
SM (00:58:23):
Because I know that was the one order there.
MK (00:58:35):
That does not matter, but I am just looking at just ordinary black people wanted to move with the white neighborhoods who did not have any politics to speak of.
SM (00:58:43):
Yeah, we are okay.
MK (00:58:44):
Because of course that shows not just racism, but also insecurity on the part of white people in this neighborhood that they felt understandably, that if black people began to move in their house, which is what they had more money stock into than anything else, was going to go down at value, they were afraid their schools would be problems. Of course, they were afraid that their daughters and sons might get involved manically with black people. And so just on and on and on. So, the glory of (19)50s was glorious economically in the aggregate compared to other times in American history. And compared to recent times too. But it was clearly still a time of great insecurity and in great anxiety, many people who were doing better were not so sure that the better times was going to continue. It was a time when institutions were very strong. Labor unions. People forget, were stronger than ever before in American's history. And that had something to do with the prosperity. And obviously corporations are strong. People thought they could go to work for big corporations, GE or Westinghouse, or thrift meat packing or Ford, and you could work for the rest of your life until you retired. And then when you retired, you would have a pension. You would not have to put your money in the stock market like you do now. But at the same time, people would come out of the depression, come out of the war, and they did not know whether this could continue. They did not have great optimism that their kind of country would always be as prosperous as it was. And of course, with the Cold War there, in 1960 debates, when Kennedy talked about the missile gap, which was of course a complete lie, it was all on the other side. But nevertheless, people believed him enough because they said, well, Soviet Union seems to be gaining and all these countries are communists and communists are causing trouble around the world. And so there is this fear that, yeah, the United States are in pretty good shape now, but who knows what the future will bring. And of course, there was youth revolt in the (19)50s too. Rock and roll riots and Elvis, and juvenile delinquents and all this stuff.
SM (01:00:53):
Gangs.
MK (01:00:53):
Yeah, exactly. So comic books, there were congressional investigations into comic books.
SM (01:00:59):
James Dean.
MK (01:01:00):
It seems hilarious now that people be thinking comic books were a threat to the republic. But nevertheless, as in history, nothing is spontaneous, nothing comes from nowhere. And everything happened in the (19)60s, the seeds were sewn for that earlier. I mean, a lot of them before the (19)40s and (19)50s too. But certainly, in the (19)40s and (19)50s already, you have debates between my uncle Daniel Bell and C. Wright Mills about whether the United States is a plural society or is one run by a power elite? All that is taking place in the (19)50s already, a rather kind of debates between liberal and radicals that we think about in the (19)60s already happening, beginning to happen in the (19)50s.
SM (01:01:44):
How about the period 1961 and 1980?
MK (01:01:49):
What about it? How would you contrast it?
SM (01:01:50):
It is the same thing. Yeah. How would you contrast it with that whole period from John Kennedy's inaugural to Ronald Reagan's inaugural?
MK (01:01:57):
I think I am not a Marist anymore, but I am enough of a... I believe in important of economics lives enough to believe that when a boom ends, then a lot of other things are affected by it. And that happens in beginning in the late (19)60s, but really as in the early (19)70s with stagflation with the oral crisis. And so, I would, like most of historians and days, I would say the period is more (19)61 to (19)73 than it is (19)61 to (19)80. I mean, the rise of conservatives would be, of course, who knows kind of factually. But it can only be understood in the context of inflation, unemployment of fear that Keynesian remedies are not working anymore. That one of the reasons Americans were willing to elect liberal presidents from Roosevelt to Truman, to Kennedy to Johnson, and have not been willing to ever since, perhaps Obama's exception, but he did not run as a liberal, is because they saw liberals as whether they remember or not, as people who basically said the government will take care of you. The government will keep the economy afloat. And it did not. Even though Nixon was in power when the worst of it happened, the programs were basically the Keynesian programs. And Nixon was the first president, said he was a Keynesian. They are all Keynesian now. So I think that that was a key that you took a win. The (19)60s ended, it ended in the early (19)70s with the economic crisis, of course, with the end of the war.
SM (01:03:40):
Yeah. And I am the only person that said this. And that is that I knew in the fall of (19)73 that the (19)60s was beginning to end when streaking happened. And I am working on my first job at Ohio University, and I get a call from all my buddies that are still in graduate school there at Ohio State and Jones Graduate Tower. And they said, "You have got to get back here tonight." And I said, "What do you mean I got to get back there tonight?" "Oh, they are going to be doing the Rockettes behind the law library." And I said, "The Rockettes?" "Yeah, the girls are going to come out all naked and then the guys are going to file suit and then there is going to be a big streak across the oval tonight, and then they are going to streak the Olympics all weekend." And I did not believe it, but then I went, I said, "Oh my God, this is in the (19)50s where they just stuck themselves into-"
MK (01:04:35):
Telephone booths.
SM (01:04:35):
Telephone booths or in the laundromat. Oh I said, "Oh, boy."
MK (01:04:39):
Or a panty wave. Right. That is a good point.
SM (01:04:42):
So that particular period, so when you say the next period really is the onset of, I think the late (19)70s and the (19)80s is the era of Reagan and conservatism, would not you say?
MK (01:04:56):
Politically, yeah. We talked about this in America Divided, and I think culturally, people on my side continue to gain even, we did not have a movement per se, but feminism continues to percolate in various ways and continues to affect women. I mean, college students today, women, just think if you told them, well, what else we need, that you cannot really think about the engineer because that is a man's job. They would say, "What are you talking about?" The idea that is a man's job, a woman's job. But of course, we were growing up in the (19)50s, that was taken for granted. Ads in the papers said, help wanted, man. Help wanted, women. It was just expected. And I think race is lots a lot more complicated now because of immigration, partly, but also because I think people no longer, again, I mean the civil rights movement did not succeed in all the things he wanted to do. As king was an economic radical, not just a civil rights person. He really wanted a guaranteed annual wage health insurance. He was basically a democratic socialist. In fact, he said so in private. But clearly culturally you cannot be a public racist anymore in this country, and you cannot justify things on the base of race. Now you can still justify the basis of not like the immigrants, and that is partly racial, but that is more recent. And the whole thing about sexuality, which of course gays and lesbians have been able to more open sexuality and people thinking, if you love each other, why not have all the right to anybody else? That is a creature of the (19)60s, I think, too.
SM (01:06:39):
And the age crisis, which infuriated many of the gay lesbian leaders, because Reagan refused to even mention the word. And many believed that he cost thousands on thousands of people that dying because he could not even say the word.
MK (01:06:53):
Which is ironic, because as he was not anti-gay personally. I mean, Nancy had lots of friends who were gay and this whole Hollywood scene it was, and designers and stuff, he was hardly a fundamentalist on these issues. So in that sense, yeah, conservatives, I mean, we talked about this in American Divided, conservatives won for the most part politically. Though again, there is limits too. I mean, as you know, when they attack the healthcare bill last year, this year, they attacked it for jeopardizing Medicare, which of course Ronald Reagan said was socialism at the time. So there is a lot of these conflicts. I mean, America's never been as liberal as some people thought in the (19)60s. It was not as liberal then as its people thought, and it is not as conservative. And it was not as conservative in the (19)80s as people thought either. We have these conflicts in American history, which in many ways go way back and neither side wins a complete victory.
SM (01:07:47):
Would you say the culture was as ongoing with respect to even how they look at Bill Clinton and George Bush the second? Because here you have two boomers, one conservative, one liberal, and they are comparing them, and this guy is this way and this guy's that way. Is that just part of the culture- This guy is this way, and this guy is that way. Is that just part of the culture wars, the ongoing culture wars?
MK (01:08:05):
Well, the partnership was obviously very strong.
SM (01:08:07):
The Vietnam War.
MK (01:08:09):
If you look at it-it in the larger perspective, neither Clinton nor Bush... But both Clinton and Bush were, in many ways, Clinton was sort of center left. Bush was sort of center right. Neither was trying to roll back "New Deal", "Great Society" programs to any great degree. Bush was not a Tea Party person at all. We were not. And Clinton was certainly not a far-off liberal, either. And yet of course, both sides jumped on the other one, partly for Bush was because of the war, of course, in Iraq. But even before that, people saw him as illegitimate winning the presidency and everything else. And I think one of the results in the (19)60s is that people were politically active, which is not most Americans. People who are politically active really believe that the other side is evil. And I was saying before, earlier in the interview, that I think it is important to take a strong stance. But it does not mean that that Democrats and Republicans, as parties, are really ideologically bound parties. They are more than there used to be, certainly. But still most Americans who vote for Democrats, Republicans agree with some of the things the other party is for, too. Most Americans are not deeply ideological.
SM (01:09:33):
A major question I have been asking every person from the very first interview with Senator McCarthy is the issue of healing. Whether you feel that there is an issue within this generation of lack of healing for those who were... Support for the war, against the war, for the troops, against the troops, the divisions between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight. This question comes because a group of students came up with a question, they wanted to ask Senator Edmond Muskie when we took a group in 1995 to meet him in his office. And because they had seen the film on 1968 and they thought we were close to a second civil war. And they were not born yet, but they had seen the riots, some of the films in (19)60s, they had seen the riots. They saw two assassinations, King and Kennedy. They saw the Chicago Eight trial, they saw the terrible confrontation in Chicago that year. And they came up with a question and they thought Senator Muskie would talk about (19)68 and all the divisions. And I will give you his response after I hear from you. Do you think that part of the divisiveness that we have right now, that there is a link between what is happening today and what happened back then? The bitterness, the somewhat hatred between people with opposing points of view, that this is continuing, ongoing and that the generation itself, either consciously or subconsciously, because you cannot talk about 79 million, but it is something that I have brought up to everyone, and they have all had different answers to this. Do you think we have an issue with healing as a generation? And that many will go to their grave still bitter toward people who had opposing points of view, no matter the issue?
MK (01:11:26):
Again, it depends on who you are talking about. I think you have to separate people who were activists then and continue to think as activists now. People who were not much activists then, or they might have gone to a demonstration or they might have gone to a rock festival or something, but they were just sort of riding on the wave, whatever the wave happened to be. But those who actually started the waves and continued to want the waves to continue and not to break on the shore, that is the right metaphor. I think yes. I think on both sides, if you talk about two sides, continue to say that if you are on the left, that conservatives now are the same people who are wrong back in the Cold War in (19)64 and supported the war in Vietnam and liked the police cracking people's heads in Chicago and so forth. And of course, on the right, mirror image, "These crypto communists think America's not exceptional." I just wrote a piece. I have a column for the New Republic, and I just wrote a piece on American exceptionalism, how Obama can maybe take advantage of that concept. But as I said before, I think that if you look at issues though, there has actually been some healing. Or I would rather think of transcendence than healing. I am not sure it is healing. As often happens in history, after a while people no longer care to argue about certain issues. It is just not relevant anymore, either to their lives or to the society. It is not politically opportunistic to argue about it. I think we are approaching that with gay rights. Certainly already approached it with gay military. That is over. And I think we will approach with gay marriage in the next five to 10 years, as well. Already at the Conservative Convention downtown, the CPAC convention-
SM (01:13:27):
CPAC.
MK (01:13:27):
Happening now. No one. Did anybody talk about gay marriage? Not because they might not believe that it is wrong, but because they realize that most people do not care enough about that to vote on that basis. Abortion is still a very loud issue, and in fact, young people are probably more anti-abortion now than they were a few years ago. But again, it is not something that is central to the dialogue. And someone who is in favor, pro-choice and yet hopes that people do not have to have abortions, I think that in many ways that is where the center of Americans are. They do not want to make abortion illegal, but they would like it to as few abortions possible. So, there is ways in which people are transcendent to those debates. Foreign policy... Again, I will not go into all the issues, but yeah, I think that is basically where we are. That activists, core activists on both sides will not surrender. But the large majority of people from the boomer generation, I think, have transcended the idea that there are two sides. They have a more complicated position depending on the issue and depending on their experience.
SM (01:14:37):
Do you think the Vietnam Memorial, the wall... I want to ask you, when you went there for the first time, what did you first think in terms of... Were you having flashbacks of your youth?
MK (01:14:48):
No.
SM (01:14:48):
When you went to the wall for the first time? I am going to get back to this question of healing, but as part of it, Jan Scruggs wrote a book called "To Heal a Nation". And of course the goal of the wall was to heal the families of those who lost loved ones in Vietnam and also those who served the nation in Vietnam. And many are still going through unbelievable problems upon their return. Just your thoughts on whether Jan Scruggs's idealism of hoping that that wall would heal the generation, because we were so divided over the war, I do not know if there has been healing between Vietnam vets and anti-war people, but your thoughts on going to that wall and whether it will heal the nation anymore.
MK (01:15:34):
My first thought as someone who was spent important years of my life in the anti-war movement were that this was an anti-war memorial, because it is black, it is a gash in the earth.
SM (01:15:44):
Yeah.
MK (01:15:44):
It is right next to the Lincoln Memorial, which is a memorial to a war that was won. At least by the north, it was won. Great Greek temple, it is like a Parthenon. That one is also a war memorial. And I think it is a brilliant piece of public art. She is a brilliant architect, Maya Lin. But also, I was aware that people going there were able to have a mourning experience publicly and privately that they had not been able to have before. So I think it was wonderful in that sense. By the time it started, I forget when I first saw it, maybe two years after, three years after it was finished... (19)85, I think I came here first. I was living in California before then, so I had not been back there to see it. I was blown away by it. I really thought it was one of the most beautiful pieces of public art or architecture I have ever seen, because it allowed you... It made you think right away about the war. It did not tell you what to think the way I think the World War II Memorial does, which I hate. I hate that memorial because it just...
SM (01:16:57):
Ooh.
MK (01:16:59):
Oh, "All hail the concrete heroes." Wars are not that simple. People die in large numbers. And anyway, and the Vietnam, our memorial, I saw people there. I saw people crying. I went there at night, I think, the first time, and saw the candles there and people's faces reflected in the black marble, which is a brilliant effect. Now, clearly, this came out of a desire to heal those divisions, which even though those divisions were very raw, clearly enough people got on top of them, the Vietnam vets groups, scrubs, and others to realize that this was not a good thing. And it was not helping either side. Was not helping Vietnam vets, either. And of course, Vietnam vets themselves, we provided, as you know.
SM (01:17:48):
Oh, yes.
MK (01:17:49):
A lot of donors were Vietnam vets. We thought they had been betrayed by the country. So some folks, they were betrayed by the country for having sent them there in the first place. Some folks were betrayed by the country for not supporting them more once they were there. So, it is a mix. So, I thought, I still think it is a wonderful place, and partly because it allows all kinds of things to happen. Of course, a lot of people who go there and have petitions against Jane Fonda and people who were there and sold the flags of "Do not forget the MIAs, the POWs", even though there is hardly any evidence, there is still people there. It enabled a debate to take place on a more rational basis, which is very important.
SM (01:18:30):
But the bitterness towards Robert McNamara is still pretty evident, even though he wrote those two books. Because what he wrote, "In Retrospect"... I will never forget going to the wall. I went to the Vietnam Memorial, which I have been to the Vietnam Memorial, Memorial Day and Veterans Day, ever since I knew Lewis. And after he died, since (19)94. And the very first year I was there... "In Retrospect" was (19)95, I believe. And I have some unbelievable shots that I took there that because, so there were two "In Retrospect" books left at the center, and they had bullet holes in them. They had been taken to a firing range with bullets and left there. And I took about 25 pictures at different angles. Sure. Unbelievable. So the bitterness... But I interviewed Craig McNamara there in California. Craig's unbelievable. I do not know if you could ever get him into your class, if he is ever back in the east. He is a gem.
MK (01:19:24):
Has he written anything?
SM (01:19:25):
No, he does not write. No. But he runs a farm out in the North, up in the Napa Valley. It is a walnut farm. He has done very good. And I really respect him. He was an unbelievable person. He was anti-war.
MK (01:19:39):
I was friends with Bundy's son while in California. He married a friend of mine who was a radical sociologist. And Bundy came to... When I was in the freeze early (19)80s, he came to is this is McGeorge Bundy, [inaudible].
SM (01:19:59):
Oh yeah.
MK (01:20:00):
He came to a meeting and he was very impressive, partly because he was so guilty.
SM (01:20:05):
Of course, what is really amazing about McGeorge Bundy is McGeorge Bundy, just like Robert McNamara, knew very early we should have gotten out it.
MK (01:20:11):
Yep.
SM (01:20:11):
And I bet... And I know both of them went to their grave thinking that. It might have even helped.
MK (01:20:17):
Well, the fair fact, McNamara commissioned the Pentagon Papers.
SM (01:20:21):
Yes.
MK (01:20:22):
It showed historicalness, but also when he quit, it would have been a huge impact if he had said "This was a mistake." But of course, he did not do that.
SM (01:20:30):
In (19)70, he went to Ashton. I got him in trouble. Do you say one of the qualities that defined the entire generation, though, is their lack of trust? It is not a trusting generation. Again, I am talking about...
MK (01:20:42):
I think America in general, since Johnson escalated the war in (19)65 and sent American troops in large numbers that year. I think Americans, since then, have not been trusting of any generation. I am not sure... Again, like Todd, I am dubious about thinking about the generation as a whole. And polls showed that. Polls showed it. As you probably know, from World War II up to (19)64, Americans... As you know, Gallop Poll has this every year. "Do you trust this institution, the authorities to do the right thing? Government, church, military, universities, et cetera?" And since that point, government has never had majority. Sometimes it is low, it is like in the teens, like during Watergate. Sometimes it's a little higher, like right after 9/11. Universities are, I do not know, twenties and thirties. Churches are a little higher. Military's usually higher. But in general, Americans as a whole do not have huge amount of trust for any major institutions or authorities.
SM (01:21:51):
I know specifically, for me, as a young person going into I think sixth grade or something like that around the time, it is that Eisenhower lied at the U2. That is the first time I ever saw a President lie.
MK (01:22:03):
Yeah.
SM (01:22:03):
Because I think everybody was shocked that this grandfather figure had lied to us.
MK (01:22:12):
Of course. Absolutely. Famously, FDR, who I think was a great guy, he lied. He knew the US was going to get into World War II, but he was not going to say it.
SM (01:22:22):
I wanted to mention that the result of the response to Senator Muskie to that question. Senator Muskie did not even mention (19)68 and then did not mention anything that was happening in America. The students were totally shocked because they were all waiting for this great answer from the Vice-Presidential candidate in (19)68. And he said, "We have not healed since the Civil War in the area of race." And he went on to give a lecture and he said, "I have just seen the Ken Burns series in the hospital. We lost 430,000 people in that war. Almost an entire generation of Southern..."
MK (01:22:53):
Civil War?
SM (01:22:53):
Yeah, Civil War.
MK (01:22:53):
It was more than that. It was 600,000.
SM (01:22:53):
Yeah. Well, the thing is, he went on to talk about that and he showed his emotion too, by the tears. And actually witnessed what the news media had talked about. The guy had emotion, and there is nothing wrong with that.
(01:23:08):
One of the things here, too, is the violence. You were a member of SDS. I do not know if you know Larry Davidson.
MK (01:23:15):
I was living there for a short time, too.
SM (01:23:15):
Yeah, I am going to bring that in. Larry Davidson founded at Georgetown. He was the founder, he is a history professor at Westchester University., And he founded SDS at Georgetown.
MK (01:23:26):
I never-
SM (01:23:26):
Lawrence Davidson. And he was on the front newspapers, he got arrested. His parents were not too happy with him because his father was in the military. But the question is this: he quit SDS because it went to the weatherman in violence. And so many quit. Do not you think? And Mark's done a great job in "Underground". I have interviewed Mark and I was with him for a whole evening at the Kent State last year.
MK (01:23:53):
I saw him. It is funny, I do not know if you know this. We had lunch, he had not finished the book yet, maybe three years ago. And he had come to Washington and I said, "Why come to Washington?" He said, "Well, the FBI invited me to Quantico to talk about terrorism."
SM (01:24:06):
You are kidding me. He did not say that he was there.
MK (01:24:10):
That is hilarious. So, he stopped to Washington on his way out of Quantico.
SM (01:24:11):
Oh my God. Well, I really like Mark. I love Mark.
MK (01:24:16):
I liked him back then, too.
SM (01:24:18):
But he admitted the mistake that was made that he would not have supported violence. And he says about it in the "Underground" book, really, that he was against it. And I think that is where he has had different disagreements.
MK (01:24:29):
He was not against it soon enough. [inaudible] Right?
SM (01:24:31):
Bernardine. I am interviewing Bernardine in about two weeks. But your thoughts on, SDS going to the Weather Underground the biggest mistake ever made by SDS was that?
MK (01:24:41):
Well, no, I think it began before then. And the biggest mistake we ever made was to basically think that revolution was possible in the United States, and talk that way. And to support people like the Black Panthers. This is for Weather Man, who basically talked about revolution. We really thought that. We are so angry at this country... People who run this country, what they are doing, and also at a lot of Americans for supporting what the country's doing, that we basically are not going to identify with the country and not going to make an analysis that any political person should be making of what is possible, and whether what we are saying is jeopardizing what is possible. So, on the one hand, yes, we have built some important movements and the anti-war movement, most important of them, at least for people like me. Of course, the Black movement was also on before then. But I think we... I just finished a book on History of the American Left. I have been thinking about this a lot. It is coming out in August. But ever since the New Left collapsed, there has not been a mass radical movement in this country. There has been campaigns here and there. There has been things like Chomsky and Howard Zinn who speak for radical causes and radical ideas.
SM (01:25:58):
Right.
MK (01:25:59):
But basically I think we did not... And it is not just our fault. Context has changed, too. But basically, we did not think about the future. We just thought... Look, we were kids. That is part of it. My wife is always reminding me that when you are 20, 21 years old, you can do a lot of things, but reflecting soberly is not usually one of them. And that is part of all that falling apart. We did not have mentors. And so I think our mistake was an analytical mistake, which came out of our putting emotions ahead of thinking. And some of that was useful. Being angry was important, but we should have coupled our anger with a long-term strategy. And we did not. We thought somehow that everything was coming down around us and we would somehow be able to take advantage of that. And you probably know the history of Nazis a little bit. Famously, the German communists had these battles with German socialists in the streets of Berlin where the Nazis were gaining in votes. And when the German communists were asked why it was more important to eliminate their rivals on the left than it was to fight the Nazis, the slogan was, I forget the German, basically "After Hitler, us. Hitler will not make it. Germans will not follow this crazy guy. And then they will want communists to go in power." And in fact, we believe that. I remember in (19)68, there was a chance Reagan would run for president, even though he had just been elected governor of California. And George Wallace, of course, is running for president. And I thought, "What would it be like if the presidential election came down to Reagan against Wallace?" Two people who, from my point of view, were both crazy right-wingers. And I asked some friends of mine from SDS, and they said, "Great. Country deserves that. Country deserves to go to hell that way." And when I was a Weatherman, long story, but basically people who were in my collective had to give these very short speeches on the subway at one point. Like 30 minutes. And one of the guys in my collective was a working class kid from Northeastern University, from Southie, actually, Irish Catholic kid. Jimmy, I forget his last name. Jimmy O'Toole, I think. And he was reticent about speaking. He just was not used to public speaking. He had to come up with something. So, the subways stops and is quiet all of a sudden. And Jimmy said, " This country sucks." A lot of people thought we thought this country sucks. That is not a way to convince the majority of Americans.
SM (01:28:39):
Knowledge is power. Knowledge is power. Know your stuff.
MK (01:28:41):
Anyway, so the message that many Americans received from SDS was "This country sucks." And that that is not a message that a majority of Americans... You are not going to convince the majority of Americans to hate their country. You are just not going to.
SM (01:29:00):
Yeah.
MK (01:29:01):
And you should not, either. So that is why-
SM (01:29:03):
One thing-
MK (01:29:04):
The Weathermen came out of that. See, the Weathermen did not come out of nowhere, it came out of that. We basically said, "Yes, this country sucks. Let us bring it down."
SM (01:29:11):
You were not in the group that was hiding, were you?
MK (01:29:14):
No, I left before it went underground. I did not go underground.
SM (01:29:17):
How we doing time wise? We got five minutes?
MK (01:29:19):
Five, 10 minutes.
SM (01:29:20):
Okay. These are just very important terms that, again, the people that are going to be reading this, this is going to be geared to our college students, high school students, and the general public at large. But mostly I want this to be in the (19)60s courses. I have got some great interviews. Jack Wheeler interview, Mike [inaudible], you cannot believe that interview.
MK (01:29:36):
You are going to have to cut it. You are going to have to make it shorter, though, because college students-
SM (01:29:38):
No, I know that.
MK (01:29:42):
[inaudible] pages.
SM (01:29:43):
Yeah. Just your quick definition of these terms, if you can do it. "Counterculture". What does that mean?
MK (01:29:52):
It means a set of behaviors and ways of thinking. Stop a sec.
SM (01:30:00):
Yep.
MK (01:30:05):
Basically behaviors and attitudes opposed to what people perceive to be the dominant behaviors and attitudes about sex, about drugs, about a lot of things. Friendship, music. It was, I think, more of a youth culture than a counterculture, per se, because so many people were able to be part of what we think of the counterculture, who were just basically consuming differently. Not necessarily changing their minds. Some of them changed their minds. But for the most part, again, they were activists. Everyone with counterculture was not Abbie Hoffman.
SM (01:30:43):
Right. Participatory democracy, which we know about was part of what SDS's foundation was. And also I believe participatory democracy was very important in the Freedom Summer and the Civil Rights Movement itself.
