6 10 250 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3f400c1d25d82b746b81cf07ad20d83b.jpg 5dbcc26e1e34e42395300a3733e0f57e https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/da609577937f41936d7db512b2e12e70.mp3 584dbbc537c7c8ba6871440fdbf5f244 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. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bettina Apthker Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Bettina Apthker is a political activist, radical feminist, academic, and author. As a former member of the Communist Party USA she was active in civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and has worked in developing feminist studies since the late 1970s. Dr. Apthker has a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Bettina Apthker is a political activist, radical feminist, academic, and author. As a former member of the Communist Party USA, she was active in civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and 1970s and has worked in developing feminist studies since the late 1970s. Dr. Apthker has a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz.</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 MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Date of Interview ND Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Protests; UC Berkeley; Free Speech Movement; Communist Party; Civil Rights; Police; Holocaust; WWII; Black Panthers; Weathermen; Feminism; Activism; Contraceptives; Montgomery Bus Boycott; Baby boom generation; Sexism; Equal Rights Amendment; Patriarchy; Women's Suffrage; Equality; McCarthy; Government Corruption; Fear of Activism; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Summer of Love; Woodstock; 1968; Bobby Kennedy Assassination; Hippies and Yippies; Vietnam Veterans"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">Protests; UC Berkeley; Free Speech Movement; Communist Party; Civil Rights; Police; Holocaust; WWII; Black Panthers; Weathermen; Feminism; Activism; Contraceptives; Montgomery Bus Boycott; Baby boom generation; Sexism; Equal Rights Amendment; Patriarchy; Women's Suffrage; Equality; McCarthy; Government Corruption; Fear of Activism; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Summer of Love; Woodstock; 1968; Bobby Kennedy Assassination; Hippies and Yippies; Vietnam Veterans</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 61:26 Subject LCSH Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Peace movements—United States--20th century; Feminists; Political activists--United States; Apthker, Bettina--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Dr. Bettina Apthker Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Kimberly F Mourao Date of interview: ND -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 00:02 SM: Testing, one, two testing. And we can take a break too if you want to. 00:07 BA: Well, actually, I have other things I have to do today so, and since Will Song was late, which you are very gracious in waiting, but- 00:15 SM: Okay, when you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? 00:21 BA: Huge crowds of people and protests, demonstrations. 00:25 SM: Can you kind of give a little detail, were you connected to those? 00:30 BA: Yeah. You know, the first thing that I mean, in the, just in the context of this conversation, the, we had very, a week of very dramatic rallies at UC Berkeley, in the climax of the Free Speech Movement, in which I co-lead with Savio. And, and there is this, many moments there. But when I when I think about it, you know, if you asked me what I remember, was, so you probably know this incident, but we had all been arrested, and we had been released, after we had occupied the administration building. And President of the University was Clark Kerr. And he had assembled everybody from the campus at the Greek Theater, it was December 7th. And the objective was to take back control of the university from those of us that had disrupted it, get the faculty on the stage, all the chairs of different committees and everything like that. And he gave a speech. And in his speech, he said, you know, invoke the idea of the university as a center of light and learning. But he did not, he did not concede the major point on freedom of speech, which was why we had sat in in the first place, right. So, when he was done, Mario and myself, and I think it was Art Goldberg got up. And we approached the stage. And Mario, his intention was to make an announcement that the Free Speech Movement will hold its rally on the steps of Sproul Hall, which was our traditional place, the administration building, immediately following and ask everybody to come down there, and we will give our response. And as Mario approach the podium, police officers rushed out from the back of the stage grabbed him by the throat, actually the tie’s tie. And, and, and arrested him, pulled him back away from the microphone. And of course, pandemonium broke out in the, in the theater there were 20,000 people. And Kerr was still on stage. He was in the back looking, he knows it is a mistake, he was looking to shoes, he still had his written notes in his hand, and Art, and I faced the crowd, and it was like, there was going to be a riot. And so, we took up a chant, “let him speak, let him speak,” you know, and the crowd took it up. And then moments later, Mario was released, and he was up, and they turned the microphone back on. And he stood up. And he said, he just said to everybody, “come with us to Sproul Hall where the FSM will hold its rally.” And I think he said, “Let us leave this disastrous place.” So, we all left then. And so, the image in my mind is, there were 20,000, maybe more people in Sproul Hall Plaza immediately following. And so, if you know that Plaza, which you do cause you are from the Bay Area. So, you know, it is huge, and every single space was taken, and they were kids up on the, on the roof of the Student Union Building, across the way and the, I mean, it was called the Bears the, the restaurant, there was a restaurant there too. And there were people on the roof of the restaurant and every, every imaginable thing, we had our microphones set up and we gave a rally to great cheers and so forth. So that is like a moment that I completely identify with that period of, of my life in that period of the (19)60s. 04:26 SM: Would you say that moment more than any other shaped you when you were young? Was there something you did? Well, is there, is there one event that made you who you are even before you got to Berkeley? 04:38 BA: Well, in my case, that is a hard question because I came from such a, you know, my father, my parents were communists, and I came from a radical family already. So, I was already shaped in terms of politics in a certain kind of way. But there is a particular moment that, that was very personally empowering for me. In the, in the fall of protest, and that was October. I think it was October 1. Yes, it was the night of October 1. So, this was the start of the Free Speech Movement. And we had set up tables of the civil rights organizations right in the center of Sproul Plaza. And the police had come, and they had arrested Jack Weinberg, who was sitting at the table for the Congress of Racial Equality. And they brought a police car at 12 noon. I mean, I do not know what they were thinking. And so, everybody was coming out of class. I mean, they were just thousands of people coming out of class and did not know anything, you know. And they arrested Jack, and they put him in this police car, and I was there on the plaza, you know, hundreds and hundreds of other people and somebody shouted, “sit down.” So, we all sat down around the police car. And we prevented them from moving and from arresting Jack. And that is the start of the Free Speech Movement. Well, that night, the night of October 1, what happened was we used the top of the police car as a speaker's podium. And we would take our shoes off, and we climb up onto the roof of the car. And we were shouting- 06:23 SM: There is that picture that David has on the front of the- 06:25 BA: Yeah, yeah, I think it is picture Mario. Well, that night, I got up to speak at the top of the police car. And I had never given a public speech before. It was the first time I had ever given a public, that was, ever said anything in public. And it was in, it was at night, and, and then I would have been able to see people but the TV cam- the TV crews were there, and the lights were in my eyes. So, I could, I could, I could feel the crowd, but I could not see them. So, it was pitch black, and then another light coming in your eyes. And I started to talk with, with what I hoped was considerable, you know, feeling about the issue of freedom of speech. And, and this, this moment, and I invoked the quote from Frederick Douglass. That power concedes nothing without a demand. And when I said those words, and I said, you know where they were from, the crowd roared back as approval. And as they roared back at me, as they roared back at me, I felt this tremendous sense of empowerment. Just a tremendous sense of empowerment. And it was a glorious feeling. So, it was not, I was someone that had not experienced that before. I do not mean that I felt powerful in quite that way. But I mean, I felt human. I felt heard, I had been heard. And if you know something about my personal background, and you have read into it, politics and so forth, you know that that the emotional significance for me, of actually having my voice hurt. And it was a tremendous moment. 08:14 SM: Wow, wow. What, it is interesting that the three people that I am interviewing yesterday, and today are all born 1944. So, I consider you boomers, even though the classification is (19)46. You know, it is really not clear. But when you look at the young people of that era, with the (19)60s and the (19)70s. What would you consider their strengths, some of their weaknesses? 08:46 BA: Well, I cannot, sorry, for my voice. I cannot give an overview. I cannot give an overall estimate. I just know the people that I knew and the people that I knew from the civil rights movement and the Black Panther, I knew people in the Black Panther Party and of course in the Communist Party. So, one of the points I want to make here is that the Berkeley campus itself was it was almost exclusively white. Because this is before affirmative action. If you go to the Berkeley campus, now it is transformed. But there was a total of 100 black students on the Berkeley campus in 1964. Out of 27,500 students. That is something like the statistic, but I knew a lot of African American folks and, and other people from other races because of my political background, because of the political work that I did. So, I just wanted to make that as an observation. And I would say that the people that I knew in my generation, younger and older, some were a little older than me very idealistic, very much informed by World War II and the Holocaust, it is very, very fresh in our minds. In fact, in one of his speeches, Mario actually invoked the Holocaust, in which he talked about the pictures that he saw as a child, and that he cannot understand that the world has not changed as a result of what happens. I think for a lot of us who are Jewish, like myself, the Holocaust, the experience of fascism, the experience of World War II, was very fresh. And, and, and compelled opposition to racism, and, of course, anti-Semitism. But in this country, racism was very, very prevalent, and a tremendous commitment to never allowing that kind of violence to happen again. And they were very strong. If you actually look at those statistics, you will see that a very disproportionate number of the white people that went south in the (19)60s were Jewish. And I think that it comes out of this feeling. So we were, we were white, but we had this, you know, in this country, a Jew can be a white, but a Jew could also be a person of color, depending upon their skin color. Right, there is Jews who are very dark complected, you know, but I am talking about, you know, Jews who were Ashkenazi who were white like myself, but we were not quite white. A little complicated. And you had that awareness. And so, I found my generation to be very, very idealistic. And if there was a weakness, and I think there was a weakness, and it came out of this idealism, that was also a, among some people, tremendous frustration, at the lack of responsiveness of the power structure, which led I think, people to commit very unfortunate acts in the late (19)60s and (19)70s, part of the Weather Underground and Weathermen, and yeah, I did not agree with that. I have never agreed with those forms of violence, you know. So, I do not think that they were they were a relatively small number of people, overall, in terms of who was involved in, and I put the Black Panther Party in a different category, because in terms of the use of self-defense, you know, because although there has been a lot of publicity about the Black Panthers, having guns and all of that, and they did defend themselves with the police. They were constantly, young black people in that period, were constantly under attack, constantly being arrested, harassed shot, as they still are, I mean, it is still going on. So, they were not engaged blowing up buildings or something like that, which is what the Weatherman did. They were, they were very much engaged in trying to defend and protect their communities. I think that was why the Panthers had such a tremendous draw. So, they also had enormous idealism. I see the idealism that too, it just took a different slightly different form. And you think about the in the Panthers, you know, they, especially the women, like Erica Huggins, and, and Kathleen Cleaver and Elaine Brown, they, they ran breakfast for children, they ran freedom schools, they ran health clinics, they provided people with free clothing. In other words, they really tried to do very concrete, compassionate actions in their home communities. It did not get a lot of publicity. You know, if you think about Panthers, everybody thinks guns, you know, they do not think about all this tremendous daily work that- 14:11 SM: Kathleen, I actually been communicating with her down at Emory. She is working on a book right now. I think she is working on a biography. And she has agreed to be interviewed by me, but not until May. Because she has gotten to concentrate on getting the book done. One of the things, one of the criticisms of the, this era, the, the idealistic young people from the (19)60s and (19)70s, is that they have not followed through as they have gotten older. Now, I know you can only give the experiences of your friends, but have you been disappointed in some of your friends that what you saw at Berkeley, one of the things I like about David, David Lance Goines, is he was so committed he did not even go back to Berkeley. And he had not changed one iota. You know, he is an artist, and he is proud of his artwork and everything, but he has not changed, he is still the same guy he was then. Are you pleased with your peers, or are you somewhat disappointed in them? And the second part of the question is this. One of the things that really gets me is when the Newt Gingrich’s of the world or the George Will’s of the world, whenever they get a chance, will take shots at the (19)60s and (19)70s as the reason why we have problems in our society today, with the increasing divorce rate, the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority, the victim culture, you know, all the bad things happened then, and that is why we have problems today and we are going to try to fix them. So that is kind of a two-part question. 15:38 BA: Well, the first part, no, I am not at all disappointed in my generation. One of the things that you do not understand when you are young is that you have a life to live, a full life. So, David, for example, goes on to become a great artist. He is a tremendous graphic artist. Jack Weinberg, was the other example. Which is now one of the key leaders of Greenpeace. Very important. Jackie Goldberg, was one of the leaders of the Free Speech Movement, taught school for a long time in Los Angeles, then ran for the school board and ran for the LA City Council then joined the California State Legislature. She did tremendous work, built tremendous coalition of gay, lesbians, blacks. Chicanos, you know, Latino community, made a real coalition and was a very radical progressive person in Sacramento for twenty years. She recently retired. You know, if you look at Mario, even Mario himself, he was very, he was the same guy in terms of his activism, up until the time of his death, which was in (19)96. He was involved in the struggles to protect immigrants, you know, to reform immigration law. He did remedial mathematics teaching at Sonoma State College, in order to help mostly working-class kids of various races to be able to succeed in the university. I continued to be very critical of university hierarchy. And, you know, the politics that existed there, he was also a brilliant physicist. So, you know and say myself, I have taught for thirty years at UC Santa Cruz, I taught a very popular introduction to feminism class that had an annual enrollment of five hundred. And it was a course that my students filmed. So, it is available on DVDs now, but, but my point in talking about it is that it was it was to infuse students with a sense of empowerment, especially women, because I am part of the feminist movement, and activism, and what it means and now I am teaching a class called socialism, I am, excuse me, not socialism, called feminism and social justice. So, but I just started, you know, a new class. And so that is in myself, you know, and everybody. Margot Adler, who was part of the Free Speech Movement, is the, is a leading journalist for NPR. She is the head of the NPR in New York, she published a book many years ago called Drawing Down the Moon, which is a study of Wicca. And in the United States, you know, the resurgence of, of Wicca and the spirituality in that book is still in print. It is like, you know, one of the major texts, very progressive, very important journalists, NPR, as we all know, is plays a critical role. So, when I think of, or Angela Davis, if we want another person, you know, Angela has been out there in the trenches for thirty, thirty-five, forty years. She almost single handedly launched a national, international movement against the prison system. And the way it was set up and was finishing a book on that subject. She taught in the history of consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz, where I am for quite a number of years training graduate students to engage in radical intellectual work. She is, she is one of the she is one of the few recognized public intellectuals in the United States and internationally, you know, as public intellectual. So, I mean, these are examples, we could go on, but these are examples of people- 19:59 SM: So, what the George Will’s, and I do not single them out. But it is very obvious that when you see their writings, they love to take shots at the era. And that the permissiveness, the all the things that I had just mentioned, the drug culture- 20:17 BA: You know, that is also a very stereotypical view of that period. Because what, what the mass media did in a certain kind of way is focus on the drug culture, you know, the so-called permissiveness and free love and all of that. But, you know, try to give a little historical perspective, okay. The changes in sexual behavior had to do with the invention of the pill, which made it possible for women to engage in in sex, premarital sex. Without the continual fear of pregnancy. It is revolutionary, it was revolutionary. Did people get pregnant when they did not intend to? Yes, of course. And then the other thing that happens is the legalization of abortion in 1973. I know we are still fighting about it. But it made it possible for people to engage in sexual union without, you know, guys have been doing it. You know, it is, from a feminist point of view it is very interesting, you understand? Guys have been doing this forever. Guys. I am on tape. So, guys fool around, like, there is no tomorrow, you know, especially young guys. And I mean in, everywhere in the world, as far as I know. And there are no consequences, right? Because they do not get pregnant. So, they can just, you know, have a good time. feel like it is great. And all this sort of stuff they want to, but then, and then you look at, you want to talk about promiscuity, guys are promiscuous. But when women became promiscuous, then we have a promiscuous generation. Why is that? Because there is a double standard. And guys like Wills and these other, you know, these other commentators. That is it. That is really what you are talking about? What happens to the women, that is what they are talking about? They never say that because women are always invisible. But that is really what that movement is about. 22:30 SM: How have you or even Angela, could you know, or how have you been able to deal with the critics like David Horowitz and, and others who label certain individuals, obviously, the experiences you had when you were young, you kept your idealism, your sense of empowerment and your belief system, you kept it, whereas others have given in maybe, and accepted the status quo again. How have you been able to handle the critics like that, you know, and I know David, David used to be in the ramparts I interviewed him for the book too. And he is a real good speaker, he is a real good guy, he changed and everything, but he is really out there. He has got that book on the one-hundred professors- 23:13 BA: I am in it. 23:13 SM: Yeah. And Larry Davidson's on his list from West Chester University, but not in that book, but he has got Larry on his list, along with Bill Hewitt from West Chester, but how do you? How did you and Angela, how do you handle that? 23:28 BA: Well, I cannot speak for Angela, so I am not going to do that. I do not pay much attention to it. That is just nonsense. It is just nonsense. So, I just, you know, I mean, if you look at Horowitz’s book, for example, everything, almost everything he says about me, is, is untrue. It is, I am not saying I do not know whether he lies, whether, whether this is deliberate lies, or whether there is just an incompetence of research. I really do not know. But virtually every so-called facts in the paragraphs about me were wrong. I mean, even basic, innocuous information was wrong. I do not have it here, you know, it is in my office there, I can go, I mean, so I do not pay much attention to it. He was on Fox News not very long ago, and he was attacking me on Fox News. And I came into class the next day, and I told my students, you know, and I get a cheering ovation. I mean, they think it is funny. It is nothing. And most of this is nonsense. And the other thing I would say about it, and whenever I have come under attack, I do not give it much energy. It is, you do not put, do not put energy into it. This is like sort of advice to no energy because that just fuels it. So, he can have whatever viewpoint he wants to have. He has freedom of speech; he can publish whatever he wants. That is his business. I know- 24:56 SM: I know he had a very big problem with the Black Panthers because one of his associates came on our campus. One of the things I want to ask you, when did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion, your view? And when did it end? 25:10 BA: Well, I think the (19)60s in terms of the civil rights movement, myself, and I think it began in the mid (19)50s. With you know, this is always, I am a historian. So, when did something begin? Well- 25:31 SM: I am a history major, political science double major. 25:35 BA: Because then this led to this, and then that led to this, you know, I am saying, but I usually think about it from the point of view of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in (19)50, you know, the winter of (19)55, (19)56, there is stuff before then. But I usually, I mean, you could go back to the integration schools, you know, Arkansas, Little Rock, you know, you could, maybe, maybe there, but I usually think I will tell you why with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, because that was the first definable visible mass action, mass, you know, hundreds, thousands of people involved. And, and I do want to say that the women, the black women in in Birmingham and Montgomery were the backbone of that movement, because they, they provided the carpools that that arranged for people to get to doctor's appointments and get to work and, you know, provided food, and I mean, they, they were just it was the committee of one hundred. Committee of one-hundred black women. But anyway, I date it from them. Then the first march for integration on Washington was in (19)57. I was on it. There was a second one in (19)58. I was on that, too. And these were, you know, I do not know if there were thousands of people, but there were hundreds of people, we took buses, we camped out- 27:07 SM: Dr. King was in (19)57. 27:09 BA: Yes he was. Yeah. And, and then of course, by (19)60, you have the lunch counters, (19)60, (19)60, (19)61, the Freedom Rides, and then you are off, you know, and then the voter registration is (19)63, (19)64. And I think this is another thing in terms of how people view the (19)60s in the, in the sort of media type view of the (19)60s is they see it as white. But see, the backbone of the (19)60s was black. 27:50 SM: You raise a good point, because the fact that I have met with the individual, three or four interviews ago, said when I when I saw that you were doing something on the boomer generation, I think of boomers as white. And I do not, and then I tried to explain to him that I am trying to get boomers from all ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, you name it, and then I understand what you are trying to do now. But when I first see that term, Boomer, I think white and white male. 28:19 BA: Yeah, absolutely. Because that is the dominant media image, you know, that is absolutely right. You know, so that is why I say what I am, you know, what I am saying is, the (19)60s is, is a fundamentally in many ways, a black era. 28:36 SM: When did it end? Was there a was there a watershed moment when you date it. You know a lot of these young people moving on in jobs and careers, and they are still doing great things as leaders of different organizations. But was there something where you thought “it is over”? 28:54 BA: Well, you can mark it from different moments. I mean in the context; I would use is the fierceness of the repression. See, by the time Reagan comes in, as governor, Nixon comes in as President, Hoover, of course COINTELPRO, the mobilization of federal and state authority to crush this movement. It takes it a while to mobilize because it took them by surprise, but the effort to crush them when you think about what COINTELPRO did, you know and the numbers of young black people who were murdered, like Fred Hampton, for example, and Mark Clark in Chicago, I mean it is, or, or Bunchy Carter and John, John Huggins in Los Angeles. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. The deliberate murder, assassinated, they were assassinated. This is horrific. So, the movement took one blow after another. People were arrested. You know, think about Mumia still in jail. You know, Mumia Abu Jamal. It took one blow after another. And then there was a there was an anti-war protest that was inadequate. It was in Washington, DC and an SDS had organized it- 30:34 SM: (19)69. David Hawk, I interviewed him yesterday. 30:37 BA: Yeah, no, there was mass arrests. At that protest, the way I remember it, they released everybody afterwards. But they rounded everybody up, they rounded up thousands of people. And then they, then they did not know what to do with them. And I do not know where they put them, and then they let them go. Because they could not process that many people or do anything about it. Kent State 1970, Jackson State, same time. So, the movement is still I think, you know, there is still momentum, there is still momentum. And then I would mark the end of the movement with Angela Davis's freedom. We won her freedom in (19)72. And then I think the momentum after that is much diminished. Even though even though you have to say, the mobilizations against the war in Vietnam continued until (19)73, When the war ended. 31:36 SM: That is when Vietnam Veterans against the war come and took it over. 31:39 BA: Yeah. So, right. Nixon ends the war in (19)73. So, we are still out there. I was still part of the mobilization committees and things like that. So (19)72, (19)73, Angela’s acquitted on June 4, 1972. You know, and the war ends in (19)73. Right? Remember it is December or something? (19)75. 32:00 SM: (19)75 is when helicopter on the roof on April 30th. The very end. Well, it is interesting. I- 32:09 BA: So that is about when I end the era. 32:11 SM: I know, I know, the whole thing. When I was in my first job with George Jackson, the books and everything. And while I was in California, I actually did a concert in San Quentin Prison, and we broke a janitor by the San Francisco child's fancy, because I know the Bread and Roses group, Joan Baez’s sister had been able to do concert there. But they were really limiting the concerts. And so, I tried. And then finally, within a year, I was able to get in there with the jazz group, and it was one heck of an experience. Machine guns, the loved them, they loved the janitor, there is a rock group that came, and they booed them and threw apples at them and within five minutes, but that whole scene out there, I do remember, I want to, I got two parts here, one of the one of the general questions or one or more specific, and that is the second side. But I want to ask you about the boomer women. That is your age group. And that group that through 1964. Your thoughts on boomer women, all colors, sexual orientation, you name it, because one of the things that I found through studying history is the sexism that took place within the movements, within the anti-war movement, within the civil rights movement. And then I am, now I am even asking more about and now I, when David mixtures says “oh yeah it has been in the gay and lesbian movement. Oh, yeah.” And the Native American movement, the Chicano movement, and there was some of that because I have already spoken to a couple people of Chicano movement the same way. What is it about all these great, these very important movements that evolved in the early or late (19)60s, early (19)70s? And they use the example of civil rights movement. And women were in secondary roles. We all know, the women's movement kind of evolved from there, but is there truth to that. And in your views, what do you think about all these movements? 34:09 BA: Well, men were tremendously sexist. Just tremendously sexist. And they had no clue they were completely clueless. But in fairness, which I have to say, is some of the women you know, consciousness evolved slowly. And in particular conditions and circumstances. So, one of the things you have to acknowledge or you have to say is that Betty Friedan’s book was published in (19)59. I think it was the Feminine Mystique. When Kennedy ran for office, President Kennedy, he wanted Eleanor Roosevelt's endorsement and she said, I will give you your, my endorsement if you promise to establish a Commission on the Status of Women when you become president and investigate the institutional discrimination against women. So, President Kennedy said: Yes, I will do that, she endorsed him. She was the titular head of that commission when he came into office. And it was actually headed by Esther Peterson, who, as you probably know, was in FDR’s cabinet. And Peterson did a thorough study of institutional discrimination against women in housing, employment, education, everything. So, there was a tremendous report came out in (19)62. So, I remember those things. I did not read the Feminine Mystique until later. But I remember Mrs. Roosevelt, and I remember the, you know, the Peterson report, the commission report, I remember all of that. And I remember thinking about it. Because so I, here is what I am trying to say is the men ridiculed any kind of feminists or women centered movement, these are radical progressive men. I remember conferences of SDS, they were awful, they ridiculed, they booed, they hiss, they did not want to hear anything about it, they made jokes about it, and so forth. This was true in the Communist Party, also, except in the Communist Party, there had always been an understanding of the inequality of women in the workplace, equal pay for equal work and that sort of thing. So, there was a, there was a tradition in the communist movement of understanding, discrimination against women. But they saw it as a function of class, class struggle, not as something that had an independent existence. nobody talked about violence against women. We had all experienced it, but nobody talked about it, because it was to the woman's shame. Now. So, I think all these things are true. And if you look at the histories that have been written about the (19)60s by men, and you talked about it, Todd Catlin, and stuff like that. If the women's movement enters those histories at all, it is as a minor point. And they hardly talk about any of the women who were leaders of the movements. It is amazing. It is amazing to me, somebody just published a book on the left, I just got it on my email. And I do not know the name of the book, it must be the History of the Left in the (19)60s and (19)70s and does not mention any of the women's radical organizing that was going on. This is hundreds of pages, and there is no mention of it. 38:09 SM: Even when the Vietnam Memorial was built, Diane Carlson Evans had to fight to get the Women's Memorial. And a lot of people they do not know the battles behind the scenes, where she was called every name in the book, but she will not be, and she was just trying to get the Women’s Memorial. 38:23 BA: Yeah so, so my point is, yes, sexism was very deep and very profound. And it infused everything in all of the movements. And it was true, regardless of racial designation. But there were differences. For example, in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, black women held leadership positions, and lead field projects. white women in SNCC did not, the white women in SNCC were, they did voter registration work, they did dangerous work like that. They did office work, and so forth. They were voter registration workers, but most of the leadership, of course, it was black in general. But, so, black women have not, it was different, it is not that there is not sexism among black men there is, but it has a different history. So, I do not want to just lump everything together. And no, that is not true. Like Ella Baker, for example, Fannie Lou Hamer as another example, they are like key leaders, about civil rights movement, often unsung. Now, now they are known, you know, but there is, there is definitely on the part of men, which is, the women are just invisible. They are just there, but they are invisible. So, and then the other thing I am trying to say is that those of us as women who were involved in these movements, slowly developed the consciousness about sexism. It is not like we had it all at once or something. But because we were involved in freedom struggles for everybody else on the planet, it occurred to us at some point that we did not have very much. And people, you know, women began to talk to each other. And the so-called consciousness raising groups formed, you know, in the late (19)60s and the (19)70s, which were very important, informal groups in which women started actually talk about their own lives. And out of that experience, a feminist theory emerged, which had to do with the idea of there was something called “patriarchy” and it had a history. And there was something called “violence against women” and most women or a very large percentage of women had experienced it. And you know, and we began to define what you know, and then we gobbled up the Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir. You know, these other things, and everybody all of a sudden discovered, Rosa Luxemburg, and what is the other woman? I am trying to. Emma Goldman. You know, and all of a sudden, we are like, Holy smokes, you know, and then there is the suffrage. You know, the saying “you discover your history” is what happened. 41:21 SM: You know Johnnetta Cole who was president of Spelman- 41:23 BA: Yeah, I know Johnnetta quite well. 41:24 SM: She wrote a great book when she was president there. And then there, she talked. And she talked about the women that, from the (19)60s and (19)70s, about the split that took place between the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement, and that Kent State, like there was no students there of color. They were all told not to be there, there was a split happening. I know, at Ohio State when I was there, I saw the split. And so, she talks about that, too. But she also talks about Boomer women, or women as a whole who were black, who were, they wanted to identify more with racism, and not with the, the anti-war, and certainly not with gay and lesbian issues, and she did a tremendous job in that book of describing the conflicts, which I still see today at the university, that we all come together in a time of crisis like 9/11, and we were all standing there. But how many other times do we come together? You know, and because I know African American men who were gay at West Chester, who were afraid to walk across the hall to the gay and lesbian office for fear of being labeled, and it shows that there is still that happening within the community. And I always question what are the boomers gone to who are now reaching sixty-two. And then that particular age and kind of doing what they were doing in the (19)60s, helping these people along, their children and their grandchildren. Do you see that as there is still some conflicts within the boomer African American female community and in the areas of sexual orientation? 43:05 BA: Well yeah because the problem is, you see that. So my first point that I was trying to make to you was just that our own consciousness had to develop. That was where I was going with, my prior comments, now. And then every community was different, you know. So, I mean, there are two kinds of feminists, for example, who are coming out of their own experience in the struggle of Lavasa, you know, on the west coast and in the southwest, so, beginning to react to the sexism that they were experiencing and beginning to talk to each other, because liberation is contagious. Now, the other part of what you are asking about is, there were tremendous contradictions in these movements. For example, white women had almost no experience with race, or racism. Black woman that was what was in their face all the time, it was not that black women were not aware of sexism, especially. I mean, they bore the brunt of violence, especially for white men. So, it was not like they were not aware of it. But they tried to figure out how they were going to unite with black men in order to confront racism. You know, it was very complicated. All I am saying is, it was a complicated struggle. So, it is not a lack of consciousness about sexism. Any more than, I mean, they are perfectly aware of the sexism. And I think, you know, if you think about Ntozake Shange’s play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide.” That play was a groundbreaking breakthrough play, came out in (19)78. Because it named the violence against women in the black community. And it was a very controversial play and in (19)82 when Alice Walker published “The Color Purple,” a lot of black guys went nuts, attacking her and everything else, but there too she was naming, in that case its incest and, and violence against black women. So, it is not a lack of awareness. It is like, “Where is the priority?” I mean, you are one human being and how many battles can you fight? But white women will completely, almost, almost completely I mean, white women like me who are not but many white, let us put it that way, completely unaware of racism, even women who had been in the south thought “Well, the Klan is racist, but I am not.” You know, not thinking about all their assumptions, you know, it is, these are complicated questions. 45:50 SM: I can remember my first boss, Betty Mensen, after Betty Mensen. She has passed on now, but she the Equal Rights Amendment, why did I say that? I think actually we were, we were halfway through. 46:12 BA: Well, the equal rights amendment was introduced in 1923. Then it gets blocked and blocked and blocked and blocked, it is exactly the same history is suffrage. And another thing that needs to be said, I just want to, I am trying to make a point here, but say that the women's suffrage Okay, we get it in 1920, it was introduced first in about what 1868? Forty- or fifty-year struggle for almost forty years, I think. 46:57 SM: Patriarchy is deep. And men do not want to give up their power and, and privilege. Then say that the suffrage movement, it got intertwined with Southern white Dixiecrats not wanting to extend suffrage at all because they wanted to take it away from black men. So, the major opposition to suffrage, to this to the women's suffrage. The major opposition was from Southern racists, white racists, were trying to prevent it from being passed. So, you needed two thirds of the states, right? Or was it three fourths? Is it two thirds of the state, two thirds, whatever it is to pass it right? So, the last state to endorse women's suffrage and only men are voting, right? So, it is only men in the state legislatures. The last state to pass it is Tennessee. Okay. And it wins by one vote. And who was the guy, this guy named Huberts. I happen to know his history, the guy named Huberts voted for it. And when he was asked by a historian named Eleanor Flexner, “why did you vote for women's suffrage?” He said, “because if I had not, my mother would have killed me.” Now, so the way that women organized the suffrage campaign was, they went to speak to the wives, mothers, daughters of every man in the state legislatures, and then organize the women to pressure the men. That was how they won that campaign. Now, you say the Equal Rights Amendment, right? So that was introduced in (19)23, that was supposed to be a simple constitutional amendment. And it is logjammed at every possible point, it is about patriarchal privilege. That is how I see it. It is about not wanting, not truly wanting equality, because equality is a very deep concept. What would equality mean in a marriage? I mean, if you look at what does equality mean, in a marriage? What does equality mean in the workplace? What does equality mean in education? It is not just you know, if we really believe in equality, then women should have as much to say, as men about everything, the arrangement of human affairs. That is my definition of feminism. Women should have as much to say about everything in the arrangement human affairs, well, that is not true, is it? Who does who is the- who are the architects to design the buildings, who designs the cities, who, who decides allocations if there is going to be allocations for childcare, healthcare, for God's sake, you know, which is going on right now? You know, who is it that takes up the slack when the kids get sick? It is the, it is the women who stay home almost 90 percent, 100 percent of the time. Who takes care of the elderly? I am talking about average families that cannot afford fancy nursing homes. It is the women. Some women have a family, including their husband’s mothers. But a lot of times they cannot stand, moved in because well you cannot put them out. You cannot put them out in the hot in the you know, in the in the desert somewhere, you have to take care of them. So, you say these are very feminist issues, this healthcare things, very feminist issue. But it is always women who take up the slack. It is always women are doing these, performing social services, basically, these are all, this is all interesting. 50:55 SM: Do you think the Equal Rights Amendment will ever be passed. 50:57 BA: I do not know. 50:57 SM: Because I do not see any effort to bring it up again, 51:00 BA: No, it is kind of got dead. After the, there was a big push in (19)70s and then it kind of died, you know, and it, but the opposition to it, you know, the opposition to it is really about the, my point where I was going with this is it is the implications of what equality means. And if you have a constitutional fact like that, then a woman could sue and say, the conditions of my employment are not equal. I am not getting equal pay, then we are talking about economics then we are talking about restructuring the whole economy. No. So all this fluff about the Equal Rights Amendment, like how we got to have unisex toilets and all that, that is just fluff. That is just, that is not really what the issue is. 51:49 SM: Yeah, I see a lot of them on university campuses. 51:51 BA: What? Unisex? Yeah, I mean, you know- 51:54 SM: In the airport and everywhere. I want to read this question. Now, this is two basic issues that I want to deal with here. And one of them is the issue of healing and the other is trust. Qualities that I am not sure, I would like your opinions on, I have to read this. We took a group of students to see Senator Muskie about a year and a half before he died. And we asked this question to him, because the students thought that he was going to respond to the 1968 convention he was at. Do you feel that the boomer generation is still having problems from healing from the divisions that that tore this nation apart in their youth, divisions between black and white, male and female, gay straight, divisions between those who supported the verdict and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not? Kind of a preface here what did the Wall playing in this process? And do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this? Or has thirty-five to forty years made this statement “Time heals all wounds” a truth? Basically, what I am saying is, do you think that that generation of students who were at Berkeley in (19)64, the students that went through the (19)60s that at the moratorium in (19)69. And we are talking now about a generation of, I am not even sure they know the exact number of boomers I hear its seventy to seventy-eight million. So, there is, so we are talking about quite a few people here, and probably 15 percent were involved in some sort of- 53:25 BA: I was going to say the vast majority were not involved. 53:26 SM: Yeah, but still 15 percent is a lot. And actually, I am a firm believer that this, that all of them were affected, subconsciously, you could not live through this period without having some sort of a feeling and to share whatever it might be and or come to some sort of revelation later in life that this really did influence me. But your thoughts on whether this is an important thing, or it is just impossible to heal, is healing it problem here in America? Oh, yes, he- 54:00 BA: Oh yes, healing is a problem. We carry our grudges. It is an interesting question. And- 54:15 SM: Let me say that Jim Scruggs wrote the book “To Heal a Nation,” which is his book, I am sure it is probably in here some place, which was “To Heal a Nation” obviously, the Vietnam Memorial was built to help the veterans and certainly their families and the people who died in the war and so forth. It is done a pretty good job. And I have been to the Wall twice. Yeah, I go to the Memorial Day and Veterans Day, have been doing so since (19)94. There is a lot of black ideals on there. I mean, still it helps, but I know a lot of Vietnam vets, I cannot even go there. So, but on to the next statement healing a nation and the question is whether what, what is the Wall done for the nation? And maybe the boomer generation and what and then of course, it is a general question. I asked on healing overall because of all these other divisions. 55:03 BA: Well, my opinion about healing is that it is an individual process. And it has to do with the willingness of individuals. You cannot heal a nation unless individuals heal themselves. Healing begins in the heart. And it really is, it is an individual process, you can create certain conditions that facilitate healing. But and, you know, you can watch, like myself, for example, I try to be very careful about what I say, and to whom I say it and how I say it, and to have what the Buddhists call” right speech.” In other words, not to, I try not to attack, you know, and try to be very careful about anger, you know, very hard, these are hard practices. Building a wall, oh it is fine. I mean, that is not fundamentally where healing happens. In my opinion, healing happens in the individual hearts of people. And it requires intensive work. Nobody can heal you, you must heal yourself. And part of the healing process for each individual is a decision that you are making about the quality of your own life. When you carry anger, when you carry hatred when you carry wounds, you are injuring yourself. And so, the, the ability to, to heal is your own decision. I am an incest survivor, for example. And I write about it in my memoir, and I had to make a decision to forgive my father. 57:23 SM: He is a Big Nicky; I have one of a couple of his books. 57:26 BA: And I had to make that decision. Otherwise, I was going to carry the hatred. The anger, it was more anger was not so, I do not know if it was hatred, but anger, frustration, and other things that it was all part of a constellation of things, because he never saw me as I really was, as I truly was, he only saw me as an extension of himself in my opinion. So, what I said earlier about standing up on top of a police car and making that speech of being heard, that is what I meant. That was a healing moment for me to be heard. Because I was never heard as a child. I was always an extension of my parents. So, what I said had to conform with what they believed, then I could be heard, but then I was not really heard was I? Now, my father helped me to forgive him by asking me to forgive him. So, I had, I was, I was very fortunate in being able to talk to him. I was very fortunate in his response to me, for other people it does not happen that way. But the decision to forgive is your own decision. Now- 58:42 SM: Could you like for example- 58:43 BA: So, you have, so Angela Davis tells an interesting story in public. Very interesting story. When she was a little girl, she was in Birmingham, Alabama. She was one of the, she lived in a, in a home that was called Dynamite Hill. There it was called Dynamite Hill, because there were black families as they moved in the Klan would bomb their homes. So, you know, little kid, right? She was a little kid grows up with feelings about white people. So, she tells the story, I just, she just told that the other day, and remember this the bombing of the Birmingham church. Right and all that, she was, she was a child when that happened. I mean, she remembers it. She remembers bombs going off when she was a little kid, you know, like brushing your teeth in the morning, and she would hear the explosions. So, she told the story. She said the doorbell would ring and she would go to answer the door. And then the person would say, you know, is your mother home or whatever, and she would yell out: Mama, there was a white guy at the door. Or there was a white man at the door, something like that. And her mother would come in and very gently she would say, “Angela, there is a man at the door.” Angela was saying to us, you know, my mother did that. Because my mother did not want me to hate white people. She was teaching me, so, so then but I am just saying, so then that is trying to, you know, in terms of healing here, that was a very important moment that Mrs. Davis was doing for her children, not just Angela, but all of her children, because she had a different consciousness. She was a very radical woman. She was a political activist. She wanted her children to understand that not all white people were enemies. So that so that they would not internalize all that stuff and have to heal from it. See? So, yeah, that is what I am trying to get at there. 1:01:04 SM: It is very well said. Like, I know Alan Canfora at Kent State is trying to meet with some of the guard. Of course, one and finally he met with had passed away of a heart attack. So, I think one of the things is to try to, I guess it is tough for him to be in the room with them, but he is trying to come to terms and, and certainly, 1:01:23 BA: Give me another example- 1:01:24 SM: Senator Muskie said that we had not healed since- (End of Interview) 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>. Description 1 Microcassette Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Bettina Apthker Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Apthker, Bettina ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Peace movements—United States--20th century; Feminists; Political activists--United States; Apthker, Bettina--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Bettina Apthker is a political activist, radical feminist, academic, and author. As a former member of the Communist Party USA she was active in civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960's and 1970's, and has worked in developing feminist studies since the late 1970's. Dr. Apthker has a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz. 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.10.2016.17 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. 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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 19 November 2021 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Bruce Johansen Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:54:15 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 Biographical Text Dr. Bruce Johansen is a Professor of Communication and Native American Studies, the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He had authored 39 published books as of 2014. He writes frequently about environmental subjects. He also writes as a journalist in several national forums, including the Washington Post and The Progressive, with letters to the editor in The Atlantic, New York Times, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, et al. He earned his Bachelor's degree from the University of Washington; a Master's degree from the University of Minnesota, and he has a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Keywords Washington State; Nato; 1960s; Native Americans; American Indian Movement; John F Kenndy; 1950s; Wild West; Wounded Knee; Activism; Vietnam; Healing. 