Interview with Dr. Paul Von Blum

Von Blum, Paul ; McKiernan, Stephen

Dr. Paul Von Blum is Senior Lecturer in African American Studies and Communication Studies at UCLA. He is the author of six books and numerous articles on art, culture, education, and politics. He received his Bachelor's degree, Master's degree, and Ph.D. in History from New York University.

2010-02-12

In copyright

2018-03-29

McKiernan Interviews

150:50

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Paul von Blum
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 13 July 2010
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(Start of Interview)

SM (00:00:03):
The first question I have is what were your ear early years, where did you grow up, where did you go to high school and college, and who were the greatest influences in your life early on? Was it parents, teachers? What was it in your environment that made you who you are?

PVB (00:00:20):
Yeah, I grew up in Philadelphia, so I am a Philly kid, but I grew up in a very politically active household. The family background was crucial, both in terms of my intellectual consciousness and my political activism. I come from a Holocaust background. My father was the sole survivor of his family. I actually have a memoir coming out in about a month and a half where I detail all of this. But my father was the sole survivor and very early on in my own life, it was perfectly clear that he understood that racism, that the same racism that killed his entire immediate family was virtually identical the racism that was oppressing the African-American population in the United States. Very early on in Philadelphia, I learned the kind of profound and vigorous anti-racism growing up. From early childhood, I grew up in a progressive family in Philadelphia, and I think probably the seminal event growing up, not in Philly, although I was born in Philly, we lived in a variety of suburbs, Delaware County, Montgomery County, and then most significantly, in Bucks County. As a kid, I went to the Philadelphia public schools and the variety of suburban schools, but the most seminal event occurred in 1957, one of the huge racial crises of the United States. The early civil rights movement occurred there in 1957 when I was 14. My parents and several other families broke the color line in Levittown. Levittown, as you may know, was one of the large post-second World war suburban development. My parents moved there because it was an opportunity for World War II veterans in particular to buy low cost housing. We moved there from Philly. What my parents did not realize was that Levitt would not sell to African Americans. I think we moved there in 1955 when I was 12, and by the time I was 13, my parents were involved in an almost conspiratorial way with a variety of other families, almost entirely, not completely, but almost entirely Jewish in meeting to do something about the break from the color line. By August of 1957, they had arranged for the first black family, Bill and Daisy Meyers moved in. The story of the Levittown integration crisis is well known, and in 1957 in August, there were huge riots, white racist riots in Levittown testing the entry of the first they called Negro family. I was the oldest of four children then there. Now, there were five. Another one was born afterwards and I was the oldest of the five, so I was involved as a spectator in all of the meetings. I was curious, so I went to all of those. I was there when the Myers then moved in, I was there when the mobs gathered and I was there less than a month later when they get Ku Klux Klan in Pennsylvania right across our lawn. In fact in December of 1957, I actually testified against the Ku Klux Klan in Doylestown. My activism started very early on and I saw the kind of vicious hate-filled white racist mobs. They called themselves the Levittown Betterment Committee. Even as an early teenager, I was exposed to the horrific character of American racism and those were probably the seminal events that molded my anti-racist attitude that have remained to this day. Still, I am a professor of African-American studies at [inaudible] and there is a direct connection between my teenage experiences in Levittown and my professional and activist life year.

SM (00:05:07):
I think there is a book that just came out on Levittown about that.

PVB (00:05:10):
I have read it.

SM (00:05:11):
Yeah, and I bought it. I got so many books I bought, I have not had a chance to read. Obviously, what a great upbringing in terms of learning early on and helping shape who you are, particularly when you see injustice and you want to fight it. Would you say that your parents were your heroes because your parents were taking the lead there?

PVB (00:05:32):
They were the daily role models. They stood up courageously and at a great cost because in 1957 it was kind of late McCarthyism. McCarthy himself had faded, but there was still a great deal of retribution against what was then called premature anti-racist. My father kept losing his jobs, politically inspired losses obviously, and that is what in 1959 of our move to California. My parents traveled in kind of left-wing circles, and so I was exposed early on to that whole leftist culture, not a communist culture by the way. It was a very radical culture, but my parents were never in the party. When I was five years old living in Philadelphia, my parents were active in the Progressive Party campaign by Henry Wallace, party Turgeon campaign in (19)48. But my parents, unlike many of the progressive party supporters, were not communist party members. They were in the non-communist left.

SM (00:06:51):
Yeah. I mentioned there, and I noticed in reading that you are a big fan of Paul Robeson-

PVB (00:06:57):
Extremely.

SM (00:06:58):
I want to tell you a story, but this is your interview, but I think it is important to the question. I know all about what happened in 1947 in Peekskill New York. I found out about this many years after my grandfather died. My grandfather was the Methodist minister in Peekskill from 1954, no, excuse me, 1936 to 1954. I never knew any of this because he died in 1956, but in reading the history books, I could not believe that my grandfather lived in a town that did such terrible things to Paul Robeson.

PVB (00:07:31):
It was horrible.

SM (00:07:32):
Pete Seeger was there with him too.

PVB (00:07:34):
Absolutely, so were other luminaries like Howard Bass and a variety of others.

SM (00:07:41):
I am a big fan of Paul Robeson too. He was a, what do you call, man for all seasons. He was town in so many different ways.

PVB (00:07:48):
Everything. I am the first person ever to do an entire university course on Paul Robeson and it is fair to say that from early childhood, I was introduced to Paul Robeson, not only as a singer but as a political activist. My parents said that they introduced me to him in 1948 at the Progressive Party Convention. I do not recall it, but from early childhood on, and this continues through my adult life, I would say that of all the people in America, he is my biggest inspiration. One for his extraordinary courage and two for his multidimensional talents with a sole exception of his problematic personal life, which I do not particularly admire. But other than that, he would be my kind of role model, somebody who was brilliant at everything he did and who had the courage of his convictions throughout the entirety of his life.

SM (00:08:59):
One thing I find about when you study America in the beginning, near a time when boomers were born after World War II, that period between (19)46 and (19)60 really is that many of the people that were persecuted, I think, whether it be the Hollywood Ten or people in government, professors in universities, all kinds of people, and Paul Robeson being one of them, is that many times the reason they became linked to the Communist Party is because that was the only party that dealt with the issue of race.

PVB (00:09:37):
They were among the best on the issue of race. Going back to the (19)30s, they were upfront about the Scottsboro case. My parents, they always knew communists. They were always fond of them, but they were themselves never party members. I have ambivalence about the communists, I have always respected them. And this is also generational, when I was born in 1943 and was very much active vigorously in the (19)60s, and so my generation of activists hardly ever joined the Communist Party. I always respected them for what they did. The other hand, I was never blind to their blindness about the Soviet Union challenge. I was always critical of that. I remained so in my teaching, I always point out about the Communist Party blindness toward the Soviet and Stalin's crimes, including Paul Robeson. I am well respected in the ropes and community, but I have never been reluctant to criticize him for his own blindness about Stalin and the Soviet Union.

SM (00:10:53):
Would not you say though that there was some truth in that late (19)40s and 1950s, maybe even the first few years of the (19)60s, that the people that had some people who had been communists really disliked Stalin, disliked him immensely. They only cared about the issue of race, so, and they got caught up on being blamed for liking the communist system, which they did not.

PVB (00:11:16):
Sure. Now, there were some like that. There were well-meaning people and I continued to have respect for a lot of them. Many of those people are no longer around. I mean, that is generational. Many of them have passed along. I concur with that.

SM (00:11:34):
I want you to put your teacher's cap on now because I have some really cross questions to ask about you, not as a student now, but as a young professor in the (19)60s and (19)70s. As a teacher, beginning at Berkeley in the (19)60s through today at UCLA, what in your view, did the university learn from student activism and protests on their campuses?

PVB (00:12:00):
They did not learn enough. This is extremely important to me. I went to Berkeley in the (19)60s, was very active in the free speech movement, and I think that was one of the moral highlights of the entire history of the University of California. Beyond the specific issue of free speech, what we tried to do in the free speech movement at Berkeley was to reform the university so that it would make the big prestigious research universities to make undergraduate education a much higher priority. As a personal academic, 42 years standing, that has been my highest priority. I am sorry to say that at the institutional level, I have not been particularly successful. At the individual level, I have been spectacularly successful. But the university's priorities have at places like at the University of California, the University of Wisconsin and Michigan, places like that, by and large, they are indifferent to the needs of undergraduate students. What they have learned from the (19)60s, unfortunately, is how to be more clever at containing student protests.

SM (00:13:20):
Yeah, they are much more subtle, so to speak.

PVB (00:13:25):
They are. With a couple of exceptions, they no longer bring in the police and the storm troopers to beat people up. They have learned to be much more adaptable, they have learned how to pat students on the head and referred things to committees that never do anything. They no longer use the tactics of brutality that they used when I was a student.

SM (00:13:53):
What I find interesting, and I do not know about every campus here just from what I know, is that universities have designated spaces where students can protest. Obviously, you do not want them in front of a building when a person's teaching a class, so I think one of them they had learned that disrupt classes time is not the right thing to do. It creates a negative image. But if I were a student today, knowing what happened back then, I would be protesting. The fact that I have to... This is my space, it is the only place that kind of-

PVB (00:14:37):
Some schools have attempted to do that. Universities are within their constitutional rights that say that there is certain places you cannot... You cannot walk into a professor's class right in the middle of a class because any public entity has legitimate time, place mannered regulations. On the other hand, you cannot just take one small part of a campus and say, this is your free speech area. That violate the First Amendment. I should add here, I am not sure when you have looked me up, I am also a lawyer.

SM (00:15:06):
No.

PVB (00:15:08):
I know something about the First Amendment. I have an undercurrent of political legal experience. It is not a major part of my professional or personal identity, but I paid $410 a year to keep my state bar membership up.

SM (00:15:24):
Well, that is good.

PVB (00:15:25):
But I know something about this.

SM (00:15:27):
Yeah, I remember recently in the interview process, I interviewed Dr. Arthur Chickering. I do not know if you know him.

PVB (00:15:33):
Yeah, he has done a lot of writing on higher ed.

SM (00:15:37):
He wrote Education and Identity, the Seven Vectors of Development, and he is anything but a radical. He is retired now but I asked him in the interview, is there anything in the universities today that you regret or any thoughts? He says, "Yes, I regret the corporate takeover again of universities."

PVB (00:15:59):
That is a huge problem and it is moving vigorously in that direction, and I regret it profoundly.

SM (00:16:08):
These are some specific things here. Now, what did you learn from the free speech movement itself in (19)64 and (19)65?

PVB (00:16:15):
What I learned was that in order to get anything done in a university, you need sustained collective action. I know from my own career that the successful mobilization of student power can be extremely effective. There have been several instances in my own unusual career trajectory when I have been under attack by university authorities, where I have been able to mobilize student power. It is not so much that they have saved me, which they have, but they have been able to mobilize on behalf of the educational ideals that I have represented for over 40 years.

SM (00:16:59):
Obviously, these are all issues that were important in the (19)60s and (19)70s. It was even still, some of these things were happening in the (19)80s and (19)90s, but seemed to not be happening today. What did the universities learn about military recruits on campus because they were back?

PVB (00:17:14):
They were back. I remember both as a students, as young faculty member at Berkeley, we tried to resist that. It is an ongoing problem. At a place like UCLA, we do not have a lot of military recruitment. Basically today, military recruiting is done in working class and neighborhoods where you have a proportion of very poor people and especially people of color. It is not as huge deal as it was because we do not have a draft.

SM (00:17:49):
We have already talked about this, but what did they learn about too much corporate control or respect to fundraising, which fundraising is such a big thing that the presidents do at all universities, so they may have control over speakers or ideas. Just your thoughts on fundraising within universities today-

PVB (00:18:09):
That is all basically all they really care about, it is money, and increasingly, you have a corporate dominated university, even a public university, which remains a public entity, you now have corporate sponsorship of research projects, you have corporate sponsorship of athletic programs, you have corporate sponsorship. Even of buildings in the new school of management is now the Anderson School of Management, expect soon with this trajectory that they will start naming the restrooms after-

SM (00:18:48):
Yeah. I was joking after spending 22 years at a university, and I said, "Well, I wonder what they had put my name on." I think someone joke and said, "Gee, you might get a stall in one of the restrooms," but it would still cost at least a minimum of 10 grand.

PVB (00:19:06):
10 grand. I was thinking that would cost me that for a urinal.

SM (00:19:12):
Good. Who knows? What do you think the universities learned from activist students, the concept of student empowerment? Because students have power today because they control budgets, and I know that students are somewhat linked to presidents overall. Presidents are trying to link up with students more and more. There is a really good website yesterday on CNBC about the president of George Washington University trying to get close to his students.

PVB (00:19:40):
Yeah, I hope I do not sound excessively cynical, but it seems to me that universities have learned and effectively how-to co-op their students. What they do is they take student leaders to lunch, they promise them letters of recommendation for law school, they bring them to banquets. They do a variety of things in order to neutralize them, in order to keep them from becoming basically a significant effect of oppositional element. Students and administrations are naturally and should be naturally at odds with one another, but university administrators become increasingly sophisticated at muting those tensions. It varies obviously from campus to campus year to year, but they have done a basically good job of keeping student oppositional forces. Although, sometimes they cannot do very much, much about it. Last November, for example, when the regents of the University of California hit the students with a 33, 34 percent fee increase, there were huge rallies throughout the university, and I was one of the speakers. I am an effective public speaker and I will continue to do that a long time to come.