(01:30:56):
Bye. Nice meeting you. Take care.
(01:30:58):
Definition of participatory democracy.
MK (01:31:10):
Well, again, that is more easily defined because it was the New Left, White New Left, especially, but soon to be Black New Left's attempt to project a vision of the way they thought politics should work. As small scale as possible, as much based on ordinary peoples having a voice as possible, as opposed to representative democracy. It was utopian and impossible to run a society that way. But I think it gave rise to a lot of people joining groups. And in some ways it goes back to Tocqueville and goes back to the flowering of volunteer institutions, voluntary associations in various parts of American life. And I think it was important part of the New Left's appeal that people believe that everyone should be able to have... What was the SDS's slogan statement... Something like "Everyone should have a,..." I forget exactly. "Should be able to help decide, make the decisions that affect their lives." And that makes sense to me.
SM (01:32:35):
It is people as opposed to one specific leader. That was very important. Black Power.
MK (01:32:42):
Well again, Black Power had a specific definition at the time in the late (19)60s when it began to be talked about by Stokely Carmichael and others. Clearly was, in many ways, the latest phase of Black nationalist ideology. Black nationalism goes all the way back to Martin Delany and people like that, even before the Civil War. That Black people have to [inaudible] themselves to free themselves, and should also be proud of who they are culturally, how they look, how they dress, their history. So it was both connected to Jewish ethnic assertion, Italian assertion, Irish assertion and identity, and different from it because the history of African Americans in the United States is different from that of any other group for obvious reasons.
SM (01:33:35):
Why was Che Guevara so important to many people in the New Left? Mark mentioned, when we started having our conversation, he immediately started talking about Che Guevara and how important he was. And he was reading at Columbia. And even since then, why is Che Guevara, Herbert Marcuse, why are they so important?
MK (01:33:56):
But they are very different.
SM (01:33:57):
Yeah, I know.
MK (01:34:11):
Che was much more important than Marcuse. You want about Che?
SM (01:34:11):
Yeah.
MK (01:34:11):
Well, it was not that important to me. Ho Chi Minh was more important to me. But he was... First of all, he was cool. He was beautiful-looking. He was international. He saw himself as a citizen of the world. He had been in different countries, Congo, and he was Argentinian, but he was in Cuba helping to make the revolution. He was a writer, an intellectual, as well as being an activist. And that was of course what people like me in the left wanted to be, as well. And he was a martyr, and martyrs are always important. We would not have Martin Luther King Jr. holiday if Martin Luther King was still alive.
SM (01:34:51):
He was a doctor too, if I am correct.
MK (01:34:55):
Yes, he was. That was less important to me. And he wrote Guerrilla Warfare, and of course people were beginning to have this romance with guerrilla warfare. And Cuba had a special place. You probably read some of that Van Gosse book, "Where the Boys Are" and so forth. Cuba had a special place in the minds of New Leftists. C. Wright Mills wrote a book before he died called "Listen, Yankee", supporting the Cuban Revolution. And it was in our hemisphere, a lot of Cubans had been in the United States. Of course, then, we tried to overthrow the government. So it was in the minds of people becoming leftists, people already were leftists. It was going to have a very important place. A lot of people have been there. My in-laws, Beth's parents who were in the Communist Party took their honeymoon in Cuba in 1953 or something.
SM (01:35:49):
You were part of that group called the Vencer...
MK (01:35:53):
[inaudible] Yeah. I went to Cuba.
SM (01:35:54):
Yeah, did that-
MK (01:35:55):
That was after Che died. That was (19)69, (19)70.
SM (01:35:57):
Did that get you in trouble in terms of the FBI looking at you?
MK (01:36:01):
Well, I was already in trouble after I was a Weatherman. I was already in trouble because I had been a Weatherman. But yeah, I think my name was mentioned at Senate hearings. I think Senator Eastland from Mississippi said we were "little capsules of revolution", some metaphor he used. "Little missiles of revolution."
SM (01:36:17):
Has that affected the rest of your career in any way?
MK (01:36:20):
No, not really. Academia is a pretty safe place for people.
SM (01:36:26):
This is very important because Tom Hayden, when he came to our campus, really had to almost give a lecture to students on this, the difference between power and empower. Your thoughts on the difference between them. Students sometimes feel they have power, and then you use the term "empower" and they look like this. And if you use this term to boomers who are my age, who are conservative, "Oh God, the (19)60s." So just your thoughts and difference between power and empower.
MK (01:36:59):
I do not use the term " empower" too much because it seems like jargon, but... Well, power is obvious. Power is you have the ability to get people to do things you want them to do, either because you control institutions or because you have people believe that you are their leader. And "empower" has a connotation more of ordinary people feel that they have the ability to get power and to influence people in power. That is what I think.
SM (01:37:35):
And then just the difference between the Old Left and the New Left.
MK (01:37:38):
Well, again, the Old Left was people who became radicalized, mostly 1930s, some earlier. Again, generationally, it is complicated. But people whose primary ideological paradigm was Marxist and was focused on the working class and on the labor movement. Not to say they [inaudible] other things. And people who thought the battle over whether the Soviet Union was a good place or not was absolutely crucial to everything else. The magazine I am co-editor of now, Dissent, was very much part of the Old Left when it got started. And Patton, Irving Howe and other editors battled with people in the New Left, in the late (19)50s, because they thought New Leftists were naive about communism because they were socialists. And for them, the Bolsheviks and then Lenin and Stalin and all those people in the American Communist Party and other communist parties had destroyed any real hope for socialism, because it had made socialism equated with tyranny. In retrospect, I think they were probably right. But at the time, I thought... At the time most of them... I was an anti-anti-communist. I thought anti-communism was just a way of saying "People in power in this country continue, are okay. They might be doing some things wrong, but at least they are not communist, so we cannot really oppose them any major way." And of course, War in Vietnam, a lot of the people, the anti-communists Old Left, were either supportive of the war in Vietnam at first, or very ambivalent about it. Because after all, this was a war against Stalinists, as they put it. And the New Left of course, were people like me, mostly Baby Boomers, not all, as we talked about before, who got radicalized in the late (19)50s and (19)60s, when the key issues were first Black freedom, inequality, then Cuba, and then the war in Vietnam. And the issue of... Marxism was influential, labor. They were pro-labor, but these are not their priorities anymore.
SM (01:39:48):
And also the difference between neocons and neoliberals.
MK (01:39:54):
Well, neoliberals means something very different in Europe than it does here. Neoliberalism, here, was a term that was coined I think in the late (19)70s, early (19)80s, by people who were Democrats, capital D, who understood liberalism was in decline and disrepute. And they wanted to move somewhere to the right, less regulation, dubious about affirmative action, try to win back majority. And people like Paul [inaudible] were neoliberals. I am trying to remember some of the names now. It did not last very long. In many ways, Bill Clinton could be argued was a neoliberal. The Democratic Leadership Council, which just went out of business this week, was-
SM (01:40:36):
Did it?
MK (01:40:37):
Yeah. Was very much a neoliberal bastion. The think tank called Progressive Politics Institute still exists, but that DLC does not exist anymore. And it also is a way to show businesses, which of course all is very powerful in the politics of this country, that we are not just anti-business; we are just anti-business going off on their own and opposing regulation. So with neoconservatives, the term was coined by, I think, Michael Harrington, who was of course a socialist, or maybe Peter Steinfels, who was a left-wing Catholic. There were people who had been liberal-driven radicals in their youth in the (19)60s, mostly Jewish, who began to move to the right because they opposed the New Left, they opposed Black Power, and they identified with Israel and opposed the Soviet Union. Part of the Soviet Union was, they thought, tyrannical, and part of the Soviet Union was anti-Israel. And they thought that supporting Israel, supporting what they saw as mainstream centrist government was being attacked more by the left and by the right. And of course, most of these people ended up just being conservative, like Billy Crystal. And then his son, Billy. But at the time, they continued to support the welfare state as they understood it. They just were opposed to---Continued to support the welfare state as they understood it. They just were opposed to what they saw as some people on the left, who were trying to move things beyond where they should go. Anyway...
SM (01:42:11):
Two final questions. What lessons had the institutes of higher education learned from the student protests of the (19)60s and (19)70s? Are they lessons learned, and lessons lost? I say this, because when you look at the Free Speech Movement in (19)64, (19)65, it really did not have to happen, although I think eventually it would have happened because the war was coming, and so forth. What really gets me is that when Mario Savio, the things that always stand out, and why I think he is a very important person in the history of activism in America, but also in terms of what happened in free speech and higher education, is the fact that ideas matter. I know your father, ideas matter. Universities are about ideas. All ideas should be presented, all points of view. Yet the universities were still were at that time being controlled by corporations.
MK (01:43:11):
Well ...
SM (01:43:12):
The reason why I bring this question up is when you look at universities today, and I have been in higher education for 30 years until I left two years ago, fundraising, scholarships, doing a program, everything seems to be linked to we got to raise money. We got to raise money, we got to have a corporate link to this, this, prove that this program has value because is it bringing money in?
MK (01:43:39):
I think I told you now that was then, actually.
SM (01:43:40):
Yeah. When I interviewed two great educators, Arthur Chickering who wrote Education and Identity. One of the things in higher education in masters and PhD programs you learn about is seven vectors of development. The ultimate for all students is that they have a sense of integrity. That is what we all shoot for, knowing who they are. Like you, you know who you are and what you stand for. Activists have lived a lifetime. They have integrity because they are genuine. When I interviewed Alexander Aston and Arthur Chickering, I asked them, "Is there one disappointment that both of you have in higher education today now that you are," well, one is retired, one is still there. Yeah, corporations have taken control again. They are running the universities.
MK (01:44:24):
I think it depends on the university. I think it is less true at wealthy universities because they can get money from wealthy people who went to school there. Harvard, I do not think is owned by corporations. I think it is certainly true. We have a new business school, and we only have it because corporations have financed that. It does make sense in some ways, you want people to learn how to work in corporations, corporations might as well pay them, help them do that.
SM (01:44:52):
Yeah.
MK (01:44:55):
Part of the whole context of the (19)60s as I was talking about, was this unprecedented prosperity. I mean, state university campuses were being founded Every year. I mean, Ohio had 78. Pennsylvania, California, New York, I mean places that did not exist before for World War II. I think in some ways, people who grew up in that period, and then went to higher education, I did get a sense that sense of entitlement, I guess is the best way to put it, that we should be supported for whatever we think, and whatever we want to do. Now, I believe in tenure, I believe in free speech, of course. At same time, there are some people, and I say this as person on the left, some people on the left in academia who feel like somehow whatever they want to do, whatever they want to say should be, is sort of immune from criticism from outside. I mean, the war Churchill is the worst example of that, of course. Because, he even lied about what he did, but who he was. I think that one of the good things, not corporate takeover isn't good, but I do think that there is a lot of programs in universities now, at least in mine, others which where people do go back and forth between the outside world and world university, they all have internships and so forth. I think that is really good because it is important for the university to be in the world. Of course, you cannot avoid being in the world to certain extent. The whole ivory tower thing I think was and is a little over over-hyped. I think the best professors, to me, the best professors I had in college, the best professors now that I know of, are people who are continually in dialogue with people outside. I see myself as doing that because I do a lot of journalism, and I am still active in various things. I think certainly everyone has got to do that. I think it is important to have an important cohort, people in universities who do that, who do not see themselves as just completely apart from everything else. Now, at the same time, if you are an Aristotle scholar, I would not expect you, or want you necessarily to be involved with having ... Politically in your town. You cannot be if you want. Cannot be, you are not. But, for political scientists, for example, who studies, let us say Congress, not to care at all about what people think of Congress outside is a mistake, I think.
SM (01:47:25):
Of course, David Horowitz and Phyllis Schlafly, when I interviewed both of them, they were pretty clear that they feel that the universities are now run by the troublemakers of the (19)60s.
MK (01:47:38):
Yeah. See that is also, take it the other way.
SM (01:47:41):
That is the culture wars. Again, the whole concept of PC, being politically correct and everything, that is all part of the...
MK (01:47:46):
Yeah-yeah. I mean, I always say about conservatives when I have been on lots of church committees in history departments, both in American University, and here at Georgetown, here in Georgetown. We never get conservatives applying. It is not that we will not hire conservatives, it is ridiculous. I mean, conservatives do not go into history, or philosophy, or for the most part, or English departments, or American studies, or anthropology, or sociology. They go into government some, and economics, of course, and business schools. In general, students have decided that universities are hostile to them, or they just want to make more money.
SM (01:48:29):
That is what they go, many of them to think tanks like the heritage organizations.
MK (01:48:31):
Well, local schools too. Yeah.
SM (01:48:34):
The last question is kind of a three-partner here and oh, you put it all into one. I do not like to use the term the boomer generation either, starting to feel the same way as you and Todd, but when the Best history book, you are a scholar, you have written books. Your book on the 1960s was written in (19)95, I believe?
MK (01:48:53):
The first edition came out in (19)99.
SM (01:48:54):
(19)99. I think.
MK (01:48:56):
The 4th edition comes out in a couple months, actually.
SM (01:49:02):
Yeah. Well, I like the first edition.
MK (01:49:02):
Okay.
SM (01:49:03):
Because, I actually given a couple first editions to my family.
MK (01:49:09):
Oh, great. Thank you.
SM (01:49:09):
I have the original.
MK (01:49:09):
We keep updating it.
SM (01:49:10):
Yeah, something about the first ... I like first editions. I like the hardbacks. I am a hardback guy. When the best history books are written, I remember Steven Ambrose saying before he passed away, that the best books on World War II are usually 50 to 75 years after the period has happened. I guess this question came about when I go to the Civil War battlefield every year, and I spend a lot of time over at Gettysburg. I go there five, six times a year. There is a statue there. The last person who was alive, who was around during the Civil War, and they had a name person who participated in the war. What will be the legacy? What will historians and sociologists be saying? Do you think, I know it is hard to say when the last boomer has passed away? For the last ... Yeah. That might be the, and also, what would be the, what is the legacy of the generation? What is the legacy of Vietnam, and the legacy of the movements? Because, some people think the movements have gone backwards.
MK (01:50:11):
Well, I mean, I guess we should look at the new conclusion, the latest conclusion of the fourth edition of our book. Because, I am responsible, we provide the chapters, Morrison, I am responsible for that, for the conclusion. I wrote that mostly. It is a huge question. Again, never know for sure. I think that, as I said before, two things are going to be essential. One is the framework of prosperity, and the assumption on the part of a lot of people that prosperity would continue. There is insecurity, but nothing like now. Two, obviously the cohort, and the way in which it shaped, it divided people, and it taught people that there is only two choices in the world, either freedom or capitalism, and freedom or communism, as in this country, or in Soviet Union, socialism, or exploitation. I think that sort of dualism in the world, even though, of course, it was more complicated than that, but that expectation that has be on one side or the other, is something which is no longer true. It was not true for the most part before then either. It is very rare when we have a two-power world. We do not have one now, and we did not have them before then either. That shaped possibilities in many ways. Part of what, even though we were not necessarily aware of at the time, I think part of what the new left was trying to do was to find space in between those two. Basically, we liked the individual freedoms America afforded, and we liked the idea of a more collectivist, more egalitarian society that socialism. We wanted to put those two together. We were not successful. I think that impulse of ... Ray Mills talked about this basically his, before he died, he was trying to put together a conference of ... I think he even called it the Third Way, E.P. Thompson, the great, British historian I interviewed back in the early (19)80s. He said Mills was trying to put together, he was trying to invite the Cubans, and the Yugoslavs, and Martin Luther King Jr, and all these folks. He died before he put it together. Maybe he would not have been able to put together even afterwards. But that I think was the impulse that was there among new leftists. It was a good impulse, I think, in retrospect, but we were not able to carry it into fruition for all kinds of reasons.
SM (01:52:46):
Any final thoughts on the boomer generation?
MK (01:52:49):
No-no.
SM (01:52:51):
The legacy of Vietnam?
MK (01:52:52):
I think we had better music.
SM (01:52:54):
Yeah.
MK (01:52:57):
I always tell my kids, I stopped doing this, but I say, "Tell me which group that you like now, people will still listen to in 50 years the way they are still listening to the Beatles, stones, Motown and so forth." They have a hard time because they say, "Well, a whole musical genre, we might listen to hip hop, yes, but anyone hip hop artist, I mean...", so that is what was fun.
SM (01:53:17):
That is a great legacy too.
MK (01:53:19):
Yeah.
SM (01:53:20):
I think one of the legacies of the boomer generation is all the progress that has been made in so many different areas in terms of women's rights, and stuff.
MK (01:53:29):
Yeah.
SM (01:53:30):
It is interesting. I constantly put on my Facebook (19)60s and (19)70s. I got, in fact, with the Valentine's Day coming up, I just put on the Beatles song, which I think they did one of the greatest love songs of all time. And they-
MK (01:53:44):
Words of Love, that one?
SM (01:53:46):
One. Yeah. All you need is love. What is interesting, if you go to the YouTube, if you can find it is just, it is a classic. It is ... they are all dressed up. They got flowers in their ears. I remember that.
MK (01:53:56):
Yeah.
SM (01:53:57):
Then in the audience is Jagger. I mean, things are just sitting there listening.
MK (01:54:01):
Yeah-yeah.
SM (01:54:03):
It is like, "Oh man, what a time." What it is like forever. I often wonder, somebody who complained against the boomer generation often said they never grew up. I have had a couple people tell me that.
MK (01:54:15):
But again, it is a danger of generalizing by this generation.
SM (01:54:16):
Yeah.
MK (01:54:16):
I mean, usually when people talk about their generation, they are thinking about two or three people they knew.
SM (01:54:16):
Yes. Well, we at Westchester University, we are done. But, close off, thank you very much.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Michael Kazin
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Kazin, Michael, 1948- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Historians; College teachers; Georgetown University; Social movements--United States--19th century; Social movements--United States--20th century; Kazin, Michael, 1948--Interviews
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Dr. Michael Kazin is a historian and professor at Georgetown University. Kazin's research focuses on the American social movements from the 19th and 20th centuries. He received a Bachelor's degree in Social Studies from Harvard, a Master's degree in History from Portland State University, and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2011-02-12
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.72a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.72a
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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237:12
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-04-16
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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Michael Walzer
Language
English
Biographical Text
Dr. Michael Walzer is a political theorist and professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics in political theory and moral philosophy. Dr. Walzer has a Bachelor's degree in History from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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2 Microcassettes
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Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Activism; Generation X; feminist movement; Ronald Reagan; Baby boom generation; Red diaper baby; Brandeis University; Montgomery bus boycott; Freedom Summer; Fred Shuttlesworth."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Activism; Generation X; feminist movement; Ronald Reagan; Baby boom generation; Red diaper baby; Brandeis University; Montgomery bus boycott; Freedom Summer; Fred Shuttlesworth.</span>
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89:50
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Political scientists; College teachers; Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N.J.); Walzer, Michael--Interviews
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Rights Statement
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Interview with Dr. Michael Walzer
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Walzer, Michael ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Political scientists; College teachers; Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N.J.); Walzer, Michael--Interviews
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Dr. Michael Walzer is a political theorist and professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics in political theory and moral philosophy. Dr. Walzer has a Bachelor's degree in History from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-04-16
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In copyright
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.119
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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89:50
-
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Michael Zuckerman
Date of Interview
ND
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
150:21
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
3 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Michael Zuckerman is a historian, scholar and author. He is a Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Zuckerman He taught courses in popular culture, national character, human nature, and religion. He recevied his Bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. at Harvard University in American Studies."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13059,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16777215],"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Michael Zuckerman is a historian, scholar, and author. He is a Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Zuckerman taught courses in popular culture, national character, human nature, and religion. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. at Harvard University in American Studies.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam Veterans; Vietnam Memorial; Nineteen sixties; Counterculture; Baby boom generation; Tom Hayden; Jane Fonda; anti-war movement; Black Panther Movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Vietnam Veterans; Vietnam Memorial; Nineteen sixties; Counterculture; Baby boom generation; Tom Hayden; Jane Fonda; anti-war movement; Black Panther Movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.</span>
Subject LCSH
Historians; College teachers; Authors, American--20th century; University of Pennsylvania; Popular culture; Zuckerman, Michael--Interviews
Accessibility
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Dr. Michael Zuckerman
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Zuckerman, Michael ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Historians; College teachers; Authors, American--20th century; University of Pennsylvania; Popular culture; Zuckerman, Michael--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Michael Zuckerman is a historian, scholar, and author. He is a Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Zuckerman taught courses in popular culture, national character, human nature, and religion. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. at Harvard University in American Studies.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ND
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.172a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.172b; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.172c
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2018-03-29
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
McKiernan Interviews
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
150:21
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Date of Interview
2010-09-23
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Minnie Bruce Pratt
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Minnie Pratt Bruce, born in Selma, Alabama, is an American educator, activist and essayist. She is also a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University, where she was invited to help develop the university’s first LGBT Study Program. Dr. Bruce has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,16777215],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}"><span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Minnie Pratt Bruce, born in Selma, Alabama, is an American educator, activist and essayist. She is also a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University, where she was invited to help develop the university’s first LGBT Study Program. Dr. Bruce has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,16777215],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Minnie Bruce Pratt</span></span><span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Minnie Pratt Bruce, born in Selma, Alabama, is an American educator, activist and essayist. She is also a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University, where she was invited to help develop the university’s first LGBT Study Program. Dr. Bruce has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,16777215],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">, born in Selma, Alabama, is an American educator, activist, and essayist. She is also a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University, where she was invited to help develop the university’s first LGBT Studies Program. Dr. Pratt has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Southern segregation; White supremacy; Black Panthers; SNCC; Women's liberation; LGBT; Oppression struggles; Response to violent protests; Baby boom generation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Southern segregation; White supremacy; Black Panthers; SNCC; Women's liberation; LGBT; Oppression struggles; Response to violent protests; Baby boom generation.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
93:56
Subject LCSH
College teachers; Political activists--United States; Syracuse University; Pratt, Minnie Bruce--Interviews
Accessibility
Copy/Paste below:
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Dr. Minnie Bruce Pratt
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Pratt, Minnie Bruce ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
College teachers; Political activists--United States; Syracuse University; Pratt, Minnie Bruce--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Minnie Bruce Pratt, born in Selma, Alabama, is an American educator, activist and essayist. She is also a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, where she was invited to help develop the university’s first LGBT Studies Program. Dr. Pratt has a B.A. from the University of Alabama and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ND
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.182
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2018-03-29
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
McKiernan Interviews
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
93:56
-
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ec29310de27fe74d47533913e95c11f5.MP3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription
This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field.
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Date of Interview
8/7/2019
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dr. Mitch Pearlstein
Biographical Text
Dr. Mitch Pearlstein is an editorial writer, columnist and founder and former President at the Center of the American Experiment. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Department of Education, during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. He received his Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Binghamton University, and he has a Ph.D. in Education Administration from the University of Minnesota.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
02:18:32
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Digital file
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Baby Boomer generation; Binghamton University Guarneri String Quartet; American policy; 1960s; Young Americans for Freedom; Anti-War Movement; Vietnam War
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Dr. Mitch Pearlstein
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Eden Lowinger
Date of interview: 7 August 2019
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
00:02
SM: First off Mitch, I want to thank you very much for doing this. I appreciate it very much and–
00:07
MP: Happy to.
00:07
SM: Yep, the first question I try to ask most of the people I have interviewed is to tell us a little bit about your background, where you grew up, your early family life, your early years before you even attended Harpur College. And some of the impact of that early life on your life.
00:25
MP: Well, that will take the first hour, that is not bad. I grew up in Queens. It was born the actually in Brooklyn, the old Bedbell Hospital, which is I have been told the Brookhaven Medical Center and has been that for a long, long time, but do not hold me to any of that. I am 71. Spent the seven years, in Sunnyside in Queens, Long Island City. I am the first of three kids. My brother Robert is twenty months my junior and my sister Andy, who I say is Andrea and she says Andrea, she is nine years my junior. So we were in Sunnyside, as I say, for seven years at PS 150 which is where David Horowitz went to school go I think seven years before I was there. We moved to Far Rockaway in, also in Queens right on the beach, when I was I suspect seven and started off at PS 215. Over time that led to junior high school 180 and then Far Rockaway High School. My father was in sales and for a period, was in management- if you are familiar with the Modells Shoppers World?
01:32
SM: Oh, yeah.
02:05
MP: He was with them for a long, long time. He actually was with a firm called the [inaudible] “D" as in "dog", A, "V" as in "victor," E, G A sporting goods and they were purchased by Modells or [inaudible] in the late (19)50s or so. So he had essentially his entire career there. My mother did not work outside of the home until all the kids left home. And my father was not pleased about his wife working outside of the home, quite traditional in that sense. At the risk of sounding unkind and all it was not an educated family from which I came, at least in terms of school credentials and all. My father was a high school graduate, my mother was a high school dropout her parents never learned how to read. I was one of the first people in the family, certainly on my mother's side to go to college. I was a wonderful student up and through sixth grade. I tell people I did poorly in high school and junior high school because I had worked so hard and sixth grade I had burned out. Not too many people believe this. I was lazy as the short answer. We want to get what therapeutic, I was troubled in some fashion. I just did not do my work. And this was early in the baby boomer time, going off to college, meaning there were more kids to school than they were in necessarily seats. And I had a hard time getting in any place. I graduated high school barely I suspect, in (19)66- my test scores were pretty good- when I say just barely [inaudible] and see what I suspect. I got out of high school well enough but I had done lousy and the City University system to its great credit and through my everlasting gratitude put together very-very quickly for the class graduating in (19)66, City University College centers they were called attached to I think five of the community colleges, and these were places where kids who could not even get into a community college at the time and the SUNY system. And that saved me, I do not know, I do not remember exactly what I would have done, it would, if that had not happened I would've gone to school someplace, but probably would have cost me or my family. So I attended for one year. And these were one year programs, The City University College Center at New York City Community College, which is a mouthful, was in a warehouse in downtown Brooklyn. And this is when I came to realize that beer is a far better motivator than self-esteem or anything of the sort. At least that was my interpretation afterwards. I figured that this was my last chance. If I continued to screw up, I would not have a career. So I worked very hard, and did quite well. And after one semester, I had a 3.8 if I recall.