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: Bruce Johansen Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 2 December 2021 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:02 All right, we are all set. BC: 00:05 Okay. SM: 00:06 Thank you very much Dr. Johansen for agreeing to be interviewed for this, for the Center for the Study of (19)60s at Binghamton University. The first question I want to ask you is could you tell us a little bit about your growing up years, your early influences, your parents, where you went to high school, college, those early years before you became a professor? BC: 00:28 Okay. I was born in 1950 in San Diego by, was in the, Coast Guard, it was, you know they have a, Coast Guard bases you know, all over the place. So, I grew up, you know, moving you know over about half-half the world you know, they have a Coast Guard in the Philippines, they have it in you know, in [inaudible] up in Canada, in Puerto Rico, so they even have all these here in Omaha, but you know there is not any coast here, but they have one. You know, so, I grew up until age 18, you know, traveling, you know, with my family at age 18, okay I mean between ages 15 and 18 which was 1965 to (19)68, I was at high, high school in Fort Angeles, you know in Washington State. And there is a Coast Guard base there too, and the, the time change to you know to, apply for college and I, favorite the- you know, the view of Washington. My parents had been transferred to San Diego again, and they invited me to come but I was, I mean I was itching to get out of that, you know there else. And so, I went over to Seattle and got a scholarship which we, they hired me to go to school there, so I did [chuckles]. [inaudible] provide scholarships so then I was in the, you know in the, Seattle in school when you know the whole anti-war movement blew up. And in 1971, I was the editor of the, "The Daily," which is this student paper, so I mean I spent all kinds of time covering this, you know, and it is on the record if you go back far enough to do that. I started in (19)69, I became the editor in (19)71, and I graduated with my BA in (19)72, and after that I went over to Seattle two times and this takes us up to about, let us see, (19)74 and five. I took ten months in Minnesota, and then came back to Seattle, and I went back to the times, I mean I was overeducated for my job so I ended up getting a PhD at this, you know, famous school and graduated 1971. My thesis and dissertation was on the ways in which the {inaudible] help to fight our government, in you know in the (19)30s, (19)40s, (19)50s, (19)60s and onward. And that blew up a debate all over the country which, it did not actually start up till the (19)80s, and it got bigger you know after that but the- there was all kinds of throwback and there were other people who were you know, interested too. Then I put it, I mean after a long search for a publisher in (19)82, the dissertation came out as a book. [inaudible] awaited it starts to spread, and I am being slimed by people such as you know, [inaudible] and others you know, you have not listened till you been slimed with [inaudible]. And in some of his books too, he hated, of course. So, this takes us up to about 1982, you know, I am out of college, I have my PhD and I started to become active in, in Indian fishing rights, you know also in the early (19)70s, you know, things were heating up in the northwest. Most people outside that area do not have a good idea of why this, you know, battle over salmon was a such big item in that area. But I started out, I was still at the times (19)72-(19)76, and I covered this, the fishing rights, and got to know some of the people behind it. So, jumping ahead to (19)82 again, my book is out, you know, I am a starving artist, you know, books, I mean, even books that have an audience, I mean, often do not support you so, and I did you know, side gigs, I mean, I wrote articles. [inaudible] I could not feel as if I could go back to the times before my [inaudible] job there, and the [inaudible] had been hiring a lot of its own graduates because everyone wanted to stay there. So, when I graduated there, just before that, the dean of arts and sciences, sciences issued an edict or an order that said that the school of communications, which I was in could not hire any more of its own graduates. So, I was you know, when I was looking for an academic job, I went out on-on the road, and I ended up in 1982 in Omaha and I worked here, and I was pretty tired. I think it was 2018 so that, you know, that puts me probably at over 37 years as an academic in Omaha you know and, and I am still to receive books and articles- SM: 15:16 Right. BC: 15:18 -from here so you know it has added up to 53 books- SM: 15:29 Wow. BC: 15:29 -and hundreds of other things you know if you Google me you will, you will get an idea of what is out there. SM: 15:44 Yeah you, you are quite a scholar, I mean you wrote the Encyclopedia of Native Americans and some of the other books are just unbelievable. And my question is, how, I know that you are talking about the issue with salmon and so forth, River Race and so forth? But how did you get an interest in Native American issues? BC: 16:14 Back in about 1970, I read a book by Keith Brown called [inaudible] and that is what started it, and also when my PhD, you the time came to start a PhD dissertation I had just I had several friends who are you know urging me to do the Iroquois connection with, with Benjamin Franklin and others, and the people on my PhD several, one of them did not, had never heard of the idea. And they did not take it to be you know, part of history or part of what could be in the historic scholarly record. So, I had to start pulling evidence and I pulled out accounts from the past and quotes from the papers, and other things. And just feeding them to the people on my committee and after a while they do it, that opened the first door and then I had to do it, and as you can see from looking at, at my stuff prior, I am- mean a writer. And as a journalist earlier, I mean, I did write fast and accurately, I am quick so, and I, you know, I mean people freeze up but I freeze up when I talk, and as a kid, about the age of eight I started to stutter. And for a while I was real, I am unhappy because I did not think I had any outlets. You know, I mean, I just be taken as a stupid kid. So, then I started work on it since about the age of nine. And I am now 71, and as sit here at my keyboard, I mean, I am working on some books and chapters today. So, I mean it, it has not stopped. SM: 20:56 What was, what was the name of that first book that came from your dissertation? BC: 21:04 That was "Forgotten Founders," and it was my, actually, it was my second book. SM: 21:16 Okay. BC: 21:17 The first one was, was called "The Iroquois," which was about how, you know, Indian issues were still alive. So, I mean, it brings things from the past up to date. You know, and so that was the first one, second one was "Forgotten Founders," which has gone on to have a real, you know, interesting, you know, impact all over the world. People, you know, hear this idea, and they either go, that is fascinating, or that is crap [chuckles]. SM: 22:22 And that is the one, is that the one that Rush Limbaugh criticizes you for? BC: 22:27 Yeah, yeah. SM: 22:31 What did he say about your book? BC: 22:33 Well, he just said it was false, and that there could not possibly be a connection here. I mean, after all, you know, the founders were the founders, and the Indians were the Indians. And that is all there was. And he obviously had not read it. And that was [inaudible], you know, when after it, I mean, they paid attention. So, I had a real fun time taking them on and going into their publications and their audiences, and countering them. I mean, I turned them into, guess the word would be foils for my argument. And it, it was spread it out. It had an effect, which was opposite of what they wanted. You know, so it was, I mean, I had a really good time going after them and going into publications, which I could not get into, on my own. But since there was a debate here, I was able to worm my way into scholarly journals in history, and anthropology, and others. The idea has a really interesting fact in several academic fields if you look at it, there is obviously there is history, there is anthropology, there is [inaudible], there is law, you know and-and others you know, so it is spread like that. Also, when I am getting up with audience in several academic fields and the public, and also a lot of people in other countries are interested in American history in a way and I decided to teach audit in India which was fascinating, in Poland- SM: 26:45 Wow. BC: 26:46 -[inaudible]. SM: 26:49 What was the, what was the basic, what was the basic argument in the book that upset people like Limbaugh? What was, what was your basic premise in the book? BC: 27:02 Well that there was an effect of what was, first of all, you understand that Franklin was on the way to do the Iroquois guardian and let us see, in let us say (19)50 or so, you know, he was an on [inaudible] and so, he observed how they operate, you know there is, just the culture you know, who does what, and he had a, he wrote, you know, CDs of [inaudible], you know which, which were you know, well-read small books at the time, you know, they had an audience and he published them I mean, he had a press too. So, he, at an audience and he described you know, how they operate their councils you know, their law, and gave people an idea that the, you know, Iroquois and other Indian nations had a, they were democracies, you know they, they operated in in counsels. So, Franklin takes this idea back home and puts it in his little books, and they, they spread out, you know, (19)50, (19)54, (19)50, (19)50-(19)60s and a bit after that, and this plants some seeds and some of the other founders pick it up, but he is the main one. You know, Franklin who loved going into other cultures and observing them, and writing about it. And towards the end, this real interesting [inaudible] he might have even used [inaudible] in his own time. So, he is fascinating, and almost every, you know, public library has published copies of his, his [inaudible]. You know, so it was really easy to praise what he was up to, you just had to work at it. Because there was so much of it. SM: 31:57 The, from this experience from one of your earlier books, how have, obviously in the academic community, your books have been praised. But for critics, when you look at your writings, say in the since we are talking about the (19)60s here, (19)60s and (19)70s, we can include the (19)50s too, what was your awareness meeting meter with respect to all the major issues of the (19)60s amongst them? How did you become interested again, in the Native American issues and indigenous peoples movements, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s? Did you feel that this period in American history was positive or negative with respect to how Native Americans were, you know, presented in, through books, through television, through movies, through writings, and obviously, your contribution has been so positive and so educational, but just your perception of what was going on in America in the (19)60s and (19)70s in respect to Native American issues? BC: 33:16 Well, I mean, I was, I got involved in these issues is about (19)70. And there were, you know, native people, you know, making their case, about you know, what ended up being forgotten. Founders early on, you know, I mean, it you can phrase it, you know, and they would tell me a bit about it and I was fascinated before about 1968, I was in high school in a rural area, you know, and I was not really old enough to take part in these things. But, I got to college in (19)68 just as the upheaval was flowing up, and the Vietnam war movement was, was also opening up all kinds of other issues, issues having to do with, you know, Latino rights, Black rights, Native rights, you know. fishing rights, all kinds of things, you know, gay rights, things that filtered into our culture after that. It was a galvanizing, anti-war movement, it was a galvanizing event that caused all these other, insurgence to have a platform and it also increased conflict, you know, around all, all these issues, I mean there was a great deal of upheaval in this I think. You know, my next book is on you know, black lives matter, and you see the same issues there that you did in the (19)60s and (19)70s, the whole you know, whole, American movement like Aim and other, other things. All kinds of, the idea was to get out from under a system which had made Native life very tough you know, to basically turn it over and start again you know, get fishing rights back, get land rights back, and then change, the damage which was, they worked on that too. And of course, that is still on, on-going you know the, you know the, the idea of you know, say, you know it is, it is an example but, Indian mascots, okay, which was getting started in the (19)60s. You know, the idea of this stereotypical Indian in shines and advertising it all, all over the place. In Omaha if you have ever seen it, we have the [inaudible] of Omaha trademark, and here in town where the company had its home office, they have a building that had their, their-their Indian, Indian on it, mutual on the top and then [inaudible] you know, Indian. Black lives matter as part of their efforts pointed that, Indian taken down. And if you come to Omaha today, you will see that it has been taken down in the field [inaudible] on it. So, you know, things have some things have changed. You know, and it is just an idea to make people think, and this has been going on. I mean, in the (19)70s, the American Indian Movement, you know, they, [inaudible] of this school I taught at, had an Indian mascot, you know, up until the, the early (19)70s. It was an ugly piece of work. I mean, it was dumb looking stick, bad art, bad idea. And so, Aim, you know, the Aim's head office was in Minneapolis, and they came down here and said, sack that thing, and they did, the early (19)70s, the, you know, the teens came up [inaudible] which, you know, is a big, fat animal that has an attitude you know. The Cleveland Indians- SM: 42:25 Right. BC: 42:25 -that was there, you know, the ugly, ugly mascot got there, too. And I am not sure if you know, they still have, have it. I mean, I have not checked it out. The Washington Redskins, they took that one off and they have not settled on anything else. So, I think the team is now called the team or something like this, the team from Washington. [chuckles] There certainly have been some changes and that is, that is for the positives for sure. Oh, yeah so, I write books as I look at them, have been part of the changes and you go out and you talk about these things, you educate people, and you get out the stereotypes, all kinds of stereotypes and, you know, history about Indians. And these are even carried on by people who have good educations, you know, but I got in there with the scholars and debated the stereotypes, which was an interesting turn of events. The idea at the basis of all of this, was the idea of the frontier, you know, basically said our ancestors came here over the ocean and established for 13 states on the eastern seaboard and expanded out west. And you can see, if you go to a place like, Omaha, the ages of the buildings that go up as you get further from the-the old party town. Omaha was started in the 1850s, you can get the whole idea that was always taught is that so, whites, you know, the Anglos, the people who came over the ocean you know, I mean my, my grandparents are from Norway, that the frontier will move from east to west and I was arguing that it was not that simple. You know, there was a movement of course, east to west, but then there was also feedback, which came from west to east, you know, when we start to learn from the Indians and it shapes our culture, so we have, you know, to some degree now, a hybrid culture, and you can see that in our own language, in some words that we use that people in England could not recognize. The names of our states, you know, half of them, you know Omaha is an Indian name. Nebraska is an Indian name; half the states have Indian names. And this is just an idea of the feedback, I mean the idea that we just rolled over them is too simple. You know, there was feedback and part of that feedback were things like Franklin, going out in the 1840s and 1850s, and building the case himself that that was feedback, in fact, his being part of it. Now, he understood that, and it is really interesting to read his papers because he, he understood things which have since been lost. I mean, I have, I found it fascinating. And if there was one person in the past that I could go back, just one, the one I would pick would be him, fascinating person. SM: 49:11 Well, his grave is in Philadelphia as you know, yeah, and if you have ever been to Philadelphia, a lot of people are still throwing change on his stone, on that corner. Yeah, he is a, he is an icon in Philadelphia. And I want your thoughts on this because you and I are about same age. And even though you started college in 1968, which is the year the American Indian Movement began. If I want to go back to post WWII, I want to go between that 1946 to 1960 when John Kennedy became president, you know, the young Boomer kids, which are born between (19)60, excuse me, (19)46 to (19)64 grew up with you know, black and white television, all those Westerns on T.V. During the 1950s, with a Kodachrome, Technicolor and so forth at the movie theaters, every Saturday, you could go watch Westerns on Saturday, you can actually see him during the week, but when we were in school, and so, and of course, the comics, and everything was the Wild Wild West. It was all about, you know, you had Hopalong Cassidy and you had, you know, you had the Lone Ranger, and Tonto you had, and of course, you had Bonanza, as you got into late (19)50s, early (19)60s, you got all those, all those television shows Rawhide, Wagon Train, you know, the list. And of course, the movies, the many, many, many movies in the (19)60s, they were all these top actors, okay, [inaudible]. And this all the question is this, Native Americans were in all the movies, but they were always at war, with the people, with the white men. And I, you know, as a little boy, I grew up, I had cowboys and Indians, you probably had them too. They were composted Indians that your parents gave you for Christmas, or for your birthday, they were in all the stores. And, of course, you had the happy outfits, you had Davy Crockett, and it, you had all this stuff. But it was always the Native Americans, or they were always at war with the white man. And, and I, and I never really, as a kid put two and two together. I do not think a lot of kids did. And then as you get into the (19)60s, as you start getting older, you find out the truth. That, you know, that, about how they were treated, and you will learn about how they lost their lands, and how the trees you know, they were lied too, they, you know, then you learn more than it is, it is more than just six or seven Native American groups, it is smaller groups that were part of a nation and nations all across the country. And then the, the cavalry going to war, you know, people going west, taking up the land, all the way to California and of course, then you have the situation, big, Little Big Horn. You are, you are a kid growing up and hearing all this as well, by the time you got to 1968. What were, what were your thoughts as a boomer kid, before you even went to college in (19)68 about how Native Americans were portrayed on T.V., in the movies, in comics, in books, everything? BC: 52:51 I think this goes back to, back to, from age two, I mean I was fooling with my parents and we were going into, I mean also, Village Theory has its own basis, you still go out and you see other cultures. And I recall from early on, you know, having an interest in other cultures, you know, and this was the (19)50s and I spent a great deal of time outside the country. So, I had something to compare it to, you know, and I was very, very interested in Puerto Rico, and both my friends were Puerto Rican and I was also for, for prolonged periods you know got exposed to Indian or others stereotypes, and when there was no Americans in the Philippines or Puerto Rico. And I just had different interests, you know, the cowboys and Indians, it did not appeal to me. So, I was from, from early on, I was looking at things from a different angle. And so, as I started to find out that there was actually something here, something interesting I mean, all these other cultures had interesting things to teach us now, the actual, the actual attachment to native peoples started to come up, up about 1970, you know, as I said, earlier, but I mean, I have been prepared by my early experiences to tell this, this standard line now, not everyone has that, you know, has that advantage, you know, being shown other cultures and other people, and having, kind of built in, I mean, I was receptive, you know, putting back to Canada, what this culture stuff is, it did not appeal to me. I mean, I did not like it. So, I am, I have felt better, you know, hanging out with, you know, Black people, Latinos, Native people, and then others, you know, that do not fit these-these groups and that is just genuine over time. I mean, I had a very interesting time in India, basically telling [inaudible] on topics that they had not heard about, but it opens their minds up and they will be receptive, so it is interesting to be on the, on the wave. And, I have kept, my, my basement here that is my library, my papers at all if anyone is interested after I go, it is all here. You know, and I have gotten more interested in people from around the world all the time and people resegregate. And I think that as [inaudible] it is our responsibility to be citizens of the world. But, of course there are all kinds of other people out there who do not think like that. I mean, things, some of them [crosstalk]. Oh, there is also a whole sector in our culture that, you know, have these symbols in their heads. They are the old thinking, I mean, it is still out there, the cowboys and Indians in the south. SM: 1:00:25 The- the, the image was always presented now as a little kid that the, the Indians were always the bad people. BC: 1:00:36 Yeah. SM: 1:00:37 And, the cowboys are always the good people, even when the Cowboys did real bad things toward the, I mean, you know, little boys and girls have a hard time putting two and two together at times. But boy, as times go on, you reflect. And that is the way I reflected it. And but then, in the 1960s, when the American movie came about (19)68, like all the other movements in the (19)60s, I mean, I was kind of happy that it was happening. Because when I look at the 20th century, with an emphasis on the 1950s through the (19)80s, where would we place the concerns of Native American citizens in the scheme of things? I do not remember in the 1950s any president talking about Native American issues. And, and but in the 1960s, I see, I see people like Senator Fred Harris and his wife, Madonna Harris, who were very involved in Native American issues from the get go. And I know Madonna is still very involved, have been her entire life. But, when you look at some of the some of the issues in the (19)60s and (19)70s that stand out to me, this is just me as a white man. But, a little boy growing up in the Syracuse area, that I saw a lot of Native Americans ads on T.V., I remember the one who, of the Native American who wanted to save the environment. And he got a tear in his eye, if you remember that ad. BC: 1:02:14 Yeah. SM: 1:02:14 Yep. Buffy Sainte Marie, who was the great singer of the (19)60s. I mean, she still is great today, what an icon in the Native American community. And her songs all talk about the Native American spirits, the Marlon Brando, the Native American female, going to the Academy Awards, when he was getting in, she was there and there was a scene. And of course, I already talked about all the T.V. shows and they were on T.V. and, and then, too, I would like you to talk about a couple of things here, because you are a scholar that can see the insight into these more than I can. I would like you to talk about Wounded Knee. How important Wounded Knee is in the history of Native Americans, and the original Wounded Knee, and what happened in (19)73. And then also the takeover of Alcatraz, I interviewed John Trudell, who was there and of course, he has passed away and I am really upset that the interview is lost, but, but that was (19)69 to (19)71. And then of course, again, the information of the American Indian Movement in (19)68. So, I am I am really asking about Wounded Knee, AIM, and Alcatraz if you could talk on all three? BC: 1:03:36 Well, that is a big hawk there [chuckles], yeah, after having read [inaudible] book, okay. I came to understand that, did people at that time had to go out and take some toys, you know and-and also point out you know, who owned what, you know and, and who shared culture with whom. And so, in part, I mean, all of these things were skills by eating, and science, you know, with other people in, in movements to point out that Indians were humans, they were fighting stereotypes. It comes as you kicked down from all these you know, Indian movies, and other things which can improve their entity, you know and to turn them into stereotypes. Some of this was also kind of, it tends to go both ways, you know, some people perceive, for example, the Indians you know Alcatraz as, as stereotypical. But I think part of it was, you know, bringing attention to certain issues that they had publicized and part of that was, pointing out that they were human, and part of it was working on getting back the land, you know all these things happened at the same time. And, all of these things had these roots, they were, they were teaching the rest of us these things, that is what I think of it. SM: 1:07:08 The, the, could you talk a little bit about Wounded Knee? BC: 1:07:20 Again, it was a [inaudible] to, to get people to pay attention, I mean to all the things that I talked about earlier. I mean part of it was publicity vehicle part of it was establishing humanity, part of it was understanding, you know, who owns what and where. All of these things, also it goes into, you know the, Wounded Knee happened at the very end of the Vietnam War, so all of the elements that contain that movement, [inaudible] Wounded Knee. But, other than that I do not think of myself as an expert on any-any single incident, and I have not really gone into what, people who established, people who planned it and carrying it out what they thought. SM: 1:09:34 Yeah, I know when reading about the American Indian Movement in (19)68, the people who created it back in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Certainly, Dennis Banks and people like that, were certainly major activists of the 1960s and (19)70s and beyond. Some of the issues you already talked about, the issue of fishing rights the, the revitalization of traditions within the Native American community, the economic independence, which is very important to any group, legal rights, tribal areas, restoration of lands that had been lost. The things that came up in the (19)60s over cemeteries on Native American lands, I grew up in Syracuse, where the Mohawk Nation was fighting to make sure that the New York State Thruway would not go through their, their cemeteries. And there were major protests on the highways near Syracuse for many years. Many college students from Binghamton were involved in those protests, the broken treaties, and obviously AIM started because of the assistance for those who were living in poverty in Minneapolis, and of course that group that came together. Could you talk about, and you know them because of the, you know, who they are, you know, Bell Corte, you know, banks, the leaders of the AIM movement how important they were as leaders? BC: 1:11:19 They were important to but there were all kinds of other people behind them, you know who, you know in the crime life you know, who's [inaudible] we have heard only every so often who are just as important and there are also, how conflicts inside of the movement. Women were not being treated fairly in the movement so, there was a big effort going on inside to address that. There was a group called "Women of all Nations," [inaudible] which was big into you know, pointing out that the majority of Asians were patriarchal and this was not reflected in AIM's behavior which it, at least at the start was very, very male oriented, right. That is an example, but it, you know, other things happened it was not as simple as-as it appeared on T.V. So, you know, they were important, but then AIM also fell hard, you know, in the, let us see after about 1978 and there were major, major differences, between you know different people which were exploited by the FBI and other agencies that were trying to break them up, so. SM: 1:15:02 Yep. Yeah, you know, it is, it is in the antiwar movement and in the civil rights movement, that patriarchal thing was present. BC: 1:15:13 Oh, it was. SM: 1:15:15 Yeah, it was certainly in the American Indian Movement as well. And also, whenever any group starts going toward leaving nonviolence and going toward violence, you start getting into some trouble there. And that whole thing about the COINTELPRO, you bring, it was a question I was going to ask later on here, but they seem to be going everywhere with this thing. The COINTELPRO was the term used by Nixon's government to spy and to infiltrate activist groups challenging the government, any group that challenged the government's issues, linked to the states, what was happening with the, while the eighth, I think you have just described it, you know, they, they COINTELPRO was such a terrible thing, in terms of trying to break up groups, infiltrating groups getting, you know, people to go against each other. Have you done any writing on COINTELPRO and what they did in the American Indian Movement? BC: 1:16:27 [inaudible] SM: 1:16:28 Oh, yes-yes. BC: 1:16:32 Yeah. Look in the index. SM: 1:16:36 Yep. BC: 1:16:37 And from time to time, and type of [inaudible], I have done that. You know, it would be helpful to us, the, you know, in Texas. SM: 1:17:07 Yeah, one of the things, Native Americans also served in the Vietnam War. BC: 1:17:13 Oh, yeah. SM: 1:17:14 There is a brand-new book out now and why, I think it is called, "Why We Serve," it is a brand new one and Barnes and Noble. It is a big book. I would like to ask you, how many, do you know how many Native Americans actually served in the war? And did, most of them come from the inner city or were they from reservations in the inner city and how were they treated in the military? I heard one story from somebody who wrote a book on the Vietnam War. And they said many times, they would put a Native American on point simply because they were Native Americans. Now, all these things, so, you know, how many died in the war? How many around the wall? BC: 1:18:07 Well, I have not ever looked that up. I do know, just by the stories, I have heard that the, [inaudible] was quite high. And it was high, for the most part, because at the time, you know, there were not that many native people in college. So, they, they were not deferred, you know, and they were not, they could not get it. You know, [inaudible] says to, any of those, you know, ways that you can stay out of it. And, some of them actually went on their own because there was an appeal to this stereotype of warrior at the time, but then they get over there. And they find out that well, you know, Uncle Sam is fighting the Vietnamese, and the Vietnamese are the Indian soldiers over there. So, that there is some interesting dialogues where Native Americans find out that they are on-on the wrong side. And that they are being oppressed too, and of course, all the stereotypes and discrimination and all of that went over. You know, this stuff was in the armed forces too. So, I mean, again, I have not studied it and I do not know how, how many there were, just incidentally [inaudible]. SM: 1:20:48 Yeah, I, well I read it in two different books, I cannot remember the two books but they are different ones where in, in a platoon. If there was a Native American within the platoon, the person in charge would say you are on point. And the question, that is a dangerous thing to be on point. BC: 1:21:02 Yeah. SM: 1:21:05 Cause there is a chance you will not come out alive. But also when you are on point that means you are helping the group go in the right direction, and so because there was a stereotypical response "You are good at point, on point, and that is why you are going to, we are sending you there," so, it was so obvious to me when I read it in both instances, in a sense to me they were sending them to their deaths. And because many people on point died and or, they landed or walked on a booby trap or whatever when they were on point. When you look at the 1960s, and the 1970s, because this is the Center for the (19)60s and you brought a lot of historic information in your writings. And your writings are going to be here too, many of your writings. I am going to, my three books I have written by you including the one we have been talking about, I am giving to the university. So, they will be here, at the center. But when you look at the (19)60s and (19)70s, was there, was it a positive or negative time for Native Americans? There was a lot of activism, but were they, was the activism kind of an organizing, a more frustrating or was it a feeling of, good feelings that we were doing something, we were bringing more attention to the world to our issues? BC: 1:22:55 Well I think it was both, you know, there were lots of people who were discovering their history, and what they did, and dealing with problems of their time, with things like fishing rights, and land rights, you know, being mistreated by the FBI and other things. That gave everyone a sense of, you know, spirit, discovery, change, all of that. But at the same time, there was still a lot of people still living on reservations, still unhappy, despicable, inescapable poverty, all of this was happening at the same time, so it goes both ways. You could not change everything at once. So, AIM and others, there were, you know, other older groups have been activists too going back even further, so that tends to fire people up. And when you get active, you get things done and that is a good feeling but you are still looking back at your hometown or you are in places like that where there is people you know, and there is still people who are poor, unhappy, drunk, and that did not disappear. It has not disappeared in our time either. We just, in this area we just disposed of a small town on the South Dakota border, which leads up to [inaudible]. They did not sell anything except beer, so you know Indians were always going up there and buying beer, and cracking it open on the sidewalk. It was quite a sight of the old days, AIM and others have not been able to change the way that human beings, humanity like that. And there is others stores on the boundary because you cannot buy alcohol on the rez, but you can buy it off the rez, and there is still stores which are basically getting people drunk. SM: 1:27:02 Wow. One thing I will say about AIM, and any of the groups from the (19)60s or any activist organization is when they come together, it does create a sense of community, a group of people who think alike, care about the same issues, and then builds, it builds. And certainly, any of those kinds of activities, activist activities, let us the world know that there are many concerns that need to be addressed. And I think another thing too, is, I just finished an interview with Ted Glick, another person from the Catholic movement in the (19)60s. And the fact is that urgency, the concept of urgency is another important quality within any activist group. And what he was trying to do in Minneapolis, like many possible groups, even years before Native American groups, is the fact that these are urgent issues that need to be addressed. And, and part of being an activist group too, or being organizing, is the organizing, of course. But it is the fact that often times, division happens. And of course, we live in a society now that is so divided over everything, but you cannot really bring attention to an issue unless there is some sort of division happening with one's efforts. You know, Alcatraz may have been remembering John Trudell was interviewing. You know, that may have been the people may have been upset about it. And it was, you know, a way to get the attention of Native American issues. But, you know, division was automatic because people did not like it. Jane Fonda arrived at that and they did not like it even more. And so, it is, these are all qualities. I look at these as positive things in an era of a very tumultuous period because whether they would be the people of AIM or the people of the ant-war movement, women's movement, or any of the movements they spoke up, and they did it for a reason. And it was to bring attention to the world, that things need to change and we are living in a world that is equal. We are all one, we are a community and so anyways, I just wanted to kind of throw that in there just from my thoughts on, on that type of thing. One of the things is, was I, maybe you do not know this but was there a generation gap in any of the Native American families with respect to any of these issues we talk about in the (19)60s? BC: 1:30:42 Well, yeah, I mean, there were every family is different and there were things of this type, I mean in all families, you know, my own was that way too. But I detect that there were older families that had this happen, you know, Vine Deloria was still real active in the (19)50s and (19)60s and he influenced a lot of us who came after him. I mean, I do and he was the leader of all kinds of things. Also, kind of a bridge between the older people, and you know, younger ones, you know, he was older, but he was in the movement. And I think the same struggle was happening in Indian households, you know, and others. SM: 1:33:09 Oh, we got a couple more questions then we will be done. Who, who are the icons in the Native American movement of writers, artists, actors, activists, politicians? When you look at the (19)60s and the (19)70s who are the icons that come to mind? BC: 1:33:36 Well the first is [inaudible] who I was, you know, I am really, well of course, and I cannot really think off the top of my head who else you know, because there are all kinds of people in different areas. SM: 1:34:36 Certainly, that book by Dean Brown had influenced you as well. BC: 1:34:45 I am [inaudible] in person, and he said to me that you do not know how any times I have stuck up for you in, you know, debates and whatnot. And you know, I am pretty sure he created it because he was, he had a great influence on me. And if it had not been for him and his book I might have, you know, ended up doing other things, what everything might have been. SM: 1:35:47 Well, I am going to add one name though I am going to add one additional name here. BC: 1:35:51 Yeah. SM: 1:35:52 And that name is Bruce Johansen. BC: 1:35:57 Thank you. SM: 1:35:57 You know, you-you you have no idea the influence that you were having in an awakening in this world about Native American issues and everything. I mean, I, you, you know, I, it is just an honor to talk to you. I mean, you are you are a gifted scholar, and you deeply care about the topic you talk about, and it is, even how you answer your questions, just, just brilliant to me. I have only two more questions. One of them is obviously about the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. Have you visited it yet? BC: 1:36:37 Have I seen it? SM: 1:36:40 Have you been to the wall? BC: 1:36:43 I have not. I mean, I have seen pictures of it. SM: 1:36:49 Yeah, well, I just want to ask this question. In 1982, the wall was built. And all the guys that came home, and gals, who came home from Vietnam were treated terribly, all over the, including the Native American veterans. I mean, nobody treated any of them with any sense of respect. Only until 1982, when the wall was built, Jan Scruggs, John Wheeler, and that group of people that had the courage to make it happen. It was built in remembrance for those who died in that war, the 50,000 plus. Plus, many that were wounded, and all Vietnam veterans who served and as many have told me it is also in memory of the 3 million Vietnamese who died in that war. And so, I-I want, the question I want to ask is, our nation has, was so divided in the 1960s and (19)70s. It was a tumultuous period, but it was also many people say a great time to be alive. So, cause so many issues were being brought to the attention. People were fighting one way or the other. But, the key thing is I want to ask is the healing. I asked this question to a lot of people I remember asked it to George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, and Gaylord Nelson. And I asked them, as politicians have we healed since the war? And should we care about the healing process, the divided soak of so many different issues? Has the wall done anything really to heal the nation beyond healing those who served, and died, and their families, in just your thoughts? You know, I will mention one thing before you answer this question, and that is that when I asked Gaylord Nelson, Gaylord Nelson was very blunt with me. You know, he was the one that was responsible for ending the funding for the Vietnam War in Congress. He proposed a bill that ended it, and of course, he found it Earth Day. And he looked at me and he said, Steve, people are not walking around Washington, D.C., you know, have they healed from the war, they were not wearing it on their sleeve. But, let me tell you one thing it forever changed the body politic. And just your thoughts on whether this, the wall itself has helped the nation heal? BC: 1:39:29 I think it is a symbol of healing. You know, and in-in that way, I think it helped us heal, heal. I was in a, you know, as a, as you heard, a military family and I was very anti-war myself. And so, that line that split us up with right through our house. And so, we, we had come to terms with that issue, I mean, at home and we kind of did. And I have always thought that everyone deserves honor as a person, you know, as, and as different as we are I have tried to be behave honorably with everybody, no matter what their race, creed, color background, etiology might be. And in part, that is because my, you know, my associations with people who are not by culture or color, or background, are so easily diverse you know, and I think that people need to open up to that, to people who are not like them because there is going to come a time when we are going to have to face the ultimate issue, which is what is happening with our Earth. Because humans have gotten to the point where we control what happens to the Earth, the heating up out there, they are more storms and all these things we can see. And I prayed about that, too, because it is the existential issue, and it is an issue that we all face. And, and if we are going to treat each other honorably, that means we have to deal with the fact that people are different from each other, that they perceive those differences in negative way often. We have to get past that. We have to get past the idea that we are different, and so different that we have to claw each other's eyes out. SM: 1:42:49 Right. BC: 1:42:50 Even if it comes with bargaining ourselves back to bows and arrows. Our resources are going to have to be put to healing the whole Earth, and stopping certain things which are going to screw it up forever. And I have done a stack books on climate change too, and it is real, and it is happening right now. And we are, you know, like, Bob Dylan once sang a heart, brain is going to fall and already has, we have to get to. SM: 1:43:58 Yeah, yeah. Yep, I agree. And it brings in right here, this issue of, the issue of environmental racism with respect to indigenous populations. That is another issue we have to deal with- BC: 1:44:13 Yeah. SM: 1:44:13 -you know, about what is going on in African American communities all over the country, but also Native American. And this especially, and I mentioned Gaylord Nelson, because I know he cared about this, because he founded Earth in 1970. He was about everybody. Yeah, and, you know, environmental racism is certainly an issue in the Native American community. I want to close with this, very broad question here. I, you know, you can be, if I can find it here. I want to thank you again for answering all my questions. But this is, you can be as short or detailed as you want to on this, but could you describe how Native Americans have been treated from the founding of our nation through today? We know about the lies, the broken treaties, the broken promises, the stolen land, the treatments, the dehumanizing of them, Native Americans, as we, as oftentimes being unequal to the white man or anybody else. And, and lack of often times respect for their culture, and understanding of their traditions. And, and been taking these things as part of our culture now, because Native Americans are Americans too, as you talked about, we are all family if we can ever understand this, just in your, just you know you have written books on the history of in so many different areas, you wrote the encyclopedia. If there was one major thing you could just say, toward the end of our interview? How, how have Native Americans been treated from 1776 To 2021? [silence] Are you still there? Okay, could you describe in detail or in your own way, how Native Americans have been treated from the founding of this nation through today, we know about the lies, the broken treaties, the broken promises and stolen land, the treatment, treatment that is been so abusive, often times dehumanizing the group, as unequal’s due to their culture, and their race, just you are, you know, you have written books on many subjects, you have the encyclopedia. But to hear a scholar of your magnitude talk about in a, in a very succinct way, how Native Americans had been treated since 1776 to 2021? BC: 1:47:22 If I could go back to the idea of honor, they often have not been treated with honor. We talked about the wall, you know, the Vietnam Veterans wall are people who died from our country. There is one image that sticks in my head that I cannot get out of it. It is some of the, you know, the service members who came home, who were bat on, and I do not think they deserve that dishonor you know, even though I was against the war, I was not against them. Every person has a different reason or two or more for ending up in that war, or doing anything else and everyone ought to be treated with honor, and it has been a long time, I mean, in fact, the Indian, Indians being maltreated, goes back to 1492, you know, with Columbus and I could go on and on about how Indians were stolen from and mistreated that time, on. People, people from Europe, took the land, they took the resources, and the history is all there. I mean, at least [inaudible] of an open society, that we can go find these things out, we can talk about them, we can demonstrate. That is what has been happening. And, that is a good thing. I mean, it is a good thing to be able to discuss, and get these things out in the air, and make our, make our system more perfect. I mean, if we can face the history act with honor, and honor, honor the people who gave us this land, as it turned out. Some of it was given and some of it was by, by force, think of what all of us have learned. And this is what, why I do, what I do is to try and increase the idea of honor between everybody. And to do that we have to get over some hurdles. And this extends on what I was talking earlier about the existential issue. We cannot be fighting each other and I, this is a high bar. But given what is happening, and we can almost see it on the evening news, and other places that there are more storms. I mean, I could go on, [inaudible], we have not seen them. I mean, I live in Seattle, where things were easy. I mean, it did not go up to, and they did not have you know, huge storms and wash everything away and it was easier in the (19)60s in some ways. So, native people they open it, they offer us the opportunity of seeing history with their eyes. It is necessary, necessary that we think about it, we take it to heart, or we change things because as a scholar, part of the job is it just to watch, I mean, part of the job is to define what we need to do with knowledge to cover it, debate it, and to think things over, to draw other people in because this just gets us together to tackle the really big issues that we all face. You know, that is my two bits. SM: 1:54:07 I think that is, that is a great way to end the interview. And, let me up turn the, can we turn this off? (End of Interview) 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. Bruce Johansen IIIF Item Metadata UUID e24e750a-7adf-4895-b4ee-c3676409e812 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/42646d95192a07a5fd4680a0da1ab574.jpeg 019b5a9eb59cfeac4d3f555856175032 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b36b14bd398cfaa6e534e583cb0756a4.mp3 44b1cba641c4cf09468fa281510249ad 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 (Amplitude.js) 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 ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Bruce Schulman Biographical Text Dr. Bruce Schulman is the William E. Huntington Professor of History at Boston University. Born in New York City, Dr. Schulman is the author of three books and the editor or co-editor of five others. His teaching and research concentrate on the history of the modern United States, particularly on the relationships between politics and broader cultural change. Dr. Schulman received the B.A. summa cum laude with Distinction in History from Yale University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:29:51 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 MicroCassette Date of Digitization 11 February 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Andrew Jackson; Corruption; Yale University; 1960s; Free Speech Movement; 1970s; Ronald Reagan; Idea; 1950s; Richard Nixon; Boomer generations; Disco; Students; University; Protest. 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. Bruce Schulman https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/83ee64455fca24119146b00c156f17b1.jpg 039e94e0a4227171ed21b6812f866d0f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3213839f2c2a5415be10276645c95b17.mp3 3914987b5b3954911157722899abb17f 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 (Amplitude.js) 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 2010-08-17 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Charles A. Murray Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Charles Murray is a Political Scientist, author, and columnist. Born in Newton, Iowa, Murray received his Bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1965. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT. He has written with Richard Herrnstein book, The Bell Curve (1994), which looked at IQ as a determinant of socioeconomic status. In 2018, Murray announced his retirement as the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6531,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Charles Murray is a Political Scientist, author, and columnist. Born in Newton, Iowa, Murray received his Bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1965. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT. With Richard Herrnstein, he cowrote the book <em>The Bell Curve</em> (1994), which looked at IQ as a determinant of socioeconomic status. In 2018, Murray announced his retirement as the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.</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; Anti-war protests; Thailand; Streaking epidemic; Dwight Eisenhower; Activism; Watergate; Religion; Vietnam War"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":2,"4":{"1":2,"2":14275305}}">Baby boom generation; Anti-war protests; Thailand; Streaking epidemic; Dwight Eisenhower; Activism; Watergate; Religion; Vietnam War</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 71:55 Subject LCSH Political scientists—United States; Authors; Journalists; Murray, Charles A.--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. Charles Murray Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Murray, Charles A. ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Political scientists—United States; Authors; Journalists; Murray, Charles A.--Interviews Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Charles Murray is a Political Scientist, author, and columnist. Born in Newton, Iowa, Murray received his Bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1965. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT. With Richard Herrnstein he cowrote the book The Bell Curve (1994), which looked at IQ as a determinant of socioeconomic status. In 2018, Murray announced his retirement as the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14275305},"12":0}">Dr. Charles Murray is a Political Scientist, author, and columnist. Born in Newton, Iowa, Murray received his Bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1965. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT. With Richard Herrnstein he cowrote the book <em>The Bell Curve</em> (1994), which looked at IQ as a determinant of socioeconomic status. In 2018, Murray announced his retirement as the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.</span> 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 2010-08-17 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.10.2016.89 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. 71:55 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2ea57eb59a0c65487ac17f3707f6b54c.jpg 9ce45aed36c190df1145e2e5bdcf2dd1 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e81b37090534585d8e5002bfc39bfef0.mp3 18e428025eefb1ccd9f42b9aaea9b268 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 2010-06-12 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Daniel Bell, 1919-2011 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Daniel Bell (1919 - 2011) was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and academic, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He received his Bachelor's degree at City College of New York and his Ph.D. at Columbia University. Bell became a professor of Sociology at Harvard University, where he remained until 1990."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Daniel Bell (1919 - 2011) was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and academic, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He received his Bachelor's degree at City College of New York and his Ph.D. at Columbia University. Bell became a professor of Sociology at Harvard University, where he remained until 1990.</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":"The End of Ideology; Baby boom generation; Karl Marx; Anti-War Movement; Sociology; Non-Violent Protest; Wounded Knee Massacre; American Indian Movement; Arguing the World; The Pentagon Papers"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":2,"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">The End of Ideology; Baby boom generation; Karl Marx; Anti-War Movement; Sociology; Non-Violent Protest; Wounded Knee Massacre; American Indian Movement; Arguing the World; The Pentagon Papers</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 90:13 Subject LCSH Sociologists; Authors; Editors; College teachers; Bell, Daniel, 1919-2011--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>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Daniel Bell Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 12 June 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:01): All right. I will continue to look at it too, to make sure it is not... Yeah. As a former journalist, some of these I am going to read and then I am just going to prompt you to. As a former journalist and great professor at several prestigious universities, what would you say about the students of the boomer generation? Actually, the students you had in the classroom for many years, those were the students that were born, and propped, and going to college between 1964 until 1981 because the boomer generation is defined as those that were born between 1946 and (19)64. Do you feel positive about that generation as a sociologist and as a person who experienced them in the classroom? Do you feel negative qualities starting? Did they stand out in comparison to your students post boomer, those that were in college in the mid to late (19)80s and beyond? And maybe those before? Any thoughts you have on students from that generation? DB (00:01:11): I think the question is too broad. There is a range of students in every generation. And there is a difference to those who come to me as a teacher and those who simply stay away. So, it is difficult for me to talk about a generation. SM (00:01:42): How about instead of talking about the generation as a whole, how about the students that you experienced? The ones that came to you, the ones that sought your advice, counsel, or you were kind of a mentor to, and they were your mentees? Did you find them very inquisitive? Were they fairly well-read? DB (00:02:21): Excuse me. When you think about particular students rather than generation or range of students... And when I think of a particular set of students, they were all extremely bright, very inquisitive, and somebody eager to challenge me, which I like very much. There is no fun or excitement in simply teaching students when there is an attitude to them, but I like students with whom I can argue with and who can argue with me. And sometimes they argue from the left, sometimes from the right. It varies with the class. And the other thing is that I have always liked teaching with a colleague. At Columbia, I taught several seminars with Lionel Trilling on literature and society. At Harvard, I have taught several seminars with Hilary Putnam, who was a philosopher. SM (00:03:48): Yes-yes. DB (00:03:53): And in one sense, we argued well with one another, as well as with the students. So that there was not any sense that we're setting forth knowledge on high. We were interested in what sort of problems when raising. What we have always started to do is to make distinctions, which override some of the clichés. For example, when I was teaching with Hilary Putnam, we would say that some issues are constitutive and some are intrinsic. People often confuse it too. Sex, for example, is intrinsic because it is based on hormones. Whereas, gender is constructed. It is based on cultural norms and such. And when people talk about sex and gender without making those distinctions, they are confusing people. So, our effort has always been to try to cut through many of the clichés of any of the arbitrary statements, to try to really sort out the actual differences. Sometimes, for example, issues are reductive, meaning that they go from psychology, to biology, to chemistry. Sometimes they are what we call emergent. Maybe they are expanding what they tried to cover. We used to say, for example, what is the most important prefix in the English language? And the answer would be, most important prefix is re. Which you sometimes rearrange. So that you are always reorganizing what you are doing. And therefore, you are making distinctions, which allow people to sort out what is it you are trying to do. SM (00:06:09): What is interesting, just looking at your background and you talk about how important Sydney Hook was. You did not actually have him as a teacher, but he was like, you saw him and what kind of teacher he was with his students, and when he taught in college. And one of the things about the boomers, oftentimes they will say is that the teachers were available to them. We could talk to our teachers, we could talk to our professors. Our professors really encouraged us to go out and listen to people, and different points of view, and had different experience in colleges. And if we were not pushed, maybe we would not have gone and had them. So, there was a closeness. There seemed to be a closeness during the time that the boomers were in college. Closer ties with their faculty members. And again, you liked the students had challenged that. Again, you cannot talk about an entire generation. But the experiences from that period, from say (19)64 to the beginning of when Ronald Reagan became president, that was the time when boomers were in college. And there seems to be not that closeness anymore on college campuses like there was in the past. DB (00:07:27): Depends upon the school. A student from Berkeley, I would say, "Who was your teaching in college?" He said, "Oh, I do not know?" He took all elective courses. So, there would be several hundred students in a course. So, I said, "What is the point of taking such a course?" "Well, we had to." SM (00:07:49): Yes. DB (00:07:49): I think these large elective courses are nonsense because you might as well simply have a recording. And so we play it. It is where there is a possibility of being able to interact with students in seminars and such. And one thing about Sydney Hook as a teacher, as one learned, he was always willing to take opposite points of view just to be able to challenge a student. Was not necessarily his point of view per se, but seemingly he would take an opposite point of view. One of my best students, for example, always acknowledged that fact. Was a man, David Ignatius. I do not know if you know the name? SM (00:08:45): That name does ring a bell. Yes. DB (00:08:46): Well, David Ignatius is a columnist in the Washington Post. SM (00:08:49): Okay. DB (00:08:50): And he was the editor for a while in Paris of the Tribune, owned by the Times. And he would always say, "What I appreciate most about you at seminars, is you made me change my mind. Not that you want to per se, but I was interested in the problem and you began challenging me on this to define it, to organize it. Why are you interested, etc." And he says, "Finally, I changed my mind." He has written about that. He has written several columns about that. SM (00:09:27): He was a student here. He is a boomer probably too, probably during that timeframe. Again, a teacher is very important in the development of student. We always say at orientation and for years, it is very important to find that teacher or a few teachers that will be there for you, you can talk to for advice and counsel. And not only on courses you take, but certainly if any issues come up. Sydney Hook seems to be that the type of person. I remember, I have some quotes in there, I put them in the email that I sent you. I have a question on Sydney Hook toward the end of my... But that is a very interesting point of view that students need to hear the other side, and try to wonder and understand the other side. Do you see that was happening back then in colleges, that a lot of teachers wanted people to hear both sides? Some people today say that it is not the same on college campuses. DB (00:10:39): Again, I cannot generalize on that. I find any generalization rather awkward because the thing I constantly deal with students is to say, you have to make relevant distinctions. What distinctions are you making? So you know what belongs there and what belongs there. And therefore, if you know what distinctions you are making or why you are making them, then you can begin to decide what is relevant, what is not relevant. And so that... SM (00:11:24): You are the author of so many classic books, including the End of Ideology. In just a few words, and it is a broad question again, but what was the main theme of the book? It did look at the (19)50s, when boomers were in elementary school. So, when you are talking about that, the book came out in (19)61, I believe. (19)60, (19)61 and boomers were just going into junior high school at the time. So, you are basically writing about the (19)50s and the late forties. And the change that is happening in our society to the service economy. And could you in your own words, say why you wrote the book, why you felt it was important to write it, and the basic theme? DB (00:12:18): Well, I think the title sums it up. Namely, that ideologies have been fabricated or fixed, instead of usages of concepts. And therefore, the subtopic of the book, if I am not mistaken, is on the exhaustion of ideas in the 1950s. SM (00:12:40): Yes. Yep. DB (00:12:43): So that in one sense, the main target was Marxism used as an ideology. Not the law of Marxism was that, and we were wrong. But those who use Marxism as an ideology, in a sense, would be the target of the book. SM (00:13:03): It's interesting because during the 1960s, as you remember, many of the... Particularly after 1965, (19)66, (19)67 and it was very evident on Columbia's campus in (19)68 with Mark Rudd, that a lot of the students were reading that kind of book. They were reading Miles. Somebody told me people only carried Miles's book just to impress people. They had not really read it. But in terms of, I interviewed Mark Rudd, and Mark Rudd said, "Well, Marx was very important. Many members of the new left were reading that." That way of [inaudible] was very important. Revolutionaries were very important. So, the ending of what you were saying was going on the (19)50s, some of the people in the new left, student leaders of the anti-war movement, were bringing those ideas back. Any thoughts on that? DB (00:14:00): Well, in (19)68, add along and count with Mark Rudd because we have been supporting David Truman with the stipulation that they should not call on the police. Because the police would simply go in and break heads. And I was saying to Mark Rudd, what you are doing is trying to play Truman's game. It came out later, as Mark Rudd himself said, one of the issues was the question of the gymnasium on the Harlem side. And he had never been there. He did not know anything about it. He was using these things simply as tools, props. And that was the main thing I disliked about him. That you were not really arguing a problem. You were not really saying, I believe this. I believe that. But you were using them as a tool. And he was using ideology as a tool because he had a language to impress people, but he never understood what the language itself was. And I would say to him at one point, "Who's Bruno Bauer?" He said, "I do not know." I said, "But you're talking about Marx and not know Bruno Bauer? That Bruno Bauer is one of the people that Marx talks about in the Communist manifesto and one of the chief people between Feuerbach and himself. Do you know who Feuerbach was?" "No, who was it?" And so, there was a complete ignorance there of actualities of ideas. SM (00:16:02): Did you change your opinion of him at all over the years as he's... DB (00:16:07): I have no sense of what he was or what he became. The person who I thought most had been in the new left for a while was Paul Berman. SM (00:16:17): Oh, Paul Berman. Yeah. He wrote a book on Vietnam, I remember. DB (00:16:20): Yeah. He has written several books. He has written one book now recently on Islam and on in the Ideology of Islam. But Paul Berman was a young man who had got to think through, he was a good friend one time of Rudd. But after (19)68, he began moving towards the amicus because they were opposing ideas with which he was unfamiliar and he had to encounter. So I think that Paul Berman was the best person to come out of that movement. And Rudd, probably the worst. SM (00:16:55): Are there any people within that movement, because Mark was just one person, but when you think of the anti-war movement, several people come to mind that were... Tom Hayden or Rennie Davis, David Harris. Of course, Dave Dellinger, William Kunstler, the lawyer. Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin. A lot of different... In fact, Rubin was over at Berkeley for a while and Abbie Hoffman seems to be everywhere. Is there anything in any of those people that you admire? Because they are at the cap, the top of the cap, the top of the pyramid in terms of the names of that era. DB (00:17:50): Well, Hayden had been in the University of Michigan and he came to see me. And clearly in his own mind he was saying, have to choose between C. Wright Mills and Daniel Bell. And he chose C. Wright Mills. Recently, there is a book which has come out by Ki Ochs and Arthur Filleg on Gerth and Mills, which is a devastating book. Reputation and Scholarship, how Mills manipulated Gerth and tried to get credit for the work on Max Weber. But they never knew that. And I have in my book collection of essays are the, which I think one of my favorite books is the... It is a book of essays dealing with technology, and religion, and such. And there is an essay there called From Vulgar Marxism to Vulgar Sociology. And mostly about Mills. And there he was thrashing away with these large scale generalizations and you never knew... Well, how things are going right now. There is a power elite. So, there is no change in the power elite from the beginning of the republic to the end. And he said, but you're talking about power, not about politics, which is the distinctions between people and such. No, I had no respect for Rudd because he wanted to go out and swing at people and have them swing at him. Because he thought, "I am going to be a tough guy and we will get into a fight." Well, you want to get into a fight, get into a fight. But that is not a way of making distinctions or understanding issues. SM (00:19:50): I sense that when you are saying these things and you make very relevant points, and that is knowledge is power. And we say this to students all the time, that if you are going to understand your opponent, you need to read about what the opponent stands for. Do not just attack them based on emotion, but have knowledge with power. Do you think that when you look at the movements that came about after the anti-war movement... The civil rights movement was already taking place, obviously, and it was a role model for the other movements that followed. But the anti-war movement itself... Point I was trying to make here. I am trying to get it right. I lost my train of thought here. The anti-war. Yeah. What were your thoughts on the anti-war movement itself and the people that participated in it? Do you think they were genuine? I know you cannot, again, because you cannot generalize, but when you look at the anti-war movement, you see different segments. You see the religious segment, which was the Catholic. Daniel and Philip Berrigan, the anti-nuclear group. Then you had the students. And then you had people like Benjamin Spock, the doctor. And you had these people coming from all different angles and all different walks of life, and violence was something they all opposed until the Weatherman, the Black Panthers, groups like that came around. Did you admire at least some segments of the anti-war movement, these other movements before they were- DB (00:21:41): I admired most of them because I thought it was genuine. I started out in some sense supporting the government and then turning against it. A group of us wrote a long letter to Lyndon Johnson, as we had contact with a lawyer who worked for Johnson. And he encouraged us the write to Johnson, and he would get Johnson to write a reply, which he did. But we were saying that it is the wrong war, so to speak. Sorry, I am being carried out in the wrong way quite often. So that the man, for example, who had been the senator and now became the head of the new school, had- SM (00:22:39): Kerry. Yeah. DB (00:22:43): ... Sent me to kill people. I knew a bit about the Vietnam War, in a personal sense. My son-in-law was in a Coast Guard in Ensign, and he was patrolling the boats. He was patrolling the rivers. And he would write letters to me or he would come home and talk. DB (00:23:03): ... and he would write letters to me or he would come home and talk. He would say, "We are doing it all wrong." So, I had great respect for many of the people there because their feelings were quite sincere. But no respect for people like Mark Rudd who are manipulative, who are using this as a manipulative issue. There is a man who is been a very good friend of mine, Max Lerner, and he wrote a book with a dreadful title called Ideas Are Weapons. Well, ideas are not weapons, ideas are ideas and you debate ideas. But to say, "Ideas are weapons," is to denigrate ideas and to devalue them. I told Max... he is a wonderful writer, very good columnist for New York Post- SM (00:24:01): Is he? DB (00:24:02): ... taught at Brandeis. I said, "Ideas are not weapons. It is the wrong way to think about it. If they are weapons, you should be using it to smash people, rather than to debate with people." But he thought, and maybe he was right in one sense, if you have a good title, you keep it. SM (00:24:29): That is what book publishers like sometimes titles that would get you to sell your book. Obviously, going beyond Mark Rudd, there was certainly Bernadine Dohrn, another person from the Weathermen, and Bill Ayers who was in the news a lot because he was in front of Bill Clinton. Just your thoughts, when you think about... and even as a historian or as a sociologist teaching classes, my golly, you look at the Civil Rights Movement, you look at the anti-war movement, you look at non-violent protests, you look at the Gandhi philosophy of non-violence. Then all of a sudden in the late (19)60s, because the anti-war movement is getting frustrated, you see a segment trying to turn to violence through the Weathermen. There is always the question, people do not understand whether the Black Panthers were violent or not. But there is the scene of Stokely Carmichael challenging Dr. King, basically telling him, "Your time has passed. Non-violent protest does not work." We had the experience of the students at Cornell walking around with guns, although I do not think they had any intention of using them, they just wanted to use them as a symbol. Then in the American Indian movement, you had Wounded Knee where you went from Attica in 1969 to Wounded Knee in 1973, which was about violence. Seems like violence never wins, does it? As a sociologist, I think you have even said some things about violence is just totally bad. I mean, it only brings enemies rather than supporters. DB (00:26:09): Nonviolence can work only in a society which respects people's ideas. Obviously, nonviolence cannot work in Nazi Germany. They can just go in and smash you. But nonviolence works when people respect ideas and say, "Well, if you're willing to take the stand and be nonviolent, well, then I will respect that." I think that in this country, nonviolent worked. Nazi Germany, it would not. In the Soviet Union, it would not. SM (00:26:50): They would be dead if they did that. DB (00:27:10): The thing which I just dislike most the is that the New Left was taking to the university as the focus of their attacks. Any great university and for a while, Columbia was a great university, respects different points of view. And you cannot destroy a university. But someone like Mark Rudd was ready to destroy the university. Not everyone in that Weatherman group, some of have been students of mine and I knew them very well. They would say to me later on, "You know, you made as read a book, which really shook us up and we would argue about it." I would say, "Yes, I know." This was Dostoyevsky's book, The Demons. Had different titles, but the real title was The Possessed. Well, then The Demons, because it is about his group, followers of Akunin, who created violence. I do not know if you know the book? SM (00:28:29): No, I do not. I- DB (00:28:32): Well, it is one of the great books of its kind. New translation, it is called The Demons. It's one of Dostoyevsky's great books along with Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov. Because it is about a revolutionary group and what happens in the revolutionary group. And they identify very strongly with this and it shook them up. SM (00:29:06): You talk about Marco, what did you think of Mario Savio and Bettina Aptheker, and I think Goldberg led that group that were the student leaders of... Ian Rossman... the student leaders of the student protest movement at Berkeley, the Free Speech Movement. Because they said it was all about ideas, the university should be about ideas, not about corporate takeover of the university. In the very same time, Clark Kerr, then the president, talked about the knowledge factory. Of course, that upsets students because many of the students of that era did not want to be their mom and dad who just never questioned authority, they just put a hat on, like an IBM mentality hat. DB (00:29:55): I came out to Berkeley, I met with [inaudible], (19)64, (19)65 because Clark Kerr wanted me to come the head of the Institute on Labor Relations. So he invited me to come out to Berkeley, talk with him about it, I did. Of course now I was crossing the campus with Marty Lipset. [inaudible]. SM (00:30:18): Oh, yes-yes. DB (00:30:20): A man came running across the campus, said, "Hey, Lipset. We are off of the July Days, we're going on to October." I said, "Who is that?" He said, "Oh, it is that crazy nut, Mario Savio." They had an image of the Russian Revolution. The July Days were the ones when after all, they tried to turn against Kerensky. SM (00:30:40): So, the Free Speech Movement was a- DB (00:30:57): I do not know if you have seen the film Arguing the World? SM (00:30:59): No. Well, maybe I have. But was that a documentary? DB (00:31:05): Well, in a way, yes. I strongly urge you to see the film. It's about four of us from City College and our past live [inaudible]. It is about Irving Howe, Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, and myself- SM (00:31:27): Kristol? DB (00:31:27): ... coming out of City College and moving out into the larger society. SM (00:31:31): And that was Seymour Lipset too, right? DB (00:31:35): Lipset was not in this one. SM (00:31:35): So, it was Howe... DB (00:31:37): Howe, Kristol, Glazer, and myself. SM (00:31:39): Okay. DB (00:31:40): There is a text of that that had been put up by the University of Chicago Press, edited by Joseph Dorman who did the film. So you may want to get a copy of the book called Arguing the World. This gives you the debate between the four of us and our friends from City College starting out in (19)38, (19)39 and moving up to the 1970s. Well, it is published by University of Chicago Press, the text of it, and the film itself is very strong in many ways. You can probably call PBS. SM (00:32:30): I can get. You can get anything on the computer if you need access to something. I- DB (00:32:40): The film called Arguing the World and directed by Joseph Dorman, D-O-R-M-A-N. I said, then there's a text of it elaborated, probably find the University of Chicago Press. I would say it would be a rather crucial book for you. SM (00:32:57): I may have... I have so many books. I am amazed that... In fact, I have just been here and I have bought a few books up at Harvard Square. I mean, they have great used bookstores around here. But obviously the Mario Savio and the group at Berkeley in (19)64, (19)65 were not the same as the SDSers and the ones we were talking about at Columbia. But they were the precursors, they were the forerunners for all the movements that followed. They just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement out there just recently, too. Do you have any high regard for them in terms of the... Because there is quite a few names, the names, because there is like 20 of them that were student leaders. They have gone on in all different directions, some very successful in life. Mario Savio did not live very long. He's passed on. He was not very well for many, many years. There is a new book out on him, too, by Dr. Cohen, I think it is out of NYU. DB (00:34:07): I do not already know the Berkeley people at all. However, there is a long section on Berkeley in this film because of the fact that Glazer was teaching there. There is a woman who comes out attacking Glazer, and it turns out Sam become a member of the city council. SM (00:34:30): Oh my gosh. DB (00:34:34): Excuse me. SM (00:34:34): Yep. I have a couple quotes here that I want you to respond to from your book, The End of Ideology. Here is one quote... Oh, there's three of them and you can respond as a group. Quote number one: "We have seen the exhaustion of the 19th century ideologies of Marxism as intellectual movements that explain the truth." Well, you have already even referenced to that a little bit. Number two: "Many intellectuals have begun to fear the masses or any form of social action." I find that because when you look at the masses and social action, that is a lot of what the (19)60s was about. Then the third one, and I love this one and I hope I can somehow remember this forever. It was a quote, I think it came either you or [inaudible], "The difference between capitalism and communism: capitalism is system where man exploits a man and communism is vice versa." Now I hope I can remember that because that is a classic. When I read that, I said, "That is something, Steve, you ought to remember." But I wanted your thoughts here because when you look about the masses, whether the elite phrase of the masses or whatever, when you think of the Vietnam War and you think of the movements, they were about masses of people. The Montgomery Boycott with was about a mass of African Americans who said that, "We're not going to ride the buses." The 1963 March on Washington was a mass gathering where Dr. King gave his famous speech. You had the Black Panthers, you had these other groups, the Young Lords, the American Indian Movement, the National Organization for Women, the anti-war movement, the Earth Day group, the gay lesbian groups from Stonewall, and of course, the Black Panthers. These were all masses. These are masses of people. So, if what you are saying here is that many intellectuals have begun to fear the masses or any form of social action. How do you respond to that? Because that is what the (19)60s are really all about, and early (19)70s. DB (00:36:52): Well, different periods of time having the keyword. Nobody, today uses the word masses. At one time you had a magazine called The New Masses, which was the communist magazine, edited by Mike Gold and Joseph Freeman. Ortega y Gasset had a book about the masses, the famous Spanish [inaudible]. It is a word which has now gone out of relevance, partly because it never had a defined meaning, who were the masses. In some ways, Ortega's book, and he was after one of the most important philosophers of the (19)20s and such, were the scientists, which was is strange. But the word masses has gone out of fashion. Today you have race, gender, and equality. If you look through a period of the (19)50s and (19)60s, I do not think you will ever find the word gender. It was not a term that was used then. But now, gender became an important word to define the women's movement. You did not have a woman's movement then. Most of the movements in the (19)50s and (19)60s were led by men and you had very few women. In fact, the women were complaining they had to do the dirty work, cleaning up and such. Today, gender became a key word. The question is always when and where are keywords used and why. As I say, gender becomes important because it symbolizes the nature of the women's movement and women's rights. Nobody in that period of time, let us say of Mark Rudd, would ever think of gender. It was not within the framework they are thinking. So, masses disappears. And one of my books has a long essay on nature of masses, maybe in The End of Ideology or some other books. SM (00:39:12): This is another very important quote that... I have a lot of your quotes here, but... "A society is most vigorous..." This is very important, and I wish people would read this today. We maybe could get along better. "A society is most vigorous and appealing when both partisans and critics are legitimate voices in the permanent dialogue that is the testing of ideas and experiences. One can be a critic of one's country without being the enemy of its promises." That is prophetic. In my view, if the people that were either leading the country during the Vietnam War, the divisions over civil rights, if they sat down and discussed these two quotes and just the importance of opposing points of view... They are important in your eyes, are not they? DB (00:40:05): I would say this, that certain statements are derivative of their time and relevant to their time and certain statements transcend that. The one you have given me now, I would say transcends the nature of time. It is a permanent situation in any society where there are differences of opinion. I cannot think of any society, unless it is a totalitarian society, where you do not have differences of opinion. So, if you have differences of opinion, you have to respect the differences. I think one of the important things about this society is that it goes back in the very beginning of society, one of the things I used to say, I am not sure I could pinpoint where I said it exactly, is that until World War II, we never had a state in this country, we had government. You had states in Europe. Because these were unitary elements, were pulled alongside together. We only began to have a state where we got involved in war where you had to pull a pieces of society together. You had a government, and a government is different between a government and the state. Hegel used the word state, but not government, you see? I do not think if you ever go back and look at the writings of John Quincy Adams or Thomas Jefferson, they ever used the word state. They never thought of the United States as a state, even though the various states, the 13 states that made up a union. But it was not a state in Hegelian sense of unitary focus. We had a government, not a state. We began to have a state during World War II when we had to pull the society together and organize an army. We never had much of a standing army. A state has a large standing army. We never had a large standing army until World War II. Even afterwards, we still never had a large standing army. SM (00:42:30): Then, of course, we fought the Civil War and constantly, it was all about the union. It was the union, South and North. But we preserved the union. DB (00:42:40): It was a war between states. SM (00:42:47): Yes. DB (00:42:48): There was not gestalt, you see? SM (00:42:55): Yeah. Again, you had mentioned Mr. Berman, but are there any other people that you truly respected. We are talking about here, about, one can be a critic of one's country without being the enemy, I think there were many people did not understand that in the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Because you had even Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, two different Presidents, but very distrustful, opposing points of view of their policies. DB (00:43:24): But people forget that are not domestic issues, they are both fairly alike. Then Johnson built The Great Society, which was Medicare and extensive social security. Nixon tried to do that with Pat Moynihan as his advisor. But both got trapped by foreign policy. Therefore, the domestic agenda was pretty much eclipsed or simply laid low. But we forget that there is a domestic agenda in both cases, even with Nixon. Of course, with Pat Moynihan there as Nixon's advisor, there was an emphasis on the family and strengthening the family. I mean, the whole point of Pat Moynihan advice of Nixon is, one of the problems is that the Blacks in this country never had much of a family. They had been slaves or they dispersed. Therefore... I was on six to eight government commissions. The most important one was on technology and automation. Robert Robert Stovall and I directed most of the reports, one called Technology and American Economy. People do not know, do not remember or do not think about it, that one most important situation in increasing productivity in this country, particularly in late 1930s, 1940s, which was chemical fertilizers. Chemical fertilizer increased the productivity on the land. Before World War II, one of the bad, major social issues in this country was sharecroppers. People did not even know the word sharecropper, but these were people like the Blacks who lived on the land and with the chemical fertilizers, they were not needed. So they moved up North, they went to Watts in Los Angeles or to Harlem or Chicago. People say, "Look at all those Blacks that are unemployed." Well, they were never employed. There were sharecroppers on the land. Chemical fertilizers increased productivity enormously and pushed the Blacks off the land and moved them up... and pushed the Blacks off to land and moved them up north. Black became an issue in the north because of this. Great people understand, I know this, you see, because the Blacks had never been there, except in Harlem, had never been there in large numbers before. But the chemical fertilizers pushed them off the land. And what also happened is that the chemical fertilizers polluted many of the lakes and rivers. SM (00:46:28): That is right. DB (00:46:29): And created a social cost, which regular people had understood, because it was not there before, but the pollution in the lakes and rivers came from the chemical fertilizers, which increased [inaudible] society. So, you have the double edge of it. SM (00:46:47): It is amazing. Of course, the Hudson River is one of those rivers that was... Now, it is getting back to normal. I think they have been trying to work on it for years. Let make sure I switch the side here. I cannot even see how far we have got to go here. Yeah, I am going to... Make sure it's working okay. All right. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? DB (00:47:26): I have never liked the idea of dating particular periods of time as if there were unitary elements. They were not. It is part of our nature of a journalistic society where you have to have a label or something. So, you talk about the (19)60s, the (19)70s, the (19)80s. So many things were happening in each of them. There were so many cross currents. So, to talk about the (19)60s, as if there is something unitary about it, it is never made much sense. So, I cannot respond to the question, because I do not understand it as a question. SM (00:48:03): That applies to all the decades. Even people when they say that the (19)80s was Reagan. There is more than Reagan then. DB (00:48:13): Well, any period of time has many cross currents, so that, it seems to me, it makes no sense we have to talk about these (19)60s, and these (19)70s, and the (19)80s. What happened between 1975 and 1980. Do you know? SM (00:48:29): Between (19)75 and (19)80? Yeah, that was the year of the disco. DB (00:48:35): I am trying to show you that, what if you were breaking the thing down? What happened between 1975 and 1980, suddenly you find yourself a little wobbly. SM (00:48:43): Yeah, I know that the Iran hostage crisis was in (19)79 and that ruined Carter. Carter had problems with gasoline and all that other stuff. I could write them down, but you got to think a little bit. DB (00:49:01): I was an advisor to Carter. There's a book which came out recently about the Carter administration and the famous malaise speech of his. And Chris [inaudible], and we were both in the White House with dinner with Mr. Carter, and I respected Carter. People forget that Carter originally was an engineer. He claims a graduate of the Naval Academy, meaning he was a peanut farmer, but he was an engineer, and he had a very good rational mind, but he was caught by the circumstances, particularly by the Iran hostage situation. SM (00:49:41): Yeah. When you think of, again, the presidents that were in charge, supposedly, when the Boomers have been in line, that includes anybody from Harry Truman to Obama, do you pin any of them as greater than the others in terms of what they have done for [inaudible]? DB (00:50:03): Depends upon what issue you are thinking about. There are many different issues and many different circumstances. After all, Lyndon Johnson is defined very largely by the Vietnam War, which is true in the sense of, this was a major concern. But at the same time, they were building the Great Society Program, which people then tend to diminish or forget, and forget the people who served him. My friend Charles Haar at Harvard Law School, was very much in charge of the Cities Program and the Metropolitan Program. And they were very important people and who were very-very good, but they were diminished by the attention to the Vietnam War. SM (00:51:06): You wrote in your book... What is the basic theme of your book, the coming of the post-industrial society? And as an added note, are you the person that really came up with that term? It was Professor Bell. We never thought of that term until Professor Bell wrote about it in his book. DB (00:51:31): Well, no term ever comes cleanly out. David Riesman used the term at one point, much earlier, but it was never picked up, never done. There was a man in France who did a book on post-industrial society. But I was talking about two different things. One was the move away from manufacturing to services. The services were not simply the McDonald's hamburger kind of thing, but research services, there is other forms of service to the economy, and the word post-industrial was simply to indicate we are going beyond that. But the more important dimension of it was the development of the theoretical knowledge and the reliance on theoretical knowledge, and that many of the things we think about, we derive with theoretical knowledge. Let me give you an example. You know what a laser is? SM (00:52:36): Mm-hmm. DB (00:52:37): What is a laser? SM (00:52:39): Well, a laser a sends a beam. It is a beam of light. DB (00:52:45): Well, how is it different from other beams of light? SM (00:52:48): How is it different from other... I would think there would be intensity that you could control. DB (00:52:54): No. SM (00:52:55): No? DB (00:52:57): The laser goes back to a paper by Einstein in 1904, 1905, that light is not just a wave, but light is a quanta, a pulse. Laser is an acronym. Do you know what the laser means? SM (00:53:10): Mm-mm. DB (00:53:12): Light amplified by simulation of the emission of radiation, L-A-S-E-R. [inaudible] Charles Townes at Columbia in 1939. It's a different way of focusing light through the emission of radiation. So, it changes the plutonium view of light as a wave. And you have to know the theoretical foundations. That is Einstein to Charles Townes. And the word laser is an acronym. Light amplified by the simulation of the emission of radiation, L-A-S E-R. SM (00:53:51): When Clark Kerr gave that famous speech about the knowledge factory, you're talking about the post-industrial society, that is an important part of it, isn't it? The university is a knowledge factory and that is what- DB (00:54:02): Well, I do not like the word factory. SM (00:54:05): He wrote that in the uses of the university. DB (00:54:07): I know, but it's not a factory. A factory is organized about particular things. The thing about knowledge is, it is very diffused. You never know where it is going to come from, where it's going to go. So, I say the paper by Einstein in 1904 is a foundation of the laser along with many other things. But it went from Einstein to Charles Townes who was then a physics professor at Columbia who created the laser. And with a laser, you can send a beam to the moon. You can also do an operation on the eye. It is the use of light in a different way by the simulation of the emission of radiation, L-A-S-E-R. SM (00:54:51): That is what you mean by the codification of theoretical knowledge. DB (00:54:55): Yes. Exactly. Exactly. SM (00:54:58): You also said something very profound too in this book. And again, I have only read a couple chapters, that the growing tension between equality and meritocracy is something a social and ethical issue of the century. Now, that is pretty prophetic as well, because there's obviously been that... The whole, Dr. King, the (19)50s and the (19)60s short equality, not only African-Americans, people of color, women's, gay and lesbian in a double thing- DB (00:55:32): Well, people do not know who it was who invented the word meritocracy and what it meant. Actually, it was a word invented by a man named Michael Young, who was an Englishman who had been, at a one point, the head of the Labor Party research department. And he used the word meritocracy. In one sense, Jefferson used the same term without calling it meritocracy, namely, opportunities of men of talent to arise rather than birth. Before that, your status in society was based upon birth. And you inherited a piece of land, you inherited if a factory, you inherited a practice as a dentist. But Jefferson said, we want to have this open to men of talent, not just birth. Michael Young, when he did the book on the meritocracy, and he used the term... first one to use the term meritocracy, however, pointed out that there was a negative sense of meritocracy. And to some extent, I have understood that. His notice of the negative sense was, you longer had excuses to be where you were. You had no meritocracy. If you were in a low position in society, you were there because you had no merit. And therefore, meritocracy kept people down as well as moving people up. So, the idea of... When I was [inaudible] phrase a just meritocracy. I have always used the phrase, a just meritocracy, never meritocracy by myself. Because meritocracy also pushes people down. You have no excuses to be where you are, because you have no merit. But Michael Young was a very stimulating person, extraordinary man. SM (00:57:38): When was he alive? Or when was his heyday, so to speak? DB (00:57:43): Well, his main contribution came after World War-War II when he wrote most of the Labor Party documents. I spent the year with Michael Young in the Center for Advanced Studies. SM (00:58:00): Oh, in Princeton? DB (00:58:01): No, in Palo Alto in 1958, (19)59. And I wrote an... a collection of Michael Young's essays published by [inaudible]. And I wrote the introduction to that. And people right now no longer know Michael Young. He became Lord Young of Darlington and there's a Young Foundation in England. SM (00:58:38): There were two books that came out in the late (19)60s that were very popular with the young people. And they kind of explained the Counter Culture, and the different kinds of consciousness that was going on, the changes that were happening. As a sociology, I do not know if you ever assigned them to your students, but what were your thoughts of the Greening of America by Charles Reich? And the second one was The Making of a Counter Culture by Theodore Roszak. Those were very major books. I will add though, that Erick Erickson also wrote several books on protests and descent around that time, and so did Kenneth Keniston. So, when you think of that period, say from (19)67 to (19)73, (19)74, those are major, major writers? DB (00:59:27): Well, the two books you mentioned are forgotten, and rightly so. They are very slim books and very thin books. They were coining phrases, not really making an argument, particularly the Reich book. Whereas Erickson and Keniston, they were more serious people, particularly Erickson, of course. There's also a man in Harvard named Murray who invented The Thematic Apperception Test. But the Greening of America, it is a phrase, it is a title. It is not a theme or an argument. And The Making of a Counter Culture, well, where is the Counter Culture now? SM (01:00:16): I know in graduate school it was required reading. We had to read it. It had different levels of consciousness. And Dr. Roszak, I guess has just retired from University of California, Hayward. And he just wrote an update to it, as people are becoming senior citizens, The Making of a Counter Culture, where are they now kind of a book. But to you, they are not major at all? DB (01:00:45): No. SM (01:00:48): As a group of 75 million Boomers, how do Boomers fit into your definition of the post-industrial society? DB (01:00:58): Well, I find that too loose a generalization. Among 75 million, there must be about 70 million different opinions. So, I cannot respond to a question so loose as that. SM (01:01:14): Do you think that, this is a question I have asked everybody though, that because there were so many divisions in America and during that timeframe because of the Vietnam War, those who supported the troops, those who were against the troops, supported the war, against the war, divisions between Black and white. I was on college campus when those divisions were intense, certainly that the other divisions that were happening in America at that time. Do you think that this has permanently affected the generation, the Civil War generation, that they will go to their graves with not coming to terms with some of the divisions that they experienced in their lives? And I preface this by saying that we asked this question to Senator Edmund Muskie when we took a group of students to Washington DC in 1995, because the students who were not alive in the (19)60s wanted to find out if he had his thoughts on what they had read in their classes, that the nation was on the verge of the second civil war, that all the things that they had seen in 1968 at the Democratic Convention, and the assassinations, and the president resigning, and riots and burnings and everything, wanted to know if that would have had a permanent effect on the generation which was their parents. DB (01:02:40): Well, again, I think of the whole statement, two set of loose terms, the verge or the verge [inaudible] the case and civil war between whom and whom? Again, these are phrases, not ideas. SM (01:02:59): But the healing though, that is really with respect to those who served in the war, the Vietnam veterans and those who protested the war, some of them may have issues as they move on. DB (01:03:15): Well, there is one woman who changed so much of this. You know who that would be? SM (01:03:22): One woman who changed... DB (01:03:24): All these perceptions. SM (01:03:28): No. DB (01:03:29): Her name is Maya Lin. SM (01:03:31): Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. The wall. DB (01:03:36): Suddenly you have a very different feeling about the war when you see all those names on the wall. When she first proposed the wall, Bill Buckley said, "This is dreadful. We do not want this modernist stuff. Why do not we have a traditional thing?" So, most people do not realize, if you go look at the wall, that next to is a man on a horse, a traditional statue, which supposed to symbolize, you see, the Vietnam War, which nobody even looks at. SM (01:04:05): You are talking about the Three Man Statue? DB (01:04:07): Hmm? SM (01:04:08): The Three Man Statue, you are talking about? DB (01:04:10): I do not remember what it is. SM (01:04:11): Yeah. DB (01:04:12): But Maya Lin's wall suddenly became the symbol, and suddenly gave a sense of appreciation of the names of these people. SM (01:04:28): You find it interesting it took the Vietnam veterans to take the lead on the monument issue, because there had been no World War II Memorial, there had been no Korean War Memorial. There really had not been a World War I Memorial. And now, there is the World War II, there's the Korean... They have kind of taken a lead in that area. DB (01:04:47): And the Roosevelt Memorial. SM (01:04:48): Yes, the Roosevelt, and now the Martin Luther King. DB (01:04:50): Quite late. SM (01:04:51): Yes. And then the MLK Memorial, which is being built right now. Jan Scruggs wrote the book To Heal a Nation. That was his book. DB (01:05:01): Who? SM (01:05:02): Jan Scruggs, the founder of the Vietnam Memorial. And the goal of his effort to get the wall built was to heal the veterans and their families, and to pay respect to those, but in some sense, to also help the nation heal from the war. And I will respond that Edmund Muskie, he did not even mention 1968 in his response. His response was, we have not healed since the Civil War and in the area of race. And then he went on to talk about that for the next 15 minutes. And then he said, and by the way, we almost lost an entire generation of Americans when 430,000 men died. The effect that this had on future generations of America, it was devastating. DB (01:06:01): I am beginning to fade. SM (01:06:03): Okay, I got, all right, maybe three more questions? DB (01:06:07): Well, go ahead. SM (01:06:11): See if I can cut this down. I guess maybe what I will do, instead of asking these specific questions, I will just mention some of the personalities of the period and just give you... Because you had strong feelings toward Mark Rudd and others. And I to usually end my interviews by as listing about 20, 25 names, people just give a quick response to them, in terms of that period. For the following people, just your thoughts on the following people mean to you. Tom Hayden? DB (01:06:55): A crooked man. Look at the film Argue in the World. There's interviews with-with Hayden there, you will see what I mean. SM (01:07:05): How about Jane Fonda? DB (01:07:08): Rather forlorn personality. SM (01:07:11): Rennie Davis. DB (01:07:14): No one will ever know that name again. SM (01:07:17): Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. DB (01:07:21): Two clowns. SM (01:07:23): Timothy Leary. DB (01:07:27): Worse than that. A man who would destroy himself. SM (01:07:36): Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. DB (01:07:39): Decent man, was unfairly roughed up by the Nixon administration. SM (01:07:49): Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. DB (01:07:53): Decent men, particularly McCarthy. McGovern, I support McGovern when he ran, because my colleague, Irving Kristol, supported Nixon, but both decent men, but not major figures. SM (01:08:11): How about John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy? DB (01:08:17): John Kennedy was a personal force, but never had sufficient weight of ideas. But we never had a chance to find out. Robert Kennedy, such a mixture of things. He worked for Nixon. One time was pretty much on the right and on the left. You never knew, in a sense, what the man was about. And he died too soon. SM (01:08:50): How about Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. DB (01:08:54): Well, Nixon was a very clever man, very shrewd man in his way. Spiro Agnew was a complete crook.... way, could describe as a complete crook. SM (01:09:04): LBJ and Hubert Humphrey. DB (01:09:08): LBJ was a very good man. Could have been a great man, but was trapped by the Vietnam War. Hubert Humphrey was a very nice man, but not an intellectual. He wanted to be an intellectual, but never was. And that was his problem. SM (01:09:28): Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. DB (01:09:31): Well, Gerald Ford was a decent man and he played a decent role when he was in the White House. I think Jimmy Carter was very much underrated. And his work after he left office, and going around the world and such, been very important work. SM (01:09:51): How about George Bush Number 1 and Ronald Reagan. DB (01:09:57): George Bush Number 1 was a fairly good politician, and as a political person, played out a good role. Ronald Reagan, I have never understood, really have never understood, because he is a man who responds to cue cards. But he does is very well. I have never understood the adulation for Reagan or what achievements were supposed to have been. I think what he did do, in a way, was to take the country, which felt very guilty by the Vietnam War, and got the country to put it all aside for a while. SM (01:10:45): Well, Bill Clinton and George Bush the Second. DB (01:10:50): Clinton was a very good politician, very shrewd, very smart, but never wholly consistent. George Bush the Second, to me, was a cipher, a little cipher, and in many ways a very unfortunate president. Particularly by letting Cheney do so much behind the scenes. SM (01:11:22): Of course, President Obama and Dwight Eisenhower. DB (01:11:26): Well, I think Obama has great potential. His books of wonderful books, great sense of feeling, but he has not had that much of a chance, now, to really bring it out. Eisenhower was a man who was underrated. He was very good, very shrewd, but he was shrewd enough to appear not to be shrewd. SM (01:11:52): How about Harry Truman, because he was the very first president for the movers. DB (01:11:58): I would say Truman was, again, underappreciated. He was a very good president, most importantly, because like Nixon, he knew how to choose good people around him. SM (01:12:10): Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, people who stood out for the Women's Movement. DB (01:12:20): Gloria Steinem was a great publicity hound, and very shrewd at that. Bella Abzug, again, she was defeated by Pat Moynihan, and eclipsed by him. SM (01:12:38): Mm-hmm. DB (01:12:41): And who was the third one you mentioned? SM (01:12:44): Oh. It was Betty Freidan, Bella Abzug, and Gloria Steinem. DB (01:12:49): Well, Betty Friedan was important because she was able to re-focus attention on the nature of the Women's Movement, and the Women's Movement's role. But, essentially, it was the ability to put forth an issue rather than anything else. Gloria Steinem always took issues. People forget that one time she worked for the CIA. SM (01:13:15): I did not know that. DB (01:13:16): Yeah. SM (01:13:16): Oh, my God. DB (01:13:17): She and Clay Felker. When the CIA was setting up movements to oppose communist fronts, she worked for the CIA at one time. And then, she married Mort Zuckerman. We could go to any lengths to see how weird this woman is. SM (01:13:37): How about Malcolm X and Dr King. DB (01:13:43): Malcolm X became important because King was killed. And his rhetoric was, for a while, very strong. But after a while people realized it was rhetoric. King had a strength of personality, but people forget, he was also plagiarist. SM (01:14:08): That is come out recently from- DB (01:14:10): Came out sometime ago. SM (01:14:12): Clayborne Carson, or... DB (01:14:13): Sometime ago. But that famous speech of his, it was ad hoc. "I have a dream." SM (01:14:23): He did use that in some of his sermons before, too. It was an ad hoc, but he had used that phrasing in some of his sermons. DB (01:14:31): No. He was very shrewd in terms of knowing when to put forth certain ideas and certain rhetoric. And he was able to take advantage of it. SM (01:14:40): During that period, you had the Big Four. And I do not think you have seen anybody since. The Big Four, which was James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and Dr King. That was a powerful portion of this. DB (01:14:51): Well, I knew Farmer quite well. He was a good man, but never had real strength behind him. Wilkins is a very, very good man. Wilkins is a real intellectual among them, in a way. Who was the fourth? SM (01:15:05): Whitney Young, and Dr King. You already mentioned [inaudible]. DB (01:15:11): Whitney Young was a good leader of NAACP, for groups for that kind, but, except for the last one, never played a national role. But Roy Wilkins, particularly in terms of Washington politics, played a much more important role. SM (01:15:28): How about Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson, because they were monumental people-people. DB (01:15:33): Well, I have never been a fan of boxing, so I cannot talk about Muhammad Ali. Jackie Robinson was an extremely good baseball player and deserved, in that sense, his fame. SM (01:15:52): And then, the Black Panthers. And I have to admit, because there is [inaudible]. DB (01:15:54): The Black Panthers were a dreadful movement, in which the one-time Horowitz, was-was right wing, wrote about the Black Panthers. They were dreadful people in terms of people they killed and the people they tried to support, and such. SM (01:16:20): There is- DB (01:16:20): I think the Black Panthers did more to destroy the Black movement then almost anything else. SM (01:16:26): Yeah. I will mention, though, that there are six big personalities that stand out here. And of course, it is Bobby Seal, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Etta Brown, and Stokely Carmichael. And Nate Hilliard is another one. Elaine Brown. They are big names. DB (01:16:46): Well, they are all names. Cleaver, however, as you know, went overseas, and then turned the other way. Went over to the right. SM (01:16:54): Right. DB (01:16:57): Bobby Seal. Well, one has to distinguish those people built up by the press and by the need for certain individuals to build up people like that, from their actual accomplishments. SM (01:17:12): Forget Mark Rudd, here. What did you think of Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, because they were the weatherman? DB (01:17:18): Well, Dorhrn was a dreadful person, the way she, at one point, approved of the Manson killing. They stuck a fork in a woman. Oh, yeah. I think she is a dreadful person. SM (01:17:41): How about George Wallace? DB (01:17:44): Who? SM (01:17:44): George Wallace. DB (01:17:46): You mean from the south? SM (01:17:47): Yes. DB (01:17:47): Well- SM (01:17:49): He was in the elections there, a couple times. DB (01:17:50): He was a southern politician, and a bad one. And he was very dangerous for the country. SM (01:17:56): How about Barry Goldwater and William Buckley, these real strong conservatives. DB (01:18:00): Well, Goldwater, for his time, was a fairly good man. But then, other than the phrases that he used when he ran for President, had no real substance. Buckley was an incredibly shrewd man, and incredibly good at publicity, debate, and very effective. Had respect for Buckley. SM (01:18:35): And then, the last thing is just these terms or these events. What did Woodstock and the Summer of Love mean to you? DB (01:18:46): Again, these are media terms built up by attention by the media. And Woodstock, somebody gave a phrase. The Summer of Love, people would not even understand what it means anymore. One has to distinguish between media-built sensations and actual movements. And I do not think either Woodstock or so-called Summer of Love, the hate Asbury kind of thing- SM (01:19:13): Mm-hmm. DB (01:19:15): ... are real movements. These were media events. SM (01:19:18): How about Watergate? DB (01:19:25): Watergate was an actuality, and proved how duplicitous Nixon and his camp could be. SM (01:19:39): The other thing I mentioned was just the term, counterculture. What does counterculture mean to you, and communes? DB (01:19:45): Nothing anymore. SM (01:19:46): Communes. DB (01:19:48): Nothing anymore. SM (01:19:49): A couple who have gone on to be fairly successful. Woodward and Bernstein. They are thought to have changed the way journalism was. DB (01:19:58): Yes. I think it did change, in a way, but more so again, as a media event than actuality. And best illustration, the Times never became a Woodward and Bernstein kind of paper, became a sober-grade paper, as it should be. SM (01:20:23): How about the Vietnam Veterans against the War? DB (01:20:28): No understanding of that. SM (01:20:31): The American Indian Movement? DB (01:20:33): Again, no understanding of it. I do not even know what it is. I know what the term is supposed to say, but I do not know what it means. SM (01:20:41): The Young Lords were the Latino version of the Black Panthers. They were big in Philadelphia. DB (01:20:49): Again, I have no sense of what all that is anymore. SM (01:20:53): And the National Organization for Women, as a group? DB (01:20:56): A what? SM (01:20:57): Now. DB (01:20:58): Again, no feeling for what it means. SM (01:21:03): And the Equal Rights Amendment. That failed, but there was strong attempts for it. DB (01:21:13): What rights do you want? When you say equal rights, there is no specification of, what rights do you want? Again, one has to distinguish between a mood, a movement, and actuality, and as all these things roll together. SM (01:21:33): And the year 1968, which is a traumatic year, which included Tet. DB (01:21:40): Well, again, I do not like such terms. I do not think they are useful, at all. I think they obscure more than they help. SM (01:21:53): This might be a general question, too, but you are a scholar, you are a writer, and you have written about periods, you wrote, in the 1950s, The End of Ideology. Do you think that a person like you, 50, 60 years from now, when most of the Boomers have gone on to higher Up, let us not even talk about what they are going to say about the Boomers? What are they going to say about young people and the people that grew up after World War II? What would the legacy be of that period, that many believe is a period of disruption and change? DB (01:22:30): Well, what's interesting to me is how quickly so much of that gets obscured now by the Muslim problem. Suddenly, the Muslim problem's everywhere. Paul Burner writes a book attacking a Muslim thinker, and the papers are full of arguments about that. Suddenly, that obscures everything else before. Beginning of the year 2000, the Times Literary Supplement published a list of the most important books of the last 50 years, or more. And two of my books were listed, The End of Ideology and The Cultural Context of Capitalism. Two books by Isaiah Berlin were listed. Two books by Belinda Orange. David Reisman and Ken Cavalharad had only one book listed. SM (01:23:28): Wow. DB (01:23:28): So, if you look at the Times Literary of Supplement, which afterward, was one of the most important intellectual journals, they list the most important books. But who would know that, Isaiah Berlin, Cavalharad, and myself, the only ones who had two books listed. SM (01:23:42): What an honor, though. What an honor. This book is a classic book. I have actually encouraged people to read it, right now, The End of Ideology. I think it is great. DB (01:23:54): Well- SM (01:23:56): I think it is got so much context. And when I was reading it, and when I read it a long time ago, because it was linked to a class, but now I am reading it, I can enjoy it more, and I can take a chapter, and I can take a page, and I can take an idea, and just stop and try to understand it more, rather than rushing it for a class, which I had to do when I was much younger. But it was very good. My very last question is this. And I thank you very much for spending this time with me. And I truly appreciate I it. It is an honor to meet you. The (19)50s, you were a journalist in the very beginning of your career, and then, you became a professor. But I was curious of what you thought about television and the television media. Because the young people that grew up after World War II, TV was what replaced the radio. And, of course we knew about the Vietnam War through television more than any other war. The question is, do you think that describe the (19)50s television, particularly when this generation was younger in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, really is exemplary of the times they were living in? Can I just put mention these? When you look at the (19)50s, now, this is a little boy. I am remembering now, me as a little boy watching TV near Ithaca, New York. I can remember seeing Victory at Sea, Hopalong Cassidy, watching Walt Disney, Edward R Murrow, I loved him, Arthur Godfrey, I know my parents loved him, and Art Linkletter's House Party, those things kind of stand out, and all the westerns, of course. Then, you get into the (19)60s, and the things that stand out more was TV shows like Laugh-In. You see more and more Black artists. Vietnam War's on TV, the Smothers Brothers seemed to be highly unusual, and All in the Family was something that stood up for the (19)70s. I guess, the question I am asking is this, how has TV influenced the young people of that grew up after World War II? And do you believe that the television and journalism as a whole in the 1950s hid some of the realities of the bad things that were happening in America, right up to the time President Kennedy was elected? DB (01:26:28): Let me put it this way. I think what TV did was to make us aware of a visual culture. Now, it is interesting that there was something before that, which was very visual, but never had that effect. And that was photography. Photography was about a hundred years old by the time of TV. But photography never had that much of an effect. There are great photographers like Steichen, and others, very great photographers. But it never had a mass effect the way TV did. And what TV did was to move, radio did not disappear, radio, in fact, flourished to when people used their cars more. Because when you drove your car, you put on the radio. But it made us predominantly a visual culture, and gave us a sense of the impact of things. Because what it did is allow us to visualize things. So, yes, it has it changed the way the Gutenberg press changed the nature of culture of its own time. Do you know who the Cuopisei were? SM (01:27:40): The who? DB (01:27:40): Cuopisei? SM (01:27:40): How do you spell that? DB (01:27:52): C-U-O-P-I-S-E-I. SM (01:27:52): No. DB (01:27:58): The Cuopisei were all the people thrown out of work by the Gutenberg Press. They were the copyists. Before the Gutenberg, people had books, but they were done by copyists. And Thomas Carlisle wrote a wonderful book about this. But the first technological unemployment were really the copyists, because people had books, but they were copies written out by people who were paid to copy a book. For the Gutenberg Press, you had moveable type. And therefore, you can do away with the copyist. In some way, TV had an impact the way the Gutenberg people did. And the contrast, I would say, is with photography, as you had to the copyists before with the Gutenberg Press. You had photography before, but never had that kind of impact the way television did. SM (01:28:58): One last thing I forgot to mention. What were your thoughts of Kent State and Jackson State? DB (01:29:02): About what? SM (01:29:04): Kent State and Jackson State in 1970. That was such a tragic event. DB (01:29:08): Well, these were horrible events, and rightly so. But there you see the impact was due to photography, the image of the young woman- SM (01:29:24): Yes. DB (01:29:24): ... and the man being shot. There, it was not television, but photography, which became important. SM (01:29:31): Are there any final thoughts you have in terms of, I am writing about Boomers, and we have hit a lot of different areas here. And you have hit different angles that other people have not hit, in terms of ideas and what you have written, and so forth. But is there any- DB (01:29:50): I would hope never to have final thoughts. I would be able to go on and on and on and on. SM (01:29:55): Is there any question I did not ask that you thought I might ask? DB (01:29:58): No. SM (01:29:58): No. DB (01:30:00): You have been very comprehensive. SM (01:30:02): Well, thank you very much, professor. It is an honor, an honor indeed. And I am going to take- (End of Interview) 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. Daniel Bell Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Bell, Daniel, 1919-2011 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Sociologists; Authors; Editors; College teachers; Bell, Daniel, 1919-2011--Interviews Description An account of the resource Daniel Bell (1919 - 2011) was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and academic, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He received his B.S. at City College of New York and his Ph.D. at Columbia University. Bell became a professor of sociology at Harvard University, where he remained until 1990. 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.10.2016.22 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. 90:13 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1268f1e5cac376ef2c72e7244e0b34c0.jpg 8a20a3d68e01509e829bdef1a2e7c0eb https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/fa631efedf8af02f17eff97e12e9f8a9.mp3 e92cb22f082e991fe61d85fd1a44532e 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 2010-11-20 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed David J. Garrow, 1953- 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 MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Dr. David Garrow is a historian, educator, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a Professor of Law & History, and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He was the senior advisor for the TV show Eyes on The Prize and a senior research fellow at Homerton College in Cambridge, M.A. He is a regular contributor to the Washington Post, New York Times, and The American Prospect. Garrow graduated magna cum laude from Wesleyan University and then received his Ph.D. from Duke University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Dr. David Garrow is a historian, educator, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a Professor of Law & History, and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He was the senior advisor for the TV show <em>Eyes on The Prize</em> and a senior research fellow at Homerton College in Cambridge, M.A. He is a regular contributor to the <em>Washington Post</em>, <em>New York Times</em>, and <em>The American Prospect</em>. Garrow graduated magna cum laude from Wesleyan University and then received his Ph.D. from Duke University.