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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
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Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s and 2010s. 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 continues to interview legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
17 March 2023
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Howard Means
Biographical Text
Howard Means, a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is an award winning author, editor and collaborator. He is the author/co author of several books, including The 500 Year Delta; The Visionary's Handbook; Colin Powell: A Biography; The Banana Sculptor, the Purple Lady, and the All-Night Swimmer; and the novel C.S.A. Means now lives in rural Virginia with his wife.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:35:12
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Digital file
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Kent state; Students, Nixon, Guardsmen, Anti-war movement, Sixties; Book, War, Talk, Campus, Shootings, Students, Activisim, People.
Accessibility
Copy/Paste below:
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Howard Means
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s and 2010s. 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 continues to interview 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)
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Date of Interview
2022-10-26
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Doug Bradley
Biographical Text
Doug Bradley, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is an author, educator, and veteran. For almost thirty years, he worked as a communications professional at the University of Wisconsin where he still teaches. Bradley wrote several books including Who'll Stop the Rain: Respect, Remembrance, and Reconciliation in Post-Vietnam America. Bradley is the co-author with Craig Werner of We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War. He has a Bachelor's degree in English from Bethany College and he also earned a Master's degree in English from Washington State University.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:56:41
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Vietnam; Music; Vietnam war; Vietnam veterans; People; Song; Home; Book; Draft; Memorial Wall, Boomer generation; Soldiers; Army.
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 Doug Bradley
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s and 2010s. 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 continues to interview 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 a metadata field.
Date of Interview
2022-10-27
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Don Lattin
Biographical Text
Don Lattin is a journalist, educator, consultant, and award-winning author. Lattin published six books, including The Harvard Psychedelic Club and Changing Our Minds: Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy. His work has appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle where he worked as a staff writer. Lattin has been a commentator for numerous television news shows, including Dateline NBC, PrimeTime Live, Good Morning America, Nightline, and Anderson Cooper 360. He specializes in religion, spirituality, and psychology. Lattin also taught as an adjunct faculty member at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Sociology.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:27:05
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Digital file
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Psychedelic; Harvard; Book; Drugs; LSD; 60s; Psychedelic experience; Psilocybin; Berkeley University; Counterculture; Talk.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Don Lattin
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Lynn Bijou
Date of interview: 27 October 2022
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
DL: 00:00
Six books and they all have something to do with (19)60s, you know, I am kind of fascinated by that era, too.
SM: 00:07
Yeah, well, you just wrote one heck of a book. I-I just love it.
DL: 00:12
Thank you. That is the one, that is the one that did, did well in terms of sales and all that.
SM: 00:18
Well, what, I think I am going to start out the interview. I am interviewing Don Lattin who was the author of, "The Harvard Psychedelic Club." It is how Timothy Leary, Rahm Das, Houston Smith, and Andrew wild killed the (19)50s and ushered in a new age for America. And this is, I am really excited about doing this interview today. Don, I would like you to first start off with a ton about your background. Please describe your early years. Your growing up, where you grew up, your parents' background, your schooling, from high school and college before you became a writer.
DL: 00:51
Okay, well, I was born in Suffern, New York, a little town just across the New Jersey border, northern New Jersey border, in the fall of 1953. So, that actually demographically speaking, [chuckles] Steven puts me Smack dab in the middle of the baby boom generation. And, my father was a, kind of a frustrated actor who had to get a job as a salesman to support his family working for Lipton tea, at Thomas J. Lipton Incorporated, and another was your typical (19)60s, (19)50s-(19)60s housewife. My mother was Jewish, and my father was kind of a lukewarm Presbyterian. So, I was, I was raised in the Presbyterian and United Church of Christ, kind of very lukewarm, kind of Protestant upbringing. When I was 12, my father said, "Do you want to keep going to church?" I said, "No," and he said, "Good, and then we do not have to take you anymore." [laughter] So, that was my, that was my religious upbringing.
SM: 02:04
Oh wow.
DL: 02:05
It was not very serious, but yeah, it was the 1950s and the early (19)60s, when you know, if you did not go to church, you were suspected of being a communist or something. So, but that was my religious upbringing, such as it was. So, I kind of bounced across the country as a child. I lived only for my first three years in New Jersey. And then we moved to Ohio. And I was there for about three or four years. Then we moved to Colorado, outside of Denver, I was there for about four more years, and then we moved to Southern California. I was in junior high school, and spent the rest of my time at home living in Southern California. And, so I went to public school, and I mean, my parents, it was not a particularly happy marriage, I actually write about it quite a bit in one of my other books called, "Distilled Spirits," which is a group biography with three other guys and kind of a recovery memoir. And I write about, you know, my upbringing quite a bit in that book. But it was not a happy marriage for various reasons. I had a brother who died in a tragic accident before I was born, I was what they call a "bereavement baby," I was born 10 months later to replace him. And my, it was a default of the car, my mother was driving, my brother, whose name was Alan and died. And my father basically never forgave my mother for this accident. And, the marriage kind of did not survive that. They stayed together till I was 12, but then they got divorced. So that was, you know, major, major kind of trauma in my childhood, you know, a lot of arguing with my family, and then the divorce was very bitter and left me, you know, feeling kind of alienated and not too much of a believer in the traditional family values [laughs] of America, questioning a lot of that. So, that was that and you know, I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol at a fairly young age, you know, probably around 12. Kind of around the time of my parents’ divorce, I am not sure how much that had to do with it, you know, probably contributed to it a bit. I got in some trouble in high school, marijuana and other drugs. And, but I, you know, always did fairly well in school. I was pretty good student. And I got accepted to go to UC Berkeley, in the fall of 1972. So, I moved up from Southern California, to Berkeley, basically, technically, the day after high school graduation and kind of never looked back, you know, I kind of wanted to get away from what was left of my family. And, and spent four years at Berkeley except for one year I studied abroad in England. So, I went to school at the University of Birmingham, in England, for my junior year, and kind of bummed around Europe, went down to Morocco, you know, kind of, did not do, did not do a lot of studying that year, [laughter] mostly just bombing around Europe. But somehow, I managed to get an undergraduate degree in sociology at UC Berkeley in (19)76. I say my real education was really working at the "Daily Californian," the off-campus student newspaper, which actually had just gone off campus, because of the anniversary of the People's Park riots in Berkeley. The editors at the Daily Cal said, "Let usretake the park," and there was a riot and one guy was killed. And, the university tried to fire the editors of the newspaper. And, they did not, because of the year before I was there, but we, they, they did not agree. And they kind of marched off campus and kept publishing the paper. But, we were basically separate from the university and worked out an agreement with the University. So, it was a really interesting time to be a journalist, then, you know, and it was not your typical college newspaper, because we were, you know, had to survive, you know, financially on our own. And we were also sort of became the paper for the city of Berkeley covering, you know, Berkeley news, what was going on politically, in terms of local politics in Berkeley, then, that was really interesting. And so, I did a lot of writing about, you know, the new left, and politics, and, and drugs, and covered various things like rent control, you know, lobbying campaigns, Berkeley marijuana initiative. Berkeley was the first city to decriminalize marijuana, and I wrote a lot about that. And, and also do a lot of experimentation with psychedelic drugs, which I read about a bit at the end of Harvard Psychedelic Club. [crosstalk] Did you have any interaction with anybody from the free speech movement? That was, what, way before your time in (19)64-(19)65? But, they used to have a lot of remembrances going back to the. Yeah, well, that was, that was, that was in the air. But yeah, that was (19)64. So, you know, that was like, you know, eight years earlier, right. And it is almost like, seemed like another era in some, some ways, you know. I mean, by the time I got to the Bay Area in (19)72, you know, I sort of always wished that I could have been there about, you know, six or seven years earlier, right. [chuckles] In the, the mid (19)60s, and kind of a more hopeful, idealistic era of what we call the (19)60s, you know.
SM: 07:58
Did you ever-
DL: 07:59
(19)70, by (19)72, you know, there was a much harder edge to the whole scene, you were there, you remember.
SM: 08:04
Yep. Yep-yep.
DL: 08:04
The drugs were different and it was just a different feeling. I mean, I think a lot of the hope, and the idealism was already gone. You know, and I was always, I fell in with an older group of people, friends, like I was, you know, so I was what I was looking at, in early 20, early 20s. And I fell in with a group of people who were about 15 years older than me, became my best friends for life. You know, and they had, they were mostly people who had come to San Francisco, you know, when you, some, during the beatnik era, the end of the beatnik era and the beginning of the hippie era, like the early 1960s. And they became, became my kind of tribe and my friends, and I was kind of a kid, right. I was, like, 15 years younger. And, and I was, I was kind of trying to keep the party, you know, a lot. [laughter] And they were, they were starting to get older, you know, settle down and have kids and all that.
SM: 08:12
I think that (19)72 here was also the period, I think the Angela Davis trial was happening around that time.
DL: 09:06
Yeah, that was going on. [crosstalk] The Vietnam War was, was winding down, right. So, the anti, there was a little, it was the tail end of the anti-war movement. There was a lot of, the Angela Davis, the whole, you know, ethnic studies was a big issue, you know, the various liberation movements, you know, African American, we used to say Chicano, you know, though, and, of course, the sexual revolution, and, you know, the gay rights thing was just kind of getting going. So, there were a lot of, you know, liberation movements going on. I mean, on terms of that the campus like one of the big issues then, were there was this debate over the criminology school which had a, kind of, several Marxist professors and they were challenging the whole, some of the ideas. They were, they were not training, you know, law enforcement officers. They were critiquing, you know, law enforcement in America. So there-
SM: 10:03
Right.
DL: 10:03
-were a lot of big controversies around the criminology school and cracking down on some of the leftist teachers there. So that was, that was a big issue in ethnic studies, that sort of thing.
SM: 10:16
Chris Reagan was governor, I believe at that time.
DL: 10:18
Reagan was governor. Yeah, you know, there was still, you know, there was still some protests, I did get tear gassed once, you know, [laughs] demonstration. So, that was still going on. But it was nothing like earlier in the, in the late (19)60s, then it kind of, then it kind of died down a bit.
SM: 10:23
Did you ever, and we were going to get back into the Harvard Psychedelic Club, did you ever do articles on the Black Panthers? Because they were becoming very big at that time.
DL: 10:45
Yeah, they definitely were. That was all going on in Oakland, you know, right next to Berkeley. No, I did not really write too much about the, the Panthers. There are a lot of stories about, remember the Bakke decision?
SM: 11:01
Oh, yeah, that was big.
DL: 11:02
The controversies about affirmative action.
SM: 11:04
Oh, yes.
DL: 11:05
That was a, that was a big, that was a big issue. I was also the editorial page editor at, "The Daily Cowl." So, I was involved in editorials around a lot of those, those issues.
SM: 11:16
Wow. Okay. Before, I am going to talk about, before we talk about the actual book, was the afterword in the book. It, where you asked yourself, "Why am I writing a book about four people-
DL: 11:32
Right.
SM: 11:33
-who are involved in drugs? And you talk about on a few pages, your experience, when you were a freshman going to Big Sur? Could you talk about that?
DL: 11:43
Sure, sure. Yeah. So, you know, I think I first experimented with LSD in high school, I did it, I do not know, three or four times. I never had, you know, kind of a full-blown mystical experience. Maybe it was something to do with the dose, or the set, or the setting, you know, which is always important. So, I, but when I got to Berkeley, and I actually came in the summer of (19)72. And I had, it was really my first girlfriend in college, her name, Julia, and we had just met, and we both lived in this, the high-rise dorms on the south side of campus. And we ran this experimental program called Hearts Technology and Society, which was, it was kind of the height of that whole, like, a University Without Walls, you know, alternative education movement. Right.
SM: 12:41
Right.
DL: 12:42
And the idea was that, you, it was for freshmen, and you would live in a dorm with your instructors who were mostly, you know, graduate students and teaching assistants. And, basically, study arts and we had like, video cameras were a new thing. We had some video cameras, we were playing around with those, music and, you know, critiquing society, and it was a very open-ended program, where there were no grades, and there was no kind of, you hung out with your instructors. And in some ways that, also it was kind of a big party. There was a lot of drug taking going on. And then, we lasted one-year university kind of got what was going on and canceled the program. [laughter] Everybody got, everybody, it was like, everybody got A's, which made them suspicious.
SM: 13:36
Oh yeah. [laughter]
DL: 13:36
So, the university, they could not take the credit away, but they wound up making it so you could not apply the credit to hardly anything, right. So, it was like a whole, basically a whole year of college where it was great for my grade point average, but I could not really apply it much, much to a major. But, so that was, that was kind of environment. You know, it was alternative education. It was like questioning everything, you know, and, and so my girlfriend and I went down. So, this was sometime before Thanksgiving. So, it was fairly early in the school year, we had some blotter, acid, some LSD which we took down to Big Sir, drove down in my 1965 Mustang. And we, we were, you know, camped on a bluff overlooking the Big Sir coast. It is fantastic stretches of coastline, you know, south of Monterey. And anyway, we just had this amazing experience where we kind of melted together and became like one being, and kind of read each other's minds and started out you know, just feeling totally out of love with nature and the environment around us. And it was, you know, it was really turned into what I would call a, full blown mystical experience where, you know, just like white light and coming together as one thing, and it was just the most amazing experience I have ever had. I mean, I just, it just blew me away with this question. My whole idea of what, what, what is reality? What is consciousness? What is what is, what is, what is, what, where, where does my body stop and the rest of the world start? All those, all those boundaries are just kind of blown away. And it was just a beautiful, beautiful experience. And, you know, in my naive, you know, 18-19-year-old mind, I thought, "Well, that is it that this is true love, I found my soulmate, you know, we will be together for the rest of our lives. This is what it means to become in one with someone," and, and we had that experience and went back to school. And then for, for a week or two after that, or actually for about a month, month after that every time we touched. Yeah, we do, do the acid, we were not trippy anymore. But, every time we touched, we physically melt together. It is this amazing thing. It just continued. So, you know, I, I thought that was it. You know, this, she's my soulmate. And I do not know a month or two after that we had another, another trip. In the woods, kind of a dark woods up in northern California. Turned out it was a, with another couple, it turns out it was a hunting lodge, [laughs] where we were actually staying at. So, we were out in the woods, and there were gunshots going off.
SM: 16:40
[laughs]
DL: 16:40
And they were kind of a lot of rednecks around and they set the setting. It was very important for an LSD trip. But this was like the worst setting- -you can imagine. And so, there was a lot of paranoia and fear. And I basically had another, I had a bad trip from central casting, you know, where I got paranoid, I felt very Small, I felt very alienated. I felt very scared, terrified that I was sort of disappearing or dying. It was very, very difficult, trip. And really, we were at this lodge where the boys and the men and women had to sleep in separate areas. So, I was not sleeping, was not with my girlfriend, hearing voices all night. And just, then after that, the next day, we kind of got an argument, and we roundup splitting up. So, and in some ways, I never completely came down from that trip for a couple of weeks, I would have what we used to call flashbacks. Which I used to think we were just anti-drug propaganda because there was so much ridiculous, you know, anti-drug propaganda, you know, during that era. But this case, flashbacks, they, they can happen, and they do happen with people. So, for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two, I cannot remember exactly after that. I would have these flashbacks, which were very terrifying because I, did not really know what was real. I mean, I, I stopped driving because I was not sure if lights were red or green. And I had a very difficult period, I could not read, I could not concentrate at all.
SM: 16:48
[laughs] Wow.
DL: 18:19
You know, it was first year student at Cal, it was not, as I said, it was not a rigorous academic program that I was in [laughter]. But I still had to do some reading, right?
SM: 18:26
Right.
DL: 18:28
I mean, you know, one sentence, I just, I would hit a word and I would go off on a tangent, I had no-no ability to concentrate. And you know, and looking back on it, it was you know, I mean, you would probably call it a psychotic break, right. And if I would have, probably if I would have, and but I was very scared about telling anybody what was going on because I was afraid, I would be you know, locked up in a mental hospital or something and back then that is probably what would have happened. So, I kept it to myself for the most part and struggled with it. And it was a really difficult period, came out of it in a few months. And I think that came out in the long run kind of saner than I went in. I see the other side, right, of sanity, but it was a really difficult period. So, so I mentioned, and I write about it because those two experiences left, left me both, you know, fascinated and, very frightened about the power and the potential of psychedelics. And I, you know, and so for a long time I, not for a long time but for a few, for at least six months or so I did not do any drugs, no marijuana, no alcohol, nothing. Eventually got back into psychedelics, but so yeah, and I looking back on that I used to see it as kind of a good trip and a bad trip. But I actually kind of see it now is kind of one thing, kind of a, growth process, or a process of individuation. You know, I see the whole thing kind of as one event now rather than a good trip and a bad trip.
SM: 20:01
That is a, that is a good way, that is a good way to get into talking about the Harvard Psychedelic Club. Could you, what was the Harvard Psychedelic Club? And of course, it is, it is really about four people. And if you could-
DL: 20:16
Yeah, well, yeah.
SM: 20:18
-you go ahead and [crosstalk] say who those people were?
DL: 20:21
Yeah, okay. Well, the Harvard Psychedelic Club, was, there was, there was nothing actually called the Harvard Psychedelic Club. That is just a, a title for my book. And kind of my, my shorthand way of describing it. What I was writing about was something, it was called the Harvard Psilocybin Project. And later, the Harvard Psychedelic Project, which was a, some early research into looking for potential uses, and just understanding the psychedelic experience, with either psilocybin, which was synthesized psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, and then later LSD. And so, the Harvard Psychedelic Club, is a book about four individuals who crossed paths at Harvard in the fall of 1960, which was a really interesting and kind of pivotal time, both at Harvard and in the country. And the, John F. Kennedy, who had been a Harvard man who had just been elected President of the United States, and much, much, much of the hope and the optimism of the (19)60s was kind of personified in Kennedy, and [inaudible] running for president, and then winning over Richard Nixon, in 1960. So that was kind of a backdrop. Anyway, the four individuals in the book are Timothy Larry, who was a lecturer in clinical psychology at Berkeley, one of his colleagues, Richard Alpert, who was an assistant professor in social psychology, clinical psychology in Harvard. And the, the third person in the book is Houston Smith, who was already a renowned scholar of world religions. He already had a show on the early public television network, before PBS, but early public television network about the world's religions, Houston Smith, he was not actually at Harvard, he was teaching, nearby MIT, but it was very close to the Harvard Cooke group. And then the fourth character in that book is Andrew Weil, who was a bit younger, all four of these guys are kind of pre-baby boom themselves. But Weil, Weil was a, was a, was a bit younger, he was a freshman, brilliant, very ambitious freshman at Harvard. So, the book looks at, it is, the book is a group biography of these four guys, how they crossed paths at Harvard, and kind of, what happened with this grand experiment in psychedelic research at Harvard. And in 1960, which resulted in Larry and Alpert being kicked out of the university and going on to become kind of the pied pipers of the psychedelic counterculture in the mid-1960s. [crosstalk] Go ahead.
SM: 23:20
These four are so historic in so many ways, and it is almost like the perfect storm, you know, the, how they all ended up together in some way over that period between (19)60 and (19)63. And, and you do a really good job of giving us a little brief description of each of their backgrounds prior to Harvard. Could you talk a little bit about Leary and Alpert and Smith and while, it, before they get to Harvard, because I think it is important that you get a feel for who they are even before they get there.
DL: 23:55
Yeah-yeah. Well, I mean, Leary, you know, who became a very divisive figure, you know, Richard Nixon called the most, he would later call him, in the decade, would call him the most dangerous man in America and helped fuel a backlash against, certainly against psychedelics, or specifically against psychedelic research in university settings. But anyway, before. So, Leary was already, he was a rising star in clinical psychology. He had written a, in the 1950s, he had written a book about, he was an expert in personality assessment. And, he had written a very well received, kind of award-winning book, which stayed in print for many-many, many years longer than later books about psychedelics. So, he was, you know, he was kind of a rising star in psychology in the post war era. But even before he first experienced psychedelics, which was on a halt on a vacation in Mexico, in the summer of 1960, when he first took magic mushrooms. But even before that he was questioning, you know, the conventional wisdom in psychology and psychiatry, he did not think talk therapy was really effective. He was doing a fairly radical critique of the power dynamics between, you know, like patient and doctor, and researcher and research subject in like a, psychological testing. So, he was, he was kind of radical in some ways and kind of questioning authority even before he had his psychedelic trip, which totally transformed him and convinced him that psychedelics were going to not only change psychology, but change the world. So that was kind of his background. And Alpert, Richard Alpert grew up in a fairly wealthy Jewish family in Boston. [inaudible] was, helped found Brandeis University. And, so, kind of a railroad executive, lawyer, very pretty, rough, really successful guy. And so, Alpert grew up in this family, he was very bright, very charismatic, young, ambitious. Kind of on the fast track, kind of on tenure track at-at Harvard, much more, you know, identified with the Harvard CNN delivery ever was, where he was just actually on a three-year kind of temporary contract with Harvard. But Alpert was, was on tenure track. And very brilliant-brilliant authority. He was very charismatic, great lecturer, he is very popular with the students. And he was, he was also struggling with his sexuality. He was basically a gay man in the closet you know, and struggling with that, some of that would have something to do with how he got in trouble later on at Harvard. S, that was basically Alpert's background. Houston Smith, you know, was a child of Methodist missionaries, he was born and grew up in, in China. And, so was exposed, you know, grew up, you know, in a hoarder culture, and climate, and came to the States, thinking he would be in a training, become a minister, which he did, he was a, became ordained Methodist minister, but he was more interested in teaching than in preaching, and really became one of the early authority on world religions. And, he wrote a book called, "The Religions Of," was originally called, "The Religions of Man," and later called "The World's Religions," which for many years, maybe still is used as a textbook, you know, in comparative religion. And, but he has never really had a mystical experience himself. And he had been reading about psychedelics and he would read, you know, of course, Aldous Huxley wrote a book published in 1554, about the doors of perception. And so, Houston actually had sought out Aldous Huxley and became friends with Aldous Huxley, and had something to do with Huxley coming to MIT to deliver some guest lectures at this very same time, right-
SM: 23:58
Wow.
DL: 24:36
-in the fall of 1960. So, that was the other sort of piece of the puzzle. I mean, Aldous Huxley, who at the time, you know, was probably one of the best known, you know, writers in English language, right, and public intellectual and towards the end of his career. So, Huxley was kind of part of the mix. And this, this was at Harvard, and MIT too. And, and Andy Weil was, you know, he was just a very-very, very bright, ambitious freshman who was interested in, he grew up in. Well, you know, it has been like 12 or 13-14 years since I did, reporting on this book. I cannot remember anything, but I think he grew up in Philadelphia.
SM: 29:16
Yep, he did. Yep.
DL: 29:17
Yeah. Yeah. What is on the top of my head right now? [laughs] But yeah, he grew up in Philadelphia, I think his parents ran a millinery shop. He, just a really bright, young bright kid, and was interested in-in psychedelic research and tried to get involved with the, the Harvard Psilocybin Project and we can talk about that if you want but that is kind of, that story in the book. [crosstalk] And, and went on to go to medical school and become a real leader in the holistic health and integrative-
SM: 29:50
Right.
DL: 29:50
-medicine scene. But, but so yeah, he was, he was, I do not know like 10-15 years younger than these guys.
SM: 29:59
Can you discuss what happened in that period, (19)60s, (19)63? I know that, Alpert and Leary had a home off campus. And, that is where the, you know, they, they would have the experimentations with drugs, with the, I guess, the mushrooms and then eventually LSD, could, could you describe, like you do so well in the book itself, it, well who they were trying to reach, they were not trying to reach undergraduate students, which was not, they would never be allowed to do that. And according to Harvard, but graduate students-
DL: 30:39
Right.
SM: 30:39
-or people off, that are not students, or could you talk about the whole process where people came to their home? And they had to, you know, have, they would be there themselves and guide them through a trip and just, just that kind of information?
DL: 30:57
Okay, right. Well, there were, what was, what was called the Harbin Psilocybin Project, there are a couple of different aspects to it. I mean, there were really two kind of formal studies, research projects that came out of that. One was called the Concord Prison Project, which was giving psilocybin to prisoners, along with some kind of support and therapy, mostly with graduate students working with the, the prisoners to see if they could reduce recidivism rates. Psychedelic therapy, could reduce recidivism rates. But again, this what was very radical about that was not that they were using prisoners for drug tests, that was actually done quite a bit in some very unethical ways, with other drugs in that era, but what was interesting about that is, you know, something that the graduate students would trip with the prisoners, they would experience this, this psychedelic state together, or sometimes the prisoners would sit as guides and the graduate students would be taking the drugs, right. [chuckles] And so that, that was in line with Leary's kind of radical critique of power dynamics between research subjects and, and, and you know, and, and, and researchers or between patient and doctor, right, so, so that was an interest. So, that was one thing. And then there was another thing called the Good Friday experiment, which I can talk about if you want later. So that was, those were the two kind of formal sort of studies that came out of this, this project. But, but the other thing, and in some ways, the main thing that Leary was doing, and Alpert was doing, is they were just basically doing kind of basic research, I guess, you could say, in terms of psychedelics, and they would give, first it was psilocybin or the synthesized psilocybin, they were actually taking mushrooms, so it is like the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. So, they would give these to graduate students, but also to like, they are interested in giving it to artists, you know, painters, musicians, philosophers, other professors, you know, basically anybody who would agree to come over to, you know, Leary's house and have an experience, you know, four or five hour experience on, on psilocybin, and then write up, you know, reports about their experiences. So, it is kind of just raw research into, you know, people describing what happens in a psychedelic experience. And then, you know, and they were also interested in seeing if it could, you know, spawn that creativity among musicians or artists or, so all kinds of people, you know, famous jazz, semi famous jazz musician showed up and people like, you know, Allen Ginsberg, who was, you know, very well known, the beat poet. Folks like that kind of showed up. And, you know, in some ways, this, lot of times these research sessions kind of seemed more like parties [chuckles] than the research, you know. There was a lot of that going on. And, the, Leary and Alpert had agreed to not let undergraduates participate in this, because there are some dangerous psychological dangers as evidenced by the story I told, right. They are taking these substances. They had agreed to not let undergraduates participate. Andy Weil was an undergraduate and he had a friend and a dorm mate named Ron Winston who was the son of a famous jewelry, ran a jewelry business and, Alpert admitted that he also had kind of a romantic attraction to Ronnie Winston and well, they did not formally bring him in to the Harvard Psilocybin Project. Privately, you know, he would- gave, gave Ronnie Winston, psychedelics and kind of led him on some trips and got in trouble for that, right. [crosstalk]
SM: 34:20
Yep. Yeah, go ahead. Yep.
DL: 35:07
Yeah. And so, Andy Weil had also, Andrew Weil had also wanted to be part of this and was told that he could not. So, there was some jealousy I think involved with, you know, why did Ronnie Winston get to participate in this and not him. And so, Andy Weil was working as a reporter for the Harvard Crimson, the Harvard student newspaper and wound up doing an exposé about Leary. And Alpert had violated their agreement with the University by giving drugs to undergraduates and convinced, in a, fairly underhanded way to convince Ronnie Winston to kind of rat out Richard Alpert, and that-that was the-the incident that got them kicked out of Harvard. But there was a lot of wild stuff going on, you know, a lot of, you know, fairly, I do not know how to characterize it, just kind of fast and loose, was not, it was not a buttoned-down research project by any means.
SM: 36:13
I know during those three years that they had their critics on the faculty too, that, there were some well-known names. I think one of them was B.F. Skinner, I think, the well-known names of people that I can remember in the (19)60s and (19)70s, who wrote books, you know, on psychology.
DL: 36:31
Yeah, there was a lot of professional, you know, there was a lot of professional jealousy, I think in the, the departments, it was the psychology department. And there is this, their department was, I think called social relations, kind of a social psychology department. And yeah, there was a battle kind of between the behavioral, behaviorists who, Skinner was the leading behaviorists, and other in the Freudians. And then, there was also this whole kind of humanistic psychology was just kind of getting going, right. You there?
SM: 37:05
Yes, several-several of the editors over a period of time had been writing articles on this, the, on Leary and Alpert too, even before Weil got there, I believe. And then he, he got into that position and, and one of the things that needs to be known to and, and you bring it up throughout the book or toward the end as well, that, the Harvard administration used Weil as kind of a spy.
DL: 37:39
Yeah, well, what happened was, what happened was, they, none of the, there were several undergraduates, I think, who had been, had been given the drugs but, none of them wanted to really, you know, come out and sort of testify against Leary and Alpert because they, they were favor what they were doing. And, and Ronnie Winston, the way Andy Weil got Ronnie Winston to come forward is he, they went to Ronnie Winston's father, his name is Harry Winston who ran this, it was a benefit, I think a university benefactor and you know, fairly prominent businessman and [inaudible]. Anyway, he, they-they basically went-went to Ronnie Winston's father and said, "Your son is taking these, you know, dangerous drugs. And if he does not, if he does not, you know, admit this to the university administration, we are going to name him in the newspaper article," [laughs]. So, in order, and so Harry Winston, his father convinced him to, you know, basically tell the university administration what-what had gone on, he was given drugs by Professor Alpert. And that-that was, how they, you know, cut the goods on-on Alpert. And that was the one particular incident which where they can sort of pin down and use to expel them from the university. But, they were looking for a reason. I mean, and actually, you know, Leary and Alpert, were already ready to move on. I think they needed a bigger stage. And they certainly got, they certainly got one, you know, after they left Harvard, there was a lot of publicity about this, you know, the Harvard drug scandal that was page one of the New York Times, but it was really Andy Weil's story in the Harvard Crimson that started the whole thing, you know. Then, a day or two later, on-on the front page of The New York Times and anywhere with a big article, big exposé, or like magazine, even mentioning, you know, sort of rumors about heterosexual and homosexual affairs, you know, so there was some pretty vicious stuff [chuckles] put out there to get rid of them, to bring them down. Of course, they were not brought down they just moved on and, and became national figures and leaders in the, in the psychedelic counterculture of the (19)60s.
SM: 39:59
I know as years went on Weil kind of, felt kind of guilty for what he did, because [crosstalk]
DL: 40:08
I mean, he really, you know, the other thing is that through Andy Weil was also, doing, he, he started his own little drug, drug research project in the dorm with other people at this time, he was able to like use some, actually use some Harvard stationery and forged letters to send those labs and got some psilocybin sent to him. And, he's trying to sort of do his own version of, of psychedelic research with his friends in the dorm. So, none of which, of course, he mentions in the article that he wrote, [laughs] which brought down Leary and Alpert. So, yeah, later on in the (19)60s, Andy Weil became, you know, kind of the go to guy on, kind of understanding the psychedelic experience and wrote a book called, " The Natural Mind," about drugs, and human consciousness, and kind of, in some ways, replaced them for a while and kind of the go to guy for the straight story, you know, on what drugs really do and what the, benefits could be, and not exaggerating the dangers. And, you know, he was, he felt very bad about the way he handled the whole thing and sought forgiveness for many years from Leary and Albert. Leary forgave him, Alpert, it took a long time. But in the end, Alpert finally did forgive him for what he did. But, he was very bitter about it for many years.