02:05
SM: Yep. Oh, that is great.
06:00
MP: And applied, I said I was going to apply to the four university centers in the SUNY system. And the way it worked, I think Stony Brook's application came in first, but they did not want to stay on Long Island. Binghamton came in second. So I applied to Binghamton. One of them, Albany or Buffalo never came in and I just did not bother with the other because I knew with the 3.8 I was pretty good for Binghamton to offer. And that is the way it worked. So that was a turning point. I did well academically and over the next several years, sometimes I did exceed extremely well, academically and another times not. It always had to do with my working hard or not working hard or being involved in the antiwar movement, frankly.
06:56
SM: Right.
06:57
MP: Or having my heart broken by some female. And that is a rough description-
07:06
SM: Well, that fits right into the-
07:07
MP: [inaudible] my life until I got to Binghamton, you know.
07:11
SM: Yeah that, my next question was, how and why did you choose Harpur? You just explained it beautifully. And but the some of the questions I wanted to ask about your Harpur years here is, what activities were you involved in at the school, including some of the groups you joined? And how would you describe your four years at Binghamton between (19)67 and (19)70, ah (19)66, I guess (19)67 and (19)70, your three years.
07:17
MP: Thank you. Yeah, it was three years. I came in as a sophomore. I played baseball, I was a pitcher on the baseball team. I had grown up playing baseball. As a kid. I was pretty decent. Played in high school, but I was not so decent then, they were better players that I was at the time. Got to Harpur and got on to the baseball team. I was a pitcher and I actually started opening day and my junior year.
08:13
SM: Wow.
08:14
MP: Yeah, guess who I do not recall necessarily. I did beat Stony Brook in a complete seven inning game, was part of a doubleheader and that was as a junior.
08:24
SM: Wow.
08:24
MP: But overall, I had a losing record in the lousy ERA. But I have remained close friends with my old coach. For example, John Affleck. AFFLECK. Who, looking back, he was not much older than the ballplayers at the time. He is in Florida now, has been there for a while though, he summers in Ontario. I have not seen him since I was in Binghamton last which was, I think for my 40th class reunion, so that would have been nine years ago, but we stay in touch a couple of times a year with emails back and forth and some of the old ballplayers are people who myself stay in touch with. If someone is sick, and someone sends out an email about how folks are doing or something, perhaps happier, we will have a couple of emails going between and among us. That will happen about twice a year.
09:30
SM: Do you [inaudible]- Do you remember coach Schum?
09:35
MP: Oh, of course him. Very well. I remember all of the coaches for the most part, I suspect quite well, in part, in large part because I was a student there. And then I worked there, we will get to that. And then I was a reporter for the Sun-Bulletin and I did sports for a while so I knew these folks reasonably well, yeah.
09:58
SM: Yeah, coach Schum was, did all the gym classes. And I remember going to my first gym class there. And he did not read the names off. He read the social security numbers off. [laughs] Yeah. And he said, "Alright, you should know your social security number by now." And, of course I knew I did not. And-and so he is reading all the social security numbers and he comes to mine, and then he just says it again. And I, "McKiernan!" I never forgot my social security number after that. What, Mitch, you were involved, talk about some of the, your out of classroom experiences that were during your years at Binghamton, whether it be involved in any protests or activist activities, going to meet speakers that came to campus during that very tumultuous time, any programs and inspired you, just things that happened during those three years before you graduated in (19)70?
10:12
MP: Did he really? Well, let us, uh, technically, I graduated in (19)71. I was seven credits short. But I got the bureaucracy a couple of years later to change my class to what I viewed as my real class, (19)70. So, when I get a mailing, it will say Pearlstein (19)70, which probably illegal where that is concerned, in the interest of full disclosure. We will get into, let us let us delay for a moment the political stuff and the anti-war stuff. We will talk about a couple of other things. I have spoken about on a number of occasions out here about how the Guarneri String Quartet, you remember Guarneri?
11:58
SM: Oh, yeah, they were excellent. Yes.
12:00
MP: More than excellent. Guarneri, they had formed, I think, only about two years earlier (19)65. And they were in residence at Binghamton starting in about (19)67. And I do not read music, I had no real musical background at the time, other than being in the chorus in seventh grade and carousel, at junior high school 180, then being kicked out of Oklahoma, like, in eighth grade because I finally realized I could not sing. So I had no real musical background. But I would attend their rehearsals, they would do rehearsals in the dorms, in the lounges of the dorms. And when they were in Champlain where I was like, I would sit in. And to me, it was just fascinating to hear not just the great music, but they would play about four bars, and then they would stop and talk about it or argue about it. And they would hear things that I simply would not hear. And that has been a metaphor in some respects. I am a passionate listener of Minnesota Public Radio, classical Minnesota Public Radio, I listen all the time, I have not listened to anything else for a while. Probably could use a little variety. I have been on a radio show that they, oh excuse me, a feature that they do Minnesotans and their music. And they had me on about half dozen years ago, I talked about what kind of music moves me and talking about classical music. And I would tell the Guarneri story. That sticks with me that really does. What sticks with me also is life in the dorm in Champlain. When I was back nine years ago for the 40th, number of us from Champlain were interviewed and I made the point that something along the lines, when you live in a dorm you got to do what is right. Otherwise people will think you are a jerk. It is your family. And people think you are a jerk. That is not going to be good for you. So you work hard. I worked hard. Not that it was all that hard to do what was right. I am not expressing this real well. I was not going to do anything terribly wrong, but it was a matter of being just a good classmate, a good citizen. And that was my family and that sticks with me, we will leave various affairs of the heart out of this conversation. I was a political science major, and at times, I was really quite good. And other times I was not so good as a student, I was sporadic as that. I did not join a whole bunch of things. And this might be the segue to talking about various political and anti-war activities. Going back to growing up again, I grew up in a very let us just say, left-leaning environment. First of all, it was Queens, it was New York City, it was the (19)60s. My father had grown up, if not as a socialist, very much to the left, as was the whole family as was the entire environment. Jewish environment, lower middle class environment. He was a member of workman circle. Folks are familiar with that fraternal organization, which is interesting, very much on the left, but very much anti-communist. We can get into it, perhaps remind me, that I am all for conservatives who have been anti-communists, but most conservatives have never met one. Whereas people on the web certainly have not. It has been their responsibility in many instances, to purge bad communist influences from different kinds of organizations. We can talk about Max Kampelman, if you would like, you would have to remind me to do that. But at any rate, I was not perpetually part of that political ethos. And in (19)65, when I was 17, and William F. Buckley Jr., Bill Buckley, ran for mayor of New York, I worked on his campaign. Not in a senior position, I assure you, I handed out literature in Rockaway. And this was, let us just say any number of family members were taken aback by this. And they were hoping that it was a phase but it was not a phase. There was something about Buckley that I responded to quite well, there was something about politics of him, responsible right side of the aisle that I responded to quite well. And, in keeping with that, I supported US policy in Vietnam when I was in high school and through my freshman year at-at the City University College Center in New York City Community College. And I was still supportive of US policy when I got to Binghamton in the fall of (19)67. Needless to say, the environment was quite different. Not that anybody was thinking over the head change. It was not until, if I recall correctly around December of (19)67, that I began to think differently, Harrison Salisbury, the journalist from Minnesota actually, came to town to give a lecture. And he made it clear to me at the time that for the United States to win, it would have to do some things that would simply be unacceptable, such as "Bomb the dikes," as I recall him saying. And in time, during that period, I came out against US policy. A key point to keep in mind here is that while many of the people in the anti-war movement, particularly those who were clearly on the left, wanted, wanted the US to lose, and who thought that American involvement in Southeast Asia was a sign of US evil. I, on the other hand, did not view it as a good thing if the United States was to lose, and that it was not, American involvement of Vietnam was not sign of anything sinister about the United States. But it had been a mistake, it was a well-intentioned albeit mistake, to get involved in the way that we did. And sometime as we approached, got into my senior year, as you may recall, that was when I suspect you may have talked to other people about this, that a coalition was pulled together. Under, if I recall correctly, the heading was a student mobilization committee. And by the way, I have on my wall poster that we did. That said, something about- I can get exact language if I get up and walk four feet, about, talking about the war, talking about it together at the courthouse at noon, on October 15 (19)69 which corresponded with the big first student mobilization day in DC. And I was asked to be, or wound up, as a member of that coalition, we were talking about good friends like Ivan Charter, with whom I am still very much in touch with. I interviewed him for the last book. And we have spoken to friends with Kathy and we plan on being at Binghamton for our 50th come next year. Elliot Maisie was part of that as well. If you remember, if you have ever heard the name, Peter Gellert, GELLERT, Peter was a member of the Socialist Workers Party, a real-life Marxist. Who still is, by the way is living in Mexico has been there for a long time. He was part of the coalition. And I became in some ways the spokesman for this group, Ivan was the chair of great leadership skills. Elliot made the great organizational skills. I was the spokesman because I could get along reasonably well with all elements in this coalition. And I spoke reasonably well, interested in the media. So I was the one on October 15 (19)69, to represent SMC on the podium, in front of City Hall during that during that demonstration. Julian Bond, by the way, was in town and he also spoke and-
22:51
SM: Wow.
22:51
MP: -what I recall, it was the women in the crowd being far-far more interested in what he had to say than what I had to say. So, I was quite involved in antiwar activities, though, my interpretation of things, my sense of the country was often quite different from those of many of the people at school.
23:26
SM: Yeah, I, what is amazing about those years of Binghamton, I can remember being in the Union many times and, and the theatre group would, Guerrilla Theater would come in. Do you remember that happening all the time? Where the–
23:40
MP: Vaguely [crosstalk]
23:41
SM: Yeah, I think they come out of nowhere. And I have done some studies on Guerilla Theater during the (19)60s, and it was so very creative, very anti-war. Then there was another event that you might remember that really, I came to school one morning, and the entire quad in front of the administration building had signs on it. And it was like, they were all anti-war signs. And a group-
24:07
MP: Yeah, I vaguely recall that as well, that might have been the year prior, but I could be wrong.
24:13
SM: Yeah. Well, I do not think the administration liked the fact that it was done. But-
24:17
MP: I suspect not, no.
24:17
SM: [laughs] No, but it was almost there was no space on that quad there were so many signs put up and it was it was very well done. You walk through it. And then I can remember also when Governor Rockefeller came to campus to open the garden there near the theater department, that that open area there and I remember students protesting on Vestal Parkway and trying to block him coming in because they he kind of represented the establishment and so forth. And then of course the-the Harpur did not have any, they did not allow ROTC on campus and whenever the military recruiters came, the students protested in the administration building. So, there is, there is a lot.
25:00
MP: Yeah, I protested. I was opposed to those protests. I remember when Rockefeller was on campus, and I was very much opposed to the protests against him. As I say, I was not [inaudible] at that point this was prior to (19)69. I was, my goodness, by the student radical standards of the day, I was some kind of right winger, I would imagine. But I was opposed to various protests of various kinds. I was, frankly, I was more of a moderate, I was more of an establishmentarian. As I said before, the key was that I did not view American involvement in Vietnam or anyplace else as a sign that we were a rotten nation, did not see it that way at all.
25:55
SM: If you were describ- if you were to put a label, and I know, I do not like labels many times but if you were to put a label on yourself, you told me about your high school years and your first year at Cooney. What about when you were Harper would you con- be considered a conservative, a liberal or you do not want to be the either-either one?
26:14
MP: Well working backwards, I am the founder of a conservative free market think tank in Minnesota. We have been up and running for 29 years. I worked in the Reagan administration at the end of the US Department of Education in the first couple of years. The first Bush administration, well a year each I suspect, this was back in (19)87 through (19)90. So in real ways, I am a conservative now. I arrived at Binghamton, as I was saying, liking Bill Buckley. I modeled, by the way, a senator of the American Experiment the think tank, after Bill Buckley in many ways, civil and academic. And we would have people on this show. And they would be quite decent to each other. But the conversation was vivid. That is how I to make American Experiment. In many ways, this is exactly how we have been for going on three decades. I would have viewed myself by (19)69, (19)70. I was, you know it is a good question. Left, right. Did not does not feel right. At this moment, thinking back that way. Not that that sentence makes any sense. Maybe the best way. A moderate of the times or a moderate- among antiwar activists, I was more moderate than many. How is that?
27:52
SM: Mitch, that is a good description. I think it is excellent. The- would you consider the campus itself, now consider the student body during that time that you were at Binghamton, and you can include not only the time that you were a student there, but I know you also worked for the president. That that came into power after Dr. Deering. Would you consider the campus an activist campus?
28:38
MP: Following back up for a second, I did not work in the administration until (19)72. And that was when [inaudible] Bill McGrath became president. It was not right after Deering. I think Stew Gordon was right after Deering. So there was this interlude, and I was well out of school by the time Peter arrived in (19)72. Was it an activist campus? Sure. in spirit, we were blowing up things, as was the case some other places and that was good. That was very good. But it certainly was. Call it a counterculture ish kind of activism, in many ways when I got there. And when did you get there, by the way?
29:39
SM: Well I got there in (19)67.
29:41
MP: Yeah, that is exactly when I got there. If I recall correctly, the enrollment was a grand total of 2700.
29:46
SM: Yes, it is yes.
29:49
MP: And in terms of some demographics, and I have written about this, I cannot recall more than a half a dozen, conceivably a dozen African American students on campus at the time, things there and elsewhere in American education, higher education changed dramatically starting a year later after Dr. King was assassinated. So this was an exceedingly white place, an exceedingly downstate place, an exceedingly Jewish place. Other places has hippies, we had sickies as you may recall, I was not a sickie by any stretch for heaven's sakes, I was a baseball player. And I remember writing a letter through what was still the colonial news about how the sickies were making an absolute mess of the Student Center. They were slobs, they were leaving stuff all over the place and it was a political statement, I suspect, to be slobs. I was not that. I might not have been the tidiest person that my wife now can tell you that that is indeed the case. But I was certainly not have that lefty counterculture artistic spirit. I was a social science major. We played baseball. But I got along well, as I have always gotten along well with just about everybody.
31:31
SM: I think one of the things, you look at the culture, I look a lot at the music that was brought to the campus during that timeframe that we were there. And when you think of the names of Richie Havens, The Turtles.
31:47
MP: Yeah.
31:48
SM: Yeah, you have got The Chambers Brothers. You got Judy Collins, you have got Ella Fitzgerald. Remember she sang in concert there along-
31:57
MP: I was at that one, I remember that one.
31:59
SM: Yeah, that was unbelievable. Duke Ellington came, Oscar Peterson, Paul Butterfield Blues was loved by the Harpur students, they loved him. And-and of course, we had Mountain there and-and Arlo Guthrie and Lovin' Spoonful, the music, and of course, how can you forget the concert with Iron Butterfly, the concert that they thought they had two sets booked and they only had one and the Harpur students were on stage breaking the guy's drumsticks because they wanted to have two sets. But the music was really kind of counterculture when you think about it.
32:39
MP: And yeah, I will buy that. So, you are talking to someone who had a crush on Lainie Kazan from (19)63 to (19)70. So musically, I was not necessarily in that spirit. I was a [inaudible] well want to be forever known in the archives as being an old fart. Yeah, sure. Why not.
33:13
SM: [laughs] Okay, I got that down there now, Nick. And that has to be quoted at the 50th anniversary, the old fart. [laughs] I think you have already answered this one too, did you know at BU that you wanted, what you wanted to become in life? Well, you know, you are talking about your experiences of you know, difficulty with school in the beginning, and then becoming a very good student. And again, doing excellent on tests coming to a very academic school and Harpur, and being a political science major. I know you have gone on to create a- an unbelievable organization, something you should be very proud of. I mean, historic. But did you did you know what you were going to become? How are you evolving during that time as a person as you were approaching that graduation day in (19)70?
34:06
MP: Good question. Part of the context is where any number of our classmates simply assume they wanted to be doctors or lawyers. I did not grow up in that kind of environment. I had high school friends and junior high school friends who did grow up in that environment and did become lawyers and doctors and rich people. But that simply was not my environment with lower middle class. I did want to be a lawyer I think for about a day and a half while I was at Harpur but I overcame, it must have been a drug reaction or something or other. What I recall, I recall wanting to be a political speech writer. I could write well, I was interested in politics. And there was something about being a speech writer that intrigued me. That or I assumed that I would wind up in a decent job in middle management someplace. So my aspirations in that instance, were not all that high. And were constricted by the fact that I just did not know much about more elevated professions earlier on. Also, it is interesting, I think back. I probably felt more pressure every semester, that Binghamton, not because it was Binghamton, but because taking college seriously taking, well, in this instance, taking my undergraduate life seriously, it was hard. And I had to force myself to do my work sometimes, because I was not consistently disciplined. And at some level, I do not want to overstate this, but at some level, I wanted to drop acid about every semester. I never got close to doing that. But that was the sense that I had and when I talked about sometimes being a good student, sometimes not. There were a couple of classes where I was the only "A" there in that particular class. [inaudible] I think, Richard Dec Legion, and another. On other occasions, I just screwed up terribly. And as things turned out, I did wind up as a speechwriter. I wound up later on as a speech writer for Peter McGraw. When we got out here to Minnesota, I was a speech writer out here for three years. And several years later, I was the speech writer for about two years for the governor, for a guy by the name of Al Quie, QUIE, that was (19)81, (19)82. So that worked out, and I did do my stints in Washington at the Department of Education. I was an editorial writer and a columnist for The St. Paul paper. That was (19)83 to (19)87. So that was in keeping with a spirit of what I was thinking earlier, I had never viewed myself thinking back while I was in school as a potential journalist. I thought I wrote well enough, frankly, I knew I wrote well enough. But I never thought I could write fast enough to be a journalist. And yeah, here is a, here is a chapter that is interesting. You remember, David Bernstein, who was the editor and co-owner of the Sun-Bulletin who ran for Congress in (19)70.
38:15
SM: Yes.
38:17
MP: I was on his staff. I got paid $50 a week, somehow I could live on that. And I was an advanced person, I guess, I guess, the best way of describing what I did, and he lost as to be expected, as a Democrat. And I wound up right after that, working for him, pulling together a collection of his editorials. And he wrote one virtually every day, from the middle of (19)61, when he bought the paper and this is now at the end of (19)70. And his wife, Adele, was very much interested in doing a collection of his pieces. He was a brilliant writer, as clear as clean as you could possibly imagine. Got a job as working for him. And I read every single editorial he wrote during that period, and I would pull out excerpts. And the idea was to make a book out of them. And it would have been a fine book, but he lost interest. But this was a number of recessions ago and every time I finished a degree it seemed that it was a recession. And I needed a job. And he offered me a job as a reporter at the Sun-Bulletin. And I turned down because I as I say, I did not think I could write fast enough. He offered is again, I turned them down again. And by the third time I said yes, needed a job and I remember to the extent that I could remember anything for the first three weeks, hardly ever picking up my hand from my desk. I was concentrating so hard on what I was doing. But I was a reporter there, and did that for 13 months until getting to the heart of our conversation. I guess in some respect, though, this is now the (19)70s. I resigned one morning at 1:30 in the morning, after doing my police rounds, I was a police reporter at that point. And this was a night Nixon announced the mining of Haiphong and the bombing of Hanoi.
40:34
SM: Right.
40:35
MP: And I said that it, and I did civil disobedience by 7:30 in the morning, in front of the old, I guess was the old courthouse or the federal courthouse. In, in in Binghamton. So that was the end of that portion of my journalistic career. I wound up again, as an editorial writer at The Pioneer Press newspaper in St. Paul, state from (19)83 to (19)87. It was after doing that for four years, I went off to Washington. I did not give you a clear sequencing of that period. If you want, I can do that.
41:20
SM: I know, you also got your PhD at the University of Minnesota, correct?
41:25
MP: Yeah, I am going to forget that.
41:26
SM: Oh, okay. [laughs]
41:29
MP: The idea, the idea was for me when I came out here with-with Peter, in (19)74. And I can, now that is a good story, frankly, if you want to get into that though it is not the (19)60s. The idea was for me to work for him part time, and go to graduate school, part time. And once I got out here, I knew that was not going to work, there was too much work to do for Peter, and I needed more money than being paid half time. So I essentially put off graduate school for three years, I think, four courses during that interim. And then it was time to go back full time to graduate school. So I, I left Peter's employ in (19)77. And I was a full time graduate student from (19)77 to (19)80. And I wound up doing frankly, about the fastest PhD, I know. I worked very, very hard. I was terrifically disciplined and the fact that I had just gotten divorced, and I had a lot of time on my hands. And I finished off in (19)80 and I was I was good as a, as a graduate student, wrote a, if I do say so, an exceedingly good dissertation on Jewish attitudes towards affirmative action admissions in higher education.
42:54
SM: Wow.
42:55
MP: And I finished off and found out that the academic world and other worlds could care less that I had just done that.
43:05
SM: Well, that is–
43:06
MP: What I–
43:07
SM: Wow.
43:07
MP: -that is working for Al Quie-took a while. But I wound up working as a speech writer. And my first thought was, I had been a speech writer. And I went to graduate school to get a doctorate. So, I would not necessarily have to be a speech writer, I could write for myself. But then I realized I needed a job again, and too being a speechwriter for a governor who I respected a great deal was, as they say, not chopped liver. And that turned out to be a great experience.
43:40
SM: Before we go on to the-the organization that you created, the major organization, I want to ask some just some general questions about the (19)60s, the (19)60s and the early (19)70s. What has been the overall impact of your generation, the boomer generation on America? And, you know, if it is positive, why and if it is negative why?
44:06
MP: I like macro questions, whether or not I am prepared to answer I do not know. The clichéd answer, which is not to say it is incorrect, is that the (19)60s were a time of expanding social justice. Women, certainly. racial minorities, certainly. Maybe the early Inklings when it comes to gay rights, the environment, certainly all that is, is well known and much of it is to be admired and be thankful for, no question. At the same time you I often view the (19)60s as when the United States got real close to having a nervous breakdown. And that was not good. Not necessarily as logical and as rational sometimes, as we needed to be. Too emotional. What do they, I forget who wrote it. Could have been a conservative rabbi. This goes back some time I am guessing in the (19)80s when he paid his respects as I do, to religious conservatives, mostly Christian, who saved the country from going nuts in Thailand. And that-that sense of order, which is not to say, an excessive or undemocratic, unfree sense of order, but I believe an ordered liberty, let us put it that way. I like that term. I liked the concept. And we needed people on the right to say, "Hey, let us slow down, let us think this one through, let us not get completely crazy. Let us not assume for a moment that the Vietcong were really the good guys and they were a bunch of agrarian reformers." Rooting for the communists to win is never a good idea. So, I look back on the (19)60s, I am proud of what I did, for the most part. I wish we had done something different in the antiwar movement. Without question, we thought too poorly of the country. Without question we treated soldiers dreadfully. Without question, we assumed the other side were a bunch of good guys often, and to our activisting. So, it very much of a of a mixed bag. You know, I think that the one time, I am not real proud of how I viewed matters back then, was the night of Kent State.
47:39
SM: Oh yeah.
47:39
MP: Which was what, something like May 4th of (19)70, something like that?
47:43
SM: Yeah, yes.
47:44
MP: And we had a big meeting at I guess it was in the, could have been women's gym, what was then the gym-gym, I guess? And remember the name Tommy Tuchman?
48:00
SM: Oh, yes.
48:02
MP: Tommy was a friend. He was up there speaking. And he was he was being a tad extreme and crowd was going nuts in support of what he was saying, and this was not good. And I find myself caught up in that. I had been really, really angered by Kent State and that was one time I was going over the line. And being a radical in spirit, and say I am not a radical person by any stretch and have not been. I think some of the excessive identity politics of this era now and going back decades, certainly grew out of the (19)60s. I think we have spent far too much time in this country, though I understand why focusing on questions of race and ethnicity. Not good. And that certainly grew out of the out of the (19)60s. I used the term back then. It came to me in about, might have been around (19)72. But do not hold me to that, naive cynicism. And there was a lot of naive cynicism at the time. In many ways. I saw that and still see that as a paramount sense at the time. It is one thing to be cynical, if you have to use the expression, been around the block several times, you have some age to and you are cynical. I think [inaudible] cynical is overstating matters, you should not be, but it is understandable. But when you are 19 years old, and you do not know very much, and you are cynical, that does not fit. It does not fit the decency of this nation. It is not good for your mental health. It is not in keeping with reality. And to the, again, the extent that I have problems with the (19)60s into the (19)70s, it is precisely that. And when we talk about the (19)60s, as you well know, it is not just the (19)60s, it is well into the (19)70s.
50:47
SM: Yes.
