Interview with Frye Gaillard

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Frye Gaillard
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 25 August 2022
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(Start of Interview)

FG: 00:00
All right. All right, we are ready. Okay.

SM: 00:03
Again, thanks again for agreeing to be interviewed. My interview today is with Professor Frey Gaillard, author of the book, A Hard Rain: America in the 19(19)60s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost. Could you talk a little bit in the very beginning, I do this with all of my interviewees? Talk about-

FG: 00:24
Sure.

SM: 00:25
-your early life, your parents with their parents’ occupation, where you lived, and your high school years.

FG: 00:32
Okay, sure. I grew up in Mobile, Alabama, was born in 1946. And so, I found myself coming of age as a- when I entered my teen years, during the Civil Rights' years in the Deep South. My family was sort of quietly part of the status quo. It was an old white southern family, my father was a judge, his father was a lawyer. They were not particularly wealthy, but they were prominent and, and did not really- they were not mean-spirited people in their support of the racial status quo and segregation and that kind of thing. But they were part of it. And, and did not question it. As far as I could tell, and I was raised not to question it, either. You know, there was interaction between Black folks and white folks, but it was always on a basis that was, you know, that was not equal. It could be, it could be kind and civil and polite, but-but, you know, white people just occupied a higher place an order of things. And, you know, all of us were raised to assume that was how it should be. I always, in the back of my mind was not comfortable with that. But I tried to push it away. And I was a kid and had other interests. Anyway, I was a big fan of Alabama football and, you know, love to play those kinds of games, myself. And then, but then, as I talked about, in-in the book, A hard rain. I just happened to be on a high school field trip in Birmingham, when I saw Dr. Martin Luther King arrested. And there was just something about that moment, that was deeply troubling. And I still- I have to confess, tried not to think about it very much, but I could not help it. And it just kind of not at the back of my mind until I went away to college at Vanderbilt in 1964. And got there were the first class of Black undergraduates. And they were just very bright, impressive young people. And, and so there was a lot of talk, you know, private, constructive conversation about these kinds of issues on campus for those four years. And, you know, it just, it was where my identity as a writer and as a human being really kind of formed. I think.

SM: 02:30
Mm-Hmm. Mm- Hmm. I remember reading that part of the book where you are on that field trip. And you just happen to see Dr. King being arrested, I guess. And-

FG: 03:39
Yeah.

SM: 03:39
-you talked, I am remember reading it. You looked at his face, and-

FG: 03:46
Yes.

SM: 03:47
-he-he thought he was smaller than you thought he might have been. He was shorter man. But the mere fact-

FG: 04:03
Right.

SM: 04:03
-his face, could you explain that? Because that was very descriptive.

FG: 04:07
Yes. So, I mean, I walked out of the hotel where we were staying, and there he was being shoved roughly up the sidewalk by these Birmingham policemen, and he could not have been more than five feet away from where I was standing on the sidewalk. And his- I do not know. And so, I just look, I found myself looking right into the face of Dr. Martin Luther King. You know, who I knew about but, you know, had not had, had been raised in such a way that I did not have any particular sympathy for him prior to that, but there was something in the sadness of his eyes. You know, there was neither fear nor anger, but I thought at least I did not think so in my 16-year-old mind, but-but I did- I think that I saw this deep sadness, and it just, it was just deeply moving in, and I felt later looking back on it, I felt like history had a face. And it was the face of Martin Luther King. And, and it was so human, you know, and so vulnerable and yet so strong all at the same time. So, there was such, you know, dignity and grace about it, but like, you know, I just thought, you know, he is so sad about the way things are, you know, and that is how it felt to me as a kid. And, you know, I do not know what was in Dr. King's mind, for sure, obviously.

SM: 05:19
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 05:29
But you know, but we all you know, a lot of us in my generation had some kind of epiphany moment like that-

SM: 05:52
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 05:52
-if we grew up in the South, where we came face to face with the injustice of it all. And we were moved to think about it. And-and so that was the moment for me.

SM: 06:03
Yeah, it is interesting that in close proximity to this experience, was the letter from Birmingham jail that he wrote himself on scrub paper-

FG: 06:13
That is right.

SM: 06:13
-in the prison. And I am going to have a question on that later in the interview.

FG: 06:17
Okay.

SM: 06:18
I-I, your book goes into a lot of these things in terms of your interest in history, your interest in journalism, and I know you were- I think you have worked in your high school paper. And then in college, could you- how did you become interested in history itself in journalism, and, and please give us those early experiences in high school in college, where that kind of grew?

FG: 06:43
Okay. When I was in high school, my parents sent me to a private school for high school. That was all fight. They did not foresee, I do not think that that we would have some of the best teachers of history of- there was a course called humanities where all the, you know, those kinds of disciplines, literature, history, religion, science, all of these things were kind of woven into a sort of them, you know, this-this reflective course on just on mankind and stuff. And these were some really brilliant young teachers in their 20s, who were teaching us, and they just all happen to be there. And, you know, one of them went off and became head of the Russian department at Georgetown, another one became an English professor at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, and other one became the dean at the University of Alabama, so on and so forth, four or five of them went on to teach in higher education.

SM: 07:36
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 08:02
And they were just wonderful. And so, it- you know, I just developed an interest in history because they made it a story, you know, and, and as I went off to college, I had, yeah, I had worked for the high school paper, and I worked for the college paper, but I did not necessarily plan a career in journalism, until, you know, it became a way to connect and think about all these powerful events and movements that were shaping the country in the (19)60s. And, and I just thought, you know, this is a way to, I mean, I want to, I want to be close to those-

SM: 08:44
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 08:45
-changes in those events. And yet, I did not want to be swept away by them. I have sort of never been a joiner, I do not think and, and so I just found I really liked writing about them. And, you know, being involved in discussions and you know, that kind of stuff. So. So, increasingly, that is what I did, you know, in and then, in college at Vanderbilt, I had some wonderful, wonderful professors also, I majored in history. There was no journalism major, and I am not sure I would have done that, anyway. So, I majored in history and took a lot of humanities and you know, other courses like that a lot of literature or religion, philosophy. And so, the, the unfolding story of history, kind of had a broad context based on my education. And then the other thing that happened was at Vanderbilt, there was a student organization that I became part of that that was free to bring any speaker we wanted to-to campus.

SM: 08:58
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 10:01
It was totally student run. And that was an exercise in academic freedom that the Chancellor of the University a wonderful man named Alexander Hurd was very supportive of. And so, you know, we brought Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and, you know, in some people on the right to William Buckley and George Wallace, and but, you know, you know, we even brought Black Power advocates Stokely Carmichael. And so, there was a kind of engagement with the, with the great voices of the (19)60s that was-was pretty direct, you know, for students at Vanderbilt in those days. And so, all of that, you know, just what happened for me is that journalism and history became kind of the same thing. In my mind, it was like journalism is just the first cut at it.

SM: 10:57
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 10:57
You know, but if you are a journalist, you have a chance to come not in every story you write, but kind of overall to, to try to guide your own career and write about stuff that matters. And so that is what I wanted to do about how I got out of college.

SM: 11:16
Well, I would tell you just-just these few seconds here, minutes of talking about the kinds of speakers you brought there when you were a college student. Have you ever thought yourself of writing? I know, you have written you were writing books? And have you ever thought of just concentrating on that college experience at Vanderbilt and the speakers you brought? I think it is amazing that you brought conservative and liberal speakers, and, and that the school was very supportive of academic freedom. That did not happen everywhere.

FG: 11:47
No, it really did not. It was kind of a, you know, the opposite experience from-from Berkeley, for example, you know, where, you know, in in 1964, the reason there was a free speech movement at Berkeley was because students there could not do what we could do it Vanderbilt, you know. And so, you know, and that movement produced, you know, some amazingly eloquent voices like Mario Savio, who was the leader of that we can get into that later.

SM: 12:06
Right. Yeah-yeah. I have a question [inaudible].

FG: 12:22
But Vanderbilt was the opposite. We did not have to push for it. It was just an opportunity that was there because-because Alexander Hurd was the Chancellor of the University. And he thought this was what education was all about. And, you know, there was a, you know, it would be good to write a piece about those, or maybe a short book about those-those-those years at Vanderbilt, because it was it was an extraordinary time, you know, and interestingly, despite the occasional spasms of controversy, it was a time when Vanderbilt sort of skyrocketed to national prominence in a way that was, you know, it became a national university based in the south-

SM: 12:26
Mm-Hmm. Right.

FG: 13:09
-during that period of time and raised a whole lot of money because people respected what Chancellor Hurd was presiding over. You know, there were some similar things. Emory University, defended the right of one of their professors, Thomas Altizer to write about the Death of God and, and you know, even during a major fundraising campaign, and it was controversial, but Emory flourish. So, it is interesting that some of these, and Duke University had some, you know, a lot of student activism. So, some of these southern-

SM: 13:11
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 13:33
-universities that were brave about this kind of stuff, made an important contribution, I think.

13:54
Yeah. And obviously, the school and the students involved in this are helping to prepare the youth of America in the South for their future.

FG: 14:04
Yes-

SM: 14:04
-Where all points are all points of view matter.

FG: 14:08
Yeah-yeah. That is the that was the great lesson that many of us took away from those Vanderbilt years.

SM: 14:15
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 14:15
You know, it was, it was a, it was a powerful thing, a powerful moment.

SM: 14:21
When you titled your book, A Hard Rain. What did you mean by how did you come up with that title?

FG: 14:30
It is, you know, I -let us see, what would the cane phrase be? I borrowed it from Bob Dylan. You know, is his song A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall- you know, was such a was such a metaphorical look at the same kind of stuff that I was looking, you know, it was it was a, it was this poetic meditation on the times and I [inaudible] I was working on the book for two years, but I had the title, I had the subtitle-

SM: 14:44
Yep. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 14:58
-exactly as it is now. But I could not come up with the title. And then one day I just happened to have the radio on. And that song played on the radio as a as an oldie, you know, and I thought, "Ohh" if I am not poetic enough to come up with a title, I will let Bob Dylan do it, you know, and so-so, you know, with-with-with attribution, I, you know, I, although you cannot copyright a title, so I was really okay, in a way, but-but, you know, I just that that just became the title of the book, it just seemed to be a poetic way of phrasing what I was writing about.

SM: 15:48
You do a great job and several year chapters on looking at President Kennedy. I think the one thing that struck me was early in the book where you talked about the ugly American, the book written by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, and-and how it really touched Kennedy, saying Kennedy felt that was very truthful about what was happening in America today. Because- could you explain why that book was that way? Why he was so touched by it, because I remember he gave books to most of his staff, please read this.

FG: 16:04
Right. Yes-yes.

SM: 16:15
Explain what the main-

FG: 16:26
Yeah-

SM: 16:27
-message was in that book?

FG: 16:29
Yeah, it was a book that, you know, it has been a long time since I have read it. And I do not remember all of the plot lines in the book. But basically, it was about how Americans were behaving, you know, diplomatically, officially and unofficially, to and their engagement with the world, particularly in Asia in that book. And, you know, how we seem to arrogant and how we seem insensitive, and manipulative and all of those things. And so, I think that became part of Kennedy sensibilities, and, and was part of the reason that one of the first things that he did was, was to begin the Peace Corps, you know, where he wanted to put, you know, send young people out to represent the best in America. And, you know, it was even as it was, Kennedy was also a, you know, a product of World War Two in the Cold War. I mean, he was a young, a young naval officer, I think, and, you know, the, during World War Two, and was genuinely, you know, a war he wrote- almost was killed in combat. And so, all of that view of the world, you know, the cause the contest between communism and democracy, in his mind also was one of the defining things. And so, you know, he became caught up in the early years of [inaudible] in increasing involvement in Vietnam.

SM: 17:50
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 17:50
And I always wondered if he had not been killed, whether which would have prevailed in his instincts, would it have been the-the Cold War imposition of, you know, of communism versus democracy onto this little country in Southeast Asia in a way that did not really fit?

SM: 17:50
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 18:41
Or would it have been the ugly American in wanting to avoid that and-and try to think about letting countries find their own way, you know, with-with those Peace Corps type sensibilities have restrained him ultimately, from what proved to be the futility of the Vietnam or in the deadly futility, that horrible tragedy of that, or in so many ways, you know, and we will never know. But, you know, Kennedy was a fascinating figure to me, certainly had his flaws and feet of clay. But, you know, had this amazing ability to inspire hope and idealistic commitment among people in my generation, for sure.

SM: 19:35
You-you-you mentioned the in your book, also a little section where Kennedy is at Hyde Park meeting Eleanor Roosevelt. And-and I think it was the second visit in August of 1960, that she finally gave her support him, because she had always supported Adlai Stevenson, and she still had reservations about Kennedy but-but I just want to let you know I was there that day.

FG: 19:45
Right. Oh, you were [inaudible]. Oh my gosh! Wow!

SM: 19:59
Yes. Several ironies here. There is several things in your book where I was there to where I had met this person. And I had time with this person-

FG: 20:11
Oh my gosh! Wow!

SM: 20:11
-Julian Bond, I knew quite well. And this particular situation is we were coming back from her summer vacation. And my mom said, “Let us take the kids over to Hyde Park. We are not that far away.” And so, we got there, we got there. And [inaudible] was only $1 to get in. But my mom had a headache was staying in the car. So, my dad and my sister and I, we walked across the street, and there was a man for humanity, just walking in. And my dad asked what was going on John Kennedy was in the library with Eleanor Roosevelt.

FG: 20:11
Oh wow!

SM: 20:12
And so, and we were at the end of this group of people at the library and there was a limo up there on the end there, and we were there, not very long, and someone yells, he was coming up the side door. And then I split I am a little kid. And I split.

FG: 21:00
Uh huh.

SM: 21:00
And my dad was fast. My sister was on his shoulders. And he got into the car. And as he was getting the car, he only shook one hand, and I grabbed the hand of the man who was shaking his hand, he looked at me, and my sister touched his hair. And

FG: 21:16
Oh, wow.

SM: 21:16
And he got in. And that was it. They drove off. And,

FG: 21:19
Oh wow.

SM: 21:20
-and so, you know, we just happened to be there. And of course, as history proved, he ended up winning the election and becoming president-

FG: 21:27
Right.

SM: 21:27
-and he was assassinated. And it all goes back to me, you know, and the one thing-

FG: 21:32
Yes, yep.

SM: 21:32
-the one thing that always goes back to me is as a kid, why did not they go in the library and meet Eleanor Roosevelt? Because-

FG: 21:38
Yeah. Yeah.

SM: 21:40
-you cannot see her. But, you know, I was only I was only in fifth grade. So anyways-

FG: 21:45
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SM: 21:46
But I want to say that touched it. Now, you are interested in Kennedy, you touched on several times how you felt and some of your peers felt that they liked him. Certainly, when that book, The Ugly American came out to the one of the things that struck him was that these diplomats in that novel, had no interest in the [inaudible], the language, no interest in the culture of-

FG: 22:08
Right.

SM: 22:08
-the people they were serving. And Kennedy-

FG: 22:11
Right.

SM: 22:11
-did something different. And you brought up the peace score. But you know, that he also was involved in the Alliance for Progress and volunteers and service to America. Could you talk about all the things that he tried to do, where people were serving, trying to, you know, show that we cared about people and that they need the need to learn a language?

FG: 22:19
Right. Yes-yes. And that was, you know, there was just something qualitatively different, it seemed to a lot of us in that stance that he took, you know, I mean, we, it was easy to believe him easy to believe that he meant it. And, and it just seemed, in a profound way, like the right thing to do. You know, it was, you know, and it was not that, you know, the Peace Corps, you know, instantly transformed the whole world or anything, but it, but that in the Alliance for Progress, and other things meant we were trying, we began to try to engage with the world in a different way, a less arrogant way, less insensitive way. And, and that, you know, those sensibilities went along with what was happening at home, too, with the Civil Rights Movement. And, you know, and sort of, you know, reframing that sense of privilege that-that a lot of white Americans had, and it is a long process, you know-

SM: 23:39
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 23:39
-kind of working through that and working past it. And I am not saying, Kennedy, you know, achieved the pinnacle of all of that. But, but, but clearly, that process was something that mattered to him. That is what we felt. And-and so it made it something we began to think about to as young people.

SM: 24:00
You use, you mentioned, I remember the section perfectly where you said in your senior year, you felt he was leading the young people in the right direction.

FG: 24:12
Right.

SM: 24:13
He was he was a good role model. That says something.

FG: 24:19
I am sorry.

SM: 24:20
That says something when you in those times when a lot, he was a young politician, and he-

FG: 24:27
Right.

SM: 24:27
-he gave a great inaugural speech as not what your country can do for you and what you can do for your country. But still, he-

FG: 24:33
Right.

SM: 24:33
had he had the Creed the deeds.

FG: 24:35
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there were critics, and I understand this, who thought he moved too slowly on civil rights, you know, who that he did not, you know, embrace that cause as fully or as quickly as he should have. And, you know, I think you can certainly make that case. You know, he was also a very pragmatic politician and yet, you know, in 1963, when George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, you know, Kennedy gave a speech that night, embracing the moral validity of the civil rights movement. And, you know, and right around that time, you know, they introduced the Civil Rights Act that passed in 1964. And so, you know, we do not know how far he would have gone if he if he had not been assassinated. And, you know, certainly props to Lyndon Johnson for, you know, having the legislative skills to get that important legislation, and maybe the even more important Voting Rights Act of 65, through Congress on a bipartisan basis, you know, but Kennedy, you know, kind of set all that, in motion, I think, in terms of the sort of moral framework, in terms of the governmental response, the white response to the issues being raised so powerfully by the Civil Rights Movement-

SM: 24:47
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 25:45
-Dr. King, but also the young people in snick, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, people like John Lewis, and Diane Nash, and CT Vivian and Bernard Lafayette. And, you know, just this remarkable cadre of very young people who, who were in their own way, kind of setting the moral agenda for the country in a way that you know, that people of power, like the Kennedys eventually had to respond.

SM: 26:45
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 26:45
And so, I do not mean that Kennedy, I do not want to take credit from the activist and give it to Kennedy. But-but Kennedy, there was something moral, I thought, ethically in tune about his- the instincts, he brought in his response, most broadly speaking to what the civil rights movement was saying, and then Robert Kennedy after his brother's death, and we can talk about this, too.

SM: 27:15
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 27:15
I think became even more viscerally committed to those kinds of those kinds of causes. And, and it was Robert Kennedy, who I would later actually have the good fortune to meet, personally. And so and so his humanity became a real thing to me because of the encounter with him. When he came to speak at Vanderbilt.

SM: 27:41
He seemed to back to what we are talking about, but Bobby Kennedy seems to after the after the death of his brother, and I think you brought this up as well, that he became his own man.

FG: 27:55
Right-right.

SM: 27:55
He became his own man. And in the one thing he always stood for, was those that did not have anything the poor-

FG: 28:02
Yeah.

SM: 28:03
-the underdog. Everything was about the underdog.

FG: 28:06
Yeah-yeah.

SM: 28:07
You explain? Could you explain that? And that is why he was really evolving to the time of his assassination.

FG: 28:15
Yeah, absolutely. You know, one, one theory of that, that some, some others have written, and I knew in Nashville, a couple of people who knew Robert Kennedy Well, and, and what they thought was that, you know, he was always sympathetic, but-but not. But-but was pragmatic on behalf of his brother, he was always sympathetic to the basic idea of civil rights. But he was also when he who is his brothers, man, almost his brothers, you know, I mean, political, you know, advisor almost like a fixer or-

SM: 28:59
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 28:59
-something. In those days, he was always very pragmatic about how that was expressed.

SM: 29:07
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 29:08
But after the death of his brother, people close to him, thought that his incredible pain that he felt over the over the loss of his brother, meant that he had identified powerfully viscerally with people who hurt with people on the margins. That is just how that that grief played out for him was, was a sense of what it meant to hurt in a profound kind of way. And so and so that is what he began to talk about was-was-was people who hurt wherever it was, whether there were, you know, as African American people in the ghettos or, you know, unemployed miners in in white miners in Appalachia or industrial workers in the Midwest who were-

SM: 29:58
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 29:59
-being laid off-off during rustbelt years or Native Americans on reservations, or Mexican American farmworkers in California, or, you know, he went to you went to South Africa and-and, you know, and created a profound response there among both whites and, and Blacks during, during the height of apartheid, you know, and he, he did not so much scold whites as to say, you know, we have to do better all of us who are caught up in this white privilege have to do better and-and, and you know, and with Black audiences it was like, you know, I see you I am here with you-you have my support, you know, those-those things, I think, you know, mattered profoundly in the sense that they were inspiring to so many people. You know, you look at the, the voting patterns when he ran for president (19)68, and just the turnout that he got, and-

SM: 31:12
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 31:12
-Black neighborhoods and, you know, I think on one Indian Reservation in South Dakota, or somewhere he got every vote that was cast, you know, in-in the, in the primary. But, you know, he also committed himself to reaching across the divisions and so at-at Vanderbilt, and at the University of Alabama, the same day in in March of 1968. You know, he talked about how the things we have in common go deeper than the things that divide us.

SM: 31:21
Wow. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 31:47
And so, you know, he was one of those politicians that did not want to exploit division, he wanted to heal it.

SM: 31:55
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 31:55
And, you know, that was a, that was a powerful thing, also. Now, all of that has to be translated into policy if he had won, and I am not saying that it would have been heaven on earth with Robert Kennedy is as president, but it would have sure been different than Richard Nixon is president. And, and so, you know, again, that that sort of moral inspiration that came from that family, even though the you know, even though all of the Kennedy brothers had their feet of clay, still, you know, still there, they were one of the richest-

SM: 32:36
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 32:36
-families in America, you know, caring, profoundly meaningfully about people on the margins. And for some, I was raised in privilege, that was a powerful lesson.

SM: 32:48
And Teddy is probably the greatest Kennedys senator in history. When you look at Teddy-

FG: 32:55
Yeah. Yes.

SM: 32:55
-Kennedy's whole career when he did when his whole career stood for, I just want to get a couple more things on Bobby Kennedy, as you probably- we all saw this after King was assassinated. And the funeral was taking place at the church in Atlanta. And Bobby Kennedy was in the audience and the sun was coming through the side window, and it was shining on him. I do not know if you remember that. It was, it was on him and only him. And that-

FG: 33:26
Yes.

SM: 33:26
-that-that stood out. Like, I mean, I remember that watching that he could have the whole church and it is on him. And-

FG: 33:34
Yeah.

SM: 33:34
-just and then, of course, what he did in Indianapolis, the night of the assassination, the courage to go into the ghetto, and say-

FG: 33:44
Right.

SM: 33:44
-what you said, and it was off the cuff.

FG: 33:49
Yeah, it was just an amazing, I mean, I wish I had been there and it was not, but I have heard the-the, you know, the tape of the speech, and I have seen the verbatim transcript of it and, you know, just the, just the, the spontaneous impromptu power of it, because, you know-

SM: 34:07
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 34:07
-he was not speaking from notes, he was speaking from his, from his heart and, you know, ending it with a with a quote from Escalus. You know, I mean, you know, and, and knowing, I guess he felt sure his audience would understand what he meant, what you know, and-and, you know, in the, just the fact that there were no riots in Indianapolis that night, in contrast, almost-

SM: 34:16
Yes. Yeah. Yes.

FG: 34:37
-every other American city, I mean, speaks to speaks to the power of one man's not only eloquence. But-but, you know, but just the massive the power of his massive goodwill on those kinds of issues. I mean, I just do not think you I see no reason to doubt the utter urgent sincerity of Kennedy in those years and what he was trying to do. And, you know, and then the next day he went to speak to and I think it was mostly an all-white audience, but business people, I believe in Cleveland. And he talked about the stain of violence on America. And, you know, the assassination, the riots, but also the violence, of a more subtle kind that having to do with the living conditions of the poor in America. And he cast that as part of the American violence that had to be had to be dealt with. So again, there was some, there was some profundity there in in the way he was framing issues that. I just feel is almost qualitatively different from most of the politicians that we have today. And I am not saying there. There was nobody who believes that but Kennedy had this way of not only saying it, but meaning it so obviously, that, that it just captivated people's attention.

SM: 36:22
Yeah, I agree. Get just a couple more things on President Kennedy. And that is, you bring these up all throughout the book. In that first part of the book, some of the good things that he tried to do his-his speech at American University was very important because it talked about the Test Ban Treaty.

FG: 36:40
Right.

SM: 36:41
And it was, it was something that he wanted to do that was good for humanity. It was not going-

FG: 36:46
Right.

SM: 36:46
-to end the proliferation, but he wanted to have this. He was also when you look at the Bay of Pigs, he admitted he made the mistakes. I have always-

FG: 36:57
Right-right.

SM: 36:57
-thought how many people admit I blew it? He did?

FG: 37:02
Yep.

SM: 37:02
And he was very-

FG: 37:03
Yep-yep.

SM: 37:03
-honest about it. And he wanted to make sure he would not do it again. And then also-

FG: 37:08
Right. Right.

SM: 37:08
-of course, there are some things that you question because the coup for Diem and Nhu in Vietnam, a couple, you know, about a week or so before or two weeks before he was assassinated? We all thought I wonder, did he? It is my understanding. He did not he did not expect them to be killed. He thought they were going to be taken away from the country. Is that true? I do not even know.

FG: 37:30
Yeah, I do not know, either. You know, there is all kinds of speculation and I confess, I do not know the answer to that. But, you know, it was, you know, it was a moment that I think just got us in deeper. And, you know, and so it was, you know, and it certainly you know, I mean, it shows the competing instincts that he still, that he still had, I mean, he was still kind of groping, I think, for yes.

SM: 38:05
Right.

FG: 38:05
-an understanding of that issue. And, you know, and we just do not know which way it would have gone head he had he lived because the, you know, the-the United States was being pulled deeper and deeper into it, you know, because of Cold War sensibilities that may have fit in Europe, but-but did not fit as well in, you know, in Asia, where, you know, in retrospect, it was clear that Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese, you know, had their agenda for national liberation, but not to be a stalking horse for any other power China or Russia or anybody they, you know. So, you know, the famous quote from or one that I had not known, but I read with, I think, from David Halberstam or somebody, but how Ho Chi Minh said something like, "One day the Americans will be tired of fighting, and then we will sit down together and drink tea." And, you know, and that is what happened, you know, when the-

SM: 39:10
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 39:11
-Vietnam War ended, you know, all of a sudden, you know, here you have, you know, Americans traveling freely to that place, John McCain, who was tortured-

SM: 39:23
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 39:23
-as a political, you know, pow going-going there. And, you know, and being treated with dignity and honor after-after the hostilities subsided. So, you know, it was, but we do not know how far-sighted Kennedy would have been about all of that.

SM: 39:45
He-he-he did-

FG: 39:45
I have hoped, you know, I mean, retroactively, retrospectively I-I think he might have been, if nothing else, more pragmatic than Lyndon Johnson, but who knows.

SM: 39:58
You know, yeah, and of course, He-he knew when he was in Dallas for obvious reasons, because-

FG: 40:04
Mm-Hmm. Right.

SM: 40:04
-he knew that the that he needed to get the Democratic vote and the election, the (19)64. And that is why-he was going down south. So, he was pragmatic there too, as well. He knew what he was doing was right with his civil rights bills. But still, he was pragmatic, and he had to be pushed.

FG: 40:22
Yep.

SM: 40:23
And-

FG: 40:24
Yep-yep.

SM: 40:24
-one thing I want to say, too, I think Bobby Kennedy was very important for President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because-

FG: 40:31
Yes.

SM: 40:31
-all these views coming in from, you know, you go bomb all these other things. But if Bobby was a man, he could go with Bobby. And they go into a room by themselves with no one else around and [inaudible]. And so, I think part of the reason why this all worked out in the positive is that Bobby was by his side.

FG: 40:52
Yes.

SM: 40:53
I do not think there is any question about that, during that Cuban Missile Crisis?

FG: 40:58
Yeah, I think, I think that is absolutely true. It was, it was a remarkable moment of presidential decisiveness, not to bomb Cuba. And it turns out, you know, it could easily really have triggered a nuclear strike, because some of those missiles were, in fact operative. And the generals, you know, who were urging Kennedy to-to, you know, to attack Cuba. I mean, they did not know that that Cuba already had access to nuclear missiles that would reach Miami at least. And, you know, who knows what would have happened, but Kennedy had the will to John Kennedy had the will to resist the generals. And I think-

SM: 41:41
Yep.

FG: 41:41
Robert Kennedy was was-was part of this of the source of that strength, you know, he, he more he just thought morally, it was wrong. Just queasy to him to have a country our size attacks a country Cuba's size, he just did not like that whole idea. But then, you know, and then there was that moment when Khrushchev sent two competing messages. One that seemed to be coming from his heart and favoring a peaceful solution, and the other one very bellicose and really belligerent. And they were thinking, well, how do we respond? What do we do? And-

SM: 42:21
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 42:22
-Robert Kennedy was one of those who said, Just answer the one we would like.

SM: 42:26
Yeah.

FG: 42:27
I mean, it was such a simple human thing. But you know, his human instinct said, the first one, the peaceful one. Sounds like something Khrushchev really means. And it, it turned out to be to be right, you know, so it was. Yeah, it was, it was a pretty amazing moment. And you think about what might have happened in subsequent administrations and a similar moment and use your shutter you know.

SM: 42:58
Yeah, he was very good, because he had gone to the Vienna conference with Khrushchev, and he was kind of, you know, he was young and not quite sure of himself. And so that was the time-

FG: 43:08
Right.

SM: 43:08
-that crew chat to really put the pressure on him. But then you learn from studying history that Khrushchev liked the bully people. However, he liked leaders from other countries who were adversaries who would make a decision. And Kennedy-

FG: 43:22
Right.

SM: 43:22
-made a decision not only on the quarantine and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but also what was happening in Berlin at that time. And thank-

FG: 43:31
Right.

SM: 43:31
-the Lord that the leader of East Germany decided let us build a wall, because that correct-

FG: 43:36
Right.

SM: 43:36
-because everything happened, and I think Khrushchev respected him for that. I- it is just like, so anyway, so is, so you did a wonderful job bring authors and musicians and artists into this book. I? I am a big right. I am a big reader. And you-you mentioned some of the great ones here. Could you talk about it? I obviously you are very well read. And you can see the importance about not only nonfiction, but fiction, great writers-

FG: 43:44
Right. Right.

SM: 44:12
-I can write books that really tell the times the temper of the times, but done in the in a fiction wet fictional way, could you talk about the Eudora Welty and Harper Lee and in those-

FG: 44:27
Yeah.

SM: 44:27
-times, especially during the what was happening in Mississippi.

FG: 44:32
Yeah, well, you know, Harper Lee, was To Kill a Mockingbird, which came out in 1960. You know, that book retrospectively is- has been criticized, you know, for having a sort of paternalistic view of race relations. In some extent that is true, but it also gave us a in the south especially I think gave us a portrait in the person of Atticus Finch, of what decency might look like. And, and then that became even more sharply defined by the movie and Gregory Pecks interpretation of Atticus Finch which, you know, which Harper Lee is said to have, have loved. She and Gregory Peck became close friends. And so, you know, just that powerful depiction of an inclination to be fair, and just and, and believes that there should be equality in the eyes of the law. You know, those were powerful themes in 1960. Now, they may sound more like truisms today, but, but she was swimming upstream as a white writer from the south from Alabama, lower Alabama, southern Alabama when she when she wrote that. So, you know, I think that was a was a powerfully important thing. And then you had Eudora Welty in Mississippi who, when-when Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963, right in the same 24-hour period that George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door and John Kennedy gave his marvelous speech about civil rights. Medgar Evers, who is the leading civil rights proponent in Black leader in Mississippi is shot and is in the back and his own driveway by Klansmen named Byron de la Beckwith. And Eudora Welty wrote a piece for The New Yorker, in which she tried to get in, into inside the mind of, of that white assassin. She did not call him, Byron de la Beckwith, but she was, you know, but she was, she was trying to, you know, imaginatively understand that toxic hate, that would produce such a person. And, you know, this was, this was 23 years after, you know, she, she, she both burst onto the scene as a short story writer with-with a marvelous story in 1940, called "A Warren Pass," where the where the heroin is an elderly African American woman, impoverished, trying to take care of her severely injured grandson. And, and the humanity of this Black woman puts the white characters to shame in this novel. And here is, here is a white writer in the heart of Mississippi, writing this in 1940. And that had been Eudora as Eudora Welty his legacy of empathy and understanding through throughout her time as a, as a writer continuing on into those (19)60s with that short story that appeared in the I am pretty sure it was the New Yorker.

SM: 45:56
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 47:46
I am saying that from memory, but I think that is right. And, you know, and so, you know, that is, that is kind of amazing. And then, you know, you had and you had Joseph Heller's Catch-22 about the foolishness of war that was published right on the eve of, of our escalation into Vietnam. It was, it was set during World War Two, but-but-but it marked the stupidity of war in a way that was hilariously funny, but also, but also profound, you know, and so, so you had those kinds of, you know, of-of, not provocative novels that were, that were appearing, you know, in the (19)60s. And you also had, you know, powerful other powerful works of nonfiction. You know, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962. And Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, about gratuitous violence in 1965 or (19)66. Whenever that came out. Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize winning the Armies of the Night about the protests at the Pentagon. You know, you had Willie Morris's Harper's Magazine without with Writer's Life, David Halberstam and others, putting a human face on. The dramas of the of the of the era. You know, all that was, I think was just so important in deepening the country's sensibilities during-during that time.

SM: 48:41
Mm-Hmm.

SM: 50:10
Yeah, I just open the book. That section that you have on Rachel Carson is just so well written with some of the quotes. And if you do not mind, can I just read a quote you have from her in the book?

FG: 50:23
Sure.

SM: 50:24
-yeah, it is on page 89. And there is a short one on page. I think it is 91. But I think these words from Rachel Carson 1962 are very important.

FG: 50:34
Mm-Hmm.

SM: 50:34
These, these sprays, dust and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes. Non selective chemicals have the power to kill every insect, the good and the bad, to steal the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger in the soil. All this though, though, the intended target may be only a few weeds, or insects, future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind. And then on the second page, here, I just have just a rubbery briefing, Carson-

FG: 51:26
Mm-Hmm.

SM: 51:27
-Carson was rushing to the finish the book, she knew she was dying, her body was ravaged by a rapidly with metastatic breast cancer, and who knew what poisons may have been the trigger toward her? And it is, it is like, she was such a great writer, but, you know, but that book came out in 1962, as well. And in rain, Kennedy read all her books.

FG: 51:54
Right.

SM: 51:55
All three of them.

FG: 51:56
Yes-yes. It was sad that, that his copy of her earlier book, the sea around us, was next to Henry David Thoreau's book on Kennedy's bookshelf. So he was deeply impressed with Rachel Carson, and kind of in subtle, but important ways. You know, he took her very seriously. And I think he appointed a commission to study this kind of thing. And, and, you know, so she became, you know, for one thing she was, you know, silent spraying was kind of a polemic about, you know, the downside of the chemical, pesticide industry and all of that. But as you just read, it was such a beautiful writing as well, you know, she-

SM: 52:48
Right.

FG: 52:48
-had this sort of literary quality. And then, and then, you know, she pushed back and with-with support from Kennedy and some others, against the notion that, you know, gosh, you are only a girl, what do you know about science, you know-

SM: 52:48
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 53:02
-people who were literally saying that, and she just stood her ground and in-in this powerfully eloquent way. So in a way, she was kind of like a feminist figure, as well as an environmental hero early on, you know, who-whose writing kind of help triggered and environmental consciousness. So, you know, I mean, we have these amazing figures during that time that, and I am sure I left out, some-

SM: 53:31
-you left that 1/4, one that sound the very same page. And that is Michael Harrington.

FG: 53:35
Yes.

SM: 53:35
And the he wrote the other America and-

FG: 53:39
Right.

SM: 53:39
-Kennedy- Kennedy read that book. And a lot of his policies were geared toward the poverty and the poor. But I just want it this is just a very brief quote. And I will not be quoting anymore, but this is a quote from Michael Harrington, in your book, "Here are unskilled workers, the migrant farmworkers, the aged the minorities, and all the others who live in the economic underworld of American life. If these people are not starving, they are hungry, and sometimes fat with hunger for that is what cheap foods do. They are without adequate housing and education and medical care. But even more basic, this poverty twist into forms of spirit, the American poor, pessimistic and defeated. And truly human reaction can only be outrage." And then he quotes here who did not wrote, "We must love one another or die." And that was Michael Harrington from the other American and I just remember when it came out that Kennedy was reading it.

FG: 54:39
Yes-yes. He was apparently a voracious reader and, and in one of his very last cabinet member meetings that Kennedy attended, you know was part of before he was assassinated. There were there was the story about him sort of doodling on a yellow legal pad. and just writing the word poverty- poverty-poverty.

SM: 55:03
Wow.

FG: 55:05
And, you know, and so it fell to Lyndon Johnson to really try to get, you know, translate all of that into-into policy. But, you know, Kennedy was clearly, you know, changed in his understanding of that issue by-by Michael Harrington, who was, you know, who was a writer of great profundity and compassion?

SM: 55:33
Could you talk a little bit also, as it is hard to say a little bit, because this is a lot of the musicians of that period of the importance of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan beyond the mere fact that they are saying music, they also wrote it. And they and writer-

FG: 55:51
Right.

SM: 55:51
-music became great hits for many of the rock groups of the (19)60s and (19)70s. But could you talk about the importance of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Nina Simone and Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, and-

FG: 56:07
Yeah.

SM: 56:09
-Mary and a whole group?

FG: 56:10
Yep. Yeah. You know, it is music is, in the whole book that we are talking about music was a theme that I returned to, you know, from 1960 on up through 1969. I mean, I thought it-it very often captured, you know, what was what was what was going on, you know, the, the similar in 1960, just the similar musical sensibilities of Sam Cooke and Elvis Presley, one Black, one white, both from Mississippi. Elvis, being a huge fan of fan of, of Black music, and Sam Cooke actually being a fan of, you know, white music. I mean, love country music, you know, he was, he liked Hank Williams, he recorded great country song Tennessee Waltz, and did it in his own way. And so, that sense of, of music being our common ground that these two iconic performers had, you know, that was, that was important. I mean, they Sam Cooke later became, you know, more-more direct and his social commentary with the song like a change is going to come, which he wrote, and it came out in 1964, I think. But then Elvis, you know, in 1968 or (196)9 whenever it was, you know, did that really powerful song in the ghetto-

SM: 57:49
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 57:49
-which was actually written by a country singer named Matt Davis. But-but-but-but it was, you know, it was a powerful attempt at empathy by-by this white musical icon, so, you know, there, there is that, but then there is a sort of direct witness of, you know, Pete Seeger. And, you know, and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Odetta and Nina Simone, you know, singing about injustice and injustice, so, you know, the possibilities of justice and, and the, and the reality of injustice. You know, Peter, Paul and Mary, you know, during the, the Selma to Montgomery march she had Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary and interestingly Tony Bennett, coming to perform on the last night of the march to kind of the-the weary spirits of the marchers, you know, you know, in 1965, the birds recorded a rock-rock group cut folk rock group recorded Seeger’s [Pete Seeger] song Turn! Turn! Turn! which was mostly the just a quote or slight paraphrase of the book of Ecclesiastes To Everything There is a Season. Seeger, who always had this sort of dry, self-deprecating sense of humor said, but yes, I did add six words.

SM: 59:33
[chuckles] Yep, yeah.

FG: 59:35
And, and the six words were, I swear it is not too late.

SM: 59:41
[chuckles] Yep.

FG: 59:41
And that comes right after his right after the part of Ecclesiastes, where they talked about how it was a time for peace, you know, and so, the Ecclesiastes is-is this wonderful literary meditation. But as I say in the book, you know, Seeger added six words that made it more intentional and indirect, and-and then the birds beautiful rendition of it, you know, made it something that people thought about, you know, it was, you know, so again, all of that is, is so important. And then you have, you know, somebody like Johnny Cash, who, in 1964, has a top five country hit with, with the Ballad of Ira Hayes, which is about wretched conditions on Indian reservations. You know, that-that was, you know, so it was not just, you know, the folk musicians who were, you know, thought to be left leaning, but you know, who have Johnny Cash from the heart of the Country Music mainstream-

SM: 1:00:59
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:00:59
-this powerful ballad of empathy. And then, you know, in 1969 cash has his own television show where he deliberately brings musicians from whoever identified with opposite parts of the political spectrum together on his show. So you-

SM: 1:01:17
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:01:17
-have Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard, you know-

SM: 1:01:21
Right.

FG: 1:01:22
-Arlo Guthrie, you know, Judy Collins, people like that on-on this country music show. And then, you know, in 1969, at Woodstock, you know, the last song, played at Woodstock was the Star-Spangled Banner. But it was played by Jimi Hendrix-

SM: 1:01:43
Yep.

FG: 1:01:43
-on electric guitar. And, you know, there is something powerful about-about that, I mean, a very iconic rendition. But-but-but there it was, you know, right. So anyway, yeah, music is an amazing force, and that whole decade, so creative, and so heartfelt, and so intelligent.

SM: 1:02:07
Yeah, very well said. I want to get into the area where Dr. King, we talked a little bit about him. We talked earlier about the time you saw him being arrested, and then he wrote the historic letter from Birmingham jail.

FG: 1:02:23
Right.

SM: 1:02:23
You said something very important in in that little section there you stated that he could. He was very good at kennel. And what is the word I want to use defining the debate, but he-

FG: 1:02:41
Yes.

SM: 1:02:41
-lacks strategy. And he had people behind him that worked with him like Andrew Young and James Bevel and Dorothy cotton. I met all these-

FG: 1:02:50
Right.

SM: 1:02:50
-people at my university.

FG: 1:02:53
Yes, yeah.

SM: 1:02:53
But-but-but he had these people that came up with a strategy. Could you talk about this is not Birmingham now with the protests after the killings of the four young girls at the church, the protest Bull Connor and everything and he wants a James Bevel came up with the idea of children. Let us bring the children out and protest and Dr. Golding hesitated.

FG: 1:03:17
Right.

SM: 1:03:18
-your thoughts on that. Yeah.

FG: 1:03:19
Well, you know, if bevel in and others thought, you know, we are, we are running out of adults to-to who are willing to risk or who can even afford to be arrested and go to jail. So, so let us bring the children let us bring college students, let us bring high school students, you know, sometimes maybe even younger people than that, and let them be arrested and see what that if that does not grab the conscience of America. And it did. But you know, King's, you know, paralyzing hesitation was, yeah, but do we have the right to, to put children at risk, you know, and-and, you know, and then and then later, as you alluded to, for children were killed because they attended the church that had been the staging ground for-for-for this movement, you know, when that church was-was bombed, and, you know, so King felt all of that deeply and sometimes, you know, his-his-his gift was not so much decision making as it was, you know, framing the moral issue, not that he was not personally brave, he absolutely was and he you know, he, he sometimes took great personal risks and all that but-but he was surrounded by these strategists, and I think it is a good thing you know, Andrew Young and you know, bevel and some of those others. But-but kings great gift was putting these issues is in a way that you just even if you wanted to disagree with him, and you still could, but you could not dismiss him. And, you know, that was just his, you know, I mean, he used time honored principles as the anchor for this really quite radical change that he was calling for.

SM: 1:04:55
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:05:21
He talked about, you know, our founding documents in America that we are all created equal, and the whole Judeo-Christian idea that we are all children of God. And if that is the case, then we are brothers and sisters of each other. And he evoked and invoked those things. to great effect is, you know, his-his whole, his whole, tragically short life.

SM: 1:05:49
The Birmingham bombing of the church where the four girls are killed. He gave the eulogy.

FG: 1:05:56
Right.

SM: 1:05:57
And the basic premise of his eulogy was to forgive not to have the bitterness.

FG: 1:06:04
Right.

SM: 1:06:05
And then you, as a young reporter, interviewed one of the parents of the for one of the four kids that was-

FG: 1:06:14
Right.

SM: 1:06:15
-killed. Could you talk about that interview?

FG: 1:06:17
Yeah, the-the person that I was honored to interview and it remains, maybe the most singular experience of my whole life as a writer, was getting to talk to Claude Wesley, whose daughter, Cynthia Wesley was one of the young girls who was killed in the church bombing. And it was a few years later, but what I always had wondered about was, if you were, if you were Mr. Wesley, and a few days earlier, your-your beloved daughter has been killed. And Martin Luther King comes to town and says, forgive, and do not be bitter. How does that land with you? You know, and-and so finally, in the interview after talking, you know, more historically and abstractly, I just went ahead and asked Mr. Westley that question, and-and I will never forget, I mean, I think I can quote it all these years later, almost exactly. But he said, you know, I said, "How does it feel to be called forgiveness when bitterness and rage would be a more natural instinct," and he said, "Oh, we were never bitter." He said, "We tried to treat Cynthia's death, in the same way we treated her life in bitterness had no place in that." And then he said, "There was something else we never did. We never said, Why us? Because that would be the same thing as saying, why not somebody else?" And he said, "A Christian cannot ask that question."

SM: 1:08:03
Hmm.
FG: 1:08:04
And, and it was just the most profound affirmation of the moral grounding of the Civil Rights Movement. I thought that I had ever heard. I mean, it was, I mean, yes, Martin Luther King put it beautifully, powerfully in into abstract concepts. But, but here was Mr. Wesley who just embodied it in his very, life, you know, I mean, it was humbling to, to see this, you know, this short, wiry, wispy, 70-year-old at that point, little man who had been a marvelous high school principal in Birmingham, but always done his part. But there he was just in just-just give just, you know, it is like that biblical idea of the word becoming flesh. I mean, Mr. Wesley just embodied all of this stuff in such a powerful, profound way that, you know, I just, I just sat kind of in quiet off for a few minutes.

SM: 1:09:19
Wow. That is one heck of a story. And what became of him?

FG: 1:09:28
You know, I do not know, he, I never talked to him again. I think by then he had retired as a principal and, you know, he got older and finally died. But, you know, he was just such an impressive person. And, you know, there were others too. I do not mean to say, you know, I mean, obviously, other parents who dealt with that same tragedy and horror and, you know, and others who were deeply influenced Little Angela Davis who later became the radical voice of Black power. You know, she was from Birmingham and some of those girls who were killed were her friends. And so it was this radicalizing moment for her different people did different things with-with that. But that is what Mr. Westley did. And, you know, it was there was something.

SM: 1:10:25
In your chapter on Freedom Summer, a very historic event in 1964. In the summer, he talked about another book. And I know this book very well. Charles Silverman's Crisis in Black and White. Let me mention to you that I went to-I was a history major here at Binghamton University. I took a sociology course in 1967 68 with Dr. Liebman. He did not he did not last too long here. He was, uh, he got too involved in activism, I think but, but what happened is, that book was required reading.

FG: 1:10:32
Mm-Hmm.

SM: 1:11:00
Yes. Yes. There was a line in there that I will never forget that Dr. King said it has stuck with me my entire life. And this came from Silverman it was the two sentences something like the fact that Dr. King said "I never feared the bigot." The people I [crosstalk] people-

FG: 1:11:20
Oh, okay.

SM: 1:11:21
-were the people that were the fence sitters.

FG: 1:11:24
Yes-yes. Yes.

SM: 1:11:26
And that has stayed with me my entire life because that is truth.

FG: 1:11:32
Yeah.

SM: 1:11:33
-there was truth.

FG: 1:11:35
Yes-yes. Silberman's book, I thought was just a wonderful primer for some of us who were, you know, just beginning to seek a deeper understanding of that issue. And, you know, and that is what Silberman had done, you know, he was not Black, he was Jewish, but he, but he wanted to understand and so he just dove into it as a as a really gifted journalist, historian, writer. And, and, and, you know, there is a lot of wisdom in the book, but just that very deep attempt at empathy and understanding thought was one of the great legacies of that book as well.

SM: 1:12:19
Yeah, I have a quote, I will do this. It is a brief quote you have in your book again, and it is from Dr. Sherman's introduction, and I am glad you put it in the book. "For 100 years, white Americans had clung tenaciously to the illusion that time alone would solve the problem of race. It has not. And it never will. For time, as Reverend Martin Luther King points out is neither good nor bad, it is neutral. What matters is how time is used. Time has been used badly in the United States so badly, that not much of it remains before race, hatred completely poisons the air we breathe, what we are discovering in the United States, all of it north as well as South West as well as East is a racist society in a sense, and to a degree that we have refused so far to admit, much let us face." And then I have one very soft quote here. From him, if I can read this, More than anything, I was struck by this as you were struck by the fact that he was fearless. Rather than cringing at the philosophy of Malcolm X. Silberman set out to understand its appeal, this emerging alternative in the minds of many Blacks to nonviolent message of Dr. King. And that gets sent to the fact that he was quoting a lot of Malcolm X here in this book as well.

FG: 1:13:40
Right. Right. Yes. Yes. And, you know, and Malcolm X was, you know, was such an important figure also, you know, I mean, he was, you know, he was not an advocate of violence, he was an advocate of self-defense.

SM: 1:13:58
Yep.

FG: 1:13:59
But as, as, gosh, now, I am blanking, but when the great African American actor who spoke at Malcolm X his funeral.

SM: 1:14:09
Ossie Davis.

FG: 1:14:11
Yes, right. When did Yes, sorry. When-when did he, meaning Malcolm ever do a violent thing?

SM: 1:14:19
True.

FG: 1:14:19
Well, he, he, you know, he was very disciplined. And, you know, and his philosophy was very dynamic and was continuing to evolve. And, you know, one of the one of the best understandings of Malcolm X to me was, was, you know, Alex Haley, who co-authored the, you know, with-with Malcolm The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Alex Haley was from the south. He was from Tennessee, and he had slightly different sensibilities, but he came to love Malcolm X and respect him and in the afterword to- in the autobiography of Malcolm X, you know, Hailey just gives such an-an empathetic understanding of the humanity of Malcolm X. And I also write in there about what I think was Malcolm X is only real trip to the South, where he came to Selma, just before the Selma to Montgomery march and spoke in favor of-

SM: 1:15:26
Yes.

FG: 1:15:26
Dr. King's efforts-

SM: 1:15:27
Yes.

FG: 1:15:28
in Selma.

SM: 1:15:28
Yep.

FG: 1:15:29
And so although they were often pitted as, you know, intellectual adversaries, and, you know, people who propose different paths for Black America, and to some extent, may have even seen themselves that way. There is that indication that they also at heart viewed each other as allies.

SM: 1:15:52
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:15:52
And, you know, in the broadest sense, and one of the ironies of history is that when Malcolm was assassinated in 1965, he was 39 years old, when Martin Luther King was assassinated three years later, he was 39 years old. So these were two very young men who were on the public stage for a relatively short amount of time. But because of their strengths of character that they brought to it, even with different and evolving philosophies, you know, they just had such a powerful impact in providing momentum to the movement for Black freedom and liberation and racial equality in America in the (19)60s.

1:16:46
There, well said, Dr. King, of course, won the Nobel Peace Prize. And-

FG: 1:16:52
Right.

SM: 1:16:53
-you talk about that in your book, I mean, your book is so you, you hit everything about, and anybody who grew up in this period, like I did, you know, it makes us think even more about those times. When you have a, I just want to quote this, and I want your thoughts on this very last thing, and its speech, and a union talking about comparing science and technology and all the accomplishments we have made as a people in this area. "Yet, in spite of the spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited wants to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance, the richer we have become material, materially, the poor, we have become morally and spiritually, we have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

FG: 1:17:52
Yes.

SM: 1:17:52
And that is speech.

FG: 1:17:55
Yeah. I mean, you know, what a way with words, but also what do I do with the ideas? You know, I mean, it, you know, he could speak with such towering eloquence, but there is substance there, you know, it is not just poetic fluff. And, you know, and he, and he was a prophetic voice. I mean, he was edgy, you know, we can sanitize him all these years later, and kind of sweeten up his message. And when we look at the “I Have a Dream” speech, only look at the Olive Branch, you know-

SM: 1:18:02
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:18:33
-the dream of the day will, you know, racial harmony, but not look at the demand for justice without which that harmony cannot exist, which was present in that speech, too. And, you know, King, the longer his life went on, the more the more edgy, his demands for justice became, and, you know, some-some people who had been his supporters began to criticize him after his speech against the Vietnam War at Riverside Church in 1967. You know, even liberal newspapers like the New York Times, and The Washington Post, basically wrote editorials saying who this King think he is, you know, he should stick to, to what he knows. You know, the Detroit Free Press was one of the only papers under a great editor named Mark Etheridge, who, who understood what King was trying to do in the Vietnam speech and supported him. And it is also interesting that he was King was introduced at Riverside Church by Rabbi Abraham Heschel-

SM: 1:19:18
Mm-Hmm. Yes.

FG: 1:19:43
-who had marched with him and Selma and they became, you know, powerful spiritual allies. You know, this Jewish theologian who was a seventh-generation rabbi and this, you know, American Baptist from the From the southern part of the United States who felt this great affinity for each other, and again, it just speaks to the fundamental grounding and seriousness of purpose that that King had, but that others had too and then King had turned his attention to economic inequality. And that was where he was when he was killed. And, you know, and we are no better off on that front. I mean, income inequalities is bad now, maybe worse than it was then. So, you know, could King have made a difference on that front? I do not know. But he certainly intended to try and was willing to risk the claim that had come his way for more and more profound changes that he thought were necessary to make America what it should be.

SM: 1:20:54
That is why I think having Byard Rustin by his side was really important because Byard Rustin was always trying to tell us about the king. And Dr. King believed this too, that it is not just race, it is about class.

FG: 1:21:05
Yes. Yes.

SM: 1:21:06
And-and Ruston was an that when Dr. King went north, he some of the critics in the South are saying, why are you heading to Chicago, weighing the weighing on North, because there is racism there as well. But there is also-

FG: 1:21:20
Yeah.

SM: 1:21:20
-a class issue, what was the, you know, where he was killed, was a strike over wages-

FG: 1:21:27
Absolutely. for sanitation, [inaudible] yeah, absolutely.

SM: 1:21:36
-for many years, and he was a great organizer to the-the teachings were very important. And this is another positive thing for Vanderbilt University. Because you talk in the book about the teachings that were taking place at Michigan, and then of course, the big one at Berkeley. But it also happened that your school, could you talk about the importance of the teachings, and they were a threat to Lyndon Johnson, he did not like him. Yeah, sanitation workers, so it was about class. So Byard Rustin was a very important person to be by his side.

FG: 1:22:03
Right? Yeah, the antiwar teachings that began, where, you know, you had professors and students who, who were opposed to the Vietnam War, and the deepening American involvement, and who saw what it was doing, certainly to Vietnam, where, you know, where so many people were getting killed, including civilians, and were American troops who were sent there, many of them brave, determined, you know, admirable young men, and they were all men at that point. But they sometimes did not even know who the enemy was because of the broad opposition to us, among the Vietnamese population. And so the troops were in a terrible position as well. And so some of these professors, we had one or two at Vanderbilt, but also, you know, students set all of these places thought at first, well, if we can just use information about what is happening, what is really happening. We can change people's minds, you know.

SM: 1:23:11
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:23:13
They have faith in the, in the basic goodwill of policymakers and Americans in general. And Lyndon Johnson, you know, who had been so played such a heroic role in terms of civil rights and, and in his very dramatic attempts to address the issue of poverty. But boy, he hated people who opposed him on Vietnam. And so he hated the [inaudible]. And you know, there was a lot of red baiting of stood in not [inaudible] is what I meant to say, hated that. And, and there was a lot of red baiting of the motives of people who were involved in all of that. So, you know, I treat the Vietnam War in the book as a great American tragedy. I try not to demonize the young man who was sent to Centrify and I tried to interview some about their experiences and the trauma that they experienced, sometimes physical, PTSD, sometimes moral horror at what was happening around them. And so in some, you know, who were proud of what they had done, but, you know, and to also recognize that, that, you know, the horrors were, you know, not all just committed by Americans. I mean, the torture of John McCain was-was an example of that, and, you know, in his bravery is beyond dispute. But he also was, you know, on the impersonal mission of dropping bombs in you know, on the outskirts of, of Hanoi, and-and, you know, and so when he was captured, they hated him, you know. And so all of that, to me is part of the great tragedy you know of Vietnam tragic for the Vietnamese tragic for its divisive impacts on America tragic for the loss and suffering that American soldiers and their families experienced. Tragic for the moral standing of America, in the world.

SM: 1:25:34
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:25:34
And finally, is how he men predicted we did just get tired of it and stop, you know-

SM: 1:25:41
Yep-yep.

FG: 1:25:41
-without achieving what we had set out to do and yet no direct harm came to us from Peace. Only from the war-

SM: 1:25:51
-as the helicopters went off the Embassy in Saigon on that April day-

FG: 1:25:56
Right.

SM: 1:25:56
-what and then-

FG: 1:25:57
Right.

SM: 1:25:57
-a gross going then you see on the aircraft carriers, I am throwing the helicopters into the ocean. It was what a sad day. So several days, in fact. I You mentioned also in the book that there was a religious organization that came together when people would read bait or accuse people of being communists. They used to do this for a lot of the civil rights workers or any of the protesters and certainly a lot of the anti-war people. And I remember it was Father Barragan, Daniel Barragan, and Rabbi Heschel that were two of the leaders who-

FG: 1:26:31
Yep-yep. Right.

SM: 1:26:31
-responded to somebody who had made those kinds of charges. And they said, That is ridiculous. They are patriots. They are not communists.

FG: 1:26:40
Right-right. Yep. Yep. Those were, you know, that is another theme that threads its way through the book is the is the power and the significance of faith and, and the ethical grounding. That faith provided some people from Dr. King to Rabbi Heschel to Father Barragan. You know, and a lot of others, and then there were other manifestations of it, too. I mean, Billy Graham was a was a very interesting figure during that time, who, you know, had more or less decent instincts on-on the issue of race, and yet he was a committed cold warrior, but also kind of timid about taking any kind of social stand. And then you had emerging late in the decade, the Christian right, led by Jerry Falwell. So, you know, that is another thread that you-

SM: 1:27:43
Yep.

FG: 1:27:43
-tug on during that during that decade. And it is, it is very empowering. It is very important. And I tried to catch a sense of its importance as best I could.

SM: 1:27:56
In the 1964 elections, we all know, I will be Jade, the Goldwater in a landslide. I think Goldwater won six states, but a Goldwater changed the Republican Party forever. And Change Politics forever. Of course, that is when Ronald Reagan came when he gave that speech in favor of Goldwater and he came on the national scene as well. But then on the other side of the Democratic Convention, Johnson had more problems than we thought, because of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. And what was going on there. I mean, so (19)64 may have been a, a landslide for the Democrats, but in reality, a lot of history was happening.

FG: 1:28:36
Yeah, that is right. And, and I think that it was an elusive landslide. You know, it was the, the sort of Lyndon Johnson consensus was starting to crack apart in (19)64. And the conservative forces and America conservative movement was-was taking shape and, and the spokesman for it, you know, the figure who embodied it, you know, first it was Goldwater, but then it became Ronald Reagan-

SM: 1:29:18
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:29:18
-who was a politician we learned, some of us to our chagrin, have enormous talent, who really put an appealing face on the-the, on the conservative movement in this country. And, you know, and so it became a powerful force in the same decade, where, you know, a lot of historians including me, were inclined to write more about the liberal movements in the decade but you know, there was this-this-this powerful emergence of the American right, that began to take shape. During that time as well.

SM: 1:30:01
Mm-Hmm. the and of course we in Buckley live formation of National Review.

FG: 1:30:09
Right.

SM: 1:30:09
And of course, the young Americans for freedom. I have had a couple interviews where people are upset that we never talked about the Young Americans for freedom and the conservative movement that was also against the war.

FG: 1:30:21
Right.

SM: 1:30:22
So-so that is.

FG: 1:30:24
Right.

SM: 1:30:24
Something for another day, but there is certainly no question that Buckley was a major figure in the (19)60s.

FG: 1:30:28
Major figure.

SM: 1:30:31
Yep. [crosstalk] go ahead.

FG: 1:30:34
He came to Vanderbilt Buckley came to Vanderbilt in 1968. And debated Julian Bond.

SM: 1:30:40
Yeah, what was the main thrust of that debate?

FG: 1:30:43
It was, you know, we were talking about the role of dissent in American society. And the interesting thing is, I do not, it was so overshadowed by what had happened the day before they spoke in that debate the day after Dr. King was killed in Memphis.

SM: 1:31:01
Oh, wow!

FG: 1:31:02
And so there was a very somber mood at the, you know, there were 5000 people listening to them.

SM: 1:31:11
Wow.

FG: 1:31:11
And, you know, Buckley was more subdued in his sarcasm, then he, you know, that was his kind of debating trademark. And-

SM: 1:31:19
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:31:20
-you know, it was funny, a little human aside, Julian Bond was terrified or die do debating Buckley. When I was getting bond to come, he said, Buckley will chew me up, "I am not coming to bite him." And I sort of jokingly said, "You have got truth on your side, Mr. Bond." And so anyway, he came in, I really liked Julian Bond, he was a funny, smart as a whip. You know, deeply committed guy. And William Buckley was, you know, just incredible intellect himself. So it was kind of the philosophical. They were sort of philosophical embodiment. So these two electrical currents running side by side and in American life, so it was a real privilege to get to see them together.

SM: 1:32:20
Yeah. You mentioned about he made a comment that if we were going backwards in the area of race, he would like to own somebody. Well, I think that was.

FG: 1:32:27
Oh, yeah. Julian-Julian. They were having a this is an anecdote. [crosstalk] I was told Ray Charles, she says that all the snick activists were sort of saying, you know, the white people are so racist, that they probably want to bring back slavery and bond in this right [inaudible] said, "Well, if it slavery does come back, I think I would like to own Ray Charles." I mean, it is just hilariously funny. It is I do not know what it means. I mean, he was, you know, I mean, he was just, he was just that irreverent and right, human.

SM: 1:33:04
I brought him to West Chester University. And we are Martin Luther King speaker one year, and I picked him up to the Philadelphia airport. And I always got, well, I had already gone down. I- he invited me to his class, I spoke about oral history interviewing to his class at American University. I interviewed-

FG: 1:33:22
Cool.

SM: 1:33:22
him for the-the-the-the Center for the Study of the (19)60s A long time ago. So that interviews on site, but what happened-

FG: 1:33:31
Right.

SM: 1:33:31
-is this. We are getting off. We are walking out of the airport, and someone says, "Hi, Mr. Lewis," and he it without a strike. He kept going. He said, "You are right. I am John Lewis." And he just kept going. Like he was, you do not even know me between him. And that was the first thing, then riding-

FG: 1:33:50
Yeah.

SM: 1:33:50
-back to the, to the university. And I noticed he was smoking. Well, he was not a smoker. He had not been but occasionally he did.

FG: 1:33:59
Uhm-huh.

SM: 1:34:00
And we got to the back of the university, we always want in the back way, because of the fact that goes right up to the elevator. And so we were going in the back way. And he said, "You know, Steve, I spent my entire career trying to go in the front door, and here we are going in the back door." And then I got in the elevator and he said, "I need your opinion on this. Do you think my wife will know if I smoked? Because the smoke beyond my raincoat because, you know, she does not want me to smoke." He-he was unbelievable. And then when we took him to Washington when it took some more students to Washington to meet him. But one of our African American students said I am never going to vote in the election. So let us not talk about that issue. And they will somehow, he brought it up.

FG: 1:34:45
Uh-huh.

SM: 1:34:47
And "You are of course you will all believe in voting, no" to and she said "No." Would you know for the next 30 minutes the conversation was between him and her.

FG: 1:34:56
Well, interesting, well.

SM: 1:34:58
About importance I wish I had taped. It was about voting. And so anyways.

FG: 1:35:03
Yeah.

SM: 1:35:03
So he had a sense of humor. He was a great person when he died. I was very sad. Very-very sad. Yeah. Yeah [inaudible] [crosstalk] I want you to comment on of course, Mario Savio and Cesar Chavez. Okay. He is very important. And because he was part of Freedom Summer, and he was only 21 years old. And could you talk a little bit about what you said in the book about him?

FG: 1:35:27
Yes, Mario Savio was a fascinating figure to me, because he was, you know, more or less a contemporary he was few years older than then I was, but not much. And, you know, he went to Freedom Summer as a volunteer in 1964. And was powerfully moved by the sense of community among African American people in Mississippi. And he had, Savio had been raised Catholic. And though he had become much more secular, in his view of the world, still, he, those some of those Catholic patterns of thought, remained, even if the content had changed. And he wrote that, that while he was in Mississippi, he felt like he was being held in the bosom of the Lord, as he said, I mean, there was something almost sacred to him about the sense of community and the struggle for equality that he encountered in the Mississippi, in Mississippi when he when he went there. And so he came back to Berkeley with that powerful sense of having been moved by the bravery of these of these African American people who lived with so much oppression, and were fighting back against it was such extraordinary courage, and then discovered that he was not allowed to talk about that, or pass out flyers about it on the University of California Berkeley campus because of limitations and freedom of speech. And so that was part of what helped trigger the free speech movement and, and some of Savio speeches, some of them impromptu that he gave as a as a spokesperson for that movement. And he-he never thought of himself as the leader of it. It was more diffuse and democratic than that, but he became the spokesperson because of his power with words. And, you know, it was almost in Martin Luther King territory. I mean, he was just amazing in the way, you know, he tried to frame all of that, and you know, Joan Baez, came in and sang and supported that movement. And, you know, Savio was viewed as an extreme radical by the Berkeley administration. But, but a lot of what he said, you know, holds up all these all these decades later. So, you know, he died relatively young. And, you know, and I was sad about that, I never met him, but, but I did follow him. And, and, and thought he was a pretty remarkable figure, you know, he studied with equal enthusiasm, both physics and philosophy, you know, I mean, it just spoke to the, to the depth and breadth of his intellectual interest to go along with his activism. And then Cesar Chavez, you know, and all this is the, you know, the sort of the, the California, the West Coast, contributions to the (19)60s, we have spoken about the emergence of Reagan and California.

SM: 1:38:21
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:38:43
But you had Berkeley free speech, and then you had the farmworkers strikes, and, you know, say as our Chavez giving voice to the same kind of non-violence that Martin Luther King did and leading, leading essentially a labor strike on behalf of better wages and safer conditions, and making common cause sometimes with the emerging environmental movement, because of the use of pesticides and so forth in the in the fields. And so very powerful witness by-by this Mexican American man who found a powerful ally and Robert Kennedy who, who spoke up for the for the farmworkers. So, you know, if a lot of the (19)60s flowed out from the south and then from the, you know, universities in the Midwest during Vietnam, you know, here was, here was the West Coast-

SM: 1:39:32
Mm-Hmm. Right.

FG: 1:39:48
-know, another powerful tributary in this great river of events in the (19)60s.

1:39:52
He believed in nonviolent protests, just like Dr. King, and he was also not afraid to go to jail, and there is a scene.

FG: 1:40:00
Right.

SM: 1:40:00
You in Your book where you talk with his wife went on a protest. And they were told not to say a certain word. And he said, I" want all of you to yell at this highest as everybody can hear it, "and-

FG: 1:40:11
Yes.

SM: 1:40:11
-believe that they would be arrested. That that is kind of like the philosophy of Dr. King. If you if you are afraid to go to jail, but you should not go to the protest, if-

FG: 1:40:20
Right. Right.

SM: 1:40:21
-you know what it is, there comes a price for everyone eventually. And-

FG: 1:40:26
Yes.

SM: 1:40:26
-certainly, Cesar Chavez was in the same light as Dr. King.

FG: 1:40:31
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I never met him either. But I wish I had, because he was a, he was a major figure during that decade. And we have not even really talked about the women's movement.

SM: 1:40:45
No-

FG: 1:40:47
That also gained so much momentum during that time. So it was-

SM: 1:40:51
-Lesbian movement as well. And I kind of-

FG: 1:40:54
Yeah.

SM: 1:40:54
-just general questions here, and then we will end, I was wondering if I could interview again, sometime later in the year, to maybe do more of the second half of your book. I have read everything, but I wanted to get this first half really covered. And I have some general questions here. Of all the stories in your book, you may have already said this, but could you pick out two the standout in your view, all the things you described?

FG: 1:41:24
Oh, my goodness. You know, it is, that is really, that is really hard. Or for me to do in a way, I mean, in a generic sense, they, you know, the assassinations of the (19)60s were so heartbreaking. And so history changing, you know, that I would have to talk about the assassinations of both Kennedys and Dr. King, not to mention Malcolm X or Medgar Evers or those others, but so that would be one thing. But on a personal level, you know, the two most important things to me that I sort of dropped into the book, were seeing the rest of Dr. King and Birmingham and, and meeting Robert Kennedy, when he came to Vanderbilt and-

SM: 1:42:19
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:42:19
-confirming to my own satisfaction that he meant everything he was saying, you know, on the-

SM: 1:42:24
Yep.

FG: 1:42:25
-campaign trail, I just had that feeling. So those were the two most important things personally. But you know, but-but the assassinations, the, you know, some of the brave affirmations that, you know, King and the Kennedys made, you know, those were, those were powerful, too. So I know, I am not narrowing down as much as you [crosstalk]

SM: 1:42:52
Mm-Hmm. That is very good though.

FG: 1:42:56
Right. Yeah.

SM: 1:42:56
All the assassinations. By golly, it is, you know, my next question is when you look at America of the (19)60s, the period (19)60s, (19)75, period, what are the issues that are still with us today that have not been corrected?

FG: 1:43:14
You know, I think almost all of them. You know, I think race is still an issue in America today. You know, the backlash against President Obama proved that we had not driven a stake through the heart of racism in America, and then the, the ability of President Trump to appeal to the worst in people with, you know, whether it was, you know, defining Muslims or immigrants as the other, or, you know, or later, more directly, you know, demonizing the Black Lives Matter movement, whatever, whatever it might be. I mean, those kinds of racial divisions are still with us. So that is one thing. Income inequality is as severe and destabilizing in America as has ever been. You know, the women's movement, you know, the reversal of Roe v. Wade, a lot of women see as, as an attempt to push back on the ability of women to control their own lives, and they think that is, but it is actually the unspoken motivation of it. So there is that. And then, of course, the environmental movement, which was taking shape near the end of the decade. You know, now we were living on the edge of climate catastrophe.

SM: 1:44:46
Right.

FG: 1:44:46
So, you know, those things at the at the, at the very least. And then there were labor struggles during the (19)60s and the-

SM: 1:44:55
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:44:55
-labor movement is, you know, there is little glimmers that it might be experiencing some revival after-

SM: 1:45:04
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:45:04
-going pretty, pretty dormant for a while, although we do not know. But anyway, I think, you know, I think most of the things that we were talking about in one way or another police brutality, which triggered the hot summers of the late (19)60s-

SM: 1:45:21
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:45:22
-and in almost every case, the riots were triggered by moments or allegations of police brutality, you know, we see again with George Floyd. So, so, so there it all is, you know, plus, plus the philosophical debate between the conservative movement and the-

SM: 1:45:42
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:45:42
-progressive or liberal movement, I mean, all of it, all of it is, is still with us. The (19)60s, raised hopes and caused divisions and gave us people who wanted to heal, but also gave us people who wanted to exploit divisions, and we see a lot of that today.

SM: 1:46:06
History is-is something we should all learn from. So the lessons learned are never lost. What are the-

FG: 1:46:14
Right.

SM: 1:46:14
-what are the lessons we have learned from that period that we were, we have been discussing today? And what are the lessons lost, if any, in your view?

FG: 1:46:25
Well, you know, I think that, that one lesson is that we can ensure broaden the meaning of American democracy, that we should make a place for more and more people in it to live full and valued lives, whether they are people of color, whether they are women, whether they are, they are people who are gay, or transgender, or, or whatever. That that that is the fundamental. That is, that is the fundamental American story, if we want it to be, I mean, Thomas Jefferson raised that possibility that was sort of a guiding star for the country, potentially, when he said, We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And, you know, it has been a long journey in the direction of that and to expand it from men to women, as well. And-

SM: 1:47:25
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:47:25
-you know, and so that is part of the American story, and in my view, needs to be the American story. But the opposite, the pushback against that hope, is also there, and the guy who wrote those words on slaves. And so, you know, that is the other sort of schizophrenic part of the American character. And that is still with us to the dark side.

SM: 1:47:50
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:47:51
So-so, you know, so that is the, that is the, that is the warning of the (19)60s that our lesser angels are still alive and well.

SM: 1:48:02
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:48:03
And, and so here we are, you know,

SM: 1:48:07
I think one key word or two key words regarding this period is that truth matters-

FG: 1:48:16
Right, yes.

SM: 1:48:17
-matters. And when you look at a lot of the people that all these protests for all these causes, and all of the unjust strife-

FG: 1:48:25
Right.

SM: 1:48:25
-and inequalities and being treated poorly, all these things, the people that were doing, it knew that truth matters.

FG: 1:48:34
Yes. Yes.

SM: 1:48:36
That is a very important two words. Just three more questions on done for today.

FG: 1:48:42
Okay.

SM: 1:48:42
Jean Scruggs, the founder of the Vietnam Memorial, wrote a book called To Heal a Nation.

FG: 1:48:47
Mm-Hmm.

SM: 1:48:48
And certainly the wall was built in 1982. The veterans came together for the first time really, where they felt like they were, you know, cared-

FG: 1:48:58
Mm-Hmm.

SM: 1:48:58
-and cared about. So-

FG: 1:48:59
Right.

SM: 1:49:00
-but how can we heal as a nation from this war?

FG: 1:49:05
From the Vietnam War?

SM: 1:49:06
Yes.

FG: 1:49:08
You know, we have not yet I do not think we need to, you know, I thought that, that we would, I thought when Jimmy Carter, in his first act as president granted amnesty to people who had left for Canada and said, "Come back home." I thought that was powerful. And then when the Vietnam Memorial happened and-and-and officially said to American soldiers who had fought during that era, we honor your courage and sacrifice. I thought that should have been those two things. Oddly, were kind of the book ends of what should have been healing from the war. At least from the American perspective, and, you know, but then, but then we did not, we did not learn anything from it on the po- on the policy level. And so, you know, along come, you know, you know, the-the, the first Gulf War in the 1990s. And then-

SM: 1:49:33
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:50:25
-you know, and then George W Bush's-

SM: 1:50:27
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:50:28
-foreign policy that destabilize the Middle East and proved once again, the limits of American military power. And so and so those, you know, and then and then the, the attempt to appropriate the meaning of the Vietnam War, and in, you know, and only try to retroactively view it as some kind of heroic chapter in American diplomacy or American history, you know, in taking nothing from the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers. But, you know, it was not a triumph. In-in any way. It was. It was a, it was a tragedy. And we have- we are not very good in this country, at-at an honest look at our own tragic mistakes.

SM: 1:51:17
Mm-Hmm. Yeah, I know that a lot of the soldiers that came back from the Vietnam War, appreciate being, at least for a while, being told welcome home because they were not during that-

FG: 1:51:30
Yes.

SM: 1:51:30
-period from (19)75 to (19)82. No question about, but the thing.

FG: 1:51:36
And-and they should be, they should be welcomed. I mean, that is, you know, that is part of the part of the healing. But anyway, go ahead with [crosstalk] Right.

SM: 1:51:43
-are tired of having people tell them Welcome home, because they know they do not mean it. It is just a slogan to them. But then I have-

1:51:43
-My I go the wall every year for the last two years from Memorial, our last 20. Some years. I am a [inaudible] they have veterans, they I talked to veterans, and a lot-

FG: 1:51:59
Right.

SM: 1:51:59
-had a couple of them, tell me now that have reflected on it over a long period of time, that why would we be welcomed home? I mean, we lost the war. We came home.

FG: 1:52:12
Yeah.

SM: 1:52:12
That was an unpopular war. So why did we were not going to have parades like World War Two? Korea did not have any parades either. But-

FG: 1:52:21
Right.

SM: 1:52:22
-so why, why do you expect us to be welcomed home when it was such a catastrophe in the first place? So a lot of the veterans are thinking deeper now about this whole welcome home business too. So.

FG: 1:52:35
Right.

SM: 1:52:36
And of course, the main thing is they are all getting old. And-and they are-

FG: 1:52:40
Right.

SM: 1:52:40
now realizing like World War Two veterans that they are only going to be here so long. So they are, so what is happening in during this period needs to be told and needs to be recorded down for history.

FG: 1:52:53
Right.

SM: 1:52:53
There is a lot of going on there.

FG: 1:52:57
Right.

SM: 1:52:57
One of the things is, I am not going to add, I will just say this. I have gotten a lot of answers. When did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? Well, I do not think it was ever ended. I know, George Bush-

FG: 1:53:07
Right.

SM: 1:53:07
-George Bush said in 1989, the Vietnam syndrome was over when I heard that I just about laughed. You remember when he said that?

FG: 1:53:17
Yeah-yeah. I do and, you know, I thought it was wishful thinking and off base?

SM: 1:53:23
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:53:25
So, you know, yes-yes. No, I think I think it is the issues that the (19)60s represented. You know, and, you know, that were so apparent, then those issues are just absolutely alive and well, and all of the debates and struggles and so forth, continue. And maybe that is just the way of history, you know, it has it has never contained in-in, you know, in the way that historians would like to, you know, I could write a book about a 10-year period. But, you know, it did not really start those things in 1960. And they certainly did not end in 1970. So it is just an abstraction. That is a convenient way to start and end the book. But, but history does not start in the end and-

SM: 1:54:15
Right

FG: 1:54:15
-in, in those neat kinds of ways. Yeah.

SM: 1:54:18
I have two more [crosstalk]

FG: 1:54:19
I would be glad to talk to you. You know, later if you know about the other parts of the book.

SM: 1:54:25
Oh yes, Certainly-certainly, I would like, having a second interview regarding the women's movement. Certainly the movements for the Native American movement of the gay and lesbian movement, and certainly a lot more to about the latter (19)60s. I want to end this by saying this make a comment and you respond to it. When I look at the year 2022. I see a nation and extreme divide, just like the (19)60s the people and the characters are different. What some of the same issues are still with us. In fact, some of the issues seem to be returning through an effort to return to an earlier time before so many, many battles for justice had been won. Are we going to read this? Are we a nation going forward or backward?

FG: 1:55:15
I think that we will have a much clearer answer to that question within the next two years. I have recently written a new book with another writer appeal, it is a prize-winning columnist named Cynthia Tucker.

SM: 1:55:35
I have the book.

FG: 1:55:36
Call this other, yeah, and Southernization of America: Story of democracy in the balance.

SM: 1:55:41
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:55:41
And we in that book by saying, it could go either way, you know, we were, we could go forward or we could go way backward. And, you know, the structural challenges to the very way of doing our democratic business in this country are being put in place, and if those carry the day, along with this very energetic set of, in my view, far right, way beyond conservative far right priorities. That, that, you know, that make it hard to have honest civil discussions of our, of our problems, and we could be in for a really dark and difficult generation in this country, if not more-

SM: 1:56:39
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:56:39
-or, you know, we knowing that maybe we can stave off the worst, but in the meantime, the depth of division in America right now feels to me, at least as deep as it did if the end of the (19)60s.

SM: 1:56:56
Mm-Hmm. Yes, I will end this by a quote that I think Barbara Tuchman said, but I think it is well known that the first casualty of war is truth.

FG: 1:57:08
Right.

SM: 1:57:09
And it is so true. And I end each of my interviews with a question. The people that will be hearing these interviews are many of them are not even born yet. At the center-

FG: 1:57:21
Mm-Hmm.

SM: 1:57:21
I study the (19)60s, these interviews are put on to CVS and Aviva studied and researched. Our goal, I think, hopefully, is that we also finally will get PhD candidates who want to concentrate on that period between 1960 and (19)75, history majors-

FG: 1:57:37
Right.

SM: 1:57:37
PhD, right. So these are all important. And so that you your voice, your picture, and your books will be here forever. And so what you said, we will be having influence on people long after we are long gone. Could you if there is a word of advice that you would give people down the road that are no that are that we will be hearing this 50 years from now and beyond? What would you say to them?

FG: 1:58:06
Well, you know, I think the (19)60s began as a period of time when people thought they could make a great country even better. That was the sort of idealistic heart of the (19)60s at the very beginning. And as it count encountered the intractable reality of our problems, the depth of our problems, whether they are economic or racial, or having to do with gender or the conflict between, you know, our, the engines of our economy and, and our environment, whatever it might be, that generated the pushback. You know, that that idealistic goal- You know, in some cases turned bitter, in some cases led to deep disillusionment, but the but the heart of it, that belief, that, that we have the potential in this country to be special, and we need to make it true. You know, that still, it seems to me has to be our north-north star as Americans-

SM: 1:59:29
Mm-Hmm.

FG: 1:59:29
-and, and the (19)60s emphasize that.

SM: 1:59:34
Well, thank you very much. I am going to turn the tape off and I will talk to you on the other side. Hold on. Thank you. Okay. All right. I am back. That was great interview. Great interview. Yeah, well, what will happen is, I interviewed six people about four weeks ago, and then I interviewed a person yesterday and you today. So there is going to be a new-new tapes that are going to be have to be digital. I think they are already. Yeah, they are already digitized, they just have to be sent to you by email. And then you will listen to them and approve them. And then once they are approved, then they will be placed on site with the other 100-238 that are already up there. And so that and-and I am going to be keeping-keeping doing this as long as I can. So I am going to keep adding and adding to the process that down the road. I am interviewing six more people in a month. So it would be a while a while from now to interview you again, would you be able to be interviewed in late October?

FG: 2:00:40
[inaudible] what you are doing is important. Interview [inaudible]

SM: 2:00:53
Okay.

FG: 2:00:57
You know [inaudible] what we talked about is what I think [inaudible]

SM: 2:01:13
You know, I believe, I have conservatives and liberals that I have interviewed. I remember I interviewed David Horowitz. And I brought David to Westchester. He is not liked by a lot of and, and he is kind of crazy in some of his ideas, but I have always liked them. And, and he agreed to do an interview with me and he said, You are the only one you are only a liberal. And I had an interview with I hate because I liked him because when he first came to our campus, some of the liberal professors were ready to go in his throat and we walked out of the room, I said that we are not here for that. He just heard David's here to give a lecture on this is about six. This is about 10 years ago, but-but I read his book, radical son, I do not know if you have ever read it. It is a great book to read because he was the world's number one leftist for a long time. He came from a leftist family. And I think he is kind of gone overboard now with his thinking, but, but I know what he has gone through. He has lost a daughter. He has had cancer. He has done a lot of things. He has written a lot of books, David [inaudible], and he has written books with and Mr. [inaudible] just recently passed. So I just, you know, he is on here, and he agreed to do it. So anyway, but I find that you-you are one heck of a writer, I-I could not put this book down and I underlined it-it is almost ruined with underlines. But the thing is, it is so well, it is, it is, it is history, and I kind of live that history. But I lived it up in New York state while you were living in I was born in 19- December 27, of (19)46. So we are the same age. yet and I admire your time at Vanderbilt, I spent my career in higher education. And I love any university that allows all points of view to be heard, no matter what era.

FG: 2:03:10
[inaudible]

SM: 2:03:25
Well, I, in my career in higher education, I have met just about everybody from the (19)60s because they all came to campuses. You know, I brought him I was at Westchester for 22 years. And then I was at Ohio State for a few years and I was at Ohio University. I brought David, I do not know if you ever heard of his name? Oh, my golly, people's Bicentennial commission from 1976. I forget the name. He was he was a radical now he is a multimillionaire businessman. But anyways, so I will get you will get this in the mail sometime in the next two to three weeks. And then make sure we have a picture of you that has been okayed, you can mail that to my email address so that we placed on site and a brief interview, then more extensive interviews will be coming forward down the road. And-

FG: 2:04:21
[inaudible] very enjoyable [inaudible] .

2:04:30
It is just, yeah, it is the Center for the Study of the 19(19)60s at Binghamton University. You can go on site. There is 238 interviews on site right now. A couple a couple of them have some damage to them. I know Ed Rendell when I interviewed him, the former mayor of Philadelphia. I was supposed to I was supposed to interview him in his office. Well, he got too busy and he says come with me. And so I am interviewing him in his limo going to a funeral. funeral of a fireman. And what happened is he never turned the tape on when I asked him the question he only put the [inaudible] he answered the question. So-so yeah, and we tried to get his family to okay the tape but he has got Parkinson's now and I cannot even be contacted. So we got him on site even though it is just him answering questions. Yeah, but anyways, at least we got so I kind of consider you the CBN Woodward or the south.

FG: 2:05:31
Well, that is very flattering.

SM: 2:05:34
Yeah, because you know, you are you really are on top of the (19)60s and everything you are right. I do have your new book as I did order it. I do not know what I am going to get a chance to read it. But, but I will be contacting you myself in terms of trying to set up the next interview. And you would be safe and continue writing. Thanks, have a great day. Bye.

(End of Interview)

25 August 2022

Stephen McKiernan

Frye Gaillard

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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