SM: 41:34
This kind of crisis, between (19)60 and (19)63, with Leary and Alpert was not something that Harvard had not seen before. You talk also about the Brook Farm situation, 120 years earlier with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
DL: 41:55
Yeah-yeah.
SM: 41:58
And-and, and Emerson was kicked out of, kicked out as well. So, you, any, could you discuss that a little bit if you remember it?
DL: 42:06
You know, I do not remember the details to tell you the truth. I am sorry, on that. I have to go back and look at the, look at the book. But Emerson was, was kicked out of Harvard, and Leary often would cite that, you know, as he is in such good standing right, [laughs] in the tradition of Emerson. But, but you know, I am sorry, at the top of my head, I cannot remember the details of what happened.
SM: 42:30
What happened after they left? Where did Leary go? Where did Alpert go? And, and, of course, Weil, would continue his education at Harvard.
DL: 42:43
Yeah, well, right after they got kicked out of Harvard, they were already had been setting up a kind of a research center or, another party headquarters [chuckles] down in Mexico, in a place called, [inaudible], in the coast of Mexico. And so, they, they just basically continued doing their research and experimenting with psychedelics of various kinds. By this time, LSD was brought into the, had been brought into the mix. So, they were inviting people down to Mexico, and it was the same thing, you know, artists, philosophers, you know, students, academics, were coming down there, psychologists to participate in these sessions, psychedelic sessions and writing up reports and all that. They very quickly got kicked out of there. They bounced around, there were a couple of places in the Caribbean, they tried to set up and eventually a few years later wound up at a place called Millbrook in upstate New York, an old beautiful estate, a mansion where they set up shop and basically continued their psychedelic experimentation research there for, for a few years into the mid, mid (19)60s.
SM: 44:07
Yeah, and-
DL: 44:08
Leary and Albert were above them.
SM: 44:09
-I think they were getting funding from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, or I think one of the, some group was helping them pay for the-
DL: 44:20
I am not sure what that is. [crosstalk] Well, it was. Yeah. So, there was a woman named Peggy Hitchcock- You put, you put little character descriptions for each of the four throughout the book, which I really liked. You called Timothy Leary, the trickster, Ram Dass was the seeker, and Houston Smith, the teacher, and Andrew Weil, the healer. -who was a supporter, and she was, one of the, an heiress of the melon fortune. And, and she had a brother named Billy Hitchcock. There are a couple of Hitchcock brothers, any, the, the Hitchcocks had this estate, which they were not using, and they basically just kind of turned it over to Leary and Alpert for a few years, and let them use this, use this beautiful estate. And, you know, the government was still after them. One of the funny ones, J. Gordon Liddy, who would become famous later as one of the Watergate burglar masterminds was a local D.A. in this county in New York and, he was going after Leary and Alpert, they were still on surveillance, and police raids. And you know, Leary by this time, Leary was notorious, so everywhere he went, the government was after him. And, eventually he busted going across the border from Mexico with a tiny little bit of marijuana, which he claims was planted on him and wound up going to prison. That is another part of the story that we can get into if you want to, but, but, you know Leary, by this time had become just notorious. And, and also kind of reveling in his notoriety. You know, he was a real, was a real, I call him a trickster.
SM: 44:25
-right.
DL: 46:02
Yeah, kind of the archetypal kind of, you know, role that they, that they took on to kind of explain, but. I wondered as I called Alpert the seeker is, you know, he was always, he never really came off as like, you know, all knowing guru or something. You know, he was just another kind of, seeker like so many of us, you know, in that era, we had, of course, you know, gone to India after, well, I mean, so you asked me what happened with them after Harvard, I mean, and after Millbrook. You know, Leary, well they both sort of showed up in San Francisco, you know, for the whole. So, while, there was this whole other scene going out on San Francisco in the early to mid (19)60s, psychedelic revival, you know, with a Grateful Dead, [inaudible] and the Merry Pranksters, you know, Alan Watts, and other things going on out here. In some ways, the scene in San Francisco was much wilder than what was going on in, back in Boston at Harvard. And so, the, the real focus, you know, shifted in like, (19)65-(19)66, out to San Francisco, which was kind of Mecca, for the whole psychedelic counterculture, fueled by the Grateful Dead and that is the whole scene here, the Jefferson Airplane, psychedelic rock, coming of age and the concerts and so, Alpert was out here for a while. He was a big part of that scene. And then went off to India, famously, and became a devotee of a guru named Neem Karoli Baba and became a spiritual teacher, reincarnated themselves as Ram Dass, came back and was very influential in helping, I think people of my generation, you know, kind of make sense of the psychedelic experience, put it in another context, maybe finding you know, kinder, gentler ways to explore their consciousness through say meditation or other spiritual practices, not never, never really renouncing psychedelics or denouncing psychedelics, but maturing and the spiritual search around that. See, that this particular period, is also that period of that you call the tidal wave that was coming, all these people come from all over the country to San Francisco. And, "Are you going to San Francisco," was a very popular song at that time, all on the radio. [sings] And if you go to San Francisco, to be sure to wear flowers in your hair.
SM: 48:34
That tidal wave was, a lot of them from the East Coast.
DL: 48:37
It was from all over, yeah.
SM: 48:39
(19)65 and (19)68.
DL: 48:40
Yeah it was eventful.
SM: 48:40
What were some of the, I know there were a lot of big events that happened at that, during that, there was a bee-in, there was the trip festival, there was a love pageant rally, I am thinking and then many other things. I know that Alpert also went to work on the Oracle. And he was a writer or among the editors.
DL: 49:01
Yeah, he wrote some articles in the Oracle, which was really one of the first, you know, was, underground newspapers. Yeah, they were, I mean, it really began with Ken Kesey, you know, who, Ken Kesey was a, a very well known, young, successful novelist at the time. He wrote two books, "Sometimes a Great Notion," and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," And, so he's, really up and coming writer, and then he, he was exposed to LSD by volunteering in a research project. I think it was at a VA hospital, that Administration Hospital in Menlo Park, which was, turned out later was secretly funded by the CIA, which was doing their own research about psychedelics. [laughter] So, talk about blowback, right?
SM: 49:59
[laughs]
DL: 49:59
I mean, they did not know what they were getting into and they turned on Kevin Kesey, so, Ken Kesey. [laughs] So Kesey, started this group called, they started having these events called acid tests. And I think this began when was, like I said been awhile since I wrote this but, like (19)63-(19)64 when the first acid tests where they basically had, you know, kind of parties and they put the acid in the punch, and a lot of dancing, and kind of carrying on, and very revelatory, celebratory atmosphere. And so, there were series of these acid tests, which got, which moved up into San Francisco and got bigger and bigger. So, there was that and then there was something called the Trips Festival. There was the human being in Golden Gate Park, which was when Leary I think famously uttered his mantra "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
SM: 50:14
Yep.
DL: 50:14
So, you know, that was an event in Golden Gate Park with Allen Ginsberg, and Alpert, and Schneider a lot of the beat poets, and of course out of San Francisco bands, Aeroplan, Grateful Dead, they were all playing there. Yeah so that was, and that was (19)66-(19)67. A lot of people were already kind of saying, "Well, it is time to move on." There was something called the, "Death of the Hippie," they had a big, sort of, a march, {inaudible] are enough, because the hippie thing, and trying to become the media, and you know the media had discovered this, right.
SM: 50:14
Right.
DL: 50:17
But by the-the time that song came out, "If you Come to San Francisco," you know, I mean, a lot of people were already saying it is time to move on, you know, the scene was just getting too crazy and too crowded. And, and the drugs were changing. People were, you know, getting into speed, and heroin, and more harder, dangerous drugs and-
SM: 51:55
Yeah, the 19- the 1967, Summer of Love, the next year in (19)68 was a disaster.
DL: 52:01
Yeah-yeah.
SM: 52:03
And-
DL: 52:04
I mean, that was a bit before my time, but you know, yeah. And then, you know, of course, there was, but you know, it was. I do not know, it is hard to say exactly. It all depends on what particular scene you were in, right. I mean, where you were in all this. I mean, when I came in (19)72, it still seemed pretty, some of it still seemed pretty cool, and still pretty, you know, hopeful. But you are talking to old timers, and "No, you should have been here in (19)66 man," you know.
SM: 52:30
Well, you in, in the book, you talk about the interview that Leary had with Playboy Magazine. And there is two things that, I, that come out of that interview very clearly. They said, they asked him, "Who you are trying to make love with?" And he says "I am making, I want to make love with God, at the purpose of what I am doing. I want to make love with God, I want to make love with myself. And I want to make love with a woman." [laughs]
DL: 52:54
Yeah.
SM: 52:54
And then, and then he said, and then, I think Allen Ginsberg confronted him at a panel, and this, you described this, and because they, they were questioning some of the, one of the, some of the things he was saying whether everything was true or not.
DL: 53:14
Oh, right. [chuckles]
SM: 53:14
And Leary said, "One third of everything I say is bullshit. One third of everything I say is wrong. And the, and one third is, right. So that means it is like a baseball player. I am in the Hall of Fame," [laughs]
DL: 53:29
Right? One third of like, brilliant gems of wisdom. Right? Yeah. That was Leary, I mean, you know, that that Playboy interview was, you know, notorious. And he was a, he was a trickster, right. I mean, he would just make shit up, you know. [chuckles] And he was, you know, giving an interview to Playboy, so, of course, he was going to talk a lot about sex. Well, there was a lot of, there was a lot of sex, and a lot of acting out in that whole scene, you know. But, yeah no, I love that, quote, you just started, recited from Leary. That really says it all, you know, he had a real sense of humor, you know, I mean, it was like that, that is kind of one of the things that you kind of miss from the (19)60s there was a sense of irony, and no one was taking ourselves too seriously. And it was all kind of a cosmic joke in some way. You know, there was a lightness to it, that, we do not have any more, political discourse. [crosstalk] There was you know, there was division, there was, people forget that (19)60s were very divisive time too, you know, but it was sort of the whole so called, "generation gap," right and all that. But I mean the divisiveness, it pales in comparison to what we are experiencing now, you know.
SM: 53:33
Yes. [laughs] I know that, when Alpert became part of the, the Oracle, the, the-
DL: 54:43
He wrote for, the I mean, he, he wrote for the Oracle- he was not like one of the, he did not found it or anything but, it was a guy, Alan Colin who started it and there was a collective started it, but yeah, he did, write, he did write some pieces for it.
SM: 54:45
Right. You define the, the evolution of the Oracle it was, it was an idealistic exploration into the personal experience and social implication of mind-mind, I am, I cannot read my writing, mind expansion. And-
DL: 55:11
Also, it was just a beauty, just technically it was, it was the whole psychedelic art scene, right. You know, these famous posters from that era. And this is all done, you know, before computers, this is all done by hand, you know, and this is beautiful artwork, very trippy artwork in the Oracle. It was just, you know, it was there was nothing like it [chuckles], it was not just the content. I mean, it started out, it is kind of more, of a political kind of focus, kind of a new, less political focus, but it became more, kind of the journal. And this, was a blossoming psychedelic culture. And just, just you go back and look at some of, the old editions. I mean, there's a, at some point somebody came out with, I think, Alan Colin, the founder of it, came out with a hardcover, facsimile edition, you know, reprint of all those Oracle's, I actually have, this beautiful, beautiful artwork, and just so you know, reminiscent of the time.
SM: 56:07
This truly was, when you, when all these things you have been talking about was the Age of Aquarius, that were so, you know, we think of the fifth dimension singing that song and, and that really was the Age of Aquarius. And, you know, some of the things you know, were, eastern mystique, mysticism, utopian revolution, you bring up sexual liberation, the ecological awareness, even Native American spiritual.
DL: 56:36
Right, all the different liberation movement in America {crosstalk] women, gay people, young people, it was all, you know, all liberation. Yeah, it was a very, you know, and a lot of this was not all fueled by psychedelics, but a lot of it was, you know, because when you on the psychedelic experience, you tend to like, and appreciate, let us just take the environmental movement, you know, I mean, obviously, there is a lot of other reasons for the [inaudible]. But a lot of people had experiences on psychedelics, where they really felt at one with nature and had a whole new way of looking at sort of nature, and themselves in, in a holistic way, right. So that was, that was, I think, fueling a lot of the interest in environmentalism. Like people think of the (19)60s counterculture as being protesting, and sort of being against everything. But, they were not just against everything. I mean, they were for civil rights. They were for environmental protection. You know, they were for sexual liberation, you know. In a lot of ways, it was a very hopeful movement, there was a lot of divisiveness, of course, but it was basically a lot of hope.
SM: 57:46
Toward the latter part of the (19)60s, there was the, Time Magazine wrote an article on, the crisis in, with drugs in America and talking about the crisis of drugs in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. And but then, so there were there was also a crisis of drugs in the (19)50s and (19)80s. And you bring, bring it up in the, in the book. Alcoholism was a big crisis in the 1950s. And, and, and we have drugs today, so that, you know, but there was a lot of criticism of LSD. And what was happening at that time. You go into detail on it in, in your book. Could you talk a little bit about the press and half of the coverage of LSD in the late (19)60s?
DL: 58:36
Yeah, well, you know, there was a lot, what people sort of forget is, let us go back a little bit, you know, in the 19- So, LSD was synthesized. It was this, this psychedelic, powerful psychedelic properties of LSD was discovered by Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist in 1943-1944. So soon after the war, Sandoz started sending out LSD to psychologists, academics, researchers all over the world. I mean, it, the-the rules were much looser than about you know, how to experiment and deal with new emerging drugs right, than they are now. But, so Sandoz was a chemical company was sending out LSD that people, anybody who would ask for it, basically with any kind of a credential. And basically, trying to, what can we, what can we use this drug for? And so, there was all kinds of research going on. First, they thought it well, it would be the way to understand the psychotic state because in some way the psychedelic experience can sort of mimic psychosis in some ways. So, there was a lot of research into that going on everywhere and looking for beneficial uses of the psychedelics. And so, there was a lot of work around using psychedelics to help treat, for instance, alcoholism in the 1950s, there are studies going on all over the world. And there was a lot of promising results in terms of using it for, to treat depression, alcoholism, things like that, trauma, along with, with psychotherapy. So, there was a lot of positive coverage of psychedelics, including the potential for generating mystical experiences in the 1950s, and 1960s. And it really was not until the drug became associated with the counterculture, and the anti-war movement, and the hippies, and the new left, and all that, that the government really sort of started targeting it. And, you know, the thing about drug prohibition, it is usually, it is not normally not about one particular drug, whether it is alcohol, tobacco, LSD, heroin, whatever, it is more about who's taking it, right. [chuckles] It is an attack on, on, on who's using it as much as on what the drug actually is or how dangerous it is. So, the Nixon administration basically determined that or decided that, well, one way, one way we can go after both the civil rights movement, and the counterculture, hippie, new left movement is to increase penalties of their, you know, their common pleasures, which were marijuana and psychedelics, right, because marijuana was, you know, very big in the African American community and along with other communities. But so, a lot of the, I think the so called, "drug war" of the (19)60s and (19)70s, was really a political war against certain groups in this country. And that is pretty clear now. And even some people in Nixon's administration later kind of totally admitted this.
SM: 1:01:54
I think in 1966, it was still legal, LSD was still legal. And in the latter part, it was banned, I believe in California, and then in (19)68, was banned in the United States.
DL: 1:02:09
Yeah, it was, it was sort of, it was, kind of, it was getting banned sort of state by state. And then there was something called the, "Controlled Substances, U.S. Controlled Substances Act," which was passed in 1970, which really increased penalties for a lot of drugs. And then these are, and that is the, for the most part still the case. People forget that marijuana under federal law, is still illegal, right.
SM: 1:02:33
Right.
DL: 1:02:33
I mean, Biden just recently, you know, pardoned, you know, some, some a lot of people but, but the law says that under federal law, marijuana is still a felony, right? So, it is right up there with heroin, right? So, the, the drug laws are just insane, right? There is, there is no sense to them at all.
SM: 1:02:53
Some of the press was talking about the flashbacks, and people killing themselves, jumping off buildings, and I can remember back, I remember this because it was on black and white T.V., Art Link letter on one of his shows talking about his death of his daughter. I remember that.
DL: 1:03:08
Right.
SM: 1:03:08
I remember seeing it.
DL: 1:03:09
Yeah no, that got a lot of attention, that got a lot of attention. And, he really went after Leary and he blamed Leary, you know. Yeah, so that is what happened, like the one incident, you know, who knows? Who knows whether, you know, LSD really caused his daughter to commit suicide, or what else was going on there?
SM: 1:03:26
Right.
DL: 1:03:26
It is a very complicated thing. But, yeah, there were there will be, you know, the scare stories. And so, the media really turned on the whole psychedelic scene, I do not know, like, you know, late (19)60s and into the, into the (19)70s. And, and it was not, and then when the tragedy that it was not just, you know, increasing penalties for possession or sale, it was really caused universities to and medical centers to stop doing research about the potential beneficial, beneficial effects of psychedelics-
SM: 1:03:58
That is right.
DL: 1:03:58
-which has finally come back now in very big way. You know, it is getting a lot of attention right now. But that was all kind of shut down from basically (19)75 to like, 2005. So, like, you know, 30 years, research into, you know, exactly how these strokes can help us understand the brain and administer to the beneficial uses for alcoholism, depression, trauma, that is all coming back now, in a really big way. The government is even starting to fund it again, just recently, one or two years. But yeah, there was a real dark age of research into psychedelics. And it was not just Timothy Leary, that caused that, I mean he was a factor in it, but there were lots of reasons for that.
SM: 1:04:00
Yes, yes. What was called the psychedelic era was turning into the amphetamine era, and I know that, the term, “tune in, turnout, and drop out," that was certainly the code for Leary but it was not the code for the other three. And that is something and because they were in the turn, they could tune in, turn on, but they were not going to do drop out, and I am talking about Elbert Smith. And Weil, they went on to do unbelievable things, and, and just your thoughts on now, the downward fall of Leary toward the end of his life, Leary and Alpert going to India and coming back and being the change person because of the guru experience? And certainly, all the things that Weil has done in his life with his enterprises, his books, can you talk about, could you talk about those three? That, what, refused to drop out? That is why-
DL: 1:05:42
You know what, let me just stop you for a second. I think my, do you hear me?
SM: 1:05:46
Yes.
DL: 1:05:48
Okay. I think my-my earbuds are about to die. So, I am going to change my give me a second here, okay.
SM: 1:05:54
Yep.
DL: 1:05:54
Let us see. [inaudible] Okay, how is that?
SM: 1:06:06
Okay, okay.
DL: 1:06:08
Okay, man. I am sorry. So, well, yeah-
SM: 1:06:12
[crosstalk] If you could just talk about the, you know, after all this stuff with Leary, but certainly, what Ram Dass, Andrew Weil and Houston Smith, what they did with their lives, after all this?
DL: 1:06:30
Yeah, you know, yeah. Well, you know, I think Andy Weil, like I said, he went on to, really become a proponent of what was called integrative medicine and holistic healing. And, you know, basically looking at the connection between mind, body, and spirit in terms of health, and wellness. And, you know, that is, it was not just Andy Weil but he was a big part of that. And, you know, just like today, you know, it is pretty well accepted that you know, like, say meditation can be used for like stress reduction, and, you know, the health benefits of meditation and various, you know, mind, body, spirit disciplines. A lot of that came out of the (19)60s, and a lot of that came out of the psychedelic, ritually, people got first kind of, taste of that with the psychedelic experience, then they went on to, to find kinder, gentler ways of doing that with meditation and other spiritual practices. And so, just basically, you know, kind of revolutionizing the way we look at health and wellness, which you see now, like in a mainstream, like medical, like Kaiser Permanente, the big health care provider here with all kinds of focus on, you know, mindfulness, meditation, stress reduction, a lot of that, came, come, came out of the (19)60s in the psychedelic era, and Andy Weil, you know, it was a, it was a big part of that, and continues to have a big center in Arizona, and training doctors in bringing together both, you know, not throwing out traditional mainstream medicine, but combining it with other forms of, other ideas of ,what constitutes health and wellness. So, I think he was influential in that way. And Houston Smith, you know, I think really encouraged a lot of Americans to have a more open-minded attitude towards religion, and people be openness to the wisdom of other religious traditions. With tolerance and understanding in that way, I think Houston was very, very influential there. And, you know, people have psychedelic experiences, they often have deep, profound mystical experiences, which go beyond you know, doctrine, dogma, and denominationalism. We used to look at religion say back in the (19)50s, and (19)60s, and a lot of people of course, still do, but you know, I think that is one of the big shifts in the, the religious landscape is that you know, there's fastest growing religion now are, you know, people who call themselves spiritual, but not religious. They may not be affiliated with, you know, mainstream religion, but they still are interested in personal spiritual experience. And that is, that is what, I think that, that shift towards the experiential way of understanding religion was a lot of that was fueled by, by psychedelics and later by meditation, and other spiritual disciplines who are interested in Buddhism, and Hinduism, and all that even Native American spirituality here. A lot of people got interested in that through the, initially through psychedelics, and that is a huge shift. You know, it is some people even think it is like a new kind of great awakening, like kind of moving away from, word-based religions to experiential based religion, which was far beyond psychedelics, but something psychedelics fuel a lot of that. So, I think we can I think Houston has something to do with that along with long with Alpert.
SM: 1:06:32
Well, if I can read something from your book, is that okay?
DL: 1:07:04
Sure.
SM: 1:07:05
Yeah, this-
DL: 1:07:35
You will probably say it much better than I will say it. [laughs]
SM: 1:10:09
-this is on page 183. And I think it is really, you talk about how the counterculture became the culture. And it is, it is very well said, I will be really fast here. "Why did Weil's career suddenly take off? Weil had been saying the same thing since the (19)70s. Weil did not change, America changed. Sometime in the 1990s, American culture caught up with the (19)60s counterculture. The counterculture became the culture. Yoga became big business. Meditation is prescribed by the family doctor. Supermarkets stocked organic produce and home, homeopathic cures. The Rolling Stones provide the soundtrack for computer advertisements. Looking back at it all, Weil sees a direct connection between this experience on psychedelic drugs and his later career, in holistic health. Those experiences show me what is inside your head is connected to what is outside your head, and that you change, things, outside change by working on things inside, he said, and there is a clear application to help their state of mind, belief, and expectations absolutely influence health, and the course of illness. And those days, that kind of thinking was pretty much out of the mainstream. Now it has really changed." I think that is beautifully written.
DL: 1:11:31
Yeah, well thank you, yeah.
SM: 1:11:32
And it describes it perfectly about, you know, how, like, how the counterculture became the culture.
DL: 1:11:38
Yeah-yeah. Well, you know, so much of this, yes, Steven was fueled by demographics. You know, I mean, the, what happened, you know, the whole baby boom generation is this, huge group of people who kind of, you know, we have gone through, gone through life and influencing the culture, because there is so many of us, right. And, and so, you know, eventually, you know, people who were a part of the counterculture, were running, you know, were running companies, and were running, you know, becoming politicians. And, and were running corporations, you know, I mean, these people, you know, eventually, assumed kind of positions of power and influence, in the media and elsewhere. So that, I think that is, that is part of it. I think that what Americans do not remember, though, is that, you know, the counterculture was definitely a minority of people, baby boomers. Everyone has an interest, into all this, but it did sort of, the ideas kind of spread in, into mainstream culture over the next few decades for sure.
SM: 1:12:41
Yep. Yep.
DL: 1:12:44
Sure.
SM: 1:12:46
Now, you were talking about the latter parts of their lives for-
DL: 1:12:50
Yeah, you know, what I was, I just was looking at, can I read a few paragraphs from the book?
SM: 1:12:54
Oh, yes-yes.
DL: 1:12:55
Cause, I, I think so there's, this is a quote, this is about Leary. And I told you that Leary kind of, you know, seemed a little lost in some ways in the last few decades of his life. He died in the (19)90s. He was the first of the four in the book to die. There's a guy Robert Forte, who spent a lot of time with Leary towards the end of his life, younger, younger guy. Anyway, so this is, his, this is his take, you know, we asked him, this is Robert Fore, was Tim, is it a quote from Forte, "Was Tim a wise man or was he a psychopath? Psychopathic, egotistical maniac or both? I would hang out with him until three in the morning. Sometimes he would appear like a non-ordinary being. There was this, a tangible aura, he would glow. Sometimes he was just so clear and present and positive. But other times he would just morph into this twisted, angry, fucked up old man," end of the quote. Then I say, "Leary was different things to different people. He was reviled. He was revered. He was a prophet. He was a phony. He was a brilliant, innovative thinker. He was a fool. He captured the irreverent, rebellious spirit of the (19)60s. He was a fame seeking manipulative con artist. Who was he? Perhaps the Trickster said it best when he once quipped, quote, "you get the Timothy Leary you deserve." [laughs]
SM: 1:14:17
Wow. [laughs]
DL: 1:14:17
That is the end of the quote, so. That, that sort of sums up Leary especially towards the end of life, I think.
SM: 1:14:23
Right. [chuckles] And how about Alpert?
DL: 1:14:29
You know, how Alpert you know, he-he, he became, you know, he wrote a series of books and continued to lecture. And, you know, he became a devotee of, of an Indian guru Neem Karoli Baba. But, he never really became a guru himself, you know, and that is, I think, what made him relatable to people. He was just another, another seeker. And then you know, in the (19)80s, he got-got very involved with, he started helping to start something called the Seva Foundation, they did a lot of-
SM: 1:15:04
Very good, very great.
DL: 1:15:05
Charitable work with helping with blindness in Nepal. And then during, he got very interested in the whole, sort of the death and dying movement, you know, Elisabeth Kubler Ross, and the whole move towards re-examining how we deal with death. And the whole rise of the hospice movement, you know, which people forget is a relatively recent thing, you know, and did a lot of work with, during the AIDS crisis, you know, of helping gay people, and other people who are dying, make that transition, you know, writing about it, but also just personally, one on one dealing with a lot of people doing a lot of quiet, you know, work helping people. And then he had a big stroke, Ram Dass had a stroke in the (19)90s, which really inhibited his ability to speak, you know, at the time, he was going to start a kind of a radio show about consciousness. And of course, radio was off the table when you have to spend like 30 seconds between words to find the words, you know, and he struggled. So, he struggled with his speech, and it got a little better over the years. But, you know, he, that the stroke really slowed him down. He moved to Maui and lived the last parts, of part of his life on, on Maui, but continued to teach, and people would come see him and there is a whole online, there is a whole group of his, his kind of friends and followers started a website, which, you know he, he passed away a few years ago, but he's still out there on the internet, you know, there's so much material from his past that can be recycled and enjoyed by people. So, he continues to have an influence even posthumously. And I think, in a very positive, pretty positive way. And how about Smith? [inaudible] I mean, Houston, Houston, also just died a few years back, a few years before, Alpert. He continued to write, continued to teach well into his 90s. I actually did a little work, for a while I was helping on an autobiography that he was trying to put out, which eventually did. He got very involved with the Native American church, and helping them secure the religious freedom to use peyote and their, you know, religious rights. He, you know, he was, he was always kind of skeptical, but also supportive of the psychedelic movement. You know, he called it on its excesses. But was basically supportive. And I think, glad to see that there was a lot of new research and, you know, last decade or so into the beneficial uses of psychedelics and understanding the spiritual and mystical dimensions of it, so he, you know, he tried to stay as involved as he could later in life. You know, he almost made it to 100. You know he, had some, some cognitive problems and memory problems, you know, towards the end, but he continued to hang in there till the end.
SM: 1:18:15
Well, I wanted, you, in the conclusion, I have just got some, some things that you wrote, and then we will finish. I think this is very important. You say there's a Rosetta Stone that brings the Harvard psychedelic club together, Leary, Albert, Smith, and Weil did nothing less than inspire a generation of Americans to redefine the nature of reality. And another one here is that people who take LSD and those who do not, people understand, should understand that we should listen to both. Because reality is different things to different people. And so, reality under drugs, do not knock it until you have tried it, and that kind of thing. And that is something that I think, goes into the fact we ought to be listening to each other more, instead of judging each other more. And one very important-
DL: 1:19:09
There was, there was kind of a divisiveness in the (19)60s, if you turned on or not. Like are you, remember the Jimmy Hendrix, Are You Experienced?
SM: 1:19:17
Right.
DL: 1:19:18
They were talking about that, yeah.
SM: 1:19:19
Now, one very important part you talk about is the boomers were raised by Dr. Spock. And Dr. Spock's main message was that children need to think that anything is possible. Well that gets right into the counterculture too. Do you have any thoughts on that and Dr. Spock?
DL: 1:19:39
Yeah, well, that is, you know, that is part of the whole, the whole it is much bigger than psychedelics and much bigger than really the (19)60s, this is really the whole human potential movement. You know and, and like I said before, this shift towards people focusing on personal, spiritual, mystical experience and, and kind of finding their own way, in some ways, almost kind of growing their own religion. You see that in the whole, spiritual but not religious cohort, which is, which is the fastest growing religion in America right now by far. So yeah, that is all, that is all out there. And what is interesting right now, you know, in 2020, in the, you know, the fall of 2022. You know, there is so much, there has been a huge new wave of interest in psychedelics, both spiritually and therapeutically. Now, there's clinical trials going on, it has been a lot written about it. I mean, I wrote a book, my last, my last book was called, "Changing our Minds, Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy," which was about both the clinical trials that are going on now to, to, to use psilocybin and MDMA to help people with, with, with various mood disorders and behaviors. And, and also the whole spirit, our whole spiritual Renaissance. There's a lot of psychedelic churches forming, underground psychedelic churches are coming above ground now. It is a really interesting time. And about a year after, about a year and a half after my book came out, Michael Pollan, the noted, you know, food writer, came out with a book, very similar title, "How to Change your Mind." Kind of a similar focus to my book, but his was a runaway New York Times bestseller, he had a much bigger publisher. Anyway, his, that, his book was very influential. And then there is a whole Netflix series that came out a few months ago based on his book. Nova just last week did a, did a show on can psychedelic cure. I am writing a series of articles now on, kind of the, psychedelic churches that are coming above ground. So, so this is, there's a whole new wave of this just in the last few years. And more, and more people you know, who have never really thought about this or experienced this are starting to read about it, and want to experiment with it, and laws are changing. There i's probably 20-25 cities around the country have decriminalized psychedelics in various great extent, the entire state of Oregon has basically decriminalized all drugs and is setting up a regulated legal, psilocybin facilitated psilocybin services kind of system. Colorado is going to vote on the same thing next month. So, California was talking about it. There's a lot of changes going on. And this is all kind of, in some ways, an echo of the (19)60s.