50:48
MP: And so much of the craziness. And the rest that we associate with the (19)60s, stretch into the (19)70s, and often got started in the (19)70s.
51:06
SM: And, Mitch, I want your thoughts on this too, when I interviewed Lee Edwards, and of course, he is a great historian himself. And he teaches a course on the (19)60s at the at a Catholic school in Washington right now. And one thing that stuck out in that interview more than anything else was when historians or sociologists or people who write about the (19)60s or experienced the (19)60s, it is always about the liberal activists. You do not hear–
51:34
MP: Right.
51:34
SM: -about the conservative activist, and we are talking about when you talk about the antiwar movement, the Young Americans for Freedom are never discussed. Yet they were conservative, but they were against the war, too.
51:49
MP: You are absolutely right. And I think I mentioned this to you in one of our previous conversations. And I am happy you have brought that up. Yeah, it shows a certain myopia on my part, that I am just thinking of the left, but without question. [inaudible] were the roots of Goldwater, they were the roots of Reagan, as it turned out a dozen years later, if you were starting off in (19)68. Absolutely, absolutely true. A couple of books. I think I have mentioned Rick Perlstein to you.
52:28
SM: Yes-yes. Yes. I think I have all his books.
52:31
MP: Yeah, who is not a relative. He spells his name wrong. That is the reason why. But I thought his book on Goldwater was terrific. And I was not the only person on the right, who viewed it as terrifically fair, as it was, and he is a person of the left. So that is, and one needs to take all that into account. In many ways. That spirit, that movement has had more to do with shaping the nation, or at least as much over the subsequent decades as stuff on the left. And David from his book about the (19)70s. I forget what it was called. But he writes about how so much of what we associate with the (19)60s is really the (19)70s that has shaped so much. Oh, absolutely [inaudible] you.
53:29
SM: So, there is this obser- Mitch, there is another observation. If you remember Colonel Harry Summers, who passed away in I think around (20)00, he wrote the almanac on the Vietnam War, and, and we were going to have at West Chester University to talk at our traveling Vietnam memorial. But he-
53:48
MP: Were ya?
53:49
SM: -he became so sick, he could not come. But he said he, well his speech was going to center on the fact that when you when professors are teaching, the (19)60s in on university campuses today, he says what they always forget to conclude in the teaching, is the military point of view. I am not, he said, "I am not saying it is right, but you have got to include that if you are going to be, you know, teach the teaching the reality of what it was like back then. It is not just the antiwar movement. It is also the, you know, the military point of view, and again you can like it or dislike it. But there is truth to that."
54:31
MP: Of course, that is true. And I am sitting here thinking about how I have focused on one side of the equation or not the other over the last 40 minutes or so. But at Binghamton and that is what we are talking about, principally.
54:49
SM: Right.
54:50
MP: Things on the right side of the aisle simply were not part of the equation.
54:53
SM: I agree.
54:55
MP: And to the extent there was any sense of the right and left, right in those times were fundamentally different from the left, right now. You would think about, remember Joe Pyne, the?
55:13
SM: Yes, his TV show, yes.
55:16
MP: Yeah. I suspect if anybody thought about what was on the right, and it was crazy people like Joe Pyne. And so there, there was not a sense for the most part of articulate, educated, sensible, enlightened notions of the right or people on the right at the time on-on campus. I just do not recall that.
55:42
SM: I remember the Joe Pyne interview with Paul Krassner. [laughs] It was hilarious. Paul was, Paul, you know Paul just passed away recently, and one of the original yippies but and but it was classic to see the two of them together on TV. A real fast response to this, I think we may have already covered it, if you were to describe the students or overall youth of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, please describe in your own words, the qualities you most admire or dislike.
56:18
MP: Alright, let us start on the negative side. And let us use the term I just used, naive cynicism. To what extent that that was true, or how many young people it covered, I cannot say. But let us use when Rockefeller came to campus. That really did not have anything to do with the war. I think I was a sophomore at the time I had just arrived. And the idea of protesting a governor, Republican though he might be because that is what students should do. Complaining about this or that, that to me was not responsible. It was not mature, you know, jumping ahead. 10 years ago, 11 years ago during the recession, SUNY students, I think throughout the system, not just Binghamton at the time, were protesting that tuition would go up by something like $300 to $400 a semester because of the cutback because the nation was in the worst recession, worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. And I wrote a column up here. I think it ran in the Star Tribune, the Minneapolis paper, about this refusal to acknowledge the importance of personal sacrifice, that the nation was going through this atrocious period. And students were complaining big time, they were whining about having to pay a couple of hundred bucks more of a semester, which I just viewed as unrealistic. I view that as selfish, or viewed it as immature. And I had just seen or a number of years, I guess a number of years earlier a number of years earlier. Remember the movie Radio Days? Yes. Woody Allen's Radio Days, which was set in Rockaway, by the way, and Rockaway Beach about seven miles from where I grew up. And in order for that family to make do they had an aunt living in that small house and they had, may have had a grandparent or two. And that is what people did during the (19)30s, they-they make necessary sacrifices to make it work. And now we are in, the year was we are approaching (20)10. And we were in this terrible situation in this country. And students. We are refusing to pay an extra couple of hundred bucks which is not going to be easy. But a couple of pairs of sneakers would do it frankly. And so that is the connection. When I was talking about Rockefeller a moment ago, a refusal to recognize some reality and the refusal to do what is right. And in some ways, for all the decent things young people did at the time, that is also what I recall. I thought protesting Rockefeller, because he was not building something on campus quickly enough or something along those lines. That simply was not my style.
1:00:31
SM: Well, I remember the papers. And I think he was quoted as saying that he did not know what the why they were protesting because of the fact that he put together the transportation roads, all through the thruway. He was responsible for the Thruway and they were protesting me and I put the Thruway together saying, hey, I know that came up in the conversation.
1:00:53
MP: Yeah, that part I do not remember. What I, tell me if you have ever heard this, that one of the reasons some of the campuses are laid out the way they are. I was told Albany's campus is this, so that it looked good from the air. And so if Rocky was flying over, he could tell somebody that he built that fine looking campus below. I have no idea if that is true.
1:01:17
SM: I do not either.
1:01:19
MP: Makes a good story.
1:01:20
SM: Yeah. That is a just another general question. How important were the student protests in ending the war? And [crosstalk]. And the second part, would you consider this time I think you have already talked about it, you already made a commentary about the nervousness that was going on in our society during the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Would you consider this time the closest we ever got to another civil war after the Civil War?
1:01:49
MP: No, is the short answer on that one, never reached back stage, I am talking more of a social, cultural nervous breakdown, as opposed to a political one where there would be coups and people shooting each other, I never viewed it that way. It is more subtle than that. I am fundamentally a culturalist, so that is what I am referring to, that portion of, of life.
1:02:18
SM: Have you-?
1:02:19
MP: The protests certainly led to, had something to do with the fact of the rest of society getting frustrated. And opposed to the war. I think most grownups viewed things as differently. They were not going to beat up on soldiers. And they did not think this was another sign that the United States being the worst place in the universe but had reached the state, "This is not working. We are killing people we are getting killed with spending an enormous amount of money, and this is not going away." So, I am sure students had a lot to do with precipitating that question.
1:03:02
SM: Have you changed your opinions of the boomers? You are one of them.
1:03:07
MP: The boomers?
1:03:08
SM: I over time, your-your opinions of your generation, say when you were in Harpur at, Harpur and graduate school, and maybe the first 15 years of your career, and compare it to now, have you changed- You know, then we are talking 74 million and I would have to correct that of the 74 million only about 7 percent were ever involved in activism. But that is–
1:03:32
MP: I never romant- I never romanticized, at least I do not think I did, that generation that for no other reason, there are too many people in it [laughs] to find too many distinctive themes. I have problems when people now characterize the Generation X or the millennials or. There is something to be said in each instance, there are some themes, but and now that you think back also about how there were these conservative stirrings during that period that were growing in strength. Here is another aspect of the [inaudible]. And I think a fair amount of religion- my wife is ordained, she is an Episcopal Deacon, we are an interesting family. And I am in church every week, I support my wife. And the dissertation I wrote 39 years ago had a religious theme; much of what I write has cultural themes, social things, religious themes. Thinking back, I have a hard time remembering anybody specifically, who went to church every Sunday. In part because hung out with so many Jews. There was a kosher kitchen, or at least I think that got started, might have gained some strength after I graduated. But I really did not have anything to do be frank about it with observant Jews who ate at the kosher kitchen. Meanwhile, there were 10s of millions of young people and others in the (19)60s into the (19)70s, who were traditionally religiously animated, and religiously animated in new ways. And that sense. At least I never had that sense of that was salient at all. At Harpur, which speaks to the fact, one might argue if one was being a tad harsh, that we were in Ireland. We were not in like the rest of the nation where that was the [inaudible] where religion was concerned, religious observance was concerned. I think about, I think about that a fair amount. And I think about if you want to update matters, and at the risk of my being simply wrong or unfair, bigoted in a fashion, when people talk about spending Sunday mornings reading the New York Times, well, with all due respect to people who read the New York Times, the people I now hang out with mostly go to church on-on Sunday mornings, and historically, lots and lots of American Blacks and lots of Americans have done that and still do that, though the number's decreasing. But that was never the sense in the (19)60s. So you want to view that as an indictment of the time. Sure, I will buy that.
1:06:59
SM: Yeah, I can, I can re-, I went to church every day when I was a little kid, and then through sixth grade, and then all of a sudden went to high school. I did not go to, we did not, something happened in the (19)60s. The (19)50s, everybody was at church or synagogue, it seemed like.
1:07:15
MP: Right-right.
1:07:15
SM: One of the things too, and before we go any further here is the relationship between Harpur College and the City of Binghamton and the Binghamton community. My main reaction particularly around that (19)69 to (19)70 period, when the buses were going back and forth into the city taking students back and so forth or hitchhiking, I did a lot of hitchhiking. There was a dislike-there seemed to be a tremendous dislike of for the, for many of the residents of Binghamton, toward the Harpur students. I can remember Dr. Kadish, my history professor once in a class, just a general comment, he said, he said if you go down if you go into the community, make sure you do not wear your Harpur jacket.
1:08:00
MP: Yeah.
1:08:00
SM: And-and then also, if you remember Mitch, around the (19)69, they were telling girls which, excuse me, telling women and, if you are going to hitchhike, go as a twosome. And so there was a fear that there you know, might get beat up in Binghamton or whatever, because most of Binghamton was pro war, obviously, in the Binghamton community, a lot of their sons and sons are going off to war. And here we had the students protesting on campus against the war. Did you have a sense that you do, were you, outside of writing for the paper, which is important, but did you sense as a student that Binghamton did not like Harpur? That that is the community not the political-
1:08:49
MP: Yeah. No, I would not use dislike as-as the verb though, there were some without question. Distance, I would view it as a matter of distance, we were significantly culturally different in some ways. And first of all, downstate, upstate, Jewish, non-Jewish. And one does not have to use such differences or tensions and hateful terms and they are what they are. One of my favorite examples of this, I was already working for Peter McGraw. Remember Jerry Komisar?
1:09:32
SM: Who? Jerry?
1:09:35
MP: I will spell the name, [inaudible], KOMISAR. He was an economist, a labor economist if you remember, and he was an assistant to the president and he was an assistant to Peter McGraw. He was the academic assistant to him. And Jerry later became the president of the University of Alaska System, but we were sitting with each other in a town gown meeting was one night, someplace on campus. And at the time, as you may recall, locals thought they had a harder time getting their kids into school there than kids from Queens did, when the exact opposite is true. Kids from Susquehanna country needed weaker academic credentials to get into school there. And some guy stands up and he is making the point that, the incorrect point, and referred to a lot of Binghamton Harpur students- and we called them still Harpur at the time- he called them downstate overachievers. And I looked at Jerry and Jerry looked at me and we just began laughing. What a wonderful euphemism for downstate [inaudible]. Downstate overachievers, that was, that was just terrific.
1:11:00
SM: That is exactly what we want in school. [laughs]
1:11:03
MP: My-my, my sense is now from afar, and I have heard it, that ever since Binghamton went division one in athletics, town gown relations are a whole bunch of better because the locals could invest in big time college sports now- reasonably big-time college sports. And that has helped in the fact that it is a major university and not just a small liberal arts college. Yeah, all that all that is true.
1:11:36
SM: I think you already-already know your answer to this, because you have already made a mention of the negativity that some of these students or young people had back in the (19)60s. But there was this feeling. And I remember talking to my friends especially when I was in grad school at Ohio State, would you describe the boomer generation as the most unique generation in our history? And that was the communication when I was in graduate school, in the early (19)70s, that we were different, that we were going to be the change agents for the betterment of a society, this generation saw something wrong and tried to right it. And then that was really the connection to all the movements, whether it be the civil rights, the anti-war, the environmental LGBTA, Chicano, women's, Native American all of them was speaking up, making a difference, and that is what made this generation and his group so different. Your thoughts?
1:12:35
MP: A bit much. [laughter]
1:12:36
SM: Okay.
1:12:40
MP: Yeah, there is that moment of truth in all of that without question. But at the same time, boomers did not have a monopoly on the truth. It did not have a monopoly on responsibility. Of the whatever. What did you say? 73 million?
1:13:02
SM: 74. We are now the second- millennials are larger now.
1:13:06
MP: Yeah. I assure you, they were more people of that generation who were not of the spirit of Harpur students at the time, than were. And yeah so as I said before, I-I resist overgeneralization especially if they get overly romanticized, about any generation. But there are things that certainly happened and that younger folks should be old people were young at the time should be proud of. [crosstalk] I keep on coming back to my goodness, in terms of responsibility, a sense of sacrifice. How in the world could you compare boomers in that sense, to people who lived through a depression and then World War One, World War Two for heaven's sakes, my goodness.
1:14:04
SM: They saved the world. They did save the world.
1:14:09
MP: Without question.
1:14:12
SM: I would like, a couple of the interviews that I did, I would like your thoughts on Todd Gitlin. You may know Todd, was the second founder of SDS, he was after Tom Hayden was the leader. He has gone on to be a big scholar, has written books on the (19)60s and everything and I had a great interview with Todd at-at NYU quite a few years ago, and he said, he does not like this, putting generations into years. Like boomers (19)46 to (19)64, Generation X (19)64 to (19)80 all this kind of stuff. He and secondly, I am at my next point is when I interviewed Richie Havens, who actually performed for the first time on a college campus at Binghamton, and we need to promote this more because Richie told me that during the interview, you I was at that concert and then I asked him, "Do you remember the Bing-?" "That is my first time I went to a college campus!" Well, then we need to let the Binghamton University know this more. But Richie said something very important. He said, I may not be a boomer, but I am one because we are talking about the spirit of the era, forget the years, it is the spirit. And if you look at people born, say between (19)37 and (19)45, who were the leaders of the antiwar movement? Some of the top musicians, they were born in that era, the Rennie Davis' just the yippies. They were, they were, they were all born before (19)46. So, when you go through the interview process on looking at the (19)60s and certainly trying to confine the people that were involved in all these important or maybe not so important activities, you have got to think of what Richie is saying because he says, I am a proud boomer and I was born in (19)41. Sure. It is about spirit.
1:16:07
MP: That is true in terms of the early leadership of the antiwar movement, if we are talking about and let us say, for the sake of argument, (19)65, that would have meant that the oldest boomers were 19. And let us just say a bunch of 19-year olds were not going to start a national movement. Sure, why not.
1:16:35
SM: Do you feel the (19)60s and early (19)70s generation are having problems with healing and I bring this up because Jan, Jan Scruggs wrote the book To Heal a Generation, which is his book when the wall was built in (19)82 in Washington. And it was the first time that veterans felt that they were welcomed home from that war. And he talks about the healing but I have already interviewed Jan too, and Jan says the healing is it was meant for the Vietnam veterans and their families and for the Vietnam veterans themselves, and hopefully this would transfer to into the nation itself. But I asked this question to some of the early interviewees, like Gaylord Nelson. And so everybody's response was kind of different. Healing is trying to get over something, and I do not think we have gotten over this war at all. I- just your thoughts on the healing process?
1:17:34
MP: Well, you framed the question in some respects, in real respects focusing on the military, and how people who served have felt. And as someone who was not in the military, I cannot identify- I would like to- cannot identify real well with that sense of abandonment, let us say, intellectually, I can [inaudible] I suspect I cannot. But my first thought when you started asking the question was that whatever the-the result of Vietnam in terms of divisions in the country's build, let us see if I can express this, have less to do with different sides still fighting over the wisdom or the justice of the war. Rather, it has more to do with a general sense, I come back to the sense of cynicism in this country. And when talking about that, it is impossible for me to separate it from Watergate. So to the extent that there is this ethos has been for decades now, of this respect for politicians, and cynicism about the ability of government to get things right, it has to do with a loss of trust that grew out of both Vietnam, certainly but then Watergate and the combination of the two has been in many ways toxic. And there are straight lines from that to the nastiness of politics now for the last number of decades, the "us" and the "them" and [crosstalk]
1:20:35
SM: Yep-yep.
1:20:35
MP: But I am trying to make the point that I think that this is something different from different sides of the war in the United States still trying to fight it out. No, Vietnam is too far away now for that to be the case. But there has been a spirit of a lack of unity, and trust going back all that time, that is that. I do not know if I am making sense.
1:21:04
SM: Yep, very good observations, certainly. I even wrote a note here we-we as a nation, are still divided here in (20)19. So, it seems like today, it is us against them, it is us against them. It is never-never "We the People," which is what we are supposed to be about. And the-the ability to listen to each other to be not shouted down toward each other. I mean, there was a period even when I was at Ohio State University in grad school, that we were creating dialogue between the races between white people and Black people. And, and then there was, then then then there was a period when there was too much dialogue, and no action was happening. We need results, and-and now I am worried that we are back to an era where the dialogue is gone. And so it is just so many things, what is the lasting legacy of the (19)60s generation and the boomer generation in your view?
1:22:14
MP: Let the pause signify that I am thinking.
1:22:16
SM: Yep, that is okay.
1:22:18
MP: The lasting legacy of the boomer generation. As we have been talking, on the plus side, great advances, when it comes to questions of race, despite what we were just saying a moment ago, what you were saying a moment ago about distance, same thing where women are concerned, same thing where the environment is concerned, though, on each instance and more I can always point out excesses of various movements. And that is one of the jobs of a conservative it seems to me to point out where something is, somebody, some theme is getting carried away. There is a sense of the arrogance, of some thinking about the generation that, we were the greatest generation when in fact, the previous generation if you want to play that game was the greatest generation.
1:23:39
SM: What–
1:23:40
MP: To the extent, well to the sense that I am saying that some things have been overdone, that can leave the interpretation that one wanted to have to go the cliché route again, the (19)50s persists. And that is not what I am saying. So, once you recognize certain great failings of the (19)50s, the (19)50s were not all that bad. [laughs]
1:24:13
SM: I mean, I when I think of the (19)50s, I think I am just a kid you were you were both and you-you and I were a kid, and I kind of go back to those days, there seemed to be a lot of security, had your parents at home, I mean, and everything but then we all know what was happening to African Americans during that time, there was lynchings going on and things were being hid from us. So, it was not good for all Americans, just some Americans. How-?
1:24:39
MP: How about this? It is a-I have always said it is a big country, and you can find anything you want to find. How is that?
1:24:46
SM: Yep, very good. What role has activism played in the lives of boomers as they have aged? In particular, I am referring to that 7 percent that were involved in activism, and conservatives and liberals. Back in that era of the (19)60s and (19)70s, and have they carried, have they passed this on to their kids, who are their children and grandchildren?
1:25:12
MP: It is a brilliant answer, some have some have not. How do you define activists? Are we talking about people on campuses who led the way, who organized events, who ran the mimeograph machines and all, or are we talking about people who just showed up? It is October, let us have a demonstration. It is November, let us have a demonstration. Ooh, now it is the winter, it is too cold for a demonstration. Now it is April, let us have a demonstration. How's that for a cynical view?
1:25:48
SM: Yeah. Well, I yeah, that is a good point, because I am really referring to the doers and the ones that make things happen. So and, you know, and there were few and far between. However, when you look at 74 million and 7 percent it is still a large number.
1:26:03
MP: Well, here is my guess. And it is a guess, I will start with me. I have not been on a picket line since then, I have no interest in being on a picket line. I am not a picketing line kind of guy. But my entire career, virtually my entire career has had to do with the political issues, social issues, advocacy of one kind or another. So to that extent, I remain what I was, though in a different form. And I would imagine that it is true for lots and lots and lots of people, there are not necessarily so many barricades. But they are the ones putting together groups to make this better or that better or getting involved politically. It is not getting a bug, it is when your personality and your character are such that you must be involved with the great issues and the semi great issues of the day, chances are, we will continue one way or another, for a longer period of time. There will be interludes when you are raising families, I suspect, when you do not have enough time. But you get involved in various ways, in issues. And in this country there are many, many ways of getting involved.
1:27:40
SM: The, when I interviewed Bobby Muller, the founder of Vietnam Veterans of America, and he also was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize on the landmine issues. He said when answering a question about the impact of what was the basic characteristics of the boomer generation, he said, the one thing that I can definitively say is true- and you have already brought it up- is there was a lack of trust in that generation. And there were reasons why: Watergate, the Gulf of Tonkin, which was a basically a lie that LBJ, he got us into the Vietnam War, and if you were young enough to remember this, as a sixth grader, which you both you and I were at this time, Eisenhower lying to the nation about the U2 incident. And he lied to the nation. And, and I never thought of that. And then of course, when Jerry Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, everybody was suspicious and did not trust Gerald Ford, in that even though he had not done anything wrong. But this lack of trust is certainly a characteristic that comes through over and over again. And it is not just lack of trust in our political leaders, but lack of trust in leaders of any kind, whether it be a minister, a rabbi, a corporate leader, a university president, anybody in a position of responsibility has seemed to be targets of many of those activists back then.
1:29:09
MP: Yeah, let me, I am sorry go on.
1:29:11
SM: No, go ahead.
1:29:17
MP: For all that I have said about a lack of trust, I personally am in fact the most trusting person I know. I do not attribute lousy motives to people unless I have a reason to do so. At the heart and soul center, the American Experiment is my commitment not to question motives if at all possible. I will question policies, I will question ideas, I will question what people say, but I will not question their basic decency or I will not question their motives. If I think back to Francis Gary Powers I suspect not too many of your- well if you are talking to older, yeah, they may remember Francis Gary Powers. So, if Eisenhower, and I never viewed what Eisenhower did as-as cynical, I viewed it as what presidents do when it comes to spying for [laughter], when it comes to espionage, when it came to the Gulf of Tonkin I assumed that LBJ was playing it straight at the time, it was only later on that I realized probably was not. Al Quie, who was the governor I worked for, whose biography I later wrote, he was in Congress at the time, and he really did not like LBJ. And he became very close to being the only member of the House to vote against it, because he thought Johnson was lying. Simply could not get himself to be the only member of the House to do that. And he, [laughs] I think, still regrets that. With Jerry Ford, I was not cynical about that at all. I argued. I thought that that was in the best interest of the nation, not good to have a former president of the United States in prison. If we are talking about healing, let us get on with it. Are you still there?
1:31:30
SM: Yep. I am here.
1:31:32
MP: I am hearing some-or somebody is trying to call me, but we will forget about that. [crosstalk] So, I-I, I start from a position of trust and I do think it has served me and it has served, centered the American Experiment very well. I am not talking about innocence, I am not talking about naïveté. I am talking about human decency, trusting people to the extent that one can and one can do it, and should do it to a significant degree.
1:32:13
SM: Before we [inaudible], my next question is the question before I want to talk about your organization. In the (19)60s, what and (19)70s, what was the event that you felt had the greatest impact on your life? Something that happened in the (19)60s and (19)70s.
1:32:41
MP: Kent State was one of them. That was the only time really that I thought I was thinking too negatively about my country. For a period I could see that night how mobs came to be and how they could do terribly destructive things. That was the spirit of that evening, and that, I am not just that evening. Sidebar, it may sound trivial in talking about mobs. Do you remember there was a demonstration on the Esplanade about, the decision had come down from high that doors had to be kept six inches open or something and guys could not be entertaining women in their dorm rooms or something along those lines. And there was this demonstration, and some of the speakers were getting really agitated, and the crowd was getting really agitated. I am thinking to myself, this is a mob psychology, has to do with having-having to put a sock on your doorknob or something. That was that was that was the psychology in a lower tense way of the mob. Well, I mentioned what, what got me thinking differently about the war, beyond the fact that the social and political pressures as well as the facts were surrounding me while I was at Binghamton when I arrived at Binghamton in the fall of (19)67 was that Harrison Salisbury speech. I go back to that speech, it was a Binghamton event that had a significant influence, and so let us go with that.
1:34:46
SM: I want to talk about your center.
1:34:48
MP: Okay.
1:34:49
SM: Yeah. When did you first come up with the idea that you wanted to create this, and go through the process of how you created it 10 time- you know, and just into what is the basic principles? What were your goals? So you can share it with the world, because that is what this tape is doing is sharing it with the world.
