110
10
1775
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1960's - present
Title
A name given to the resource
Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings
Subject
The topic of the resource
Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings
Description
An account of the resource
Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=MyInstitution&vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&mode=basic&offset=0&conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email: <a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta
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Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
1 sound disc
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
57:53
Streaming Audio
Streaming URL
<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE149354">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE149354</a>
Accessibility
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Graduate recital, May 10, 2009
Recital Tape 2009-5-10
Description
An account of the resource
Works of Rameau, Rossini, Thomas, Strauss, Ives. Held at 7:30 p.m., May 10, 2009, Fine Arts Room 21.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moots, Jonathan
Schum, Jody
Lundy,Barbara
Tayga-Hromek, Hakan
Moots, Jonathan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-05-10
Rights
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In copyright
Type
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sound
-
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147a1ef67b326a29bbcc90a2b61e5183
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7f3cfb56f18f9ca647d33cc4a9588db9.mp3
9000e28556d66ccfa32bb4a0aeebb96f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Holly Near
Date of Interview
2009-05-15
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
114:37
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Holly Near, born in Ukiah, California, is a singer, songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist. She was on various TV shows including the Mod Squad, Room 222, All in the Family, and The Partridge Family. Near is founder of an independent recording label called Redwood Records. She was recognized for her work as in social change by receiving honors from the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Organization for Women, NARAS, Ms. Magazine and the Legends of Women's Music Award. She attended UCLA for a year, then moved to New York to study vocal music and dance."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Holly Near, born in Ukiah, California, is a singer, songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist. She was on various TV shows including <em>The Mod Squad</em>, <em>Room 222</em>, <em>All in the Family</em>, and <em>The Partridge Family</em>. Near is the founder of an independent recording label called Redwood Records. She was recognized for her work as in social change by receiving honors from the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Organization for Women, NARAS, <em>Ms. Magazine</em> and the Legends of Women's Music Award. She attended UCLA for a year, then moved to New York to study vocal music and dance.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Anti-War Activism; Baby boom generation; Generation Gap; Nineteen sixties; Abbie Hoffman; Jerry Rubin; Richard Nixon; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; John F. Kennedy; Robert F. Kennedy."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Anti-War Activism; Baby boom generation; Generation Gap; Nineteen sixties; Abbie Hoffman; Jerry Rubin; Richard Nixon; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; John F. Kennedy; Robert F. Kennedy.</span>
Subject LCSH
Singers; Songwriters; Actresses; Political activists--United States; Near, Holly--Interviews
Accessibility
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Holly Near
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Near, Holly ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Singers; Songwriters; Actresses; Political activists--United States; Near, Holly--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Holly Near, born in Ukiah, California, is a singer, songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist. She was on various TV shows including <em>The Mod Squad</em>, <em>Room 222</em>, <em>All in the Family</em>, and <em>The Partridge Family</em>. Near is the founder of an independent recording label called Redwood Records. She was recognized for her work as in social change by receiving honors from the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Organization for Women, NARAS, <em>Ms. Magazine</em> and the Legends of Women's Music Award. She attended UCLA for a year, then moved to New York to study vocal music and dance.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-05-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.140a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.140b
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2018-03-29
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
McKiernan Interviews
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
114:37
-
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f106037500b185d02f99a83345bc68e1
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/409574f0375b627e5b55c6e953d48be7.mp3
b589ffdf58b1f2e7361af161c57c7497
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2009-07-06
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Hettie Jones
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Hettie Jones is the author of 20 books but is best known for her memoir of the Beat Scene. She started the literary magazine Yugen, has taught writing at SUNY Purchase, Penn State, the University of Wyoming, and is one of the faculty members in the graduate program for creative writing at The New School in New York City. She has been chair of a plethora of writing programs and has received grants to start a writing program in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Jones received her Bachelor's degree in Drama from the University of Virginia and pursued her postgraduate work at Columbia University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":4527,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,5099745],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"15":"Arial"}">Hettie Jones (1934-2024) was the author of 20 books but is best known for her memoir of the Beat Scene. She started the literary magazine <em>Yugen</em>, has taught writing at SUNY Purchase, Penn State, and the University of Wyoming, and was one of the faculty members in the graduate program for creative writing at The New School in New York City. She has been chair of a plethora of writing programs and has received grants to start a writing program in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Jones received her Bachelor's degree in Drama from the University of Virginia and pursued her postgraduate work at Columbia University.</span>
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Beat Generation; WWII; Art expression; American Art; Literature; Women; Sex; SDS; Baby boom generation; Atomic bomb; Freedom of expression; Hippies; Trust."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5041,"3":{"1":0},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Beat Generation; WWII; Art expression; American Art; Literature; Women; Sex; SDS; Baby boom generation; Atomic bomb; Freedom of expression; Hippies; Trust; Beats; Seventies; Sixties; Fifties; War; Writing; Writers; Students; Activism.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
105:31
Subject LCSH
Authors; College teachers; Jones, Hettie--Interviews
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Hettie Jones
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Carrie Blabac-Myers
Date of interview: 6 July 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
00:09
SM: Still there? Hello, Hettie?
00:18
HJ: Are you there?
00:19
SM: Yep, I am here.
00:20
HJ: Okay. I do not know which phone is better, but I am just going to try them all out. Sometimes it is so difficult, and they are doing something to the street, you know, this is just an incredible area for change.
00:35
SM: Right.
00:36
HJ: But I have closed the windows and hopefully they are on a break. They started this I think at seven o'clock this morning doing something in the street, you know, and jack hammers
00:48
SM: Ah, yeah, there is a lot of that going around here. Not near me but road construction.
00:55
HJ: That is the way it is. Okay, well, I am trying this phone. Can you hear me well enough?
00:59
SM: Yeah, yep, I can hear you.
01:01
HJ: That is good. Okay.
01:02
SM: All right, let us start. The first question I wanted to ask is, when I met with Dr. Marilyn Young, the historian at New York University, maybe five, six years ago, and I asked the question, when did the (19)60s begin and she said, the (19)60s began with the Beat writers. And I think I mentioned this to you on the phone too, or in my letter, she is the only person that ever said that and all the people I have interviewed. Of course, she is a great historian. What do you think she was talking about when she said the (19)60s began with the Beats?
01:39
HJ: Well, because the (19)60s began with the television exposure and the media exposure. Do not forget that was just about the time, that television was growing into it as a medium for the dissemination of information. Before that, it was just sort of game shows and roller derby and just comedy and stuff like that. It was not a very serious thing. Yeah, they had the news but, the Beats somehow were well, I believe there were two things that I can think of: Jack Kerouac appeared on television, reading his poetry. And, what else was the other thing? Life magazine published an article about the Beats. So that these two small things, you would think small, things have made a big change. We were a very, very small group as I have written, you know. Everybody fit into my living room and it was not a very large living room. But then when we moved to a larger space, suddenly there were all these, well, I can only describe them as "wanna beats". And, the whole, the whole idea of rebellion had exploded, the whole idea of forging ahead with your own life and not conforming had made its way into the culture. And then there was suddenly hundreds of people doing that! And you know, in the later (19)60s, because of the Vietnam War and everything, people, young people felt that they could speak out. The threat of, I guess the silence that was imposed on the populace during the Second World War "Loose lips sink ships." You are not old enough to recall that, but I remember posters and things like that. So we were all expected to conform and to go live in the suburbs and be quiet and build peace and have a lot of children to replace all the people that died in the war. But suddenly it was not like that anymore. So that is why I believe it began, and we were a role model for people.
04:28
SM: I was looking up in a book, like four qualities that were described for the Beat Generation, which was, these qualities were: Eastern spirituality, alternative forms of sexuality, experimentation with drugs, and a rejection of a mainstream American values. And when I see that being described for the Beats, that is a lot of what happened in the counterculture in the (19)60s. That when you have the, the Beats, maybe the counterculture was the follow-up to those qualities in the in the (19)60s. Could you comment on those four qualities?
05:13
HJ: Well, you know, you are talking about everything except art. You are talking about everything except writing.
05:20
SM: Right.
05:21
HJ: So the Beats were writers. But they, if you want to include the entire Bohemia at that time, the abstract expressionist painters, the jazz musicians who were changing things. I think we were all interactive with one another, and it was more than lifestyle changing and more than attitudinal changing. It was really the Beats challenged the expected established ideas of what was American art. And you know, everybody knows that art goes before social change, it points the way to social change, points the way to real estate! Art is there, that is why they call us avant-garde! You know. And so, those four points that you mentioned, I would associate so much more with the people who came after us. The hippies, because, we were not; yes, we were doing that, all the points you mentioned it, but our focus was mainly on the commentary and the challenge to the culture that writing, that the writing brought, I think. But yeah, I guess certainly you know, they took the ball and ran with it. But they ran with it; the experimenting with drugs, for example, the only reason we did that was to achieve a higher consciousness and not for quote, unquote "recreation." And, I think it just had, it just had a little segue there into let us get, you know, who was it who used to say? Let us all get stoned, whatever that whoever made that, I forget! [laughs]
07:39
SM: Might have been Tim Leary. Who knows.
07:41
HJ: No, I think it was maybe Bob Dylan. [laughs]
07:44
SM: Yeah.
07:45
HJ: Do not forget, Bob Dylan was around in the village and if you read his autobiography, he attended LeRoi Jones' plays, he read On the Road. Yeah, he was very much influenced.
08:04
SM: When you talk about the arts here, obviously the arts of either the great writers of the Beats in the (19)50s and early (19)60s, and of course, they continue to write throughout their entire lives and are continuing to do so. But when you look at the, maybe some of the artists that came up in the (19)60s, or early (19)70s, whether they be musicians or painters, who would those that influenced the boomers. Who would? Who would they be?
08:33
HJ: Well, you know, it is hard for me to really project. I am not an historian and you know, I specialize in having a Zen mind. It is a blank mind so that I can write.
08:46
SM: Right?
08:47
HJ: So when I am thinking back into history, as to, I am not a critic, who influenced whom, I would still have to say, you know, thousands of people and billions of people read On the Road. Young black people have read or heard about or saw LeRoi Jones' plays. I think some of the women, but women were not really in the mix so much, but who else? Allen Ginsberg, of course. You know, millions and millions of people here and overseas listen to Allen and his rants. He was probably the most influential of anybody, and everybody wanted to "Mola Mola", you know. Turn over the establishment. Rail against war. Do this, do that. But they felt free to open their mouths because of those writers, I think.
09:58
SM: One of the things here, I put these thoughts down regarding the (19)50s. What were the circumstances in the late (19)40s and (19)50s that created the Beats and influenced the early lives of their children? Which are boomers. I put down some of the things that I would remember if I was just an elementary school kid from the (19)50s. President Eisenhower and his smile, the Space Race, Sputnik, Castro and (19)57, Khrushchev, Hungry in 1956, the Berlin Wall, parents had jobs that were secure, parents wanted to make sure that their kids were protected and they had more than when they grew up in the Depression. Moms were at home taking care of the kids and dads were always at work. And there was a seeming respect for authority. And certainly the term Communism was popular, was around at that time and of course McCarthyism, he was trying to find scapegoats and we all know that there is still a lot of segregation in the South. Just your thoughts on those qualities that obviously affected the Beats. They were commenting on them.
11:17
HJ: Well, we were running from them and, and doing whatever we could to set them aside and to try to invent a new life. You know, personally. I guess I experienced every single thing that that you have just listed and, my whole attitude was that I would just going to invent a whole new way to become a woman. From the clothing I wore, to my attitudes about being free to be a sexual being. Yes, certainly. I was in opposition to all of those, but I was not necessarily willing to engage all of those things that were in place. Because if you spend your time fighting, what is the established rule in every aspect, then you are just fighting and fighting, but you have not invented anything new. So my attitude and they attitude of all of the Beats that I knew and particularly women was simply go it alone or find kindred spirits, if you could, which we did a few of us. Just invent a new way of life by embarking on one and going forward rather than forever issuing challenges.
12:59
SM: Hettie, you bring up an important point, because when, when a lot of people think of the (19)50s, the (19)60s and early (19)70s, they see men always in charge of movements. And what was interesting is even when you look at the women's movement, and you study the history of it in the (19)60s, and how women were tired of being second figures and a lot of the anti-war and civil rights and all the other movements, that was when the Women's Movement really came to fruition. But what you are saying is there was a lot going on in the (19)50s with women trying to assert their attitudes and beliefs and feelings. Could you comment a little bit on women of the (19)50s, Beat writers who are female of the (19)50s and what they had to overcome?
13:49
HJ: Well, let us establish the fact that there were not very many of them. Very few, very, very few people. And of all the people who fit into my living room, probably a third were women. So, but they were all just running, you know. I think in a story, "Running from home as hard as they could, but bringing them, bringing it with them all the same." It is a line from a story I have written but we brought our attitudes. We, we were not out to particularly offend people, but only to seize our lives. To take control of our lives. But as I said, we were castigated. Let us think about a time when if you did not live with your parents until you got married and then live with your husband, there was something suspect about you. You were suspect for having your own apartment no matter where it was, in the village, in my case and then the case of many of the Beats. But you were suspect. If you were a sexual being you, you know? You were violating the law, but everybody knew that kind of subversive life. You know, also as I have written that supporting myself, women have always had sex, you know, you could always have sex. You could have sex in the backseat of a car or in the under the haystack or behind the barn, you know. But you could not talk about it. You could not feel free to live your life as though that were a part of your life. And that I think was very different, that we did what we did, but it was clear that it was open and aboveboard. And that made a big difference. We did not want to hide again. But I think that the, the women who say the women in SDS who came later and the women at Kent State, places like that, had somehow absorbed that idea through whatever effects the Beats on them and felt freer. It is like, you know, the pebbles that you throw in the water and the rings go out, and out and out.
16:39
SM: You raise a very important point here because if you study the history of the Students for Democratic Society, and I just read a book on them by the leader of the anti-war movement at Columbia, Mark Rudd. He talks about the women who were involved with SDS and all the, basically, all the sex they had with different partners, and it was encouraged! It was encouraged by the leadership of SDS.
17:11
HJ: Yeah but you see that was a little different and they are something different. Nobody was controlling it. The Beats were a small enough group or the art community that I am speaking of really basically, not just the Beats. Nobody going to tell you that was a ̶ you know, go ahead and have sex with this one and that one. You just did what you wanted to do. You were not - you know sex was not emphasized. It was just considered a part of everyone's life and you were lucky enough to be able to handle it. It was not, "Oh, I am going to go have sex!" It was more like, "Oh, I am going to live in New Year where people are challenging the establishment by making art and trying to describe life as we want to be able to live it." But it was almost with SDS people and all those people, it was almost deliberate flaunting and opposition.
18:24
SM: Right.
18:25
HJ: That is the ̶ I think that, maybe it is a subtle difference, but it was a bit of a difference.
18:33
SM: Well, I know we are going to ̶ we want to talk more about the (19)50s. But I do have to ask one question because you raise kids that are Boomers.
18:41
HJ: No, not really. Well, I suppose your definition says (19)64 but they do not consider themselves that at all.
18:51
SM: (19)46 and (19)64.
18:54
HJ: Right. My kids were born and (19)59 and (19)61. But there were, you know, black women who never considered themselves a part of that generation at all. They really grew up in a time that was more the Civil Rights era, and do not forget they have a very well-known father and they marched and they did this and that. So, they are a little different.
19:26
SM: What? Is there one a specific event in your life that shaped you when you were young?
19:32
HJ: Oh, well. You know, it is, I always saw that I was going, that art was a talent for me and I have written about this. In my memoir, there was that scene in the beginning of my book when I talked about weaving a basket when I was six. But even prior to that one, I was probably four. I remember making some comments. Making a metaphor and all the adults around me making a big fuss over me and it stayed with me for a very long time. And I have actually got a little written piece about it. So, I always I just always knew that I was a little bit, not a little bit, but a lot, but basically different from the rest of my family. You know, the whole changeling thing.
20:46
SM: Yes. This might be a repetition here, but this is a question I sent when I sent the six questions dealing directly with the Beats. Do you feel the Beats had a direct influence on the (19)60s and (19)70s, even though they were identified with the (19)50s?
21:04
HJ: Oh, yes! And, you know, they are no longer - you know, I taught classes on the Beats. And they are no longer identified with one particular era. You have to, when you are teaching young people who are so far removed from those events, you have to point out all of the historical patterns that led to what the Beats did. But they simply identify with the open road and the freedom and the wonderful writing. That is what they like. And the fact that, you know, that, particularly On the Road or Howl, or any other [those are the two iconic pieces from the time] that they are not about what is usually the case now. Novels are about relationships and poems are about looking at your navel and like that. I think young people appreciate the fact that these are works of engagement in some way or another, and they like them. They like the freedom. They like the spirit. They like the voice. I think that is what they like. So I forgot your original question. I am just meandering here.
22:41
SM: That is okay. To you, when did the (19)50s begin? Now I am talking, we know (19)50s begin in 1950 and (19)51. But when people talk about the (19)60s, we know the (19)60s really did not end until (19)73 and (19)74. So when did the (19)50s really begin in your eyes with the postwar and all things that I mentioned?
23:06
HJ: I feels like the (19)50s were always there, even in the (19)40s.
23:11
SM: Yeah, talk about that.
23:14
HJ: You know, everything was so devoted to the war. The war! The war, the Second World War began when I was seven years old. And I had just, you know, I was beginning to read and I was conscious of the world around me at that point. And the whole idea was to hunker down. Do not forget, I am a Jew, and therefore, we were kept very quietly at home. Because if it could happen over there, it could happen over here. So I lead a, what you would probably call a very comfortable, but ghettoized life. And that seems to be operative until the end of the (19)40s. I went to college in 1951. But at that point, I was beginning to think a lot about where I was in the world and what the world was in the midst of. McCarthy. The Rosenbergs. The atom bomb. All of that kind of stuff. And I had political opinions. I went to college in the South and encountered for the first time my life prejudice against me as well as against black people. The roommate with whom I had been assigned did not want to live with me because I was a Jew, and a Yankee. So you see, it all began for me as soon as I got away from home and started to see a little bit of the rest of the world and thankfully be way from having myself under wraps in a certain sense when I was at home. I already saw that I had to invent a new way of life at that time, and that was when the (19)50s really, really began for me. In the (19)50s, I began to be a (19)60s person. Does that makes sense?
25:48
SM: Yes.
25:50
HJ: Good.
25:51
SM: Yeah, that I will follow that up with when do you think the (19)60s and early (19)70s began?
25:58
HJ: Well, you know, the Bohemia that in which we lived in the later (19)50s and in the early (19)60s. It was short lived but intense and, everything just began around that time. I do not know, (19)62, (19)63. I remember, maybe (19)59, that was the first time we had a television set. And I remember watching someone college student being spit upon and that was the first time television had that much of an effect. Watching television and watching these kids at a lunch counter in some state, I do not know exactly where it was, shopping, their all dressed up in their suits and you know, Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, looking real respectable, and being spit upon in a diner in the South. The (19)50s began right there for me, because I already had one child and was committing that child for that, to that kind of life and wow, you know, my head was expanding every day.
27:29
SM: So that really is that experience of seeing that on TV and then having a child was kind of a watershed moment for you.
27:37
HJ: I guess so. I can still, I can still see it in my mind. Yeah, you know, you do not take a consideration like that lightly when you are thinking all the time and you are twenty-five years old.
27:59
SM: One of questions I wanted to ask and think I got a couple more before I switch my tape here. Allen Ginsburg, who you knew very well, seemed to be all the writers of the Beats the one that transcended decades. Because I can remember as a college student in 1972, seeing him at Ohio State in the Ohio union doing his chanting. And he never spoke, never read any poetry, he just was there for almost two hours chanting. And the room was packed. It was kind of, it was a, it was kind of a "be in", it was a "happening".
28:37
HJ: Yes.
28:38
SM: But he seemed to be at a lot of the anti-war protests. He was all over the world, was dealing with a lot of issues. What was it about Ginsburg? Because he obviously was very close to a lot of the Boomers and the (19)60s people. What separated him from the other Beat writers with respect to his involvement? He was out there, he was everywhere!
29:01
HJ: Well, God bless him. You know, he was the one to do it. You know. What separates Bob Dylan from all the rest of the people? He was a man with a message, right? A rolling stone. And Allen was a, you know, from his very beginning, even at Columbia, somebody who was breaking away from the future that had been ordained for him, had he followed the usual pattern and going into something wider, and he had lots of media exposure, and he was very good. He had marvelous stage presence. He had incredible concentration. Allen was a very, very multitalented man in that respect, and fearless! And everyone had a lot of respect for him, because he would just stand up to anything. And he was very, you know, all these things were people who were very well read. And they, they were intellectual, in a lot of senses. They were not just populist figures who came out of nowhere. They, they were men with the messages. And Allen particularly was good with audiences. His politics were radical for the day, but, and he used it and he used the forum. Any forum he was offered. But he is less of a figure today more of an occult figure, although he is still beloved by people who read Howl.
31:19
SM: Alright, go right ahead.
31:22
HJ: So he is still beloved, but you know he is not in that, young people caught onto him because they see his rants against the establishment as theirs as well. I do not think anybody but Barack Obama has taken young people by storm, since Allen.
31:51
SM: I often noticed, because I have a lot of books on the Beats and some actually like Ferlinghetti's poetry and I have a lot of the City Lights books and I know Ferlinghetti has written poems on the (19)60s and the (19)70s many, and also, Anne Waldman wrote a great group of poems on Vietnam and Ed Sanders; so there was no question that the (19)60s and (19)70s really have - that many of the Beats were still - this is a very important period for them.
32:22
HJ: Oh, yeah, I think so. Well, do not forget Anne Waldman is much younger than everybody, you know. Anne Waldman is a decades younger and was way younger than Allen too. So, she was. Oh, I think more, more, if you want to talk about I do not know that. She doesn't identify with Boomers but who are the Boomer poets? We think we I do not know really.
32:58
SM: I can only, I can only think of one: Rod McKuen.
33:03
HJ: Yeah, I am not even familiar with him. As I told you when we discussed this interview, during the (19)70s, I was, during the late (19)60s and (19)70s, I was trying to keep my head up, trying to not lose my apartment, of trying to keep my kids on the straight and narrow, you know. I was trying to earn a living, and become a writer and the world just had to fall away at a certain point because even the feminist movement had to pass me by. I was not interested in a glass ceiling. I was not at all. I was concerned in trying to reinvent a life between the races for myself. So when you talk about popular figures and writers of the (19)70s, I am going to be at a loss.
34:12
SM: Right. Well, what is interesting here is you are talking about the writers of different periods. I have a question here. Before I get to that question, I wanted, you in your email to me, you gave a one line regarding the fact about the Boomers. And, I know we are not going to basically talk about the qualities and so forth about them. But I did want to ask you from afar, if you were to be asked, what are your thoughts on the young people that were involved in the anti-war movement and, you know, they were challenging authorities during that timeframe, and also the fact that the intellectual links because you have reiterated over and over again, I believe this, just like you that the intellectual environment which was, was set central core to the Beats, that a lot of the anti-war, and a lot of the things happening in the movements was also happening in the university environment, which is supposed to be an intellectual environment. And the challenges were coming in freedom of expression on university campuses, just as the writers are writing about it, you know, in the (19)50s. Challenging authority. Do you? Can you see, again, the link somehow even from afar, between these two intellectual environments, and the challenging of authority?
35:42
HJ: Well, when we talk about universities, do not forget, up to that point, universities were modeled on the Greek model and we studied Western civilization. Right?
35:59
SM: Yes.
36:00
HJ: And that was really the core curriculum. I think because of the fact that a lot of information pops up, is the right word to use here, about groups who are tangential to all of that came into the culture. People, the young people in the universities, were challenging what was taught. And there began the movement or inclusivity that had been, again challenged every step of the way because nobody learns the same thing anymore. Because the universities have eventually bowed to that and began including courses about other aspects about America. Right? American literature. I mean who read Momaday? He was an Indian? Hardly anybody. You know, who read Langston Hughes? Hardly anybody. Because he is a black man. But trying to get all of these brains into the university as part of American culture. This was an era when film criticism grew as a discipline. When, jazz began to be considered as music! Instead of just entertainment. A lot of different disciplines that required intellectual attention were being promoted. And I think young people who now felt freer than ever to speak their mind were challenging the university's old ways of, you know, studying dead white men and that was all we ever knew about. I mean, you know, unless you took specific courses, you did not learn about the American labor movement. I never had a class in which I learned about the women, the Suffragettes. I mean, yes, I had some general ideas that women got the vote in, you know 19(00), whatever it was (19)11 or something or other like that, but one did not do close studies of that. So, you know, a lot was changing in the universities that had to do with the desire that somehow began to be abroad in the land, and that there was a lot more to learn than what you learned in school.
39:06
SM: One of the qualities you are also looking at Herbert Huncke, who you obviously know. When I am reading on the beats, very important thing came out to the edge of Beat came to the group through the underworld association with Herbert Huncke, where it originally meant tired or beaten down. And a lot of the people in the (19)60s had that same feeling about being beaten down. And so I see these comparisons constantly between the Beat writers, the intellectual writing, the arts, and a lot of the activism of the (19)60s, the feeling of being beaten down. And just your thoughts on that.
39:53
HJ: Well, oppression, you know. And I do not know. You know the word 'beat', 85,000 ways. [laughs] It was a, it was a very convenient, very convenient term, but nobody, you can define it any way you really want to. But the, you know, Huncke, of course, oh, I think he was right. I think, you know, that is the generally accepted definition of it. But I think more, you know, in terms of the people in the sixtes; the college students, they were not beat. They were not junkies hanging out in Times Square. The way they interpreted really all of that kind of feeling was that they will repressed and of course, they were repressed. It was every kind of repression going on. Suppression. It was political for them and sexual and everything, and I think they just responded to it by acknowledging it. And you know how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man? Right?
41:17
SM: Yes.
41:20
HJ: They just took this fuse and I think popularized them. And of course, you know young people, they do whatever seems hippest. You have got to realize that when you are, well you know, when you are seventeen or eighteen, if you see something that is exciting, you will gravitate toward it that is where the cutest people were right?
41:48
SM: Freedom of expression is something you know, we just came off the July fourth weekend and our founding fathers and through two hundred plus years here in the United States freedom of expression is something we all love. We see what happens in Iran and the suppression going on over there. But if the Beats and their writing, obviously there was some suppression going on there. And even though we talk about freedom of expression in the United States of America, is not there a price one has to pay for truly speaking up? Whether it be through a great book, whether it be through an interview, or a TV show, or in the (19)60s through a protest? There is a price. Dr. King used to always say that if you are not willing to go to jail for your beliefs, then you really do not have any beliefs. And especially if there is injustice happening, this concept of free expression - if you were in the room right now, with all the great Beat writers of the (19)50s and you were just going to have a conversation on the term "freedom of speech in the United States of America in 1955" what do you think most of your peers would say?
43:14
HJ: That it was limited, you know, I am just thinking of McCarthy in his day. I know I was in, I think I was still in college? Do you have McCarthy's dates? When the House on American Activities was?
43:32
SM: Yeah. That was early (19)50s.
43:38
HJ: (19)52, (19)53?
43:39
SM: Yes.
43:39
HJ: Yes. So that it was evident that speaking out and were using to speak up. People were jailed, blacklisted, jailed! So that had happened in the immediate past. In 1955, it would have been on everyone's mind. The bomb. Speaking out against the bomb. Speaking out against. You were a communist sympathizer, if you even said that maybe there was something to socialism, not even communism but socialism heaven forbid. Equality for women, parity in the work ̶ We did not even get that far in the mid (19)50s. But, yeah, of course a price would be paid! You know the first demonstration that I ever went on was not until I had one child so it would have been 1960 and it was when Castro came to the UN, and we marched around the park. I have written about this in front of the UN. And they had a whole cordon of mounted policemen who [inaudible] us. And they did not let me march with my baby in her stroller.
44:31
SM: Hmm.
44:44
HJ: You know, and they made me go sit on a bench. They said it was too dangerous. So yeah. Oh dear, someone is ringing my bell. Steve can you bear with me because that may be a kind of a package.
45:37
SM: Yep, yeah, I will bear with it. I will wait.
45:38
HJ: I do not want it to go back to the - Okay, thanks a lot.
45:41
SM: Yep. Alright, I got my tape back on. Continue what you are saying.
45:48
HJ: Now I forgot what I was saying. I was so, what was I talking about?
45:52
SM: I am not even sure now. Maybe I will just go to the next question.
45:57
HJ: Sure.
45:58
SM: Okay. This is just again, I know we are not going to talk about specifically about the Boomers but just from that one line you sent me on the email again. If you were ̶ Just your general thoughts on the Boomer generation. What, what were their good qualities or bad qualities in your mind, from afar?
46:21
HJ: Um, well, you know, it is funny because all of those kids as I, I thought of them, and I never thought of them as Boomers I mean, we did not even we did not use that word then. I thought, the ones that I knew and who hung around my neighborhood and everything, were hippy. And, and that was how I saw them. I appreciated a lot of their impulses. That was what I appreciated, were their impulses. They had certain ideas: back to the land, nonmaterialistic culture, things like that. I appreciated all of that. However, they seemed to lack the kind of, I do not think 'political will' is what I really mean here, but they seemed this kind of laid back on, you know, 'let us go get stoned' sort of thing and that was not what we were about. We were about hard work and making our, you know making the changes that we wanted known through, were not only political protests, but through writing. And so I saw a lot them as, a lot of them were, aimless at first. But, you know, then throughout I think the (19)70s people had to shape up. But at first, they seemed, I do not know what they were living on, you know. Whatever they were living on, they might have been drifting? I just, you know, there were a lot, I because of my position I saw them a lot of the time as spoiled little white kids who could do whatever they wanted, because they did not have a hardscrabble existence. They could straighten themselves up and put on a jacket and tie and go work in an office when they wanted to. I felt that there was some, a little bit of a nonseriousness about them. But then, I am sure things changed. And do not forget, as you know, I have to keep reminding you, I was off in my own little world.
49:05
SM: Yes.
49:05
HJ: Kind of trying to figure out how to get through each month.
49:11
SM: A lot of the hippies went into the communes. What were your thoughts on the communal life that many of them participated in?
49:20
HJ: Well, if you look at the history of it, they did not really they did not succeed in a lot of ways, because they had forgotten to take into account the fact of human feelings; of jealousies and the need for privacy and, we were not all meant for a communal existence. Some of them, some of us are lone wolves. You know, I think you have to applaud a lot of what they, a lot of what they did. But you know, communal, well, there are still a few communes that are running but communes very often degenerate into cults. And I have seen and read the effect of cults on people. I have had students who had formerly been in cults and you know, directionless people looking for direction are going to look for a leader and sometimes the leader is less than trustworthy, were exploited.
50:41
SM: One of the one of the things about I always looked at where people genuine when they did things and obviously, I want to come in and if you felt the Beat writers were genuine in their writing. And also when you look at the generation of followed them, the Boomers, 15 percent of the people that were in that generation of seventy to seventy-five million really participated, though the rest of them did not. But always, the question that I have to ask myself to who experienced it, how genuine were most of them in in their concerns? Or you know - so basically, could you comment on how genuine the Beats were in their writing? Because obviously, they were intellectually gifted. They were deep thinkers. But the term genuine is something that is a very important quality in people. And so your comments on both the Beats of the (19)50s and the ones that continue writing today, plus the Boomers and their activism during that (19)60s and (19)70s.
51:54
HJ: Regarding genuine, you know, you certainly are genuine when you are putting yourself up for criticism and castigation because do not forget when the Beats were first published that they began to write. I mean, I worked, I ran the Partisan Review office at that time and the general response from the literary establishment was, oh, this is ridiculous. You know. This is just, you know, they just dismissed them. So if you are the genuine article and you believe in what you have to say, you are just going to say, okay, that is the way they feel and I will just continue to go on. I think that the fact that they were genuine is evidenced by the fact that they have lasted so long and are in now the tannin. You know? Now kids who take freshmen "Comp." are reading On the Road. So, there you go! Talk about the cannons they have been admitted. But had they not spoken from their heart, who would have bothered you know? They would have faded away.
53:19
SM: Well, were the anti-war, civil rights, women's movement, gay and lesbian, where would you place them in there?
53:28
HJ: Certainly somebody like Adrienne Rich, certainly. Yeah. You know, like the other people who really are associated with the beginnings of the feminist movement all of a sudden, I am blanking on their names. Who I do I mean? They had to! Of course they were genuine! Otherwise, they wouldn't have been considered so, over and over and over by so many different generations tracing the history of the feminist movement. And you know, genuineness is the fact that Allen spoke openly of homosexuality let a lot of people come out of the closet. The fact that the feminist movement led women to make demands of their own, do not forget, we were also we were making something like fifty-five cents on the dollar compared to men or sixty-five? I have forgotten. A very, very low salary. And you never saw women lawyers, you never saw, we hardly had any women doctors. The whole world has changed a great deal in terms of what we accept the ability of women to do! So, yeah, they were genuine. But as far as the writers that I think of they are more polemicists than artists in that sense. The writing is to formulate a political agenda rather than to create art, and that is a bit of a [inaudible] I think.
55:19
SM: One of the important questions I have asked all of my guests and this just applies to everyone here and you probably saw this on the list, it was number eleven. The concept of healing. I want to - I took a group of students, to see former senator Edmund Muskie before he died when I was working at the university and it was one of our leadership on the road programs. And I took fourteen students with me, we got into the room, we were taping we were talking about the (19)68 convention and all the divisions in America the anti-war movement, and of course he was he had long since retired and actually he was not feeling very well either he had just come out of the hospital. And I asked the question, I said, about healing and this is the ̶ I am going to just read it here: Do you feel Boomers and I guess I will say the people of the (19)50s too. Do you feel Boomers are still having problems with healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth and their growing up years? The division between black and white. Divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it. Division between those who supported the troops and those who did not. What role did the Wall play in healing these divisions in Washington? Do you feel that the Boomer generation will go to it is grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has thirty-five years made that statement "Time heals all wounds," a truth? I bring this up and Senator Muskie when I asked him a question specifically about the divisions in America in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s and (19)80s. He did not even respond for about a minute. And then he looked up at us and said, "We have not healed since the Civil War."
57:06
HJ: Yes.
57:06
SM: And just your thoughts? To me healing, I have worked with a lot of veterans, I have worked with a lot of people that were involved with the (19)60s and they still have issues about you know, what happened then. And a lot of times people do not come together that are opposing sides. Your thoughts on this concept? Do we have a problem with healing in this nation?
57:29
HJ: Well, I think Senator Muskie was right, you know, the Civil War. But, then yeah, I mean, we keep going slowly toward it and then drawing away and slowly toward it and drawing away. It has so many little subtexts and so many ramifications. The war in Vietnam, of course, divided people. You know, any war. I am just thinking about the Gulf War, the war in Iraq. All the people who marched all over the world. All the people who marched here and try to keep it from happening. There are people, who still live with the idea that, that this is America. We are the strongest nation, we control. Everything we do is correct. And if you criticize, you are not patriotic. And then, of course, there is the other side who feel free to change direction. I think that was what everybody was hoping. Healing was what everybody was hoping for when they elected Barack. And we see it is hard. It is hard to do, but oh you know, we have to give it – we are a young country, with a lot of different immigrant groups who have not yet become an American thoroughly. We are still group identified. We play identity politics all the time. And that is a result also of that, push for inclusion in the universities. You know, everybody talks about that now, how nobody learns the same thing anymore and we are all half educated and half-assed. But if we live long enough and we do not destroy each other, if we can still manage to go to the polls and vote and not have this same sorts of guys who won the election then we can. You know, democracy is a very messy, messy thing. And generations change. You can see it in families, children think differently from their parents.
1:00:11
SM: Can you speak again more clearly into the phone?