SM: 1:22:30
Very good. This is the last thing I am going to read. And I am on the last question. This is so beautifully written by you on page 215. And it is this, "None of the men of the Harvard Psychedelic Club officially fall into the demographic, known as the baby boomers: the generation born in the aftermath of World War Two was their primary audience. Many of these kids were "Spock babies," so called because they were raised by parents taking the advice of Dr. Spock, the influential American pediatrician. His main message was that children need to sink that anything, that anything is possible. Those of us boomers who grew up into the countercultures, and are revolutionaries tried to live out that prescription, and many of us turn for a time to psychedelic drugs to broaden their vision of what was possible. We did not always live out our visions, but at least we sought them out. Perhaps the historical importance of Leary, Alpert, Weil, and Smith is not so much any particular vision. But the very process of envisioning for a moment in time we have the experience of expanding our minds. And one of the side effects of that condition is envisioning an alternative way to live." That is beautifully written.
DL: 1:23:50
Thank you. I mean that is a good note to end on. [laughs]
SM: 1:23:53
I think it is a great note to end and what, what I would like to thank you again, the question I want to ask that I have been asking everyone at the very end of my interviews is what, the people that are going to be listening to this are going to be, could be 15 years, 50 years from now. They could be students, faculty, national scholars listening to this tape, what is your word of advice for them? Any things you might want to say, a lasting message that you would like to deliver to them?
DL: 1:24:32
Big of a question for me. [laughs] Just take a deep breath relax and it will be okay.
SM: 1:24:41
[laughs] All right, well.
DL: 1:24:45
Do not take yourselves, do not take yourself too seriously.
SM: 1:24:49
Well, I tell you, I want to thank you for doing this and I had to cut, you know, there is two parts now because I had to turn this off because the battery was low. So, we have got the batteries. But, thank you very much. And-
DL: 1:25:03
Sure, happy, to happy to help. It was good talking to you, Steven.
SM: 1:25:06
You have a great day and I am going to turn this off and, okay, one last thing is you will get a copy of this that will be through the mail, on email sometime in the next two weeks. And, then you will you can listen to it and if it is okay, I hope they, you know, they have to put it together now because I had to take a break. And then, you will just let them know so that we can put it on site with your picture that you sent me, and a brief biography in the back would be expanded down the road. So, thank you very much.
DL: 1:25:42
[inaudible]
SM: 1:26:01
Well, it was beautifully-
DL: 1:26:02
[inaudible]
SM: 1:26:08
Well, you are one of my top 100. But I, you know, I am a bibliophile. I read a lot of books. Your book is one of my top 100, ever. So, I just learned so much from it. I never was a very big fan of Leary. But, I have become a big fan of Ram Dass and, and one of the things that he has done over the years, and I have always knew about Mr. Houston Smith. I knew about him already. And Andrew Weil, we already know a lot about him, so. I do not dislike any of them, but Leary's a different man that is for sure. [laughs] He was a rebel. All right.
DL: 1:26:46
[inaudible]
SM: 1:26:47
You take care and be safe. Bye. I am recording, still? I am.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Don Lattin
-
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s and 2010s. 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 continues to interview legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2022-10-26
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Edith Lederer
Biographical Text
Edith Lederer is a war journalist and author. She was the first female resident correspondent in Vietnam and the first woman to head a foreign bureau for the Associated Press. She covered wars, famines, nuclear issues, and political upheavals during her four-decade career with the AP. She co-authored War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Who Covered Vietnam. Lederer has a Bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a Master's degree in communications from Stanford University.
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1:08:23
Language
English
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
Original Format
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Digital file
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Vietnam war; Story; Women; Saigon; Associated Press; San Francisco; People; Bureau chief; Helicopters; Writing, Cornell University; Editor; Vietnam memorial; Journalist; Interview; News.
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
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Interview with Edith Lederer
-
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ab39013ab21ad7a7292913056a47c428.mp3
262a9be4733457fd91d9f14768408b1b
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 and 2010s. 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 continues to interview legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2022-10-28
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dr. Kate Clifford Larson
Biographical Text
Dr. Kate Clifford Larson is a historian, author, and consultant. She is the author of several books including Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter; and Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. Dr. Larson is a specialist in 19th and 20th century U.S. Women’s and African American History and a consultant and interpretive specialist for numerous museums, and community initiatives related to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in Maryland, Delaware, and New York. She earned a Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Simmons College in Economics and History, an MBA from Northeastern University, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of New Hampshire.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:40:12
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Digital file
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Mississippi; Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer; White; Women; Black; Sharecroppers; Community; State; People; Vote; Mississippians; Book; Students
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Kate Clifford Larson
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Lynn Bijou
Date of interview: 28 October 2022
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM: 00:00
Great. All right. I am speaking with Kate Clifford Larson, who has written a brand-new book called, "Walk with Me," it is a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, and thank you, Kate for agreeing to be interviewed.
KL: 00:16
Thank you for interviewing me.
SM: 00:18
Now, could you please tell me about your growing up years? Your, your when you were in elementary school, high school, college, and how you became interested in writing biographies.
KL: 00:33
So, I grew up in Lewiston, Maine, which is a mill town in South Central Maine. And, you know, I just, my dad was a lawyer, and he was a history buff. So, we were brought up very much interested in history. There were books all over the house and, and, you know, we go on vacations or trips, and our dad would take us to this historic site and tell us stories. So, I had that, that love of history growing up. So, when I went to college, at Simmons in Boston, I majored in Economics and History because I just, I loved history so much, but I also enjoyed economics. And I, you know, I followed the, you know, the tracks to, into the business world, and I worked for an investment bank, I got my MBA at Northeastern University. And, you know, I followed that path. But, I was always interested in history. I, you know, I used to love to go to old bookstores and get old books, and I did antiquing with my husband. And sometimes, I would find old diaries that people had written in, you know, people would sell them in their bookstores or antique stores. So, I amassed quite a collection of diaries, and most of them were women. And I just became fascinated by these women's lives that they were writing about in their diaries from the 19th century or early 20th century. So, I, it was just something that I was attracted to. And in the, I guess it was in the late (19)80s, or early (19)90s. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, had come out with a couple of books. One was, " The Midwives Tail," which was an amazing book about a midwife in Maine, which I really loved reading, because I came from Maine and I-I just, I knew those landscapes, and it was fascinating to me. And she also wrote, "Good Wives." And so, I read both of those books. And it just hit me that I loved history so much, and I love stories about women in the past, so I decided to leave the investment banking industry and, and go back to Simmons and get a graduate degree in women's history. So, I, it was like a, it was such a relief to admit that I really loved history. And I was privileged enough. And my, my husband and my, my family were very supportive of me, you know, moving on, and striking out in a new career path. And when I was at Simmons, in, I took an African American History course with a professor that I had back in the (19)70s. I adored him, his name was Mark Solomon. And he was teaching an African American History course. And I had never taken that, African American history as an undergrad. And in two weeks of taking that class, I knew that I wanted to study not only women's history, but African American history. And that set me on the path of learning about Harriet Tubman, who had not had a biography written about her since 1943. This was in the early (19)90s. So that was shocking to my professors, to me, to everybody. And I-I thought, "Well, gee, I will write my master's thesis on her," and my faculty members, my advisors were like, "Whoa, wait a minute, this is a huge project. Why do not you do your master's on something else, and then go on, and get a doctorate, and do your dissertation on Tubman and that way, you will have more training and skills to be able to take on such an iconic figure." And so, I did that, and I went to the University of New Hampshire to get my Ph.D. and that is where I worked on my dissertation of Tubman. And that hooked me on biography. I just love being able to tell history through the lens of one person's life and delving into that person, that woman's life, that person's life in a very deep way. I just love that emotional and intellectual connection that I have with my biographical subjects. And so that really, the Tubman work just changed my life and set me on this track of being a biographer.
SM: 03:58
Wow. When you wrote the Tubman book, and now you have written the book on Fannie Lou Hamer, what, do you, did you often compare them in terms of what they did, how, who they became, their experiences they had growing up? What were, what was common about both of them?
KL: 05:24
So, you know, I learned about Hamer in graduate school, I did not, was not aware of her as a young adult in well, I was a child during the (19)60s, a young adult in the late (19)70s and into the (19)80s. I did not know anything about her, but I learned about her in graduate school. And I admired her and I just thought there was something interesting, but I did not learn that much about her. I just learned the surface. She, you know, spoke at the Democratic Convention, she talked about being a Mississippi sharecropper, and, and the violence in the south. And that was about it. So, when I learned more about her, you know, over the years, I noticed they were biographies being written about her. So, I started reading more and more about her. And I began to get that feeling that yes, she was very similar to Harriet Tubman, just 100 years later. And, you know, it just took me maturing as a scholar, and, you know, becoming more and more aware of, of the diversity of the twentieth century because I focused very much on the nineteenth century. And I just I, it, Fannie Lou Hamer seemed like, someone that I really needed to pay attention to. And so, when I, after I wrote my book on Rosemary Kennedy, which was a long-long, long, process I came out of that, and I was thinking about the next project and Fannie Lou Hamer was really right there at the top of my head saying, you know, like, almost like knocking on my head saying, "Hello, hello." So, I decided to pay a little bit more attention to her. And it really was stunning to me. The similarities between Hamer and Tubman, how they came out of, basically, nowhere, even though that is somewhere and it was really important to them. They came out of a, it was a very difficult circumstances, deeply rural communities, they had limited access to education, actually, Tubman had- did not have access to formal education at all. Hamer had very little. So, I had to learn to, to look at their lives in a different way than I would at a traditional life of someone that had access to all sorts of privilege like a, Rosemary Kennedy. And how, how do women like Hamer and Tubman rise up out of those circumstances? And how, you know, are they natural born leaders, which I think they are, and I think there are many natural born leaders. But not every natural born leader, every leader actually ends up leading because they do not have the support and the circumstances around them that propel them forward. And in, in Tubman's life, she needed the support and care of her family in the community there that helped raise her and protect her in slavery, and then taught her the skills she needed to be this incredible leader. And the same thing with, with Hamer, she had limited education, she lived in a community that was incredibly oppressive against Black people, and the violence perpetrated against people in Mississippi, people of color in Mississippi and elsewhere, was just horrific. And so, she came out of that because of the fierce strength of her family, to protect her help her grow and learn. And the community that you know, by out of necessity and out of survival, the community had to be strong together to protect each other. And so, that was the similarity between Tubman and Hamer. This really strong community and family, and powerful faith that help them survive their darkest moments. They turn to their God to guide them, to comfort them, to give them a sense of moral certainty, and makes them feel that they were loved and protected at times when that really was not happening. So, the similarities are striking. And it made me think of, of paying attention to other leaders in this world that do not come from Ivy League educations, or privileged background, or all white, and because leaders can come from anywhere and they are here today in our communities, and how do we recognize them, because they need support, they cannot do it on their own.
SM: 10:02
One of the things that, after reading your book, in every area of her life from her childhood to early adulthood to adulthood. And finally, when she passes, she believed in one thing and, everything she did it was work, work, work, get the job done. And I was, even she had health issues and everything in her life. But, could you talk about that strong work ethic that she had when she was a child working in share, as a sharecropper. And then later in life when she was involved in certain causes and was snick, and everything, she was just a hard worker.
KL: 10:47
Yeah, so I think that was the essence of life in Mississippi at the time period. I mean, work meant food, work meant, you know, being able to have clothing, or a roof over your head. So, it was, I do not know, if it was a work ethic, it was out of necessity. If she had a choice to work at something else, she would have found something else that would have been more satisfying to her. Being a sharecropper is incredibly difficult, back-breaking work. And in that environment, it was abusive. You know, the plantation bosses tried to cheat the sharecroppers constantly. So, it was not, I would not say it was an ethic. I mean, it certainly is an ethic. Yes, it is an ethic. But it is, it is rooted in the need to eat, and have clothing, and a roof over your heads. And, but she, what her, her pride in the ability from a young age from the time she was a teenager to pick 200-300 pounds of cotton a day, is that speaks to that work ethic that you are talking about. But it was one of the few places that she could find tremendous pride, this young girl, being able to pick the same amount of cotton as an adult man and an adult woman. So, that work ethic comes out and is displayed in different ways. And of course, you know, she just was a high energy person, she had this, this incredible, like the-the young civil rights workers that worked with her talked about her kinetic energy and her inspirational movement, she just was on the move constantly. She was always moving forward and thinking what, what is the next thing to do, how to do it, she had passion to make change. And that is what drove her to work so hard. It was not, once she was able to feed herself, and have a roof over her head consistently. Her next drive, that ethic to, to work to make change is what drove her. So, she moved from food and housing insecurity, to, you know, civil rights insecurity and-
SM: 13:14
Right.
KL: 13:14
Making the world a better place. So that is, those were the drivers of her passionate work ethic, if that is what you want to call it.
SM: 13:21
Yeah, there were two things on, early in the book that, that really kind of upset me. And it was, learning about this, Senator Eastland. And who he was, he was such a racist, and he was a very powerful senator. And then, of course, John Stennis, who, you know, we know later in years, he was pretty much similar. Their attitudes toward people of color was so, not shocking, because if you study it, it is part of what you expect during that period. But still, to hear it. And to know that Lyndon Johnson had to deal with him on a daily basis, and some of the other senators in the South who believed in white supremacy and keeping the people of color down. Just your thoughts on Senator Eastland and the senators of her state.
KL: 14:08
Oh gosh, they were horrific human beings, and they were in the Senate for a really long time, which was not so long ago. And, you know, we are hearing the echoes of that racism today. People are more clever about how they use that language when they are in public, and they give speeches, but it is the same violent, racist rhetoric, that is just, you know, twenty-first century style. And he was, he was a, he was such a bigot. And so was Stennis, and it is interesting, you bring up Lyndon Johnson, so when I did my work for this book, I spent a lot of time listening to those Oval Office tapes. You know, he set up that system to tape everything in the office. He could not stand those senators, he could not, he just thought, he knew they were wrong. He talks about it on, in some of these tapes, how they are wrong. And you know, Black people deserve to vote, and they should have their, you know, representation and etc. And he was trapped in a world, at that time, that was struggling to move into the twentieth century and overcome these racist strangleholds on the-the beauty of freedom and equality in this country. And he needed those southern votes in order to become the president elected in, for, after Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson becomes president. And then the election is right after that in-in 1964. And Johnson wanted to be the nominee, so that he could move forward Kennedy's agenda and his own agenda for the country, a more progressive agenda, including civil rights, but he could not really come right out and say that to the world, especially to southerners, because Southern Democrats because they would not have voted for him. As it turns out, many of them did not, but he still won. But he-he faced these intractable racists who saw, they, their world was just literally black and white, and any person of color was ignorant and beneath them and had no, no place in the political sphere, in a govern, place of government, to, you know, make laws and make, they you know, that he just believed that white people knew what was best for Black people. And it was just disgusting. It really was disgusting. And this is what Hamer and her community and Mississippians lived with. And there were white Mississippians who did not go with this thing. They were trying, they were very supportive of the civil rights movement. But a great majority of them were definitely in favor of Stennis and Eastland. They were horrible people.
SM: 17:00
You had another example of this at the time that Fannie Lou Hamer was going to run for Congress. And she and another citizen of the state went to the Capitol, and they were going to register to run for Congress.
KL: 17:17
Right.
SM: 17:17
And the-the young white woman, could you describe that, the young white woman who met them and was going to give them a form that goes back to the corner of the room and starts talking about them? She used the n word.
KL: 17:30
Right. So, and, I think this is what Hamer heard everywhere she went, the N word, it was not, you know, an African American, or Black person, they, the white people use the n word constantly, just it was everywhere. But, I think it is the-the tone that Hamer heard, when that happened, this, she was trying to file her papers to run for Congress. And, she was there with an associate. And she-she, they were, they-they were, they were missing some papers that need to come from elsewhere in the state. So, the civil rights activists are gathering those papers and trying to race them down there in time. And the white woman there, the counter is, you know, whispering to her coworkers. But of course, not really whispering, they can hear everything that the white woman is saying, and she uses the n word. And there is this tone to it. Like, it is, it is just this, there is evil intent in it. It is just, you know, I cannot say it. I do not, I do not want to repeat the words-
SM: 18:37
Yes.
KL: 18:37
But you know, the tone, the people know [crosstalk] that tone. So, that is what she lived with. That is what she faced, but it made her more determined, you know, she was getting that reaction in the clerk's office. And she was getting it out on the streets, but she knew that she was hitting a nerve. And it was important that she show everybody that you need to stand up and, and do something, you cannot just keep complaining. And it is funny, because at one point in her life, she was going along and doing what she could to make a difference, you know, for her family, and maybe right there in the community. But at one point, she realized, and we can talk about that point in her life that, that, change had to come, and that she needed to be the change she was looking for. And that was an important moment. I think many people come to that moment. And they-they, there is a crossroads, are they going to be the change? Or are they going to continue to go along the path that you know where nothing is going to, you know, change?
SM: 19:03
Like Rosa Parks.
KL: 19:06
Yeah, exactly. Making that decision, that moment in time.
SM: 19:34
For those of you that are, would be listening to this interview, could you really go into detail about the definition of white supremacy in the south, particularly in Mississippi? Because it is, it is so, it is, even though you know what is happening, the more you read about it, and the more examples you stated in the book, the more upset you become, that this can happen, that human rights as like Fannie talked about, eventually human rights.
KL: 20:16
Right-right.
SM: 20:16
And, you know, treating people as human beings. Could you talk about how serious it was, even in the justice system, even when people could not, you know, could not vote.
KL: 20:29
Right.
SM: 20:30
Just talk about that white supremacy.
KL: 20:32
So, the white supremacy, it was, and it was a lot of white male supremacy that was the overarching, I do not want to call foundation, but the-the crown of this white supremacy pillar, of white supremacy. And so, it, it permeated everything in Mississippi. Literally, everything was affected by white supremacy. So not only did Black people not have the right to vote, they did not have many rights at all, they could not enjoy the public library because the libraries were segregated, and there was no money to build Black community libraries, restaurants were segregated, bus stations were segregated, everything was segregated. Public buildings were segregated, there was a line in a clerk's office for, you know, Black people and a line for white people. And of course, the water fountains, and the bathrooms, and all of that. So that is just a visual that you could see every single day. It was in hiring, you know, Black people were hired for the menial jobs, paid as little as possible, cheated. You know, white supremacists could get away with, gee, not filing those taxes to pay for Social Security for Black people that they hired to work for them. So, Black people would go and retire and they would find out there was nothing in Social Security for them, because the people they work for, for decades, never put into the Social Security system for them. And, and then those employers never got in trouble. There was never, there were never repercussions. Loans to purchase, homes were denied, schools were segregated and the Black schools in Mississippi, only 12 cents out of every dollar, went to, an education dollar, went to a Black school, the rest all went to white schools. Black teachers were paid less. The transportation to schools was spotty in like, say the Mississippi Delta, you know, where children were scattered, you know, miles and miles apart. And to get to school, it was very difficult. They needed bus service, but that might not be provided by the town. Medical services were segregated, hospitals often would not treat Black patients in the same room, you know, emergency rooms or clinics that they served white people, some doctors would not even treat Black patients. Black women were denied access to hospitals to deliver babies, they relied very much so on midwives. Whereas white women, 80 percent of, of childbirth, white children were born, born in hospitals, delivered by doctors, whereas only 20 percent of Black women had that benefit. So, the child survival rate, the mortality rate for Black children, by the time Hamer was born in 1917, and into the 1920s and (19)30s, 1 out of 5, 1, a quarter of all Black children died before the time they were five years old. That is horrific-
SM: 23:53
Wow.
KL: 23:53
Because there was no access to health care. Sanitation was poor. You know, of course, they would set up you know, good sanitation systems in white neighborhoods, but they would not do that in Black neighborhoods. And particularly out in the fields, where, like in the Mississippi Delta, the sharecropper cabins were on the low point of the property, the worst soil and that is where they would have the, sharecroppers and their outhouses, and in rains, then everything would flood and disease would spread rapidly. It was, it was a horrific, horrific place. And then just the sheer intimidation, of Black people who try to aspire, to do something more to get ahead in the world. You know, Hamer tells the story of when she was young, her family had started to make a little bit of money being sharecroppers, it was a, during the 1920s, the prices of cotton were high. Their father, her father was able to buy a used truck and some farm animals, like a cow and a steer, etc. And, a white neighbor was jealous and he poisoned the food trough for the animals and within a matter of hours, they all died. And there were no repercussions to that. Mississippi has the highest lynching rate of any state in the country, one of their counties, Hinds County has the highest lynching numbers of any county in the country. It was a very violent, violent place. And, you know, the-the efforts that white people went to, to prevent Black aspiration, Black rights. Just it knew, it knew no bounds, and there were no repercussions to whatever white people wanted to do.
SM: 25:43
And we're talking about the justice system as well, because two of the major events you talk about in the book is, the Emmett Till murder.
KL: 25:53
Right-right.
SM: 25:54
And certainly, the murder of Medgar Evers and you know, the trial and, how they are all let off in short periods of time, the people who committed these terrible crimes.
KL: 26:03
Exactly. It is a, it is a blood, a stain on Mississippi. It really is a stain on Mississippi. And, and as we are talking about Emmett Till, there is a film coming out today, I believe it is the day that it is premiering, about the murder of 14 year old Emmett Till, a Chicago boy who was sent by his mother down to Mississippi to spend time with relatives and he was murdered by, these white supremacists who ended up being in law enforcement, believe it or not, just it is stunning. But, they murdered him about six miles from where Fannie Lou Hamer was living at the time in, in, in 1955. And, and the same thing with Medgar Evers. He was assassinated in his driveway, in June of 1963, the same day that Hamer and her colleagues from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, that had been arrested and put in the Winona County Jail. They were released after being terrorized and beaten for four days. They were released on, the same day that Medgar Evers was assassinated.
SM: 27:09
Wow.
KL: 27:10
And the, you know the-the white supremacist who killed Medgar Evers, all these people they got off, they did. It was like a joke. And, and the authorities in Mississippi often knew that violence was going to take place and they did not do anything about it. In fact, they had, they had like a secret service group, it was like a KGB, it was the sovereignty commission that had its own investigators and spies, that would spy on the Black community and keep records on people in, in the Black community and their white sympathizers, much like the FBI did. And, and they knew about plots to, you know, kill people, harass people, fire people, chase them out of town, that kind of thing. And they did nothing. It was just, it was state-sponsored violence, terrorism, murder, you name it, the state was complicit. And when people were caught, white people were caught, you know, doing, committing violence, murder, etc. They-they universally, were not convicted. It is just you know, I do not know, I, it is just stunning to me. And it was such a short time ago. That is what is shocking. It is one thing to write about Harriet Tubman and slavery. That was 150-170 years ago. People just really cannot get their head around it. But this happened 50-60 years ago, and it still happens across this country, too.
SM: 28:36
I think I, sent, I go back to Senator Eastland. I believe after World War Two, when the African American troops came home, I think it is in your book, you state that, they were coming back and hoping you have equal rights-
KL: 28:52
Right.
SM: 28:52
-in, back at home after the war, after serving their nation. And his commentary was, that the African American troops had been raping women in France-
KL: 29:01
Right, and-
SM: 29:02
-trying degrade them as, in any way he could.
KL: 29:05
Exactly. And of course, that is the old stereotype, the trope, that enraged white southerners that, that made them want to fight the Civil War to keep slavery. And also, after the Civil War to prevent Black people from getting rights is by, portraying Black men as rapacious beasts who all, the only thing they wanted to do was rape white women, and Eastland fed right into that, he told lies, he should have been sued. He should have been barred from the Senate for that kind of comment. And, and so you know, and it did not happen, but when Black soldiers came home to Mississippi, they were attacked. There was one man that was murdered pretty quickly. And you know, because they came back they have been fighting for freedom around the world for liberating, oppressed peoples, they come home and they have to go to, you know, the segregated, whatever, even if it was available, they had to go to the segregated places, they could not sit at the front of the bus, they had to sit at the back. You know, they were spat on-on the streets. I mean, who does that? It is just, it is just incredibly awful. And we, as a nation have forgotten it. And it was not so long ago, it has been percolating, it is still there. It is not wide out in the open, like Eastland used to talk and behave. But the tones are still there. And some of the words are still-still there. And it is frightening, very frightening.
SM: 30:33
Now, this is important because you talk about this, too, that even though Fannie Lou Hamer only went, I think sixth grade education, she was very well informed. And, a question I want to ask you, and please explain, is how informed was she about what was happening around the state of Mississippi with all these things, not just locally, but through the state and through the nation on these terrible things that were happening to people of color?
KL: 31:01
Right, so of course, through the grapevine she would hear about what was happening of, to people of color in her community, it would just, you know, the church, out in the field, people would say, "Oh, did you hear what happened to so and so." She, when she became, nationally known, and she would give speeches, she would say she knew nothing about the Civil Rights Movement, until 1962, when Snick came to her church. That isn't true, she was actually extremely well informed. And she was part of a, national, sort of underground civil rights movement that was going on in Mississippi during the 1950s. And, it was very dangerous to be involved in civil rights activities because you could be murdered for it. You could be harassed, you could be evicted, you could lose your job. So, but she was, she-she was, she tried to get memberships in the NAACP, she would go out and canvass and, and there was a big event that happened every year in Mississippi it was called, mine, "Mound Bayou Days," it was like three or four days in May. TM Howard, he was an insurance salesman, and also a doctor who ran this big event in Mound Bayou, and they would invite outside speakers, like Thurgood Marshall came to speak there in, in the 1950s, and Mahalia Jackson would sing there. And, they would have this huge barbecue and people, African Americans would come from all over the state, and Tennessee, and other states, to you know, listen to speeches, and to gather, and sing, and things like that. So, she was part of that, actually, one of her relatives told me about how she would work with, this relative's father, and they would cook up 500 chickens for the barbecue and, and so she was there. And they would have secret meetings, while the mine, Mound Bayou days were going on and everyone was celebrating and listening to speeches. She was attending private meetings about civil rights and how to move them forward in Mississippi. So, she was very well aware. And she did talk about how she was made aware, it is almost like she would tell two different stories out on the campaign trail trying to get people interested in, in civil rights, she would say that she used to clean the house of the plantation owner where she was a sharecropper. And she would see magazines and newspapers discarded in the trash, well she would collect them all, and bring them back home and read them all. So, she did keep up on current events and, and also in the church, you know, someone would have a copy of "The Crisis," or the "Chicago Defender, “newspaper. And so, she would get to read it there, or the barbershop might have some, some things that people could, could read. So, she was informed. But you know, living there on the ground in Ruleville is different than reading what is happening on the, in the, on the national level, and the national level does not know what is happening to her in Mississippi.
SM: 34:14
Right.
KL: 34:14
So, there was that, that is why she, in part of her compulsion to make a change, like people needed to hear about what was going on in Mississippi. And that was her voice, once she decided to be the change and she got up on stage. She let people know what was happening in Mississippi and they listened.
SM: 34:35
One of the things that was taking place if things were not bad enough in Mississippi, and in the south is when the Citizens Councils were formed.
KL: 34:44
Yeah, right.
SM: 34:44
Could you talk just briefly about that, and what they were and, and why they were formed? They had the KKK already, I just-
KL: 34:52
I know [chuckles].
SM: 34:52
Yeah.
KL: 34:53
It is, it is insanity when you think about it. So, after the-the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education and the order to desegregate schools came down. The, white southerners flipped out, they freaked out and started coming up with ways to prevent this from happening. And so immediately, there was a man in, in Mississippi and his name is escaping me at this moment, I apologize. He started the Citizens Councils, because they wanted to make sure. And he used language like, "You know, our white daughters were not prey to Black men in the classroom." You know, we did not want, and they used horrific lane, language, about you know, middle school and high school Black boys as "monkeys and apes," and they were going to "attack their white daughters if they were allowed to be in the same classroom." So, they formed the Citizens Councils, and white citizens, you know, vowed to, it was like a, it was like white collar clan, actually, you know, it was, because some people did not want it, some more elite people in Mississippi, white people in the south did not want to join the clan, they see, that looks more like low class to them. So, the Citizens Council gave the elites something they felt looked more respectable, but it was the same evil, it was the same horrific attitudes and racism. It was just, you know, it was painted a prettier color. And, and more powerful people were part of it. But they did work with the Klan. And so, there was a very fine line between the two of them, if, or maybe a dotted line between the two organizations. And, you know, Fannie Lou Hamer said something really interesting about the Klan, and I would love to quote that for you right now. Hold on one second, let me just find it.
SM: 36:48
Okay.
KL: 36:49
She, you know, she was such an astute observer of human beings and their-their belief systems. And she just, I do not, I just find her to be, because she, it is a lived experience for her, she was able to articulate it in a way that a Martin Luther King could not. He inspired in one way, and she inspired in another because she could talk about something so personal and what was happening on the ground in Mississippi. So, this is what she said about the Klan and, and white supremacy. And because of her deep faith, she always had this as a theme that she did not hate anybody, despite what happened to her in Mississippi and how she was treated by white supremacists. But she, so she said, "I really do not hate any man. There is got to be something wrong psychologically with the person to have me beaten because of the color of my skin. Hate is like to cancer," she said, "It eats away at a human being until they become nothing but a shell. That same hate will make you stay up at night. That is the reason you have the Ku Klux Klan, and all these other hate groups, that a man should stay up all night trying to figure out how he can fix a sheet to make a point in it, to go out and terrorize another human being is really stupid. The point is not in the sheet. It is in his head." It is such a powerful, powerful statement, and it is true. So, this is, this is what she lived with. And so, while the Citizens Council was, you know, legitimized by the state in a sense because it, you know, it had officers and it was, you know, they had an office and they hired people to coordinate the different councils, but it started in Mississippi, it spread throughout the South. And so, while they had contact with Klan members, and sometimes Klan members were members of the council and vice versa, they also became tightly interwoven with the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which was like that KGB organization I-I mentioned before. So, the Citizens Council was privy to the-the spying that these, the sovereignty commission investigators did on Black people and then civil rights workers. And so then, they would let you know, white employers know, "Hey, your guy was at this civil rights meeting," and so that white employer would fire that employee the next day. Wow. So, it was just a vicious, vicious circle of hate and, and terror, and manipulation that was going on there in Mississippi and other southern states.
SM: 39:39
One of the things is that Fannie Lou was a really good organizer. And with that work-work, work, mentality. Could you talk about before she made links with Snick and worked with them? Could you talk about any other organizing she did when she was younger? Whether it be as a sharecropper or, during, people that were having problems with poverty, with food, with clothing, and she always seemed to be doing something, even though she did not have hardly anything, she was always thinking about helping others.
