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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6e651a6a62dd3a142c5a1d65800cb0ef.pdf
3613e4ec1a584ccb8ae5b1735e132c60
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Text
BINGHAMTON
V
W
NIVYERSIITY
S TAT E UNIVERSITY OF N E W Y O R K
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T M E N T
[4
D E P A R
MASTER’S RECITAL
JENEAN TRUAX, SORPANO
with
William James Lawson, Piano
Adam Davis, Clarinet
Sunday, December 13, 2009
3: 00 p.m.
Casadesus Recital Hal
�{
l
i
PROGRAM
i
PROGRAM
{
I.
Ridente Ia cama...
..Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte (1756
1791)
Abendempfindung
. Giacomo Meyerbeer
(1 791 1 864)
Hirtenlied........
Fn’ihlingsglaube, Op. 20, no. 2..............cocooicvinnniiios .Franz Peter Schubert
Auf dem Wasser zu singen, Op. 72
(17971828)
Fischerweise, Op. 96, no. 4
Gretchen am Spinnrade, Op. 2
¢
m
o
o
The Breath o f a R
At the W
e
l
Pastorale. .
S
é
g
r
E
u
u
because, alas,
he did not sing to me alone.
You’re catching fire, and soon,
you dear ones,
there will be no trace left of you.
But alas, the man who wrote you
may perhaps burn for a long time yet
in my heart.
Abendem pfindung
( Evening Feeling)
0
G u i t a r e .
Del cabello Mas s
along with all of the adoring songs,
(18991963)
Le sommeil
Quelle aventure!
La reine de coeur
Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu
Les anges musiciens
Le carafon
Lune d’Avril
r
t
d
/
l
l
. G e o r g e s Bizet
(18381875)
l .Fernando Obradors
(18971945)
l
e Manuel de Falla
(18761946)
Als Luise die Briefe
i hres ungetre uen Lie bhabers
ver bran nte
(As Luise b urn ed th e letters
of her faithless lover)
now 1 give you back to flames
. Francis Poulenc
La Courte Paille
and with your soulful gaze
look down gently upon me.
You owe your existence to flames;
r I I A Bolcom
(b. 1938)
e .William Grant Still
(18951978)
l .Richard Hageman
(18821966)
...Aaron Copland
(19001990)
s
that are so wel come to m y heart.
Born of a fiery imagination,
brought into the world in an hour of
rapture,go to destruction,
you children of melancholy!
®INTERMISSIONCs
A
gazing in mourning at my ashes,
I shall appear to you
and strew Heaven over you.
May you also grant me a little tear,
m y dear, to tie the bonds of marriage
o
If you then weep beside m y grave,
Ridente la cal ma
(Calm ness is smiling)
Calmness is smiling in my soul;
no trace of disdain or fear remains.
You will arrive at any moment,
It is evening, the sun is gone,
and the moon sheds silver light.
So pass life’s loveliest hours;
they flit by like a dance.
Soon the bright scenery of life is gone,
and the curtain rolls down.
Our play is over,
and a friend ’s tears are already falling
upon our grave.
Soon perhaps—like a gentle west wind
comes a quiet premonition—I shall
close this life’s pilgrim journey
and fly away to a land of rest.
and pick a violet for m y grave,
Shed a tear for me,
and ah! do not be ashamed to do so.
O, it will be the most beautiful pearl
in my crown.
lI.
Hirtenlied (Shepherd ’s Song)
Aloft here, alone in the mountains,
the blue heavens overhead,
the light breezes swaying the grasses,
I rest on a meadow flower bespread;
my lambs lying round
on the greensward,
the shepherd ’s pipe soothing and soft
and glinting with gold in the sunlight,
the birds flying homeward alofi, aloft!
They vanish away in the distance,
through half the world they must fly!
Gladly I linger a prisoner here
beneath the blue roof of the sky!
In the cities mankind is distracted,
with grief or illhumour distressed,
here, filled with the peace of the
mountains,
the heart is forever at rest, at rest!
So sweetly pass the blessed hours of
summer,
so still are the days and nights,
far on the shore are the breakers,
silence is here on the heights!
Good sheep here contentedly grazing
the meadows
.
green with flowery charm,
no echoes of earthly discord
can riffle a heaven so calm, so calm!
�lII.
F rii hlingsglau be (Spring faith)
The gentle breezes are awakened,
they whisper and stir day and night,
and penetrate everywhere.
Oh fresh scent, oh new sound!
Now, poor heart, be not afraid.
Now must it all, all change.
The world grows fairer with each day,
one does not know
what is still to come,
the flowering will not cease;
the farthest, deepest valley blooms;
now, poor heart, forget your torment!
Now must it all, all change.
IV.
La Courte Paille
Fischerweise
(Fisherman ’s melody)
I. Le sommeil (Sleep)
The fisherman is not tormented
Sleep has gone o ff on a journey,
G racious me! Where can it have got to?
l have rocked my little one in vain,
by worries, grief, and sorrow,
he sets sail early in the morning
in a lighthearted mood.
he is crying i n his cot,
He has been crying ever since noon.
Peace still rests all around
on wood and meadow and stream,
and with his songs he awakens the
golden sun.
He sings at his work
with full and lusty vigor;
Work gives him strength,
the strength of joy in life!
Soon will a colorful swarm
I
l’
:
Ah! Come back, come back, sleep,
on your fine racehorse!
answer from the depths,
and be seen splashing in the sky
Auf dem Wasser zu singen
(To be s ung u pon th e water)
Amid the shimmering of the mirroring
waves glides, like swans,
the swaying rowboat;
ah, on the joy’s gentle shimmering
waves
glides the soul along like the rowboat;
for from heaven down onto the waves
dances the sunset around about the
rowboat.
Over the treetops o f the western grove
waves to us kindly the rosy light;
under the branches of the eastern grove
murmur the reeds in the rosy light;
the soul breathes the joy of heaven
and the peace of the grove in the
reddening light.
Ah, time slips by on dewy wings,
As I am gently rocked upon the waves;
Let tomorrow fly shimmering away and
vanish like yesterday and today,
until I myself,
on loftier gleaming wings,
slip away from the changes of Time.
In the dark sky, the Great Bear
that is reflected in the water.
has buried the sun
But he who would cast a net
needs eyes clear and sound,
and rekindled his bees.
must be cheerful like the waves
If baby does not sleep well
he will not say good day,
he will have nothing to say
to his fingers, to the milk, to the bread
and as free as the tide;
On the bridge fishes the shepherdess,
the sly rascal!
Just give up your scheming,
you won’t deceive this fish.
that greet him in the morning.
II. Quelle aventure!
(What GoingsOn)
G retchen am Spin n rade
(G retchen at the s pinning wheel)
My heart is heavy, my peace is gone;
Never, never again shall I find it.
Where he is not with me,
to me is a grave;
The whole world seems bitter as gall.
My poor head is in a frenzy,
my poor mind is shattered.
I seek only him as I peer from the
window;
To seek only him do I leave the house.
His proud bearing, his noble stature,
his smiling lips, compelling eyes,
The magic flow of his speech,
The touch of his hand, and ah, his kiss!
My heart yearns for him.
Oh, if I could but embrace and hold
him,
and kiss him as I would—
from his kisses I would perish!
My heart is heavy, my peace is gone—
Never, never again shall I find it.
Where has sleep put
its sand and its gentle dreams?
I have rocked my little one in vain,
he tosses and tums perspiring,
he sobs in his bed.
A flea, in its carriage,
was pulling a little elephant along
gazing at the shop windows
where diamonds were sparkling.
– G ood gracious! Good gracious!
l
«
l
:
what goingson!
who will believe me if I tell them?
The little elephant was absent mindedly
sucking a pot of jam.
But the flea took no notice,
and went on pulling with a smile.
—Good gracious! Good gracious!
If this goes on
I shall really think I am mad!
Suddenly, along by a fence,
the flea disappeared in the wind
and I saw the young elephant make off,
breaking through the walls.
—Good gracious! Good gracious!
it is perfectly true,
but how shall I tell Mummy?
III. La reine de cceur
(The Queen of Hearts)
Gently leaning on her elbow
at her moon windows,
the queen waves to you
with a flower of the almond tree.
She is the queen o f hearts,
she can, i f she wishes,
lead you in secret to strange dwellings.
Where there are no more doors,
n o r ooms nor towers
and where the young who are dead
come to speak of love.
The queen waves to you,
hasten to follow her
into her castle of hoarfrost
with the lovely moon windows.
IV. Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu
(Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu)
Ba, be, bi, bo, bu, be!
The cat has put on his boots,
he goes from door to door
playing, dancing, singing.
Pou, chou, genou, hibou.
“You must learn to read,
to count, to write,”
they cry to him on all sides.
But Rikketikketau,
the cat burst out laughing,
as he goes back to the castle:
he is Puss in Boots!
V . Les anges musiciens
(The Angel Musicians)
On the threads of the rain
the Thursday angels
play all day upon the harp.
And beneath their fingers, Mozart
tinkles deliciously
in drops of blue joy.
For it is always Mozart
that is repeated endlessly
by the angel musicians,
Who, all day Thursday,
sing on their harps
the sweetness of the rain.
�VI. Le ca rafon
(The Baby Carafe)
V.
Guitare (Guitar)
Tell us, said the men,
How, with our small skiffs,
‘Why,’ complained the carafe,
‘should I not have a baby carafe?
At the zoo, Madame the giraffe,
has she not a baby giraffe?’
Can we flee from the alguazils?
—Row, said the fair ones.
by astride a phonograph,
How, said the men,
the carafe and let Merlin hear it.
‘Very good,’ said he, ‘very good.’
He clapped his hands three times
and the lady of the house
still asks herself why
she found that very morning
a pretty little baby carafe
nestling close to the carafe
just as in the zoo, the baby giraffe
rests its long fragile neck
against the pale flank of the giraffe.
Poverty and danger?
—Sleep, said the fair ones.
A sorcerer who happened to be passing
recorded the lovely soprano voice of
VII. Lune d ’Av ril (April Moon)
Moon
beautiful moon, April moon,
let me see in my sleep
the peach tree with the saffron heart,
the fish who laughs at the sleet,
the bird who, distant as a hunting horn,
gently awakens the dead
and above all, above all,
the land where there is joy,
where there is light,
where sunny with primroses,
all the guns have been destroyed.
Beautiful moon, April moon,
Moon.
Can we forget quarrels,
How, said the men,
Can we enchant beauties
Without rare potions?
—Love, said the fair ones.
Del cabello m as sutil
(F rom the finest hair)
From the finest hair
in your tresses
I wish to make a chain
to draw you to my side.
In your house, young girl,
I’d fain be a pitcher,
to kiss your lips
whenever you went to drink. Ah!
Séguidille (Seguidilla)
Her skirt clinging to her hips,
i n her chignon an enormous comb,
rippling legs and dainty feet,
pale, with fiery eyes and white teeth;
Alza! Ola!
Behold, a true streetgirl from Madrid.
Bold of gesture, free of speech,
as spicy as salt and pepper,
oblivious of the morrow,
fantastic love and wild grace;
Alza! Ola!
Behold, a true streetgirl from Madrid.
T o s ing, to dance w i t h castanets,
and in the bullring
to judge the bullfighters’ thrusts,
all the while smoking cigarettes;
Alza! Ola!
Behold, a true streetgirl from Madrid.
ABOUT THE PERFORMER(S)
J e n e a n Tr u a x , as a member of Baptist Bible College’s music faculty
since 2006, teaches music theory and aural skills courses, as well as
private piano and voice lessons. Jenean and her husband Paul live in
Jermyn, PA, with their son, Eli. Her love for music began while focusing
on instrumental music, playing in marching band, concert band, jazz
band, handbell choir, and taking private lessons. During this time she
studied piano with Marylee Morton and voice, at the Riverside Academy
of Music, with Norma Codispoti. Once at Baptist Bible College, she
majored in Music Education with an emphasis in voice. She studied
piano with Margaret Bos and Dr. Larry Kauffman and voice with Dr.
David Harris. In addition to the degrees she earned from Baptist Bible
College, she has also taken courses from Stephen F. Austin State
University, Southwest Texas State University, and is currently working
toward a Master of Music in vocal performance from Binghamton
University, studying voice with Mary Burgess.
William James L aw s o n coaches and accompanies singers at
Binghamton University. As a coach, he specializes in English diction for
American and English art songs and the sacred and classical theater
repertoires. He studied at Binghamton University (B.A. 1980), where his
teachers included Seymour Fink and Patricia Hanson in piano, M. Searle
Wright in church music, and Stevenson Barrett in vocal coaching. He
holds an M.A. from New York University (1984) and was one of the first
graduates of New York University’s innovative Department of
Performance Studies, an interdisciplinary program in the performing arts.
A d a m D a v i s is a clarinetist in the Binghamton University Symphony
Orchestra and is a sophomore math and physics major at Binghamton
University. He was afinalist in the 2009 Concerto Competition
Woodwind/Brass/Percussion Division and spent last summer as an
intern in the astrophysics division at the NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center. During high school, he was selected for New York AllState on
clarinet, won honorable mention in the Southern Tier Music Teachers
Association Competition on piano, performed with the Binghamton Youth
Symphony Orchestra for three years on violin and clarinet, and during his
junior year as an exchange student, performed with the University Choir
in Wroclaw, Poland.
�Binghamton University Music D epartment’s
U PC O M I N G E V E N T S
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Tuesday, December 1 5% Master’s Recital: Jana Kucera, soprano,
7:30 PM, Casadesus Recital Hall, FREE
S u n d ay, J a n u a r y 2 4 ” University Chamber Chorus, 3:00 PM – FREE
Trinity Memorial Church, Binghamton
rganist Jonathan Biggers A Bach
S u n d ay, F e b ru a r y 7 ” O
Celebration!! Series, 4:00 PM, Fine Arts Room 21, $$
Satu rd ay, Februar y 2 0 ” Master’s Recital: Amanda Chmela,
soprano, 8:00 PM, Casadesus Recital Hall, FREE
S u n day, Februar y 21% Mus/ca Nova: New Compositions for Voice.
3:00 PM, Anderson Center Chamber Hall, $$
For ticket information, please call the
Anderson Center B ox O ffice a t 7 77ARTS.
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Dublin Core
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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>
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In copyright.
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2 sound discs
Duration
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30:50
24:57
Streaming Audio
Streaming URL
<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE153838">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE153838</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
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Master's recital, Jenean Truax, December 13, 2009
Recital Tape 2009-12-13
Description
An account of the resource
Held at 3:00 p.m., December 13, 2009, Casadesus Recital Hall.
Creator
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Lawson, William James
Davis, Adam
Truax, Jenean
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2009-12-13
Rights
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In copyright
Type
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sound
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a7b00200acf255c9a97c00f7170e0b82.jpg
8783fbf6c770d20c1ea405a2ffbb7c73
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ec70fd84868024a7fb0210d2ca40e02a.mp3
786bbae4a9e91e46ecfc3ba9841107da
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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
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English
Rights
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2009-12-14
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
W. Wilson Goode
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Wilson Goode is a former mayor of Philadelphia and he was the first African American to hold in that office. He was a community activist, commissioner for the state Public Utility Commission, and managing director for Philadelphia. He got his Bachelor's degree at Morgan State University. Then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the school of the Felts Institute of Government."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13057,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Wilson Goode is a former mayor of Philadelphia and was the first African American to hold that office. He was a community activist, commissioner for the state Public Utility Commission, and managing director for Philadelphia. He got his Bachelor's degree at Morgan State University, then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the school of the Felts Institute of Government.</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
Subject LCSH
African American mayors; Mayors--Philadelphia; Goode, W. Wilson--Interviews
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
111:43
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Immorality; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Civil War generation; African American; 9/11; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Vietnam Memorial; segregation; Trust; sexism; democracy; inauguration; Richard Nixon; Philadelphia; Brown v. Board of Education."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Immorality; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Civil War generation; African American; 9/11; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Vietnam Memorial; segregation; Trust; sexism; democracy; inauguration; Richard Nixon; Philadelphia; Brown v. Board of Education.</span>
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with W. Wilson Goode
Contributor
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Goode, W. Wilson ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
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African American mayors; Mayors--Philadelphia; Goode, W. Wilson--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Wilson Goode is a former mayor of Philadelphia and was the first African American to hold that office. He was a community activist, commissioner for the state Public Utility Commission, and managing director for Philadelphia. He got his Bachelor's degree at Morgan State University, then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the school of the Felts Institute of Government.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2009-12-14
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.10.2016.127a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.127b
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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111:43
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2a8964aafe650eac35cc4072e8d644a9.pdf
c2a070320c527637653ec2b555009778
PDF Text
Text
BINGHAMTON
U N E V E R S I T Y
S T A T E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K
owdee
[4
RB.EFP A
R
I M
E N T
1
l
MASTERS RECITAL
JANA KUCERA, SOPRANO
with
ChaiKyou Mallinson, piano
and
Geogetta Maiolo, flute
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
8:00 p.m.
Casadesus Recital Hall
�PROGRAM
PROGRAM
Son tutta duolo
(1 60 5 1 674)
Vittoria, mio corel
(16591725)
Victory, my heart!
Do not weep any more!
(Victory, my heart)
Alessandro Scarlatti
Intorno all’idol mio
.........Marco Antonio Cesti
Before, the evil one
(1 6 5 71 71 6)
Liebst du um Schonheit ...
Das Veilchen
O weh des Scheidens
....Clara WieckSchumann
(1 819 1 896)
Mein Stern
Loreley
That hurls a mortal wound
Une Hute I n v i s i b l e . . . wereennnn.Camille SaintSaéns
(1 8 3 5 1 92 1 )
Il pleure dans mon coeur .
..............Claude Debussy
(1 862 1 9 1 8)
Les Heures
wereeenn. AmédéeErnest Chausson
( 1 85 5 1 899)
Mandoline.........................................Gabriel Edouard Xavier Dupont
(1 878 191 4)
TAIYAHION
FranrD Leoni
It’s all I have to bring
A Little China Figure.
r
i
n
v
Would make you suffer,
With many glances,
With false charms set his traps.
The deceit,
The pain,
No longer take place.
The fervor of cruel fire
Has extinguished.
From his smiling eyes
No longer darts an arrow
& INTERMISSIONCS
p
The abject slavery of love,
Has ended.
(162016697?)
Giovanni Battista Bassani
Dormi bella, dormi tu?...
The Year’s at the S
L
.............Giacomo Carissimi
Vittoria, mio corel ..
g
A
(1 864 1949)
...Ernst Bacon
(1 898 1990)
..Franco Leoni
(1 864 1949)
m
y Beach
(1 86 7 1944)
Into my chest.
In sadness, in torment,
I no longer tear myself to pieces
Every snare is broken:
Fear has disappeared.
Son tutta duolo
(I am all sadness)
I am all sadness:
I have nothing but woes
And cruel pain kills me.
And for me alone,
The stars, the Fate,
The gods and Heaven,
Are tyrants.
Intorno all’idol mio
(Around my idol)
Drift around my idol,
Gentle and pleasant breezes.
On his cheeks,
Kiss him for me,
Kind breezes.
Grant pleasant dreams
To my beloved,
Who sleeps on the wings of peace,
And reveal to him,
O h spirits,
My passion and love.
Danni bella, dormi fu?
(Do you sleep, beautiful one?)
Do you sleep, beautiful one?
If you sleep,
Dream of being less c ruel ;
If you are awake,
Offer me some pity!
Deep sighs come from my heart,
And you do not respond,
Ah, cruel love.
Beautiful, rebellious eyes,
Who opened you?
And you say nothing,
Ah, cruel love.
IL
Liebst du um Schonheit
(If you love for beauty)
If you love for beauty,
Oh, do not love mel
Love the sun,
She has golden hair.
If you love for youth,
Oh, do not love mel
Love the spring,
It is young every year.
If you love for treasure,
Oh, do not love me!
Love the mermaid,
She has many clear pearls.
If you love for love,
Oh yes, love me!
Love me forever,
And I will love you evermore.
�Das Veilchen
(The Violet):
A little violet
Stood on the meadow
Bent over itself,
And u n kno wn
Along came a shepherdess
Mein Stern
(My Star)
Oh star of mine!
When over the ocean
The sun is sinking
Winks with faithful comfort
In my dark night!
Oh star of mine!
From a far distance,
You are a herald of
Loving greetings,
Let your beams give me
Thirsty kisses
In my yearning night.
Ah! The maiden came
And paid no attention
To the little violet.
It sank and withered underfoot
But rejoiced
For even though he died,
He died at her feet.
Oh star of mine!
Please stay
And smiling,
Travel u p to the star’s rays
In dreams appear as my friend ’s
bright angel
In his dark night.
O weh des Scheidens
(O woe o f p arting)
Loreley
O woe of begging,
As he begged,
His lamenting led to tears.
He said to me :
“ Leave your tears,”
But he himself cried,
And left in pain.
His teardrops left me wet
And cold in my heart.
Come! An unseen flute
Sighs in the orchards
The most gentle song,
Is the song of shepherds.
Your golden eye
With light step and happy
demeanor,
And sang (as she walked).
“Ah!” (Thought the little violet)
“If only I were the most beautiful
bloom of nature
Ah! If she were to press me to her
bosom for just a quarter hour!”
O woe of parting,
That he caused
That he has left me,
Aching.
III.
Une flute invisible
(An unseen flute)
i
l
The wind ripples beneath the Live
Oak
And on the dark mirror of the
waters
The most joyous song,
Is the song of birds.
Let no care torment you
Let us love forever!
The most lovely song,
Is the song of lovers.
1 pleure dans mon coeur
(Tears fall in my heart)
Tears fall in my heart
As rain falls on the town.
What is the listlessness that
penetrates my heart?
I don’t know what it means,
Why I feel so sad;
An old tale,
Won’t leave my mind.
Oh, the soft sound of the rain,
On the ground,
And on the roofs.
The air is cool and dark
And the Rhine flows peacefully
The top of the rocks
Sparkle in the evening sunshine.
The most beautiful maiden sits
Atop it, sorrowfully;
Tears fall without reason
In this heart which sickens
She combs her golden hair,
She combs it with a golden comb,
This grief is without reason
It is truly the worst pain
For a heart which grows listless
Oh the sound of the rain!
Her golden jewels twinkle ;
And sings a song.
It has a wondrous, powerful
melody.
A sailor in a little ship,
ls seized with wild anguish;
He doesn’t see the rocky reef,
He looks up at her at the end
I think the waves swallow
And kill the sailor and his boat!
And that, with her singing,
The Loreley has done.
What? No betrayl?
l
lI
To not know why.
Without love and without hatred,
My heart feels so m uch pain.
Les Heures
(The Hours)
The pale hours beneath the moon,
Sing until death
With a sad smile
They move, one by one
On a lake bathed in moonlight
Where with a sad smile,
The stretch out, one by one,
Their hands, which lead to death.
And some, pale in the moonlight,
With unsmiling eyes,
Knowing that the hour of death is
near,
Giver their hands, one by one.
And all depart into the shadows,
And in the moonlight,
To languish and then to die
With the hours, one by one,
The hours with the pale smile.
Mandoline
The givers of serenades
And the lovely listeners
Exchange insipid comments
Beneath the singing branches.