SM (00:21:12):
In some sense, the students of the (19)60s and (19)70s really did not fear about being active with respect to getting a job whereas the students of the day, if they act, they might not get the recommendations they need to-

PVB (00:21:26):
Yeah, they are very worried. I understand that it is a tough economy. I have a lot of friends who are very, very active 40 years ago, and many of them remain as I do, very politically active, and we talk about these things. We were never really concerned about what the implications would be, we were out on the streets doing what we did with very minimal concern about what the future implications of our activism would be. That is not the case with a lot of young people today. When I tell them that I got arrested several times, they say, "But did not it hurt your career?" I said, "Obviously, it did not hurt my career. I am standing in front of you in a classroom."

SM (00:22:14):
What did the universities learn from Kent State and Jackson State in 1970? I am going to preface this with just a comment.

PVB (00:22:25):
Go ahead.

SM (00:22:26):
You never hear about it.

PVB (00:22:27):
No, you never hear about it. My students have occasionally heard of Kent State, they have never heard of Jackson State. Never. Every time I mentioned Jackson state, it is absolutely new. I think what the universities have learned is that in both cases, it was a public relations disaster. They have learned to take all kinds of steps, never to replicate that again. It is extremely unlikely that we will ever see that kind of fatality on a university campus of that magnitude. They will never let that happen again.

SM (00:23:05):
What do you think the university has learned from controversial speakers on campus? One of the criticisms of the new left today is that the controversial speakers that were on college campuses in the (19)60s and (19)70s, whether Kathleen Cleaver, the Black Panthers or like that, some of the universities did not really like for public relations reasons, has now shifted where the new left of liberal professors and administrators do not like conservative speakers on campus like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Really, what the liberals are doing is exactly what the administrators were thinking back in the (19)60s. What are your thoughts?

PVB (00:23:49):
I am a strong believer in free speech and where you have leftist attempts to censor people, I would resist that. Having said that, there is no particular reason to ask a Michelle Malkin or an Ann Coulter to come to her university. They have nothing to offer. I have no problem with having thoughtful conservatives, and there are many, but neither Ann Coulter nor Michelle Malkin fall into that category. They are not serious thinkers.

SM (00:24:21):
How about Pat Buchanan and Bay Buchanan?

PVB (00:24:25):
They would be worth hearing. I would easily chop either of them up in a debate, but I would not debate an Ann Coulter. The last time I had a debate with somebody as that, I debated the former Congressman William Dannemeyer from Orange County, he was a moron. I could have had a lobotomy and beaten him in the debate. If you are going to have a debate, you should have somebody of reasonable stature and somebody who is not a buffoon like Ann Coulter.

SM (00:25:01):
I know that the two that seem to have the greatest strengths is William Bennett and Dinesh D'Souza because they are...

PVB (00:25:08):
They are smart enough so that they are entitled to make a debate. I just dislike both. I do not know either of them, but I just like their position but either of them would be a significantly worthy adversary.

SM (00:25:26):
I am almost done with this little thing, these are all important. What did they learn from Columbia University? What happened there and the Harvard Yard and protests?

PVB (00:25:37):
Oh, they have learned to be much more clever. It is extremely unlikely that you will have another Columbia in (19)68. Today's administrators are just a lot more clever than they were a couple of generations. That is going to happen again. They know how to do it, they have become much more patient. They have social control experts and they just know what they are doing more. In some respect, we would be better off if we had better have these more vigorous confrontations, but we will not.

SM (00:26:21):
What did we learn from, and this happened on my campus, Tommy the Narcs?

PVB (00:26:26):
They came.

SM (00:26:26):
Yeah, they came looking for drugs.

PVB (00:26:35):
Well, that is part of the anti-drug hysteria in this country. I would hope that in [inaudible], some of that will dissipate. Yeah, you hardly have any of that. Certainly, you have drugs on every campus, but the biggest drug abuse on most campuses that I can certainly say that with a lot of confidence at UCLA is alcohol abuse.

SM (00:27:06):
Two more here. What did they learn from affirmative action and from curriculum reform? Those are the two...

PVB (00:27:13):
Well, I have been a proponent for 40 years for both. In California, of course, in affirmative action, we have the Notorious Proposition 209, and so we have been fighting... One of my departments is African-American Studies, and I am a member of the Ralph Gate Bunche Center for African-American Studies. We have been in the forefront about trying to do something about the profound underrepresentation of African-American students. We have made modest progress, but I am a strong and vigorous supporter of affirmative action. We need another generation of affirmative action. We have a long way to go. In terms of curricular reform, we are not even close to what we need. We have had some modest curricular improvements since the (19)60s. The wave of student activism in the (19)60s generated important reforms. We would not have had ethnic studies. I was involved in the first wave of protests that created black studies, now African-American studies, which gave rise to Chicano studies, Asian-American studies, Native American studies, and then women's studies. But alpha (19)60s activism, we would not have any of that, so that is been important. Another area that came out of (19)60s activism was a greater commitment toward interdisciplinary studies. We have made significant progress, but we still have a long way to go. In a university, the disciplinary nomination of the curriculum still remains the fundamental reality, and I still think we need to make major progress. I am not an objective observer, I have been a player in this realm for my entire academic career. I am contemptuous of the traditional academic disciplinary structure, I am fond of telling my students that I have plenty of discipline, but no discipline.

SM (00:29:28):
One of the things when you are talking about the curriculum is liberal arts. Seems that liberal arts really was strong in the (19)60s, particularly mid-60s and beyond, because it really was the epitome of what Mario Savio was saying at the Free Speech Movement in (19)64 and (19)65, that the universities need to be about ideas.

PVB (00:29:51):
And we need-

SM (00:29:52):
Ideas and not about corporate control or preparing people for jobs like the IBM mentality.

PVB (00:30:03):
Mario was absolutely right. He was a wonderfully, thoughtful and eloquent person, and his view on the university I think was extraordinarily perceptive, and I absolutely agree with them. I think we need a much greater commitment to the liberal arts tradition. The idea of transforming the university into a practical job preparation institution is a profound mistake because the jobs that we are preparing them of young men and women for today will be obsolete in a generation. The most practical thing that we can do is to give them the most rigorous liberal arts education combined with the traditional skills of critical thinking, writing, public speaking, and the like.

SM (00:30:57):
Do you think that is certainly a positive that came out of the boomer generation and the professors and students of that era?

SM (00:31:03):
...boomer generation and the professors and students of that era. I fear that liberal arts is really being threatened today.

PVB (00:31:10):
It is, and partly it is a lot of the boomer parents who have, I am sorry to say, very minimal vision about the fundamental value of a liberal arts tradition. They keep pushing their students, not their students, their sons and daughters into practical things. Learn about computers, learn about engineering, learn about accounting. And I can understand the parental need to do that, but it is short-sighted and mistaken.

SM (00:31:47):
Yeah. How often have you heard, in your time at UCLA, and I have heard it wherever I have worked is, "What are you going to do with a philosophy degree?"

PVB (00:31:57):
I hear it thousands of times.

SM (00:31:59):
Yeah. There is still people that just do not get it, the importance of... My golly, if you read Bertrand Russell, oh my god, there is things in there that you will remember the rest of your life.

PVB (00:32:10):
Absolutely. And it is something that is, in fact, perfectly practical, that if you unite what you are going to do day in and day out with a deeper philosophical vision, one, you will do your work better, and two, your life will be infinitely more meaningful.

SM (00:32:31):
Just a little commentary here on comparing the students of the (19)60s and (19)70s to the students of the (19)80s, (19)90s, and even the (20)10s today. I know it is very difficult, you cannot talk about... the boomer generation is 74 million and only a percentage went to college, so you cannot just be talking about college students here, but we are talking about young people overall. But you have been in the classroom and you have seen the students of all these eras. There is smart kids in every generation, so it is not about smarts. But I guess the areas that I am most interested in is activism, overall knowledge of what is going on in the world, students that challenge their professors more, that like to interact with professors in the classroom, and being up-to-date with the news.

PVB (00:33:22):
They are not, they are not. I have immense popularity with my students. I have done extraordinarily well. I have won every conceivable teaching award you can win, but I am very blunt when I tell my students that, in the aggregate I have a lot of really good students, who are extraordinarily critical and extremely knowledgeable, but in the aggregate, my students are not particularly knowledgeable. And even more insidiously, not particularly intellectually curious. They do not know what is going on in the world. They can tell you all about Lindsay Lohan and Lady Gaga and they cannot tell you what the hell is happening two days ago in Uganda, and that is not good for democracy.

SM (00:34:07):
I agree, I agree. A typical college scene in the (19)60s, and again, it does not always have to be technology changes, but at Binghamton University, I can remember people buying the newspaper, The New York Times, The Binghamton Press. They were-

PVB (00:34:23):
Nobody reads the newspaper.

SM (00:34:24):
...reading the newspapers. They subscribe to Time and Newsweek. They were reading them. And I know now we have the computer and they can get access on the computer. The question is, are they going to CNN? Are they going to the news or are they going to see Lindsay Lohan?

PVB (00:34:35):
Their protestation's that they read the news on the internet. I believe they think they are reading the news on the internet, and I believe what is actually happening is that they are glancing at the headlines on the internet. That technology... and look, I use the computer every single day, I could not live without it, but it is not a substitute for in-depth reading. You cannot follow the news by itself on the internet, unless you are ready to devote a huge amount of time, and that is not what they are doing on the internet. They are doing Facebook, they are doing email, they are doing whatever it is that they are doing, but they are not reading the news in a thoroughly systematic way. There are exceptions, but not many.

SM (00:35:31):
You were-

PVB (00:35:32):
[inaudible] out of 100 of my students, if that, reads the newspaper in a sustained way.

SM (00:35:39):
I am going to go back here to the Free Speech Movement again, you were there for the Free Speech Movement in (19)64 and (19)65. Would it ever have-

PVB (00:35:47):
Beginning to the end.

SM (00:35:48):
Would it ever have happened if they gave in and allowed the group to hand out the political literature?

PVB (00:35:55):
No.

SM (00:35:55):
Would the Free Speech Movement ever really have happened?

PVB (00:35:57):
No. They would have aborted it. And the University of California at Berkeley administration was colossally inept. Did you ever see the documentary Berkeley in the (19)60s?

SM (00:36:12):
Yes-yes. Yes, I have it. I own it.

PVB (00:36:17):
Yeah. I am no great fan of Professor John Searle, but he said in there the administration blew it again. They were colossally inept. Every time they could have aborted what happened, they did not. They just committed another atrocity. And so, they made it absolutely easy for us to do what we did. And I was involved in every single demonstration of the FSM.

SM (00:36:50):
Hmm. Clark Kerr is interesting, because when I went to graduate school, we had to read his book Uses of the University.

PVB (00:36:56):
I bought it.

SM (00:36:57):
Yeah. Oh, you did?

PVB (00:36:58):
I did.

SM (00:36:59):
Yeah, well I loved the book and when I interviewed Bettina Aptheker when she was on sabbatical in New York this winter, she just really did not like Clark Kerr, but then later on she somehow met him and she said she liked him. But Clark Kerr's interesting, because he is the man that talked about the knowledge factory and that higher ed was heading to the knowledge factory and more people had access to education than ever before. And my question is this, Clark Kerr said in the book The Uses of the University that higher education had become a knowledge factory where students were learning skills to prepare for the world of work. Students at that time had an issue with a factory mentality, like they did with IBM mentality, where they were asked to conform if they wanted a job. Your thoughts on issues like this, just that boomers forced and challenged the universities that were heading toward the research universities of today. I know there is a lot here, but he seems to be a very important figure in higher education and even though-

PVB (00:38:11):
It has been years since I talked to Bettina, I am much more critical about Clark Kerr. I find him the architect of an institutional setting that I find repressive and extraordinarily unfortunate. I do not want the knowledge factory. I want a university that really generates truly liberal education, that allows people the kind of critical thought that will allow them to find their own way, and not one that will have them adapt to the demands advanced capitalist society. I really think that Clark Kerr is the architect of everything that is wrong with higher education.

SM (00:38:50):
What is interesting about Clark Kerr is he got fired by Ronald Reagan during the time-

PVB (00:38:54):
I know it.

SM (00:38:58):
...that ...Because Ronald Reagan wanted to fight the students.

PVB (00:38:58):
No, I know. And I remember when he got fired, I was still a student at Berkeley then, before I started teaching, and I remember... I will never forget Mario Savio's kind of cryptic comment when he was interviewed on television when he was asked to comment about the recent firing of Clark Kerr, he said kind of off-the-cuff, "Good riddance to bad rubbish." Now, that is harsh, but I understand it, and at the emotional level, I agree with it.

SM (00:39:33):
Obviously, you knew Mario and Bettina and-

PVB (00:39:38):
Not well.

SM (00:39:39):
Not well. And I know David Lance Goines, who I have interviewed, too, was part of that. And he never came back to the university he was so upset.

PVB (00:39:46):
No, I know it, and I have read his book. I have read his book on the FSM. Again, I have met him but do not know him well. I knew some of the other people much better. The kind of official... it is a shame, I do not know if you ever interviewed Michael Rossman.

SM (00:40:05):
No.

PVB (00:40:05):
He died. But Michael was kind of the official archivist. He died about two years ago of leukemia.

SM (00:40:12):
Right.

PVB (00:40:13):
He was the one I knew the best.

SM (00:40:18):
The one that was in the car was Weinberg?

PVB (00:40:20):
Jack Weinberg.

SM (00:40:21):
Yeah. I would love to interview him, but you were there on that plaza that day, were not you?

PVB (00:40:27):
I was.

SM (00:40:30):
Can you describe what that day was like? I mean-

PVB (00:40:33):
It was wonderful. It was exhilarating. We had, I believe, a collective sense of our student power. We had a sense that we were challenging authority and that, indeed, we could win. When we stopped that police car from taking Jack Weinberg to jail, we had a sense of our extraordinary power. Now, I would add something. A very large number of the people who were there, myself included, had been veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. We knew that we could do that. We had had plenty of experiences. Jack Weinberg was a good example. We had been in the South. We knew the enormity of the impact of collective power. And we were not at all intimidated by the university. I mean, my god, we had challenged a racist southern church. We were not afraid of university deans. But it was an extraordinary day. I was there the whole time, and it was 30 some hours that Jack Weinberg was in there. I was there virtually the entire time. I think the only time I was not there was when I went into the student union to use the restroom.