KL: 40:13
Right-right. So, there was an interesting part of her life. I mean, there were so many things she did, whether it was through her church, you know, the church women doing fundraising to raise money to buy food for starving families in the community. You know, those are the basic things that she would do, but in the field. So, this was a common thing where the bosses, the field bosses, or the plantation boss would try to cheat the sharecroppers and weigh their cotton and underweight it. And they had these contractions, they would bring up these scales, they would bring out in the fields, and they had weights that they would attach to a counterweight, and they were called peas. And so, Hamer noticed that some of these peas had been altered so that they miss, read the weight on the cotton that the sharecroppers would pick each day. And so, they were being cheated, so they would get paid less. So, Hamer noticed this, so she got a hold of her own pea. And when the plantation boss was not looking, she would switch out the altered one for the actual, real one. And so that she would be able to make sure that people were paid accurately. And her fellow sharecroppers thought she was crazy to do that, because if she gets caught they figured she would get not only fired, but she could have been killed. So, she was very brave that way. And, you know, she was, she would negotiate in the morning. So, they would travel around once they were, one plantation, if they picked all the cotton, one place, then they would hire themselves out to pick in other plantations. And so, sometimes they would arrive in the morning, and so they would bicker with the plantation boss, or the field boss about how much they were going to get paid per pound. And Hamer, what, it was said, would bicker the best deal for those pickers, and so, she was admired. She was already a leader, in a sense, in the community for-for justice. And so that, that carried her forward so that when Snick did arrive in Ruleville, Mississippi in 1962, they recognize pretty quickly that she was an emerging leader in that community.
SM: 42:31
Yes, she is unbelievable. I-I wrote something down that I just want to share. I put down here that her astounding ability to deal with life and death issues while never losing her focus to achieve very positive deeds for others. She was always seemed to be doing things for others, which is, she was a selfless person from the get go. And, and I want to talk about this too, because I want to get into the areas where, really divided into sections in the book, "The Mississippi Appendectomy," the Winona, whenever she was beaten, and certainly there was even the time when her house was shot at, she was not there, but she could have been killed. Just, her mental health. When you think about what African Americans were going through, not just, not just Fannie Lou, but everybody there that, you know, their mental health, how they could even survive that. Could you talk a little bit about her mental health throughout her life and how she was able to recuperate, and I know she had a lot of faith, her faith in God was strong. But still, she had a makeup, to refocus after-
KL: 43:46
Right.
SM: 43:47
-tragedy and continued serve others.
KL: 43:49
Right. So, she did, she continued to weather storms and to face down violence, experienced violence and, and grief, and all of that, and rise up afterwards. And, and a big part of it is, her faith that, you know, her, her psyche, her mental health took many punches. But she found her way out of darkness, through her faith. But also, I credit her mother and her father. She, and the tight family and community she lived in, you know, they-they, she had a very strong mother that was a model for her. And-and there were other women in the community that were models for her. And so, she-she had that sense of security in, in the community, that there were people there that loved her not only just her family, but other people in the community, and that they were survivors and she could survive too. And of course, she was raised to protect herself. You know to, to pay attention to the landscape of white people because you never knew when a white person was going to attack you or do something awful to you. So, she had that radar so, she was insulated in a sense, because she was so prepared. And that is awful that you have to grow up being acculturated, and prepared, for anything that might, violence or whatever comes your way, perpetrated by a white person that hates the color of your skin and what you represent.
SM: 45:20
Wow.
KL: 45:21
So that was, that is how she survived. Of course, not every person of color did survive, the things that she survived. And that is why, what I write in the book is, "The Mississippi Appendectomy," in 1961. She went to the hospital and Dr. Charles Durrell there, in Ruleville, was supposed to do surgery on her, to get, to take out some uterine tumors. Benign ones, but he gave her a hysterectomy, and never told her. And this was a, it was so common that white doctors did this to Black women that it was called, "A Mississippi Appendectomy." And you know, a woman would, could go into the hospital, this was reported at the time, went into the hospital for, a, an appendicitis attack and came out without her uterus. This happened to Black women and poor white women at the time. So, Hamer comes out of the surgery, thinking the tumors are gone, and maybe she possibly could get pregnant because she and her husband, Pap Hamer, had been trying for years to have children of their own, and she would have several miscarriages, stillbirth, and it was having difficulty getting pregnant. And so, they wanted to their family to grow beyond the two girls that they had adopted. So, she gets home to recuperate, and it is a long recuperation from a hysterectomy. And, the cook of the plantation, in the plantation bosses house comes to her and says she overheard the plantation boss's wife, Mrs. Marlow, speaking to her friend telling her that Dr. Daro had sterilized Fannie Lou Hamer. Fannie was crushed, she was angry, she was filled with hate and, and, and just went to a very dark place, her mother died the same year. So, she was filled with this pain, and grief, and loss of her mother, the loss of her ability to have babies. It was all taken from her. And she just, she really hit the depths of depression. And, she worked her way out of it. She had two little girls at home, she had the beef, therefore her husband, Pap, the community. And when, that, shortly thereafter, in 1962, that is when Snick arrived in August of 1962, in Ruleville, and she decided to go because it was that moment that I mentioned earlier, when she decided that she either, you know, had to just exit and not participate in anything anymore. Just be at home and do her sharecropping, and that was it for the rest of her life. Or, she had to look for a way to make change in her life. And when she went to the meeting of those young snick people, she realized that not only did she need to be the change that she needed to see, those young people were the change that she was looking for. And so, that was a moment in her life. And it, it sent her brain into this recovery mode, and it, she became energized and passionate because she had seen the darkness. And she did not want to live there. She wanted to move towards the light and, and find a path to freedom and equality. And that is what happened.
SM: 48:53
Another tragic moment was, that time when she was at the Staley cafe, bus depot-
KL: 49:01
Right.
SM: 49:01
-and Nona, could you talk about that? And I think, there is, the one, you mentioned in the, describing the situation that she did not want her husband to know about what happened.
KL: 49:13
Right.
SM: 49:13
She kept that kind of a secret because she feared that he would go out and shoot somebody-
KL: 49:18
Again, right, yes.
SM: 49:18
-and then he gets killed- -just your thoughts. Right.
KL: 49:20
So-so after Snick came and she tried to register to vote, and of course she could not because those literacy tests in, in Mississippi were unpassable and only 5 percent of eligible Black voters were registered to vote because they-they had so many barriers to voting. So, Hamer tried to register to vote, went home, the Marlowe's evicted her, and so, she had to find another home. And Snick immediately hired her because they recognized her leadership and oh, from the fall of 1962, into the spring of 1963, they sent her to various classes to learn different techniques on how to be a civil rights worker, to encourage people to register to vote, how to pass the test, all that kind of thing, and to practice nonviolent protest techniques. And so, in June of 1963, she and some Snick colleagues, young people that were half her age, were coming back from a training session in South Carolina. And they were on a continental Trailways bus. They, the buses and the terminals across the South were now integrated by law, they had to be integrated. So, these young people were testing the integration. They sat wherever they wanted to on the bus, despite the anger of the bus driver who wanted them to sit at the back of the bus. And then at each bus terminal, they tested the new laws that said each interstate bus terminal had to be integrated, no more separate lunch counters, no more separate bathrooms, or drinking fountains, and separate waiting rooms. So, they had no problems going out there and then coming back until they hit Winona, Mississippi, and they hit the bus terminal there. And the young people went in to sit at the lunch counter and then to use the bathrooms, which they were denied. And so, someone at the-the Cast Dailies Cafe, the bus terminal restaurant, called the police who arrived and arrested all of them, including Hamer, who was not even trying to test any of that, she was on the bus and she came off the bus to see what was happening and they arrested her. And the local police and the state police took them to the Winona County Jail. And for four days, the young people and Hamer were terrorized, and assaulted, and violently so, and Hamer was also sexually assaulted. And, they nearly killed her with the beatings that they gave her. She suffered permanent kidney damage as a result of the beating, her eye became permanently damaged too, because of the way they hit her head. And the, bruises on her were horrific. And she, she really almost died. And in the, in the jail cell that she shared with a young Snick worker, Sylvester Simpson, she was laying on her stomach on the cot because she was so badly beaten. And she asked Sylvester to sing the gospel song, the spiritual "Walk with Me, Jesus Walk with Me." And that is, by, why I called the cover of my, I put that as the title of my book is, "Walk with Me," because she needed her faith to help her survive and not lose consciousness. She was so afraid. But she came out of that, she, they were released from-from jail on the same day. As I mentioned before, Medgar Evers was assassinated in June of 1963. And I think the sexual assault and the beating was so brutal. She did not want Pap to see-
SM: 53:01
Right.
KL: 53:01
What happened to her, or to know the extent of what happened to her because, as you said, he would have gone out and shot somebody. He was, he was a man, that was his wife. And he was at great danger and she knew that. So, she did not go home for a couple of weeks, she traveled to Atlanta, to New York City and to Washington, D.C., where she gave testimony about what happened to her. And I pieced together the details of her beating through the FBI files, through her interviews with civil rights workers, NAACP folks, and then the trial of the men in the jail that beat her so badly. Of course, they were acquitted of any- -assault charges. But the testimony during that trial was horrific. And the details that emerged are just horrifying. So eventually, I am sure Pap learned, maybe he did not learn about the rape. I do not know. She confided that, into, with friends of hers, you know, civil rights workers. But I do not think, I do not know if she told Pap or not. I do not know about that.
SM: 53:50
Right. Yeah, her life was in danger many times throughout, throughout this period. And, I can remember two items you state in the book, one of them was, one, she was not at home one day and someone came by and shatter, shattered her house. And, and where she normally sits, I think was only like a foot above where she would normally would have been sitting if, if she-
KL: 54:39
Right.
SM: 54:39
-was at home. And then, there was another scene where she came home one day and the entire street was dark, all the lights are off. And, and she did not know, if like there was a power outage and no, it was not a power outage. They all turned the lights off because they were, they had been threatened.
KL: 54:56
Right. And there was one instance where white supremacists drove down the street, shooting at any and all houses, they would do this in the Black community, particularly during the (19)50s and (19)60s, when the civil rights movement started, you know, gaining traction, and every civil rights gain was met with tremendous violence by white southerners. You know, every time there was, like the March on Washington in August of 1963, a couple of months after Hamer was brutally assaulted in Mississippi, the response was the bombing of the-the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and four little girls were murdered. So, you know, every celebration, every movement forward was met by some massive resistance. Well in Ruleville, Mississippi, tiny little, Ruleville, the resistance was white yahoo racists, going around in their cars and blasting their shotguns into Black homes.
SM: 55:55
Right.
KL: 55:55
And there was never any police presence to stop it. Never. So, it this is what she lived with, you know, people were killed, hurt maimed. It was, it was horrific. It was really horrific.
SM: 56:07
I am going to get into this section, very important part of your book and important part of her life was her work was Snick, which was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the people she worked with. She worked with some unbelievable people, and, and they had faith in her as well. So, it was a two-way street. Could you talk a little bit about time that she linked up with Snick? Bob Moses, was the, I remember, I think you said, someplace in the book, somebody had made a comment that, it was right to have a man named Moses. [laughter]
KL: 56:42
Yeah, right-right, right.
SM: 56:43
And that, was that, was a great to put that in there.
KL: 56:45
[laughs]
SM: 56:45
Because it is so true, because he was an unbelievable person, he had been a teacher, up in New York. And, and you know, Ella Baker and, and certainly John Lewis, and Julian Bond, and of that unbelievable group of people from Snick. That begin, could you talk about the beginning where they met?
KL: 57:03
Yes-yes.
SM: 57:04
And then we will go into some of them, what they did.
KL: 57:06
So, I am glad you brought up Ella Baker, because Snick, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee with her, her vision, and she was an older Black woman that worked for Martin Luther King, brilliant woman. And during the, sit-ins in, you know, 19- in the 1959, 1960, where students would go into these segregated lunch counters, like Woolworths, and they sit down and try to integrate it and they would be attacked. And then, they started the Freedom Rides. You know, John Lewis is famous for the freedom line ride, rides, where they would take buses from northern states into the south and test the interstate laws that said these buses had to be integrated, and so are the stations, but the southern response was bombing these buses, attacking them. When they came to the terminals, people were killed, and Louis was badly beaten. So, she is watching these young people willing to put their lives on the line and do all this stuff. And so, she decided she should organize them. So, Bob Moses was noticing the same stuff as he was teaching math in, in New York City. And he goes down to Atlanta, he meets Ella Baker, and with John Lewis, and as you said, Julian Bond and all these amazing young people, she organizes them into the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or Snick. And they decide they are going to go to the worst of the worst, and that is Mississippi. And they are going to, she tells them, you know, you are all these young, bright, energetic people go into these communities, and do not tell them what to do, or tell them what you are going to do for them. You find out what they need, and how you can help them get what they need. And try to identify local leaders, because you have to nurture local people, you cannot insert yourself and tell everybody what to do. So, that was brilliant on her part. So, Bob Moses goes to Mississippi, and he starts, you know, building a community there with other organizations like the NAACP, and the Council of Federated Organizations and, you know, other civil rights organizations, they are in Mississippi, and then other civil rights workers follow him there. And so, that is how he ends up meeting Fannie Lou Hamer, when they decide to have a meeting in Ruleville, to talk to local residents, as they had been doing throughout Mississippi a great rest of their lives about registering to vote. And that is when she went there. And she saw these young people and she could not believe what they were saying. And you know, one of, they taught, they used biblical language, and they are in Hamer's church, William Chapel in Ruleville, and they are using biblical language to say, "You know, God meant for everybody to be free and, and equal." And, and then there were young people talking about the law, the Constitution, the law is "You have these rights, you need to fight for it. It is, these things that they are doing to you are illegal, it is wrong, we need to fight, because it is in the Constitution that we should be equal." So, she was like, "Wow." And I would love to tell you what she said about Snick. Once she became involved with them, she said, "Snick is the type of people that regardless to what they say, call them far left, because a lot of people call them, like hippies. And you know, they were way too far left," quote, and radical and she said, "Call them far left and radical and beatniks, and all kinds of things, but they are still willing to go into areas with the people that is never had a chance to be treated as a human being. And some have given their lives for the cause of human justice." She said that Snick volunteers showed, quote, "More Christianity than I have ever seen in a church." That is powerful.
SM: 1:00:54
Wow. Yep. The, one of the things. Another one of these examples when she worked with Snick, was what happened in Hattiesburg, where it was the whole issue of voting. Could you talk about the issue of voting? And here we are talking about it again, in 2022. I just cannot believe we are talking about it again. And, you know, what was the issue in Mississippi with respect to voting, and if you could give some of the statistics and numbers of those who, how many citizens are were of color in that state at that time? And how many were actually voting and what they were doing to try to prevent people from voting because that was one of the reasons why Freedom Summer evolved? Still there? [silence] All right, we are back.
KL: 1:01:57
Okay. So, I think we were talking about Hattiesburg and the rallies there. And so, I, you know, she, the- the rallies that started so she, you know, becomes part of Snick and, and night, the winter of 1963. They start with these rallies. And they have one in Hattiesburg, where they try to get people to register to vote. And so, the resistance in Mississippi is that so there, there were, half the population was Black and Mississippi at the time, but only between 5 and 6 percent had been able to register to vote because Mississippi had all these barriers, which included the literacy test. Poll taxes, you had to pay poll taxes, if you pass the test, then you have to pay poll tax for two years before you are eligible to vote. That is only really for Black people, because they did not, they did not require white people to do that. There were illiterate white people that were registered to vote. And but, when it came to Black people, they used every excuse, and they would have to answer questions about the Mississippi State Constitution, interpret these arcane laws, and rules, and things. It was just, it was ridiculous. And then if by chance you were able to pass it, then if you went to try to vote, sometimes the-the, the towns would give misinformation to the Black communities about where you could go vote. So, people would go there and there would be no polling station, or they would go to a polling station and there would be armed white people outside to intimidate you from going to vote. And some people they watched who went to vote and if they voted, they would get fired from their job the next day.
SM: 1:02:05
Yes. Wow.
KL: 1:02:27
So, there were all these ways that white Mississippians found to, to prevent Black people from exercising the franchise and it was just disgusting. So, the Snick was there they heard loud and clear, that Mississippians, Black Mississippians wanted to be able to vote and they needed to vote. And but, the white Mississippians were not going to let them, so they would have these rallies and then they would encourage people to go down to the courthouse and register to vote. And so, in Hattiesburg this happened and you know, this was one of the earlier moments that Hamer was part of this movement and, and people flew in from around the country to help the people in Hattiesburg register to vote but they were threatened by white supremacists. And, there was the state police there and National Guard that was brought out and, and it was, it was just, it was, it was so intimidating. And there is Hamer just marching with everybody else and facing down the intimidators and trying to help people exercise their right to register and make a difference.
SM: 1:04:52
I think there was a man there too in that building in this, in the courthouse that was well known for not registering African Americans. I think that you have told me.
KL: 1:05:04
That is right.
SM: 1:05:05
Yeah.
KL: 1:05:05
Yeah. Sarah and Lind were this notorious court clerk in Hinds County, Forest County, excuse me, and he refused to register any Black people. And he had for a very long time. And, and so he was, you know, a focus of, of efforts to get Mississippi to start letting Black people vote and get rid of these ridiculous tests. And even after, asked and the federal government stepped in and said, "You got to stop doing this you have to register Black people to vote." Theron Lind continued to defy court order, after court order, after court order to register Black voters, he was so defiant. He was sued, he was hot, you know, he was brought into court time and time again. And he continued to refuse, he became the poster child for you know, these. It was almost a carrot.
SM: 1:06:09
Oops. Still there. Oops. Okay we are back.
KL: 1:06:15
Okay, so we were talking about Hattiesburg, which was actually, the winter of 1964. And so, the interesting thing is, by 1964, she was really beginning to take a more pivotal role in what was going on in the civil rights movement in Mississippi. And with the help of the Snick workers, activists, she is having access to stages. And it is, it, her voice on the stage inspires so many people. And if you listen to these recordings, there are recordings in the moon collection at the Smithsonian, for instance. And they have some of these, like the Hattiesburg rally and other rallies. And you can hear some of the speakers usually middle class, men are up on the stage talking. And the crowds get very restless. And then all of a sudden, you know, they will call Fannie Lou Hamer up to sing, they always had her singing. And the crowd would always "Hush," and they would be so excited when Hamer came up. And she watched how they reacted to her versus how they reacted to all these men. And eventually, she started talking on stage and she spoke the language of people who were experiencing the same thing that she was. And so, it she had a tremendous impact on the movement there in Mississippi. And Snick, really, they just were in awe of her, these young students were in complete awe of her. And so, you know, she helped found with local people. And with the support of Snick, they founded a new Democratic Party in Mississippi called the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. And she became their vice chair and that set her off on this incredible path to changing the world.
SM: 1:08:15
Yeah, the whole thing about Freedom Summer was the idea that Mr. Moses had and others was to bring in college students from around the country, but black and white students from you know, prestigious schools, Ivy League schools, some of the prestigious state universities and-and African American colleges, and it kind of worked. There are a lot of people that, that came could you talk about that, because I know Fannie Lou was in, in Ohio, which is where they did their training. I think-
KL: 1:08:45
Right.
SM: 1:08:46
James Forman was in charge of the training. And, and she, they did a lot of speaking there. And-
KL: 1:08:52
Right-right.
SM: 1:08:53
And, yep.
KL: 1:08:53
So-so the-the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and in conjunction with Snick, and other organizations in Mississippi decided on this concept of Freedom Summer, and they would bring in young people from around the country to help people to register to vote, because this was the big thing and white Mississippians had been telling. And actually, white southerners had been telling the rest of the nation that Black people were not interested in vote, they could register to vote, but they were not interested in voting. So, the MFDP, and Snick, and all these groups got together and held mock auction, elections so that they could prove to the world that Black people, yes, wanted to vote. And so, but they really needed to try to register the people to vote, to really be able to vote in, in elections. So, they had a training session for 800 students. More than 800 students signed up to be part of this Mississippi Freedom Summer, and they were trained at Western Reserve University or Western College for Women in Ohio. And Hamer went up there to do the training sessions along with people like Bob Moses, and John Lewis, and James Forman ran the-the whole thing. Some of the students, so they were taught nonviolent techniques, protest techniques, etc. And three of the civil rights workers, young Snick workers that were part of this group, some of them had already been working in Mississippi. Another one was part of this new wave of students, Andrew Goodman coming out of New York, and they were down in Mississippi while the training sessions were going on in June. And these three civil rights workers, Mickey Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, were abducted and murdered by the Klan in outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and they went missing and they were missing. And of course, everybody knew in their gut what had happened to them, even though their bodies were not found for two months. And so, the young people in, in Ohio, some of them decided not to go to Mississippi, they were frightened. They realized, well, this is real, this is really serious. The violence that is down there. But more than 800 ended up going down there and spreading across the state. And they went into communities. They lived in the communities, they were harassed by white supremacists, but they stood strong, because they had leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer, who endured far more than they were enduring. And, she motivated them and excited them. And they helped people try to register to vote. They also built freedom schools, because education, as I said, so little was spent in Mississippi on education for Black students. They opened up freedom libraries, they opened up libraries so that Black residents could go and, and experience a library. And they held classes so that adults and children could take English, and math, and science, and things like that. So, it was an amazing summer and they built community centers. These young people were incredible, and they stared down danger every single day. But the disappearance of Schwerner, Goodman, and Cheney was a reminder of how dangerous that place was. And, they really changed the landscape in Mississippi. And in the meantime, Hamer became more and more dedicated to moving the needle forward and challenging the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party that had no Black people in it and did not represent half the population of Mississippi. And that is what propelled her to the-the, the national stage is when she and her colleagues from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, elected delegates, and they went to Atlantic City where the Democratic National Convention was being held that August. President Lyndon Johnson was hoping to be the nominee for the right, for the presidential election in November. And so, Fannie Lou Hamer and the MFDP wanted to challenge the delegates that were being sent by the all-white Mississippi party. So, they met in the Credentials Committee meeting in August, and they challenged those white Mississippians and NBC News was filming the whole thing, live coverage of the national convention. And they taped this challenge to the Mississippi delegates. And Fannie Lou Hamer got on stage and gave a speech that was about eight minutes long. She had no notes. She spoke from the heart about what was happening in Mississippi, what it was like to be a Black Mississippian, and the violence that was perpetrated on her, and what the white supremacists were doing, and what democracy was not like in Mississippi. And, Lyndon Johnson heard her speaking on the television that he was watching in the White House at the time. And he got very nervous. He knew her voice had power. That her story would resonate. And he needed those white southerners to vote for him. And so, he had NBC pull away from her coverage. And they went to the White House where he was standing at a podium. And he made like a three-minute little speech about John F. Kennedy dying, nine months before, it was something he just made up on the, on the fly. And then they go back to the convention room and Hamer had just finished speaking. And Lyndon Johnson thought he had dodged a bullet, that it would be okay. You know, they were challenging, but they would not win the challenge and then he could keep the southern white Democrats in the party long enough to get through the election. What he did not expect was that NBC News would replay her testimony that night to a national audience. And people were stunned, and they were moved, and they were activated. And he realized, uh oh, and you know, to make a long story short, the white delegation was seated, but they refused to take their seats. They were so ticked off that anybody paid attention to Fannie Lou Hamer and her colleagues. They are from Mississippi. And so, they left and most of them I believe ended up voting for the racist candidate, Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater. So, that is when she really hit the national stage and everyone took notice. And she had a voice, and she had learned to use it. And she continued to use it for years and years in pursuit of civil rights, and equality, and justice.
SM: 1:15:50
Well, because of that, I think in 1968 at the next convention, which was in Chicago, that historic convention where all the protests were against the war. She spoke again.
KL: 1:16:02
That is right. So, four years later, those white Mississippians were not giving up. And they sent an all-white delegation to Chicago, and Fannie Lou Hamer is reconstituted, Freedom Democratic Party. Challenged them again, only this time the Democratic Party rejected the white southern Democratic Party candidate delegates and accepted Hamer's group, it was diverse, and in gender, and in race. And so, they were seated. And Famer received a standing ovation at the convention that year. And it was a powerful step forward, and her voice, she stayed an active part of the National Democratic Organization Committee, because she insisted that there be not only race parity, in delegations from every state coming, moving forward, but gender parity, and she insisted that they start conversations about food insecurity, and housing insecurity, and access to medical care, and, and so on, and so forth. She really was, preschool education, etc., she just was a powerhouse, she just did not stop. And, you know, the civil rights movement was waning in a way that the anti-war movement was becoming front and center. A lot of those young activists were going back to college, graduate school onto professional physicians. So, she started focusing a lot on the local community back in Mississippi, while still maintaining a presence on the national level and becoming involved in the women's movement, etc. But her heart and soul was really back in the fields, and in the towns, and villages, and communities of Mississippi. And, she was continuing to try to make a difference there.
SM: 1:17:49
Her voice was always very important, even for the Snick, when they had the issues between white students and the Black students, certain members of the Snick, who are African American had concerns about having white students involved in this, because they should be in the leadership roles, not them. But she said, if, I am correct me if I am wrong or right, that, you know, we were fighting to integrate, and not segregate. And we are trying to end segregation and what we do not want to do that to the people, the white students who want to work with us. Let us work together.
KL: 1:18:25
Right-right. It is exactly what she said. And that started causing a rift between her and some members of Snick. As they moved in through the (19)60s. 19(60), by (19)65, (19)66, some of the young Black males Snick workers were becoming more attracted to the like, the Black Power movement and the Black Panthers. And, they felt they had no patience for Fannie Lou Hamer. And when I was doing the research, I was looking at the Snick meeting minutes, it was, that she would might not be there. Sometimes she was there. And sometimes they would complain that she was too old. She was not, she did not represent them anymore. They did not want to deal with her. They wanted to go and be you know, it was Black power. Only Black people could be in the movement, no white people. And so, they cast her out basically. And, and she, you know, she understood their point of view, but she thought it was wrong. And so, she moved away from them, and they moved away from her, and went on their trajectory. So, but there were other civil rights activists that still stuck by her and she worked with them. And then, as the movement really grew and embraced, you know, women's rights too. There were young Black women who wanted to be part of this second wave feminism and, and so, she was part, she was friends with Gloria Steinem, and Betty Friedan, and Bella Abzug, and Shirley Chisholm, and, and Dorothy Height, and all these you know, rising Black female, and white female activists that were fighting for feminine, for female rights as well. And so, she, she wanted to be part of that because she knew that women were discriminated against even though she was very defensive about Black men, she felt that they were targeted more than Black women were, so she had a more traditional view of you know, the men should be able to be protected more than the women kind of thing, they needed their rights too. And so, she clashed with young Black women activists like, Medgar Evers's wife, Myrlie, she-she clashed with her. She clashed with Eleanor Holmes Norton, even though they were very-very close, and very good friends, and other young Black women activists because Hamer became very-very, a very-very conservative feminist. She was anti-abortion and anti-birth control. And so, we can understand the anti-abortion point of view, but the anti-birth control issue, just, no one could understand that, and especially the young women, they just had no patience for her and they grew very intolerant of her voice, they thought she was irrational and, and not considerate of their point of view as young women in their reproductive years. So, part of her, the way she looked at it, as, as a direct result of her own hysterectomy, without her permission, and her denial of her ability to have babies. And so, the anti-abortion thing, I think, was a more of an older person point of view. Because I know as a young woman, she helped facilitate X women getting access to illegal abortion services there in Mississippi. She was the go-to person that young women would go-to, and then she would help them access those services. But after her, her hysterectomy, her sterilization, she did not do that anymore. So, you know, she just she, she still was a powerful voice. But, there were other voices that were contrary to her voice, and they were all struggling to be heard.
SM: 1:22:09
I know Eleanor Holmes Norton stated that she thought that, Fannie Lou Hamer was the second-best speaker she had ever heard behind Dr. King.
KL: 1:22:20
Yeah, I actually, other-other, yeah. Others said that too. Even some of the people that I spoke to interviews with some of the Snick workers and young activists, they said, yeah, she was just an amazing speaker. And you know, I-I point to her Baptist minister father, and her own innate abilities, her sensibility about an audience, and her own passion. She knew how to deliver that she knew how to speak softly, and then raise her voice. And had, she had a tempo, to the way she spoke. And there was a pattern to her lectures and her speeches. And people really were very, very motivated and attracted to her, through her voice. And she would always add music too, and get people singing and energize that way. So, she-she was incredibly gifted.
SM: 1:23:12
Talking about her stand down, those students who are white, who came down to the south to work with Snick. One of those students was Mario Savio. And of course, he went back to Berkeley, you talk connecting the dots, you know, here you got Fannie Lou Hamer, very vocally supporting the, you know, working together, not just Blacks-Black, Black Americans. And what happened is, Mario goes back to Berkeley, and then he is where the other students there at Berkeley. And, of course, we know the whole history there, but the free speech movement, because they tried to take literature away that was being handed out in Sproul Plaza. And because they thought, we are not supposed to hand out political literature, and the students went against this. And a lot of the literature was about Freedom Summer, about going back, and helping with the voting in the, in the south, and other issues-
KL: 1:23:17
Right.
SM: 1:24:01
-around the country. So, in a sense, her presence, fighting for those white students, directly linked to the free speech movement that took place in Berkeley in the fall of 1964. So, there is-
KL: 1:24:23
Right-right, exactly. And I met people who were young students, and she would go, she did a college circuit, she would go around to different colleges and give speeches. And I met a couple of people who said that they heard her speak, they quit school and went to Mississippi, because they were so influenced by her, they just were wowed by her. And, she really had that power. You know, so there was a, one of the young people who was a high school student getting-getting ready to go into college. He met her in Mississippi, he was from Mississippi, it was Dr. Lesley Burr Macklemore. He was a civil rights worker. And he met her in (19)63. And he said, she was the star that they all as young Snick workers, she was the star, the person that all of them were wowed by, no one equaled her storytelling, he told me. He said that she testified, she preached, she led them in rousing freedom songs, she was always the center of attraction for them. And another civil rights veteran wrote that she was a power, that Hamer was a powerhouse. And they quote, "She would shine her light and people caught the spirit." And that is, I think it is a beautiful way to express that. She just, was this incredible inspiration for people and she inspired them to risk their lives to bring civil rights, and equality, and freedom.
SM: 1:24:24
-a connection. Another one, another one of those white students I believe was Tom Haden. So-
KL: 1:25:58
Oh, right-right.
SM: 1:25:59
Yeah.
KL: 1:25:59
Oh, yeah.
SM: 1:26:00
And also, you know, the-the other powerful people that were with Snick. James Forman is historic, he was one of the leaders of the training and everything and, and I got to know James Bevel, because we have rounded-
KL: 1:26:12
Oh, yeah.