There is Tircis
And there is Aminte
And there is the eternal Clitandre
And there is Damis,
Wh o writes many tender verses
For cruel women.
Their short jackets of silk,
Their long gowns with trains,
Their elegance,
Their joy,
And their soft, blue shadows
Whirl in the ecstasy of a pink and
gray moon.
And the mandoline chatters
Amid the shivers of the breeze.
�PROGRAM NOTES
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
The program begins with four 17th century Italian songs explore and
arias that explore various expressions o f love. The first, Vittoria, mio core, is
one of about 150 cantatas by Carissimi, most of which are longer and more
JANA KUCE RA, was raised in Binghamton, New York, and is a 2004
graduate of Chenango Valley. She graduated from Binghamton University in
2008 with a Bachelor of Music, Vocal Performan ce degree, and is currently
complex. Son tutta duolo is an aria from Scarlatti’s opera La donna ancora é
fedele, a three act dramatic opera with a libretto by Domenico Filippo Contini.
Intorno aII’idoI mio is an aria sung by the title character in Cesti’s Orontea, first
performed at the court theater in Innsbruck on February 19, 1656. The final
piece in the set, Dormi bella, dormi tu? is a fragment from Basani’s cantata “La
Serenata.”
Clara WieckSchumann was often encouraged by her husband, Robert,
to compose. Liebst du um Schonheit was a birthday gift inscribed “to my
beloved husband on the 8th of June, 1841, composed by his Clara,” with text by
Friedrich Riickert. O weh des Scheidens (text by Friedrich Riickert) and Loreley
(text by Heinrich Heine) are part of a set from another birthday gift to Robert
inscribed “to my beloved husband on the 8th of June 1843.” Mein Stern is one of
two poems by Friederike Serre, inscribed “for the author with friendly greetings,
composed by Clara Schumann.” Das Veilchen with text by Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe, is perhaps more widely recognized as a composition by Mozart, but
was composed by Clara July 7, 1853.
The poem Viens! Une fl u t e invisible soupire by Victor Hugo has
inspired a number of composers. Camille SaintSaens’ duettino titled Viens! was
written for two voices with piano accom paniment, published in 1856 (the same
year the poem was printed as part of Les Contemplations). SaintSaéns returned
to the poem in 1885, the year of Hugo’s death, and composed a second version
for voice, flute and piano, titling it Une flute Invisible.
11 pleure dans mon coeur is the second piece in Debussy’s Ariettes
oubliées, with text from poems by Paul Verlaine. The music is highly chromatic
and tonally ambiguous, with the piano accompanying the long vocal lines with
what would become Debussy’s typical “raindrop” music.
Les Heures is the first of three of Chausson’s Op. 27 lieder, composed
in 1896 to text by Camille Mauclair. Dupont was a rising French musician who
was reaching his potential when he suddenly died at the age of 36. He was an
accomplished pianist whose skills translated well to vocal music; his talents at
the piano can be seen in his composition of Mandoline.
The phrase “Tallyho” is a largely Brit ish phrase, used in foxhunting,
shouted when a rider sees the fox: Leoni ’s song was composed in 1919 with text
by C.P. Raydon.
Ernst Bacon set sixtyseven of Emily Dickinson’s poems, and to
accommodate the flexible poetic meter, Bacon mixed duple and triple time.
Beach received worldwide fame with her 1899 composition to the Robert
Browning poem The Year’s at the Spring; the demanding piano accompaniment
no doubt reflects the composer’s own career as a professional pianist.
pursuing a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance degree under the tutelage of
Mary Burgess. She is a member of the TriCities Opera chorus and has
performed in nearly 20 operas with them. She recently performed the role of
Ulla in “The Producers” at the Endicott Performing Arts Center, and appeared as
a soloist in the Summer Savoyards 50” Anniversary Gala. She made her debut
with the Summer Savoyards in 2006 as Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen of the
Guard, and has since performed the roles of YumYum in the Mikado, and
Princess Ida (title role).
CHAIKYOU MALLINSON, currently on the faculty o f the Department o f
Music at Binghamton University, received a B.M. degree in Piano from Julliard,
Licence d’Enseignement from Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, France and a
M.A. degree from Binghamton University. Her teachers include Jean Casadesus,
JeanMichel Damase, Jules Gentil and Alton Jones. She also performed in
Master Classes by Robert Casadesus. A prize winner in the Korean National
Music Competition, Ms. Mallinson was awarded the French Government
Scholarship, Tanglewood Summer School Full Scholarship, and the
Fontainebleau American Conservatory Full Scholarship. Ms. Mallinson gave a
debut Recital in Carnegie Recital Hall and has been active as a recitalist, vocal
coach, accompanist, and chamber music performer, as well as an active
adjudicator of piano auditions and competitions. She is a member of the Music
Teachers National Association, the Southern Tier Music Teachers’ Association,
and of the board of judges for the National Guild of Piano Teachers. Ms.
Mallinson has premiered compositions o f contemporary composers including
Ezra Laderman, Paul Goldstaub, Meyer Kupferrnan and William Klenz. Among
many concerts in which she performed, three were sponsored by the New York
State Council on the Arts. She appeared in a performance with the Seoul
Philharmonic Orchestra. In 20082009, Ms. Mallinson was awarded an
Individual Artist Award by the Broome County (NY) Arts Council.
GEORGETT A MAIOLO is a member o f the faculty o f Binghamton University
and Broome Community College, teach ing Flute and directing Flute Ensembles.
From 1977 to 1996, she held the position of Assistant Professor of Flute at
Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York. She also taught flute at Hartwick College,
Oneonta, New York and West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia.
Mrs. Maiolo is a graduate of Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and
attended graduate school at West Virginia University, Morgantown, West
Virginia. She studied with Bernard Goldberg, principal flutist of the Pittsburgh
Symphony, Marcel Moyse at Marlboro School of Music, and Victor Saudek. At
the age of 15, she made her solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Mrs.
Maiolo is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Very Reverend
Thomas j. Quigley Award, the NCMEA National music award, the Pittsburgh
Tuesday Musical Club, the Enola M. Le wis Scholarship and the Mu Phi Epsilon
�Sterling Achievement Award. Mrs. Maiolo is the principal flutist of the
Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra, TriCities Opéra : Orchesfra, and
Downtown Singers Orchestra. In addition to her playing positions, she
concertizes as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. Mrs. Maiolo has been
recognized for the breadth of her contributions to performance and music
education. She has premiered compositions for flute by Jack Martin, Dan
Locklair, Edith Borroff, Malcolm Lewis, Richard Herman, Jeffrey Nitch,
Timothy Rolls and Paul Goldstaub. In 1985, Mrs. Maiolo was honored to
conduct the NYSSMA AllState Flute Choir. She served as the flute
chairperson for the NYSSMA Manual from 1981 to 2001. She is faculty advisor
for Mu Phi Epsilon, Zeta Eta Chapter at Binghamton University.. She is a
“clinician” for the Selmer Company. She is a member of the National Flute
Association, and she has recorded for Crest Records and NPR.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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>
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In copyright.
Template: PDF / Rosetta
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Original Format
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2 sound discs
Duration
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01:07:55
57:21
Streaming Audio
Streaming URL
<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE153815">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE153815</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
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Master's recital, Jana Kucera, December 15, 2009
Recital Tape 2009-11-15
Description
An account of the resource
Held at 8:00 p.m., December 15, 2009, Casadesus Recital Hall.
Creator
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Mallinson, Chai-Kyou
Maiolo, Georgetta
Kucera, Jana
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2009-12-15
Rights
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In copyright
Type
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sound
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7ee00fe4b58780b0c440ccdfd0650699.jpg
3e20d2cc300dedb615071f4480db2b98
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7db441c95503d621e49717b233272b9c.mp3
ef003ddb6cc3a3f03dafc547c567e8c9
Dublin Core
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Format
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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
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
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In copyright.
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Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Tom Pauken
Date of Interview
2009-12-21
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.)
109:57
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Tom Pauken is a businessman, lawyer, politician, member of the Republican Party, and the author of two books. He is a former member and chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission. Additionally, Pauken served as chairman on the Texas Republican Party and the Texas Task Force on Appraisal Reform. He received his Bachelor’s degree in political science from Georgetown University and his Juris Doctor degree from Southern Methodist University."}" 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}">Tom Pauken is a businessman, lawyer, politician, member of the Republican Party, and the author of two books. He is a former member and chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission. Additionally, Pauken served as chairman on the Texas Republican Party and the Texas Task Force on Appraisal Reform. He received his Bachelor’s degree in political science from Georgetown University and his Juris Doctor degree from Southern Methodist University.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"intellectual movement; Modern Conservatism; Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Cambodia invasion; Young Americans for Freedom; Newt Gingrich; George W. Bush; Bill Clinton; Goldwater."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Intellectual movement; Modern Conservatism; Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Cambodia invasion; Young Americans for Freedom; Newt Gingrich; George W. Bush; Bill Clinton; Goldwater.</span>
Subject LCSH
Lawyers; Politicians--United States--Texas; Republican Party (Tex.); Pauken, Tom--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 Tom Pauken
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Pauken, Tom ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lawyers; Politicians--United States--Texas; Republican Party (Tex.); Pauken, Tom--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Tom Pauken is a businessman, lawyer, politician, member of the Republican Party, and the author of two books. He is a former member and chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission. Additionally, Pauken served as chairman on the Texas Republican Party and the Texas Task Force on Appraisal Reform. He received his Bachelor’s degree in political science from Georgetown University and his Juris Doctor degree from Southern Methodist University.
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
2009-12-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.160a: McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.160b
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.
109:57
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c8e771633f6eb3269e83e023582fc7b8.jpg
2cbe6671ced709c03b61932f90430dc9
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6af36a516868bec14de5602f1111fca2.mp3
fd4e61953ba9079b69b4a83fcff342f0
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
2010-01-03
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Adam Green, 1963-
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.)
115:37
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Civil Rights Movement; Baby boom generation; African Americans; Nineteen sixties; Racial issues; Philadelphia; City government; Communities; Prisons; Women in prison; HIV/AIDS; John F. Kennedy."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Civil Rights Movement; Baby boom generation; African Americans; Nineteen sixties; Racial issues; Philadelphia; City government; Communities; Prisons; Women in prison; HIV/AIDS; John F. Kennedy.</span>
Subject LCSH
Historians; College teachers; Central High School (Little Rock, Ark.); Green, Adam, 1963--Interviews
Biographical Text
<span>Dr. Adam Green is a historian, professor, and son of Ernest Green, who was one of the Little Rock Nine. Dr. Adam Green received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Yale University. He does research and teaches in a variety of fields, including twentieth-century U.S. history, African American history, urban history, cultural studies, and social movements. He has written and co-written two books,</span> <em>Selling the Race: Culture and Community in Black Chicago 1940-1955</em> and <em>Time Longer than Rope: Studies of African-American Activists 1850-1950</em>.
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 Dr. Adam Green
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Green, Adam, 1963- ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Historians; College teachers; Central High School (Little Rock, Ark.); Green, Adam, 1963--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
<span>Dr. Adam Green is a historian, professor, and son of Ernest Green, who was one of the Little Rock Nine. Dr. Adam Green received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Yale University. He does research and teaches in a variety of fields, including twentieth-century U.S. history, African American history, urban history, cultural studies, and social movements. He has written and co-written two books,</span> <em>Selling the Race: Culture and Community in Black Chicago 1940-1955</em> and <em>Time Longer than Rope: Studies of African-American Activists 1850-1950</em>.
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
2010-01-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.125a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.125b
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.
115:37
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c986bbc9f8507f01010a9be28783a4a6.jpg
0dcb95c11dd293433541cb77e5d38fe1
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/0aeef811ca40176640522667e5a2e6ae.mp3
368b9cd38b6e74e6ff50bbd9cd7b54dd
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.
Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription
This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field.
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Date of Interview
2010-01-07
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Wayne J. (Wayne Jacob) Thorburn, 1944-
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Wayne Thorburn is a politician, educator and author. He served as the executive director of the Republican Party of Texas from 1977-1983. He is the author of A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement. Dr. Thorburn is a graduate of Tufts University and Penn State and holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Maryland. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":7043,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,5855577],"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Wayne Thorburn is a politician, educator, and author. He served as the executive director of the Republican Party of Texas from 1977-1983. He is the author of <em>A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement</em>. Dr. Thorburn is a graduate of Tufts University and Penn State and holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Maryland. </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
MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Ethnic church; Religion; Economy; WWII; Great powers; Soviet Union; Free speech movement; Corporate control; Environmental movement; Vietnam War; Student protest; Welfare state; Baby boom generation; Sexual revolution; Consumption society; Gay and Lesbian Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Discrimination; Black Panthers; Black Power."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Ethnic church; Religion; Economy; WWII; Great powers; Soviet Union; Free speech movement; Corporate control; Environmental movement; Vietnam War; Student protest; Welfare state; Baby boom generation; Sexual revolution; Consumption society; Gay and Lesbian Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Discrimination; Black Panthers; Black Power.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
220:20
Subject LCSH
Politicians—United States; Educators; Authors; Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- )--Texas; Thorburn, Wayne J. (Wayne Jacob), 1944--Interviews
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>.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Wayne Thorborn
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 7 January 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:02):
Testing one, two.
VT (00:00:07):
And others of the left of that period of time, which I rightly so have made it into college libraries and public libraries. But as you indicated, there is only two that were kind of, one of which was a professor from Pennsylvania, John Andrew, who now passed away, who was at Franklin and Marshall wrote the Other Side of the (19)60s, which really pretty much ends with the Goldwater election. He does not really go into much beyond that. The other book, Cadres For Conservatism, is a little more extensive in the period it covers, but it basically says, well, the organization died in (19)85.
SM (00:00:53):
Oh, wow.
WT (00:00:55):
Rightly so. It was not strong from that point on, and in fact, I kind of say by the (19)90s, the mid (19)90s, it went into at least hibernation. It did not maybe die, but it went into hibernation.
SM (00:01:11):
Right.
WT (00:01:11):
But anyway, those who were active in the somewhat revival of the organization in the late (19)80s and in the very early (19)90s, they were just all upset and wrote scathing reviews on Amazon and everything else. How could he say this, the organization died in (19)85? And it is true. I mean, he was wrong, and so that have marred his history of the organization, which I thought was otherwise pretty good. And so, the bottom line was I felt there had to be something else that maybe libraries would purchase that would be on the shelf 10, 15 years from now when somebody's doing a study or research on what happened in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, if they would not only have the Tom Hayden and Richard Flax and the Kirkpatrick sales version, but they'd have a counter saying, "Well, wait a minute. There was another group of young people doing other things at that point in time." It stands to reason.
SM (00:02:12):
Yeah. I read the book. What I normally do is when I read a book, I read it through once and then I start reading it through where I start underlining it and all the other things. So, I really need to get a second book because that is what happens when I get involved in books and I am in the process now of I have read it, but I am reading so many books from my book project that-
WT (00:02:36):
Sure.
SM (00:02:37):
This is a good one, and it is well written, so I am ready to go if you are?
WT (00:02:44):
I am.
SM (00:02:44):
Okay. One of the things I have done is, it is actually the first 50 people I interviewed, which when I started this project back in the late (19)90s, I did not ask too much about their personal background, but the last 150 I have, and so I think it is important. How did you become who you are, that strong, conservative leader who grew up in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s?
WT (00:03:09):
Well, that is a good question. I think I came from a lower middle class working class family that was very traditional and conservative, not in the political ideological sense, but in the norms, values set. My father was an electrician. Much of his life, worked for other people, but then, well, the last 30 years or so worked for himself. So, I would not even call him a small businessman because he was himself, he never had any helpers or anything. My mother, after working very briefly, well before I was born, was a stay-at-home mother. And I grew up, I have one brother who is really a totally different segment. He is 15 years older than I am, and so it is almost like being two only children because by the time I was in the elementary school, he was off college and all that stuff. So, I grew up in a place called Somerville, Massachusetts, which is very much of a working class, inner suburb of Boston right between Cambridge and Medford, if you are familiar with it at all.
SM (00:04:36):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
WT (00:04:39):
And so they were Baptist. Because I sometimes, and I am probably going to go on too long, so cut me off if I go on too long.
SM (00:04:50):
Okay, that is fine.
WT (00:04:52):
I grew up in what I now refer to as an ethnic church because in that area they were Irish, Italians and transplanted Canadians. Basically, the old wasps from colonial days were living in much more wealthy communities, so where were the wasps were basically transplanted Canadians and the church I grew up in, I would say 90 percent of the people there had relatives still living in Canada. And they, because of being Protestants, they were Republicans. And I think that is the motivation in the days that you are talking about, particularly the (19)50s and post-World War II. If you were Catholic, odds were very-very strong that you were going to be a Democrat, and if you were Protestant, odds were very-very strong that you were going to be a Republican. And ideology meant very little because you had very liberal Republicans and conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats, and conservative Democrats. There was ethnicity and class and other factors were what chose your party. So, I started in that environment and I think the first thing that really hit me was picking up while in High School, Barry Goldwater's, Conscience of a Conservative.
SM (00:06:18):
Yes.
WT (00:06:19):
And then after that, starting to get introduced to Buckley and Up from Liberalism. I think his first book, God and Man at Yale, was really before my time and really did not make an impact on me. It was the second, well, not his second, but his late 1959 book, Up From Liberalism. And so, I started reading those in high school, and I guess it was the values from my family that started me in that direction.
SM (00:06:54):
Did you read his book too, which was another classic on McCarthyism?
WT (00:06:59):
Not really. I mean, I obviously have since, but it did not make an impact on me.
SM (00:07:03):
Yeah, that is a classic.
WT (00:07:05):
McCarthy was an unknown person to me in those early days. I am sure some of the people you interviewed, oh, their parents were real backers of Joe McCarthy and all? No, it was not that. We seldom really at any depth discussed politics at home.
SM (00:07:22):
What was it like going to high school in the (19)50s or the late (19)50s, early (19)60s?
WT (00:07:28):
It was the late (19)50s and I graduated from high school in (19)61, so I think I am pretty well overworked, in kind of meaningless work, but traditional. At the high school, again, because of where I grew up, was very much a working class. A very, very small number, small percentage, of the graduates would go on to college. Some might go to a technical school or a secretarial school as they used to have them in those days, but most of them were high school graduates who then went on to work in clerical positions or truck drivers or working for the city or something like that. So, I worked part-time, and as most kids did in those times, I was able to purchase for $125 an old (19)54 Ford in until my senior year I had this broken-down car that I would drive to school. And there was not any one teacher who had an overriding influence on me. I was involved in the debate club, but we really never really got into very many debates and church activities and things like that.
SM (00:09:02):
When you drove that car, did you look like James Dean?
WT (00:09:06):
No, I was not quite the rebel.
SM (00:09:09):
Yeah. I often am interested in terms of one's college years. Could you talk about how you picked the college you went to? What was it like to be a college student during those years, and was there any activism at the college in those late (19)50s, early (19)60s?
WT (00:09:30):
Okay. Yeah. Basically I ended up applying to two colleges and one was Wake Forest. I really cannot tell you why. I never went to North Carolina. Never made a visit. The campus. It was in those days a Baptist college, and that might have had some reason for applying there. And then Tufts University, which was around the corner, a 15-minute walk from home. The reason I guess I applied there is because it had a very good reputation academically, and my brother had graduated from there, again many years earlier. But I guess in that there was a minor legacy you might think. So, I got into both of them and for various and sundry reasons, because there were no scholarships that were being made available, it just seemed, and my parents were not wealthy, but they were going to have to pay the tuition, it made sense to go to Tufts, which was really the academically better school, and I could walk to campus, live at home. Which is what I did. So. that is how I ended up going there. I guess one other part of your question, how did I come in contact with YAF?
SM (00:11:02):
Yes.
WT (00:11:04):
That is a transitional one because what happened was after I got accepted at Tufts, I was able to get a summer job that they had, I guess for students and incoming students, working with the grounds and building department. And in those days, the kids would leave their dorm room a mess and anything they did not want, they just trashed and left there. Knowing from my daughter's experience, nowadays, they come around and monitor and you have to have everything out there and cleaned up. But in those days, they had just left the places a mess. And so, one of the first assignments at Grounds and Building was to go into the dorms and take all the trash, get all the trash out of the rooms. And in so doing, I came across this rather amateur looking publication called The New Guard, and nosy that I was, reading through this and saw that it was a conservative youth publication by an unknown group to me called Young Americans For Freedom. And so that is how I came in contact with YAF, just by chance coming across a publication that a kid had left in a dorm room. And wrote off and sought information and tried to find out if there was a chapter at Tufts, things like that.
SM (00:12:29):
Wow. Yeah. One of the things I want, again, I have read this, but the people that will be reading these interviews, they will not have read your book and all the people I have interviewed, they have not read the books, but it is the personalities and the basic information, it is a different venue to reach people. When you talk about the Young Americans for Freedom, it is mostly college students. There is no high school students involved here. Correct?
WT (00:12:53):
At that point in time, there were very-very few, as time went on into the (19)60s, even as (19)62, (19)63, there were high school students involved, very much so. And there is a couple examples of people like Al Della Bovie, who is the chairman or president or whatever of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York. He got active and was the head of a chapter in New York City of basically high school students. So, yes. And then from that point on, there was maybe not at the original founding, but by the early (19)60s as the involvement, particularly in the Goldwater campaign began, there started to be a number of high school chapters, some of which were allowed on campus, but many times we are not campus high school chapters, but might be City High School chapter.
SM (00:14:04):
The number four question here, which is basically divided the 65 years that boomers have been alive in six different periods, and basically when I have asked this question to all of my interviewees, it is some have said, it is almost impossible to talk about a period, there is too much, but what first comes to your mind when you see these six periods? Like say that first one, (19)46 to 1960, when you think about America and what, just the period?
WT (00:14:40):
Yeah. I guess to me, first of all, it is childhood. But in terms of the broader picture, I guess it would be staid, culturally established, not much radical change.
SM (00:15:04):
And then that period (19)61 when John Kennedy comes into office to 1970 when Kent State happens.
WT (00:15:11):
Right, right. Well, I would argue there is two different periods that are drastically different there. The period up until, I guess if you really want to look at one event, maybe the March (19)65 Johnson expansion of Vietnam being the end of the first period. Which I think still, there were rumblings of change in society with the civil rights movement with some of this campus activity mainly on the West coast, but it started out as a very conservative kind of period. I relate to, I was a freshman in (19)61, and so I still remember the beanie that I had to wear as a freshman on campus. I still remember that there was a curfew for female students. I still remember that there were obviously separate dormitories, but there was, even at Tufts, there was a separate women's college called Jackson College, just like there was Harvard and Radcliffe and all the administratively distinctive women's institutions within the bigger institution. I remember that even by 1965 when I was a senior, what I, and many of us did, is we bought these blue blazers with a crest on it, with the year 1965 and the seal of the college and would wear them around.
SM (00:16:45):
Wow.
WT (00:16:46):
And we would get harassed as a freshman, if we did not have our beanie on. So that first period of time, I think, was still socially very conservative, even though the rumblings were there of the start of some of the other things. And then the second half was quite different. That is when social morays are changing and when the music is making much more impact on society, and of course you get Woodstock and all that other stuff. So, I think you cannot really just solely talk about the decade of the (19)60s. It is really two different groups that hit there.