1:00:15
HJ: Yeah, I am sorry. I got up, I moved! [laughs] That was what happened, okay? America is a young country and we are a young people. And eventually the whole country will look the way New York looks now, which is everybody is a different, slightly different color when you look at somebody. I sometimes have no idea when I encounter students and little children. I do not know. I cannot imagine what their parenthood is and why would you want to know? So we still have a ways to go. You know, Europeans who now call themselves Europeans, they have hundreds and hundreds of years behind them. And here we are, you know, we just dumped ourselves on the Indians not too long ago. [laughs]
1:01:18
SM: This business of healing and other one is the issue of trust. And I say this even to the Beat writers of the (19)50s. And, and then also to the Boomer generation, and the, the issue of trust because there was a lot of things in our lives when we were young and as we were growing up that we look at authority figures that really turn young people off. And the Boomers saw so many of them through Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon and even Ronald Reagan in later years. I speak of the Iran Contra with Kennedy and what was really going on Vietnam, Johnson with a Gulf of Tonkin. Eisenhower lied about the U2 incident. And the Boomers really did not trust anybody in authority, whether it was a minister, a rabbi, a priest, a university president, a corporate leader. We did not trust anybody. The question I am asking you, and I, you know, be a great question also, while the Beats were in a room too, as they get as they grew up. I remember a psychology professor telling me this in PSYC101 at my university, Binghamton University. I can remember him saying this in our in our PSYC101 class that if you cannot trust somebody, and if you have no sense of trust, then you yourself will not be a success in life. And that always stuck to me and I remember that class and then as I got older. So what I am getting at is that you know, not having it - do we have an issue of trust in this country? And had the writings of the Beats and the activism of the Boomers of the (19)60s and (19)70s and hopefully in their lives, helped? What do they trust after all of their efforts?
1:03:25
HJ: Well, if you want blind trust it is one thing. If you add a trust with keeping your eye on, on what people are doing, I think that is a different thing. But we've learned to withhold our immediate sense of trust because we've been disappointed, you know, here, look at the most recent - look at the look at the war in Iraq! Who were we trusting? Who did? Did we question the evidence that was manufactured about weapons of mass destruction, etcetera, etcetera? And if you; we've learned over and over again, that people lie. That people in authority will lie sometimes to keep their own interest or what they believe to be right with, there is you know, the fact that there was no open discussion of well, there was open discussion, there was protests as you know, more recently with Bush and then he went ahead and did what he wanted to do. But why? Why would one? Why would one give them what I am thinking? I do not agree with your professor. If you do not trust anyone. Let me hedge that a little bit.
1:05:08
SM: Make sure you speak closer to that mike.
1:05:10
HJ: Oh, yeah, it is my phone. You know, sorry. I think that personal trust in one's daily interactions with people is a good thing to have. One should be open to the hope that one another instead of you having an exchange with someone, it will be built on mutual trust and respect. But we have to learn politically to cast a wary eye and I think that is a very good thing. That is what democracy is. You know, we are participating I think, when we criticize.
1:06:00
SM: Just a general question. Why do you think the Vietnam War ended?
1:06:06
HJ: Huh.
1:06:06
SM: What was the ̶ if they were to pinpoint one thing? Why did it end?
1:06:11
HJ: You know, McNamara died yesterday. I heard that on the radio this morning.
1:06:17
SM: I did not know that!
1:06:18
HJ: Yeah, he died. So they were talking a little bit about that. Why do I think it ended? Well, it was, you know, everybody - it was understood that it was a lost cause! That this was, well, was not our first war of imperialism, you know, if you think of the Spanish American War. That was also. But I think we learned what the French had learned and what the British had learned. There was so much protest here that I think that public officials had to understand and take into account the will of the people finally, finally. But, you know, it was a whole lot of different facts.
1:07:21
SM: Is it is it realistic, you know, the Wall in Washington and I do not know if you visited it, but it is, it is unbelievable. It was done an awful lot to heal veterans and their families. But also a lot of vets will not go there because it brings back sad memories but your thoughts on him? I, me, Steve McKiernan, the writer of this book, and the person who puts these questions together, am I kind of asking an almost impossible question regarding the fact of healing that, that one day we will not do what they did in the Civil War, which they never did heal, but that one day, people who are against the war in Vietnam and those who were for the war will hug each other?
1:08:09
HJ: They are all going to be dead Steve. [laughs] So it is not going to make one bit of difference. Right now we are focusing on what is going on over in the Middle East. And that has become, you know, it is not that we have a limited attention span. It is just that will have to that will take the war in Vietnam will remain a sticky issue and it can be argued by historians from then on and but the Boomers will go to their graves debating that. I think. Because they believe so firmly in, each in his own way. There was no win and there was no loss. So there were no winners and losers there.
1:09:11
SM: It is amazing at Gettysburg this past weekend, one of the park rangers; retired, his son, who serves in Iraq and I asked him point blank about the Wall and he went into a rage about the anti-war protesters and boy, he said, if he the chance, he'd, "put them up against a wall and shoot him!"
1:09:29
HJ: Yeah, right.
1:09:30
SM: So that the rage is still in some people. So,
1:09:34
HJ: You know, how old was this park ranger?
1:09:36
SM: Oh, he was sixty or sixty-one he was not a park ranger. He was a volunteer.
1:09:41
HJ: Okay. All right. Yeah. But, you know, he is still fighting the Civil War too, right?
1:09:47
SM: Yes. [laughter]
1:09:52
HJ: You know and the Civil War is not going to be over until the New South truly becomes the New South. You know, every time I go down south with my family, especially, I am always aware that the New South is just the Old South in a new dress.
1:10:11
SM: Hmm.
1:10:12
HJ: You know, many of the attitudes have not changed. You know, when I went to college in Virginia, it was in my sociology class, it was "our people," and when I asked, "What do you mean our people?" Well, it was "our Negroes." You know, and I was just shocked and offended.
1:10:32
SM: Oh my gosh.
1:10:33
HJ: that people my age, which was, you know, seventeen years old and eighteen years old, we were fighting the Civil War again, one hundred years later. So people will absorb what they learn from their families and what they are on in school. But I think right now, there is a whole generation of young people who are very willing to open their mouths. And Vietnam means nothing to them at all. What they are concerned about is what is happening now. And one of the differences is that the wars being fought by a volunteer army of generally poor people. Mostly poor guys from, from all over America who, liked the idea of picking up a gun and going to shoot people who wear head wraps. The same way there were those people who wanted to go in Vietnam and shoot at the "Gooks" or whatever they called them. But there is, but there is no draft. Were there a draft, boy that would be a whole different story? So, we'll see. I do not know, I mean, nobody knows what the future holds.
1:12:02
SM: Kind of a follow up to that, one of the things when you think about you in the in all the Beat writers is you would write and you are not afraid to go it alone. That you go it alone and then pay a price for it and one of the things we try to instill in college students when they become first year then by the time they graduate is the concept of self-esteem. Where they are comfortable with who they are, what they stand for, and what they believe in and they kind of develop a concept of integrity, which I believe the Beats have, and certainly the people that were genuine and the anti-war movement had. Do you feel? Do you sense this too? About how important it is that the Beats can really send a message to today's college students? Because of that concept of going at it alone? Because you have to have a sense of self-esteem to, to speak up and to believe in something and stand on your own two feet.
1:13:01
HJ: The kids I teach are far more vocal but these days, I am teaching graduate students. But I have taught undergraduates in the last couple of years and, and it is true that I am in New York, and I get really smart students at the New School but, I think there are pretty smart students everywhere. And they also they write a lot. Look at that! They write emails. They write all over Facebook. They do this, that. They are always expressing themselves, whether it is important or whether it is not important. But they have the idea of free expression, and that is a great entitlement. That is a very different thing. And in the course of expressing themselves, they are figuring out what they think. So that I think is a very, very good thing. And if I am me I have respect for, they are a little concerned about how they are going to support themselves, given the economy. There is no longer any sense that oh, well, I will just go get a job and stay with it then and then I will do my art on the side or whatever. Nothing like that! Their position is a little more open and scary. But they have to rely on themselves. Also, something we have not mentioned, which has to do with pop psychology. When I went to college, psychology and psychiatry and related professions, were very young. Not everybody went to be psychoanalyzed. Only a few intellectuals. You know, you did not have TV shows that explored people's motives and this and that and the other thing. There were not self-help books. The whole idea of self-correction was; hadn't even yet been developed. So there is a very different zeitgeist in that respect. That people think of their inner lives and, and their desires and are more willing to express them than before because that is socially acceptable.
1:15:36
SM: One thing, Hettie, though, is when you - willingness to express and willingness to act. And there is a big difference. I know today's college students are really into volunteerism. Probably 90 to 95 percent of college students are volunteering and helping people in a variety of ways. But when you define volunteerism, and you separate it from activism. Activism is twenty-four seven, seven days a week and three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Whereas volunteerism is a specific time you go and do things and even though it is part of activism, it is not the way one lives one's life. And my question to you is, the impact that Boomers have had that is, they are now in their late (19)50s and to mid (19)60s, or heading toward mid (19)60s is that activism is the willingness to speak but also the willingness to act. And, and I have gotten a sense, this is just, just me, that universities today are afraid of the term activism, and they will constantly talk about volunteerism. Activism reminds them of an era when students protested whether it be in the late (19)30s or in the 1960s and it connotes disruption of the university, a challenge to authority again, and they are fearful of it. And um, I'd like your thoughts on that if you are teaching college students, and also the fact that I am sensing that a lot of college students, aren't activists, they are volunteers.
1:17:15
HJ: Well, you know, I think you are right, because they, all of those who have, you know, take a look at the election. All the volunteers, the student volunteers for the election, they saw the electoral process as an act for which they have something they could do volunteer, no matter what you call it, that could actually have a result within the democratic process. And I, you know, that was the first time I have seen that and it was to be applauded. Now, you know, like, one of one of the things that you learn if you study [inaudible] and people like that. It is like when people are hungry, you cannot expect them to be active politically, they are looking for something to eat.
1:18:16
SM: Mmm.
1:18:17
HJ: And a lot of these college students today are looking for something to eat. They are not as you know, they are not as confident that daddy and mommy will support them. And they are looking around rather warily. But they believe in participatory democracy. They believe in helping. But I do not think they have reached that stage although, ho! ho! Ho! If you want to look for one example, look at what a few was last month when the students at the New School took over a building.
1:19:02
SM: I did not know that.
1:19:03
HJ: You did not know that.
1:19:04
SM: No, I did not.
1:19:05
HJ: Well you better read up on it! Okay. Everybody wanted Bob Perry, the President, of the New School to resign. And guess what? After enough foment, he resigned.
1:19:18
SM: What was it over?
1:19:19
HJ: What?
1:19:19
SM: What was the issue?
1:19:21
HJ: The issue was the management of the university and his taking control and appointing himself not only the president, but provost and pre-Provost as with under his tenure.
1:19:34
SM: Wow.
1:19:36
HJ: There were firings of professors who'd worked in various departments or a long period of time. I was a couple of years ago, there was a lot of reorganization at the university but I had been teaching a class on the beats at the invitation of the person who was the head of the writing program at the undergraduate school, Lange.
1:19:59
SM: Uh huh
1:19:59
HJ: And he said that nobody needed to study the Beats anymore. So he took away my class.
1:20:06
SM: Unbelievable.
1:20:07
HJ: So I was fired for, you know, somebody I know would been working at the New School in various departments for ten years was fired. You know, things like that. Anyway, there was general dissatisfaction and the students, they figured well, you better, you know, you can look that up and see.
1:20:17
SM: I definitely will. I am proud of the students!
1:20:32
HJ: They were on the roof with masks on and everything.
1:20:35
SM: Okay.
1:20:37
HJ: [laughs]
1:20:37
SM: Well, that is, well, that is, that is good!
1:20:42
HJ: Yeah.
1:20:43
SM: Because I have always felt that students need to be empowered and feel that they are.
1:20:48
HJ: Yeah, well, you know, like, as I said, this is New York, and we get a lot of people here who have come here, specifically to make a big fuss, make a lot of noise and to do art and whatever and they are doing it.
1:21:07
SM: If there was one event, if, if we had a room of five hundred Boomers. And if there was one event that had the greatest impact on their life when they were young, and I mean, between the time they were born and say, thirty, what would that event be?
1:21:26
HJ: Gee, you know, I do not know, if you have to give me a date and one event?
1:21:35
SM: After 1960.
1:21:37
HJ: In the (19)60s?
1:21:39
SM: It would be mostly ̶̶ because Boomers did not go to seventh grade until they were in the 1960s. So it would have to be when they were in high school or college or early adulthood.
1:21:53
HJ: Well, you know certainly the constriction for the Vietnam War. When everyone had to register for the draft. Now and the war and it was revealed early on as a useless, colonialist war. That it seems to me what has to be the point because that really caused the most foment.
1:22:23
SM: Right.
1:22:24
HJ: You know, I guess for my generation would have been more the McCarthy era, but it has to be the war the war was the biggest thing. The Vietnam War was.
1:22:38
SM: If you could just respond just a quick thoughts on these things. What just your quick thoughts: Kent State and Jackson State?
1:22:48
HJ: Oh, Kent State got a lot of notice because of the killings, because of the photography, because at that point, TV news could disseminate information easily. But Jackson State, you see there you go! Jack State demonstrates how, again, the lives of young white people were valued more than the lives of young black people.
1:23:22
SM: Hmm.
1:23:23
HJ: And that is the way that you know, this is the world. This is the world in which I was bringing up black children. So you can understand why my emphasis has more to do with that issue, the civil rights issue, than anything else.
1:23:45
SM: How about Watergate?
1:23:48
HJ: Oh, well, Watergate, you know. None of us liked Nixon anyway, but that exposure you know! What year was Watergate again?
1:24:03
SM: (19)72, (19)73, (19)74.
1:24:08
HJ: Right. Well, it was exposing that kind of terrible lying and shenanigans that you would never expect from quote your word "authority." And it made us disrespect the elected political figure.
1:24:35
SM: Woodstock.
1:24:35
HJ: Woodstock? Oh, you know, Woodstock. Woodstock was charming and all people were covered with mud and everything it was so cute. I had to look upon it from afar and think is not it wonderful that they had all the time to go listen to music.
1:24:55
SM: How about the term "counterculture" which they think is the expansion of the Beat Generation. Yeah,
1:25:02
HJ: Yeah. You know, counterculture. It is all part of the culture from this removes. The counterculture has consumed the other culture although we still read a Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald is quoted a lot these days. It will all be one culture eventually. I was thinking the other day about there is a guy on the radio on WNYC who has a program called the American Songbook. And I have a son-in-law who's a musician and we were talking on the fourth about music and of course, we were talking about Michael Jackson and I thought well you know the American Songbook; one of these days, they will figure out that it has to include Carole King, and has to include all those wonderful you know, "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay Wasting Time." You know, yeah, that is America and that is what, that is what, a lot of the rest of the world sees as American culture, so whether it is counter or not, it was counter then but it is not counter no more.
1:26:19
SM: How about the term "1968?" That was a pretty rough year.
1:26:25
HJ: Yeah, it was a pretty rough year, but, um, you know, it was personally harder for me than just about anything else. So, I do not know that I can quantify it.
1:26:39
SM: If you look in the while, you know, more than anybody, they have the beatniks whenever you know, especially in the (19)50s when I was a kid and I am sure a lot of Boomers this way they look they watched Dobie Gillis and of course Maynard G. Krebs. He was the beatnik and of course everybody loves Sandra D. is beautiful white girlfriend. But the beatniks became the hippies of the (19)60s then you had the yippies which was the extreme. What are your thoughts on the hippies and the yippies?
1:27:11
HJ: You know, everybody likes a name for something or other. The hippies, you know it was very cute. "Beatniks" also that that is something that Herbert (Huncke) made up after the beats had achieved some kind of note ̶ you know, it was right after Sputnik went up and that "N-I-K" is a Russian diminutive. I never thought us beatnik but people use it interchangeably with the Beats and I have to correct them all the time although sometimes I am too lazy to do that. But, you know, hippies, oh hippies wore flowers and smelled like patchouli and, you know, asked for spare change on the street and went barefoot and you know, were very sweet and very young and smoked a lot of dope.
1:28:14
SM: [laughs]
1:28:14
HJ: A very, very small group of you know, again using your word "activists", but they really did not have very much effect.
1:28:28
SM: Your thoughts on the students for.
1:28:30
HJ: Abbie Hoffman.
1:28:31
SM: Jerry Rubins.
1:28:33
HJ: Jerry ̶ yeah, but if you know if you think of the trouble in Chicago.
1:28:44
SM: Yes.
1:28:45
HJ: That was 1960 - what year?
1:28:48
SM: That was 1968.
1:28:50
HJ: Yeah, that was 1968.
1:28:51
SM: It was after the "Chicago Eight" when Bobby Seale was chained and that was the "Chicago Seven" because he wouldn't stop speaking.
1:29:01
HJ: But you see, that kind of thing.
1:29:04
SM: The SDS, the Students for a Democratic Society and The Weathermen and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, those groups.
1:29:13
HJ: Yeah, well, you know, I am personally acquainted with people who were in the Weather Underground, and they, they, if you talk about activism, they felt that what they were doing was just. But they did not realize, you know, they were naive. They were naive. They had no backing, they were just small underground groups of people and, you know, I am personally acquainted with some people who served time and many years in prison and some who still are in prison for those actions and they regret them. Because they were first acts that, you know, brought all of the all of the armor of the state against them as well as public opinion. You have to be ready if you are going to conduct guerilla warfare you have got to go up into the mountains and get a lot of folks around you, you can do it with ten people. I do not believe.
1:30:30
SM: When the best history books are written, and normally it is fifty years after an era, so when we are talking about the Beats, actually the best ones, are probably being written right now or in the coming years. And certainly the same thing is going to happen about the Boomer generation there has been so much written about the war and all the activisms be it right now and down the road are going to be the best books. What do you think? The, like, say one hundred years from now when students are in school, and they are reading about the (19)50s and the (19)60s and the (19)70s. How important were the Beats be in those history books, the Beat writers, and, and how important with the Boomers or the (19)60s and (19)70s be in those history books?
1:31:21
HJ: Well, I think, given the fact that we still read, Edgar Allan Poe, and we still read, oh, those wonderful Abigail Adams letters, it is possible that people will still be reading the Beats for their literary interest. But not but as I said, you know, I do not think much. I do not know what exactly people will be reading of the Boomer generation because that, you know, they did not have very much of an effect on me. So maybe there'll be maybe people will still be studying the history of the feminist movement. You know, when I was young, I used to be able to predict the future. And now that I am pretty old, I do not exactly know. Technology will change very many things. Who knows whether we'll, I hope will be reading. I do not know that we'll be reading books. If we cannot figure out some way to replace all the oil that is in the ground. We are not going to be able to have this wonderful internet anymore. So we got to figure out alternative energies. But you know, you cannot imagine. Could you imagine if you lived in 1850, the motor car? [laughs]
1:32:59
SM: My golly! Yeah, you are right in that, you know, the Boomers oftentimes, I do not know if this is the naiveté or whatever they always think they were the most unique generation in American history because they were going to end racism, sexism, end all war. And that is not every member of the generation, but certainly a lot of them that were involved in activism. What, what kind of, is that just youthful thinking? Or is there a belief that one day we can do that?
1:33:27
HJ: At least their desire was in the right place. They wanted to, they wanted to heal. You know, going back to our first question. They saw what was wrong and what needed to be remedied. And being the problem is not, it is not addressing the problem, but it is not curing the problem. Maybe -
1:33:57
SM: There you go. OK? I am ready. Still there?
1:34:04
HJ: Well, I am saying that their last, they are seeing all those problems and wanting to remedy them doesn't have any bearing on whether they were able to. But, you know, we had the Voting Rights Act, we had the Equal Opportunity Employment Act, we had all different kinds of governmental decisions that were based on popular desires. If they were not, generally they were, yes, some quarters, they were imposed but we were still challenging all these, these, these laws and everything and it was still, as I said, we were young country and we were still fighting and that democracy is messy.
1:34:59
SM: I agree. One of the novels that was written in the early (19)70s. I forget the gentleman who wrote it, he only wrote three, he wrote a book called, "I think, therefore I am." And for me, and you can comment on this, I would hope that when people are reading books one hundred years from now that they will look at the Beats and some of the activism of the (19)60s and the issues that people were involved with, is that people can challenge authority, when for justice and equality and things that are right. Dr. King said oftentimes that, you know, he was not about breaking laws, but if laws were unjust, you have to protest against those laws. And I hope forever young people will look at this era because of the examples that these people raised that they think therefore they are, and they stand for something. Just your thoughts on that.
1:35:59
HJ: Well that is from Descartes, 'je pense' [I think in French] they took the translation from French. I think, therefore I am. Well, of course, I have you know, the idea that one can participate in democracy implies a basic understanding that that is how democracy works. And that one can, in concert with others affect change. And that is what that is what protests meant. You know resulted in sometimes. Or they publicize the opinions that people share. So I think it is quite wonderful. I think we've gone through, through electronic means to be able to do what the Greeks thought they were doing, although of course, yes, yes, they had slaves but participatory democracy. You know, it is a great, great invention. And oh, I hope it will last.
1:37:11
SM: Yeah, that was the SDS manifesto too. Yeah, I know that Harold Brown wrote a book in the early (19)70s, called "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World." And, and so that was the kind of things that would be written at that particular time. My last question that centers on the, you know, the beats were often linked to San Francisco, a lot of the poets. San Francisco and New York. San Francisco and New York. And you look at one of the major happenings of the (19)60s, which was the summer of love and (19)67 in San Francisco and of course, Allen Ginsburg was part of that. But so you see these constant links between the beats and the boomers, particularly those that may be connected to the counterculture or activists dealing with a lot of issues. Your thoughts on some why San Francisco? Why New York? They were the two centers and youth obviously went to San Francisco in that (19)67: Summer of Love.
1:38:14
HJ: Well, you know, those are the two places that had established our, our colonies, if you want to call them colonies or whatever. Our scenes, our world, both coasts like that. You did not care about Chicago art, particularly nor did you hear about Dallas, Texas art or you know, or Knoxville, Tennessee, maybe, maybe the Grand Ole Opry. But those were places where one could live a bohemian life and it had thriving poetry scenes and that was that was why Allen was out there in the first place. That is why "Howl" was published there. Ferlinghetti had settled there, you know, he is from Westchester County, New York. And then of course, New York. New York was always thought of as, heaven help me, the cultural capital of the United States. People will disagree, I suppose. But even so, it remains that way. And I think all of us just figured those were the two places to be. I do not think there is any, any particular reason. Except that the swimming is good.
1:39:37
SM: Yeah. Well, I am not going to ask you to respond to all these names, because I am, you know, there is there are a lot of personalities of the (19)60s if you want to, but I think you are okay. Is there any question that you thought I was going to ask that I did not ask that you'd like to respond for a final comment?
1:39:59
HJ: No. Not, not really and, you know, as I told you, my perspective on the whole thing is from somebody who was always off trying to struggle through her life and invent myself. And, you know, talk about feeling trying to make a place in the world for the races. I suppose to interact, come together if they would. And so, that is what I am still doing, I suppose.
1:40:41
SM: As I conclude the interview, and I will go back to that very first question of Marilyn Young making the comment that the (19)60s began with the Beats. Could you make a final comment on why she felt that way? And you, I think, agreed. Why were the beats so important and as the precursor to the (19)60s.
1:41:01
HJ: Because we were the first people to open her mouths. (Laughs.) Against, everything that we saw that was wrong. But do not forget along with the beat there were, I keep plugging the painters and the musicians but you know, there was Tom Leherer who wrote "Little boxes, and they are all made out of ticky tacky," you know that song? *"Little Boxes" was written and composed by Malvina Reynolds in 1962, and was made popular in 1963 by Pete Seeger.
1:41:28
SM: Right.
1:41:28
HJ: Yeah, you know, everyone was beginning to see that the instructions that were given after the war, which did not end really, until (19)46. And then there was, you know, a period of people coming home and the (19)50s, but the ideas of go forth and multiply and make a lot of money and shut up, was not working anymore, because people were suffering under it. Under that load of silence and the Cold War so yeah, that is where it began, you know. Especially with Allen and Jack so we have to applaud the both and I hope they are watching.
1:42:10
SM: I am sure they are and then when you look at the musicians, people, the one person that comes to mind and that is just me is Nat King Cole. I just think he was an unbelievable person. They had him on television last night in a retrospective. He died in (19)65. But he was such a, he was the first African American to have his own TV show. So would he be included in some of these musicians and artists you are talking about?
1:42:38
HJ: Well, you know, I am just talking about not, not necessarily exposure, but style. And the inclusion of say, Jazz, not just as not popular music for entertainment but as, as a great American art form. So that has to do with studying women's history. You know, it is all connected with this push for inclusion, and for proper estimation, and quality above all, talk about counterculture of inclusion in American culture. A void, a voice, in American culture.
1:43:29
SM: What musicians in the (19)60s do you think had that feeling?
1:43:33
HJ: No, well say musicians in general. Look at Bob Dylan. You know, all the blues musicians who influenced him and were. Oh what about Aretha Franklin? You know all these people. Aretha saying "You better think, think about what you what you are trying to do to me." You know, all that. Oh, Michael Jackson. (Laughs.) there has been a lot of stuff about Michael Jackson and some people are very tired of it. But, you know, he was such an influence on my kids and you know.
1:44:17
SM: Oh yeah, I agree.
1:44:20
HJ: And, you know, every when I had the windows open all weekend, cars would go by with their radio blasting. Michael Jackson song "You got to be starting' something."
1:44:36
SM: His memorial is tomorrow.
1:44:38
HJ: Yeah.
1:44:39
SM: So well, Hettie, thank you very much. In a couple weeks, I will be sending you a form. It is a waiver form you just sign it and it is going to be a while for you all these things transcribed, but you will see it before I ever do anything with it. And wish Susan, I mean, I wish Joyce would still do it, but she is not going to I guess so.
1:44:58
HJ: Yeah. You cannot change her mind sometimes.
1:45:01
SM: Yeah, and I sent a letter to Anne but I never heard from her so I got to put a call through out to the school. And I have sent three letters to Ed Sanders and
1:45:13
HJ: I have no idea where to find him now.
1:45:15
SM: Well, nobody can. He has moved three times. Maybe on purpose.
1:45:20
HJ: It could be.
1:45:21
SM: But Hettie, thank you very much.
1:45:24
HJ: You are welcome.
1:45:25
SM: And you have a great day.
1:45:26
HJ: You too.
1:45:27
SM: Bye.
(End of Interview)
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Title
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Interview with Hettie Jones
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Jones, Hettie ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Authors; College teachers; Jones, Hettie--Interviews
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Hettie Jones is the author of 20 books but is best known for her memoir of the Beat Scene. She started the literary magazine <em>Yugen</em>, has taught writing at SUNY Purchase, Penn State, and the University of Wyoming, and is one of the faculty members in the graduate program for creative writing at The New School in New York City. She has been chair of a plethora of writing programs and has received grants to start a writing program in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Jones received her Bachelor's degree in Drama from the University of Virginia and pursued her postgraduate work at Columbia University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2009-07-06
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.131a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.131b
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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105:31
-
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2b88251b4d732322cf24e38eb8335ef0.mp3
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Format
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2009-07-09
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Elijah Anderson
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Elijah Anderson is a sociologist, cultural theorist, scholar, and professor of Sociology at Yale University. He specializes in Urban Ethnography. Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. in Sociology at Northwestern University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Elijah Anderson is a sociologist, cultural theorist, scholar, and the Sterling Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at Yale University. He specializes in Urban Ethnography. He is the author of several books including his most recent, titled <em>Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life</em> (2022). His other books include <em>Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City</em> (1999), winner of the Komarovsky Award from the Eastern Sociological Society; <em>Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community</em> (1990), winner of the American Sociological Association’s Robert E. Park Award for the best-published book in the area of Urban Sociology; and the classic sociological work, <em>A Place on the Corner </em>(1978). Dr. Anderson received numerous awards and recognition, including the consultant for the White House, United States Congress, and the National Academy of Science. In 2002, he was awarded the Stockholm Prize in Criminology. Previous to his tenure at Yale University, he was a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University.<br /></span>
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; John F. Kennedy; Deviance; Howard S. Becker; Outsiders—Defining Deviance"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":2,"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; John F. Kennedy; Deviance; Howard S. Becker; Outsiders—Defining Deviance</span>
Duration
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52:43
Subject LCSH
Sociologists; College teachers; Yale University; Anderson, Elijah--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Elijah Anderson
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 9 July 2009
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:02):
... as soon as I get everything ready here. I got to turn the sound up. All right. Can you hear me?
EA (00:06):
Yeah, I can hear you.
SM (00:07):
All right. Very good. Pretty nice weather we are having.
EA (00:13):
Oh, it is.
SM (00:15):
Considering all that rain we had.
EA (00:16):
It is not as hot and humid as it usually is this time of year.
SM (00:22):
First question I would like to ask then ... Again, thank you very much for doing this. When do you think the (19)60s began, in your opinion? And what do you think was the watershed moment for most of the young people from the boomer generation?
EA (00:41):
Well, I guess it depends on how you think of the (19)60s because, for a lot of people, the (19)60s are thought of as this period of a certain quest for freedom, individualism, that kind of thing, but especially a time of free-thinking people. I know, stereotypically, it is all about relaxing standards and that kind of thing and the so-called deviant people becoming more legitimate, that kind of thing. I mean that is what people like to think. There is a book by a mentor of mine, Howard Becker, and the book is entitled Outsiders. Basically, in this book, what he does is speak about the issue of rules. He tries to account for deviant behavior. Up to this point, scholars have talked about deviance as, again, in an objective kind of way, that mission being that deviant behavior is behavior that goes against society's standards, values, and rules. Basically, given that perspective, it is pretty easy to tell what deviance is and what it is not. What Becker does in his book is raise a lot of questions about that. He comes up with the so-called subjective view of defiance and, basically, this view of deviance says that deviance is whatever powerful people say it is at the time, and to really know deviance, you have to know something about how people react to certain acts and how they then go about labeling people that they consider to be in violation of standards, values, and rules that you care about or that certain people labeling them deviant, that care about them, you see? What he introduced in this book, which was published in 1963, but the source articles were written over a period of time through the late (19)50s, what he points to here is a profound relativity with respect to rulemaking and rule breaking, and I think that, to some extent, his idea was, to some extent, perhaps a manifestation of the period which you are speaking, where people more and more were trying to embrace this kind of relativism and trying to see the other side, trying to put themselves in the place of people who would be thought of as deviant or people who would be castigated, put down, subjected to the whims of the powerful and that kind of thing. What he did was basically he was able to come to appreciate the so-called victims of society and even to underscore the fact that they were not so bad after all, if you know what I mean? But I think this is what you saw more and more in the 1960s with more and more young people raising questions about the status quo, raising questions about the established institutions, especially when those institutions were fomenting and fostering a war that they did not believe in, to go and die in. So, you have every reason, people, to raise up and to rise up, I should say, and raise questions about the system, and this is what people ultimately did in the (19)60s. I do not know if that is what you meant, but-
SM (04:55):
Yeah. Well, that is beautiful. As a follow-up-
EA (04:57):
But, to me, that is what the (19)60s kind of represented.
SM (05:01):
Based on what you just said and what Becker said in his book, The Outsiders, how do you respond? You have heard this over probably the last 15, 20 years from columnists, like George Will, and even politicians, like Newt Gingrich, that they place all the ills of American society and they point right back to that era of the boomer era, whether it be the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, for the breakdown of the family, the breakdown of American society, the breakdown of morals, the lack of respect for authority. When Ronald Reagan became president, they praised him for trying to beat these kinds of things. But still, they will write about the boomers in that era in very negative terms. How do you respond to that?
EA (05:54):
Well, I think basically what you had in the 1950s in America was a strong sense that we lived in a rather homogeneous society, and this society was basically quite Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Of course, this included people who were that way and wanted to be that way, it seemed, even to the point of divesting themselves of their own ethnic particularities instead of joining into this great American way, so to speak. So there was a great and strong pull or a push for people to assimilate, that is to divest themselves of their particularities, whether they be whatever ethnic group, and to really blend in to be a part of this great American way and to contribute, to some extent, to this homogeneity, if not in phenotype, then in values and orientation, so to speak. I think this is what you did have in the Eisenhower era when Blacks and other minority groups basically were pretty much likely to try hard to assimilate, to divest themselves of their own ethnic particularities, and join in the great American way, so to speak. A lot of people, of course, were fine with that. But the (19)60s, I wrote about a kind of license for people to experiment and to move off the plantation, so to speak, and that is what people did. I think that your more conservative commentators react to this with a great alarm, thinking that, well, if people really do go off the plantation, this has implications for the integrity of the plantation itself and the values that uphold that plantation. I think, to some extent, they would be in line with trying to support that ideology that supports the plantation, not to break it down, if you know what I mean, the structures that hold it together, so to speak.
SM (08:26):
Again, a lot of people that I have interviewed have had a hard time trying to classify boomers over a 20-year period because the early boomers, those born between (19)46 and (19)56, seem to have been more involved than those in the latter part. So, I have had some individuals having a hard time with labels on generations. This is a two-part question. If you were to look at this generation, is there one specific event that you think had the greatest impact on them in those early years, those years between (19)46 and, say, (19)70 or (19)75? And secondly, what is the most important event that affected your life?
EA (09:09):
Well, I think I could answer maybe both questions with one answer. I mean I think that probably John F. Kennedy's assassination was extremely important for so many of the so-called boomers, but not only his assassination but, not long after that, the assassination of King and Robert Kennedy. These political assassinations, I think, were really very important to the coming of age of boomers and perhaps the rise in a certain ability to question the system and even to embrace a kind of cynicism with respect to the system, I think. This is one of the things that came about for so many of the boomers, a kind of awakening, if you will, of losing one's innocence, so to speak. I think that may be the biggest thing that these assassinations contributed. I think those were probably the major development, so to speak. I am not just talking about one assassination. I am talking about a series of major political assassinations, you see. Even if they were not intended to be political, they became politicized, I am sure, if you will.
SM (10:45):
If you were to put a couple of adjectives to describe some strengths and weaknesses, you have already mentioned quite a few of them in your opening comments, but just some adjectives to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the boomer generation.
EA (10:57):
Well, I think probably the biggest thing is just the number of people who were just born after people returned from the war. I think just the number is pretty impressive and certainly provocative to the status quo. Just mere numbers, I think, is very important. I think, with that, faults, so to speak, in the system, you have all kinds of implications for various issues that people are dealing with, whether it is what to do about resettlement after the Great War, or whether it has to do with family life following that, how people live, the suburbanization of people, growing up in the suburbs. At the same time, growing up in the suburbs did not mean that people were leaving behind their racial predilections, so to speak. I think that the racism that we saw that basically undergirded the beginning of this country, not to mention the great Civil War that we had and then Emancipation and then the riots in the cities and then the incorporation process that gave us the Black middle class as we know it and even the split between the Black underclass and the Black middle class that followed thereafter. And yet, many of these people who were the middle class did not enjoy any ability to really live in suburban communities in the same way that their white counterparts lived in these communities before them. In fact, the whole history of this race relations period had to do with the fact that Black people were moving into communities and white people were constantly moving out, and it was almost like a dog chasing its tail, so to speak, getting nowhere fast in terms of really being able to deliberate the problems of race and racism and social place in this country. So I think that, for me anyway, that these are some of the big issues that were at least if not confronted by the boomer, at least these were issues that they were having to deal with, though many abdicated their responsibilities to deal with some of these problems. But at the same time, you have to say that some of these individuals stepped up to the plate, so to speak, and began to fight for social change in a very positive sense. But we have this problem that is really best described as unfinished business, so to speak.