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; LGBT rights; Black Panthers; Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; SNCC; Democratic Convention of 1964; Vietnam; Black power movement; Malcolm X; March on Selma; Montgomery March."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; LGBT rights; Black Panthers; Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; SNCC; Democratic Convention of 1964; Vietnam; Black power movement; Malcolm X; March on Selma; Montgomery March.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 126:59 Subject LCSH Historians; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers;University of Pittsburgh. School of Law; Garrow, David J., 1953--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: David Garrow Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 20 November 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) DG (00:00:04): So, my memory now of the different emails and... SM (00:00:07): I have to check these out every so often. Make sure they are [inaudible]. DG (00:00:10): You run them both on the same thing. SM (00:00:11): Yeah. DG (00:00:11): Yeah, we are on exactly the same thing. SM (00:00:11): Yeah. Well the first hundred I did not, and then Charlie Hardy from the history department told me, "Steve, are you getting two tapes?" Because I have had situations where I damage the tape. And then you have got the backup. And I get them on CD's as fast as possible. And then whatever happens to these tapes, end up at the university or whatever and the CD will be there forever. DG (00:00:36): So, okay. Just the one thought I have had in the back of my mind, looking forward to when we were going to get together. I, for whatever reason, have always been deeply, deeply uncomfortable with any and every invocation of boomer generation as a phrase. Now, for some reason I just really dislike the word boomer. SM (00:01:01): You are not the first that is said that. DG (00:01:01): Okay. Now I do not know. And I am not opposed to periodization or generationalism or eras. So, my problem is not with the concept. My problem is with the word. And it may be that my deep dislike for Bill Clinton is what explains this. Because at least in the journalism of the 1990s, Clinton was presented as the personification of the boomer generation. SM (00:01:39): Yes. DG (00:01:45): Now I gave up on Bill Clinton when he mucked over Lani Guinier in about May or June of 1993. And I sort of wrote him off as any political figure, I was interested in [inaudible 00:02:05]. Well this may be completely my sort of anti-Clintonism being transferred to something that is guilt by association with Bill Clinton. SM (00:02:15): What is interesting is that many people have told me they hate the term. Todd Gitlin actually in my interview said, "If you mentioned the word one more time I am going to stop the interview." There has been some issues. One of the main issues is that people that were born between say (19)39 and (19)45 are closer to the boomers, the frontline, the first 10 years. DG (00:02:37): Todd is a good bit older. SM (00:02:39): Well Todd I think is 42, I interviewed him a long time ago. But Tom Hayden and basically all the leaders of the movement were mostly born between (19)40 and (19)45. And when I was in graduate school, I can remember being taught in class at Ohio State that the majority of the militants were the older people, were the ones that were leading the movement even in (19)70. And they were born before (19)46. For me being born in (19)53. Now I have great respect for Todd, though I do not know him personally at all. I do know Tom Hayden, have known Tom Hayden some personally. DG (00:03:20): But they must have football. SM (00:03:23): Yeah, a football game day. DG (00:03:24): Wow. Oh my god. I do not think Tom Hayden is here from the same generation. I mean I do not exactly know how much older than I am Tom is. SM (00:03:39): Tom is 10 years older. I think he was born in (19)42. DG (00:03:44): I think we may want to wait until the percussion session... SM (00:03:45): Yeah, let me go over, turn it off. DG (00:03:54): And start meeting people as a scholar. I first start meeting people 179, 19 80. So, I am 26 at that time. And whether it is Bayard Rustin, whether it is Mike Harrington, whether it is somebody like Tom Hayden. Bayard is certainly more than a generation older than me. But being 26 at that time, both these are good examples to use, because they are so far apart in age. Being 26 at that time, both Bayard and Tom seemed so much older than I am that they seemed to be more from the same generation. The linkage between the two of them seems to be inherently closer than any possible linkage of say, me to Tom. Now, even the youngest of the SNCC people, say someone who is 17, 18 in say 1964 even, not the first generation of SNCC people in here. I am using generation in a four-year increment. But say even someone who was active in SNCC at age 18 in 1964 is still born in (19)46. So inherently for me, in my Civil Rights movement phase, all of those people seem measurably older than I am. Because to someone who is 26, 27, seven years seems significant. Now that I am 57, seven years does not seem very significant at all. So, I think a lot of my ways of looking at people and thinking about generations and thinking about age is the artifact of how sort of unusually young I was when I first got in the interviewing trenches. SM (00:06:03): Yeah, you raised a good point because you kind of are close to that second half of the boomer generation, which had totally different experiences than the first half. So, for them it is like the older brother and the younger brother. And we had many cases of that. And I think part of the process of doing this book, I have learned so much that you cannot put things into nice packages that there is what I call a spirit. There was a spirit that really crossed, was a part of the front-runners of the generation that were linked to some people that were older, maybe members of the silent generation or those born in World War II. That had similar experiences. And that is what Tom Hayden said. Tom does not like the term boomer. Two questions for you. Up through when does your application of the term run? What is your what is the [inaudible] year? DG (00:06:59): Because I am a higher ed person and all my degrees are in higher ed, higher education looks at the boomer generation as those born between (19)46 and (19)64. And then we get into the generation Xer's, which is 65 to about (19)81, (19)82, there is a little discrepancy there. Just two things then, now given what I am now doing with Barack, Barack was born in (19)61, and all the people I am now interviewing in terms of his contemporaries are either his age, or say in terms of his Harvard classmates, since Barack takes essentially five years off, (19)83 to (19)88 before law school. So, a lot of Barack classmates are five years younger than he is in terms of the people I go interview for this. Now, it is interesting when I interview someone who is born in 1966, entering Harvard Law School of 1988, and they are 13 years younger than me. And I am quite aware that they are younger than me, they do not quite feel like they are from a different generation in the sense that my graduate students are, or my wife's graduate students whom we know. So, I think of some of the PhD's, new PhD's, recent PhD's we know at Cambridge. I am just going to say the names that I think about people like Lee and Julia. They are going to be 30 now roughly, maybe early thirties. So that means they are born 1980. Now they are a generation younger than me in a way that somebody born (19)66 is not so clearly. And then the other thing I was going to say to a Civil Rights historian like me, (19)45, (19)46 looms big, because of how totally different the local world, particularly in the South is, once you have got African American military veterans coming back. When the war ends, (19)45, (19)46, Amzie Moore, Medgar Evers, folks like that. So, my predisposition in terms of how I would periodize things is to draw a line some place in (19)45. And then probably, I guess I would begin in (19)46 because if somebody gets home from the war sometime summer of (19)45, fall of (19)45, the first children of the war are born in (19)46. One my first conscious memories, and I may just be slow and not very good, and I certainly have more reasons than most people to have blocked out good chunks, large chunks, huge chunks of my early childhood. My earliest substantive memories are the Kennedy assassination and the Kennedy funeral, which I saw in person. So, for me, I have vague recollections of my father kvetching about traffic problems because of the march on Washington. So that is three months earlier. So, my first political news memories are from being 10 years old. Now, let me say one other thing, and this is really, really central. And if there is anything profound, I have to say, I think this is profound. And I have been aware of this for going on 30 years and I still cannot wrap my little brain around it. Martin Luther King, the whole ambition of King's public life, takes place in less than 13 years. From late (19)55 to early (19)68. Now, when I started out in (19)79, (19)80, at age 26, age 27, the 13 years from (19)55 to (19)68, 13 years seems like a long time. A really long time. Now here is the crux of my problem. I have now been doing this for, depending on where I put the start point, at least 32 years from when Protest at Selma was published. SM (00:12:16): Yes, I have that. DG (00:12:16): Or in terms of when I started, I started my first day of work on what became Protest at Selma was June 1st, (19)74, which I remember quite clearly because it is when I began work on the senior thesis that ended up as Protest at Selma. Now the notion that I have been doing more or less the same thing, permutations of the same thing for 32 to 36 years. I have very clear memories of, I can picture... One of the weird things with my memory is that I cannot tell you a lot of things about my personal life or things that I did or girlfriends or going to meet, did I speak at a conference? When did I last speak in Louisville? When did I last speak at Princeton? Things about my personal life, personal experiences, none of that sticks. But I can picture almost without exception, virtually every person I have ever interviewed and can picture the room, the scene. SM (00:13:33): So, can I. DG (00:13:34): 1979 forward. SM (00:13:35): Oh, wow. That is really a good story. DG (00:13:38): But it is profoundly weird to me that I have been a historian for 32 plus years. And my 32 plus years does not seem very long to me. Whereas King's public life was only 13 years. I cannot wrap... This is about the limits of my ability to be articulate about this. But in making the answer very simple is that the black freedom struggle of that period happened very, very quickly, very, very intensively. And let me do a further extension or parallel of that. Up until (19)65, when Griswold comes down, and indeed really into (19)66, (19)67, this is just parroting from Liberty and Sexuality, nobody with two or three real, real outlier exceptions, no one has ever thought, ever had the idea of a constitutional right to abortion. Now within the space of six years, never mind 13 with King, within the space of literally six years, and then January (19)73, it is actually more like five. Within the space of five years this, being the idea of a constitutional right to abortion, goes from being non-existent to being the law of the land. That at least initially the relatively non-controversial law of land. So, the speed with which Roe v Wade comes to pass is mind-boggling, even compared to the speed of the black freedom struggle. Now lastly, look at where we are today, where we have been the last 6, 9, 10 years with gay equality, gay marriage. No societal change in my lifetime comes anywhere imaginably close in magnitude and scale and depth to how the status of gay people has changed in American society from when I was in high school until the present day. I have a reasonably clear memory of first realizing that there was such a thing as a gay person in I think maybe my junior or senior year of college at Wesleyan, which should be like 1973. Now that is pretty slow, pretty late. Was I aware that Stonewall had happened? I read the New York Times when I was in high school, so I must have read about this. But I did not have the personal awareness, certainly I had no awareness when I was in high school in Greenwich up through (19)71, there was such a thing as gay people. And I cannot remember who it was at Wesleyan, and I do not know the gay historiography, gay identity theory quite well enough to do this competently. But there is, I think no question as a historical matter, as a legal matter, that the speed and degree of progression with gay social acceptance, gay legal rights is directly concomitant to the public visibility of gay people. Because the more visible, I would argue, the more non-gay people become aware of fundamental similarity, fundamental equality. But needless to say, there is no one who is more totally pro-gay marriage than I am. But I view the speed with which gay people have moved from being either non-present or actively widely harassed, humiliated, discriminated against. I view the speed with which this has happened as just remarkable. So, on all of these things, whether it is the black freedom struggle, 13 years, whether it is right to abortion, five or six years, whether it is gay equality, the last, however, we would put a beginning point on that sometime, whether Stonewall or later. I think the speed of change over the course of my lifetime on the things I care about has been just remarkable. SM (00:19:41): Well those, they are beautiful insights. Because when I was a graduate student at Ohio State, and I believe the spring of (19)71, Dr. Johnson, our advisor, we were talking about the war. In fact, it was a legal aspect in higher ed class. At the very end of the class, he asked all the men to stay after, and well, we were going back to study and whatever. It is in the middle of the winter. And he said, "I want you guys to meet Dr. Allen Hurst." DG (00:20:05): I recognize that name. SM (00:20:07): And we are talking about the war in Vietnam, our whole theory, we were talking about Civil Rights and you were talking about women's issues, whether police can come on campus. We are dealing with a lot of legal issues here. And he says, "I want to introduce to you the guy who is going to get the first PhD in gay history, Amal Hurst from the University of Minnesota." I think he was at Minnesota, and we were looking at each other. First off, we were black and white, no Asians, but black and white. And we were in this room, we all looked at each other, none of us knew hardly anything, we knew nothing about gay people. And we did not even know that there were gay people. And we are talking about African American and white males, who are liberal and pretty well-educated. And so, we did not understand why Dr. Johnson did this, because Phil Tripp was another person that asked Dr. Johnson to introduce them. And he just wanted to make us aware that there is another group that is being discriminated against in our society. And you are going to be dealing with this issue down the road if you are going to have a career in higher ed. DG (00:21:14): Right. SM (00:21:17): And he talked, and Pat comes over. He said, "Was not that strange?" We did not dislike the man. He was brilliant when he talked. And obviously he was a front runner. DG (00:21:24): Right-right. SM (00:21:27): But the fact that here we are dealing with the issues of black and white, male and female, war and peace. And here we are talking about gay rights in 1971. DG (00:21:37): Right now, let me take a pause. Just me to get more coffee. Because given my... Given what you are doing, be sure to look, need to think about the date on it, it is going to be April or May of 2000. So, look on the 2000 menu. And it is a long newspaper piece that I had in the Atlanta Journal constitution discussing the experience of the 40th reunion of SNCC, and the sort of implicit tensions between the ways in which the participant alumni wanted to remember the SNCC experience. Versus what we historians believe we know about the SNCC experience. And my sort of gentle polite point is that, and this reflects a broader belief I have, is that people remember happy experiences much better, much more clearly than they remember negative or unpleasant experiences. That people retain what is happy and pleasing and reassuring and discard that which is troubling and unpleasant. And I first realized that principle, not sure it is correct it is a principle, early on when I was interviewing people who had been in Montgomery (19)55, the (19)59, (19)60 doc's time in Montgomery. And I started to realize that virtually without exception, everybody had very clear, sometimes detailed, memories of the year of the boycott, December (19)55 to December (19)56. But the vast majority of them had very little memory about what happens in Montgomery and what happens with the Montgomery Improvement Association 1957 to 1959. Because there is just a lot of internal tensions and disagreements, and some people are sour about all the attention that is gone to Dr. King. And some people are sour that Mrs. Parks has been sort of forgotten and ignored. But very few people in black Montgomery could sort of narrate their way across the calendar of (19)57, (19)58, (19)59, yet virtually everyone could narrate their way from January to March to June to November of 1956. So, you run into this probably just as much as I do, interviewing hundreds and hundreds of people, whether it is for King, for Roe vs Wade, for Barack Obama. The variegation of human memory, the selectivity of human memory, the way in which human memory moves things around across time and gets chronology bodged up, is fascinating to me. And I deal with it. And in the present context, I deal with it all the time with Obama, especially in the 1980s. Which is the heart of it, the Barack Obama circle, at least in some ways. But so, I have become acutely conscious of the importance of getting sort of it documented, where was Barack at different times in the calendar 1984 or the calendar 1985. So that when I hear different people's memories, I saw Barack in LA or Barack went to this conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. SM (00:26:06): They do not have any... DG (00:26:14): So that I have got a sort of calendar skeleton to which I can try to attach the memories in some sort of jigsaw puzzle type of way. Because I think I have always thought right back the Selma book, I sort of organize everything I know in chronological fashion. Every set of note cards, every set of three by five cards. Now this 1900-page, single space Obama notes file that I [inaudible]. Everything is organized chronologically, it is the way I understand the world. And maybe I wonder if sometimes I sound an excessively peavey or tiresome interviewer, because I always try to get people to do it chronologically. I sat with someone last Tuesday who has a collection of Barack letters, and we walked our way through them, sort of reading them out loud in order. But I was very pleased that that person had the same orientation I do. The only way to think about the letters is to think about them in chronological order. SM (00:27:37): Well, the question I wanted to ask you is kind of that way, because I was very sensitive, even as a young person in college when I saw that picture of Stokely Carmichael next to Dr. King. And Dr. King has kind of got his arms and... That body language with Dr. King. And then we had James Farmer on the campus, so he talked about Dr. King in meetings. It was a tremendous session. I really liked them. But the question I am getting at here is, in 1954, Brown vs Board of Education was passed. And of course, that was historic. However, when we had Jack Greenberg on campus who worked with Thurgood Marshall and going through the South and all the things that they had to go through, Dr. King was the next phase. And I can remember he really appreciated that there was a past, however, I want now. Right. Dr. King said, Thurgood Marshall has a more gradualist approach. We are going to be non-violent protest, and when we want it now, then you get the time. And Dr. King's only 36, 37 years old. You have got Stokely Carmichael talking to him, out of respect, and said, "Your time is past." Then you have a few years earlier, the debate with Malcolm X and Bayard Rustin, basically the chain... See, what you are seeing is the seemingly older generation was really in the late thirties and early forties being challenged by the late twenties and thirties. And then of course the Black Panthers. The question I am asking you is just your thoughts about young people challenging the system. The question that comes up over and over again is the Civil Rights movement was predominantly, there were not very many boomers inbound of the Civil Rights movement, it was in the fifties. If you are talking about the youngest boomers were going to junior high school in 1959 and (19)60. So how could they really be involved in the Civil Rights movement, except those early students that went on Freedom Summer and they had to be a little bit older. Your thoughts on Boomer participation in the Civil Rights movement, how important were they both black and white? And secondly, your thoughts on this seeming ongoing chronological evolution of the movement by people saying "Your time is past." Yeah. DG (00:30:14): Docs born in (19)29. Most of the other ministers are a little bit older than Doc, or somebody like Fred Shuttlesworth were measurably older. So the ministers, the adult leadership of the movement. I do not know off the top of my head what year Jim Farmer is born in. God, I say his name, I hear that voice. Best voice ever. SM (00:30:34): Oh yeah. DG (00:30:34): So, King is essentially 26 at the time of Montgomery, which certainly seems young to any of us in retrospect. When SNCC gets going in 1960, I do not know precisely what year. Bob Moses is a little bit or older, because Bob's been out, what, three years maybe got a master's degree, he was teaching. So Bob is a little bit older. Jim Forman is probably a little bit older than Bob. Because Jim was, I think, off the top of my head, find out how much older Jim Forman is than John than say Julian Bond. And it is going to be on the order of 10 years, maybe a little more. So, with a few exceptions, for like Jim and to a lesser degree, Bob, most of the people in SNCC are essentially 22, 21 years old in (19)60, (19)61. So, they were born sort of (19)38, (19)39, (19)40. They were 10 years younger than Doc. Now, there was no doubt whatsoever in the context of (19)60 to (19)65, (19)66, that 10-year gap between King and the members of SNCC. Is 10 years a generation? Boy is 10 years a generation. There is no doubt about that. And the younger people who are tied to Doc and SCLC, Bernard Lee, first and foremost. Now Bernard had been in the military. Bernard like Bob Moses may be a little bit older. Well, did Bernard ever graduate from Alabama State? If so, what year? Bernard's, I am not sure. But if you look at the photos of Bernard with Docketing, Bernard is dressing like King and Abernathy and Andy Young. And so, he is sort of acting older than the SNCC people. Now, to my mind, the geographical distinction within SNCC is probably the most important because you have got people like Stokely and Bill Mahoney, people that have gone to Howard and Washington. People whose experience was not simply the South, or not simply the rural south. SM (00:33:30): And Cortland Cox was not ignorant. DG (00:33:32): Yes, exactly. SM (00:33:33): And E Carolyn Brown, who was H Rap Brown's brother. They were both students at Howard. DG (00:33:37): Okay. Now there is another Brown brother whom I know from Brooklyn. SM (00:33:47): We had E Carolyn Brown, we had both of them at our campus and we did a tribute to Bayard Rustin. We did a national tribute to Rustin. DG (00:33:53): Yes-yes, yes. SM (00:33:54): And we had Norman Hill, Rochelle Horowitz- DG (00:33:57): Oh, I love Rochelle. SM (00:33:58): ... And Walter Nagle, Cortland Cox, E Carolyn Brown. Ernie Green came up and spoke, and John Lewis opened the conference. DG (00:34:09): How many years ago was this? SM (00:34:12): Probably we did that conference in (19)99, 2000. John Damilia was the only one that we wanted there that had a bad back and could not make it. And Dr. Levine from Bowdoin College, the historian. DG (00:34:21): Yeah, I am afraid that is not a book I like. SM (00:34:28): Yeah. And then also VP Franklin, we had him there. So, it was a really good conference. And by the way, those tapes are all in the library [inaudible] They were all there. DG (00:34:40): Oh, great. No, I adored Bayard. I saw a lot of Bayard, (19)84 to (19)87 in New York. Because he died what, August of (19)87? I remember we had dinner with him and Walter. I cannot remember where it was. Sometime early that summer, maybe circa June.... right? Sometime early that summer, maybe circa June. This is another weird thing about being a historian. I remember about three, four, five years ago now, picking up ... I certainly did not buy it, but I might have picked it up in a bookstore, I picked it up in the library, there was a somewhat memoir-ish book that Ron Radosh, a historian who started out as a sort of young communist, and then wrote a very good book on the Rosenbergs, and then became a sort of very, very self-identified, very conservative. And Ron had some account in there of a conversation he had with Bayard at a party at the home of myself and the woman I was then living with, Susan, in West Harlem. This would have been probably in (19)85. I have the exact date of the party someplace. And Radosh had the year of the party off by at least two years. I am doing this from memory, we are on tape. I do not want to be unfair. He might have had it off by four years. And I remember thinking, this was weird to me, both because I was not quite prepared for seeing parties I have thrown making it into the history books. And then I was, at best, bemused by the fact that a professional historian could get the date of something from a relatively recent time period so wrong. Then, about two or three years ago, I was completely freaked when someone said to me, a good nine, 10 months after it came out, I know, it is [inaudible] Don Critchlow, who's a conservative Catholic social historian, Don Critchlow emailed me, and said, "Are you aware of what is in Arthur Schlesinger's diaries about you?" I was completely unaware. SM (00:37:08): About you? DG (00:37:09): Yep. And it turned out that someplace in Arthur's diaries, and I have got to think about the date. What was the date of this? Sometime in the early (19)80s. Could be 1980. The first time I met Arthur, I think he invited me to lunch at the Century Club, old and fancy thing, on 43rd or 44th Street, Midtown. Arthur had been acquainted with Stan Levison. Arthur had published his RFK book by that point, talking about RFK signing off on the wire-tapping, and RFK being briefed about King's sex life, and all this. And so, Arthur and I discussed this thing. Discussed family, and certainly discussed some aspects of King's private life over lunch. And lo and behold, there in Arthur's diaries is a perfectly accurate recounting of our lunch conversation. And I was very fortunate. I was quite happy that none of the people that reviewed the book decided that this conversation about King's private life in the diaries merited comment in the newspapers. But again, I mention both of these, because I think of myself very much, and boy, am I conscious about this now in the Obama context. I think of myself as purely a historian. I have no desire to be at ... The last thing I want to do is have anything to do with the 2012 election. So, I find it sort of weird that I am turning up as a character, however minor and brief, I find it sort of weird that I am turning up as a character in the historical record, rather than simply being a third-party chronicler of it, if I am saying this with any clarity. SM (00:39:08): I ended up getting to know Mrs. King's sister, who taught at... DG (00:39:12): Oh, Edith. SM (00:39:12): Edith. DG (00:39:13): Oh, wow. SM (00:39:16): She liked me, and we tried to get her to come, but she was pretty ill, and I have lost touch with her since I left the university. But one time, I asked her, "What did you think of the books written on Dr. King?" And I mentioned your name, Taylor Branch. And she did not like any of them, because of the fact, I think it is because they dealt with the sex life of Dr. King. DG (00:39:37): Right-right. SM (00:39:40): So, probably just does not know the whole history of the ... She just read the books. DG (00:39:44): [inaudible] I mean, I am super conscious of this. And I am firmly comfortable saying this on tape. And this is arguably the most important ethical decision I have ever made in my life. And it was a decision I made in 1979, and it remains an active, live decision today, 31 years later. I first met the woman whom a number of us King scholars referred to privately as the real wife in 1979. And I saw her any number of times back in the eighties. I have not been in active touch with her for some years, though I know Clay Carson has been in very active touch. I will peacefully say that I do not think ... There are certainly some people, or there is certainly one person who has written a lot on Dr. King, who has no clue about who this person really is, and has gotten it wrong in print, and I have politely sort of indicated that. But leaving that one exception aside, there are a good number of us in the world of King scholars, it is true of me, it is true of Clay, it is true of Jim Cone. We have known this lady, and she knows us. She knows we know, we know she knows we know, for 30 years. And I have always thought that so long as she is alive, it is entirely her decision as to whether she wants to publicly acknowledge the relationship. SM (00:41:27): Right. Yeah. DG (00:41:27): Now, I know Clay has said to her, probably more than once, and this is not an exact quote he was to say, that sooner rather than later, she would sit down with a tape recorder, and make some tapes, and put them in an envelope, and wrap it up, and put whatever future date she wants on that envelope. And that is my belief, too. So certainly, I mean, Taylor did not know what he was doing on this. But all the rest of us, we made a conscious decision that I think this is still right, I still believe it, that we could give an honest portrayal of what was going on in King's life, without having to out her. We have been incomplete, but I do not think it has been, in any way, misleading. And I think the balance of interests has played out correctly. Now, 2020, coming up on 25 years later, that is not the world we live in now. So, there is a little bit of an artifact there. SM (00:42:41): When you talk about Dr. King, because he is such an important figure in the lives of boomers, I do not care, you had to be in a cave not to be affected by him if you are a member of the generation. What was Thurgood Marshall's thoughts on Dr. King's commentary, that he appreciated the gradualist approach, and the passage of the law, but we are going to do it a different way. We are going to [inaudible]. What did Thurgood Marshall think of Dr. King, and vice versa? And secondly, when Dr. King had those kinds of challenging comments given to him by Stokely Carmichael, what was the relationship between those two men? I have a sense. Because here was a man of stature, and he knew who he was, but he could take it like, he could take his part, because you have got to be a thick skin to be in the position there. But, to me, those are very important. A lot of people portray Stokely as this Black Panther that is got ... but he was a smart guy. DG (00:43:41): Yes-yes, yes-yes. Yeah. SM (00:43:41): So, talk about Martin Luther King and Stokely. DG (00:43:41): Sure-sure. Sure. Yeah. Let me [inaudible]. Let me grab a book. Hold on. I just want to grab a book. SM (00:43:52): Because these are all important things. And my interviews, again, are oral histories, based on not only about the times that people lived, but the interesting and historic facts within those times, that are part of boomer lives. And of course, I am caught up in this boomer, I am actually not seeing it that much anymore. DG (00:44:16): Okay. There is no doubt that for King, that both Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins seemed a generation older to him than he is. Now, both Marshall and Wilkins, as I am sure you realize, and the Marshall pieces of it are memorialized in that not very good Carl Rowan book, and in the perfectly solid Juan Williams book. Marshall, for whatever combination of reasons, of both ego, and envy, and strategic disagreement, and commitment to being a lawyer, Marshall's view of King is dismissive, sarcastic, hostile, right from early 1956 forward. Now, part of it is reasonably rooted in the lawyer's perception that the NAACP LDF lawyers always have to clean up the legal mess after some protest campaign. And oftentimes get left holding some sort of financial bag. With Roy Wilkins, the envy, jealousy, hatred of King is, I think, less defensible, less explicable. It is just pure competition, that the NAACP is so self-important, and so full of itself, that it does not want a younger organizational competitor. Now, that is mirrored with Wyatt Walker's reaction to SNCC, because Wyatt has the same sort of my organization first attitude, with regard to SCLC, that especially Wilkins and Thurgood Marshall, too, had about the NAACP. Now, Doc, Dr. King, Doc does not share that, because Doc never buys into the sort of organizational ego model. And that is one of the many reasons why King is most oftentimes always a morally superior leadership figure to the whole raft of everybody else, because he is able to practice a degree of self-abnegation that is unusual. And we can say this to mean, and I say that relative, not just the Civil Rights Movement egos, but to egotistical and selfish behavior in the Pro-Choice movement, where I think it is at least as bad. Interestingly, I would argue that there has been dramatically less selfish, egotistical behavior the last 10 to 15 years, in the legal part of the Gay Rights movement. And I think that that absence of self-seeking, self-promoting behavior among Gay Rights legal advocates, has been a significant factor in why they have been so successful. Now, Stokely, then, and Stokely is a challenger. Keep in mind, Stokely is a challenger within SNCC. So, the John Lewis, [inaudible], et cetera. SM (00:47:55): Yeah. DG (00:48:06): Stokely is a challenger within SNCC, as well as a challenger to Doc. And Stokely is a very, very bright ... Stokely was a very bright, and in many, many respects, a very likable person, who unfortunately had a little bit of a sickness, the profound sickness of anti-Semitism. But Stokely did not have the degree of ego self-control that Doc did, which is why Stokely allows himself to be swung into the damaging media circus of what does Black power mean, in the way that he was in (19)66, (19)67. And Stokely is sort of like a comet passing by. I mean, there is John Lewis, then there is Stokely, then all of a sudden, you have got Rap Brown. And then I would make a fourth generational point here, just to sort of complete it. And they may technically, they are older by dint of age, but it almost seems like a subsequent generation, the sort of Oakland-based Panthers represented by Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale, et cetera, et cetera. And this is only the second thing, I would recommended it, and I will limit myself to two. If you are at all interested in Panther stuff, about two and a half years ago, I wrote a really, I think, first rate, really powerful little historiographical essay on the Panther literature, where I put in some deadly, deadly end notes dissecting bad faux scholarship. It is in Reviews in American History, I think December, 2007. So, it will be on the 2007 page on the website. I mean, the Panthers are a hugely important presence, (19)67 to the early seventies. The quality of the literature on the Panthers is horrible, just horrible. SM (00:50:27): I interviewed Roz Payne now, last week. DG (00:50:29): She is incredible. Roz Payne is a good person. SM (00:50:37): Her photography, and [inaudible] you can read any of this stuff. DG (00:50:38): Roz is ... yeah-yeah, yeah. That is great. But so much of the Panther scholarly, big quotation marks, "literature," is the worst sort of fan-ship stuff. It is like bad early communist party historiography, where the people writing about CP USA, wanted to simply celebrate the importance of communists. And CP historiography has improved measurably over the last 15 years. And I am certain Panther historiography will improve over time, once we get past the fan club devotees. But the Panther historiography is really important, because there are many positive commendable things about the Panthers. And many, many more really despicable, horrible, evil things about the Panthers. And just as I was saying earlier about human memory, and people remembering the good and forgetting the bad, oh boy, do we see that, this is not in bad taste, in spades in Panther material, because both the participants themselves and the fan-ship historians want to talk about breakfast programs, breakfast programs, breakfast programs. And not talk about the frigging thuggery where they are killing people. And I do not mean cops, I mean a variety of innocent, undeserving supporters. So, there is that sort of generational succession from Marshall to King to Stokely to Huey. That is inevitable in the same way that we get a sort of succession within the reproductive rights movement from a Katherine Hepburn senior, to an Estelle Griswold, to a Bob Hall, an Alan Guttmacher, or a Roy Lucas. SM (00:52:42): What is interesting about the Panthers, and I have been asked by people that I have interviewed that you cannot just ... it is like you said in that article about always mentioning the organizations, and the top civil rights leaders. Well, yeah, we would like to talk about Stokely Carmichael, and Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale, but there was Kathleen Cleaver, there was Eldridge Cleaver, there was H. Rap Brown, if they liked him or not. There was Fred Hampton who was killed in Chicago. There was Bobby Hutton, who was killed. There was... DG (00:53:33): It is a very mixed bag of people. I mean, Kathleen Cleaver, that group. Newton, at one point, is something of a positive figure, before he goes way downhill. I cannot be, at any time, as positive about Eldridge. I actually think that much of the best Panther activism happened away from the Oakland epicenter, in the same way that an awful lot of the best of SNCC happened away from the Atlanta epicenter. SM (00:54:04): When we talk about the anti-war movement in the (19)60s going violent, we know the SDS and the Weathermen. We know what happened there. We know what happened in the American Indian movement. There was violence at Wounded Knee. What happened at Alcatraz was fine. And then we see some violence with the Young Bloods, the Puerto Rican group that was following the Black Panthers. So, we see a lot of violence here. And the question is, were the Black Panthers violent? There is a question, "No, they were not." "Yes, they are." "No, they were not." "They are not the Weathermen." DG (00:54:38): The Panthers devolved into an organized crime gang. The Panthers are, what is his name? It is not a fully honest book. The guy who was the security head who is now in New York. He has got a very unusual name. I am blocking the first name. I want to say his last name is Forbes. Forbes? SM (00:54:57): Black Panther? DG (00:54:57): Yeah, Panther. SM (00:54:58): Oh. I only know Dave Hilliard is the guy in charge. DG (00:55:01): Yeah. Yeah. I cannot [inaudible]. SM (00:55:03): Elaine Brown, I think. I think David Horowitz believes that she is the person responsible for the murder of... DG (00:55:11): Betty, the secretary. SM (00:55:12): Yes. DG (00:55:12): I mean, I cannot think of anything positive to say about Elaine Brown, or David Hilliard, or David Horowitz. But on the ... I forget her, I am not going to get her name right, Betty Lou Prader? Pratter? SM (00:55:27): Yes. Betty Van Patton? Was that her name, or something like that? DG (00:55:27): Yeah, something on, yeah. I apologize for not having it right. On that one, Horowitz may have benefited from the Blind Pig phenomenon. I am not good enough ... I do not know the SDS decline well enough to narrate all the splits. I wish that people like Bill Ayers, and I have a lot of respect for Bill in some ways. I wish that people like Bill and Bernadine and... SM (00:56:17): I have been trying to get her to be interviewed, and she just [inaudible]. Well, she does not even say yes or no. She would not even respond. Her secretary said, "I give it to her." She does not even respond. DG (00:56:25): Yeah. I wish the people from that whole world were a little more publicly honest with themselves. SM (00:56:36): Martin [inaudible] has been. DG (00:56:38): Has he? Okay. SM (00:56:39): I think Martin... DG (00:56:39): See, I do not follow with that. The person on whom I have always relied, whose judgment I have always relied upon for that world is Todd. SM (00:56:48): Oh, yeah. DG (00:56:48): Todd is sort of my guidepost for that, because to the extent I know it, and that extent is limited and modest, Todd is the person who gets it right. SM (00:57:03): I do not know how much more time you have? DG (00:57:05): It is more a question of my tiredness. We can go to another five, 10 minutes. SM (00:57:09): Okay, great. And then I will finish it on a phone conversation. DG (00:57:12): Sure-sure. SM (00:57:12): I have got some real quick questions I have put together since you are home. The Civil Rights Movement is so important in the lives of boomers. Again, you would have to be in a cage to not realize it. DG (00:57:25): Right. SM (00:57:25): And it is so important, because we all know that have studied the history of that period, that the Freedom Summer of (19)64, but way before Freedom Summer, people like Tom Hayden and others who went South. DG (00:57:36): Going South. Yep-yep, yep, yep-yep. SM (00:57:37): Casey... DG (00:57:37): Casey Hayden. SM (00:57:38): Casey Hayden, who is going to be interviewed with me. She is always... DG (00:57:42): She is a beautiful person. SM (00:57:42): She does not do interviews anymore, though. DG (00:57:44): Oh, really? SM (00:57:45): No, she is very hesitant. And I guess she is pretty sick. And she has got some very bad back problems, and everything. DG (00:57:51): Oh, okay. SM (00:57:53): But the question I am getting at is, would not you say that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s was the catalyst for everything that followed? Anti-War movement, the Women's movement, the Gay and Lesbian movement, the Environmental movement, the Chicano movement, and the Native American movement. Because they use that, history books have said that it was the model on how to do things. DG (00:58:18): Yep. Now I am quite positive on Sara Evan's book, which is really the book to make... SM (00:58:25): Personal Choices? DG (00:58:40): Yeah-yeah. Personal Politics. SM (00:58:40): Personal Politics. DG (00:58:40): And Sara's book, if I am remembering this right, is 1980, I want to think? SM (00:58:40): I think that is right. I would say that. DG (00:58:46): Now, I think that basic notion is correct to a degree, but to a modest degree. And it varies by movement. The white folks who go South, both early on, like Tom, like Joni, and then the larger group that go South in (19)64, and a smattering of those who go in (19)65.I think if we look at the individual biographical trajectories of those people, and I do not like saying this, but I mean, it is the honest thing to say, they do not turn out to be, on the whole, terribly influential people. Given their pedigrees, they actually should have been more influential. And that raises the bigger question, which you can see on any SNCC email lists or set of exchanges, that participation in something as intense, and emotional, and threatening as the movement, tends to, at least to some measurable degree, to produce instances of personal emotional traumatization of whatever sort. Now, I do not know enough, and I am rusty enough on that Alden from Saint and company, the sort of psychiatric psychological literature of the mid to late (19)60s on Civil Rights movement volunteers, and I have got various ambivalences about that literature that we do not need to go into. But I guess you could make the argument, quite fair-minded argument, as a scholar, that the people who chose to go South, were, of course, not a random distribution. But these were already people who were self-identified as dissenters, or uncomfortable, or outside the norm. SM (01:00:57): And many red diaper babies. DG (01:00:59): Yeah. It is not just ideological. And certainly, I completely agree on the diaper baby aspect of it. So, the fact that these people end up having a post (19)64, (19)65 higher-than-average casualty rate, in terms of their sort of social connectivity, it could be, to some degree, the result of pre-selection, and not just the result of the trauma of being in Neshoba County Mississippi, or wherever, in 1964. Now, I am not sure where, anywhere I was going to go after that. SM (01:01:47): Would not you say, though, that probably one of the most important results of those young people being around the Free Speech movement at Berkeley in (19)64- It looks like the other one here. I am going to be out at Berkeley. They have got a statue out there that they put up for the Free Speech Movement. DG (01:02:14): Oh, okay. SM (01:02:14): I am going to be out there next week vacationing. But I am going to be going to the... DG (01:02:24): Certainly, in terms of Sabio, and the FS, and then Berkeley, yeah, there is a direct line of connection. And there is some direct line of connection as Sara's book very nicely traces out, to many of the early feminist groupings grouplex, especially in New York. When you look, though, and this is where I am switching over to liberty and sexuality, in terms of the actual legislative initiatives and activism around the legislative initiatives, and with the legal initiatives that lead to Roe and Doe, the right to abortion is the product not of the feminist movement, it is the product of a relatively small-sized network of mainly male, or disproportionately male, professionals, doctors, public health people, journalists, lawyers. So, even if this is sort of politically incorrect in some sectors of the planet, I do not see the ... it is incorrect to see Roe versus Wade as a product of feminist activism. It is a product of professional reformers, very impressive, committed professional reformers. Where the doctors are crucial and the lawyers are crucial. Now, some of the lawyers are young women. But just as many of the important lawyers are young men. And you can argue young men are quite committed to the idea of sexual freedom, unsurprisingly. Now, I do not know. I am not good and I do not know American Indian movement history at all. I do not know Chicano history well at all. But I think that we have to moderate and de-limit the notion that everything else flows directly from the Black Freedom struggle in the South. Both because the direct personal linkages are actually relatively modest, though that is a separable question from a sort of, the category of was a Cesar Chavez, was a whomever, inspired by watching King, inspired by watching John Lewis? That, I cannot judge. That is outside of my purview. So, anything else, or are we... SM (01:05:33): I guess we will finish this up at another time. And I thank you. DG (01:05:37): Oh, sure. SM (01:05:37): I did not expect to have this. And I really, it is an honor. DG (01:05:48): No, I wanted to do it. No, I felt ... I spent 98 percent of my life in your position, trying to get former Obama classmates, or campaign staffers, or whatever, to talk to me. SM (01:05:55): Right. DG (01:05:55): So, my sense of the karma is just too overwhelming. SM (01:06:03): Well, what is interesting, Dr. Garrow, is that this is my first book. All these years I have been in hiding. I have been so busy being a college administrator, working with students, I have not had a chance. But this is actually an oral history. This is going to be like a Studs Terkel [inaudible] ideas. But my next venture, I am in my early (19)60s, and I am starting late, but my next venture is something that Lewis Baldwin, the historian, said that I ought to do. And that is something, Dr. King is one of my all-time heroes. And I worked in higher education for 30 years, and I make sure every year we get a tribute to him. And I got heat for it. DG (01:06:42): Right, right-right. SM (01:06:43): I got a lot of heat. Not in more recent years, but in some of the other years. And my dream is that someday do an in-depth look, in-depth, at him and his Vietnam Memorial. Because Vietnam and Civil Rights were two areas that I am closely linked to. DG (01:07:05): You want to, I mean, I hope he is in good health. Up there in years. SM (01:07:09): [inaudible]? DG (01:07:09): No-no, no. Vince Harding, in Denver. SM (01:07:13): Oh. DG (01:07:13): Look up Vincent. Vincent is someone you need to be aware of. Vincent has some contributing role in Vietnam and Speech. I would have to ask Clay or somebody else, somebody, or Steve Fayer, from Eyes on the Prize. Steve would know. But Vincent would be good. Pay attention to that name. Look up Vincent. Vincent is probably older than Doc. So, Vincent is going to be born in the twenties. But Vincent is, to some degree, a sort of lesser male version of Ella Baker, in terms of encouraging the young people across the (19)60s. SM (01:07:52): Yeah, well, one of my first interviews was with Julian Bond, and he said, that was one of my early ones. And I brought Julian into our campus twice, and went down to the [inaudible] Memorial in Washington, and he was thrust into the emcee role, with about 10 minute's notice. But then I had John Lewis, I interviewed him for the book, and we had him on our campus. Of course, Lewis Baldwin came to our campus. And so, I have been involved in this for a very long time. And the final question I was going to ask here, let us see, my golly. That is a very long one. DG (01:08:29): Go ahead and state it. I mean, this is my body clock. SM (01:08:34): Yeah, I understand. DG (01:08:39): I am just starting, [inaudible], and physically, having spoken this morning, too. SM (01:08:41): I guess the last question I will ask, and that is something that you brought up when you mentioned in that article that I read off the web, about the fact that we tend to, as human beings, and as a society, and the media, to always go to the big-name organizations and the well-known names. We did a program on Dr. King at Westchester University, where we invited Linn Washington. I do not know if you know Linn? He wrote a book on Black judges in Pennsylvania? DG (01:09:13): No. SM (01:09:14): And a Professor from Villanova. And we talked about the unknown heroes. DG (01:09:21): [inaudible]. SM (01:09:24): The things that if Dr. King was alive today, he would say it is all the people that have gone and died that we will never know who they were, and what they did. DG (01:09:36): Yeah-yeah, yeah. SM (01:09:36): Because the movement could not have happened without that. Could you say a little bit about the unknown names [inaudible]. DG (01:09:43): You will see King repeatedly over time use the phrase, ground crew. He has got some extended airline metaphor about, it is not just pilots, it is the ground crew. I mean, that is repeatedly inescapably true, locale after locale, after locale. Whether... SM (01:10:03): It is capably true locale after locale after locale, whether in Montgomery, whether in Albany, whether in Birmingham or Selma. Let me just, the one last thing to say on this, sure you know this already, but just to emphasize it, keep in mind that in Birmingham in particular, we have got such a degree of active participation by people who are not yet high school graduates. And so, you have a degree of youth in terms of 15-year-olds in Birmingham in 1963, so that your actual in the streets lead, wedge in Birmingham, James Orange. James Orange is an important name for you. Because James graduated when did James graduate Parker High School? I am not going to get this right. Look up James. I hope somebody has done a good Wikipedia on James. And who was, I am going to, I am rush on this, who was the principal? Was Angela Davis's father, the principal at Parker High School? Angela Davis comes from Birmingham, and there is a lot of, I may have this, I have to send this, who is principal of Parker High School is important, but I may have [inaudible] about the Davis' versus someone else. DG (01:11:31): He was there when the little girl died in the church fire. SM (01:11:31): Yeah-yeah. DG (01:11:31): Yeah. SM (01:11:36): Look up Sheryll Cashin's father too. John Cashin, who was a dentist in Huntsville. Sheryll was a wonderful... DG (01:11:42): How do you spell that last name? SM (01:11:43): C A S H I N. Sheryll was a law professor at Georgetown. Wonderful lady. And she wrote a memoir, published a memoir about two, three years ago, about her daddy. And the daddy was so committed to activism that he was always putting his family in, potentially, dire straits. So, I have not, unfortunately, read it, but it is a memoir about the family cost of activism. And she was a really good person. Great. DG (01:12:20): She was a Georgetown? SM (01:12:20): Yeah. And so, David, Sheryll. S H E R Y L L Cashin. DG (01:12:26): David Coles there, I think. SM (01:12:27): Yes-yes, yes. Yeah. But Birmingham should stand out for you because so many of the young participants in Birmingham are post 45. DG (01:12:36): Yes-yes. SM (01:12:36): Date of birth. So, we should stop, I am, and I will just put it here. DG (01:12:41): Sure. SM (01:12:48): One of the things about Barack Obama, what is interesting is that he tries to not be identified with the boomers, of the (19)60s generation, yet the press keeps saying he is the reincarnation of it. So, is not been that an oxymoron that he was trying to disassociate himself from it? I have read everything that has been written about Barack, at least with any sort of biographical linkage. And I have not seen that or otherwise, have not thought about it. But that may be, again, me tuning out when I see the word boomer. DG (01:13:28): Oh yes. SM (01:13:29): That may be what is going on. DG (01:13:31): I think they say the (19)60s generation. I think that is what they do. SM (01:13:38): Yeah, sure. And again, thanks again for bearing with me here and... DG (01:13:41): Oh sure. SM (01:13:41): Being patient. What was the working relationship like between Dr. King and the other members of the Big four? James Farmer, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young? What was their relationship like? Wilkins, like the NAACP hierarchy in general, including Thurgood Marshall and Wilkins' direct deputies like John Marshall viewed King with the, had a leery view of King from the get-go as a potential threat to the or NAACP's organizational primacy. DG (01:14:34): And certainly, once King formed SCLC in 1957, and then especially once the student movement got active in 1960, the NAACP's disdain, dislike for King became more pronounced. So, the King, Wilkins relationship was never close and was pretty consistently fraught with dislike, disdain on Wilkins's part. King learned to just tolerate it. I think King was significantly more comfortable with both Jim Farmer and with Whitney Young. They were never close, close, nor was King in any way close with Floyd McKissick, after McKissick replaces Jim Farmer, (19)66-ish, King and Young, as is well known, had some tensions after (19)65, because, true, Young was much more directly aligned with Lyndon Johnson and did not share King's opposition to the Vietnam War, had one well-known face off, not quite argument, but disagreeable conversation during the period when John Lewis's head of SNCC. They are, that is a somewhat closer relationship, but it is not as close as I think some people may imagine it, nowadays or in recent time. SM (01:16:45): Is there truth to that story that when President Kennedy was concerned about the March on Washington (19)63, when the group met at the White House, was, actually A. Phillip Randolph was kind of the father figure and all the other civil rights leaders, he was very worried about potential violence in the city, and he was hesitant to support it, but he was very concerned what John Lewis was going to say. And... DG (01:17:13): Mr. Randolph was without a doubt, the presiding elder in that entire context of 1963. The overblown or exaggerated worries about the 1963 March were, I think, shared pretty widely throughout the Kennedy administration, not just on the part of the President. And I do not think the President was as, was any more concerned or worried than a good many people in DOJ and in the White House. SM (01:17:55): When you look at the speech he gave in New York in (19)67 against the Vietnam War, did he consult with any of his other peers before giving that speech? In other words, the other members of the Big Four or... DG (01:18:13): No. SM (01:18:14): Either in other members of SCLC? DG (01:18:16): No. The relationship among the leaders is never at any point, that interlinked. Steven Courier, wealthy Financial Person, Foundation head, who died in a plane crash sometime (19)66, (19)67-ish, I am not sure of the date. Steve Courier had tried to bring all of the African American Civil Rights leaders together in a thing called Cook Roll Count, CUCRL, Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, which was a, sort of, effort to create a regular conversational structure. It never really got anywhere, because really none of them were that interested in giving up their independence to that degree. So, King, the people King consulted most closely with, and this is true from (19)62 onward up to (19)68, are the two circles of one his immediate people around him in SCLC, Wyatt Walker, And he, Wyatt leaves in (19)64. Andy Young, oftentimes Jim Bevel, Ralph Abernathy, and Bernard Lee, in a different, less policy-oriented way. But the people who really had the most substantive political policy and analytical, intellectual interaction with King are really King's New Yorkers, Stan Levison, Clarence Jones, Bayard Rustin, Harry Walk Tell, Marion Logan, a little bit less so. Mike Harrington, a little bit less so, but it really is the New Yorkers who were the Brain Trust, and Bayard and Stan in particular, Clarence, probably third Harry Walk Tell, Fourth, they are in many respects, the most important sounding boards for King, even though he spent a whole lot more time in a day of the week, hours per day, sense with Bernard Lee and Ralph Abernathy. Come Vietnam, there are some other important voices in there too. Vincent Harding, John McGuire, who certainly make contributions to that, to the... SM (01:21:07): Did Rabbi Heschel play an important role here too? DG (01:21:10): Excuse me, I am sorry? SM (01:21:11): Did Rabbi Heschel play an important role in his... DG (01:21:14): No-no. SM (01:21:15): No? DG (01:21:16): No, I do not think there is, there is a little bit of contact there. You could say the same thing for Ben Spot, but no, I am... Thanks to the wiretap transcripts. This is, again, one of the great ironies of the FBI. Thanks to the wiretap transcripts, one can have a real good idea of who King is in contact with, because the transcripts we have with Stan, with Clarence, with Bayard, make really clear who else King is talking with too. SM (01:21:50): Very good. Yeah, because I know there is a lot of discussion out there that he played a major role in that Vietnam speech. DG (01:21:58): Heschel? SM (01:21:58): Yeah. Persuading him to do it, not... DG (01:22:01): Oh. No, I would have to think about how the invitation to go to Riverside comes into being, but no, I would not... SM (01:22:19): Would you agree that March on Washington (19)63, how many people were there? I have heard different numbers. DG (01:22:26): I do not want to do that off the top of my head, whatever. I know I looked at that with a critical edge when I did, bearing the cross. So, whatever I said in bearing the cross would be my own best conclusion about the numbers that were used contemporaneously. Hold on just a second for me. SM (01:22:53): Yep. DG (01:22:53): I want to turn the temperature on the fan up a bit. Sorry, here we go. SM (01:23:10): Is it pretty cold in Chicago? DG (01:23:12): No, actually not. When I came back in, I made it cooler and where I am sitting here, it just blows directly on me. SM (01:23:22): One of the, I think we talked about this briefly at Princeton, but one of the sensitivities about the civil rights movement, is the sexism and the few women were at the leader, in the leadership roles. But I have some questions. I met with Dr. Cohen this past, yesterday, in fact, down in New York City. DG (01:23:44): Oh, Jim Cohen? SM (01:23:45): No, Robert Cohen who wrote, [crosstalk] free speech movement. DG (01:23:46): Oh, sure-sure, sure. SM (01:23:48): And he is writing a new book now on the activism in the South, the African American activism in the South amongst the young students in the early (19)60s, which has not been written about as much, and a lot of women were in key roles there. Your thoughts on what the media has portrayed as a sexism within the movement, particularly when you look at the March on Washington (19)63, you see Dorothy Height there and Mahalia Jackson was there singing, but you do not see there, any other, really, women leaders? DG (01:24:21): No, they went through them. I would not get the entire roster of names correct off the top of my head, but there is a series of quick introductions of other women and did it include Mrs. Parks? Did it include Diane Nash Bevel? Did it include Gloria Richardson from Cambridge, Maryland? Part of what is an issue in the limits on women's organizational participation in the movement, part of that grows out of, in some aspects of the movement, grows straight out of the black church, gender roles, gender structure. Part of it too, simply just parallels what there is in all of the US society at that time, wholly separate from, apart from the movement, but the most important women to name, I always draw back when the first name people use is Dorothy Height, because Dorothy Height was simply someone who was the head of an organization with an office in Washington, period. People like Diane Nash, people like Gloria Richardson, people like Joanne Robinson in Montgomery, people like Amelia Boynton in Selma. One could go on and on at the local level, and one could also do the same thing with people like Ruby, Doris Smith Robinson in women played major roles in most of the locales, most of the organizations Septima Clark, Dorothy Cotton in SCL C, and did not get much credit or appropriate credit until years later in some of the literature. But the question of women's roles should be looked at from that fundamentally local, fundamentally southern lens knocked through a sort of DC interest group perspective. SM (01:26:45): Would you say that, I asked a question to everyone. I think I may have asked it to you, as well, but when did the (19)60s begin and end and many people feel that the (19)60s began at the lunch counters? DG (01:27:00): Oh, yeah. No, I would very much agree with the February 1, 1960 dating. I do not think I am going to cast a vote on when they end, because if I had to choose, I think I would say when RFK is shot in Los Angeles, more so than when Doc is killed. SM (01:27:36): Why did, this is interesting because Bayard Rustin's a big name here. Yeah. He is from Westchester, and we did a conference on this, and I have read in several books, Dr. Levine's book and John de Emilio's book. There is a lot of explanations here, but I would like to hear from you, why did Dr. King not fire Bayard Rustin? He had people... DG (01:27:54): Sorry, in what time frame? SM (01:27:57): In that time frame, I think Jose Williams was one of the biggest critics of Bayard Rustin, and did not really like him. And because he was a gay person, and... DG (01:28:08): Well, I was in the major attack on Bayard is what Adam Powell mounts back in 1960, for God knows what reasons, maybe because he is carrying water for national political party leadership, I think is the most likely answer. And King, as I said, in baring the crosses, other people have said Emilio, too. I mean, King behaves very badly towards Bayard in 1960. SM (01:28:43): In what way? In what way? DG (01:28:43): In contrast, everybody behaves very well, very courageously in 1963 when Strom Thurmond and others go after Rustin in the context of the (19)63 March, and Bayard from (19)63 into (19)66, (19)67, what Bayard and Mr. Randolph are saying about, and Tom Kahn are saying about economic policy issues and questions, is a big, big, big influence on what is going on in progressive circles in the 1960s. And a big, big influence on King. Where Bayard draws a lot of criticism, is in Bayard's reluctance, unwillingness, tardiness, to be critical of the Vietnam War, which seems all the more pronounced, and to some people inexplicable or contradictory, given Bayard's, deep pacifist roots and credentials going back to the 1940s. SM (01:30:00): Would you say though that even when Dr. King went north, I remember he went into the Chicago area and there were criticism within the ranks of SCLC and in other groups, that he should stay in the South, that racism was really an issue in the South and not in the North. DG (01:30:20): I think most of the disagreement within SCLC, was fundamentally, rooted in the fact that the staff were virtually all Southerners, lifetime Southerners, who, understandably, felt much more comfortable anywhere in the South than they would in any northern city, whether Chicago, New York, Newark, et cetera. In retrospect, how much of a mistake was it for Doc and SCLC to come to Chicago? The local movement here that invited them, Al Raby was a vibrant local network, although it was a vibrant local network set in a context where a heavy majority of African Americans were, African Americans who were politically active, were unsurprisingly, tied fairly closely to the Democratic machine. SM (01:31:35): Could you describe Dr. King and Bayard Rustin and then maybe some of the members of the Big Four as well? Their response to black power and to the Black Panthers, as a whole? I say this for a couple reasons. Number one, there is that picture of Dr. King next to Stokely Carmichael, and Stokely may be one of the more respected Black Panthers, but he was in SNNC, and then he went to the Black Panthers as... DG (01:32:03): Yeah, but I would never speak of Stokely as a panther. The Panthers, to me are a very separate kettle of fish from what Stokely and Willie Ricks, and other people from SNCC who really use the black power phrase represent. And the people who put forward the black power phrase ,and the black power emphasis from the Southern movement, I think are a quite understandable product of what black people are looking at in a context like Lowndes County, Alabama in (19)65, (19)66, where in contrast, in huge total contrast, to what Bayard Rustin is seeing at the national level, where Bayard and other national political voices are seeing the Democratic party and labor unions, as the best vehicles and allies for the black policy agenda. In a context like Alabama, the Democratic Party simply means George Wallace. So, there is a really almost complete disconnect between what black activists are experiencing in a rural southern context and what the world looks like to someone like Bayard. The Panthers are largely a San Francisco Bay area phenomenon, who then acquire somewhat spontaneously adherence supporters, enlistees, in a series of varied other locales, whether it is Chicago and other cities, both large and small. I think it is very, very difficult to speak comprehensively, about the Panthers in any, to any meaningful degree, because what the Panthers represented in Baltimore or Boston or Chicago, is not necessarily what they represented in Oakland. The historiography on the Black Panther party is not very large, and today, not very good. And we have got a long way to go on that. SM (01:35:01): How did the, I always remember, even in college, I remember Charles, I think it is Charles Silverman's Crisis in Black and White? DG (01:35:09): Oh, yeah. Yep. SM (01:35:10): A great book that we read in sociology class back in the late (19)60s, which was a required reading. And I will never forget the line in there where Dr. King did not fear the bigot, and he knew his supporters, but he feared the fence sitter, the one that we never know what they think, but he felt they were the more dangerous. And one of the things about after King, is that he was very open and you knew what he was thinking. I often wondered what Thurgood Marshall thought when Dr. King was coming to power. And the Brown versus Board of Education decision in (19)54 was monumental. It was historic, but it was a more gradualist approach to rights for African Americans. Whereas Dr. King said, I praise that decision, but we want it now. And so... DG (01:36:05): No, let me... SM (01:36:05): The time of change. So, he was basically challenging the methods of Thurgood Marshall, your thoughts on how did Thurgood respond to Dr. King, and the style of non-violent protest? DG (01:36:13): Well, Thurgood Marshall was, Thurgood Marshall was a lawyer, through and through, and believed totally in a constitutional, constitutional rights, constitutional litigation through the courts approach to civil rights change. Marshall was very dubious, doubtful, sarcastic, about any notion that people getting arrested and facing criminal charges, could make any positive contribution. So, Marshall's disdain, is a disdain for the entire concept of civil disobedience as a social change strategy? SM (01:37:13): Did that, I often wonder then, Dr. King then when he was in his late thirties, and I know Bayard Rustin's the same way, were challenged by the new ones, the Stokely’s and the, I guess, H. Rap Brown... DG (01:37:27): I actually, I actually believe that the King-Stokely relationship was both closer and more respectful than most people have been willing to appreciate or acknowledge. Stokely and Willie Ricks enjoyed the politics of theater, or theatrical politics of, the theatrical aspects of black power politics, a little bit too much for anyone's good. But I view Stokely as someone who was trying to push the envelope without totally leaving the King frame of reference. SM (01:38:26): Yeah, because then you get the H Rap Browns who was in SNNC, and then he became a Black Panther, and a lot of people thought he went to violence. DG (01:38:40): I do not believe Rap had much of any relationship with Dr. King. And again, I do not think either Stokely or Rap should be discussed in terms of the Panthers, because that is a brief potential organizational alliance that goes nowhere. SM (01:39:00): What did Dr. King think of the Huey Newtons and the Bobby Seals, though, would not he... DG (01:39:06): I am unaware of any evidence that he thought about them much at all. SM (01:39:12): Okay. DG (01:39:12): You just do not see much reference to it at all. I do not think King ever met any of those folks in person that I am aware of. Even passively. I would have to, I think that is the right answer. I just want, I would want to think about that. But... SM (01:39:37): In some of my interviews that I have had, and again, your opinion would be very important on this. When we talk about the student protest movement of the (19)60s, a lot of people will say, well, the boomers were both born between (19)46 and (19)64. I know Dr. King had many young teenagers in his movement, but basically the civil rights movement was older people, whereas the boomers really came to power with the anti-war movement of Vietnam, women's movement and all the other movements in the late (19)60s. So thus, the boomers did not have much of an influence in the civil rights movement. Do you believe that? DG (01:40:14): But it varies by organization and by locale. Now, most everyone who was in SNCC would have been roughly 20, 22 years old in 1960, 1962. You do not, I am not sure you have anybody, you do not have many people in SNCC born after (19)46. Now, at a local level, in a place like Birmingham where you have a lot of high school student participation, though simply at a protest or demonstrator level, if you were 18 years old in 1963, that means you were born in (19)45. So, you would have a little bit there. But then even people who are 22 years old in 1968, in terms of people who are graduating from active and anti-war stuff, only a little bit of people who would be born, say (19)46, (19)47-ish. SM (01:41:30): And this is, just the information you just gave me, shows that trying to pinpoint a generation based on years (19)46 to (19)64 really takes away a lot, because I am talking the spirit, and I have had more and more people tell me that those people born, say between (19)38 and (19)45 are as, are closer to the first generation, the first 10-year boomers than the boomers of the last 10 years. Because it is... DG (01:42:03): Yeah, I would... SM (01:42:04): It is a spirit thing. DG (01:42:05): Yep. I would agree with that. Yes. SM (01:42:06): Yeah. So thus, they are linked in a very important way. Your thoughts on the relationship between Dr. King and Malcolm X? Malcolm died in (19)65. Correct me. I think they liked each other, but... DG (01:42:21): As best we know, they only met in person once that, the well-known photo of it. I think they had a significant degree of mutually shared respect. I think it is, fundamentally, erroneous for people to think of them as opponents or opposites. And I think Malcolm needs to be viewed primarily through the lens of the last 12 months of his life, when he is independent from Elijah and the Nation of Islam. SM (01:43:02): I have always thought, as a person who loves history, I am not as a historian like you, but I have always, history was my major, that there is a link between Malcolm X and Bobby Kennedy, and I have always felt that the link was just what you said, that Malcolm changed, all people were not devils. He saw when he went over to Mecca and he came back, he was a change man, and that is, Bobby Kennedy was the same way. DG (01:43:30): Yep, that is a very good, when you first started saying that, I thought, no, this does not make any sense. But no. Then when you explained exact, you explained the parallel. No, I completely confirm with, because that is a very insightful linkage. SM (01:43:47): Yeah. Because the Bobby that we saw in the hearings for Jimmy Hoffa is not the Bobby that we saw in (19)67 and (19)68. DG (01:43:53): Exactly. SM (01:43:55): And so, I just see tremendous passion in caring for fellow human beings. Overall, what was the relationship between SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference all throughout their history? DG (01:44:08): Oh, that is, I mean... SM (01:44:08): I do not, I... DG (01:44:08): That is book length, yeah. SM (01:44:11): Yeah. DG (01:44:18): SCLC helps give birth to SNCC, by the time of Albany and December of (19)61, especially into the summer of (19)62, many of the younger people in SNCC become somewhat disdain of King's hesitance, as well as King's media stature. The SNCC people are both more impatient and more locally oriented. By the time of the Democratic Convention in (19)64, the SNCC people have a much more critical... The snake people have a much more critical, much more cynical worldview than King and Bayard Rustin. By the time of Selma and Montgomery in the spring of (19)65, the tensions and disagreements are pretty pronounced, and you do have a sort of clear split between the organizations, even though there is still a lot of close personal ties one-on-one. And then ironically, in some respect, the two organizations come together in opposing Vietnam. SM (01:45:55): What some people have written, that when SNCC was breaking up, many went to become Black Panthers. Is that true? DG (01:46:06): No, I do not... I think the Panthers loom rather small in the whole thing. I am not sure there was ever a Panthers operation in Atlanta, for example. I am not sure there is. One thing that has to be kept in mind is that, and some of the more recent literature on the Panthers documents this, that you clearly had people setting themselves up in... I am not sure I would select the town accurately off the top of my head, Omaha, Nebraska, maybe you have people setting, announcing that they are Black Panthers in some city and the official Black Panther party in Oakland does not know anything about them, but the Panthers are as much a media phenomenon as they are anything else? SM (01:47:09): We know the impact that the young students who went south for Freedom Summer and even before Freedom Summer had in terms of many of the students that were at the free speech movement and at Berkeley and (19)64, (19)65, and certainly the influence that the movement had on the anti-war and the other movements in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. Is there a direct, would you say that the concept of participatory democracy, which was in the SDS manifesto, which Tom Hayden wrote, and also what happened out at Berkeley in (19)64, (19)65 with the free speech where they talked about participatory democracy, it all began with SNCC. DG (01:47:54): Yes. Certainly Tom, and I mean this... It has been years since I read and reviewed Tom's book, but I believe my recollection is that Tom's memoir makes it very clear how much he was influenced by what he saw of SNCC when he went south early on. Because remember Tom is in Albany for some chunk of time. I think there is significant direct influence from SNCC to early SDS to free speech movement in Berkeley. Again, my memory on this is a little rusty because it is, so many years have passed. Tim Miller's book- SM (01:48:39): Democracy in the Streets? DG (01:48:40): Yeah, it has been probably 20 years now since that book came out, but I remember that as being really first-rate and very much on target in analyzing those relationships and influences and linkages. SM (01:48:59): How important was Coretta Scott King, her role before and after Dr. King's death and- DG (01:49:06): Very little. Before Doc's death, close to zero and not that significant after. SM (01:49:21): Because I have a question here because we see a lot of her, but what is interesting is that they had four children yet that it was such a dysfunctional family after his death. Not so much right after his death, but certainly as they got into their twenties and thirties fighting over the center and when are they going to sell it and- DG (01:49:40): Unfortunately, the whole SCLC world becomes dysfunctional after Doc's death because you have disagreements between Ralph Abernathy and Mrs. King. You have disagreements between Jose Williams and Ralph, between... Throw Andy Young into the mix, throw Jesse Jackson into the mix. There are no happy stories from (19)68 forward in SCLC in the King Center, there are no happy stories at all. Joseph Lowry is the one creditable survivor who comes through all of that period. It is a sad story. SM (01:50:30): You had mentioned in, when I was talking to you at Princeton about Dr. King had another wife, something of that effect. DG (01:50:42): Oh yeah. We have always used... I mean, there is someone whom we have never, who is still alive and we have never publicly named who is the most significant person in his personal life from (19)63 forward. I mean, that is in Bearing the Cross without a name attached. That lady has got to be, let me think. Well into her seventies now. SM (01:51:15): Was she the type of person that influenced him politically? In his- DG (01:51:20): No, I do not say political influence, no, but I think he draws more emotional sustenance and support from that relationship than from anything else. SM (01:51:37): That whole J Edgar Hoover... Would you think that Bobby Kennedy really regretted that in the end? DG (01:51:49): I think he regretted going along with the Bureau on wiretapping King himself as distinct from wiretapping Stan Levison and Clarence Jones. That would be my... If we were able to know where Bobby's mind was at on that as of early June (19)68, that is my strong instinct as to what he would say. SM (01:52:22): What do you think these files say? I have read that the three thickest files of any American in the FBI is Dr. King, Eleanor Roosevelt- DG (01:52:39): Oh, that is crap. SM (01:52:40): ... And John Lennon. DG (01:52:40): No. SM (01:52:49): No? DG (01:52:50): No, the John Lennon thing is a complete Looney Tunes trip. No, I mean the largest files the Bureau would be on Communist party functionaries that most people have never heard of. And the FBI file on say Elijah Mohamed would be 65 times larger than anything they have on Mrs. Roosevelt, never mind John Lennon. The Lennon thing is the result of one installer with a sort of creative omelet. And even Doc's file, I mean the main... The 1066, 70 file on Doc is large, but it is my now rusty recollection, though no one has ever gotten the file on Elijah, is that Elijah's would be significantly larger. SM (01:53:48): One of the things that in our conference on Bayard Rustin that we learned... Well, we knew that he influenced a lot of young people, but somebody at the conference had documented that he had influenced almost 2,500 people to go into public services in some capacity. DG (01:54:06): Well, it depends. That would depend on how one defines the term influence. SM (01:54:12): Yeah. And of course, a lot of them were at the conference and some of... Quite a few of them were working in the Clinton administration at the time. But did Dr. King have the same kind of influence on young people to follow in his- DG (01:54:28): I think that is difficult to measure because it is... Does one mean one on one-on-one relationships as opposed to people that see something on TV or on film or read something? In a one-on-one sense, it would be very hard to add up significant numbers. SM (01:55:01): We are looking at the boomer generation, of course there were quite a few presidents from Truman right now to Obama. But when you look at the following presidents, just a brief comment on these few, where would you place them in the area of civil rights? In other words, they were really cared about this issue. It was not just being pragmatic to do it or something. John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter. DG (01:55:35): JFK changes very measurably for the better in May, June of (19)63. It is a great step forward for him. LBJ cares a great deal about it, clearly, from November of (19)63 forward, though he becomes very despondent, depressed that Black America in the (19)67, (19)68 context does not appreciate him more. Nixon, I do not think ever views it as any different than interest group organizational politics in other settings. Say the civil rights movement to Nixon is another, is say, like the labor movement, another piece on the chess board. I am not sure I could say anything with regard to Jerry Ford when he is in the house. I do not think he ever focuses on it to a significant degree. Ditto for Ronald Reagan. I do not think Reagan had any personal, negative values about it. I just do not think he had ever thought about it or appreciated it very much. Carter in a way, would be the most complicated because he perhaps should have known more and done more coming from where he came from in southwest Georgia. I do not know the Carter biographical literature, but Carter probably is always more distant from it than he might have been. SM (01:57:54): How about the two Bushes? Bush one, Bush two, and of course Bill Clinton. DG (01:57:58): I do not know enough biographically about either Bush. I mean, they are sort of outside my, I have never written about them, so they are really outside my scholarly purview. SM (01:58:18): And Bill Clinton? DG (01:58:19): No, I- SM (01:58:22): He seemed to care about it. DG (01:58:23): I have not read... Some of the political theatrics, I think playing the saxophone or whatever on, what was that Gentleman's TV show? Arsenio Hall. SM (01:58:41): Yeah. DG (01:58:42): I think those sorts of political theatrics can be taken way too seriously or way too importantly by people. SM (01:58:50): And of course, the last two you have written about Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman. DG (01:58:55): Yeah, Eisenhower is a huge disappointment, probably is the one person in the entire panoply of presidents who evidence suggests, did hold discriminatory views. Truman, on the other hand, is a quite pleasant surprise given where he comes from in terms of very modest roots. SM (01:59:20): He integrated the military, did not he? DG (01:59:27): Yeah. Well, I think that is a more complicated story. SM (01:59:28): Yes, I know. Pressures, yeah. DG (01:59:31): Are we about there? SM (01:59:32): We got a couple more questions, a couple more here. Bayard Rustin's. Would you say that Bayard Rustin's most influential person in his life was A. Philip Randolph and that Dr. Mays was the most important influence in Dr. King's life? DG (01:59:49): I think that is correct for Bayard. It is either Mr. Randolph or AJ Musky, though Musky is a complicated, and in some ways unhappy... Ends unhappily, but I would defer to John De Emilio on that. On Doc, with regard to Benny Mays, no. No, absolutely not the most important. Hard to say. I mean, the answer is probably Daddy King in that sense. Yeah. Daddy King is definitely my answer there. SM (02:00:37): This is a question that we asked Senator Edmond Musky, when I took students to Washington in 19... I do not think I asked this question, did I? The question on healing? It is a question that the students came up with when we went down in DC in (19)95, and the question was this. Due to the divisions that were so intense during the 1960s, do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation not truly healing from the massive divisions that tore the nation apart at the time? Students that came up with a question- DG (02:01:17): No. I mean, I do not... I would critique or dismiss the question because I think the people that really suffered the divisions, as you rightly touched on somewhat earlier, are people who are pre (19)46. SM (02:01:37): Yeah. Because Senator Musky, his response was that, "We have not healed since the Civil War in the issue of race." DG (02:01:43): No, I think that varies a lot by local and class and neighborhood. I mean, simple generalizations do not work on that. I mean, whenever I am in a place like this, Chicago, there are so many complexities. I turn away from all-inclusive generalizations on that. SM (02:02:16): Two more questions and then we are done. DG (02:02:18): Sure. Okay. SM (02:02:18): One question on Roe v. Wade, which is, you have written a whole book on that? DG (02:02:22): Right. SM (02:02:22): And how important is this decision? Because there is this constant behind the scenes in Congress that we are going to change this, we are going to reverse the decision- DG (02:02:33): No, Roe will never be reversed in name. No. Roe has been a crucial landmark in acknowledging women's equality. This is a culture that is now much more child conscious than was American society in 1973. And I think that really the greater appreciation, the greater social cultural appreciation of children as opposed to 35, 40 years ago, is why overall American opinion is so much more ambivalent about abortion now than in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s. SM (02:03:43): Now, my question is, where do we stand today in the area of civil rights? In women's rights and all those rights movements that were so important in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s? They still exist, but [crosstalk] DG (02:52:20): Yep. I mean three things, Barack Obama's election as president, irrespective of whether he ends up as a one-term president, will undeniably always be remembered as one of the landmark events in American history since the Civil War, much more important than the election of John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. Second, women have a degree of equality and equal participation in public life and the professions now that almost no one would have imagined in 1960 or 1965. And then lastly, the greatest change in America in my lifetime, I think without a doubt, the greatest change in America in the lifetime of all of us who are presently adults, is the almost complete acceptance of gay people as equal participants in American society and public life. Look at what Bayard went through. SM (02:53:50): Right. DG (02:53:51): Even as of 1970, it was almost impossible to be a gay person in public without being physically victimized. I mean, that is the greatest change, the best change that has happened during the lifetime of the boomer generation. SM (02:54:16): Would you say that the lasting legacy of the boomer generation may be the rights movement? Because Mario Savio talked about- DG (02:54:23): No, I would not. No, I would not want to... I mean, we would have to break down how much of the credit for what is happened, say with gay rights, goes to people who predate (19)46 or postdate to (19)64. SM (02:54:39): Mm-hmm. Is there a lasting legacy that you would say if you were a historian? DG (02:54:46): No, I have not thought about it in the way you have because I do not think about the generational category or the generational construct. SM (02:54:52): Right. Any other thoughts? DG (02:54:54): Nope. I think we are there. SM (02:54:56): Well, I want to thank you very much for not only greeting me at Princeton, which was an honor to meet you, and- DG (02:55:02): [inaudible]. SM (02:55:02): Meeting me at Princeton, which was an honor to meet you, and- DG (02:55:02): Totally. It was great. I very much enjoyed our conversation there. It was really great. SM (02:55:05): Yeah, and I will... Let us stay in touch, and I will keep you updated on my project. DG (02:55:09): Okay. Please do. SM (02:55:10): And continued success in your working on that book on President Obama. DG (02:55:15): Thank you very much. SM (02:55:15): Have a great day. DG (02:55:15): Okay, bye. SM (02:55:17): Bye. (End of Interview) 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>. Description 3 microcassettes 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. David Garrow Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Garrow, David J., 1953- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Historians; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers;University of Pittsburgh. School of Law; Garrow, David J., 1953--Interviews Description An account of the resource Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Dr. David Garrow is a historian, educator, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a Professor of Law & History, and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He was the senior advisor for the TV show <em>Eyes on The Prize</em> and a senior research fellow at Homerton College in Cambridge, M.A. He is a regular contributor to the <em>Washington Post</em>, <em>New York Times</em>, and <em>The American Prospect</em>. Garrow graduated magna cum laude from Wesleyan University and then received his Ph.D. from Duke 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 2010-11-20 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.10.2016.191a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.191b; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.191c 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. 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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 2010-02-09 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. David Kaiser 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":"Baby boom generation; Individualism; Drug culture; Free Speech Movement; Identity Politics; Gay and Lesbian Movement; Feminist Movement; AIDS; Chicano Movement; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Anti-war Movement; Vietnam War; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; College student protests; Healing; Vietnam Memorial;Woodstock; Kent State; Summer of Love; Counterculture; Hippies; Yippies; Students for a Democratic Society; Weathermen; Black Panthers; Black Power."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14275305}}">Baby boom generation; Individualism; Drug culture; Free Speech Movement; Identity Politics; Gay and Lesbian Movement; Feminist Movement; AIDS; Chicano Movement; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Anti-war Movement; Vietnam War; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; College student protests; Healing; Vietnam Memorial;Woodstock; Kent State; Summer of Love; Counterculture; Hippies; Yippies; Students for a Democratic Society; Weathermen; Black Panthers; Black Power.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 106:26 Subject LCSH College teachers; Physics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Kaiser, David--Interviews Biographical Text Dr. David Kaiser is a historian and educator. He also served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976. Dr. Kaiser was a Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College from 1990 until 2012 and has taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College, and Harvard University. He is the author of several books and articles. Dr. Kaiser received his Bachelor’s degree and his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University. 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: David Kaiser Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 9 February 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): David Kaiser. February 9th, 2010. Plug it in- DK (00:00:10): By the way- SM (00:00:11): I am going to start out with some of the general questions, and then we will get into some of the specifics here. First off, I want to say, I think your book, American Tragedy is great. DK (00:00:23): Thanks. SM (00:00:24): Yeah. The way you talk about the Eisenhower administration, it is very, very good. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin, and what was the watershed moment when it began, and what was the watershed moment when it ended, in your opinion? DK (00:00:44): Well, I have come to think of this in the terms that were defined by my dear late friend, Bill Strauss and Neil Howe. Rather than talk about the (19)60s, they used the term awakening, which they see as a recurring phenomenon in American history. I would say that the awakening began in 1964 or 1965, and that it continued for approximately 20 years. Although by the end of that time, it was not primarily visible in politics, and there had been a swing to the right in politics. But with respect to social changes and whatnot in American life, it was certainly continuing into the early 1980s. It is interesting, and it was important of things to come really, that it is fair to say that the first baby boomer, even using the relatively narrow demographic definition, who held a major policy position, was I think David Stockman as Budget Director under Reagan. SM (00:02:01): Oh, yes. DK (00:02:01): That was an interesting portent as it turned out, of the political influence that adult boomers were actually going to have. SM (00:02:12): Could you explain that a little bit more? Because I remember David Stockman, I think he was... If I remember right, he resigned or was- DK (00:02:20): No. SM (00:02:21): Forced out? DK (00:02:22): Kicked out the first term. SM (00:02:23): Yeah. DK (00:02:23): He got into trouble for making some intemperate statement, but I think he finished out the first term. Then, again, in a typical boomer move, he wrote a very frank memoir explaining that he never believed most of the things he was saying, and that what the administration had been trying to do could not possibly work. Loyalty is not one of the big virtues of our generation. SM (00:02:48): Right. DK (00:02:49): Then he got onto Wall Street, and I believe he has been in some legal trouble, although I do not remember exactly how that came out, since then. But what I mean to say is, that perhaps because we are so self-centered in politics, we turned out to have a much more conservative impact than one would have cast way back in the (19)60s. SM (00:03:15): You make reference there to a quality that you think was part of the boomer generation. I know it is very difficult to generalize for 70 plus million people. I have heard that from many of my interviewees and a lot of them based their experiences on the people that they knew, grew up with, have worked with, have become friends with and so forth, so then they are able to talk about boomers. Is there some general positive qualities or negative qualities that you think are really linked to this group? DK (00:03:48): Oh, I definitely think so. And remember, again, thanks to Strauss and Howe, I have been thinking about these questions very intensively and discussing them with well-informed people for about 15 years now. I think that the positive contribution came from taking individual feelings seriously, from taking the idea of individualism seriously, and of addressing a lot of personal emotional issues that previous generations, particularly the GI's, our parents, for the most part, at least among the older boomers, had swept under the rug. I think that probably made boomers much better parents than their parents had been, for the most part. On the other hand, I think a major characteristic is a rather terrifying faith in our own opinion, which again, the older generation played into by making the catastrophic mistake in Vietnam, and a belief that whatever we want must be best, not only for us, but for everyone else, and that there really cannot be any serious objections to establishing whatever we regard as good, and right, and just. Now, you see the thing that Strauss and Howe really taught me, for which I am grateful, is to see these qualities on both sides of the political fence. In the same way that some of my contemporaries at Harvard thought it would be great to transform Harvard University, if not to bring it to a halt in 1969, and to eliminate ROTC, and form Black Studies Department, and do all sorts of things right away, no matter what the cost, the same kind of certainty informed our contemporary George W. Bush when it became obvious to him that overthrowing Saddam Hussein and setting up democracy in Iraq was just a thing to do, and that would put the whole world on a great new track. SM (00:06:29): That is interesting you say that about Bush, because when the two boomer presidents, a couple of people have commented, and they do not go into any great detail, but they say, "Look at our two new boomer presidents, Clinton and Bush. There you have all the qualities of the boomers." And then I got to say, "What do you mean by that?" DK (00:06:46): Well, I do not entirely agree about Clinton. And in fact, Clinton did not have a typical boomer childhood at all. He had a very difficult childhood. Clinton, while he certainly is narcissistic and he could be irresponsible in his personal life, he actually was a natural politician and a conciliator who did not try to insist on putting through his own views. I think Hillary is much more of a traditional boomer, in that respect. I would make a little bit of an exception for him in that regard, and that is probably what made him a much more successful president, actually. SM (00:07:35): Yeah. See, one of the things that many of the boomers felt when they were young, is they were the most unique generation in American history up to that point. DK (00:07:42): Absolutely. SM (00:07:44): I can remember being on college campuses, feeling that we can be the change agents for the betterment of society, that we have the power within us to end racism, and sexism, and bring peace to the world, and a utopian mentality. DK (00:08:01): Oh yeah. Wait, how old are you exactly? SM (00:08:03): Oh, I am the same age as you are. DK (00:08:03): Oh, fine. Okay. Yeah. SM (00:08:04): I graduated from Binghamton University in 1970. DK (00:08:07): SUNY Binghamton? SM (00:08:08): Yes. DK (00:08:10): Did you know Camille Paglia? SM (00:08:11): Yes. Oh, I knew of her. Yes. I saw her in classes, but I did not know her personally. Of course, I tried to approach her once with no luck, when I tried to take students to meet her. She was there, and I think she was a graduation speaker in 1969, a year before I graduated. DK (00:08:34): I think she graduated in (19)68, actually. SM (00:08:37): Was it (19)68? DK (00:08:38): The three of us are all the same age, but I think you were a year late, apparently, and she was a year early. SM (00:08:43): Yeah. DK (00:08:44): Yeah, I think that is right. SM (00:08:45): Yeah, and I stayed an extra semester too because I double majored- DK (00:08:49): I see. Anyway, okay. Do you, by any chance, remember a guy named Barney [inaudible]? SM (00:08:53): No, I do not. DK (00:08:54): All right. He was there too, and he went into the Navy, and he taught with me here in the (19)90s for a while. SM (00:09:00): I know the president was one of the good presidents when I was here, Dr. Bruce Dearing. DK (00:09:05): Yeah. Okay. SM (00:09:06): He went onto Upstate Medical Center, but I guess he retired because the students got to him after a while. DK (00:09:11): Sure. All right, well, let us get back to our- SM (00:09:14): Yeah, but anyways, the uniqueness, could you comment on that feeling? Because even if you talked to some boomers who were 62 and 63, some of them still feel that way. DK (00:09:25): Well, again, Strauss and Howe see a repeating cycle. What that means is, that there have been generations like boomers, but we did not know them or at best, we met a few of them when they were very, very old, as I did. The characteristic of these generations, which they call profit generations, that they are born in the wake of great national crises. There was a similar generation born after the foundation of the Constitution. And actually, that was a very long generation that went from sometime in the 1790s till about 1820. Those were the men and women who gave us the Civil War. There was a similar generation, which Strauss and Howe called the missionaries, born from the early 1860s until I would say about 1884. They also had a very strong sense of moral purpose, very intense sense of themselves. I am actually studying them now, in connection with a book about American entry into the Second World War. SM (00:10:35): Oh. DK (00:10:36): I have to give them credit for a lot more self-discipline and realism than boomers have shown, which is an interesting issue. Those are the parallel generation, but boomers are very different from any of the other living generations, yes. And furthermore, not only do they pride themselves on being different from other generations, but they pride themselves, and here I would certainly have to include myself, on being individually unique and on being different from each other. SM (00:11:18): Yeah. One of the things about the boomers that I have been... Everything seems to be placed in context. In other words, did the event shape the boomers or did the boomers shape the events? Because when you talk about the baby boom, you are talking about the largest... I think there are more millennials now, though. Boomers can no longer say... There are more millennials now than there were ever were boomers. DK (00:11:45): That is probably true. Well, again, I think it is a mix. I am convinced now, and again, this is thanks to Strauss and Howe, that there would have been a rebellion against the values of our childhood, no matter what. On the other hand, there is no question in my mind that the Vietnam War made that rebellion much more intent and had tremendous long-term consequences in a lot of ways because it convinced so many boomers, including ones who became very important in one way or another, that we could safely disregard everything our parents had ever said, and toss aside so many aspects of the world they had created without any caution, or regret, or anything. SM (00:12:54): How important were the Beats in this kind of an attitude? This was a group from the silent generation, the Ginsburg's, the Kerouac, the Anne Waldman Serengeti, that particular group of writers that seem to have they were small in number, but their influence seemed to be large in many ways in the (19)50s because they were the epitome of not showing a whole lot of respect for the status quo and- DK (00:13:24): Yeah. Well, again my wife- SM (00:13:26): They were pre-boomers. DK (00:13:27): Well, yeah. Well, they were skeptics, certainly. I do not know if I would call them pre-boomers or not. My wife would have a lot to say about that. She is actually a year older than we are, and she was aware of them from a very early age. They certainly were providing an alternative voice. Also, there was Morton Sahl, the comedian. SM (00:13:55): Oh, yes. DK (00:13:56): There were the early folk singers. That was a kind of wedge in the door. For instance, I can remember in high school, my friends and I getting a little kick out of the song that I think was actually written by Pete Seeger, Little Boxes on the hillside, and things like that. They did provide an alternative view, but I do not think their influence was extremely widespread. SM (00:14:33): When you look at the boomer generation, I have had to clarify to many of the people I have interviewed, they said, "Are you talking about the 70 million, Steve, or are you talking about the 15 percent who were the activists?" Because they said, "I can talk about the activist. They can talk about all those people involved in all those movements, anti-war." DK (00:14:56): I do not think, okay, well, first of all, there is this definitional issue. The demographic definition I know includes people born from what, (19)46 through (19)64? SM (00:15:11): Yes. DK (00:15:12): Okay. The Strauss and Howe definition is different. They started around (19)43, which I think is the shaky boundary and run it through 1960. In terms of experience, I think that is a better definition. Essentially what that means, and this is what I say, they never said it this way, boomers are people who do not remember FDR, but who do remember Kennedy. That is the way I would define it. No, the comments I am making certainly do not refer simply to the activists. SM (00:15:55): Okay. DK (00:15:57): Although the activists demonstrated a lot of key generational characteristics. Now, what you will find and remember, I have a very different kind of student body, and I teach a generations course, and my students who are no longer boomers, most of them are Gen X now, but they write autobiographical papers and I hear about their parents. You can find people born even as late as we were, who either did not go to college or who somehow got on track in life very early so that they were already launched when the awakening began around 1965. Many of them are different, but that would be... Those people could not be significantly younger than we are. I think that everybody, by the (19)70s, certainly, again, there are regional differences too, but by the (19)70s, everybody was growing up in a very different world than the world people had grown up in the early (19)60s. SM (00:17:09): You keep saying the awakening around (19)65. Are you making reference... The Vietnam War, of course, it was around (19)65 that started to get bigger and bigger, and then by (19)67, we know what was happening there. DK (00:17:22): The Vietnam War gave the awakening a political trust. I am talking about different music, I am talking about different ways to dress, different ways to wear your hair, different sexual morays, drug use, which arrived at Harvard, interestingly enough, in a big way in the fall of 1966, brought in by the incoming freshman class, many of whom had done drugs in their last year in high school, particularly [inaudible]. SM (00:18:01): That is my class. DK (00:18:04): Yes, right. And things like that. All that was getting going. There is a wonderful piece. I do not think I referred to it in American tragedy, although I found it doing American Tragedy. It is a piece from the New York Times that appeared sometime in the first six months of 1965, and it is called Narcotics the Growing Problem Among Affluent Youth. It is quite an extraordinary read, in retrospect, and one of the more prophetic pieces that Deborah appeared. SM (00:18:39): I know there is brand new book out right now on Timothy Leary and the drug culture up at Harvard. DK (00:18:45): Oh, okay. SM (00:18:46): Yeah, and that just came out. DK (00:18:47): Right. SM (00:18:48): One of the things I want to talk about here is Newt Gingrich, when he came into power, who is a boomer, by the way- DK (00:18:59): Yes, he certainly is. SM (00:19:00): When he came into power in 1994, I read some of his commentaries about attacking that generation of the (19)60s generation and that era. George Will oftentimes has, when he gets an opportunity, either in his books or his articles, will take shots at the (19)60s generation. DK (00:19:22): Yeah. SM (00:19:22): I think he is a pre-boomer, I do not think- DK (00:19:24): Oh, he is a silent. Yes, he definitely is. SM (00:19:27): Yeah. They are just examples. And then Pat Buchanan in a recent video on the Weatherman, really blasts the (19)60s generation, regarding 1968, and when he was working with President Nixon. Basically, all three of them claiming that all the problems we have in American society today can go right back to that period of time- DK (00:19:51): Well, actually that is a fantasy, which actually I used to share, from a different political perspective. Without Vietnam say, we might have stayed in the early (19)60s indefinitely. I now think that is a fantasy. But what I want to stress, is that Gingrich is being a complete hypocrite, in my opinion, just the way George W. Bush was, when he would criticize the (19)60s and say, "The problem is that for too long we have been saying if it feels good, do it." Well, I blogged a good deal about this, and I can tell you where to find it. It was one of the first things I did back in 2004. George Bush's whole presidency is a testimony to, if it feels good, do it. I want to get rid of Saddam, so I will do it. Do not tell me this is too hard. Do not tell me we do not have any allies. I want to cut taxes, so I am going to do it. Do not tell me about the deficit. He is as much a part of that as anybody. You see this now again, in the total irresponsibility of the Republican leadership in Congress, which is composed entirely of boomers, I think now. Whereas interestingly enough, the Democratic leadership is still composed mainly in silent, which is part of the reason they are such a pushovers compared to the Republicans. SM (00:21:26): You just made a comment there. It is almost as if George Bush sounds like Woodrow Wilson, if you go back to- DK (00:21:34): No. That would be a long discussion and a complicated one. I think that is been unfair to Woodrow Wilson. It is true that they were similar. They were more similar from a personality point of view. Wilson was very intolerant of dissent, and felt it was everybody's duty to agree with him. He was a genuinely very subtle thinker, in a way that Bush certainly never would be. SM (00:22:08): Yeah. I know he had problems with the leadership of the Republican party when... He did not consult with anybody. He was a hero in Europe and then he did not consult with anybody back in the Congress. DK (00:22:21): No. And he refused to come. SM (00:22:23): Yeah. That leads me right into this question here, it is- often times we cannot generalize about an entire generation, but can you see the results this time passes on the influence that one generation can have in America? DK (00:22:36): Oh, yeah. SM (00:22:36): Does the 70 plus million deserve praise or condemnation for any of the major flaws we see in our society today? Have the boomer leaders of Congress, the office of the president, the governors, the state assemblies, and local governments been good or bad overall? Because they have been running things. Generation X's are now in there too. How would you grade them as a whole? DK (00:23:00): I think that they are in politics. They do not even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the GI's, as our parents' generation. I think that the silent generation was pretty good in politics, never did get anybody into the White House. They have now pretty much been chucked aside. I think the boomers have had a terrible influence in the economy, although there the silent generation shares the blame, but I would give a lot of it to the boomers, and we are going to be living with that for a long time now. Again, the GI's having lived through the Depression, understood that you needed restraints on the financial community, on industry, and various regulation to avert another catastrophe. Naturally, we assumed that none of that applied to us. A lot of those regulations have been either repealed or simply disregarded, and here we find ourselves once again in a situation parallel to the (19)30s. The other area, and this is my personal view, but it has been acquired at great cost, may I say, I think in academia boomers have been a complete disaster and have done damage that I do not see how it will ever be repaired. SM (00:24:44): Can you talk about that? DK (00:24:47): Sure. SM (00:24:47): A lot of the professors... I have worked at quite a few universities and I have heard for years about the attacks on today's faculty members, particularly in the humanities and social scientists as political correctness and all the attacks by the conservatives toward the universities today, that the people that run the universities, and they were making reference to administrators too, administrators and faculty are basically examples of the (19)60s generation all over again. DK (00:25:19): Well, I think there is some truth to that, but I think again, the biggest single problem... Well, there are two problems, which you see in particular in my own discipline of history. The first is a rejection of the idea of objective truth, and an endorsement of the idea that reality is different for everyone, and that they are entitled to express their own reality, which makes evidence much less important than running history. And secondly, the idea that it is the job of the historian to study the oppressed and the people who have not had any voice in the past, to the almost complete exclusion of studying people in power. The prevalence of that idea, is the reason that I, who has written not only American Tragedy, but five other books, three of which are on the same scale as American Tragedy, more or less, has to teach at the Naval War College because there is literally no room in any history department in the country anymore for somebody like me. This is still happening. We just hired a young guy from a very distinguished university, just finished his PhD, who has written the thesis on the... Well, I do not want to get too specific here because this may eventually be published- DK (00:27:03): Well, I do not want to get too specific here because this may eventually be published. He has written a thesis on a major diplomatic issue in the Cold War, and I heard from a third party that that cost him a chance at a job at a university because the bulk of the people in the department said, "This work is simply too traditional". Yes. So that has been very serious. In economics, the boom generation of economists, with very few exceptions, have swallowed the idea of the rational market, and that which has gotten us into the mess that we are in today. In political science, most of the quote, "cutting edge work", is now based on what is called rational choice theory, which does not really describe human beings at all. And in literature, postmodernism has had a terrible effect. And again, if you could get her to talk to you, Camille [inaudible] would be the best person to talk to about that, but I know she has become almost impossible to approach. And I have tried to approach her several times with no luck, and I have given up. SM (00:28:22): I approached her once. DK (00:28:23): But again, that is somebody else who is probably the outstanding literature scholar of our generation and who works in an art school. SM (00:28:33): It is interesting because the person I just interviewed this past weekend, Dr. Franklin? DK (00:28:38): Yes. SM (00:28:39): Said that because in an article that he wrote criticizing something that somebody had written, he had a hard time finding a job. And he had written three books, very well-established books. DK (00:28:54): Well, that is possible, although the job market has been so tight for the whole of my career. SM (00:29:00): Well, that was back- DK (00:29:01): There could be so many reasons why people have had trouble finding a job. SM (00:29:04): Well, that was 20 years ago though. DK (00:29:06): Okay. But I mean, the other thing that... You see, another problem, which we did not invent, to be fair, in modern academia's specialization, and that also leaves no room at all for somebody like me who has never written the same book twice or written on the same subject twice. And I know that cost me many opportunities. SM (00:29:31): One of the events that took place in the (19)60s, historic event, was the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964 and (19)65. DK (00:29:40): Sure. SM (00:29:42): And Ronald Reagan came into power based on two things. Number one, that he was going to stop those students who were protesting on college campuses that took their lead from the free speech movement, and secondly, he was going to end the welfare state. I suppose those are two of the big issues. And so he took those issues on as, and of course they support him in California and he won election. But I want to, the question I am basically asking here, is there a fear of activism on university campuses today? Did the universities learn anything from the Boomer protests on their campuses in the (19)60s and (19)70s? I asked that question. And second part of the question is, we did a couple panels at our university when I first got there in the late (19)80s, early (19)90s, where I had boomers in Generation Xers on stage, and they did not like each other. It was very obvious they did not. And it was the current students who were Generation Xers, and some of the faculty who were boomers, and some people from off campus who were boomers. And I can remember the split. There was either two responses between the Generation Xer and the boomers. One, "I am sick and tired of hearing about your nostalgia and the way it was. Shut up. I am tired of it. I do not care about it". And the other one was, "I wish I lived when you lived because you had issues and we do not have them today". So then, there was nothing in between. But, so I am really asking about activism here. Art in today's