SM: 1:26:12
-Westchester University twice, and he was a fiery person. But, I think-
KL: 1:26:18
He inspired, he inspired Hamer that day in William Shapel in August 1962, when she heard him speaking from the pulpit, and talking about God and, you know, equal rights, and freedom, and quoting from the Bible, she was like I am in. He, he really moved her and influenced her.
SM: 1:26:38
-Yeah, he, James Bevel used to say, he, when people talked about him, he was often times punished more than anybody else and beaten more than anybody else, because he would never give in.
KL: 1:26:51
Tragic-tragic.
SM: 1:26:52
You know, so, I got a question here just about you in terms of, of all qualities that Fannie Lou, Fannie had, what skills or what, what would you like to emulate from her in your life?
KL: 1:27:14
Her persistence, her perseverance, even when, you know, the road was really hard and dark, she, she, she kept moving, much like Tubman too, and so I, you know, with all my privilege, I would like to be able to do that, and, and keep moving, and keep fighting, and keep trying to make the world a better place. And not stop. There is no reason for me to stop. And, I think that is the inspiration that I get from Hamer and from Harriet Tubman.
SM: 1:27:50
Would you say the same thing, those same things for future students, current, and future students? [crosstalk] Young people, what can they learn from her so they can emulate it in their lives to make the world a better place.
KL: 1:28:08
So, you know, young people, particularly really young children are deeply inspired by Harriet Tubman. There is something accessible about her, Fannie Lou Hamer, we need the world to know about her, and make her accessible because she was accessible. And we need to, to bring that forward and talk about it a lot. Because if she could inspire people, young people who became activists and who were activists back in the (19)60s, we can do that today. And these were young, you know, we complain in politics today that young people are not really interested. Well, we need to, it makes them interested and get them inspired. And learning about Fannie Lou Hamer, what she fought for, and struggle for, and we are still struggling, and fighting for some of those same things. Let us use her as the vehicle to get kids motivated. And, and also identify the Fannie Lou Hamer is in our communities today, who can-can go out, and inspire more people to make change, and to make a difference, and to make sure that everybody has access to the ballot.
SM: 1:29:14
Could you talk about her life, after her time with Snick? And after she actually ran for Congress, and, and her speech in (19)68 at the Democratic Convention, what were the causes she was involved in the rest of her life?
KL: 1:29:28
So, I already talked about like the, National Organization of Women, the National Women's Political Caucus, and those kinds of organizations. But, she really started focusing a lot on Mississippi, and her own community, and she established a cooperative farm so that sharecroppers could grow food because some plantation bosses would not allow sharecroppers to plant their own gardens for food. They wanted that cotton growing right up to the cabins. So, she provided that farm, so that people could grow food. They had a pig bag where people could get piglets in the spring and then in the fall, they could slaughter the pigs for food. And then, so she did those kinds of things. She helped bring in, you know, head start, and, you know, children's preschool, education, and housing, and things like that. So, she was very oriented locally. She tried to stay relevant on the national stage. And, she continued to give speeches and things. But her relevancy was supplanted by the war movement, the anti-war movement, which she was against the Vietnam War. And also, you know, the Civil Rights Movement changed and altered. And so, she struggled in her health, her health, just deteriorated, from you know, (19)63 until the day she died in 1977. So, in the early to mid (19)70s, she had many health problems, she was in and out of the hospital, she was exhausted. And she, you know, she struggled financially. And eventually, she developed breast cancer, and died from complications of that, and her kidney disease, and hypertension. And she had basically been abandoned by the Civil Rights Movement, and all those workers. Pat was very angry about that, that he felt that she had been abandoned, considering everything that she had done for the movement, and for all of them. And so, it was a, it was bittersweet. It was really sad when she died at the age of 59. And almost alone, just her family around her and a couple of friends, so. [crosstalk]
SM: 1:31:33
[crosstalk] You know, another part of the-the story of Fannie Lou Hamer is-is her health. Because one of my heroes is FDR, and we all know what he went through and in 1920s, with Polio, and then he became president, he was in a wheelchair, and he had a lot of issues, but he still did-did a lot for humanity. And, he was a leader. And I look at Fannie Lou Hamer, in the same way, she had diabetes, she had all these issues, but it goes to show that just because someone has health problems-
KL: 1:32:09
Right.
SM: 1:32:09
That does not mean you cannot go out and change the world for the better.
KL: 1:32:14
Right-right. People with disabilities deserve the respect and, and, and honor that everyone else does. And the disability does not define them. It is just part of who they are. But if they are a leader, they are a leader. And we should follow them and support them. And, you know, this is, this is, you know, really relevant right now with the election that is going on in Pennsylvania-
SM: 1:32:39
Oh yes.
KL: 1:32:40
With John Fetterman, who has suffered a stroke, and he has some auditory delays, etc. And that is a disability right now, and he is being mocked for it. Just like the-the newspaper man back in, in 2016, during the election, when Donald Trump mocked the disabled newspaper reporter. You know, we have to just, we have to stop that there should be no limitations on anybody.
SM: 1:33:06
I agree.
KL: 1:33:07
If they have the energy and the desire and the, you know, the-the want to do things and work and change, make change, then they should be allowed to do that. And we should support them. And we should all be part of that movement forward.
SM: 1:33:23
Yeah, the- I guess one of the last questions, well I got two more questions. But what, the next to last question is about if you could list for those people that are really into leadership. And we, and I have worked with a lot of students who the first thing they want to know, what were the leadership qualities of a person that made them be a leader, could you just list some of the qualities?
KL: 1:33:45
So, that is a fascinating question. And I think there are some, there are some qualities, but I think that we need to really look at leaders and where they come from. And we have this image of the leader as someone who is polished, and who has elite education, often has a privileged background, etc. And, they have access to resources. But many leaders actually do not come from that background. And like a Hamer, sixth grade education sharecropper, no financial resources whatsoever, but she had something about her and it comes out of her childhood and her young adulthood. On those landscapes in Mississippi, she learned while she did not have perfect diction, and she did not have perfect penmanship and, and literacy, you know, traditional literacy skills like that. She had other literacies, like many other leaders who do not have the benefit of those elite educations, they have literacies. They have literacies, they develop on, out in the fields, in the forest, on the water, in a community, in the church, in segregated bathrooms, you know, in difficult environments, they have literacies they learn from those places, and those experiences that not everybody has. And so, Hamer with her tremendous people literacy, she could read people, she could read an audience, she could, she could, you know, read the landscape of a room, and of the-the pulse of people. And, that is her gift. And she brought that to the stage. And she knew how to, to enunciate, and, and talk about the things that were important to other people. Whereas a Martin Luther King, who had tremendous, you know, great education, a beautiful voice, he, he spoke and inspired people, but he did not speak to them on, this, in the same way that Hamer could speak to people at their own intimate, interpersonal, very personal level. And, that was her gift. So, leaders are not all the best educated with the most, you know, access to resources.
SM: 1:36:11
You mentioned that-
KL: 1:36:11
And so-
SM: 1:36:12
You mentioned that in the book about some of the civil rights leaders said she did not look the park.
KL: 1:36:17
Right, that is right. Especially some of Martin Luther King's colleagues, Ralph Abernathy and others. They were disgusted by Hamer. She, first of all, you know, there was lots of misogyny going on anyway, and women had second class status regardless, but you know, they-they criticized her. Ralph told her, you know, he was embarrassed by her because, you know her, she was, her clothes which were borrowed. And when he met her, she was wearing clothes that she borrowed for the Democratic convention. And that her diction, her speech embarrassed him. And he wanted her to go home, and go away, to leave the business to him and other men. Basically, that is what he said to her. And, and other civil rights activists, elite civil rights activists, felt that way about her. And she did not identify with them at all, either. And she just told them to, you know, you know, no man is going to tell me what to do. Only my husband is going to tell me what to do. So, she just fired right back. But there was class prejudice against people like Fannie Lou Hamer.
SM: 1:37:17
Yeah, she was, she is something. I am glad you wrote the book. It is a tremendous book. And I hope more and more people read it. And I hope this brings her, up the pedestal, I know, you are described, the very end of the book, her death, when she died, and she was kind of alone. And, people taking care of her. But, when the funeral happened, there were a lot of people there. Yeah, there were [crosstalk] some big names were there. So, they cared about her.
KL: 1:37:51
Yeah-yeah.
SM: 1:37:52
But they should have cared about her when she was near the end as well.
KL: 1:37:55
Exactly-exactly.
SM: 1:37:57
Are there any other thoughts, you, that I did not raise that you might want to state about Fannie Lou Hamer?
KL: 1:38:03
Just know that she is just one of my heroes, and I hope she becomes heroes to the readers of my book because she is incredible. And we need to celebrate her. We need a national park in her honor, by the way.
SM: 1:38:17
Wow. Count me in if you are going to get a group.
KL: 1:38:20
All right, great. [laughs]
SM: 1:38:22
Yeah, and let us see. You are probably going to write another book soon. Have you chosen who that might be?
KL: 1:38:31
I have, but I am not ready to talk about it yet.
SM: 1:38:34
Is it Ella? [laughter]
KL: 1:38:36
No. Oh, my God, I would love to do that. But no, no, there is a great book about Ella Baker already out there.
SM: 1:38:41
Right.
KL: 1:38:42
Yeah.
SM: 1:38:44
My last, my last question is what, I, the question I ask to everybody, and that is, since people are going to hear this 50 year from now, long after we are both gone, and many in this, in their lives, they are gone. What words of advice would you like to give to students, faculty, national scholars, people who listen to this interview? What words of advice would you like to give them?
KL: 1:39:10
So, to keep the records, preserve the records, tell the stories and, and do not erase anything. Just preserve it all and carry it forward and honor the people that are carrying, you know, freedom and democracy forward because this is a perilous time. And I hope 50 years from now, people will listen to this and go back another 50 years to when Hamer was battling the same issues, and find the heroes in our past and celebrate them.
SM: 1:39:44
Okay, well, I have been speaking with Kate Clifford Larson, author of "Walk with Me," a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. Thank you very much. And, you have a great day.
KL: 1:39:56
Thank you very much, Steven. Bye-bye.
SM: 1:40:00
You still there? Thank you.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Kate Clifford Larson
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s and 2010s. 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 continues to interview legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
25 August 2022
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Frye Gaillard
Biographical Text
Frye Gaillard is a historian, educator, and author. He has been the writer-in-residence in the English and History departments at the University of South Alabama since 2007. He is the author of more than twenty-five books, including With Music and Justice for All: Some Southerners and Their Passions; Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award; The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina, winner of the Gustavus Myers Award; and If I Were a Carpenter, the first independent, book-length study of Habitat for Humanity. Professor Gaillard specializes in Southern culture and history. He graduated from Vanderbilt University.
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2:06:14
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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Digital file
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Book; South; Thought; Joh F. Kennedy; Vanderbilt; Martin Luther King; 60s; America; People; Americans; History; Young generation; Issues.
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
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Interview with Frye Gaillard
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s and 2010s. 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 continues to interview 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'. The media player simply features a play/pause button and displays metadata item title/collection as the track/album title.
Date of Interview
24 August 2022
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dr. J. Keith Saliba
Biographical Text
Dr. J. Keith Saliba is an associate professor of journalism at Jacksonville (Florida) University, where he teaches narrative nonfiction and mass communication theory. He has been writing about the Vietnam War and military affairs, first as a reporter and columnist, and later as an academic. He is the author of "Death in the Highlands: The Siege of Special Forces Camp Plei Me," a Military Writers Society of America 2021 gold medal winner in history. Dr. Saliba has a Ph.D. in Mass Communication and International Relations from the University of Florida.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:38:49
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Digital file
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Vietnam; War; Veterans; Book; Special forces; South Vietnamese; Camp; Americans; Helicopter; Supplies; Vietnam War
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.
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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
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Interview with Dr. J. Keith Saliba
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s and 2010s. 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 continues to interview legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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Date of Interview
23 June 2022
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Howard Ruffner
Biographical Text
Howard Ruffner was born in Cleveland, Ohio. After high school, he joined the Air Force in 1965. His experience with photography started when he worked at the Air Force headquarters in Waco, Texas. After leaving the Air Force, he started college in 1969. While studying at Kent State University, Ruffner started working as a photographer for the university's student newspaper. He was a college sophomore when the shootings of May 4, 1970, occurred. He witnessed and documented this event and his photographs appeared on the cover of <em>Life</em>.
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1:28:20
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English
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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Date of Digitization
23 June 2022
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Audio
Keywords
Kent State shooting; Students; Pictures; National guard; Campus: Taylor Hall; Protest; Photographs; Yearbook; Kent State University; Building; Guard; Photographer; Film; Fire.
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Howard Ruffner
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Lynn Bijou
Date of interview: 23 June 2022
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM: 00:01
Alright, can you hear me?
HF: 00:03
No, I can hear you fine.
SM: 00:04
Okay. Thanks, Howard. I start out, could you talk about your growing up years, where you grew up? What your parents did for a living, where you went to high school, your early interests? And were you the first to go to college in your family, that kind of stuff?
HF: 00:20
Well, my name is Howard Ruffner. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. I grew up in Lakewood, Ohio, attended Lakewood High School. And while I was a student, I worked my sophomore, junior, and senior years after school at various retail establishments in the Lakewood area. As far as growing up, I am the oldest of seven boys, all born eight years apart. And my dad was the general manager for a place that actually made waterproof paper and film. And, he never owned a car. So, the furthest we ever got was any place was any, anywhere anybody would take us. So growing up in Lakewood, we walked to school everywhere. And I graduated school in 1964, spent about a year after that working, and taking an extension course at Ohio State University at the same high school and then decided after that summer, almost a year later from graduation. A friend of mine interested in the Air Force and asked if I wanted to go with him. And I said, "You know what sounds like a good idea." So I enlisted the Air Force in May of 1965, and spent two years in Waco, Texas, and about almost a little over a year and a half in the Philippines as a T.V. director.
SM: 02:03
Wow.
HF: 02:04
So, when I came back to the states in December of (19)68. I went back to my old job where I was working as a railroad clerk in the accounting department. I worked there until March of (19)69 when I took a leave of absence and, started university at the beginning of March 1969.
SM: 02:33
Well, now your parents, you say your dad did not have a car now-
HF: 02:39
Right.
SM: 02:40
-now at home, did you ever talk over the table about what was going on in America, like the Vietnam War, civil rights, a lot of the movements that were going on?
HF: 02:53
We talked about the Vietnam War in terms of being drafted and that kind of effort there. The, I was the, by the way, I was the first person in our family to graduate from high school. And I was the first person to attend college and graduate from college, not the only one. And all of my brothers went to Lakewood High School for college. My parents they did not own a car, but we got along quite well. He bought a house in Lakewood, Ohio, and it could have been a more, could not have been a better location because it was walkable to all the schools we had to go to. Of course that back then walkable was a mile and a half, right? Today. It is today it is two blocks. Even if you go to school today, and it is two blocks away, somebody walks with you. So we did everything alone, right. My first interest my first interest in photography, even though I worked in a camera shop in Lakewood, Ohio for a year I never took a picture never owned a camera. My first experience with photography was when I was in the Air Force, I worked in the Information Office at a headquarters that headquarters trunk Air Force in Waco, Texas. And I did PR releases and like photographer assigned to that base got me interested in photography and set out with a four by five camera taking, taking some pictures of people and stuff like that. So he my first interest became when I got involved with writing press releases and then when they take photographs of people coming back from Vietnam or different parts of the world.
SM: 04:47
Well, you were in the military at that time for that period before you went to Kent State. Did you ever experience [crosstalk], go ahead.
HF: 04:57
No, I, I made a conscious decision to join the Air Force and realizing that I did not have any way I was going to keep a deferment going. And back then in 1965, if you were drafted-
SM: 05:10
Yes.
HF: 05:10
-you just got into a line and the person in charge of the line would look at you and say, "You know, we did not get enough recruits the marine, so you are a Marine, or you are a Coast Guard-
SM: 05:20
[chuckles]
HF: 05:20
-go to the Navy. I did not want to have any of those choices put on me. So I made my own choice.
SM: 05:28
That is good you know, that, you are still wearing a uniform at that time. Did you ever experience the anti-war protesters, you know expressing feelings toward people in the uniform, yours or others?
HF: 05:42
Not while I was in Waco, Texas, no.
SM: 05:46
And-
HF: 05:46
Never happened.
SM: 05:47
-when you picked on Kent State, what was it about Kent State that, why did you pick that school?
HF: 05:55
Well, a couple of reasons. One it was, was relatively close to home, which did not matter because I was not going to be going home anyway. Two it was a state school and I could afford it with the G.I. Bill. And three because it had a strong broadcast program and I wanted to continue my broadcasting work that I started in the service. And I had always, in high school, I did record house with two of my friends, we were always involved with radio. And that was just a natural thing for me to want to be, stay in the media. And that is why I picked Kent State.
SM: 06:32
You picked a great school. Yeah, I did not go there. But I tell you, I have visited enough to know what a great university it is. And certainly the students that come from it, having known a lot of the people from the remembrance events. It is a great school. I, obviously, I am going to ask some political questions, too, because you served in the military, you did not go to Vietnam, but you did have concerns. Did you have concerns about America's role in the war? And were you for or against the war? And did you support Vietnam Veterans Against the War, when they came home and like John Kerry, and did those hearings before Fulbright's committee on the Foreign Relations Committee talking about their experiences and how we must stop the war? Your thoughts on any of that?
HF: 07:20
I was not for the war. I did not understand why we were in that war, respect to those people who had to go and make their sacrifice. I did not join a protest group per se, because I maintain myself as a journalist first after having gone through the Armed Forces Radio and Television Journalism School. And, so I was against the war. I supported the people against the war. But I maintained my objectivity by being a photographer and reporting on what I saw.
SM: 08:14
And what-
HF: 08:15
There were no protests in say, Waco, Texas, we took a bus to downtown Texas, downtown Waco every day, and there were never any protests. And in the Philippines, all we did was we heard about things, because I was in the news department over there and quad forces GB. We have heard about the news and what was going on. But it was, did not have much to do with us. We were surprised at things like the Democratic Convention, prior to (19)68, and a variety of things. And when I came back to the states, I came back to Denver, Colorado, and I saw people that were obviously against the war. And it was, it was surprising to me, it was a, I came back to a different culture than when I left.
SM: 09:06
Wow. When you were at Kent State, I think you took those pictures on the weekend of April 30 to May 4, 1970. You had already been a student there for one year. And I think you were involved in the student newspaper and maybe the yearbook as well. Could you talk about your very first year at Kent State and what it was like? Were there protests going on, even then, number one? And number two, your experiences with the newspaper and photography?
HF: 09:36
Well so, I started at Kent State, March of 1969. And I was unsure of my ability to be a student so I focused on getting my grades and getting stuff before I decided to do anything photographically. And a little after, after midterms for the first semester, first quarter there I thought, "Well, I think I can handle this. So, I need to find a place that offers free film in a dark room." And I did not go to the newspaper, I went to the yearbook office. And I was immediately told, "Sure, have some film and take some pictures." So, I was more aligned with the student yearbook, then the newspaper, although I did do some work for the newspaper. And my second year there after working on the yearbook for the first year, I became editor of the yearbook my junior year at Kent State, and put out the yearbook that had the stars, the red and white stripes, and the protest story inside of it.
SM: 10:45
Now, some-
HF: 10:47
Go ahead.
SM: 10:48
-some of your early photographs, not talking about the protests. You take general shots all over campus or in the community or?
HF: 10:56
Well the yearbook staff did not limit my ability to take pictures as I was still learning a lot of different things about photography. So, and I was not involved in any relationships. So, my only focus was getting great and getting an opportunity to take pictures of different groups, different things, gymnastics, rugby, sports. I took pictures of the homecoming queens. I took pictures of anything, all day long, and sometimes there were assignments from the yearbook staff to take pictures of a fraternity or sorority, or get this, or that. But other than that, pretty much left up to my own. And in the 1970 yearbook, you will see a lot more of my work as I was doing photography pretty much, all the time. I mean, any place that can give you a free film back then and a dark room, it was heaven sent.
SM: 12:02
That is great. Do you still have any your early photos of, before the tragedy at Kent State?
HF: 12:10
I do and the university does.
SM: 12:12
Good.
HF: 12:13
We have got all the yearbook, photographs and stuff.
SM: 12:15
Super, super. In 1970, your background states that you became a stringer for Life Magazine, and covered the entire weekend from April 30th to May 4th. Could you just describe some of the pictures you took? You know, just, just some of the pictures that you remember taking of not only the protesters but also of the National Guard, people, politicians who came. Most importantly, in this particular one, we were more than the pictures. What were you, personally experiencing, you were only a sophomore, and you were a photographer, and you were wanting to take pictures? But this is, I do not know if you were thinking this was a historic happening at that time, but it was.
HF: 13:10
Well, first let us get the record set straight here. I liked the pictures from May 1st until May 4th. And I did not become a stringer for Life magazine until the morning of May 4th. And being on campus, Kent State is a suitcase campus, a lot of students go home to visit friends, be with family, or to do a part time job. And so on the weekends, it was a pretty empty place. But, things were happening on campus that were unusual and for me, that was just another opportunity to take pictures and I did not, I did not need an assignment, and I was not thinking anything other than the fact that this is something that is happening and it needs to be recorded and my journalistic instincts said, take pictures because what else are you going to do with your time? So, I was not looking for any kind of historic event or anything like that. So what, what happened was over the weekend, May 1, I took pictures of the bearing of, bearing of the Constitution by the history graduate students. And that was pretty, non-event, 600-1000 students showed up, listened to them at noon. And by the time lunch hour was about to end, the people who organized the bearing of the Constitution realized there was a looser crowd, it was Friday. So they said, "Let us redo this on Monday. Let us go back and revisit what Nixon did and what the Vietnam War is doing, and the Constitution." And so, they were retired from that event waiting to call again on May 4th. They knew that they could not keep a crowd on May 1st, after school, or on the weekend because we would be going home. So, Friday, I did not take any pictures of downtown camp even though I did not, I did not know that, what was going on down there. I did not leave campus, but on Saturday morning, there were lots of rumors, and things that were supposed to happen or might happen about the ROTC building. So, I just followed people around and took pictures during the day. Some pictures that, not that much happened until the school set up marshals, because there was a curfew set on Friday night about being in town Friday night, and they were concerned about what was going on. The curfew extended to the university. And that evening, is when the ROTC building was burned down. I was with the editor of the Daily 10 stator. And before the building actually caught fire, we were there. But he said, "Let us go to, let us go to town." He said, "I heard that the National Guard are already in town." So, we ran down the hill or we kind of walked down the hill toward town and halfway downtown, halfway off campus, we were met by three National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets who came out and stopped us from going into town. And they asked us, "Why, where were we going?" Bill showed his press pass and we both were allowed to leave campus and then come back. We came back as the ROTC building was burning. And I did not get any pictures of that. I did not have the right equipment, flash, or rotation. But I stayed up until two or three in the morning, taking pictures of the fireman putting out the final embers of the building. And took some pictures of people in their dorms, standing, looking outside, looking to see what was happening because about two o'clock in the morning, the National Guard showed up on campus. And I can remember that distinctly because I was surprised to see these, or what I called "half-track," vehicle leading the National Guard onto the campus and surrounding the ROTC building. And I took several pictures of that, that were published in the yearbook and published in my book. The pictures there because I had to, I had to document what was going on. So, about two or three o'clock in the morning, Saturday, which would be Sunday morning. I went back to my dorm, we got up early because I heard that governor, when I got up on Sunday morning I heard that Governor Rhodes might be showing up on campus. And I walked around campus and I took pictures of the ROTC building. People returning to campus, even Saturday, {inaudible]. So this is Saturday, Sunday morning, and Governor Rhodes did show up, he arrived by helicopter or something by the airport. And I went with other photographers and we met in, at the ROTC building with General DeCorso and Mayor Cetrom, and also took numerous photographs of that. Drove to an elementary school where the National Guard were bivouacked, and we took, I took a few pictures there. And then, Sunday was pretty much quiet for me in terms of walking around the campus and just taking pictures here and there. The guards were pretty quiet. Students were interacting with the guard in a way that seemed very friendly. One of the questions I have asked myself is, "Why would a parent bring their students to a campus with nearly 2000 national guards on it, in campus and around town, and be comfortable with that?" Then I thought about it, and I thought, "You know what, they probably felt that because the National Guard was there the, the rioters and the people who were causing the problems were taken care of, and their students would be safe with the National Guard," kind of an oxymoron, if you think about it.
SM: 20:23
Right-right.
HF: 20:25
It did not work out that way. So Sunday, I know that there was several gatherings of students in different locations, one by the Music of Speech building where I was, that is where we got tear gassed, so we had helicopters flying over our heads. And then there was a [inaudible], and there was a curfew on campus, but students found a way to get off campus, and head up toward the Main and Water Street or on the major intersections of downtown Kent. And I, I followed them out there and I got pictures of them sitting. And the, the whole problem with all that was going on at Kent State was the lack of communication. People today, that remember that we did not have cell phones, we did not have a T.V. in every room. People did not have the kind of information at our fingertips that we have today. And the students who went downtown and sat in the center of the street, asked for one thing, they asked for somebody, a representative from the school to show up and explain what was happening, who was in control. No one was, no one ever showed up. The guard shortened the curfew, and forced the students back onto campus earlier than the original curfew had been set up. They just made the unilateral decision to move students out of downtown Kent and back onto the campus, that Sunday evening. And I have followed students, some students had been banned, and they were in, taken into fraternity houses or, mostly fraternity houses. And I was told I could not come in because they had a wounded student in there, and so I just proceeded back to my dorm until Monday morning. Monday, about 9:30, 10 o'clock, I wandered over to the student newspaper office in Taylor Hall. And it was fairly quiet. We talked about what was going on. But then there was a phone call from Life Magazine, Chicago office, the woman on the phone asked if there was a photographer there who had some pictures from the weekend, and if she could talk to him. So, I was the only photographer who was during the whole weekend, that Bill can remember. So, he gave me the phone and they asked if I would send some prints that day of the weekend. And would I mind taking some pictures of the, whatever happened on Monday, and I agreed to take pictures on Monday, and send some pictures of that evening. That is how I became a stringer for Life Magazine that day, and you are right that, that does change your perspective, even though I-I was doing it on my own without any motivation other than just to capture images of what was going on. Now that Life magazine had given me an assignment, it made it more, gave me more focus. And one of the things that I had done earlier in the week on Saturday, made sure to get a press pass from Major Jones who was with a National Guard. So, I had a National Guard press pass that would allow me to move in and out of the lines, and that is what helped me on May 4th.
SM: 24:16
Wow. Now you were, May 4th, when did you take your first picture on May 4th, approximately what time and where were you, when?
HF: 24:34
[chuckles] Oh, it had been between 11:00 and 11:30, I was just walking down the hill in front of Taylor Hall and took a picture of the people standing in front of Taylor Hall. And then, I got down a little further and took a picture, a couple pictures of the crowd standing by the victory bell, and I took a few more pictures of that area. And then I thought, you know, there is only so many pictures, I can take of the students here. So, I might as well use my press pass to go down behind the National Guard because, the assignment, and I need to show both sides of the story, and at least see what the National Guard is doing. So, I walk down behind the National Guard lines, showed my press, press pass, had no problems. And all sudden, you realize it was a bigger deal than, than people might have thought it was because local T.V. stations from Cleveland were there, a national reporter named Mike Pappas was there. And they were all very interested in what was going on. I just stood and took pictures with the National Guard with their weapons, with their band, fixed band, [inaudible] ones. As they marched, as they drill, not drill, but as they gathered by the front of the ROTC building and we were about ready to go uphill. All this happened between 11:30 and say, 12:15. And around, around 12:15 or so, a jeep pulled up near the crowd and said, "You need to disperse and leave this area immediately. This gathering is not permitted, you need to leave this area immediately. Please disperse." And, the sad thing is that there was nothing going on other than students were chanting, and giving the guard the finger, and throwing stones that fell way short of the 300 or so yards that the National Guard was standing away from them. And there was no, there was no riot involved, there was no rushing of students at anything. And shortly thereafter, that is when the guard was told, "We need to break up this crowd." Now this goes back to the same situation, on Friday, May 1st, had the crowd been allowed to wait until one o'clock instead of 12:30, probably would have broken up by itself it already was divided. There was on the ground, maybe 3 to 500 students who are actual protesters, but behind them were people who are either on the way to class, or just observing. And then on top of that, there was another layer of people just observing, some people who are supporting them, but you know, on a campus of 18,000 students, you really only had 3 to 500 students were protesting, and whoever else was in that area was just an observer. And so, the guy decided to move up the hill and disperse the crowd. And I believe they did this without any reconnaissance because they had no idea how big the campus was. And they went up both sides of Taylor Hall to one side between Johnson Hall and Taylor Hall to Prentice Hall, Taylor Hall on the left. They chased students up there and then they get themselves trapped in a football field, the practice football field, which has a chain link fence that goes around three sides. And they had to make a decision as to how they were going to, what they were going to do next in terms of dispersing the crowd or not. So, there was a crowd of students across the street from the practice football field, and there was a street that separated the two, and the guard had a choice of going back down to the practice, to the ROTC building area through Prentice Hall and Taylor Hall. Or, to again confront the students and cause them to just disperse by going straight ahead and then making a right hand turn and going down between Johnson and Taylor Hall. Well, the interesting part is that to go up to Johnson and Taylor Hall would mean that they would have to climb an elevation of about 20 feet, would put them in a higher elevations than the parking lot and the practice football field. And, as they made their climb, that is the place. That is the point at which, between Taylor Hall and the pagoda structure, Guardsmen who somehow got to the very back of the line was moving up the hill, turned, some kneeled down a little bit, and fired their weapons. And I was about 80 feet in front of them and to the, to the side, John Clary, and Joe Lewis, who were within an area that I was within, and they were both shot. So, that was a pretty eye-opening experience-
SM: 26:56
Wow.
HF: 26:57
-because no one expected that and no one expected live ammunition. Even if they turned and fired, it was, they were shooting blanks, or shooting, maybe rubber bullets. I grabbed my cameras and knelt down on top of this grating in front of Taylor Hall. And when I started to get up, I was told, "Stay down, sit down, oh my god, they are shooting real bullets. People are bleeding up here. So, do not get up."
SM: 31:14
Wow.
HF: 31:15
So, that is how that event took place, pretty, pretty frightening that they actually shot real bullets. And again, I, I kind of sucked my emotions and just let my camera work for me because I took a picture of Joe Lewis, took a picture of John Clary, I got up and I started walking down towards the practice football field. I was told by some girls not to take pictures, I said, "No, my job is to take the pictures, somebody has to document this." And that is when I went down, I saw Jeffrey Miller lying in the street. And I turned to my right a little bit and I saw Mary Vecchio, I took several photographs of her, those appeared in Life Magazine. And I kept taking pictures of people, and their reactions to what had just happened. And it was, just an unreal experience walking around campus at that point in time-
SM: 32:20
Oh man.