SM (14:25):
Right. You bring up a very important point because, again, I got a two-part question here. What has been the overall impact of boomers on their kids with respect to carrying on some of their ideals and their activism into the next couple generations? And secondly, along that point, what is your thought regarding these boomers? Have they copped out, most of them? There's obviously many who have stayed with the fight for many particular issues. But did most of them fall by the wayside for the almighty dollar as they grew older
EA (15:07):
I would not try to judge that. I mean but certainly, there is a lot of work to be done in this country by all people, boomers included. Whether or not the torch has really been passed from one generation to the next in terms of the boomers' responsibility or whatever, I mean that is hard to say because so many of these issues and problems are not so much a function of one generation passing off to another as much as it is an issue of structural forces that beset each succeeding generation, so to speak. That generation then has to deal with what it has to deal with in order to be, and I think this is the biggest issue. When you have a period of quietism, so to speak, you probably get people who are not so energized. When you have a period where people are confronted by exigencies of life that they have no pattern for, no experience in dealing with, then people may well become quite creative, so to speak. So it really is not so much a matter of one generation passing on its values as much as it is one generation having to deal with the exigencies of life that are quite different from the generation and those conditions that preceded them, so to speak. So that is what I would say about this. I would not think that a generation could simply pass its values intact onto another generation without considering the issues and the factors of life that the succeeding generation would have to deal with. I think you would have to consider all that in order to get a good read on that particular generation's ability to cope, so to speak.
SM (17:13):
How do you respond to some of the young people of that era, when they were young said that we were the most unique generation in American history because we were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society in every way? Of course, young people have idealism. We are going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, and war. But just-
EA (17:33):
I do not think any generation has any premium on that, so to speak. I mean it is basically up to people to deal with what that we have to deal with. Every generation is unique, really. Every generation is different. I mean no generation has a monopoly on any of these answers, so to speak, to the problems that face mankind up to people to deal with, each and every generation. I would not go so far to say that it is the most unique generation. I think that it is more complicated than that. At the same time, it is really important to appreciate the fact that the generation that faces great challenges certainly have a real set of issues from which they might grow and develop in that a unique generation. But I do not think there is anything intrinsic about a group of people that make them the greatest, so to speak, other than the challenges that they face and the way they responded to those challenges, if you know what I mean? In a sense, out of their hands, if you follow me? It is a matter of how people respond to what is before them. I think that the World War II generation, oftentimes called the greatest generation, but I think you have to look at the challenges that face that generation and subsequent challenges that face the boomers after that, if you follow me, and how they were able or not able to respond to those challenges. That is what I would say.
SM (19:30):
How important were the college students of that era, I am talking about the (19)60s, early (19)70s again, in ending the war in Vietnam, their influence on policy in America, the pressures they put on universities? But in society, how important, on a scale of, say, one to 10, with 10 being the highest number, where would you place the impact that that protest had in ending the war?
EA (19:55):
Well, I think that that protest was extremely important for-
SM (19:58):
Dr. Anderson, could you speak up just a little bit, too?
EA (20:00):
Yeah. I think that that protest movement was very, very important, but it was not just antiwar. It was also the demonstrations and protests against the racial status quo and the ways in which the movement for civil rights somehow culminated in riots and, ultimately, an incorporation process that brought about greater civil rights not only for Black people, but for all Americans. Also, it paved the way for the emergence of a Black middle class that was no longer so dependent on living in these inner-city communities, but one that was increasingly corporate, so to speak. But I think that we had that situation, which is certainly one that has to be, I think, appreciated. But you also had this group of people who stepped up to the plate and basically demonstrated quite effectively against the war. But they had been previously edified by all the struggles that they witnessed, from civil rights to the cultural nationalism, to ultimately the incorporation process. They were all part of that. Basically, you have them becoming very, very concerned not only about the expression of American power in the world, but they were concerned about their own brothers and sisters being taken away from them and having to fight far off in Asian war. Another piece that is important to this is the fact that we had the draft then, you see, and we did not have the professional army the way we do today. So, the fact that there was a draft basically meant that certain constituencies would be, to some extent, informed and then perhaps active in a way that would call an end to the fighting that they would expect to shore the burden of, so to speak, fighting and dying, you see. That is one thing that we do not have today. We do not have the same political action related to ones that are trying to save one's own blood, so to speak, whether it be your son, your daughter, or yourself or your husband or whoever it was, you see. We do not have the same thing going on today. We have a more professional army. I think that if we had an equal opportunity to be in Iraq or to be in Afghanistan, I think that you would probably see more protests against the war today, you see. But the truth was, back in the Vietnam era, we had more of an equal opportunity for participating in that war. And even then, it was one-sided in terms of the rich and well-to-do versus the poor because the rich and well-to-do oftentimes could get college deferment or whatever or their parents kept them out of harm's way through their political and economic influence, so to speak. So, the burden of it oftentimes fell on the ordinary American more so than the others. But I think that when you have this equal opportunity situation, you are bound to have more protests and you are bound to have political leaders who basically take their decision making a bit more seriously, at least with the consideration of the viewpoint of people who would make up their constituencies, so to speak.
SM (24:14):
We saw in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, kind of a split in the antiwar movement where African American students split away from the antiwar movement and, of course, toward what was going on in civil rights here in the United States, and we saw it a lot at Kent State. But I wanted you to comment on Dr. King's [inaudible] Vietnam speech. I think it should be required to be read in every college classroom because he was so far ahead of the game. Just your thoughts on the courage of him and that speech and maybe a couple comments on the reaction in America, not only in the civil rights community, but in America as a whole.
EA (24:56):
Well, I think basically a lot of people thought he was out of line with that speech, in part because they figured that he was really a civil rights leader, not somebody who should put his nose into foreign policy issues. And yet, he said very, very powerfully that, to some extent, the civil rights movement, it was related to this more general struggle for antiwar and peace and that kind of thing. That really disturbed a lot of people, including Lyndon Johnson himself, who had, up to that point, been listening more and more to King, but then, all of a sudden, recoiled. So there was that issue. But I think that, for King, it was a moral issue, that he thought he had a moral obligation to speak out, and he did.
SM (26:00):
One of the things that I am trying to get at in this process is the healing process. If you will bear with me, I had taken a group of students to see Edmund Muskie about a year before he died. He had just gotten out of the hospital, and he was not feeling very well. It was one of our Leadership on the Road programs, and there were 14 students. We taped it. We were talking about the (19)68 convention and a lot about the divisions in America as a whole. I asked him, "Have we healed at all since 1968 and the Vietnam War?" And he paused for a minute, almost had tears in his eyes. The students were looking at each other, "Why is not he responding?" And then he finally said, "I have been in the hospital for the last couple weeks, and I have been watching Ken Burns' The Civil War." He said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." So, he went on to talking about that particular aspect as opposed to the response since the Vietnam War. My commentary and question is this, with all the divisions that were happening in that (19)60s and (19)70s, the divisions in America, pro-war, antiwar, divisions between Black and white, between those who supported authority and those who were against, between those who supported the troops and those that were against, and all the other divisions, had we healed at all as a ... Do you think the boomer generation has healed at all since that time?
EA (27:40):
Well, I think that is a very provocative question, to be sure, and it may be a bit opposed as not so much a matter of healing as it is a matter of just simply ignoring the situation and dealing with other fish to fry, so to speak. Today, as we live our lives, we are dealing with economic change of a high order, probably the most important change since the Industrial Revolution, so to speak. As we make this change technologically, moving from manufacturing to service and high technology as a way to organize this economy, there are great numbers of people who are not making a change. So we have a lot on our plate right now today. You see, it's these kinds of issues, these kinds of demands that we have to deal with. But today, that oftentimes takes our attention away from other issues, so to speak, maybe going to preoccupy us and maybe even substitute for healing, so to speak. So, what we have is not so much healing as a scabbing over, so to speak, looking at issues and challenges all the time. It may be that that is the way it is, that nothing has healed completely. But we get new challenges from time to time. So today, we are dealing with this big economic issue, you see. That does not mean that we're done with slavery. It does not mean we're done with the Civil War. It does not mean that we have done with the civil rights movement. It just means that we have a sort of preoccupation with dealing with the present, so to speak, present problems and issues, the trials and tribulations of living our lives. That is what it seems to me.
SM (29:43):
Well, that is a beautiful answer because the last couple days I have been seeing some of my former students and the frustrations they have of finding a job. I have a friend who graduated from Penn who has been laid off twice in the last year, unbelievable stories. We are in a very-very, very tough economy. I think we're about hitting our 30 minutes here. Do you want to go 15 more minutes? We might be able to finish it.
EA (30:13):
Okay.
SM (30:14):
Because when my tape hits, and it has not hit yet, so we have not hit 30 minutes. I wanted to follow up to your response. Have you been to the Wall in Washington?
EA (30:25):
No, I have not.
SM (30:25):
I have been there many times. The Wall was built as a nonpolitical entity, mentored healing the wounds of the troops who fought and their families. It is supposed to be nonpolitical. I go down there every year on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, and I cannot help but constantly hearing politics there, even though they do a great job with the Wall stuff. Do you think the Wall has done anything with respect to ... Well, I know it is done a lot for the soldiers and the troops that fought and their families, but those who may have been against the war before the war ... It gets right back to that healing question. Has it done anything beyond just the military?
EA (31:05):
Well, I think it is not only a symbol of the war and our involvement there, but it is also a very powerful ...
SM (31:18):
15 more minutes. Okay, here we go.
EA (31:20):
Yeah, I think that is basically a matter of it memorializes people who made the supreme sacrifice, and I think that is a very important consideration here. That is probably the most important consideration. It does not necessarily heal, but it is a way to pay homage to people who gave their full measure, so to speak.
SM (31:48):
In your eyes, when did the Vietnam War end, and what was the major reason that it did end?
EA (31:54):
Well, I mean that is a complicated piece. But certainly, you look at the pictures, the iconic photographs of the day. The helicopters were taking people from the rooftops of certain buildings there. You realized that even that moment was not going to be the end the war, so to speak, but it is something more than that. It is just not so much a particular moment that you can say it is over kind of thing, but it has to do with, to some extent, the healing process and the way in which the US military and diplomatic corps basically took themselves out of that situation. That does not happen all at one time, but it happens over a period of months and even years, if you follow me? Some people, even though the war would be officially over, would consider the war to still be going on months after the declaration that it is over, if you know what I mean, because people have to adjust and get back to a sense of normalcy and that kind of thing. So, it is not so much a matter of something that is exact and pinpointed, if you follow me, but it is something that goes on and on. I think today, we could certainly say that we're done with all that and we are moving on to something else. Of course, now you have development in those areas where people once were fighting. You have development. You have hotels. You have commerce. You have all kinds of things that really say quite emphatically that it is a new day. You have people from there and people from here who fought in the war, who fought each other, who are now coming back together and discussing issues and discussing their various roles, not so much in anger, but just as a way to communicate with one another and let one another know that the hatchet has been buried, so to speak. I think when you have that kind of a situation, then you can begin to say that it is done and over, if you follow me, no exact moment, no exact time. Although certainly, we have the official administrative definition of the end of the war, so to speak. But even though you had that, things continued to progress, if you follow me, I think.
SM (34:31):
One of the things about the civil rights movement, and it was such a great mentor and role model to other movements that followed. I would like your thoughts just on the impact that this movement had on, and just general comments, on the women's movement and the Chicano, the Native American movement, certainly the antiwar movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Earth Day, the environmental movement. A lot of the people that lead these efforts looked back to the role modeling of the civil rights movement.
EA (35:05):
Oh, of course. Well, you have to understand that the Black situation was and is a special situation in this country. No other group has been brought here in chains and made to work for no wages and then emancipated in the Great War and then still subjected to second class citizenship, segregated in certain communities, discriminated against, hated, despised by people in the way that Black Americans were. So the civil rights movement, the protests for civil rights for Black people, is iconic and was major in so many respects. As people rose up to challenge the system, of course, a lot of people's heads were turning to this great race dealing with this situation of injustice, so to speak. A lot of people paid attention and even got involved, to some extent. It was not just the Blacks who went through this disestablishment, so to speak, and made itself free, but various people worked with Black people that helped to free not only them, but the country from its past, so to speak. But the civil rights movement itself culminated in the riots that happened in the cities around this country, great demand for civil rights and incorporation. Ultimately, what we did, we had the movement from the civil rights movement to the cultural nationalist movement and the riots in the cities. And then you had tremendous violence all over this country. The powers that existed had a real problem on its hands, how to deal with this whole situation in something of a very public kind of way, if you follow me? It tried to do this by putting these problems down by dealing with the revolts or the riots or whatever it was. You have to understand, too, that when this was happening, it was happening during the Cold War, you see, when this country and Russia, or the Soviet Union, were vying for leadership of the world. They were saying to each other, "Well, we have got the better system. We have got the better system." We were looking at the satellite, looking for people to follow them in some of the developing countries that were colored, in fact, looking for leadership from the Soviet Union or from the West. A big issue was who really had the better system in terms of being able to facilitate the development of people of color, to some extent. So given that this country was trying for leadership of the world, they really had a big fly in the ointment with the way that it had historically treated Black people and still treated Black people. You see? So there was a great need for this country to basically step up to the plate and get on the right side with respect to civil rights, you see, because there was a lot at stake. There was leadership of the world at stake, you see. So this is one thing that they had to do, that they had to deal with. When they did this, they engaged and you had this movement, the riots or what have you. They culled it out with violence. But they also worked to incorporate Black people in the system, you see.
SM (39:22):
[inaudible]-
EA (39:25):
Through affirmative action, set asides, what have you, they created a new Black middle class, you see, a class that effectively would cull out other people and show that if you work hard, you can be not only meritorious, but you can also have something in this world, you see. So, this was a very important thing because they brought Black people forward, in part, because of all these other issues that were going on at the time, especially the fact that the issues of the wider world, the third world, the developing countries, the developed nations. All those issues were very important to the success of the civil rights movement here that resulted in first class citizenship for Black people, but also, to some extent, an incorporation process that helped Black people to take their place in American society. That struggle is still going on. It is not over. But we have made a lot of progress, for sure.
SM (40:39):
Do you consider the Black Power movement a negative or a positive in that process?
EA (40:45):
I think, in some ways, it was bold. There were times when it was highly negative, and times when it was very positive. I think the major thing was that it set the stage for the incorporation process that we saw that basically gave us the Black middle classes that exist today. I think that without the issues that were put on the table in the (19)60s and the (19)70s by the cultural nationalists and by the so-called Black Power movement, that you probably would not have had the degree of incorporation that we have right now today, or even the motivation to incorporate Black people or to have Black people live as first class citizens in this country without that, without protests-
SM (41:41):
Could you-
EA (41:42):
... on the system's institutions, if you will.
SM (41:42):
Would you be able to comment on, since you are a scholar, if you think there were any books that were very popular at that time that influenced people of all colors, boomers, and then, of course, the impact that the music of the boomer generation has had because that is all you hear on the radio now is music from that period, it just seems that.
EA (42:01):
I think that if you are going to think about what effect that the boomers in that period, you have to undoubtedly look at the kind of education they were getting during the civil rights movement and during the antiwar movement and the cultural nationalist period and all that. Increasingly, you had these young students, white, Black, whoever, but especially the white middle class, more and more being edified, educated by people who brought a certain sensitivity to the problems of the history of Black people in this country, including the studies of slavery and race relations and that kind of thing. So many of these schools around the country began to incorporate Black studies courses and that kind of thing. All of this gave both Black people and young white people a clearer sense of the history of this country. I think that was very, very important for their understanding, but also the notion of the possibilities for the country itself. I think those things were very, very important to implement. We could go on and on with that. But I think that is-
SM (43:19):
Any thoughts on the music?
EA (43:21):
I think those are important. I think also what you began to see as a result of the civil rights movement and the incorporation process was a proliferation of different kinds of music that Blacks were involved in. You began to see the emergence, undoubtedly, of rhythm and blues and blues and jazz and hip hop and rock and all these variations that came about. You began to see the influence of Black singers and performers crossing over, you see. I think that was very, very important. I think that the music of The Beatles was very important. I think Elvis Presley was very important. I think Michael Jackson was very important. All these stars were important for the way in which they helped us to integrate our society, as it were. I think this, to some extent, is a function of the civil rights movement, but also the ways in which we have been able to move toward the diversity and the acceptance of diversity within our country with all of this, the music, the civil rights movement. All that was very, very important in this process, and I think we are all beneficiaries of what happened there.
SM (44:41):
I have two more questions. One's a question on trust. I can remember being in a college 101 psychology class many years ago, and the professor said in one of the very first classes that ... He was defining the meaning of trust, and he said, "We all have to trust someone in life. If you go through life and you cannot trust people, you probably will not be a success in life." So, I am bringing this question up because all the leaders that a lot of the boomers saw, they were lying to them many, many times, from presidents on down. The students at least that I knew, and many of the boomers, did not trust anybody that was in a leadership role, whether it be a university president, a congressman, a senator, even leaders in the church, corporate leaders, you name it. It is because they had been disappointed so many times by leaders who had lied to them, whether it be President Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin, in recent years, the things about John Kennedy and maybe being linked to the killings of the two people in Vietnam. President Eisenhower lied on national television about the U-2 incident. Then we had Richard Nixon and Watergate. And then there were just, over and over, things where leaders who were voted in, people wanted to trust them, realized that they could not trust them. The body counts in the Vietnam War, all these things. Just your thoughts on, finally, if these young people cannot trust, what are they passing on to their kids? So just your comments on do we have a problem with trust?
EA (46:26):
Well, I think trust is very important, for sure. I think that what you see with the major assassinations I mentioned, this period of political assassinations, that really ended the period of innocence for Americans, boomers in particular maybe, but Americans in general. I think this is very, very important. But it was also important not just in terms of people becoming more mature, so to speak, but it also ushered in a kind of cynicism, if you will. I think this was very, very important. I think that we're still living with consequences of that, and it will take time to get that back. But so many people have basically taken leave, abdicated, checked out, so to speak. But now and then, we have a charismatic figure emerge, and then hope is restored. I think that is what we have today with Barack Obama's emergence as the political leader that he is. The jury is still out, of course, whether or not he is going to do all that he has promised to do or whether he is going to have the integrity, ultimately, that we all like to attribute to him. But so far, I think he has been really showing first-rate leadership that basically begins to heal so much that has happened in our past that has made us doubt. So I think the trust issue is always there, and it gets rebuilt with succeeding generations, but most importantly, through acts that we can have faith in, so to speak.
SM (48:19):
My last question is, when the best history books or sociology books are written 50 years after a period, what do you think people will be saying about the boomer generation with all its complexities, with all its diversity? What will professors in your shoes be saying 50 years from now at Yale in soc classes and history classes about the boomer era, the (19)60s, the (19)70s, and their lives, basically?
EA (48:52):
Yeah. Well, why do not we hold off on that one for a while? Once we get a sense of how this works out, then I will respond to that. Okay? Give me time to think about that one.
SM (49:03):
Very good.
EA (49:08):
So now you have the tape, and you are going to transcribe it?
SM (49:11):
Yep. I am going to transcribe it probably myself and-
EA (49:19):
But let me say this. I do not want to make this available until I have had a chance to read it and to edit it, that kind of thing.
SM (49:26):
Oh, yeah. I am doing that with everybody. In fact, I have not transcribed any. I am doing the transcribing myself on all of them.
EA (49:37):
I understand. I just want to look because I like to be able to review it and edit it before it is out there, and I would like to respond more fully to certain points you raised.
SM (49:48):
Yeah. The only other part I could not ask you today is just responses to some of the names of the period.
EA (49:55):
Yeah.
SM (49:56):
So anyways ...
EA (49:57):
But you have your work cut out for you.
SM (50:00):
Yep. But ...
EA (50:00):
If you can get this back to me at a certain point, I can deal with it and we can move along. But you raised a lot of good questions, a lot of good issues. I want to commend you for that.
SM (50:12):
Well, it is my first book.
EA (50:13):
I was going to ask you.
SM (50:16):
You know what I want to do in my next book?
EA (50:18):
What is that?
SM (50:18):
I want to write about Dr. King and the Vietnam speech.
EA (50:23):
Well, that sounds good. That sounds good. I mean he was a great man, for sure, great American. I think that a lot of these issues you have been raising today, are just right on, right on the money.
SM (50:36):
Well, I know Mrs. Bagley. Do you know her?
EA (50:38):
No. No.
SM (50:39):
She is the sister of Coretta Scott King. So, I have gotten to know her. She is not well, but she has taken a liking to me. She was upset that I left Westchester. She used to call me. I have not talked to her in a while, but I am going to call her. She can only sit down for 20 minutes because she is not well. I am going to interview her for the book and go from there. But Dr. Anderson, Yale is so lucky to have you. That is all I have to say.
EA (51:10):
Well, thank you very much. I am glad I am here. I am glad that I am here and able to teach and spread the word and that type of thing.
SM (51:21):
Yeah. Of course, every one of my interviews is going to have a picture that I have taken of each of the guests, either when I interview them in person, but I have some great shots of you when you were here in Westchester two years ago.
EA (51:32):
Okay. Well, when you transcribe it, get it to me. And then I will have to edit it and work it out.
SM (51:35):
Yep. Will do.
EA (51:35):
Okay.
SM (51:36):
You have a great weekend coming up, and I hope your wife's arm's better.
EA (51:43):
Thank you. Thank you. I am looking forward to getting her back to her therapy today. I am going to leave tomorrow, heading to Philly. Then I got to be back Monday because she has got another appointment for therapy. So anyway, well, listen, I am glad we got this done, and I look forward to reading it and responding and editing the whole thing.
SM (52:05):
Super.
EA (52:06):
Okay.
SM (52:07):
You have a great day.
EA (52:08):
Okay, Steve.
SM (52:09):
Yep. Can I call you Eli?
EA (52:10):
Sure, absolutely.
SM (52:13):
Because I have so much respect for you, I want to call you Dr. Anderson.
EA (52:16):
I call you Steve. You can call me Eli.
SM (52:18):
All right, Eli, thank you very much.
EA (52:20):
I am glad you raised a lot of those questions. I thought they were good questions, and I tried to answer as best I could.
SM (52:26):
Yeah, they were great answers.
EA (52:28):
I think some of the points could be elaborated, that kind of thing. So I look forward to seeing the transcript.
SM (52:34):
Okay.
EA (52:34):
Take care now.
SM (52:34):
Yep, you, too. Bye now.
EA (52:37):
Okay, Steve. Bye.
(End of Interview)
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1 Microcassette
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Interview with Dr. Elijah Anderson
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Anderson, Elijah ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Sociologists; College teachers; Yale University; Anderson, Elijah--Interviews
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Dr. Elijah Anderson is a sociologist, cultural theorist, scholar and professor in Sociology at Yale University, where he specializes in Urban Ethnography. Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. in Sociology at Northwestern University.
Dr. Elijah Anderson is a sociologist, cultural theorist, scholar, and the Sterling Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at Yale University. He specializes in Urban Ethnography. He is the author of several books including his most recent, titled <em>Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life</em> (2022). His other books include <em>Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City</em> (1999), winner of the Komarovsky Award from the Eastern Sociological Society; <em>Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community</em> (1990), winner of the American Sociological Association’s Robert E. Park Award for the best-published book in the area of Urban Sociology; and the classic sociological work, <em>A Place on the Corner</em> (1978). Dr. Anderson received numerous awards and recognition, including the consultant for the White House, United States Congress, and the National Academy of Science. In 2002, he was awarded the Stockholm Prize in Criminology. Previous to his tenure at Yale University, he was a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2009-07-09
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.16
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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52:43
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ea3ea668ec2822981541b3f6c412f571.mp3
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McKiernan Interviews
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
(2009-07-25)(2009-08-12)
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Pete Seeger, 1919-2014
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Pete Seeger (May 3, 1919 - January 27, 2014) was a folk singer and a social activist. In addition, to being a folk singer he also wrote his own songs as he performed them to people. He wrote songs throughout the different time periods of history. For example, he recorded an album in '78 called \"Songs of the Lincoln Battalion\" with Tom Glazer, Bess Lomax, and Baldwin Hawes."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":16370588},"12":0}">Pete Seeger (May 3, 1919 - January 27, 2014) was a folk singer and a social activist. In addition, to being a folk singer he also wrote his own songs as he performed them to people. He wrote songs throughout the different time periods of history. For example, he recorded a 78 RPM album called <em>Songs of the Lincoln Battalion</em> with Tom Glazer, Bess Lomax, and Baldwin Hawes.</span>
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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80:25
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Rolf in the Woods: The Adventures of a Boy Scout with Indian Quonab and Little Dog Skookum (Book); Ernest Thompson Seton; Theodore Roosevelt; Eugene V. Debs; American Student Union; Woodstock; The Great Depression; Jackson State; Kent State; Songs; Voting Rights Act of 1965."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":16370588},"12":0}">Rolf in the Woods: The Adventures of a Boy Scout with Indian Quonab and Little Dog Skookum (Book); Ernest Thompson Seton; Theodore Roosevelt; Eugene V. Debs; American Student Union; Woodstock; The Great Depression; Jackson State; Kent State; Songs; Voting Rights Act of 1965.</span>
Subject LCSH
Folk singers; Human rights workers; Seeger, Pete, 1919-2014--Interviews
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Pete Seeger
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Kashawn Hernandez
Date of interview: 25 July 2009; 8 December 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
00:04
PS: The whole chapter will be off the press in November.
00:10
SM: Very good. And who, who is printing it? What company?
00:13
PS: WW Norton Company. Good company.
00:17
SM: Yep.
00:19
PS: And we will go to actually go to press in a few weeks. And I hope to get an advanced copy sometime in September, October.
00:33
SM: Super. And it will be hard back too?
00:38
PS: Both. Oh, I think hardback. Like, I do not know for sure.
00:44
SM: All right I guess ̶
00:46
PS: $25. $24.95
00:51
SM: All right.
00:52
PS: Okay. All right.
00:52
SM: Ready?
00:53
PS: Remind me what your name is?
00:55
SM: My name is Steve McKiernan. I booked; I know Peggy. Peggy came to our college at Westchester University and performed and then I interviewed Peggy over the phone. Peggy is the one that called you right away and said, you need to talk to Steve and then I called you and then I sent you the questions and everything. And this book is basically a book on the boomers but it is also a lot of the things that you were involved in (19)60s and (19)50s/(19)60s and (19)70s. So, I am looking at the boomers from different aspects and getting people's opinions. First question I want to ask is, when did you think the (19)60s began? What was it, what do you think was the watershed moment from the (19)60s?
01:44
PS: I would say in the (19)50s there were extraordinary things happening, the civil rights movement ̶ started in colleges throughout the north. There were people who went down to help, there were white students who went down to help Dr. King. Freedom summer was officially 1964. But before that they were going down there to help out. And, my guess is Woodstock made a big, big change because people who did not go to Woodstock saw the movie Woodstock, right? And I tell people, the most popular song in America was "123 What Are We Fighting For?" The (19)60s were over then. It was 1970 when the movie was out, but (19)69 was Woodstock. There were things before this, like the Newport Folk Festival. The Clearwater started in (19)69. See what could be the (19)60s, offhand, I just cannot think.
03:25
SM: Do you think there was one event? When you look at the boomers ̶ they were the people born between 1946 and 1964. What do you think in their eyes was the most important event that happened in their lives ̶ that may have shaped them the most?
03:42
PS: Well, I do not know. I cannot think of any one thing. It is a lot of little things. Because this is me ̶ I started singing in colleges in 1953. Up till that time I sang at little left-wing camps and an occasional lefty hotel or some place called Music Inn up in the Berkshires. At concerts I gave or in the Boss Circuit, that would be a place I would sing, so I do not think if any one thing. For some it might been a festival, who knows. But it could have been lots of little things.
05:05
SM: Lots of little things, not a little thing, not one specific thing. How do you feel when you hear people like George Will or Newt Gingrich or individuals, look at the boomer generation, blame all the problems of American society on this group of people, that they love them say that the breakup the American family, the drugs, that values went down? How do you feel when you hear those people say those things about that time?
05:39
PS: The poor people do not know what they are talking about. There is a drug problem, incidentally, did you ever hear of Kurt Vonnegut?
05:54
SM: Oh yeah.
05:54
PS: Statement about says, if people ask me, what do you think America's greatest cultural contribution to the world has been many would say jazz. I love jazz, jazz is good, but I would say Alcoholics Anonymous. It showed a way to help people who are alcoholics without having to spend a lot of money. They just get together and they admit, they have all got a problem. And they talk over their problem with each other and said, with God's help, we are going to kick this habit. It was a truly great cultural invention.
06:45
SM: So those individuals that do kind of do broad based attacks on a group of people, you think they were way out left field?
06:54
PS: You know, people who think that passing a law against it is the way to solve a problem. They just they did not take learn from prohibition ̶ prohibition just created a whole lot of gangsters who made a lot of money out of prohibition and people could get drunk by paying money to the right gangster.
07:17
SM: When you performed in the say in the (19)60s and through the middle (19)70s and you saw these students, well, and nonstudents who were in the in your audience and then of course, a lot has been written on them since. What do you think of the strength of that group of young people? Because you have been performing for young people since the (19)40s and (19)50s. And, but when you are getting specifically into those people that were born after World War II, raised by parents, oftentimes people that fought in the war and went through the depression and tried to give their kids as much as they could that they did not have, what would you say would be the strengths and the weaknesses of that generation?
08:06
PS: These are interesting questions. I think it is the interesting thing that it was a middle-class movement in many ways. These were not ignorant sharecroppers who had not barely gone through the third grade in school. These were ̶ they had the good education. And they could see the hypocrisy of the ruling class. Maybe I could be looking at my own experience. I came from a family of teachers. My grandfather was a small businessman and a Republican from old New England. My grandmother was a, his wife, was a member of the Mayflower. But as a child, I read the books of Ernest Thompson Seaton, he wrote about American Indians. I do not know if you ever heard of heard of Seaton. He wrote, he was sold widely to teenagers in the first two and a half decades. His first best seller was in the 1890s. I read a book called Ralph in the Woods when I was eight years old. It was written for twelve or thirteen years old, but I was eight. I was a good reader. And that is the story of a thirteen-year-old being beaten by a stepfather and he runs off into the woods. This is the year 1810. And there has a wigwam in the woods of Indian, whose tribe had been massacred. His wife had been sold into slavery. And he is living in this wigwam trapping a few animals and exchanging their skins for a few things at the corner store that he needs. Ralph says, Can I stay with you overnight, my stepfather is going to beat me. And the Indian says, Sure roll up in the corner. In the morning, the stepfather arrives. Oh, you will with Indian, I am going to get my gun. Now that both are in trouble, they flee up the Hudson Valley to the Adirondacks and work for a local Dutch farmer. Worked for local Dutch farmer for a month and earned enough money to buy some traps and other tools they need. Now they hit into Adirondacks and build a cabin. And the next few years, every chapter of the book is another nature lesson. Some of them are funny when the dog meets a porcupine. Some of them are almost tragic. Ralph, the boy fit now a fourteen-year-old or fifteen. He sees two male deer with an Atlas hook that cannot escape, and one of them is dead and the other trying to free himself but he cannot get free and Ralph goes up and frees the live deer but now the live deer is crazy and he charges Ralph and pins roll to the ground. You know Ralph is going to be ̶ the dog is well known about dogs can sense things from afar they no one knows how they do it. You know, they make a long trip and they know which direction to go and so, and the dog whines the Indian says when something has gone wrong lead me to the dog leads the Indian to where Ralph is. And the Indian shoots the deer and saves Ralph's life. Another chapter is a French Canadian in the neighboring valley is trapped by his own bear trap and cannot get out. But they free him and the French Canadian in broken English says, I will never forget you if you ever need help, call on me. Now. The next year is the war of 1812 is broken out and they are hired by the US Army to be scouts and the carry messages from east to west along the frontier. Once Ralph is running through the woods alone, and he suddenly hears a cry, “Halt.” And there is a gun pointed at him, and that is a French-Canadian soldier and it is the trapper. And he says, "Run Ralph I will shoot over your head" so well friends, the man shoots over his head, and Ralph gets away. It is an exciting novel. I got into every one of Seaton's books. I read that [Cross, Gracit and Dunlap] sold for $8 some seven books. And I persuaded my parents to invest let me buy all eight of them seven, "[Lives regrets], Lives of the Hunted. Seaton did not die till his (19)80s in the 1950s in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He had gone down there to capture [Logo] the wolf. I got into the big criticism that the American Indian has of whites was our hypocrisy.
14:27
SM: Do you think that some people say the very same thing about the boomer generation, that they are hypocrites, they felt they could change the world when they were young, they protest against, or 15% of them did. And then they have gone on to become materialistic and make a lot of money. Do you think that is true?
14:45
PS: Well, some of them did give up. I do not think that was a very wrong criticism though. They were basically protesting the hypocrisy of the ruling class. Incidentally when you speak the ruling class. Marx gave it that term. But did you ever hear of president Rutherford Hayes?
15:08
SM: Oh yeah, he was a nineteenth. President 1877. Yeah, well ̶
PS: 15:11
He was a very honest president. He only agreed to run for four years because he loved his family and did not want to subject them to that pressure for more than four years. After he was president, he liked to make speeches. He had jumped into this new invention called a railroad to go somewhere and give a speech. And in 1888, the Supreme Court handed down a famous decision ̶ there was no capital punishment for corporations. Up till that time, the state could handle it charter to a corporation. And if they did not like what the corporation was doing, they could take it away. But now, after 1888 the Supreme Court said that you can fine a cooperation if they do something wrong, but you cannot take away their corporate status. Rutherford Hayes, says face it, we no longer have a government of the people by the people for the people- we have a government of corporations by corporations, corporations and in 1891 when he met Cornelius Vanderbilt, he said we have a government of the rich by the rich for the rich. Now this was rarely said by the ruling class person, it was said by farmers or workers and squatter Eugene Debs said when he started the Socialist Party, but this is being said by people at the top. Theodore Roosevelt said it in 1906. I think I keep in my pocket pictures - this is Theodore Roosevelt.
15:43
SM: Could you read it to me? Or you want me to -
17:11
PS: "Behind the ostensible government of our country there exists a secret government not beholden to the people. To destroy this secret government, it should be the chief task of responsible statesmanship to destroy the link between corrupt business and corrupt politics.
17:40
SM: That is a beautiful quote.
17:44
PS: Well, the unholy alliance, the first task statesman, of course Franklin Roosevelt said something similar. He said, we have running the country, economic royalists. He said that in the 1930s.
18:01
SM: So, a lot of the things that the boomers were doing on college campuses in the (19)60s and challenging, again, we were talking 15 percent of people that were that age ̶ they were challenged in the universities and because they were becoming too linked to the corporations.
18:21
PS: In 1955, I was sixteen years old. And my mother drove me to Connecticut where she was teaching violin to a Jewish family. And the teenagers were studying violin. And over supper, they were asking what I was going to do with my life. I was sixteen. I said, I am going to be a hermit. That is the only way to be an honest person in this hypocritical world. I will have little to do with the world as possible. And they jumped on me ̶ if that is your idea of morality, you are going to be nice and pure yourself and let the rest of the world go to hell. And they posed my New England Thoreaulite way of thinking to their traditional Jewish sense of social content, social consciousness. And I decided they were right. So, I started getting more involved. And I, when I went to college, a year later, I got involved in student, what do you call it, the student, oh, my memories, the Harvard Student Union, the American Student Union, was the name of the organization. Actually, they had their annual meeting at Vassar because there was a liberal president at Vassar. And then I was editing the little monthly magazine for the Harvard Student Union, called the Harvard Progressive. And I did not pay attention to my marks, the high marks slipped and I lost my scholarship. So, I had to leave. I did not have enough money to go to Harvard if I did not have a scholarship. I also worked; my brothers’ help pay a third of that money. And I worked for a third of the money and the scholarship took care of a third of the money. But I was also disgusted with what I felt was the hypocrisy of some of the professors. Professor Sorokin was a social democrat. He was a friend of the guy that the Bolsheviks kicked out in Russia. And he said, do not think you can change the world. What you can do is study it. And that was trying to persuade us not to try and do some changes ̶
21:21
SM: Do you think that may have been happening in the (19)60s and (19)70s? What college students today, you know, do not you know, do not make waves just study it ̶
21:31
PS: And I decided I did not want to bother going to college, if that was the kind of people teaching here. Now, the people like Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, are the exception that proves the rule that the average teacher will tell you, you do not want to get thrown in jail, study it, and when you learn a lot, then you can do something and get in a position of importance, and you can do something.