SM (00:17:31):
Right. How about that period, (19)71 to (19)80, which is the some might say is through at least (19)73, (19)74 is a continuation of the latter half of the (19)60s, and then you get into the disco era and the music changed. What were your thoughts before Ronald Reagan became president, just your thoughts on that period?
WT (00:17:51):
Right-right. Well, there was a period, again, as you said, of a lot of malaise. There was a lot of discomfort in society. There was all the problems with Nixon and Watergate and Agnew. What would In effect was the defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam. There was the energy crisis that came in. There was inflation with the Jerry Floyd and his whip inflation now. And then of course, looking back on that period, you come across the picture of Jimmy Carter sitting with a sweater in front of a fireplace talking about the malaise that we were in. So, it was rather, I think in many ways, a kind of a depressing decade that had a lot of negative things associated with it.
SM (00:18:54):
How about that period, 1981 to 1990 that many say is the era of Reagan?
WT (00:19:00):
I think that was for me, and actually for many people, much more optimistic. I think Reagan came in and was able to re-enthuse the American people about the possibilities of the country and its role not only in the world, but its role in time, and what was happening. As the theme in the (19)84 election that "It is morning in America", kind of summarized it. It was a sense of optimism. Now, there was the down period of the Iran Contra and near the end of it, but I think pretty much that whole decade was one of much more economically, we were doing better, and I think inside, psychically we were doing better by dealing.
SM (00:19:58):
How about that 1991 to 2000 when President Bush and President Clinton-
WT (00:20:05):
Excuse me. That too, is not a bad decade. I think if one looks back historically on the Clinton administration, but Clinton had a lot of personal problems, as we all know. We do not have to get into those, but I think as a president and as a period of time, yeah, it was a very positive one. When you look back, whether you want to give some of the credit to the Republican control of Congress or the President or both, or whatever. It was the last period that we, after many, many years, of continual deficit, that we were running an annual budget that was not in deficit, and the economy was doing fairly well. So, I think it was a pretty positive time. With also starting at the beginning with really the downfall of the Soviet Union and taking away the threat of an any day impending nuclear disaster. It was before we got to realize that the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries, and maybe even movement in our countries could become a serious continuing threat to us. We had focused for so many years on the Soviet Union, and it was gone. That, I think, it started the decade where it started out very positively.
SM (00:21:43):
And then of course, the last decade, 2001 to now 2011 with President Bush and President Obama.
WT (00:21:51):
Right-right. Exactly. Again, early on, reality sets in that the world is not a wonderful and beautiful place with 9-11. I think that really set the tone for much of American's attitudes towards the rest of that decade is that threat from a non-governmental force of a group of extremists who were under the color of religion, were attempting to advance their ideological position and work at virtually no respect for human life and would involve anyone civilian, the non-governmental officials or what have you, in bringing down what they saw as the enemy.
SM (00:22:47):
You know what is really interesting?
WT (00:22:47):
I think-
SM (00:22:47):
Go ahead.
WT (00:22:47):
Economically, you had stuff down.
SM (00:22:54):
It is interesting when you look at this whole period, when you think of the 1972 Olympics and the terrible thing that happened with the terrorism that Olympics, the killing of the Israeli team, and then all throughout the (19)80s, the takeover of airplanes and pilots, and then of course leading up to 9-11, seems like that Terrorism has been around here for quite some time.
WT (00:23:18):
Yes, it has. True.
SM (00:23:20):
Yeah. Wow. It's been around half the lives of all the boomers, especially the front runner boomers. When you look at the generation, which, whether it be 74 or 79 million, I always see different numbers, but when you look at the generation as a whole, can you give some characteristics that you think are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the generation? Is that possible?
WT (00:23:48):
Yeah, and again, I am a Casper at best.
SM (00:23:54):
Yes.
WT (00:23:54):
I was born in (19)44, so I am just beyond being able to call myself a baby boomer because I think the true span is (19)46 to (19)64 at birth years. But having said all that, I guess a couple of things would be number one, growing up at a time of economic and political growth of the United States of America. I mean, the economy has changed and strengthened so much from after the World War II period in which the first ones were born. And politically coming out of World War II, there were only two great powers, and then eventually with the fall of the Soviet Union, only one for a period of time. And economically, the United States' strength internationally has grown tremendously. So I think it's been one where the generation has had great advancement. Almost every one of them have economically done better than their parents and have been able to look to the future with positive projection. The downside of that, of course, is maybe the over-emphasis on security and the anticipation and expectation that everything will be either given to you or easily obtained, which kind of leads maybe to a sense of entitlement that is beyond what should be. I guess that in a nutshell is probably the way I would describe it.
SM (00:25:46):
In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end, and what was the watershed moment?
WT (00:25:51):
Okay. Well, I think we have talked about that a little bit. I think there are two (19)60s. The (19)60s that is, I think you are referring to, I think probably began with Johnson's move in 1965 to enhance US involvement in the Vietnam War, and that probably was the pivotal event that activated many people on the left on college campuses, and by then the music and drugs and other things were starting to impact the community. So, that would be the watershed moment I think. The (19)60s as described that way rather than chronologically probably started to fade out by 1973 in the withdrawal of American troops, and the fact that their hero McGovern got so resoundingly defeated the left's hero, the left hero, Montgomery, got so resoundingly defeated the (19)72 election, and so that movement, if that is the (19)60s, kind of goes from (19)65 to (19)73 in my mind.
SM (00:27:16):
Yeah, that is excellent. Number seven is a little bit detailed here. I just picked these out myself, because they seem to be important either right, statements, slogans, or events or personalities that really affected college students, and I was curious what the Young Americans for Freedom were doing on college campuses when they happened. And the first one is, and again, it is just if your perception as person who not only was a leader for of the organization is, I believe it is executive director?
WT (00:27:51):
Right.
SM (00:27:52):
Yes. For 7 years?
WT (00:27:54):
No, no. I was only there... I was involved. I joined in (19)61 and basically got out by (19)75, so that is only 14 years, but I was executive director only from (19)71 to (19)73.
SM (00:28:08):
Okay. Very good. How did the young Americans for Freedom respond to Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."?
WT (00:28:19):
Sounds good, but not realistic because individuals ought to be looking out for themselves, and I think it ran counter to the individualistic strain in modern conservatism. That rather than having a loyalty to the country as primary, your individual concern and in taking care of yourself ought to come first.
SM (00:28:49):
Then we have the Bobby Kennedy quote. It was actually a quote from another writer from the 1900s-
WT (00:28:59):
Right-right.
SM (00:28:59):
But, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see-"
WT (00:29:03):
I think that would be one that they would grumble as to who was being quoted, but they would agree with that. That was really an attitude that they had.
SM (00:29:16):
That is a positive attitude then?
WT (00:29:18):
Absolutely.
SM (00:29:19):
Then Muhammad Ali, who was one of the primary athletic figures of the boomer generation, we all remember during the Vietnam War, "I will not fight in Vietnam and kill you yellow babies when we have black babies dying in our cities every day."
WT (00:29:36):
Yeah. I think they would say, Oh, he fails to understand the challenge of communism and how communism is going to kill yellow babies, black babies, white babies, regardless, and it is going to try to control all of the world, and that what we are fighting in Vietnam is international communism and an effort to take over a country, and we are not there to be killing little yellow babies.
SM (00:30:02):
Malcolm X is by any means necessary, one of the biggest slogans of the year.
WT (00:30:08):
Yeah, no, they would disagree with that and say that there is the rule of law and there are right appropriate ways to do things and not any means necessary.
SM (00:30:21):
Timothy Leary was the epitome of the counterculture, "Tune in, turn on, drop out."
WT (00:30:32):
There is where you get a little division by the late (19)60s into a couple of movements. Some in the organization were enthralled with parts of the counterculture and probably would agree with that to some degree, and that is the movement that gets described is the more libertarian element in the organization. But most would say that, no, this is totally wrong, that you have to become involved, stay involved and change society.
SM (00:31:05):
Peter Max's posters really often defined the hippie culture in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, very popular where I was going to school, and one that really stood out was this slogan, "You do your thing and I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, that would be beautiful."
WT (00:31:28):
Well, I think that, probably most of the actors would totally agree with, especially that would really reflect the more libertarian element in the organization and the sense of individual freedom. Yeah. Some of the more conservative ones would say, "Well, that is not quite true. You have to take consideration of society in the larger picture." But I'd say that most would agree with that.
SM (00:31:56):
And of course, the big-
WT (00:31:58):
Yeah.
SM (00:31:59):
...slogan, "Hell no, we will not go. We will not fight-"
WT (00:32:01):
No, they would be totally opposed to that.
SM (00:32:02):
We will not go. We will not fight it.
WT (00:32:02):
No. They would be totally opposed to that. Yeah. Was very sparling in support of the American effort throughout almost all the period of time. Only when we get into the (19)70s, and Nixon has his Vietnamization aspect of the war, did some less emphasis on that. And really then the emphasis shifted to concern about the POWs. So, no, this is something that they would totally reject.
SM (00:32:33):
Then the Call of Civil Rights was the uniting force was, "We Shall Overcome." That was the song, voices and-
WT (00:32:44):
Well, can I go off in two directions with that?
SM (00:32:45):
Yes.
WT (00:32:46):
One is, I think one of the big problems of the conservative movement in the (19)60s was its inability to support the legitimate goals of the civil rights movement and the breakdown of segregation. And so, that ended up hurting conservatives and more specifically Republicans by becoming too associated with segregationist in the undying south and discrimination, wherever it was in the country, by not identifying with the Civil Rights Movement. So in a retrospect afterthought, I think a number of conservatives now recognize that that was a very serious problem for the movement for us as individuals. But if taken out of that context of civil rights, the We Shall Overcome, is certainly an attitude and an approach that most [inaudible] would agree with and could be reflected basically after the defeat of Goldwater in 1964. Their rededication to the cause and the movement, We Shall Overcome, would be an accurate description as they went on to say, "Well, yeah. We got trapped, but we are not going to go away and take our marbles and go home. We are going to rededicate ourselves that we shall indeed overcome."
SM (00:34:22):
The Free Speech Movement and I have talked to a lot of people about this, the one from (19)64, (19)65 with Mario Savio and Jack Weinberg and Bettina Aptheker, that group, some historians even on the left have said that the historic history has not done justice to that event because of the fact they isolated it in (19)64, (19)65 from all the other protests that took place in the late (19)60s. But then other books say that was the precursor and the drive for protests on college campuses. What was YAF? That you have written extensively in the book on this, but this is a very important thing because it's about free speech. And the basic central thesis was, and I remember Mario Salvio talking to about it, there is a brand-new book out on Mario Salvio by Robbie Cohen from NYU. And that is that ideas, the university should be about ideas, not about corporate control on universities. And so, they looked upon this. They were not planning to do protests, it just seemed to happen because the administration denied their right to hand out literature off campus right near Sayer Gate. And what happened is that you unified even the conservative students, when the students were told they could not do something, it was an amazing mistake on the part of the administration at that time. But your thoughts on The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and YAF's response to it. Are you still there? Hello? [inaudible] You still there? What? Shit. [inaudible] just asked you a question about the Young Americans for Freedom's response to The Free Speech Movement in (19)64, (19)65 at Berkeley.
WT (00:37:33):
Right. Divided and when it started out for the local YAF chapter at Berkeley was supportive of it. The whole movement began over distribution of political literature on campus. And the administration had ruled that you could not distribute any political literature on campus because it was state government property and there was no solicitation allowed on big government property, like an office building or something. And so, they expelled a guy who thought, questioned, he was really on the border apparently, whether he was on campus or off campus at this point nowadays, they expelled him. They had him in the car ready to take him away, and the students all just surrounded the car. And eventually, I think he and a policeman were in there for 24 hours or something like that before they could rescue him. And that is what started the whole thing. And so, in that context, the YAF chapter stood with the, yeah, I think we call it the [inaudible]. Other groups opposed. As it got on, it became not so much free speech for everyone, but free speech for us, but no speech, right? For anyone else. And therefore, when people wanted to debate issues, there was no debate because there was only one right side, left side. So, from that point on, it became not a question of free speech on campus, but really who is going to control the campus? Whether to let the student activists or the administration [inaudible] control. And at that point, yeah, on almost every campus, yeah, I do not want to say they were defenders of the establishment, but in effect they were defenders of order on campus.
SM (00:39:50):
How about the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg? Because he was big. He was actually speaking on college campuses and there was a lot of-
WT (00:40:01):
Yeah.
SM (00:40:01):
That was big.
WT (00:40:03):
Yeah, it was. And I think the only thing I could say is that they would, yeah, it would have been YAF would have been opposed mainly because he was perceived and rightly so, as part of an anti-war leftist movement that was against the war in Vietnam. And less concerned about the issue of disclosing information as contrasted with just him as the spokesman for the left.
SM (00:40:35):
How about the Chicago 8 Trial? Which is these names here that I have on my list are the eight defendants, and their two main lawyers. So, they were well known left activists, all of them.
WT (00:40:48):
Yeah. YAF would have been opposed to every bit of that and their actions and their efforts to defend themselves. So yeah, that was an issue that certainly was talked about after the 1968 Convention where all that writing took place.
SM (00:41:10):
Now I get kind of in particular here in some of these other ones, what was the Young Americans for Freedom's thoughts on the American Indian Movement? A lot of West Coast colleges were really linked to this, California, Oregon. And so, the takeover of Alcatraz in (19)69 was pretty big. And then of course the tragedy Wounded Knee in (19)73. And then where was YAF on the aim?
WT (00:41:41):
I do not think actively involved. Not actively involved. It was not a front burner issue for the organization. And if they actually took a stand on it, I cannot recall it.
SM (00:42:00):
Some say the very big major last protest, 1969 in Washington, the Moratorium?
WT (00:42:07):
Right.
SM (00:42:07):
Where was YAF on that?
WT (00:42:10):
Totally opposed. Organized against it. That was the occasion of the start of what was referred to as the Tell it to Lanoy Movement with distribution of literature and speakers on campuses, not on the date of the big rally in DC but surrounding it from the board some after. The message that YAF was saying is, "You're talking to the wrong people. Tell it Lanoy. If you want to stop the slaughter and the murder of children and the bombing and everything else, tell it to Lanoy, which is the force that is trying to overtake the Soviet government.
SM (00:42:53):
And then two other real strong activist groups.
WT (00:43:00):
Okay. Yeah.
SM (00:43:01):
Yeah. Earth Day in (19)70, the Environmental Movement, and of course the Gay and Lesbian Movement from Stonewall in (19)69. They all evolved and took their lead from.
WT (00:43:12):
Well Earth Day, I think was a concern that, and the movement and the environmentalists were trying to restrict and limit the American business and the capitalist system. At that point in time, I think that was more the concern and the focus on the issue itself. Stonewall, fully oblivious to it, I think as an organization. And if social security is the third rail of American politics, to a large degree at that period of time and throughout the (19)70s, and I am going to say almost all the (19)80s, in the organization, homosexuality was probably the third rail of the Conservative Movement. And this is a period of time when virtually all homosexuals, female or male were, as the expression goes, in the closet. It existed. There were a number of gays who were involved. I do not know of any lesbians per se, but a number of male gays who were involved in the Conservative Movement through that period of time. And it was not an issue that was discussed with any extent. I think it was predominant probably in the organization what was culturally the accepted mode of the time that homosexuality was not something that was accepted as, I do not want to use the word normal, but as the norm and one's sexual orientation was not discussed in public. So, what happens later on in the organization, and by that, I mean by late, early (19)90s, is the strain comes in that is very anti-homosexual and start talking about sodomites and all of this stuff, which certainly not anywhere [inaudible].
SM (00:45:46):
I know that in some of my interviews, because I have interviewed some major gay leaders and activists, and their dislike of Ronald Reagan is so intense because of the AIDS crisis. And when you mentioned the word, and these are the activists, these are the gay and lesbian activists of then and now, he is despised because he would not even talk about the issue, would not even recognize it as an issue. So, when you're talking about AIDS around (19)81 to (19)85, that is a serious issue for them.
WT (00:46:20):
Yes. You are right. And I do not think, and it probably was overlooked in the [inaudible] and regarded as, "Well, if you shut down the bath houses, maybe there would not be AIDs," kind of, which was an emotional and irrational reaction to it.
SM (00:46:43):
How about the Women's Movement and the formation of the National Organization For Women?
WT (00:46:49):
Right.
SM (00:46:49):
It became very powerful. And there has been many offshoots of that group as well, but that particular-
WT (00:46:55):
Well, this is again, I think sort of like we talked about the impetus of the free speech movement at Berkeley. This is similar. I think at the beginning of the Woman's Movement, there was a good deal of support, but not just solely among females in the organization, but in general for what the objectives were of equal treatment and opportunities and non-discrimination against females. And I go in the book to a discussion of that in the early (19)70s, there was a number of articles that were written pro and con, and letters pro and con on the Woman's Movement. And I think the one thing in YAF was the use of the Women's Movement by the political left as an organizing tool. They were opposed to, in distinction, to the objective of the Women's Movement, which was equal treatment. There were even some, the Equal Rights Amendment came up about the early (19)70s period and associated with this. And while most in the YAF were against that for amending the Constitution, there were a few supporters, particularly some female leaders in the organization saying that, "Well, this is the only way you can guarantee that there is equal treatment of females." So, there's a little bit of diversity on that issue.
SM (00:48:28):
And my talks with some of the women feminists, many look at Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan as mainstream. And of course, Bella Abzug is more out there in the extremes. This is a very sensitive area, the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets. The whole issue of black power with, as someone said to me, when you start saying Black Panthers, you better define who you're talking about. Because there were so many different personalities from Huey Newton to the two Cleavers, Kathleen and Eldridge, Bobby Seal, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael toward the end when he left SNCC and certainly the death of Fred Hampton and Dave Hilliard and Elaine Brown, the list goes on and on. Angela Davis was not a Black Panther. So, your thoughts on what did YAF think of the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets from the Chicano Movement?
WT (00:49:28):
Yeah, okay. Certainly the Black Berets, the Black Panthers or sorry. There is the two. Very much opposed to them, wrote a lot against them, excuse me, felt they were part of the Left Wing Movement on campuses and in communities, were using violence, like the Malcolm X, by any means necessary. And so, were totally opposed to their methodology. In terms of their objectives, some of which they might have supported, which was empowerment for Black community and entrepreneurial opportunities. But it was certainly their methodology that was totally opposed. Brown Berets, the question might be directed best to somebody who was in California or Arizona or the West Coast. They were a non-entity for us who were then living on the coast. And so, I do not think there was much. Later on, there is reaction against Cesar Chavez, the great boycott and the United Farm Workers Union, but that is different from the Brown Berets.
SM (00:50:51):
Did they support that?
WT (00:50:51):
No, not at all.
SM (00:50:54):
See? The Brown Berets are awful. They are also very strong in Newark and New York City because that is where Puerto Rican and they're a very strong group and they really admire the Black Panthers.
WT (00:51:10):
Yeah and that certainly... No, YAF did not have any real involvements or attention directed towards them.
SM (00:51:19):
That whole, "I have a dream," speech in '63 because it really brought forth most of the civil rights leaders of that time and Dr. King and Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph and the list goes on and on. Where was YAF when that major march was happening in '63? And then even as years later, Dr. King went against the Vietnam War and he was criticized heavily even within the African American community, but what were the thoughts on Dr. King, SNCC, SCLC, CORE?
WT (00:51:55):
I think that, "I have a Dream," speech was one that even YAF certainly since then, most conservatives have said that is a great speech and that our children should grow up in a society where they are based upon the [inaudible] their character and not the color of their skin. All of that has been recited by conservatives nowadays. But I think even back then, most conservatives would have been and the YAF would have been, "Yes, we agree with that." The march on Washington more in terms of geez, this is the right way to go about it in a society based on the rule of law. At that point, it did not [inaudible] their turn. And certainly, when he gave the Vietnam War speech, that was something that YAFers would have turned against him.
SM (00:52:54):
How about the whole concept of non-violent protests? Because the Civil Rights Movement in the early (19)60s through right probably up to the time Dr. King died, and even in maybe with the other leaders too, like Ralph Abernathy has said, "Go ahead, disrupt. Non-violent protest, Gandhi, go to jail for your beliefs," that kind of thing. Where would the YAF stand on that?
WT (00:53:19):
Probably supporting the methodology to some extent, although they would not have been supporters of both [inaudible]. Non-violent protests would be something that they would still be in favor of certainly.
SM (00:53:36):
And I think we have already talked about the student protest because when you think of student protest, you do think of Columbia (19)68, Harvard Square, Kent State in (19)70. The tragedy at Wisconsin, Berkeley, and I know in all the SUNY systems and all the Ohio colleges, Ohio University for one, a major protest for years.
WT (00:54:01):
And the YAF stood against all that and was organizing as much as possible on campuses using a couple approaches, one of which was what was called Majority Coalition, which was the distribution for blue buttons, stood for peace on [inaudible]. Taking the position that students had a contract with university and education classes should be held, campuses should not be shut down. And a few instances, YAF leaders actually sued administrations for the loss of tuition by virtue of closing the campus early and/or suspending classes for a period of time to go along with the-
SM (00:54:48):
Which happened a lot after Kent State-
WT (00:54:52):
Yes.
SM (00:54:52):
Yeah. The other group is the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which really became strong in the early (19)70s. And Bobby Muller is a very well-known Vietnam Veteran who, when he went to war, he was gung ho. But when he came back, he said with a lot of Vietnam Veterans Against the War said that he realized that America is not always the good guy. And he has actually been saying that his entire life in all the things he's done. And of course he was paralyzed for the service. Your thoughts on what YAF thought about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and that mentality that Bobby had?
WT (00:55:34):
Well, two things. I think, number one, we thought that they were wrong on the position on the war. And that the war was a legitimate war against communist aggression from the north. And that we were right to be aiding our allies in South Vietnam and with all kinds of agenda to it like maybe they ought to be more involved. Maybe they ought to be more Vietnamization. Maybe we ought to relying more on both Vietnam itself to carry the war and non-American soldiers, but still to be supportive of that effort. So, we would have disagreed with the whole approach or the whole position of the organization's approach.
SM (00:56:19):
Let me turn my tape here-
WT (00:56:21):
And I think we would also, YAF would have also feel that in the vast majority of cases, nothing being absolute, America is the good guy, and America stands for certain values, but are applicable not only in North America or in a geographical territory [inaudible].
SM (00:56:42):
Right. I know Bobby Muller and Ron Kovic were two of the leading anti-war activists. I know we talk about John Kerry, but he was not even in the same league with those two. Hold on, I have to turn my tape over. Hold. Yeah. We're almost under these vote sections here. And was YAF inbound in prison rights, too? What did they think about there were a lot of happenings in the (19)60s about what happened at Attica with the Prison Rights in (19)71? And certainly Angela Davis made the news with the George Jackson situation at San Quentin. Where did YAF stand on all the Prison Rights issues?
WT (00:57:28):
Nowhere. I do not think it was something on their radar or their attention span. Though I do not think there was any position on that.