universities are run by boomers and [inaudible]. DK (00:31:29): Well, no. Well, if you go back to Berkeley, and I assume you are familiar with that documentary, Berkeley in the (19)60s. SM (00:31:36): Yes, I am. DK (00:31:37): Good. Yes. Basically, and I remember this very well, even though I started college year after that, those kids were reacting to the idea that the whole purpose of the educational system, which was run by GI's then, was to turn them out as copies of their parents. So they were dressing like their parents, they were acting like their parents, and so on. Now, Vietnam, again, gave the protests a completely different character and a political character. And nothing like that has happened since. Now, as soon as you get to Gen X, you are dealing with kids, many of whom are short on cash, are borrowing money to go through school, and who are focused on their future. And that was one of the great things about being a relatively young boomer, is that you just assumed that was not going to be a problem. Now today, and I have not followed it that closely, but as you know, there are significant protests going on in the UC campuses again, you have a very different story because you have got millennials who have been told all their lives, here is what you have to do, do it, and you will be rewarded. And they have responded to that very enthusiastically. And I got, you see, I did get a glimpse of this firsthand because I was a visiting professor at Williams College three years ago. That was just for one year though. And now suddenly, they are in a situation where it is not clear the rewards are going to be there, and that could have significant repercussions. But you see, our protests were based on moral criticism, and we had the luxury of focusing on moral criticism because of the extremely secure environment in which we had grown up. And that is the paradox, as I say, of every prophet generation, from the transcendentals after the Constitution, through the missionaries, and right up to us. SM (00:34:06): Well, that free speech movement all started actually by chance, because of the fact that they told a group of young students that they could not hand out literature in... DK (00:34:17): Right. SM (00:34:18): [inaudible] Plaza. And even the students that did not like that group that was handing out literature, when they saw that their fellow students are being attacked, they came together. DK (00:34:28): That is right. SM (00:34:29): And it was, " You cannot tell us what to do". And of course, Clark Kerr made that mistake, and then he gets fired by President Reagan, or not President Reagan, governor Reagan. DK (00:34:38): Governor Reagan. Right. SM (00:34:39): Because he was not tough enough on the students. I have a question here, looking at the presidents that were during the lives of Boomers, and that includes Harry Truman too, even though they cannot hardly remember him. But I remember him as a little boy. DK (00:34:58): I remember the (19)62 election. SM (00:35:00): Yes. DK (00:35:01): I do not have any specific memories of Truman as president. I am sure I knew he was president. SM (00:35:06): I just knew as was a little boy, he did not like McCarthy. Which of the presidents do you feel had the greatest impact on the generation? And when I look at it, I am talking about Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama. Because they have been all the presidents of during the time that- DK (00:35:29): Well, that is a big question. SM (00:35:30): That is a big question. I know Kennedy had an influence. DK (00:35:33): I would say Kennedy had the biggest emotional impact, even now. I think Johnson clearly had a huge impact because of the decision to fight in Vietnam. SM (00:35:47): Right. DK (00:35:49): Now, you were touching on something important when you talked about Reagan, mainly that the awakening in the anti-Vietnam War protest was a major factor in destroying the existing Democratic majority and leading to Republican domination of the White House for a long time. Okay, I think Reagan did have a very big impact, coming along when he did, in making conservatism and consumerism respectable among boomers, just as they were in their thirties and having kids and things like that. And that was very important. And, you know, based on the data I saw, boomers split pretty evenly, even in the last election. Just as they split evenly in 1972, even. So they have never been, as a group, a strikingly liberal group. It was Gen Xers and millennials who put Obama in the White House. Now, Clinton, I do not know, I guess I will leave it there with Kennedy, and Johnson, and Reagan, as having the probably biggest impact. Obama is very interesting because this is the end of Boomer tenure in the White House. I mean, he clearly is not a boomer, and if you do not believe it, ask him because he will tell you. SM (00:37:43): Yep. DK (00:37:44): And he is not acting like one. SM (00:37:46): Yeah. And he is being criticized for [inaudible]. DK (00:37:48): If it will ever get back in the White House is not at all clear. SM (00:37:51): There is three things here. First off, on President Obama, he is being attacked because people think that he is bringing back the (19)60s. And then with Reagan and Bush, the thing that really strikes a lot of boomers about Reagan is that, when his bold statement, when he became President, "We are back". We are back. And he was referring not only to the military coming back to the way it used to be, but certainly the country. And then George Bush Sr. made a very important statement that really, if you were cognizant of it at the time it happened, "The Vietnam syndrome is over", and that, to me, whoa, that is a pretty strong statement. So to me, all those really kind of had strong impact on boomers as their agent. DK (00:38:37): Well, maybe so. Maybe so. I would have to think about that. I do not think of Bush as a, I think he was actually, Bush Sr. was a very underrated president. And in foreign affairs, actually, he was a very fine president, but I did not feel he was terribly influential. He did, of course, put the first boomer on the Supreme Court, namely Clarence Thomas. Another interesting example of a, well, that is a fascinating point. It partly has to do with the Republicans being better strategists about the Supreme Court. Well, except for [inaudible]. Now, all the boomers on the court are Republican and they are acting like it. SM (00:39:33): Yeah. Well, explain that. Explain that the boomer Supreme Court justices are acting like boomers. Get some specific- DK (00:39:41): If they do not like a law, they throw it out. If they do not like a precedent, they throw it out. SM (00:39:47): Who are the boomers, again, on the court? DK (00:39:51): The boomers on the court are Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Sotomayor. No, I cannot say that about her yet. I mean, she has not done anything like that yet. She has not been around very long. And then you have got, Stevens is a GI, and so that would leave us with four silence. It would be Kennedy, Scalia, Breyer, and Ginsburg. That is right. That is right. SM (00:40:24): When you place a label on the generation, and the boomers had had a lot of labels, but which of these do you think truly defines the group? The Vietnam generation, the Woodstock generation, the (19)60s generation, the civil rights generation, the [inaudible]- DK (00:40:41): Certainly not the civil rights generation. SM (00:40:44): All right. DK (00:40:44): That is a complete fantasy. SM (00:40:47): Yeah, because that was more in the (19)50s, I believe. DK (00:40:49): That was in the (19)50s, in the early (19)60s. And in fact, boomers and especially African American boomers, to be blunt about it, destroyed the civil rights movement. SM (00:40:59): Are you talking about black power and Black Panthers? DK (00:41:03): Yes. SM (00:41:04): Could you go into that a little bit? Because that was one of my upcoming questions. DK (00:41:07): I am talking about not only that, but I am talking about the whole shift from a well-organized mass movement that was a very effective pressure group, into much smaller organizations focused on identity politics and turning their back on the system and things like that. But I would say, when you talk about Vietnam generation or Woodstock generation, you are talking about older boomers like us. So I do not know. I guess my generation would probably be the best one if I had to just think of one. But again, I think there is, well, yeah, the tendency is to focus on people about our age who actually lived through such fantastic changes as young adults. I mean, if you or I just think about what college was like the day we entered and the day we left, I mean, those were staggering changes. SM (00:42:19): Oh, yes. DK (00:42:21): But that was just the leading edge of the generation, of course. SM (00:42:27): You mentioned identity politics, the many movements that came out of the Civil Rights movement. Well, of course the anti-war movement took place, but you had the gay and lesbian movement, the women's movement. DK (00:42:37): Yes. Now, those could be- SM (00:42:40): Native American, environmental movement, all those movements. DK (00:42:43): Well, the feminist movement, although started by silence, it was certainly boomers who really picked that up and ran with it. And the gay rights movement was very much a boomer movement, although I guess a lot of the boomer gay rights leaders were decimated by aid. Actually, I have a younger brother who is gay, and he was written a good deal by gay issues. He has been in the gay journalist organization, and he was very fortunate health wise, and he has written a lot about that. But those definitely were boomer movements. And again, that is where I think we do have some things to be proud of, in terms of opening up personal options for people. SM (00:43:43): How would you mention the Chicano movement and certainly the Native American movement with AIM and the environmental movement that worked closely with the anti-war movement? DK (00:43:56): Well, I would have to look at exactly what they accomplished in the same way you would have to look at it for civil rights. Again, the basic pieces of environmental legislation were passed by bipartisan GI majorities, like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. SM (00:44:24): I am going to change this. Okay, go right ahead. DK (00:44:33): Now again, as boomers have gotten into power, the environment has not been doing very well, so I would not be able to take very much credit there. Now, again, the identity politics issue among Native Americans, Chicanos, and so on, is something that I am very ambivalent about, because I think that, and this is where I am still true to my childhood and the values I learned in my childhood before the awakening, when you focus on things like that, you are making it harder to form the kinds of coalitions that will get actual national action on anything. And that is why you see, at the individual level, I think boomers are pretty good at the... But anything requiring organization, leadership, coalitions, they are pretty hopeless. SM (00:45:42): One of the things that you remember during the anti-war movement, there seemed to be signs for all the groups together. The anti-war movement in its heyday seemed to bring all groups together. And then as you go later on into the (19)70s, (19)80s, (19)90s, you see more of a separation of... DK (00:46:01): Well, sure. But there was plenty of splintering in the anti-war movement, too. SM (00:46:04): Right. Especially around when the weatherman came in and... Yes. And of course, then the Vietnam veterans against the war took over the anti-war movement around (19)71. DK (00:46:17): That is right. You see, one thing you should understand about me, which I certainly think comes out in American tragedy too, is that, you see, my father had been in and out of, he had been in government through my whole childhood in various ways. I had met many leading Democratic office soldiers. I was too involved in that world to give up on the system completely, even after I turned against the Vietnam War. And that is why, unlike most of my contemporaries, I have not changed that much since I was in college. Now, that is also why I am extremely depressed at what I see happening around me now because I do not see those values I grew up with coming back. At least not yet. And I am beginning to wonder if I will ever see that. But that is another story. SM (00:47:17): Of course, the big issue now is, what will boomers do in old age? Because supposedly they are going to change even old age, how people retire. Dennis Hopper has that advertisement on TV about, of course, he is a perfect example of a- DK (00:47:33): Well, he is a silent. SM (00:47:34): Yeah. He is a silent, but still they use him for the advertisement. So the next 20 years still have to be written with respect to how they are- DK (00:47:44): What is interesting, and this makes me very sad. I mean, my wife and I talk about going back to the Boston areas to retire, and we are sure as hell not going to the Sunbelt or anything like that. SM (00:47:57): Right. DK (00:47:59): Well, actually, I think we talked into going to Austin, Texas, but that is a special case. But when you go to The Brattle Theater in Cambridge now, which was one of the great sites of my youth and where my cultural experience was broadened, most of the audience is going to have gray hair. So that, I think there is a good chance boomers will remain more focused on cultural things in retirement. I am kind of curious as to whether there will be any kind of, how shall I put this, self-denial movement having to do with the medical profession? And actually, it would be a great thing if boomers could set an example by accepting the idea that they will die and that it is not worth half a million dollars to prolong their life through four miserable months and things like that. But obviously that will be a very individual manner and we will just have to wait and see. SM (00:49:16): Yeah. Here is a question. So obviously we know that the TV was a big influence on boomers in the (19)50s because the World War II was obviously the radio and the fireside chats and everything, and then TV came about. Of course, today we have the technology and Facebook and the millennials and Generation X have been formed with a whole, and that is kind of split the generations too, just the technology issue. But the question I ask, and this is, I always think of my 1950s and I have had, I have interviewed people and of course an African-Americans experience in the (19)50s was different than a white person, and a female was different than a male, and certainly the gay and lesbians experience and all the other things here. But generally, when we are talking about TV, I am going to read this here. This was the first generation and they saw the news on TV, they saw sitcoms and black and white in the (19)50s. How important was TV in shaping the boomer lives with typical shows of when they were very young with Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo, Hopalong Cassidy, TV westerns, which we always saw, the Native American was the bad guy, the variety shows, the game shows, the live coverage of historic events, even early on, we saw the McCartney hearings and the Mickey Mouse Club, the median shaping lives both consciously and subconsciously. Of course, you did not see many people of color on TV in those days. Was there something happening that, what did the media do? Besides being the first TV generation, we saw the Vietnam War on TV in the (19)60s, but what is it about the media that truly shaped this generation? DK (00:51:03): Well, that is a very complicated question. I think that when you look at the TV from the (19)50s, now, I am struck by the sterility of it. I am struck by the use of laugh tracks often as a background of things that were really very funny. And I think it was all giving you a lot of messages about what you were supposed to feel. And that was part of what we eventually rebelled against. So that is one thing I would say. On the other hand, well, there is so many issues here. The news is very good. The news was much better than it was now. The (19)60s is probably the greatest age of TV news, I would say. And it was straightforward, it was no nonsense, and they had a real commitment to giving you the fact, and they would take some time for a complicated story in a way that they never would now. Now, I do think the single most important medium for changing the generation though, much more important than television, was music. And second most important, I would say, was movies. And again, the boomers were the audience for the cultural explosion in film in the late (19)60s. By the (19)70s, a few boomers were even making the new movies. And again, that was a great achievement and a really positive transformation of American life. Again, it is very sad that now that boomers run the studios, they do not sponsor making movies like that. I mean, for instance, if you say, I teach a course called Generations of Film, and it is all Gen Xers now, and the pivotal movie that I use to explain what the awakening was about, not the only one, but the pivotal one is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and... SM (00:53:52): Jack Nicholson. DK (00:53:53): Yes. And not only is it a great movie, but I believe it was the top grossing movie in 1975. And although my students really enjoyed seeing it and got a lot out of it- DK (00:54:03): ...my students really enjoyed seeing it and got a lot out of it. They unanimously agreed that it would not be a hit today. It is only because it moves too slowly. That is kind of sad too. There was one thing I did want to say. You mentioned the Mickey Mouse Club. There is something I will never forget the Mickey Mouse Club, and it was the end of the introduction, the announcer would read every day, which is very prophetic. It was dedicated to you, the leaders of the 21st century. All I can say is little did they know. It seems to me that the key thing about that was there were only three networks. There was very little difference between the networks. It was an aspect of the uniform, mass-produced culture that we grew up in and eventually rebelled again. I am putting down today's movies justifiably, but actually today's television, if you know where to look, there are a lot of tremendous things on today's belt, particularly on the cable channel and things that you certainly could never have dreamed of way back then. SM (00:55:40): Is there one specific event when you were young that had the greatest influence on you? DK (00:55:50): What kind of influence? SM (00:55:53): It impacted your life. A lot of people say the Kennedy assassination affected... DK (00:55:57): Well, certainly that. That is why- SM (00:55:57): That innocence. DK (00:55:59): That was my next book after American Tragedy and it was about that. SM (00:56:02): Yes. DK (00:56:04): That was the most traumatic event of my life, and it probably still is the most traumatic event of my life. Although, I did not really realize that at the time. The depth of that only emerged later. But no, the most influential event for me was definitely the Vietnam War. SM (00:56:21): Right. Almost everybody remembers where they were when they heard about President Kennedy was shot. DK (00:56:27): I remember exactly. SM (00:56:28): What is your personal experience of remembering that moment? DK (00:56:33): I was in boarding school in Connecticut, and we had been let out of lunch at 1:45, and I had to go see a dean or something in his office. I was in his office and some kid ran in and said, "Hey, they said the president has been shot." But, the way he said it, he clearly did not really believe it, and I did not either. Then I started to walk back to the dorm, and then I began to realize this was serious. I remember, I think I started to run, and when I got into the dorm, the radio was on and everybody knew this was really serious. Then I went down the hall to where the teacher on the floor lived and went into his place and he had TV on. I saw Cronkite read the announcement. When Cronkite read the announcement, I was still in a denial phase and I was sitting there saying, "No, please. Let us stop this tape now." I was not using that language, but that was the way I was feeling. This is all happening too fast. My most vivid memory about all that is I spoke to my parents that day. They were in Washington at that point, and they were very shaken. My father particularly, it was probably the most shaken I ever heard him. The next weekend was Thanksgiving weekend, and I went home. They had a huge party on Saturday night of that weekend with all their administration friends. I could not find anybody at that whole party who wanted to talk about Kennedy. All they wanted to talk about was Johnson and how well he was doing and what was going to be happening in the future. I was very shocked by that. It took me a long time to realize what was going on there. My real personal awakening was in 1968 as a result of Ted Johnson's withdrawal and my own complete reevaluation of a lot of my thinking about American foreign policy. SM (00:59:24): What were the most important books that you read when you were young and what were your peers reading? What were young people reading when you were a college student? DK (00:59:40): I would say the most important book for me, in the context of what we are talking about, and many others was Catch 22. I remember that I finished it on the night before my 21st birthday. That was in June of 1968. That was a great moment to be reading it. I had tried to read it earlier in the decade and I could not get into it because the idea of turning World War II into a joke just turned me off, as it turned off a lot of the older generation at that time. By 1968, I was ready for it. SM (01:00:30): You have actually written a book on Vietnam, An American Tragedy. The venue that I am dealing with here is an oral history and oral interviews. In your opinion, why did the Vietnam War end when it did? What was the main reason that it ended? Secondly, how important were the college student protests on the college campuses at ending the war? DK (01:01:12): How important were the college student protests at ending the war? Until Nixon, not at all. We now know that Nixon, in November of (19)69 decided not to massively escalate, in significant part because of the protests. He denied that at the time but we now know that that is true. Obviously, the reaction to Kent State meant that he was going to have to continue deescalating for political reason. Now, the protests did have another impact, I think, which in the long run was going to be far more significant, which was the end to the draft. Which is certainly not a bad thing. In fact, to some extent, and this is something that we have touched on already, you could also make a case that the protest prolonged the war because Nixon remarked to Haldeman, and I think to Henry Kissinger too, but certainly to Haldeman frequently, that the student protests were a godsend [inaudible] because older people hated the students so much. Again, Johnson decided not to escalate again and to withdraw in the winter of (19)68. I do not think that was mainly because of protests. I think it was because Clark Clifford had been convinced that it was useless, and because of very severe international economic strain that they had to pay attention to. Why it ended was that, I think Henry Kissinger, actually, there is some credit for trapping Nixon into that. The real reason was that they had this other huge agenda with the Russians and the Chinese, and Kissinger simply did not want to drag just to drag on for a few more years. As we now know, knew very well that this is likely to leave the collapses South Vietnam, but he did not care. SM (01:04:39): Could you talk a little bit about the atmosphere in America at the time of the Vietnam War? Particularly in the period between (19)67 and (19)71, (19)72 when deferments were happening all over the country and it basically became a poor man's war. People that did not have the power or the influence and the tensions between those 3 million boomers that served in Vietnam and the rest of the boomers who did not? DK (01:05:21): They lived in different worlds because for the most part, the ones who served were the ones who had not gone to college and vice versa. I do not think there was a lot of hostility between those two groups. I went into the Army Reserve in September of 1970, and I did basic training in (19)71. And my company was divided about 50 50 between draftees and enlistees on the one hand and National Guard and Reserves like myself on the other. That was so late that even the draftees were not living in terror of what was going to happen to them. They knew that their chance of dying in combat by that time was very low. That undoubtedly tanked things somewhat, but I did not feel there was a lot of hostility or much hostility at all based on that. I think it is very interesting that there was so much protest among college students who basically were protected from. One accusation that I think is false is the idea that they were just protesting because they were scared. I do not think that is true. SM (01:07:08): There is always these books out called Spinning Image. You have probably heard of that book where the troops had come back and they were spat upon when they- DK (01:07:16): My understanding is- SM (01:07:17): That really happened. DK (01:07:18): That that is largely amiss and that there are very few documented cases of that happening. I remember, I mean, I was not very lucky. I did my basic training in Fort Leonard Wood in the wilds of Missouri, but I got to go to St. Louis a couple times and I did not wear my uniform when I went. Some people did. I certainly did not hear about anybody getting a negative reaction to wearing their uniform. Of course, in that part of the country I do not suppose you would have. I do not remember ever hearing anything like that from anybody I met. SM (01:08:07): I go down to the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day in Veterans Day every year. You see some of the tensions of the commentary against those who were against the war, whether they be Jane Fonda or even when Bill Clinton- DK (01:08:21): Jane Fonda was- SM (01:08:23): Even when Bill Clinton came to the wall. DK (01:08:24): It is true that you can still get a rise out of almost anybody. SM (01:08:26): They booed Clinton when he came to the wall too. Quite a few veterans booed him in the background when he spoke there in (19)93. DK (01:08:35): Who? SM (01:08:36): Bill Clinton. Then when the Vietnam Veterans of America formed the anti-war group, there was tension between that group and other Vietnam veterans, which goes right into the Kerry situation in the 2004 elections. These tensions are still there. DK (01:08:56): That is true. I think that the Jim Webb type of veteran is a very vocal minority and I do not think is all that representative. The whole time I was in the Army, I did not meet one troop who was a developed believer in that war. And that is a fact. SM (01:09:30): Yeah. Even A Rumor of War by Phil Caputo, in his book talks about 1965, how they were starting to go against the war even then by some of the things that were happening. That is the troops thinking that. I have a very important question here that we actually asked Senator Muskie when a group of students that I took to Washington about maybe eight years ago, before he died. We asked him this question, do you feel that the boomers are still having problems with healing due to the extreme divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth? The divisions between black and white, between those who supported authority and those who criticized it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not. Do you feel the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has 40 years made the following statement true? Time heals all wound. Is there truth in this statement? DK (01:10:34): No. SM (01:10:34): Your thought on whether [inaudible] healing. DK (01:10:38): There will never be a consensus among boomers about the war, about religion, about almost anything. That is the nature of the generation and what is likely to happen. We are in the third great crisis of our national life now. After the Civil War and the Depression of World War II, it is the profit generations that bring about those crises. As soon as the crisis is over, they are stuck into the attic. At some point that will happen again and no one will care what we think anymore. At that point you will see bipartisanship in the Congress and things like that, again. As long as we are around, those qualities will be towards applying. SM (01:11:41): I guess I am really- DK (01:11:43): I would not necessarily put it in terms of wounds and healing. The point is that we wear our heart on our sleeve and we are so obsessed with being right. Most of us will die that way. SM (01:11:58): So, just as there is 70 million different people in the boomer generation, 70 million people have different responses to the issue of healing. DK (01:12:08): Exactly. SM (01:12:11): What do you think the wall has done? Jan Scruggs wrote the book, To Heal a Nation. It is supposed to be a non-political entity to heal the veterans, those who served and the families of those who lost loved ones. He goes further and says we want to heal the nation on this. What do you think the wall has done to not only heal veterans but the nation? Just your thoughts. DK (01:12:38): That is a difficult question for me to answer. I am very pro wall. I am very moved by it. I think its significance may increase in a way. This depends on what is going to happen in the next 20 years. I constantly have to remind my own students, for instance, most of whom now were born when the war was over, that the entire casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or certainly the killed, the wounded it might be a little different, do not add up to half of 1968. When you look at that wall, it is brought home to you that even though that was thought of as a relatively small war, it was being fought on a scale which would be unimaginable today. That is progress to me, very important progress, which I hope not to see reversed in my lifestyle. There was an aroused minority that resented the wall. One advantage I have, although I have been writing about the US now for 20 plus years, I started out as a European historian, and my teaching here is still involved in the history of a lot of other nations. All great nations have made terrible mistakes and suffered terrible catastrophes as a result. Some of them much worse than what we suffered in Vietnam. Thus, it is not difficult for me to regard this as the kind of mistake that sadly any great nation is going to make once in a while. The wall, to me, can be viewed that way. People have complained that it makes it look like it was a traffic accident. To me, that is fine because I do feel it is a kind of a manmade catastrophe, though quite unnecessary [inaudible], but this is part of life. SM (01:15:11): The other area that I want to look into is the issue of trust. The boomers obviously experienced many leaders who lied to them and were dishonest in many ways. The result is that many, if not most did not trust their leaders. No matter what their role in society, they could be a President of the United States or of a university, a congressman, a senator, a corporate leader, a religious leader, anybody in a position of responsibilities. There did not seem to be any trust toward any of them. The question I am asking, is this a very distrustful generation or is that just a natural thing? I was a political science history major and I learned early on that lack of trust is something that is okay in a democracy because it challenges other points of view. Do you feel that this is a generation that did not trust, and if they did not trust, are they pass this on to their children and thus their children's children? Just your thoughts on that. I bring this up because I can remember in a Psych 101 class once in college, the professor saying, we are going to talk about trust today. In that class he said, "If you cannot trust someone, you will not be a success in life personally. You have got to be able to trust somebody." I have always remembered him saying that, and then seeing the generation that I was around in that classroom not really trusting anybody. Just wondering if that is really part of this generation. DK (01:16:57): I think it is part of the generation. While, I think it is a healthy impulse to distrust your government to a certain extent, I think that as with so many other things, we pushed it much too far so that it has prevented many boomers from looking at leaders of all kinds, realistically, at all. They are too quick to write them off based on one transgression. As a historian, it is my job to make meaningful comparison, not to compare everything to some hopeless ideal. So, that is a problem. On the other hand, that most definitely is not what boomers passed on to their kids. The millennials are very trusting of authority, almost shockingly so. Although, they do resent it very much if authority changes the rules in the middle of the game. That is the one thing that will really freak them out. They just want you to tell them what needs to be done so they can do it. I was shocked. Again, I did the same generations in film course at Williams and had them write autobiographical papers and you would have to waterboard these kids to get them say anything nasty about their parents. That is not true about GenX, at all. SM (01:18:49): Right. DK (01:18:50): And obviously it was not true about boomers. SM (01:18:53): It is interesting. Boomers had that big generation gap of their parents and there was a friction between boomers and Generation Xers. I found in my work in college that millennials get along pretty well with boomers. This is an important point to make. I have read some of the how, and I have read the latest book on millennials. I have read that. DK (01:19:16): I only read a little of that. SM (01:19:18): One of the things is that millennials do want to leave a legacy. But, it is when they want to leave it, that is the issue. They want leave a legacy once they are 40 and beyond. They want to get their job done, raise a family, and they just want to enjoy themselves in the twenties and thirties. Then in the forties, they want to give something back to society. Whereas, the boomers always had this feeling that they wanted to make a difference in the world. Maybe that is where they have a uniqueness, a link, both generations want to make a difference in the world. One wanted to do it when they were young and maybe have failed as they have gotten older. The others do not want to do it when they are young and they want to do it when they are older. DK (01:20:15): Boomers change their own world. I think their record of actually making a positive difference in the world at large is not very strong. I keep going back to that. It is interesting. I have a son who is a kind of an older millennial. He is already the principal of the charter school in Brooklyn. He works 16 hours a day and he has been under tremendous pressure, but he wants this to be the best middle school in New York. He may in fact be successful with that. SM (01:20:52): Wow. That is good. DK (01:20:58): He got into an interesting argument at Christmas with my wife, who is not... Christmas with my wife, who is not his mother, she is my second wife, and what she was trying to claim that the work he was doing was somehow inspired by Boomers. And, he said very politely, "If Boomers have had any influence on the positive changes in American education, I have not noticed it." SM (01:21:22): Wow. DK (01:21:25): And, he said, he came out of Teach for America. And, he said that for everybody who has been in Teach for America, the focus is totally on what works, what does not. What has actually shown results, what has not. And that is all. So, they probably will leave much more of a legacy. But, again, if you look at the transcendentals, I mean the legacy of the Civil War was that the union was preserved, but that was about it. And, they did not have the follow- up power to turn that into a real positive outcome, I think. In either the North or the South. And, the missionaries on the other hand, I mean, they left an enormous legacy. That is another the story. SM (01:22:16): You keep saying that the Boomers are not leaving much. DK (01:22:23): Not at an institutional level. SM (01:22:28): Well, where are they? DK (01:22:29): Personal level, maybe they are. SM (01:22:33): It is like individuals doing good things for others, but not as a community? In the hope- DK (01:22:37): No. And, also opening up emotional lives, opening up opportunities for minorities. I mean, the gay rights movement is a very revolutionary development and obviously a good one. The whole way that the therapeutic profession, the mental health profession has changed and become very important thanks to silencing Boomers. That is a huge step forward. Whereas remember in the (19)50s, to the extent that there was psychiatry, it was based on a very narrow Freudianism that assumed that your problems were in some sense of your fault. And, it certainly was not a result of something somebody had actually done to you or something like that. And, we have gone beyond that, and that is very important. So when you see, in the movies I use about Boomers, when I want to show a positive image, it is something like Goodwill Hunting and the Robin Williams character there who's a therapist. Or possibly An Officer and a Gentleman in which Foley, the drill instructor, is clearly a Boomer although Louis Gossett, the actor is [inaudible]. And, when I want to show a negative image, it is something like Wall Street and Gordon Gekko. And, we are where we are today because of many Gordon Gekkos. SM (01:24:15): Do you share Taxi Driver? DK (01:24:18): No. SM (01:24:18): That is the Vietnam vet who goes nuts. DK (01:24:22): Well, that is an interesting movie. Although I do not think, well, we could have a long conversation. I do not think that movie has a lot of broader significance the same way. Actually, I also have a particular theory about that movie. SM (01:24:40): There is the other movie- DK (01:24:40): Then there is the climax is a [inaudible]- SM (01:24:43): Yeah. There is the other movie too, that Jane Fonda was in. I forget it. It is Vietnam. DK (01:24:48): Coming Home. SM (01:24:50): Yeah. Coming Home. DK (01:24:50): Still have not seen that. SM (01:24:51): Yeah. DK (01:24:53): [inaudible] enough. I do not know why. I think [inaudible 01:24:52] movies about Vietnam are fabulous. SM (01:24:56): One of the things, I interviewed Richie Havens, I want to talk a little bit here about the music. We all know how good the music was, the influence it has had on the generation with all its social messages and all the types of music. Folk, rock, and obviously Motown. But, Richie said something pretty interesting. He said, "People make sometimes fun of Woodstock. One of the things I want to correct about Woodstock is that half the people of the 450,000, that there were not Boomers, they were older people who brought their families and they were World War II generations. So, it is not all about young people if they really study what Woodstock truly was." But, he said what it was is that it finally, "They cannot hide us anymore." And, it is in his book. "They cannot hide us anymore." And, he was referring to the Boomer children, the Boomer kids. He felt that the way the music and the media had tried to hide the Boomers and Woodstock really brought it out that the Boomers- DK (01:26:07): I was not there, but I have to dispute his facts as to the composition of the crowd. SM (01:26:13): Right. DK (01:26:13): I mean, I am sure there were good many silent there, but I certainly do not think there were very many World War II generation people there. And, in fact, one of the funniest things in the movie is that there is some dialogue among towns folk who are very divided, if you remember. SM (01:26:31): Oh yeah. DK (01:26:32): About the whole thing. SM (01:26:32): Yep. Yep. DK (01:26:33): And that is a great scene, actually. But, I suppose that is true, yes. That it did put the generation on the map. But again, the reaction from the older generation was not positive there. SM (01:26:56): But who were your role models when you were growing up? You personally? DK (01:27:04): Oh, what a difficult question. That is a terribly difficult question. I suppose some of the professors I had in one way or another. I had a very strange relationship with my own parents, in that we had very intense family life and they never understood that I was really a completely different person. I was pretty close to a couple of uncles. I had one in particular who was very much of the GI. I was also very... Let us see. There were a number of silent generation women who I became quite close to, who I think sort of picked it out very early on that the Boomers were more interesting than the GI men they were around. And, a lot of what I learned about movies, literature, and whatnot, was from people like that. One in particular actually, who is still alive, but there were a number of them. But, then I was more influenced by contemporary. SM (01:29:00): One of the things that is come up on some of the documentaries about the (19)60s and the Boomers when they were young in that period, is we came close to a second civil war. And, I have had people respond differently because so much was going on here with the cities going up in flames in the early (19)60s. You got Watts and then of course there was the fear when Martin Luther King died, cities were burning. I can remember with my brother going to baseball game at Connie Mac Stadium, were taking the train in from New Jersey, and we had to keep our heads down because there were snipers all over the place shooting at the subways. So, seemed like there was a second civil war happening. And, I would like your thoughts on that, because when people make comments about, and some of these documentaries about the Civil War, they say the next real era of that problem was not the depression World War II, it was the (19)60s. DK (01:29:57): All right. SM (01:30:01): And, then I had something that Malcolm one of my guests said and then we will close. Your thoughts on that? DK (01:30:11): Well, there were plenty of people who would have been willing to be foot soldiers, but I think it was misleading because the older generations who were in charge still, had shared values. Shared belief in institutions, and in fact all of that, by the mid (19)70s, they had not shaken the political structure very much so I think that was an illusion. Again, you could go back to around 1900 and you could find a lot of very violent strikes. You could find bombings, terrorism, things like that, and make the same kind of argument. But revolution, civil war only happens when the old order is really dying, which is what we have right now. SM (01:31:13): Yeah. DK (01:31:14): So, I think that no was, I think that is an exaggeration. SM (01:31:23): So, you make a very important point like what is happening now. I interviewed Malcolm Boyd last week. DK (01:31:28): Yeah. SM (01:31:29): I had a two-part interview with him. And, he mentioned that, that what is happening now in America has a greater chance of tearing this nation apart than anything that happened in the (19)60s. DK (01:31:43): Definitely. SM (01:31:44): Because- DK (01:31:44): Definitely the case. SM (01:31:45): I got you. DK (01:31:46): And, you see now we have got the total paralysis in Washington that at no time did you have anything like that then except maybe briefly during Watergate. SM (01:31:57): Why do you think so many people are actually trying to criticize President Obama? They may not like his policies, but they say he is just bringing the (19)60s back again. You have probably heard that before. DK (01:32:07): Well, that is ridiculous. SM (01:32:08): Yeah. DK (01:32:08): I mean, that is conservative propaganda. And, he is not a (19)60s person at all. But, that is what they pulled out against the Clintons too [inaudible]. SM (01:32:20): And, my very last question, this is it. What has the Boomer generation left to future generations? What in your opinion, have they done? Now remember, they thought they were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society. They were going to- DK (01:32:36): They have changed things enormously for more than half the population that is women and homosexual. And, that is not trivial. Meanwhile, they have unleashed a lot of raw economic forces with very unfortunate consequences. And, they have done great harm to the Western intellectual tradition. So, those are both positive and negative things. SM (01:33:25): Can you say a little bit more about the great harm to the Western intellectual tradition? DK (01:33:30): I already have. SM (01:33:31): Okay. DK (01:33:31): I mean, they have propagated the idea that reality is an individual matter, therefore standards of evidence do not matter. And, they have cut off universities from the real world to an extent that is almost medieval, in my opinion. So, that in a couple of centuries, or even in one century, if people are reading the articles that are appearing today in the American Historical Review, it will be just as difficult for them to intellectually engage those articles as it would be to engage medieval religious controversies. SM (01:34:18): Very good. All right. DK (01:34:20): No, well, I mean, I did not know what this is going to be like, but in terms of, and again, I really am very tired and in general, Mike. SM (01:34:29): Yep. DK (01:34:30): But in fact, what I am going to tell my wife, you may hear from me again about her. I think she expected that you were going to be asking a lot more questions about the interviewee's actual life and that is what she would be interested in bugging you about. SM (01:34:52): Well, I could have done that too. DK (01:34:54): Well, you see, because she actually, she was a hippie. She became a homesteader in Arizona. SM (01:35:00): Oh, yeah. That is- DK (01:35:00): She built this ranch from scratch. So, if you would like to talk to her about things like that, then you should. SM (01:35:06): Yep, definitely. Because, each interview has been different. DK (01:35:10): All right. Well then let me just give you her name and number. SM (01:35:13): Okay. Hold on a second. Let me write this down. Okay. DK (01:35:15): Yep. Patti, P-A-T-T-I. Cassidy. 4-0-1 4-2-3 3-9-0-6. SM (01:44:12): 4-2-3 3-9-0-6? DK (01:44:14): That is right. SM (01:44:16): Does she have an email or do you? DK (01:44:18): Yes. Let me make sure I got that right. Wait a second. Hold it. She has a tricky email. I want to make sure it is right. Yeah. T-A-P-I-T-1. SM (01:44:41): P-A? DK (01:44:42): No-no-no. T as in Tom. T-A-P-I-T-1. That is an anagram for Patti you see, @gmail.com. SM (01:44:55): Say that one more time. DK (01:44:57): T as in Tom, A-P as in Patti, I, T as in Tom, one the numeral. SM (01:45:05): Okay. DK (01:45:06): @gmail.com. SM (01:45:08): Why did you want me to ask more about your personal life or? DK (01:45:11): No-no-no, that is fine. But, we did [inaudible]. SM (01:45:13): Yep. Okay. Very good. Because you are the historian, I think, and you said some things about what made you who you are too. And- DK (01:45:21): I did a little bit. Yes. SM (01:45:23): Yep. DK (01:45:24): You see, it is very interesting. A friend of mine is Jamie Galbraith, who is John Kenneth Galbraith's son. And, John Kenneth Galbraith, by the way, did express himself publicly about American tragedy, which meant a great deal to me. SM (01:45:43): Yes. DK (01:45:44): And, Jamie is an economist at the University of Texas, and he is a new deal kind of economist, of which there are almost none left. Krugman is the best known, but practically none of them left. And, again, I think it is because he was too involved in our parents' world just to completely turn his back on it and decide that he could forget about everything we had ever learned. And, that was certainly the case with me too. SM (01:46:21): Well, one of the things that is come up on some of the documentaries about the (19)60s and the Boomers when they were young in that period is we came close to a second civil war. And, I have had people respond differently because so much was going on here with the cities going up in flames. And, the early (19)60s you got Watts. And, then of course there was the fear when Martin Luther King died, cities were burning. I can remember with my brother going to a baseball game at Connie Mac Stadium, we were taking the train in from New Jersey, and we had to keep our heads down because there were snipers all over the place shooting at the subways. So, seemed like there was a second civil war happening. And, I would like your thoughts on that, because when people make comments about, in some of these documentaries about the Civil War, they say the next real era of that problem was not the depression World War II, it was the (19)60s, and then something. DK (01:46:22): All right. SM (01:46:22): And, then I had something that Malcolm, one of my guests said and then we will close. Your thoughts on that? DK (01:46:23): Well, there were plenty of people who would have been willing to be foot soldiers, but I think it was misleading because the older generations who were in charge, still had shared values. Shared belief in institutions and in fact all of that, by the mid (19)70s, they had not shaken the political structure very much. So, I think that was an illusion. Again, you could go back to around 1900 and you could find a lot of very violent strikes. You could find bombings, terrorism, things like that, and make the same kind of argument. But, revolution civil war only happens when the old order is really dying, which is what we have right now. SM (01:46:23): Yeah. DK (01:46:23): So, I think that no was, I think that is an exaggeration. SM (01:46:23): So, you make a very important point, like what is happening now. I interviewed Malcolm Boyd last week. DK (01:46:23): Yeah. SM (01:46:23): I had a two-part interview with him. And he mentioned that, that what is happening now in America has a greater chance of tearing this nation apart than anything that happened in the (19)60s. DK (01:46:23): Definitely. Definitely the case. SM (01:46:23): I got you. DK (01:46:23): And, you see at now we have got this total paralysis in Washington that at no time did you have anything like that then, except maybe briefly during Watergate. SM (01:46:23): Why do you think so many people are actually just trying to criticize President Obama? And, they may not like his policies, but they say he is just bringing the (19)60s back again. You have probably heard that before. DK (01:46:23): Well, that is ridiculous. SM (01:46:23): Yeah. DK (01:46:23): I mean, that is conservative propaganda, and he is not a (19)60s person at all. But, that is what they pulled out against the Clintons too [inaudible]. SM (01:46:23): And, my very last question, this is it. What has the Boomer generation left to future generations? What in your opinion, have they done? Now remember, they thought they were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society. They were going to- DK (01:46:23): They have changed things enormously for more than half the population that is women and homosexual. And, that is not trivial. Meanwhile, they have unleashed a lot of raw economic forces with very unfortunate consequences. And, they have done great harm to the Western intellectual tradition. So, those are both positive and negative things. SM (01:46:23): Can you say a little bit more about the great harm to the Western intellectual tradition? DK (01:46:23): I already have. SM (01:46:23): Okay. DK (01:46:23): I mean, the idea, they have propagated the idea that reality is an individual matter, therefore, standards of evidence do not matter. And, they have cut off universities from the real world to an extent that is almost medieval, in my opinion. So, that in a couple of centuries, or even in one century, if people are reading the articles that are appearing today in the American Historical Review, it will be just as difficult for them to intellectually engage those articles as it would be to engage medieval religious controversies. SM (01:46:23): Very good. All right. DK (01:46:23): No, well, I mean, I did not know what this is going to be like, but in terms of, and again, I really am very tired and just like, but in fact, what I am going to tell my wife, you may hear from me again about her. I think she expected that you were going to be asking a lot more questions about the interviewee's actual life. And, that is what she would be interested in bugging you with. SM (01:46:23): Well, I could have done that too, actually. DK (01:46:23): Well, you see, because she actually, she was a hippie. She became a homesteader in Arizona. SM (01:46:23): Oh yeah. DK (01:46:23): And, built this ranch from scratch. So, if you would like to talk to her about things like that, then you should [inaudible]. SM (01:46:23): Yep. Definitely, because each interview has been different. DK (01:46:23): All right. Well then let me just give you her name and number. SM (01:46:23): Okay. Hold on a second. Let me write this down. Okay. DK (01:46:23): Yep. Patti, P-A-T-T-I. Cassidy. 4-0-1 4-2-3 3-9-0-6. SM (01:46:23): 4-2-3 3-9-0-6? DK (01:46:23): That is right. SM (01:46:23): Does she have an email or do you? DK (01:46:23): Yes. Let me make sure I get that right. Wait a second. Hold it. She has a tricky email. I want to make sure if I... Yeah. T-A-P-I-T-1. SM (01:46:23): P-A? DK (01:46:23): No, no, no. T as in Tom. A-P-I-T-1. That is an anagram of Patti, you see. @gmail.com. SM (01:46:23): Say that one more time. DK (01:46:23): T as in Tom, A-P as in Patti, I-T as in Tom, one the numeral. SM (01:46:23): Okay. DK (01:46:23): @gmail.com. SM (01:46:23): Why did you want me to ask more about your personal life or? DK (01:46:23): No-no-no, that is fine. What we did was fine. SM (01:46:23): Yep. Because, okay, very good. Because, you are the historian, I think, and you said some things about what made you who you are too. DK (01:46:23): I did a little bit. Yes. SM (01:46:23): Yep. DK (01:46:23): I was, you see, it is very interesting. A friend of mine is Jamie Galbraith who is John Kenneth Galbraith's son. And, John Kenneth Galbraith, by the way, did express himself publicly about American tragedy, which meant a great deal to me. SM (01:46:23): Yes. DK (01:46:23): And, Jamie is an economist at the University of Texas, and he is a new deal kind of economist, of which there are almost none left. Krugman is the best known, but they practically none of them left. And again, I think it is because he was too involved in our parents' world just to completely turn his back on it and decide that he could forget about everything we had ever learned. And, that was certainly the case with me too. SM (01:46:23): Well. (End of Interview) 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. David Kaiser Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaiser, David ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; Physics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Kaiser, David--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. David Kaiser is a professor of Physics and the History of Science at MIT. He received his Bachelor's degree in Physics at Dartmouth College and Ph.D.s in Physics and the History of Science at Harvard University. His historical research focuses on the development of physics in the United States during the Cold War. Additionally, his research in physics studies the early-universe cosmology, working at the interface of particle physics and gravitation. 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 2010-02-09 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.10.2016.71a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.71b 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. 106:26 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c9c0d40036b678d32dad60d2f9a59089.jpg 2320bb017dc38600ace3196f9e04ea9e https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/30f6e2e5d09aff5bc84f779de2e62cb3.mp3 8567c1f0459af79c352ba82a8e66e80c 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 (Amplitude.js) 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 2004-08-26 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Thi Dieu Nguyen, 1951- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Dieu T. Nguyen grew up in An Giang during the Vietnam War, is a professor of History at Temple University and a writer. Dr. Nguyen completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the Sorbonne and the University of Aix-en-Provence. She is the author of The Mekong River and The Struggle for Indochina: Water, War, and Peace."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":7051,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"6":{"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,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Dieu T. Nguyen grew up in An Giang during the Vietnam War, and is a writer and professor of History at Temple University. Dr. Nguyen completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the Sorbonne and the University of Aix-en-Provence. She is the author of <em>The Mekong River</em> and <em>The Struggle for Indochina: Water, War, and Peace</em>.</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 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 70:38 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam War; French War (Vietnam V. France); American veterans; Baby boom generation; Anti-war movement; Civil Rights Movement; Robert McNamara; James Fonda; Lynden Johnson"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5009,"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}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Vietnam War; French War (Vietnam V. France); American veterans; Baby boom generation; Anti-war movement; Civil Rights Movement; Robert McNamara; Jane Fonda; Lyndon Johnson.</span> Subject LCSH College teachers; Temple University. Department of History; Nguyen, Thi Dieu, 1951--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. Dieu T. Nguyen Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nguyen, Thi Dieu, 1951- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; Temple University. Department of History; Nguyen, Thi Dieu, 1951--Interviews 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 2004-08-26 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.10.2016.117 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. 