21:56
SM: What is it about your music ̶ and I read your books. Your music is something that your dad taught you when you were young, that music was supposed to have a social content, that it was supposed to have meaning and the most important thing is writing music. It is not really the performance, but it is remembering the words. So, the impact will be lasting in the lifetime of a young person as they grow older and sharing it with their young people. What is it about your music that is so important to the boomer generation because it is, you really, you have had a lot of impact your words, in your music?
22:38
PS: I try not to lose a sense of humor. But occasionally in every program, I do something deadly serious. "Walking down death row, I sang for three men destined for the chair. Walking down death row, I sang of lives and loves in other years. Walking down death row, I sang of hopes that used to be. Through the bars, into each separate cell, Yes, I sang to one and two and three. If you had only stuck together you would not be sitting here! If you could have loved each other's lives, you'd not be sitting here! And if only this you could believe, you might still, you might still be reprieved. Walking down death row, I turned the corner and found to my surprise; there were women there as well, with babies in their arms, before my eyes. Walking down death row, I tried once more to sing of hopes that used to be. But the thought of that contraption, down the hall, waiting for whole families, one dozen, two or three, if you had only stuck together, you would not be here! If you could have loved another child as well as your own, you would not be sitting here! And if only this you could believe, you might still, you might still be reprieved." The last verse. “Walking down death row, I concentrated, singing to the young. I sang of hopes that flickered still, I tried to mouth their many separate tongues. Walking down death row, I sang of hopes that still might be singing, singing sing in down death row to each separate human cell, one billion, two, or three, if we would only stick together, we would not be here! If we do not really stick together, we would not be here. If we could learn to love each other's lives, we would not be sitting here! And if only this we could believe, we still might, we still might be reprieved."
25:11
SM: Okay, hold on one second. Are you excited about the anniversary of Woodstock?
25:23
PS: Not particularly. Not in favor of big things. I think the world will be saved by small things.
25:36
SM: You know, before we start, I went into Barnes and Noble bookstore. That is the place where I bought your books. And I noticed that Mr. Dunaway, his book, the paperback book, also the book the Protest Singer, which I have read them both ̶ now I have read both of them, I have underlined them. And then a book that had the CD in it with our music. It was, I forget the name of the guy who wrote it. It was up ̶
26:12
PS: Yeah, orange cover.
26:16
SM: Yeah, so the great things, and then of course your CDs are very strong at Barnes and Noble and I bought the one when I spoke to you briefly down at Beacon New York ̶ you had recommended that CD of all your music, I think it was about thirty songs and I have that too. So, but what is interesting before we start the interview, I went into the bookstore yesterday and I was kind of shocked. They have had a couple books out on Woodstock, and I know that, but you know, two or three hardbacks, but they got a whole table full of items. It has become such a commercial event. It is sometimes sickening.
27:00
PS: Yes.
27:03
SM: All right, you are ready for some questions?
27:05
PS: I was going to ask you if you did not have fun in the bookstore. The book I wrote years ago, I guess cool. Everybody says Freedom was not there.
27:16
SM: That was not there. And I think you mentioned ̶
27:19
PS: What about the storytelling book?
27:21
SM: Oh, I have that too. Yes. But I brought that with me, but I forgot to have you sign it. That is a very good book.
27:31
PS: You should know that WW. Norton will have out in November, a book called Where Have all the Flowers Gone? And the first edition came out fifteen years ago, sixteen years ago but it was so full of mistakes I told the [saying out], do not reprint it, do not reprint it. It took me thirteen years to get the job done. It finally went to press and now has a new publisher rather, co-publisher and called Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Musical Autobiography.
28:18
SM: Very nice. Well what that will come out in November?
28:23
PS: Yes.
28:24
SM: I will definitely have to get a copy and send it to you, and have it signed.
28:30
PS: Okay.
28:32
SM: All right. Well, here is my first question. When you think of the boomer generation now that is the young people born after the war ̶ and the people that actually came to a lot of your concerts in the (19)60s and (19)70s. What does the (19)60s and the youth of the (19)70s mean to you?
28:53
PS: Well, it was a significant breakthrough in the control of the country by the powers who have the money. Probably know that not just lefties but both sorts of quite well-known respectable people knew that shortly after the Civil War, corporations and business controlled the country and controlled the media, newspapers and so on. It is true that there were opposition from those who were aware of this, but they were small and weak. I mean you have the farmers movement and the union movement of the late nineteenth century and you had the socialist movement and the communist movement. 99 percent of the people got their news from the newspapers and places like the radio and TV. And the exceptions were rare. Well for example, songs that were on the radio during the 1930s during the Depression were all love song. And there was never a song which even mentioned the idea there was a depression on. Herbert Hoover said to Rudy Vallee a popular singer, Mr. Vallee, if you can sing a song that will make the American people forget the depression, I will give you a medal. The exception proves the rule. On Broadway, there was a very popular musical show. And the hit song of the show was called "Brother Can you Spare a Dime." Because in the show there was a breadline and the guy say he spent my life building the country. Now, I am out of a job. Brother, buddy, can you spare a dime? Did you ever hear the song?
31:20
SM: Oh, yes.
31:22
PS: Then you know it, it is a famous song. The exception to the rule. The rule was a Bing Crosby's song “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away)". I knew because [I was in my period], so I played in this cool jazz band and it was one stupid song after another ̶ well we were clever and sometimes had a good tune. But it was all forget your troubles. You cannot do anything about your trouble so anything you can do is forget. So, let me give you a sample of the opposite opinion. I always thought that Rutherford B. Hayes, who was president after General Grant was the worst president we ever had because he withdrew federal troops from the South. That was the end of reconstruction. Up until then, blacks, ex-slaves had been able to vote, and they sent several people to Congress, one became a senator, iron rebels. After troops were withdrawn from the south, the Ku Klux Klan took over the south. Rutherford B Hayes actually was not a bad president because he was forced into this. The deal was made behind his back. But he was a very honest president. And after he only told Republicans he only be willing to run a one term. He loved his wife and family. And this one is subject to that pressure for more than four years. Well, eight years after he was president, the Supreme Court handed down a decision saying there was no capital punishment for corporations. Before that states could hand out a charter to a corporation. And if they did not like what they were doing, they can take it away or not after 1888 find a corporation if they do something illegal, but you could not take away their charter. And Hayes says, face it. We no longer have a government, of the people by the people for the people. As Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, we have a government of corporations by corporations. for corporations. Way back then he said it. Then President Theodore Roosevelt said in 1906 ̶ behind the ostensible government of our country with there is a secret government, which shows no allegiance to the people; to destroy this secret government should be the chief task of responsible statesmanship. And he has, you know, tried with the antitrust laws and the income tax. But then he was voted out. Woodrow Wilson came in however, Woodrow Wilson before he left office said, I am filled with unhappiness. So, let me read you exactly what he said about it. Here is Woodrow Wilson around 1989, I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. The great industrial nation is controlled by a system of credit or a system of credit is concentrated the growth of the nation Therefore, all our activities are in the hands of the few men. We have come to be one of the worst rules, one of the most completely controlled and dominated government in the civilized world. No longer government, by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction, the vote of the majority, but a government of the government by the opinion and duress of a small group, of dominant men which under administration the Federal Reserve was created. So, and you know, probably Franklin Roosevelt said we have economic royalists in our country. In other words, not just the lefties said we should get rid of the rich people. Some rich people are extraordinary. You know, George Soros is one and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. ended up giving away most money, which is probably less.
36:41
SM: So, when you look at the ̶ comparing this history and you mentioned Rutherford B. Hayes, at least he had the integrity to serve one term, even though he may not have been the greatest president in the world. But when you look at the leaders that were in charge of our government when the boomers were young, and continuing through today, you are looking at people like Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and obviously, Bush again. These are the people that have ̶ when you look at the leaders that the boomers have had lived through, what are your thoughts on them?
37:23
PS: Well, life is compromises. And maybe one of the things you learn about politics is the compromises necessary. One of the mistakes often people think, oh, we just get rid of those rich people, and everything will be hunky dory, and they have not learned how to compromise. I think one of the most important things about, if you read the book about Lincoln called Team of Rivals ̶
38:01
SM: Yes, I have Doris Kearns Goodwin,
38:03
PS: A very, very important book. And I rather suspect that Barack Obama has read it too,
38:11
SM: Yes, he has.
38:14
PS: But the boomers made the mistake of thinking, we will get the young people in charge and everything will be hunky dory. I remember arguing with Jerry Rubin. You got to work with the old people as well as the young people. That is one of the lessons in the civil rights movement. Yes, the middle age people, people in their (19)30s and forty were cautious. But their kids and their grandparents were the ones who carried through Dr. King's great change. Civil Rights, evolution if you want to call it, a peaceful revolution. My own life, my own way of thinking was turned around by King. My best song has been written about him, my best new song. Have you heard, "Take it From Dr. King"?
39:12
SM: I do not believe I have.
39:14
PS: I wrote it right after the Twin Towers were bombed.
39:18
PS: No, I have not.
39:23
SM: It is the last chapter in my new book, “Take it from Dr. King”. And so, I argue with young people who think that world change is going to be done by one group, if I think it was the mistake of Marx, thinking that the working class would be the only group that would make change. I think there was a collective thought back then, and I think some of the boomers still have it even as they approach old age, because they are leaving middle age of the early boomers, and that is that they were the most unique generation in American history, that they were going to change the world bring peace, love, end conflict. And you know, and create kind of a new world order, which I do not know really has happened. But that is, your thoughts on that attitude that used to be very prevalent in the 1960s and some of them still have it today as they are approaching, as they reach sixty.
40:40
PS: Oh, yes, I get letters from people in their (19)60s thanking me for coming in and singing at their college back in the 1950s. I went from college to college to college during the late 1950s. I started in Oberlin in 1953. Went to Antioch but by 1958/ (19)59, I was going to all sorts of certain colleges and by 1960, I was going to the state universities. And it was the most important job I ever did in my life. I could have kicked the bucket in 1961. And my job was done. A raft of young songwriters came along, who could sing better than I did and make up better songs. They took over people like Bob Dylan and Bill Oaks and Buffy St. Marie and Joni Mitchell. And now there is not dozens of them. They are literally hundreds if not thousands.
41:51
SM: When you look at the ̶ explain a little bit more what it was like going to college campuses in the 1960s. I recently saw on television and I think you may remember that you went to Great Valley High School near outside Philadelphia. Do you remember that?
42:12
PS: No, I do not.
42:12
SM: Well, it was, it actually was on there ̶ it was quite a few years ago and they had it on their little TV station of your visit there once. What was it your feeling of going from campus to campus in the 1960s and even into the 1970s. Did you feel ̶
42:35
PS: I really delighted in it even though occasionally there were a bomb threat and but I'd sing a song and there would be a loud boom in the middle of the song because I said something they disagreed with and then the guy who made a boo was thunderstruck because at the end of the song, it was a thunder of loud cheers and the guy who booed said what is happening to our country with traitorous pops like that are, actually, given [out] from the stage.
43:13
SM: Is there any way ̶ you mentioned that you have done thousands of concerts. But obviously there may have been one or two that stood out. Is there one or two concerts that you did on a college campus that stood out and what year was that?
43:34
PS: I told you, my voice started to give out. I wanted to have a concert where the audience could be heard so I had it especially miced with microphones over the audience. And if you go to Smithsonian Folkways Records, ask for a CD called Sing Along. It was made at Harvard College. Harvard had a medium sized auditorium with thousand seats, a nineteenth century wooden auditorium, Sanders Theater. Had wonderful acoustics. I had microphones placed all through the audience. So, my microphone might be tuned up during the first when I was singing the first but when it came to the chorus, they tuned me down and tuned up one from the audience around we did when we mastered it, right. We had sixteen microphones. Get that record and I will and show you what I did back then.
44:51
SM: When you ̶ when did the (19)60s begin in your opinion and when did it end?
44:59
PS: Oh, I do not know it depends on your definition of the (19)60s, would not be fine. What happened at Oberlin ̶ some kids I have talked to in high school or grade school in Manhattan now they are in Oberlin, and they wrote me a letter that we have got the Oberlin folk song club, and we have got the basement of the art school such and such a night. Can you take a bus out here, we will pass the hat, and I am sure we will make the bus fare and we did? We got about $200 a little over two-hundred people. Well, the next year I went back to Oberlin and sang for five hundred in a chapel. And the next year I came back and sang for thousand, in the large auditorium, which took the whole college could get to and I used to go back there every year until I got too busy and could only go back there occasionally.
46:05
SM: What were the qualities you most admired in the young people of the world? They grew up in the (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s. And how are they different than any of the other youth of the other eras that you performed in?
46:22
PS: Well, they joined in. So, I did well. They stood up to the - they stood up to the authorities if they tried [yes]. Allegheny college ̶ I sang there once, and the students want me to come back.
46:54
SM: Oh, wow.
46:55
PS: They tried to stop it ̶ he said, I am trying to raise money for this college. Seeger coming here makes it very difficult for me to raise money. So, I suggest that you not have Seeger come back. And the students put up a big fight, they said it was academic freedom. What do you mean that we cannot have him come back? We want him to come back. And finally, the president of the college had to back down. And he said, the alumni I am sorry, it is academic freedom. I could not stop them. I tried.
47:33
SM: What year was that?
47:35
PS: That was around 1958.
47:38
SM: Oh, my gosh. I you know, that still continues today in higher education. Oh, my God.
47:47
PS: Goes on all the time. President Gideon, Brooklyn College said that I would not sing on the campus as long as he was president. And I did not. When he finally retired in 1965. I went to sing on the campus, the very next year (19)66.
48:09
SM: If there is one event that you feel personally ̶ now you are ninety years old and I really admire you for your longevity and your continuation of giving back and influencing young people to do good. And the question ̶ which is, you know, sometimes so many young people are afraid of that to do that or to do that for there might be a price one has to pay. But who, what if there is a specific event that happened in the (19)60s in the (19)70s, or even when ̶ what had the greatest effect on the boomer generation, what do you think that might be?
48:51
PS: It might be the fact that I did not get on TV. I broke the blacklist one or two times when I had written this song called Waist Deep in the Big Muddy ̶ getting out of Vietnam. The song did not mention Vietnam. It did not mention president Johnson by name, but everybody knew what I was singing about. I told in the allegory–
“It was back in 1942, I was a member of the good platoon. We were on maneuvers in Louisiana. One night by the light of the moon. The captain told us to ford the river. That was how it all began. We were knee deep in the Big Muddy, But the big fool said to push on. The song went on until the captain is drowned. Well, I am not going to point any moral, I will leave that for yourself. Maybe you are still walking, you are still talking You would like to keep your health. But every time I read the papers, that old feeling comes on; we were waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on.” It was censured out of the show. And I was on the Smothers Brothers program. They took their complaint to the to the press, paper printed media. The CBS is censuring up the best jokes and censuring Seegar's best song and finally after three months CBS said it okay you sing it and this time, I sang it for seven million people.
50:43
SM: I saw that, I watched the Smothers Brothers and what was your thought on not just what they did toward you in on television but what they were trying to do to the Smothers Brothers, the show.
50:58
PS: Well I think what they learned and what I learned is you do not have to reach millions of people if you could reach some. And I am completely convinced that if there is a human race here in hundred years, it will be because of millions of comparatively small things. I really mean this. You know, the great praise the great Du Bois, the biologist, said think globally, act locally. You have heard that yes. And Schumacher said small is beautiful. Margaret Mead said never doubt that a few committed individuals can save the world and the fact that the only thing that ever has. Who knows, I say God only knows but I put it this way. This is my mantra. The agricultural revolution took thousands of years - the industrial revolution took of hundreds of years. The information revolution is only taking decades. Use it, use the brains God gave us. Who knows, what miracles may happen in the next few years.
52:21
SM: Very good point that two different words I want to say, the word healing and the word trust are often linked to the boomer generation, the era of the seventy-four million that were born after (19)46 up to (19)64 - issues of trust because the lack of trust in the leaders that they saw lie to them in many respects and number two, healing because of all the unbelievable divisions that were in America back in the in the (19)60s ̶ some people said that we might even have another second Civil War. Your thoughts on the influence this may have had on this entire generation and how do you think they are dealing with it today?
53:10
PS: [This man you are talking about thing?]
53:12
SM: No, I am talking about the boomer generation, the whole issues of trust and healing within this group because of the ̶
53:20
PS: My own feeling is that often radicals are overconfident that they that they know all the answers, whether they are anarchists or socialists or communists or whatever they call themselves. And I think the big mistake in the in the communist movement was mistaking Lenin. He said, in 1905, we lost the revolution of 1905 because we were not disciplined. If we are disciplined, just like an army is disciplined we will win the next revolution, and it is true, they took power in 1917. But they believed in discipline. I often quote, a German communist Rosa Luxemburg, who said, wrote a letter: Dear Comrade Lenin, I read that you have censorship of the press, and you restrict the right of people to freely meet and discuss their opinions. Do not you realize that in a few years, all the decisions in your country will be made by a few elites? The masses will only be called in to dutifully applaud your decision. And I think if it had not been Stalin, it would have been somebody else. But the thing which has saved our country, generation after generation is that extraordinary first amendment constitution.
55:00
SM: The presidents that had the greatest influence on the boomer generation are John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and probably Ronald Reagan. How would you ̶ what are your thoughts on them?
55:14
PS: Well, of course, they are very different. But all of them made compromises. As I say, sometimes the compromise worked. Sometimes they did not. I think probably president, ex-President Carter probably regret some of the compromises that he made.
55:42
SM: Okay, final part of the interview is just basically responding to a couple terms, words. You do not have to give very long responses, but just your overall gut level feeling when you hear these words or terms. Watergate.
56:02
PS: You make a compromise you can regret.
56:07
SM: Kent State and Jackson State.
56:13
PS: I am increasingly convinced that the world will not survive unless we learn from Dr. King.
56:27
SM: Go in greater detail there.
56:30
PS: Well, way back at the beginning ̶ he said various times in his life, the most important speech he ever made was the speech he made at the very beginning of the bus boycott. He said, we will win this boycott if we are nonviolent. Non-violence is it is ascending spiral, with violence you can murder the hater, you just increase hate. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, it takes light to do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, it takes love and I think I would say respect.
57:16
SM: So basically, Kent state was the result of certainly a lack of communication, Jackson State too with the loss of student lives. But what was those were monumental events for that particular era because you saw violence. A couple of other things, the Vietnam Memorial, what does that mean to you?
57:39
PS: For violence, you might consider this, according to anthropologist and I think they right, all of us are descended from good killers. The ones who were not good killers did not have the descendants. This was for hundreds of thousands of years. And then in more recent times, we learn how to use words, we use learn how to use the arts. I compare a song to a basketball backboard, and it bounces back new meanings when life bounces new experiences against it. So, the song John Henry might have simply been about a strong man. Later I realized there is a tragedy to it, even humor to it at times. And so, a song can mean different things at different times. And the arts, all of them are important including the art of cooking. And Tommy Sands, the great Irish singer brought back Ireland together by song fest when he was a child. You should read his book. Tommy Sands, S-A-N-D-S. The book is called Song Maker. Came out about five years ago, four years ago. And when he was a child, he came from a family where their idea of a good time was to get some beer and invite the neighbors and sing all night long. And they saved up their money, they could get a barrel of beer. And now they invite the neighbors in, and it did not bother them that their neighbors are mostly Protestant. They were Catholic, but they just sing all night long. So, Tommy, some six years ago, rented some theaters and in different parts of Ireland he invited the leaders of the south and the leaders of the north in for a song fest. And he let them know they are both going to be there. But he says, “It is not politics at all.” We were just going to sing all night. No politics, no politics, just singing. And they sing all night, not just one or two hours, but three or four or five hours. And then, at the end of the day they started talking with each other, they still will not shake hands. They cannot that we cannot do it, but they are no longer trying to shoot at each other. Tommy Sand has brought an island together with singing.
58:12
SM: I got to get that book too. You are very well read.
60:46
PS: I am a readaholic.
60:47
SM: Well so am I, I got about ten thousand books, I am constantly reading. But you are able to really grasp the meaning of all the books and ideas that you have read and be able to put some dots to them and linkage. A couple other things ̶
61:05
PS: Two recent books, have you read the book, Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawkin?
61:13
SM: No, I have not.
61:14
PS: Hawken is a small businessman, but he is an [economist]. He is spoken at like thousand places in the last fifteen years. And the words blessed unrest was spoken by Martha Graham to the young dancer Agnes de Mille ̶ and all of us artists are filled with a blessed unrest, trying to reach the infinite and of course never making it but never giving up trying. Paul says, how is it that the largest movement in the world is taking place and nobody predicted it ̶ what is the largest movement ̶ all the little things that are going on in small business, the smallest nonprofit groups, small religious groups, all artistic groups, all sorts of small things, often locally, in my hometown of Beacon, fourteen thousand people. There was a race riot thirty years ago and some women started a block party they call the "Spirit of Beacon Day. It is always the last Sunday in September. And they send invitations to every church, black churches, white churches, synagogues, Muslim mosque, and in recent years, a Hindu temple, the Latino Pentecostal, and every service club, the Lions, the Kiwanis, the American Legion and so on. And everybody has a table on the sidewalk. Usually a piece of paper telling when they meet what they believe in. And they often have food and serving ̶ this drink it is only fifty cents. This sandwich is only $1. People walk up and down Main Street, sampling the food from different places and listening to different kinds of music, hear music. It is a big group from a few hundred to thousand to two thousand to four thousand. Now it is up to ten thousand in a town of fourteen thousand. Of course, there are probably still four thousand saying, they are going to hell.
63:48
SM: Well, I just might trip up to Beacon to see you that day and see all the people that the swim across the Hudson.
63:54
PS: If you ever come to Beacon do come on the last Sunday in September, it rains. It is the first Sunday in October.
64:03
SM: Well, maybe I will. Just in my one trip to Beacon I fell in love with the place. I fell in love with the people because of the fact ̶ and I love the cause of saving the Hudson. Just seeing that ̶ it just ̶ may
be that is a very positive that in things that you have done, and maybe it is the smaller things that we do not often recognize that are making great impacts. And maybe the boomers are a lot of them are involved in this. A couple of terms, the Vietnam Memorial. Jan Scruggs wrote the book, To Heal a Nation. What do you think the Vietnam Memorial in Washington has done? Is just basically healed our veterans or has it done anything with respect to healing our nation from the war?
64:48
PS: No one thing could change everything, but I think it changed a lot of people's opinion.
64:55
SM: All right, and also your thoughts on the Students for Democratic Society, and the Weathermen and Vietnam Veterans Against the War ̶ those very big anti-war groups?
65:09
PS: I, myself, [aware of bigness] even big organizations. I would like to deal off small organizations. I was against that big thing in Madison Square Garden. I have to admit, they handled it very well. They had very good sound, and very good lights and so on. And a wonderful singing audience. But when they put it on the air, August 1, they did not show you how beautifully the audience was singing. All you could hear was the soloist.
65:46
SM: That was your ninetieth birthday. Yeah, well, that was an honor. That must be. A couple more people here just to respond to ̶ these are personalities now. Tom Hayden, just quick thoughts on each of these individuals.
66:02
PS: Way back thirty years ago, nice guy.
66:07
SM: How about Jane Fonda?
66:10
PS: Likewise, I met her even before then when she was hardly out of her teens, briefly married to some guy in Russia.
66:20
SM: Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, so the Yippies.
66:24
PS: Well, I met Abbie, late in life. And we got along very well. In the beginning, I was arguing with both Abbie and Jerry, that the things you are going to do everything with young people. I think you got to work with all ages. I work with little kids now if you are in my hometown.
66:46
SM: You know what is interesting, Pete, is that it was Jerry Rubin that coined the phrase do not trust anyone over thirty. Did you ever talk to him about that? Because what is interesting, when I read his book, Do It ̶ he was twenty-nine. He was one year away from being thirty. So, I never understood that.
67:05
PS: Well, I laugh at that, you have to laugh at slogans.
67:12
SM: Timothy Leary.
67:14
PS: I never knew him. I never met him.
67:17
SM: What you think of him?
67:18
PS: Well, I mistrust him, trying to solve your problem with anything you eat or drink.
67:27
SM: What did you think of the Black Panther leaders like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis, that group.
67:37
PS: They were very brave, but I believe in the slogan, it was an anarchist I knew, who he said, wait a minute, I am trying to remember- love, truth, bravery. You need all three. Oh, no, of course my memory is going I cannot remember this anarchist. He was a wonderful guy. This is the way back in the 1950s, he said this, "Love, truth bravery.” Love alone is sentimentality. As in the average churchgoer. True alone is, oh gosh I have it written down ̶
68:37
SM: Yes. Okay. Couple other names here ̶
68:42
PS: Oh, wait a minute, all three. Okay when it comes to bravery, bravery is foolhardiness. As in the average soldier. Need all three. And so, I think this was the problem that Malcolm had and the others. Bravery is not enough. You need the truth and you need love.
68:49
SM: How about your overall comment on Richard Nixon.
69:21
PS: I cannot remember.
69:31
SM: Richard Nixon?
69:32
PS: I thought he did not have truth.
69:35
SM: How about Spiro Agnew?
69:39
PS: I guess there he lacked truth and love.
69:43
SM: Eugene McCarthy?
69:46
PS: Well, I think the state he made was in again, not working broadly that you might not see, I would put in addition to truth, love truth brave, humor. Humor is one of the most important qualities the world needs. We may be saved by humor.
70:15
SM: Well, that brings me to the Kennedy brothers, John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and certainly, John Kennedy, your thoughts on those two brothers?
70:26
PS: Well, it was an extraordinary family, an extraordinary mother. The mother had nine children. And she lived into her nineties.
70:40
SM: And she lost her ̶
70:41
PS: Her husband's infidelity. Put up with all her various children's different ways of working ̶
70:55
SM: How about George McGovern?
70:59
PS: George, wait a minute ̶
71:02
SM: George McGovern. He ran for president in 1972. Senator from South Dakota.
71:12
PS: Oh, I thought I spoke about him earlier.
71:16
SM: That was Eugene McCarthy.
71:23
PS: You need all these different things. Of course, you need instant recount voting. Know what that is? Clinton turned down money with air. I was shouting obscenities ̶ that was his greatest chance to introduce America to proportional representation. I went to a school where we voted for the student council by proportional representation. We voted our first choice, second choice and third choice. And we had a good student council. And if Lani Guinier been kept in the cabinet, she would have brought this idea to the American people. Most people do not even know what IRB stands for, or proportional representation. But when I did not meet Clinton once about four years ago, he was at a meeting, and I tried to speak about it and he just clammed up.
72:39
SM: How about Lyndon Johnson?
72:43
PS: Well, he did one, some very good things. Voting right act. Voting right act, 1965 I guess it was.
72:58
SM: How about Robert McNamara?
73:02
PS: I have not read his book. I would like to say ̶
73:05
SM: Well, he wrote, he has actually written five, but his last two would be the one you would want to read. He, the first one was ̶
73:12
PS: I am willing to bet that his children got him to write the last one because they said, Dad, you cannot go to your grave without telling what you know.
73:24
SM: Right?
73:25
PS: Finally came out.
73:27
SM: In Retrospect came out in (19)95. It is called In Retrospect. And then he wrote another book, that followed and those were his last two. So, those were good reads. Just a couple more names and we are done. The women, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, the women leaders who kind of led the women's movement Still there. Hello? Pete you still there?
PS: Well I think I have told you more than you need to know.
SM: Okay. All right. Well, I am going to conclude with this. I will not ask any more names. But what is your final thoughts on the boomer generation, those young people that you have performed before? If you were, if the history books fifty years or hundred years from now or writing about them, giving an analysis, what do you think they will say, and your final thoughts if you were writing that book?
74:59
PS: Writing what book?
75:00
SM: Well, if you were writing a book hundred years from now on the boomer generation, what would be your final thoughts on them? What do you think history is going to say about them?
75:09
PS: I do not know enough about it to write. To you, I will say, I think they made the same mistake that many of us make when we have some success. Oh, we now know, we have the key to the future. Because we have won some successes. I mistrust the word t-h-e. I really do. The solution, the origin, the destiny. So, I would say that they made some made up the wonderful things done, but they made similar mistakes too many others.
75:57
SM: Do you think they had been a good influence on their kids and grandkids?
76:02
PS: My guess is yes, probably most of them. I get letters from now that I have got too much publicity. My own problem now I got too much publicity and life is very difficult, mail comes in by the bushel. And I have to add to it form letters.
76:22
SM: Okay, I want to thank you very much for talking to me today and it was an honor to meet you at Beacon a couple of weeks back. And all I can say ̶ I will be sending you a waiver form.
76:34
PS: I cannot remember when you were here ̶
76:36
SM: I was here when the swim across the Hudson. And I interviewed you on the bank but then they kind of pulled you away to perform. And so, thank you very much. I will send a waiver form and certainly the transcript sometime in the next three months. And then I will get back to you for final okay. And also, I think I owe you a lunch.
77:03
PS: Oh no.
77:04
SM: Pete you have been you have been more than gracious. And of course, your sister is unbelievable as well because I interviewed her. So, you have a great day.
77:14
PS: Oh, my sister was born in (19)35. So, she is ten years older than the boomers.
77:27
SM: Yes but she still ̶ she came to our campus and she is the one that called you originally after I interviewed her on the phone to say talk to Steve. So, I really appreciate this Pete.
77:40
PS: Okay your first name is Steve?
77:43
SM: McKiernan M-c- K-i-e-r-n-a-n. And it was my grandfather was the minister of the first Methodist Church in Peekskill, New York. He died in 1956. He was only sixty-one years old. He had a bad heart, but he was the minister there from 1936 to 1954. And of course, I wish I could ask him about that Paul Robeson incident because, you know, I was too young he died when I was only eight years old. So, I you know, I just remember going to the church and of course the church burned down on - an arsonist burned the church down after my grandfather had passed away. So now they got this ugly looking, one level church in Peekskill, but first Methodist Church, but ̶
78:33
PS: Did they burn it down because of his preaching?
78:39
SM: Oh, no, he had died and, but it was where my ̶ it was a beautiful church. And ̶
78:45
PS: Why did they burn it down?
78:47
SM: Well, they wanted a new church. And I remember this whole issue after my dad, my grandfather is at ̶
78:57
PS: That is kind of a dangerous way to get rid of a church.
79:00
SM: Yeah, well, my dad was very upset. In fact, my dad cried and drove into Peekskill after it burned down because they would just, they knew, they never caught the person who did it. But my dad grew up there, you know, as a young guy and he went off to World War II and everything. But you know, but the Paul Robeson in the news were involved in that incident as well. So, I would have liked to have talked to him about that. If I am in ̶
79:30
PS: September fourth, sixtieth anniversary, the big Paramount Theater will have a program. I will be singing a couple songs, saying a few words on September 4,
79:47
SM: At what theater?
79:49
PS: At the Paramount Theatre in Peekskill.
79:53
SM: I am going to try to go, is that an evening event?
79:56
PS: It may be an all-day event, for all I know.
79:58
SM: Oh, wow.
80:00
PS: Go take a photo.
80:04
SM: Yeah, I have definitely had ̶ of course, grandfather's at Ferncliff. Along was his wife and kids. So, all right, Pete. Well, thank you very much. You have a great day and carry on.
(End of Interview)
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Interview with Pete Seeger
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Seeger, Pete, 1919-2014 ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Folk singers; Human rights workers; Seeger, Pete, 1919-2014--Interviews
Description
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Pete Seeger (May 3, 1919 - January 27, 2014) was a folk singer and a social activist. In addition to being a folk singer, he also wrote his own songs as he performed them to people. He wrote songs throughout the different time periods of history. For example, he recorded a 78 RPM album called <em>Songs of the Lincoln Battalion</em> with Tom Glazer, Bess Lomax, and Baldwin Hawes.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2009-07-25 ; 2009-08-12
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In copyright
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.112
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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80:25
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a68293686f8f3ea57e9b335a388a5504.mp3
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Audio interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
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</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Date of Interview
2009-07-28
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Stephen McKiernan
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Steven F. Hayward
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English
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<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Steve Hayward is an author, political commentator, and policy scholar. He currently serves as a Fellow at Ashland University's Ashbrook Center where he directs a program in political economy. Hayward earned a Bachelor's degree in Business and Administrative Studies from Lewis and Clark College. He also earned a Master's degree in Government and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Claremont Graduate School."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13057,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Steve Hayward is an author, political commentator, and policy scholar. He currently serves as a Fellow at Ashland University's Ashbrook Center where he directs a program in political economy. Hayward earned a Bachelor's degree in Business and Administrative Studies from Lewis and Clark College. He also earned a Master's degree in Government and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Claremont Graduate School.</span>
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<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Woodstock; Baby boom generation; Counterculture; Self-assertion; Abortion; John F. Kennedy; Nineteen sixties; Anti-war movement; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam veterans; NAACP; Feminism; Family Ties (TV Show); Civil War generation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13228792}}">Woodstock; Baby boom generation; Counterculture; Self-assertion; Abortion; John F. Kennedy; Nineteen sixties; Anti-war movement; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam veterans; NAACP; Feminism; Family Ties (TV Show); Civil War generation.</span>
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Authors; Journalists; Hayward, Steven F.--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Steven Hayward
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 28 July 2009
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:06):
Today's interview will be with Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute, which is a conservative institution in Washington, DC. This is July 28th, 2009. And this interview is part of my oral history project on the boomer generation. Looking at the (19)60s, the (19)70s, the (19)80s, some of the characteristics of the boomers and certainly, excuse me, issues related to boomer lives and the events that shaped their lives. This is... All right, the first question I would like to ask, when you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
SH (00:00:50):
It is just like word association, feel like a war shark test, hippies, rock music, Vietnam War protests. Gosh, I do not know. I struggle a bit. I write about these things. It takes me a long time to come up with my generalization, so it is hard on the spur the moment. But yeah. Well, I mean, I guess a lot of ferment and turmoil and uncertainty and changing rules of the game. And gosh, you could go on forever about all this. Maybe some of your follow-up questions will tease out more.
SM (00:01:23):
Is there one specific event in your life or in your mind that shaped you when you were young?
SH (00:01:30):
No, not really. I mean, I was fascinated by a lot of things. The space program, of course, that was one of the things that went right in the (19)60s was getting to the moon when everything else seemed to be going wrong. I was born in 1958, so by 1970, I am only 11 years old, so I am not quite... I mean, I was aware of what was going on around me. Looking back, I think the whole Woodstock thing was kind of an interesting moment. Because as I write in my book, the media and all the deep thinkers, and of course the people on the new left and the so-called youth or countercultural movement thought of that as the beginning of a new civilization. I mean, you had Time Magazine and the New York Times both talking about how Woodstock youth really were different, and that there really was something new to the counterculture. And in fact, what was it, four or five months later, you had the attempt to do a follow-up on the West Coast at Altamont, which ended up as a disaster. And that was kind of the end of the whole thing. The whole end... all the attempts trying to do Woodstock reunions have really worked. So Woodstock was kind of a one-off, and were it not for the neighbors and people in the surrounding area... I mean, back up a step, the Woodstock was supposed to be 50,000 deep or something, it ended up being 500,000 or something like that. And so they did not have toilets, they did not have food, they did not have water. And if not for the neighbors in those surrounding towns, you could have had a real catastrophe there. So that was always... I guess I am rambling a bit here, but what comes to sight out of Woodstock and a lot of other parts of those years was the pretentiousness of the baby boomers and the so-called counterculture or youth movement, that they really did represent some new phase of human nature, when in fact there really is no escaping some of the basic facts of human nature.
SM (00:03:22):
Following up to that question, what do you think, if you were to look at the boomer generation again, that is defined by the scholars as those born between (19)46 and (19)64 that fall within that generation, what do you think are the strongest characteristics of that group and the weakest characteristics of that generation?