SM (00:57:44):
The whole-
WT (00:57:44):
On Angela Davis who was described as a communist and if they were in opposition, anything, pretty much anything she did, virtue of right knowledge.
SM (00:57:53):
Did they ever have any thoughts on George Jackson because he had kind of symbolized the inmates at the time?
WT (00:58:04):
Not that I am aware of.
SM (00:58:07):
Yeah. The whole thing, the concept of what the Young Americans of Freedom thought about the hippies, the Yippies, the counterculture, Woodstock, the Summer of Love and of course the tragedy of Altamont, where were they on all those kinds of cultural things?
WT (00:58:24):
Divided. There was an element, particularly those who consider themselves more libertarian who closely identified with that. And the expression of individual freedom and individual rights that they associated with that. And then there was a more traditionalist element to well, they might have liked music and things like that, felt that it was going too far. So, it was really divided.
SM (00:58:59):
Yeah. I get right into the music here, because you cannot talk about the (19)60s, early (19)70s without the music. I mean, it was a very political force. It was a cultural force. It was a... Well, just a pleasure force for many and you're talking about the rock musicians of the period, the folk music, the Motown sound, even country in Western was really evolving at this time. Where was YAF? And were they listening to all this music?
WT (00:59:28):
Yes. Very much so and I think that you get different music reviews actually in the magazine of some of the art at the time and trying to interpret politically some of what the artists were expressing. Certainly the Beatles song Revolution was one that was very much listened to and in depth was endeared to that song. They had a poster with the people on it of [inaudible] because it was an anti, if you recall the word though, it was anti-revolt message. Yep. [inaudible]
SM (01:00:17):
How about John Lennon's Give Peace A Chance and Imagine?
WT (01:00:23):
Yeah. Those two would be exceptions to what I just said.
SM (01:00:24):
Oh, okay.
WT (01:00:27):
I think they would have been politically not agreed with. Maybe Imagine a little bit, but certainly not Give Peace a Chance. But not even Imagine. I mean, they would listen to it, but the words, they would tone two-note probably. Yeah. Watergate, Ford Pardon, Carter Amnesty. Young Americans for Freedom divorced itself from Richard Dixon in 1971, along with many other conservative politicians, individual, and was not supportive of Nixon well before Watergate ever broke. They were involved in the movement for trying to nominate John Ashbrook as a protest to Nixon in the 1952 primaries. When the 1972 election came along and McGovern was Democrat's choice, they were certainly opposed to McGovern, but they did not like Nixon. So, what the YAF formed was local clubs on campuses called Youth Against McGovern, indicating that we really could not come right out [inaudible] Nixon because we did not agree with him and without giving [inaudible] a bad name. But we were certainly an opposed to governing the way he [inaudible] the country. The Ford pardon? I do not think we really had a position too much on that, but Carter's Amnesty, we were opposed to. Well, opposed to [inaudible] those two had gone [inaudible].
SM (01:02:13):
I added these last two. Obviously, they probably did not like Black students with guns at Cornell Campus, but the historic event of the (19)68 Olympics with Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists. They were not Black... We had Tommie on our campus. They were not Black Panthers. They get upset when they mentioned that they do not even like the Black Panthers. It was Black power to them. And just, that was a major event in (19)68 along with all the other things, but-
WT (01:02:44):
Yeah. I think like everything else, it symbolized left on campus and the Left Movement in America. Probably no focus on them individually too much or what they did. Although it was...
SM (01:03:01):
That meeting at Sharon was very historic in 1960. For the record, I know it is all in the book and I know you are a lot of things, but who was present? Whose idea was it to meet? Who were some of the personalities that were present and who went on to greater fame and other organizations? And why was there a feeling that student activists needed to organize this group on college campus around the country?
WT (01:03:35):
Yeah. I will try to summarize this succinctly again. The late 1960s, excuse me, late 1950s there started to be a little bit of an organization of a conservative orient individuals. Started with, I am going to say the National Student Defense Act and the program- And the program of giving scholarships to certain students and also grants to certain universities for science and other things, kind of... I guess kind of a reaction to the US realization that technologically we were not quite as advance as we should be. And part of that was the loyalty of that. Students who received funding, had scholarships to study on, had to sign an agreement that they were to defend the constitution and support the constitution and that they were not involved in any organizations they advocate to be of the government. There was a movement from the left... Oh, a number of campuses and college presidents said, "oh, we cannot do this because this is in denial of academic freedom, cannot make them sign it". And so there was a movement in Congress led by John F. Kennedy to repeal the loyalty of provision. And this was like 1959. And a few students led by two people, David Frankie and Doug Caddy, who were then students at Georgetown. George Washington and Georgetown respectively. Started organizing national students for the Loyalty Oath and made contacts primarily, I believe, through what was then the young republicans on college campus across the country lined up one or more individuals on 120 campuses and wrote congressmen and testified on Capitol Hill. For various unknown reasons the repeal never went through. I think it passed in the Senate, but never got a hearing in the house or something like that. Anyway, that was the impetus. That was followed up quickly by the 1960 Republican Convention in Chicago where a group of young, who were enamored of Barry Goldwater and his then just recently released The Conscience of Conservative, came together to organize youth for Goldwater for Vice President push at the Chicago Convention to nominate him. There was a subsidiary of that that was also supporting Walter Judd, who at that time was keynote speaker and was a congressman from Minnesota as Vice President. Marvin Leman, who was kind of an impresario of the right and organizer of many paper organizations of Frank. Basically underwrote the funding for both youth for Goldwater for Vice President and youth for... Well, Judd kiddingly said "the only time in history, that two candidates’ for Vice President were both funded with same American Express card."
SM (01:07:32):
Oh my gosh.
WT (01:07:32):
So, these people got to know each other first through mail, I guess because we did not have any other, and telephone on the loyalty of issue. And then physically came together in Chicago to try to organize this way. At the end of that, there were two meetings at the end of the convention. One Goldwater came by and thanked the youth for Goldwater people and said that he had made a speech on the force, said, "conservatives grow up. If you want to take back this party, and I think you can just get organized". But then he came and he met with the youth for Goldwater people and said, "I think you ought to form a permanent organization, and if you do, I will support you". Likewise, the next day there was the... Marvin Leman had a meeting with both of the... from the leadership, both of those gentlemen. And that is where the discussion focused around, "we ought to form an organization. Well we have got to have a meeting, where will we have it?" And somebody, I think it was Leman, somebody said, "well, why do not we ask Bill Buckley if we can have it at his family upstate?" And that was the purpose for the meeting. Buckley family, his mother actually, it is her house, she agreed to do it. And then Caddy, who was working for the McGraw-Edison company, was given the time to organize and send all invitations that went to, I believe 120 college and undergrad graduate students, law students and others inviting them to come to the meeting at Sharon. This would have been... The convention was in July of (19)60, this would have been in August. They were invited at their own expense to come to a meeting in September 9 and 11 in Sharon, Connecticut at the Buckley family at Bay. Some 95, 96 people showed up, none of whom were over the age of 27. And I think, I do not know if there was a high school, there might have been one or two high schools. The rest of them were undergrad, grad and law school, or a very small number of 15 or so who were young professionals. And that is the meeting where the organization came into being. Buckley and Bill Buckley himself was there, along with Bill Rusher, who was there at the publisher, Marvin Leman Vic Milione, who was the president of Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, now known as Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
SM (01:10:49):
Oh yeah. Right in Delaware. Yep.
WT (01:10:54):
And Frank Pousel, who was Buckley's brother-in-law, had been the ghost writer for [inaudible] conservatives. Those five guys were all regarded as too old as senior mentors. And they were all, Buckley at that time was 35. The others were all in their 30, but they were too old. I mean, this is how young the conservative movement was at that time. That these guys, none of them would reach 40 with an outer state movement. And who were they? There were a couple who became Congressman, Bob... No, Bob [inaudible] John Kolbe from longtime congressman from Arizona Was there, there were a number of writers, other individuals, the list they [inaudible].
SM (01:12:00):
What and what were their ultimate, were their main goals when they left after that meeting. What were the main goals they wanted to accomplish?
WT (01:12:08):
Number one, organize. And come together so they could network and share their experiences and try to advance conservative principles on college campuses and in community. And as a secondary goal, as a more specific one, was to advance the possible candidacy of Barry Goldwater.
SM (01:12:34):
Yeah, that is important because I am going to skip 9-A here for a second. I want to go right to 10 because this is something... Even if it is just general knowledge, people who do not read a lot of history but know basic information, and I have heard this a long time, that the 64 Goldwater Miller campaign has often been somewhat misunderstood with the respect to its importance in American politics in the last half of 20th century. In the years following the election, people remember how one side of the election was, Goldwater was basically destroyed by Johnson in the election. However, it was a major step in the creation of the conservative party and weigh it's influence in American politics that had gone unreported. Why is... When we think of that election, we think of that great quote from Goldwater, that we think of... and we think of the pick the person that no one really knew whose daughter has gone on to become a pretty good political commentator herself. And then of course that he was a good senator, but he should not have been running for president. Yet. He was so important.
WT (01:13:49):
Yeah-yeah, exactly.
SM (01:13:51):
And so, people downplay this moment because he got creamed.
WT (01:13:55):
Yeah-yeah, yeah, exactly.
SM (01:13:57):
Your thoughts on anything there on that?
WT (01:14:00):
Okay. All right, let us go back. In the early (19)60s when YAF was founded after the 1960 presidential... YAF was founded just after the presidential election. Well, let us go beyond that election. Kennedy's elected. Goldwater is the hero of the right, particularly among young conservatives. And there a growing number of them on college campuses to a large degree in that period of the early (19)60s, there was a radical movement on college campuses. It was of conservatives. Conservatives were the outspoken advocates. There is a quote I have in the book from one student at University of Wisconsin and he says, "when I walk around campus with my Goldwater button on, you feel the thrill of treason". And I think that summarizes to a large extent the attitude of people who were in YAF, who were backing Goldwater is we are doing something that is against the establishment that is going to change society. And here is the guy who can lead it. Conscience of a conservative became through its paperback edition a tremendous seller on college campuses and an influence. So, Goldwater became very much the leader and the political, I mean Buckley was somewhat the ideological leader, philosophical leader, but Goldwater was the political figure around whom everyone in the organization and on the right really identified, but there was no one else. And what was building up in our minds and in Goldwater's mind and in many people’s, mind was a clash of philosophical and ideological importance in 1964, when Kennedy would defend liberalism and Goldwater would defend conservatism in America would have the great debate over which way the country ought to be moving. Goldwater and Kennedy is... From Goldwater's perspective, at least in the books and things that I have read, was felt a friendship with Kennedy. And they were individually liked each other, but obviously disagreed on philosophical positions. And Goldwater had this, whether it's a totally optimistic idea or not, but he reports that he had talked with Kennedy and they had even discussed the possibility of these are just the early days before a lot of securities concerns now that they would go on a plane from city to city and debate probably never would have come into being, but that is at least what he said or has said. But that is indicative of the way he was approaching that 1964 election and many people were. Then comes November of 22nd of 1963, the tragedy in Dallas, which results obviously not only in the assassination of the president and to the White House of Lyndon Johnson. But in the media at that time, a black mark on conservatives, the blame is, even though there's obviously a reason for it, and Lee Harvey Oswald was who he was, that somehow conservatives because they were strong and in Dallas were responsible for all this. You still there?
SM (01:17:39):
Yep, I am here.
WT (01:17:42):
Okay, because I am getting bleeps on my phone. I do not know what is going on.
SM (01:17:47):
Oh, I hope your power is not going out again.
WT (01:17:49):
Oh, hold on for just a minute.
SM (01:17:50):
Yep.
WT (01:17:52):
Oh, it says low battery. Hold on, let me...
SM (01:17:57):
You have your regular phone?
WT (01:17:59):
Pardon?
SM (01:17:59):
Do you have your regular phone landline or?
WT (01:18:03):
No, this is the landline. Hold on, see if I can get another one.
SM (01:18:06):
Okay.
WT (01:18:06):
Maybe, hold on, [inaudible].
(01:18:07):
Are you there?
SM (01:18:20):
Yep, I am here.
WT (01:18:21):
Okay. All right. Okay. There is going to be this great debate and then comes Johnson and Johnson's totally different guy and Goldwater is totally demoralized. Probably does not want to run for them at that point, but he says, and I quote this in the book, "they came to me and they said there were all these young people who wanted me to run and were encouraged and developed all across the country". And so, I said, "okay, I will go". That is probably kind of a little bit of literary licensed by Goldwater there and his motivation. But anyway, it does stress how important the youth movement across the country was in backing Goldwater and motivate him to run.
SM (01:19:15):
Well. I am glad.
WT (01:19:15):
And that is it.
SM (01:19:17):
Yeah. Well, I am glad you present this because, when people are reading these oral history interviews, I want them to learn and I... It is like, for example, when Harry Summers, I do not know if you know Colonel Summers, before he passed away, we had him come to Westchester University to talk about the Vietnam War and he said the one thing that they never teach in courses on the Vietnam War, on the university campuses, is the military point of view. And so we had Harry coming and then he got very sick and then he died. And so same thing, certain things are left out, I do not want things left out.
WT (01:20:02):
Yeah, exactly. And that is it. So, it was from that Goldwater movement that so many people who were active in the (19)90s and the early part of the 21st century in conservative movement really got their start. Whether they were high school students, many of them were, or college students or young adults. And the important lesson, I guess also, that I would emphasize is, and I think this is a message for some of the people who are involved in the Tea Party perhaps, although a different outcome there, is they did not give up after that defeat, which was a resounding defeat. They said, it is time to organize and keep fighting and went on in the ones in California elected Reagan as governor in (19)66, and then in New York in (19)70 elected Jim Buckley and were involved in Reagan's presidential campaign.
SM (01:21:02):
That goes right... I am actually going to do questions 11 and 12 before 9-A. And that is that, when Ronald Reagan came to power in California, he took on two issues, which was obviously the law and order issue to stop the student protests and the destruction of the classes, and particularly against the free speech movement and the people's parks situation (19)69. And then he fired the President Kurt, for not being tough enough with students. And then of course he wanted to end the welfare state. He was against the system of welfare and he hoped to stop it. And he used those two issues. Also, law and order and welfare when he ran for president, yet became connected to Ronald Reagan in (19)76 and (19)80 and beyond. How important was their role in his election as governor in California? And then of course his election as President of the United States?
WT (01:21:56):
Very important in, let us take (19)66, the first election, it was people who were associated with YAF who were head of the students were Reagan [inaudible] and went on... As a matter of fact, YAF was able to recruit at that time, there was a guy by the name of Sam Yorty who had been the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles.
SM (01:22:22):
Oh yeah, I remember. Yep.
WT (01:22:22):
Democratic Governors nomination, the leader of the youth for Yorty, the leader of youth for Christopher. There was a former San Francisco mayor by the name of George Christopher who ran against Reagan in the Republican Party and both of their youth leaders joined YAF along with the people who were involved in the Reagan campaign and all backed Reagan in the general election. Who were some of these people? Sean Steele, who is now the Republican National Committee man from California and is the former Republican state chairman of California, was the head of high school students for Reagan. And later on, the national board of YAF. Dana Rohrabacher, who's a congressman from Orange County since the last 20 years, I guess.
SM (01:23:16):
Yes. He has been on TV a lot.
WT (01:23:21):
Yeah. He was one of the high school leaders for Reagan in 66 and went on to be very involved and eventually ended up being a speech writer at the White House when Reagan went to president, prior to being elected to Congress. Bill Cinosino who is a very active political consultant in California was also a leader of the youth for Reagan. I think he just started at USC then. So those were a few, there were a number of others who were very active in his election. And it came to the point where as Cinosino and others said from that point on, YAF and Reagan were tied at the hip, and whatever Reagan did as governor was reflective of YAF, and somewhat vice versa. When YAF got into some ideological disputes at its 1969 convention, and some of the more libertarian members were going off doing things like advocating the legalization of marijuana and draft resistant, a few other things like that. Some of them were removed from the organization, but Reagan was very much concerned about what was happening to the organization. In my book, I cite some correspondence...
SM (01:24:49):
Yes-yes.
WT (01:24:49):
... From Bill Buckley about this and indicative of how closely the two were associated for YAF, whatever Reagan did was a reflection on YAF, but vice versa, whatever YAF did was a reflection on Reagan. And Reagan was obviously looking to his 1970 reelection.
SM (01:25:10):
Yes.
WT (01:25:11):
And concerned about what was this youth group doing, that might embarrass him. But not that he wanted to divorce himself from it, but he wanted to be concerned to make sure was on the right track. So that is it.
SM (01:25:25):
Yeah. You do a great job in the book of explaining that in 69 when students from Democratic Society was having their issues in terms of the direction they were going, and of course they went the wrong direction with the weather men, and then many quit SDS, this same time was the timeframe that these battles were going on for the conscience of the young Americans for Freedom.
WT (01:25:54):
Exactly.
SM (01:25:55):
And so that... See, that is an important part of history that also has to be known.
WT (01:26:00):
Right-right. I agree.
SM (01:26:03):
I have always wondered your thoughts on the press because, and many people that I have interviewed for this project say, the press always loves to sensationalize the bad and not really talk about what is the good. When you, please describe the press in the (19)60s and early (19)70s and white groups like SDS, the Weathermen, the Panthers, AIM, Vietnam vets against the war, Brown Berets, now, all these other groups, environmental groups, received greater press than YAF. Why was YAF shut out, so to speak, and what was their stand? Well, why was the press not talking more about the Young Americans for Freedom?
WT (01:26:41):
Well, it depends. There was some discussion, not as much national, but I think I cite a few things in my book, a couple articles in Parade Magazine, there was an interview with Philip Appaloosa at the time was college director at [inaudible] Playboy, and there was some coverage and some local news, but mainly the coverage occurred when we were having counter demonstrations or rallies in opposition to the left. I do think that the left caught the attention of the media because of the kinds of activities they engaged in, the more drama that is associated with or takeover or protests of one sort or another. And admittedly, those things, perhaps bad news is more reflective in the media than good news. And that is just kind of the way it is. People do good deeds every day, but they do not get in the news.
SM (01:27:53):
What was their stand on the Vietnam War it's my understanding that they oppose the war, but received little coverage.
WT (01:28:00):
Now, who opposed the war?
SM (01:28:02):
The YAF.
WT (01:28:05):
No. No.
SM (01:28:05):
That is not true?
WT (01:28:07):
That is not true. I do not know of anyone of substance in the organization that opposed the war. As we get into the (19)70s, there is a discussion in how important that ought to be pushed as an issue, and some people in the organization are getting very depressed about the outcome of the war, but I do not think they... And they said we ought to downplay our involvement in support of the war, but not that they were opposed to the war.
SM (01:28:44):
Do you like the term boomer generation? Is there a better term that you feel describes this, 74 to 79 million born between (19)46 and (19)64?
WT (01:28:57):
No, that I think it is fine, and I think it is the reflection of population patterns that occurred after the World War II. So, no, I do not have any problem with it.
SM (01:29:12):
I am going to get to 9-A eventually here, but I want to mention also about the fact that Dana, I have worked with the Young Americas Foundation for many years when I worked in the university with Pat Coyle and...
WT (01:29:21):
Oh yeah.
SM (01:29:22):
I got to know Ron Robinson just in the past year, and I had Michelle Easton on our campus. But what is interesting is, and I have had some conversations with Pat about this several years back, and that is that, I am an activist and he is doing organizing activists who are conservatives. And I have always had this feeling that when, this is my question here, when one thinks of activists, oftentimes some people think of liberals, not conservatives, but activism is no political boundaries. Everyone can be an activist. And so it is. Do you feel as a former leader of YAF that groups like YAF are not considered activists by the media because they are conservative, not liberal? It is just something that I have always had a question on.
WT (01:30:10):
No, I am not sure that is true. I think it probably was true during the period of time that we were reflecting on mainly here. But I think if we look at the time today, the media portrays the Tea party as activist, and indeed they are. And so, I am not quite sure. I think it's just that they did not give that much coverage to what YAF was doing. It is not that they did not regard them as activists, but I may be wrong on that.
SM (01:30:44):
We already talked about number 15, so we do not have to go over that again before we get 16. I want to read this for the record. This is a question I have asked everyone from day one. This is just a question now, it is an observation. The extreme rank, and I am going to read it for the record. The extreme right and conservative forces like to blame the generation that grew up after World War II for many of the problems we have in American society today due to the sexual revolution, the breakup of the American family, loss of church and synagogue attendants, extensive drug culture, the rise in the divorce rate, the "I want it now" mentality that some say caused the current financial crisis in America, i.e. A consumption society due to the fact that they were oftentimes spoiled as kids. The creation of the welfare state mentality where people ask for handouts or expect something for doing nothing or no sense of responsibility, lack of respect for people and authority, people and authority from all types of professions and leadership, lack of law and order due to student citizen protests in the (19)60s, (19)70s, and in some (19)50s, too many led to violence, arrogance, " we are right and you are wrong" mentality, extensive rights, complaints, indoctrination over education in our schools over higher learning. How do you respond as a fellow conservative to these criticisms? Sort a generation of 74 to 79 million who grew up after World War II and challenged the way they were brought up in the (19)50s via actions in the (19)60s, (19)70s, (19)80s, and beyond. And I end by saying, many people believe that this is really about the culture wars, your thoughts, knowing we went through a period in the late (19)80s, (19)90s and beyond where political correctness was used every day. I saw it every day in the university. It's less so today, leaders who have made negative comments about the excesses of the (19)60s and (19)70s include Newt Gingrich in (19)94. George Will and many of his columns over the years, David Horowitz, who went from an extreme leftist to extreme member of the right governor Huckabee on his TV show, Fox Channel, and people like O'Reilly, Beck on Fox, and of course Limbaugh on Radio. Your thoughts.
WT (01:33:08):
Wow, that is a tough one. First of all, I think you have obviously cited a number of the issues that have changed in American society. I think some for the good and some not for the good. And it has been, in a sense, a growth of individual expression in many ways, and a breakdown of the social barriers and mores that listed before. But I think there were all kinds of people who came out of this generation, and I do not think you can face a blanket responsibility on them. So yes, there have been some negatives, but there has been an awful lot of positives that have come out of the period of time in terms of our ability technologically and otherwise to communicate and to operate. Certainly, during this period of time, the downfall of the Soviet Union and international communist, certainly a positive, the internet, the technological development that are the [inaudible] So there is pluses in the minuses, and I do not think you can divide an entire generation. So.
SM (01:34:36):
Do you think that a lot of this is, we are still going through culture wars from that period, and we see...
WT (01:34:42):
Yeah. Yeah.
SM (01:34:42):
We seem to not be able to get over the (19)60s and (19)70s in just about anything.