1:35:16
MP: Always happy to do that. [inaudible]. I am very proud of it. By the time I got to DC, in (19)87, fall of (19)87, to work at the US Department of Education, I had had a background in education, journalism, and government. I had been the director of public information at a ridiculously young age at Binghamton. I served in that capacity either officially or unofficially from (19)72 to (19)74. I got to the University of Minnesota, I was Pete McGraw's speechwriter, I was speechwriting for the President of the big 10 University for three years. I had a doctorate in educational administration, which really was education, administration, and policy with a focus on higher education. I had been a reporter prior to that in Binghamton so I knew something about journalism. I went off to be after the doctorate, a speech writer for a governor, Al Quie, for upwards of two years, later wrote his biography. And after Quie, I served as an editorial writer and as an occasional columnist for significant paper in a significant city in St. Paul, Minnesota. So I had that background. But I had always wanted to do a Washington stint. One of my restorations at the Pioneer Press was that here I had a doctor in education, somebody else was writing about education. Not that I did not have challenging things to write about. I was writing about national politics, and the Middle East. I think I would have Latin America as well and the Soviet Union, not a bad portion of the world to write about. But I always wanted to a Washington stint. And I had that chance in the fall of (19)87. There were other things that [inaudible] in press that were frustrating me and after four years, I realized it was time to move on. And I had a very good friend still have a very good friend and a guy by the name of Chester E. Finn, Jr, known as Checker Finn, FINN, Finn. Who, at the time, I describe accurately as the most important American education analyst and scholar from the right side of the aisle. And he had been at Vanderbilt. he had been at Harvard, he was Pat Moynihan's alter ego in some ways. He, first of all, he had baby-sat some of Moynihan's kids, what was when Moynihan taught at Harvard, Checker was a undergraduate or graduate student there, he worked for Moynihan when he was ambassador to India, and that is where Checker met his wife, Renu, who is Indian. He worked for him in the Nixon White House, I think that was prior or maybe afterwards, and he worked for him when Moynihan was going through his neoconservative period and said other members of Moynihan's staff, by the way at the time were Elliot Perle, who later wound up as Assistant Secretary of Defense under Reagan- not Elliott Perle, Richard Perle. Elliott Abrams and wound up as Assistant Secretary of State, and Checker wound up as an Assistant Secretary of Education during the Reagan administration.
1:39:05
SM: Wow.
1:39:05
MP: Russert was the press secretary it was Les Lenkowsky was also a consultant. It was it was some remarkable staff. Anyway, I met Checker when I was in graduate school. And when I wanted to leave the party and press I gave him a call. And I asked, "Do you have anything?" And he said, "Funny, I do." And Director of Public Information for something, Director of Outreach actually, for the research arm of the US Department of Education at the time, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. And clandestinely, I went out there and I interviewed and got the job and went out to Washington, putting aside for a moment the extraordinary ambivalence I had about whether or not to take it and my first thought was no. But I went out there. And very quickly I realized that I really did not want to be out there. The bureaucracy was something I really disliked, and the job I had been promised did not turn out that way because typical Washington, someone else already out there working for Bennett, Secretary Bill Bennett. She thought she was the spokesperson for the research arm of the US Department of Education. So, I wound up doing other things, and I just did not enjoy it. So pretty quickly after getting to Washington, perhaps no more than six weeks or so, I started thinking about coming back home and Minnesota was very much home at that point. I had been out here for seven years, I guess. No, let me take that back. No-no, no, my goodness, I had already been on your 13 years. And I had learned something about think tanks, especially when I was at the party on press, when the Heritage Foundation would send me things and on occasion they would visit trying to make a point about something or other, and I found their work to be really quite good. So, they had the reputation at many quarters at that time, as being extreme- they were not. So I did background on those three areas: education, journalism, and government. I said, "Well, I am equipped to start a think tank," and I wanted to start a conservative free market think tank. When I was at the Pioneer Press, I was essentially the only regularly paid conservative opinion writer at either the Pioneer Press or the Star Tribune, the Minneapolis paper- I was the only one. Which says something about the media out here at the time. It is not a bunch of different now. And I knew that a conservative think tank out here would work even though people thought I was crazy. I am saying I want to go back home, start a conservative think tanks and they would say things along the lines, "You want to start a what, where?" They could not imagine a conservative think tank in Minnesota, but no state is the stereotype that it is made out to be, and we are talking about a state that in (19)78, which was nine years prior, had elected all in one line two Republican United States senators and the Republican governor. Al Quie as governor, Dave Durenberger and Rudy Boschwitz as senators, and there were two Senate races that night having to do with Mondale going off to being vice president. And started thinking this through, started talking to people. And I started getting really serious about it. after a couple of months. One of the things I enjoyed about being out in Washington was that I occasionally would have lunch or breakfast with Senator Dave Durenberger in the Senate dining room, that was fun. I enjoyed that. And I had been talking about this idea for a while and he said, "Well you got to stop talking about it, and actually write something" [inaudible] good point. As a writer, I should have known that. So I put together a prospectus, and learned for the first time how expensive printing is, by the way. And from May of (19)88 until we opened 22 months later in March of (19)90, I made 17 trips home, Washington to Minnesota-
1:44:03
SM: Wow.
1:44:04
MP: -to raise money to put together a board of directors and the like, largely on my own dime. Whatever money I had, I spent for the most part and we were finally ready to open up, we had enough money which is not to say very much in March of (19)90 and we opened up great. I had become friends with or acquaintances with people such as Charles Murray, Linda Chavez, Bob Woodson, Checker Finn of course. Larry Mead from NYU, Sally Kilgore, who had done her doctorate under James Coleman and with whom I was working at the US Department of Education [inaudible]. And in one of our meetings back here was our first board meeting, official board meeting. And also, it was still the only board meeting where everybody showed up. And it was on the evening of Reagan's farewell address interestingly, so we took a break from our meeting that evening to watch the address. And one of my colleagues, one of my very close colleagues and one of the founders, and I started working with my close friends in doing this, I certainly was not doing it all by myself, so I was the lead actor. Peter Bell said to me, "You know, we are beginning" and he told the group this, "We are beginning to smell like a house that has been on the market for too long." We may have said this later on, probably said it a bit later on, I may be getting my dates wrong. People knew that we were doing this, getting ready to do this, journalists knew that, then there was some stories. But I just could not raise enough money to actually get it going. I can talk about how we found the money if you would like. And so we decided to do a conference, which wound up in April of (19)90, we were going to do it even if I was not back full time in Minnesota yet. I hired a local event planner, in essence. And I was putting much of this together from Washington. And we decided to have this conference call, and this was my friend Peter Belle's idea. I came up I think, with the exact title, "The New War on Poverty, Advancing Forward this Time," the argument being that we have had this war on poverty in (19)65. Going forward, it did not work real well and there was a sense of the time [inaudible] start trying to do a new one, let us get it right this second time. So, I invited these stars to come out and speak and they all agreed and I said I could not pay ya- I [inaudible] pick up expenses. And they all agreed, and then they all came. I learned later that they may have agreed because they never thought I would be able to pull it off, we would be able to pull it off. But we did. And we opened up great. We had three other people, it was an ideologically and otherwise mixed crowd, mostly ideologically mixed. And Checker Finn did the keynote and Bill Raspberry, the great columnist and friend-
1:47:42
SM: Oh, yeah.
1:47:42
MP: -wrote a column about it. And we were off and, off and running.
1:47:49
SM: What are the what are the basic principles of the organization?
1:47:58
MP: My arguments at the start will have remained my themes, I just been cleaning out some files and moving things around. And I came across columns I wrote for the Pioneer Press back in (19)87. And as the root of my views was that the overwhelming social disaster of our time, was the extraordinary number of kids growing up without their fathers at home. Social, well I, it was family breakdown at the time. The term of [inaudible], family fragmentation, and I had written consistently about that including two books: From Family Collapse to America's Decline in (20)11, and Broken Bonds: What Family Fragmentation Means for America's future in (20)14. And I also talked a lot about them and still do, about how we have to take greater advantage of our religious traditions and institutions to help people in need, and that if we do not do that, it is as if we are trying to do, to make things better with a very muscular arm tied behind our back. And of course, we had to do this in ways that are respectful of the First Amendment, and respectful of I do not use the word diversity, I do not like that, it is a cliché. So I talk about, we have to do that in a way, in ways that are respectful of American variety. And as someone who is Jewish, frankly, I am in some instances in better position to make the argument because people cannot accuse me of being an overly energetic Christian. And I have to be careful using terms like that, I mean them in facetious ways, but sometimes people take it seriously. And is there a wall separating church and state? Of course, I would argue and still do but it is, it was never intended to be as tall and as thick, as it has often been interpreted to be. And what is the main way by my lights to take greater advantage of our religious institutions and traditions? School choice, real life school choice, giving particularly poor parents an opportunity to send their kids to the school of their choice, be it public or private, and private, secular or religious. So those are the [inaudible] of the main themes. Generally, when people think of conservative free market think tanks, they focus more on the economic side of things. And we certainly have done work in that area and more over time. But those were the themes that certainly animated me and animate me still.
1:51:16
SM: Mitch, how many people work at the organization now?
1:51:21
MP: Now, it is a whole lot bigger than what it was, I think there may be something like 14 people on the payroll.
1:51:28
SM: And to do these, do you have lecture circuits to where you have speakers going out to college campuses and things?
1:51:35
MP: No, we do not have that. And you should know my role. I have not been president for going on four years.
1:51:40
SM: Right.
1:51:41
MP: My title is Senior Fellow and Founder, Founder and Senior Fellow. I am part time and have been part time for, this is the first year I have been part time, but I have worked at home for the last going on four years. So, I am out of the loop pretty much. I still write, I have written books during this period. I am going to do another significant project over the next half year or so dealing with personal responsibility and education. Conservatives like talking about personal responsibility, individual responsibility. Well, what does it really mean now in education, if on the one hand I am talking about how family fragmentation is making it hard for lots of kids to do well, and people on the left for the most part of the talking about how racism is supposedly making it impossible for kids, many kids to do well, where does personal responsibility fit in to all of this stuff. I will be conducting a major symposium, written symposium on this over the next half year.
1:53:00
SM: Have you ever thought of coming back to Binghamton and trying to do something? I am just, I am just bringing it up. Because you are, you are distinguished–
1:53:09
MP: I was recently [crosstalk] Someone would have to pay me, someone would have to pay me to be real blunt about it. I am not independently wealthy. If I were to do something, someone would have to underwrite this effort. I have to tell you, when I was out there, it was after Broken Bonds, I guess. Broken Bonds came out in (20)14. And I finagled a speaking engagement in (20)14 or (20)15 talking about the book to some local town gown group that exists, I forget its name. And someone from the Alumni Association that graciously invited me out, was first to go out there. And they put together a schedule for me and I met with some education professors, did not have education professors back when I was there. And I, it was a nostalgic place for me, it is an important, very important place in my life. And the idea of going back and doing something there is really quite appealing. Not necessarily to live, my wife prefers it out here if we are going to move anyplace, it would be someplace like Colorado. But the idea of being involved in some way on a regular basis of Binghamton, yeah that is quite appealing if you can work something out. But financially, I am at a point where I-I would need to be paid, I would need to be paid.
1:54:45
SM: Well, I wish I was back in the university where I work because we, I did five, six or seven conferences at Westchester and I wrote grants and that subject matter you are talking about would make an excellent conference. I am going to, I am we are getting toward the end here, but I want to ask a few more questions–
1:55:02
MP: Sure.
1:55:03
SM: -about your time at Binghamton. Could you just in your own words, what was the relationship between students, faculty and administration during the time you were here?
1:55:13
MP: Good question. Friends, reasonably close friends with-with various faculty and administrators, lots of students, particularly those of us in antiwar activities, though I [inaudible] not only those of us doing that were close to Peter Vukasin, for example, that was the spirit of the place, the Dean of Harpur College.
1:55:49
SM: Right-right.
1:55:52
MP: I might- have you interviewed Camille Paglia yet?
1:55:56
SM: No, I tried a many, many years back. She works at the school [crosstalk] in Philadelphia, the art school.
1:56:05
MP: Right.
1:56:05
SM: And she just did not even respond. But she has, she graduated (19)69 I think, did not she? I think.
1:56:11
MP: Yeah, I think so. I did not know her there. Those of us in my athletic and social science and the other realms were not involved in things in the humanities for the most part. But I remembered when you talk about, relationships with faculty, she was very close to, you mentioned Jerry Komisar before, right?
1:56:34
SM: Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was great professor.
1:56:39
MP: Or was it- he was a historian, was she very close to, who was the poet, who was the poet?
1:56:49
SM: I [crosstalk] know the sociologist was Dr. Price.
1:56:55
MP: No, she was not that [inaudible] she was talking about it. Frankly, I was just reading one of her books again the other day. It will come to me. I will send you an email if I find it.
1:57:07
SM: Yeah, she was she was here in (19)69. Then Bill T. Jones came in here, the great dancer, in (19)71. So and I-
1:57:16
MP: Remember, yeah.
1:57:18
SM:Do you remember Michelle Pecora?
1:57:19
MP: The name, that is all I remember.
1:57:23
SM: Yeah-yeah. Well, she was she [crosstalk] was a dance major, who ended up working at a conservative think tank.
1:57:29
MP: Oh, really?
1:57:30
SM: Yes.
1:57:30
MP: Where?
1:57:31
SM: I think it is the Heritage Foundation. I you know, I tried to look her up. She went to Ohio, she is a year older than me, she went to Ohio State when I was there. I do not ever remember her here. And she was a dance major there. And I remember she was living in Jones tower. And she asked me if I could get graduate students to go to her, you know, dance recital, which I we were in the front row, got a whole mess of them. And she said at that time, she had met someone that she was engaged to be married and all the other stuff, and I lost touch with her totally. Then I looked her up just going into the web. And I believe she ended up getting a CPA or something like that, and then she was also working I think it was either the mer- I think it was the Heritage Foundation. I do not think she is there now.
1:58:17
MP: How do you spell, how do you spell, how do you spell her last name?
1:58:19
SM: PECORA. You know, she was married, so she changed her last name. But it was Michelle Pecora and I all I know is when I looked her up, she was working at the part time, I think at one of the two [crosstalk] is it was either the Heritage or the American Enterprise Institute. It was one of the two, I do not know which one–
1:58:40
MP: Take a look, I will take a look. You remember Percival Borde? He was right after the (19)70's, it was when I was working at (19)72, (19)72, (19)74. He was from the islands, he was a professional dancer. He was a major player. He was on the faculty for a while. But indicative of the time and this is real naïveté, it is not cynical naïveté. I knew Arnie Zane a bit. And I knew I knew of them, frankly and Bill Jones, first Arnie, and I was someplace. Could have been in the theater for heaven's sakes, backstage for whatever reason, and Arnie was sitting on Bill's lap. And in terms of things gay, I knew hardly anything at all. And I was just struck. I do not know exactly what I was thinking. I guess I knew they were gay. But I had never seen a guy sitting on another guy's lap that way. And you talked about fundamental changes-
1:58:43
SM: No. Oh yeah.
1:59:57
MP: -over the decades, that would be it. And then you jump ahead to now. And for decades and decades for the life of the planet for the most part, same sex marriage was not an issue, it was the last [inaudible] to be accepted.
2:00:20
SM: Right. Well, I, Bill T., Bill T. Jones spoke at the Philadelphia library when his book came out and that and I had never met him before. And he signed two of them. My grandniece is really interested in ballet. So, I gave her one of the books, but he gave a great presentation and he is very proud to be a Binghamton alumnus, let me tell you that.
2:00:40
MP: Good.
2:00:40
SM: And I want to just, want to mention, do you remember when Dr. Liebman was fired?
2:00:47
MP: Dr. who?
2:00:48
SM: Liebman. LIE-
2:00:50
MP: No.
2:00:51
SM: He was a sociology professor who spoke down in front of City Hall in an antiwar protest, and he was fired.
2:01:00
MP: The name is vaguely familiar. He was actually fired for that or [crosstalk]?
2:01:05
SM: I think I think he was, he did something because he, when I was here in (19)67, in the fall, he was my sociology professor and then [crosstalk]
2:01:15
MP: Somebody else had to be going on, I assure you. Otherwise the rest of the faculty would have arisen and said you cannot do that.
2:01:25
SM: Yeah.
2:01:25
MP: Academic freedom and all.
2:01:27
SM: Well, something. Yeah, something happened, and he was gone, and one thing, did you go to your graduation in (19)70.
2:01:34
MP: I did not officially graduate in (19)70, remember I found out I was seven credits short. So, I guess I was there and I was the I was, I forget what the term was an usher or something, someone walking down the aisle with a baton.
2:01:48
SM: Yeah, you [crosstalk] remember all the we all we all met, I graduated on that- I had a broken arm. And, like in my picture was in the paper the following day, I told my parents not to bring anything, any cameras to embarrass me. And, and yet, my picture was in the Binghamton Sun the following day, he was getting my degree from Dr. Deering. But do you, that day was historic, because the Grateful Dead had been on campus on May 2nd in performance, and then of course–
2:02:20
MP: Well, I was not in that loop. I simply did not live in that loop.
2:02:24
SM: Right. I guess I am almost done here. I have one that is kind of a convoluted question, but I am going to say finally, how will–
2:02:36
MP: I will give you a convoluted answer.
2:02:38
[laughs] Finally, how important was the era of the (19)60s and early (19)70s in your life, not just because you experienced it and lived it, but because it is shaped who you once were, still are or changed you in ways you never thought possible when you were young?
2:02:58
MP: It was pivotal. For no other reason, then we were talking about when I was in my late teens and early 20s. And I talk about, I probably still, though probably not as much as I used to, I talk about the Harpur/ Binghamton frequently, and part of that has to do, of course, with the fact that I worked there afterwards. I was the director of public information so my job was to think kind thoughts of the place. That was not hard. It is a, it is a good question. I think my wife is in the next room, she may be hearing this so. Exceedingly-exceedingly personal stuff here. Yeah, I started off talking about how I was this swab of this student earlier in high school, junior high school, did not come from an environment that had books in the house. There was, my parents did have a little bookcase. It was in a closet, it did not have many books. I think they used it principally, to hide [inaudible] from me. So, Binghamton was a lot of really, really smart kids, was a different kind of environment. So the high school I went to had some exceptionally smart people. I was not one of them. And when I got to Binghamton, I had worked hard enough that I was closer to being on the cusp of some of the really smart kids, as I said there were a couple of classes where I was the only "A". Richard Dec Legion class, I think and that Hackman class. Yeah, I was living in a dormitory. I was for all three years in the summer between my junior and sophomore years- junior and senior year, I lived in, I call it a semi communal because nobody was sleeping with each other as far as I know. But there were a number of us living in an old farmhouse at the top of the hill in Vestal on Jones road. And my housemates, the friends I had, were, they were, they were cool. They were smart. They were different from the people I would hang out. They were not baseball players. I do not know. Did you know the name, did you know Krista Patton?
2:06:08
SM: Krista Patton, nope.
2:06:11
MP: PATTON. Krista was a great friend. She was one of the people living in the house. Krista died about three years ago now, Alzheimer's, very sad. She was a, she was a class act. She was beautiful, she was exceedingly talented. She spoke beautifully, I do not think she ever stuttered or stammered over a single syllable in her entire life. She-she was indicative of Binghamton in this way. She was all those things. Frankly, more beautiful than 99 percent of the women in this world. But she was counter culture in the sense that when she got out of school, she did not do anything for a while that was close to matching her talent, she had been an English major, was a great English major, and got out of school. And she worked in a bookstore doing nothing terribly interesting. She drove a truck–
2:07:25
SM: My God.
2:07:25
MP: -for a while at delivery truck, I believe. And then after a number of years, we stayed in touch. After a number of years, she decided she wanted to be a physician. But by this stage, she had been out of school for a while. And she was an English major, not a lot of science courses. So, she was told, "Well, you got to go back and take science courses," which he did for the next several years. And aced them all of course, this was at Clark, I believe she was living in Worchester Massachusetts.
2:07:58
SM: Wow.
2:07:59
MP: Got into medical school there. And by that stage I was concerned she would not get in because she was too old. But she got in, graduated, became a fine physician. And, and I in some ways I mentioned this because she followed her own drummer in a classical Binghamton way, if I want to romanticize the place. And after a while she said, "I do not want to be a doctor anymore." She did not like the bureaucracy. So she stopped doing that and became a landscaper.
2:08:35
SM: Oh my God.
2:08:36
MP: And she became sick, and then then she died. And she was involved. She never married but she was involved on and off, mostly on over that entire period from Binghamton on with a guy by the name of Ricky Barton. Ricky is African American, [inaudible]. So that was that was an own, marching to your own drummer kind of thing.
2:08:57
SM: And you know, and marching to your own drummer, you remember the artist Peter Max. Well Peter Max is the really- Yeah. The artist of the (19)60s and (19)70s.
2:09:06
MP: Yeah-yeah, yeah.
2:09:06
SM: And he had so many things which were, go to the beat of your own drummer, or take-
2:09:12
MP: Right.
2:09:12
SM: -or take the road less traveled. It is very obvious, Mitch that some of the relationships and friendships you have developed here at this campus have been have touched you in so many ways and I think of all the things that have, that this interview, which I love hearing about your organization, the changes you have gone through from your early years to today. And but also hearing about the friendships you bring these names up. I do not know them, but it is obvious, you know, as a college student, friendships developed here. And-and we always think of and I always think of I do not ever think of Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton, I think a Harpur College. And the fact is, I know it was SUNY Binghamton when we were students here. It was Harpur College, Binghamton, SUNY Binghamton. But I am so proud of being a part of Harpur College, the arts and sciences school on this campus. And–
2:10:10
MP: Yeah, I so, go on I am sorry.
2:10:12
SM: Yeah, no, I still identify more as a Harpur Arts and Sciences than I do Binghamton University. [laughs]
2:10:18
MP: Yeah, there has been a large part of me doing that, at least up until about 10 years ago, and I still, I frequently sleep in a Harpur shirt. The reason I focus on Binghamton now, as I do, because I work there, because it is all these years later and when I talk about where I went to school, people not going to out here know about Harpur. They generally do not know about Binghamton, either, but chances are they will know it more readily than Harper, and we just won a Nobel Prize, for example, for a professor at Binghamton not Harpur, you get the idea.
2:10:59
SM: Yep. Yeah, right, well, I always end with by saying, Is there a question that you thought I might ask you that I did not?
2:11:12
MP: As we were talking, I was wondering if you were going to ask about my draft status and whether or not- well, I made it clear I had to serve. But how did I not serve?
2:11:22
SM: Yeah, well, that would be a good question to ask. I know, I was, what did he call it? I cannot remember. I remember I was number 74 on the draft list.
2:11:33
MP: While I was number 31.
2:11:35
SM: Oh my god.
2:11:37
MP: The night someone picked out a ping pong ball, and decided I was number 31, I had had already for about two years, maybe a bad knee, which later were terribly arthritic, and later had replaced and I had both knees replaced and a hip replaced and two spine operations, you get the idea. So a lot of arthritis. So I called the home that night, called collect. And the operator says to my mother who picked up the phone, "Will you accept a call from Mitch?" and she said, "Yeah, we will accept a call from number 31."
2:12:24
SM: [laughs] Oh, God.
2:12:25
MP: I call, I called home to tell him to make another appointment for me with my orthopedist at the time and I look back on this I am not much to say exceedingly proud of all of that. I-I was opposed to going to Vietnam I would like to think for principled reasons, but also be [inaudible] want to go to Vietnam. I was not against military service. I was not against the draft but if I had a chance not to get drafted and not go to Vietnam, I was going to take it. And I became 4F because of my knee wanting the physical on May 26 (19)70 in Syracuse, I look back on that time talking about pivotal moments and pivotal events and things going on.
2:13:20
SM: Were you on that- were you on that bus to Syracuse with Binghamton students?
2:13:24
MP: Yes. You were there?
2:13:25
SM: I was on that, yes, I was on that bus.
2:13:28
MP: [inaudible]
2:13:29
SM: I cannot believe it!
2:13:30
MP: What happened?
2:13:31
SM: I am for- I had asthma.
2:13:34
MP: Well, I developed that later on. I did not have that at the time.
2:13:37
SM: But I was not doing any of that thinking, oh, I am going to go to Canada and all that other stuff I just, I just legitimately had asthma. So and that got me out. But I remember going on the bus and then they asked when we got there, I think they said, "Get in the line if you do not have an excuse and get in the line if you do have an excuse." And there is only a few that [laughs]. There was only a few that got in the line that [laughs] that did not have an excuse. So that–
2:14:04
MP: So, I look back on that time I am not- I will be real blunt- I am not real proud of it. And it is one of the reasons why now, especially since I have made arguments over time as a journalist and think tank about supporting George W. Bush in Iraq, which that might have been a mistake going back down. But I am quite aware of all this I am, so my license plate. We have license plates out here, you pay an extra 30 bucks a year, whatever it is and it has an eagle on it and the extra money goes to military families. So.
2:14:43
SM: That is very good Mitch, I devoted a lot of my life to working with Vietnam vets, Vietnam vets. So, and if you if you look at the people that I have interviewed [inaudible] this, if you look at the people I have interviewed, I have interviewed all the top Vietnam vets basically, except a few of them- McCain, I never got a chance to interview him or John Kerry. But I have gotten to know a lot of them. And I go down to the Vietnam Memorial every Memorial Day and Veterans Day, and I have done so since (19)92. So very important to me to pay respects for those who gave their all and they served. They serve this nation with distinction. I know there is some bad ones, but most of them I think we are good. Mitch, are there any other things you want to say?
2:15:27
MP: A final point, I made it before, but it is worth making it again. Of all the things that the anti-war generation, or make it more clearly the antiwar activist did that I think we should regret is this the way we treated the American soldiers.
2:15:47
SM: I agree. I agree. And it has gotten some–
2:15:51
MP: I would like to think, I would like to think I did not do that. And I really did not–
2:15:55
SM: Well I–
2:15:55
MP: -and there were so many people who did.
2:15:56
SM: Yeah, yeah, in 19- this is a true story, in (19)82 you can see the videos of when the mall opened and how they all came there, the first time that they were actually welcome home really felt. And then you had this period of time after this when some people faked that they were Vietnam veterans. And that is, that is a crime in my opinion. Several books have been written on it. But yeah, I do not, most of the people I know that were antiwar, including some of the major activists they never, it was all about the leaders who sent them to the to the war, not the soldiers themselves. They just wanted to prevent them from getting killed. [inaudible] again, this, this particular interview will be going into the archives, but it will be sent to you first for approval.
2:16:42
MP: Okay.
2:16:43
SM: It has to be some from David Schuster here at the center.
2:16:46
MP: We are talking about just the audio. We are not transcribing this, are we?
2:16:49
SM: No, we are talking the audio.
2:16:51
MP: Okay, yeah. I am sure I will have no problem approving anything and everything. But yeah, I look forward to listening to it.
2:16:58
SM: And also, one other thing, we will need a picture of you that has been approved and okayed. And we need to know the photographer because we have to get credits for them. And I will add one other thing. I have never read any of your books. And quite a few, I have given my whole book collection and except just maybe two or three hundred that I have not given yet. And a lot of them are the people that I interviewed who has signed their books. So, I would love to have your books available here to be near your interview and your picture and biography.
2:17:31
MP: You just sent me an email about what you need and we will work at it.
2:17:33
SM: Great. Mitch, what an honor. And I and I.
2:17:36
MP: My pleasure.
2:17:37
SM: And one other thing I will always remember when I came back from Ohio State University one summer, the summer after I left, I think it was the summer of (19)71. And I walked on the campus. It was a beautiful sunny day and you were sitting in a chair. I do not know if you remember this. You were sitting in a chair outside the of the union in the front facing the administration building. And I said to you, "Mitch, what are you doing here?" [laughs] Because I thought you graduated (19)70 And that is when you told me you were staying around and working with the President that you were working there. You are still doing something. (19)72 to (19)70- son of a gun! Alright, good. Yep. Mitch, you have a great day. Thank you.
2:18:16
MP: I do have one final-final point. I am very, very proud of myself that I have not said one bad thing about Ohio State.
2:18:22
SM: [laughs] That is okay, Mitch. Thank you.
2:18:27
MP: Bye-bye.
2:18:28
SM: Bye.
(End of Interview)
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
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Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Dr. Mitch Pearlstein
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
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Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-03-11
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Morris Dickstein
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Morris Dickstein is a scholar, historian, academic, essayist, book critic, and public intellectual. Dr. Dickstein is a Professor Emeritus of English and Theater at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City and he is the author for several books. He graduated from Columbia with a Bachelor's degree and earned his Ph.D. from Yale University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Morris Dickstein is a scholar, historian, academic, essayist, book critic, and public intellectual. Dr. Dickstein is a Professor Emeritus of English and Theater at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City and he is the author is several books. He graduated from Columbia with a Bachelor's degree and earned his Ph.D. from Yale University.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Literary critic; American, Culture; 1960s; Writers, Poets; Politics; Brooklyn College; Beat writers; Counterculture; Dropouts; Columbia; Woodstock; Vietnam; Baby Boomers; Activism; Social protest; the Communist party; Immigrants; Poverty; Black nationalists; Separatist; Freedom Summer; Drugs; Veterans; Black Panther Party; Women's studies; Gay studies; Political correctness; Kent State; Separatism; Hippies; Yippies
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
93:50
Subject LCSH
Scholars; Historians; College teachers; Dickstein, Morris--Interviews
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Dr. Morris Dickstein
Contributor
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Dickstein, Morris ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Scholars; Historians; College teachers; Dickstein, Morris--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Morris Dickstein is a scholar, historian, academic, essayist, book critic, and public intellectual. PDr. Dickstein is a Professor Emeritus of English and Theater at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, and he is the author of several books. He graduated from Columbia with a B.A. and earned his PhD from Yale University.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2010-03-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.43
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2017-03-14
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
McKiernan Interviews
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
93:50
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
24 June 2022
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dr. Nancy Bristow
Biographical Text
Dr. Nancy K. Bristow is a Professor of History at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. Her research focuses on the area of 20th-century American history, with an emphasis on race and social change. Dr. Bristow is the author of several books including American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic and Making Men Moral: Social Engineering during the Great War. She received her Bachelor's degree from Colorado College, and both her Master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:29:57
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Digital file
Date of Digitization
24 June 2022
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Kent State, Jackson State, Blacks, Campus, Books, Students, History, Young lives, Shootings, Power, Martin Luther King, Mississippi, Boomer generation; 1960s.
Accessibility
Copy/Paste below:
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Nancy Bristow
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Lynn Bijou
Date of interview: 24 June 2022
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM: 00:01
Nancy Bristow.
NB: 00:01
Okay, we are all set. Can you hear me? I can hear you perfectly.
SM: 00:07
Okay, great. I always start out with my first question, finding out a little bit about the person I am interviewing. Could you tell me about your background, where you grew up, your early influences, your family, and early interests?
NB: 00:21
Sure.
SM: 00:21
And high school, college and-and how did you pick history as your career?
NB: 00:27
But what, sure. So, I was born in Portland, Oregon in 1958. So, I grew up during the period of the Vietnam War and the civil rights struggles, but was just a child during it. I was not aware that I was interested in history as a young person. In fact, if you told my high school history teacher, I went to Beaverton High School in Portland, Oregon, if you asked him what I became, and then told him it was a history professor, I think it would, would cause of heart failure. He could not have imagined, if I had a course that I hated, it was history. But, that was because I had not gone to college yet. I went to Colorado College, which is a small liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, at a remarkable undergraduate education. And I had planned to major in German, but turned out not really to have the capacity for that. And so by chance, I took a history course because I thought it had a really neat name, it was England Age of Kings. And I thought, well, that sounds cool. And it changed my life, the Professor George Drake, who went on actually to be the president of Grinnell College, was my professor for that class, that I discovered that history was about people, and about what happens to us, and helps us understand who we are now. And that course, it literally within a couple of days, my life path was set I suppose, but I did not know it then. But I just, absolutely loved the class, had a kind of intellectual excitement that I had not really felt with any of the other classes, I had taken though I was a successful student all the way along, I thought I would major after I gave up on German, I thought I would do English, but always felt sort of ungrounded in that field. And history gave me that sort of grounding in the lives of actual people, people that had really lived the lives that, that you know, I was reading about, and ultimately would write about. In terms of early influences, my family has been tremendously important to who I became, I think, reaching all the way back to, to great grandparents that I knew who were working class people from Pittsburgh. And they raised up my father who was fortunate enough to get to go to college, as did my mother, they were both first generation to college students, that we did not have the language for that at the time. But both came from working class families, my mom's mother came from Ireland, was an immigrant. And both of them I think, were really serious about education. So for instance, when I went off to college, my parents gave me a credit card, which I could use for any kind of emergency, or to buy books, could just use it, for emergencies-
SM: 03:01
[chuckles] Yes.
NB: 03:01
-the kind of empathy that is necessary to be successful in the craft. And I think it can be learned, I was lucky that I think I learned that as a, a pretty young person. My grandma was a church going woman and who really, lived the Christian ethos, I think, in a way that that so many, perhaps do not, she really did embody that. I lived it seriously. I was not thinking of it through a Christian lens, but she very much was kind of, you know, just always cared about other people and really looked after other people. And I think my parents instilled in us the sense that, that was an important part of being a human being and second, that you are not anybody better than anybody else. And do not go fooling yourself because of what you do for a living, or where you live, or what language you speak does not make you better than someone else. And I think that was also really formative for me. -and books, and they just really have this deep investment in the value of education. And they paid for college for myself and both of my siblings, which is an extraordinary gift, not as expensive a gift as it would be in 2022. But nevertheless, a real contribution to the lives of their children, again I think it speaks to the value that they both placed on education, and the things that it would make possible for you. It had been a really meaningful experience for both of them, and I wanted us to have that same experience. But the other thing I think they gave me was a real sense of, and this goes to my grandparents as well, a sense of the importance of every, every human being. And again, I did not have language for it growing up. But, a real profound concern for injustice, and a preoccupation with-with the wellbeing of other people was really instilled in me through my grandparents and my parents. And I think it makes you a better historian because it helps you begin to have-
SM: 04:03
I can see that as a scholar that what you have done in this book, your, you care about everybody. I, you know, it is just a tremendous book, you went to Berkeley too, correct?
NB: 05:00
I did. I got my PhD at Berkeley, my masters and my PhD. I had not known what I would do when I finished college. And it was really a singular lack of imagination that took me to graduate school. I thought, well, I will just keep studying since I like doing this. And, then I was very lucky. Berkeley was good for me. I had some very, very valuable educational experiences there, obviously with people like Lawrence Levine and Paula Fast were my primary advisors. [crosstalk] But it was more important almost just to be in the Berkeley context, which was a place with a lot of activism-
SM: 05:38
Yes.
NB: 05:38
-and a community that was very, very diverse. And that was really good for me because I had grown up in Portland, Oregon, which is a, you know, relatively small town back in the day and still quite residentially segregated, as I was growing up.
SM: 05:50
Did you take any courses from Harry Edwards or Todd Gatlin?
NB: 05:54
No, I did not, I did not. They were not in my, then this is one of the things I regret about my education, is it was not as interdisciplinary as it would be if I did it again. So they were over in, you know, psychology or excuse me, sociology, so it was not even occurring to me to go over and take courses from them. And I was not studying the (19)60s yet. It is the other thing.
SM: 06:14
Right.
NB: 06:15
I think was intimidated by the subject matter, because I had lived it and it was still pretty fresh in my mind, not in a, in an adult kind of way. But I knew that it mattered a lot to me, and I was not ready to take that on. Like, I do not think I understood that at the time. But it is clear to me now because I love teaching the (19)60s. But I did not write about the (19)60s Initially, I wrote about the First World War era, because I think it had some of the same kinds of issues.
SM: 06:40
Now you are also, in terms of, you are the chair of the African American History Department?
NB: 06:46
No-no-no-no-no-no, I am, was the chair of the History Department. My term ends on like, next week, Thursday, for which I am very grateful. So I am just a professor of history. There is an African American studies program that I teach in, but I am not the chair of it.
SM: 07:03
Okay, very good. Could you give a brief description of your books, the other books that you have written before this current one, just your scholarship up to this point?
NB: 07:15
Sure. My first book was called "Making Men Moral: Social Engineering during the Great War," and my purpose in that book was really to explore how the military conceptualized the relationship between its fighting forces and the civilian population. And to get at that I studied, one particular agency that had its purpose, the creation of moral crusaders would be the kind of language I might use. That, they were thinking about the soldiers through a very particular lens, and what that crusader would look like had very particular sort of social and moral positioning. And so, the agency I studied, how does its job creating these soldiers who would be as pure in body and mind as you were in spirit, I mean, just this, really wanting to create an ideal kind of American so it was sort of an Americanizing program for all the American troops through recreation, social hygiene, education, and ultimately law enforcement, as needed. So, it was a really interesting study about the power of the state, and what it looks like when the state has the power to implement its moral vision. And, really a piece of sort of my interest in the progressive era. And then my second book, looked at the influenza pandemic of 1918. So, staying in the same time period, interested still in the role of the state in the lives of individuals, but looking at it in a particular, sort of social catastrophic moment. Turns out, I am really interested in the idea of, sort of culture and catastrophe, and how we as a people, as a community, as a nation engage with, and work our way through, and ultimately remember or forget these major moments in our history. So that one, I was really interested in the social experience of American people during this pandemic, and the ways in which social identity really differentiated the experiences. So, it mattered whether you were male or female, it also mattered profoundly as it did in our current pandemic, what your racial and class situation was.
SM: 09:19
Yes.
NB: 09:19
It also mattered whether you were a healthcare professional, if you were a doctor or a nurse, because those were such gendered positions at the time. And then also really interested in how public health navigated both popular interest in being saved and then ultimately, popular frustration with the ongoing difficulties of the pandemic. So both an interest in the social experience, and the sort of, role of social identity, but also interested in the sort of, state civilian relationships as well. So, those two are connected because of the time period because of my interest in, in issues around social reform, issues around the state, and the individual. And also really interested, increasingly across time in the meaning of race, and the meaning of class in people's lives. And the reality that even in these moments when we talk about being a singular nation, right, we are unified by the world, we are unified by the pandemic, the ways in which that is simply not true.
SM: 10:22
This leads into the new book, which is, "Steeped in the Blood of Racism." What drew you to the Jackson State story? And I love your title too, because the subtitle "Black Power, Law and Order and the 1970s Shootings at Jackson State College." I just did an interview yesterday with Mr. Ruffner who took pictures at Kent State.
NB: 10:47
Right. Right.
SM: 10:47
And the fourth and he talked about, we talked about the whole concept of law and order that was happening at Kent State with Governor Rhodes and-
NB: 10:55
Oh, that is right.
SM: 10:56
-and all those people there they were, you know, some of the students were so called criminals and all this other stuff.
NB: 11:02
Right. So, criminalizing of the young people is one of the things that the two stories have in common.
SM: 11:07
Right.
NB: 11:08
So I, I came to the Jackson State story, actually, by way of interest in, I was really interested in state's repression in the Black Power era. And my original plan was to write a book that looked at a series of events in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s: the murder of Black Panthers, the, assault on civilians during civil disorders, the treatment of Black college students. So, looking at different contexts within which the state is enacting violence against Black people, and using new language, the language as you suggested of law and order to justify it. For the wake of the civil rights legislation of the mid (19)60s, the sort of straight out you can just murder Black people does not work any longer. It does not mean that the murders will not continue to happen, but that the state will need new justifications for that kind of behavior. And Jackson State, it was a really classic case of it. I had planned to write this larger book and then an editor at-at Oxford asked if I wanted to, write on a single one, and create a volume that was more focused. And I was like, "Well, yeah," and I have started with Jackson State, so let us go with that one. I got onto Jackson State, though, to do justice to him, a student of mine and one of my courses, a young man named John Moore, wrote a paper on the shootings at Jackson State and it really intrigued me, because they had not known much about the shootings prior to his paper. And it really inspired me to want to know a lot more about what took place there. And the discovery that this was really racial violence, this was, you know, the state perpetuating violence against Black bodies, which it had done, you know, with a history reaching all the way back to slavery. And so, I was really interested in exploring how the shootings were justified because, of course, no one ever did, no one was ever prosecuted for the crimes. No one, ever you know, they, it-it is just a horrific injustice that went, you know, completely, a pursuit of justice was-was unsatisfied, I will-will say that, so interested both in how that could be possible, when this was clearly murder. And then secondly, really interested in why so few people my age, remember what happened to Jackson State, and everybody knows Kent State. And so, that really telling this as a story of racial violence and the ways in which white Americans do not remember racial violence so, that each police shooting can be treated in a sense as a one off, right. Trayvon Martin should not have had a hoodie on or he would have been fine.
SM: 13:43
Right.
NB: 13:43
Eric Garner should not have been selling illegal, so you know, go down the list of things. Tamir Rice should not have been playing with a plastic gun. Right? No, the fact is that each of these people were part of a long arc of history in which we talk about needing to pursue law and order, and we do it as a justification for, the control of, of Black citizens.
SM: 14:04
In the state-
NB: 14:05
I was really interested in that.
SM: 14:06
-the state of Mississippi and that whole period, I just did not read off of another person, on the Freedom Summer, and what was happening in Mississippi at that particular time, and in (19)64. But, this whole business of Jackson, understanding the history of Jackson in conjunction with this school that had many different names over the years since its founding.
NB: 14:17
Yeah. Yep.
SM: 14:28
And I, just imagine what African American students were going through, through that whole period-
NB: 14:35
Right.
SM: 14:36
-living in that community.
NB: 14:37
Right. And that is the thing that I think is really interesting about Jackson State, which is, right, it is a historically Black university at that time, a college within a state system run by a higher education board that is all white.
SM: 14:51
Yes.
NB: 14:52
And, that wants nothing more than continue to control these Black students. They have to have a good Black school. So, they put limited resources into this institution, it is always under resourced, even today I suspect it is still deeply under resourced. But so, they have this institution, but they are going to control these young people to the best of their ability. So, they have president after president who really keeps a lid on any kind of activism and even up into the 1960s. You know, students who do protest in the early 1960s who were Jackson State students are expelled, if they are caught, for instance as, as supporting the Tougaloo nine in the early 1960s, at a sit-in locally, those kids are thrown out of school, the Ladner sisters, for instance. And so, you have a campus that is sitting right on the edge of Lynch Street. And again, that is a name that may sound, may resonate differently to our ears, but it is actually named for senator John Lynch, who was a Black, a Black representative in the U.S. Congress that was a Black man out of Mississippi during Reconstruction. So, John R. Lynch Street is actually a name with some pride behind it. But right on Lynch Street, literally a block off campus, is the place where the major NAACP rallies are taking place when Jackson is up in arms, when African Americans are really protesting in Jackson, and, you know, the city is, is, you know, in the midst of a, of a, of a revolt by the Black community, its headquarters are, you know, a block off campus.
SM: 16:28
Wow.
NB: 16:29
So, you have kids who are trying to navigate that. So, the institution is seen as, sort of very repressive, and ultimately regressive, that Tougaloo gets all the praise for having been activists. But in fact, there were always students at Jackson State who were pushing the edges of, of the envelope, so to speak, some of them being expelled as a result. And starting in 1967, the school gets a new president, who really does begin to give students more voice. He reestablishes the student government, the student newspaper begins to have an actual voice to talk about, you know, issues that are social political issues. So, it is really an institution and a transition time in 1970, it is still primarily kids coming first generation to college, many of them coming off of farms, you know, the children of sharecroppers, so kids who cannot afford to get in trouble, kids whose whole families are counting on them, to get an education, and to help the family. So, it is a very, as you say, unimaginable the kind of tensions that these young people were living in the midst of, even as what they were trying to do is get an education.
SM: 17:36
You did a great job on explaining all of this. And if, if, if a young African American student got involved in an activist activity there that he could be kicked out of school, or it could affect his remaining at the school because he wants to graduate, get a job, and for a long period of time the school is involved in preparing young people to be, I think teachers in Black schools.
NB: 18:01
Yep, absolutely.
SM: 18:02
And, and they, this was a job opportunity. And, so there was that. And also, it is interesting with, some of the people I have interviewed about Kent State, is, you know, Kent State was not known as an activist school for a long time. It was more of a conservative school. And I know they had a real big and strong SDS chapter there. And, they played a major role. But still, when-
NB: 18:29
When, they had had, there were a lot of children of, of Labor Union activists.
SM: 18:30
Yes.
NB: 18:31
In fact, there is the wonderful book, I do not know if you have had a chance to interview Thomas Grace. But-
SM: 18:39
Yeah, I did.
NB: 18:40
-yeah, his book is just terrific on establishing that there was a history of activism at that school. It just was not well known that you would this- -these assumptions that were made. And I think there is some of the same story at Jackson State that, Robbie Luckett-Robert Luckett, who runs the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State has done a really good job, I think, recapturing that history in the current exhibit that they have on campus right now, about the Lynch Street corridor and the ways in which Jackson State was very much always a part of what was going on, even if it was a great risk to those students who participated.
SM: 18:48
Yes. Yeah. One of the most important things that was happening in America and certainly in the south, and all over America was in 1966. Could you describe the meaning of "Black power"? And when these two words became the slogan for African American students in the (19)60s. We all know the Stokely who had been a member of Snick for many, many years. He was there in Freedom Summer doing all his thing, but he had different views than some of the others in Snick. He and H. Rap Brown and others became more radicalized. Could you explain when this kind of happened and the effect that it had on college campuses?
NB: 19:55
Sure. And it is hard to track. I would say that though the terminology comes popularized at that point in 1966. The ideology, A, had not had long been there. Many people think of, say, the Black Panther Party as being the heirs of Malcolm X. So, we have other voices-
SM: 20:12
Right.
NB: 20:12
-throughout the civil rights era that are calling for a different kind of, of approach to making social change. Civil rights activism based in nonviolent direct action really is an appeal to the conscience of those who have power. Right. It is asking white people to see that they are wrong, that it is immoral to do things like segregate and appealing on them, to change their minds and to become as, in a sense, better neighbors, better citizens. By the summer of 1964, when you have civil rights, you have the murder of civil rights activists during Freedom Summer, you have, you know, an extraordinary number of acts of violence against civil rights activists, generally speaking, and then in 1964, at the Democratic National Convention, you see mainstream, liberal Democrats really turn their back on the activists from Mississippi who come to the convention-
SM: 21:03
It is amazing cause-
NB: 21:03
-with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party asking that the Democratic Party itself unseat the white Mississippians and see other delegates to the convention who have created a Democratic Party that includes Black people as well as white people. And when the white liberals do that, for some who had gone along with nonviolent direct action, it is kind of the final straw. The idea is you even the people who purported to be our friends, cannot be counted on when push comes to shove, when their political well-being is threatened in any kind of way. So, I think for a lot of young people who had thought of nonviolent direct action, not so much as a way of life, but as a tactic, that shift was underway by 1964, even though we do not talk the language of "Black power," really, until 1966. I think the other thing that is really essential here is that by 1966, you could see that even with the passage of civil rights legislation, a lot was not changing. If you live in Oakland, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of (19)64, does not do anything for you, neither does the Voting Rights Act. So even as we see political empowerment taking place in the south, by the late 1960s, for a lot of African Americans, the civil rights legislation did not actually have much meaning. So, there was a kind of raised and disappointed expectations that encourage people to think about the need for a different strategy to make change, that what is really essential in the United States is power. And so you have got to get some and the way you get that as you start to think about Black nationalism, you think about economic determinism, which is or excuse me, economic Black nationalism, which is to say, spend your dollars in stores owned by Black people, spend your dollars where it will come back in tax revenue to your own community. And political Black nationalism; do not vote for anybody who does not have your back, they may not be Black, but they have got to have your back, spend your vote wisely. And then sort of social or cultural, Black nationalism, that just speaks to the need to look to your own community for wellbeing and to think about creating change from within rather than looking to the white community for change from without-
SM: 21:03
Yes.
NB: 21:45
-and so by 1966, I think it is a combination of frustration. And the reality that things are not changing, and experiences with the white community that suggests the sort of limits of what is possible through nonviolent direct action in a country that is so steeped, so deeply immersed in, in a white supremacist history and system.
SM: 23:21
It is, it is, it is something here also, it is kind of a deja vu story in America. After the Civil War and Reconstruction, you know, people were supposed to have the right to, you know, for a lot of freedoms, probably up to about 1877.
NB: 23:47
Yep.
SM: 23:47
And after that, then all these, did the extreme opposite. And, you know, everything that we knew about Mississippi in 1964 was, was it all had dots going back to that 1877 rights, right up to the Ku Klux Klan, and the-
NB: 24:09
Yep.
SM: 24:09
-citizen councils, and all these things, preventing African Americans from just about everything. They were never treated equal. The one thing that shocks me the most over and over again, it is in your book and in other books, is how they talk to people of color by using the N word. It just-
NB: 24:26
Right.
SM: 24:26
-it just upsets me terribly.
NB: 24:28
Right. Well, I think it was not only that, but even the kinds of, sort of basic slights all the time, so, not calling you by your last name, not using Mr. And Mrs., forcing you to get off the sidewalk, or out of the way for a white person was very intentional. It was intended to degrade, right. And I think that is why the N word is so powerful is that, it was a representation of a whole system of slight and of degradation that was intended to send a message that you are less than I am. And-and, you know, just the ways that, that would then, create ways of living in the world for white, think about white young people growing up in that world, of course, they assume that they are better. And for young Black people how hard it is then to assert yourself and to understand your own capacities, right. There is ways in which, you know, it just was so cruel. It just it, yeah, I agree with you. It is just, it is unbelievable. It is, it is easy to be upset by things like lynching, of course we should be. But that is only one piece of this whole system that was designed to degrade people's lives.
SM: 25:41
And, and what is happening today in America, I worry, again, is this, the third chapter of-
NB: 25:46
It sure feels like it.
SM: 25:48
-like two steps forward and three steps backward, two steps forward, three steps backward, especially in the area of voting. I mean, even John Kennedy, when he was president, you know, he wanted to get a bill passed. But one thing he did not include in that bill was voting.
NB: 26:05
Right.
SM: 26:05
And-
NB: 26:06
No, that is right.
SM: 26:07
-so when you look at the killings at Jackson State, and I am so glad you wrote this book, because, you know, Kent, I have been to 14 remembrance events at Kent State and they have done a fantastic job-
NB: 26:19
Yeah.
SM: 26:19
-in making sure that what happened at Jackson State is part of the Kent State story as well.
NB: 26:24
They sure have, they sure have.
SM: 26:26
And could you, describe the history of the school? You have done it a little bit already, about the, it, what, it is your, it is your material that you built up proving that what happened on the 18th of May was racist. Yeah, 14th, 14th of May. Oh the, yeah 14th, excuse me, yes 14th.
NB: 26:46
No, I think it is really important because it is very, I mean, I think it is important to note that the young people who suffered at Kent State and at Jackson State feel a real sense of community with one another. And it is something, I think there is great gratitude, both directions for that. Kent State itself has done a great job, retaining the story of Jackson State alongside their own, and I applaud them for that. But one thing that has happened is, Kent State become the kind of iconic story for the period, which made it really easy for Jackson State to kind of just slip off the page, so to speak, that itself, I think is-is a result of white supremacy and our failure to recognize that this was a racially based murder. And, you can see that so clearly. So, Jackson State was a historically Black institution. By 1970, I think there is three or four white kids going to school there. There is the children of professors, I think. But, there is really just a couple of kids there. It is, it is really silly, historically Black and predominantly, or actually exclusively Black school at that point. And it has a history of over the course of the 1960s, having engagements with the police that end in, in police violence. They are always overreacting to the slightest, any kind of unrest on the campus will bring in Thompson's tank, which was an armored tank, purchased for Freedom Summer, will bring in, you know, large numbers of heavily armed police in a way that just was not happening nationwide, right. This is a period of great activism on college campuses. And in general, you do not see the immediate response being sent in, in, you know, a large armed force. At Jackson State that is the routine response to any kind of unrest. And there is unrest every summer, starting in 1964, of some sort. The other way you could really see this, that this is a result of racism, that this is white supremacy being enacted, is you could look at a number of things first, when they hear that there is a dump truck on fire on the campus, instead of saying okay, so what should we do? They instead, quickly hand out a bunch of riot gear, and shotguns, and run out to Jackson State. There is no talk about what the mission for the night is, they do not brief the troops. So, everybody goes in without a clear sense of what their job is when they get there, right. That is, so they are in complete panic mode. Because, why? Because these are young Black people. So they assume, as one guy says, "Well, once they started burning the, you know, burned that, we figured they burned down the town." So, they have already conceptualized these kids as criminals. Now, why is that racially infused, because in Mississippi, that is something that had long been done, A, but also as you start to look at some of the things they do: A, all the way through, they refer to the young people using the N word, they come in with armory, with armaments that are better suited for, for warfare than they are for crowd control. If you had any regard for these young people's lives, they would not have been armed in the way that they were. And then finally, that they opened fire on them. They open fire and shoot for 28 seconds because a bottle broke on the pavement. You do not, it is completely against protocol to do so. They would not have opened fire on a group of young white people. But, because there is no regard for these young Black people's lives, they open fire and continue to fire for 28 seconds. They shoot over 400 shells. I mean it is, it is shocking. And they are shooting from almost point-blank range.
SM: 27:16
Owie.
NB: 27:21
I mean and to look at, and to hear these young people talk about what happened. It is so clear. And then in the aftermath, they literally do not assist the wounded, or the dead. They yell at the young people using the N word, and tell them to go check on these kids, two of whom die. Several others of whom are injured, they do not assist the kids. They pick up their own shells instead. It is, it is not until the National Guard arrives-
SM: 30:59
Yes.
NB: 30:59
that the students are assisted in helping those who are injured, or, and tending to the two who had died, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green. So, it is so infused with racism. And yet it is, it is undeniable when you look at the evidence up close.
SM: 31:14
After it happened in your book, several people said the National Guard was supposed to take over for them, they were supposed to leave. Then, that probably would not have happened if the National Guard were there. But, it is the fact that the Jackson Police and the state troopers were there.
NB: 31:30
That is right. And they are called in because a dump truck is lit on fire in the middle of the street. And the night before, there had been some unrest but, the police never enter the campus. So even though there was unrest on campus, nobody was injured. Nobody was hurt, clear lesson there. The next night when this dump truck is lit on fire, the police and the highway patrol rushed to campus, all in a fluster. And when the, they are rushed to campus to, to, quote, "Protect the fire department." Well, the fire department leaves once the dump truck fire is out. And what do the police and highway patrol marched into the middle of campus, there is no reason for them to enter the campus, no reason for them to march toward the middle of it. The mayor says, the National Guard chair says, number of people who were on site say there was nothing going on in the middle of campus. I did not know why they were marching there, and it was against their orders. They marched in the middle of campus. They turn their weapons on a group of young people in front of a women's dormitory. Kids who until they arrived had been hanging out.
SM: 32:31
Right.
NB: 32:32
As one guy said to me, "Yeah, we were all just hanging out. It was a nice Mississippi evening, to where all the lovers world, were, it was a women's dormitory." Women had an earlier curfew, it turns out. So, the men were all hanging out in the sort of, sway in front of the dormitory. When these you know, this heavily armed crew marches on them, and turns their weapons on them. So, of course they yell at them. But, when they are asked to clear the street and to move away, the students do, there is no question about it. The students are behind a chain linked fence when the police opened fire, and the police had no reason to be there.
SM: 33:07
Where was the-
NB: 33:08
In fact, you know, the National Guard is, is completely upset the commander that they have done this, he says literally, "They have done it all wrong."
SM: 33:18
I-I know that the college president was around, he was keeping track of this. A plus over from Jackson State over Kent State, is the administration at Kent State was nowhere to be found.
NB: 33:30
Right.
SM: 33:31
And, talk about an inept administration, faculty members were kind of-
NB: 33:37
Right.
SM: 33:37
-doing their thing. But at least at Jackson State, the President was around, and was concerned, and but he was not at that scene.
NB: 33:45
No, that is right. He was actually at his home at the time, because, because he knew that there was some unrest. And as soon as the shootings happened, a number of young Black men primarily approached his home, which is right near campus, and said, "You know, you have got to, you have got to come out here you have to see what they have done to us," and he immediately did. And he helped probably, to prevent a much larger loss of life because some students were wanting to march on downtown, and that would have been catastrophic. And, he helped the students. He did not, I will not say calm them, what he did is he asked another student who was there who was well known among the students, highly regarded, and was known to be able to recite Martin Luther King speeches by heart. And he asked him to recite, and that young man did, and it slowed things down enough for students to then talk about what they ought to do, and they realized what they should do was to stay on campus, but they refused to, to go back into the dorms. The president said, "Go back inside," and they said, "Why? Well, we were not, we were not safe in there. We are staying out here tonight." And so, they spent the night in front of the dorm. It was shaped like an H, and so they were in the sort of lower part inside the two legs of the H. The west wing on the left is where the shooting took place. And they spent the night there, but President John Peeples absolutely was, was crucial and remains really close with many of the students from that era. They all speak so glowingly-
SM: 35:14
Right.
NB: 35:14
-of him. When they finally had their graduation, where they got to walk across the stage last summer. He was absolutely in. He was there and was the commencement speaker for them. So, he is well known to have been very, very important. And then that young man, Eugene Young, they nicknamed him, his nickname was Jughead, he, too, was really crucial in helping the students sort of slow down enough to realize that it would be, suicidal to leave the campus grounds.
SM: 35:45
You know, I knew Jean. He came here-
NB: 35:48
Did you? You are so lucky.
SM: 35:49
-I met, he came to Kent State several years to speak at some of the programs on the- 30th, the 1st or 2nd of May in some of the buildings there. And, I was sad when I heard he passed away. I know he had been on the previous year, he had been on Democracy Now, talking about it as he paid tribute to those who had died. But, he, he was so good as a speaker.
NB: 35:54
That is right. And that is what everyone says.
SM: 36:14
Yeah and, and he and, I remember he was staying at a hotel, and I was staying another hotel, and he did not have a ride. So, [chuckles] I took him back to his hotel. But, we were in another theater downtown because they were doing some programs in the, in the theater. And he was just, I mean, he was, it was like you go to grad school, and you meet your new grad students in your residence hall. You talked to him once and you were friends.
NB: 36:42
Yeah.
SM: 36:42
He was, he was that good, and that friendly. I remember when I came back to Kent State, I had heard that he passed and it touched the people at Kent State, so.
NB: 36:52
No, everybody, everyone has spoken so highly of him. It is one of my, I will not say regrets. But I just, I wish I had started my project a few years earlier. So, I might have had the chance to meet him. And honestly, not only for the story that I know, he would tell, and I would love to have had the chance to learn from, but also just, he just sounds like an extraordinary human being.
SM: 37:14
Oh, yeah. He is, he reminds me of a professor. I mean, he was,-
NB: 37:18
Yeah, that is right.
SM: 37:19
He was just, he was intellect, he is an intellectual. He is very calm, though. He is a gifted-
NB: 37:25
Yep.
SM: 37:25
-gifted speaker but calm.
NB: 37:27
And you know, he was a part of the civil rights activism in Jackson as a young child.
SM: 37:31
I did not know that.
NB: 37:32
Yeah, so in the early (19)60s, he is a part of the of the activism in Jackson. And in fact, he comes up if you read Dan Moody's book "Becoming of Age in Mississippi," which is an account-
SM: 37:41
Oh yeah.
NB: 37:42
-of, sort of, grassroots activism, she talks about little Jean Young.
SM: 37:46
Oh, I will check that out.
NB: 37:47
Yeah. So he came by his activism early, and was really a part of, of those, you know, the student efforts of the early 1960s in Jackson.
SM: 37:56
Now the Black power, I want to get back to the Black power situation again, around (19)66. That was coming to Jackson State as well. Some of the things that the students were demanding. And this is important to know, because I think it is in your book and another book I read. When people say how did these changes happen? It was because of the African American students.
NB: 38:19
That is right.
SM: 38:19
That made it happen. Not some, not Stokely Carmichael. Not-
NB: 38:24
That is right.
SM: 38:24
-it was them. And, and I saw this at Ohio State because that is where I went. I went to grad school at Ohio State.
NB: 38:30
Right.
SM: 38:30
And the Black studies, the arrival of Black studies-
NB: 38:34
Yeah.
SM: 38:35
-on campus and the legitimacy that it is an academic program was a big challenge-
NB: 38:39
Yes.
SM: 38:39
around there. And of course, the Black student unions were getting big, bigger, and the Black student papers, and student programs at Ohio State. This is the same time period; Ohio State had a lunchtime program from 12 to 1 in the Ohio Union. And it was for African American students, and on African American issues. I went every single one. And they only had 25 or 30 people, I was there as one of the few white people that was in there [chuckles]. But I will never forget when Jesse Jackson came, oh my god!
NB: 39:09
Yes, there you go right! And, I have heard him speak once when I was in, 1978. Yeah, at his church, quite a.
SM: 39:18
Yeah, well, yeah. Well, Jesse was there and of course, he had his afro and he was, you know, dressed like, he was young. [crosstalk] He was a young guy. And then I also remember Kathleen Cleaver coming to Ohio State, she spoke in Mercian auditorium, one Friday night, and I remember it was, and the place was packed and she had her own guard, you know, the Black Panthers guarded her. And, we were waiting and she finally came in. And, she spoke for a while and she said, "Well, I was met at the airport by the police," [laughs] of course, and they escorted her to get to Ohio State. And so, she started to speak and they had two guards up on the stage and they were just standing there, not moving, one fainted.
NB: 40:06
Oh wow.
SM: 40:07
And she is only into her speech for a couple minutes, and this, one guy faints and falls down, then somebody thought he had been shot. So-
NB: 40:15
Oh yeah.
SM: 40:16
I will never forget that. And, they ran up there to protect her and everything, but it was-
NB: 40:21
Oh yeah.
SM: 40:22
-but it was during this Black power and, and Black pride, and the afro hair dos, and everything.
NB: 40:29
Black is beautiful was a really important concept, right?
SM: 40:32
Yes.
NB: 40:33
Even today, I know that my own Black students still suffer from not only colorism within the Black community, but you know, being taught that to be the way they are, to look the way they are, is not going to get you where you are needing to go. So, they talk about you need to dress professionally. You need to wear your hair professionally. And they are telling kids even in 2022, right, that to wear your hair naturally, either does not look good or is not professional. So, it is still here, If you can imagine the power of the messaging of Black is beautiful, right? Wait, to be me is a beautiful thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SM: 41:06
Yeah. And they were, and they were challenging at Ohio State now, whoever were there, they were challenging the legitimacy of the new Black studies program. The person they had hired, his last, his last name was Nelson, Dr. Nelson. He was an academic scholar from someplace afar that came in to lead this. The credentials were unbelievable for this man. And he was given the chance to start at Ohio State and he did a great job.
NB: 41:34
Yeah. What an opportunity, right? And that is some of what is going on at Jackson State. Right. And in the, in the late 1960s, is the arrival of Dr. Peeples in 1967. He says, we are going to have a revolution in our books. And he talks about having, you know, a high-quality education, we are going to show them something, we are not going to do it by having you know violence, we are going to do it by having a great education, turning you lose on the world. And what he means by that is, that students will begin to have a voice, and that African American life, and culture, and history will be a part of what they have access to, and he found what becomes today, the Margaret Walker Center. He begins to invite Black writers to campus, He allows Stokely Carmichael to come, and others are like, "Why are you doing that?" he is like, "Well, you do not understand. You have to allow people to express themselves."
SM: 41:37
Yeah. Yeah.
NB: 42:23
You know, it was a brilliant move on his part, in terms of engaging a sense of trust with the students who are like, "Whoa, really, you are going to let Stokely Carmichael come," and Stokely Carmichael meets with him, and he is really surprised. And he says to Stokely Carmichael, "I am part of a new generation of college presidents, we are going to be a little bit different than what you remember," and so he is, he is also facilitating. So, even as students are, are claiming more power, they are fortunate enough to have an administrator that recognizes that, that is the right thing to allow. That, that is really important for their well-being. And so, it is this beautiful sort of, growth of, within the context still of a white board of higher education. So for that president, he is navigating something very difficult, which is trying to protect the students from this, you know, the white board of higher education, but also allowing them, and I should not even say allowing, but getting out of their way so they can do the things that they want to do, which is to express themselves to study, you know, what is going on with the war to ask, and raise questions about voting rights to, you know, explore the inequities that they are, they are experiencing its students at a college in a system in which the other schools are better resourced. I mean, they are so aware that what they have at Jackson State is not the same as what is at the University of Mississippi.
SM: 43:40
Yes.
NB: 43:40
And they are unhappy about that. And he is making space for them to know that at least. So it is, it is a, I do not want to say magical time. But I think it is a time of such extraordinary expansion of possibility. And I think that is important in understanding why the police might assault the campus, right. And that is the campus they attack. It is not a campus in which things are staying the same. It is a campus that is changing.
SM: 44:06
Right. You bring up another, other important thing that, it was not the first time has students died on college campuses. If you have, you know, we think about Kent State and the four that died and the two that died at the Jackson State but, do not forget the those who died in Orangeburg in 1968.
NB: 44:25
That is right.
SM: 44:26
Jack Nelson wrote a great book on this.
NB: 44:28
Yep. Yeah.
SM: 44:29
If you have not read the book.
NB: 44:30
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
SM: 44:31
But I you know, and I know that one, two died at Berkeley too, I think in, early on during shootings or something like that. So it has happened before, but the publicity for Orangeburg was just like the publicity at Jackson State, which was nothing.
NB: 44:50
Right. Well, that is one of the things I find really interesting is absolutely, there was no, no publicity for Orangeburg. Not only that, but the only person who does prison time for it right, is Cleveland Sellers who is actually a Black activist.
SM: 45:04
Yes, I, yes.
NB: 45:05
Right. There is this terrible assault on young African Americans, and the only person who faces prosecution is someone who is not responsible for it. But, the other thing I was going to say about Jackson State that is really interesting is that it actually does get publicity at the time. It actually is on the front page, and not in the same way that Kent State was, but it is on the front page of The New York Times, it is in, it is on NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, it is in the one-year anniversary, Playboy runs a multi-page story about the funeral for James Green. So, it is not that people did not know about it in 1970, many people did. And that is why the forgetting of it for me is all the more important to trace. Because it was known and then unknown, how do we do that? And, we do it again, and again, and again, as a white community, it turns out.
SM: 45:54
When the tragedy or the killings, Alan Canfora, used to say-
NB: 45:58
Oh yeah.
SM: 45:59
-let us start making sure we say the killings at Kent State not the tragedy, and it is the killings at Kent State and Jackson State.
NB: 46:06
Yeah, yeah.
SM: 46:06
And, but the shootings at Kent State or when it, it happened it, it affected America like I have never seen before.
NB: 46:18
Absolutely.
SM: 46:19
I will look at the college campuses reacting to it all over the country. You know, after Nixon gave the speech going into Cambodia, which we have been in for a long time already.
NB: 46:28
Right-right.
SM: 46:29
And the fact is that I am, I am just one example of probably millions of college students at the time who said, you know, it affected their lives forever. Now-
NB: 46:41
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SM: 46:42
-but then 11 days later, the, to it, no one talks about the, it should affect their lives as well. And you get to thinking, well, who is creating a racial issue here?
NB: 46:56
Right.
SM: 46:57
Is, you know, we are not talking about Jackson, we are not talking about the state of Mississippi. We are talking about what is happening in the media. What is happening in the-
NB: 47:05
Yeah no, that is right.
SM: 47:06
-yeah, I am, I am still trying to, boggled, my mind is boggled on this issue.
NB: 47:12
Right. But I think it is a really, I mean, I think you are going right to the heart of, of what is so important, which is, how do we manage to make some things remain part of our national narrative? And, other things do not. So, if you look at a high school history book, I bet they will include Kent State today and I bet they will not include Jackson State. The very best college textbooks are beginning to include Jackson State. But again, how is it that we, we, you know, how is it that we move from knowing it to not knowing it, and it takes a great deal of effort, it seems- -to me, and it is, it is not somebody, it is not conspiratorial, it is not somebody saying, "Oh, let us remove this from the story." But rather, it is a much more insidious series of small laps by newspaper editors, I looked, I tracked the Chronicle of Higher Education. It was fascinating to watch how it went from having several pages on what happened to Jackson State at one point. I cannot remember if it is the fifth-year anniversary, but a few years out, they have a big come, you know, two-page story big spread on Kent State. And then they have a little you know, what do you have those little sidebars called "Others Who Died," and that is where they put Jackson State.
SM: 47:43
Right. Oh wow.
NB: 48:20
And that is that effort of like, again, they are not trying to be cruel, but they are imposing sort of a white supremacist historical lens, here is the one that matters, here is the ones that do not matter. Right?
SM: 48:31
Yep.
NB: 48:31
And it happens, and that is how we make it happen. It makes us, it just makes me very conscious of the ways in which white supremacy is so systemic. I mean, there is a reason we use that kind of language, it is because, it is in the air we breathe, we commit it constantly, without even realizing we are doing it. [crosstalk] The needing to be so conscious of that is, is one of the reasons I think to know history is so important.
SM: 48:53
When it first happened, I was reading the press about Kent State. And, it was the talk about "Well, why did not, why did not happen at Berkeley, or Columbia, or a University of Wisconsin, or Harvard Square," that were, you know, even Ohio State, and Ohio University, by the way, was the most liberal of all the campuses at that time and had some of the worst protests.
NB: 49:21
Right, oh yeah.
SM: 49:22
And so, but nobody died there. But they died at Kent State, which the press kind of made it look like they were a conservative campus that has not- -really been that active. And then the same thing is true you brought up in your book with Jackson Spade, Jackson State trying to compare with Tougaloo.
NB: 49:31
Right. Right.
SM: 49:40
And you know, that had a history of activism and Jackson State had not so-
NB: 49:45
Yeah.
SM: 49:46
-it is a, yeah, and your book is going to help this, definitely going to help this.
NB: 49:53
Certainly the purpose of it, and I think it is the reason people were willing to speak with me, because here I am a white scholar, they have never heard of contacting them out of the blue, asking them to talk about a horrific event in their life that has tremendous meaning to them. And yet, you know, you know, dozens of people were willing to tell me their stories. And I think it is because they want the story to be known, and they are frustrated by the way in which it has been forgotten. It irks people deeply, that the story of what took place on that campus is not broadly known. And so, if my book can do anything toward that, it is only because the people to whom it happened, want that to happen, and were willing to help me, with the work I was trying to do. It was a stunningly supportive and kind response that I received from every single person I interviewed that had some connection to the school at that time.
SM: 50:47
What is become, the Jackson State of today, I just want to know, I know they do have remembrance events every year.
NB: 50:54
Yep. Yep, absolutely.
SM: 50:55
And that is very good. And I know sometimes they have small numbers. Kent State has not had a high, a lot of, heavy numbers in recent years as well. But, it is still a steady group that comes. Is it important that it happens? How is Jackson State right now in terms of, you know, the school is, is it, you know, the courses is, is there activism on campus, is?
NB: 51:22
You know, I do not I, it is a very, very different place than it used to be. At the time when it was Jackson State College, it was a single campus, and a relatively small campus. Today, it is a sprawling University, with pieces all spread all over Jackson, the city, featuring different things. So, you know, schools of media or that kind of thing spread out, too, it is a very different place, it is much, much larger. The home campus, which was the original Jackson State College, I believe, is still desperately under resourced. They, the library, for instance, I know is understaffed, because I have spent a lot of time in that library. I do not actually know the personality of the school. I know that there are still a number of remarkable people working there. I have met some of the historians there, and they are just first rates and people who really care about this story, and have made an effort to keep it alive. So, they have been very actively involved in the memory work. As I mentioned before, Professor Robert Luckett, who runs the Margaret Walker Center has been fundamental to the efforts to keeping the story alive. But, I do not actually know the personality of the students per se. I did interview a couple of young people just out of curiosity, their familiarity with the story itself. And it was interesting, my sense is that many students who go to school there really do not know much about what took place. There are those that do, and who are part of the remembrance efforts. But I think, in general, most of the students are not aware, which is odd, because in fact, like the major, beautiful sort of walkway in the midst of campus is the Gibbs Green Plaza, named for the two young men who were killed. But, and my sense is that the campus is-is like Kent State, I think it is very hard to keep the memory alive, even though I think both institutions have worked hard at it. The other thing I would say about Jackson State is, for a time, the campus was, the administration was interested in remembering the killings. Then, there was a period during which I think they were tired of being known only for the killings. And, I think the administrator sort of pushed back a little against the remembrances. And, that was certainly the case when I was first starting my project. I was not, how can I put this, upper administration might not have been that excited about this being a story that people were talking about. There is somebody I supposed to interview, who was a staff member who was not actually allowed to talk to me, which was very odd. I think that is over. And, I think they are back to understanding just how important this is. And they had a, a wonderful series of events planned for the 50th anniversary, which were tragically undercut because of COVID. But last year, on the 51st anniversary, they had a beautiful graduation ceremony right on the plaza right at the site of the shootings. And it was, you know, supported by the University, and was really just a remarkable event. So, I think the campus today is a place where that story is, if not broadly known, it is nevertheless, one that is considered really important to the institution, and there are people working hard to make sure its memory is as present as possible.
SM: 54:47
You know that, that reaction or maybe lessening the remembrance events or something like that. It could be the generations are shifting here now, and that the boomers are now the older, the elders.
NB: 55:00
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
SM: 55:01
And millennials are now taken over in terms of leadership positions. Millennials themselves cannot stand the word diet and, that they say that is a boomer generation word.
NB: 55:17
[laughs]
SM: 55:17
So now the CEO of Coke is, I think, is going to be getting rid of the word diet on all their drinks, eventually, it is going to be zero sugar. Because, millennials let it be known to Coke and Pepsi that the diet thing should stop. That is from another era. [laughs]
NB: 55:35
You know what, oh that is very funny. I am sitting here with a Diet Coke in my hand.
SM: 55:39
[laughs] Well, I drink it all the time, so.
NB: 55:41
I literally have one in my hand as we are speaking, so. [chuckles]
SM: 55:44
Did-did you ever see the other book that was written on Jackson State by Mr. Stoppard?
NB: 55:49
Yes, I did. Yes, I did.
SM: 55:52
Yeah, he wrote that. I interviewed him-
NB: 55:55
Oh, good.
SM: 55:55
-maybe six, eight months ago on that book. And I think that, then that was a dissertation or something like that, he was writing a paper and then ended up becoming a book.
NB: 56:06
Yeah, yep. And he did a lot of really important research that was very helpful, helpful for me, because he had collected some resources, and that alongside with resources collected by Jackson State itself, meant that there is an amazing Gibbs Green collection that is held both in the archives at the university, but also in the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, they have a microfilm copy of it. So I was able to access some things, that would have been much harder for me to find, without the work that he had done. So I am very grateful to him for the, the work that he had done on the story. I think the, the one place that I would, would push back is that he talks about, he uses the language of riot. And I think that is really a misrepresentation.
SM: 56:50
Right.
NB: 56:51
In the spring of 1970, the kinds of things that were going on at Jackson State can hardly be called rioting-
SM: 56:56
Yeah.
NB: 56:57
-in a time when there was such extraordinary unrest nationwide. So that is really, if there was one place I really wanted to push back on. It was, it was to, make the case that this was a murderer, and be racially charged, and racially motivated.
SM: 57:12
I-I was amazed that he had the courage to go to Jackson, and to be walking around, and be in that environment for a while because of, when he wrote the book, it was pretty close proximity to what had happened I guess.
NB: 57:25
Yeah, no, that is right.
SM: 57:26
So, you know, I asked him, if he was afraid he was not afraid, just wanted to get a story, so.
NB: 57:32
Yeah-yeah, no, exactly.
SM: 57:35
Yeah, I do not embrace it when you are talking about boomers, you are talking about African Americans as well. And what, as a scholar, what has been your thought on the boomer generation as a whole, it was 74 million, it was the largest generation in history. And now the, the millennials are the largest generation, they are about 78 million. So your thoughts on, you know, only about 7 percent of the boomers are really involved in any sort of activist activity. And, of course, 93, we are not, percent we are not in that large generation, so. And oftentimes, the media portrays the (19)60s is, it is all about that 7 percent and not about the 93 that were just going about their daily activities and trying to make a living. Your just, just your thoughts on the impact of that generation.