SH (00:03:43):
Oh, let us see. Oh, boy. Yeah, that is another hard question to generalize about. I mean... Yeah, gosh, I do not have a good answer for that question. I mean, I sort of repair to some of my general... I mean, I think the scholars and intellectuals of that period share the same defects with the broader generation, which is a lot of self-indulgence. A lot of self-assertion. I think there is the idea that is quite typical of baby boomers is I mean, a popular form of it is we can have it all, right? But then the sort of more serious intellectual version is that through triumph of the will ideas, I mean, it is very nichey. I think it is people thinking that the only real obstacles to changing the world are failures of our willpower. And so there is a disregard of what conservatives would recognize as some of the lessons and requirements of tradition and authority. And, Tom, you know, those are some general traits, I think you see, I am trying to think of some good examples, but hard-pressed off the top of my head, but they will probably come to me later anyway.
SM (00:04:59):
Do you think that the term activism, because it was a highly activist period, not only in terms of the anti-war movement and the civil rights and the women's movement and the environmental, gay, lesbian, Chicano, Native American, all these movements came about at that time. Do you look at that as a positive quality in America?
SH (00:05:19):
Well, no. And it can be qualified this way, you had the activism for activism's sake. You had the notion that commitment was the way you exhibited your moral purity or moral seriousness. I mean, if you go back a century, let us take the abolitionists, who crusading to abolish slavery, or the early women's movement of people who wanted votes for women and suffragette movement. I mean, they were activists too, but their activism was subordinate to a concrete moral purpose that you could argue about. Whereas I think what you tended to see coming out of the (19)60s and (19)70s was activism for activism's sake. Activism became its own moral category. And you say... In other words, people would say, "I am an activist," and by the way, what you were activist about just flowed from one thing to another because Martin Luther King was a civil rights activist, but the civil rights took the priority over activism, right, whereas I think later in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, as I say, activism became its own moral category, and commitment became the most important moral tribute or moral... what do I say, a moral attribute, but in fact that it represents a certain value-free abstraction from more hard headed thinking about what the moral purpose is behind it. I mean, let us look at, for example, one of the great cultural divides would be abortion. Both pro-choice and pro-life people think of themselves as activists, but obviously on a very different side of a moral divide. But the media tends to treat them equally as well. They are all activists. And so that is why I think the term activism has acquired its own status, separate and apart from thinking about what it is you are activist about.
SM (00:07:05):
Good point. One of the things we would see on television, say in the (19)90s, we would see when Newt Gingrich came to power in (19)94, really, the Republican leadership and the conservative leadership, you would see George Will make comments about it. You would see Newt Gingrich and other people say that... They would really criticize that whole era, that boomer generation because of the breakdown of values, the breakdown of American society, the drug culture, the divorce rate, no respect for authority. Do you think they were blowing a lot of wind there, or do you think there was some truth into what they were saying?
SH (00:07:47):
Well, no, I think there is a lot of truth to it. Here is the... Couple of problems need to be sorted out about this whole phenomenon we are talking about. We tend to think of the (19)60s as when... essentially as America's cultural revolution, like you said, with cultural revolution in China or something. And that is narrowly speaking true. But I think that something that I did not think of, I first heard James Q. Wilson suggest this idea, that in fact, the seeds of what we now criticize of the (19)60s and the (19)70s were present way back in the (19)20s and (19)30s, especially the (19)20s. I mean, you saw in modern philosophy of existentialism, of modernism in the arts, the modernist poetry of certain aspects of T. S. Eliot or Ezra Pound, people like that, bohemian culture, some of it linked of course to radical politics, modernist literature, all the rest. The beginnings of the sexual revolution and so forth, were all very much present back in the 1920s. And what Wilson points out, and a few others, and I think Francis Fukuyama has also talked about a bit of this, is you then had the Depression and World War II in short order when you could not afford to indulge in these kind of escapes from restraint or traditional restraints or traditional morality. I mean, both the Depression and the war, which of course were global phenomenon. In other words, call the halt to the progress of the diffusion of the ideas of modernity. And then, you know, you had the 1950s, you have us and the rest of the world getting back to order. But then with the baby boom and the prosperity that comes in the post-war years, you have a return to realizing the consequences of modernist spot in the 1960s. So in other words, the 1960s are partly the culmination of a long-term philosophical change in social and philosophical thought that really could arguably go back 200 years to the enlightenment when we start explicitly throwing over authority and tradition. And you also have a demographic problem. I think it was Pat Moynihan who said the principal job of civilization is to get young people from 16 to 24. We had a lot of them there in the (19)60s and (19)70s when the kids were surging into colleges and so forth. And Moynihan's argument was you were always going to have some trouble in the (19)60s of some kind just on demographic grounds alone. Too many young kids just surging through our educational system and into the workforce and all the rest of that. You overlay all that with, as I say, the long term social currents going back a century or so along with the particular events, especially the Vietnam War in this country, civil rights and unrest in the streets. And you have quite a phenomenon. One of the curiosities of the (19)60s is that what we think of as the student movement was not just an American phenomenon. Remember, I mean, you know, you had student unrest at universities in Europe and even in Asia and even in a couple of universities behind the Iron Curtain, you had had some student riots and whatnot suggesting that there was something beyond just the war and just the domestic scene in America that was going on in the 1960s.
SM (00:11:00):
Beautiful thoughts there. What is the one event in your eyes that changed the generation forever? What do you think, if you were to ask a room full of, say, a... If you were speaking at West Chester University and a bunch of boomers, particularly those boomers that were in the first 10 years of that age group, what would you think would be the number one event to shape their lives?
SH (00:11:25):
Well, I think it would... takes a little explanation. Probably the assassination of John F. Kennedy, although it did not happen immediately. I think the most interesting work on this subject lately is Jim Pearson's book... What is the title of it? I forget the exact title. It is Camelot and the Unmaking of Modern Liberalism or something like that. James Pearson. It is worth looking up.
SM (00:11:49):
I will get it.
SH (00:11:50):
Yeah. And he makes a very interesting argument in there. Remember that before Kennedy's assassination, the big concern of the establishment liberals was... Well, the radical right, the conspiracy theorists of the John Birch Society and the McCarthyites, and people like that. And liberals were all for rationality and progress and incremental reform. And of course, in the immediate hours after Kennedy's killing, and then later it became through legend as well, it had to have been some kind of right wing plot. Well, it turns out it was Oswald who was a dedicated communist. And what Pearson points out is that Kennedy was a victim of the Cold War. This was a leftist who was out to kill Kennedy because Kennedy was against Castro and so forth. And what happened is in the years since then is the left essentially lost its mind over this. Now it is the left that is in conspiracy theory. Had to be the CIA and the mob involved in killing Kennedy. It could not have been Oswald. 9/11 was an inside job. We hear all these crazy things that have continued to this day. And suddenly it has the left that is interested in conspiracy theories and has gotten somewhat irrational. And it is really kind of amazing that within three or four years after Kennedy's killing, all his leftist ideas had caught on college campuses and had overwhelmed liberals. Portland and Johnson, I think he was kind of a fuddy-duddy to the youngsters searching through the universities of six... Of course, Kennedy had been kind of a hip, stylish young guy. So anyway, I think that was sort of the watershed event in the (19)60s that... and we will never know how it would have gone if Kennedy had lived, but I think it might have gone by differently. We will never know. I mean, Johnson thought after he won the election Ford-Goldwater, he still thought his problems were going to come from the right and from populous conservatism and from the John Birch Society type. And one of the things that, for Johnson and other liberals like him, mainstream liberals, is they were completely disoriented when their "most ferocious" problems came from their left. And they never did understand that and get over it. And I think that is how we get disrupted liberalism, at least in the (19)90s. I think in a lot of ways Clinton kind of righted the ship for liberals. We will see if Obama figures this out.
SM (00:14:13):
Kind of a follow-up, that term watershed, what do you think was the water... What was the watershed moment that began the (19)60s? Because a lot of the books that have-
SH (00:14:23):
Kennedy's assassination.
SM (00:14:24):
Oh, okay.
SH (00:14:25):
Yeah. I mean, until Kennedy was killed, you are still kind of... In my book, I described that year (19)64, right around then, as the tail end of the tailfin era, I call it. And that is because, I mean, Kennedy wanted to, as he created a slogan, was, "Let us get the country moving again." But it really was a continuation of a lot of Eisenhower policies. The economy was growing okay, but not... It was roaring after the middle of the years of the (19)60s. So I think that is the event that really snapped the country out of its sort of post-war stability that you had under Eisenhower and Truman.
SM (00:15:02):
One of the other criticisms of the boomer generation is that this was a generation of 70 million or 75 million and oh, really, only 15 percent were involved in activism of any kind during this timeframe. So it was really a small number. So thus their impact was not as great as people might think. People look at that sometimes as well, that is another attack on that generation and those that were involved.
SH (00:15:30):
Well, I have a couple of thoughts on that. I mean, the number may even be smaller. I mean, in some surveys thought that the number of people involved in campus activism was 5 percent or less. However, it is 5 percent of a large number. You point out if you are talking about 70 million people, you are talking about a couple million at least. And of course, the other thing is that even if it is a tiny minority, that is irrelevant in this sense. I mean, the history of politics is small, concentrated, determined groups that determine political outcomes. I mean, that is the Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union, right? It is the Nazis in Germany in the (19)30s. It is the Federalists in the United States in 1787 saying, "We need to get a new constitution because the Articles of Confederation are not working." So, the history of politics and social change is small determined groups that become the use of shade the tail that wags the dog, and they sort of drag along the rest of the generation with them. And even though you may have only two to 5 percent or even 10 percent, if you want to of people involved in activist activities or sympathizing with the ideas of the new left in the student movement, you probably have at least an equal or double that number who sympathize with it or who find themselves influenced by it, because that is the sort of social dynamic of modern mass movement. So I think that although it is an important point to keep in mind that you did not have a lot of people burning their draft cards and marching in the street, it had a strong magnetic effect on the rest of the generation, I think.
SM (00:16:56):
My next question is actually a two-part question. How important were the college students of that era? And we are talking late (19)60s, and oftentimes when we talk about the (19)60s, we are talking about college students up to about 1973, because it is hard... The (19)70s is often thought about after, sometimes even after the helicopters took off from Vietnam in (19)75. So it is hard to separate those first three to four years in the (19)70s. How important were college students in ending the Vietnam War, number one? And number two, how important was this generation with respect to having a very important influence on the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and all the other movements?
SH (00:17:38):
Yeah. Got to take those in several different parts. I think it is overstated or exaggerated that the anti-war movement actually stopped the war. That that is been their big claim ever since then, "And gee, we stopped the war." In fact, as Todd Gitlin among others recognized, although the war was unpopular, the anti-war movement was even more unpopular with American people. Americans are funny that way. I mean, majority of Americans, they are capable of having conflicting ideas in their heads at the same time. We call that cognitive dissonance. So while the war was increasingly unpopular in the later (19)60s and especially into the (19)70s, a lot of people also do not like anti-war protestors. Whoop, hello? Hello?
SM (00:18:23):
I am here.
SH (00:18:24):
Hm. Uh-oh. Somebody-
SM (00:18:29):
That is me. I am okay. That is not my phone. We are okay.
SH (00:18:34):
Oh, okay. I am not sure what happened there. I have another extension here someone may be using. Anyway...
SM (00:18:37):
Okay.
SH (00:18:39):
Where was I in all that? Oh, the war story is a complicated one. I mean, I argue that the war was lost very early on, as early as 1964 when the Johnson administration decided they were not going to fight it like a real war, but fight it like an exercise in game theory. Once you committed that as your basic strategy, you were not going to win that war in any sense. And then the American people, you continued to support the war majority according to polls as late as mid-1968. And it was after Ted that they started losing heart for it. But yeah, it was... Hold on a second. Oh, mom, who did that? Huh? Nothing. Never mind. I got someone... Anyway.
SM (00:19:26):
Okay. It is okay.
SH (00:19:29):
So where was I? Yeah, I mean, yeah, that is a complicated story. I mean, Nixon, I think knew the war was lost, but wanted to get us out in some reasonable fashion, and that is why it took another few years. But the student movement... By the way, the anti-war movement really loses steam starting about 1971, I think, when draft is abolished, right?
SM (00:19:48):
Right.
SH (00:19:48):
That took a lot of the steam out of the anti-war movement.
SM (00:19:51):
And one of the other points is that the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, if it was not for that particular group, the other groups were waning at that time.
SH (00:19:59):
Yeah, I think that is right. And one of the other things you noticed is when Nixon decided in 1972 to escalate bombing and whatnot in the spring, and then again at Christmas, the public opinion poll showed pretty strong public support for him. So at that point, we were already getting out our ground troops.
SM (00:20:17):
Right.
SH (00:20:18):
But the other question, civil rights, look, the civil rights movement, which mostly means the NAACP and people like Kang and Bill Randolph and all the others who have been toiling at that for decades, deserve the credit for making civil rights happen. An awful lot of... For the rest of the new left and the student activists and the baby boomers came to that quite late. And they showed up for the victory parade, you might say, right? Everyone is proud of marching in the South in (19)63 or (19)64, but at that point, the movement had been toiling for decades to get to that point. So that is always been a little bit of opportunism. If I were a Black civil rights leader from that era, I would have had mixed feelings about all of that. Nice to have the help, but where were you when we needed you in 1948 is what I would have been wanting to ask. And similar, the other thing, the environmental movement... The environmental movement spout itself after the civil rights movement. So the Environmental Defense Fund was sort of thought... was founded to be something like the Civil Rights Litigation Organization. But in fact, a lot of those organizations were not even founded until after the initial Clean Air Act was adopted. And quite the opposite of the civil rights, many whose organizations are now a century old.
SM (00:21:33):
You are right. When you talk about the women's and the gay and lesbian movement, I think even they will say in the beginning, they look to the civil rights movement as their...
SH (00:21:40):
As their model.
SM (00:21:40):
As their model.
SH (00:21:43):
What makes both those movements possible is prosperity. I mean, feminism does not work if you do not have prosperity. I can be flip about it a little bit, but not entirely and say, what makes the feminist movement possible is dishwashers and washing machines. Now, you can... the labor saving devices mean... and also expand educational opportunity. But all that is based on prosperity and technological improvements. So now, the ancient distinctions between male and female labor are eroded, and now women can join the workforce in any capacity at all in large numbers, which is what they did. And I always think there has been, and this is not an original thought, I always think there has been quite a distinction between what you might say, equity feminists, there would be no ordinary educated women who would like to be lawyers or doctors or managers or whatever. And then your ideological feminists who are all about gender differences and all that sort of nonsense that you get in higher education and gender studies and whatnot. That is a really tiny minority, I think. Most real women, I think, do not care anything about any of that stuff.
SM (00:22:47):
How important do you feel the boomer generation who are now in their early six... or in their sixties basically, and in aging, and many of them probably thought when they were young, they never would age.
SH (00:23:00):
Right.
SM (00:23:01):
Some still have their youthful ideas, but I am not sure really how many. What kind of an influence have they had on their children and their children's children because now they are becoming grandparents, and the millennial generation is now the largest generation in American history. There are more millennials than there were boomers, but generation X was basically their kids. And the generation Xers were the born from (19)65 to about 1980. And so what kind of influence have these boomers had, not only... I am not only talking about white boomers, African American boomers, Asian American boomers, even gay and lesbian boomers who have their own issues. What kind of an influence have they had on their kids and their kids' kids with respect to activism and having an influence in their lives in that direction?
SH (00:23:59):
Well, yeah, that is hard to say because I mean, it is hard to generalize about too much, but there is a couple of straws in the wind. I mean, the old joke is that a... One old joke is that a neo conservative is a liberal with a teenage daughter. I mean, one comparison I made in actually my next book that is coming out in a little while is the great politically charged TV show in the early (19)70s was All in the Family, right?
SM (00:24:28):
Yes.
SH (00:24:28):
Archie was the bigot and the son, Mike, Meathead, was supposed to be the enlightened liberal, right, and they were always fighting about stuff. 10 years later, the politically charged sitcom was Family Ties, right?
SM (00:24:43):
Mm-hmm.
SH (00:24:43):
And there what you had was boomer parents who had been hippies in the (19)60s who do not understand their conservative son, Alex, right?
SM (00:24:50):
Yes. Michael Fox.
SH (00:24:52):
His hero was William F. Buckley and Milton Friedman on the show. It was the exact opposite of All in the Family, just in 10 years. I mean, that really to my mind, is a difference between the Reagan years, in cultural terms, a difference between the Reagan years and the Nixon years, or the late (19)60s, early (19)70s. And I thought that was a real cultural marker of things. You know, you see other things, I mean, what I picked up from students today and people in their twenties, teenagers, is they think all this talk about the (19)60s that you folks and parents and grandparents talk about, a lot of them think it is a little puffed up and pretentious, and they have a, "What was that all about?" kind of attitude, and you guys were kind of silly. And the long hair, and God knows the bell bottom jeans and disco, the (19)70s, they look at with complete horror. So maybe that is just the wheel turning that happens in cultural terms. But you do not see, I mean, remember that in the (19)60s you had one of the big totems was the generation gap, the younger generation versus the older generation. And the younger generation... Or the older generation could understand the younger generation. I do not see that as around as much today. You do not see that represented. There has always been parents against kids a little bit, but I do not see it. It was not been blown up into what you might call a metaphysical dimension as it was in (19)60s and early (19)70s. The generation gap, you often see that in capital letters. It was a real social phenomenon. Well, I think that is gone. So to that extent, I think it is the baby boomer parents and grandparents today are maybe a little older and wiser, and their kids are not as, for whatever reasons, do not seem to be as easily swept up into some of these pretentious enthusiasms for the moral superiority of their new generation.
SM (00:26:43):
Right. I think I know your answer to this, but when I was... I am a boomer, and when I was in college, I was around friends who thought we were all the most unique generation in American history, and mainly because there was a feeling that we were going to cure everything. We are going to bring peace to the world, we are going to end racial injustice. Everything is going to be good, almost like a utopia. Your comment on that, just the feelings that be... a feeling of being the most unique generation in American history when they are young, I still think many boomers still feel that as they are old, in their old days.
SH (00:27:27):
Yeah, that is right. They probably still have that attitude somewhere consciously or subconsciously or from some level. I mean, one of the problems with the (19)60s is that the so-called establishment, the parents of the boomers went out of their way to affirm all that nonsense. In my book, my Age of Reagan book, I quote Time magazine saying... Time Magazine, remember, I think it was 1967, named the under 25 generation as Man of the Year.
SM (00:27:55):
Yeah, I have the magazine.
SH (00:27:55):
Yeah, that is the point, they called it Man of the Year, right?
SM (00:27:55):
Yeah.
SH (00:27:56):
Some of the prose in that article, if you got it is really astoundingly idiotic. This is just a new generation, but a new kind of generation, and I am paraphrasing here, but it said they really are better than their parents. They are going to really bring new hope. So if you are a kid and the establishment is telling you this, then what are you going to think? Of course you are going to run away with these intentions. I mean, that was not the only one. You had the Cox commission, Archibald Cox commission appointed by I think Johnson or somebody after Columbia University was sacked. Now, that was essentially a bunch of hooligans who trashed one of our leading universities, and the Cox commission went on about the wonderful idealism of this generation and how terrific they were. And it was just an unbelievable failure of moral... sort of moral accountability on the part of the older generation who should have... That I do not think you would see today. I do not see people today pumping up a younger generation and saying, "Oh, yeah, you are better than we are," in part because of the residue, as you say, of baby boomers who still think deep down inside, they probably are a little better than the World War II generation. And in part because I just think we are not going to run that movie over again.
SM (00:29:08):
I want to read something to you. This has a little bit to do with the meeting we had with Senator Muskie before he passed away when I was working at the university, and I took students down to Washington for our Leadership on the Rope programs. He was kind of... had just gotten out of the hospital, was not feeling well, but I am going to read this question first. Do you feel boomers are still having problems with healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth, the division between Black and white, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not? What role has the wall played in healing divisions? Or was it primarily a healing for veterans? Do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has 35 to 40 years made the statement, time heals all wounds a truth? And I want to follow it up with... We met with Senator Muskie and I asked that very question to him with 14 students in the room, and I think he was not expecting the question and he did not answer for a minute, and he almost had tears in his eyes. And then he said, "I just got out of the hospital and I had a chance in the hospital to watch the Ken Burns movies about the Civil War." And he said, "My only comment to you is that we had not healed since the Civil War." And then he went on talking about the generation that we lost due to all the men who died and making the comparisons of the populations. And I will tell you, the students, you could hear a pin drop in the room for the next 10 minutes. It was just an unbelievable experience. It was such an experience that one of my students went on to higher ed and got his PhD and that was the moment that he knew he had to go on. But your thoughts on that whole business about healing within the... Do you think there is an issue here on healing?
SH (00:31:07):
Well, yeah, I mean, I tend not to that language of healing and reconciliation and closure and all the rest of that. That is very much therapeutic baby bloomer language that we would not... Our grandparents from the World War II era, parents and grandparents, they would have never used... They would never have had midlife crises, first of all. Right? And they would not have used that therapeutic language about closure and all the rest of that. However, I do think that what is underneath all that though is, the way I sometimes put it, others have too. There is kind of a Hatfield versus McCoys intramural feud among baby boomers. I think on political terms, that is how you can explain Bill and Hillary versus Newt in the (19)90s. I mean, remember Newt calling the Clintons countercultural McGoverniks, which got everybody else that. And there was a business, by the way, last year in the presidential race, and something that, again, Sullivan and others pointed out, is that part of the genius of Obama was saying, "I am not part of all that." Hang on. It is a complicated story. But I mean, part of his genius, I think, was saying, "We ought to give a gift beyond this baby boomer feud that we have been carrying on since the (19)60s." He does not quite mean it because he is very much a product of the (19)60s and (19)70s leftism. But still, I think he had an insight there that yeah, this has now become a long running feud. The Civil War comparison I think is a pretty good one. If this is not geographical, it is ideological and cultural. And yeah, I think probably we will go to our grave with some of all that. I think they are going to have some of the young Americans for freedom fight some old SPSers in their nineties in their nursing homes, yelling at each other about the tent offensive or something. I think it will go on till the very end.
SM (00:32:51):
I know when I interviewed the late Gaylord Nelson, who I thought was a great statesman, I do not know if you ever had a chance to meet him.
SH (00:32:57):
Yeah. Never met him, but you certainly know his work.
SM (00:32:59):
Oh, my gosh. And he passed away and I went to... because he had helped us with some of our speakers and meeting people, and he came to our campus twice. He was kind of the real deal. And he always... When I asked him that question, he said, "People do not walk around Washington, DC with that they have healed on their sleeves." But he made one important point that I think was the most important memory of that meeting, he said, "But forever, it has left its impact on the body politic."
SH (00:33:29):
Yeah, that is right. Yeah. And I think it is interesting to say about Muskie. I mean, Muskie was one of those postwar liberals who I think was completely disoriented and surprised by what happened. And I mean, partly was Lyndon Johnson we know was upset about the riot. He did not understand why Blacks were rioting in Detroit and Newark and places like that after he put it all he can do for them. And I think that the new left, remember the new left was very radical, and their enemies were liberal. I think it was... I forget if it was Tom Hayden or Peter Collier, or which one of them said that our first object was to murder liberalism in its official robes. And so if you are going to establish a liberal like Muskie, you cannot understand... This is completely incomprehensible to you. And I think that explains why he hesitated in answering the question, because I think he still does not understand to this day or cannot accept it or finds it bizarre and hard to come to grips with. And I think he and people like Moynihan and others perceive how damaging this was to establishment liberalism. And it really was 20 years or more getting over it, and to some extent may still not have gotten over it. Clinton, I think, represented a walk back from the brink. I mean, Clinton signing on welfare reform, talking stuff on crime, and in other ways represented that we are no longer going to give in to the radical left and the new left on these subjects, even if he had some sympathies with it himself. But now under Obama, you have got a lot of those folks somewhat older and wiser and a little more shrewd who still believe some of that stuff, I think. As you saw this whole Gates affair the last... has been a real revealing moment, I think, for Obama and people on the left. But nonetheless, I think that is being blindsided by something that nobody could have foreseen as what so upset people like Muskie and probably Nelson too.
SM (00:35:29):
And of course, we had a chance to even have our students meet Senator Fulbright.
SH (00:35:32):
Oh, yes.
SM (00:35:33):
And he probably would fall into that same category there.
SH (00:35:38):
Yeah.
SM (00:35:38):
Overall, now that you mentioned that you were 11 when these things happened, so you are in the younger group of the boomers, but over the years, have you changed your feelings toward boomers? Obviously, you have degrees, you have done a lot of thinking and writing about it as you have gotten older. But have you been consistent in your thinking, or have you been really evolving and changing?
SH (00:36:04):
I think I have probably been pretty consistent in my thinking. Yeah. No, It would take a while for me to sort out my thoughts on all that.
SM (00:36:14):
Yeah. What do you think might be the lasting legacy will be of the boomer generation in... Of course, when I talk boomers now, I am really not only talking about the (19)60s, I am talking about the (19)50s when they were young and raised in that post-war era where hopefully a lot of parents were there. I reflect on it on the (19)50s and on. When I think of the (19)50s, I think of Dwight Eisenhower. I think of security, even though we had the McCarthy hearings and the threats of Russia, seemed to be a much more stable time. I remember that personally. And then all of a sudden, as I got to be a teenager, things, so many things changed. So really, when you are talking boomers, you are talking about the (19)50s, the (19)60s, and the (19)70s, and of course when Ronald Reagan came in and Assay Bay. So you are talking about a lot of things here.
SH (00:37:07):
Yeah. Yeah. I think what explains the (19)50s is, well, a lot of things. But you come out of World War II with a couple things. One is that the whole world's exhausted and broken, destroyed except for the United States, really. And so all that rebuilding time, I think, we have a whole generation of people coming back from national service, and they are very service and dutifully oriented people, and they start having kids like crazy. And I think I recur to the answer I gave a little earlier. I think it takes a while for the rise of prosperity and for some of the social ideas I was talking about that were fermenting back in the early part of the 20th century to exhibit themselves. It is hard to trace out causation on this because there is so many things that overlap. But yeah, I mean, that is why were the (19)50s so sort of placid and quiet. Well, I think the other thing about the (19)50s is, and other people have made this point, is that you had, in the (19)50s, you had the... and coming out of World War II, you had the triumph of bigness. I mean, in the (19)50s you used to talk about three things: big government, big business, and big labor, and big projects. We built the interstate highway system and out here in California, we built the water projects and the modern university system and lots of three ways. We built the suburbs all over the country. And that was regarded as a great success. That is back in the days when people would tell pollsters that by large margins, 60, 70 percent said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing almost all the time. Today that number's under 20 percent almost all the time. So the collapse of confidence in big institutions, like especially big government, but also big labor and big business. So it is a sort of simpler framework for the world then. And most people looked up from their morning newspapers and what they saw the government was a record of success. You had won a big war. You have built a big highway system, you have built middle class prosperity and new communities all across the country, and things went pretty well. It is not still (19)60s when things start going wrong with riots in the streets and the war that cannot be won and all the rest of that. But people start changing their minds about all this.
SM (00:39:18):
How important... Could you comment on the music of the year? Because when you think of the (19)60s, the music continues to be played on the radio. Every generation seems to love it. Most of the young people that I have been around, both generation Xers and millennials, they loved the music of the (19)60s, but it had seemed to have had a very important impact on that generation. When you look at the era when my parents grew up, the big bands were very important to them in the (19)40s and the (19)30s, late (19)30s into the (19)40s. Then you had the Sinatras, and of course Elvis came about in the 1950s and that whole period, rock and roll. But the (19)60s, could you just comment on how important you think when you defined the Boomers, how important music is?
SH (00:40:05):
Well, I mean, obviously, so (19)60s style music was the soundtrack to the student activism and whole youth movement. I mean, I am not a music critic, so I am not going to offer an opinion whether it is better or worse. But I do notice a couple things. One is that if you look at popular entertainment today, TV shows, especially in movies, you will find that for music background, they tend these days to use two periods, use music of the (19)60s and maybe in the (19)70s, and then rap, and rap-inspired styles today as you see in movies and TV shows. Whereas, in other words, the music of the (19)70s, disco especially, and a lot of the music of the (19)80s, has just disappeared. I mean, it is still a little bit of a round. And when Michael Jackson dies, people buy his records again and play them for a couple of days before putting them away again for good. But yeah, there is something, and I do not know if that is because it is connected with historical moments in some way or not, but yeah, I mean, that was the rock fest. Before the (19)60s, big musical events were just big musical events. But of course, bigger rock festivals of the (19)60s, and Woodstock being the best example I already mentioned, those became political events as well, in some sense, larger social events. And they are kind of still thought of that way a little bit today. I do not know if you had benefit concerts before the (19)60s, but nowadays, benefit concerts for political social causes are a big thing and pretty prominent. And all musicians think they have got to be part of doing something like that.
SM (00:41:41):
Right. Like Willie Nelson and Farm Aid, which began in, I think in (19)81. He was just on television last week talking about it. He thought it was a one-year happening, and it is every year since.
SH (00:41:52):
Right. But then you had... I remember one of the first ones was in the early (19)70s was the concert for Bangladesh, which I forget what that was, but that raise... in London or somewhere, that raised some millions of dollars for famine relief, I think was (19)70s. I forget when it was, sometime in the early (19)70s. But yeah, so yeah, music became politicized. That is the other thing is, music has always had some political content to it, but I think it... You know, you saw more of it starting in the (19)60s than you had before. You actually went out and tried to measure it.
SM (00:42:26):
If you were to list some of the bands or personalities music-wise, entertainment-wise who may have had a great influence on the boomers, who would they be?
SH (00:42:36):
Oh, I do not know. That would be a purely subjective response. I mean, you had the leading artists who broke the ground, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, of course. And then certain individual performers like Jimi Hendrix, but then some of... and they were not especially political, I do not think, I mean they had their politics, but their songs with a couple of exceptions. I mean, one of the Beatles, most famous tracks is their right-wing song Tax Man, right?
SM (00:43:04):
Yeah.
SH (00:43:06):
They was shocked that having to pay 98 percent tax rates on the large amount of money they were starting to make. And so that was kind of an irony in their case. But then you would have Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills & Nash, they were much more explicitly left wing, anti-war, so forth. And help, I mean-
SM (00:43:26):
Mr. Hayward, I want to change my tape here. Hold on one second.
SH (00:43:29):
Yeah.
SM (00:43:34):
Okay. I am back.
SH (00:43:39):
Yeah, I am not sure what else to add to all that. I mean, that is...
SM (00:43:41):
Certainly, we cannot forget the Motown sound because when we are talking about rock, Motown was big.
SH (00:43:46):
Right, right. And that was not especially politic. I mean, off the top of my head, that does not strike me as especially political. Popular with civil rights folks, but I do not think of any... Off the top of my head, I do not think of any particular Motown ballads that were highly politicized in their content. Unlike some of the rock bands who wrote explicitly anti-Vietnam War songs and so forth.
SM (00:44:07):
Were there any books, you are an intellect, and yeah, I have asked this to some people, and I am a book person. I read a lot of books, and I was reading back when I was in college, so I had deep feelings on books. But were there any books that you think college students or young people or the boomers were reading when they were young that influenced them?
SH (00:44:26):
Well, yeah, I mean this I would want to think about, but off the top of my head, I think of a Charles Reich, Greening of America, which is a pretty late book in the (19)60s or maybe early (19)70s. J. D. Salinger's, Catcher in the Rye was popular, I think, for its sensibility. And which swathly fits into the beats out of the (19)50s, with Jack Kerouac and all the rest of that. Herbert Marcuse was very popular. What was his book called, One-Dimensional Man or something, I want to say. I am not sure if that is the right one. And a lot of stuff is kind of impenetrable, but it was popular for especially superficial leftist intellectuals. I know I am missing a whole bunch of books [inaudible].
SM (00:45:11):
I know that Roszak's The Making of a Counter Culture was very big and-
SH (00:45:15):
Yeah, but I guess that was in the (19)60s, or was that a little later? I do not remember.
SM (00:45:18):
No, that was in the... I went to grad school and it was required reading. And then anything that Erickson wrote, the psychologist was-
SH (00:45:28):
Oh, yes. Right. Yeah.
SM (00:45:30):
He wrote a lot about the (19)60s and identity politics. It was so funny.
SH (00:45:33):
I have thought about the books of that era for quite a long time. So once upon a time I did, but I really sort of lost touch with that.
SM (00:45:41):
Right. I have a question here regarding kind of a follow-up to the healing issue, and that is the issue of trust. I start my question by stating that when I was in college in my 101 class in psychology, and I will never forget this professor talking to us, saying that it is very important to trust others. Because if you have an inability to trust, then you most likely will not be a success in life. Now, I was a college student first year, I did not really take that in, but I never forgot it. And then I saw what many boomers thought were lies that leaders did not... Nixon lying, President Johnson lying, Gulf of Tonkin, you studied... Even President Eisenhower lied with the U-2 incident. Now, recent John Kennedy lied about what was going on in Vietnam with saying goodbye to the Diem, the murder of Diem.
SH (00:46:40):
Right.
SM (00:46:40):
And then you have got so many others during that period when people were evolving, do you think that there is an issue... that boomers have an issue, have had an issue their whole lives with trusting others? They do not trust leaders, and in that era, they did not trust anybody in authority, whether it was a minister, a rabbi, a president of the university, a politician, anyone in a position of responsibility, I do not trust you.
SH (00:47:08):
Yeah, that is right. I know. I think that is a common theme is you just do not trust large institutions, public or private. And part of that has got its postulates. And again, some of the intellectual ideas of authenticity and individuality going back at least a century, you know, you want to trust yourself first before you trust somebody else. And partly it is the increasing complexity of the modern world. I mean, anyone who thinks about this seriously for more than five minutes understands that responsible governments and leaders have to conceal certain things and prevaricate about the truth. If you believe otherwise, you would say we would not have any spies at all if we would disband the CIA tomorrow, which no responsible person would ever do. And again, there is some cognitive dissonance in play. We are cynical and distrustful of institutions, and to a certain extent that is healthy, right? I mean, that is not too far from Thomas Jefferson's idea that the Tree of Liberty should be watered with the blood of pirates every 20 years or so, or should have periodic revolutions to renew things. And on the other hand, we always say, "We really want a leader we can believe in." This is part of the enthusiasm for Obama, change we can believe in. And we will always end up being disappointed. People like that. We were disappointed with Jimmy Carter, who told us he wanted to give us a government as good as the people, and then within a few years he was telling us the people were no good.
SM (00:48:32):
And even Ronald Reagan, who most people loved, but then Iran Contra toward the end, and then people started to question him.
SH (00:48:39):
Exactly. I mean, that was the worst part of the whole thing, was as somebody put it, it was as though you had learned that John Wayne had been selling rifles and whiskey to the Indians, and then that was a huge problem, yeah. And right. So no, I think there is something to all that, and we will probably never actually get that back. And that is a mixed bag. Yeah, I do not know what else to say about that.
SM (00:49:07):
Do you think that boomers have pressed this onto their kids and their grandkids, and is that healthy?
SH (00:49:14):
Well, it depends. I mean, a great book about this is now quite old, but I think is onto the origin of this was Robert Nisbet's Twilight of Authority.
SM (00:49:23):
I think I have that.
SH (00:49:23):
Back quite a long time, the erosion. So social reasons for the erosion of respect for authority in any forms, and it is not brand new, did not really start with the boomers, but accelerated around then for some of the reasons you mentioned, read the newspaper headline. If you trust the newspapers.
SM (00:49:37):
Right.
SH (00:49:41):
Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, right? We do not even watch the network news anymore. I mean, if Walter Cronkite were still alive, we would not think of him that way anymore. It is impossible to recreate Walter Cronkite now, but that is just the way we have gone. And I do not think there is any changing that back.
SM (00:49:57):
If some people, even Johnson's, they talk about two things that caused President Johnson to resign. One of them was Cronkite making those comments on television, the second being that McCarthy had finished in second place up in New Hampshire.
SH (00:50:10):
Right, yeah. But then he was going to beat him in the Wisconsin primary the next week.
SM (00:50:14):
Right.
SH (00:50:15):
He knew he was going to lose.
SM (00:50:17):
Why do you think the Vietnam War ended?