WT (01:34:47):
Yes-yes, yes, that is true. And I think we are, and we are still fighting some of those wars, and these were issues that were not present when YAF was created. And through it is first period of time. We sometimes overlook, and I think I mentioned this in the book, I will just cite it here, that it was not until 1962 that the Supreme Court in (19)63, the Supreme Court came out with the prohibition on prayer in the public schools and Bible reading the readings prayer position, and then Ingovit versus Patali did not come out after YAF was founded. Of course, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act came after that. And Roe versus Wade was not until 1973. So, in the early years in the formation of the organization, there were the so-called social issued were not a factor, and even later, as I talked about the connection to the women's movement in the [inaudible] there were divisions and diversity opinion... [inaudible] diversity of opinion. One of the founders at Sharon is a guy named Richard Cowan, who has devoted his life literally to legalization of marijuana, on an individual's right, I am an individual so I do whatever they want with their own body kind of libertarianism. Within the context yeah within the organization's history, social issues were not a dominant factor. Admittedly, again, as I indicated earlier, by the late (19)80s and on they had come with the remnant that is still around of what remains of the organization, they did become more of a rallying call.
SM (01:36:52):
Wow. The next question is detailed, broken into many parts. What were some of the issues that upset the Young Americans for Freedom students on a college campus in the (19)60s and (19)70s? How did they protest, how successful were they? And of course, we have already gone over they were upset with what happened at Columbia, Berkeley, Harvard, and Kent State and People's Park and college protests. But what were their tactics? How big were their numbers? Were they successful? Did they fail in areas? Of course, I know these are probably the areas and correct me if I am wrong, you have mentioned in your book that in areas where the left organized teach-ins, campuses being shut down, buildings taken over, classes disrupted, faculty use classrooms to discuss current issues not the material being studied, taking over offices where administration was centered, including presidential offices, faculty uniting with students, not allowing ROTC military recruiting on campus, empowering students to be part of all university decision making if such decisions were linked to the war, research money's coming in for research linked to the war, many church students tried to stop this, bringing controversial speakers to campus who encouraged increased protests and challenging the system. Where was YAFF on these situations and were there times when SDS and YAFF or other liberal groups united toward a cause like Vietnam and the draft? There is a lot involved in this question but...
WT (01:38:37):
Yeah. Okay. Back to how did they react, how did they protest these kinds of activities that were happening starting with the Berkeley and then Columbia and on? A couple different tactics we used, one was the creation of Majority Coalition. That is to try to unite other students and other organizations on campus as much as possible in opposition to the left takeover of the building, to the left's attempt to close down the universities and the violence that was occurring. Probably a good example of that was Columbia in (19)68 and then on. Majority Coalitions were then advocated throughout much of the (19)60s, (19)68, (19)69 period, as the approach to advising YAFF chapter to take. The main thing was "let us unite with whoever is with us for order on campus." And an outgrowth of that came from California, which was the Blue Button Movement and that is to distribute simple buttons were just blue, no words on them, to reflective of order and peace on campus and encourage students to wear those. There was some reaction in the organization to the Majority Coalition approach by saying, "Wait a minute, we are doing all the work why are not we getting any of the credit? We ought to be doing this as the YAFF chapter and not allow ourselves to be sucked into doing all the work for something amorphous like the Majority Coalition." In some places it was the YAFF chapter that actually did do this, organized meetings, had demonstrations, counter demonstrations and things like that. In the book I talk about some of the counter demonstrations at Columbia, at Kent State, at Ohio State and other places. They obviously were in favor of continuing ROTC and military recruiting, Dow Chemical recruiting on campus and expressed positions on that. The draft is an issue that YAFF, from 1966 on wanted to eliminate the draft. Yes, could be some common cause with organizations on the left, not necessarily SDS but other organizations on the left on the position of abolishing the draft. However, as I indicated before, YAFF was for peaceful efforts to get the draft abolished it was not in favor of violence or demonstrations [inaudible].
SM (01:41:37):
There seemed to be something happening in the late (19)70s and it was not disco. There was something happening in the late (19)70s that was leading toward Ronald Reagan being elected president and I think young conservatives were a very important part of this. And maybe it was the conservatives were coming back into power and there was burnout from what had happened previously since John Kennedy became president. Since that election major... This is my perception and correct me if I am wrong, since that election in 1980, major conservative actors rose to power. And organizations like Young America's Foundation, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, college Republicans have always been there. The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute seem to become a much more major force in our society. Please give me a list of some of the personalities who begin. Well, you have already done that but is that true? Did they really... Is this their era when they really came to fruition?
WT (01:42:43):
Yes, yes. And I think that not only... Probably started with the 1976 campaign of Reagan to Oppose Gerald Ford to the Republican nomination. And personally I was a delegate to Reagan I was living in Arkansas teaching political science at that time and organized for Reagan in the Republican primary in Arkansas and then got elected to delegate Kansas City. And so many of us, there were, I think in the book I cite there were 85 or 90 Gaff members who were either delegates or alternates to that convention all of whom were pledged to Reagan. And then that built through the 1980 when Reagan was really start, excuse me, starting to be the heir apparent within the party and in his election. And then when then Benning gets [inaudible] and so many of these people were the people who took key staff positions in the administration. And either those who did not do that were involved in some of these extra governmental organization by cited who were after their service there went to Heritage American Enterprise [inaudible] Institute and other places like that.
SM (01:44:17):
Would you say that... I am into this really magic moment period and anything in history. And to me, the rise of Ronald Reagan first came about... I am a young guy and I am watching TV in the fall of (19)63 and I see him for a half hour speaking on national television on black and white TV for Barry Goldwater.
WT (01:44:41):
Yeah. Fall of (19)64.
SM (01:44:43):
Yeah. There was something about that moment I knew there was something happening here.
WT (01:44:49):
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
SM (01:44:51):
He was a great speaker, number one. But it is the way he talked, it is the way he presented I said, there is something going on here.
WT (01:44:58):
And the message.
SM (01:44:59):
Yes.
WT (01:45:00):
And the message was important at that time too. Yes, exactly. That is the impetus of the whole movement for the remainder of the 20th century in many ways.
SM (01:45:11):
Yeah. When President Reagan came to Power East stated, "We are back." What did he mean by that?
WT (01:45:18):
I am sorry.
SM (01:45:19):
He said we are back. Was he talking about...
WT (01:45:23):
Yes. Okay. What did he mean by that? He meant by that the country was back as a force in society and the American people were back. We had come out of the period of Lyndon, of Jimmy Carter and the malaise, the sense of America has limits, we cannot do everything, we have... We're living in an era when American power has to be looked at in a limited and we have to tone down our expectations for the future. And what Reagan was saying "We are back." Meaning that no, that is not the case, that we are still a shining city on a hill, that there is a future, there is optimism and we are still going to be a force for good in the world.
SM (01:46:16):
And then when President Bush came to power, he said, president Bush won, he said the Vietnam syndrome is over. And most people laugh at that because Vietnam is still in all of our discussions on foreign policy. What did he mean by that?
WT (01:46:33):
Well, I think he was hoping that it meant that our role in society and in the world... That first of all that we were not divided domestically anymore and that our role in the world was much stronger than, we could take a more active role in the world. And I agree with what you said, the Vietnam syndrome was not over I think it is still present with much of the boomer generation.
SM (01:47:08):
One of the things and I have interviewed several scholars at conservative think tanks and I remember one person, it will be in his interview, said that I am here because it's hard to survive in a predominantly liberal culture in today's universities. Do you agree with what he said? Many of the scholars, they could be at any university and they can probably be very successful be teachers but because they are conservative scholars or thinkers. It is hard to survive in what they consider a predominantly liberal culture.
WT (01:47:46):
Okay.
SM (01:47:47):
You believe that?
WT (01:47:48):
Let me try to answer this a different way. Number one, I think you have to take into consider consideration individual personalities. Some people who would be conservative in that kind of environment would get a thrill out of it because they want to be different, they want to be the outspoken individual and they might actually thrive in that kind of situation. And I think if you look at a number who are on college campuses, you might find that. I think a Robert Fork or a Judge Scalia would thrive in that because they like being that kind of a person. Others might because of their personality that they are being isolated out, they are not getting the appointment to the right committees, they are not being moved up from associate to full professor, et cetera, et cetera. I think that is more an individual's response to the situation in which they find themselves. Now, as to me personally, if we want to just spend a minute on that, I taught at Arkansas State full-time for three years. I was in an environment that was most hospitable. The chairwoman was a Democrat but I'd say probably a fairly moderate conservative Democrat. The department had 10 members there were probably five of us who voted Republicans so it was [inaudible], that environment I taught as an adjunct and at so what was then called Southwest Texas State University and they brought the southwest Texas State University now, for four years. The chairman, I have no idea what his politics were but he and I got along fine and I got along fine with the other people and I did not feel any animosity there so personally that did not hit home. But I know as you have indicated, there are others who have said that was...
SM (01:50:02):
Yeah. Well, when I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly actually was at the CPAC conference this past year because she was going to be in the Washington DC area and she granted me an hour and I know she was very tired so I really appreciated it and then David Horowitz has been on our campus several times. But in their writings and conversations, they have stated that they think that the troublemakers of the (19)60s and early (19)70s are the people that run today's universities and control many of the academic departments. Do you believe this to be true and if this is true, where is the young Americans for Freedom, the student organizations on campus fighting this? And I emphasize that one of the contributions that many people say that has, of the boomer generation is the fact that in the studies departments at all universities, whether it be gay/lesbian studies, women's studies, holocaust, black studies, peace studies, Asian American studies, Chicano, black studies, women's studies, that this is one of the positives that came out of the boomer generation. And so, there is no question that one of the results of the (19)60s and (19)70s is that these areas became a reality in higher ed. Your thoughts on that is a contribution from the boomer generation and the number two, the troublemakers question.
WT (01:51:35):
Yes, one could say that is a contribution in that period of time and an outgrowth of the first question of the troublemakers being now in charge. And I say contribution not in a positive sense but I think all these are fake studies in many ways and they are so specialized that they do not really belong in a Liberal Arts environment. But yes, they are a contribution of that much of the people from the left in the (19)60s and the (19)70s had went into academic careers, hold many departments and that part of it I think is true. And we [inaudible]. Bernadine Thorn and her husband, Bill, whatever his name is...
SM (01:52:36):
Bill Airs.
WT (01:52:37):
Yeah. Airs, yeah. As classic examples. Angela Davis is teaching on a college campus in California so there's many and many who are less identifiable names were of the left who were all across the country. Part of that I think, is that there was...
SM (01:53:00):
Hold on, can you hold?
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Wayne Thorborn
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Thorburn, Wayne J. (Wayne Jacob), 1944- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Politicians—United States; Educators; Authors; Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- )--Texas; Thorburn, Wayne J. (Wayne Jacob), 1944--Interviews
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Dr. Wayne Thorburn is a politician, educator and author. He served as the executive director of the Republican Party of Texas from 1977-1983. He is the author of <em>A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement</em>. Dr. Thorburn is a graduate of Tufts University and Penn State and holds a PhD in political science from the University of Maryland.
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2010-01-07
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.118a l McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.118b
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McKiernan Interviews
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220:20
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c668073a72532bf0096fba82a4108371
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bc46c808f4d4ae88c8742d71f455ce00.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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English
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Date of Interview
2010-01-14
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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David R. Hawk
Language
English
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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Interview Format
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Audio
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"David Hawk is a former Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA, UN human rights official in charge of the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and author. Hawk has been a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights, and taught at Hunter College, CUNY. Currently he teaches in the International Relations Department at the University of South Florida (Tampa). Hawk is a graduate of Cornell University and Union Theological Seminary, and he also did postgraduate work in International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Magdalen College, Oxford."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15107,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16777215],"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,3355443],"15":"Arial","16":10}">David Hawk is a former Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA, UN human rights official in charge of the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and author. Hawk has been a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights and taught at Hunter College, CUNY. Currently, he teaches in the International Relations Department at the University of South Florida (Tampa). Hawk is a graduate of Cornell University and Union Theological Seminary, and he also did postgraduate work in International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Magdalen College, Oxford.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"The nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Vietnam War; music styles; Bob Dylan; Civil Rights Movement; yippies; Woodstock; Counterculture; James Farmer; Vietnam War; Women's Liberation Movement."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">The nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Vietnam War; music styles; Bob Dylan; Civil Rights Movement; yippies; Woodstock; Counterculture; James Farmer; Vietnam War; Women's Liberation Movement.</span>
Duration
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164:52
Subject LCSH
Amnesty International; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers; Hawk, David R.--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: David Hawk
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 14 January 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:02):
Testing, one, two, testing. Testing, one, two.
DH (00:00:10):
That is one of those digitalized?
SM (00:00:12):
Yes.
DH (00:00:12):
Or is that a digitalized?
SM (00:00:15):
Oh, no.
DH (00:00:15):
Oh, no-no. It is got a little micro.
SM (00:00:17):
Yeah, but I have a digitalized one, but I am trying to figure it out. Maybe the closer I get there.
DH (00:00:21):
Okay.
SM (00:00:22):
First question I want to ask is, when you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? And please speak loud because it is catching. I have to check on this every so often too if it is working.
DH (00:00:37):
Yeah, the good old days.
SM (00:00:40):
Fine with the good old days?
DH (00:00:46):
The (19)60s and early (19)70s, well, I was in college and graduate school, and that was great fun, both. And that is the time when I met the young woman who is still my wife. And that was a time of successful political activism, the name of the civil rights movement, which worked. And the occasion of the... I dropped out of graduate school in (19)67. Took five years off to try to stop the war in Vietnam, which we did not succeed in doing. But I probably had more political influence during those years than any time since. So, even though we did not succeed to stop the war, we did at various points have a big impact on the course of events.
SM (00:02:29):
What was it about your background before you even went to Cornell University? Because I know you went to Cornell and I am from the [inaudible] area, so it is a small world. I went to Binghamton and grew up in there. I have quite a few relatives who went to Cornell. What was it in your upbringing, even before you got to Cornell University, that made you somewhat who you are? Were you an activist prior to going to college in your high school years? Were there issues that really upset you when you were younger? Things in the late (19)50s, early (19)60s?
DH (00:03:02):
Yeah. I was seized at, must have been junior high school by the... When I became aware of racial segregation and discrimination, that was offensive, which probably had most to do with my religious upbringing as a low church evangelical. And the fact that the civil rights movement in those years was led by ministers and the grievances articulated in the terms of the Old and New Testament. And we believe that segregation and discrimination were social evils that should be eliminated.
SM (00:04:21):
In the school you went to, the high school, were you the only one that felt that way? Did you feel alone, or were there other students that were thinking that as well? Seeing what was happening? Probably on black and white television.
DH (00:04:34):
Yeah. The years of Little Rock.
SM (00:04:38):
Right.
DH (00:04:42):
Of the attempts to integrate schools. Well, if you come from places like Allentown, Pennsylvania, or Lancaster or York, you go into the town squares, the monuments are, to the Civil War, dead. I mean, and they were [inaudible] Republicans. And it was not just preserving the union, part of that legacy you grew up with was ending slavery. No, so there were not many African Americans in my junior high or high school, but there were some, and the idea that they could not go to school with everybody else was offensive. But there was not much to... Where were we? Oh. Oh, right, so I remember the first occasion was... Well, so I followed that. I was interested in that. In those, I would have been a Eisenhower, Nixon-type Republican. That is what my folks were. Although the New Frontier Kennedy's administration caught the enthusiasm of a lot of young people. The idea of younger generation getting the country moving again, seeing the that as opposed to Eisenhower and the Dulleses. So I followed developments in the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King was already the nationally known figure. And then, I remember the freedom rights and the sit-ins. And sit-ins was sort of outrageous that African Americans could not eat at those lunch counter in their local Woolworths. Every town had a Woolworths. And when I used to go to the YMCA in Allentown, it was right around the corner from the Woolworths in downtown. I would have lunch at Woolworths, go back to the Y. When I was, it must have been a sophomore year, I guess. Yeah, well, maybe. Yeah, I guess. Yes, sure it would have been sophomore year at Cornell when there was a nationwide picketing of Woolworth in support of the students in the South who were sitting in at the lunch counters. And I participated in that picket of Woolworth in downtown Wichita.
SM (00:08:31):
Wow, very good.
DH (00:08:33):
That was my...
SM (00:08:35):
I know Wichita. Where was that? Was that still there? Who is there now?
DH (00:08:38):
Oh, I have no idea. It would have been on that main street.
SM (00:08:41):
Yeah.
DH (00:08:42):
Or whatever, that State Street or what?
SM (00:08:43):
Yeah.
DH (00:08:44):
Whatever it is called. But anyway, so I remember that.
SM (00:08:55):
Your years at Cornell, what were the years that you were at Cornell?
DH (00:09:00):
It would have been (19)60 or (19)61 to (19)65.
SM (00:09:08):
Obviously, the Vietnam War was not even really picking up until about after (19)65. Was there any kind of small protests against the war?
DH (00:09:15):
Yeah.
SM (00:09:16):
I know that Phil Caputo's book talks about in The Rumor of War, that is when the first large numbers of troops were going over, around that (19)65 period.
DH (00:09:25):
Well, sure. I then worked in the summer of my junior year. I participated in Mississippi Freedom Summer, so I was in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in August of (19)64 when the Gulf of Tonkin happened. And we were afraid that if the US got into a war, Johnson would be distracted and he would not implement the civil rights measures that were in the process of... The Voting Rights Act was (19)65, but the Mississippi's Freedom Summer was building up to that. We were afraid that if there was a war, it would distract attention from civil rights and anti-poverty efforts. Does that mean that World War II replaced the new deal? The Korean War overtook Truman's fair deal? I was at Cornell. I was studying industrial labor relations, so I was studying economics and history and sociology, so I was studying this stuff.
SM (00:11:07):
Did you have any fear when you went South? Did you go by yourself and met a group down there? Did you go with a group of other students and did you have a fear that something could happen to you...
DH (00:11:21):
Yeah.
SM (00:11:21):
...when you went down there? What was that feeling like? And then, the experience itself and how it can change you somewhat?
DH (00:11:27):
Well, sure. I was in... I mean, this was part of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee Freedom Summer. And there was an orientation program. People went down in two waves. I was in the second wave, but they just assigned me to that. They just told me to go. The orientation program was maybe at Oberland or some college in Ohio or something, I recall vaguely. And it was the people who were in the first orientation included Schwerner and Goodman, and they were killed along with Chaney while we were at the orientation program they had. They had gone down a week, maybe two weeks before. So, security was a big concern. Although, my parents worried about it more than I did. Yeah, the 20-year-old, what did we... But it was clear that the organization was going to have a lot of security concerns. You did not go out at night. You went out and you never went out alone. So, there were whole sets of security regulations.
SM (00:13:10):
Was Scott Lynn one of the instructors?
DH (00:13:12):
Oh, sure.
SM (00:13:13):
Yeah. [Inaudible] person.
DH (00:13:16):
Oh, yeah. I have not seen him in decades. Decades.
SM (00:13:22):
Well, he was up there.
DH (00:13:24):
Yeah, he was up there. He was a generation, he was 20 years older than we were. You were very careful. We went to the Black churches on Sunday morning, but we were not allowed to go to the African American bars and nightclubs on Saturday night. And we did not integrate. We were doing voter registration. That was the goal. We would canvas Black neighborhoods and try to talk to people about registering. And then, there was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic [inaudible] Challenge.
SM (00:14:25):
Danny [inaudible]?
DH (00:14:26):
Mm-hmm.
SM (00:14:27):
Yes.
DH (00:14:28):
So, that was the project. And we did not try to desegregate things. We did not pair up with Blacks and try to go to white only places because of the security issues, and because the aim was voter registration. It was aimed at demonstrating. The aim was to demonstrate that these people were not being allowed to vote in order to get the Voting Rights Act, which followed the next year, so that is what we stuck to. I was there during the Gulf of Tonkin, and that is when I first heard of or paid any attention to Vietnam. And then, it was in my senior year. Then you had the escalation started right after it was on [inaudible]. And you had the first round of the teachings were actually in the spring of (19)65, my senior year. And so, there were two professors at Cornell, John Lewis and... He was a China scholar. Oh, the Indonesia scholar.
SM (00:16:10):
McCann?
DH (00:16:10):
George McCann. They published one of the first major history of the Vietnam War called the US in Vietnam. The teaching was supposed to be a debate between Hans Morgenthau and McGeorge Bundy. And it was going to be televised, or not televised, broadcast in some way in a dozen campuses. But LBJ forbade Bundy from debating Morgenthau, which would have been a fabulous debate. So then, a dozen, two dozen, however many universities, particularly ones that had strong Southeast Asian departments. So you would have Berkeley, University of Michigan, Yale, Cornell. Anyway, so there were two professors who gave the teaching. Lasted all night long, and these guys alternated it. And I was just astonished at how anyone knew so much about Vietnam. What they were doing was reading the chapters of the book that they were currently writing.
SM (00:17:54):
Oh, they were looking down and up.
DH (00:17:57):
They took turns. But it was like a six-hour lecture...
SM (00:18:03):
My God.
DH (00:18:04):
...where these two professors alternated back and forth on how the US was setting off entirely the wrong course, that it was not going to work. If it was not halted and reversed, it was going to be a disaster. Anyway, that then became the serious scholarly book on the Vietnam War for the next several years.
SM (00:18:39):
What year that book come out? I have a big collection [inaudible], (19)64 or (19)65.
DH (00:18:46):
Probably came out in (19)66. It would have been in the spring of... I cannot remember. Was it... Yeah, yeah, it was (19)65.
SM (00:18:58):
Sure.
DH (00:19:02):
Spring of (19)65.
SM (00:19:03):
Do you remember the cover?
DH (00:19:05):
It was green and white.
SM (00:19:07):
Yeah.
DH (00:19:08):
Paperback.
SM (00:19:09):
Oh, it was a paperback. I know there was a green book with a yellow Vietnam on it. It was [inaudible] kind of stuff. Way back.
DH (00:19:16):
[Inaudible], I do not know. But if you look, if you check it out, McKahin and Lewis, the US in Vietnam. And then, 10 years later, 20 years later, McKahin did a second edition of it. John Lewis left Cornell, went to Stanford and he was... I am still in touch with him.
SM (00:19:46):
Good.
DH (00:19:46):
Because he has done a lot of work on China and on North... Well, he is the China scholar, on North Korea. But he is retired from Stanford now. But in any event...
SM (00:19:58):
That is become a pretty conservative institution there with the Hoover Institution.
DH (00:20:01):
Well, it is separate. The undergraduate parts, there are parts of it that are liberal.
SM (00:20:19):
When you look at the boomer generation, now, again, people have responded differently to the question. Some people do not even like this concept of generations. Todd [inaudible] said, "Quit talking about it." People that were young during the era. But he said, for example, that when you look at the Boomers between (19)46 and (19)64, which are the years that are defined as boomers, experiences that the people in the front wave of the boomers are totally different than the last 10 years. And so, those people formed the group, say (19)46 and (19)54-(19)56, they really experienced the protests on college campuses. You cannot really say that some of the students did not that were in the latter group. So, he kept saying that, and I would be interviewing him. He was saying, "Oh, correct me again, just do not say boomer generation." But I have had a couple people that have been very sensitive to this, but I am just saying what other people have defined the group as. They define the World War II generation the silent generation, and what they call the cuspers, which is the second group compared to the first group. I have just learned that in my studies. Cuspers are those born between the (19)56 and (19)64. And then, you have got, of course, the Generation Xers, and then you got the millennials that are in college right now. But the basic question I am really asking, when you look at that generation of 70 to 78 million, and the numbers differ, what are the characteristics that you admired about that group and those that you least admired?