SM (00:41:56):
Yeah, because the wide angle pictures that you see of that scene are thousands of students. I mean, and then you had this car in the middle that is not even being hurt. It is not even being scratched.

PVB (00:42:12):
People took their shoes off. Let me tell you, the only reason-

SM (00:42:12):
Let me turn my tape here. Hold on. All right. We are ready.

PVB (00:42:22):
I am an effective speaker. I have been a public speaker for 40 years, the sole reason I did not mount the police car to speak, was that I was on probation for an earlier civil rights arrest and I was operating in violation of my own probation order. If I had been photographed on top of that police car, and if that had gotten back to my probation officer, and the judge would sentence me to three years on probation, there is no doubt that he would have rescinded my probation and issued a warrant for my arrest, thrown me into jail.

SM (00:43:03):
I know, but when I interviewed Bettina, she said that was the time that she had never spoken before a large group like that before, but she said it gave her a lot of confidence. And she was not up there very long, but it just gave her a lot of confidence, and look she has gone on to become a great professor, so-

PVB (00:43:21):
No, it is true. I finally did speak the day of the mass arrests on the steps of Sproul Hall when were mobilizing for the strike. I got up and I took the microphone and I said, "We need to deploy students in front of this building and that building." And, to my astonishment, I spoke charismatically and people, they basically obeyed my suggestion, and I realized, at that moment, that I had the power to move people through my oratorical ability.

SM (00:43:56):
Wow, that is powerful. I know that Dr. Cohen at NYU has written a book on Mario Savio. I bought it when I was there, the day I interviewed Bettina, and I want to interview him, too. He is very busy.

PVB (00:44:10):
He is worth interviewing. I have read the book. It is very good.

SM (00:44:13):
Well, he never responded and finally he said, "Steve, I apologize. I have been inundated," three months after I sent my note. He said, "In the fall, when school starts, you can come in September and interview me," so I am going to do that. Final question on this, again, I may have asked this before, but what are the lessons, again, of the Free Speech Movement in your view? And what are some of the visible results of this action that you see on campuses today? In other words, what I want to know, I know how important it was, our students may not know the history of the free speech movement and how important it is for their rights on campus, but do you see the visible results at UCLA today and in other schools?

PVB (00:44:52):
A little bit. As a kind of indirect consequence of the Free Speech Movement, we were, as I indicated a few moments ago, able to make some curricular changes. If it had not been for the Free Speech Movement, we would not have an African-American studies and I would not be teaching African-American studies. But when I gave my own speech against the tuition hike, back in November at a mass rally on the UCLA campus, I said that when Mario Savio spoke on December 2nd, 1964 he said that there comes a time when the machine becomes so odious that you cannot take part. And I said, with today's prices at the university, it has become so odious, you cannot take part. And so, what I am hoping is that, especially with the repeated budget cuts and the organization of the university, that enough students will begin seeing that this is no education at all. So I am hopeful that there will be an increased student movement. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I would hope that with all of these kinds of cutbacks in education you will have a response from the student body at UCLA, the University of California and a number of places across the country.

SM (00:46:17):
There are some people, and I cannot name them, but I have read that they think that it is actually a conspiracy to keep students busy today by the fact that they all have to work, tuitions are rising, they have to work, they have no time to be involved in anything else on a regular basis. They join-

PVB (00:46:45):
It is a major problem.

SM (00:46:45):
...fraternities and sororities, so I do not get it.

PVB (00:46:45):
Yeah, it is a major problem. On the other hand, when my students moan and groan about that, I simply ask them and I say, "How much time do you waste on the computer? How much time do you waste on social networking sites?" I spent 30, 40, 50 hours a week as an undergraduate in the Civil Rights Movement. I also worked 15 to 20 hours a week, and in the last two years of my college career, I got mostly As. A lot of their complaints... I feel sorry for working class kids that really do have to do it, but for upper-middle class kids, who are getting parental subsidies, a lot of that is merely whining.

SM (00:47:28):
And there is data to prove that those students who are more involved in activities outside the classroom do better in school. They really do.

PVB (00:47:40):
The more I was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, the more hours I put in, the higher my grades got.

SM (00:47:44):
You are a living example of that. One of the things I was reading about, and you probably are very proud about it, in fact Paul mentioned in a little note to me, is that you are a rabble-rousing teacher.

PVB (00:48:00):
I put on a very lively show.

SM (00:48:00):
And what was it like being a teacher? Now, this is very important, and I have an example. What was it like being a teacher at Berkeley in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s and even going onto UCLA? And did you fear the university would purge you and other teachers for political activities beyond the classroom?

PVB (00:48:19):
Yes, I did, and they tried and I beat them back.

SM (00:48:20):
Hmm.

PVB (00:48:25):
I was first fired in... or attempted to be fired four years into my Berkeley career in 1972. It was a massive student movement. It became a matter of major Berkeley controversy, it became a matter of national controversy. I think it was 1972, the journalist Nicholas von Hoffman wrote a column about me. I beat him back, I beat him. And several other times when they... They have always used other pretexts, budget, change of direction.

SM (00:49:05):
Oh, yeah.

PVB (00:49:06):
Mind you, it has always been political and I have always beat them back.

SM (00:49:12):
Yeah, it is amazing the people that shut up are the ones that rise oftentimes. When I was at SUNY Binghamton in 1960... I think it was (19)68, a brand-new PhD came in from Berkeley, it was a sociology professor named Dr. Mahovsky, and I remember Mr. Lipschitz, one of the students in our class challenging him. There was going to be a protest against recruiters on campus, and he came into the classroom, the student, and he said, "Are you going to come with us?" And Dr. Mahovsky said, "No, I am teaching a class." And he said, "Well, jeez, did not you just graduate from Berkeley? You should be coming over. You are a professor. You should be coming over with us and sitting in the administration building. And we are going to get arrested, but..." And I will never forget this, he said, " I am no longer at Berkeley, I am no longer just a graduate student, I now am a professor, I have a wife, I have a child, I have to provide for them, I am not going to get involved in this." So I will never forget that.

PVB (00:50:17):
I have managed to get involved for 40 years and I am still around and in next March I will have been married for 40 years. In L.A. you get to be in the Guinness Book of Records for that.

SM (00:50:27):
Wow, that probably is. What do you think of Reagan's war on students, that law and order mentality?

PVB (00:50:35):
That is how he got to be governor. He ran against me and my fellow students and Berkeley in 1966. That is what catapulted him to Sacramento, and then that is what catapulted him, unfortunately, into The White House. Now, people who say if it were not for the Free Speech Movement he would not have gotten there, I am not apologizing for anything. We had to do the FSM. The fact that Reagan was able to be a demagogue and to do that is a sad reality, but I did not make it happen, so I have no regrets about being involved as an activist. If he had not done it, somebody else would have.

SM (00:51:18):
I think Ronald Reagan heard about Ed Meese at that time, because he was the assistant DA of-

PVB (00:51:23):
I remember Ed Meese. I used to watch him when I was a young faculty member. He was Ronald Reagan's kind of field general. It was Ed Meese who was directing the kind of ground operations on the Berkeley campus. It was Ed Meese who directed... he was involved in the activity of the People's Park.

SM (00:51:47):
Yes, in (19)69. Yes.

PVB (00:51:49):
And it was Meese who directed the helicopters that made the first bombing of an American campus.

SM (00:51:56):
I interviewed him.

PVB (00:51:56):
Of teargas.

SM (00:51:57):
I interviewed Mr. Meese. I had a chance to talk to him, it was mainly I wanted to talk to him about the years before he worked for President Reagan in The White House.

PVB (00:52:10):
He was the prosecutor of the Free Speech Movement defendants.

SM (00:52:14):
Mm-hmm. Were you aware of any universities firing professors or purging so-called radical students from their campuses or any campuses in the late (19)60s and (19)70s?

PVB (00:52:23):
They were doing it, they are still doing it.

SM (00:52:23):
Because I know that, my first job was at Ohio University and they supposedly purged a lot of the students from the east off of that campus.

PVB (00:52:37):
I mean, they do not do it with quite the drama, but you have these events. I mean, you have these academic freedom cases every year. At Colorado, they got rid of Ward Churchill. I am no great fan, I must say, of Ward Churchill. I have signed all the petitions, because I think it was a pretty egregious violation of his academic freedom. I am not a great fan of the scholarship, but that notwithstanding, clearly, he was a victim of political persecution. At Bard College, President Botstein has fired Joel Kovel.

SM (00:53:16):
Oh, yeah. I remember hearing about that.

PVB (00:53:21):
And I think that is troublesome. I do not know all the details of that case, so I mean this kind of thing goes on and on and, as I said, when I have been the victim of that, I fought back. I mean, I have been fortunate that the nature of my teaching is such that I am always able to generate a huge amount of support from my student population, including, I might add, conservative students. I make clear my own leftist point of view, but my conservative students can speak any time they want and I will listen to them. I will not agree with them, but they are always open to say whatever they want in my classes.

SM (00:54:04):
Well, access to higher education is a major development in higher education during the (19)60s and (19)70s. And so, the boomer generation, like the GI Bill and the World War II generation really increased the numbers on college campuses never before. With access, including all ethnic groups, what new issues arose in your view, what were they in your eyes?

PVB (00:54:32):
Well, [inaudible] students, I mean, they were obviously... I mean, I think this is a good thing, but I would like to make higher education more accessible to larger numbers of people. One of the good things until there was a backlash for things like Proposition 209 is that we had increasing numbers of people of color, and they were obviously interested in learning more about their own tradition. Increasing numbers, especially in a place like California, for example, you had an increasing number of students of Latino cultures, and so that was good, it was a valuable thing for the curriculum. On the other hand, you still had a lot of students much more narrowly focused on job markets and more technical skills that would equip them for entry level jobs, and I think that that was short-sighted, as I talked about a couple minutes ago.

SM (00:55:32):
Being a lawyer, how important was the Bakke decision? I know that was at UC Davis and that was in the late (19)70s. That seemed to be an historic case.

PVB (00:55:44):
Well, it is interesting. I mean, in retrospect, I mean, nobody really liked the Bakke decision when it came down, but in retrospect, we would kind of like to have it now, because at least it will allow the use of race. It allowed Allan Bakke to go to medical school, I think at Davis.

SM (00:56:02):
Mm-hmm, yes.

PVB (00:56:04):
But now, I mean, it is hard to get to anybody. It has been a long time since I read the Bakke decision, but as I remember, the court said you have to let Allan Bakke in, but you can still use race as a legitimate consideration in making admission determination. So if we could go back to the Bakke decision, we would ironically be better off.

SM (00:56:29):
A lot of people did not realize it, and it was not really brought up, but he was a Vietnam veteran, too.

PVB (00:56:35):
I know it.

SM (00:56:36):
And the other thing, too, is what we also saw that is interesting in college campuses in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, is the many Vietnam veterans coming on campuses and the discrimination that they were facing. In fact, they were actually put into affirmative action plans back at that time.

PVB (00:56:53):
Yeah, I remember that. At Berkeley, we had a few. I did not have a lot of Vietnam vets at Berkeley. And even now at UCLA I get a couple of veterans. It is not a huge percentage. In California, I would think that a much larger number of the military veterans probably go to the California State University system.

SM (00:57:20):
Right. Would you say, and this is just my perception that another big issue from the (19)60s and (19)70s, as a result of student protests and certainly with what happened at Kent State is the issue of who can and cannot come on campus with respect to police. That was a big issue when I was at Ohio State University as a grad student. And we had legal aspects in higher education classes and these were some of the biggest discussions we ever had, is who can and cannot come on campus.

PVB (00:57:55):
It remains an issue. Kind of piggybacking on what I talked about earlier, they are very-very careful about bringing large scale police presences on campus these days, because it inflames students. They try to defuse incidents, but we have had them. I mean, even last November when we had the demonstration against the tuition increases, they brought in a huge contingent of California Highway Patrol. And then, it inflamed student population, so they... There is no doubt at a public university campus, I mean, they have the right to come to campus. The issue is not whether they have the legal right, but the propriety and the wisdom of bringing them on.

SM (00:58:53):
I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly and I know David Horowitz has also said this in his books, that the troublemakers of the (19)60s and the (19)70s now run today's universities. And then, they comment they run the women's studies departments, Black studies, gay and lesbian studies, Native American studies, Chicano studies, environmental studies. Your response?

PVB (00:59:17):
I think that is moronic. There is a need for all of these studies. These are whole areas that were historically neglected. David Horowitz is his own... In both cases, you really have to look at the sources. Phyllis Schlafly is an old-time reactionary, and extraordinarily difficult to take her seriously. David Horowitz is another interesting guy. I do not want to psychoanalyze him, but the temptation to do so is almost irresistible, coming as he does as a red diaper baby, who is trying to, basically, exorcise the ghost of his left-wing past. But on the merits, he is wrong. On the substantive merits, he is absolutely wrong. When you look at things like African-American studies and Chicano studies and you look over the past 35 or 40 years, there is an impressive body of scholarship and teaching that stands extraordinarily well on its merits. Now, it is absolutely the case that in the ethnic studies and women's studies curriculum, they are going to point out the existence of racism and sexism, because they exist. And that people who spend their time in scholarly investigation looking at race are going to discover racism, and those people who spend their scholarly lives dealing with gender, are going to discover sexism as an institutional component of American life. Mr. Horowitz does not want to acknowledge that, but that is his intellectual deficiency.