SH (00:50:23):
Well, yeah, a complicated story. I mean, as I said a little earlier, I mean, that war was lost at the very beginning when it was decided to run it not as a traditional war, but as an exercise in game theory in one sentence, in this whole theory of graduated escalation with pen signals to the North Vietnamese. I mean, in other words, Johnson's people completely misjudged the character of the North Vietnamese in thinking they were rational actors who could be bargained with. In fact, they were revolutionaries who were determined to win and figured out early on that they could outlast us and were willing to do so. And the failure to recognize that fact meant the war was lost in the beginning, unless you were going to change your tactic. Well, it was too late after 60 days. That is when we made our final flint and said, "We are not going to effectively prosecute the war." But then at the other end of it, it finally ends... Well, it finally ends with North Vietnamese victory, right in 1975. But it ends for us when Nixon decides that he is going to escalate enough to make them conclude some kind of agreement to let us get out in one piece, which we more or less did. I mean, you put up the helicopters taking off in (19)75 was not exactly getting out in one piece, but it was... came pretty close.
SM (00:51:29):
Right. Let us see here. I am coming toward the part where we asked you some of the names for your mission response, but what does the wall mean to you in Washington? I lived in California too until 1983, and of course it opened (19)82. And the first thing I had to do when I came to Philadelphia is I had to take the train down to Washington to see the wall. Because it meant an awful lot to me and I have been at every Memorial Day in Veterans Day ceremony since 1994, and I am not a veteran, just because I feel I have to be there to pay my respects to those who serve. Your thoughts on the impact that this wall has had on America?
SH (00:52:12):
Well, I do not know. I think it was a bigger deal when it first opened up. I mean, in my next book on Reagan, as we were talking about, I have a couple paragraphs about how controversial the whole thing was when it was first announced and then opened up. And also people changing their mind. It is interesting. National Review Magazine initially criticized the design, and then when it opened up, they wrote an editorial saying, Tensiter saying, "Well, we were wrong. This is actually pretty good." So, I do not know, people bring their own aesthetic, philosophical judgements to that kind of memorial. I once reflected that, and actually, I think I tried to do the math once, but if you... In Europe, for example, did the memorial in that style to the dead of World War I, it would stretch down the entire length of the Mall, right? Because the numbers are so much larger. The idea of putting every single person's name on the wall is that is very modern American. It also reflects now our commitment to individuality. And there is certain things about that that are noble and laudable. I do not really have any strong feelings one way or another about those, the Vietnam War Memorial.
SM (00:53:20):
What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you?
SH (00:53:24):
Oh, gosh. I do not have a strong response on that either. In both those cases I am now sort of vague on the facts about how much it was a provocation, how much was overreaction by the National Guard troops. You can always bring in the old themes of town and gown there. An awful lot of... I mean, this is certainly true of the police in Chicago in (19)68, but true National Guard troops, as long as there are working class people who resented what they were perceived of as these privileged kids who are acting up. And it does not excuse what happened, but I think it sometimes gets forgotten that there really is... Those particular moments, you mentioned Kent State, are reflective of the cultural division amongst the baby boomers. And that is where I mentioned before that Hatfields versus McCoys. So that was one place where real shooting broke out, like the old Hatfield-McCoy feud.
SM (00:54:23):
Right. I am to the part now where I am going to ask just some... give some names of people of that era just for some brief comments, and then also terms of that era.
SH (00:54:35):
Yeah.
SM (00:54:36):
Watergate.
SH (00:54:38):
Oh, the great crown and catastrophe of the (19)60s, you might say, even though it was in the (19)70s, but it was had its origins in the (19)60s, of course.
SM (00:54:47):
Woodstock.
SH (00:54:49):
Yeah, I already said my part about that. It was sort of the cultural apogee of the youth movement.
SM (00:54:57):
1968.
SH (00:54:59):
Oh, yeah. The worst year for America since 1861.
SM (00:55:10):
The term counterculture.
SH (00:55:10):
Yeah, the pretentious name that the youth movement gave for itself.
SM (00:55:11):
Hippies.
SH (00:55:15):
People who did not bathe at all.
SM (00:55:17):
How about yippies?
SH (00:55:20):
Yeah. Well, that was the sort of formalized what? That actually was the acronym for Youth International Protest, was not it?
SM (00:55:24):
Youth International Party.
SH (00:55:26):
Yeah, Youth International Party. Yeah. Right. Jerry Rubin and those guys.
SM (00:55:29):
Yep. SDS.
SH (00:55:33):
Yeah. Students for Democratic Society. I mean, I do not really have a sort of summary one sentence about them. I mean, they were the organized radical force of it.
SM (00:55:43):
The weathermen.
SH (00:55:45):
Yeah, the violent streak of the whole... They were the mad bombers of the New West.
SM (00:55:52):
Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
SH (00:55:55):
Well, John Kerry comes to mind immediately. Yeah.
SM (00:55:59):
Boy, there are a lot of people that do not like him in this group. It is amazing.
SH (00:56:05):
When he was emerging as a candidate, what, four years ago, very early on, I thought, oh, this is all going to come back in a big way, and this election is going to end up being about Vietnam to some extent. And I am kicking myself for not having written an article about that, because what happened with swift boats and all the rest of that, I foresaw all that quite clearly. And yeah, that is another... That was really a classic example of something that Obama understood, is that one of the things that was wrong about the 2004 election is that we were fighting out our old divisions from the (19)60s, especially over the war, because Kerry was really a bad candidate for precisely that reason. But he had all that baggage.
SM (00:56:43):
The people that, not the Swiffo people, but there were other Vietnam veterans against the war that had problems with him. They did not dislike him because he is a Vietnam vet, but there were issues around that period that they liked his speech in front of Fulbright, that took a lot of courage and they praised that, but the fact that he was one of the few guys because he was wealthy that could fly to locations where everybody else had to hitchhike, take planes, ride in old cars, and he was flying in airplanes. That really upset a lot of the Vietnam vet. Young Americans for Freedom, which Lee Edwards has talked about a lot, but is a forgotten group when talking about the anti-war movement.
SH (00:57:26):
Yeah-yeah. Oh, was that your next question?
SM (00:57:30):
Yeah. Just your thoughts on the young Americans for Freedom, which was a conservative group.
SH (00:57:33):
Yeah. I mean, they have finally gotten some of their due. There have been a couple of liberal writers who have talked about how... This is ironic that at one point in the early (19)60s, it was generally thought across the spectrum that the youth movement was going to be a right-wing phenomenon, and Young Americans for Freedom starts before SDS, for example, and it turned out some pretty impressive rallies and turned out some impressive numbers of people who never got the media coverage for it.
SM (00:58:00):
Well, I think there needs to be a book written about it.
SH (00:58:02):
I think there was one by a guy named Andrews a few years ago, a short little book [inaudible] side of the (19)60s. It was mostly about... Yeah.
SM (00:58:09):
Yeah. I think there needs to be more information for scholars because-
SH (00:58:13):
Yeah, I do too. Yeah. That is right.
SM (00:58:14):
The enemy's list.
SH (00:58:17):
Oh, well, Nixon's paranoia again. But all politicians have their enemy's list, whether they write them down officially or not. That was a little bit exaggerated, I think.
SM (00:58:25):
Okay. Ted?
SH (00:58:25):
Yeah. A military victory for the US and a political defeat for the US.
SM (00:58:37):
Cambodian invasion.
SH (00:58:39):
Yeah. Another thing that was puffed out of all proportion. It turned out that key members of Congress had been informed about what was going on, and the Cambodian government knew what was going on, but it was supposedly "secret" for diplomatic and political reasons. You wanted to have certain amounts of public deniability for political reasons, and so that was one of those events that spun out of control.
SM (00:59:03):
Black power.
SH (00:59:05):
Yeah, the militant side of civil rights, which dismayed even Martin Luther King, of course.
SM (00:59:10):
The American Indian Movement.
SH (00:59:13):
A sideshow. Native Americans wanting to get in on all the fun.
SM (00:59:18):
Mm-hmm. Again, these are some names of personalities now. Andy Hoffman.
SH (00:59:24):
Oh, yeah. Sort of the clown prince of the new left.
SM (00:59:27):
Jerry Rubin.
SH (00:59:29):
Same thing. Yeah. He is even more the clown prince of the new left.
SM (00:59:32):
Timothy Leary.
SH (00:59:34):
The pharmacist of the new left.
SM (00:59:36):
Of course Richard Nixon.
SH (00:59:38):
Yeah. The perfect hate figure for liberals of all stripes.
SM (00:59:43):
Spiro Agnew.
SH (00:59:45):
Oh, yeah, I do not have a good quick one for him. Nixon's designated hitman, you might say.
SM (00:59:53):
Eugene McCarthy.
SH (00:59:57):
Interesting guy. One of the unappreciated geniuses of American politics, I think. And certainly this is more appreciated, one of the great wits of American politics.
SM (01:00:07):
Pretty well educated too.
SH (01:00:08):
Yeah.
SM (01:00:09):
And boy, was he a poet. A lot of people-
SH (01:00:11):
Exactly. Yeah.
SM (01:00:12):
He could have been a poet and never been in politics.
SH (01:00:14):
Right.
SM (01:00:15):
George McGovern.
SH (01:00:17):
Yeah. Sort of a tragic figure in a lot of ways. Yeah, I will leave it at that.
SM (01:00:23):
John Kennedy.
SH (01:00:24):
Well, as his reputation had it, but somewhat naive about the movement that he wrote to the nomination.
SM (01:00:32):
John Kennedy.
SH (01:00:34):
Yeah. Well, the boy prince of liberalism and we will never know how that might have turned out.
SM (01:00:39):
Bobby Kennedy.
SH (01:00:43):
The other boy prince of liberalism, about whom I think we have a quite inaccurate perception.
SM (01:00:50):
Sergeant Schreiber in the Peace Corps.
SH (01:00:53):
You do not have too much to say about that. He was this little decent guy, but that was not... a marquee job, but I think actually a fairly ordinary one.
SM (01:01:03):
Lyndon Johnson.
SH (01:01:05):
Yeah. The tragic figure of establishment liberalism.
SM (01:01:08):
Robert McNamara.
SH (01:01:11):
Oh, oh, God. The face of technocratic liberalism.
SM (01:01:17):
George Wallace.
SH (01:01:20):
Yeah. I do not... What do you say about him? Do not have much to say about him really.
SM (01:01:25):
Ronald Reagan.
SH (01:01:27):
Yeah. The other... Boy, what do you say about him? The fulfillment of the Goldwater Revolution in the Republican Party, I guess you would say.
SM (01:01:39):
Jimmy Carter.
SH (01:01:44):
Oh, I do not know. What do you say about him in one sentence? He campaigned on the slogan of Why Not the Best, and we are still asking that question about him.
SM (01:01:57):
Gerald Ford.
SH (01:01:59):
Oh, a very decent man who did well in a bad situation.
SM (01:02:02):
Daniel Ellsberg.
SH (01:02:05):
Oh, yeah. An opportunist little runt.
SM (01:02:10):
Dr. Benjamin Spock.
SH (01:02:13):
Oh, yeah. Another sort of shooting star, sort of overblown... of overblown reputation.
SM (01:02:19):
Norman Mailer.
SH (01:02:23):
Oh, I do not have anything to say about him really.
SM (01:02:23):
Okay. The Berrigan brothers, Daniel and Phillip.
SH (01:02:26):
Yeah. I do not really care about those guys either. I do not have anything to say about those guys.
SM (01:02:36):
All right. Let us see who we have here. Barry Goldwater.
SH (01:02:36):
Ah, yeah. The breakthrough figure for modern American conservatism.
SM (01:02:40):
About Huey Newton, Bobby Seal, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, that group.
SH (01:02:45):
Yeah. That would be the same as the Black Power folks, the militant side of civil rights.
SM (01:02:50):
Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan?
SH (01:02:55):
Yeah, they are the gender... They are the vanguard of gender feminism.
SM (01:03:01):
Mm-hmm. Okay. Let us see. Is there any question that I did not ask you that you thought I was going to ask you that you would like to comment on, on the boomers in the (19)60s?
SH (01:03:13):
No, not really. That covers quite a lot.
SM (01:03:17):
I think I am missing one thing here. I know I have asked most of... You have answered some very good... You have done some deep thinking on these, I can tell, on some of the questions. I want to fill you in also on what I am doing is I will be getting these transcribed, but I am going to send you... I did not realize this because this was my first book, and I actually did early retirement to do this book because I have been working on it since (19)96 when I first interviewed Eugene McCarthy. And then I had my parents were... I had a lot of issues, and I went back and forth. Now I am finishing it up. And so the first 30 people, I did not know about, you had to get a waiver signed by all the people. They all agreed to do it, but they did not... Nobody ever asked about a waiver, but I am sending now waivers to the individuals, and you sign it, send it back to me, and then when I get it transcribed and I send the transcript to you to give the final okay in editing. And that is what I am doing with everyone. The original 30 is kind of an issue because seven of them have died. So I do not know what is going to happen there.
SH (01:04:23):
I have no idea. You will have to talk to your publisher about that or something.
SM (01:04:26):
Yeah. But waivers are important, even though they agreed to do it.
SH (01:04:31):
Yeah.
SM (01:04:35):
You have any other thoughts you want to say on anything?
SH (01:04:37):
I do not think so. We covered a lot of the waterfront.
SM (01:04:39):
Yeah, what I usually do with each interview, I take pictures of people, and I have really good pictures of you when you were here, but you may have gotten a little older looking. I do not know.
SH (01:04:51):
Well, I am balder, I am pretty sure, and I am a lot thinner. I lost a bunch of weight here a couple years ago, so we will be around September if you are in through Washington, or October, if you are in through Washington.
SM (01:05:00):
Yeah, why do not I do this? Because I got great shots of you, but I would like to have a more current, so when you are back down there, I will come down and take some pictures because I am actually going to be interviewing Dr. Sally Satel.
SH (01:05:11):
Oh, right, sure.
SM (01:05:12):
I am going to interview her along with M. Stanton Evans next week. Next week. And then I am going out to Dr. Murray's home to interview him.
SH (01:05:22):
Oh, good. Yeah.
SM (01:05:23):
So I will be down... And I am actually interviewing Ron Robinson from the Young Americas Foundation sometime when he is not having that conference of the... that is coming up for him. And even Dr. Ornstein is interested in doing an interview as well, but he has got a lot of family issues in August.
SH (01:05:42):
That is right. Yeah.
SM (01:05:43):
So, well, Dr. Hayward, thank you very much.
SH (01:05:47):
Sure thing.
SM (01:05:49):
And I will be in touch with you. When will you be back in...
SH (01:05:52):
Early September.
SM (01:05:53):
Okay. I will send you... Do you want me to send the waiver at AEI or at your home in California?
SH (01:06:01):
Oh, how soon do you want it? Do you want it end of this month or...
SM (01:06:04):
Yeah, I am going to be mailing them all out in September.
SH (01:06:05):
Oh, send it to AEI then.
SM (01:06:07):
Okay. And then you just send it back to me, and then of course, then you will see the transcript when it is transcribed and you can edit it and whatever.
SH (01:06:13):
Right. Okay.
SM (01:06:15):
All right. You have a great day.
SH (01:06:16):
Yeah, you too. Bye-bye.
SM (01:06:16):
Thanks. Bye.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Steven Hayward
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Hayward, Steven F. ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Authors; Journalists; Hayward, Steven F.--Interviews
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Steve Hayward is an author, political commentator, and policy scholar. He currently serves as a Fellow at Ashland University's Ashbrook Center where he directs a program in political economy. Hayward earned a B.S. in Business and Administrative Studies from Lewis and Clark College and a Ph.D. in American Studies and M.A. in Government from Claremont Graduate School.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2009-07-28
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.60
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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66:22
-
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Format
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2009-08-06
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
M. Stanton (Medford Stanton) Evans, 1934-2015
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Medford Stanton Evans was an educator, journalist and author. Stanton was an influential figure behind the modern conservative movement. He received his Bachelor's degree in English from Yale University and his Master's degree in Economics from New York University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Medford Stanton Evans was an educator, journalist, and author. Stanton was an influential figure behind the modern conservative movement. He received his Bachelor's degree in English from Yale University and his Master's degree in Economics from New York University.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Beat Writers; Communism; The Goldwater Movement; Free Speech Movement; Change agents; Vietnam policies; College students; Activism ;Peace Corps; Conservatives; Trust; Lyndon B. Johnson; The Hollywood Ten; Joseph McCarthy; Richard Nixon; Birch Bayh; FBI surveillance.\n"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15299,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16119544],"9":0,"10":0,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,3355443],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Beat Writers; Communism; The Goldwater Movement; Free Speech Movement; Change agents; liberals; Civil War; Ken Burns; Edmund Muskie; Vietnam policies; College students; Activism; Peace Corps; Voluntarism; Conservatives; Trust; Lyndon B. Johnson; The Hollywood Ten; Joseph McCarthy; Richard Nixon; Birch Bayh; FBI surveillance<br /></span>
Duration
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113:29
Subject LCSH
Journalists; Authors; Evans, M. Stanton (Medford Stanton), 1934-2015--Interviews
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Transcription
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: M. Stanton Evans
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 6 August 2009
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:03):
Again, thank you very much. I will be sending a waiver form too, and you will sign it and then you will see the editing before it is ever.
ME (00:00:11):
Now, how is this an oral interview subject? Are you just going to publish the interviews, are you making a book from the interviews?
SM (00:00:17):
Well, no, I am actually making a book from the interviews. I take the picture of each individual in the ambiance, the special moment. That is why I like to interview in person. A few people I have interviewed over the phone, and those people I have met and I have taken their picture, so I can feel comfortable with interview them over the phone. This is an oral history project, but I have written a prologue and an epilogue already and I have written that and it is a lot about me and the magic moments for me as a boomer. This is really for an education for students and for general public to read about the boomer generation, some of the questions I ask. I guess it is also discovery for me, because I remember being in psychology classes. I am trying to still discover who I am as a boomer, and this generation I grew up in, I am fascinated by it.
ME (00:01:13):
I think your generation is more introspective than mine.
SM (00:01:18):
Tell you what, I am going to leave this close to you, so speak loud.
ME (00:01:22):
I will get closer up and closer to you.
SM (00:01:25):
What? Continue on, right on that note there about the introspective.
ME (00:01:29):
Well, I am looking, every generation has its own introspection, but our era, the era that is chronicled in this book you have, mine here from long ago, was we were very focused on things outside ourselves. Particularly, I am talking late forties, early (19)50s, I was class of (19)55 college. This was the very height of the coal. Korea was going, and all the McCarthy stuff was going on. There were huge battles being fought, all related to this coal question and the survival of the free world. These are the communists. That riveted our attention and everything we did was kind of, not everything, but a lot of what we did was linked to that. Certainly, in my own case, since this is some of biographical, that was the number one issue for me, as opposed to my intensity for something. That is kind of what I meant by that.
SM (00:02:43):
Right. When you think of the boomer generation, and again, these are the young people born between, and I think we made a few...
ME (00:02:50):
After the war, right?
SM (00:02:53):
Yeah, born right after the war up to 1964.
ME (00:02:59):
Yeah. That is a 20-year span.
SM (00:02:59):
Yes.
ME (00:02:59):
End of the war.
SM (00:03:03):
Yeah. What are your thoughts? If you look at that group of young people that were in college in the early, they would have graduated beginning in around 1965 from high school, and they would have continued for the next 22 years, basically, graduating from high school, going off to college, and they were involved in all these activities. When you look at the bloomer generation, what would you consider their strengths and weaknesses as a generation of 74 million? I know it is very general, but...
ME (00:03:33):
Yeah. Well, again, the difference in perspective, and I told you this over the phone, that I had never really thought about these matters so much in generational terms. Certainly, that enters in. There is always the tension between the older people and the younger people. That is just built into the situation. I was much more focused, picking up what we were just talking about a minute ago, on the issue aspect of things. That is, there was not so much how old people were, it is where they stood philosophically. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, in college and just out of college, I was much more focused on aligning myself with other people who thought as I did, as opposed to how old these people were. Some of them were quite old. Some of them were 60, 70 something years old then. Some of them were my age, and some of them were in between. It was much more a question of substance, of philosophy, of policy. Then the generational part of it kind of flowed from the avenue, but the generational thing was then itself divided by that. Of course, you have, and I am sure you know this, you had really on the campuses in the (19)60s, which is this book was written in 1961, before a lot of stuff happened in the (19)60s, you really had two different things going on the campuses. One was just one we have all read about, the SDS, and the new left, and the free speech movement, and all of that glorified in the Ken Kesey novels, and the literature of the times, about all the flower people and so forth and so on. That was sort of all on the left end of things to the degree had any philosophical meaning. Then there were whole other thing on the campuses of the conservative kids, Young Americans for Freedom, the Universal Studies Institute, Young Republicans. I read about those groups in this book, people on this campus way back when. Of course, a lot more happened after that book came up. You really had two different things within the same generation, left versus right. You had all the kids who followed Gene McCarthy, but you had a bunch of other kids who followed Barry Goldwater. These were the forces that were contending for leadership politically and intellectually. Those groups continued fighting through all the intervening years, after the Reagan era, and even into today. That is kind of the way I looked at it.
SM (00:07:12):
It is interesting. I do this in every interview, one of the first questions centers on commentary made by Newt Gingrich and George Will, who are the most well-known commentators on the boomers in the 1990s. Basically, they would, in every chance they could get, whether it be an article in of a magazine or on television, take a shot at the boomer generation for the breakdown of American society in so many ways, whether it be the breakdown of the American family, the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority, the divisions that really came about that continue today. Do you think their commentary was fair to attack that 74 million boomers?
ME (00:07:58):
I have to hedge on that a bit, because I am not familiar with what they have said, but based on your paraphrase, I do not agree with that. I do not believe quite apart from you and George, that is another, them personally is another question, I do not believe that the problems that we confront in American society were created by that group of people. They were there long before. There had been a long history of philosophical breakdown in American culture for decades before any of these people were ever born. Bill Buckley's book, God and Man at Yale, came out in 1951.
SM (00:08:52):
Great book.
ME (00:08:53):
It is.
SM (00:08:54):
I have a first edition.
ME (00:08:55):
I was there when it came out. It is a very, I felt a very accurate indictment of what was then happening in Yale in 1951 or (19)50. That was long before these people ever made the scene. To pin it on them, well, some of them made it worse, some of them continued it, some of them whatever, manifested it, but there are others who opposed it in that same generation. That is the side that I was on, and the opposing side. That was the side that produced Goldwater and Reagan. Not an inconsequential movement that you produced with Ronald Reagan. That is where it came from. That is how I look at it.
SM (00:09:50):
When you look at that period that you have written about, the McCarthy era, and certainly Buckley back in (19)51, the early boomers were like six, seven years old at that time. It was very, for them to grasp much, but I can still remember as a little boy, watching that Black and white TV on the McCarthy hearings, being on the floor and my mother's in the kitchen, and having him say things to people who were testifying. I am not sure if that is subconsciously, I am not sure if I am one of the millions of baby boomers that were on the floor of the living room as the mother was doing her damn things when it was on television, whether that subconsciously went into boomers in any way in their youth. When you look at boomers, the question I want to ask is, boomers really questioned authority, a lot of them did. Again, maybe only 50 percent, but a lot of them questioned authority and challenged the status quo. That was the area that the beat writers came about. Some people will say the beat writers really had a subconscious or early influence, because they really did not respect authority and they wanted to speak up and be different. I do not know.
ME (00:11:01):
I remember them very well. I remember Kerouac...
SM (00:11:02):
Right.
ME (00:11:02):
Ginsburg and so on. Yeah.
SM (00:11:06):
Some people even say the (19)60s began with the beats, but what are your thoughts on that (19)50s era that could have had a negative influence on the early elementary school?
ME (00:11:17):
Well, I think that, I do not know. Again, I guess my approach is so different, it is hard for me to kind of put it in this chronological framework. I see it as a long-playing philosophical battle, cultural battle that way predates the (19)50s. Some of the things that are were said about the (19)60s had been said about the 1920s. The flaming youth, the people who were totally disenchanted because of World War I, that generation, the...
SM (00:12:00):
Pictures.
ME (00:12:13):
Yeah, sure. You had all the same, everything that would have been said about the (19)60s had been said about the (19)20s. Then of course, you had the depression in the 1930s. You had a very, very serious problem there with a lot of young people. Communists appeal to younger people at that time because of disillusionment with American institutions. The sweep of it is very, to me, much broader and longer than starting with the boomers. I think they just inherited a lot of stuff. One could argue that it is within that group that some kind of resistance was mounted to these tendencies. Again, I go back to the Goldwater, Reagan, and the Goldwater thing was very much fueled by younger people on the campuses, and who would have been in 1964, in their teens or early twenties. They would be boomers. If you get it from 1945, these people, almost all of them, were born after 1945. They led to the Goldwater movement, which then became the Reagan movement. I know this from being on campus, I took a little bit of a generational approach, but mostly I stressed the opposition within these generations, on either side of the question, which divided the older people and the younger people. I was only 26-7 when I wrote that book. I was certainly at that generation myself. Again, to me, that is what it is about.
SM (00:14:06):
Yeah, I think a lot of people perceive the early boomer lives, everything really started with a free speech movement or freedom summer, when some of them went south when they could. They were 18 years old, 19 years old.
ME (00:14:21):
Right.
SM (00:14:21):
Although the majority of them were, I think most of them were, most of the white participants were Jewish that went south, and a lot of African Americans as well. That whole period, a question I want to ask is whether these movements that came about during this timeframe when the boomers were young, the Civil Rights movement...
ME (00:14:47):
Let me interrupt you a minute, Steve. You done, Mark?
ME (00:14:51):
Well, no, I found these.
ME (00:14:54):
Okay. Do what you can.
ME (00:14:56):
I can come back. I just have to drop Tina off at work.
ME (00:15:00):
Okay, why do not want you to do that? I will tell you what, do you have to go right now to drop her off this very second?
ME (00:15:05):
Well, no, I have five minutes.
SM (00:15:09):
I will turn this up. You can do whatever you want. My time is your time. It is fine with me, because I am here.
ME (00:15:16):
Thank you.
SM (00:15:20):
I think I was, you were responding to my question. What was the question?
ME (00:15:24):
I do not remember.
SM (00:15:24):
What was my question?
ME (00:15:24):
I do not remember.
SM (00:15:29):
Something, oh, the movements, the different movements. If you look at the bloomer generation, people will define it often as the movements they were involved in.
ME (00:15:39):
You are talking about free speech movement?
SM (00:15:41):
Yeah, the Civil Rights movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the women's movement.
ME (00:15:45):
Yeah.
SM (00:15:46):
Many of these were offshoots from the Civil Rights movement, the environmental movement, the Native American movement. All these movements came about in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s as offshoots from the Civil Rights movement. They often defined them within this particular generation with the exception of the Civil Rights movement, because it was already pretty strong. Your thoughts on trying to define those movements within this boomer generation?
ME (00:16:12):
Well, I guess that my big disagreement was all the folks you are talking about. It was very manifest at the time, and has been for the intervening 40 years, was that if you go to what was happening in Berkeley, Mario Savio, all that stuff, the new left, SDS, the Port Huron statement, on and on and on. The people involved in that positioned themselves that they were opposing the establishment, that they were hostile to the reigning orthodoxy of the day. They understood that orthodoxy to be liberal, as did I. They were very critical of liberals, and then I worked with the Liberal Establishment back in 1965. Some of the critiques that were made of the liberals were very stringent from the left, was that conformity and big governments, and centralized power, and executive authority out of control, and many-many things that conservatives had said in the past, many of the left were saying in opposition at Lyndon Johnson or letter to Nixon and so forth. For all I had with those folks was that philosophically speaking, they were not any different from the people they were criticizing. That is, they were, in terms of value theory, they were relativists or agnostic to put a mileage, they were not religiously devout people, except in a few cases, like the [inaudible] or something. Most of them are secular, agnostic people. That was kind of the, or liberal orthodox was also secular. In terms of political and economic action, they started out sounding different, but they were collectives. More power to the government, and more coercion, more welfare, more everything of government, obviously, going on now. This was all the same as the thing they were allegedly opposing, [inaudible] senator, who was secular agnostic collectivist, the very parts Bill Buckley made in God and Man in Yale 14, 15 years before. To me, there was no real likelihood that people of that outlook could do anything substantive to change the problems that we had. They could make them worse. They could commit violence. They could have riots. They could capture school buildings or blow buildings up. They could do things like that. In what way did that change anything for the better? I did not think it did. That was my belief then. I wrote that, I had a book, The Future of Conservatism, in 1968, in which I basically said in that book when I had part of it, what I just said to you. I think the history is one of that.
SM (00:19:56):
I think I know what you are replying, but I want to hear it from the tape. When the boomers said they were the most, I know I was one of them, and I went to college. Some of my peers felt they were the most unique generation in the history of America. At that particular time, they felt comradeship, in many respects, around different causes, that they were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society. That they were going to racism, sexism, homophobia, end war, bring peace to the world, bring sanity, so to speak. Then as they age, take on leadership roles and their ideals would continue. Your thoughts on the way boomers thought, and again, I am not talking to the entire generation.
ME (00:20:48):
Yeah.
SM (00:20:49):
Most people say that 15 percent were involved in activism, but that is a lot of people, 70 some million. Just your thoughts on the feelings that the boomers had then. I think some boomers still think that now, even though they are in positions of responsibility. Just your thoughts on that kind of?
ME (00:21:10):
My comment would be repeating what I already said. I think your point is well taken, that there is a lot of people, and there certainly were a lot of people, there are a lot of people, who had such attitudes, but they were not the entire generation. That has to be kept in mind. I think that the only thing I remember from tour, I used to spend a lot of time on campuses. I must have been on a couple hundred campuses in the 1960s, debating these people, and trying to work the other side of the street. The one thing I remember very well is I go to a campus, anywhere, University of Illinois, or I think I was in Binghamton, and some point and all that...
SM (00:21:54):
Right.
ME (00:21:54):
A lot of schools up in New York. I would ask the same question. I would not only speak, but I would interview, "Talk to me. I would only find out what is going on." I used to write, I would write newspaper article about stuff.
SM (00:22:13):
Right-right.
ME (00:22:17):
One of the questions I would always ask, "What is it like? What is going on here in this campus?" He said, "Well, mostly the students are just really apathetic," over and over and over again, and they were. What you really had, and I wrote about this a little bit on campus, was you had a whole bunch of people sort of in the middle, who were just typical college students, trying to get on with their lives, and go to football games, and have dates with good looking girls or vice versa if they were girls, and have fun, and get through college, and get on with their lives. That was it. There were minorities on the sort of either end of this thing who were intensely committed to certain causes, the left being the ones that were most publicized. Part of that was the fact, what I was talking about before, they were publicized because they fitted the mental framework of the people in the media. The media folks themselves, products of the campuses, saw and the new left in the various manifestations of that group. They recognized, this is what young people should be doing. They should be out demonstrating for the environment, or they should be opposing the Vietnam War or whatever. That is what the media themselves thought. Therefore, they catered to these young people who were preaching that doctrine and holding BNs. I remember I spoke at those things, and they were very well publicized. The teach-ins and all that stuff on Vietnam, I remember it all very well. The media recognized that and they amplified it. They communicated. On the other side of it got almost no attention for the conservative kids, doing what they were doing. They were promoting Goldwater and they were later promoting Reagan. That was the neglected part of it, this other side, the other (19)60s. That, of course, the other (19)60s turned out to be, politically speaking, the winning side. Reagan wanted to be president. George McGovern did not. That is the way they would play out. There is an imbalance there and perception, because it has been, I well remember, it was just so typical of this thing, that the day after, I think I am right, the day after the Gingrich republicans had won...
SM (00:25:20):
(19)94.
ME (00:25:23):
In (19)94, the control of the Congress, both house and Senate, which had not happened in ever before in 40, 50 years, the Washington Post, I could go back and get this, you could pull it up to the website, like the day after the (19)94 election, had a humongous article and all in the style section about alumni of the SDS, where are they now? Hello? The republicans are sweeping into control of the Congress, and The Washington Post is glorifying former members of the SDS. Well, that is kind of illustrative, what I am drawing it all. The focus is over here, but things are going over here that are ignored until there is two. All of a sudden, where did Goldwater come from? Where did Reagan come from? Where did Gingrich come from? What is going on here? They were utterly mystified by the development, because it did not fit any of their preconceptions.
SM (00:26:29):
Has the media changed at all since... People remember back in Watergate, that Woodward and Bernstein created that investigative journalist mentality. That was very popular for a while, but now it is not.
ME (00:26:46):
Well...
SM (00:26:46):
It seems like it is disappeared.
ME (00:26:49):
Well, I would have a hard, again, lots of things that happened. That is where I spent my life, of course, in media. I am a media person and in journalism, so this was very riveting. The media changed in so many different ways. It is hard to generalize. You now have all this blogging, and you have got all the internet stuff, and you have got talk radio, and you have got cable TV, a zillion different outlets all competing for the attention of the public, which erodes the power of the few institutions that used to be the major determinants of public debate. They were very, how well I remember on the TV, the three networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, the big magazines, many of which do not exist anymore, Look, Life, Collier, Saturday Evening Post, these were hugely important, had six, 7 million subscribers apiece, Time, Newsweek, and major newspapers, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and others. There is kind of a handful of really big media institutions that basically, they are in control, but they certainly influenced discourse in a very powerful way. That is all changed. Now, there all these different things. You have got stuff, I am sure you have noticed, and it gets a fair amount of attention. Newspapers are virtually going out of business.
SM (00:28:44):
Yeah, several going bankrupt.
ME (00:28:45):
Losing money, losing subscribers, including the Washington Post and New York Times.
SM (00:28:46):
The Inquirer had problems.
ME (00:28:46):
The Inquirer, you could list them all, Chicago Tribune.
SM (00:28:46):
The San Francisco Chronicles and all of them.
ME (00:28:58):
On and on, it is a long list. Same thing with the networks. They are struggling because cable TV has eroded. They are...
ME (00:29:03):
And because cable TV has eroded their audiences, although they are still by far the largest entities in television, but not the way they used to be. And you have many, many alternatives now that did not exist back in the (19)60s. And the internet and the talk radio and blah-blah-blah, it is such a totally different ballgame. So, it is really hard to get your arms around it as to what it all means, I am not sure what it means. I do believe that the media, by and large, I am not talking about the blockage because of who knows, but by and large there is still a strong tilt to the left. And the reason for this is basically that the personnel of these institutions come out of the colleges. That is where they come from. And so that they are, and particularly the ones that are interested in journalism, and I have taught journalism for a long time, there is a definite tendency to the liberal side and the surveys of media personnel over the years. It is an 80 to 90 percent voting liberal Democrats and very large majorities. I mean, I have not seen anything like that recently, I must admit and work for it. But that internal reflects the campuses where you have majority, the seven to eight to one in favor of the liberal position among faculty. And they are the ones training these young people then going to the media. So, I think that that problem is still out there in a very large way, but I do not really have a lot of hard data to back it up. That is just what my impression is.
SM (00:30:56):
Check to make sure the... because it is 45 minutes each side and we are doing fine, okay. I have a question that we asked actually, I am not going to mention the politician. I am not sure if I mentioned on the phone when I talked to you, but took a group of students to Washington DC about eight years ago. Came to DC to see a former senator. And the question that I have been asking all of my interviewees is a general question. And it is about the concept of healing within the nation because of all the divisions that took place in the (19)60s, many people have thought that we came close to a second civil war with all the divisions between Black and white. I like your thought on that, but the divisions between Black and white, those who for and against the war, the divisions are pretty strong. And whether we, as a nation have healed from all those divisions at that time in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, some people might say that the divisions continue right into the halls of Congress because they do not get along. But I do not think they got along even when FDR was president. So, your thoughts on this particular issue of healing within the boomer generation, and I say this because I go to Gettysburg a lot and I have studied a lot about the north and south coming together as they got older and some healed, some never did. Some went their graves never healing. And the senator was Senator Musky. We asked him his thoughts on whether we had healed as a nation since 1968, because that was a real rough year and he did not respond right away. And the 14 students would look at each other. And finally he had some tears in his eyes and he mentioned he just got out of the hospital and he had been watching the Ken Burn series on the Civil War. And that he was so touched by the loss of all the men and the loss of maybe an entire generation of children that we really have not healed since the Civil War, let alone the (19)60s. Your thoughts on both two thoughts on what Musky had to say and then secondly, just a general question on healing since the (19)60s and early (19)70s.