DH (00:22:01):
I never thought about it. I do not object to the categories, but I am actually a little older. I was born in (19)43.
SM (00:22:14):
Well, a lot of the people, though, that ran were the leaders of the movement...
DH (00:22:20):
Yeah, we were.
SM (00:22:21):
...in that...
DH (00:22:22):
Yes.
SM (00:22:22):
That is why it was really ridiculous.
DH (00:22:24):
We were in graduate school.
SM (00:22:26):
Yeah.
DH (00:22:26):
I mean, I do not much like that question. I would not think about it in that way. I think about the times. And obviously, the music, it was fabulous.
SM (00:22:49):
Talk about the music because that is a question later on, but how important was the music in the anti-war movement and all the movements?
DH (00:22:56):
Oh, enormously important.
SM (00:22:58):
[Inaudible].
DH (00:23:04):
The freedom songs, I mean, during the civil rights movement were driven by... Again, because that movement is before the lawyers took over, it was still led by ministers and organized out of churches. And you sang all the hymns. And I came from a low church evangelical Protestant background. They were the same hymns that we sung. The Black churches sang with a little more fervor and better harmony, but same songs. We Shall Overcome, Amazing Grace, then that was when the folk music.
SM (00:23:54):
Oh, yeah.
DH (00:23:57):
So, you had folk music, which is what you listen to on the campuses, you had the gospel music, the church hymns that fed directly into is what you sang at the civil rights struggle. But you also had the first fabulous wave of rock and roll. Well, the first wave, I suppose would have been in the mid-(19)50s. But rhythm and blues and rock and roll either came out of Mississippi or came out of Tennessee. Or it was either Memphis or Alabama was. Pardon?
SM (00:24:54):
[Inaudible].
DH (00:24:58):
But he was covering stuff he picked up from the rhythm and blue singers, so that, you know, you had the oldies but goodies rock and roll, and the beginning of soul music, where sort of rhythm and blues went mainstream. The music was fabulous. And you had folk music. And then, Dylan merged folk music. But you had Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan. And they were the songsters, the musicians of the civil rights movement. And then, at (19)65... Whoa, was it (19)65? Dylan put folk music to rock and roll, Newport. That must have been Newport (19)65, I guess, or (19)64. But it was Highway 61 Revisited, whenever that was. So, the music was just fabulous. And then, you went (19)66, it was like the... That (19)66-(19)67 was not only the height of Motown, but also stacks and holes.
SM (00:26:46):
Oh, yeah.
DH (00:26:47):
The heavier rhythm and blue stuff, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, the more Southern stuff. So, you have the just fabulous music. And then, it went psychedelic.
SM (00:27:07):
Saturday Night Fever.
DH (00:27:09):
No, that was later. That was disco.
SM (00:27:11):
We were talking about...
DH (00:27:13):
The Stones and the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. So, I mean, that was the music of the anti-war group.
SM (00:27:23):
Yeah.
DH (00:27:24):
The Jefferson Airplane, all that stuff. And the civil rights movement merged into the hippies. In New York, in California, there was a heavy Stanford contingent in Mississippi, so it was a heavy Yale and Cornell contingent. But you had... What was his name? One of the Yippies.
SM (00:28:05):
Abbie Hoffman?
DH (00:28:06):
Abbie Hoffman.
SM (00:28:06):
And Jerry Rubin.
DH (00:28:08):
Abbie Hoffman was in Mississippi with Snick. And he left Snick when the Black Power movement sort of thing. And he set up shop in the East Village, but others went out to San Francisco. So you had the East Village.
SM (00:28:39):
[Inaudible] Berkeley there.
DH (00:28:42):
Yeah, so that fed into the counterculture.
SM (00:28:51):
Do you remember your years, the concerts that you went to, the ones at Cornell? The speakers? In that year when you were at Cornell, who were the most important speakers that came to your college at that time to talk about issues? And secondly, who were the musicians? Because when I went to Binghamton, I was there from... The last four years when I graduated [inaudible] and I still remember all the [inaudible] and how important they were. What were the concerts and speakers that you saw when you were a student?
DH (00:29:28):
Peter, Paul and Mary my freshman year. Peter, he was a Cornell graduate. They came through there. Who was the great? Bo Diddley.
SM (00:29:43):
Oh, wow.
DH (00:29:49):
And the Isley Brothers.
SM (00:29:57):
Oh, [inaudible].
DH (00:29:57):
They were hardcore rock and rollers. And for a while, Jimi Hendrix was their guitar man. But they would come every year. Speakers, though, there were a lot of them. Hans Morgenthau did come through, Paul Tillich gave a lecture series there. I am not sure I understood what was saying, but sounded existentialist theology. It sounded very interesting.
SM (00:30:41):
Did you ever meet Daniel Barica? Because he was the Catholic priest there.
DH (00:30:44):
Oh, he actually came after I graduated.
SM (00:30:49):
Okay.
DH (00:30:49):
I was very active in the... Well, the Cornell United Religious Works, the CURW, was sort of the head and the various chaplains of which Barica became a Catholic chaplain there. But that was probably as close to the headquarters for the civil rights activities and anti-war activities as there was on campus. Certainly more than the economics department. I do not know what else you would say was, but that is where a lot of student... That is where you did a lot of that kind of activity.
SM (00:31:42):
But later on in Cornell when the Americans took over the union with the Black Power period, that was (19)61, a lot of history there.
DH (00:31:53):
Yeah. I do not think Cornell ever recovered.
SM (00:32:00):
The guy who was one of the leaders of that ended up becoming a very big CEO and actually is on a board of trustees now. Some big thing. One of the questions I have asked everybody is back in (19)94 when New Gingrich came to power, a period that the Republicans came in. I have read a couple of his speeches, he made a lot of comments about the (19)60s and (19)70s about we went backward during that era. And he really criticized the generation, the young people from that era. And then, George Will has also done the same thing. A lot of his writings, whenever he gets a chance to take a shot at the [inaudible], at the (19)60s and (19)70s, the activists. And basically what they are saying is that all the problems we have in American society today, and certainly not the terrorism thing, that has come about since. But all the problems we have in our society today, that you can go right back to that era. The lack of respect for authority, the sexual revolution.
DH (00:32:59):
Yeah, well...
SM (00:32:59):
The breakdown of divorce rate.
SM (00:33:02):
...the breakdown of the divorce rate. All the people combating the victimization, everybody is a victim. So your thoughts on those kinds of comments, it is not just them, but there are others who really say that America really went backwards instead of forwards.
DH (00:33:20):
Well, I mean, that is the culture war. They were only partially... They could not be against the civil rights that they granted. The Gingrichs and the Wills granted that we were right about that. I do not recall what Will would have said about the war in Vietnam, but that was a Democrat's war, so I do not know, I do not recall what he was saying. But what they were mostly railing against was the counterculture. It was the hippies. That was what offended the Newt Gingrichs, and particularly the George Wills. It was the long hair, pot smoking, cultural aspect of the (19)60s and early (19)70s that they were attributing all matters of evil things to.
SM (00:34:48):
I know that Barney Frank wrote a book many years ago called Speaking Frankly, and in that book, he said around, he would not talk about those two guys, but as a Democrat, he was even making comments about the fact that the Democratic Party better get their act together because they fell apart in (19)72 when McGovern was running for president because it was the anti-war group. It was the anti-war group. And the Democratic Party became identified as that anti-war group. And that is when Nixon came into power and, of course, Board filed, of course, another history there, but then Reagan. So there was a lot of backlash that party had to get away from the anti-war people, those kind of things. And he wrote about that in a book. He actually agrees, not that he agrees with it, but he says another thing there about the burden. Everything seemed to change around that time and the recommendations that we need to change our course, the Democratic Party.
DH (00:35:50):
Yeah. Well, he was and remained a liberal Democrat. He was always, he was strongly against the war in Vietnam and strongly against interventional strong policy. But sure, in large part over race, but also, over the counterculture. The Democratic Party lost the Catholic vote, the working class, the Italian and Irish Catholic stalwart voting blocks for the New Deal. Sometimes they went with Wallace or they went with Nixon and Agnew over his attacks against the student elitists and the liberal media run by the Ivy League graduates. And there was apart from the solid South, that is when you had the party realignment. I mean, the liberal Republicans became Democrats, and the conservative Democrats became Republican as the South, which Johnson said was going to happen, is that he signed the Civil Rights Act. He said that, "South is going to be Republican, and I am the one who made it sell." But he did. But you had the loss of the Irish and Italian Catholics in the cities and the suburbs went with Nixon-Agnew, and then they certainly went for Reagan.
SM (00:38:11):
In your viewpoint, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end?
DH (00:38:40):
I do not know. I do not know when it started in, I would have to think about that one. For me, it started in 1960. That is when I went off to college. I would say it ended in (19)72 with Nixon's reelection. So I think that is sort of when it ended.
SM (00:39:16):
Right.
DH (00:39:16):
That is when I would end it.
SM (00:39:22):
Do you think the Beats from... They were a small group, but they were also pretty influential, the Ginsbergs, the Kerouacs, and all that group, Waldman. They were kind of rebels in the (19)50s, I think. Of course, Ginsberg goes through, though, everything, Ferlinghetti and all of that group. They had influence on all on the (19)60s generation, the Vietnam generation.
DH (00:39:50):
Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, sure. They fed directly into the counterculture. Well, they were all closeted homosexuals basically. Somewhere along the line, they came out of the closet, but they were involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements, and certainly, in the counterculture. Oh, okay. Let us see... Started with maybe the free speech movement in Berkeley.
SM (00:40:32):
And that was (19)64, (19)65.
DH (00:40:34):
Oh, was that that late?
SM (00:40:35):
Yeah, that was (19)64-
DH (00:40:37):
Then it started before that. No, really?
SM (00:40:41):
Yeah, that was (19)64, (19)65. And then Ginsberg wrote Howell. Of course, that was a very big thing in the (19)50s was freedom of speech and [inaudible].
DH (00:40:51):
Yeah, that is why I thought the free speech movement was earlier.
SM (00:40:56):
Yeah, that was (19)64, (19)65.
DH (00:40:57):
Really?
SM (00:40:57):
At Berkeley.
DH (00:41:01):
Oh, okay.
SM (00:41:03):
Port Huron Statement was earlier. That was-
DH (00:41:06):
Yeah, that was good. When was that?
SM (00:41:07):
That was around (19)63ish when Tom wrote that.
DH (00:41:07):
Okay.
SM (00:41:16):
And I thought, what is interesting, I always make a comment, and this is not about me, but personally, in what I have written as far as the book is that 1973 to me was the end of the (19)60s. And that is because people were streaking at college campuses. And I knew something, that the seriousness of a lot of the things back then because I am working at Ohio University and my very first job in student affairs, and my buddy's from Ohio State, he called me up, said, "You got to get back here on the weekend." I said, "Why?" "They are going to be streaking all over the place. You love beautiful women." And I said, "Well, let us go." So I drove back from OU, and lo and behold, behind the law library that the women were coming out and doing the Rockettes, and the guys would then come out. It was unbelievable. I said, "What the hell's going on here?" The protests are over [inaudible].
DH (00:42:06):
Oh, okay. Yeah.
SM (00:42:12):
Well, that is just an experience. One of the things I want to ask you, too, the boomers oftentimes, and again, I know you did not like the category, but the students that were in college in those times, in the (19)60s to maybe mid (19)70s, felt they were the most unique generation of American history. [inaudible] uniqueness. And there was a feeling that we are going solve all the problems in the world, racism, sexism, homophobia, bring peace in the world, a utopian kind of a mentality. Your thoughts on that kind of attitude that many of them had? Because I know I saw students talk about it, and a lot of them that are now in their early (19)60s, some of them still feel that. They have not lost that feeling, even though a lot of them really had gone out and made a lot of money and did not really get involved in causes. Just your thoughts on that.
DH (00:43:13):
On exactly what?
SM (00:43:19):
Oh, well, there was a uniqueness that they were the most unique.
DH (00:43:28):
Well, that is really, put that boldly is a little, off-puttingly arrogant. But you had different ways of it. You had the New Frontier getting the country moving again, and the idealism that was rekindled in various ways by the Kennedys, and the Peace Corps, that you did have that sort of optimism about getting the country moving again. And you also, you had the attitude so well expressed in Blowing in the Wind and some of the Dylan songs, get out of the way if you cannot make it. What was that song?
SM (00:44:35):
Blowing in the Wind or...
DH (00:44:43):
No, The Times They Are A-Changing. That is the one, The Times They Are A-Changing. You certainly had in the civil rights movement the sense that we were going to knock down the walls, and we did, but there was a consciousness that we were going to storm the citadels of segregation and knocked them down. I do not think you had quite that sense in Vietnam, because we had one short-lasting triumph. Well, we had two short-lasting triumphs. First triumph was the success of the Dump Johnson movement in the McCarthy campaign, both of which I was involved with. That is where I met Nixon and Sam Brown. But yeah, so we had such a good showing in New Hampshire that Bob Kennedy joined and LBJ dropped out. And then that soured real quickly and we ended up getting Richard Nixon. And four years later, I worked in the McGovern campaign. We succeeded [inaudible]. We succeeded in taking over the Democratic Party and then proceeded to lose every state except Massachusetts, I think, so that was short. And we were not succeeding. I mean, we were having big protests, and a lot of doors were open to us in Washington during the moratorium, but we were not... And we succeeded, it was actually Nixon. It was Nixon and Kissinger's plan to do what they finally did in the Christmas Bombing of (19)71, I guess. Was the Christmas Bombing (19)71 or (19)72? Must have been (19)71.
SM (00:47:38):
I know, in (19)70, is when they went in to Cambodia, though.
DH (00:47:42):
Yeah. Oh, no, maybe it was even later. Maybe it was his sec... Oh, it is all a little fuzzy now. But the massive bombing of Hanoi, it was later to force them to sign the... They were going to do that. They were going to do what became the Christmas Bombing. There is a name for it as a military operation, the Christmas Bombing is what we call it. It was not Operation Rolling Thunder. That was over Cambodia.
SM (00:48:22):
Yeah, that was early. That was earlier, yeah.
DH (00:48:24):
Whatever the name of it was, they were planning to do it in the winter of (19)69-(19)70. There was so much of an outpouring of peace sentiment that basically we organized in October and November of 1969 that they could not do it. They were afraid they would have the outcry that occurred in the spring at Kent State following the Cambodian invasion. So we forced them to postpone the carpet bombing of Hanoi for a couple of years. But you never had the sense that you were going to storm the citadels in the way we were storming them successfully in the civil rights movement. But in the civil rights movement, you had within SNCC a utopian faction called the... Well, sometimes they are called the crazy people faction and the better term was the beloved community. These were the interracial brotherhood of man folks, some of which peeled off into the hippies and yippies, but very pacifist, vegetarian, utopian. There were people involved in that who thought that they were creating the beloved community.
SM (00:50:25):
Is that Bob Moses? Was he in that?
DH (00:50:26):
Yeah, he was. Yes.
SM (00:50:27):
And John Lewis?
DH (00:50:29):
No, Lewis would have been in the realpolitik. Black Power really was sort of Black nationalist, the Stokely Carmichaels and Rap Brown.
SM (00:50:50):
Right, Eldridge Cleaver-
DH (00:50:52):
But you had Bayard Rustin from protest to politics. These people were going from protest to revolution or protest to Cultural Revolution and identity politics. But you had another stream represented by John Lewis and Julian Bond who said, "Hey, we got to vote. Let us run people from mayors and police chiefs, and I am going to run for Congress." So that was the protest to politics faction after the famous essay from Bayard Rustin. He said, "Oh, you got the vote. It is not utopia, but you will have Black policemen. You want Black sheriffs, Black policemen, Black city councilmen, you have the votes, go to it."
SM (00:52:07):
Yeah. When you think of some of the two most very important experiences, you already talked about Bayard Rustin, because he is from West Chester.
DH (00:52:16):
Yes.
SM (00:52:18):
And we did a national tribute on him during my time there. One of the great memories of that was the picture of him on stage with Malcolm X, because they debated each other. Actually, you can get that date, you can go right on the computer and get that and you can listen to it. So you got the debate between Malcolm and [inaudible 00:52:38] Malcolm says, "Your time has passed." And then there is that historic picture that I had not heard the transcript except to hear Stokely speak by himself. But those that witnessed that scene where Dr. King, his arms are folded as he is speaking to him, he was telling him, "Your time has passed." And so what you are talking, what you are seeing is you are seeing two men in their late 30s being told by people in their early 20s or middle 20s that their time was passed. Could you comment? Because you have already made reference to the fact that when SNCC went off into Black Power, it kind of disintegrated it. And the same thing happened with SDS when the Weathermen and the violent portion, people did not want to have anything to do with it anymore, including most people in SDS.
DH (00:53:31):
No. Yeah.
SM (00:53:31):
And so just what was happening there? What was this? How did they let this happen within their organizations? How did SDS and SNCC allow these more radical fringes to take over? Was it because of frustration and they were not feeling they were accomplishing anything?
DH (00:53:54):
That would have been part of it. I mean, I am sure there are a dozen books on this.
SM (00:54:00):
No, there are.
DH (00:54:02):
I would have to go back to, I mean, there are three or four histories of SDS, I am sure, or histories of the New Left that would detail its disintegration. But when would I date it from?
SM (00:54:31):
Well, when did you know, I got to get out of SDS?
DH (00:54:37):
No-no.
SM (00:54:37):
You were involved with David and Sam Brown organizing the moratorium. Obviously, you still had beliefs in (19)69, but the history says that the Vietnam Veterans Against-
DH (00:54:47):
No, they were already nuts by then.
SM (00:54:50):
Yes.
DH (00:54:53):
Well, you had different tendencies and debates within the anti-war. You had your old Left, you had your Trotskyites and your old fellow travelers from front groups originally set up by the CP 50s. And then you had your beloved community people and people like the Ginsbergs and the Ferlinghettis who were sort of in that cultural thing. And you had essentially the bulk of ADA, Americans for Democratic Action, which was the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
SM (00:56:01):
Hubert Humphrey was in that.
DH (00:56:03):
Yeah, Hubert. That it split. But that had been organized by Reinhold Niebuhr, and Arthur Schlesinger, and John Kenneth Galbraith. And there was a hawk wing of that, but it was a small minority. Most went away. These were like Adlai Stevenson Democrats, Gene McCarthy. They were not Henry Wallace Democrats, but they were... Well, liberal Democrats. So you had the liberal Democrats turned against the war from the outset. They were opposed to the escalation of the war. And some of them were populists, like Frank Church, and the senator from Montana, he was Majority Leader.
SM (00:57:20):
Yeah, Mansfield.
DH (00:57:20):
Mansfield.
SM (00:57:21):
Mike Mansfield.
DH (00:57:25):
And some of the Democrats from California. But so were some of the Republicans from New York, Jacob Javits, they were not really. They were sort of liberals. So you had the utopians and you had the old Left. But out of frustration, I have not thought about this in a long time, why did this section of SDS go off the deep end?
SM (00:58:21):
I know Mark Rudd has written about it in his new book because he was part of that group.
DH (00:58:26):
Yeah, he sure was. I should read it. He is apologetic, I guess.
SM (00:58:35):
Yeah. Well, I did not know how much he was disliked by Bernardine Dohrn and some of those others. I mean, there is real dislike there.
DH (00:58:45):
Yeah. Oh, did he go underground?
SM (00:58:51):
Yes, he did.
DH (00:58:52):
Yes. Well, he was not exactly popular. I mean, he apparently had an abrasive personality, but that guy in Chicago who reemerged in the Clinton-
SM (00:59:11):
Obama.
DH (00:59:13):
Obama campaign. What was his name?
SM (00:59:15):
Oh, well, that is Bernardine-
DH (00:59:15):
Dohrn's husband.
SM (00:59:18):
Yeah. Oh, come on. It is Harris, I thought was his last name.
DH (00:59:24):
No-no, that is David Harris. [inaudible].
SM (00:59:26):
Yeah, I interviewed David over the phone. Yeah, so it will come to me.
DH (00:59:36):
But you started, I do not know where people got the idea that they could make a revolution. Well, yes, I do know. It started with the fact that the liberals were being seen as sellouts, the Carl Oglesby faction about Vietnam being a war of corporate liberals, that the liberals, you had people saying that it is the liberals who are the problem. Corporate liberalism was defined as the enemy. And then they got the weird idea that you could make a revolution. And people got into anti-capitalism, but not in the Ralph Nader sense, but in the Marxist sense of wanting to make socialist revolution and the goofball idea of Che Guevara about two, three, many Vietnams. Remember this slogan?
SM (01:00:58):
Two, three, many Vietnams?
DH (01:01:00):
Yeah, that is what-
SM (01:01:00):
No, I do not.
DH (01:01:02):
Oh, ah, yeah-yeah. So his thing, he thought that what you needed was two, three, or more Vietnam struggles where America would get bogged down and defeated in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. So one of his slogans that was picked up by the New Left crazies was, "Two, three, many Vietnams." Because they thought that would lead to the collapse of American imperialism. And he said, "No, wait a minute. We do not want more Vietnams. We want to stop the one that is." So they were going off in a different direction.
SM (01:01:55):
This is the complexity of the time then is trying to understand the times and all of its complexity. If I had 500 people in a room that were boomers, people that were born after (19)46, could be people that were in (19)43, (19)44, too, and in 19... Well, right now, they said, "What was the one event that had the greatest impact on your life?" What do you think a group of boomers would say, and what was the one event that had the greatest impact on your life?
DH (01:02:41):
Oh, I suppose it would have been the experience in Mississippi, Freedom Summer for my life, discovering a... I mean, I had not seen rural Southern poverty. I mean, I did not have the idea growing up in middle class Allentown, Pennsylvania. Bethlehem collapsed several years later, so there was a lot of... decades later. But growing up in Allentown, that was a prosperous little market town in between the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers, the Bethlehem steel workers, and the anthracite coal miners. Well, Allentown is sort of situated in the middle and they had textiles. The (19)50s, that is when people got the postwar American dream. So I had no idea that there was poverty, like I saw in Mississippi. I saw racial, social hatred. People hated other people. Why there was this hatred, why there was this poverty, why was there this hatred? What was that? I suppose that was-
SM (01:04:47):
It shaped your life, even beyond the anti-war and the-
DH (01:04:52):
Yeah. Well-
SM (01:04:53):
Was it because of your work with... Could you talk a little bit about how that experience may have helped shape you in terms of your professional life beyond school with Amnesty International, with the things that you have written about, I think Cambodia and-
DH (01:05:06):
North Korea.
SM (01:05:08):
...North Korea, with some of the terrible things that people do to other people, it seems like there is a link there.
DH (01:05:13):
Of course. I mean, it was called at the time, the civil rights movement. Okay, but what it was about was civil and political rights. King was never successful in turning the corner and tackling economic rights. I mean, he tried, the Poor People's Campaign, the stuff he tried in Chicago, but tackling urban poverty, and it never succeeded. But it was called the civil rights movement. 20 years later, if it were happening now, it would be called the human rights movement. And it was called the woman's movement. The gays took over- [inaudible] though the gaze took over, took the language. By the (19)70s, when that got up and going, the word human rights had entered the vocabulary. But human rights is civil right, political rights, economic rights, and social rights. Civil, political, economic, social, and cultural. The five sets of rights and that is what we would call it nowadays. The human rights movement was called the civil rights movement then. But that is what I have been doing ever since. And the Vietnam experience, working in international affairs has sort of internationalized it, so it was not just a purely domestic issue anymore. It was internationalized and it was not just Vietnam and the Tiger Cages or the treatment of POW's, our POW's or theirs. But it was the traction gained by the apartheid movement, that was international human rights. So essentially the Vietnam War gave it an international focus, but it is essentially the same kind of work that I was doing domestically in the civil rights movement in Mississippi and Georgia.
SM (01:08:17):
Basically what you was doing is what Dr. King wanted to do when he was expanding, because he talked about economics beyond race.
DH (01:08:26):
Sure.
SM (01:08:28):
And then he went north when they told him not to go north. A Cicero incident. We all know what happened there. And then of course, his speech on Vietnam, which people told him he should not do. Even people in the civil rights community.
DH (01:08:42):
Yeah, sure.
SM (01:08:43):
It was Rabbi Heschel who promoted and pushed it and said, "You need to do this."
DH (01:08:48):
Yeah. My old professor.
SM (01:08:50):
Well, he is an unbelievable person. There is a biography on him you ought to read. It is unbelievable. He has not talked about enough. People do not know him and he is very important.
DH (01:09:02):
I certainly remember him fondly. I took three classes with him. I went to Union to study with Lionel Neber. Neber had a stroke my first year, so I never got to study with Neber. But I ended up studying with Heschel.
SM (01:09:18):
You were lucky. My goodness.
DH (01:09:18):
Yeah.
SM (01:09:18):
You were close to Dr. King.
DH (01:09:18):
Pardon?
SM (01:09:22):
You were real close.
DH (01:09:22):
Oh yes, yes. I got to [inaudible]. I met King in those years. I went to his, before King gave his speech at Riverside Church. He had several meetings at Union Seminary, which is right across the street.
SM (01:09:47):
Really?
DH (01:09:47):
Yeah, because that is where Heschel was then. Heschel was still at the Jewish Theological, but he actually took a leave for two years and taught Old Testament at Union. And I was one of his students. And I taught Old Testament theology. But King, the president of the seminary was a guy by the name of John Bennett, who was Lionel Neber's main disciple. He taught Christian ethics also and wrote on ethics and international affairs, but became the president of the seminary. And he was challenging the students at Union to do more about Vietnam.
SM (01:10:40):
That is a great professor.
DH (01:10:43):
He was the president of the seminary, probably the only professor, the only president of a university that was exhorting students to do more about Vietnam. But King had several meetings and he was trying to figure out if he should come, if he should oppose Johnson as strongly as he did. If he should really break with LBJ.
SM (01:11:11):
Were you in those meetings?
DH (01:11:13):
I was. Well, I was in a couple of them. Some of them took place in Dr. Bennett's apartment at Union and others took place in his lawyer's office. He had a left wing lawyer. I forget the guy's name.
SM (01:11:34):
Oh, not Alan Mosley?
DH (01:11:36):
No-no, not Alan.
SM (01:11:37):
He was a professor at, I do not know. I do not remember the lawyer's name.
DH (01:11:42):
Oh. But Alan was very...
SM (01:11:43):
Cussler.
DH (01:11:44):
Pardon? No-no-no-no. It was not Cussler. It was...
SM (01:11:54):
Cussler worked [inaudible]. Yeah. Cussler was involved in defending people who got busted in the civil rights community. Yeah, that is what he did. Could you describe, because the only person I have ever talked to whose ever been in a meeting with Dr. King was James Farmer. In our campus and he shared so much with me at dinner and then I went with him for an hour and a half. And then of course we talked about it. But what was that like? I have some other basic questions here, but what a meeting like being with Dr. King in the room?
DH (01:12:29):
Well, he had these meetings to listen to what people had to say. He actually talked very little. I mean, he had these meetings to hear what people had to say. So he was very modest and soft-spoken. But you were obviously sitting in a living room with a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was thinking about something that was a world shaking impact and importance. So the meetings were not particularly dramatic. They were really him thinking, a little bit of thinking out loud.
SM (01:13:36):
Were you in a meeting where he actually said, "I had made the decision that I am going to go," or "Yeah, I am going to make the speech at church," or because if he had been wavering because what I read about Rabbi Heschel, you should not waiver. You ought to do it. And because people within the civil rights community, African American ministers were really upset with him.
DH (01:14:00):
Oh, sure. Well, they did not like him in the civil rights part either. Yeah. And then they, certainly, the Roy Wilkins and the Bayer trust in factions.
SM (01:14:16):
[inaudible] young was in that group.
DH (01:14:18):
Certainly opposed going against LBJ on foreign policies since what he had done so much for civil rights and was trying to do the war on poverty and going to, so it was really extraordinary, and I expect that Rabbi Heschel, who really was his spiritual mentor, he was Dr. King's rabbi.
SM (01:14:52):
I think Rabbi needs to be uplifted and not hidden. There is just so much history of this year that is hidden that our young people need to know about.
DH (01:15:04):
Yeah. Well, they do not study history anymore. But at any rate, okay, what are some of your questions?
SM (01:15:10):
Yeah, okay. Answering the one question there about what do you think the a group would say, the number one of event would be to shape their life? Yours was going down south. What would be the...
DH (01:15:25):
I have no idea. You would have to ask other people.
SM (01:15:30):
I have asked a lot of other people. Some people think John Kennedy's assassination, there is a lot of individual...
DH (01:15:36):
Oh wow.
SM (01:15:37):
It is more individual. I want to read something here. There is two basic issues that I am trying to get at in this interview process. One has to do with the issue of healing. And the other is the issue of trust. Oh, I am going to read this because we took a group of students to see Senator Edmund Muskie about a year and a half before he passed away. I got to know Gaylor Nelson and we had these unenrolled leadership trips, eight to 14 students [inaudible] meetings. And the students planned a question to ask him because they thought he was going to respond based on what happened at the 1968 convention. But, he totally gave a totally different response. This was the question the students came up with. Do you feel that the boomer generation or the young people that period are still having problems with healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart and their youth, divisions between black and white, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize, divisions between those who supported the troops and those who did not, including those that went to war and those who did not? What has the wall played in healing these divisions? And is it, or was that just primarily 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 after it was then last 30 years, now it is 40 years. Taking this after so many years, or has the statement, time heals all wounds, stay true? Now there is a lot there, but what we are trying to get at is it is like the people going to the Vietnam memorials and rethinking, or maybe I should not have been in the war. Maybe I should not have done what I did when I was young. Kids ask their father what they did in the war. Those kind of things, the healing. And I would go to Gettysburg a lot and you know, you even lived near Gettysburg when you were young. And one of the things you find at Gettysburg is the fact that on the southern side, so many things are left. People come up from the south, leave decals that they have not really forgotten.
DH (01:17:45):
No-no.
SM (01:17:45):
And you do not see anything on the northern side. Nothing. And I have noticed that for years because I go there four or five times just to get a feel of the terrible... You know, war is, it is just terrible. But Senator Muskie, basically his response was this, and then I will hear your response. His response was, he did not respond. Typical of what you saw on the news, he started to have tears in his eyes and he did not speak for a minute. And then he said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." Instead of talking about the (19)60s, he went out, I am talking for the next 10 minutes, 15, about the Civil War. Because he had just seen the Ken Burns series when he was in the hospital. The fact that we had lost almost an entire generation, 440,000 died, men died and all that other stuff. So that is what he talked about. But do you think we have a problem with healing in this nation? Is that this group of 70 million is, you know, you cannot do individually, but I have talked to enough people, there is something going on there. Is that an issue?
DH (01:18:55):
I do not think any more than any other people, and perhaps less. I bet that, well, I do not bet. I know there is more unhealing between Vietnamese who supported the North and Vietnamese who supported the South, there is still rank hostility there. That would be more comparable to our civil war, I suppose. I do not have this, and I bet Chilean people have not healed between those who were pro-Pinochet and those who were opposed Pinochet, the people who supported Allende and those who supported Pinochet probably are more hostile to each other than people who supported McGovern versus people who supported Nixon. Our disputes were, for the most part, not life and death struggles. Those other struggles were life and death. And people on both sides lost their lives.
SM (01:20:40):
Wow.
DH (01:20:41):
So I...
SM (01:20:48):
I preface this by saying, Jan Scruggs wrote that book, the founder of the Vietnam Memorial, 'To Heal a Nation', which was his book, very well received. And of course the goal of the Vietnam Memorial was to create a non-political entity [inaudible] to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and to help their families and to heal, and the veterans themselves. I know there is still not a lot of healing within the vets, but...
DH (01:21:12):
Oh, I think it succeeded enormously. I do not know of anybody who has not moved, whether they were draft resistors or whether they were Vietnam vets. Everybody I know of whose ever seen it is enormously moved by the wall. It was just a genius of an idea.
SM (01:21:39):
Oh yeah. Well, it is still...
DH (01:21:42):
Compared to the idiotic [inaudible], the memorial to the Korean War vets is just awful. And the new one to the World War II vets is just awful also. It is that gargantuan circle with the columns in Washington. That is really ugly. Any rate, so I do not think, but I am sure there is some bitterness, but I think a lot of people have gotten over it.
SM (01:22:23):
So the walls painted, it does not have a decent job [inaudible] that is even beyond the vets.
DH (01:22:30):
I think so, yes. I mean because it is so successful as a memorial that the vets feel that their friends who lost their lives are recognized and memorialized. So, you have small, small traces of the POW mentality. But that is faded as it is now ceased to become tenable. That there are still people being held. And also by the fact that the Vietnamese and the Americans get along so well.
SM (01:23:26):
Well, 85 percent of the people I believe that live in Vietnam now, were not even alive when the...
DH (01:23:33):
And they love Americans.
SM (01:23:34):
Right. It is beautiful.
DH (01:23:36):
And veterans go back there and are received, they got up and they are received with open arms.
SM (01:23:43):
There is a respect between the warriors ever since then.
DH (01:23:48):
Yeah. Or the young people who enlist their parents and grandparents, not them.
SM (01:23:57):
The other issue is the label of trust. Boomers, people saw so many leaders lie to them in their view. And actually as they have gotten older, it is like lies continue amongst other presidents. And I guess we are looking at leadership here, whether it be Watergate with Nixon, whether it be President Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin. Even recent things written about President Kennedy and what he did or did not know about the overthrow of Diem. You know a little bit about Eisenhower lying about U2. A lot of people did not trust Ford when Nixon was leaving. And of course, Reagan and Iran-Contra. It goes on and on. So there is a lack of trust. And I am wondering if this goes back to something when I was in college where a professor said, "If you cannot trust people that you may not be a success in life. You have to trust others. Being able to trust others is important for a human being." As a generation if they are advertised or labeled as a non-trusting generation, is that good or bad? Or am I wrong in this interpretation?
DH (01:25:07):
I have no idea. I do not know. I mean, it seems so routine that governments lie. They just do. But yeah, I have no idea.
SM (01:25:36):
A political science professor would say, because they teach politics, is that the art of politics is really about not trusting your government because you do not trust your government, that is healthy. That is what a political scientist would say.
DH (01:25:50):
Okay.
SM (01:26:00):
I do not know if there is any reaction to that or not, but do you, and again, maybe you cannot answer this, but I have asked a lot of people the question is, have boomers been good parents, have they raised good kids and grandkids now? Now I cannot talk about grandkids in terms of doing some of the things they did where they were young in terms of activism. Where has activism gone? There is a lot of good things being done and there is always examples of it everywhere and Amnesty International. There is a lot of great groups out there that do great things. But did they really passed their experiences on, have you passed your experiences on to younger people? Because sometimes that is very important as they evolve [inaudible] into adults.
DH (01:26:48):
I do not know.
SM (01:26:58):
I think what I am really getting at here is, are you pleased... Forget about the boomers. These young people that were young in the (19)60s and the (19)70s who have now gone on, who are now reaching social security age this year for the first time. Have they really lived up to their beliefs, their idealism? And again, we are only talking even about 15 percent of 70 million. That is still a lot of people. Are you disappointed?
DH (01:27:29):
Never even thought about it. It is not a question that would have occurred to me. And I do not know how you generalize about that. I am just drawing a blank on that one.
SM (01:27:50):
Yeah. What were we just talking about? Had not thought...
DH (01:27:57):
I do not know about trust.
SM (01:27:59):
Yeah. But it is about the responses that many people have had is that I am very disappointed in these young people as opposed to the young people from then. So...
DH (01:28:13):
Well, I mean, I meet a lot of young people. The young people I meet, are the committed ones. The activist ones. Those are who I meet and they are great.
SM (01:28:27):
Well, a couple more questions here. And that is looking at the movements of that period because movements are really part of what the older generation was all about. There were so many movements that about, you already talked about being in the civil rights as a young person, civil rights movement and the anti-war movement itself. But the other movements that evolved around this period, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano, the Native American, the environmental movement, all these movements kind of looked to the civil rights movement as kind of a teacher.
DH (01:28:57):
Yeah, sure.
SM (01:28:59):
And it seemed like they were together. There was a lot of togetherness. When you did that 1969 moratorium, I would assume that you had probably individuals from all those groups there. Earth Day had not happened yet, but...
DH (01:29:15):
The what?
SM (01:29:15):
Earth Day had not happened until 1970, but...
DH (01:29:18):
No, we knew the Earth Day people very well. And we agreed with them. And they agreed with us. I mean, they were all opposed to the war. They came to our demonstrations. We had not thought about the issues they were raising, but when they raised them, we agreed with them. But yes, so Earth Day was that spring.
SM (01:29:57):
Right.
DH (01:30:00):
So they were interested in us because we had run big demonstrations and that is what they were doing. So we knew them and liked them.
SM (01:30:10):
All these other groups that I mentioned. You were linked to them though in some way, were not you? Explain more of that moratorium. How much work went into that, explain when the idea came up and you know that, how long it took you and you had a big crowd, but that kind of was the last hurrah.
DH (01:30:29):
No-no-no. It was probably nothing bigger than the October (19)69 moratorium because that was decentralized. But I would not be surprised if some of the Earth Day things. But certainly you then had bigger demonstrations in Washington for various things over the years. The idea for the moratorium... Oh, excuse me.
SM (01:31:07):
I hope I am not tiring you.
DH (01:31:13):
Pain from... Oh, I think I need to make some coffee. After the McCarthy campaign, I was working for the National Student Association as their anti-Vietnam and anti-draft coordinator in Washington. And there, Sam Brown was at the Kennedy School at Harvard. There was a peace group, an old line peace group in Boston called Mass PAC, Massachusetts Peace Action Council or something. And the guy that ran it was his named Jerry Grossman. He was a businessman. I think he made envelopes. But Mass PAC had the idea of an expanding student strike of you would start off at the campuses for one day, then the next month you would try to expand it for two days and then the third month expand it for three days and you try to make it larger, bigger, and longer each month. We changed, and it seemed like a good idea. I have been at the National Student Association, you work with student governments and college newspaper editors as opposed to your local peace committees. So there is always a student body president, there is always a student council, there is always college newspaper's. So it sort of institutionalized. And by that time, almost all people who got to be student body presidents or editor of their college newspaper were anti-war. And with the editors, you had a base to get your opinions out because they ran the student newspaper, they wrote the editorials and with the student... We took the idea. No, so we had this network of student body presidents, college newspaper editors and changed the idea. Instead of calling it a strike, we called it a moratorium because there had been that spring, the spring of (19)69, I forget what campuses erupted then. Maybe Cornell, Columbia.
SM (01:34:02):
Oh yes, Cornell for sure.
DH (01:34:05):
Harvard. You know you...
SM (01:34:07):
Harvard Yard. Yep.
DH (01:34:10):
So this was not designed to, this was not a protest against the college administration. This was against, it was designed to show Nixon and Kissinger that if they wanted to close out the war in Vietnam, there would be a lot of public support for doing that. So we did not like the term, students strike because of what had gone on the campuses that preceding spring. The word strike would sound as if it is directed against the college administration. And it was not. But at any rate, it seemed like this was mixed. The four of us who did it who were the national coordinators all met in the moratorium, I mean in the McCarthy campaign.
SM (01:35:20):
Okay.
DH (01:35:20):
So we were like the liberal wing of the anti-war movement who were not opposed to electoral politics or working with capitalist politicians. So we had got a bunch of these student body presidents and editors together in my office in Washington. And Sam came down from Boston and pitched this idea, which he had gotten from Jerry Grossman. And they sort of liked it. So we set up an office and over the summer with two or three people, called college administrations to find out the name and home phone number of the student body presidents.
SM (01:36:28):
And they gave it out.
DH (01:36:29):
And in those years they gave it out.
SM (01:36:33):
They do not do that now.
DH (01:36:33):
They do not do that now. And then we tracked these people down on their, wherever they were for the summer and say, "We have this thing that we wanted to see if you are interested in. Send me some information." And because we wanted to start in the middle of October, so you would have to start organizing it as soon as kids come back in September. So there was only three, four weeks to organize it once you return to school. But originally the press was interested in us and the reporters that were assigned to cover what we were doing were the reporters for Time, and Newsweek, and US News & World Report who covered the campus, who covered education. They wanted to know what was going to happen on the colleges tonight. And so we went public about what we were doing. And so the Press Corps in Washington, we knew a lot of them. We knew the journalists who covered the McCarthy, the political journalists who covered the McCarthy campaign. Ayi-yi-yi.
SM (01:38:07):
I think you answered that pretty good. Okay. Quick question here and with respect to why the Vietnam War ended, just your thoughts on why it ended, if there is one major reason, and number two, how important were the college students in ending the war in Vietnam?
DH (01:38:47):
Well, they were probably the major, they were the face of the opposition to the war in Vietnam. It was the faculty...It was the faculty and students, and a lot more students. They were more important than the faculty. The war ended. We were able to build up enough pressure on the administration that they had to withdraw the troops in dribs and drabs. If they did not keep bringing the troops out, the pressure would have built up again. And by that time, pressure would be coming from Congress as well. It was clear enough that Congress wanted the war to be brought to a close. The clearest indication of which was the growing congressional support for resolutions that cut the funding.
SM (01:40:20):
Yeah.
DH (01:40:22):
That is real clear. And it was...
SM (01:40:29):
I believe Senator Nelson was involved in that, too.
DH (01:40:35):
Oh, sure.
SM (01:40:35):
Yeah.
DH (01:40:35):
Yeah. So it was a Republican, Goodell?
SM (01:40:42):
Yes. Yeah.
DH (01:40:43):
From New York.
SM (01:40:44):
Yes-yes. A big, big person for this.
DH (01:40:46):
Hatfield, McGovern. There were two.
SM (01:40:47):
Yep.
DH (01:40:48):
There was a softer one and a harder one. I forget which is which. But Hatfield and McGovern. Were they... That must have been the harder one.
SM (01:41:01):
Right.
DH (01:41:06):
I do not recall them exactly. They had nixed it, I remember.
SM (01:41:10):
I know that senator, the one from Alaska, too.
DH (01:41:13):
Oh, it is Stevens. Ted Stevens, yeah.
SM (01:41:15):
Hruska? I forget the... He was against it, too.
DH (01:41:21):
Oh. Oh, it was not-
SM (01:41:22):
Yeah, Stevens.
DH (01:41:22):
He is the terrible guy.
SM (01:41:23):
Yeah.
DH (01:41:40):
Oh...
SM (01:41:40):
It was H-R-U-S-K-A. I know. It was Senator Hruska. And Senator Harris was also involved in that as well.
DH (01:41:40):
Kissinger and Nixon thought that they were going to be able to rely on US air power. They were only withdrawing the troops. The US bombing in support of the South Vietnamese troops was supposed to continue. But then Congress did cut off the funds, and they could not continue the bombing. And without air support, neither the North Vietnamese nor the South Vietnamese abided by the terms of the Paris Agreement. That was a face-saving mechanism to get us out. But neither the North nor the South followed it. So it was clear that they were going to fight each other once we left. Kissinger and Nixon thought they would be able to use US air power to tip the balance, but they could not, so the two armies fought it out. And from the very first battle, the South Vietnamese Army collapsed. Precipitously, they lost the first two battles. After that, they did not fight anymore. They all just fled, and it ended in a rout.
SM (01:43:01):
In 1975, when Phil Caputo was there in Vietnam as a reporter, not as a Marine, he talks about the fear of being shot by the South Vietnamese military for "They are abandoning us." Those kinds of things. Real fast here. Books. What were the books that people were reading? Do you remember what you were reading when you were in college, and in the (19)60s? What were the Students for a Democratic Society students reading? What were the anti-war students reading? Were there any books that stood out, the authors? You mentioned Che already, Che Guevara, what he had to say.
DH (01:43:46):
No, but he was-
SM (01:43:47):
Yeah. Yeah, [inaudible].
DH (01:43:48):
He was a nut case.
SM (01:43:49):
Yeah.
DH (01:43:51):
Oh, I do not know. John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society.
SM (01:44:02):
Big book.
DH (01:44:03):
That was a... Oh. Oh, the...
SM (01:44:12):
Going to the back stretches of your mind here. We are bringing stuff out.
DH (01:44:25):
Erich Fromm, the psychologist.
SM (01:44:28):
The psychologist. Right.
DH (01:44:37):
He wrote books. Ah, Samuelson, Economics 101. Everybody read Samuelson. I am trying to think. I mean, I do not know. You could read the same...
SM (01:45:05):
Were books like The Greening of America, does that... Did you read that?
DH (01:45:09):
Yeah, but that was later. That was not college. That was much later. Yes, I remember reading it. I thought it was a very odd book to come from a law professor. But we were part of it. It was sort of fun. It was a book about us.
SM (01:45:33):
And there was Theodore Roszak's The Making of a Counter Culture. There was Harry Edwards' Black Students. There were a lot of really good ones. Most of them were in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, those books.
DH (01:45:44):
Yeah. When I was at Union, I did read everything [inaudible] wrote. I mean, I read all of his books.
SM (01:46:03):
Did you read King?
DH (01:46:05):
Oh, you mean his-
SM (01:46:05):
He wrote six books.
DH (01:46:11):
I am sure I did, but they were mostly sermons. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Or Manchild in the Promised Land. Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land.
SM (01:46:31):
Oh, yeah.
DH (01:46:32):
And the Autobiography of Malcolm X.
SM (01:46:34):
Alex Haley wrote it.
DH (01:46:36):
Yeah. C. Wright Mills.
SM (01:46:43):
White Collar?
DH (01:46:44):
Yeah.
SM (01:46:45):
Tom Hayden wrote a book on that.
DH (01:46:46):
Pardon?
SM (01:46:47):
Tom Hayden wrote a book on C. Wright Mills.
DH (01:46:53):
His...
SM (01:46:54):
Recently.
DH (01:46:55):
Oh.
SM (01:46:55):
He is a prolific writer. I mean, he is putting a book out every year now. Couple of the-
DH (01:47:03):
Oh. Oh, I am trying to think. Guy who just died. He used to write for the Village Voice. No-no.
SM (01:47:17):
I know who you are talking about. Not William Sapphire. It is... He just passed away, but... Kempton?