NB: 57:58
Wow. Well I think, and this is, it is such a large topic, but I would say that, to suggest that it is only 7 percent, I would not want to demean, nevertheless, the impact that that generation had, I think they were able to, in fact, awaken the nation to some really serious questions, and issues that changed all of our lives. Now, the fact that today Roe has been reversed, makes me feel like the changes we thought were permanent may not be. But when you think about the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, I mean, these are, and Roe for that matter. And you think about where we have come in terms of LGBTQ rights, you think about all of the transitions that have taken place, the ways in which the meaning of who is really a citizen, and what that means has expanded. It is extraordinary, what that time period made possible. And you really do have to credit especially the young people who, who, you know, did the work of calling and enacting change. It was not going to happen without the activism that, that 7 percent did. And so, I think the I think the boomer generation did extraordinary things. The other thing that is interesting to me is, is when we think about how are we defining who an activist is because my own parents were very traditional in the sense that my mother was a homemaker. My father was, you know, out working for a living, we were very traditional family in some ways, but we were also well aware of the war in Vietnam. And the day that Kent State happened, you know, my mom served dinner in what would be sort of our more formal setting, which we did not usually eat out, except if we had guests and because it was this big, terrible moment in our nation's history. So, we were not an activist family. But we were certainly awakened by and cognizant, awakened by that generation, and cognizant of the issues because of the young people of that generation. So, I think the impact is really quite extraordinary. And I know there has been enormous pushback. But I will use the language I guess, just as conservatives generally, to discredit that generation, in ways that I think are unfair. Surely there were, oh, what was the word I even want? There were people who went too far, there were things that were foolish, find me a generation of young people where that is not the case. [chuckles] And you show me a miracle.
SM: 59:39
Yes.
NB: 1:00:53
Right-right. I think for, for whatever failings that generation had then, and has had subsequently, its accomplishments, I think, are not to be, should not be misunderstood. I think they are enormous. And I think we continue to live with those. The fact that I am a college professor, as a woman, is because of that generation, right. Civil Rights Act made it possible for me to have the job I have to get into graduate school and to get a position that simply would not have been possible without it. How long and how permanent those changes will be, I think, is much, much more up for grabs than I ever could have imagined.
SM: 1:01:32
Yeah. I-I did not know that that vote took place today. I did not know, so.
NB: 1:01:43
Oh, sorry. I am pretty sure that is right. I have, yes. I believe it was overturned this morning.
SM: 1:01:47
Oh, my God.
NB: 1:01:48
I think the decision came down.
SM: 1:01:51
Wow. That is going to be, woah. One of the things I want to talk about here-
NB: 1:01:57
Yep. It overturned Roe v. Wade today.
SM: 1:02:01
Wow.
NB: 1:02:01
And apparently, the part by Thomas, has written something that says, you know, and this is only the first effort, you know, now we have really got to get to work overturning the, I do not know what he said. So, I will not repeat it.
SM: 1:02:13
Wow.
NB: 1:02:13
But I need to read it because it sounds like there is an intention. It is-
SM: 1:02:17
Right.
NB: 1:02:17
-sort of terrifying, if you have the values that you and I seem to have.
SM: 1:02:20
Yeah, and I am, I think the if, the voting issue is another thing that is-
NB: 1:02:26
Yeah, me too. Oh.
SM: 1:02:26
-scaring the heck out of me. I work on the elections and I cannot believe that we are talking about this.
NB: 1:02:32
No, me either.
SM: 1:02:32
2020, 2022. I want to talk about the, when Black power came about and of course, Dr. King and non-violence. When you think of non-violence, you think of the, think of Dr. King, you think of Byard Rustin. And, you know, most of the-
NB: 1:02:47
Reverend Lawson.
SM: 1:02:49
-Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, John Lewis, Julian Bond, Shirley Chisholm, that whole group-
NB: 1:02:55
Right.
SM: 1:02:55
-Roy Wilkins. When Black Power came, I can remember a picture of Stokely Carmichael standing next to Dr. King.
NB: 1:03:06
Yep.
SM: 1:03:06
And he is talking and Dr. King is kind of motionless, with his hands, I think, on his chin or something like that. And it, it almost made it look like he was lecturing to Dr. King, [chuckles] and I, you know, when you think of the changes that happen, nonviolent, nonviolent protests was crucial, in the changes we did in America. And then also, we know what happened with Black power, it also helped change in a different way.
NB: 1:03:38
Yep. Yep.
SM: 1:03:39
But then we get then we also have the Muhammad Ali's, of the world taking stands against the Vietnam War.
NB: 1:03:47
Yep.
SM: 1:03:47
And Dr. King in 1967, did something that no one thought he would ever do, and that is a– yes, speech at Riverside Church. And, of course, was Rabbi Heschel right next to him who had influenced him to do that speech.
NB: 1:03:55
Speech at Riverside Church.
SM: 1:04:04
So your thoughts on this whole business about, you know, Black power and nonviolent protest be the, you know, not a battle, but you know, a petition.
NB: 1:04:04
Right. Well, I think that is the key, well I think that is the key is that, I think it has really been unfortunate the ways in which at the time, certainly the media, publicized this as if it was an internal struggle, and certainly there was that going on. But, you know, Dr. King remains close friends with a lot of those young people who are advocates for Black power, right, the fact that they have different approaches to it does not mean that their end goal was not the same. And this is a point my students will always want to make. They will say, "Well, but wait a minute, what was Black Power trying to get and how is that different from what Dr. King was trying to get?" The point as well, different routes do a lot of the same things. And so for me, I continue to think about, the reason this is important to me is I think it is really relevant in the context of trying to make change in 2022, I would argue there is always room for lots of approaches to creating change, because you will change some things with that appeal to conscience, you will change some people with that appeal to conscience, non-violence, for me will always be the approach that I would have to adopt. There is nothing in Black Power that says it is not also nonviolent, by the way.
SM: 1:04:18
Right.
NB: 1:04:23
The thing that was different in Black Power is the articulation, both of a determination to claim power, but also a determination to create one's own lives and to be self-determining, and also to defend oneself. And that is, I think the part that was, was most troubling for someone like Dr. King. The reality is that Dr. King's people had carried guns in their, you know, in their, the trunks of their cars and, and many of the people involved in nonviolent direct action, were willing to be armed as needed. And so, in the context of that moment, historically, even the issue of self-defense strikes me as one that did not divide the camps as, as vividly as the press is portrayed. And I think many historians have worked hard to show the ways in which there was actually great continuity between those, the parts of the movement, not only in terms of people, but that many of the ideas that we associate with Black power have roots reaching back all the way through the Civil Rights period. Are they two different approaches? Absolutely. Are they necessarily in competition or in conflict? I am not as condensed.
SM: 1:06:28
Yeah, I know that, Snick, Stokely was part of Snick. And he, Black power to kind of took over Snick as well.
NB: 1:06:36
Yep.
SM: 1:06:36
And some people that had been there a long-time kind of left Snick, John Lewis- John Lewis went back and they became a congressman. [chuckles]
NB: 1:06:40
And some were eventually thrown out, [crosstalk] kicked out the white members in (19)66, so. Right, right.
SM: 1:06:50
I do not know, if, he really was not into that, so.
NB: 1:06:53
No, that is exactly right. No, but it was a very painful, very painful turn of events for those who are really dedicated to nonviolent direct action, as a way of life which clearly John Lewis was. And as Dr. King was, so that, yeah, there was there was so much tension and so much anger, and some of it right played out and sort of lashing out against one another, which you know, is, as I look at, as a historian, I am seeing, oh, divide and conquer, how effective and I can see it happening sometimes with young people today where, you know, those old notions of are you radical enough? Are you Black enough? Are you, you know, are you fighting the fight hard enough? You are not doing it my way. That is often, you know, you start thinking about agent provocateurs from the F.B.I. back in the day, right, some of that friction was surely promoted by right the F.B.I., and its COINTELPRO, and by others who were like happy to see conflict within the movement.
SM: 1:07:50
Right.
NB: 1:07:51
So, I am always cautious about seeing these things as a fight from within without also wanting to look for what, what are the external pressures creating that?
SM: 1:07:58
I think Black power also had somewhat of an influence on African American students in their protest against the Vietnam War. Because at Kent State University in 1970, you did not see any of Black faces, you might. There was an effort, James Michener wrote the first book on Kent State, it got full of mistakes, full of mistakes, and everything else.
NB: 1:08:09
Yes-yes.
SM: 1:08:11
But, what he does talk about in there is there was an effort made to make sure that no African American student was on the, out there with a white stripe-
NB: 1:08:23
That is right.
SM: 1:08:24
-on that protest. And that, you know, because our role is to be fighting for civil rights issues, not about the Vietnam War. And-
NB: 1:08:37
It is also because they knew they get, you know, they knew that they were, would get, you know, they would be the first ones to get hurt.
SM: 1:08:43
Right.
NB: 1:08:44
And they knew it.
SM: 1:08:46
Yeah, and that that is really interesting, because nobody talks about it.
NB: 1:08:52
Right.
SM: 1:08:52
And if you look at the pictures, I do not see any African American students.
NB: 1:08:56
That is why I think Tom Grace's book is really useful.
SM: 1:08:59
Right.
NB: 1:08:59
I think he really fills in the relationship between the anti-war activists and the Black union students who are also very active on campus, and were engaged in anti-war activism but that they were really aware of what were the danger moments, and when they saw white students acting out, they were not going to get in the way because they knew that they would be the, the targets.
SM: 1:09:17
I want to read something that you wrote in, on page 59 of your book.
NB: 1:09:22
Let us rip that bad boy open and see what I said.
SM: 1:09:25
And it is, it is the beginning of the second paragraph there is, I just I grew up down here. I just, I said I have to have this in the interview. "This was certainly true in Mississippi, where the growing influence of Black power prompted a hostile and militarized response by the authorities. Across the state at the historically white institutions that had begun integrating at the HBCUs, African American students are organized first on their own campuses, and then between campuses across the state. Like African American students around the country, they focus on the persistent white internalism of those who control their educations, the absence of student voices and campus governments. I know that, I experienced that, the need for an intrusion of African American curriculum, faculty and administrators into their educations and the career, and the under resourcing that lead to a second-rate educators and education." I thought that was a very well written, I had to, I had to quote it, and it is get into the, the law and order thing. So I just, I do not know if you have any more to say on that, or?
NB: 1:10:37
No, I just it goes back to a point that you made earlier, which is, as we think about the changes that were taking place, on college campuses, in particular, when thinking about Black college campuses, the ways in which students were in the lead, right, they were the ones who understood what they wanted and needed. And that is how we end up with a wonderful African American studies programs that we have today, with some of the, the still too limited Black leadership on our institutions. That, they understood what they needed, and what they wanted. And they were the ones really pushing for the change that, you know, so many of us, you know, came to be the beneficiaries of I would say, in my own case. And, and also, I would note that that paragraph is based on work that was done by other scholars who have done the work of researching, and helping us understand the kinds of things that were taking place in that, in that era, beyond the Jackson State campus.
SM: 1:11:32
Right.
NB: 1:11:34
I think especially of, of Professor Williamson, who's up at the University of Washington here, right in Washington state who has just done wonderful, wonderful work on the history of Black education in Mississippi and more broadly, Joanne Williamson, she wrote, "Black Power on Campus," on the University of Illinois, was one of her early books, and then she wrote, "Radicalizing the Ebony Tire, Ebony Tower," which was really, really influential for me.
SM: 1:12:01
You, you talked about the trials afterwards as well, and, and nobody was really charged with a crime.
NB: 1:12:10
No.
SM: 1:12:11
Yeah.
NB: 1:12:13
No, they were not. The two. It is really horrifying. The two grand juries are influenced by their, the first one is led by a federal grand jury by a horrific man who was well known as a racist, long beforehand, he had overseen the trials for Freedom Summer, for instance. And so, it was the murder of Cheney Schwerner and Goodwin, Goodman over Freedom Summer, and he, his, his sort of charges to the jury are just laced with the sort of law and order, racially inscribed law and order rhetoric that we associate with that time period, and that is so costly, and the same sort of viewpoint is done by the hounds, Hinds County grand jury as well. So, the only person who is ultimately charged with, first charged with a crime is a Black man, not unlike what happened in Orangeburg, and eventually, the charges against him will be dropped for lack of evidence, and he will plead out on another on another charge. So, no the legal system is a complete failure for them. When they tried to sue, they are unsuccessful in the first suit. But, they had known all along that they would likely be unsuccessful at the local level. But when it goes to appeal, they are successful. But, it turns out that all the officers are covered by sovereign immunity. So, they try to take the case to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court is unwilling to hear it.
SM: 1:13:45
The, Kent State is, has been paying tribute for years for the four who died and the nine who were wounded. And I know Jackson State has been paying tribute to the two who died. But, what about the ones that are wounded? And, do they keep, is there a list so that people do not forget the students who were wounded?
NB: 1:14:07
I think that is a really interesting question. I think the answer is kind of no. I think some of those who were wounded have been very outspoken and active, including one man whose-whose written a couple of personal accounts of what took place on those days, but the vast majority of them have, have been relatively quiet. Vernon Steve Weakley is the man, I should say his name aloud who has written a couple of books about his experiences with the shootings, and what it meant in his life, and he has been very active, and very public about it. But there are others who are, who are quiet about it, who have chosen not to, to be public figures about what took place in their lives. Some of whom were really anxious to be interviewed, some of whom were, I did not know how to find, but so it is, I can say that many of those who were at Jackson State in 1970, have gone on to really remarkable public careers. I tried to talk about that, in my book, the ways in which many people were inspired to try to make change, because they could not, you know, could not stand what had happened to them- and to, to the kids around them. But I also know that there are people whose lives were really influenced, you know, in negative ways by what took place, and who, you know, really feel that, that what was possible for them and, the capacities they had, went somewhat, unmet because of the, the derailing that, that shooting had-had in their life.
SM: 1:15:14
Right. You know at Kent State, I think two of the nine, just want, want to have their privacy, so.
NB: 1:15:40
Yeah, yep.
SM: 1:15:41
But, seven of them have been willing to come back to events and speak, and.
NB: 1:15:44
It has been interesting people who, who had not been to events who were there, not necessarily people were injured, but just even people who have been at the dorm that night. I talked to one man who had not been back in, I was there for the 45th. And he had not been back for any of the remembrances until that one.
SM: 1:16:03
Wow.
NB: 1:16:03
Turned out, he was a really close friend of Philip Gibbs. And he ended up letting me interview him, he was not sure about it. And I said, you know, just think about it. There is no pressure but, and we ended up having a really, really powerful conversation, and-
SM: 1:16:18
Is there anything for those two that had been done in their name, besides having a plaque or a-
NB: 1:16:26
We had a whole, there is a, the whole plaza walkway through the middle of campus, so they closed off Lynch Street. And it is a plaza, kind of walkway through the middle of campus, and it's named for both of them.
SM: 1:16:35
Very good. Very good.
NB: 1:16:37
It is really good. And that was, that was a plan that people had, I think in mind, perhaps, from the get go, because the students had wanted Lynch street closed for a long time.
SM: 1:16:45
And when you kill a person, or a young person you are, you are destroying a legacy of that person.
NB: 1:16:50
Yep, no that is right.
SM: 1:16:52
Every young person deserves a legacy.
NB: 1:16:54
Yeah, that is right.
SM: 1:16:55
That is why it is so sad. I have a simple question here. Did, did Black lives matter at Jackson State in 1970 and in the America of 2020? And again, the simple question, Do Black lives matter at Jackson State, In Jackson, Mississippi, and in America?
NB: 1:17:16
What, in today?
SM: 1:17:17
Today.
NB: 1:17:19
Whew. I cannot speak to Jackson, or to the campus, I think with the insider knowledge that the question deserves. I think that the state of race relations in the United States right now is, is, is, is devastatingly unchanged. For all of I think, very sincere concern expressed in the spring of 2020. I have not seen measurable change. I am seeing instead the taking away of Black votes, which is for me incredibly regressive, and will be devastating to the well-being of the country. I see ongoing police shootings of young Black people even in my own community. I see outspoken racism, being, you know, spoken by people in leadership positions. I see people being elected to office who have continued to support what I would argue with, you know, a horrifically racist president who was voted out in 2020. So, I think we are, I, do Black lives matter, they matter enormously. Are they treated with, that as if they matter? No, no.
SM: 1:18:39
It is another issue that I, you kind of reflect upon or, you know, these great stories, your books, revealing the truth about what happened at Jackson State. It is how all this hard work that was done for so many decades, is now being challenged, to, for setbacks and, and of course, everything's red state, blue state, you know, hawk and dove, and all these other things. So, you know, they always put you in a category so, if you even question, or bring it up, you are one of those. So it, it you know, I, keep bashing some of the people that gave their lives. We did a program once at Westchester University, about the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement, the ones that Dr. King used to always talk about, the people will never hear from, but were involved again, never knew.
NB: 1:18:39
Yep.
SM: 1:18:40
And-and they are probably turning over their graves knowing what is going on, if they knew what was going on today. And that is why as you mentioned, I mean, I think the voting rights issue is such a substantial one, because its implications are so deep, and the vote was so hard fought, I mean to gain, and that it could be being taken away so insidiously. And with such, and yet with such openness is just, I just did not expect it. And I should have that is, that is my you know, that is my whiteness speaking that I can be so naive sometimes. Well at least we know there are two artists who sang songs that reflected on what was happening in Mississippi in the, in the (19)60s and early (19)70s.
NB: 1:20:22
Absolutely.
SM: 1:20:23
And that is Nina Simone.
NB: 1:20:26
Yep.
SM: 1:20:27
"Mississippi Goddamn."
NB: 1:20:29
One of my favorites.
SM: 1:20:30
And Sam Cooke.
NB: 1:20:32
Yep.
SM: 1:20:34
And his famous song. And, boy, when you listen to Sam Cooke, I did this with another person. I said, "it brings tears to your eyes."
NB: 1:20:42
Yep, it does.
SM: 1:20:44
And, and his life ended in a sad way.
NB: 1:20:47
Yep, that is right.
SM: 1:20:49
So, it is just amazing. I have a couple of general questions here that I wanted, I wanted to just ask you. Does, does time you know what happens in time, is things just like a cemetery, you put a stone up and it fades away over time, and does time kill all remembrance events, once those who were alive are no more?
NB: 1:21:15
I do not think so. I think Americans could name all kinds of historical moments and have actually really powerful deep feelings about them, that are far removed from themselves. And that is where what we choose to have, say in our history curriculum really does matter. It is why I think when you see right wing activists calling for the removal of what they are calling critical race theory, it is about trying to decide what we are going to remember what we are going to forget.
SM: 1:21:48
Right.
NB: 1:21:48
And they are very intentionally trying to make sure that we remember a very particular version of our national history, that is false. But that is, is what I would call whitewashed. And I choose that word very intentionally.
SM: 1:22:01
Right.
NB: 1:22:02
So, no, I do not think it is it, I think, in fact, Americans, and I would say, I think even human beings generally, part of what makes us human is having a connection to what came before, to having that sense of connection across time in many cultures, right, the ancestors remain alive and with us. So, no memory, and that it should always, but is it always lost, I just think, I just do not think it is true. I think what we remember is very carefully constructed. Again, I do not usually think of it as conspiratorial, increasingly in 2022, it feels very conspiratorial, or people very intentionally trying to decide what kids are going to learn to remember what they are going to be, not ever be exposed to so that it can be forgotten.
SM: 1:22:45
I only do this based on you know, I go to a lot of events, and I have seen the numbers get smaller and smaller.
NB: 1:22:52
Yep-yep.
SM: 1:22:53
And just, Josiah Bunting III, you know, a conservative, but he is the chair of the World War Two Memorial. He talks, he, when he speaks at the memorial, he has tears in his eyes because he says, "As time goes on, I am, we are doing this memorial to remember what happened in World War Two, that they saved the world." But as time goes on, and it is, it is a lot of people coming there. But the people, there is fewer and fewer attending the events, and fewer and fewer, World War Two vets alive. And then you go to the Vietnam Memorial that opened in 1982, the same thing is happening there.
NB: 1:23:32
Yep, that was really interesting.
SM: 1:23:34
The numbers are dwindling. And at Kent State, even though they were getting great numbers, sometimes. I know the 50th anniversary would have been a big one.
NB: 1:23:41
Yeah, that would have been amazing.
SM: 1:23:42
But, their numbers are even going down as well.
NB: 1:23:44
Yep.
SM: 1:23:45
So, I worry that, it is just me because I was a history major too, like you.
NB: 1:23:50
Exactly. [laughs]
SM: 1:23:52
We cannot forget our history. And that leads me into this question here. What are the main lessons from the (19)60s and early (19)70s that are still in with us? And what are the lessons learned that have been lost as time goes on?
NB: 1:24:10
Those are huge questions. I guess the first lesson learned is that change is possible, that collaboration work, that every person's life is of equal value. And then if we could learn that, it would make for a healthier world for all of us. And alongside that, that the forces in here, I am thinking both the systems in place but also literally the white supremacist, not only systems but the, the viewpoints that undergirded are deeply-deeply-deeply woven into the fabric of the country, and how we live and are, are not easy to unfurl or to pull apart. And we can see that I think in the backlash that, that takes place relatively quickly, and that we are living with even, you know, obviously living with right now, that change is never permanent. So, the hard-fought battles of the 1960s does not mean that we do not have to continue to fight for, for justice. And that justice, I mean, in particular, racial justice, because it is the center of this story. But the other forms of justice, for all human beings, for all the ways in which we are different, that does not change the fact that we are each valuable, but that battle is an ongoing one, that one can only avoid, if one has extraordinary privilege, and that it is incumbent on those that have it, myself included, to be a part of that fight. Because it takes it does, in fact, take some power, as well as a lot of hearts, and energy, and commitment, and sacrifice, to create the kind of change that, in the 1960s was made, not by those with power, but ultimately by those who demanded it. As many people have talked about, including Martin Luther King, those whose names we will not know, but who nevertheless, were the heart of the battle.
SM: 1:26:15
Yeah. In the past, there is a lot of dialogue. I know in the (19)90s, I can remember on college campuses, there is an awful lot of dialogue, but where is the action? Where is the deed? And-and-and many deeds have come but now the deeds are being challenged. And there does not seem to be the dialogue, because what happens now is that people do not listen to anybody they-they, we have very poor listeners. They, it is my way or the highway. And that kind of a mentality that kind of scares me today in the world. I am a believer that conservatives and liberals can work together-
NB: 1:26:56
Absolutely.
SM: 1:26:57
-that red and blue work together, the Black and white to work together.
NB: 1:27:00
Absolutely. Me too, me too.
SM: 1:27:01
And in the, in the interfaith councils of the 1960s, with-
NB: 1:27:05
There you go.
SM: 1:27:06
-Rabbi Heschel, and Dr. King and the civil rights leaders, and the Catholic priests-
NB: 1:27:12
That is right.
SM: 1:27:12
-Father Hesburgh. I mean, they work together, they had lots of differences in our beliefs, but they could work together for common cause.
NB: 1:27:21
Right, and it has to do with having an awareness. What do I want to say, being able to imagine lives that are not your own.
SM: 1:27:28
Right.
NB: 1:27:28
Even though you may disagree, you can understand why someone is coming to the place they come to, so that you can then find the commonalities that you might have as well. No, I agree completely. And I worry so much, because I think so much of what is happening right now, here my partisanship is right, my partisan position is so obvious, but I feel like so much of what is being pushed right now from the right, has a singular lack of that kind of empathy-
SM: 1:27:55
Right.
NB: 1:27:55
-or that kind of awareness of others whose lives are not the same, that you could use the kind of language that, that candidate and then, President Trump use to talk about people from other countries suggests a singular lack of an appreciation for the humanity of other people who are not you.
SM: 1:28:11
Right.
NB: 1:28:12
And I really feel like that is being rewarded now, in some ways. And, I find that horrifying.
SM: 1:28:18
I agree. I agree. I am going to, my last question is something that I have been asking everyone, and that is, what advice or message would you like to give to future generations of students, faculty, and national scholars who will be listening to this tape 50 years from now? What words would advise, 50 years, we are not going to be here. The Boomer generation will not be around anymore. The people who experienced all this stuff from the (19)60s will be gone and (19)70s. Just your thoughts, what words would you advice, give advice to future generations?
NB: 1:28:58
I am not a big advice giver. So, I will take this one to a very simple place, which is what I do for a living is teach history. And at the center of that is really teaching young people to both think critically and question everything, and everyone apt to do it with a little bit of humility. And those were lessons that have been taught to be brought to me by my colleagues, especially my colleagues in African American Studies. And I think that, that has been really sound advice that is been given to me, which is ask questions, think critically, question every source, and every person, and everything, and every idea. But as you do, so bring some humility to it.
SM: 1:28:58
Very good. That is great word of advice, I would say.
NB: 1:29:43
Yeah, I did not create it. It comes to me from others.
SM: 1:29:46
All right. Well, I think. that is it. I want to thank you very much for this interview.
NB: 1:29:50
Well, I thank you so much. It was a real pleasure to think about these things alongside you.
SM: 1:29:55
Yeah, let me turn my tape off here.
(End od Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Nancy Bristow