ME (00:33:09):
Well again, I have a different way of looking at it. It is a matter of the lenses that you are wearing. I did not feel even in the (19)60s that the country in general was that divided. But I did think, and I still think is that there were certain people within the country who were intentionally hostile to the traditional values of the country. I think that is still true. I think that goes on. There are people that are just the [inaudible] blame America, that if there is some controversy overseas, we are the villains, we are at fault. There is a lot of that back then. Those demonstrators on the campuses in the (19)60s, and I saw them face to face, were not against war. They were against the United States and they glory in the victory of the Viet Cong. They were pro Viet Cong. So, they were not just against the war, they were against the United States and they were against the effort by the United States to oppose communism. I happen to be pretty much a critic of the Vietnam policies that were followed by Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon. I was never a big fan of any of those policies. But these people, as I said, I went toe to toe with them campus after campus, after campus. I debated and I was at these teachings. I spoke at these teachings. There was an intense hatred of America there. It was not philosophical oppositions of war, violence of the country. But those people did not represent very much. Those people with those attitudes. Praising the Viet Cong, the people that rejoiced in the fall of Saigon, and they did rejoice in them, did not represent the large segment of American society. Never did. And I think that is gone on. I think that is continuing to this day. There are people that sort of ritualistically take a stance like that on any foreign policy question. We saw it very much in the opposition of President Bush. And again, I was no big fan of his. I think he made a lot of mistakes, but just the hatred of him and Cheney and went way beyond just policy disagreement. And it really was sort of an extension of what I remember seeing back in the (19)60s, this Vietnam stuff. I do not think that those attitudes, which however can be very powerful, represented any large percent of the American people. I mean, most Americans even then and now hold to fairly traditional conventional ideas and do not want to see any big revolutions and any kind of violence or any kind of Vietnam type demonstrations, even though they might be upset about the course of policy. And I have certainly have been, but I am not out the streets bringing turn cars over and buildings. And so again, it is my different way of looking.
SM (00:37:02):
How important were those college students ending that war in Vietnam?
ME (00:37:06):
Well they were pretty important. There was a synergism of the college students, the college faculties even more so and the media. And of course, the thing that was different then and which was driving a lot of that had nothing at all to do or very little to do with the merits of the Vietnam War, although it had many things longer than I thought. It was the draft. They did not want to be drafted. Once the draft was not there, you do not see that anymore. There is no draft. So the college students are not in danger of being drafted and sent to fight in all these wars. That is a huge difference. And so that was what was driving a lot of it.
SM (00:38:01):
Would you say that a lot of times people, I am using a general statement here, but that when you think of the young people of that era, you think of activism. The term activism. I am not talking about volunteerism now. I am talking about activism now. Now we have on college campuses now, and we have had since the (19)90s and the (19)80s, (19)90s, massive amount of volunteers. And if you read the literature on higher education, they say when you have greater numbers of volunteerism or a large percentage of volunteerism, that is the sign of a conservative era. I do not know why people say that, but-
ME (00:38:35):
I do not either.
SM (00:38:39):
But that volunteerism is when a person commits himself or herself to so many hours a week toward a cause. But when you think of activism, you think of a 24/7. It is part of being, the human being, it is the whole person's life fighting for issues and causes. And so sometimes people will separate that group of people, the Boomers from the Generation Xers and now the Millennials as a totally different group because they were more 24/7 as opposed to today's young people that are two hours a week or mandatory in volunteer work and not really activists.
ME (00:39:19):
Well usually if someone is [inaudible] I did not really know. This volunteerism thing is big now, right?
SM (00:39:25):
It has been big for over 20 years.
ME (00:39:27):
Oh, it shows how much I know, because I was not aware of that. I knew it was out and how big it was. And that is good. I do not think there is anything particularly conservative about it, but [inaudible] volunteer with a Peace Corps or Action or whatever and that might or might not be conservative [inaudible] But if [inaudible] by desire to help other people, that is a good thing. And philosophically, and I would describe it, but the other thing you are describing, the activism that is the groups I was talking about earlier. Those are the people who are committed, philosophically committed. They are not just partially involved. They are really involved. And so, they are the ones that fight on either end of the spectrum for dominance, in terms of the debate and rhetoric and substance of policy. And I think that is always been the case. Now, I think what has happened recently is a lot of the people that things went in two different directions. All the people from that era back then and now, of course would be in their (19)50s and (19)60s.
SM (00:40:53):
Yeah. Make sure we are doing okay here. Let is see here, how are we doing?
ME (00:41:03):
Must be getting done [inaudible].
SM (00:41:03):
Should click friend.
ME (00:41:10):
That the people, alumni of that, all those fights that I was witnessing and in part as a participant in the (19)60s, which is the most intense part of this process that you are talking about, went in two very different ways. And by and large, the more conservative kids went off and one thing that happened is the conservative kids tend to be more oriented toward existing institutions. So, they are looking to make careers of themselves in business or law or medicine or whatever it might be engineering. And so they have very strong vocational orientation. So, they are not going to be out there all the time as activists in the sense that you just defined it. The more leftward kids are not committed to existing institutions. They tend to be much more verbalizers. They tend to be writers, they tend to be speakers, they tend to be the kind of folks that go into media and/or into back into academe. And so you have a buildup on the two sides of this of a very, very strong imbalance to the left on the campuses. And it replenishes itself as more of the people who graduated of that outlook, they tend to come back to the campuses and so what you have now is the tenured people from 40 years ago-
SM (00:42:55):
I am going to switch the tape.
ME (00:42:56):
Go ahead.
SM (00:42:56):
That should have...
ME (00:43:08):
There is people now who were activists back in the (19)60s who are now professors, much more so than conservatives, have many conservative professors are out there? And the conservatives either went into business or some went into politics. And so you have a lot of people of that generation are Reagan staffers or whatever, work for Republican administrations. And there is a real divide between the philosophical, intellectual, verbalizing people and the more practical everyday people based on these philosophical differences. And I think that is what you have got now in campuses and then that feeds into the media and then it is a self-perpetuating cycle.
SM (00:44:04):
How did that develop? How did conservative students really develop knowing that the issue of trust is something that seems to be lacking, in my opinion, amongst many voters? Because of what they saw failure in their leaders, lying from their leaders. I say this because we now know about Lyndon Johnson, the Gulf of Tonkin and all the fake numbers that came back that McNamara would announce that young people saw on the Black and white television every night. Of course, Watergate and Richard Nixon and then in the revelations even more recently of President Kennedy and his possible link with the Diem overthrow. And then, of course, Eisenhower had lied on national television about the U2 incident. And then you have got the whole issue of, even in later years, Brown Reagan was hard to tarnish. But the Iran-Contra comes out of there. And they even questioned Gerald Ford that there was a behind the scenes move to pardon President Nixon and it was all-
ME (00:45:11):
Well he did pardon Nixon.
SM (00:45:13):
Yeah, he did but the question is you cannot trust him, because now he is pardoning him. There was no trust in any of the leaders. What does this due to a generation of young people that cannot trust?
ME (00:45:25):
It makes you cynical and but it did not affect just... it affected a lot of conservatives kids too. They did not trust their leaders. You talk about the Kennedy overthrow Diem, I knew about that at the time. There was no secret. And that was just a terrible thing. And of course, it led to this collapse of all kinds of chances of resistance in Vietnam, because there was no leadership, the whole thing just went down the drain. But I knew about that. I wrote about it. I wrote a whole chapter done in a book I wrote in the (19)60s about what happened in Vietnam and how that was done. Well it is pretty hard to have much confidence in the leadership that does something like that. Each of the overthrow and murder of our alleged ally. And I have since found, I have a chapter on my book that they tried to do the same thing to [inaudible] to overthrow him, but that was thwarted but I have the documents that show it. So there was a lot of that kind of stuff going on. That was under Truman, the actions and State Department. They are planning to overthrow [inaudible] in 1950. So, it makes you very cynical and very, very doubtful about the honesty of the people running this country when things like that are going on, and I certainly, Lyndon Johnson, I am a native of Texas and I knew about Lyndon Johnson a long before it became common knowledge. Anybody in Texas knew how he got elected in the first place, 1948 when they stole votes down in Duval and Jim Wells counties and people called it Land Slides Lyndon he was called. And the Caro books. You have read them, Robert Caro biography of Johnson.
SM (00:47:30):
I read the first one. I did not read the second one.
ME (00:47:33):
Well it is all pretty negative on Lyndon and it was all basically true. And so that pretty hard to have much confidence in that that and again, Nixon [inaudible] here where he and Kissinger were bludgeoning two in Vietnam to knuckle under has come out in recent tapes. Well how do you have any confidence in people that do stuff like that? So yeah, most of the people I knew and was involved with way back when were pretty much disillusioned with a lot of these. We did not know everything we know now. We knew a lot. We knew about Diem, we knew about that and we were very disillusioned by it. No question.
SM (00:48:28):
The Boomers who, if they were cognizant again of McCarthy and what was going on in the (19)50s, the red baiting and that whole business. And of course, certain movies have come out in recent years, documentaries on the Hollywood 10 and certainly McCarthy. And then you get the enemies list of Richard Nixon in the (19)60s. And then you have got most recently in George Bush, the Patriot Act, that they all kind of come together, a lack of almost a fear of speaking up. Fear of expressing one's views. And if you do, you are either going to go before a hearing in front of McCarthy for being a communist. Your career is going to be destroyed by Richard Nixon's people for standing up against the Vietnam War. And then of course, Patriot Act, even George Bush. What does this say about America? And this is all during the time that the Boomers have been growing into old age.
ME (00:49:29):
Well I guess I would have to take everything you just said and go step by step through it, because I do not agree with it. And first of all, the McCarthy thing, I wrote a 600 page book going into these questions. And my brother did not call anybody before for disagreeing with him. I do not know of anybody, maybe a couple of people, but most of the people that he was looking at, and the charges he brought were based on information that came from the FBI about the infiltration of our government by communists and Soviet agents. And this stuff had been covered up. It was denied. And we are getting a lot of this information now from recent disclosures from FBI files. I have hundred thousand page of FBI files downstairs. And that is what my book is mostly based on and these files show that these people McCarthy was pursuing were basically what he said they were. They were not just dissenters from [inaudible] So you got that whole thing. That is a whole big deal itself. Then you get into the Hollywood thing. Those were communists. Now, you may want to argue that so what? But they were not just... people like Dalton Trumbo.
SM (00:50:52):
Absolutely Trumbo.
ME (00:50:54):
Albert Maltz. They were Stalinist agents. They were communists. They are clearly so, they had party cards. So again, these are not just dissenters, these are agents of a hostile foreign power and Patriot Act? What the Patriot Act tried to do, and I am not sure what the details of it anymore, [inaudible] We had basically in the (19)70s destroyed all of our intelligence agencies. And prevented the FBI from surveilling terrorists, hostile people in our country who were pouring in here, pretty much without any things to hinder them. They were running all around.
SM (00:51:54):
Is that because of Richard Nixon and they got tired of the enemies list and they give them a, "We are not going to do that anymore." That kind of mentality?
ME (00:52:15):
[inaudible] I was on that enemies list, by the way. I personally know it, because I was a conservative dissenter against Nixon.
SM (00:52:15):
It must be a badge of honor then.
ME (00:52:15):
Well I took care of us. I was never too worried about being on Richard Nixon's enemies list. But what happened was there was a crusade in the Congress led by Teddy Kennedy, Birch Bayh by who was then senator, the father of the Senators in there now. I knew Birch Bayh, I was in Indiana then. And the Civil Liberties Union to dismantle all our intelligence agents. And their position was that you could not conduct surveillance of somebody unless they were in the act of committing a crime. It was just mere advocacy or mere membership at the time in each party or mere membership in any other group was not itself sufficient to justify being under surveillance by the FBI, so called Levy Guidelines imposed under Gerald Ford. And these guidelines basically put the FBI, and then there was FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, these enactments, that was (19)78, basically put the FBI out of the antiterrorism business. So when people were coming in here to do what happened on September 11th, nobody was minding the store. Every entity that could have done anything about them had been shut down. So, what I have known, all those people had died September 11th, died because of them, so the Patriot Act is an effort to correct that.
SM (00:54:04):
You are a scholar. What were the books that had the greatest influence on the Boomer generation when they were college students when they were teenagers, college students, and young adults? Because there were a lot of non-non-fiction books written at that period that were directly linked to that generation. Plus, there were a lot of novels written by... and then you had the beat writers from the (19)50s. Are there specific ones that you remember?
ME (00:54:36):
Well again, you got a divide because there was the left and the right. And I was much more familiar with the right. I know the books that were read by young conservatives, they were pretty much the same for a number of years. I think it has changed now. But one of the books that was most influential, although it was mostly a political book, was the Goldwater book, Conscience of a Conservative. Very widely read and it was readable because it was short. It was not a huge tome and it helped promote Goldwater, but also promoted his ideas. So that was very important. But then there were other books that I remember reading myself when I was in college that were read by these other young folks, the Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk. Ideas have Consequences by Richard Weaver, The Witness by Whittaker Chambers was white is red and so forth. That was on the conservative side, on the other side. I do not know. I know that there were certain writers who were popular for a time being, but I do not know how much influence, I remember there was guy named Paul Goodman, who was very widely [inaudible] and I read a lot of his stuff and some, what he said to say made sense.
SM (00:56:05):
He was kind of linked to some of the beats too.
ME (00:56:07):
He was.
SM (00:56:07):
Some of his writing.
ME (00:56:09):
There was an overlap. I remember reading Kerouac and I was about that age. Kerouac, if he was still, I guess deceased.
SM (00:56:19):
Yeah.
ME (00:56:19):
If he was alive, he would be about my age. I am 75 years old. But back then I remember reading Kerouac, On the Road and those books. And I kind of identified with some of it. There was this libertarian side to it, the hostility to oppressive authority. There was a lot of that on the right, the Libertarians and people that they are still out there. I do not know if you are familiar of the Cato Institute.
SM (00:56:52):
Oh yes.
ME (00:56:52):
Well that is where they are coming from. They are very, very libertarian. They are very against big government. They do not like any kind of big government. They would be more, also, they would be sort [inaudible] what you feel about the Patriot Act. I am not, I am Conservative but I am also a libertarian. And I believe in the limited government of free markets and individual liberty. And I consider that an important component of my own philosophy. So, the beats had some appeal for people like me as well as the more left-wing types.
SM (00:57:33):
A couple of books that were very popular in the late (19)60s was the Making of a Counterculture by Theodore Roszak, which was-
ME (00:57:43):
I never read that.
SM (00:57:44):
And then a Greening of America by Charles Reich.
ME (00:57:47):
I did read that.
SM (00:57:49):
And of course, Ken Kesey, who you have already mentioned and Wolf and a lot of his novels.
ME (00:57:56):
Tom Wolfe?
SM (00:57:58):
Yeah, Tom Wolfe.
ME (00:57:59):
Who was the right winner though?
SM (00:58:01):
Yeah. Mailer. Mailer was red.
ME (00:58:03):
Norman Mailer.
SM (00:58:03):
Um, Mailer, Mailer was [inaudible].
ME (00:58:03):
Oh, Mailer. Of course, he had been out there a long time. He was actually the first.
SM (00:58:04):
Right.
ME (00:58:11):
All true, but all those books were out there, and I am sure had their impact. Wolfe is the one that is different because he is still around.
SM (00:58:18):
Yeah. Kurt Vonnegut is another one.
ME (00:58:22):
Vonnegut, mm-hmm, from Indianapolis, and Vonnegut's Hardware, I remember that. I was in Indianapolis for many, many years. I guess you remember that?
SM (00:58:29):
Mm-hmm.
ME (00:58:35):
And Wolfe, I could detect, even back when, like the Kesey book and the other stuff he wrote, very interesting, Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, and Radical Chic. But you could see that he was an equal opportunity critic to me. He was puncturing. Radical Chic was about Leonard Bernstein. I always remember reading that. It was about this cocktail party being thrown on Park Avenue for the Black Panthers, you know. And he ridiculed them. So you see there was kind of a conservative side to Wolfe that became more and more apparent later, Bonfire of the Vanities, and so forth. And he was very influential. And, of course, The Right Stuff, you read things by Tom Wolfe, you do not see too many people whom he respects, but he respected those guys.
SM (00:59:33):
Yeah, when you think of the (19)50s and (19)60s, you think of Hugh Hefner, too, and Playboy, because-
ME (00:59:34):
You certainly do.
SM (00:59:38):
Oh, my God. That is an important... He evolved during the boomer lives.
ME (00:59:43):
Well, of course Playboy was popular when I was in college so it predates the [inaudible]. But, yeah, of course the playboy ethic and all of that was just a kind of this erosion of traditional standards where anything goes, and if it feels good, do it, and all of that. And that is contributed to some of our problems, no question.
SM (01:00:12):
I have a question here again. I have got some names here that I would just like you to respond to, some terms and some personalities, if you do not mind? When you think of the Vietnam Memorial, what does that mean to you?
ME (01:00:28):
It means a lot of people died in a bloody treadmill war, very sad, very tragic, because it was a war... And I am no military type, I do not know much about it first-hand, but I do remember all of that. It was a war, basically, that was fought without any intention of winning it. And there was [inaudible] Goldwater saying, "Why not victory?" Just saying it was the same thing that happened in Korea under General MacArthur, and so you have a lot of people who died, and it is a very tragic thing. That is what I think of it.
SM (01:00:59):
Why did the war end, to you? Why did we leave?
ME (01:01:18):
Because we did not have the will to win, and the Congress was undermining what little that we were doing. I remember all of it very well. That was when you had that whole bunch who were elected in (19)74 who were refusing... And I am no Kissinger fan, believe me, but he was trying to play both ends against the middle, and he needed more aid from the Congress, and they would not give it to him. So, we just bailed out once they [inaudible].
SM (01:01:49):
When you think of the (19)60s, again, when these boomers where young, we were always talking about white people, white Americans, but certainly African-Americans was a very crucial part of the (19)60s.
ME (01:02:00):
It certainly was.
SM (01:02:00):
In fact, Kent State is very meaningful in many ways, because there were no African-Americans to be seen that day. One was near the... They were kind of escorted away. And what was happening on college campuses is that, in (19)69 and (19)70, there was a split where African-Americans just basically, "We are going to fight for civil rights here in America, and you can go ahead and be against the Vietnam War," even though people were saying the Vietnam War had more people of color serving than there were white Americans. And of course that became famous in speech against the Vietnam War. Just your thoughts, when we are talking about boomers and we are conservative students and liberal students to the left, where do the African-Americans fall into the whole scheme?
ME (01:02:49):
Well, I think you just stated it very well. I remember seeing, not that I knew a lot about it... I did not and do not. But it was very clear that the impulse of the anti-Vietnam stuff was white kids. You did not see too many Black faces, and I did not see too many Blacks there. They had their own struggle, and that was the civil rights struggle. And so, there is a real division there. I think you summed it up really well. And so there were two different things going on there. And I think that it confuses things to kind of lump it all together, but [inaudible] very different things.
SM (01:03:36):
Yeah, Tommie Smith and John Carlis with the fists in (19)68 at the Olympics.
ME (01:03:41):
I remember it well. I remember it well.
SM (01:03:43):
A couple of other things here? What do you think of when you think of Kent State and Jackson State?
ME (01:03:56):
I think they were, again, great tragedies. You got to remember that the... Jackson State, I do not remember too well, but Kent State, Neil Young, [inaudible] and Ohio. You had scared kids on both sides of that. The Ohio National Guard kids were not any different than the kids who were demonstrating. They were trying to control a scene that they could not control, and so that was the tragedy of it. And those demonstrations, it is a pretty well-known fact, were calculated to produce things like that. The hard left wanted these confrontations. They wanted police brutality. They wanted violence. They wanted open conflict. They felt that would spark... You go back to the days of rage of all those people, the [inaudible] and on, and on, and on, that is what they were trying to do. They were trying to provoke [inaudible] it is all there. It goes all the way back to the Bolshevik Revolution. That is the way you ratchet up your revolution. You get people out in the street. You have conflict with the police or military, somebody gets hurt or killed, that becomes the pretext for more, and it escalates, and that was its deliberate strategy. Those kids that died at Kent State, they were tragic victims of this process. Now who, in fact, is responsible for it individually? I do not know. That is what I think about it.
SM (01:05:38):
I know some of the students at Kent State that were involved in that.
ME (01:05:38):
Very sad, very sad.
SM (01:05:53):
When you think of Watergate, what does that mean to you?
ME (01:05:55):
It means-
SM (01:05:55):
What did that mean to America?
ME (01:06:00):
I got to tell you, Steve, it was the biggest exercise in hypocrisy I ever saw. Nothing that Nixon was accused of doing had not already been done by Kennedy and Johnson, and you mentioned some of the things earlier. They did everything Nixon was accused of doing, and more. The difference was, they got away with it.
SM (01:06:25):
And he did not admit. He made it much deeper by not admitting it.
ME (01:06:28):
Well, Kennedy and Johnson did not admit it, but they were not challenged.
SM (01:06:32):
Right.
ME (01:06:33):
There is a book by Victor Laskey called [inaudible]-
SM (01:06:36):
I think I have that book. What is the name of it?
ME (01:06:42):
It Did not Start With Watergate, and it delves into all that stuff. I mean, they had, again, I wrote about it in Time, plans to use the Internal Revenue Service to silence their critics, use the Fairness Doctrine to keep people from broadcasting hostile broadcasts, this was Kennedy and Johnson, using the power of the FBI to investigate people they did not like. They did break-ins. They did wiretapping. They [inaudible] rifled his office. They drove him out of the government because he was a dissenter. The list is long. And so, there was not a single thing that Nixon was accused of doing that had not already been done by his predecessors. The difference was that the media, Washington Post in particular, hated Nixon, and a lot of left hated him because of the Hiss case. And, of course, he was not any particular favorite of mine. Like I said, I was on the enemies list. I was chairman, at that time, of the American Conservative Union, and we had supported opposition to Nixon in the 1972 primaries by John Ashbrook. So, I wound up on one of these enemies lists as the chairman of this thing. [inaudible] interviewed me about it, and I was not in the least concerned that I was on list. So I was no big Nixon fan, but the whole Watergate was just a complete exercise in hypocrisy.
SM (01:08:25):
Obviously, that year, 1968, so many things happened then. Your thoughts on that year, not only with Tommie Smith and what was going on at the Olympics, but the (19)68 Democratic Convention, which led to the Chicago Eight trials, the Chicago police going up against protesters.
ME (01:08:39):
Mayor Daly.
SM (01:08:40):
Yeah, even some politicians were arrested, and even, I think, Dan Rather was arrested, or something like that.
ME (01:08:46):
[inaudible].
SM (01:08:48):
And then there were a lot of other things. Of course, Lyndon Johnson withdrew from the race that year, just so much.
ME (01:08:55):
That is true. Well, yeah. I wrote about it at the time, and I would have to go back and look, but what I remember writing when I used to be was that what was happening in that Chicago convention, it was a culmination of a long series of things, was the crack up of the Democratic coalition. On one side, you have got Mayor Daly and the big city machine politicians who were supporting Humphrey, who was, of course, the surrogate for Lyndon. On the other side, you had the Eugene McCarthy people, you had the [inaudible] Kennedy camp, Bobby Kennedy campaign. And these elements were at each other's throats within the Democratic Party. And that is what that convention showed. And everything that went on there was internal fighting among Democrats is what it was. And that led, of course, to the collapse of the Democratic Party in that year's election and the election of Richard Nixon, with George Wallace getting 11 million votes, or whatever he got, which was quite a [inaudible] because that separated the South, the Old Roosevelt Coalition, it was all these things. It was the big city bosses. It was the left-wing intellectuals. It was the academics. It was the Blacks. It was Southern Democrats. It was everything. There was a coalition of all these people. That all fell apart in (19)68 and that was the main thing, I think, that showed.
SM (01:10:43):
And Senator McCarthy was the first person I interviewed for this process back when I started this and my parents were ill, and now I am back finishing it up. But I asked the question I wanted him to answer. I asked him, "Why did you drop out?" I just want an answer, because I have read his books and I know he still-
ME (01:11:06):
What did he say?
SM (01:11:08):
Oh, he still got very upset when I asked him about Bobby Kennedy. He said, "Read about it in my book." [inaudible].
ME (01:11:12):
He did not like Bobby Kennedy.
SM (01:11:18):
He did not answer me. He did a roundabout.
ME (01:11:18):
[inaudible].
SM (01:11:20):
I think that is the ultimate question. I saw him three times in my life, and that is the one question I think a lot of people want answered, "Why did you drop out?"
ME (01:11:30):
I do not think he could have won. I think he knew that. But you would know better.
SM (01:11:37):
It petered out. He was still strong at the convention. He had a lot of people there. He did not want people to be involved in the violent stuff because they were clean-cut.
ME (01:11:47):
No, clean for Gene.
SM (01:11:50):
Yeah.
ME (01:11:50):
I knew Senator McCarthy. [inaudible]. I did not know the other one. I knew this one.
SM (01:11:55):
Right.
ME (01:11:55):
And I got to know him a little bit later, let me say. Also, he was very different from his image. He was not a radical person at all, but he was deeply offended by the war, the way it was being conducted. He did not like Lyndon Johnson. He certainly did not like Bobby Kennedy. And I think what you ran into, and you would know better than I if you interviewed him several times, was that Bobby Kennedy, in his view, opportunistically jumped on a bandwagon that Gene McCarthy had created.
SM (01:12:31):
Yes. And I believe he thought that there was an agreement that he would not do it. And within a matter of less than three weeks’ time, he did it.
ME (01:12:39):
I think that is what happened.
SM (01:12:43):
And then he said, "Read about it in my book." I got that on tape, "Read about it in my book."
ME (01:12:46):
I think you know the answer to your own question.
SM (01:12:49):
I will go through these real fast. Just your comments on the hippies and yippies? They were two different unique groups?
ME (01:12:58):
Hippies and yippies? Hippies were part of this whole thing I was talking about earlier. They are flower children, going to San Francisco with a flower in your hair, and all that. And, I do not know, it was kind of a circus. I do not know what it signified of any great importance but it was there. You had a whole bunch of people drifting around smoking dope and thinking that that is the answer to the world's problems, then you have got problems. And we did. And so the yippies were a tougher breed. I saw some of them down in Miami Beach at the (19)72 Democrat convention. They were a little tougher guys, but I am not sure what they signified except they were hard... they were more the activist types. They were not just floating around saying, "Peace and love." They were activists who were trying to do left-wing things.
SM (01:14:06):
I thought it was interesting that Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were the yippies, and I saw Jerry when he came to Ohio State.
ME (01:14:13):
I saw Jerry.
SM (01:14:13):
He was a really good speaker, and they were both very good speakers. One thing that is tragic, and I will put this as a note, probably, someplace in the book, is that Abbie Hoffman committed suicide.
ME (01:14:23):
Did he?
SM (01:14:24):
Yeah. He had $2,500 left. He was living in an apartment in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It is outside Philadelphia. He committed suicide, and in the note, he said, "No one was listening to me anymore." And you know what is really interesting is that the Abbie Hoffman that we saw in the yippies and the Abbie Hoffman that kind of hid all those years, he had changed his look on his face. He had been working to save the Hudson for many, many years. People did not even know who he was. He had to hide his name because he was in hiding. And he came out on the Phil Donahue show, I will never forget that, when I was living in California. He was a man that was totally committed to the cause of saving that river, and people were not listening to him because they kept going back to that earlier period.
ME (01:15:14):
Yeah, in life, as in the movies, you get typecast. And once you have a strong identity in one thing, it is real hard for people to related to something different. And what you just told me is news to me. But Hoffman and Rubin, I did not know Hoffman. I met Rubin once, and he definitely was a piece of work. I do not remember Hoffman, but Rubin, obviously in some ways, was not serious. He was joking at just anything, craziness. But I guess it all had a serious intent. What exactly it was, I am not sure.
SM (01:15:56):
They actually debate each other later.
ME (01:15:56):
Did they?
SM (01:15:57):
Because he ended up becoming a business man, and Abbie was still Abbie.
ME (01:16:05):
Well, there you are.
SM (01:16:05):
A couple of other terms, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which, actually, they took over the anti-war movement in early (19)70s, they were very powerful? Your thoughts on them?
ME (01:16:09):
I do not know much about them. Then [inaudible] came out of that.
SM (01:16:19):
Yeah, but a lot of people in that movement did not like him.
ME (01:16:20):
Yeah. I gathered that from some discussion [inaudible] but I really do not know a thing about them.
SM (01:16:28):
Here are some of the names, just quick replies. You have already kind of mentioned about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, so I do not have to say anything more. Timothy Leary?
ME (01:16:35):
Yeah, he is out there with the flower people and the LSD and the drugs and tuning in and turning on and dropping out. What can one say? Anything where you get into drug things, it is a little hard to have any rational discourse about it because it is not a rational-
SM (01:16:57):
Your thoughts on the Black Panthers, which includes Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis? That, George Jackson, Norman, the one that was killed in Chicago? Just your thoughts on the Black Panther Party?
ME (01:17:17):
Well, I think the Panthers were a very serious power. I had run into them on the campuses. They were pretty formidable folks. They would come to my lectures with bandoliers of ammunition, and so on. I remember that. Interesting that Cleaver, Eldridge Cleaver, I do not know about Kathleen, but Eldridge Cleaver seemed very, very disenchanted with the whole left thing. And what disenchanted him was he went to places like Cuba, and he went into Russia, and he hated it. And, towards the end, he became almost a conservative [inaudible].
SM (01:18:01):
I remember that. And he also was living on the streets of LA, very sad. His wife is a lawyer, a very successful lawyer at Emory University Law School.
ME (01:18:10):
Is she down at Emory?
SM (01:18:11):
Yeah, she is very good.
ME (01:18:15):
No, that is the sad thing about some of those folks, and Hoffman, that they ended up like that.
SM (01:18:21):
Yeah, he was shot, you know?
ME (01:18:24):
Yeah, well, a lot of them died.
SM (01:18:26):
Yeah, Angela Davis is still going strong, a professor Santa Cruz.
ME (01:18:31):
Professor at Santa Cruz, right.
SM (01:18:33):
Yeah, Bobby Seale is writing cookbooks, or something like that.
ME (01:18:36):
Is he?
SM (01:18:38):
Yeah, just a quick comment on Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew?
ME (01:18:40):
I was never a huge fan of Nixon. Initially, I was not of Agnew. But Agnew, contrary to most people in politics, moved from left to right. Usually, particularly in Republicans, it goes the other way. Nixon is a good example. Agnew started out as a Rockefeller person. I do not know if you knew that?
SM (01:19:10):
No, I did not.
ME (01:19:11):
He was the Governor or Maryland here.
SM (01:19:12):
Right.
ME (01:19:13):
And he sort of identified with the Rockefeller wing of the Party. And that is one reason Nixon picked him was that he thought he had a way of getting Rockefeller without Rockefeller. And but then Agnew sort of blossomed as this right wing critic in the media, something like Pat Buchanan. And I met Agnew once, only once when he was Vice President. I wrote about him in National Review. And I think that he was sort of truly turned in a more right wing direction. And then, of course, he crashed and burned in (19)73 and that stuff caught up with him from Maryland. I do not know the details about that, but I remember that happening. And Nixon, I always felt, was trying to overcome the problems that he created for himself. In his case, he was always trying to reach out more and more to people on the other side. And I am not sure how philosophically-oriented he might have been. I give him top marks for what he did in his case, [inaudible]. For whatever reason, he was crucial in that case. I have been studying that case very carefully in a book that I am working on. And he was never forgiven for that by the left to this day, and I think he was trying to make up for that in some of things he did. Of course, he was very ambitious. He wanted to be President, became President. And it was always this balancing, and that is what I did not like.
SM (01:20:53):
Eugene McCarthy? Just quick thoughts on him, and George McGovern?
ME (01:21:05):
I knew both of them. I personally liked both of them. Gene McCarthy, I just happened to meet. We shared a dais together at some meeting back in the 70s, and I enjoyed chatting with him. I thought he was a very interesting and intelligent person, very different from almost anybody else in American politics that I have known, but liked him. And I supported him in (19)68 being a Republican. Senator McGovern, I debated in 1973. We had a great debate in Indianapolis at Butler University, 3,000 people.
SM (01:21:53):
Wow.
ME (01:21:55):
And I liked him. I do not know if he liked be. I thought he was a well-meaning man, a man of principle, principles I did not necessarily agree with, who maybe himself went through some changes later, and I do not know that. But I found he was an amiable fellow and I liked him.
SM (01:22:24):
He was a World War Two hero and he never talked about it.
ME (01:22:25):
He was. He was.
SM (01:22:27):
28 missions over Europe.
ME (01:22:28):
Right. That is right.
SM (01:22:30):
I think he got a Purple Heart for that, and he never talked about it.
ME (01:22:32):
No, he did not.
SM (01:22:33):
He was a humble person.
ME (01:22:34):
He was.
SM (01:22:34):
John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, LBJ? The three of them, just quick comments? Just your thoughts?
ME (01:22:47):
The Kennedys are very, very different from their image. They were, essentially, conservative. And I would just point out to you, you were talking about Joe McCarthy, they were friends with Joe McCarthy.
SM (01:22:48):
Right.
ME (01:22:48):
And Bobby Kennedy worked for Joe, [inaudible]. And old man Kennedy, Joe Kennedy was McCarthy's [inaudible].
SM (01:22:48):
And he dated Sargent Shriver's wife at one time.
ME (01:23:22):
Yes, Eunice. He did. And there are many interconnections there, McCarthy and the Kennedys. And Kennedy's people were very much of the ilk of conservative, Catholic Democrats. And Jack Kennedy did a mixture of things in his very short time as president, some you would not know. Some of the things he did were [inaudible] tax cuts, were used by the late Jack Kemp to justify the Reagan tax cuts, supply side stuff under Jack Kennedy back in the early (19)60s. And he had all the anti-Communist rhetoric and the Cold War-type posture. But then he had other people around him like Schlessinger and Sorensen. Certainly Sorensen had a very different outlook. So, again, a balancing act. They are all kind of doing things. Bobby, I think, was a much tougher customer, and maybe more calculating. And I think that is what Gene McCarthy did not like. But, again, if you look at the way Bobby Kennedy ran in (19)68, he was running on, basically, a conservative campaign. "We got to get away from big government," is what he was saying. "We need reforms, decentralization of tariffs," talking about stuff like that. But, of course, he was shot down in June of (19)68, so that was the end of that. But they were very different from the image of this Camelot stuff.
SM (01:25:12):
Your thoughts, quick at the end, McNamara, who just passed away?
ME (01:25:20):
I never cared for McNamara. I did not know much about him. I thought that the whole approach to the war, which he later repudiated-
SM (01:25:32):
In retrospect, yeah.
ME (01:25:34):
Yeah, it was wrong. All this body count stuff. And, of course, you look at it logically, and I am not military expert at all [inaudible], but if you have a war in which you are not trying to win, where you are just trying not to lose, and you do not really try to take strategic objectives... In other words, they are not trying to go out and take Hanoi. They were not trying to do that.
SM (01:25:57):
Is this the new one? You can continue, okay.
ME (01:25:57):
Well, again, remind me what we were talking about?
SM (01:26:17):
You were talking about McNamara.
ME (01:26:19):
Yeah. You look at the situation there... Getting back to World War Two there was a lot of, "So, today we captured whatever. We crossed the Rhine. We are now on the outskirts of Berlin." That is the way you measured what was happening in that war. Vietnam was not like that. No advancing through, taking Hanoi, or whatever. So how do you measure who is winning and who's losing? The answer is how many people you have killed, and that is where the body count.