70:38 Description An account of the resource Dr. Dieu T. Nguyen grew up in An Giang during the Vietnam War, and is a writer and professor of History at Temple University. Dr. Nguyen completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the Sorbonne and the University of Aix-en-Provence. She is the author of <em>The Mekong River</em> and <em>The Struggle for Indochina: Water, War, and Peace</em>. https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/12dd2067fa0bc0904c3c27c20e8451af.jpg 92e4f114ceb3e390c715318ab09d11cb https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7ef5d47bf44d8c2e8c33df2ca23dba48.mp3 5f924d6b33c3a3009e6e36363a7b7dc0 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 1997-09-27 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Douglas Brinkley Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Douglas Brinkley is an author, scholar and academic. He is currently a history professor at Rice University and the presidential historian at CNN. He is an author and has published 12 books. He received the Ann M. Sperber Biography Award in 2013 for his book, Cronkite. Dr. Brinkley has a Bachelor's degree from Ohio State University as well as a Master's degree and Ph.D. in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15233,"3":{"1":0},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":9}">Dr. Douglas Brinkley is an author, scholar and academic. He is currently a history professor at Rice University and the presidential historian at CNN. He is an author and has published 12 books. He received the Ann M. Sperber Biography Award in 2013 for his book <em>Cronkite</em>. Dr. Brinkley has a Bachelor's degree from Ohio State University as well as a Master's degree and Ph.D. in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown 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 MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Civil Liberties; Vietnam War; Democratic party; Activism; Vietnam Memorial; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">Baby boom generation; Civil Liberties; Vietnam War; Democratic party; Activism; Vietnam Memorial; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 77:37 Subject LCSH Authors; Scholars; College teachers; Rice University; Brinkley, Douglas--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Douglas Brinkley Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 9 September 1997 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:08 SM: Okay, get over there. I will test it after the first question too. First question I want to ask is the recently and I have seen on the news a lot lately, and I have actually heard over many years, you will see George Will who will write articles on it yet he will make commentaries on ABC, you will possibly see Newt Gingrich saying it and on the floor of Congress and politicians generalizing about the boomer generation and their impact on American today, in mostly negative terms. I would like your thoughts and not only as your personal thoughts, but even from a historical perspective, whether the criticisms of the boomer generations has been leveled at them as they are the reason for all the ills in American society today, the breakup, the American family, the increase in the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority, those types of issues that were they were some individuals and even times the media tries to portray this group as the reason why we have declined as-as an American nation. 1:02 DB: In the view. I think it is all a lot of rubbish, that notion of blaming a generation for-for anything, particularly because what-what do you what do you have in a pre Boomer period, Jim Crow America, where African Americans do not have the right to vote, that they are living in, essentially an apartheid system throughout the south, that women are on subpar salaries, that minority migrant workers, minority workers have no rights whatsoever. You know, if you go back to that glorious Eisenhower (19)50s, before his boomers got control over American culture, what you would see is a is a white male autarky controlling the United States, his finances, and in controlling government. And I think we were much better off now in the (19)90s than we ever were in the (19)50s in the sense of more equity of distribution of capital. That is more civil liberties and civil rights for people. The American pie- it has been it was, it was being shared, I think, by more people, and hopefully by more to come in the future. So, I find that the boomer generation has been extraordinarily important in for has equal claim to being a group of a generation that has done more to change America in a positive fashion than any other generation simply on the areas of spite of civil rights and civil liberties which occurred during their period. Now, if there is going to be some criticism, there is-is a kind of feeling of the cheapening of American culture, the-the advent of kind of pop culture gone mad in, in Hollywood and magazines, records, music, but that is only because there is more and more people with capital, because of these changes to purchase, you know, D run DMC, you know, rap albums or to purchase, you know, Garth Brooks Country Albums or to get experiment leisurely in the drug culture. I do think that the promotion of drugs in the (19)60s, in some ways was problematic, because it is it not so problematic for middle class and upper middle class, but that just devastatingly dangerous for the underside, the other side, or Michael Harrington called it of American life. And so, you know, as any generation, there is a downside to certain things. But all in all, I think the boomer generation should be proud that they told the spoke the truth, and opened up the democratic process for more people than ever before. That is a major accomplishment. 3:45 SM: Just double check. It is kind of a little repetitive, because you already hit on some of the points. But if you were to look in 1997, we are heading into the new millennium. The overall impact of boomers not even looking at the criticisms that I mentioned the first question, but just as you know, the boomers are now reaching the age of 50. Bill Clinton has often said as a fore-runner, he feels he just reached 50. In fact, he turned 51 this year. But if you were to again, look at just overall this 65-70 million, I am quite sure the numbers of boomers amount of course, boomers being defined as individuals born between (19)46 and (19)64. Overall impact positive or negative? 4:28 DB: Positive. All generations are positive. I think it is all you know, there is nobody that goes around identifying themselves as I am a boomer. They do they have got kind of a problem. I mean, people are people. Kurt Vonnegut once told me there is no such thing as generation X, we are all generation Z. Each generation comes up together and starts themselves together and you know, there is no- or it could be generation a- but it is mean- meaning they are these deputies’ categorizations of everybody, by age bracket song. It is useful. In some ways, when you are writing and thinking about large, long-term trends in American society, but I do not think it has much bearing when you start talking about real people, they are always gaps between age groups, dad and son, you know, always have differences of opinion. That is kind of the way like this goes back to the days of the Bible. I do not think it is some new sociological generation trend. 5:25 SM: That leads you right into the question on the generation gap. It was a term that I do not even know if they use those terms. As a historian, you might know more than I would. But uh, that term was used over and over again, for boomers during the (19)60s and early (19)70s, to divide themselves and their parents to World War Two generation, mainly because oftentimes, boomers looked at the World War Two generation like they look at IBM, the corporate mentality, everybody be in it alike that, that whole picture of the IBM family of five people walking up front door, their house, all wearing a suit and a hat going into the same current status quo. And boomer said, not me, not me. 6:02 DB: Think it gets exaggerated. But if you look in the (19)60s you know, most Americans college students were pro Vietnam war that they were more college students that were for Richard Nixon then against Richard Nixon, in 1968 on colleges, and he where are the you know, we-we become hostage to is the extravagances of the counterculture of the (19)60s of you know, the Haight Ashbury experience and Timothy Leary's, in the factory in New York of Andy Warhol. And, and we, because of that the it spoke out so loudly and flamboyantly about, from an artistic perspective, and a social perspective. I mean, Abbie Hoffman, remember talking to some years ago at Princeton, he is now deceased, that he has to say, you know, we quickly learned all you have to do is call a rally, get 10 people, but if you grab a TV on a middle of campus, smash it with sledgehammers, burn an American flag, you will find about 300 people watching the freak event. And then the media will come in and cover it and bring it into a million homes. So, what started as eight people smashing up a television suddenly looks like it is this big event on campus. I do not think they are the upheaval that the counterculture had that they kind of impact on American society as the republicans like Newt Gingrich used to say it. It is the revolution in the (19)60s was a social revolution, dealing with civil rights and civil rights for African Americans and women, the battle browns, beautiful, historic battle markers. Sure, there are some from and emerged in the counterculture in certain ways like Kent State, you know, protest, you know, but most of them are aware of Selma. And watts in the march from march to Montgomery, and Birmingham, Little Rock, you know, Albany, Georgia, these were Greensborough. These were places where direct confrontation to change society took place in this massive way. Not that that because there was a love in that in Haight Ashbury, or Woodstock Rock Festival. Those are significant, but it is just a little, that is every generation is going to have something outrages the parents, today, kids will have in college, their three earrings and go to some other kind of concert. And it is an alienation process with mother, father, that is very healthy. I do not trust students that do not have a little bit of alienation. And then when they are young, I find in there, so they are not intellectually engaging, if they are going to be 19-20. And not really care to read poetry or fiction or be idealistic, and think that they can change some of the things or want to take a few swipes at the mainstream American culture. 8:54 SM: One of the things that said would you like some water? One of the things that is interesting, I have worked in higher education on 19 years, I was out of a for a while. And when young people today look at their parents or boomers, I always keep coming back to that term. There seems to be two reactions, and this is [inaudible] your feelings, whether you see the same thing as a scholar that teaches students and has worked with him for quite a few years. Number one, I am tired of hearing about it. I have seen these people live in nostalgia the- you know, the times are so great, you know, and the and the other thing is this, basically they are sick of it and then the then the, there is no middle ground. The other side is I wish I live then. I wish there were the issues today, like the issues then civil rights, you know, certainly ending the Vietnam War, the women's movement, a lot so many of the movements came to fruition the late (19)60s and (19)70s. Your thoughts on that? 9:47 DB: Well, it that part I think is-is true. The (19)60s are exciting, because young people-people in their 20s made a difference. I love looking at the pictures of young Dr. King and Stokely Carmichael and Andy Young and Jim Lawson and you know, John Lewis and they are extraordinary to see these young men in their 20s actually changing the US Constitution and forcing governors to in the federal government to respond to their desires for their rights there is to be 20 and have-have been part of that was so exhilarating. I have talked to any number of young people now that are what you are calling boomers and they are in their (19)50s today, that their highlights of their lives we are working with snick when they you know, we are actually at these sites and the change and the-the excitement and the notion of the antiwar movement. The fact is that they did bring Richard Nixon down. that Watergate in the Vietnam War of a- the people protesting were correct that this was an immoral war. There is- we could not find an honest historian in the country today, not to say that Vietnam War was a mistake. So, what these people were protesting were in many ways, accurate and correct. So and then the fact that the music of the era was just seemed to connect to the social protest in a way through whether it was through Bob Dylan or, or, you know, Janis Joplin or-or, you know, or others that just had that link to the-the soundtrack kind of to the era all makes it combined into a certain kind of counterculture romance that you could get caught up in and look back to, and you are never going to have that now, it is not the world's not quite like that. Now-now, the romance, you know, people are taking set up websites, for their political issues out on their homes, or will, you know, kind of try to organize some kind of rallies, but it just does not quite have the fervor and flavor that it did in the (19)60s. So, if you are interested in social activism, I think there is a, there is a missing element. However, an argument could be made that young people today have more outlets to explore the spiritual realm than they did back in the (19)60s, when you had a when was a much more an LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? Now you be much more defined young people's protesting in society in a sense, by practicing yoga, or work dealing with crystals, or adopting some kind of new age, religion or philosophy, have their own way of making their own spiritual space, you know, between themselves. And in that way, it was one of the reasons why as a writer like Jack Kerouac is so popular in college campuses is he was always dealing with the spiritual, not the political. And so, there is a sense of spiritual activism going on now. People trying to look at self in new ways, understand who they are, as a purpose, trying to explore the meanings of their, their life. And so, it is a different it is a more of an inward revolution. Right now, where I think in the (19)60s, it was an outward one, these things will all come and go and there will be another era of genuine protest in this country and some somewhere down the line. Now this was set versus the (19)60s for a while, but it will come. 13:15 SM: I like to ask you a- something like a what went wrong question. When young people and again, I was in that era, we thought we were the change agents for the betterment of society. We were the most unique generation in American history and, and as a historian, you probably may have a sense of that from other generations as well. But when you are part of it, when you are living it. It was just in the fact is that they felt that there was an empowerment that there we were the change agents you are in somehow that has not been transferred to the children of the boomers. 13:49 DB: Oh, I do not know about that. I think you are a little getting a little tied up on this boomer thing. From your own personal vantage point. The truth of the matter is there is a lot of arrogance of any young generation, gets on the streets and thinks they have ripped down a president and ended a war and brought about a social revolution and through race relations in America. That is a lot of accomplishment at a young age, and you cannot keep that crescendo going. So, you tend to look back on your past glories of that historical epoch in children being raised by parents or going to the dock any generation of kids they are going to say, oh, be quiet dad. It is like some different generation had to put up listening to look through dad's World War One stories. I was there in Europe. Now. This was when I was there Woodstock. It is the same there is not this kind of dividing line. It is as old as time can be. There is no big division between generations today. They accept- you know, in ways that are-are teasingly so or ways that are just kind of surface any more than there is with any other generation, and I would reverse it and say what went right. The Cold War is over the, the equal, we have a real much greater sense of what equal rights are and fair wages, you know employment benefits. The-the bringing income to minorities American, the next century is going to be over 40 percent nonwhite and allowing these people into the mainstream culture. The whole story of the boomer generation is one of just extraordinary success. Now if-if things did not go become, you know, golden for everybody the way you when you are 21, you think things are going to be different than they turn out to be that is another story. And no, in also there is a perpetual Peter Pannus about this generation, because they define themselves not in is a world as an older generation that they defined themselves when they were young. I have to tell you, it is no different than World War Two veterans, I interviewed D Day veterans in battle of the Bulge veterans all the time, that was the highlight of their life. They are 18, throwing hand grenades, and in the, you know, along the Rhine River, and it was their moment of, they have defined their whole lives around that particular experience. So, they may have gone on to own a car dealership or be an insurance salesman, raise a family, send them to school, they still define themselves as a veteran of World War Two, and it is their one thing that they are most proud of their contribution occurred when they were young. And I think you will find some boomers who had their defining moment when they were young. That is there is nothing wrong with that there are also people who get defining moments when they are older. And there will be some boomers that you do not even know their names of now that are going to be known as being the great leaders of that generation, who-who are now in their (19)50s only in the next 10-15 years are going to be excelling in ways that are the ending of AIDS and developing clean blood supplies. So, we do not you know, people that grew up in that generation, you know, they are all over these people. And so, there is was just as many as some people when they were young, they are going to be others that peak when they are older from your generation. It is great. 17:03 SM: When you look at the Vietnam War. In your opinion, why did it end? What is the number one reason that war ended? 17:13 DB: Because we failed to win. I mean, the ended because you can only take so much toward the ark, the domestic or tour economy apart, ruin the great society broke down two presidents, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. At that point, it is time to cash in it the-the chips, call it a quasi-victory like they did and send the troops home should have been done a long time ago. But, you know, the Vietnam War only ended because we were not winning. And it seemed impossible to win short of doing a kind of massive bombing campaign, which would have destroyed Americans credibility throughout the world, and would have done grave damage to NATO, and to continuing to call us on, you know, fractious relationships in American society. 18:05 SM: How important were the college students on college campuses and contributing to the ending of that war, knowing that when you look at this large generation, the biggest generation in American history, historians will say that 15 percent were really involved in some sort of activist activity at that timeframe. 18:24 DB: They were very important for framing the argument for giving a voice to the antiwar movement, through song through protest through just bodies to constantly apply pressure, though antiwar movement of 1965 looked a lot different than 1970 at Kent State. When you started getting people like William Fulbright and George cannons denouncing the Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite in Johnson's famous line there when Cronkite was anti came out, anti-Vietnam said there goes the war. He was losing America in the Harbinger's of that were ministers, pacifist groups, and youth culture groups were the Civil Rights Organizations find when Dr. King in April in May guess, yeah, April, was in April of (19)68 or (19)67, April (19)67, gave his speech, a Riverside Drive in New York, that in announcing the Vietnam War, and connecting the civil rights movement to the Vietnam War. That was a fatal moment for Lyndon Johnson. It was that that was when everything changed. And I thought that was the point that it was going to be clear that this was truly a social revolution and the antiwar movement now merged with the civil rights movement. 19:46 SM: When you look at the civil rights movement of this year, and when you look at freedom summer of 1964, and again, I know I am getting too caught up in the terminology of the boomers, but the oldest boomers at that, at that stage are 18 years old. And so, when you look at the impact of the boomers had on various issues in American history at that timeframe (19)60s (19)70s, how important were the- these boomers who may have had their first experiences, maybe through the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley when things started in (19)63. And then they went to (19)64, down south. But how important overall were these young people in the issue of civil rights? 20:23 DB: Well, they are extremely important because they first thought the African Americans largely in the civil rights movement were in their 20s. And as they developed many, most of their followers, it is easier to get a young audience that is in college to form a crowd, if you were going to hold on activity here this afternoon and wanted to get 200 people were better than to go to a campus and generate 200 people. They are all in a condensed area at one point of time. So it allowed civil rights, also, to have, you know, a sort of intellectual strongholds scattered throughout the country words like Cambridge and Madison and Hattiesburg and, you know, other college towns became symbols of places where people could share information and read about Herbert Marcuse, or Noam Chomsky, or could share their new enthusiasm for the Bob Dylan album could, you know talk about Mao Zedong and pass out his red books on campus and kind of create a was a place to spread a lot of this kind of, you know, youthful protest energy? 21:36 SM: You have, you have talked about some of the positive and negative qualities of the boomers. But if you were just maybe give through four adjectives positives and negatives? What were those positives again, be for the boomers and the negative? Just brief descriptions? 21:50 DB: Well, I do not-not sure. On the negatives, I think positive was that that when they are they confronted the crisis of the moment at a young age, which was the crisis in American society, the crisis in confidence in American leadership, and a crisis of what is democracy? Who controls the power? Who controls the purse strings of America? And why cannot we open up to allow more people into the system, that was the game going on when they came of age, and they confronted those issues in a in a vocal and forthright manner, and we are able to make a profound difference. They also, I think we are, I think that their contribution, you know, it became the popular culture now started in the (19)50s. But by the (19)60s, it became commerce and by the (19)70s really became commerce with so what I mean, it is the second largest export in America's, after our aerospace is pop culture, they talk about contributing to American exports and money, the whole pop culture industry that that emerged on a rock and roll and, you know, the endless massive Hollywood films and book tie ins and all the promotional aspects of things, which we frown on a lot, is what were some of our biggest money making activities in this country, you know, in the entertainment industry, which kind of emerges in in the spirit. And I think all things considered and entertainment industries is not necessarily a negative thing. I think it has quite a positive impact if it brings some sort of joy into working people in middle class people's lives. I do not really have anything negative on the generation, I think that is bad karma. You know, you know, to start seeing this generation that these negative and this one did it positive, it is, you know, it is just it is too cold. You know, there is, there is every generation confronting different problems. I think that yes, it was correct in the (19)60s generation to talk about sexuality openly, to let women talk about the need for their own sexual satisfaction in life for-for homosexuals to be able to come out like at Stonewall in places and have begun gay rights. The sexual liberation of the (19)60s was long overdue and puritanical America. On the other hand, it went overboard to the degree that free love and multiple partners led into the (19)80s the problems of sexual diseases in herpes and venereal diseases and in AIDS and so there was a cost factor that came in because it went too far. And I think if there was a criticism to that boomer generation, I think it is the sense of the excess in their ideas pushing it is they really believed in William Blake's notion that wisdom is not is excess. Hunter Thompson believes that he is a product of many ways of that period of access through-through excesses comes wisdom. I do not buy that, and I think that that is probably where that generation at that period where period of time pushed these envelopes a little too far. But today they do not. Today there is responsible they are running our government, their weather, and is any other generations responsible and running, you know, they have, they have grown up. But they be because they had an impact when they were 20 and 21. It made them feel they were more empowered Tom Hayden felt like, you know, when he wrote the Port Joran statement that we are going to change the world. This is a revolution right here this statement I just wrote SDS, you know, well, of course, now you may look back at that and realize that they were they were delusional. They think they were good as supplant the World Bank and, you know, these The International Monetary Fund, you know, through their revolutionary pocket proclamations. 25:54 SM: That is, it, there is one specific event that had the greatest impact on your life from this period. What-what was, there was there were so many, but if you could pinpoint one? 26:05 DB: Bob Dylan penning like a Rolling Stone. Because I did not get to live through, you know, when John F. Kennedy was-was shot, you know, I was three years old, when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy was shot, I was a, Lyndon Johnson resigned, I was eight. I do not my memories of that those events are foggy at best; I was too young to know or appreciate him. So, I do not know quite I can see films. And I can read books, but I do not know just what it would-would have felt like to have been able to drift into San Francisco and go to Haight Ashbury and feel like you were part of this social revolution that was going on. But I can tell you one thing, I do know what it is like to drive in my pickup truck, down a country road and blast like a Rolling Stone and feel and tie all the sentiments and power of that entire generation, all kind of like pull into a funnel and transform in that one song. I get it, then I get chills. And I hear it. And I realized what that must have been like, the day that song came out. And I heard that on the jukebox. And I was sitting in a bar somewhere in America, you know, and I would have been ready to just head to any of these places that time that the moving in the just wispy right up that song. 27:24 SM: As a follow up, I want to recommend that to you. Listen, some of the country- Joe McDonald. Have you listened to the Vietnam Album? Yeah, unbelievable stuff. 27:33 DB: Yeah, that is straight Vietnam War protests like Rolling Stones piece of art. 27:36 SM: Right. One of the issues trying to get at in this project is trying to understand the healing process. There were so many divisions in America that time, different sides, lots of people that listening to each other. Again, getting back to that whole issue of not respecting authority and really challenging authority, but there were tremendous divisions. I want to get back to the Vietnam War. And those individuals who protested the war, were against the war. And of course, those who served. In your opinion, how far have we come in the healing process from the divisions of those times not only with between those who serve and those who did not serve, but even in the political spectrum, because you know, the history of the democratic party that has been the downfall is they started because of (19)68 and all the liberal mentality and conducting themselves in the war issue and, and the end only recently, are they may be trying to make the comeback? 28:35 DB: Yeah, no, I think it has been divisive in many ways. The combination of Vietnam protests the war. Also, Richard Nixon, Cambodia [inaudible], Watergate led to Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, led to them the-the reemergence of a jingoistic American stance through Ronald Reagan, and then slowly is led through Bush and Clinton into a moderate, right of center kind of approach in in this country, which is we are back kind of on the center. We are back on track during the Bush and Clinton years. But what the problem is, it is the-the part that is annoying, that still legacy of Vietnam is that in gets into your boomer question is where were how did you stand on Vietnam War. And we have to learn, I think, as a society to realize the antiwar protesters like Bill Clinton, were equally patriotic, as somebody who wanted to fight in the war. That is a hard concept for a certain portion of the population to believe. And in other words, Clinton's was denunciation of the war is refusal to fight in you know, some people look at it is cowardice and an almost cost him the election. I would argue that that he was the people that were protesting the war were equally American heroes, as were the veterans who went to war That concepts not an easy one for people to swallow. So, there was always a feeling well, if you were not pro war did not fight, you did not love your country. And I think there are many ways to loving the country. And it is not always just picking up guns and go into a war that you do not believe in. I think the civil disobedience that occurred during the (19)60s during Vietnam War was justified, I have to say, if I were grew up in that area, I would not I would have gone to war, I would have gone to fight. I know that about myself. On the other hand, I can also appreciate the courage that it took not to. Sometimes it is not just doing what you were told, but it is not doing what you were told that takes more courage. And I think that, you know, we need the-the healing process is there, it is underway, we need to constantly look at that period and realize that there-there are people that it is more people that act out of conscience and convictions of what they believe their best, are people that I can admire are not people who just were doing it because they got walking papers. Also, the disparity of who fought the war is still something that angers the black community. So many poor people and blacks ended up being the ones to shed the blood into a war, you know, where that people with money got out of the war. So, it becomes a sore point Vietnam because it shows the inequity of American life between rich and poor, yet again, I think you nailed the same thing. We look in our country. And you see that problem the vast disparity of wealth in the country. 31:39 SM: The Vietnam Memorial was opened in 1982. And it is now we are going to be having a big celebration down in Washington on the 50th anniversary coming up on Veterans Day, November 11. I have had a chance to go down there the last six years for Memorial Day and Veterans Day to try to get a feel and ambience helped me with this project get a feel about the healing process. I sense a lot of healing has taken place. But I also sense again, a little bit of a continuing divisions, the hatred for the Jane Fonda’s of the world never forgiving her for going and even Bill Clinton at times. Even Peter Arnett, who spoke two years ago, I sat next to three Vietnam veterans and they, he replaced Larry King who was supposed to speak, and they said if I knew he was coming, I want to show up today because he was the media, he was part of the problem in Vietnam. So, they had some negative stories, the media, but how important has the Vietnam Memorial itself, been in respect as Jan Scruggs wrote his book To Heal a Nation has it really healed the nation itself, man. And, of course, it was done a lot within the Vietnam veteran community. But your thoughts on the impact of that wall. 32:46 DB: I think it is important to first remember the war. It is important for the veterans that are alive today to go see, their families to see their-their buddies names on that wall, and it is always moving to watch veterans look at it. Beyond that, the memorial will be there. 100 years from now, 200 years from now, hopefully, you and I will be in our graves dead as can be. And people will be coming look at that wall and remember that moment in American history. But you have to realize its relevancy, what you are talking about today is as simple as because it is so close to our time. Years from now, it will be like going to a Spanish American War Memorial or-or Confederate War Memorial will be interest there but it will not resonate quite as strongly as it does right now in the-the nerves and the in, in the issues are so-so raw still, but it has, it has been a healer, a healer of sorts, it has been a focal point of energies for veterans to come to and hang out at. For people come and talk about the war. It has been a place to go a destination to, you know, to get some things off people's chests emotionally, mentally. So, it has, it has had a wonderful, long, cathartic service for our nation, I think. 34:03 SM: We took a group of students to see Senator Muskie because there were years before he died. And in that session, I mentioned this in your last trip here. We have to question about 1968, the convention was happening in America at that time. He was not well at that time he just got out of the hospital. We asked a question about the boomer generation and the healing process, and the divisions and we were expecting real response to talk about the (19)60s but when he responded he said we have not healed as a nation since the Civil War. He broke American the two parts and is there truth to that? 34:37 DB: No. Absolutely Could not be more true. That is what I am getting at here. When you focus so much on this boomer part, it is indulged self-indulgent because it is so close to us for looking at oh gosh is not a different look at our van it was no different than it ever was. They have it is so easy in every way imaginable. And the problems that we have international problems race has been going on for a long time violence their whole nation was founded on violence the whole selling the West was settled on extermination of Indian slavery, death, not meaning much. We are a violent nation. This is not new news that there can be people killed today in Philadelphia, oldest river countries that but we keep losing track of that in some ways, because we think everything is so new. And that is because we have no real historical sense about ourselves as a people, we always march forward without any understanding of looking backwards. So Muskie statement was one of sober reflection on the events, trying to quell the kind of hype that people keep making over Vietnam, simply because it is in their lifetime, and it is a crisis of their lifetime. Well, there have been millions of crises going on since the beginning of man, and they are going to continue to go on some large, some small, some bigger than Vietnam, some not. It was nowhere near as fatal Vietnam to our country is something like the Civil War. And it did not have anywhere near as damaging of ramifications for our country, as there was World War Two was an isolated bombing of peasant people in a remote part of the world, you know, for us, which, you know, gets way too much press and talked about and constantly simply because it is part of our life script, we experienced Vietnam in some way. So, it is a, it is a talking point, that next year is the 100th anniversary of the Spanish American War, I could not get any of the TV networks to do especially in the Spanish American War, much more significant more than Vietnam, in the forming of American life. We fire Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Philippines empire for the first time. It is the beginning of America and the world theater of trade with China wants to go on and on and on of what the Spanish American War did for American Life. We do not even want to talk about it. Nobody even wants to open a book, you cannot get a near publisher to publish a book on the Spanish American War, because nobody cares. Yeah, my god. 400 books on Vietnam, another veteran writing his story, this one from the protester, and oh my goodness, and-and if there is a criticism, I have on our modern culture is it is developing now. It is this focal point on self, to this degree that that is all we do is think about the, the tone and the tenor of our lives as being so significant, when we are just grains of sand, or just sparrows falling, where we were no different than anybody else. And we are all be ghosts soon. So, we should get on with some of the heavier matters of living in creating communities in a positive fashion instead of getting all tied up in the kind of acrimony over Vietnam. 37:36 SM: I know there is, there is so many books on Vietnam, but say 100 years from now, will they be writing books? Or is it the same? 37:44 DB: Sure, if I am saying all you have left is the war memorial that nobody goes to. 37:48 SM: And books gone on books collecting dust in a library. What do you think of the individuals again, I am just using the term here, the left leaders of that era who became conservative I think of a David Horowitz is in the world of Peter Collier, the world those individuals who are at the forefront of the left than they did a total turnaround, and then condemned all the people that were involved with them when they were young? And Just your thought on. 38:14 DB: Mr. Horwitz was a recent speaker here at your school or he was coming there. But they are, I do not have put much stock in those two gentlemen. Their books on the Roosevelt family in the Kennedy family are sleazy tabloid trash tracks. That just one step above the globe in the store, the National Enquirer in integrity, they their notion of coming out and denouncing a generation of playing all this politics, it is great press, and it puts them in the papers and headlines and people in people that are anti (19)60, anti what occurred in that period, from the left point of view, you know, meaning the right and loves this, you know, here is one coming to our side. It is like Eldridge Cleaver, leaving the Black Panthers to write for the National Review, or Jerry Rubin leaving the Yippies to work on Wall Street. You know, I think that oftentimes those characters that act like that do not have a whole lot of personal integrity of what it means to be a scholar and a true intellectual. They are simply into controversy for the sake and it makes them wonderful guest on-on the gambit of talk shows on television, but as you get right down to it, and not that they are not brilliant in their certain ways, but when you get right down to it, I do not see what they are, I just think what they are doing is creating noise and not putting the kind of sober you know, reality to it. The all of both of those books that they wrote on the Kennedys and Roosevelts are not you cannot put no I cannot use those footnotes without being considered a joke in a serious, scholarly way. It is not even pop history. It is always taking things one step at little too much of what an overstatement and inflation of fact, so you are just you are reading it-it is like you are reading a Harlequin romance, but yet they masquerade as being serious intellectuals and committed to truth so as a historian, those are not my type of characters you know and I would rather the- you know, it is me it is like with Horwitz, and Collier they bottomed out when the left bottomed out they went right there they were there for whatever the fashion of the moment is. I do not think they I mean as soon as America turned to the Reagan period, and that was where the majority seem to be at, that was where they were at. And they are, you know, they will always be there. They are never leading that movement. They are hopping on the bandwagon at any given moment. You know, if tomorrow there is a big social revolution that occurred my guess is you find them, they are jumping off the banding conservatism for the new movement of the moment. Very few people take them very seriously. 41:03 SM: You get a chance to read the radical [inaudible] 41:06 DB: No, you told me about that its worth reading. 41:07 SM: I think worth reading I think then I think that that is a lot better than the other books that you were talking about. I will not read the other two, but I think what I was on I think Brian Lamb had Horowitz or Collier on talking about one of the Kennedys of Academies of- 41:21 DB: They are, they are, they are major their major characters I mean, these are major quotes that, but they are not much above Kitty Kelly, they are getting really with the kind of with brains you know. 41:34 SM: I am going to I have got several other questions here, but I want to get into some of the individuals here of the year and I would like you to comment on your just-just brief thoughts on all of not only your personal thoughts on their impact of that period, but it is personal and an impact on the period itself. Jane Fonda. 41:57 DB: Jane Fonda is a great deal of admiration for her as an actress, she is superb as somebody who is largely been committed to-to you know, she is this is a Hollywood figure essentially, I have never taken her much more seriously than that. But she is a I think a fine woman who is a good actress, and it gets involved with some very good causes- I like her. 42:28 SM: Tom Hayden. 42:30 DB: like Tom Hayden also I think, unlike [inaudible], Collier and Horowitz, Hayden has a-a is constantly staying on the cutting edge of bringing out certain issues certainly he is no longer part of the ease of fringe character now he ran for mayor of Los Angeles and now everybody knows he is not going to win and he is so far on the left obviously but-but I think he raises some interesting points that makes us think about things he takes part in the American political process. I think he is a very honorable legislator and somebody whose ideas are always worth talking to in thinking about. I do not think Hayden does things for the money you know I do not think he is there to-to be sensational I think there is in general social commitment behind him to make-make changes I have looked at some of his recent books which will never make bestseller list because he is dealing one of them has to deal with you know, the need to study Indian culture and nature and environment all over yeah female book on environment and stuff, you know, but he is looking at issues and grappling with them he is not trying to just manufacture kind of you know, you know, hype up things. I do not think he is trying to particularly live on his past, past reputation. I think he is one of those characters has steadily been committed to-to his view of where America needs to go. 44:00 SM: Jerry Rubin and again using I am using 40 names here then so if anybody is my generation. 44:07 DB: Jerry Rubin’s you know, I think at the peak of his notoriety came with his book do it, which, you know, Jerry Rubin’s, just minor fringe figure of a really no import Abbie Hoffman had the great sense of humor, and wit, soon to be a major motion pictures deal this book, he was a lot more in that tradition of a Mort Sahl or Lenny Bruce, and Hannah. There was a great, great comment. He was a comic genius in many ways, Abbie Hoffman and I think you have to look at that side of the spoof of the hippies in his crate creativeness in guerrilla theater. And to understand that he is an important person, I think Ruben was always a second or third tier character who is never had either the charisma or the importance of Hoffman. 45:03 SM: Does not take up for going the next name [inaudible] Abbie Hoffman died several years back just outside Philadelphia. I think we were in Bucks County yeah; he was dead they found them, and he had $2,000 in the bank. Like I will never forget the article that was written the Inquirer stating that he had only had $2,000 to his name you get we have made a lot of money, but he has given away to friends having depression and that something that a note was written on his deathbed or the stating that no one was listening to him anymore. And you know, when I saw that and read that in his short obituary, despite what you might think, and what people might think about the hippie period, when he went into hiding and then he came back on the Phil Donahue show after he came out of hiding out in the state of Washington, I saw him in the Bay Area, he was working behind the scenes in the Hudson River dealing with issues on the environment and you are just your opinion on that statement that was at the end of this obituary. No one is listening to me any more so less I know he was having problems in his life but that struck me especially if people care about issues. 46:11 DB: Well, I think you have as you heard I said very nice things about Abbie Hoffman, but I mean on the front of his resume he is a con man he was a con man in a in a glamorous and funny in good one. We can always use it a couple of con men and they make life spice wants to recently William Burroughs in the New Yorker. He wrote before he died this horrible thing, but I had to kind of sick in a sick way agree with him which is a problem with Burroughs where he was saying not God, I do not. Let us hope to God that there are still people selling drugs in the streets and who wants a bland status quo America where everything looks like the strip mall, and everybody lives this perfect squeaky life what-what boredom? What dullness? I am a writer and one has to appreciate characters and Abbie Hoffman was a flamboyant, exciting, eccentric character. He but he was a con man. I do believe he was socially committed to things that he took on. And he had a massive amount of chutzpah to take on the CIA and to go and change himself to nuclear reactor sites and things as a social activist, which that kind of occupation takes, but I do not use the ways that his declining years dealing with cocaine and alcohol and depressants, I would not pay much attention. I do not think Abby was ever a symbol of that he was a symbol of the (19)60s but I do not think we want to he was only the symbol one certain aside of the (19)60s, which was the kind of hippie guerrilla theater of protest, which was mainly men on self-promotion, in getting in the news, you know, and being pranksters on the American scene. These are anarchists and we are always going to have some anarchist, I think they are healthy to have a few peaceful anarchists, not Unabomber anarchist, but people that could do social protest or play, play mild pranks on the mainstream society to make us see ourselves in Hoffman at his best, was that at his worst he was he was a criminal. And you know, so I just do not you see, it is unfortunate because what will happen is people will take Abbie Hoffman and Reuben as the (19)60s, Abbie Hoffman, you know the Yippies. This is just a fringe element of the period and I would again say take a look at the people wearing suits and ties marching with Dr. King all over the place singing We Shall Overcome. This is where the revolution in American life took place, not Abbie Hoffman staging a guerrilla theater event. And they were important Hoffman's events at the time, they are newsflashes and dramatic, and we will never forget it gets them. But it did not Abbie Hoffman, if Abbie Hoffman did not exist, not much would have changed in that course of American history. 49:00 SM: The Black Panthers is another group that certainly in this period, Huey Newton everybody remembers that poster of him. And certainly Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver. I remember seeing Kathleen Cleaver when she came to Ohio State when I was there. I mean, the whole city was in turmoil. And Kathleen Cleaver, when flew into the Columbus Airport and escorted by many-many cop cars to Mershon Auditorium. 49:28 DB: I do not place; Black Panthers are fascinating to study. I enjoy reading about Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton and the gang. But ultimately, believer in the nonviolent protest movement, also the politicized internationalizing, the civil rights movement that Dr. King was doing. I can never kind of, I think it is a mistake to glamorize the gangster mentality of the Panthers into acquainted with the-the honest civil rights efforts. That is the problem things got blurred by the late (19)60s and (19)70s where the great accomplishments of the era blurred into the Black Panthers, the great accomplishments of the peace movement got blurred into the Yippies, which became, which in many ways were the worst examples of the positive social revolution that was occurring. Yet one has to say I understand the Black Panthers the great line, the Panthers, Bob Dylan had a song it was all over now baby blue, where he has the line, the empty-handed beggar at your door is standing in the clothes that you once wore. And the Panthers changed into the empty-handed Bay, grab the door standing and the closer you once were, and he was carrying it, aka submachine gun, motherfucker. And you have got to do what we want to we are going to blow your head off whitey. That is a powerful switch of sentiment in in, it did do its desired effect of shocking white America into fearing blacks. And in that sense, hearing them more and empowering them, meaning turn the other cheek, you are not afraid if you can walk up to-to one of the students in Little Rock Nine and spit on them and they keep walking, or you can walk up to a black man and smack him in the face. And he turns the other cheek. White culture is not going to be afraid of black America when you now, since the Black Panthers. You walk down the street, I walked down tonight in Philadelphia with my suit on down the street and I see three black teenagers walking down the young, I have more money than them. I am more educated than them. Second, I see them immediately tense up, you are getting fearful. And then suddenly they are empowered, and I am not. And I think the Panthers are the ones that started that, which is an empowering black culture, which I can appreciate that on the other hand, it is not a solution. It is just, it is just more racial warfare. In so what I want to understand the Panthers and the sentiments that they had; it was it was quite primitive in its approach. 52:00 SM: The Berrigan brothers. 52:03 DB: Let me- mike was down yes, the-the Berrigan brothers are. I just got a letter to go have dinner with one of them. I forget which one, are they both alive? 52:17 SM: Ones in jail. 52:19 DB: Who is the one that is out of jail? 52:23 SM: But- Philip is in jail was give [inaudible] See, there is some- Daniel-Daniel Berrigan is out of jail. Philip is in jail. 52:30 DB: So, Daniel Berrigan went out of jail. 52:33 SM: Yeah, and I think he is not very well either. 52:34 DB: I need to catch up with him. 52:36 SM: He lives in New York, I think. 52:37 DB: He is coming to New Orleans. I am a have dinner with hi- Well, I think there are examples. I am Catholic. So, I think they are examples of the, of the role of what we call radical theology in that continues a wing of the Catholic Church that I have always admired. You know whether it is in Central America or the Philippines or their home of an activist priest and other useful, so I mean, we do not have that many of them and having Daniel Berrigan bringing some, you know, showing up, it had a calming effect for certain people connected the Catholic Church to some of the social the poor people's movement, in a very real way, the antiwar movement. I think some of Berrigan’s-Berrigan’s tactics got a little extreme of pouring blood on tanks and things such as this. But again, that was in do part to the recommendation of the media age that you need to do something extravagant. In order to bring the cameras there. The priest just held candles and sang the media was not going to cover that. But if you have started pouring blood on tanks, my God, you were going to be reading the nightly news. So um, you know, I think the Berrigan’s were shrewd in that way. 53:50 SM: There is a new book written on the Berrigan brothers, by Murray Palmer, and- 53:55 DB: I got to pick that up. 53:56 SM: Yeah, it is I am reading right now because we are trying to bring a group of students to down to Jonah's house to meet his wife because Phillip Berrigan’s his wife is in jail, because his daughter is 21 and she is carrying on the tradition of Jonah house. And I want to I want to ask students to go down and see how people are living their whole life to activism- 54:14 DB: Who is this now? Whose house? 54:16 SM: McAll- Jonah House. That is where [Elizabeth] McAllister. That is the wife of Philip Berrigan and his daughters. He has three kids. 54:24 DB: Phillip Berrigan does? Did they all live there? 54:26 SM: Yeah, they all live there and- 52:27 DB: What is it called? Jon- 52:28 SM: Jonah, j o n a h house it is in Baltimore. I want to go down and meet them. They are supposed to be three nuns there that are in- 54:34 DB: What do they do at Jonah house? 54:37 SM: It is, it is part of whatever they do is there for their livelihood is activism fighting for issues and they have someplace in the Midwest is where they have this weekly or monthly newsletter that comes out that is affiliated with Jonah house from the activities because his wife is like Philip and McAllister, I think is her last name and just impactful people because they were on 60 minutes. So, and the daughters 21. And now she is doing the same thing. 55:02 DB: At the Jonah house? 55:03 SM: Yes, she is a college graduate and- 55:05 DB: What is her name? She uh- 55:06 SM: Oh my God. There is, there is three he has got three kids and ones 16 ones 21 I think [inaudible] 55:12 DB: They all work there at the Jonah House? 55:13 SM: Actually yeah, I think the one works there. The others are going to school. They live in the area. Yep. 55:19 DB: Okay. 55:19 SM: Couple other names here, um Dr. Benjamin Spock. 55:25 DB: Oh Well, you know, Benjamin Spock is of course the baby doctor and antiwar protester and I think have also have a very positive character positive force. In the time of reassuring people in the end, it is just what both Berrigans and Spock so people said other it opened up the net of who can protest it. It brought in in people here is the most famous baby doctor denouncing sending young 18-year-olds to get their heads blown off in Vietnam. I think it had a powerful impact and convinced a lot of people. You know, I am with Dr. Spock, and it gave a celebrity status to gatherings. If you are going to want to draw 3000 people, you need some celebrities. And by having Spock there, you can guarantee people come out to hear Benjamin Spock. So, you know, he had a he had this, he has this footnote in the era. 56:19 SM: George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy. 56:22 DB: George McGovern has transcended the period really. And one of the great new deal liberals of recent times has continued to be somebody above integrity and honesty, decency. And if you really looked at McGovern’s foreign policy stances in the (19)60s and (19)70s when he was in the Senate, you would be amazed to see how right he was about so much. So, he is I think, of all these names are saying somebody is a little more special. I think he is- has a is really a maj- a major kind of alternative voice liberal voice in America and in simply carrying on the Henry Wallace tradition of the Democratic Party. 57:07 SM: And Eugene McCarthy? 57:09 DB: He is a little bit of a crackpot. In some ways, I like him. When I say crackpot, I just mean, he has become so irascible and so co- such a contrarian, that everything he does is he uses his wit and intelligence to win people over all the time. I do not think he has ever evolved out of his role in being the antiwar senator. And that was (19)68 that was 30 years ago, and he has still kind of the, you know, living on that that one moment where I think he could have been more useful in our politics if he continued to work as a congressman or, or did something beyond sort of just living on his past reputation. 57:53 SM: Getting into the presence of this era. And I will start with Eisenhower, because again, you know, as a Young Boomer that was the first person I remember, as President going from Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. 58:06 DB: Eisenhower was underrated, overrated at his time by being double elected, and love, underrated in the (19)60s and (19)70s. In truth, he kept America out of war. He was he most famously taught us that we need to balance our budget that we should not write more money for checks than we then we have to fiscal conservative in those ways, which we are seeing now is probably prudent, and was an honorable and good president. John F. Kennedy was the right man at the right time, that great passing of the torch from Ike the oldest president ever to the youngest, he represented the tenor of the times when society was changing, just think of the number of new African countries coming into the UN at that time. And, and all of this so when I think, you know, I think the Kennedy also, you know, did a fairly decent job of handling himself in the middle I am going to use the restroom. Just a minute. Kennedy. Yeah, so I think a larger question before going through each of these, I think we were lucky we had largely good presidents Sidney Kennedy was a good president in in the Cold War period, except for Nixon, I think we would say Nixon and Reagan are the two presidents that I find reprehensible in certain regards. Both because of largely their great dishonesty that both people and towards the American people, their inability to tell the truth, to me was, was frightening. But the I think Kennedy, of course, has some of that too. But he just could not help but reveal that he was the person representing into the era in a certain way. I think he made inroads with civil rights that were extremely important. I think his handling of Cubism in Britain. And we were important I think he said it kind of tenor for-for the era. And of course, assassination is such a moment in American life that will never be forgotten. I think Lyndon Johnson was much better president and some people think in some regards, certainly his Great Society programs in his fighting for civil rights, puts him at the forefront of American leadership in this period and on the other hand, it is so paradoxical you have that his obsession of seeing the world from a Cold War lens in Vietnam but I would say you know that there was many students of history there many sides of Lyndon Johnson the complex man and-and I have a large amount of admiration for him Nixon it just the paranoia factor with Nixon and with Johnson just drives you crazy as a historian I mean, these people are not are to have that kind of level of paranoia and to be in power is scary to me. You know, one of the things that I liked about Clinton, and I like about Bush, I like about Ford and Carter, was that they were not paranoid. They were my head is something in them was able to take a little bit more balanced. You they were not feeling that they were being you know, people were after them. Even Reagan did not have that kind of paranoia. They did not at all. So anyway, that is my view. 1:01:23 SM: Just a few more here. Timothy Leary. 1:01:29 DB: Leary was a kind of like a carny, at the carni- at the carnival or something, he is not really a serious character. And I think, look, I mean, what was good about Tim Leary, was that here was a Harvard psychiatrist. Experimenting was something worth experimenting with, LSD, what are the effects of this newfangled drug it was legal at the time, he the belief that it had these different powers. But I think what I do not like about Leary is not that he was willing to talk about LSD. But I think that kind of Jack Kerouac once said, when they tried to have him take LSD, then by then I mean Ellen Ginsberg and Leary and all and Kerouac said hey, guys, walking on water was a made in a day in the thought that they can walk on water in a day by eating a little tablet, to me seems, you know, that suddenly they were going to have all the answers to the universe, because of the chemical shows that kind of stupidity and naivete, and it was worse- had some very damaging effects on American culture. On the other hand, if you take the kind of Aldous Huxley approach from his book, doors of perception, certainly I think, experimenting with LSD, did open up perceptions for some people and could have been a thing but as soon as you start going over and over again doing did you become an acid head and fry your brain and to you know, there are a lot of young people that [audio cut] 1:03:14 SM: Barry Goldwater. 1:03:18 DB: Well, let me just say one thing about the Timothy Leary, what I do not like to doing on now, is the inability to talk rationally about these characters like I am trying to do, because as soon as you say anything positive about Timothy Leary people either go love Leary, that was that polarization you were talking about on figures like that? It is disturbing mean, if I told The New York Times Book reviewer that I found Timothy Leary interesting. They would not give me any more books just to review for The New York Times. These are the controversial characters because of the way we look at drugs now. But I think it is a story you just have to understand that put if you put Leary in his time and place you-you can see how he emerged, why he emerged in it was not a matter of promoting Timothy Leary, but it was a matter of just understanding that Leary's bizarre contributions to that period you know, there was all sorts of American history is replete with every kind of religious fanatic imaginable I am not sure Leary is more strange than Joseph Smith was, you know, with the more finding the Book of Mormon you know, these are kind of false prophets that are that are always out there and they are worth studying that we are talking about. That does not mean one embraces their-their efforts. Goldwater was over there was a misunderstood in some ways he is the genuine article, the real libertarian conservative, I think is its harsh anticommunist views were dangerous. With his- the way he would talk kind of cavalierly about bomb dropping bombs on Vietnam and things. I think his inability to understand the civil rights movement properly was a great drawback. In- thank goodness, we got defeated horribly by Johnson and (19)64. On the other hand, Goldwater as his career, we look at his whole career, we can see that he was a man of personal integrity of deep beliefs. A true Western conservative, somebody whose word was good, somebody who had a big role to play in the bringing down in Richard Nixon because he could not stand to have something like that wine to the American people. Somebody who supported the Panama Canal treaties, when Ronald Reagan did not. A genuinely somebody who you could at least deal with, and I think was a very positive figure in American life. As he as we look at his whole life, I think there was a moment of time when he ran for president where he was certainly not fit for that position, due to his at least the rhetoric of a kind of strike militancy that was behind him, which would not have been helpful at the time? 1:06:05 SM: What about Ralph Nader? 1:06:07 DB: Nader's the kind of the perennial watchdog, nothing new there and nothing changes there goes to the beat of his own drum, is that he has the that squeaky clean ethic, which is useful in throwing Nader on corporate America or on any issues always. It is always useful to have people that are keeping others in check. He is the unwritten check in our checks and balances. 1:06:36 SM: Hubert Humphrey. 1:06:39 DB: Classic-classic New Deal, liberal writing of the coattails of FDR well into the (19)60s. First rate senator, not much of a vice president botched his opportunity to be president in (19)68. But it is one of these sorts of honorable senators who has very good for labor and, you know, a positive force also on getting the Civil Rights Act of (19)64 and (19)65 through. so, you know, first rate, first tier senator. 1:07:13 SM: Muhammad Ali. 1:07:17 DB: Absolutely major figure, I mean, more- bigger than all the people he had mentioned so far, in the league of his own because years from now, he will be remembered forever. And probably the most well-known name in the world. Muhammad Ali, everybody knows him everywhere. He just an extraordinary combination of spirituality of political conviction, of athletic prowess, of his ability to speak so fast that in rhyme and in riddles, and he just captured all of our imaginations. And I think his antiwar protest was mutually significant. But as he has moved on in life, through his disease, he has become a symbol of disease. Here is somebody that is handicapped with that Hodgkin's disease, Parkinson's disease, right, and is able to go around the globe and constantly reach out to other people in pain and misery. And he is a symbol of many things that are that are that are positive. It is probably the most singular athlete of the 20th century most well-known athlete of the century. 1:08:31 SM: Spiro Agnew. 1:08:32 DB: Just a you know, a corrupt footnote to the times. Dirty black Asterix to the Nixon era, never had any real power ever. It was just a hat henchmen hatchet man for Richard Nixon, a bit word politician from Maryland who never really had any-any sense of real genuine accomplishment in his career, short of being, you know, working on saying pithy phrases to put down fellow other Americans. It is not leadership to win power by denouncing other Americans leadership. It is about bringing people together, as soon as you have a president that scapegoat’s elements of the population for our nation's problems. You have about bad leader, a good leader should never scapegoat a fellow citizen, no matter who he should end up liking all groups in America and you know, unless you are obviously a murderer in any criminal class, but, you know, you know, you know, in case of Agnew trying to scapegoat gays or women or the women's movement or blacks, that is the lowest kind of thing. It is like the Jonathan Swift notion that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel claim. 1:09:45 SM: Robert McNamara. 1:09:47 DB: McNamara was the as the was our worst Secretary of Defense in the history of the post since it was created in (19)47. He was the worst because he was somebody who knew Vietnam was futile as early as (19)64 and (19)65 and allow the word continue lie to himself to Lyndon Johnson to the American people. And now his as how, has a hard time living with himself, because, he started out to be a wonderful character in many ways he, you know, a decent I think, motor executive with Ford Motor. But by not having the courage to talk candidly and put his career on the line to the best of the country. He ended up leading the president and therefore our nation down the garden path in Vietnam. 1:10:36 SM: Dr. King, Martin Luther King, we could probably talk for hour and a half. 1:10:42 DB: You know the giant of our time because of his ability, oratory of writing, of the sheer courage of Dr. King, and what it took to every minute, every moment knows that there were death threats on your life, something, any protest you were had could be your last, and to constantly pick yourself up with a smile in forge forward. It was the perfect leader for the civil rights movement, and we would be hard pressed to think of a replacement for King those sorts of people with genuine leadership qualities come around even once every couple generation. 1:11:15 SM: What about some of the women of the Gloria Steinem is Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, the leaders of the women's movement, they are your thoughts on them. 1:11:25 DB: Unfortunately for the women's movement, they never had a Dr. King none of those people can hold a candle to Dr. King, but yet all of them had their significant role I think I think Gloria Steinem's come out of that group to be a somebody who understands women's issues in a way in a larger cultural context. For her generation, at least to Hillary Clinton's of the world, you know, understanding the need to be both a mother and both activists but also to you getting a little more conservative when they get older, but also wanting a sense of sexuality without, you know, saying I do not I am not disowning feminism, totally, I mean, being feminist, feminine qualities totally. So, I think she is the most-most interesting of that group as a personality. But the women's movement itself was usually important. On the other hand, I do not think it ever went far enough, due to the fact of fractions within their either coalition, and a lot of women wanted doors open for them, or wanting, you know, traditional kind of, I want to be a housewife, or I want to have that is, you know, they never really were able to capture the kind of swelling movement of two demands there for the Equal Rights Amendment. Still never really too cold yet. Any woman today, working in network news or in law firms owes a lot to those women who are, I think, a lot of doors down for them. So, the combination of a lot of minor characters added to a lot in the women's movement, but none of them exuded this kind of control or leadership over the movement. 1:13:05 SM: That he had mentioned earlier about Bob Dylan. And I just use a general term the music musicians of this period. And the impact of this generation has there ever other means there has been music in the (19)40s there was Glenn Miller and all of that, but has there ever been a generation in America where music was such a crucial part of their being? 1:13:23 DB: No, but I think everyone now it has become since then, I think it was a post war phenomenon, the beginning of the road record albums, you know, early part of the century so by the but it would be really becoming a mass product in postwar period where everybody had a record player. So, he started having a lot more people identifying with the singers in the (19)50s. But everything Elvis Presley bit more than Bob Dylan, and it was Elvis Presley, who really, really brought, you know, this sort of mass way Frank Sinatra, you know, and (19)50s rock and roll, you know, which is to be made the big change. I think Chuck Berry's an enormously influential and important and underrated figure. But that is different story. 1:14:07 SM: As we are getting close to the end if you get a meeting at 11:30 I want to end around. One question here in the final question is dealing with the issue of trust is a historian you probably can go back to other periods in American history where Americans or even leaders had problems with trust, but want to read this do you think we will ever have trust for elected leaders again after the Vietnam War after Watergate, after the enemies lists that we all knew and [inaudible] as college students, we knew what Nixon was doing. Remember being an Ohio State University and there were cameras over around the entire oval and infuriated our campus because every picture of every student was being shot and we knew it. Why? And if the boomer’s distrust what effect is this having on the current generation of youth, which is the kids- 1:14:56 DB: I think Bob Dylan often has wonderful sayings for all time. He is not a (19)60s character. He has a brilliant album out that just came out right now. And Dylan's and an album out called Empire Burlesque, which emerged in in the early (19)90s. Very, no would have been, it would have been. I am sorry, it would come, I think, in the late (19)80s. But yeah, late (19)80s. Empire Burlesque, which is a line in there, “If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself,” is the name of the song. And I think that is sort of the subvert ethic of our time. Now, if you want somebody you trust, trust yourself. That is why there is this turning into words to self so much. The distrust of government has led to reemergence of the individual. And people now trying to learn to trust who they are on that deep turning inward right now. So yeah, there has been permanent damage done by Watergate and Vietnam, and in corruption and politics. But look, it has always been there. Nobody is ever, when is the time people truly trusted politicians. I mean, there were moments, you know, I think, during the war time, when there was a kind of, but you know, FDR was moved and distrusted by endless numbers of people. I just do not believe our countries ever based on pure trust in the politician, or anywhere in the world. But I do not think it is eerie damage. That is- I do not see a shortage of people running for Congress. I do not see a shortage of things. And I think our country is in pretty good shape. You know, I do not think that are, I think the American people should be distrustful of their government in some ways, and to keep an eye on them. And that is what the whole checks and balance system is about. We also know that we have the power and we taught our politicians through Watergate, that we can bring you down at any minute. So, you better run a straight path. And so, we get people I think, Watergate does not have to be seen as a negative and Vietnam does not have to be seen as negative. It could be the triumph of-of Watergate, the triumph of taking down a precedent that was breaking the law, replacing them and business went on as usual. 1:17:09 SM: Is that is that the lasting legacy might be that history books are written about? 1:17:13 DB: That is right now. James Cannon’s wonderful book on Gerald Ford, that came out recently, you know, it is really hammers that point home that Watergate is the triumph of the American constitutional system. It is not a negative event. 1:17:27 SM: Dr. Brinkley, thank you very much. 1:17:31 DB: You are welcome. 1:17:32 SM: Great. Excellent. (End of Interview) 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>. Description 2 Microcassettes 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. Douglas Brinkley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Brinkley, Douglas ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Scholars; College teachers; Rice University; Brinkley, Douglas--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Douglas Brinkley is an author, scholar and academic. He is currently a history professor at Rice University and the presidential historian at CNN. He is an author and has published 12 books. He received the Ann M. Sperber Biography Award in 2013 for his book <em>Cronkite</em>. Dr. Brinkley has a B.A. from Ohio State University, an M.A. and Ph.D. in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown 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 1997-09-27 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.10.2016.28a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.28b 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. 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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 2009-07-09 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Elijah Anderson Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Elijah Anderson is a sociologist, cultural theorist, scholar, and professor of Sociology at Yale University. He specializes in Urban Ethnography. Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. in Sociology at Northwestern University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Elijah Anderson is a sociologist, cultural theorist, scholar, and the Sterling Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at Yale University. He specializes in Urban Ethnography. He is the author of several books including his most recent, titled <em>Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life</em> (2022). His other books include <em>Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City</em> (1999), winner of the Komarovsky Award from the Eastern Sociological Society; <em>Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community</em> (1990), winner of the American Sociological Association’s Robert E. Park Award for the best-published book in the area of Urban Sociology; and the classic sociological work, <em>A Place on the Corner </em>(1978). Dr. Anderson received numerous awards and recognition, including the consultant for the White House, United States Congress, and the National Academy of Science.  In 2002, he was awarded the Stockholm Prize in Criminology. Previous to his tenure at Yale University, he was a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University.<br /></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 MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; John F. Kennedy; Deviance; Howard S. Becker; Outsiders—Defining Deviance"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":2,"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; John F. Kennedy; Deviance; Howard S. Becker; Outsiders—Defining Deviance</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 52:43 Subject LCSH Sociologists; College teachers; Yale University; Anderson, Elijah--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>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Elijah Anderson Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 9 July 2009 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:02): ... as soon as I get everything ready here. I got to turn the sound up. All right. Can you hear me? EA (00:06): Yeah, I can hear you. SM (00:07): All right. Very good. Pretty nice weather we are having. EA (00:13): Oh, it is. SM (00:15): Considering all that rain we had. EA (00:16): It is not as hot and humid as it usually is this time of year. SM (00:22): First question I would like to ask then ... Again, thank you very much for doing this. When do you think the (19)60s began, in your opinion? And what do you think was the watershed moment for most of the young people from the boomer generation? EA (00:41): Well, I guess it depends on how you think of the (19)60s because, for a lot of people, the (19)60s are thought of as this period of a certain quest for freedom, individualism, that kind of thing, but especially a time of free-thinking people. I know, stereotypically, it is all about relaxing standards and that kind of thing and the so-called deviant people becoming more legitimate, that kind of thing. I mean that is what people like to think. There is a book by a mentor of mine, Howard Becker, and the book is entitled Outsiders. Basically, in this book, what he does is speak about the issue of rules. He tries to account for deviant behavior. Up to this point, scholars have talked about deviance as, again, in an objective kind of way, that mission being that deviant behavior is behavior that goes against society's standards, values, and rules. Basically, given that perspective, it is pretty easy to tell what deviance is and what it is not. What Becker does in his book is raise a lot of questions about that. He comes up with the so-called subjective view of defiance and, basically, this view of deviance says that deviance is whatever powerful people say it is at the time, and to really know deviance, you have to know something about how people react to certain acts and how they then go about labeling people that they consider to be in violation of standards, values, and rules that you care about or that certain people labeling them deviant, that care about them, you see? What he introduced in this book, which was published in 1963, but the source articles were written over a period of time through the late (19)50s, what he points to here is a profound relativity with respect to rulemaking and rule breaking, and I think that, to some extent, his idea was, to some extent, perhaps a manifestation of the period which you are speaking, where people more and more were trying to embrace this kind of relativism and trying to see the other side, trying to put themselves in the place of people who would be thought of as deviant or people who would be castigated, put down, subjected to the whims of the powerful and that kind of thing. What he did was basically he was able to come to appreciate the so-called victims of society and even to underscore the fact that they were not so bad after all, if you know what I mean? But I think this is what you saw more and more in the 1960s with more and more young people raising questions about the status quo, raising questions about the established institutions, especially when those institutions were fomenting and fostering a war that they did not believe in, to go and die in. So, you have every reason, people, to raise up and to rise up, I should say, and raise questions about the system, and this is what people ultimately did in the (19)60s. I do not know if that is what you meant, but- SM (04:55): Yeah. Well, that is beautiful. As a follow-up- EA (04:57): But, to me, that is what the (19)60s kind of represented. SM (05:01): Based on what you just said and what Becker said in his book, The Outsiders, how do you respond? You have heard this over probably the last 15, 20 years from columnists, like George Will, and even politicians, like Newt Gingrich, that they place all the ills of American society and they point right back to that era of the boomer era, whether it be the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, for the breakdown of the family, the breakdown of American society, the breakdown of morals, the lack of respect for authority. When Ronald Reagan became president, they praised him for trying to beat these kinds of things. But still, they will write about the boomers in that era in very negative terms. How do you respond to that? EA (05:54): Well, I think basically what you had in the 1950s in America was a strong sense that we lived in a rather homogeneous society, and this society was basically quite Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Of course, this included people who were that way and wanted to be that way, it seemed, even to the point of divesting themselves of their own ethnic particularities instead of joining into this great American way, so to speak. So there was a great and strong pull or a push for people to assimilate, that is to divest themselves of their particularities, whether they be whatever ethnic group, and to really blend in to be a part of this great American way and to contribute, to some extent, to this homogeneity, if not in phenotype, then in values and orientation, so to speak. I think this is what you did have in the Eisenhower era when Blacks and other minority groups basically were pretty much likely to try hard to assimilate, to divest themselves of their own ethnic particularities, and join in the great American way, so to speak. A lot of people, of course, were fine with that. But the (19)60s, I wrote about a kind of license for people to experiment and to move off the plantation, so to speak, and that is what people did. I think that your more conservative commentators react to this with a great alarm, thinking that, well, if people really do go off the plantation, this has implications for the integrity of the plantation itself and the values that uphold that plantation. I think, to some extent, they would be in line with trying to support that ideology that supports the plantation, not to break it down, if you know what I mean, the structures that hold it together, so to speak. SM (08:26): Again, a lot of people that I have interviewed have had a hard time trying to classify boomers over a 20-year period because the early boomers, those born between (19)46 and (19)56, seem to have been more involved than those in the latter part. So, I have had some individuals having a hard time with labels on generations. This is a two-part question. If you were to look at this generation, is there one specific event that you think had the greatest impact on them in those early years, those years between (19)46 and, say, (19)70 or (19)75? And secondly, what is the most important event that affected your life? EA (09:09): Well, I think I could answer maybe both questions with one answer. I mean I think that probably John F. Kennedy's assassination was extremely important for so many of the so-called boomers, but not only his assassination but, not long after that, the assassination of King and Robert Kennedy. These political assassinations, I think, were really very important to the coming of age of boomers and perhaps the rise in a certain ability to question the system and even to embrace a kind of cynicism with respect to the system, I think. This is one of the things that came about for so many of the boomers, a kind of awakening, if you will, of losing one's innocence, so to speak. I think that may be the biggest thing that these assassinations contributed. I think those were probably the major development, so to speak. I am not just talking about one assassination. I am talking about a series of major political assassinations, you see. Even if they were not intended to be political, they became politicized, I am sure, if you will. SM (10:45): If you were to put a couple of adjectives to describe some strengths and weaknesses, you have already mentioned quite a few of them in your opening comments, but just some adjectives to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the boomer generation. EA (10:57): Well, I think probably the biggest thing is just the number of people who were just born after people returned from the war. I think just the number is pretty impressive and certainly provocative to the status quo. Just mere numbers, I think, is very important. I think, with that, faults, so to speak, in the system, you have all kinds of implications for various issues that people are dealing with, whether it is what to do about resettlement after the Great War, or whether it has to do with family life following that, how people live, the suburbanization of people, growing up in the suburbs. At the same time, growing up in the suburbs did not mean that people were leaving behind their racial predilections, so to speak. I think that the racism that we saw that basically undergirded the beginning of this country, not to mention the great Civil War that we had and then Emancipation and then the riots in the cities and then the incorporation process that gave us the Black middle class as we know it and even the split between the Black underclass and the Black middle class that followed thereafter. And yet, many of these people who were the middle class did not enjoy any ability to really live in suburban communities in the same way that their white counterparts lived in these communities before them. In fact, the whole history of this race relations period had to do with the fact that Black people were moving into communities and white people were constantly moving out, and it was almost like a dog chasing its tail, so to speak, getting nowhere fast in terms of really being able to deliberate the problems of race and racism and social place in this country. So I think that, for me anyway, that these are some of the big issues that were at least if not confronted by the boomer, at least these were issues that they were having to deal with, though many abdicated their responsibilities to deal with some of these problems. But at the same time, you have to say that some of these individuals stepped up to the plate, so to speak, and began to fight for social change in a very positive sense. But we have this problem that is really best described as unfinished business, so to speak. SM (14:25): Right. You bring up a very important point because, again, I got a two-part question here. What has been the overall impact of boomers on their kids with respect to carrying on some of their ideals and their activism into the next couple generations? And secondly, along that point, what is your thought regarding these boomers? Have they copped out, most of them? There's obviously many who have stayed with the fight for many particular issues. But did most of them fall by the wayside for the almighty dollar as they grew older EA (15:07): I would not try to judge that. I mean but certainly, there is a lot of work to be done in this country by all people, boomers included. Whether or not the torch has really been passed from one generation to the next in terms of the boomers' responsibility or whatever, I mean that is hard to say because so many of these issues and problems are not so much a function of one generation passing off to another as much as it is an issue of structural forces that beset each succeeding generation, so to speak. That generation then has to deal with what it has to deal with in order to be, and I think this is the biggest issue. When you have a period of quietism, so to speak, you probably get people who are not so energized. When you have a period where people are confronted by exigencies of life that they have no pattern for, no experience in dealing with, then people may well become quite creative, so to speak. So it really is not so much a matter of one generation passing on its values as much as it is one generation having to deal with the exigencies of life that are quite different from the generation and those conditions that preceded them, so to speak. So that is what I would say about this. I would not think that a generation could simply pass its values intact onto another generation without considering the issues and the factors of life that the succeeding generation would have to deal with. I think you would have to consider all that in order to get a good read on that particular generation's ability to cope, so to speak. SM (17:13): How do you respond to some of the young people of that era, when they were young said that we were the most unique generation in American history because we were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society in every way? Of course, young people have idealism. We are going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, and war. But just- EA (17:33): I do not think any generation has any premium on that, so to speak. I mean it is basically up to people to deal with what that we have to deal with. Every generation is unique, really. Every generation is different. I mean no generation has a monopoly on any of these answers, so to speak, to the problems that face mankind up to people to deal with, each and every generation. I would not go so far to say that it is the most unique generation. I think that it is more complicated than that. At the same time, it is really important to appreciate the fact that the generation that faces great challenges certainly have a real set of issues from which they might grow and develop in that a unique generation. But I do not think there is anything intrinsic about a group of people that make them the greatest, so to speak, other than the challenges that they face and the way they responded to those challenges, if you know what I mean? In a sense, out of their hands, if you follow me? It is a matter of how people respond to what is before them. I think that the World War II generation, oftentimes called the greatest generation, but I think you have to look at the challenges that face that generation and subsequent challenges that face the boomers after that, if you follow me, and how they were able or not able to respond to those challenges. That is what I would say. SM (19:30): How important were the college students of that era, I am talking about the (19)60s, early (19)70s again, in ending the war in Vietnam, their influence on policy in America, the pressures they put on universities? But in society, how important, on a scale of, say, one to 10, with 10 being the highest number, where would you place the impact that that protest had in ending the war? EA (19:55): Well, I think that that protest was extremely important for- SM (19:58): Dr. Anderson, could you speak up just a little bit, too? EA (20:00): Yeah. I think that that protest movement was very, very important, but it was not just antiwar. It was also the demonstrations and protests against the racial status quo and the ways in which the movement for civil rights somehow culminated in riots and, ultimately, an incorporation process that brought about greater civil rights not only for Black people, but for all Americans. Also, it paved the way for the emergence of a Black middle class that was no longer so dependent on living in these inner-city communities, but one that was increasingly corporate, so to speak. But I think that we had that situation, which is certainly one that has to be, I think, appreciated. But you also had this group of people who stepped up to the plate and basically demonstrated quite effectively against the war. But they had been previously edified by all the struggles that they witnessed, from civil rights to the cultural nationalism, to ultimately the incorporation process. They were all part of that. Basically, you have them becoming very, very concerned not only about the expression of American power in the world, but they were concerned about their own brothers and sisters being taken away from them and having to fight far off in Asian war. Another piece that is important to this is the fact that we had the draft then, you see, and we did not have the professional army the way we do today. So, the fact that there was a draft basically meant that certain constituencies would be, to some extent, informed and then perhaps active in a way that would call an end to the fighting that they would expect to shore the burden of, so to speak, fighting and dying, you see. That is one thing that we do not have today. We do not have the same political action related to ones that are trying to save one's own blood, so to speak, whether it be your son, your daughter, or yourself or your husband or whoever it was, you see. We do not have the same thing going on today. We have a more professional army. I think that if we had an equal opportunity to be in Iraq or to be in Afghanistan, I think that you would probably see more protests against the war today, you see. But the truth was, back in the Vietnam era, we had more of an equal opportunity for participating in that war. And even then, it was one-sided in terms of the rich and well-to-do versus the poor because the rich and well-to-do oftentimes could get college deferment or whatever or their parents kept them out of harm's way through their political and economic influence, so to speak. So, the burden of it oftentimes fell on the ordinary American more so than the others. But I think that when you have this equal opportunity situation, you are bound to have more protests and you are bound to have political leaders who basically take their decision making a bit more seriously, at least with the consideration of the viewpoint of people who would make up their constituencies, so to speak. SM (24:14): We saw in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, kind of a split in the antiwar movement where African American students split away from the antiwar movement and, of course, toward what was going on in civil rights here in the United States, and we saw it a lot at Kent State. But I wanted you to comment on Dr. King's [inaudible] Vietnam speech. I think it should be required to be read in every college classroom because he was so far ahead of the game. Just your thoughts on the courage of him and that speech and maybe a couple comments on the reaction in America, not only in the civil rights community, but in America as a whole. EA (24:56): Well, I think basically a lot of people thought he was out of line with that speech, in part because they figured that he was really a civil rights leader, not somebody who should put his nose into foreign policy issues. And yet, he said very, very powerfully that, to some extent, the civil rights movement, it was related to this more general struggle for antiwar and peace and that kind of thing. That really disturbed a lot of people, including Lyndon Johnson himself, who had, up to that point, been listening more and more to King, but then, all of a sudden, recoiled. So there was that issue. But I think that, for King, it was a moral issue, that he thought he had a moral obligation to speak out, and he did. SM (26:00): One of the things that I am trying to get at in this process is the healing process. If you will bear with me, I had taken a group of students to see Edmund Muskie about a year before he died. He had just gotten out of the hospital, and he was not feeling very well. It was one of our Leadership on the Road programs, and there were 14 students. We taped it. We were talking about the (19)68 convention and a lot about the divisions in America as a whole. I asked him, "Have we healed at all since 1968 and the Vietnam War?" And he paused for a minute, almost had tears in his eyes. The students were looking at each other, "Why is not he responding?" And then he finally said, "I have been in the hospital for the last couple weeks, and I have been watching Ken Burns' The Civil War." He said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." So, he went on to talking about that particular aspect as opposed to the response since the Vietnam War. My commentary and question is this, with all the divisions that were happening in that (19)60s and (19)70s, the divisions in America, pro-war, antiwar, divisions between Black and white, between those who supported authority and those who were against, between those who supported the troops and those that were against, and all the other divisions, had we healed at all as a ... Do you think the boomer generation has healed at all since that time? EA (27:40): Well, I think that is a very provocative question, to be sure, and it may be a bit opposed as not so much a matter of healing as it is a matter of just simply ignoring the situation and dealing with other fish to fry, so to speak. Today, as we live our lives, we are dealing with economic change of a high order, probably the most important change since the Industrial Revolution, so to speak. As we make this change technologically, moving from manufacturing to service and high technology as a way to organize this economy, there are great numbers of people who are not making a change. So we have a lot on our plate right now today. You see, it's these kinds of issues, these kinds of demands that we have to deal with. But today, that oftentimes takes our attention away from other issues, so to speak, maybe going to preoccupy us and maybe even substitute for healing, so to speak. So, what we have is not so much healing as a scabbing over, so to speak, looking at issues and challenges all the time. It may be that that is the way it is, that nothing has healed completely. But we get new challenges from time to time. So today, we are dealing with this big economic issue, you see. That does not mean that we're done with slavery. It does not mean we're done with the Civil War. It does not mean that we have done with the civil rights movement. It just means that we have a sort of preoccupation with dealing with the present, so to speak, present problems and issues, the trials and tribulations of living our lives. That is what it seems to me. SM (29:43): Well, that is a beautiful answer because the last couple days I have been seeing some of my former students and the frustrations they have of finding a job. I have a friend who graduated from Penn who has been laid off twice in the last year, unbelievable stories. We are in a very-very, very tough economy. I think we're about hitting our 30 minutes here. Do you want to go 15 more minutes? We might be able to finish it. EA (30:13): Okay. SM (30:14): Because when my tape hits, and it has not hit yet, so we have not hit 30 minutes. I wanted to follow up to your response. Have you been to the Wall in Washington? EA (30:25): No, I have not. SM (30:25): I have been there many times. The Wall was built as a nonpolitical entity, mentored healing the wounds of the troops who fought and their families. It is supposed to be nonpolitical. I go down there every year on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, and I cannot help but constantly hearing politics there, even though they do a great job with the Wall stuff. Do you think the Wall has done anything with respect to ... Well, I know it is done a lot for the soldiers and the troops that fought and their families, but those who may have been against the war before the war ... It gets right back to that healing question. Has it done anything beyond just the military? EA (31:05): Well, I think it is not only a symbol of the war and our involvement there, but it is also a very powerful ... SM (31:18): 15 more minutes. Okay, here we go. EA (31:20): Yeah, I think that is basically a matter of it memorializes people who made the supreme sacrifice, and I think that is a very important consideration here. That is probably the most important consideration. It does not necessarily heal, but it is a way to pay homage to people who gave their full measure, so to speak. SM (31:48): In your eyes, when did the Vietnam War end, and what was the major reason that it did end? EA (31:54): Well, I mean that is a complicated piece. But certainly, you look at the pictures, the iconic photographs of the day. The helicopters were taking people from the rooftops of certain buildings there. You realized that even that moment was not going to be the end the war, so to speak, but it is something more than that. It is just not so much a particular moment that you can say it is over kind of thing, but it has to do with, to some extent, the healing process and the way in which the US military and diplomatic corps basically took themselves out of that situation. That does not happen all at one time, but it happens over a period of months and even years, if you follow me? Some people, even though the war would be officially over, would consider the war to still be going on months after the declaration that it is over, if you know what I mean, because people have to adjust and get back to a sense of normalcy and that kind of thing. So, it is not so much a matter of something that is exact and pinpointed, if you follow me, but it is something that goes on and on. I think today, we could certainly say that we're done with all that and we are moving on to something else. Of course, now you have development in those areas where people once were fighting. You have development. You have hotels. You have commerce. You have all kinds of things that really say quite emphatically that it is a new day. You have people from there and people from here who fought in the war, who fought each other, who are now coming back together and discussing issues and discussing their various roles, not so much in anger, but just as a way to communicate with one another and let one another know that the hatchet has been buried, so to speak. I think when you have that kind of a situation, then you can begin to say that it is done and over, if you follow me, no exact moment, no exact time. Although certainly, we have the official administrative definition of the end of the war, so to speak. But even though you had that, things continued to progress, if you follow me, I think. SM (34:31): One of the things about the civil rights movement, and it was such a great mentor and role model to other movements that followed. I would like your thoughts just on the impact that this movement had on, and just general comments, on the women's movement and the Chicano, the Native American movement, certainly the antiwar movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Earth Day, the environmental movement. A lot of the people that lead these efforts looked back to the role modeling of the civil rights movement. EA (35:05): Oh, of course. Well, you have to understand that the Black situation was and is a special situation in this country. No other group has been brought here in chains and made to work for no wages and then emancipated in the Great War and then still subjected to second class citizenship, segregated in certain communities, discriminated against, hated, despised by people in the way that Black Americans were. So the civil rights movement, the protests for civil rights for Black people, is iconic and was major in so many respects. As people rose up to challenge the system, of course, a lot of people's heads were turning to this great race dealing with this situation of injustice, so to speak. A lot of people paid attention and even got involved, to some extent. It was not just the Blacks who went through this disestablishment, so to speak, and made itself free, but various people worked with Black people that helped to free not only them, but the country from its past, so to speak. But the civil rights movement itself culminated in the riots that happened in the cities around this country, great demand for civil rights and incorporation. Ultimately, what we did, we had the movement from the civil rights movement to the cultural nationalist movement and the riots in the cities. And then you had tremendous violence all over this country. The powers that existed had a real problem on its hands, how to deal with this whole situation in something of a very public kind of way, if you follow me? It tried to do this by putting these problems down by dealing with the revolts or the riots or whatever it was. You have to understand, too, that when this was happening, it was happening during the Cold War, you see, when this country and Russia, or the Soviet Union, were vying for leadership of the world. They were saying to each other, "Well, we have got the better system. We have got the better system." We were looking at the satellite, looking for people to follow them in some of the developing countries that were colored, in fact, looking for leadership from the Soviet Union or from the West. A big issue was who really had the better system in terms of being able to facilitate the development of people of color, to some extent. So given that this country was trying for leadership of the world, they really had a big fly in the ointment with the way that it had historically treated Black people and still treated Black people. You see? So there was a great need for this country to basically step up to the plate and get on the right side with respect to civil rights, you see, because there was a lot at stake. There was leadership of the world at stake, you see. So this is one thing that they had to do, that they had to deal with. When they did this, they engaged and you had this movement, the riots or what have you. They culled it out with violence. But they also worked to incorporate Black people in the system, you see. SM (39:22): [inaudible]- EA (39:25): Through affirmative action, set asides, what have you, they created a new Black middle class, you see, a class that effectively would cull out other people and show that if you work hard, you can be not only meritorious, but you can also have something in this world, you see. So, this was a very important thing because they brought Black people forward, in part, because of all these other issues that were going on at the time, especially the fact that the issues of the wider world, the third world, the developing countries, the developed nations. All those issues were very important to the success of the civil rights movement here that resulted in first class citizenship for Black people, but also, to some extent, an incorporation process that helped Black people to take their place in American society. That struggle is still going on. It is not over. But we have made a lot of progress, for sure. SM (40:39): Do you consider the Black Power movement a negative or a positive in that process? EA (40:45): I think, in some ways, it was bold. There were times when it was highly negative, and times when it was very positive. I think the major thing was that it set the stage for the incorporation process that we saw that basically gave us the Black middle classes that exist today. I think that without the issues that were put on the table in the (19)60s and the (19)70s by the cultural nationalists and by the so-called Black Power movement, that you probably would not have had the degree of incorporation that we have right now today, or even the motivation to incorporate Black people or to have Black people live as first class citizens in this country without that, without protests- SM (41:41): Could you- EA (41:42): ... on the system's institutions, if you will. SM (41:42): Would you be able to comment on, since you are a scholar, if you think there were any books that were very popular at that time that influenced people of all colors, boomers, and then, of course, the impact that the music of the boomer generation has had because that is all you hear on the radio now is music from that period, it just seems that. EA (42:01): I think that if you are going to think about what effect that the boomers in that period, you have to undoubtedly look at the kind of education they were getting during the civil rights movement and during the antiwar movement and the cultural nationalist period and all that. Increasingly, you had these young students, white, Black, whoever, but especially the white middle class, more and more being edified, educated by people who brought a certain sensitivity to the problems of the history of Black people in this country, including the studies of slavery and race relations and that kind of thing. So many of these schools around the country began to incorporate Black studies courses and that kind of thing. All of this gave both Black people and young white people a clearer sense of the history of this country. I think that was very, very important for their understanding, but also the notion of the possibilities for the country itself. I think those things were very, very important to implement. We could go on and on with that. But I think that is- SM (43:19): Any thoughts on the music? EA (43:21): I think those are important. I think also what you began to see as a result of the civil rights movement and the incorporation process was a proliferation of different kinds of music that Blacks were involved in. You began to see the emergence, undoubtedly, of rhythm and blues and blues and jazz and hip hop and rock and all these variations that came about. You began to see the influence of Black singers and performers crossing over, you see. I think that was very, very important. I think that the music of The Beatles was very important. I think Elvis Presley was very important. I think Michael Jackson was very important. All these stars were important for the way in which they helped us to integrate our society, as it were. I think this, to some extent, is a function of the civil rights movement, but also the ways in which we have been able to move toward the diversity and the acceptance of diversity within our country with all of this, the music, the civil rights movement. All that was very, very important in this process, and I think we are all beneficiaries of what happened there. SM (44:41): I have two more questions. One's a question on trust. I can remember being in a college 101 psychology class many years ago, and the professor said in one of the very first classes that ... He was defining the meaning of trust, and he said, "We all have to trust someone in life. If you go through life and you cannot trust people, you probably will not be a success in life." So, I am bringing this question up because all the leaders that a lot of the boomers saw, they were lying to them many, many times, from presidents on down. The students at least that I knew, and many of the boomers, did not trust anybody that was in a leadership role, whether it be a university president, a congressman, a senator, even leaders in the church, corporate leaders, you name it. It is because they had been disappointed so many times by leaders who had lied to them, whether it be President Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin, in recent years, the things about John Kennedy and maybe being linked to the killings of the two people in Vietnam. President Eisenhower lied on national television about the U-2 incident. Then we had Richard Nixon and Watergate. And then there were just, over and over, things where leaders who were voted in, people wanted to trust them, realized that they could not trust them. The body counts in the Vietnam War, all these things. Just your thoughts on, finally, if these young people cannot trust, what are they passing on to their kids? So just your comments on do we have a problem with trust? EA (46:26): Well, I think trust is very important, for sure. I think that what you see with the major assassinations I mentioned, this period of political assassinations, that really ended the period of innocence for Americans, boomers in particular maybe, but Americans in general. I think this is very, very important. But it was also important not just in terms of people becoming more mature, so to speak, but it also ushered in a kind of cynicism, if you will. I think this was very, very important. I think that we're still living with consequences of that, and it will take time to get that back. But so many people have basically taken leave, abdicated, checked out, so to speak. But now and then, we have a charismatic figure emerge, and then hope is restored. I think that is what we have today with Barack Obama's emergence as the political leader that he is. The jury is still out, of course, whether or not he is going to do all that he has promised to do or whether he is going to have the integrity, ultimately, that we all like to attribute to him. But so far, I think he has been really showing first-rate leadership that basically begins to heal so much that has happened in our past that has made us doubt. So I think the trust issue is always there, and it gets rebuilt with succeeding generations, but most importantly, through acts that we can have faith in, so to speak. SM (48:19): My last question is, when the best history books or sociology books are written 50 years after a period, what do you think people will be saying about the boomer generation with all its complexities, with all its diversity? What will professors in your shoes be saying 50 years from now at Yale in soc classes and history classes about the boomer era, the (19)60s, the (19)70s, and their lives, basically? EA (48:52): Yeah. Well, why do not we hold off on that one for a while? Once we get a sense of how this works out, then I will respond to that. Okay? Give me time to think about that one. SM (49:03): Very good. EA (49:08): So now you have the tape, and you are going to transcribe it? SM (49:11): Yep. I am going to transcribe it probably myself and- EA (49:19): But let me say this. I do not want to make this available until I have had a chance to read it and to edit it, that kind of thing. SM (49:26): Oh, yeah. I am doing that with everybody. In fact, I have not transcribed any. I am doing the transcribing myself on all of them. EA (49:37): I understand. I just want to look because I like to be able to review it and edit it before it is out there, and I would like to respond more fully to certain points you raised. SM (49:48): Yeah. The only other part I could not ask you today is just responses to some of the names of the period. EA (49:55): Yeah. SM (49:56): So anyways ... EA (49:57): But you have your work cut out for you. SM (50:00): Yep. But ... EA (50:00): If you can get this back to me at a certain point, I can deal with it and we can move along. But you raised a lot of good questions, a lot of good issues. I want to commend you for that. SM (50:12): Well, it is my first book. EA (50:13): I was going to ask you. SM (50:16): You know what I want to do in my next book? EA (50:18): What is that? SM (50:18): I want to write about Dr. King and the Vietnam speech. EA (50:23): Well, that sounds good. That sounds good. I mean he was a great man, for sure, great American. I think that a lot of these issues you have been raising today, are just right on, right on the money. SM (50:36): Well, I know Mrs. Bagley. Do you know her? EA (50:38): No. No. SM (50:39): She is the sister of Coretta Scott King. So, I have gotten to know her. She is not well, but she has taken a liking to me. She was upset that I left Westchester. She used to call me. I have not talked to her in a while, but I am going to call her. She can only sit down for 20 minutes because she is not well. I am going to interview her for the book and go from there. But Dr. Anderson, Yale is so lucky to have you. That is all I have to say. EA (51:10): Well, thank you very much. I am glad I am here. I am glad that I am here and able to teach and spread the word and that type of thing. SM (51:21): Yeah. Of course, every one of my interviews is going to have a picture that I have taken of each of the guests, either when I interview them in person, but I have some great shots of you when you were here in Westchester two years ago. EA (51:32): Okay. Well, when you transcribe it, get it to me. And then I will have to edit it and work it out. SM (51:35): Yep. Will do. EA (51:35): Okay. SM (51:36): You have a great weekend coming up, and I hope your wife's arm's better. EA (51:43): Thank you. Thank you. I am looking forward to getting her back to her therapy today. I am going to leave tomorrow, heading to Philly. Then I got to be back Monday because she has got another appointment for therapy. So anyway, well, listen, I am glad we got this done, and I look forward to reading it and responding and editing the whole thing. SM (52:05): Super. EA (52:06): Okay. SM (52:07): You have a great day. EA (52:08): Okay, Steve. SM (52:09): Yep. Can I call you Eli? EA (52:10): Sure, absolutely. SM (52:13): Because I have so much respect for you, I want to call you Dr. Anderson. EA (52:16): I call you Steve. You can call me Eli. SM (52:18): All right, Eli, thank you very much. EA (52:20): I am glad you raised a lot of those questions. I thought they were good questions, and I tried to answer as best I could. SM (52:26): Yeah, they were great answers. EA (52:28): I think some of the points could be elaborated, that kind of thing. So I look forward to seeing the transcript. SM (52:34): Okay. EA (52:34): Take care now. SM (52:34): Yep, you, too. Bye now. EA (52:37): Okay, Steve. Bye. (End of Interview) Description 1 Microcassette 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. Elijah Anderson Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Anderson, Elijah ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Sociologists; College teachers; Yale University; Anderson, Elijah--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Elijah Anderson is a sociologist, cultural theorist, scholar and professor in Sociology at Yale University, where he specializes in Urban Ethnography. Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. in Sociology at Northwestern University. Dr. Elijah Anderson is a sociologist, cultural theorist, scholar, and the Sterling Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at Yale University. He specializes in Urban Ethnography. He is the author of several books including his most recent, titled <em>Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life</em> (2022). His other books include <em>Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City</em> (1999), winner of the Komarovsky Award from the Eastern Sociological Society; <em>Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community</em> (1990), winner of the American Sociological Association’s Robert E. Park Award for the best-published book in the area of Urban Sociology; and the classic sociological work, <em>A Place on the Corner</em> (1978). Dr. Anderson received numerous awards and recognition, including the consultant for the White House, United States Congress, and the National Academy of Science.  In 2002, he was awarded the Stockholm Prize in Criminology. Previous to his tenure at Yale University, he was a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern 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 2009-07-09 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.10.2016.16 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. 52:43