HF: 32:20
-because nobody knew what was going to happen next. And you know, Alan Frank said it best when he said, you know, "Stay down, do not let, I cannot be a part of this. Do not let them shoot any more of you." Because the guard was scattered over the campus then, if you, if you take a careful look at some of the photographs, and not just mine, but many of them, you will see that even though the students are like in a huddle in a big circle, someplace. If you look close enough, you will see the guard, not too far away.
SM: 32:56
Wow.
HF: 32:57
And that was, that was what was scary, so.
SM: 33:01
Did it ever, during this terrible, terrible happening, ask yourself, "Where is, where is the leadership of this campus? Where is the administration? Where are they?" And, and I, and then also, correct me if I am wrong, it was my, my information is that they were protesting against the expansion of the war into Cambodia. And that was initially, and then when the guard came on campus and showed their, their stuff that they were upset that the National Guard had, had come on to their campus. So, it was as much protesting against the war as it was against the, the National Guard being on their campus. And, and then the shooting. Oh, my God. Just your thoughts on that. Where was the administration?
HF: 34:03
Well, my understanding is that the president of the university had just returned from a trip, I think it was to Iowa, and he was now having, during this time having lunch with General del Corso, a local restaurant. And the administration had more or less given control of the university to the governor and to the National Guard.
SM: 34:31
Unbelievable.
HF: 34:31
And, and the students. Like I said the evening before, I had asked for somebody from the administration to talk to them, and no one came forward. So the administration, from my standpoint, failed because they did not have control of the campus. They let the campus becoming military state and gave up. If you look at the pictures, even the administration building had National Guardsmen in front of the main door letting people in or out, so.
SM: 35:04
Yeah, that is, this is an understatement. That was a massive failure in leadership at the administration level of the university, but it does show, which you already mentioned Mr. Frank and Mr. Lewis and others, faculty members who, who came to the scene, and were there with the students and trying to bring some sort of peace, and you know caring about the students. I mean, that says a lot about your faculty on campus. They deeply cared about the students that they were teaching. Yet, the administration was not there caring about the students that have applied and yeah, it just it was a terrible happening. And were you personally upset with the National Guard because they were on campus?
HF: 35:53
Oh, yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was abysmal to say the least. You know, I just had no idea why they were, why they were on campus, because the ROTC building was done. There did not seem to be any other rumors, or anything going on around, other things happening. And it just made no sense that the National Guard, and what also does not make any sense is, why did the National Guard have fixed bayonets-
SM: 36:26
Yes!
HF: 36:27
-the whole weekend? Fixed bayonets are for hand to hand combat, concentration, close range stuff. And this is, a college campus with students, why do you need to have a fixed bayonet? When the Ohio State [inaudible] came on campus, they had batons. That is all they had. I mean, that is all they carried in their hands.
SM: 36:56
Wow.
HF: 36:57
They did not need a fixed weapon of any kind to show that they had control of the situation.
SM: 37:04
In the afterwards of the tragic, I am going to say, Alan would say the killings. And, you know, I know, even Dean and John and they would say the killings at Kent State, quit saying the tragedy, the killings at Kent State.
HF: 37:20
Yeah.
SM: 37:21
The thing is, who gave them that order? Who's the person responsible for telling them to have the, the bullets? I know, they had a lot of trials afterwards. But, did they ever come up with a final, who gave the final order for that?
HF: 37:39
To have weapons loaded?
SM: 37:40
Yes.
HF: 37:43
That is not something I can address. I do not know who gave them that order, or why they had fixed bayonets. I mean, they came off the trucker strike. And they had been shot at during the trucker strike, but did not shoot back. Here they were getting stones thrown at them that cannot even get close to them. And they, they fired back at students. A lot of unanswered questions, because no one knows. There is lots of rumors as to somebody gave an order to fire. But to me, it does not matter if somebody gave an order or not gave an order. Some people had it in their mind that they were going to turn to fire, and they did.
SM: 38:34
Governor Roads being, being on campus did not help the situation. I know he is running for office and-
HF: 38:41
Yeah, I forgot about that.
SM: 38:43
Yeah, and he was talking law and order. Well, guess who talked law and order, it was President Nixon and Spiro Agnew, who were going all over the country making comments about any other protesters, they were. So you know, he came and he was elected, in part because he used law and order as one of his- the issues that he was going to come into the presidency for. And because there is a lot of activism going all over the country, and civil rights, and you know all the movements that were happening, certainly the anti-war movement in Vietnam, and here, you know, you can look the, I do not know how the president of Kent State could have survived his presidency. If he was sitting down, in downtown and he was out of town, and he comes in town, and he was sitting with a military leader, and not sending anyone in his place to kind of calm students down, or talk with a National Guard, or talk with anybody in authority. The governor, you know, it boggles the mind, basically.
HF: 39:47
He had given up his authority. I need to take a break for five minutes.
SM: 39:53
Okay, let me turn my tape off here and I will leave my-
HF: 39:58
I will be right back.
SM: 39:58
-yep. Okay, we are all set. Yep. One of the questions I wanted to ask you is that, I read someplace that you were working on taking pictures, but you even gave a camera to John Philo?
HF: 40:16
So [crosstalk], as the National Guard dispersed the crowd in front of Taylor Hall, after the crowd was already gone the, National Guard was on both sides of Taylor Hall. John Philo and I met at the base of the hill, [inaudible] hill. And John said, "You have an extra lens I could borrow, I have only got a wide-angle lens," and I said, "I have got a short telephoto lens." So, I gave him my telephoto lens to use. And he took that, and then he said he was going to go off the left side and I said, "I will go off the right side." And then we split, and we just continued covering the event. So yeah, that was a true story. And I subsequently gave that lens to Kent State University, so.
SM: 41:15
Wow.
HF: 41:16
Anyway, so the whole [crosstalk], huh?
SM: 41:20
That and he used that camera to take that picture that won the Pulitzer Prize, right?
HF: 41:25
Yeah, he used that lens.
SM: 41:27
Wow. I hope you he thanked you. [laughter]
HF: 41:32
He did.
SM: 41:34
Now, you were, I am just curious about what the student newspaper staff was doing at the time that you were taking pictures because obviously they were around someplace, recording all this. Did the, in the student newspapers over a several day period, before the campus was shut down, were they writing opinion pieces or articles on what was going on?
HF: 41:58
I could tell you I was not involved.
SM: 42:00
Alright.
HF: 42:02
Seriously, I was I, so after the, taking pictures that day, and they told us that the university was closed. I continued to take pictures of students as they marched or walked toward their dormitories to get their equipment and their gear, clothing, books, whatever they needed, to leave campus. I stayed until about six or six-thirty, I had to call Life Magazine back to find out what they wanted me to do with my film and the stuff I, the pictures I had taken. And I was told to put everything in a box, they bought a seat for it on an airplane out of Akron. And to, give it to somebody at the, just get it there and put it on the plane and they would get it in Chicago. And so, I did not have a car. So, one of my photographer friends, Fetterman drove me to the airport and later drove me home that night. So, I was busy getting my own stuff out of there. And, again, when we talked about the campus closing, I mean, people did not have cell phones, we did not have Uber, they had to find their own way home. And as you know, the people said the telephone lines on campus were not working. So, it was it was a tough situation for lots of students, how to get ahold of their parents, or find a way to get into town, get a bus, get something. I am sure there was some help that I did not know about because I was worrying about my own way of getting around. And that was, that was a big issue. And then the, then after everybody left, the National Guard searched all that rooms for anything that would be incriminating, and took any film, or anything that would be something that they thought they could use later.
SM: 44:15
They went into the residence halls and did that?
HF: 44:18
Yes, all the residence halls.
SM: 44:20
I did not know that.
HF: 44:22
Yeah, I think you could check with somebody else on that, but verify the fact that the rooms were searched and anybody who left a camera or left film, unexposed film, that was taken.
SM: 44:34
Well that is another legal issue, that the university, no university should allow that to ever happen. Wow. Well, again, lack of leadership there at the school protecting the rights of students and their property, my goodness. Did you know any other students, any of the students who were killed or wounded at Kent State before this tragedy?
HF: 44:58
I did not know any of the students who were killed at Kent State or any of the students who are wounded. I got to know Dean Kahler when he, I donated some large prints to the university. And Dean came up to me and said, "You know, that is the last photograph of me standing." So, it was taken before the shooting, and it was taken just, you know, while the crowd was growing. So, that is how Dean and I connected. But other than that, I did not know Alan Canfora, even though I know I have got pictures of him with the black flag. Alison Krauss, I had taken pictures of in 1969, when she helped protest the war on Vietnam by leading a group marched through downtown, the city of Kent. I learned of all these people through my photographs, and it is quite sad.
SM: 45:36
Right. Now John-
HF: 46:06
To know that, you-
SM: 46:07
-you go ahead.
HF: 46:08
-go ahead.
SM: 46:08
No, you go ahead.
HF: 46:09
You know, it is quite sad to look at the pictures. I gave a talk at Hanoi University in 2016, and I showed them a PowerPoint. And in the PowerPoint, I would show students with books in their arms and then I will say, "Oh, that is Sandra Scheuer. She is going to be dead in 20 minutes. That is William Schroeder, he is going to die in 25 minutes."
SM: 46:38
Woah.
HF: 46:39
And it brought tears to the students at the university because they realized the sacrifice that some students made to help in the war in Vietnam.
SM: 46:49
Wow, that was powerful. Your book is full of unbelievable pictures. And I know it is hard to pick, but I am going to ask you to pick, if you can, just a few of the ones that you are most proud of, or the ones that stand out in your mind of the, the best picture you took on the National Guard, you took a lot of them, is there one that stands out?
HF: 47:16
Well, it stands out would be like, for them, there was four heads in the back of their heads [inaudible] as they marched toward the guard that stand out to me. There was, there was a couple of them there.
SM: 47:38
How about-
HF: 47:39
Well there is one of them, in downtown Kent that is a silhouette of the National Guard with cross bayonets and in front of a service station window, and you can see bayonets in the air and their silhouettes.
SM: 47:51
Wow.
HF: 47:51
It was the day before.
SM: 47:55
How about the best pictures of the protesters?
HF: 48:03
Well, the crowd shot that is, just shows them standing there, Mary Beko with her dog, you can see just with this raised finger, yeah just that, the beginning crowd shots there. And the guard shot that stands out to me that, is one of those that was taken just as they fired their weapons because they fired, and I took a picture of them as they turned and fired. And then I got down but, as I am getting down you will see in the picture that there is one guy who looks like he has got his gun aimed for me so that stands out a lot.
SM: 48:48
Did you think you were a goner?
HF: 48:51
Well I know that I was standing up there and I had a, back then I had an old 200-millimeter lens which stands out pretty far, and another lens in my camera and I thought you know, "I probably look pretty silly up here, look like a target." So, I turned and went down on my knees, and.
SM: 49:08
Wow.
HF: 49:09
So no, but I was 6, I was only 20 feet behind, I think it was Joe Lewis, who was the first one shot. He was supposed to stand 60 feet. I was 80 feet. So-
SM: 49:21
Now-
HF: 49:22
-yeah, I was quiet, close enough.
SM: 49:24
How about, are there any of the state troopers and the, you know the-the politicians that came to stand out?
HF: 49:35
Well, yeah, they have got some nice, she would call, nice journalistic images of Governor Rhodes inspecting the ROTC building and standing with Mayor Cetrom, and General del Corso. So, got other pictures that stand out, what are this?
SM: 49:58
How about the best of the downtown shots and the, or the campus shots, just when?
HF: 50:04
Oh, downtown. We are using the light of the helicopters to take a picture of the students sitting down, downtown.
SM: 50:12
Wow.
HF: 50:13
That stands out to me. It did not have you know, back then, the equipment was a little bit different than it is today too. So, you had to be a little more in touch with your equipment, than, than that so, you did not have time to run up and take light meter readings, or even if you had a camera with a light meter in it. It is still a lot of guesswork.
SM: 50:36
Summers in the last couple of years you met with John Cleary. Now, did you? Did you stay in touch with John, when he saw that picture? Did you stay in touch with John over the years, or was this kind of a first meeting?
HF: 50:51
We met for the first time with at Kent State University in 2019 when I, when I, when I shared my book, we had a book signing ceremony. Yeah, so that is the first time I met him. And I shared with him some more pictures that I had of him that were never published.
SM: 51:10
Wow.
HF: 51:11
So yeah, John and I, we stay in touch on Facebook, but we are not, you know, buddies, in that sense. We are just good. We just have something mutual in common that we both respect and both understand.
SM: 51:24
Right. What happened to your film after it was shipped off? Because you, I guess that they had to, you did not know what the pictures were. I mean, you had not seen them.
HF: 51:38
Oh that is right.
SM: 51:39
So, what happened to your pictures? And most importantly, and I am so pleased that they came back to you, and they are yours.
HF: 51:49
So here is two stories. One, I had a handful of negatives that I gave to the life reporter that were taken between 1969 and, and they were actually probably all 1969, and maybe a few from the first, no, I do not think anything from May 1, but 1969. And they have been lost and I am lucky I found some. But the film, I just put in a box, I sent to Life Magazine, they called me at two o'clock in the morning to tell me they could not find it. Then, they called me an hour or two hours later and told me they finally got the box of film, and then we were going to send her off via processing. I think it was about a week later, not quite a week later, maybe three days, two or three days. I got a call again, real early in the morning, one or two o'clock in the morning saying that one of the photographs that I had taken was going to be used for the cover of Life Magazine. And that was interesting, because I had not seen any of the negatives, the FBI had come to my house, asking to see all my prints. And I had yet to see anything other than the cover of Life Magazine and the images inside. And the fact that they put a picture of me inside of the editors, editors page. The, the photographs, were in the hands of Life Magazine, and then the FBI came to my house when they wanted me to identify who they thought were radicals on campus. And you know, a lot of people get concerned about what the FBI is going to do. But in this particular case, the truth stands for itself. I mean, you are not going to, no one is going to get identified as a radical that I know because, they are not. But the FBI kept demanding and seeing my negatives, and my pictures and I told him, I said, "You know, they are not mine. They belong to Life Magazine, and I have not seen any of them. And as they left my house, they said, "Well if that is what you want to do with your gov. money, Mr. Ruffner." And because I never agreed to share them with them I guess. Life Magazine, Life Magazine made a decision that they did want to get involved with, you know, in a case about having the FBI come to them and say they want the negative, and the prints, and they did not want to get involved with all that stuff. So, they sent me a photo of the negative that they had of mine, and actually a friend of somebody else's too. That, they just sent me a box, full of prints of every negative, and they sent me the negatives, and they said, "We are going to let you handle this." So, it was my deal.
SM: 55:04
Wow.
HF: 55:08
It was a big deal. I mean, having all those, it was the first time I saw them, so I obviously took my time and went through all the pictures, and looked at them in quite amazement as to what I actually had. Because even though you think you know what you have, when you are taking the pictures, you do not really know, so. And the fact that they chose one of mine for the cover, even though there were other people there who had similar photographs, it was quite a feather, so.
SM: 55:37
Were there other photographers besides you and John Philo?
HF: 55:40
Oh, tons. Campus newspaper, photographer, the campus, campus photographer who worked for the University was there, two of them, they have pictures of John Cleary. Call it very, very similar to my pictures. I mean, any picture could have been used. So, yeah.
SM: 56:03
Wow. Now, when it was all over, when the, May 4th, and people are going home, the school shut down, of course. You know, the shootings, as you well know, set a wave of protests all over the country, and anywhere close to 275-300 schools were truly affected by this. And as far as Kent State goes, how was the campus when you returned in the fall? I mean, and honestly, I want to know how you felt, because you are an individual student, you were still a sophomore. I know you might be a little older, because you served in the military. But still, you were a young, you were a young student, and you were doing your job. But now, you know that this is affected the entire nation. You got the Time, Newsweek out there. So, you are a part of history. As a young person, how did you deal with this?
HF: 57:06
Well, let us start with fact that I kept coming back to the university before school started, because people would want to have a walk through. Rolling Stone wanted to walk through, this news group wanted to walk through. And I was one of the people they, they called to help walk people through the campus. And then, even though the campus was closed, and it did open for summer school, and I attended school summer school that year. And I took regular courses, and it was like nothing ever happened other than the fact that it did happen. Does that make sense? I mean, things went on as normal, was not, summer school is different than a regular university, regular university time. But yeah, I went onto school and then in the fall, fall started. I got involved. I was just selected to be the editor of the 1971 yearbook, which would include the, the killings of the poor students in the routing of the night. And it was my decision as to how to deal with that in the yearbook. And I do not know if you have seen the yearbook, but Kent has always been to me, a mild campus. It is not like Columbia's or other places where they have a lot of radicals who get up on their soapbox all the time. And it is a conservative school. So, I did the yearbook in a way that shows that the shootings interrupted what would have been a normal school year. I do not know if you have seen the yearbook or not.
SM: 57:53
Yes. I have not, I have not seen the yearbook, no.
HF: 59:04
Yeah, that is The Timeline.
SM: 59:07
Okay.
HF: 59:10
So yeah, that was quite-quite beautiful.
SM: 59:15
You went and you stayed, you stayed with that yearbook till you graduated?
HF: 59:25
I edited the yearbook that year, and I stayed with the yearbook, but did not do a whole lot my senior year. I did not do a lot of photography for it. I had already gotten, I have gotten married within that time, and my focus was on getting my grades, and graduating, and I graduated. I started to camp in March of 1969. And I graduated in December of (19)71. So, even editing the yearbook I got out of there fairly quickly.
SM: 59:59
Yeah. When you did graduate, there were more trials to come at Kent State over the football field, the trials of the families who lost loved ones, lawsuits, and do you kind of cover that in any way?
HF: 1:00:19
Let me say that. I was a witness of the Scranton Commission hearings at Kent State. Then I was the lead witness in the two civil cases in Cleveland, Ohio, against the guard, and I was the lead witness because I introduced all the photographic evidence. And it took three days on the witness stand. And the, the attorney for the National Guard was a very, very good attorney. And he was very difficult, but I introduced all that stuff. And then, and then when the second trial came, I was also the lead witness. And by the time I had finished, and the second witness was called, they had agreed to the settlement which they announced, which was the monetary settlement, and a letter by the National Guard that everybody else said there is an apology, but they, they disagree. So I, in second trial, I believe was in 1988. And I have to say that, Kent State has been part of my life every year since then, because of the, because I was in a unique position to have photographs for the entire weekend. I got calls from media, I got calls from eighth grade science history students who wanted to do, there is a history competition every year for eighth graders. I became involved and I am still involved as we are right now, still involved with the Kent State shootings. And, it has been a part of my entire life.
SM: 1:02:21
Wow. It, what were the final results of those hearings? There was a-
HF: 1:02:29
Well the National Guard awarded [crosstalk]- -it was against the National Guard and Governor Rhodes we do not want to forget that. And in the state of Ohio had to pay, I forget what it was right now. The total amount of money but and the, the primary amount of money was going to go to Dean Kahler because he had been living in a wheelchair for so long that it was felt that he should be given something to live on. And I think the total amount of money was over $450,000. Do you recall? I am not sure. But the families of the four that died, they were compensated, then.
SM: 1:02:31
-yes.
HF: 1:03:23
Yeah.
SM: 1:03:24
Yeah. And all-
HF: 1:03:26
They-they did not get much in return in terms of monetary. They, the idea was to get the guard to admit that they did something wrong.
SM: 1:03:34
Right.
HF: 1:03:35
And Dean Kahler got the majority of the settlements.
SM: 1:03:39
The question, Howard, that you have probably been asked 100 times, maybe more, was the question that came up about maybe about, 12 years ago at one of the remembrance events that Alan Canfora opened up with, that they have a tape where somebody taped the person giving the order to shoot. Now, I do not know what has happened since that remembrance event. But, others said they thought they heard it too. Did, when you are there you are close, did you hear any money give the order?
HF: 1:04:04
I did not hear anything from where I was. And I was as close as anybody. And like I said earlier, to me, it did not matter if-if there was an order because if there was an order, I only think there was a predetermined decision by a group of guardsmen to get to that point on the hill, which was the highest point on the campus at that place, and turn and fire because others behind them are totally surprised and if they say some things like though they heard a gunshot, well, everybody would have heard a gunshot. But even General Canterbury is in that photograph of the guard firing, and he looks totally surprised. So for me, it does not matter if somebody said fire or not. There was an action that required some kind of coordination between different folks to turn on fire.
SM: 1:05:25
And they knew there were bullets in there too.
HF: 1:05:30
Yeah, yep, they did.
SM: 1:05:31
They knew they were not blanks.
HF: 1:05:34
There were armor, some of them had armor piercing bullets because they went through the steel sculpture.
SM: 1:05:39
Unbelievable. Yeah, that hole in this, yep, that whole skill sculpture is still there. After Kent State and let people know what your career what your what happened with your career beyond college. I think that is very important.
HF: 1:05:56
Well, I went to work for, I was a photographer's assistant for a commercial photographer for almost a year. And when I decided that, that was not going to go anywhere, I chose to go to Ohio University to get a degree in something that was not production oriented, I wanted to get a degree in something that was not easy for me to do, like take pictures or run T.V. cameras. So, I got, I got my master's in communications research, which was statistics. So, and after that, I went and worked for cable T.V. for a while. And then, I did a little freelance photography and moved back to Cleveland and kind of traveled with Ohio Bell where I was a writer, photographer, and all-around PR type person, and did my career with AT&T in New York, New Jersey, retired in Denver, Colorado, in government affairs. But during that entire time, I can tell you that I did give many talks at Kent State at many different locations. So yeah, my career even though I did not pursue a photographic career in its traditional sense, while at AT&T I did a lot of photography, and made photography part of my job description regardless of what kind of job I had. So, did multimedia shows I did film, I did video, produced a lot of, wrote scripts. So yeah, I had a good career and, and having had the Life Magazine and the George Polk award for photojournalism, that certainly opened the doors and did not hurt me getting inside AT&T getting into AT&T in Ohio, giving me recognition for what I was doing.
SM: 1:08:02
The thing is, I think it is great that you did this book, that it is connected to Kent State, that you are still going out, and speaking about it. These are, this is something that should never be forgotten in our history. And this is all important. One things from going, I did not go this year, because I had an operation, I wanted to go to the remembrance event. But, I think four years, I think was four years ago was my last one. But there were several, several remembrance events where some of the panels talked about the fact that the truth is still not known. And the truth is, you know, like, who gave the order, like your speculation about those possibly played plan by us, certain number of National Guard. It is the it is the unknown truth that still haunts the people who want to know the what really happened. And the truth needs to be known because of the four who died. And, and so I think that, I do not know, have you heard anything more about the person who came several years back when Alan was here regarding the shooting, and that somebody gave an order then he had a tape?
HF: 1:09:15
Oh, there is, somebody found a tape. They sent it to an expert. That expert said he was able to unscramble the tape enough to actually here an order to fire. The person who, the audiologist who did that discovery has since passed away, which, I guess hurt their case about taking that to court and saying, "Here is my proof." But other than that there has been nothing else said about that tape in quite a while and I have to ask people, I mean, what? If somebody gave an order of fire, how does that change, anything? If there was no the order to fire, it is more of a conspiracy. So, this whole thing is going to go down like John F Kennedy.
SM: 1:10:25
It is true.
HF: 1:10:26
There is going to be rumors and myths about what really happened. But, you know, in this case, I know for a fact, as I sat there and witnessed it, as I stood there and witnessed it, the National Guard turned and fired, and I did not hear a shot before me, you will look at the evidence, there was nothing thrown at them to cause them to turn and fire. There is nothing on the ground. No, Kent State is a manicured campus. Taylor Hall is a manicured piece of property because it is one of the showcases on the University at the time. There is no rocks lying around, there is no, you know, so somebody is going to have to convince me otherwise. But I just feel that there is the conspiracy. And if you will notice that, if you go and look at all the records, you will notice that the people who turn and fire are almost all from the same unit, so.
SM: 1:11:25
And of course, the National Guard, just like students, they are now a lot older, and many are dying. So, who were who were there, because time has a chance to affect everything. You still-
HF: 1:11:44
Except the fact that those who turned and fire were older than the National Guard.
SM: 1:11:50
What was their age?
HF: 1:11:52
I could not tell you that, but, but they were a part of the 107 Calvary, and they were an older unit.
SM: 1:11:58
Wow. Alright. You still stay in touch with John Philo?
HF: 1:12:06
Not really. No, we-we, of course, we get together on Facebook like everybody else. But, he has his life and I have mine. We are both happy with that.
SM: 1:12:19
In your future, have you, have you taken pictures that you are just as proud of as the ones at Kent State in your later career, and what would those pictures be?
HF: 1:12:37
Yeah, I promised myself that the last picture published by me would not be a picture of Kent State. I had an opportunity to lead a group of people to China. And some of those were my favorite photographs of foundries in China. That is something not everybody would get an opportunity to do. So, I have continued my photographic work in different ways. The annual report for the Colorado Red Cross one year, and took pictures of people from Bosnia. So, I try to continue my photographic work in ways that will surpass, although it will change, but I do not want to be known only as a Kent State photographer. So, I have been putting a lot of my work on Getty Images right now.
SM: 1:13:38
Oh okay.
HF: 1:13:39
Kind of spread, I got many pictures while I was in the service of popular people like Bob Loeb, and Art Linkletter, Raquel Welch you know, so I have, with General Westmoreland. I worked for, so I, you know, I continue to do photography. And right now, I am not doing what photography, I am retired. My wife and I, I have seven grandsons, we were spending more time with our grandsons, and doing kind of family photography. Nothing. We are not doing it professionally. I am just doing it as a snapshot or snap-shotter.
SM: 1:13:55
Wow. I just have a couple more questions here. They are general questions. And, many people say the killings at Kent State changed the lives, changed lives forever, especially if you were a college student in the, in the United States of America. It was a shock to the youthful Boomer generation like Pearl Harbor. And FDR's death was a shock to the greatest generation. It changed. It changed mine forever. I do not know if you knew this. Alan knew it real well that I was going I go to law school and I changed everything. And when that happened, I was a senior at Binghamton University, and I graduated 1970. And I wanted to go and become a college administrator. So that, what happened at Kent State or Jackson State never happened again, I played in, I would play my own small role in that. And my story is not, is pretty typical. What happened to Kent State, to me is historic in a way that, way beyond the people even participated in it.
HF: 1:15:38
Oh yeah.
SM: 1:15:38
Because many people have written histories about the (19)60s say that, that tragedy, at Kent State, at a college that was not a radical college, but it was, you know, it was not known for that. But it happened there. And that showed to Middle America, and too, that the war had to end. And so-so that is what from historians’ point of view, but also from an individual point of view. And obviously, this has shaped your life, like no other. Do you ever have flashbacks?
HF: 1:16:14
No, I do not have time for flashbacks because everything is for me, for me it is always still too current. You know, it is like our conversation today. I remembered, I can feel it. But not as a flashback, it is as a real happening that I live with all the time. As far as how it changed things, one of the things I think it changed, in its, its colleges today no longer pretend to offer a liberal arts education. They are not looking for students to be liberal arts thinkers and be generalists in that sense. A lot of schools have given up their- a degree in a liberal arts field that does not have any workplace recommendation. So to me, colleges have changed they are more, you go to college to get a job, and you get to go, you get into a program that your first two years are your regular stuff. But then you are really focused on being an engineer, being an architect, being a political science, but a liberal arts part of colleges has really become, you do not see history majors as much anymore, or English majors. Therefore, there are different schools.
SM: 1:17:41
Yes. That is a very good analysis, that is so true. What do you want your, go ahead.
HF: 1:17:51
No, I just, nothing.
SM: 1:17:53
What do you want your legacy to be?
HF: 1:17:58
[chuckles]
SM: 1:17:59
In your own words, what do you hope your legacy will be?
HF: 1:18:02
That my book, on Ken State is a factual and truth telling book, because I wanted people to remember, for sharing the truth about something that was so horrific, and something that should never have happened, Kent State should never have happened. Sargent Snyder gives a talk at Kent State, and I got to hear it on a podcast once. And I disagree with it completely, because during the podcast, he says, "Just before the shooting, sometime before the shootings," he said, "Somebody decided to declare what was happening at Kent State. Students at one end, National Guard another end, somebody said this is a riot. Well, it was not a riot, but the National Guard was given permission then to go up and disperse the crowd, and because they had bayonets, and stuff and weapons, they can shoot people, and Governor Rhodes gave them that permission days ago and took advantage of it." But it should never have happened. There was never a riot. Students were at one end, guards another round. It is like it is like we have learned today, take time, let things fizzle out, and oftentimes and in very tense situations. So, the best thing to do is to let things fizzle out. That should have been what happened at Kent State and there was no need for anybody to die and no need for any of the guards to be shooting or they should, they should have said at that point in time. He should have said, "We have got this under control National Guard, you may pack up and leave your bags, leave and take your bags with you." It would have been fine.
SM: 1:18:02
Yeah.
HF: 1:18:25
Nothing would have happened.
SM: 1:20:15
That is why the lack of leadership that we mentioned earlier that it was in the administration. I think one other thing is about Jackson State that happened, like about 10 days later.
HF: 1:20:26
Yep.
SM: 1:20:26
And I think Kent State is so right on the students who have been leading these remembrance events for a long time, are so ahead of America as a whole, because it was Kent State, who made sure that what happened in Jackson State is not forgotten either. And then what happens there toward African American students, and what happened at Kent State, which was predominately white students. They are all one. And even though they tried to say that the protest of Jackson State was about, about the Vietnam War, it was not about the Vietnam War, it was about racism. It was about the history of racism within that area, and Jean Jung bless his soul, came many years to campus, I met him I actually had dinner with him once when he was here on campus. And, you know, that is what Kent State should be remembered for. Also, with this tragedy is that they cared about another campus that went something, a Black college campus in Mississippi, and saw the linkage between the between the killings at their school and the killings at Kent.
HF: 1:21:46
Undeserved with very little justification, no justification [chuckles].
SM: 1:21:56
Yeah, that, you know, I am interviewing another person on that later today, or tomorrow. I guess I am just some final thing. So who do you just a general question, I got three more, and that is it. Why, who was responsible for the Vietnam War? I know we went to war, and we can blame a president. But in your view, everything has dots. The history is about dots. And when Kent State happened, there was a dot directly to it linked to a Vietnam War, and to a president. But it was something, dots go back on this too. So your thoughts, what caused, who do you blame for the Vietnam War?
HF: 1:22:40
I blame Nixon because, he did a lot of fakery stuff and stopped Johnson from ending the war. And you can read the history about that. But he, he did some things to cause the Vietnamese people to support his position and not go to peace talks as they had planned with Johnson. So, I blame him for continuing what he did.
SM: 1:23:14
Could you also kind of talk about the great things that have happened to Kent State with respect to making that, where this happen a historic spot, not only to have the Kent State Senator, which is unbelievable. But, markers being placed making sure it is it is forever remembered in terms of remembrance. And it is historic, and just everything Kent State now in terms of the administration is unbelievable. And I-I know that they have had issues over the years, but there is no question when you hear Alan Canfora say positive things about an administration and then it has got to be good. [laughter] Because he went through many years, where there was not so good. But, just your thoughts on the site where this all happened and your thoughts as a graduate of Kent State, who went through this, that this spot where it happened is forever preserved for history?
HF: 1:24:18
It has to be preserved for history because that is how we learn, and how we continue to grow. Cannot, it cannot be forgotten because we do not want to have a, it is like a T and square. It is something that should never happen again. And as long as we can remember what happened at Kent State, good chance that will not happen again.
SM: 1:24:49
What is the number one lesson of Kent State and Jackson State, the two together for future generations?
HF: 1:25:02
Communication, and communication with the right people making the right decisions. It is all about communication and getting rid of politics and getting rid of egos. It is all about solid communication between individuals and people, especially about things that matter most, like people's lives.
SM: 1:25:30
Right. And my last question is a question I have been asking now for the last 15 interviewees. Your tape will be listened to 50 years from now, long after you are gone, I am gone. And most of the boomer generation will be around either, so no one will be alive when Kent State happened. And that is the purpose of our centers to make sure that there is research and scholarship on these events. So, they are never forgotten. So what words of advice would you give to young students, faculty, national scholars who are studying this story, 50 years from now, words of advice?
HF: 1:26:24
Words of advice to those of you who are listening to this tape, years from now, is really listen, and listen to the other tapes as well. And try to understand what mistakes were made, and how important it is to be able to communicate and be a part of the process and not hide from it. And Kent State should not have happened. But, protest in this country should be allowed, not violent protest, but protest, like they were at Ken State, it was just a protest. It is part of our culture, it is part of who we are. And it will never stop. But, respect communication of what is going on and respect people's lives.
SM: 1:27:35
Very well said and I just want to say that I always ask a question, usually when I say what are the lessons learned and the lessons that cannot be lost from the (19)60s or from any of the Vietnam War, or even Kent State? You already answered that question. With one word, communication.
HF: 1:27:57
Yep.
SM: 1:27:58
You hit it right on the button. Howard, I want to thank you for this interview.
HF: 1:28:05
You might, you might consider putting a link to the oral history I gave to Kent State too.
SM: 1:28:10
I will do that. I got to deal with Binghamton University, but I will deal with that and I am going to pause the tape now. Thank you very much for the interview.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Howard Ruffner
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s and 2010s. 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 continues to interview legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
23 June 2022
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dr. Elizabeth Jane McCarthy
Biographical Text
Dr. Elizabeth Jane McCarthy grew up in Cohasset, Massachusetts. She is a nurse, educator, and activist. Dr. McCarthy served in Vietnam as a nurse in the 95th Evacuation Hospital in Da Nang. Upon returning from Vietnam, she went to nurse anesthesia school. She worked as a nurse anesthetist for several years and returned to school for her Ph.D. in Physiology from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda. Since her retirement from the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, Dr. McCarthy is teaching graduate nursing students at the University of North Florida, Drexel University, and the University of Maryland.
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1:35:39
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English
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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Digital file
Date of Digitization
23 June 2022
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
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Audio
Keywords
Vietnam war; Nurse; People, Wounded; Home; Memorial Wall; Veterans; Remember; Uniform; Hospital; Dead; Lives; 1960s.
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Jane McCarthy
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Lynn Bijou
Date of interview: 23 June 2022
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM: 00:10
Thank you, Dr. McCarthy, for agreeing to do this interview. And I would like to start the-the interview by having you, read the, read the speech that you gave at the Vietnam Memorial, the wall, on Memorial Day 2022. And we are going to start with this and then throughout the interview, I will ask questions and linkage to it as well.
JM: 00:38
Okay. Okay, here goes. Peter Cogill, KIA, February 1967. Craig Simeone, KIA, May 1969. Eddie Murray, GIA, July 1969. Allen Keating, KIA], October 1969. Dennis Reardon, KIA, November 1969. Those are the names on this wall, from Cohasset. A small town in Massachusetts where I grew up, eight boys in all from Cohasset died in Vietnam. This is why we have Memorial Day. This is why I march each year in the Cohasset, Massachusetts Memorial Day Parade, to remember those friends, those young boys that we lost in Vietnam, to remember the high cost of war. We are here now on Memorial Day once again, here more than 50 years later to remember this loss, to remember the high cost of war. Many of you out there also served in Vietnam. Nurses like my friend from Boston, Kathy Pines, and corpsman and medics, physicians, helicopter pilots, helicopter pilots that I never knew because your job ended when my job began: bringing the wounded to us at the hospital, and radio guys at the hospitals and in the field, like my friend Dick Churchill, who called in the choppers for the wounded. All those who helped in the hospitals and in the field cared for those wounded, please stand. And let us just thank them. And gold star mothers like Joanne Churchill, your sons were not alone, as these veterans were the ones caring for the wounded from the field to the hospitals. Can you want it that is out there who made it back? These nurses, and docs, and corpsmen, and medics are the ones that were there to take care of you. I served as an Army nurse in Vietnam, in 1970 and 1971, just after my friends on this wall, had made their sacrifice. I was not in favor of the war, and did not understand what we were doing here. But I knew many of my friends were being drafted and killed. I decided what would be of more purpose, at that time in my life, a new 21-year-old nurse, then to care for those wounded but were being drafted and sent off to war. I joined the Army Nurse Corps after 10 months working here at the Walter Reed Army Hospital. I was ordered to the United States Evacuation Hospital in Da Nang, south Vietnam. I have worked in triage or what we call here, the emergency room. What was called there priyad and receiving, receiving the wounded. I took care of 18 and 19-year-old young men, boys. I really saw a 20-year-old, shot up, frightened, alone, and afraid to die in a war they did not understand. How does a 22-year-old girl from a small town in Massachusetts tell a 19-year-old soldier that he does not have a foot or leg anymore, and they have wounds. The patient is expected to die because they were not candidates for surgery. I just tell them, or I sat with them until they died? I wonder why we were fighting this war. I thought I would find answers in Vietnam. But I did not. I did learn that war causes deaths and mutilation. So, what was it like coming home? Looking back now, I had a classic case of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, I believe, I believe all of us that witnessed the atrocities of war, experience post-traumatic stress to one degree or another. I had, nightly, trouble sleeping hypervigilance, depressed, I was not eating. In those days, there was no such thing as PTSD. You were told to just put one foot in front of the other and go on with your life. For me, that meant school, work, more school, work, and having my own family. I did get some help along the way. In 1993, we had the dedication of the memorial for the nurses over there. I remember being here. We had a parade of nurses down Constitution Avenue, and each of us had our banner of our work behind, standing behind the banner for our hospital in Vietnam, and we stood behind this banner, and the veterans were on the side of the road. It was very quiet. And you would hear every once in a while, when the veteran guys in their wheelchairs, they would see the sign of their hospitals and you wish you would hear them yell out, "You took care of me, you took care of me. I remember you. You took care of me." This was so healing for all of us, for the vets, and for us the nurses. And it was for us nurses to begin to realize that we needed to heal also. We saw those atrocities day in and day out. And we needed to be healed. And that is what both of these Vietnam memorials have given us over the year. And I am glad that we do what we do every Memorial Day here. At our nurse’s memorial, we have our candlelight service in the evening, AND the storytelling in the morning, And then this Vietnam program here at the wall in the afternoon, all remembering the high cost of war. I would like to end today by sharing a poem written anonymously, by a soldier who must have been wounded in Vietnam and cared for by nurses. It is called, "Angels in War." "Listen, now I have a story to tell about some women who lived through hell. They saw it in the war in a special way, sometimes 16 hours a day. There is a story of pain and strife and agony and fight for life. Listen now to this story I tell about these women who worked through hell. But they were young, like you and me. How much more special can they be? How many hands in the night did she hold while a young boy cried out, "I am so cold." Listen now to the stories they tell. These are the women who lived through hell. Let us not forget these stories they tell. For they are our sisters who lived through hell."
SM: 09:14
That was, I was present at the speech this year. And it was a very powerful one. And you received a standing ovation from everyone who was there. And I knew when I, you accepted the, the honor to interview you. I wanted you to give that speech so that others can hear it not only today, but 50 years from now, to remember those brave young men and women who served in that war. And, and, and of course you state the eight who died from your hometown and you went to school with. And I just want to say those names are on the Vietnam Memorial. And I will be asking you some questions about that speech as we go on with this interview. But I do I want to start, start off by saying you mentioned five names. Is there anything a little bit you can say about those names like, Peter Cogill. Could you say something about Peter?
JM: 10:13
Peter Cogill was, he was in my class, so I knew him growing up and [inaudible] Peter Cogill. I mean, you know, I knew him growing up, 1967. So, we graduated from high school in (19)66. So, he must have gone in right after high school, went into the army. And then, Craig Simeone he lived up the street from me by the football field, and he was in my class. And, you know, a good student, I am not sure, 1959, if he, you know, went off to college or something, I do not know. My best friend there is Allen Keating, and he was a neighbor of mine. And he was, I knew him, you know, from kindergarten on up, played in the neighborhood, you know, baseball, football. I, you know, I played all of that, did all that with the guys in the neighborhood, rode our bikes. And through high school, he was the captain of our football team. Just, you know, just so well liked by all of us. And, I think Alan especially was missed by so many. I have a friend, my friend that was Dick Churchill, he still wears his, Alan's, you know, on his wrist, like a bracelet, with Alan's name on it. So, those with a 1, 2, 3, Eddie Murray, Eddie Murray was in my class too, four, four of them that were in my class, Dennis Reardon was a year older, I believe, but I knew him. He was in my brother's class.
SM: 12:07
When they came home from war, were they buried in the hometown cemetery, or were some of them-
JM: 12:12
Yes.
SM: 12:12
-buried in Arlington?
JM: 12:14
No they-they-they were buried at home because those were the funerals. I was coming home to every six months. Yeah. Yeah, I do not. I do not, you know, back then. I do not remember anybody opting to be buried in Arlington.
SM: 12:31
Right.
JM: 12:32
My friend Chrissy, Chris was in Vietnam with me, a nurse, Chris McKinley, and she died about 15 years ago, we think from exposure to Agent Orange. And, anyway, and she had her, she was buried at Arlington. And, but I think back then I do not know if we just did not even know you could not be buried, but they probably did not want to be. No, they-
SM: 13:10
Right.
JM: 13:10
-did not want to be buried in Arlington. They wanted to come back home.
SM: 13:14
Could you talk about, could talk about your hometown, your early years growing up? What it was like being in high school before you went off to college and went off to war?
JM: 13:27
Yeah, Cohasset is a small town on the ocean halfway between Boston and the Cape [Cod]. So, it is a lovely little town. And I went to the schools there, through high school. And, and there were about 100 kids in my class starting out in kindergarten. [chuckles] And we were all together through high school. And it was a pretty well to do town. I do not know what it was, a lot of the, a lot went on to college. And, there is, you know, there is old money there, there is roots, I mean, my family went back. My mother's family went back several generations. You know, it is one of those towns where you came over on the boat and you did not leave [laughter] and go out but you just stayed. It was very New England. My grandparents had a New England farm and, meaning, you know, with vegetables, and chickens, and a cow, and all that. But, you know that they survived on themselves. And I had a horse growing up and kept it at my grandparents. But they kept, it was really there for us, and I would go up there to ride the horse, and I could run. And then, I had another race horse when I was about 15 that was close to my home, that people had and I rode the horse all through town, I would ride the horse down to the beach [chuckles]. I never run into the water, to heel his leg, and then run him back to town [chuckles]. It was that kind of a town.
SM: 15:22
When you were in high school, were the, were the young people in the school pretty well informed about what was happening beyond their town? What was happening-
JM: 15:33
Yeah.
SM: 15:33
-in the (19)60s about the march on like, for example, civil rights, the march on Washington, the Vietnam War, all the things that were happening in America?
JM: 15:41
Yeah-yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we were, we were, we were torn like everybody else, as I was torn, you know. As a matter of fact, when I was in high school and nursing school making that decision, do I go out and protest? With the flower children, you know, go out and protest, or do I join the army? And it was, it was that, those were my decisions that I was going to do one or the other. And, you know, most, by (19)68-(19)69. Most people, families were trying to avoid the drought, that is for sure. My brothers, I had two older brothers, and my parents went to the town. I do not know, I forget, man, what we call Mrs. Bouncer, the draft commission of something. And got, got deferments, my brothers every six months, because they were in school, and to keep them out of the Army, you know, and then by the time all these guys died, they came up with a rule, but Cohasset just lost too many. And we were not going to send any more over to Vietnam from Cohasset. No we were, we were very aware, very aware. I mean, you know, I remember the day that Kennedy was shot and Martin Luther King, and very much part of the, very much part of the illusion and disillusionment of the times. They were some difficult times, were not they?
SM: 17:28
Yeah, you bring up a question I was going to ask later, but I will ask it now, because, you know, I call, you are probably what they call the, the early boomer group, which is the front edge boomers, and they were born between (19)46 and about (19)57. And, the impact a lot of this had on that part of the boomer generation was very strong, obviously. And the death of John Kennedy in 1963, and then the deaths of Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King in (19)68. It, people kind of remember, where were you when you heard that John Kennedy was killed?
JM: 17:29
Yeah-yeah, exactly. Right. Right. We knew where we were right, what you are asking me.
SM: 18:02
Yeah where were, how did you find out, and where were you?
JM: 18:18
Well, I was, I was in high school, and November 22nd, and it was at one o'clock in the afternoon. And they made, and I had majorette practice, I was the captain of the majorette group, majorette. And, they made an announcement on the PA system that Kennedy had been shot. And I guess they have dismissed school or something, but I went down to the gym. And by the time I go to the gym, then they announced that he had been killed. And, of course, we did not have majorette practice. That was a first. And then I remember, we did not have school on Friday, and then the funeral was Monday. But the horse, you know, and I remember going over to my friend Linda's house with her dad, in their house, and sitting in their den watching the funeral.
SM: 19:22
Yeah. The shock, you know, we were, I am about the same age. We were, you know, we were young and man, that was a shock to everyone. And, and then, of course, as the (19)60s moved on, then we had the, within three months, the killings of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, and they were equally shocking.
JM: 19:48
Oh, right. But, it was worse. It was scary. It was, you know, and it was sad. It was, it was very painful, very painful.
SM: 20:02
When you were, again, you were, you were young, this is before you become a nurse. But, did you start questioning about America? Where was America going? You know, we are having some of that right now in the world today. With everything going on in 2020 people are asking these questions. Is our nation going to survive these things in the long run? Did you think about that? Did you think about any of this when, you, these tragedies were happening?
JM: 20:34
Well, I think even when I was in nursing school, I did not understand. Remember, like I said, in my-my speech there, I did not understand why we were in this war. But I had this idea in my head that the government knew why we were. And I thought, if I went over to war, I would find out why we were in this war. And, so I still have this idea that the government knew what they were doing. But boy, did I get disillusion about that? While I was in Vietnam, I think I kind of got awakened that, no, they do not know what they are doing. And I mean worse than that, it was, I mean, to be very honest with you, what I found out was that there was this thing called the military industrial complex. There were people making lots of money off of this war. And, and that seemed to be what was driving them. There was not, it was not the Vietnamese people wanting democracy, they just wanted to know where their next meal was going to be, and they wanted to visit their relatives unknowing. And, you know, who are we? And then this whole idea that they would draft 18-year old and 19-year-old, I think that was done on purpose. Because they figured 18-19-year old did not know any better. You know, they were very more, more pliable than the 25-year-old. And because when I was, l I mean, the only guys I saw wounded and blown up were 18-19-year old. So they must have just really, it seemed to be pretty purposeful.
SM: 22:22
Were your parents for or against the war? And did you have any, what they call a generation gap in your family over that war?
JM: 22:31
Oh, well, my father had served in World War II, and he was in the Navy. And I thought, when I came up with this idea of going into the army, I had hoped that I would, what do I say, leaned on his, his sense of patriotism or something because they had to sign papers for me because I was only, I was 19, I think when I went in, I went in as I was still a student in nursing school. So, I went into the Army student nurse program, and they take me my last year, and then I owed them too. And so yeah, my parents had to sign in. I remember that day, you know, putting the papers out there after dinner, at the dinner table, and wondering if they would be willing to do it. But they did, and I mean, I think it is kind of crazy doing it. They work so hard to keep my brothers out of war. And then they are wondering, "Oh, my daughter comes home, then wants to do this." I, you know, they just signed, I do not know, I do not know what they were thinking. But I know, I think my father was very proud because he was, in the Legion he would, and you know, Cohasset you heard my speech, we have this-
SM: 24:07
Right.
JM: 24:07
-Memorial Day parade. And, and he went out within Vietnam. I know they were very upset when I, I mean, I came to Walter Reed. And then I had to go home and tell them, "I got to go to Vietnam." They were very upset. They were, they were not happy about that. Like I could do something about it. You know, they accused me of volunteering. But you know, I had to go. So, off I went. And that Memorial Day that I was away my father at the parade, at the end of the parade at the podium, you know, announced that I was in Vietnam and that he had heard from me. I think that morning, I am not sure I was allowed to call home once a month and so the town, not only my parents, but the whole town knew I was over there. And what I was doing, and then, you know, to come home, and then my father when I came home from Vietnam, I think in (19)72, for Memorial Day, he asked me to march in the parade, and I said, "No, not going to march, not going to put on that uniform." And I remember my mother coming upstairs and saying, "Would you please? Would you do it for your father? You will not do it for anybody else, will you do for your father?" So I said, "Okay," so I pulled out my summary chords uniform. I went down there, and there was only two other guys and me, because most days, remember, you did not put on a uniform.
SM: 24:07
Right.
JM: 25:51
You would get stoned, or rotten tomatoes, or whatever. And the three of us stood proudly and walked down Main Street of Cohasset, wearing our uniform. And since then, I think there is I do not know how many, 50, I do not know a lot more have come out. You know, of course, that was a long time ago. But, so then my father asked me to give my speech a couple of years later, some time to give a talk at the end of the parade, as the guest speaker, and I remember saying to him, "Okay, I will give you my talk, but it is not going to be a talk. You are going to like." Obvious, I had a lot of anger in me, you know.
SM: 26:33
Right.
JM: 26:34
And I said, "Yeah, I am not going to talk about heroes. I am not going to do that. I am going to tell you the truth about what, what I observed about war." And so, that was my first anti, anti-war talk on Memorial Day. [chuckles]
SM: 26:54
Wow, that is a lot of courage. That is a lot of courage. But yeah, you had a lot of courage and desire to serve by going to Vietnam so, that it kind of came out in your speech. You know, you talked about the military industrial complex. You know, Eisenhower warned us about that, when he was leaving office. Be wary of the military industrial complex. And he, I was telling him this stuff that Kennedy, before Kennedy became president. So it was kind of, his thoughts were right on. Some of the other events of the 1960s, just like you, if, when you first heard, he probably knew where you were, or how about the shootings at Kent State in 1970. That was a shocker too, that killed people. Yeah, you know, there has been a lot of protests, but nobody has been shot.
JM: 27:47
Yeah. Well, 1970, so and see, I was probably in Vietnam when that went on. And so in (19)71, or (19)72, I was in Colorado, and I joined, I was going to Colorado University, and I joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War protest group. So, I was right here with them protesting, you know, doing anything to get us the hell out of war. You know, I was pretty committed to this war was wrong, and we needed to get out of that.
SM: 28:43
The, you chose a career in nursing, a career that helps you decide what you could do to serve your nation, which is, which is certainly honorable. And you were against the war, but you still went because of the eight that you knew had died from your hometown. You brought this up at your presentation at the Vietnam Memorial. That must have really created mixed emotions with you even when you were over there serving. Can you talk at all about, first off that the trip over, the flight over, usually when people from, who are going to Vietnam that trip over, they had a lot of feelings and when they got off that plane and felt that heat, that was the second thing and then saw others that were coming home? Just you know, that whole, your feelings over there knowing that these things are going on back in the United States. The anti-war movement was so strong. And I think part of the anti-war movement was also over in Vietnam because the African American soldiers were dealing with a lot of the civil rights issues as well that were going on in America. [crosstalk]
JM: 30:06
Yep. Those are two separate issues. Those are two, there was an anti-Vietnam war movement in Vietnam, and there was a civil rights movement of the black soldiers that were being mistreated, you know, send off to jail. And, and we and, and that was scary. Both of that was scary. Now, the anti-Vietnam movement, I will tell you a story is that we, the docs and the nurses, you know, put, you know, we had officers and enlisted in the officers and all of that, and we, but we had a place, Lance's Bar, that where we lived in the barracks, well it was not a barrack, we call them hooches. But anyway, there is, and we would go there to, you know, get together, to say goodbye, have a party, either somebody was leaving, or somebody just came and, and would sing and have drinks, I guess, I do not know, sit around in a circle. Maybe, I do not, maybe 15 of us, 20 of us, and the docs and the nurses, you can imagine, you have got very close to these people. And at the end would always, end by singing, "You have got a friend, you have got a friend," James Taylor. And then would stomp, stomp on the floor at the end, "Peace now, peace now." Well, one night, the group had this same demonstration out on top of the bunkers, and Harvey was there. He is our radiologist taking movies of this, and singing the song, I guess and everything. Well, this got reported to somebody, I guess, the echo, and he reported to Saigon. And then Saigon had an investigation of us, and they all came up in their helicopters, and interviewed everybody. I cannot remember if I get interviewed or not, because I said I was working that night. I am sorry. I missed it, you know. [chuckles] And so, that was a big deal. So with our punishment, I remember was, they were not going to give us any medals. Of course, we laugh about it, because in those days in the army, right, if you did something wrong, they threatened you with going to Vietnam. Okay. Then when you were in Vietnam, they threatened you with going further north, near the DMZ, but we were already about as far north as you could get. [laughter] So, they took away our metals. And I remember a couple of the guys say, "You know, I was not going to wear those damn metals ever again anyway." So yeah, we had our own anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. And I remember the black enlisted guys, scaring, you know, they had weapons in their barracks and they were going to have a revolt and we had a couple of black docs, physicians, thank God, that went over and they went over, and talked to them, and calmed them down. So, we were okay. So yeah, there was there was, there was a lot going on, you know, to the, yeah, there was a lot going on.
SM: 33:29
What was that feeling when you got on that plane heading to Vietnam? What were your- what was going through your mind there? That is a long flight.
JM: 33:38
It is, it is. And I left from Washington, my family, I had gone home. And I was, I had to be in this wedding for my brother and I was the maid, and I was a, you know, bridesmaid. And oh, my God, my cousin had been injured in Vietnam, and my aunt is asking me to take care of them. And I am like, I was, I am like, "Oh my god, I cannot do all this people." But, and then, I got on a plane, came back here to Washington, to my friends here. And then they had to put me on a plane at [inaudible] and with my duffel bag, and that was it too, being back home in Cohasset, I remember packing a duffel bag and thinking, you know, how do you pack for a year? As a woman knowing there are no shopping malls, people. [chuckles] You know and, and figuring that all out, and packing the duffel bag, and I think they allowed me to have another suitcase, I had a croc suitcase. And getting back here to Washington and then Beth and M drove me to the airport, and then I flew to Hawaii and I called them I remember and I just cried. So then from, then on, Hawaii to Cyprus. I think I landed in Guam. And then on to Saigon, it felt like I cried every 15 minutes, I just cried. I just cried, I was alone. And then I remember being on this plane with 250 GI's. And somebody is saying, "For any second lieutenants out there, your average life is 20 minutes," or something and then someone else saying, "Look to your left, look to your right. One of you is not going to make it back." So it is a very long time, as a woman, as a young woman, 22. And, and, and I do not remember the guys like being overly friendly at all, somehow, or I might, just so caught up in myself, you know, I am scared. And then we come landing into Saigon there, and there were these, what, there is flares going off. And I thought they were bombs. Because what do I know, I do not know what bombs, I do not know anything like that, oh, my God. And, and then I got out of the airplane, yet somehow. And they put me in a hut somewhere that had concertina wire around it, for three days. And there was a guard there, and I did not know if he was guarding me to keep the enemy out or to keep me in. [laughter] I did not know what the hell I was doing. I remember reading a book, and I waited. And then they finally maybe I have got my uniforms then. Somehow, they took me somewhere to get uniforms, and put my name on the uniform. And then I went down to Saigon too, and I met with the Chief Nurse. And I remember her saying, "What are you doing here? I did not know you was coming." And I am thinking, "Oh, my God. All this. And she does not want me." But anyway, and then she goes "What am I going to do with you?" "I do not know," I thought-
SM: 34:37
[chuckles} [chuckles]
JM: 34:55
-you know, so then she said, "Okay, I am going to put you up with the knives at the backup." And I am going to, so they put me in a C-140 with another 200 guys. And we landed every 20 minutes or something you had to unload and load. In fact, it was nighttime by the time I got up there, and they could not safely get me over to the hospital. So, I had to stay at the airport with the red, with the Donut Dollies place. So I am like, "What the hell are you people doing here? Why would you?" Oh, but then they have got me over the 95th, somehow, somebody got me over there. And so, the Chief nurse was there. And she said, "Here, here is your mooch, go to there. Come back and see me in three days." [chuckles] Because she is such a mess, I guess she figures. So anyway, it was, it was not easy, no. And then she assigned me to the ICU. And because I had come from Reed and I had worked recovering from ICU. And then that did not work out well. So then she moved me down to this, what they call a pre-op and receiving which was, as you heard me say, essentially the emergency room. And she said, I know you can take care of your own patients down there. And you can call the shots more or less. So, I went down there and that is where I met Christy and Annie, and we just became best friends, the three of us, and uncovering the docks, you know, and we had a great team. So things, but it was, it was either. I mean it was, ugh.
SM: 38:55
Were you there, [crosstalk] were you at this location the whole time you were in Vietnam?
JM: 39:02
Yes. Yeah. I never went anywhere. And you know, you could not go anywhere either.
SM: 39:07
How long were you there?
JM: 39:10
Ten months. And you could not as a woman, of course you could not drive, of course, you did not have a vehicle. And you could not leave the compound, unless you were in uniform, in a vehicle, where the driver had agreed to take you to another military place. And the only place I went was China Beach where they had an officer's club and, you know, a change area and you know, so and that was, that was I think it was Army, might have been Navy. I do not know. But that was the only place I went to, which is often by myself.
SM: 39:52
Were you a seven day a week nurse, or would you, did you, were you five days a week and two days off?
JM: 39:59
No, we worked, we worked six days, 12 hours a day.
SM: 40:02
Wow.
JM: 40:04
Seven to seven or seven to seven.
SM: 40:07
Wow. And what were your duties there?
JM: 40:12
Well, that is the outright. So, down there in pre-op and receiving, I mean, I had to learn. It was taking care of the wounded, that came in. Amputations, leg [inaudible], above the knee, below the knee, hip wounds, back wounds, chest wounds, and then they came in hypovolemic shock. And so, you were, I was, I learned how to resuscitate somebody in a hypovolemic shock. So, that meant starting IV's. And, you know, my orientation to going to war as a nurse was when Bob Watson in at Walter Reed, he had been to Vietnam, he was an anesthesiologist. And he heard I was, when I am on orders, to Vietnam. So, he took me to the back, to the operating room. And he taught me how to start an IV. Because he knew I needed to know how to do that. And so, by the time I got over there to pre-op and receiving down there, I knew how to start an IV and essentially, so you know, the wounded came in on the choppers on the chopper pad, the corpsman would grab a gurney, go out and get the wounded, bring them in, we put them on the sawhorses. And then I go to work, cut off your uniforms. And started, check, get their name, get a feel on a blood pressure count, start their IV, if you can get something going in the hand, or the arm, if not, I can stick them in the external jugular, I put them head down. If they were in so much shock, I could not get into a vein, I go into the external jugular and I have gotten really good at that, and start an IV and then I would also be doing what is called a femoral tic, stick a needle with the 10-cc syringe into their femoral artery, and ask for a 10-cc's of blood to hook it to two tubes of blood, and I would send it with a corpsman over to the blood bank right across the hall. And then, he would give it to the blood bank person in exchange for two units of-of, O neg, low titer blood, because that is a universal donor. And then in the meantime, the blood bank guy is typing and crossing. So, the next units would be type specific at least. And in the meantime, I am back here starting the IV's, setting up something for blood to get the blood going. And looking at the wounds, I mean, not looking at them, changing the bandages and then oh, and then writing up an X-ray. So because we would want to get them on to X-ray if there was any abdominal or even the legs to see if there were any cracks in the wound, you know. So, we try to stabilize them enough to get them to X-ray, if they were not stable I would have to go with them to X-ray, pumping the blood, pumping the IVs, get them out of X-ray. And hopefully you have got a stable blood pressure, 90 anyway. And then take them up the hall to the operating room. And then those that were not that critically injured went over to what we call pre-op and I would come back and look at them, and try to get them ready better. For the, you know, you had to be prioritizing all the time. You know, this one is going to go, and this one we can wait. So, that is what my day was like.
SM: 43:54
When the really seriously wounded individuals, how long were they there? Did they take them, do they take them away to another hospital after a certain length of time? And for those who were not hurt as much, what was the longest number of days that they would stay in at your location?
JM: 44:13
I would say for about two or three days. And we would stabilize them enough so that they can transport and so, two or three days and they either went back to their unit if they were really like, you know could, if they were okay, or two or three days and they were medivac to Camp Sama. So, usually we could load them onto a bus, you know on stretchers, and take them down, they would take them down to the airport, put them on a plane, and medivac them to Camp Sama in Japan. Yeah-yeah.
SM: 44:47
In your speech you talked about, you know, holding the hand of someone who died. Could you describe a few experiences with wounded or dying vets? What did you do for them, no names? But, what were their wounds? And were you with them when they died? You know, there is different groups here, there is those that may have lost an arm or a leg. And so they found out that they, one of their limbs is gone, and how they reacted and so forth. And those that you could not do anything for, and we were going to die. And just a couple of the times, the experiences and I do not know if you ever mentioned this at the speech, but the thing is, did you ever go back to the wall on Washington, D.C. and tried to look up somebody on the wall that you would actually try to help save?
JM: 45:42
No, I did not come home with any names. And I think I did that on purpose. I did not come home with any names. I remember, people, maybe a little bit from Walter Reed. But I do not, but not, no, no. And what was interesting in Vietnam, we never, I guess a nurse, you are used to like, you know, you have patient conferences. You talk about the patients, right? And when Chrissy, Annie and I would get together on the picnic bench with a bottle of bourbon. We would not talk about any patient. We just stuffed it. We just stuffed it. And I remember with Tony, he was a surgeon, and Sherry and, we did not, we just did not talk about it. We just did not talk about it. And then when we, when I came home and I ended up in Colorado, and Chrissy and Annie were out there and couple of other nurses, a couple of docs, about 10 of us, especially in Cafe McKenna. That is right, she was an OR nurse. And we then, we talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked. But in Vietnam, we did not talk, and I did not come home with anything. Nope.
SM: 47:16
Yeah, I know that. I have interviewed a lot of people and read a lot of books, and some of the stories about some of the people in Vietnam who are seriously wounded. Now, some of them survived. But, they would always be talking and asking for their mom, or their brother, or their sister, or their, someone in their family because not knowing if they will ever see them again. Did you have a lot of that, or?
JM: 47:43
No-no. Well, you know, for the most part, and this is, I remember, if a guy came in alive, they survived. You know, because that is, that is, because we were treating hypovolemic shock, you know, and you pump them up some fluids and some fluids. They will pick up for you, they will survive. Now, the only ones that did not survive in my experience, anyway, were the head wounds, because the nurse, you know, I would call the neurosurgeon down, to come down and assess and say there is nothing I can do with this one. And so, so I would take that patient in the back. And, I would sit with him until he died. But he was not conscious, you know, but I would stay there, I would not leave him alone. But I remember thinking that consciously you know, that, I, that they came in alive. They would leave alive, for the most part, and cause most of our wounds again, were amputations, blank amps.
SM: 47:44
Okay. Yep.
JM: 48:55
As long as you could catch up.
SM: 49:04
The, you had mentioned that R&R was very important. And you mentioned China Beach, I think there was a T.V. show about that. I think there is something there with China Beach. But-
JM: 49:14
Yes-yes. Of course.
SM: 49:16
You were up north, you were near the DMZ, were not you, you were, you were up north. So, how far away was China Beach, and describe what China Beach is all about for those who have never heard of it?
JM: 49:21
Yeah. Well, right there was a show China Beach, and it was a real China Beach and it was not it. [laughs] And as I said it was, it, I guess it was considered it was, it was an in-country R&R. So I guess, you know, soldiers would come in from the field. I do not know if they had any space for them to stay. Maybe they did, but that does not concern me. They need a place to stay. But, they did have an old club that I think served food. And the beach was just absolutely gorgeous, just absolutely gorgeous. And we would go sometimes, like real professional surgeons and nurses, and put down on a Sunday, we would be quote "off," [chuckles] and sit on the beach, and swim. But I remember sitting there one Sunday with everybody, and we are looking over to Marble Mountain. And there were bombs being dropped and stuff. I mean, you could hear the war. And we all said, "Well, we better pack it up. We are going to have business soon. We better get back to work." And that was the craziness of it all. You know. [chuckles] We were enjoying a beautiful day at the beach, in our bathing suits. I remember, I did not bring a bathing suit with me. And I had to write my mother and ask her to send me a bathing suit. I said, "But make it be one for a nun or something." [laughter] So, she sent me a one-piece bathing suit with a skirt to it, you know. So, you know, I just wanted to be, you know, I did not want to be wearing any bikinis on China Beach [chuckles].
SM: 51:30
Now the, China Beach, it was totally 100 percent secure. Was it really? You know, Vietnam was not safe anywhere. But that was one area, you knew you were safe.
JM: 51:46
Yeah-yeah. It I think it had a perimeter. And I mean, it was only a section of the beach and it had some kind of a fence up there. And whether, there were probably guards out there. I know we, we had, they had Air Force. There were lifeguards there that we were active duty Air Force. Because I remember talking to one and then he told me he was in the Air Force. I thought, well, that is a nice job [laughter].
SM: 52:22
Now, could you talk about how you left Vietnam, you were there for 10 months? And I remember reading something that a United States senator helped you get home. But could you talk about when that time came when you are leaving Vietnam?
JM: 52:44
Right, well, like in February, March, I, I came up with my five-year plan. That is what I call it, my five-year plan, which meant I want to get back, go to college. Because part of my going into was I knew I had the G.I. bill because my parents would not let me go to college and I wanted to go to college. I really, really wanted to go to college. I had good grades. I loved school. I wanted to go to medical school. But my father. and I got into five universities, but my father said "No, you are going to go to Mass General Hospital School of Nursing." Okay. So, that is my part of this thing. I had had the G.I. Bill to go to college. And so, I applied to colleges again, while I was in Vietnam, I got into two universities. And then I put the paperwork in for school. I was supposed to go home in October, but I needed to go home in August, so I could start school, the fall semester. We put the paperwork in and nothing happened, and nothing happened. So, it had to be like July, and nothing was happening. And so, the IG was coming for the day, early in the morning. I remember there was a sign up that said that the IG will be here at 7:30 in the morning, in this little room. So I said, "Okay, I am going to go and talk to the IG." So, I did, and I told him my story. And I said, "I have not heard anything." He said, "Okay, let me look into it." Well, he got back to me and said, "Oh, your paperwork was lost." So I thought really, and I said, "Chief it must have fallen out of the airplane on the way back to Washington, D.C." I was quite cynical when I said it. [laughs] And so, you know, I came back and I realized this army was not going to do anything for me to get out of here. So, I was working nights one night, and I am sitting there and thinking, "Okay, what are you going to do?" I could write to Ted Kennedy. Okay, knowing that if you write to your Senator, your days are numbered in the military. That just is not something you do as an officer. As a first lieutenant in the army, but I decided, and writing a letter from Vietnam, you know, there was no postage, but it could be, somebody could be reading it on the way out of the country. But I did, I wrote an eight-page letter to Ted Kennedy and told him my whole story, I want to go back, I am here today, and they will not let me out of here, and I want to go to school. Well, six days later, on a Sunday morning, the Chief Nurse, Lieutenant Colonel comes running down, I am working. And she said, "McCarthy, go pack your bags, you are out of here." That is how I left Vietnam.
SM: 54:31
[laughs]
JM: 55:04
And I went back to my room, and I packed my stuff up in my duffel bag. And I found John Robuski, who had a Jeep, I knew he had a Jeep, and we got in our flak jacket and helmet. But that time, they wanted us to wear this blackjack and helmet all the time. And he took me to the airport. And that is how I left. I never said goodbye to anybody.
SM: 56:07
But you were on your way home. [chuckles]
JM: 56:09
Yeah-yeah. So I got on a plane to [inaudible]. They kept me there for a few days. And then they got me on a plane to Travis Air Force Base. And they processed me out in eight hours. And, you know, now I have been on a plane for 26 hours, and they made me dress up in my uniform, not [inaudible]. And they said I could not bring any [inaudible] home with me. But you saw me, I had my [inaudible], I stuff, I stuffed in my duffel bag to bring home with me. But, that was illegal. They did not want you to do it. But, I did it anyway. But, I had to put on my skirt, and jacket, and stockings, and high heels, black heels to ride on my plane home. By the time I got to Travis I could not even put the high heels on my feet. My ankles was, my feet was so swollen, they walked me around for eight hours, processed me out of the army, and then at the last stop the guy hands me a couple thousand dollars and said "Okay, see you." I definitely did not see other coworkers. I said, "Where am I supposed to go?" He said, "Well, where do you live?" And I said, "Well, I guess Massachusetts." "Then get on an airplane and go," "Well, where is the airport?" "25 miles down the road." I said, "How do I get there?" "I do not know, grab a cab." [chuckles]
SM: 57:33
[chuckles] Jeez, very helpful.
JM: 57:37
Yeah. Yeah, that is how I left the Army
SM: 57:42
Now, you had, you had talked about you had a five-year plan and your goals were to continue our education. And you know you are, you are a doctor, you got a PhD. Could you talk a little bit about, you know, your plans and then on your rival home? I have a couple of questions about post-traumatic stress disorder and Agent Orange. But I want to, just your five-year plan because it was a good one.
JM: 58:11
Yeah, it was three years. I knew I needed three more years to get my college degree, a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. So I had applied to, say Indiana University's School of Nursing, and been accepted into Colorado University. And then my plan was after that was to go to anesthesia school to become a nurse anesthetist because I had found out about nurse anesthetist at Walter Reed and I thought, "Wow, this is something," but I did not think I would have the guts or the know how to do it. But in Vietnam, I said, "I can do this," and then went nurse anesthetists in Vietnam too. And, you know, I figured, yeah, I can do this. If I can do that, I can do this. So-so-so that was my plan, get my college degree, and then two more years in anesthesia school. So that is what I did, I came back. I went to IUP, Indiana University one semester, then I got in my car and drove out to Colorado, went to Colorado University, and went to Loretto Heights College, finished up the degree there. And then I had applied to Fairfax Hospital School, nurse anesthesia, got in there and moved back here to Virginia, went to that program, cut through, cut through there, and then I got a job at the Washington Hospital Center for a couple of years, and then I moved up to Walter Reed again. So now, I am back at Reed civilian nurse anesthetists in 1970, (19)78. And I was working, and Bob Watson was there, the same guy that said goodbye to me, you know, I mean, you know, they have taught me how to start an IV now, and so in the whole department and Bob was my chair, and well, it was connected to the Uniformed Services University. And somehow, I found out about that, and I went over, and I talked to Bob about it. And he said, "Well, you know, you got to go to medical school," but I do not want to go to medical school, I think I want to go on to my PhD in research, to do research. So he said, "Okay," so I went over for a couple of interviews there, and they accepted me. And so I, while I was back being a student and I loved it, I absolutely loved it. I mean, it was really hard. But, I had to give up my job at Reed. And I was essentially in medical school for two years. And then you go off, and do the research for three years, basic science research. And, you know, it was great. It was, it was hard. As I said, it was very hard. But, I learned how to do some really significant research. And from there, I did a postdoc at Mammary Naval Medical Research Institute. And then FDA found me and asked me to come over and work there as their basic scientist because of my pre-doctoral work, which was in high frequency ventilation, and FDA was reviewing the first high frequency ventilators for infants, and my research was preclinical. But anyway, I was a [inaudible], I was living my hat at the time. And so that is how I got into my work at FDA. And I transferred from an Army Reserve. And I became an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, working at FDA. And so I was able to, you know, being in that uniform, Public Health Service for 20 years. With my work at FDA.
SM: 1:02:08
Wow.
JM: 1:02:09
That is a quick long story, is not it?
SM: 1:02:11
But that is a great, I mean, it is a kind of, having a goal and doing it, having a goal, and doing it. And that is, it says a lot about you. And what you have done your whole life. Did you ever experienced Agent Orange? Did you ever have any effects of that when you were there?
JM: 1:02:28
Well, I do not. Well, I mean, I do not, do people have acute effects of Agent Orange?
SM: 1:02:37
Some people that have had cancer, they figured they got it from Agent Orange.
JM: 1:02:41
Well, right. Right, you see, you do not have acute but long years and years later.
SM: 1:02:47
I know many Vietnam vets and what they had to go through to prove they were victims of Agent Orange was kind of a living hell and. Right
JM: 1:02:47
And my friend Chrissy that I told you about, and Annie's husband that she met there, both have strange Leukemias and died come from them. And, and I often though, and Chrissy did too, but it was our exposure to Agent Orange because we were cutting off their uniforms, right, when they came in, the wounded. And we did not wear, we did not wear gloves, [chuckles] we were not wearing gloves. And we, so we definitely could have been exposed to it. I had breast cancer about 15 years ago. And I think I put a claim into VA for it, but I never really followed up on it. Thank goodness I, I had an early, very early stage. And so, my treatment was successful. Well, my end was going through, my was, of course I never got in the Agent Orange thing, but my thing was hard that was hard was PTSD.
SM: 1:04:17
Yeah, could you explain how you knew you had it?
JM: 1:04:23
Well, it is not like, okay, okay. Okay. Let us see. I think like, I think I said my job. Looking back, I had classic PTSD and also how I knew that was, okay, when I was getting out of the Public Health Service retiring about 15 years ago or so, or 20, I do not know, 15 years ago. They told me make sure you go to VA and get an exit physical. So this is 2006, right, 25 years or something, or 30, whatever, 40 years after Vietnam, but they said, get an exit physical. So I said, "Okay," so I went down to VA in D.C. And part of that was, I somehow, I met with a clinical psychologist and they took my history. And I told them my symptoms when I first came home from Vietnam, you know, I did not sleep for six months, I did not eat. I was depressed. I was numb. I, you know, the classic stuff. And so he said, anyway, I remember him saying to me, "You have classic symptoms of PTSD." Okay, so I guess he put paperwork in for me to get, to get process for disability for PTSD. And I remember having to do that, I had to come up with letters that I was within Vietnam, and letters of people that knew me and Vietnam, and letters from psychologists with relationship things. And, yeah, I had to do a lot of work to get that but it did finally come through. I think I got 60 percent disability. But then seven years later, they, they asked that I do a reevaluation. So, I went back down to VA again in D.C., and I was seen by this civilian old psychiatrist who said to me, "Well, you look pretty good to me right now," and that was the end of that.
SM: 1:06:46
I read someplace, because I have looked up several articles on you, that you were working with a younger nurse and, a woman came in, and died in the office or something like that. And he said, you were not as emotional about that, as you know, because you have seen so much death in Vietnam.
JM: 1:07:07
Yeah, yeah. So, when I came back, I was in Indiana, and I was working, I thought, okay, I guess I am an emergency room nurse now. And I got a job at the city hospital there in Indianapolis. And in the ER, and I am working evenings, and I am working with a student who was assigned to work with me, a student nurse, old lady came in with a fractured hip in her bed, and I said, "Why do not you go ahead over to X-ray with her." So the student comes back, and she is crying. And I said, "What are you crying about it," she said, "She died." And I hope I did not say this, I thought about it. I thought, you were crying over that? I was holding a 19-year-old in my arms who bled to death in my arm, two weeks ago. And that is when I knew I ought not to be here. This is not a good place for me to be. So I was so numb, I realized that, you know, so I never did, I do not think, I left that job. But shortly after that, I moved out to Colorado. And I do not think, I worked at the city hospital there. But maybe the Chief Nurse knew enough, that could see that, I was damaged goods or something and then an ER with, anyway, I remember working in a pediatric clinic, and then they put me on the jail ward. But at least, I do not know. Yeah. Anyway, that is-
SM: 1:08:51
Great.
JM: 1:08:51
-that is what happened.
SM: 1:08:53
When you came home from the war, you said you remember a Vietnam Veterans Against, Viet Vets against the war. And you were involved in some of the protests that they did as well. Did you attend, any of the activity that took place on that one weekend where they were actually throwing their, their metals over a fence, and going up to a microphone and, and then that was the same weekend that John Kerry gave that famous speech? Before the Foreign Relations Committee with William Fulbright. You know, he said something about the fact that, you know, how can you say, how can I keep on serving in Vietnam and say, I would be the last man to die in a war that, that was so wrong or something like that. Were you there that weekend? Were you aware that was going on, as a member of Vietnam Vets of America against the war?
JM: 1:09:48
No, I did not. I do not, where was it?
SM: 1:09:52
It was in Washington, D.C.
JM: 1:09:53
No-no-no. No, I, do not know, I did not get involved. And really, I did not come to D.C., I did not. I was barely keeping my own life together, I think [chuckles] you know what I mean? I was not, I was not seeing like John Kerry. I mean, I did, as I said, in Colorado, and I went to a couple of meetings, a couple of demonstrations there. But even when I got back here to go to anesthesia school, I do not remember being really involved. It was not until, but then we had that, I was involved, but in a positive way, rather than a negative way. If you know what I mean, like (19)80-(19)82, we had the dedication of the wall, I was there for that. And in (19)93, I was there and that even, I went to the Congress for the hearings. You know, I was involved, but I do not remember going to any demonstrations.
SM: 1:11:10
Yeah, that was just, that is how John Kerry's career really started. He gave that speech and it was a heck of a great speech. And he had a senator and William Fulbright that, that wanted him to come speak. And obviously, William Fulbright was not liked at that time by L.B.J. And so it was, you know, it was his historic time. You know, I like your comments too. You are a Vietnam veteran and how the nation treated Vietnam veterans is disgraceful upon their return. I have a story here I want you to respond to and it is just a typical example of how the vets are treated upon the return. Bobby Mahler who founded Vietnam Veterans of America, told me in an interview, and I have seen him several other times, that the reason why he created this organization was because when he came home, severely wounded, paralyzed from the waist down. He was in the hospital. And they had absolutely no wheelchairs at his hospital, and he asked for a wheelchair and he said, "We do not have any." And he thought that was ridiculous. He, people were coming home from war, and could not walk. And so he put in his mind, personally as one person, that I am going to do something to make sure this never happens again to other vets. And that is how he kind of, the reason why he formed Vietnam Veterans of America. And of course, he was one of the cofounders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, too. But your overall comments about how Vietnam vets were treated upon their return, it is, it is upsetting.
JM: 1:12:54
Well, I do not, well, I mean, which comments?
SM: 1:13:02
No, just any thoughts on how America treated its vets who served in Vietnam?
JM: 1:13:06
Oh you are asking me what, what-
SM: 1:13:09
Yeah.
JM: 1:13:10
-I do not, I think I do not, this is my opinion. But, I do not think a parade would have helped. And I do not think my feelings, there was PTSD, or that, you know, having experienced war, we need to heal, we need to heal. And then I guess what we did with the wall and the memorial was healing. That is healing. I mean, I do not think coming home to a parade. I mean, there was nothing to celebrate, what are you going to celebrate? You were just in a war that nobody knows why the hell we were in this damn thing. I think it is more about so, it was not I was not all about that I got spit on and that kind of stuff. It was not about me. I mean, what we needed and Chrissy and I worked on that for years. When we came home I remember you know she was out in California and had a lot to do with that show China Beach. The producers worked with her, and interviewed her. She, a lot of the shows were based on her stories.
SM: 1:14:38
Who you are talking about, Chrissy? Whose Chrissy?
JM: 1:14:43
Chrissy was with me and, was a nurse there in pre-op and receiving.
SM: 1:14:48
Okay.
JM: 1:14:48
It was, yeah, yeah, we were best friends. We got home. She was in Colorado. And you know, we stayed in touch. But she was out in California, working with the, working, and on the side, you know, we all did our Vietnam stuff on the side. Then we, what we worked on was like the Vet Centers, you know, Vet Centers, and getting veterans help that way. We, we felt very, that is what we needed, where we needed to be putting our energy away. Not so much a parade, to get them some help. And they started these Vet centers on the sidewalks, you know, that was supposed to be if you were a veteran come in, and we will help you. And we needed to get them more help that way. I do not know if that is making sense.
SM: 1:15:48
Oh, yeah, it does. It is a different opinion. And that is, that is important.
JM: 1:15:52
I do not think I do not think a parade would have helped.
SM: 1:15:55
Right.
JM: 1:15:55
You know, I think that the Vietnam vets they had trouble with, we had trouble because we have witnessed atrocities of war. And what are you going to do celebrate that they needed to?
SM: 1:16:08
Right.
JM: 1:16:09
You know, we needed to process that. We needed to process with other veterans, with other, because you could not talk to anybody that had not been there. They did not understand. And we needed to support the veterans that way to help them get on with their lives. But I mean, and to help heal, and what they went through.
SM: 1:16:34
You attended both of the- these historic events, the opening of the wall in 1982, and the opening of the women's memorial in 1993. As a veteran I have seen, I live in California, I could not come to attend. But, that picture of the wall opening is, man, there was a lot of people there. Could you, what was the feelings that, that was there, in 1982? Just-just being there, what did it, how did you feel?
JM: 1:17:04
So, it was, it was very exciting. There was a lot of hoopla, there was a lot of, there was a, you know, a lot of veterans here on motorcycles. And so, there was that kind of celebration. But I think afterwards, you know, when-when, like, the wall was a very somber place. It was almost sacred, you know, and it was very different from any other Memorial. And when people would come in, like, I remember when Chrissy came in to see the wall for the first time, and my friend, Mike Camp, who was a psychiatrist. I think he was still at Walter Reed them, and we were in Vietnam together. And, and we both thought, we cannot let Chrissy see that wall by herself, and we met her at the wall. And we walked her through the wall, with her. I mean, that is, that is, that is what kind of a sites it is, when you see it for the first time. And, and then seeing the soldiers, you know, looking at the wall. So, there was a difference between to me anyway, that day when we celebrated the dedication of the wall. And then afterwards, the impact it has on veterans since, even to this day, you know that-
SM: 1:18:41
Yes.
JM: 1:18:42
-you have airplanes full of veterans coming in to look at that wall. And but then, you look at 1993 right, by then I was at the Uniformed Services University as a professor. I was in uniform now. And several of us went down to the dedication. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. You know, all kinds of nurses came in from all over the country. And I remember this friend of mine, another friend, Janet Smart, from Colorado. She and I were friends in Colorado. I mean, you know, when we ran the streets, and we skied, and partied, and she was a ski instructor, and she had been, she was a nurse in the reserve unit. But so I left Colorado, you know, and came back and now we were, what, 20 years later or so 15 years later, and we were at the Dedication of the Nurses Memorial. I am and I look up and she is tall like I am, and I looked over, and there was Janet. And we both said to each other, "What are you doing here?" [laughter] And she said, "I was in Vietnam," and I said "Well, so was I." We had been friends in Colorado for three years, never told each other that we had been in Vietnam.
SM: 1:20:06
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
JM: 1:20:08
Yeah. So, I mean, that just shows you how much you can stuff it. But that so anyway, that day I told her in my speech I talked about, the somberness. But the nurse’s memorial, I feel like it is still different. I can go and sit there, and I do not know, it feels more healing, and peaceful, or something underneath the trees. And whereas the wall, you know, if you really look at the wall, it has got all those names on it.
SM: 1:20:48
You know, Jam Scruggs wrote, his first book was "To heal a Nation." And, and this is a question I have asked all the people I have interviewed. When Jan used to say a lot, "This is not a political entity. This is all about remembrance. This is about making sure that we never forget those who served in Vietnam and lost their lives. And those who did serve in Vietnam and came home, and for the families of those who are no longer with us," that, you know, it was all about that, it was about healing. He goes on and it is done a great job in terms of healing, the Vietnam vets, and their families. The question is whether what the job is done with healing the nation that was so divided in, in the (19)60s? And that everybody has their own opinions on this. Do you think that wall has helped us heal as a nation?
JM: 1:21:49
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I think it was a turning point in, in how we looked at war, I mean, every other Memorial, is memorializing the heroes coming home. And I think that this memorial, is memorializing the high cost of war, and the pain of war. And I mean, I differ from Shannon, a bit there that it is not about remembering, it is about, it is about remembering these people. But it is also, it is about remembering the high costs of war, and we ought to think twice about getting into another war.
SM: 1:22:39
Right.
JM: 1:22:41
But that is very opposite meaning of every other Memorial where you look at "Oh, the soldiers, the heroes." I do not get that from the wall. I do not get that from, from looking at the wall. I get that this, we lost 58,000 men for what? And that is what even the soldiers, the way those soldiers are looking at that wall, you know.
SM: 1:23:17
In your view, what is the legacy of the Vietnam War? And what were the lessons learned or lost in that war?
JM: 1:23:26
Oh, I was hoping that we had learned the lesson of not getting into war. Nothing good comes of it. That is all we have atrocities, and lives lost, and countries ruin. When you think, you know that poor Vietnam country, the bombing, and everything, ugh. You know, wars are not good, nothing good comes out of them. And in this whole thing, you got a question. Somebody say, well, it was the domino theory. Really? Really, that is what we were told we were there because of the domino theory. Yeah, we lost and I do not see any dominoes falling here. And Vietnam, even though it was under communist rule, it was probably, it was probably better off than-than it was when it was being at war for 15-20 years.
SM: 1:24:33
Who do you blame for the war, if you know?
JM: 1:24:40
I think, I think all of them you know, the military industrial complex, the people making money off to the war. They were pushing it. The lobbyists, the weapons people, the convinced, and I knew Johnson he knew it was wrong. And then Nixon, you know, he did. It was the one time voted for Nixon was because he said he would get us the hell out of there-
SM: 1:25:15
Right.
JM: 1:25:19
-but I thought, I thought once we got out of there that we had learned our lessons, and then you see in (19)91, 20 years later, Bush invaded Iran. And I fell apart, then I fell apart. I just did not think our country would ever do that. And that is when I really fell apart with PTSD. Because I just, I, we could not turn the T.V. on in my house. We, you know, I could not I got really depressed, I just could not believe that we were doing that again.
SM: 1:25:57
And now we are talking about building another memorial for the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, so. Because that is what I think Jan is, is somewhat linked to that effort, because he is always we are thinking about those who serve the nation, and so-
JM: 1:26:16
I am not. Yeah, right, no.
SM: 1:26:20
One of the questions I want to ask before I ask my final two questions is, do you consider the activists who tried to end the war as heroes like those who served in the war in Vietnam, both are not treated well, upon the returned? Nixon called the silent majority; his group was called the silent majority during the (19)60s and early (19)70s. And they are the ones that kind of were, after those who served the anti-war protesters and so forth. But they were trying to save lives. But, the ones that were not it for just fun. The true activist one to save lives in Vietnam, not only the people who served in Vietnam, Americans, but also the Vietnamese population as well. Would you consider them? You know, the divisions of the (19)60s are such that how could you dare call an anti-war protester a hero, but today, when you are talking about today's terms, looking at Vietnam vets who I consider heroes, and, and Viet, and then the anti-war protesters who are against this war for many, many years, all ages, not just young people, if they were sincere, and bringing people home to save lives, I consider them heroes. What are your thoughts?
JM: 1:27:45
What that we care about the Vietnamese people too, is what you are asking?
SM: 1:27:50
No, it was do you consider the anti-war, the people who were anti-war protesters? Do you consider them heroes too?
JM: 1:27:58
Yes, absolutely. Thank God we had them, thank God. Because, you know, that helped get us the hell out of there. But if people just sat back and said, "Okay, let us keep going with this war." We were losing a 1000 men a month, were being killed. No, absolutely. Thank God for the protesters. I think maybe Nixon was who got us the hell out of there, do not you?
SM: 1:28:24
Yeah. I agree.
JM: 1:28:27
Right?
SM: 1:28:28
Yes.
JM: 1:28:29
Yeah, thank God to the protesters. We needed more of them.
SM: 1:28:35
The, I have a question too as a general question, is several people have talked about the 1960s and early (29)70s as two different groups, two different eras. The one era was 1960-(19)63, and the second era was (19)64-1975, when the helicopters flew off the Embassy in Saigon, of course, they are referring to probably the era of Kennedy, and then his death. And then the second (19)60s started in (19)64. Or do you consider it all one?
JM: 1:29:18
Well, yeah-yeah, I cannot say I could separate them. You know, that. What separates them into what? I do not know. Two different eras? Yeah.
SM: 1:29:53
No. That is just something, one of the top military people at the World War II Memorial when I interviewed him-him, he broke it down in the 2 (19)60s. It is just a thought that some people have, said it was two different years in one year.
JM: 1:30:08
No-no, they were not my life. They were the most influential years of my life. And they were all very much connected, that you know, then our president was killed. And that we were shooting people like Martin Luther King. I mean, then Kennedy was probably killed because of the civil rights that he was willing to, to work with. And so, it was that, and then we got this. I mean, I guess it was different than that. Then we have got another bunch of people that want to get into a war in Vietnam. [laughs]. Oh, God.
SM: 1:30:56
Certainly, for the, your, your thoughts on the boomer generation as a whole? Do you have any opinions on them?
JM: 1:31:05
Well, I am one, right?
SM: 1:31:06
Yes, you are one.
JM: 1:31:20
I think, I mean, I always thought that we were very illusioned. I mean, that Kennedy, remember, Kennedy, and he, he had the Peace Corps. And, you know, there were ideals we could strive for. We were very idealistic, that whatever we wanted to do, we could do, and what, and that is what I got out of the (19)60s, you know, whatever I wanted to do, I could do it, and I was going to go do it. And I think it was a woman, a young woman that my mother could not do, or chose or did not do, the things I did, that was another generation. But I decided I was going to, I could, I could see the possibility, the possibility. And I wrote that way, if you want to think about it that way, as a woman, that, you know, there was something saying to me, I could be whoever I wanted to be, and I was going to go be it. And I do not think I would have, I think we were the first generation to be able to do that. In other words, to-to be able to go and get myself educated, to have a successful career, to be a leader, and to have my own family. I mean, I was raised that as a woman, you could not do all those things.
SM: 1:32:58
That is very well said, very well said. And I want to end the, this last question. What would you say to young people, or people who are listening to this interview, 50 years from now, long after both you and I are gone, and many of our generation is, the boomers will all be gone too? What words of advice would you like to give to those people?
JM: 1:33:27
Well, you know, again, as a woman, that this was the beginning of those opportunities. And I do not know what is going to happen like with, with the, well with the Supreme Court, and remember as a woman in 1973, that those opportunities had just begun, for a woman's right to choose. And, we did not have those rights before. And I think that is what opened up a lot of doors, and I do not know what is going to happen, if those doors are going to close. And, but we had it in 1973. We had it as women, and then, and we believed in democracy, and we believed in equality of all, you know, all, at least I did, maybe I was naive, but I believed in a country where everyone could be equal. Black people, white people, we all had equal opportunity, or at least opportunity to do good things with our lives. And I think that is being challenged now with this autocracy with the Supreme Court, and this, these cowboys and whatever, you know, I hope we are going to be able to keep our democracy going, because that is what gives us the opportunity to do what we want to do from within, inside ourselves. And that could be taken away from us. I hope it is not. But I consider myself very, very lucky that I was right on the cusp of that. And I figured out a way to do what I wanted to do with my life and to not let things like the fact that I am a woman stop me.
SM: 1:35:26
Well, this has been one heck of an interview and I want to thank you very much for-for agreeing to do this. I am going to turn the tape off now and say a few more comments afterwards. Thanks again.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Elizabeth Jane McCarthy
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Audio interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s and 2010s. 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 continues to interview legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
Rights
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
22 June 2022
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Bruce Watson
Biographical Text
Bruce Watson is an educator and author who specializes in American culture and history. He has written several books and feature articles for Smithsonian, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and American Heritage. Watson also publishes a blog called the Attic. He has taught at Deerfield Academy, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Bard College, and Hampshire College. Watson received a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master's degree in Elementary Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Duration
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1:39:28
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Digital file
Date of Digitization
22 June 2022
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Mississippi; Protests; Freedom; 1960s; Volunteers; South; Race; Black; Fannie Lou Hamer; Vote; London B. Johnson; Free speech movement.
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 Bruce Watson