ME (01:27:03):
... answering how many people you have killed, and that is where the body count came from. I remember even McNamara was [inaudible]. He was seemingly very warm and very [inaudible] as secretary.
SM (01:27:12):
In my interview with Senator McCarthy, which in retrospect had just come out within six months after I interviewed him, he said it was a bunch of garbage. He was furious at him.
ME (01:27:20):
Oh, McNamara.
SM (01:27:22):
Yeah, at McNamara. Because he goes off in (19)67 to go to Aspen and ski, when he left in (19)67. He knew years before that this was a failure, and he should have told President Johnson and really been strong with him.
ME (01:27:36):
Well, J. McCarthy would have known a lot more about it than I do.
SM (01:27:42):
A couple other names here. George Wallace, thoughts on him?
ME (01:27:45):
Wallace was a major factor in what we were talking about earlier, the collapse of the Democratic Coalition, that and the Roosevelt Coalition. That had depended on holding the South. The solid South always meant solidly democratic. Thanks to Wallace, although it had been eroding before, by (19)68 that was no longer the case. And the whole nature of our politics changed because the South was uncoupled from the Democratic Party. Now, if you look at the majorities, most of the people are Republicans. By far, the largest number of their senators are from down there, in the South. Two Republican senators from Mississippi, two from Texas, two are from Georgia, two from South Carolina and so on. Well, prior to 1968 that was almost inconceivable. And now it is just wall-to-wall Republicans all over the place in the South. That was a huge change in American politics, and Wallace was a major factor in that.
SM (01:29:07):
Of course, he was gunned down as well.
ME (01:29:10):
(19)72 election.
SM (01:29:12):
During that-
ME (01:29:12):
Right out here in Laurel, Maryland. Right here.
SM (01:29:15):
Your thoughts on the Berrigan Brothers, Daniel and Philip?
ME (01:29:18):
Do not know much about them. They were just part of that whole mix. That is all I remember.
SM (01:29:22):
What about Dr. Benjamin Spock?
ME (01:29:24):
Same thing. I did not pay a lot of attention to those people. They were there, they were being promoted, but I did not spend a lot of time studying what they were doing.
SM (01:29:34):
How about Tom Hayden?
ME (01:29:36):
Same thing. Hayden, of course, he and I were kind of on opposite sides from the beginning. Port Huron Statement, SDS, I was [inaudible] statement.
SM (01:29:48):
Did you ever debate him at all?
ME (01:29:49):
Never met him. No. I debated a bunch of those people. Clark Kissinger and... but never Hayden.
SM (01:29:56):
What did you think of that Chicago Eight trial that had Bobby Seale and Rennie Davis, and Dave Dellinger, and that whole group?
ME (01:30:05):
Well, [inaudible] the same. Joe Hoffman.
SM (01:30:06):
Julius Hoffman. Right.
ME (01:30:13):
Yeah. That was just more of that strategy, provoke, provoke, violence, provoke oppression, and then that becomes a pretext for more protest.
SM (01:30:19):
What about the women leaders like Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan. How important would you look at that era?
ME (01:30:27):
They were pretty darn important.
SM (01:30:27):
How important were they?
ME (01:30:38):
They were important. Not in a good way, from my standpoint. What they did was that they were part of this sort of process by which protest against the liberal establishment was always to be more left than the establishment. So that you had a situation where people of my persuasion were protesting against big government and that oppression and so forth and so on, and therefore we need more freedom. All of a sudden comes the feminists saying, with all this oppression we need more regulation. We need to do something to stop people from being oppressive to women, so they sort of... It was sort of a jiu-jitsu effect there of turning the protest thing in a more leftward direction. And that was what I thought mainly about that. I did not follow it very closely. It was kind of hard not to know about it, because it was everywhere.
SM (01:31:36):
Right.
ME (01:31:36):
But that is about all I have to say about it.
SM (01:31:36):
Getting down to the final one here. There is just a couple names. The importance of Tet. How important was Tet?
ME (01:31:48):
Very important.
SM (01:31:49):
(19)68. Because that is...
ME (01:31:53):
Very important. What happened was, and I am sure you know this as well as I, there was actually military defeat for the North Vietnamese, was portrayed the opposite by Walter Cronkite and others as this terrible defeat for the Americans. And that psychology was what it meant, [inaudible] defeat. And really started the negativism. That was also in (19)68.
SM (01:32:21):
That was early (19)68, yes.
ME (01:32:30):
But again, there was a guy named Peter Braestrup. I do not know if you know about Peter Braestrup. He wrote a book called the Big Story. His book, you might want to get it. Published by [inaudible]. He was The Washington Post correspondent in Saigon at the time of Tet.
SM (01:32:44):
Name of the book?
ME (01:32:44):
Big Story.
SM (01:32:44):
Okay.
ME (01:32:50):
And he, Peter, I knew Peter slightly, later, shows it in great detail. And he shows how the media took what was basically a Communist defeat and turned it into a Communist win. And he was a correspondent for The Washington Post.
SM (01:33:07):
Mm-hmm.
ME (01:33:12):
So it was huge. It was very decisive in terms of that war, because that war was shit from the beginning. And I, again, I have not studied it carefully, and I had not even thought about it in years. Was a liberal war. It was a war from the beginning under Kennedy and then Johnson fought. McNamara. Dean, Russ, all these people. It was a liberal establishmentarian fight. The best and the brightest [inaudible], who thought they knew what was good for Vietnam. And what was good for Vietnam was to overthrow Diem and get a different government in there that would be more democratic, and so they did that. They overthrew him. And I think McNamara, to his credit, was opposed to that, but Russ was there. And Russ, he had been involved in the previous thing over [inaudible] Chiang Kai‐shek. He knew all about overthrowing our allies. And that whole thing, all that presumption is a good example of why people became very disenchanted with American foreign policy, this idea that it is up to us to go around the world setting it right, everything that is wrong. Is not going to work, for one thing, and it leads to all kinds of wars and problems, and you see that continuing even Iraq and all of that. It is the same mindset.
SM (01:34:54):
Two thoughts on your response, one of them is things that I have read is that Eisenhower encouraged Kennedy not to get out of Vietnam, and that the actual day of the inauguration, [inaudible] at the White House, before they got into the cars, he was talking to Eisenhower in the White House about Vietnam, trying to get his thoughts on it. Secondly, in Sorensen's recent book, which I read, which I think is pretty good, he is a great writer, he claims that Kennedy wanted the overthrow, but he did not want the murder, and that Kennedy was furious when he found out about the killing.
ME (01:35:31):
You would have a hard time overthrow without a murder.
SM (01:35:34):
Yeah. They were supposed to be escorted out of the country to France, that is what Kennedy thought, supposedly.
ME (01:35:39):
Well, when you have a coup d'etat, the military, little hard to fine tune it. You have got people that know, military guys, that Diem, for all his faults, probably is a more popular leader than they were. Nobody elected them to anything.
SM (01:36:01):
Mm-hmm.
ME (01:36:04):
So get rid of him. And they killed him and his brother. So Kennedy had that blood on his hands. [inaudible] "I just wanted a coup, but not to kill him," so that is hard to do.
SM (01:36:19):
Three more names and then I have one final question. Daniel Ellsberg.
ME (01:36:26):
Well, it is funny, I read the Pentagon Papers. Why in the world... I am no supporter of Ellsberg. Why the Nixon administration went to the mat to protect those papers, I will never know. They were basically showing how Kennedy and Johnson had screwed up. That is what they showed. And why in the world would the U.S. Government go to the mat... the Nixon government, go to the mat to hold those back, I did not understand. And that is about all I have to remember there.
SM (01:37:04):
The thing I always remember growing up was the big four, the civil rights leaders and Martin Luther King, Wilkins, Whitney Young, James Farmer. Your thoughts on them as leaders of that time, particularly Dr. King and that group, that foursome.
ME (01:37:20):
Well, I think he did not want to [inaudible].
SM (01:37:28):
He found Farmer.
ME (01:37:30):
Yeah. Cole.
SM (01:37:33):
Kissick, I think.
ME (01:37:34):
Oh, Kissick, [inaudible]. Yeah.
SM (01:37:34):
[inaudible] Yeah.
ME (01:37:37):
I did not know a lot about those people. Certainly, Dr. King was a tremendously charismatic leader. There were all kinds of internal things there. I do not know if you have read David Garrow's book about-
SM (01:37:50):
Yeah, I-
ME (01:37:52):
Between King and the Kennedys. And all this to-do about the wiretapping of Dr. King that was authorized by Bobby Kennedy.
SM (01:37:59):
Yeah. [inaudible]
ME (01:38:00):
And with the approval of Jack Kennedy. So very different from this mythology of all these heroes together, working with civil rights. Here is President Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy authorizing this, and they tried to get King to get rid of a couple of people in his entourage. One of them was a guy named Stanley Levison, and the other one was Hunter Pitts O'Dell. They were both commies. They were known commies, so Garrow says, and I think he i's right. And that is why they authorized a wiretap. And King had told them... They took him to the White House, in the Rose Garden, "Get rid of these people. They are bad. They are trying to corrupt the civil rights movement." And King said that he would, but he did not. And so that is why that was going on. Well, that is very different from the standard story about Dr. King and the Kennedys, and Bobby, and civil rights, and they are all in it together. Dion singing you got Abraham, Martin and John, All of that. The reality is quite-
SM (01:39:17):
I think it is pretty confusing too as to who was the one that encouraged President Kennedy to call the Kings to try to get Dr. King out of jail, because I read Sargent Shriver's book, and supposedly he is involved with getting the credit. I have read that Bobby Kennedy was somewhat involved. But I think the true hero of this is Harris Walker, because I believe it was Harris Walker who-
ME (01:39:39):
[inaudible]
SM (01:39:40):
And I know Senator Walker, and he is such a humble man that he would probably take the back seat to... He is the man.
ME (01:39:47):
Would not had a [inaudible].
SM (01:39:48):
Yeah.
ME (01:39:50):
And Kennedy, he had a political [inaudible].
SM (01:39:51):
Right. He was pragmatic. Yeah. Barry Goldwater.
ME (01:39:57):
Well, I knew Senator Goldwater somewhat, and I was a supporter of his, but he was an unusual person also. And he was very much his own man. He went his own way. He did things that I thought were not wise. I remember sitting in my living room, must have been 1960, what, September of 1964, in Indianapolis. And I am hearing a report that Goldwater had gone to Tennessee and attacked TVA. Was this smart to do this? And then he went to St. Petersburg in Florida and criticized Social Security. So he is going around almost deliberately provoking these constituencies, when he already has enough problems to keep him busy. But it was just his nature. He was a very independent person. And of course, I guess if he had not been very independent, he would not have made the race, because he never had a prayer from the beginning. He knew that. We all knew it. And he was a very courageous man. But he was his own man. He went his own way. Not always the way that I personally would have advised.
SM (01:41:21):
Two final things, and then the [inaudible] question. The Cambodian invasion of 1970 which ended up [inaudible] Kent State, [inaudible] the country erupting. There were rumors that we had already been in there, and yet [inaudible]. Nixon's speech at nine o'clock on the night of April 30th, 1970 was historic to me, because it set a chain up. Was it necessary to go into Cambodia?
ME (01:41:50):
Well, again, my knowledge of it is very remote, but basically what I recall is that the North Vietnamese were using that as a sanctuary.
SM (01:41:58):
Yes.
ME (01:42:01):
So that was one of the problems in the whole war was that they had these sanctuaries where they could retreat and they were safe. This started in Korea, where [inaudible] get back close to [inaudible], they were safe. And I think, as I remember, the Cambodian government was in favor of what Nixon did. So, the notion that we were invading Cambodia, we were not. We were just trying to stop the North Vietnamese from using it as a raft to invade South Vietnam. But that is about it. I do not really know much more about it.
SM (01:42:42):
The last question I have, and that is just about the music, the culture of the era. The movies, the rock music, Motown, folk music, social message. I interviewed Peter Seeger from the [inaudible].
ME (01:42:57):
Pete Seeger?
SM (01:42:59):
Yep. Pete was raised by his father to say that making a name for yourself is not what the music is about. It is about making sure that the people-
ME (01:43:08):
[inaudible] song of Pete Seeger.
SM (01:43:09):
Well, this is actually Pete Seeger.
ME (01:43:11):
The Pete Seeger.
SM (01:43:12):
The Pete Seeger.
ME (01:43:12):
The man.
SM (01:43:13):
Yeah, the man. I interviewed him a week ago in Topeka, New York.
ME (01:43:16):
How old is he now?
SM (01:43:16):
He is 90.
ME (01:43:16):
Yeah.
SM (01:43:21):
But he is still sharp as a... He forgets. He is very forgetful, but when you get him in a room, he is like an encyclopedia. He does not forget things when he is not distracted. And he was taught by his father that the purpose of the music is for people to remember the words so they continue to sing the music. It is not so much that we are remembered as the musicians, it is that the music itself is remembered because of the messages, the social messages.
ME (01:43:47):
Well, certainly, Seeger, that was what he did. Those people were very skillful with it. And I am sort of an anomaly, because I liked a lot of the music. I am a big pop music fan.
SM (01:44:03):
Right.
ME (01:44:06):
So, I remember the (19)60s music very well, and I remember all the different... not everything, but I remember lots of different strains in it, and people who did it. There were a lot of things going on in the (19)60s music that really had nothing to do with revolution. I saw in the paper the other day, maybe a week ago, that Gordon Waller had died. Gordon Waller was Gordon to Peter and Gordon.
SM (01:44:29):
Oh, that is right. Yes.
ME (01:44:39):
And he was 60-something. Well, that music had nothing to do with... A World Without Love and Lady Godiva, those were Peter and Gordon songs. I loved those songs. Just good music. They did not really have a lot of social significance, at least that I am used to. But then you think of all the Dylan stuff and... And Dylan is another person who is, I think, in reality, is very different from his image. Dylan, there is an undercurrent in Dylan, had this very negative attitude towards some of these hippy types. And when you think... Do you remember his songs, and one is called-
SM (01:45:16):
Rolling Stone, I know.
ME (01:45:17):
Right. And How Does It Feel. I mean, think of that. Think what that song says. To be young, [inaudible], like a rolling stone. It is a very hostile type song. And then Positively 4th Street. These songs are not peace and love, they are very putting down people that he thinks are pretentious. And they are definitely people on that side. And some of this has come out in Dylan recently. I have not paid a lot of attention to Dylan. I was never a big fan of Dylan, but he wrote some really good stuff. Different. Different from what the conventional image is. So to me, that music, some of it is just good music. I like it to this day.
SM (01:46:08):
Yeah. Of course, folk music of that era, well, you had Pete Seeger, who was about 50 then, at the time that all this is happening, but then you have got Arlo Guthrie, and you got-
ME (01:46:19):
Guthrie. Woody Guthrie.
SM (01:46:21):
Joan Baez.
ME (01:46:22):
Woody before all of them.
SM (01:46:23):
Then you got Joan Baez and Tom Paxton, and-
ME (01:46:26):
All of that.
SM (01:46:27):
David Bromberg. Cohen. The list goes on and on. Judy Collins. Joni Mitchell. But a lot of them had the social messages. I get back to the fact that when the criticism of the generation has a lot to do with their mores and their values, there is a lot of values in this music, because a lot of the words come out. And even as you head into the 1970s, Black music is changing, because Marvin Gaye is doing What's Going On, and making criticism what is going on in the inner-city and... So, it is Black, it is white, it is folk, it is everything. And then of course, you go back to Elvis back in the (19)50s, which is against the modern trend. They could not even show his... That was the year of-
ME (01:47:14):
The Ed Sullivan Show.
SM (01:47:16):
And the question is, when people like that went on TV and young Boomers saw them, I mean, what are they hiding here? I mean, come on, man.
ME (01:47:24):
Well, music is Dionysian really, the desire to express yourself, maybe to destroy things if they are in your way. Music, rock and roll music, has a lot of that in it, there is no question of that. And of course it has the sexual themes, and sometimes the drug themes. But a lot of it is just music is music, and some of it is good and some of it is not so good. I mean, it just depends on... To me, a song like, well, let is go back to Dylan. We were just talking about some of the stuff he wrote. I thought it was pretty good. Pretty darn good music, but some of it I did not like. I did not like everything he wrote. And sometimes I thought his message was very harsh, very negative, but he was a talent. And so, some of it I like, some I did not. And so that would be true of many of these people. I would take somebody even like... You mentioned Arlo Guthrie. I thought The City of New Orleans was a great song. That is just a tremendous song.
SM (01:48:41):
Alice's Restaurant.
ME (01:48:43):
Alice's Restaurant.
SM (01:48:44):
Yeah.
ME (01:48:46):
But City of New Orleans is a wonderful song, really powerful. And it has... I do not know, what is the significance of it? It is a lament for the fading away of the railroads, and I can totally identify with that. My grandfather was an engineer on the Illinois Central, as you might have [inaudible] in The City of New Orleans line. And I think he might have been on the City of New Orleans. It ran from Chicago down to New Orleans. I think that is just a fabulous song and I can listen to it anytime.
SM (01:49:27):
The music of that era also, you think that Elvis was an American, but The Beatles were English, and the British invasion just changed American music.
ME (01:49:33):
Huge. Huge.
SM (01:49:34):
And of course, folk was here.
ME (01:49:36):
Well, Peter and Gordon were British. They were both British.
SM (01:49:38):
Cannot forget the jazz of the (19)50s, that we never really talk much about. That influenced some of the Black entertainers in Motown in (19)60s, and just so much here. When the best history books are written in 50 years after event, what do you think historians will say about the Boomer generation? I know we are talking about... I know you have already given your comments about the- [inaudible]
ME (01:49:58):
I think-
SM (01:49:59):
That we must be very inclusive of both conservative and liberal students. When we get beyond 50, as the Boomers pass away, what will they say about this era? The (19)60s, to me, ended in 1973 too. Because a lot of people think the (19)60s were really (19)63 to (19)73, because when streaking started happening on college campuses it was (19)73, and I will never forget Ohio State. Worked Ohio University my first year, they did come on up here... A friend of mine said, "The (19)60s are over." I said, "What do you mean?" "They are streaking. It is over."
ME (01:50:39):
You were at Ohio University?
SM (01:50:40):
I worked at Ohio University in Lancaster Campus from (19)72 to (19)76 in my first job. And they had actually purged the students out of Ohio University when I got there from 18,000 to 13,500 campus, and the branch campus were kind of saving the university as backup now, but they were afraid to send their kids off to that liberal Ohio University, which was much more liberal than Ohio State or even Kent State.
ME (01:51:08):
Yeah. Yeah. I was on many a campus in Ohio in my day. [inaudible] Antioch.
SM (01:51:16):
Oh, yes.
ME (01:51:16):
[inaudible]
SM (01:51:17):
Oh, yeah.
ME (01:51:18):
They got a liberal campus.
SM (01:51:19):
Ohio State?
ME (01:51:20):
Oh, many times Ohio State.
SM (01:51:23):
You were probably in Mershon, were not you? Were you going to Mershon Auditorium, or...
ME (01:51:26):
I could not tell you.
SM (01:51:27):
Yeah. Sykes Union had big spaces there.
ME (01:51:27):
Ohio Wesleyan.
SM (01:51:27):
Yep.
ME (01:51:32):
In Delaware, Ohio.
SM (01:51:35):
Denison University.
ME (01:51:36):
Yeah, I have been to Denison many times. Miami.
SM (01:51:38):
Capital University in Columbus.
ME (01:51:40):
Not there.
SM (01:51:44):
Wayne State. That was a Black school.
ME (01:51:46):
Yeah. Wright State.
SM (01:51:47):
Yep. Yep.
ME (01:51:48):
Youngstown.
SM (01:51:49):
Miami of Ohio.
ME (01:51:51):
Many times.
SM (01:51:53):
Yeah.
ME (01:51:53):
I was always-
SM (01:51:55):
Bowling Green.
ME (01:51:55):
Bowling Green.
SM (01:51:56):
Dayton.
ME (01:51:57):
Dayton, yep.
SM (01:51:58):
Yep.
ME (01:51:59):
All of them. Every one of them.
SM (01:51:59):
Cleveland State?
ME (01:52:00):
Not Cleveland State. I do not think.
SM (01:52:03):
University of Akron?
ME (01:52:04):
I think I did Akron.
SM (01:52:05):
Yeah. When the best books are written, what do you think they are going to say? What do you think, if they define the era?
ME (01:52:13):
Depends on who writes the books. I think that looking back on what happened in the 40 years from 19... 50 years. 1945 to 1990, that if you wanted to sum up what that generation did, it was pretty good. I would not knock it. That was the generation that brought about the fall of Communism. Something I never thought I would live to see. That happened. That was done by people at that age cohort, of course, it is a big cohort, it is huge, [inaudible] so many people [inaudible]. But that is not too bad. So I would tip my hat.
SM (01:53:19):
To the Boomers.
ME (01:53:19):
Yeah.
SM (01:53:22):
Thank you very much.
ME (01:53:23):
Thank you, Steve. I know you want me to sign this again. I will do it.
SM (01:53:26):
Yeah, want you to sign that.
(End of Interview)
Dublin Core
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Interview with Medford Stanton Evans
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Evans, M. Stanton (Medford Stanton), 1934-2015 ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Journalists; Authors; Evans, M. Stanton (Medford Stanton), 1934-2015--Interviews
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Medford Stanton Evans was an educator, journalist and author. Stanton was an influential figure behind the modern conservative movement. He received his B.A. in English from Yale University and his masters degree in Economics from New York University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2009-08-06
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In copyright
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.48a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.48b
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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113:29
-
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c7df4b924a7310b7fa787d52e2b1909d
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/9e2a81ac52c7c2eccd92994bb492e38f.mp3
4d76180b5a343635eae9b1e41cd4a583
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js)
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Date of Interview
2009-08-06
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Sally L. Satel
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Sally Satel is a practicing psychiatrist, author and lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Satel focuses on mental health policy as well as political trends in medicine. She earned a Bachelor's degree from Cornell University, a Master's degree from the University of Chicago and an MD degree from Brown University. She completed her residency in psychiatry at Yale University. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15107,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16382457],"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,1447960],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Sally Satel is a practicing psychiatrist, author, and lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Satel focuses on mental health policy as well as political trends in medicine. She earned a Bachelor's degree from Cornell University, a Master's degree from the University of Chicago and an MD degree from Brown University. She completed her residency in psychiatry at Yale University. </span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
69:42
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Hippies; Bill Clinton; George Will; Mad Men(TV Show); Baby boom generation; Beat generation; Middle class; Generation X; Activism; Young Americans for Freedom; Nineteen sixties."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":16370588},"12":0}">Hippies; Bill Clinton; George Will; Mad Men (TV Show); Baby boom generation; Beat generation; Middle class; Generation X; Activism; Young Americans for Freedom; Nineteen sixties.</span>
Subject LCSH
Psychiatrists; Authors; Lecturers; Yale University. School of Medicine; Satel, Sally L.--Interviews
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Title
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Interview with Dr. Sally Satel
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Satel, Sally L. ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Psychiatrists; Authors; Lecturers; Yale University. School of Medicine; Satel, Sally L.--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Sally Satel is a practicing psychiatrist, author, and lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Satel focuses on mental health policy as well as political trends in medicine. She earned a Bachelor's degree from Cornell University, a Master's degree from the University of Chicago and an MD degree from Brown University. She completed her residency in psychiatry at Yale University.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-08-06
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.109
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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69:42
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/06b3451d41ec1d81b0fa607868e89c55.pdf
3105dbb9cc9133ac8ec698f0ba328e58
PDF Text
Text
BINGHAMTON
U
N
I
V
E
R
S T A T E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K
[4
P
E
Zed e C
T TT M A E N RT
A BACH CELEBRATION
T H E COMPL ETE OR GAN W ORKS
OF
JOHAN N SEBASTIAN E
(16851750)
A C H
PROGRAM V
JONAT HAN BI GGERS
ORGAN
6 September, 2009
4:00pm
First Presbyte rian Church
�ABOUT THE PERFORMER
P rogra m
Prelude and Fugue in Cmajor, BWV 547
From the Miscellaneous ChoralePreludes
Ach Gott und H err (per canonem), BWV 714
Allein Gott in der Hoh sei Ehr (ma nualiter, 3vv.), BWV 717
Allein Gott in der H o h sei Ehr (bicinium), BWV 711
Vater unser im Himmelreich, BWV 737
Wo soll ich fliehen hin, BWV 694
Prelude and Fugue in Dminor, BWV 549a
& INTERMISSION 8
Sonata VI in Gmajor, BWV 530
L.
II.
III.
Vivace
Lente
Allegro
T o c c a t a a n d F u g u e i n F m a j o r , BWV 540
GuilbaultThérien Organ, 1996
JONATHAN BIGGERS, hailed as “one of the most outstanding concert
organists in the United States,” maintains an active career as both a
professor of organ and harpsichord, and as a concert organist of the first
order. He holds the prestigious Edwin Link Endowed Professorship in
Organ and Harpsichord at Binghamton University (State University of
New York), and has presented hundreds of concerts in church and
university settings throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
He has appeared as a featured soloist with orchestras in both the United
States and Canada, including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and has been featured frequently on
NPR (“Pipedreams”), the Canad ian Broadcast Corporation (CBC), and
on Radio and Television Suisse Romande broadcasts in Geneva,
Switzerland. Scott Cantrell, formerly classical critic of The Kansas City
Star, stated that Biggers’ performances demonstrate “authority and
eloquence”, and further stated “were there more performers like this, the
organ would be far less a minority interest".
Dr. Biggers studied with Russell Saunders (Eastman School of Music,
DMA); Lionel Rogg (Conservatory of Music, Geneva, Switzerland;
Fulbright study); J. Warren Hutton (The University of Alabama, MM
and BMus); and with Wallace Zimmerman (Atlanta, precollege); he has
also worked extensively with Harold Vogel (Bremen, Germany), and with
Arthur Poister (former Professor of Organ at Syracuse University). A
prizewinner of dozens of competitions, he was notably awarded a
unanimous first prize in the 1985 Geneva International Competition,
one of the most prestigious music competitions for organ in the world;
second prize in the 1982 American Guild of Organists National Organ
Playing Competition; and a unanimous first prize in the 1990 Calgary
International Organ Festival Co ncerto Competition, where he p resented,
with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the world premier
performance of Snowwalker: A Concerto for Organ and Orchestra by Pulitzer
prizewinning composer Michael Colgrass. A champion of new music for
the organ, he has premiered other works by notable 20th and 21st
century composers such as Richard Proulx (Chicago: Concerto for Organ
and Orchestra), Craig Phillips (Los Angeles: Suite for Organ, Brass and
Percussion), Persis Vehar (Buffalo: Soundpiece for Organ), and David
�Brackett, fo rm e r composition professor at Binghamton University
(Montréal: Nightworks for Organ solo).
Two highly acclaimed compact disc recordings of Dr. Biggers’
performances have been released by Calcante Recordings (Sleepers Wake!
A Reger Perspective, featuring five major organ works by Romantic
composer Max Reger; and Bach on the Fritts! , featuring major organ
works by Johann Sebastian Bach). Plans are also underway for the
production of several other CD releases in the future, including a
recording of the complete organ works of J.S. Bach.
At present, Dr. Biggers is beginning the second year of a fouryear
presentation of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach,
presented in a series of 16 concerts, four events per season. The four
scheduled concerts of the series “A Bach Celebration: The Complete
Organ Works of Johann Sebastian Bach” will be presented in two
different locales: September 6, 2009, and March 21, 2010 at First
Presbyterian Church in downtown Binghamton; and December 6, 2009,
and February 7, 2010 in the Binghamton University Fine Arts Building,
Room 21. This latter location features the new Hellmuth Wolff
mechanical action organ installed in Binghamton University d uring the
20082009 academic season.
Tickets for these future concerts are available from the Anderson Center
for the Arts Box Office at Binghamton University, telephone 777ARTS;
tickets for the concerts presented at First Presbyterian Church are also
available at the entrance to the church on the day of the performance.
We regret that we cannot guarantee ticket availability past 80 for the
performances held in Fine Arts Room 21, due to space restrictions in the
facility; thus, the concerts scheduled in this room will be presen ted twice
to accommodate all who wish to enjoy the event.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1960's - present
Title
A name given to the resource
Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings
Subject
The topic of the resource
Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings
Description
An account of the resource
Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=MyInstitution&vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&mode=basic&offset=0&conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email: <a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: PDF / Rosetta
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Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
1 sound disc
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:09:43
Streaming Audio
Streaming URL
<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE152696">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE152696</a>
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
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Title
A name given to the resource
A Bach Celebration! The complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, September 6 , 2009
Recital Tape 2009-9-6
Description
An account of the resource
Held at 4:00 p.m., September 6, 2009, First Presbyterian Church.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Biggers, Jonathan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-09-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bc4bf41667cb837200006673487671e9.pdf
2eccd50445f4333cabe632a3216a3057
PDF Text
Text
BINGHAMTON
YP N I V E R S I T Y
S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K
Hiee
D E P A R T M E N T
F R I E D H E I M MEMORIAL
LECTURE/RECITAL
Johann Sebastian Bach
Sonata in b minor BWV 1 030
Harry Lincoln, Lecturer
Georgetta Maiolo, Flute
Jonathan Biggers, Harpsichord
Thursday, September 24, 2009
8:00 p.m.
Casadesus Recital Hall
�PROGRAM
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Johann Sebastian B ach
HARRY LINCOLN is a Distinguished Service Professor,
Emeritus. He holds a PhD in musicology from Northwestern University
with a specialty in Renaissance Italian music and joined Harpur College
in 1951. A founder and first president of the Binghamton Symphony
Sonata in b minor BWV 1030
Sonata in b minor.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Andante
Largo e dolce
Presto, Allegro
1685 1 750
Remarks on the Composition
Professor Emeritus Harry Lincoln
Performance
Georgette Maiolo, Flute
Jonathan Biggers, Harpsichord
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Friedheim Memorial Series honors the memory of
Professor Philip Friedheim (19301986) whose remarkable tenure at
Binghamton University featured many memorable lecturerecitals with
faculty and guest artistperformers on major works of the classical music
tradition. We seek to recreate Phil’s special combination of scholarship
and performance that served to deepen our understanding for – and love
of – great works of musical art. All proceeds of the series will go towards
the undergraduate scholarship funds of the Department of Music.
Today’s performance opens the 20092010 series with Professor
Emeritus Harry Lincoln’s remarks on J. S. Bach’s Sonata in B minor
featuring Georgette Maiolo on flute and Jonathan Biggers on
harpsichord. The next performance in the series will be held on
Thursday, March 4, 2010, and will highlight composer and music critic
Robert Schumann, who played a major role in the 19” century’s
emerging Romantic Movement. Please join us as Mobius Ensemble’s
Janey Choi (violin), Roberta Crawford (viola), Stephen Stalker (cello),
and Michael Salmirs (piano) discuss and perform three representative
works by this influential and enigmatic musician: Papillons, Op. 2,
Mérchenbilder, Op. 113, and Piano Quartet, Op. 47.
Orchestra (now the Binghamton Philharmonic), he was principal flutist in
that ensemble for ten years. His publications include editions of Italian
madrigals and early Baroque keyboard music. A pioneer in the use of
the computer for music research, he published two large thematic
indexes of Renaissance polyphony as well as reporting on this research
to meetings in Nottingham, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Paris, Ljubliana,
Barcelona and Tokyo. He contributed articles to The New Grove
Dictionary of Music. He was active in the College Music Society,
developing the Directory of Music Faculties in USA and Canada, and
serving as national president in 19691970. He enjoys the challenge of
analyzing music for general audiences and, in retirement, has presented
lectures in the annual Lyceum program series.
GEORGETTA MAIOLO is on the faculty of Binghamton University and
Broome Community College teaching Flute and directing Flute
Ensembles. Mrs. Maiolo is the principal flutist of the Binghamton
Philharmonic Orchestra and the TriCities Opera Orchestra. In addition to
her playing positions, she concertizes as a soloist, recitalist and chamber
musician. Mrs. Maiolo is faculty advisor for Mu Phi Epsilon, Zeta Eta
Chapter at Binghamton University.
In the past, Mrs. Maiolo performed several Lecture/Recitals at
Binghamton University with Professor Philip Friedheim. It is an honor to
perform, for the Friedheim Memorial Series, the Sonata in b minor by
Johann Sabastian Bach with Professor Harry Lincoln and Professor
Jonathan Biggers.
JONATHAN BIGGERS maintains an active career as both a
Professor of Organ and as a concert organist. He is Professor of Organ
and Harpsichord at Binghamton University, and Adjunct Professor of
Organ and Harpsichord at Ithaca College. Dr. Biggers has presented
several hundred concerts in church and university settings throughout
the United States, Canada, and Europe, and has appeared with various
orchestras in North America. He has been featured on NPR, Canadian
Broadcast Corporation, and Radio Suisse Romande broadcasts.
Dr. Biggers has studied extensively with Russell Saunders
(Eastman School of Music; DMA), Lionel Rogg (Conservatory of Music,
Geneva, Switzerland; Fulbright study), J. Warren Hutton (The University
of Alabama; MM and BMus), and Wallace Zimmerman (Atlanta; pre
college), and has worked with Harold Vogel (Bremen, Germany) during a
recent sabbatical study period. He was awarded a unanimous first prize
in the 1985 Geneva International Competition, secondprize in the 1982
American Guild of Organists National Organ Playing Competition, and
�unanimously w o n the 1990 Calgary International’ Organ Festival
Concerto Competition, where he presented the world premier
performance of Snowwalker: A Concerto for Organ and Orchestra, by
Pulitzerprize winning composer Michael Colgrass. He has premiered
other works by notable composers such as Richard Proulx (Concerto for
Organ and Orchestra), Craig Phillips (Triptych for Organ, Brass and
Percussion), Persis Vehar (Soundpiece for Organ), and David Brackett
(Nightworks for Organ). Two highly acclaimed Compact Disc recordings
of his performances (“Sleepers, Wake! A Reger Perspective” and “Bach
on the Fritts!) have been issued by Calcante Recordings.
Binghamton University M usic D epartment’s
U P C O M I N G E V E N T S
Friday, S eptember 2 5 ” Fast Indian Sarod with guest artist
Rajeev Taranath, 8:00 PM, Anderson Center Chamber Hall, $$
Thursday, October 1 % MidDay Concert, 1:20 PM, Casadesus Recital Hall
FREE
idDay Concert, 1:20 PM, Casadesus Recital Hall
Thursday, October 8 ” M
FREE
October various d ates a n d ti m es 3Penny Opera with the Theatre
Department and University Symphony Orchestra, 8:00 PM, Watters Theater, $$,
call 607. 77ZART5 for dates and times
Thursday, October 1 5 ” MidDay Concert, 1:20 PM, Casadesus Rectal Hall
FREE
Sa tu rd ay, October 1 7 ” P aul Taylor Dance Company with the Binghamton
University Symphony Ordrestra, 8:00 PM, Osterhout Concert Theater, $$
Thursday, October 22™ MidDay Concert; 1:20 PM, Casadesus Recital Hall
FREE
Sa tu rd ay, October 2 4 ” Family Weekend Concert (Harpur Chorale, Women’s
Chorus and Wind Symphony), 3:00 PM, Osterhout Concert Theater, FREE
Thursday, October 2 9 ” MidDay Concert, 1:20 PM, Casadesus Recital Hall
FREE
For ticket information, please call the
Anderson Center Box O ffice a t 777ARTS.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1960's - present
Title
A name given to the resource
Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings
Subject
The topic of the resource
Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings
Description
An account of the resource
Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=MyInstitution&vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&mode=basic&offset=0&conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email: <a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: PDF / Rosetta
PDF with Rosetta audio/video link
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
1 sound disc
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:08:49
Streaming Audio
Streaming URL
<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE152706">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE152706</a>
Accessibility
Copy/Paste below:
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
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Title
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Friedheim memorial lecture/recital, September 24, 2009
Recital Tape 2009-9-24
Description
An account of the resource
Works of Bach. Held at 8:00 p.m., September 24 , 2009, Casadesus Recital Hall.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-09-24
Rights
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In copyright
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound