Interview with Dr. James Quay

Quay, James ; McKiernan, Stephen

Dr. James Quay grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania.  He earned a BA in English from Lafayette College and then performed two years of alternative service in central Harlem as a conscientious objector. He and his wife moved to California where he earned an MA and Ph.D. in English Literature from UC Berkeley. He was a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz and an associate producer with California Public Radio where he co-produced a six-part radio documentary, Vietnam Reconsidered: Lessons from a War. He served as executive director of the California Council for the Humanities from 1983 to 2008. Since his retirement, he has been a facilitator for the Center for Courage and Renewal.

2010-08-02

In copyright

2018-03-29

McKiernan Interviews

159:49

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: James Quay
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 2 August 2010
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(Start of Interview)

SM (00:00:03):
And again, any questions will be all over the place. They are not going to be in the order that I sent them to you, but I will start out with the first question, which is, in the early years when you were young, what were the greatest influences in your life, your experiences growing up, your high school years prior to going to college, and then of course your college years as well. I think you were at Lafayette College and I know that quite well. And then your experiences at Berkeley. So tell me a little bit about those early years.

JQ (00:00:35):
Well, I grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which is city of about 100,000, maybe 70 miles north of Philadelphia. And it was literally an all-American city. Got that designation, I think, twice, actually. So naturally, the biggest influence for me early on where my parents. My father managed the shoe store and had never gone to college. My mother was a nurse, not working at the time, but she started working to put my brother and I through college, to help with college. And it was a very big tranquil, safe childhood. Remember walking a mile and a half to elementary school without any adult supervision. Nobody worried about it. So I would say my parents early on were strong influences. In high school, a classmate named Earl Lampson was the first... I was a pretty much of a straight arrow, and he was the first person to really go off into some intellectual deep places. He knew about the Beats. He knew about blues and jazz and folk music beyond the standard repertoire. So he was a very strong influence for getting me to see other ways of seeing the world than just the standard, conventional way that I saw. Though I must say, I was not one of those who rebelled against my conventional upbringing. I just saw that there was another way. And in college, my professors were really influential, especially one English professor named James Lusardi.

SM (00:02:48):
How do you spell that?

JQ (00:02:51):
L-U-S-A-R-D-I. He died about six years ago. He was influential not only as a model, I decided what I wanted to be was an English professor, but also he had, there is a kind of easy, sophomoric cynicism that college students can have, or certainly I did at that time. I think it was a leftover from the Cool Beat (19)50s era, and he challenged that. That is really cowardice, and it is really, you are just being a punk. It is just a posture. You are actually trying to protect yourself from... There is something fearful about that posture. And all this was happening about the time that protest against the war was heating up. So we started getting involved more with challenging the [inaudible] administration rules on conduct as well as protesting against the war. So I guess those were the major influences for me, the ones I personally had, anyway.

SM (00:04:11):
Now before we even get into it really in depth, on the Vietnam Memorial website, they have your description of when you first went to the Vietnam Memorial for the first time.

JQ (00:04:23):
I did not even know that.

SM (00:04:26):
Yeah. Well, that is where I first really found out about you. It is on the website, and it is as a conscientious objector from the Vietnam War area. And then of course, it has listed that you were the executive director of the California Council of the Humanities. But go back to those days again when you were young in college. At what juncture did you become a conscientious objector? Was it at Lafayette College, or was it at Berkeley?

JQ (00:04:55):
Oh, no, it was at Lafayette. I did not get to Berkeley until 1970, and I must say by the time I got to Berkeley...

SM (00:05:05):
Can you hold on a second? Someone is trying to reach me. Hold on a second. I am on my cell. Hello? This is him speaking. Good. No-no-no-no. I retired in February of 2009, and I have not worked since. Yep. You bet, bud. Sorry about that.

JQ (00:05:55):
That is all right.

SM (00:05:57):
That was Social Security. I am going to be able to get social security for the first time. They do not believe I am retired. Well, anyway, where were we? Sorry about that. That will be the last interruption.

JQ (00:06:14):
Yeah, it was at Lafayette and not Berkeley that I made that decision. And I think about the evolution. I remember when I turned 18 in September of (19)64, I forgot to go to the draft board to register. I did not go for weeks. And in 1964, that was no big deal. If that had happened, I am guessing, two or three years later, it probably would have been a big deal. And I started paying attention to the war, I would say, in 1966 and (19)67, which would have been my junior year. I had a student deferment, of course, and so I was not thinking about the draft that way, but I was starting to read people like Camus and Thoreau, and think about what my stance was going to be when I graduated. And I toyed for a little while. I knew I did not want to participate in the war. And I toyed a little while about the 1-A-O status, which is conscientious objector, but in the military, usually work as a corpsman or something like that. Decided against that, and I guess it was sometime around Christmas or January that I decided to file as a CO. I remember telling my father, and I do not remember him having any strong objections. He had gone quite willingly to World War II. In fact, I think he volunteered. And it was more that this was a different situation, something he had not encountered. He could tell me how to follow my government's instructions, but he could not tell me how to resist them. So there I turned to by some of my professors and also the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, which was then based Philadelphia, I think still is, and started to think about what my claim would be. And I was lucky because it was a Supreme Court. Mine was not a religious objection. I was raised Lutheran, and the Lutheran Church did not have a passive stance the way that the Quakers do. But there had been a Supreme Court decision, (19)65 or (19)66, a secret decision, I think, in which the justices said it was not necessary for someone to be a member of a peace church, but that the conviction that you had against war had to occupy the same place in your life as it would in that of a belief. Very important. It is funny, a lot of the theologians that were cited in that decision, I then read later freshman required religion course that I took. [inaudible].

SM (00:09:42):
Oh, yes.

JQ (00:09:56):
So basically, my position was that we create our gods out of our own values, and the values that I most agreed with were love and justice. And I do not know if you are familiar with the CO form, but the first question is, "Do you believe in a Supreme Being?" And there are two boxes: yes, no. It is not a particularly sophisticated theological docket. Then the second question is, "What is the nature of your relationship to that between being," I am going to forget the exact wording, "That makes it impossible for you to participate in war?" It says something about your relationship is higher than any human relationship. And I said that since human beings were the carriers of love and justice and all these important values, to kill other human beings would be to more or less kill God, because human beings, in a sense, are the divinity. And that was the basis of my claim. I remember giving it really a lot of thought, and it was accepted in June of (19)68. So I filed it on the first day of spring in 1968, and then it was accepted into...

SM (00:11:51):
Did you have any choice about what you were going to do for alternative service, or were you just assigned?

JQ (00:11:56):
That is a funny story. What you do is you send three options to the draft board, all of which has to be outside, I think, at least 90 miles away from your home. And the three that I sent to my draft board were the New York City Department of Social Services, the Judson Memorial Church was a church in Greenwich Village that had a reputation as peace church, and the United Nations. And I actually started working for the Department of Social Services because I had heard that other draft boards had accepted that as alternative service. Not all, but some. And then my draft board sent back a letter saying, no to the United Nations note, to the New York City Department of Social Services, and what is the Judson Memorial Church? So I sent an appeal back. I realized that they knew that the name of the social service had been the Department of Welfare, they had just came to me. And that welfare to somebody living in Allentown, Pennsylvania did not mean, clearly, what I was experiencing in Harlem. So I sent them a letter, I think, detailing what I did in the course of the week, hoping that would persuade them that what I was doing was truly both in the national interest, and true social service. And it took two tries. I got another letter back saying, "We voted. The vote was two to two with one person absent. We will let you know next month." And then they finally did accept that. I should probably also say that I waived my physical, because I did not want to be exempted because of any physical injuries. So I volunteered for alternative service.

SM (00:14:21):
Yeah, that experience, you were there two years?

JQ (00:14:23):
Two years.

SM (00:14:23):
And it is my understanding that most positions that, or people that serve in conscientious objector positions, it was not meant to be easy.

JQ (00:14:35):
Yeah, that is right.

SM (00:14:37):
And so...

JQ (00:14:38):
His life was to be... I think the idea basically was fairness. Your life was disrupted the way someone who had to go into the military's life would be disrupted.

SM (00:14:51):
From that two-year experience, what did you learn, not only about people and about yourself, but about this country?

JQ (00:15:02):
That is a big question. I would say that first of all, I had never seen poverty at the scale that I saw it in Harlem. Never. And at the same time, I saw people and got to know people who were not the face of the poor anymore. They were individuals. I remember one fellow who was, I think he was a little mentally disabled, but he was a very gifted sculptor. Who would have thought? And I discovered that a lot of the misery in Harlem was caused by absentee landlords who lived far away and did not care about the condition of their building. I learned that if I walked down the streets of Harlem, I was afraid of the same people that the people living in Harlem were afraid of. That is, a deranged drug addict, and that they really were human beings just struggling to make do with very few resources, et cetera, et cetera. And it was really eye-opening for me. It also made me realize that doing social service work, especially in a big bureaucracy, was just crushing work. That it was not for me. That I was going to take my constitution some other way.

SM (00:16:55):
Would you say that, because you were in a very prestigious position for 25 years in California, in the humanities, were doing documentaries and programs, and would you say that the experiences you had as a young man serving in a conscientious objector status for people, a lot of people had nothing, that you were able to use that experience and use it in a position like your director position in terms of doing quality work with less money?

JQ (00:17:36):
Well, I do not know if it enabled me to do quality work with less money, but I would say that it informed what I hope is a very powerful populous stem to the way I see the world. That when I was with the Council, what gradually evolved was a program that centered on strengthening community as much as possible. Bringing people together, whether it is across racial lines, class lines, as much as possible. It is very difficult work to do, as you probably know, but that the idea of including everyone and that everyone's story is an important story. That derived, in part, I think, from my experience in Harlem, it is hard to say, it is a chicken/egg thing. Did I see what I saw in Harlem because I already had that value, did it just reinforce that? I do not know. But certainly there is a consistency there.

SM (00:18:52):
There might be some sort of direct link with that and your first position after you got your PhD, where you did that documentary on the Vietnam War.

JQ (00:19:01):
Well, yeah. What really happened there, I remember listening to National Public Radio and their coverage of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. And they had a short clip where they were reading the names, and I was just absolutely transfixed by that. It just really, really struck you. Now, this is in (19)82, and there had not been very much discussion of or talk of the war after the US left. And especially after 1975, it was just like the whole country went completely silent and was mourning, I believe, but mourning quietly, silently. No one was talking to Vietnam veterans at all, it was as if they had disappeared off the face of the Earth. So this was the first public reawakening of the war back into consciousness. And very shortly after, maybe two or three weeks later, a man named Walter Capps I interviewed, he had just written a book called The Unfinished War, 1982, and he was a professor of religious studies at Santa Barbara, and he had begun in 1979. This could be a long story, but I will keep it brief. He had started a course, very first in America, and so he did lecture of this, and in the three years since he had started the course, I think the first one was in (19)79, at first, it was a course that had 30 students. By 1982 or three, they had to put it in the largest auditorium on the campus, 900 deep. That is what interest there was in the war. And I had gotten a little hint of that when I was teaching writing at the UC Santa Cruz from 1977 to (19)79. I actually taught a course on the (19)60s, a research course. I was a writing instructor. And to supplement the course, I had a little film series that would show films every Monday night. And, oh, I always forget the name of it, a very powerful film about the Vietnam War.

SM (00:22:00):
Coming Home?

JQ (00:22:06):
No-no. It was more of a documentary film. I just cannot think of it right now. But I rented the film and showed it, and 500 people showed up to see this film. And that was the moment I realized that the war was not over. The war was still psychologically going on. So let us see, that was in (19)79, (19)82. Walter talked about, well, you can tell from the title of the book, the Unfinished War, that he, too, felt that this was happening in the American psyche, and that Americans really had not dealt with or healed from the war. And I think it was around that time that I decided to apply for $1000 satellite grant, which we got. And we went down and we recorded the first conference to talk about the Vietnam War, called Vietnam Reconsidered, at the University of Southern California. And there were some really outstanding people. Francis Fitzgerald was there, I do not think Westmoreland spoke, but people of that caliber, Arthur Miller spoke.

SM (00:23:36):
Wow.

JQ (00:23:39):
Robert Stone spoke. But by far the most powerful session, and it was just one of many sessions, was the one where the veterans spoke. And again, I was just by myself, just completely transfixed by what I was hearing, and mostly the pain that I was hearing. And we decided to take all the hours of tape that we had, package them into six one-hours, put a binder, put some information, and send them, sell them, actually, for cost, to public radio stations all over the country. And we did that for several years. And the response to that was just overwhelming. It was very gratifying. But I knew that we were just scratching the surface. It was largely through Walter's course... Walter, now, this was February of (19)83. Walter, it turned out, became the chairman of the California Council for the Humanities.

SM (00:25:01):
Oh, my gosh.

JQ (00:25:02):
And was part of the group that hired me four months later to become the executive director.

SM (00:25:08):
Oh, my gosh.

JQ (00:25:10):
Oh, it gets even wilder than that. I had my final interview. There were two finalists. My final interview was in July, on July 20th of 1983. Three days, before we found out that California public radio had been blue penciled out of the California budget due to the governor. Governor Deukmejian. Suddenly, there was no more California public radio. And on the final day, I had my interview. Went back, we taped the final showing of the 15-minute news program that we did, California Edition. And three minutes after that final show, I got the call that I got the job as the PCH Executive Director.

SM (00:26:06):
Now was Walter a professor there, too, in California at that time?

JQ (00:26:11):
And later became a congressman in 1996, and then died tragically a year later of a heart attack. But he became my mentor in the sense that the power of stories, and the power of telling one's story, and being able to have one's story heard, the veterans were in some way healed by the fact that they had an audience that was listening to their story, and not judging their story. And the course is still being taught. It is being thought by a professor named Richard Peck to this day. And Walter told me before he died that he felt that the course had gone through three phases. The first one was welcoming the veterans home, and bringing them out of the shadows onto the stage, telling their story.

SM (00:27:16):
And that was (19)79.

JQ (00:27:17):
That was (19)79 through about (19)83 or four, I am going to say.

SM (00:27:20):
Okay.

JQ (00:27:22):
But this is pretty imprecise. From (19)84 or five to (19)91. It was healing the nation, that the veterans, by telling their stories, were inviting the rest of the country to deal with what it had not dealt with before. Because there was a lot of grief in this country, the loss of ideals, the loss of the view of your country that you may have once had, that I certainly had, that was destroyed by our participation in Vietnam. And then after (19)91, after the Gulf War, the Gulf War ended that morning moment, because suddenly war was triumphal again. Look at that big victory we just had, and the concentration then was he was getting lots of students in the class who were the sons and daughters of that.

SM (00:28:21):
Oh, yes.

JQ (00:28:22):
And so there was, how does information get transferred generation to generation? It may be even a different phase now, but that one was the one that was going on when I was there.

SM (00:28:34):
So let me turn-

JQ (00:28:36):
He invited me in 1985. I asked him during the interview back in (19)82 if he had ever had a protestor or a conscientious objector speak, and he never had. And he said, "That might be a good idea." So finally in (19)85, he actually did invite me, and it was the first time I told my story, How I Came to Be a Conscientious Objector. And he later included it in a book on the Vietnam, A reader on the Vietnam War that he created.

SM (00:29:09):
Let me change the side here. We just finished 30 minutes, so let me just change this tape here. Very good. We are back. That is quite a story.

JQ (00:29:20):
Well, I am saving my big story for...

SM (00:29:22):
Okay.

JQ (00:29:22):
[inaudible] story is probably the big story.

SM (00:29:28):
I am going to get near there in a couple of minutes. But I also wanted your thoughts as a CO. You have been very descriptive as to why you became a CO, and you have talked about the experience and what it meant to you. What did you think about the conscientious objectors who went to Canada, the people that left the country and refused to even do alternative service? Because we know that Jimmy Carter, in (19)79, pardoned anybody. Amnesty was given. That was very controversial. But a lot of people never came back to the United States. They stayed up in Canada. And some people say some of the top leaders up there are former Vietnam vets to even today that have gone on, become very successful businessmen, and they are in government and everything else. Your thoughts on those who went to Canada and did not really, they paid a price by separating themselves from their families and not being able to come back to home. And secondly, something when I interviewed James Fowles, who is an unbelievable person, veterans admire him because he admitted that he was basically a chicken during the Vietnam War, that he evaded the draft, and he was very specific about this. He says there is a big difference between those who went out and protested the draft, and those who evaded the draft. And he evaded the draft like a lot of his friends at Harvard, and he feels guilty. He has gotten over it, but he has been very honest. So my question is basically-

JQ (00:31:02):
What did you do in the class war? Daddy, I think.

SM (00:31:09):
Yeah. So basically, I am asking what do you think of those people who went to Canada and never did any kind of alternative service? And secondly, what do you think of those people who evaded the draft without any sense of, "I am not going to protest against the war, I am just going to get out of the draft."

JQ (00:31:27):
Yeah. Well, my only experience with anybody who went to Canada was a friend who was working at the same welfare center as I was. His draft board was in St. Louis. He worked at the same work I did for four years, twice as long, but his grant board refused to accept it. So he lives in Toronto today. So I guess what that has told me is I...

JQ (00:32:03):
What it has told me is, I cannot judge people as a class, I would have to hear each individual story. I just cannot make that judgment. I know it is true and this is one of the things I learned from the Glendon Waters story, was that, when I was going to college, existentialist literature was very big to Moon and Sartre. And the notion that your life is what you do, you are what do, you find yourself by the actions that you take. And of course, since this is happening for me between the ages of 18 and 21, it is also part of my identity formation. So this is a very rich stew. So I saw, becoming a conscientious objector, as making a choice, making a statement about my life, embedding the things that I believed in and acting on them and that was very important. But what I learned later was, that that was a very privileged position to be in. I got to read Kabul and Thoreau. I got to be on a college campus, where I had the leisure to do that without having to earn a living or et cetera, et cetera. And there were people who did not have those privileges and did not have that opportunity. Now I would like to think that I made the right choice, given what was given to me, to know about those things. But I do believe that it was not given to everybody to know about those things. Glendon Waters grew up in Dallas, Texas. It probably was not a peace church within 150 miles of Dallas, Texas. Whereas, I grew up 70 miles North of Philadelphia in an area that had peace churches and dissenting churches everywhere. And even if you were not a member of them, that atmosphere, Quaker presence. So that took me in directions and made choices available to me that were not available to others. I would guess, that there may be a lot of, be it conscience on the part of the school to who did that, what you are calling, draft evasion. But I guess what I feel is, that the choices that we make sometimes as very young men and women, we cannot possibly know what the consequences are going to be later in life. You just make this wager. And if get that wrong, you do suffer consequences later. And that the most serious are the ones, the judgements you make of yourself, the way Fallows did.

SM (00:35:27):
Right.

JQ (00:35:27):
And not the judgments that others may have. I did find that veterans treated me with respect because I had done the alternative service and had taken a stand, and they did tend to have a lot of contempt for those who simply abated the draft. But I just think moral decisions are, well, sometimes they do not even present themselves as moral decisions. So I tend not to make a blanket judgment of that.

SM (00:36:07):
I know that in the oral history book, The Wounded Generation, that came out around 1980, I have interviewed like Phil Caputo and Bobby Mueller and John Wheeler. I have interviewed a couple of people linked to that book. And James Webb who is now our Senator from Virginia, he made a comment back at the time of a symposium, that was interesting. We talk about the generation gap being the battle between parents and their children, over ideas and lifestyle and all other things and that was obviously happening in the (19)60s and (19)70s. Webb said that he felt, or at least in the conversation between these gentlemen, "That the real battle was within the generations, not necessarily between generations. Between those who went to war and served in Vietnam or were Vietnam era veterans who served in this country or around the world. So you have to include them too and those who did not serve." And so his commentary was in the end, that we always think of the (19)60s generation as a service-oriented generation, one that went into the Peace Corps, went into Vista. They followed the ideas of John Kennedy, either by going into the military, like a lot of the guys at West Point did and Annapolis. So they used the military as service, where others went to Peace Corps, the other ways. But in reality, as Mr. Webb said, and then the conversation was very good, if you look at the book that, "This was not a generation of service." And I thought that was interesting because we think just the opposite, the service really began then with the idea of the Peace Corps and John Kennedy, "Ask not what your country can do for us, what you can do for your country." What are your thoughts about those comments that came out of that discussion in the book, The Wounded Generation? I know that Mr. Webb said some of those words, but it was a conversation in response to his words.

JQ (00:38:17):
Well, I know that that conflict has reared itself at different times, especially in the (19)90s, I remember the way President Clinton was viewed, et cetera, et cetera. It may still be true. Again, I like to avoid generalizing because first of all, the generation is so large, and as you pointed out in one of your questions, only 15 percent, I think protested in any way. So we tend to lump everybody together and it is really not accurate to do that.

SM (00:39:08):
Yeah. In fact, some people say that 15 is, you are way overboard, Steve. It is really about 5 percent.

JQ (00:39:13):
Is that right?

SM (00:39:15):
Yeah, it depends on who you talk to. There is no real answer to the total numbers but it was minor.

JQ (00:39:26):
Yeah.

SM (00:39:26):
Yeah.

JQ (00:39:27):
Well, I can understand that. I mean, I remember the first time I carried a protest sign, I felt very self-conscious. It was walking out on stage without your clothes or something. I mean, I got more and more used to it, but the first time certainly, it just seemed very strange.

SM (00:39:51):
What was that first time?

JQ (00:39:52):
Pardon me? When was it?

SM (00:39:53):
Yeah, do you remember the exact moment you said, "Geez." I think that is the question I have is, there comes a moment when you have to speak up against injustice or you see something you do not like and you know that when you do, you are vulnerable. That is what being an activist is. You got to be vulnerable.

JQ (00:40:08):
Yeah. So I do remember actually, because I think somebody from the South Vietnamese Embassy came to speak on my campus and about 10 or 12 of people I knew protested outside. That is by protested I mean, they were holding signs saying, "Stop the bombing."

SM (00:40:36):
This is at Lafayette?

JQ (00:40:38):
This is at Lafayette and this is in the spring of (19)67. And I was not one of those people. One of my roommates was, but I did not go. And for an hour or two, they were surrounded by a mob of many members and water was thrown, bricks was thrown, foul language was thrown, and the campus police were nowhere to be found, for some strange reason and that galvanized me. So my first demonstration was in favor of the First Amendment. We spoke of that the next day, walked around the campus with signs, I do not know, maybe 30 of us, 40 of us, still not very many, but more than a dozen. And we pressured the administration about, where were the campus police, why suddenly, there was no protection for these people. So in a sense, that broke the ice for me. There was no doubt in my mind, I mean, the First Amendment, is there anything more American than the First Amendment?

SM (00:42:05):
Right.

JQ (00:42:06):
And so that protesting, you could protest in favor of something American and you were not protesting against America somehow. So it took patriotism and it began to sometimes, I mean, you see this going against your government, is the more patriotic active space, so that was the beginning. And then I think the first protest, I took part in against the war, was in early July, in the summer, where we just handed out leaflets at our church and then went inside and attended the service. And I heard the minister denounce, "Those outside, as tools of the Moscow line." And I certainly knew we were vulnerable because we had started to do a silent protest Saturday morning from 11 to 12 in downtown Easton. And some of the people who passed by were not particularly happy.

SM (00:43:21):
That still happens in Westchester. Yeah.

JQ (00:43:26):
But I was never physically threatened but you knew that taking the steps meant you were crossing a certain kind of line.

SM (00:43:36):
Yeah. Before we get into this, talking about the March of Death in (19)69, I have a couple questions. But did you feel that after that first time that you carried that sign or you spoke up, was there kind of a, "I feel good." I mean, there is always the threat, the fear the first time, doing something you have never done, you take the chance. But it is like what Teddy Roosevelt always said, "That if you are going to be a change agent for the betterment of society, you have got to get out into the arena of life." Because the arena life means that yes, you become vulnerable. People are going to maybe criticize you and attack you and not like you, but no one who sits in the corner and hides is ever going to be able to do anything for anybody.

JQ (00:44:26):
Right.

SM (00:44:26):
And so I always look at what I call, the Teddy Roosevelt moments. And obviously, you had one, in just what you described.

JQ (00:44:36):
Yeah. Also, a part of that good feeling was, that though we were few in numbers, we felt connected to people we admired who would come before us, like Martin Luther King, like Perot, like the Founding Fathers, so that matters.

SM (00:45:07):
Continuity.

JQ (00:45:11):
Yeah. So it was not me who was betraying the country, it was my government that was betraying the country. And that was a total reversal, I could not possibly have had that mindset, when I was growing up in the (19)50s.

SM (00:45:35):
I have had different people comment about the boomer generation. Do you like being labeled, being a part of the boomer generation? I have had a lot of different comments from people saying, they do not like it because many of the people born between 1940 and (19)45 were some of the leaders of the anti-war movement, but they just were not born in this timeframe?

JQ (00:45:59):
Yeah, I guess I do not think it is a very helpful or useful label because I mean, the only way in which it is descriptive is, that I suppose that from (19)46 to (19)64, there was this population gain, which is why we are called boomers. But it does not tell you very much about that entire group thing to me. Those of us born between (19)46 and let us say, (19)55-

SM (00:46:29):
Yep.

JQ (00:46:30):
...Vietnam is very, very important to us because we had to make life and death decisions about how we were going to participate or not participate in that. But after (19)55 to (19)64, you were not subject to either the draft or the lottery, so the war might be less important in forming you, than Watergate, let us say.

SM (00:46:55):
Right.

JQ (00:47:04):
So I certainly do not like it when it is used as a dismissive term, as it often is.

SM (00:47:10):
Right.

JQ (00:47:13):
But I do think it is possible because we were the rat moving through the python. I mean, the fact that there were so many of us coming onto the scene, simply because of an accident of birth, that it does have an impact on the country and on other generations. What I certainly hope is, that they do not look back at this large generation of people and say, "Well, they used up all the resources. They ate the seaport and left us with nothing." That would be a terrible legacy. It is just because of sheer numbers. I do not know that it is-

SM (00:47:55):
Yeah, I have been really sensing, in the last one third of my interviews, that the people born between 1940 and (19)55 are really united in so many ways. And those that were born after (19)56, (19)57 to (19)64, they were like 10 years old when some of these things were happening and they were still in elementary schools. I am not quite sure, although we know that the (19)50s when we were young, really had an influence on us in many ways. I got one question before we head into this section on the March of Death-

JQ (00:48:33):
...sure.

SM (00:48:33):
...and that is this area. I have been trying to get people, in their own words, to describe what these periods mean, in terms of, this is the period that boomers have been alive, from 1946 to 2010. So just in your own words, what did that period, 1946 to 1960 mean to you?

JQ (00:48:57):
Well, for me, I was born in (19)46. So for me is, growing up in relative security, in a lower-middle class, Republican household, being a little aware of the world, but not very much aware of the world, everything's pretty local. So I remember being proud to be American. I remember looking at maps of the world, as the different colonial colonies became independent and thinking, "Oh, they are just like us, they are getting their independence from France or from Britain." Or from whoever it happens to be and I was certainly aware of communism. I was certainly aware of Duck and Cover, and that was part of my consciousness. But the single moment that ended that stage, I think it was May of 1960, was the U-2 influence.

SM (00:49:56):
Oh, yeah. Gary Powers.

JQ (00:50:10):
Because Eisenhower was a revered figure in my house. And if the communist said, "It was a spy plane." And Eisenhower said, "It was a weather plane." It was no concept in my mind, it was definitely the weather plan. And when it turned out the be a spy plane, it was like, "What? An American president did not tell the truth and the communist did?" Now, it did not split me, but a little split just opened up in my consciousness, at that time and then that widened in the (19)60s, the next decade.

SM (00:51:00):
Yeah. The next decade is from (19)61 to (19)70.

JQ (00:51:03):
Yeah. Well, first of all, it is coming of age for me. I am 14 to 24, so I am really forming a strong identity. I am falling in love. I am finding out what it is I want to do in the world and the Vietnam War. Well, first of all, early on, Civil Rights was very inspiring, Martin Luther King and others, and all the African-Americans protesting and struggling for their freedom, that was enormously inspiring to me. What else? It is almost the beginning of becoming aware of other kinds of consciousness. But at the end of that era I expect to read, since then, Buddhism and Alan Watts, experimenting with drugs myself. The (19)50s for me, because of my age, represented a kind of unitary homogenous world, now the world is becoming much more worse and fragmented, which is both sad, you do not feel as secure, but it is also exciting. You are learning things about the way the world really is.

SM (00:52:44):
How about (19)71 to 1980?

JQ (00:52:47):
I think of that as a period of mostly grief and mourning in the country. Certainly for many people, Watergate was, I just disliked Nixon for many, many years. It was a fall of innocence for many Americans who trusted their government and all of a sudden, they learned what we had learned during the Vietnam period. We were much more attentive to Johnson's lies, that Nixon had been lying. So I think in some ways, the country is still rebounding from that, both to its self-confidence and to its belief in and trust in government. We lost the war in Vietnam. That was the first time that had ever happened because I think there was just a deep mourning and grief in many ways, unacknowledged. But I think the country elected Carter, probably because of his kind of religious, we need to atone. And then in 1979 with the hostage crisis, people were done atoning. Okay, they were ready to hear Ronald Reagan say, "We have nothing to be sorry about. This is a Vietnam syndrome in America. Let us move on."

SM (00:54:33):
That is (19)81 to (19)90?

JQ (00:54:36):
That is right. That is right. I think that is a period of reaction, if you like, so the reaction almost began in the (19)70s with the Moral Majority, et cetera, et cetera. But it really got underway, I think in the (19)80s. Plus all the financial shenanigans on Wall Street came at that time, kind of a false prosperity thing and we are back in the world. And that was passed by the Gulf War, which absolutely put an end to any kind of mourning about Vietnam.

SM (00:55:18):
That gets us to-

JQ (00:55:21):
We can win a war with very little cost in American lives.

SM (00:55:24):
...right.

JQ (00:55:25):
Right. We are back.

SM (00:55:30):
Yeah. It was George Bush was the first, who said, "The Vietnam syndrome was over."

JQ (00:55:33):
Yeah.

SM (00:55:34):
Yeah, that was (19)91. And then we had the ending of his short reign, and then we had Bill Clinton. So that (19)91 to 2000, what does that symbolize in your eyes?

JQ (00:55:43):
Yeah, that is harder because you still have the Republican and the conservative backlash, full force. And now liberal rules have become moderate and they are kind of fighting a rear-guard act. I heard a very interesting panel about eight years ago, in about the (19)60s, and I had forgotten they had Peter Coyote, who had been one of the original figures.

SM (00:56:26):
Yeah, I interviewed him last week.

JQ (00:56:26):
Oh, no kidding?

SM (00:56:26):
Yeah.

JQ (00:56:32):
I bet that was interesting. And then a fellow named, Frank Bardacke, I think he helped organize the Stop Grass in 1965, he had been working with workers in Watsonville. So this is somebody who really dedicated his life to working people. And they resurrected a division that I had forgotten about, which I remember was real. And that is between people who were politically active and people who were culturally active. And Coyote was one of the people who was culturally active. He thought changing people's consciousness, that was the way to affect real change but politics and voting, that was not so essential.

SM (00:57:21):
Let me change the tape here again, that we have done one hour now.

JQ (00:57:24):
Okay.

SM (00:57:24):
Okay, here we go. All right. All right. Go right ahead.

JQ (00:57:32):
Okay. And what Bardacke said, "For him, the 30 years since the (19)60s ended, had been an unmitigated disaster, whereas in the (19)60s, there was still an ideological alternative to capitalism." Which in fact, most people thought was eventually going to win in some form, including Henry Kissinger. Kissinger said, "On the short-term, I am very optimistic, long-term I am pessimistic." In a sense, capitalism was on the way out. So to find himself 30 years later in the heart of the political reaction, was just a prediction in the (19)60s. Now, on the cultural front, what Coyote said was, "That is true, but look at the way we talk about gay people, the environment, food, just about anything you can imagine, it is race. It is completely different than the way we talked about it in the (19)60s." So that there has been a real change. And it bothered me as I was listening to those two speak, that they are connected. That the reason for the political reaction is because those people who are leading the reaction, feel that everything else is changing out from underneath them, the environmental movement, the women's movement, all of that. And they are profoundly uncomfortable with that and that is the reason for the political reaction. I mean, I am not the first person to say, you just look at the history of somebody like Norman Podhoretz and all the neocons, the more anarchic elements of the (19)60s scared the country. We might have thought that Abby Hoffman was amusing, but he was deeply scary and terrifying to many people. I think that is what formed the political reaction that we saw really, brought to fruition in the (19)80s and then into the (19)90s with the Cambridge Revolution.

SM (01:00:09):
Of course, she had Bill Clinton. Any thoughts on Clinton's time?

JQ (01:00:13):
And Clinton he was fighting a rearguard action for the most part. He was just trying to hold on shards of the new deal, that is still out-standing.

SM (01:00:23):
How about this last decade, 2001 to 2010?

JQ (01:00:28):
Well, yeah, I do believe that is pretty well defined by 9-11.

SM (01:00:34):
Right.

JQ (01:00:35):
And unfortunately, the country's leaders did not have enough confidence and were themselves, so terrified by what happened, that the only response that could be, was a response of force. And so we give a forceful response, military response, that elicits the continuing growth of Al-Qaeda and reaction to it and it is the usual tit for tat. And one can only wonder what would have happened if we had let those feelings in those first three or four weeks when the rest of the world was identifying with America, if we had taken another path, we had been strong enough and confident enough to not take the military option at that time. I mean, I do not know.

SM (01:01:36):
What is interesting now with President Obama, is that he tries to distance himself from the (19)60s. People say, "Oh, I am not the (19)60s." Yet, his critics say, "He is the reincarnation of the (19)60s." So here is a president who is trying to separate himself from that era and then his critics are saying, "He is just the reincarnation of that era." Your thoughts on that?

JQ (01:01:59):
Well, I think it is true that Obama, he is post boomer. He is not Clinton. So he is a bit more moderate in his views and in his values. Again, it is hard to say what the views of the military, that are identified with people with (19)60s and race, particularly. But I think his critics, when they see him espousing things that they identify with, they will tag him. But I do think, I am actually glad to see that he does not carry that bag. The whole notion is, the next generation should not have to fight battles that we fought. We may think that they are skipping out on battles, I do not believe that. But I think for example, that the next generation great battle is one that is only beginning for us and that is the environment. That is true.

SM (01:03:18):
Yeah.

JQ (01:03:18):
That is going to be the defining thing for my kids, kids.

SM (01:03:24):
And of course, that was 1970 when Earth Day happened, and I had interviewed quite a few people. I interviewed Gaylord Nelson's daughter, Tia Nelson, and I interviewed Gaylord Nelson because as you remember, this project started, it in the late (19)90s when I was a full-time administrator. And I have interviewed several other environmental leaders, as well. Let us get right into the March of Death in (19)69. Could you tell us about that experience, about carrying the name of Glendon Waters and going to the March of Death? I believe in (19)69, he had died in (19)67, and that whole experience of marching in front... 1967, and that whole experience of marching in front of the White House and reading the names, and then linking it years later with going to the wall back in 1984.

JQ (01:04:14):
Well, my wife and I, and a couple friends got to Washington because of Coastal Service Employees Union. And that was part of, because I was then a case worker at the [inaudible] welfare center. Just had lots of buses going down for the big march on Washington. I cannot remember whether it was the Moratorium March, but the vote before the big march was this march against death, 40,000 of us participated in. We were each given the name of an American soldier who had died in Vietnam, people could carry, if they knew someone, people could carry the name of that person. I did not know someone, so I was simply given a name at random. And all I knew is that that Glendon Waters, Texas. That is all I knew about him. And we started, I believe at the Arlington Bridge. It was very cold that night, 20 something, and we had a candle and we had the placard hung around our neck. And we walked from the Arlington Bridge to the White House where there was a very small platform, creeping by. And as you stepped onto the platform, you turned towards the White House and yelled, shouted, cried the name that you were carrying and then went on. And it is interesting, there is an echo. You see the echo in the Vietnam wall, having the names, but somehow shouting the name made the person individual and real in some way, which I think is also the purpose of the meaning from the wall. These were people, these were real people, not aggregates of casualties, something like that. Individual people. The idea was to feel the loss more. Then we walked to the Capitol, where the placards were deposited in casket that were then carried the next day in the big march. For the big march, I think that is 4,000 or 5,000 people, it was overwhelming. So I did not think any more about that march or about Glendon Waters until 1986. So this is 17 years later, when through Walter Cap, the photographers at the Smithsonian who were doing the book Reflections on the Wall, asked me to write one of the three or four prefaces. And as I was sitting in my living room, I remember this moment very clearly, thinking about my first visit to the wall. And the name that I had for called was Glendon Waters, I realized I had to find out more about Glendon Waters. I knew nothing about them, except what I had learned from the catalog that they have at the wall. So that I learned that he was from Texas. I learned my surprise that he had been born in 1928. So that he was, when he died in (19)67, was a great deal older than most Vietnam casualties, who were between the ages of 18 and 21, mostly. So I did a little research about when I found out the date of his death, which was in July, I think July 8th of (19)67. That is about exactly the day I took part in that first protest at the church. It is ironic. But I did a little research about what battle was taking place that day, etc., etc. But I could not find out a whole lot. But I did decide to send a letter to the Department of the Navy, through them, to the next of kin of Glendon Waters saying that I wanted to send them a copy of the book. I had no idea whether there still were any family members or kin. But I guess about six weeks later, after I had more or less forgotten about having sent the letter, this letter arrived in my house. It looked like it was written by say, one of my aunts. I did not recognize the handwriting, and I opened it up, and I will never forget this moment as long as I live. And I have the letter. It says "Dear Mr. Quay, thank you for writing to me. It took time to get to me. I am the widow of Glendon Lee Waters. We were married 22 and a half years and had two children. He was a very dedicated Marine and we were very proud of him. He gave his life so we could have a free country. Your words were re a tribute to Glendon and I really appreciate them. I would love to have a copy of the book, and would pray for having it. If you would care to talk to me, you may call. Yours truly, Anna Carver." Well, I got goosebumps.

SM (01:10:33):
Wow.

JQ (01:10:33):
All over my body. I gave the letter to my wife, she burst into tears. And I did not know what river I had just stepped into, but I knew it was deep water. Long story short, I called Anna, I asked if I could visit. She said yes, and in January I flew to West Fork, Arkansas to interview her, and her son and daughter, and husband. And a funny thing that happened was that the idea was I was supposed to fly in, get my car, go to the motel and then call her. And instead as I am walking across this tiny, tiny air terminal in Fayetteville, Arkansas, I hear a voice say, "Jim?" And I turned and I saw this person who had to be Anna. And I said, "Anna, what are you doing here?" And she said, "Well, I had an advantage. I knew what you looked like, but you did not know what I looked like." And I laughed and I said, "Ah, Anna, so what if I had been a creep?" And she said, "I would have not answered. I would have gone home and not answered my phone the evening." So she knew what I looked like because I had sent her a videotape of my presentation to Walter's class to see, because I wanted her to know who she was dealing with. It was very generous to invite this guy from California into her home. And she said, "But there was a second reason that I came." Kenneth, which is her husband, is also a 20-year Marine. And she said, "He is a man of very few words. But after he saw the video, he simply said, I could tell that young man is singing truth, and I just want you to know that his bark is worse than his bite." So she was alerting me to Kenneth. Well, what happened in the course of that weekend is I was doing these interviews. When I was finished, I asked if I could interview Kenneth. So I had done a lot of research by then and I knew where Glendon had been, how he had died, etc., etc. And so I knew a lot about what Kenneth had experienced also. And he had never, of course, this was very true then. He had never told and talked to anyone about this experience. And when I left after that weekend, he gave me a handshake and he said, "You are welcome here anytime."

SM (01:13:31):
That is nice.

JQ (01:13:32):
So it told me the power of, again, telling one story to someone who is not judging you, and the power of that experience to begin a healing between people, and between positions that I still very much believe in it.

SM (01:13:54):
Could you also share when you went to the Vietnam Memorial for the first time after, I think that was in (19)84 when you wanted to look up his name?

JQ (01:14:03):
Yeah. Well I would say the preface I wrote really says everything. What I remember is I was walking towards it and I kept thinking, "Where is it? Where is it?" And suddenly there it was. And as you walk down the pathway towards the apex, I felt powerfully that I was walking into an open grave. That is what it felt. And when I got to the bottom, I just stood there. I was completely overwhelmed. I did not burst into tears, but just emotionally, I could not speak. I could not do anything. Excuse me. I just stood there for, I do not know how long it was. And then you walked back out to one of those catalogs and looked up Glendon's name what, hand off his name to [inaudible], and walked back down and saw his name. I made a bronze rubbing of it that I am looking at it right now, it is hanging to my office today. So it was a powerful, powerful experience for me. And I know Walter used to take a group of students back to the memorial at the end of each class, and I know it was powerful for them. One of my favorite stories about that was Ed Bradley, the CBS correspondent.

SM (01:15:54):
Yes?

JQ (01:16:03):
He had been a correspondent in Vietnam. And Walter invited him to come to the class, and he was doing a special on the class for 60 Minutes, I think 60 Minutes did two special on Walter's class, actually. And the first one, Bradley had never been the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, and he could not. He did not want to go up to it for whatever reason. He just stood in the trees near, you know the area in front of the Memorial?

SM (01:16:51):
Yeah.

JQ (01:16:51):
And then the trees where the statue is. And that is where he was with the cameraman. And he had been to Walter's class, and so he knew some of the students. And he saw that there was a woman, the daughter of a man who had been killed, and his name was on the wall and she could not reach his name. So he walked across the field, got the bronze and everything, and did it for her.

SM (01:17:16):
Oh my God.

JQ (01:17:17):
But when the cameraman moved in to get a shot of this, Bradley blocked the camera with his back. This was a different moment. It was not a moment for broadcast.

SM (01:17:33):
Right.

JQ (01:17:40):
A different kind of moment. So the Memorial Palace was a symbol and there was a place to go. And there is a fellow named Wilson Hubble who is associated with the course at UC Santa Barbara. He too, is a veteran. And he goes back with the class each year that they go.

SM (01:18:03):
Wow.

JQ (01:18:03):
And his take on the sculpture of the three soldiers is that they represent all veterans, and that the sculpture is their guarding and standing watch over the memorial and will be there after he is gone, and all Vietnam veterans are gone. The guys who guard the memorial, which I think is a lovely way to think about this.

SM (01:18:29):
Yeah. Now they have a woman's memorial on the other end. So, same thing for the women. I want to read these, because this is something that I have on a sheet that you send. And this is very important, because I think it is one of the most beautiful descriptions I have ever heard of anybody describing the experience of visiting the wall, and the impact it has on people. So I am putting this for the record, and this is on quote. "The names of the dead wait here for the living to come close and touch them. But as the wall gives them to us, it also takes them away again, for touching the names only makes us feel how far away they are. They must remain there, united by their shared catastrophe, while we, the living must leave united by our shared grief." And I also like the fact that you talked about the Lincoln Memorial, and the importance of the wording inside the memorial with malice toward none and charity for all. You felt that your pilgrimage was complete when you saw that.

JQ (01:19:36):
Yes.

SM (01:19:36):
The grief of Lincoln who is always, he is there and he is not only grieving about the Civil War, he is always looking over the Vietnam Memorial, too.

JQ (01:19:43):
Yes.

SM (01:19:44):
And then I want to quote this, too. "I am profoundly grateful to the dedicated men and women who built the memorial, for they have given all who were hurt by the Vietnam War, the shrine we need if we are ever to be healed. Like the war it recalls, a memorial has been denounced and defended. But like this book, it brings together the conscientious objector and the general, the protestor and the warrior. Important differences between us may remain, but the memorial has given us something still more important, the common ground of grief. So long as such grief is heartfelt, shared and remembered, always there is hope for peace, and so for us all." And then your conclusion is unbelievable, and I think this should be required reading in a course on the (19)60s and the Vietnam War, "The generations wounded by the war will come to the wall, bringing our scars and our memories with us, looking for healing. But to truly heal ourselves, we must ensure that when future generations look upon the memorial, they will not have lost what we have lost. To feel the absolute silent sorrow embodied by the black walls, the American names that are on them, and the Vietnamese names that are not." I think that is just, you hit it right on the button.

JQ (01:21:06):
Yeah. Thanks.

SM (01:21:11):
So, thanks for telling that story, too. What an experience. Do you stay in touch with her?

JQ (01:21:21):
I do. We came to [inaudible] every year. And Kenneth, I thought of him recently when the movie, I think it is called The Messenger came out. It is about the men who have the detail of going to tell families that their sons or daughters have been killed, that he had that duty in his Marine career. And we did not talk about it a lot. We talked about a little in our interview, but...

SM (01:21:53):
I guess the one question I have here, because one of the major questions I have asked in all of my interviews is a question of healing. Did the Vietnam Memorial heal the nation? Jan Scruggs wrote the book, To Heal a Nation. Not only did he want to heal the veterans themselves and their families, and Vietnam veterans, but he hoped that the wall would heal the nation. I have had a lot of different responses to that question. What are your thoughts?

JQ (01:22:16):
I think as a public symbol, it began the process of healing. I do not think it itself could, but it began it because it was something tangible, something maybe argued about, but it was something tangible that there was not any pro or con. It just depicted the loss, the absolute loss that war was. So I thought it was an amazing beginning, and I thought that the [inaudible] Memorial was miraculous, quite frankly.

SM (01:23:04):
I know that there were a lot of veterans that did not like it in the beginning, and some still do not. Some them said to me once, "Well, the divisions over the design of the memorial was like the divisions in the (19)60s. It was equal."

JQ (01:23:18):
Someone called it the black gash of shame. I do not remember. I do not feel that way. I know there are many veterans who do not feel that way. But right now, there is a project that is just underway that is creating civilian veterans dialogue. And I am sure some of them are Vietnam era, but I believe there were also, and I hope through so far Iraqi War and Afghani War because that gulf between the warrior and the civilian is a dangerous one. And it is one that is exacerbated now by the fact that we have an all-volunteer Army. So we have a group of people who are putting themselves in harm's way, and then another group of people who may or may not want those people to do this, but who are certainly served in some way by the fact that they are willing to do that. And when those warriors come back home, they often feel seriously estranged from civilian life. I know Vietnam, I talked to Vietnam veterans who felt this way, that what they experienced in combat or in the combat zone, that is real reality. And this domestic life over here is just, it is not real. It is something artificial about it. And that they felt alive in a certain way, and it was hard for them to recapture that in civilian life. But older cultures than ours had ways of reincorporating warriors back into ordinary life. And I think we do not do that as a country, and we need to do that. I think we have a moral ethical obligation to do it, as well as psychological need to. It was really exacerbated in Vietnam, because they were so shunned for so long, I do not believe that happened for Gulf War vets or Afghani vets, but I think the scope is still there, and still [inaudible].

SM (01:25:55):
Very good point. I took a group of students when I was a college administrator to Washington to meet Senator Edmund Muskie, to one of my questions. And I had developed a relationship with the Senator Gaylord Nelson. We had a leadership on the road programs where we met US senators. And so, we met nine of them that were friends of his over the years. And when he got the Senator Muskie's office, he was not feeling well. He had just been in the hospital and he apologized, but he still gave us [inaudible]. I am going to let it keep ringing. Excuse me a second. I will let it ring. Cell phone. I got to learn to turn this, I got a new cell phone and I cannot figure out how to turn it off yet. Hold on. There. Okay, sorry about that. Pretty loud. When we left, the students came up with this question that we asked the senator. And the question was this. Due to all of the divisions in America at the time... Still there?

JQ (01:27:03):
Yeah.

SM (01:27:04):
Due to all the divisions of America at the time, between Black and white, between male and female, between gay and straight, between those who supported the troops, those who were against the troops, those who supported the war, those who were against the war. Do you feel that the Boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? And that was the question we asked Senator Muskie, because he was the vice-presidential running mate in 1968, that terrible year with cops and students hitting each other in the streets. And the two... Whoops, got to change the tape here. The two assassinations that took place, the two assassinations that took place during that year, and the president resigning, and Tet, and you name it. It was an unbelievable year. And the question is, do you think that the Boomer generation has a problem with healing?

JQ (01:28:04):
Again, I have wanted to avoid generalization, but I will give you one anyway. I would say no. And the reason is that I know Muskie said we have not healed since the Civil War, and we certainly had divisions in the (19)60s. No doubt about it. But we were not shooting at each other for the most part. Kent State was traumatic, Jackson State was traumatic, but Americans were not killing Americans. So you do not have that kind of bitter blood going on, and I would point to the reaction.

SM (01:28:51):
Can you hold on one second? Bear with me. Hello? Jeff, I am on a long-distance call. I am doing an interview. Okay, I will call you back. About an hour. All right. Still there?

JQ (01:29:13):
I am.

SM (01:29:15):
One of my former students just got a job at Georgia Tech. Well, he has been in higher ed for a while, but there was some things. He took the job, but then he was having second thoughts. I said, "Be happy you got a job."

JQ (01:29:29):
Oh, really?

SM (01:29:29):
Yeah, because he was unhappy in his current job elsewhere. So, go right ahead.

JQ (01:29:35):
Well, what I would point to was how I believe most of us in the country felt after 9/11. I am just speaking for myself, if evoked in me feelings of love of country that I did not know I still had, and I believe that was true of others, as well. So the word healing, if the healing means the split between the citizen and his or her country, I believe that is healed. And it is only unhealed when the country acts in a way that we do not admire. And that has certainly happened since 9/11 in some instances, but I do not believe it was a lasting legacy of the (19)60s to feel, as the Right often says about the Left, "Well, they just hate America." I do not believe that is true. I believe that the Right tends to equate any criticism of the American government as hatred for America. And I just think that is nonsense and absurd.

SM (01:31:05):
Senator Muskie, when he responded, he kind of was similar to that scene up in New England where it was snowing, and someone had attacked his wife and he had showed some tears and that really, he was not manly enough to be present or something like that, but it kind of looked like he had a tear in his eye. We actually had this on videotape. We videotaped it, and he did not give an answer right away. And then he looked up like a great senator that he was and said, "We have not healed since the Civil War because we still have an issue, the issue of race has not been solved." And he went on to talk about it, and he talked about the loss of 430,000 men, almost an entire generation in the South. So the deaths that took place, and it really affected him because he had just seen the Ken Burns series when he was in the hospital. So he did not even answer according to the (19)60s and what the students wanted, he just talked about the Civil War, that the issues that we still have go way back even then. And so anyways, that is kind of the way he responded. Another question I ask is, the issue of trust. Seems like you cannot say 74 million boomers do not trust, but a label that has been put on them is they are not a very trusting generation. And that is pretty obvious when you already mentioned the Eisenhower lie back in the late (19)50s. For those that were cognizant enough of that lie early on, and then we see President Johnson with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. And I think that was a lie. Then we had Watergate with Nixon. And of course, even if you were up-to-date on history, the questions you even have about why Diem was killed during the Kennedy administration in November, well actually in the fall of 1963. Questions come up.

JQ (01:32:54):
Before Kennedy was killed.

SM (01:32:57):
Well, yeah. Just before Kennedy was killed, there was questions about why Diem was killed in Vietnam. And he had given the okay for the overthrow, but I do not think he wanted him killed. He thought that they were going to be shipped off to France or something. So the question is this, is the Boomer generation a nation or group that cannot trust, and is that a positive quality within a group? And they pass this feeling on to their kids and their grandkids. Is that healthy?

JQ (01:33:29):
Okay, again, I am going to break it down a little bit because it is such a big question. Trust is certainly an important and precious commodity. And I do believe it is true people with the Boomers' historical experience, that they are now skeptical that as they do not take on face value, things that their government said. I happen to think that that is a healthy attitude to have. I think it can become unhealthy if you simply dismiss everything that a public official says as a lie. We used to say that there were conformists, there were anti-conformists, and there were nonconformists. Anti-conformists are just conformists to do the opposite of what conformists do, but they are still conformists. It is better to be a nonconformist and make some judgments on this. So I trust, I know Lois Capps very well. She is Walter's widow, and she is now serving in the Congress. And when I hear someone make some easy, cynical remark about those politicians and how crooked they are, and they are just in it for the money, I think to myself, "You do not know any politicians." You do not know the sacrifices that these people make in their personal lives in order to serve. You only see the big stories that occasionally blow up about a Charlie Rangel or somebody else. And you do not see the government people, the bureaucratic people who very quietly, day after day, do trustworthy work, and that is what holds the country together. If everybody was government and bureaucracy was completely corrupt, we could not function. We would not be functional. Paying bribes like crazy. I mean, you would be a third world where there is no trust. We actually, I think, have a great deal of trust still in this country.

JQ (01:36:02):
I think have a great deal of trust still in this sense. But it is trust to still have to be earned. It is not the word. You do not just give it and then, okay, I am not going to ask any questions about it anymore. I am just going to trust you. That is dangerous in a democracy, right.

SM (01:36:28):
Well one of the things you learn if you are a political science history major like I was, you learn early on that not having trust in your government is a healthy thing because it shows the descent is alive and well in America and it shows that different points of view are accepted and actually desired. So if you do not trust your government, that is a healthy thing.

JQ (01:36:50):
Well it is interesting, I just finished a very good book by a man named Tony Judt, J-U-D-T, called Ill Fares The Land, and he is talking about what is left of social democracy ideal, the kind that you still see functioning in Europe and do not see functioning so much here in the United States. And he made a very interesting historical point, and it might be of interest for you, because he is talking about the boomer generation. But the generation before them, experienced the pressure in World War II and those were common experiences in which the government took steps to counter a very pernicious enemy of poverty in the case of expression and fascism in the case of World War II. And so people had, the country had this experience of coming together behind their government to do something. And that persisted on both political parties well through the (19)50s and into the (19)60s. For the (19)60s generations, our major value was individual expression. In other words, we did not want government telling us what to do. We were experiencing it as the draft for the most part, but the right of an individual to express themselves. Sexually, politically, racially, environmentally, was really important for us and still is. That dark side of that is you do not experience your government as something that you get behind, you experience it as an adversary. And the light has taken this up now, so the government is the enemy. So I thought that was a very interesting common point and a way I had not looked at the history before. We have a largely inexperience of distrust and suspicion of government and so how would you expect a country that feels that way and has not had the historical experience that the World War II generation has? How would you ever convince them if government could do anything good at all?

SM (01:39:34):
One of the qualities that many boomers thought when they were young, particularly college age students, that they were the most unique generation in history. That they were going to end racism, sexism, war homophobia, all the bad things, and they were going to create a better world. And obviously we see the world today and a lot of positive things came out of that period. But still, we have war, we have racism, we have sexism in some respects. We have come a long way but we have got a long way to go. What are your thoughts about that attitude that many had and maybe some even older boomers have, but they still were the most unique generation in American history, both before and since. And secondly, I know you cannot generalize about a whole generation of 74 million and when we are talking about boomer generation now, I am not talking about white men and women, I am talking about African Americans, Latinas, Asian Americans, Native Americans. And so what do you think some of the positive and negative qualities might be based on the people that within that generation?

JQ (01:40:52):
Well, the aspirations that you named at the beginning of the first question, I think are worthy aspirations to have. And I would hope that every generation would happen. And it is sometimes only possible to happen before you have experienced a lot of the world. Experiencing the world, I think tends to humble you a great deal. There were times we could be a very self-righteous group of people. I certainly was. Partly because that was the only authority we had, we did not have the authority of experience, we only had the authority of our values. That could make us very self-righteous and not particularly humble. I know I remember thinking when I was at Woodstock that wow, not that we could change the world, but that there were enough of us to make a difference. I think that is still true and in many ways just because we are such a large generation, I think it is still true. We are the most unique, actually [inaudible]. You cannot be more unique, if you are unique, you are unique. So there is a way that every generation is unique. It is shaped by historical forces that it did not necessarily create and so you cannot take credit for the fact that... Well, it makes the difference that the country was so prosperous. Most of us never thought, oh my god, what am I going to do to make a living? It is just, there is going to be a job and the idea is to get a job that really counts and that his authentic good work. Well, if we have been born into the depression, we might have responded completely differently. So we were a very privileged generation in ways we are just now, I think beginning to appreciate because we are seeing other people who do not have those privileges that we have. We did not earn them, we did not create them, they were given to us. And so I think it moves us to think what gifts could we possibly give given our experience to others? And as we get older, that is the question I think that a little bit of our self-infatuation begins to go away and we begin to think, how can I contribute? And hopefully there are enough examples around, and certainly true in my life of people who have done amazing things is that you can feel some pride as well as some shame in things that the generation has accomplished.

SM (01:44:01):
Those people that criticize that era of the (19)60s and (19)70s as the time when a lot of the problems in American society began and continued through today, I know new people like New Gingrich and Governor Huckabee on his TV show and some of those shows on Fox, obviously some of those people say it as well as George Will and some of his commentaries throughout the year, they like taking these shots at the (19)60s, generation and (19)70s, particularly in areas related drugs, the drug culture, the sexual morays or lack thereof, the breakup of the American family divorce rate. A lot of the things that the welfare state, even some say, the creation of special interest groups that have become a very big problem in their views. When you hear that, what do you think?

JQ (01:45:01):
Well, I think that to some extent it is certainly true what they are saying. Many things that were not being questioned in the (19)50s unravel during the (19)60s and authority of almost every time came into question. I mean, I had the bumper sticker "Question authority." On the back of my bar for years and decades, but it was not as though we got together in some big meeting and decided to do this to the country. It turned out that authority was not serving us very well. There was something about the norms and the conventions that were in fact unreal. And so they could not stand the pressure of questioning and in some cases, mass disobedience. We did not know the pill was going to come along and that revolutionized sexual behavior completely. So I think in a sense you can be saddened by what some of the effects of drug use and the loss of authority have been. And I share that with them, but I do not share their charge or blame that a generation that in fact anybody is responsible for this as if it is just that the authority that they worship, we do not worship. And when that authority is gone, it has to be rebuilt on a new basis. It cannot be just reinstated at the end of a band net or by a sermon. It has to feel that it is authentic and real in their lives. It is almost as, and marriage is, the divorce rate went to 50 percent, but my understanding is that it also has not continued to zero or to a hundred percent it leveled off. So not the decay has just linearly continued.

SM (01:47:33):
Some people think that is why so many people revere Ronald Reagan is that when he said, "We are back." a couple of people said, well, they never heard him say that in the speech, but it was a perception that was out there when he said, "We are back." He went, "We are we are going to build the military back up again because the military had totally disintegrated during the Vietnam War." Because a lot of the problems that we were facing in society from say (19)67 to (19)71 with the drug culture, the divisions between black and white were seen right in the military. And it was part of the demise of the military and I actually talked to people who at the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial was down in Washington, they had a concert going there. And some of the guys said the only reason why they went into a second tour of duty was that they could get cheap drugs. I could not believe it.

JQ (01:48:26):
Well, I know they refused that the American, the US Army was just coming an apart of the scene.

SM (01:48:31):
Right.

JQ (01:48:32):
But that is what happens when you lie to people. I mean, that gets broken. The discipline in a free accord, vanish, morale goes down. So it is like, do they expect that you could lie to people or pretend that a certain reality is not so, and your authority is not going to be eroded? Only a fool would.

SM (01:48:55):
Yeah, some might say they want to go back to the (19)50s, mean of course the (19)50s parents were very good to their kids, so there were good things in the (19)50s too. One of the questions I want to ask is, when did the (19)60s begin and end in your opinion? And what do you think was the watershed moment?

JQ (01:49:11):
Oh, boy. Well, let me start with ending first. I would say it was the concert at Altamont. The fact that it is December of (19)69 just happened to be an accident. But if you saw the bright side of the counterculture at Woodstock in August of (19)69, you saw the shadow side at Altamont. Idea of having the Hell Angels access believe. I mean, it was just childish. It was process. So that kind of insofar as it was a make love, not war innocent about us, that ended at Altamont. And again, we are talking about a half of 1 percent of the generation even being conscious of this, something I am not sure. When it began it was a lot harder for me anyway, because it is like asking somebody what they believe in God? You have to tell me what God do I either believe in or not believe in? So when you say the (19)60s, is it the spirit of exploration and openness to new things? Well, I think the beat sort of started that in a certain way.

SM (01:50:57):
And that was in the (19)50s.

JQ (01:50:58):
Yeah.

SM (01:50:59):
And so I remember seeing Allen Ginsburg when I was in high school and he seemed peculiar to me, but also attractive in a certain way. The things he was talking about, he was really a gentle soul in many ways and he just seemed like a latter-day Walt Whitman. So I did not see him as threatening or alien, in some ways I saw him as the embodiment of what America does. He keeps reaching out, bringing in new things from immigration and ideas and et cetera, et cetera. So when did that, I am not sure, I guess the reading at the Sixth Gallery of Powell, but that was in the (19)60s I think, yeah. I do not know. Was there a watershed moment or some event you think that really was shocking or were there any other?

JQ (01:52:02):
Well, shocking. Certainly.

SM (01:52:02):
A lot of them.

JQ (01:52:07):
Yeah. Well, the two I think of are the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of President Kennedy.

SM (01:52:14):
And where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated? Do you remember the exact moment when you heard?

JQ (01:52:18):
Oh, sure. Yeah. So I was a senior in high school. I had just come out of a chemistry class, which was in a separate building from the rest of the high school. I saw a gym teacher standing on the street just saying, yelling, "Did they catch the guy yet?" Not knowing quite what that meant. By the time I got into the building, I had heard that the president had been shot. And I had a meeting in the principal's office three o'clock that day. And by the time I got there he announced that the president dead. It was quite different feeling than that he had been shot, shocking enough that he had been shot. But to hear he was dead and remember sitting there with people in the [inaudible], I felt sick in my stomach. He did not feel good either. We just sat there and silence.

SM (01:53:11):
Wow. Yeah.

JQ (01:53:15):
Watershed moments are hard.

SM (01:53:19):
Yeah, I got just a couple more and then we will be done. I am not going to ask you all those names because you have really responded in a really good... Because remember, I have a question I was going to ask your response to.

JQ (01:53:29):
Yeah, that would take another year.

SM (01:53:29):
Yeah, that would take a year. Forget that. I want your thoughts again on... Or just your thoughts on the movements because the late (19)60s, early (19)70s was really when all these movies came about. And actually a lot of people leave the (19)60s really went to (19)73 because a lot of things are happening from say, from the time the President Kennedy was assassinated till the fall of (19)73, it was still in the (19)60s. So there is quite a few people have fought the early (19)70s and then there was a line of demarcation around (19)75 when the plane went off the roof in Saigon. But your thoughts on the movements, the civil rights movement was actually a role model for, and the anti-war movement were the role models for the other movements that evolved. And history has shown that a lot of the women left those two movements because there was rampant sexism, thus the formation of the women's movement. But there was the Chicano movement, the Native American movement, which was the American Indian movement. We had Earth Day in 1970 and we had Stonewall, which was the gay and lesbian revolution in 1969. And so all these movements were trying to coming together and there seemed to be a uniqueness and there was a unity amongst all of these groups that anti-war protests or events. I do not see that today. I see these groups have become so special interest all of them, that you and the civil rights people, you do not see the other groups together and the women's, they are all separate. I mean, your thoughts, it seems like what became collaboration and working together has now become integration or segregation again within the movements.

JQ (01:55:08):
Well, I would say it is specialization, segregation. At the beginning you share newness with other organizations, you are facing some of the same problems, you are borrowing technique from one another, et cetera, et cetera. And then I think it is just a kind of majority process. You have to be careful not to become so professionalized that you lose track of what it is you are trying to do. I would say it is a drive for professionalization that that is just as innate. It is not anything that anybody has discovered or created on purpose, but it is part of the life process of every organization and movement. I do think it made me think about what the (19)60s had. It in one way, it may have been at Kennedy's inaugural in the sense of this notion of new possibility, a new generation taking charge that was not our generation, but it was a new generation, something fresh. And as the Civil Rights book who been, and again describes towards individual expression. I have the right to express my sexuality, my race, I do not need to hide this any longer. The environmental movement is a little bit different. But there is that common thread going through. Plus I want to say one of the more important publications of the (19)60s was the Whole Earth Catalog.

SM (01:57:02):
Oh yes.

JQ (01:57:05):
Sort of a LLE catalog of how to live an alternative lifestyle. And I believe it was to what true what they said, the fact that we, for the first time were able to see of picture of the full earth from the moon, really made it impossible to ignore the fact that we lived on this beautiful, precious, and increasingly fragile planet together and had to find a way. I really think it was very cautious of expanding somehow. So if the root was all these movements, they have certainly changed the mindset of American today and I can talk around the world and continue.

SM (01:57:59):
Let me change this tape. I have only got two more questions and then we are done.

JQ (01:58:11):
Okay.

SM (01:58:11):
Let me get my tape here, bear with me.

JQ (01:58:11):
I am warning you, you got me talking, right?

SM (01:58:11):
Well, it is great. I mean, I can probably do another hour with you, but then I do not want to take away from your time and I appreciate this. Okay, hold on a second. Let me get this, get on tape here then. Okay. You were involved obviously all these years for 25 years in the humanities in California. And cannot not ask you a question on the arts before letting you go because when you think of the boomer generation, you got to think of the music, you got to think of the art, you got to think of theater. I think of Gorilla Theater a lot because it was such an important role and Peter Coyote told me about that because he was involved in a lot with the diggers. Your thoughts on the importance of the arts in those three areas, theater, art and music in the (19)60s, and the influence it had on the generation and shaping it, not only personally, but dealing with the politics of the time because most of it was all linked to politics.

JQ (01:59:18):
Well, it was a time of great experimentation in an area. I could remember there used to be, I think there still is something called the Publications of the Modern Language Association, and it was the journal in English and American literature and comparative literature. And it would arrive in this olive green bumper with tiny prints and the most obscure kinds of articles in it that you could possibly imagine. And I remember the May 1970 issue arriving. The cover was bold white and blue-black, I opened it to the first article was in entitled, "Something is Happening Here, but You Do not Know What it is, do you Mr. Jones." By a Berkeley professor named Henry Nash Smith. A second Berkeley professor read through, his article was, "Do literary studies have an ideology? Something had changed." something had changed. That was really exciting. So the academy felt that certainly in music before, the music industry corralled the raw energy coming out of rock and roll. Every generation, the music from the time you are maybe 15 until you are married let us say, or working or have a family, is really important to you because it is the soundtrack of your life. So for me, the Beatles were important, the Stones less so but still important. And we remember the Beatles Stones split, which one is more revolutionary? That was the culture of politics split. Street finding man versus relaxing slow downstream. The Doors were important. The folk movement had been important because of its authenticity. That was a big word for us, for me back then. Authentic. Something had to be authentic in the Pony somehow. Theater tried to get more real, I cannot remember the name of the married couple, the Living In Theater I think it was, and nudity on stage, hair.

SM (02:02:04):
Yes.

JQ (02:02:07):
It was trying to take old forms and bust them open and build them with new contents And that is something I think that that happens perhaps the less explosive and revolutionary waves than it ways that it happened in the (19)60s. But it is the way a culture grows and remains true to itself. We were not very reverent about the containers of the culture and I am now much more aware of how important they are to help transmit values and content. But they do have to keep reshaped and sometimes destroyed every once in a while or they cut off the real flow that is constantly going on of change and absence. And so I think our just a particularly yeasty period because the authority of the old forms was broken. And so we were making things up and sometimes we did a bad job. And sometimes things have lasted. I mean if you, we have traveled it to Utah just recently in the Northern California and I am curious to other areas, and you still see, and especially in the rural areas, vestiges, hippy culture, the way bread is made, the kinds of fabrics and fashions that there are. Those things are still persisting. For some people, all that was just artificial trapping. But subsequent generations have found enough that was real in that to keep certain of those forms alive. And I just think that is part of the history of culture and the way things evolved and changed. But a generation says what is real? What is real about this? And sometimes we were lucky because we were not particularly fearful. Maybe we should have been. Economically, we were not fearful and enabled us to experiment in ways that a more soft generation might not be able to do right away.

SM (02:04:25):
Yeah, it is amazing. When I think of art, I always think of two people, Andy Warhol and Peter Max because Peter Max was the poster guy of the late (19)60s, early (19)70s. And that poster I had on my wall., I wish someone said, if I had it now, it would be worth a couple hundred bucks. And it was a poster that said, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together. It will be beautiful." Which is a kind of a hippie kind of a thinking. You were involved obviously all these years for 25 years in the humanities in California and I cannot not ask you a question on the arts without before letting you go. Because when you think of the boomer generation, you got to think of the music, you got to think of the art, you got to think of theater. I think of Gorilla Theater a lot because it was such an important role in Peter Coyote told me about that because he was involved in a lot with the diggers. Your thoughts on the importance of the arts in those three areas, theater, art and music in the (19)60s and the influence it had on the generation and shaping it not only personally, but dealing with the politics of the time, because most of it was all linked to politics.

JQ (02:05:59):
Well, it was a time of great experimentation in those areas. I could remember there used to be, I think there still is, there was something called the Publications of the Modern Language Association. And it was the journal in English and American literature and comparative literature. And it would arrive in this olive green cover with tiny print and the most obscure kinds of article in it that you could possibly imagine. And I remember the May 1970 issue arriving, the cover was bold, white and blue-black. I opened the first article was entitled, "Something is happening here, but you do not know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" By a Berkeley professor named Henry Nash Smith, a second Berkeley professor, Fred Cruz. His article was, literary Studies have an ideology. "Something had changed." something had changed. That was really exciting. So the academy felt that certainly in music. Before, the music industry kind of corralled the raw energy coming out of rock and roll. Every generation, the music from the time you are maybe 15 until you are married, let us say, or working or have a family, is really important to you.

JQ (02:08:03):
Working or have a family is really important to you because it is sort of the soundtrack of your life. So for me, the Beatles were important. The stones less so, but still important. And, we remember the Beatles Stones split. Which one is more revolutionary? That was the culture and politics split. Street Fighting Man versus Relax and Slow Downstream. The Doors were important. The folk movement had been important because of its authenticity. That was a big word for us, for me back then was authentic. Something had to be authentic and not phony, somehow. Theater tried to get more real. I cannot remember the name of the married couple, the living theater I think it was, and nudity on stage, Hair.

SM (02:09:00):
Yes.

JQ (02:09:04):
It was trying to take old form and bust them open and fill them with new content. And, that is something I think that that happens perhaps the less explosive and revolutionary waves than it the ways that it happened in the (19)60s. But, it is the way a culture grows, and remains true to itself. We were not very reverent about the container of the culture and I am now much more aware of how important they are to help transmit values and content. But, they do have to be reshaped and sometimes destroy every once in a while where they cut off the real blow that is constantly going on of change and [inaudible]. So, I think ours was just a particularly yeasty period because the authority of the old forms was broken. And, so we were making things up and sometimes we did a very bad job and sometimes things have lasted. I mean, we traveled to Utah just recently in the Northern California and I am sure to another area, and you still see, especially in the rural areas, vestiges of hippy culture. The way bread is made. The kinds of fabrics and fashions that there are. Those things are still persisting. For some people, all that was just artificial trapping. But, subsequent generations have found enough that was real in that to keep certain of those forms alive. And, I just think that is part of the history of culture and the way things evolve and change. But, a generation says "What is real? What is real about this?" And, sometimes we were lucky because we were not particularly fearful. Maybe we should have been. Economically, we were not fearful and enabled us to experiment in ways that a more strapped generation might not be able to do right away.

SM (02:11:31):
Yeah, it is amazing. When I think of art, I always think of two people, Andy Warhol and Peter Max. Because, Peter Max was the poster guy of the late (19)60s, early (19)70s. And, on that poster I had in my, well, I wish someone said, if I had it now, it would be worth a couple hundred bucks. And, it was a poster that said, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together. It will be beautiful." Which is a kind of a hippie kind of a thinking. And, then of course we cannot forget Motown and the creation of Motown because what they did.

JQ (02:12:08):
Just the contribution of what had been in the (19)50s, a pretty separated black culture. The way it informed popular culture and white culture. But, now we do not say black and white culture.

SM (02:12:27):
Right.

JQ (02:12:29):
It is incalculable.

SM (02:12:33):
I keep saying we are down to our last three questions, these are the final two. The free speech movement was very important. You went to Berkeley and got your PhD there. But, for anybody like me, whose life has been about higher education and understanding the history of higher ed, those events at Berkeley in (19)64-(19)65 are historic. Not just because it is a protest, but because Mario Savio and his peers did something about the importance of free speech on university campuses. And it is interesting, all came about by chance because the whole history, they were told that they could not hand handout literature. And, one thing you do not know to student populations, whether there is differences in their politics is you do not tell students what they can and cannot do and that united the campus from all angles.

JQ (02:13:22):
But, I think an important question to ask, why did it erupt then? In other words, did not students care before then? And, I think one of the reasons is, you had on the Berkeley campus a significant number of people who had been in Mississippi the summer before. And, I think that motivated them about their own rights in ways that, again, it is experience. You do not know what an experience, what consequences are going to be. They had that experience trying to register a black folks vote, they come back to their campus and they cannot hand out literature? So, suddenly there was that experience that a year earlier, the very same student had not had who were on the campus. So, the history and our response, but.

SM (02:14:26):
Well, Mario Savio said, "The university is about ideas, not about corporate corporations running the universities." And, what is interesting, we are still having the same battles today in the universities because I interviewed Arthur Chickering the great educator, because he wrote Education and Identity, the book that we all used in higher ed and our degree programs at Ohio State. And I said, "Do you have any closing remarks?" At the end of the interview and he said, "Yes, I have one disappointment in higher education today. The corporations have taken over again." And this is from a conservative, he is a conservative. And, because what you are seeing today in universities is that everything is based on scholarship monies and fundraising. Everything has to be linked to raising funds for this. You name a building, it is a fundraising effort. You bring a speaker in, it has got to be linked to a fundraising event, it is like controls again. And, it is kind of upsets me as a person who was in higher education for two or three years to see that what happened at Berkeley in (19)64 and (19)65 is being forgotten in some respects. And, I would like your thoughts on the whole issue of activism on the university campus. Volunteerism is very strong all over the country. I mean, 95 percent of students are doing volunteer work and it is great and it is part of all the service programs. But, a lot of it is required if you join an organization. And, I think there is a big difference between the term volunteerism and activism. And, it is my perception that universities today had been for quite some time afraid of activism because it brings back memories of the (19)60s and (19)70s and fear that it could happen again. Where students such threatened the university's power in many ways by questioning too much, demanding to be on too many organizations. Do you sense that there is a fear of activism?

JQ (02:16:37):
I do not know because I am not on campuses enough. Well, I teach a little bit, but here is what I would say about activism. There may be a fear about it, but activism is very difficult to sustain as a light. That is, some people can, because they are in groups or they have a salary from an organization. And, the specialization we were talking about before where you have large organizations that do employ people, but for the basic person, once you are out of school and you are having to work, so-called activism becomes a part-time at best occupation. And, so I would say that activism may be feared because it tends to happen in concentrated form on campuses, people with time be active. And, that volunteerism is a bit more sustainable because you can tuck it in the activities of a normal life in a way that activism demands almost a total commitment. So, I guess I would not want to privilege activism over volunteerism because I am thinking again, of the average person who has to get a job, has to raise a family, et cetera, et cetera. And, does not have that total 24 hours a day unless something comes along so outrageous that, "Okay, we have to stop this, et cetera, et cetera." I mean, I had a very dear friend, Oakland fireman, we would talk about this and I coined this term or he thought I coined it, "Sustainable Activist." And, he responded so much to that because he was a very active guy, but it can eat your life up. And, I think we all have met professional activists who somehow it has taken hold of them in a way and become an obsession in a way that does not look particularly healthy and can turn you into a self-righteous person who thinks everyone in the world could be doing their particular cause. A hundred percent, 24/7.

SM (02:19:27):
Good response. That is an excellent.

JQ (02:19:33):
The way the world works.

SM (02:19:33):
Why did the Vietnam War end, in your opinion?

JQ (02:19:41):
Because, the truth, the reality on the ground overwhelmed the reality that American commanders were telling themselves. The Vietnamese lived there. They were not going to go away. We are going to find the same thing as true in Afghanistan, I believe. And, so their commitment was just more tenacious than ours was. I remember Colonel Harry Summers.

SM (02:20:24):
Oh yes, I know. Yeah, actually I talked to him before he died.

JQ (02:20:28):
Well, yeah, he remembers going to the Paris Peace Talks and saying to a Vietnamese general, I think it was, "You know, you never defeated us in any battle." And, the Vietnamese general said, "That is true. It is also irrelevant."

SM (02:20:48):
Yeah.

JQ (02:20:49):
It blew Summers mind as it should have. But, we did not win because we could not.

SM (02:20:59):
Well, the best history books are written, which is normally long after a particular period, 50 years.

JQ (02:21:06):
Oh yes.

SM (02:21:06):
Yeah, for World War II books. But, the question I am asking, when the last Boomer has passed away, the last member of the Civil War who fought, if you go to Gettysburg's Battlefield, you see a statue there in 1924, the last participant in the Civil War soldier died, and they have his name and a statue for him. When the last Boomer of the 74 million has passed, what do you think the historians and the sociologists and the commentators will say about the generation that grew up after World War II and their impact on the society and the world?

JQ (02:21:47):
Boy, the real answer is, I do not have the slightest idea. But, I will of course take the crack at it anyway. I think it will be that it was just as we have forgotten many of the details about the Civil War, but its legacy remains in the country. I think the legacy that will remain is the very variegated desire for liberation of all kinds that for whatever reason, got unleashed during this particular time. Political, sexual, racial. In some ways we can talk about environmental liberation. I think those processes will still be going on for 50 years from now or a hundred years from now. And, it is not even that they necessarily started in the (19)60s, though some of them did. But, they got a rather explosive propulsion during this time. And, like the Big Bang, it will still be expanding during that time, for better or for worse. I mean, in a sense, the brain of certain morality and ethical standards is also, it maybe the darker side of the liberation movement, but there it is.

SM (02:23:44):
Do you think that the-

JQ (02:23:44):
The light of the dark.

SM (02:23:46):
Do you think that what became very popular in the early (19)60s of nonviolent protests that Dr. King talked about in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, the trend toward violence, students for Democratic society always had a lot of respect. But, then when it became the weatherman, it went down like a sunken ship. And, even the American Indian movement that started at Alcatraz in (19)69 ended up at Wounded Knee violence in (19)73. You had the Black Panthers that some people say were or were not violent, and the young Lords who kind of fit them in the Puerto Rican community that kind of followed the Black Panthers as well in their movements. You could even say even at Stonewall, they to fought, it was a reckoning, but they ended up fighting the police. Do you think that violence gets you anywhere? And, that the violence is why people are so upset oftentimes with the generations as opposed to all the other things?

JQ (02:24:48):
It may be. I think violence may have a dramatic effect short term, but it is long term effects I think are always pernicious because it invites a violent crime. And, it requires patience and a long view of history to stick to a non-violent approach. But, I believe in the long term, it is the one that is going to succeed because it does not invite that kind of reaction. Rather, it tries to include and incorporate. And, if I could tell a quick story that Parker Palmer, who's the inspiration to the center that I am part of now tells about, I am forgetting his first name now, Wollman a Quaker who in the 18th century felt that he had received a kind of visitation or understanding from God that slavery was wrong. And, the Quakers at that time were slave owners who were prospering quite well, thank you very much, as slave owners. And, so when he went to his own meeting and to others and tried to convince people that slavery is wrong, they did not be [inaudible]. But, what they did do was they said that they would support Wollman, W-O-L-L-M-A-N, and I just cannot remember his first name. They would support him as he went from place to place, from meeting to meeting, trying to convince people that what he had received was in fact the truth. This was of course how the Quakers were. And, so for 20 years he did that. He refused to serve by a slave. If he received anything made by a slave, he paid that slave. And, as a result of his going from place to place, I think it was in 1783, where at some time near then, Quakers became the first religious organization to condemn and [inaudible] flavor, 70 years before this.

SM (02:27:47):
Wow.

JQ (02:27:47):
So yes, it may seem like it is going to take a long time, but here is someone who managed to convince others in a non-violent fashion and in a way that led those others to participate in the anti-slavery movement and did not invite the reaction that it had, had he been John Brown or [inaudible], he would have. Violence is always a sign of impatience. Sometimes it is necessary or deemed necessary because the enemy is at the door. So, what are you going to do? But, it is always impatient and for that reason, I think it affects the short term, and they invite the very opposite of what you were in fact, trying to do.

SM (02:28:43):
And, as an add-on and I know we are saying we are done, but as an add-on to what you just said, why do you think Chicago's convention in the summer of (19)68 and the killings at Kent State and Jackson State had on the psyche of this generation? And, I am not only talking about those who may have been the five to 15 percent of them are activists, but the entire 74 million, you cannot help but forget those two major events because they both were violent. And, to have deaths on two university campuses. Whereas Mario Savio said in 1964-(19)65, "Freedom of speech was guaranteed." And, then of course the Chicago convention was sad for everybody and that is the last question.

JQ (02:29:33):
Well, when you mentioned those events, I will tell you what comes to mind. One was, I was working at the welfare center at that time in the Dykeman Welfare Center in New York. And, the day after Kent State, I wore a black arm band and everybody knew why, there was no question. There were a lot of... And, it was very shocking and many people were already paranoid, but it really made people even more paranoid. Two weeks later, when Jackson State happened, I came in the next day to the workplace and I had a black armband on and I remember a black case worker, welfare worker asked me, he said, "What is that for?" And I said, "I am mourning the students at Jackson State." And, his eyes filled with fear. I mean, he knew damn well what had happened. But, the fact that a white guy.

SM (02:30:46):
Yes.

JQ (02:30:47):
Would say that he was mourning the black students at Jackson State as opposed to, well, that happened in another place in another time, really affected him. And his response, of course, affected me because what was happening was, Chicago just showed the divisions within the country and how ugly they were. I think my brother and my father watched the same TV footage I did, and they were probably rooting for the police. And, so just before I left for California with my wife, I remember saying to my father, it was a cruel question to ask. And, I was not estranged at all from my parents. A lot of people were in this, I was not. But, when I think about it now, I said to him, "Dad, if you were to find out that I had been killed at a demonstration on a campus, what would you say?" And, it was as if I take it a two by four and hit the man in the chest. The question, just the notion, the idea of imagining that the event hit him so hard and he said, "Oh my God, I do not know what I would say." And, I felt so polarized at that time that I thought he might say, "Well, I would say, well, he deserved it. He should not have done it." And, that was not true at all. That was not the emotional... That was some kind of media imagination that I had. Had nothing to do with flesh and blood actual response. And, so it has always made me wary of big responses to far away events as opposed to the real flesh and blood. How normal human beings respond to one another when they have the, you know?

SM (02:32:57):
Are there any questions I did not ask that you thought I was going to?

JQ (02:33:02):
Boy, after almost two hours now, I cannot think of any. I cannot think of any.

SM (02:33:09):
Well, that is it then. Thank you very much. I will keep you-

JQ (02:33:14):
Oh yeah.

SM (02:33:15):
I will keep you updated on the project and certainly you will see the transcript eventually. And, I will need a couple pictures.

JQ (02:33:23):
Okay.

SM (02:33:23):
And, I will get the tape to you, may not be right away.

JQ (02:33:28):
Oh, that is all right.

SM (02:33:28):
But, you will get it. I am going to be transcribing all these myself. And, so you said Walter Capps' wife is in Congress?

JQ (02:33:34):
Yes. Lois Capps, she represents the Santa Barbara area.

SM (02:33:40):
Golly, I think I have that book by Walter Capps.

JQ (02:33:45):
Oh, "The Unfinished Floor."

SM (02:33:45):
Yes.

JQ (02:33:46):
Yeah.

SM (02:33:48):
I wonder if she would be willing to talk.

JQ (02:33:50):
I will bet she would. I will bet she would.

SM (02:33:53):
So-

JQ (02:33:56):
I mean, I met John Wheeler through Walter. I think he had just written his book.

SM (02:34:03):
Yeah. Well, I interviewed him a week ago in Washington.

JQ (02:34:06):
Oh, no kidding?

SM (02:34:06):
In fact, I will send you a picture of him. I got a great shot. If you do not mind, I will send a picture I took of him.

JQ (02:34:13):
Sure.

SM (02:34:13):
He was very tired, and I guess there is a story with him. His sister, excuse me, his wife's sister was murdered in Memphis by drug people.

JQ (02:34:24):
Oh dear.

SM (02:34:25):
Yeah, about a year or so ago, so they were going to jail. The trial's going to be happening and his wife has to go. So, he is going through a lot of.

JQ (02:34:37):
Oh, I am sorry to-

SM (02:34:38):
Yeah. And, of course he was at the Commonwealth Club in Washington where I interviewed him one. And, I still have another hour to interview with him, but I will send you his picture.

JQ (02:34:49):
Well, give him my regards when you see him next.

SM (02:34:51):
Oh, I will.

JQ (02:34:52):
I remember I very much meeting him. We were of course very different politically, but I thought Touched with Fire was a very important book.

SM (02:35:00):
Oh, it is a great book and he signed it for me.

JQ (02:35:01):
It began really with retreats for public school teachers in that, Parker Palmer's wrote a book called The Courage to Teach, in which what he was saying was, people go into service professions like teaching not to make money. They go in because there is something in their heart that makes them want to do this.

SM (02:35:27):
That is why we go into higher ed.

JQ (02:35:29):
That is right. And, in fact, he has just written the book on higher education called The Heart of Higher Education. Book just came out three weeks ago, actually. But, what happens is people then get into institutions whose behavior is almost the opposite of its mission statement. And, teachers get burned out very badly and they get twisted and it is really difficult. And, what these retreats do, is they do not have a particular content or ideology, but they using poetry and silent and conversation in small groups, they give people a chance.

SM (02:36:14):
Wow.

JQ (02:36:21):
And, usually the response after the first retreat is, "Oh my God, this is so wonderful. I realize how poisonous the environment I am in right now, I am out of here." But, after the second retreat, what people are saying is, "I will be damned if I am going to be driven out of this profession, which I love."

SM (02:36:42):
Wow.

JQ (02:36:42):
"I am going to change things."

SM (02:36:44):
So you-

JQ (02:36:48):
But, now there are retreats for clergy. There are retreats for health professionals because there are a lot of service professions where people are suffering the same way. So, it is great work. I really love it.

SM (02:37:00):
And, what do you moderate or?

JQ (02:37:02):
I help facilitate retreats and I am now, I am on the board.

SM (02:37:07):
Well, my gosh.

JQ (02:37:07):
Administrative [inaudible].

SM (02:37:11):
Well, let me tell you this, when I am done working on this book I was in higher education for 30 years. I did over 500 programs on forums, debates, conferences.

JQ (02:37:21):
Oh, no kidding?

SM (02:37:21):
Yeah. It is my whole life. So, if there has ever an openings there, I would be curious to... Because, I love that because higher ed has been my career and students are my life. And, we did five major conferences that I organized at Westchester. One was a major conference on Byard Rustin. We did one on Jackie Robinson, National tribute to him. We did the Wall That Heals, which was a four day conference where we brought the traveling wall and Jan Scruggs. And, we had a whole series of speakers in the fall to educate our students about the war. And, we had over 6,000 people in the community that came. We did a conference on Islam, which was very controversial in my last month, where we packed a 500-seat auditorium for 10 straight sessions. We packed nine of them. Totally. And, they were out the wall outside the hall trying to get in. So, we have just done a lot of speakers. It is just amazing how many that I have done. So, just what you are talking about, about trying to bring people together and to keep people in teaching, because teaching to me is the greatest profession anyone can ever be in because you are shaping the future of America and the future of the world.

JQ (02:38:44):
Yeah.

SM (02:38:44):
So, we do not want to lose good teachers.

JQ (02:38:46):
That is right. Well, one thing I might invite you to do is go to the website, which is www. [inaudible]renewal.org. And, they give these retreats. They are not done in a systematic way, but they are all over the country and you might want to just experience one.

SM (02:39:08):
Yeah. Super. Well, what an honor to talk to you.

JQ (02:39:15):
Well, I thank you for your questions and for your interest and your passion.

SM (02:39:17):
Yeah, well I do. And, I wish I had known you when you first went on board out there in California where I lived. But, you are a deep thinker and you have a lot of passion for what you do. And, boy, that must have been a big loss to leave that profession well, that position. But, you are in something else that you love, and that is important.

JQ (02:39:41):
It is true.

SM (02:39:41):
Okay. Well, you have a great day.

JQ (02:39:41):
Well, you too. And, good luck with your project, Steve.

SM (02:39:42):
Thanks. Bye now.

JQ (02:39:42):
Bye-bye.

(End of Interview)

2010-08-02

Stephen McKiernan

James Quay

159:49

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

Audio

Radio producers and directors; California Council for the Humanities; Quay, James--Interviews

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