SM (01:01:17):
See, I interviewed Michelle Easton from the Clare Boothe Luce Institute, a conservative female, and she kind of agrees with that, as well. And she says, in some of these courses, women's studies, that they are never going to teach about Phyllis Schlafly, they are never going to teach about Clare Boothe Luce, they are never going to talk about conservative women. I made a comment earlier, they are doing exactly the same things that they complained about when they were students back in the (19)60s or (19)70s or whatever, so-

PVB (01:01:52):
I do not think they are. I think it is perfectly appropriate to teach about Clare Booth Luce, she was an important journalist, she was a congresswoman. I think you want to talk- She was a congresswoman. I think you want to talk about people who made a significant contribution, that would by definition eliminate Phyllis Schlafly, she is not an important figure.

SM (01:02:14):
Some people will say she is, because she single-handedly defeated the ERA.

PVB (01:02:19):
Yeah, I know. But, in the scheme of American and [inaudible] important figure. These are intellectual judgements we have.

SM (01:02:28):
Right. The problems we have just, I got a lot of questions here and you are doing great, because you are one of the first, along with Dr. Chickering and one other person, really talking about higher ed, which is important, because it is such an important part of the lives of Boomers and in that period. The problems that we have in America today, go back to the (19)60s and (19)70s. I say this, because in 1994, if you remember when Newt Gingrich came into power, he made some commentaries about that period of the (19)60s and (19)70s as to the reasons why America's in the shape it is in and he was referring to negative shape.

PVB (01:03:10):
Of course.

SM (01:03:10):
George Will, oftentimes lights to in his commentaries, take jabs back to that period. Even today, and I do not even watch Fox News, but I hear that former Governor Huckabee is constantly making comments, as is Glenn Beck and Hannity about general commentaries about that particular era in history and how it is negatively affected our society and still does today.

PVB (01:03:37):
There is absolutely no doubt that the (19)60s was a cultural and political and emotional divide. George Will is a thoughtful, intelligent guy. I disagree with virtually everything he says, although I like his writings on baseball. Very political. Glenn Beck is a comedian and is not worth talking about, because he is not a serious intellectual. Gingrich is an interesting, problematic person in his own right. He is not stupid. Beck is just an entertainer and he is real. We do make intellectual judgements, but let me talk about the deeper issue. The (19)60s was a profound divide. It changed our consciousness of America. There were a lot of people who wanted America to be what it was before then a Baskin for white middle class people with a deeply institutionalized sexism and racism. That was the America that they liked. That was the America that gave them the privileges that they enjoyed. And that was the America that we took on. That was the America that they enjoyed with Dwight Eisenhower. But the Eisenhower administration favored the wealthy. It was contemptuous of racial discord and it was contemptuous of the rights of women. And the (19)60s challenged all of that and I believe properly so.

SM (01:05:12):
Excellent response. When you look at the boomer generation, it is anywhere between 74 and 78 million people. In fact, I just read an article that boomers can no longer say they are the largest generation in American history. There are now more millennials than there ever were boomers.

PVB (01:05:32):
Yes. That is not surprising.

SM (01:05:35):
And because boomers, the most would be 78 million, we are already over 80 million for the millennials. But what I am getting at here is when you look at this boomer generation and you think of the boomers that you knew in many different capacities, and when I say boomers, I do not like to, some people have had some difficulty with the timeframes here, because I know from all the people I have interviewed that those that were born between 1940 and 1946, a lot of them feel they are boomers in the way they think and the way they act. You are dividing me from somebody else who is only two years younger than me. Come on. So I know what I am asking really is what do you think were some of the good qualities and bad qualities about the generation? Some people will not even answer this question, because I think it is too general.

PVB (01:06:31):
I mean, a lot of the people, I mean, I am right before the technical beginning of the boomers and a lot of the people came right after really were fundamentally part of (19)60s activist generation and for all of the flaws, and there were many, and for all of the kind of shrillness and the irrationality, it still made a major moral difference. It was people like that who were the foot soldiers in the most making the major moral transformation of our society, which was the civil rights movement. It was people of that generation, people of my age, people born right before (19)46 and right after, who were the foot soldiers who took to the street and who supplied the bodies in the most important moral crusade of the 20th century, the American Civil Rights Movement. So for that minority of that generation, without being chronologically precise, that minority of that age group performed a service for which America ought to be grateful for centuries to come. My view.

SM (01:07:47):
Could you list some of the contributions in your eyes at the boomer generations, its members? In society as a whole, both good and bad?

PVB (01:07:55):
Yeah, it is that minority that had a vision of morality and social justice that carried forth. It is that vision that has allowed people of color to live in this country with assemblance of humanity and dignity and which among other things, shortly after the highlight of that, that helped to end a grotesque war in Southeast Asia. The wrong side of the boomers, and again, without being chronologically rigid, is that many of those people fell all too easily into Reaganism, which may seems to be the worst example with the Reagan administration. It institutionalized selfishness, [inaudible], if I can point a word, where it said that, what is in it for me and to hell with everybody else. So the other side of that generation seemed to me to institutionalize a vision that all we care about is our own advancement, usually financial advancement and the hell with the welfare of the rest of the American population, really the hell with the rest of the human population. So it had the best and the worst.

SM (01:09:27):
That is kind of the Christopher-

PVB (01:09:27):
The latter is more than the former.

SM (01:09:32):
That is kind of that Christopher Lash talks about in the culture of narcissism. Yeah. I see there is a Bruin Alumni Association that is not an affiliate one that has a web page-

PVB (01:09:43):
No, it has nothing to do with the Alumni Association.

SM (01:09:45):
It talks about dangerous professors on campus.

PVB (01:09:45):
Yes.

SM (01:09:51):
And you are on that list.

PVB (01:09:52):
I am only on number 21. When that came out, I went to my students and I said that I regret profoundly that I did so poorly in the rankings. I had several months to see if I could elevate.

SM (01:10:06):
That is kind of the what a lot of people said when they were on Nixon's enemies list.

PVB (01:10:10):
Yes.

SM (01:10:13):
Some people said, "Wow, geez, I am hurt, because I am not on it."

PVB (01:10:16):
Right. The day that came out, I was teaching a very large class. I got a standing ovation.

SM (01:10:24):
Do you compare this at all, even in a small way, to the witch hunts by [inaudible] in the late (19)40s and (19)50s and looking at communists, McCarthyism in the (19)50s, attacks on the new left liberals, the Hollywood 10. Do you see even in the small way, a continuation-

PVB (01:10:50):
Yes, but in a very small way. Strictly minor league SD.

SM (01:10:56):
Right.

PVB (01:10:57):
Major league stuff. Strictly Bush League.

SM (01:11:01):
The new right really came to power in kind of the mid to late (19)70s in reaction to the new left and liberal groups active in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, the rise of Reagan was part of that, because the concepts of law and order, he did not want a welfare state. The kind of mentality where you lift yourself up by your own bootstraps and do not concentrate on the government.

PVB (01:11:27):
...yourself up by your bootstraps and also predisposes that you have boots.

SM (01:11:31):
Right. Good point. What are your thoughts on that rise of the right?

PVB (01:11:38):
I see that as a consequence of the cult. I see that as a consequence of Reaganism. For all of Ronald Reagan's crack pot economics, the more pernicious dimension of the Reagan era was the cultural consequence of selfishness, of narcissism, of this kind of contemptuous disregard of the marginalized population. It was Ronald Reagan, for example, who opened up the mental institution in California. It was Ronald Reagan who basically maligned for my view of any society is that the, well, the moral quality of any society is the way in which you treat the most disadvantaged. And the way America treats its most disadvantaged, it remains appalling to me.

SM (01:12:31):
Well, I know religious leaders became a very important part of this, whether it be Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell or Dobson. But when you see a Ralph Reed who has a PhD in history, who is so smart, I mean there were a lot of boomers who were part of this.

PVB (01:12:53):
I am sure. And they could always find people who can use the gospel. I mean, look, I am not religious. I mean, I come from a secular Jewish background, so I have no particular vision about the Christians whom I admire are people like Dr. King.

SM (01:13:16):
Right.

PVB (01:13:17):
For whom theology works for the betterment of the human condition and for people like Robertson and Buck [inaudible] and Reed, frankly, it strikes me that they are using theology as a cover for retrograde [inaudible]

SM (01:13:37):
Two religious leaders that seen, even though Billy Graham seems to be across a lot of currents and so does Father Sheen, the Catholic Church, they seem to be a little different, would not you say?

PVB (01:13:51):
Well, you mean Fulton Sheen?

SM (01:13:53):
Fulton Sheen, yes.

PVB (01:13:54):
Yeah. That goes back to the (19)50s.

SM (01:13:57):
Right. That is still part of boomers. When they were young, they saw these and-

PVB (01:14:00):
No, I used to watch them on television. I do not remember very much. He used to give these [inaudible] on television as a kid. I do not remember them specifically. Billy Graham has been around forever. I am no great fan of Billy Graham. I do not find him as reactionary as some of the other ones. But on the other hand, his palling around with all president will strike me is a bit of hollow.

SM (01:14:29):
Except Jimmy Carter for some reason.

PVB (01:14:31):
Yeah, no, I mean, but they share the born again vision. So there is not...

SM (01:14:39):
From your own life experiences and your knowledge of history through reading, describe what the following time periods mean to you. Since all these periods were at times when boomers have been alive and helped shape them and their multiple views on life. I have asked this to the last 50 some people that I have interviewed, and it has been very interesting what they say. This is just, when you look at this timeframe, what does this timeframe mean to you as a person, and what do you think it means to the generation that was growing up at the time and the period, 1946 to 1960?

PVB (01:15:18):
I found the, well that is basically 1946 to 1960, is the (19)50s, and I found that repressive. I have very vivid recollection. I remember the witch hunts. I was talking to my students yesterday. I teach at the summer course and I am using George Clooney's goodnight and good luck about Edward [inaudible], whom nobody had ever heard of until I mentioned. And I remember the Army McCarthy hearings, I remember the malevolent gaze of Joe McCarthy and his detestable sidekick, Roy Cohen. I remember the less than pleasant days of the Eisenhower administration. So I have very negative feelings about the (19)50s. I actually wrote an article many, many years ago about the (19)50s called Not So Happy Days, the Politics and Culture of the (19)50s. So I have very negative views, because it seemed to me that it was not happy if you were African American or poor or a woman, a variety of other people on the periphery of society.

SM (01:16:28):
What did you think of the TV of the (19)50s? Because when I think of the (19)50s, I think of Howdy Doody. I think of the Musketeers, Mickey Mouse Club. I think of Walt Disney, Ed Sullivan Show, a lot of comedy sitcoms, half hour shows, a lot of-

PVB (01:16:48):
I remember Westerns. I grew up in a very politically conscious and very politically critical family. So I was imbued with that. The only thing that I liked on television in the (19)50s was sports, baseball, football.

SM (01:17:04):
How about the period 1961 to 1970?

PVB (01:17:08):
I love the (19)50s and I am critical of its excesses, and I am critical of those people who said that they were involved in the (19)60s when they were young, and now they have matured and become mature. I think that is nonsensical. I am an unapologetic defender of (19)60s activism is pretty heard so far. Now, I think the (19)60s were one of the moral highlights of a relatively recent American history, especially the civil rights struggle, and especially the proceed to end what I think to be a monstrous war in Vietnam.

SM (01:17:50):
The period 1971 to 1980.

PVB (01:17:53):
Well, there was still a lot of activism in the early part of the (19)70s, and I supported that. I knew many of the people as the civil rights movement, for example, transformed from the kind of nonviolent civil rights movement to Black power. I understand that. And I was actually very supportive of the Black Power Movement. I retained a lot of associates and friendships with people who were involved in Black power, and I think that was very important. And in the early part of the decade, the anti-war movement accelerated. The war of Vietnam did not end until Gerald Ford withdrew American forces in 1975. So the first part of that was still part of the (19)60s. The latter part coincided with a much more passive era. Even though Jimmy Carter was president, it was moving toward the kind of passivity and narcissism of the Reagan era. My vision of the latter part of the Sotheby's becomes much more critical.

SM (01:18:59):
Yeah. Let me go right into that, 1981 to 1990.

PVB (01:19:03):
Not a particularly pleasant time. I mean, that was the era of Reagan, and that was the time where Reagan used his sometimes a very persuasive to communication power to malign and disparage. Before that was when he was utterly indifferent, for example, to people with aids. Not a pleasant time in our national history. And I am confident that few historians who validate my vision.

SM (01:19:37):
How about 1991 to 2000?

PVB (01:19:39):
And I think it continued. I am not, I mean on some levels things got a little better with Bill Clinton, but I am no Clinton fan.

SM (01:19:52):
Is there anything that stands out in that (19)90s that...

PVB (01:19:55):
No. I think on some levels, domestically things got a little better, but Clinton really continued the same irrational Cold War policies that actually were initiated under Eisenhower. I did not like his foreign policy adventures. I did not actually, this has to be apart from a lot of my colleagues on the left. I did not like his personal immorality.

SM (01:20:22):
And the one thing, he seemed to be very close to African-Americans, though.

PVB (01:20:30):
That is the popular view. I dissent when people said that he was the first Black president. His actual policies seems to me worked against the interest of the African-American population. I think he was particularly good with his rhetoric, but there is an enormous gap between his rhetoric and the day-to-day policies.

SM (01:20:53):
Where is this gap?

PVB (01:20:55):
No, I am not a Bill Clinton fan. I do not like what he stands for. I think that basically the Clinton influence in American life is a negative one. And I am in the minority on the left on this.

SM (01:21:10):
Where was that gap you mentioned? You can give an example of the gap?

PVB (01:21:13):
Yeah. He cut welfare payments, which I would not do, but I am unambiguously in favor of Democratic socialism still.

SM (01:21:25):
How about if-

PVB (01:21:25):
I was in Washington DC, I had about a 10-minute conversation with Ralph Nader, whom I like enormously. He would be worth interviewing, if you can get to him.

SM (01:21:39):
He is a tough man. He is never around.

PVB (01:21:39):
I know.

SM (01:21:41):
The last one of course is 2001 to 2010.

PVB (01:21:45):
Well, we will see. We will see. I mean, the Bush arm was grotesque. I mean, the worst president, arguably one of the worst presidents in our national history.

SM (01:22:02):
Let me change my tape here. Hold on. Very good.

PVB (01:22:09):
An absolutely horrible president, a horrible administration. A disaster will take generations to recover from his grotesque adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SM (01:22:23):
What about Barack Obama? Just your first-

PVB (01:22:25):
See, I am increasingly disappointed with Obama.

SM (01:22:32):
So the judgment is out on him. It is too early, so to speak.

PVB (01:22:37):
It is still too early, but I am not happy with the trajectory. I would like him to be much more vigorous. A lot of people in the left, feel that way. I am hardly unusual.

SM (01:22:47):
Would you say that if you talk about this 10 years between 2001, 2010, it is all about 911? It is terrorism? That is the-

PVB (01:22:55):
Yeah, I mean, there is no doubt. I mean, 911 was horrible. No humane human being can say anything other than that. It was horrible. I mean, Al-Qaeda and their operatives are mass murderers. Nobody could defend that, indefensible. And if somebody were to capture and kill Bin Laden, I would be perfectly ecstatic. But look at what has happened. There was this kind of hysteria about terrorism that can have catastrophic consequences for civil liberties. I mean, in the wake of 911, we passed this grotesque Patriot Act. Horrifying, in my view, as a civil libertarian.

SM (01:23:41):
Did you experience the generation gap in your family between your parents and yourself or any of your brothers and sisters? Was there any-

PVB (01:23:52):
Not really.

SM (01:23:52):
Did you witness the generation gap amongst any of your peers and their family?

PVB (01:23:56):
Not especially. I am the oldest of five. There is a 19-year difference between me and my youngest sister. We are all politically progressive, although I have always been the most active, and maybe that is the first child syndrome. I have always been the most verbal.

SM (01:24:15):
Did you see that there was the generation gap between the World War II generation and the boomers?

PVB (01:24:21):
Yeah, I respect the World War II generation, but I do not romanticize them. I think [inaudible] broke laws rhetoric about the greatest generation is overblown.

SM (01:24:35):
Some people have also said that we concentrate too much on the generation gap and the battles between parents and children. But we do not talk about the generation gap within the generation, which is between those who went to Vietnam or served in the military during this timeframe and those who evaded the draft.

PVB (01:24:57):
Yeah, there was that. And I regard myself as a Vietnam vet. I fought the war. I would not have served in Vietnam. I think it was a grotesque score. I got a high draft number. So I was lucky I would not have fought that war. It was monstrous. Whenever I go to the Vietnam wall in Washington, and I certainly empathize with the people who lost relatives, and it is very touching and very moving to see that. But it is a horrible war. I would not demonize people who went and I would not spit on them or call them baby killer. But we should not have fought that war. We should not have fought in Iraq and should pull out of Afghanistan.

SM (01:25:43):
James Fallows-

PVB (01:25:44):
Very much, I mean, my views, they are minority views. Not North Vietnam, but certainly with Afghanistan. But large numbers of Americans feel the same way that I do.

SM (01:25:57):
Yeah. James Fallows has written years back, the writer for Atlantic Monthly, that he was in Harvard at the time, that he feels real guilty and has been honest about evading the draft and not protesting the draft, because a lot of those students evaded the draft, but put no effort into protesting against the war. And so there is some lot of issues there. So do you see any different-

PVB (01:26:24):
I have no such issues. I would not have fought in that warrant. I protested it.

SM (01:26:28):
Were your thoughts on those who went to Canada?

PVB (01:26:31):
I understand it. I would not have done that. I am an American. I belong here. I was born here. I have lived here. I am critical of my country. Therefore, I want to work assiduously to try to change it.

SM (01:26:48):
Yeah. I think Dr. King used to always say that if you need to not worry about being arrested when you protest, because that is part of the game, and those people, that is the nonviolent protest.

PVB (01:27:02):
Right.

SM (01:27:02):
And he always stressed that. And so those who did alternative service and did not go to Canada and some went to jail, like David Harris.

PVB (01:27:12):
Exactly.

SM (01:27:13):
And served time. Those people seemed to be admired more. Those who did alternative service and went to jail and then those who evaded the draft or went to Canada.

PVB (01:27:24):
Or who, I mean, I am in a different category. I fought the war in Vietnam from the time of the Gulf of [inaudible] in summer of 1954 until the final withdrawal in 1975. I was always outspoken against the war, 11 years.

SM (01:27:46):
Well then you are part of that then. In your opinion, what is the major event or happening that shaped the entire generation of 74 million? Is there one event that you think shaped it more than any other?

PVB (01:28:00):
There is too many. I do not think historically you can name one. I mean, obviously young people today in college, they all remember 911. But look, I remember, everybody remembers where they were when Kennedy was assassinated. But that could be overblown. It is too simplistic. It is really a complex of events that give rise of the ones individual events can help you locate a conscious, but it is individual psychology and human history are more complex.

SM (01:28:40):
We are is a follow-up. Maybe you will have the same answer. When did the (19)60s begin in your eyes and when did it end?

PVB (01:28:47):
The (19)60s began, I do a course in this and I date it on December 1st 1955 when Rosa Parks got arrested, or you could date it on May 17th 1954 when the Supreme Court handed down Brown v Board of Education. And it ended largely when President Ford withdrew the troops in Vietnam. So somewhere in the mid-(19)50s to the mid-(19)70s.

SM (01:29:18):
Wow. April 30th 1975.

PVB (01:29:20):
Yep. So around then.

SM (01:29:22):
Do you think this-

PVB (01:29:25):
Basically 20 years.

SM (01:29:26):
This may be a repeat of the earlier question, but was there a watershed moment or you just cannot say?

PVB (01:29:31):
I cannot really say. There were too many events and I was involved in too many of them.

SM (01:29:38):
Do you think a quality that this generation has is a quality that they do not trust?

PVB (01:29:46):
Hard to know. I mean, one of the things that I am sad to say it that I see among my own students is a reluctance to take risks. And I am bothered by that. Even at the interpersonal level. I see too many young people, some of who are kind of reluctant to do anything that would be risky. They are afraid of the consequences. And I sometimes looked and said, my god's going to be afraid to do it at 21. What the hell are you going to be like at 40?

SM (01:30:22):
Right. Do you feel that the issue of trust is an issue within the boomer generation that has a lack of trust in leaders? Because so many lied to the boomers as they were growing up, and they were given lies in terms of why we got involved in Vietnam. We had the Watergate-

PVB (01:30:42):
They say that. I hear that a lot. I wonder however, whether there is so much of that is just a rhetorical cover. I am not sure how deep that really goes. I mean, every generation gets lied to. Political leaders always lied, endemic of the operations.

SM (01:31:10):
Would in response... I do a follow-up to this question. That is, when you think of a lack of trust, you really think of liberty and the definition of liberty. That was a political science major and well and history major. And one of the first thing things you learn in political science is that trust and lack of trust is a very positive quality in a democracy, because that means you do not trust your government, keeps them on their toes. And the dissent is alive and well in a democracy. Do you agree with that?

PVB (01:31:38):
No, that is good. I mean, one ought to be skeptical. But one ought to be skeptical when people say they are doing it for your own good. And you should say, show me that it is for my own good. Explain that further. Now I have, as a teacher, my job is to try to tell my students or urge them to be a lot more skeptical of authority wherever they encounter it. At home, at school, at both at the micro and macro level politically. Democracy requires skepticism.

SM (01:32:19):
Where were you when you heard President Kennedy was assassinated? Do you remember the exact moment?

PVB (01:32:25):
Yeah, I was an undergraduate. I was just kind of walking and somebody said, they said like many other people, I did not believe it, until actually until everybody started buzzing about it.

SM (01:32:39):
Were you at the Berkeley campus?

PVB (01:32:40):
No, I was in San Diego. I went as an undergraduate at San Diego State.

SM (01:32:46):
So you heard of it just walking across campus?

PVB (01:32:48):
I was on campus. It was between classes.

SM (01:32:51):
And did you go to-

PVB (01:32:55):
I remember sitting down with a friend, we were kind of joking about something, having nothing to do with that. And some professor-

PVB (01:33:03):
...about something having nothing to do with that. And some professor came and started ... gave us a really dirty look. And I could not figure out why the hell was he this off with us, but I had not heard anything. We were outside. We had no, people were not wired up. And [inaudible] 63.

SM (01:33:18):
Did you?

PVB (01:33:23):
I think he was pissed off that we were joking, but we did not know anything. I would not joke about something like that.

SM (01:33:29):
Did your class continue or was it canceled?

PVB (01:33:33):
I think it was canceled.

SM (01:33:35):
And were you like many that just watched TV all weekend or?

PVB (01:33:40):
Yeah, I watched it. I watched it all the way through. I watched it incessantly. I watched Oswald being assassinated by Jack Ruby.

SM (01:33:46):
Yep. And you probably remember the announcers.

PVB (01:33:51):
Yep.

SM (01:33:52):
Tom Petit.

PVB (01:33:54):
Yep.

SM (01:33:54):
And Ike Pappas.

PVB (01:33:56):
Yep.

SM (01:33:58):
They have both passed on now. But those are the ones, NBC and CBS.

PVB (01:34:03):
It was incredible.

SM (01:34:04):
Yeah. Another important question here. Do you mind if we go over a couple minutes here? Because we are going over? Sure. Because I got, I have got the civil rights questions here. But this is a question I have asked everyone, all 170 people, a question that our students came up with when we took a trip to Washington DC in the mid (19)90s to see Senator Edmund Muskie. We had a leadership on the road program through Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin, and we set up about nine meetings with senators, and this was our last one. And he was not very well. He had just gotten out of the hospital. And the question the students came up with, because they knew that he was the vice president of candidate in 1968 when all that terrible thing happened there and all those tragedies, assassinations that year. So they wanted to know, number one, were we close to a, they wanted to ask him, were we close to a second civil war in 1968 due to all the divisions? And secondly, do you feel that because of all the divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war and against the war, those who supported the troops or against the troops, and they brought in all the burnings of the cities in the (19)60s, and Watts and the burnings after Dr. King died and the assassinations. Do you think that this generation, because of all these terrible things, is going to go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? And so they wanted a response from him, I will tell you his response after I hear yours.

PVB (01:35:44):
No, we were never close to a civil war. The Civil War was really a major division about states’ rights and slavery. We were in a period of great turmoil and tension, but nothing qualitatively similar civil war. But many of the tensions remain unresolved. I mean, I still think that many of the tensions that existed forty-something years ago remain. We still have racism, we still have sexism. I am extremely close to the African-American community, and I know definitively that they still see racism very pervasively in American society, notwithstanding that Barack Obama is black. And a lot of these tensions are going to remain unresolved. And a lot of people, especially the generation before me, are going to die with a lot of unresolved issues. And I am not sure that they will be resolved in my own lifetime. But it is not a civil war, and it never was, was not even close.

SM (01:36:54):
Do you think that there is a problem with healing within any segment of the boomer generation or as a whole?

PVB (01:37:08):
Yeah, but it is not... I mean, time heals. Time itself works. I mean, it has an effect though, on the rougher edges, but I am not sure. I do not want a cheap healing and I do not want closure, and I do not want healing unless there is resolution and resolution in certain directions. I do not want healing without... I do not want to heal unless the underlying issues are resolved. I do not want to heal if there is still racism or there is still sexism or homophobia. I do not want to play kumbaya if we still have these problems. I would rather have tension and discord.

SM (01:37:57):
That is an excellent response because Senator Muskie did not even respond about 1968. He mentioned nothing in his reply. It was simple and direct. He said, "We have not healed since the Civil War because we have not healed over the issue of race." And then he went on to describe the North and the South and all the divisions, and that is all he said. And he did not even mention... and he had just seen the Civil War series on TV in the hospital, the Ken Burns series, and he said, "Ask yourself this, young people. Almost 430, 000 people, men, died in that war. Almost an entire generation was wiped out in the south." So ask yourself, the issue of race. He said that... he actually had tears in his eyes when he was talking to us. He had said nothing about the (19)60s. So that is how he responded. What has the wall done, in your opinion? Have you been there? You already said you have. What was the first response to the black granite wall about a mile in? What came to mind when you first saw it [inaudible]

PVB (01:39:03):
Oh, I have seen it a dozen times. It is tremendously moving. What makes it such a remarkable piece of public art is that it allows people of both sides, the protagonists who fought in Vietnam and people who fought against the entire war like me, to stand in the same space and to share their... well, not to share, but to experience their own private emotion. I mean, the people who lost people, you can see them rub the names. But people like me stand there and I see the 58,000 and odd names of people, and I think what a tragic, tragic waste.

SM (01:39:46):
See, I think maybe I should have rephrased the question. I have said this to other people when I talked about healing, is really... has the healing truly happened between those who went to war in Vietnam and those who were the anti-war movement?

PVB (01:40:00):
Probably not. But I think the edges are off as we have gotten older. But I really think that the issue, I agree with Senator Muskie, the issue of race is a deeper divide. When Dr. Dubois in 1903 wrote that race is the defining issue of the 20th century, it remains so.

SM (01:40:24):
I know Jan Scruggs, the founder of the Wall, wrote that book To Heal a Nation, which you probably read because he wanted to heal the veterans. And I know it has done a great job for the veterans and their families, which was...

PVB (01:40:36):
It is very important for them.

SM (01:40:37):
But they still have a lot of healing to do. You just see when you go to the wall.

PVB (01:40:39):
There is no doubt.

SM (01:40:41):
But he wanted to heal the nation. So I do not know if that that is going to be possible by...

PVB (01:40:46):
It is not going to be possible. I think the edge is off, but it is not going to heal. Life does not work that way. And I do not know that healing is in the way in which that is expresses ability [inaudible] desirable.

SM (01:41:03):
You are a scholar and you have obviously not only written great books, but you have read great books. What are the books that most influenced you as a scholar, as a thinker? People that have written books that you may have read in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, or even through today that are truly inspirational?

PVB (01:41:29):
I have read so much, and I mean, I think about that, but I have... at this juncture of my life, I have read so much. I mean, there are books that are profoundly influential. I just got done teaching Camus' The Plague, which is to me tremendously influential, it is a novel of resistance. And if there is any word that I would summarize what I have tried to do with my, not just my adult life, but with my life in general, it is resistance. It is to resist what is wrong, to resist illegitimate authority. And Camus' novel is a novel of resistance, and I have taken that to heart. I read that as a young undergraduate and I have taught it for 35 years. And I keep changing my reading list, I have been doing that for 42 years. That is the really the only major exception. It has been a constant.

SM (01:42:32):
Well, that is good. Because you-

PVB (01:42:33):
I never tire of it.

SM (01:42:35):
Hey, you are changing it around. You are not doing the same thing every year. That is good.

PVB (01:42:38):
No, I change it all the time, but not that, I weave that in somewhere kind of once a year and I never tire of it. And the students never tire of it.

SM (01:42:47):
Two books that I really liked when I was in grad school, and again, I had interviewed Daniel Bell, so he is 92 years old, I was lucky to get an hour with him. But Bell, I mentioned these two books, The Making of a Counterculture by Theodore Roszak.

PVB (01:43:03):
I used to kind of informally debate Roszak.

SM (01:43:07):
Yeah well that was, well, I tried to get him to be interviewed, but he was not well, he is not well now, so.

PVB (01:43:13):
He has got to be in his seventies.

SM (01:43:15):
Yeah, he is retired and I do not know if he is fighting cancer. I do not know what it is, but I just know he is not well, and he said he did not have the energy to talk for a half hour on the phone. And the other one was Charles Reich's The Greening of America. I do not know if you know it.

PVB (01:43:31):
Oh, that was all part of the whole counter culture.

SM (01:43:33):
Right.

PVB (01:43:34):
Yeah, I remember all that. That was big at a particular moment.

SM (01:43:39):
And Erickson wrote some great books too. And Kenneth Keniston and yeah.

PVB (01:43:44):
Exactly. What is Charlie Reich doing these days, is he still around?

SM (01:43:48):
My understanding is he is like disappeared. He left, I guess he left Yale a long time ago. Lives in the Bay Area. I guess he is, hibernating. I do not know. He is just like doing nothing. I guess he is retired and I do not know what he is doing.

PVB (01:44:03):
Yeah, he would be in his seventies as well.

SM (01:44:05):
Yeah. Now this is the area that I think you will have the greatest enjoyment in responding, because actually what is interesting, you do not know anything about me, but African American history and issues dealing with African Americans is the center core of my life as well. You are a senior lecturer of African-American studies at UCLA, and you understand the history and the culture of the civil rights and civil liberties. Could you comment on these African-American leaders that were important during the lives of Boomers? And I got a list here, you may have others, but these can just be brief comments on people. My advisor was Dr. Roosevelt Johnson, who was my graduate school advisor at Ohio State. And you can go on the web, see Dr. Roosevelt Johnson, he has a big practice in just outside Washington DC. But he was a great inspiration and he brought us into prisons and got us involved in issues dealing with African Americans. It is just like, and I have been reading ever since, and Dr. King is my hero, and in many respects. First person to respond, just a few comments on Malcolm X.

PVB (01:45:18):
I am an enormous admirer of Malcolm X, especially near the end of his life, that remarkable transformation when he moved from a more narrow based Islamic identity with the nation of Islam into a much more, much broader vision of humankind. I think his assassination in 1965 was a horrible tragedy. I liked his vision of universal human brotherhood and black militancy, which he was able to fuse tremendously.

SM (01:45:53):
But do you believe that when he has had that slogan by any means necessary, did he mean violence?

PVB (01:45:59):
If necessary, I have no problem, I am not a pacifist, so I think that appropriately conceived the violent response can be legitimate. Nelson Mandela realized that during the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, when with some reluctance, he decided that they had no choice except to move to the armed struggle.

SM (01:46:20):
I know Malcolm had a big debate with Bayard Rustin on that.

PVB (01:46:25):
I am an admirer of Bayard Rustin, but I am not a pacifist. Bayard Rustin was. He was an official, the fellowship of reconciliation.

SM (01:46:34):
And he is from Westchester, right where I live.

PVB (01:46:37):
Yeah. Now he is a very important figure. My students have never heard of him.

SM (01:46:42):
Dr. King and Mrs. King. I want to include both of them.

PVB (01:46:45):
Yeah. They were tremendous. I mean, arguably Martin Luther King is one of the great human beings of the millennium. I mean, there is no doubt. I mean, and certainly America's greatest orator, and Coretta another extraordinary human being, no doubt. I mean, unbelievably powerful. I was there when he spoke at the march on Washington and I-

SM (01:47:13):
Wow, you were there?

PVB (01:47:15):
So I was there. It was when we were in Washington for the spring quarter. My wife and I walked there and I showed exactly where I sat when he gave the speech.

SM (01:47:26):
Wow.

PVB (01:47:27):
I am a tremendous admirer of him. I have [inaudible], his letter from the Birmingham Mail was one of the great militant civil rights document ever. His pilgrimage, that nonviolence is important, and I disagree with it. I prefer Malcolm's view on the necessity of violence, although I prefer to avoid it.

SM (01:47:54):
How about John Lewis?

PVB (01:47:56):
One of the great men, I mean, and he is still at it as a congressman in Georgia, wonderfully eloquent. He just gave a speech the other day when he looked in Congress in the house, when he said he was speaking to the Republicans, do not you people have a heart? There are people out there who need their unemployment insurance. Wonderful man.

SM (01:48:20):
He spoke at Kent State, and I was there recently, and I interviewed him for my book. I brought him to Westchester when we did a tribute to Bayard Rustin as well. Julian Bond?

PVB (01:48:31):
I have known Julian. I was a SNCC worker when he was the office manager. Wonderful, wonderful man. Unbelievably eloquent as a speaker. I had the good, the privilege when he was our guest at UCLA. I interviewed and I introduced him at a big public speech. I have known Julian for 40-some years. Tremendous. I admire verbal eloquence, and he has it. And his writings are tremendous. He has done tremendous writings on all kinds of issues that go far beyond Rice alone.

SM (01:49:11):
He is also the voice at Kent State when people do the tour now.

PVB (01:49:15):
Oh, he is the greatest.

SM (01:49:16):
At Kent State site. James Farmer?

PVB (01:49:19):
James Farmer, the former head of CORE. I heard him a dozen times. He faded into historical obscurity. But should not, he was an unbelievably eloquent man. He was in a Louisiana jail. He was the only major civil rights speaker during the march on Washington.

SM (01:49:37):
Yes. We had him on the campus. A lot of these people I have met myself. A. Philip Randolph?

PVB (01:49:46):
One of the iconic figures. I have written at length about A. Philip Randolph, the major figure that merged the civil rights and the labor movements.

SM (01:49:59):
And I think more students need to know about him, because when I mention his name, people say who?

PVB (01:50:05):
I know.

SM (01:50:05):
Where have they been?

PVB (01:50:09):
I have a class, I have a history of social protest movement, and I had 330 and last four. And when I mention Randolph, I think two or three heard of him. That is typical.

SM (01:50:23):
How about Roy Wilkins?

PVB (01:50:25):
A very important figure, too moderate from my perspective, too wedded to the more legalistic tradition of the NAACP, but certainly very important. But during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the NAACP was among the more conservative forces in the Civil rights movement. And Wilkins classically in that tradition, but certainly he devoted his whole life to the movement, and one has to give him huge credit for that.

SM (01:50:56):
Whitney Young?

PVB (01:50:58):
Even more so. He was the head of the Urban League, but he and Wilkins were on the conservative wing of the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, Whitney Young was a trained social worker and kind of therefore less given to the kind of confrontation on the street. I worked with SNCC, and SNCC was the youngest group, and I shared that to you. Still do. But I like free confrontation.

SM (01:51:30):
How about Ralph Bunch?

PVB (01:51:33):
Bunch is an iconic figure. I mean, I work in the Ralph Bunch Center for African American Studies. An extraordinary diplomat. One of the early PhD scholars, political scientists, and I know all about Ralph Bunch, he is an extraordinarily admirable figure.

SM (01:51:54):
Rabbi Hesburgh?

PVB (01:51:57):
You mean Theodore Hesburgh?

SM (01:51:58):
Theodore, yeah, Theodore Hesburgh.

PVB (01:52:00):
He was the president of Notre Dame.

SM (01:52:02):
No-no-no. I mean the Rabbi. I thought it was Hertz. I thought it was Rabbi Hertzel or the Rabbi that-

PVB (01:52:14):
Hertzel. No, Hertzel is the Zionist leader.

SM (01:52:16):
I got the wrong name, then.

PVB (01:52:18):
Rabbi [inaudible].

SM (01:52:21):
I thought it was Rabbi Heschel. I thought it was Rabbi.

PVB (01:52:24):
Oh, Rabbi. Oh yeah.

SM (01:52:25):
He was with Dr. King on many-

PVB (01:52:27):
Absolutely very important voice for Jewish voice of social activism and justice. Very, very important. Abraham Heschel.

SM (01:52:37):
Yes. That is my mistake. I apologize. Fannie Lou Hamer?

PVB (01:52:42):
One of the great figures, her leadership in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and an orator and a singer, an iconic, iconic woman. I have been teaching her and about her forever.

SM (01:53:01):
How about Ella Baker?

PVB (01:53:03):
Another one. She was one of the, it was she who broke, she did not break from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, but she was one of the kind of originators of SNCC, very important figure. And again, representing the historical contributions of women in the Civil rights Movement. She needs to be much more well-known than she presently is.

SM (01:53:28):
The people that really were to the side of Dr. King at all times. You had Jesse Jackson. You had Ralph Abernathy.

PVB (01:53:38):
Absolutely.

SM (01:53:39):
And you had Andrew Young. Those three seemed to always be with him.

PVB (01:53:44):
They were always there. I mean, I met Ralph Abernathy. Dr. King sent Ralph Abernathy to our home during the Lebanon crisis.

SM (01:53:55):
Of course, I got Paul Robeson here, and I think you have already mentioned about-

PVB (01:53:59):
And I thought mean he really is the iconic figure long before the modern Civil Rights Movement. I only regret that contemporary African-American leaders do not pay homage to Robeson, John Lewis being a conspicuous exception.

SM (01:54:17):
When you think of the athletes of the period that boomers have been alive, like you think of Muhammad Ali.

PVB (01:54:26):
Ali is a wonderful guy and very political.

SM (01:54:30):
You think of Jackie Robinson, who certainly opened up the color line.

PVB (01:54:35):
No doubt. I mean, Jackie Robinson was a hero to everybody. He was certainly, in terms of his athletic prowess and his real commitment to civil rights, he was no Paul Robeson, of course.

SM (01:54:49):
Kurt Flood is someone who never is talked about, but I think he is very important.

PVB (01:54:54):
Absolutely. Broke the reserve clause.

SM (01:54:56):
Yeah, and you are the first person I even mentioned him. We seem to forget him, and I think people need to know more about him, about his life.

PVB (01:55:06):
I think.

SM (01:55:08):
Yeah, and certainly the Tommy Smith and John Carlos.

PVB (01:55:14):
That was the moral highlight of the modern Olympic movement, that moment in Mexico City. A wonderful moment. It drove a lot of Americans crazy. I thought it was terrific.

SM (01:55:27):
How about Dr. Harry Edwards, who was part of that?

PVB (01:55:34):
Well, I, Harry, I knew very well when we taught at Berkeley together. I think Harry played it incredibly.

SM (01:55:40):
He has also disappeared. You call the college and they do not have any forwarding address to him.

PVB (01:55:46):
I know, he is around though.

SM (01:55:49):
Do you know his website or?

PVB (01:55:51):
No, I do not, but I can get that for you. He was our speaker at the Bunch Center in May. Now, I always go to, we have an annual Thurgood Marshall lecture. The only reason I did not go was that I was teaching in Washington DC in the University of California, Washington Center.

SM (01:56:09):
Okay.

PVB (01:56:10):
Or otherwise I would have gotten together with Harry. [inaudible]

SM (01:56:12):
Good. If you have his email address, I would appreciate it. I brought him to Westchester quite a few years back, and then I have lost touch with him.

PVB (01:56:23):
When I go in tomorrow, I will try to get it. Email me tomorrow and I will try to forward that to you.

SM (01:56:28):
Super. How about the Black Panthers? And I say this specifically because you cannot just talk about them because of the unique personalities. I am going to mention the personalities and then your comments. Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge [inaudible] We will go with Stokely.

PVB (01:56:45):
He was terrific. I never knew him. I saw him occasionally, once or twice in the SNCC office. Very important, taken with himself to be sure, but did a marvelous job. And he was the bridge between the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. And it was he who came up with, I think, was not it, he who came up with black power as a slogan?

SM (01:57:11):
I think so, yes. Yeah, Eldridge Cleaver.

PVB (01:57:16):
A tragic figure. I remember when he wrote Soul on Ice, and I actually did have a couple of conversations with Cleaver. I knew a number of the Panthers in Oakland when I taught at Berkeley. Cleaver became, I mean, a caricature of himself at the end.

SM (01:57:36):
I know he became a strong conservative at the end.

PVB (01:57:41):
He became a conservative. He became a Mormon. He became whatever he became.

SM (01:57:45):
He was living on the street too, I think.

PVB (01:57:47):
And he was viewed as an embarrassment in the black community.

SM (01:57:53):
Kathleen Cleaver.

PVB (01:57:55):
I talked with Kathleen a couple of years ago. She is teaching law at Emory and occasionally at Yale. She continues to do good work.

SM (01:58:04):
And of course, H. Rap Brown is in jail the rest of his life.

PVB (01:58:07):
He is in prison in Georgia. Another kind of tragic figure. I never knew him.

SM (01:58:14):
Fred Hampton.

PVB (01:58:15):
Well, I mean, that is one of the great martyrs of the infamous J. Edgar Hoover.

SM (01:58:23):
And then Huey Newton and Bobby Seal.

PVB (01:58:26):
Well, they were very important. My parents knew Huey. I never did, they are very important. Also, Bobby is still around. But he, last I heard, he was in Philly.

SM (01:58:40):
Oh, no. He is not in Philly anymore. He lives in California.

PVB (01:58:42):
Oh, he is back in California. Huey was a tragic figure, but very important at a particular moment in time.

SM (01:58:51):
And Angela Davis, who was not a Black Panther.

PVB (01:58:54):
No, but she, I think she is retired from Santa Cruz, but her writings are terrific. I gave a speech from the spiral steps at Berkeley when Ronald Reagan fired her from UCLA. and I was involved, and I signed a million petitions to free Angela, and I have spoken to her. I do not know her well, she is really [inaudible] born (19)43 or (19)44.

SM (01:59:20):
George Jackson was symbolic of all the prisoners.

PVB (01:59:23):
Oh, he was killed in San Quentin. And I mean, I followed that case.

SM (01:59:30):
How about Robert Moses, who was so important in SNCC?

PVB (01:59:34):
Tremendously important. Because you are almost saint like in what he did. He is still around teaching mathematics.

SM (01:59:39):
Yep. Thurgood Marshall?

PVB (01:59:43):
A judicial giant. Another Thurgood Marshall on the court.

SM (01:59:52):
One thing I always thought, when I thought of Malcolm, and I think of the Black Panthers, people are very critical of the direction because they challenged Dr. King and Bayard Rustin on nonviolent protest. But Dr. King challenged Thurgood Marshall because even though he liked Thurgood and was very proud of what he did in getting the Brown V Board of Education decision through the Supreme Court, that was a challenge because Dr. King used to say, I want it now. I do not, we are not going to wait any longer, and we are not going to have the gradualist approach of a Thurgood Marshall. So maybe this-

PVB (02:00:30):
No, but Thurgood Marshall also was not a gradualist. There was a wonderful love that... Marshall was a very, very fine lawyer, and that was the legal wing of the movement. And he was tremendously courageous in developing all the legals that culminated in the Brown decision.

SM (02:00:52):
James Meredith?

PVB (02:00:54):
Another interesting figure. I mean, it was very important for him to do all of that at the University of Mississippi. I do not know what finally happened to him. He must be in his (19)70s now.

SM (02:01:05):
He became a conservative too.

PVB (02:01:07):
Yeah. Well.

SM (02:01:08):
Nothing wrong with that, but just surprising.

PVB (02:01:11):
But he did mean it was important for him to challenge. I mean they precipitated those riots in Oxford.

SM (02:01:18):
Then of course, Medgar Evers?

PVB (02:01:23):
Oh, I think I had the same feeling when Evers was shot in the back that I had to the Kennedy assassination. That gives you a sense of my reaction to Medgar Evers.

SM (02:01:38):
Have you been to Arlington?

PVB (02:01:38):
Not, I was there for three months. I did not get to Arlington.

SM (02:01:45):
Medgar Edwards is buried there.

PVB (02:01:47):
Yeah, I know. Because he was a veteran.

SM (02:01:49):
Yeah, he is over in an area by himself near a tree as you would walk over to the Iwo Jima statue.

PVB (02:01:55):
Yeah. An extraordinary human being.

SM (02:01:57):
Emmett Till, that was a tragedy.

PVB (02:01:59):
Well, I mean, I remember that as a child. I mean, I talk about that and about the state against [inaudible], and that was an iconic moment. That was one of the catalysts in the Civil Rights Movement. That was one of the points of origin for the (19)60s.

SM (02:02:17):
And then of course, Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman, which.

PVB (02:02:19):
Yeah, of course. And I was driving that way a couple of, the three, four weeks around, not on the same road, but the same general area for [inaudible]. And it dawned on me that what happened to them could have happened to me.

SM (02:02:35):
And just quick responses to these terms. You do not even, Freedom Summer, which was (19)64. There is a book on that.

PVB (02:02:42):
Yeah, no, I remember it. I was in the Civil Rights Movement, but not specifically a part of Mississippi Freedom Summer. Very-very important in the movement.

SM (02:02:50):
Of course, the March on Washington (19)63. But a lot of people forget that there was another one in 1957 that Dr. King was at, which was smaller.

PVB (02:02:58):
No, I know. I mean, tremendously important in the modern civil rights movement. I mean, anybody who was at Washington in August of(19) 63, that will be one of the highlights of their lives. It certainly is for me.

SM (02:03:13):
Orangeburg?

PVB (02:03:15):
Orangeburg, South Carolina?

SM (02:03:18):
That was where the killings were.

PVB (02:03:20):
Oh, yeah. No, I know about it, but vaguely, I do not know enough that at this juncture to comment on it.

SM (02:03:27):
Jack Bass wrote an article on it, a book on it. Selma and Montgomery.

PVB (02:03:32):
Those were tremendously important. I mean, Selma, it was Jim Clark, the [inaudible] racist Sheriff. And these were all very vital parts of the movement. And there were examples of racist violence against the nonviolent protestors of the movement.

SM (02:03:55):
And of course, Little Rock Nine.

PVB (02:03:57):
Oh, I mean that, it was the little rock crisis that got [inaudible].

PVB (02:04:02):
It was the Little Rock crisis that got Levittown out of the news because it was just a couple, it was just a month after the Levittown crisis. But that was another one of the precipitating events. And there you had the legal defiance of Wabufarbus.

SM (02:04:20):
Then you had the church bombing that killed the little girls, and I know that that in that inspired Angela Davis.

PVB (02:04:26):
Horrifying.

SM (02:04:29):
And then of course, I have here the trip to Mecca, which was Malcolm's important trip. What do you think would have happened if he had lived? Because of course you cannot, just so you can say the same thing about John Kennedy. Maybe we would not have gone into Vietnam, but guess-

PVB (02:04:44):
We can. No, I think Malcolm would have grown into a leader with the eloquent stature of Kin.

SM (02:04:55):
Your thoughts on the Black Panthers again, do you think they were a violent group?

PVB (02:05:01):
Oh, they were undercurrents of violence. I think they were in the aggregate, sincerely committed to Black liberation. You read their ten point platform, their statement of principles perfectly acceptable. I still would like to see them implemented. I have essentially positive thoughts about the Panthers. I do not want emphasize them, but I think in basically positively about the past.

SM (02:05:33):
There were other groups that went violent. We all know about SDS and the Weathermen. We all know that a lot of people thought the demise of SDS was because of the Weathermen, the violence.

PVB (02:05:49):
SDS finally spun out like a tornado. The Weathermen were lunatic. They were romantic revolutionaries in a society that was never a revolutionary society.

SM (02:05:58):
Well, even in the American Indian movement in 1969 when they took over Alcatraz.

PVB (02:06:03):
Alcatraz, I remember that as well.

SM (02:06:05):
Then that went to violence at Wounded Knee by 1973. That kind movement kind of was set back for a while.

PVB (02:06:14):
No, I mean, I am in favor of carefully constructed defense of violence. The violence for the sake of violence strikes me as falsely stupidness strategically put into effect.

SM (02:06:25):
Yeah. I think the Young Bloods, the Chicano Movement kind of foul the Black Panthers too in some of their events. Describe in your own words the connection of the arts to politics and society.

PVB (02:06:37):
Well, that is what I write about. I have become one of the, it is fair to say that I have become one of the major scholars on political art. I really believe that art plays an integral role in the overall struggle for social justice. And that is what I have been, and I have a lot of parts of my personality and my life, but I have been documenting political arts for 40 years.

SM (02:07:14):
Could you give some examples of that? In the (19)60s, the art and the connection to social issues.

PVB (02:07:23):
There were literally hundreds. I mean, there were Vietnam, there were artists against the war in Vietnam. People, even iconic figures like Ben Shahn and Jack Levin and George Segal, they all did artworks against the war. They used their considerable skill to say no, and this is ongoing, and this is what I do every day. And in recent years, I have been documenting African American artists who have been upfront in the struggle against racism.

SM (02:07:57):
Can you describe about photography and the importance of that?

PVB (02:08:01):
The importance of photographers in the United States, for example, have played a key role in highlighting social injustice from the time of Jacob Rees and Lewis Hein all the way through the thirties. But the Farm Security Administration like, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shaw himself was a photographer. And especially Gordon Barks, the first African American to do that. So they all use their camera to say, look, America, this is what is really going on. And they continue to be the eye of hunt.

SM (02:08:41):
Would you say the Marian Anderson experience in Washington with Eleanor Roosevelt was a major happening in the area of civil rights in America?

PVB (02:08:52):
Without doubt, without doubt. I have talked about the 1939 concert for as long as I can remember. And when I was in Washington with a great deal of internal soul-searching, I finally walked into the DAR Museum. It took a lot of internal fortitude for me to finally go into that building.

SM (02:09:17):
Yeah, that took a lot of courage on the part of Mrs. Roosevelt, too.

PVB (02:09:21):
Tremendous.

SM (02:09:21):
She quit the organization.

PVB (02:09:23):
No, I know all about those events.

SM (02:09:27):
Well, since you are talking about The Yards, and we mentioned 1950s TV. I was born after World War II, but the thing that amazes me as a young boy, I saw Amos and Andy and was on TV and was on all the time, and it was funny. But now when you reflect upon it, that was about the only African Americans that were on TV in the (19)50s, except for Nat. King Cole who had a show in the mid-(19)50s for a short time.

PVB (02:09:57):
The Amos and Andy was the classic example of African American characters. I mentioned it to my students regularly. I mean, I have childhood memories of it.

SM (02:10:09):
And do you remember that period when Nat King Cole was on for a short time and then it was canceled and it was a great show? And then in the early (19)60s, what is amazing is, and I remember this clearly. There were four shows with African Americans, and I remember reading an article in a magazine saying, they are going to take over the television. And this is early (19)60s. Diane Carroll was in a TV show was a nurse, Flip Wilson had his show, and then Bill Cosby was in I Spy, and there was one other African American that was in another TV show, and the commentary was, they were going to take over television.

PVB (02:10:50):
Sure. Just like they are going to marry your sister.

SM (02:10:52):
Yeah. Are there any movies that you feel were the best movies for the Boomer generation today? On CNBC, they got what they consider the 50 top movies for the Boomer generation. I thought that was interesting. I was looking at, you can even go to it.

PVB (02:11:11):
I would have to look at it. There is so many.

SM (02:11:13):
When you think of the (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s and (19)80s, are there any that stand out to you that really, if you saw it, you knew this was the era?

PVB (02:11:30):
Oh God, I would have to go back. Dealt with so many films. I do film courses. I woud really have to look at it. There is some really powerful works. I mean, I am about to show, I do not remember when it came out but I am about to show the Boomberg kind of anything by Costa Gavras was tremendous. I am about to show Missing. About students about Chile. And then certainly right in that period, because you have the American inspired overthrow of the Allende government in (19)73. There is so many. There is just a remarkable number of powerful films. But of course, most films are just entertainment.

SM (02:12:14):
Yeah. Well, I tell you, when I saw these films today, I can still see them knowing that that is when I was young. Like the Graduate and-

PVB (02:12:22):
Oh, I know. Everybody has saw that.

SM (02:12:23):
Easy Writer and Zabriskie Point.

PVB (02:12:27):
I remember that too.

SM (02:12:28):
Bob Carroll, Ted and Alice, which I think was a corny film.

PVB (02:12:32):
Yeah. Zabriskie Point was with Antonioni, I think.

SM (02:12:36):
Yeah, I know. Shaft was really a movie that.

PVB (02:12:40):
That was Gordon Parks.

SM (02:12:41):
Yeah, that was a very, the Cat, the movie Fritz the Cat, which was a controversial movie in the early (19)70s.

PVB (02:12:47):
I remember, but it was rated X.

SM (02:12:50):
And the Marlon Brando, The Last Tango in Paris. That was during the sexual freedom of sexuality kind of thing. And so there are many more. All right, let us see. I am getting down here. I am down to the last little section here, if you do not mind. These are just, you are still there.

PVB (02:13:13):
Yeah.

SM (02:13:14):
These are just quick responses. You do not have to go into any length on some of the personalities beyond the African-American personalities. Just quick responses to these names or terms. Tom Hayden.

PVB (02:13:25):
Oh, I have known Tom, not well. Another very important figure. He has been at it his whole life, both as an agitator and then later as a legislator.

SM (02:13:36):
Jane Fonda.

PVB (02:13:38):
Yeah. She did good work. Mean she broke up with Tom, but she was out there. A good example of a celebrity who is also political.

SM (02:13:51):
Attica.

PVB (02:13:53):
Well, that was extraordinarily important because it got America to understand what was going on in America's prisons.

SM (02:14:01):
And then what is really sad here today is a brand-new book out. You have probably seen it about Jim Crow in America Today. All you have to do is look at our prison system.

PVB (02:14:10):
That is exactly, because that is what it is.

SM (02:14:12):
Yep. San Quentin. I say that because that is where Angela Davis and George Jackson were.

PVB (02:14:19):
Yeah, no, I know it. I mean, I have been on demonstration assembly at that-

SM (02:14:25):
Alcatraz, which is the Indian takeover.

PVB (02:14:27):
Exactly. Another remnant of America's ridiculous prison history.

SM (02:14:33):
Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy.

PVB (02:14:36):
Well, they were martyrs of the (19)60s. I mean, I am not a particular fan of either, but they were martyred.

SM (02:14:47):
LBJ and Hubert Humphrey.

PVB (02:14:49):
Tragic figures. I mean, Johnson was very good domestically, but a failed president because of his growth test score in Vietnam. And Humphrey was just a wacky tragic figure. I did not vote in 1978 and I refused to vote for him, and I have no regret, no apology.

SM (02:15:08):
Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.

PVB (02:15:11):
Well, they were both wonderful anti-war figures. I voted for McCarthy in the primary and McGovern in the General Election.

SM (02:15:21):
Richard Nixon and Spiro Wagner.

PVB (02:15:24):
Monstrous figures in American political life. Nixon horrible and Agnew, a caricature of himself. And I used the word advisedly. A fascist.

SM (02:15:41):
Yeah. Well, he made some pretty hob nobs and whatever called else.

PVB (02:15:43):
Negative makeup, whatever the hell it was.

SM (02:15:44):
Robert McNamara and Henry Kissinger.

PVB (02:15:48):
Well, McNamara is a tragic figure. I mean, he later recanted. You see that the documentary about his work has been sad, but he still was one of the architects. Kissinger strikes me as a war criminal.

SM (02:16:04):
Ronald Reagan and George Bush the first.

PVB (02:16:10):
Both pernicious influences. Reagan even more so, especially because people liked him because of his genial personality. But I have to add that he is not universally loved. People say, oh, Ronald Reagan. That is not the case when you talk to people in the African-American community.

SM (02:16:31):
Or people in the gay and lesbian community.

PVB (02:16:33):
Absolutely. Absolutely.

SM (02:16:35):
In fact, I have interviewed some people that actually, one cried on the phone.

PVB (02:16:40):
Absolutely. Especially with his contemptuous indifference to the AIDS crisis.

SM (02:16:46):
One thing about George Bush the first, is the fact that he is the one that said the Vietnam syndrome is over. I think he will be remembered more for that than no more taxes. What did you think?

PVB (02:16:58):
He probably will. I mean, he will come out better because of the malevolence and stupidity of his son.

SM (02:17:05):
Yeah. How about Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter?

PVB (02:17:08):
Both mediocre presidents. I mean, Ford was well-meaning, so was Carter. Carter's actually wound up being a much better ex-president.

SM (02:17:20):
How about Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower? Harry Truman was the first president for Boomers. So-

PVB (02:17:26):
Yeah, it is true. I mean, in retrospect, they are both good. I mean, Eisenhower, in retrospect is a flaming liberal. And his last comment about the Military Industrial Right Flex is still very significant. By today's standards, bright Eisenhower would be a moderate Democrat.

SM (02:17:47):
What is interesting, if I was a fly on the wall, I would have liked to have been there before John Kennedy and Eisenhower got into that car on an Inauguration Day because it is my understanding that a lot of things that President Kennedy was asking was about Vietnam. And if Eisenhower had just made a mention, I think you need to get out, boy, would life have been different?

PVB (02:18:08):
Could have changed the course of our history.

SM (02:18:10):
Yeah. Again, Bill Clinton and George Bush II.

PVB (02:18:14):
Well, I have already told about.

SM (02:18:15):
And President Obama too.

PVB (02:18:18):
And I am not a fan of Clinton for reasons, but I have already-

SM (02:18:21):
How about the women leaders, which is the ones that stand out? Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug. So they are different personalities, but-

PVB (02:18:31):
No, they are very different personalities. I am a great fan of Bella. I think her history goes deeper because beyond being a feminist leader, she was one of the courageous lawyers who defended people who were called before the House on American Activities Committee. So Bella goes back a long time. But Betty Friedan and the other one is Steinem. Which one?

SM (02:18:56):
Gloria Steinem.

PVB (02:18:57):
Oh, Gloria Steinem. They are very-very important. I mean, they help the catalyze, the women's movement, and we are all better off because of feminism.

SM (02:19:05):
How about Anita Bryant?

PVB (02:19:08):
Better to be forgotten. As I have forgotten footnote at a moment in time.

SM (02:19:14):
George Wallace.

PVB (02:19:17):
George Wallace was just another demagogue and horrifying race. I saw him standing in the doorway to find a federal order.

SM (02:19:28):
Dr. Benjamin Spock.

PVB (02:19:30):
Good man. I do not know about his pediatric work, but as a peace leader, wonderful man.

SM (02:19:38):
Daniel and Philip Berrigan?

PVB (02:19:41):
Very good. They represented, in my view, the best of the Catholic tradition.

SM (02:19:46):
Since we are talking about the Catholic Church, I had not mentioned this before, but Father Hesburgh was a real leader in that area.

PVB (02:19:52):
Absolutely.

SM (02:19:53):
Yeah. And he is the real deal. What? They cannot get another president like him at Notre Dame. He is like, oh, Mount Rushmore type person. Dr. Timothy Leary.

PVB (02:20:05):
Oh, strange guy. I used to have conversations with him in Berkeley. I am not big on drugs. That is where my friend Paul Krasner and I part company a little bit. I am very skeptical of the drug culture.

SM (02:20:20):
Well, so am I. And people cannot believe I went through SUNY Binghamton, which where everybody smoked pot and everything.

PVB (02:20:25):
Yeah.

SM (02:20:27):
I refused. I am never going to say I did not inhale because people were smoking in everywhere, But I never even took drugs. Ever.

PVB (02:20:37):
I have smoked pot a couple of occasion. I did not like it, particularly.

SM (02:20:42):
Your thoughts on the beats. Some people think the beats were very important in this anti-establishment mentality.

PVB (02:20:48):
They were the precursors to a lot of the activism of the (19)60s. As a literary movement, they are very important. People like Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti and others. I had a couple of conversations in Berkeley, with Allen Ginsberg same with Ferlinghetti and San Francisco. Very important. Ferlinghetti is still around.

SM (02:21:11):
Yeah, I know. He has that bookstore in San Francisco. And he like Ginsburg and Cassidy and Kirouac, Ferlinghetti, Waldman, Snyder, and Leroy Jones.

PVB (02:21:21):
And he is still around? He is-

SM (02:21:23):
Yeah, he is Amiri Baraka. Yeah. But-

PVB (02:21:26):
I like him. I have talked to him. I have been on the same program with him. He [inaudible]. He can be a pain in the ass, but he is made very important contribution.

SM (02:21:37):
Well, he is not available for interviews. I know that. Just your thoughts on the whole concept of the Cold War.

PVB (02:21:43):
That was so [inaudible] That molded our whole childhood. I mean, I was a child of duck and cover, except I refused to duck and cover, and I was sent to the principal.

SM (02:21:56):
How about the Korean War? What role did that play in, if any?

PVB (02:22:00):
It was there. I was too young to remember it actively. I remember when it ended. I only have fleeting memories of it. I remember it, but not as vividly as perhaps I should have.

SM (02:22:16):
How about the young Americans for Freedom, which was the conservative group that-

PVB (02:22:20):
No-no-no. I always knew the offers. I thought they were ridiculous.

SM (02:22:24):
They started at William Buckley's home, and he is my next person. William Buckley and Barry Goldwater.

PVB (02:22:30):
Goldwater. Buckley is obviously intelligent and a decent representative of the conservative tradition. So I mean, worthy of intellectual debate, unlike an Ann Coulter. Goldwater, in retrospect also would find himself in the left wing of the Republican Party.

SM (02:22:54):
I find it ironic that he is the man along with Hugh Scott that went to tell Nixon to resign.

PVB (02:23:02):
I know it.

SM (02:23:04):
What an irony that is. And then the whole concept of communes.

PVB (02:23:12):
Well, I remember that. I mean, that was part of the counterculture. I mean, I certainly have no objection to people doing that. It is not compatible with my personality. I must go individualistic. I could never live in a commune.

SM (02:23:26):
How about the Woodward and Bernstein changing?

PVB (02:23:29):
They did good journalistic work, no doubt. I mean, they helped expose Watergate.

SM (02:23:35):
And Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.

PVB (02:23:38):
Very important at a moment that galvanized American knowledge of the underlying realities of Vietnam. So Goldberg, I am glad he did what he did, and I am glad that the Supreme Court allowed that to be published.

SM (02:23:54):
Tet-

PVB (02:23:56):
Who?

SM (02:23:57):
Tet And Vietnam.

PVB (02:24:01):
That was the comic guide that occurred in 1968. Turning point.

SM (02:24:06):
Yeah. That was the Gulf of Tonkin guide that ended the war and totally.

PVB (02:24:10):
And that was the turning point. And we ought to have realized that. And we ought to have gotten out, but we did not.

SM (02:24:16):
How about Hugh Hefner?

PVB (02:24:18):
Oh, Hefner. I mean, he hangs around LA in his pajamas and takes Viagra. He probably was important in breaking down some of the sexual repression. But what can I say? And he, he has done good work in the advance of the First Amendment. So that is a good thing. Playboy's a ridiculous magazine. And the Playboy clubs are horribly sexist.

SM (02:24:49):
Watergate.

PVB (02:24:51):
Oh, very important. Because it showed the pervasive criminality of Richard Nixon and his cronies.

SM (02:25:00):
And John Dean.

PVB (02:25:02):
John Dean has turned out to be quite a good guy. I mean, incredibly perceptive commentator. And he had the courage to come forward before the Irving Committee.

SM (02:25:14):
LSD.

PVB (02:25:17):
Overrated. I think it destroyed a lot of lives. If LSD can be used in a very controlled therapeutic way, fine. But I think that Leary and his colleagues unleashed hidden ways that had detrimental effects for thousands of people.

SM (02:25:40):
All right. The last question I have is, he, is the question of legacy. When the best history books are written, normally that is 50 years after an event, and I am going to paraphrase it. Say a hundred years from now and when the last Boomer has passed on. For people that have any memory of living at this time or have shared from people that are older about this time, what do you think the books are going to say about this generation that was born after World War II and some of the events that took place?

PVB (02:26:16):
I think that they are going to say that those members of that generation who reflected the activism of the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, made significant contributions to America. If indeed we still have a world that has not been blown up or has not been so environmentally degraded that we still have a planet.

SM (02:26:42):
The Boomers right now, the oldest is heading towards 64 years of age, and oh, the youngest is heading towards 48.

PVB (02:26:50):
I know it.

SM (02:26:50):
And obviously, most people have said those people that were in the first 10 years are a lot different than those in the last.

PVB (02:26:57):
They are.

SM (02:26:57):
Second 10 years, but they are really approaching senior citizen status and I know that a lot of Boomers do not like that term, senior citizen. And so in a lot of buildings, they are getting rid of it. And I know AARP is considering not saying senior, because a lot of the Boomers do not like it. Your thoughts, we are talking about Boomers now that have about 20 to 25 more years of life if they have been taking care of themselves. What do you think they will do in old age?

PVB (02:27:27):
I do not know. I mean it is unique to the individual thing. I mean, I have no idea. There is so much over this genetic roulette. I think about that a lot at sixty-seven. I have no idea how long I am going to live. I run every day and I eat well, but I have no idea because my grandparents were all murdered in Auschwitz. So I do not know. Well, I know what I want to do. I want to keep working.

SM (02:27:53):
I know when we had Tim Penny on our campus, the former congressman from Minnesota, we had him at Westchester University when he rewrote a book called Common Sense in the (19)90s. I asked him to be interviewed, and he has gotten too big now. He did not want to be interviewed. But when he came to our campus, he said that the Boomers, which was his generation, have made a major mistake they had not saved. He said the average, when he was on the campus tonight, the average Boomer had about between five and $10,000 in savings in the bank.

PVB (02:28:33):
Yeah, that is going to be a problem. I read or I saw today on the Today Show that a very large number of them are going to outlive the resources. That is a major problem.

SM (02:28:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

PVB (02:28:44):
My generation, I do not know that I can generalize. And I probably can. I know that a lot of people whom I know are slightly older than the Boomers have been much more fiscally moved.

SM (02:29:00):
He said the reason why he left Congress was to try to make more money, because he had a lot of kids. He could not make it on 125 or whatever they made their foot, which is a pretty good salary back then.

PVB (02:29:12):
If I had ever made 125, I would have done just fine.

SM (02:29:15):
But he said, your comment on this, I will never forget it, and I wanted him to respond to this, but he said, the Boomers are going to be broken down into three areas. There is going to be one third that are going to be very well off, very rich, and they will be able to do anything they want to travel, no matter what happens. Then there is going to be one third that are going to live in poverty, total poverty. They will have nothing. And then there will be one third in the middle, that will be having a very hard time because they will just be getting by. They will be able to survive, but they will be just beginning by, so he said basically two thirds of this, 74 million.

PVB (02:30:00):
Really marginal.

SM (02:30:01):
Oh, yeah. And of course, what has happened to a lot of Boomers is the economy has destroyed many of their, no, I mean, it is beyond their control.

PVB (02:30:13):
No, I know it. And there is nothing they can do about it. It is not their fault.

SM (02:30:17):
It is almost as if now that Boomers have to continue to work, just like students in college have to continue to work. It is the same kind of thing. And some Boomers may be working until the day they die.

PVB (02:30:28):
I know it. I am the last generation to get through the fine pension.

SM (02:30:35):
Is there any question that I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask?

PVB (02:30:40):
No-no. I think we have covered a lot, but if you have any more, just give me a call. I am around.

SM (02:30:45):
Very good. Well, that is it.

(End of Interview)

2010-02-12

Stephen McKiernan

Paul Von Blum

150:50

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

Audio

College teachers; African Americans—Study and teaching; University of California, Los Angeles; Von Blum, Paul--Interviews

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