DH (01:47:25):
No, not Mary Kempton. No-no.
SM (01:47:28):
Well, couple of the... There were slogans. Slogans were very important part. You already mentioned Che Guevara's slogan, and "We Shall Overcome," which is the Civil Rights Movement. There were three that I have been mentioning in the last part of my interviews. The last 50 people I have interviewed. Not the first 50 because it has been going on a long time. Three that may define the entire era. One of them is Malcolm X, too. "By any means necessary." That is number one. The second one is Bobby Kennedy, which was a Henry David Thoreau quote, "Some men see things as they are and ask why, I see things that never were and ask why not." That is kind of the activism, the anti-war.
DH (01:48:14):
Mm-hmm.
SM (01:48:14):
And then you have got the counterculture, which is really the Peter Mack posters with the artists who put unbelievable quotes. And I had it on my door as one of the biggest selling posters in 1970, (19)71, at Ohio State. The words were, you do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." And that is kind of the counterculture, hippie-dippy kind of....
DH (01:48:36):
Yeah. That is the new one. Never heard of that one. That one passed me by.
SM (01:48:41):
Well, I regret not having the poster. The poster is worth about $500. Those things you bought in the store that were in the round, they only made so many of them. Do you think those really define... If you were to say the quotes, when I mentioned those three, someone said, "You have got to say, 'We shall overcome.'" Do you think that really combines the era? "By any means necessary" is symbolic of SDS and Black Power?
DH (01:49:11):
Oh, I do not know. I mean, no, that is just, well, I do not know. My response to it is that that is empty rhetoric. There is no substance to that. What does it mean? I mean, this was just rhetorical militancy. That is like the other slogan associated with Malcolm X. "He was ready. Are you?" No, I was... The only one of those that... To me, "any means necessary" is empty rhetoric. What does it mean when the other people have all the guns?
SM (01:50:03):
Right.
DH (01:50:05):
And sometimes you have the vote, sometimes you do not. What is "any means necessary"? What is that? It is meaningless. And I never heard of the last one you mentioned. So, by a process of elimination, the Thoreau quote is probably the best example of the nerve and spirit that Bobby Kennedy struck during his last year of his political life. And that which rekindled the idealism that John Kennedy had, the new frontier had sparked five, six years earlier. Bobby Kennedy revived that, and that quote is probably the core or the essence of what he was aspiring to when he ran for president.
SM (01:51:44):
Yeah. Because, boy, that speech he gave in Indianapolis was just-
DH (01:51:47):
Whew.
SM (01:51:47):
...Off the cuff, and it was just unbelievable. There was something that Senator McCarthy, when I interviewed him in (19)96, the only thing where he basically said, "I will not comment, read it in my book" was when I mentioned Bobby Kennedy. So there was still-
DH (01:52:04):
Oh, yeah.
SM (01:52:05):
Yeah, he... Being a person, as you and David and others who worked for McCarthy, were you upset when he just simply disappeared? I mean, he decided not to run? That is still a mystery, why he just kind of gave up.
DH (01:52:22):
No-no. No. I mean, I actually stayed close with him for all of... I saw him a couple weeks before he died.
SM (01:52:36):
Oh, you did?
DH (01:52:36):
Yes.
SM (01:52:37):
I went to... Were you at the church when they had the memorial?
DH (01:52:41):
Yes.
SM (01:52:41):
I was there. I sat over to the left.
DH (01:52:43):
Oh.
SM (01:52:43):
You could see me on C-SPAN. All the dignitaries were in the center. I sat over to the left. He was just a nice person. We got along because we were both Irish, and I had met him four times. And I gave him a sweatshirt at Westchester University when we went down once. And I said something to him, "I think probably most of the people give these sweatshirts to secretaries." He says, "well, I am not going to give it to a secretary. I want to keep it and wear it because it was green." And I get this letter at home. I sent him a letter thanking him for meeting our students. And I got this nice, nice note from him that he sent to me. And then he had two pictures. He was standing in front of his home, wearing the Westchester sweatshirt. And he said basically, "See, I told you I was going to wear it." Yeah, I liked him. I liked him because we hit it off, and I love the fact that he always would quote the poet, Lowell. So he was good.
DH (01:53:50):
Yeah. How many years was he the senator? 12, 18?
SM (01:53:52):
I think it was 18. He went out along with... Boy, the 1980 coup with all of... Senator Nelson.
DH (01:54:01):
Yeah. There was a-
SM (01:54:02):
Senator McCarthy, Birch Bayh, I mean, it was unbelievable. They all went out at the same time.
DH (01:54:07):
Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. 18 years at the same job. I have never had the same job. He had been a congressman too. Yeah. So there was nothing that he was going to do as a senator that he had not done. He had no aspiration to be head of... Speaker... Not Speaker of the House. Yeah, no. Yeah. Whatever that was.
SM (01:54:42):
Majority leader.
DH (01:54:44):
Yeah. He did not want to. He was much too much of a poet to do back room deals, which is what the majority leader has to do. And nothing he was going to do as a senator would match what he did in (19)68. So-
SM (01:54:59):
Right.
DH (01:55:10):
He was really a poet. He was an intellectual. He was much more-
SM (01:55:12):
He had a PhD, did not he, in history? And he was a professor and he was chair of his department.
DH (01:55:17):
Yeah. Yeah. He was a serious Irish intellectual. Literature, I think. Or what? Politics.
SM (01:55:28):
Yeah, I am not sure either. But I know McGovern has a PhD too.
DH (01:55:32):
Yeah, he does.
SM (01:55:33):
Very smart people.
DH (01:55:35):
So at any rate, I was not surprised. And then he wrote poetry. We stayed in touch. My wife is much more interested in poetry. So they would talk a lot because they could talk about the poets. And she was in English Lit major.
SM (01:55:59):
They said when he passed, he was in a senior home someplace or...
DH (01:56:01):
Yeah. Yeah. We went to see him there. And he was basically in and out of consciousness. Or in and out of recognition. He recognized Sam Brown. Sam and I and our wives went to see him. And he recognized Sam and he recognized me. And you would have snatches of conversation for a couple of sentences, but... So of course, we were really glad that we got to see him because he died several weeks later. So I was glad to see him before he-
SM (01:56:40):
Nice to see Bill Clinton there. Bill Clinton was there and spoke too. That was nice. I am at the last part of the interview. Thanks for going over, too. I have gone over by time here.
DH (01:56:51):
Oh, yeah.
SM (01:56:51):
Yep. But I want to just end by just, if you can just give me quick responses. These are just names of... Whoops. These are just names of people or terms or events. And just, I know it is hard to put in a few words, but just your overall quick reaction to these. What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you?
DH (01:57:13):
Oh, the fitting and appropriate way to honor those who died, even though the war was lost and should not have been fought.
SM (01:57:41):
What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you?
DH (01:58:00):
The tail end and the height of the protest against the war, and the increasing repression that was stimulated by the Mitchells and Agnews in their response to our protests.
SM (01:58:20):
Watergate.
DH (01:58:25):
Latent dishonesty of the administration. And its willingness to violate the law, knowingly, purposefully.
SM (01:58:37):
Woodstock and the Summer of Love.
DH (01:58:41):
Well, Woodstock was just the rock and roll and the counterculture, and the awareness of the size of the countercultural constituency. Summer of Love, because that was (19)67. That was... No, it is not San Francisco.
SM (01:59:07):
Yeah, it was San Francisco.
DH (01:59:09):
Oh. No, that was the beginning of-
SM (01:59:10):
Haight-Ashbury. Golden Gate Park, all that.
DH (01:59:14):
That was the golden era of the flower children, before bad drugs turned it nasty.
SM (01:59:30):
How about just the words hippies and yippies? They are different.
DH (01:59:36):
Yeah, sure they are different. Oh, I liked the hippies. I admired the political theater of the yippies and the idea of going to the Stock Exchange, throwing dollar bills from the balcony. I mean, you got to admire someone who came up with that idea. But for the most part, they were crazies. And we wanted them to do their thing somewhere different from where we were doing our thing. Because they were not as counterproductive as the pro-Vietcong left. I mean, those people, with their Vietcong flags, were setting us back. Because that is what drove the union people, the working people, nuts. That was really unpatriotic. Because we wanted the hippies not to do their thing at our demonstrations. So if they did their thing on their own, like bills from the Stock Exchange, fine. That is great political theater. But do not do it at our demonstrations.
SM (02:01:06):
How about the year 1968?
DH (02:01:09):
Great year.
SM (02:01:14):
That is-
DH (02:01:18):
Great Year. We drove LBJ from office.
SM (02:01:22):
We lost some important people, in Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. That was sad.
DH (02:01:30):
Oh, yeah. It surely was. But when I think of (19)68, I think of... And obviously, the Chicago convention was awful.
SM (02:01:45):
Right.
DH (02:01:47):
But I think of... (19)68 to me is New Hampshire and Wisconsin primaries.
SM (02:01:49):
Were you at the (19)68 convention?
DH (02:01:49):
I was, yes. And I was in New Hampshire and Wisconsin too.
SM (02:01:58):
Oh, my god.
DH (02:01:58):
Yeah, so...
SM (02:02:01):
How about Vietnam Veterans Against the War?
DH (02:02:07):
Fabulous. Fabulous. It was invaluable.
SM (02:02:15):
They kind of took over the movement after the SDS kind of faltered.
DH (02:02:20):
Well, SDS was involved in the first... They sponsored the first anti-war demonstration in Washington in 1965. They then dropped out of the anti-war movement and went into community organizing. And Hayden went over to Newark and did that project there. And they did not reenter the anti-war thing until [inaudible] and The Weathermen, by which time they were totally destructive. They were involved in the anti-war movement at its founding, but then they did not pursue it. They actually dropped out. They were into global revolution and anti-imperialist throw.
SM (02:03:15):
But the Black Panthers, which is really there is seven or eight of them, because you have got to think of H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael. But you think of Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Norman... Angela Davis. They are all Black Panthers in their own way. They all had a... And Elaine Brown and Dave Hilliard. There is a lot of them. Just your thoughts on the Black Panthers as a whole.
DH (02:03:42):
Well, most of them were praised nut cases. The one I remember the best is Fred Hampton.
SM (02:03:56):
Yeah, he was killed.
DH (02:03:57):
Yeah. I went to his funeral in Chicago. The police went after them in ways that violated their civil liberties, to put it mildly. And the police targeted and killed them. Those were police executions. Totally unjustified. But you know, you sort of admired the bravado of the early Panthers, but [inaudible]. And I am not sure that, what is her name... Angela Davis was never a Panther. She was really an orthodox Marxist-Leninist, Communist Party member. But a lot of the Panthers were sort of crazy. They were going off. They were off the deep end. And some of them were heavily involved in criminality. They were actually criminals who picked up on human rights, civil rights rhetoric. But they were flaky. And I guess Eldridge Cleaver wrote well or something.
SM (02:05:21):
Wrote for Ramparts.
DH (02:05:22):
Oh.
SM (02:05:24):
Yeah.
DH (02:05:24):
But after Ramparts had its... Its best [inaudible] were behind it.
SM (02:05:29):
Yeah. And Kathleen Cleavers went on to be a lawyer at Emory. So she is writing her biography right now.
DH (02:05:36):
Oh.
SM (02:05:36):
And she is a pretty nice person. Of course, she is kind of different than the rest of them. So anyways-
DH (02:05:45):
Well, you know, they burned themselves out.
SM (02:05:49):
Right. Jane Fonda. These are just names now. Just real quick thoughts on names.
DH (02:06:03):
Good actress, gorgeous lady. Made great fitness videos. Got in over her head on the... And lost her head on Vietnam. Said some dumb stuff.
SM (02:06:40):
Tom Hayden.
DH (02:06:40):
Very good writer. Went off the deep end, in my opinion, very early on.
SM (02:06:51):
About Rennie Davis?
DH (02:06:53):
A sweet guy. Rennie was a friend. We enjoyed each other's company a lot. But he burned himself out too. I do not know what he ended up doing.
SM (02:07:13):
Yeah, I interviewed him. He is doing the spirituality things right now.
DH (02:07:17):
Is that right?
SM (02:07:18):
Yeah.
DH (02:07:18):
Oh.
SM (02:07:19):
And of course he went on to be very successful in technology and things.
DH (02:07:24):
He is a very-very bright guy, but really sweet. Very nice guy.
SM (02:07:29):
Timothy Leary.
DH (02:07:43):
Oh. Someone else who also went off the deep end. Took too much LSD, I suppose. It may have happened to him anyway, but certainly, certainly he lost it.
SM (02:07:55):
Phillip and Daniel Berrigan.
DH (02:08:05):
Made a terrific contribution. I wish there were thousands more. There. Along with Pope John, the Berrigans are my favorite Catholics.
SM (02:08:20):
I think, yeah, we had them both on our campus. And actually, we brought Philip in, his last speech. His last speech was given in Philip's Library five weeks before he died. I went to his funeral.
DH (02:08:32):
Oh, my.
SM (02:08:32):
Yeah, so...
DH (02:08:34):
Yeah. Well, they were great. Yeah, the McCarthys were a little bit like that. A stream of Irish Catholicism that... They were the redeeming strain. They were really good. There was the Jesuit-trained intellectuality.
SM (02:08:55):
He was an expert. I was going to ask too. Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy, just quick thoughts on both of them.
DH (02:09:07):
Well. Oh, well, McCarthy was terrific. Bobby made up for, in the last year or two of his life... Because previously, I do not know what he did that amounted to much good other than I suppose helping his brother get elected president. But he was a spoiled rich kid.
SM (02:09:53):
How about, talking about-
DH (02:09:53):
But his last two years redeemed.
SM (02:09:57):
He was very important in the missile crisis. Very important. If you read Thirteen... Well, I think one of the classic books of all time is Thirteen-
DH (02:10:08):
Oh, yeah.
SM (02:10:08):
And there is no question that he did help his brother. And thank the Lord, because they were the only two that were not going to go bombing down in Cuba. John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
DH (02:10:29):
Well, I was... The New Frontier sparked something in my life, but I was actually never much of a fan of Kennedy's presidency. At the time, I was critical that he was not doing enough on civil rights, actually. Who was the other one? Oh, Nixon.
SM (02:11:13):
Nixon. Nixon.
DH (02:11:14):
Oh, what a very complex, very complex guy. And it is too bad about Vietnam and Watergate because he did two things in foreign policy that were terrific. One of which was the reconciliation with China, and detente with the Soviet Union. And those were brilliant. And he was-
DH (02:12:01):
...and he was such an odd liberal in his domestic policy. He did wage and price controls. He started the Environmental Protection Agency and was interested in a guaranteed annual income. Do you remember that?
SM (02:12:26):
Mm-hmm.
DH (02:12:28):
He was toying around with that idea. So he was willing to do what was then considered radical welfare reform, of the sort that welfare rights organization and only leftists were arguing for.
SM (02:12:46):
What is interesting is Dennis Hayes, who I interviewed, he mentioned that Nixon really did not give a darn about the environment. What he ended up doing is he created what you just mentioned, because he thought it was going to bring votes to him, so...
DH (02:13:00):
Well...
SM (02:13:01):
He was a pragmatist, a pragmatic fellow.
DH (02:13:04):
Yeah. But he...
SM (02:13:05):
I think of Spiro Agnew, another one from the period.
DH (02:13:09):
Oh, just a wretched crook.
SM (02:13:17):
George McGovern.
DH (02:13:20):
Very nice man.
SM (02:13:22):
Benjamin Spock.
DH (02:13:27):
He was a good guy. He played an important role. I just saw McGovern, by the way, about three weeks ago, like four weeks, a month ago.
SM (02:13:36):
Was he at the National Press Club, were you there?
DH (02:13:38):
No-no. He came up here for the memorial service for Mary Travis, of Peter, Paul and Mary.
SM (02:13:45):
Really.
DH (02:13:46):
Yeah, he spoke at it.
SM (02:13:49):
Oh my gosh. Where was that?
DH (02:13:52):
The Riverside Church.
SM (02:13:53):
Oh, geez.
DH (02:13:55):
Any rate, yeah, so I had not seen him in a decade or so. God, I hope I am in half that shape when I am his age.
SM (02:14:08):
Yeah, he is pretty sharp. He spoke at the National Press Club, talking about his new book on Lincoln. He did a great job. The women, we have not talked a lot about the women, but your thoughts on Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan and that particular group, because the women's movement evolved out of the anti-war and civil rights, and there has been a lot of things written about the sexism that took place in the anti-war movement and civil rights movement-
DH (02:14:39):
Yes.
SM (02:14:39):
...the women's movement [inaudible] because of it.
DH (02:14:42):
Yes.
SM (02:14:45):
I know I am going overboard here, but you are a great interview and you have a lot of experience. Could you talk a little bit about, because Dr. King would be very sensitive about this today, if he was alive to see it, it was happening. In fact, I had talked to Edythe Bagley, who is the sister of Coretta Scott King, and even she brought it up. I have talked about Martin, but those kind of things. So talk about that particular thing about sexism and also about how important these women leaders were in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s.
DH (02:15:17):
Well, the leaders of the Civil Rights movement were men who took advantage of their position with women. I mean, it was really women staffers in SNCC who were the ones who rebelled against the treatment of women by the Black civil rights leaders. And most of the people in the anti-war movement initially were men also, of the four coordinators of the moratorium, one out of four was a woman, Marge Sklenkar.
SM (02:16:15):
Is she still alive?
DH (02:16:18):
No-no. She died a long time ago. But the women were important in that movement. Bella, of course, who was wonderful. She was a good friend. She was a terrific lady.
SM (02:16:41):
She always wore a hat, that is why I am wearing one.
DH (02:16:46):
She was terrific. She is a real character.
SM (02:16:48):
By the way, I can tell you why I am wearing the hat. Ohio State won the Rose Bowl.
DH (02:16:54):
Indeed.
SM (02:16:58):
I am an Ohio State graduate, and I had a bet that they were going to lose.
DH (02:16:58):
Oh.
SM (02:17:01):
Because they had lost every big-
DH (02:17:02):
Yes, they had.
SM (02:17:03):
…for a couple years. And so, I have a bet with Dr. Adell from Westchester University. The bet, since I am no longer at the school, he said, "You have to wear a hat to everything when you leave your house for the next month." So that is why I am wearing it, and I am following through because if he had lost, he was going to have to grow a beard.
DH (02:17:31):
Okay.
SM (02:17:32):
I am not going to grow a beard, I had a beard. So that is why I am wearing the hat.
DH (02:17:36):
Well, you know, other people who were... I mean, Joan Baez was real important in the anti-war movement, as was a woman by the name of Cora Weiss. She was really a mainstay of the mobilization committee. So you know, what Gloria Steinem and... I never met her, or Betty Friedan. I actually did not read Feminine Mystique, so...
SM (02:18:17):
She had a follow-up, too.
DH (02:18:20):
Yeah. So I am not familiar with their work, but of course they were pivotal figures in the women's movement.
SM (02:18:30):
Founded Ms magazine.
DH (02:18:31):
Mm-hmm.
SM (02:18:32):
Pretty good.
DH (02:18:33):
Yeah. So...
SM (02:18:37):
Lyndon Johnson ... there is three of them here. Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, and Barry Goldwater, all key figures.
DH (02:18:50):
Johnson was such a tragedy. What a complicated guy. Really. And he did the Civil Rights Act, and he did the War on poverty. And then the Kennedy liberals, the Harvard intellectuals, the best and the brightest talked him into going down the wrong path, which undid the good that he did, domestically. Unfortunately. McNamara, I have very little use for the McNamaras or Bundys of this world. They all were smart enough to have known better. And McNamara...
SM (02:20:00):
Okay.
DH (02:20:06):
I do not know when they realized they had made grievous errors and set the nation on just a horrendously wrong course, but they did. And I have read some of the books on the Bundys, but I do not remember. But McNamara clearly was saying different things in public about the war being winnable than he believed, for a couple of years.
SM (02:20:45):
In fact, when I had my interview with McCarthy, Senator McCarthy, at the time that been out for a while. In Retrospect came out in 1995, and he had read it. And it was not one of my questions, I had [inaudible]. "Bunch of lies." He got real upset. Well, and now that I am thinking about it, the only time he got upset was Kennedy. But he got upset. "Bunch of lies." Tragedy.
DH (02:21:13):
I did not read it, so...
SM (02:21:16):
...say that.
DH (02:21:16):
But I had no use for it.
SM (02:21:19):
What about Goldwater? Three years in Conservative building?
DH (02:21:29):
Well, at least he was against the draft. He was. I mean, he was in favor of an all-volunteer army. He was against conscription. Of course, he also was against the Civil Rights Act. He had more redeeming qualities as a politician than did Ronald Reagan.
SM (02:22:02):
And yeah, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter were the next two. I am going to preface when we talk about Reagan, Carter and George HW Bush, it was George HW Bush who said the Vietnam syndrome was over, when he became president in 1989. And it was Ronald Reagan who boldly stated that we were back, basically. The army back in shape, America back in shape, it was kind of like what had happened previously was real-real negative. And then Jimmy Carter, because he was amnesty for the people that had gone to Canada, and of course, he got criticized for that, too. And particularly among Vietnam vets, who [inaudible] heels. Just your thoughts on those three presidents. Personal. Just short thoughts on them.
DH (02:22:53):
Carter? I mean, obviously I was an enormous fan of Carter's, primarily because of his human rights policy. Which I was executive director of Amnesty in those days, when he became president. And his espousal of human rights was an enormous lift and boost to those of us who were working in organizations. Unfortunately, he did not apply his own principles when it came to Iran, let Kissinger talk him into being nice to the Shah. And we paid dearly for our relationship with the Shah, of course that went back 30 years before Carter came into office.
SM (02:23:54):
Right.
DH (02:23:55):
But the US paid a heavy price for our closeness with the Shah. And Carter paid the political price for having listened to Kissinger and given the Shah asylum here.
SM (02:24:23):
Reagan and President Bush, first President Bush. And the way they talked about... to me, it sounded like a slap against the previous generation, so...
DH (02:24:35):
I would not care about that. I do not like Reagan because of his Central America policies. I think he made some unnecessary wars. We should not have gotten in bed with the people in El Salvador, and the Sandinistas were not a threat to the United States. And he slightly redeemed himself by... he finally did come around and work on detent with Gorbachev. Somehow Schultz turned out to be a good Secretary of State, who prevailed over that dreadful guy in defense.
SM (02:25:39):
Not Regan. Regan did not get along with him.
DH (02:25:45):
Oh...
SM (02:25:45):
Schlesinger?
DH (02:25:45):
No-no.
SM (02:25:45):
No-no-no. James Schlesinger.
DH (02:25:49):
That was Ford.
SM (02:25:51):
Melvin Laird?
DH (02:25:52):
No-no.
SM (02:25:52):
Yeah, he was-
DH (02:25:53):
That was Nixon.
SM (02:25:54):
Yeah. Oh.
DH (02:25:57):
A guy with a real skinny face.
SM (02:26:01):
God, I do not know.
DH (02:26:03):
But any rate, but she will... pardon?
SM (02:26:06):
Cyrus Vance?
DH (02:26:06):
No-no-no. Vance is Carter.
SM (02:26:07):
I am getting them all mixed up here. Yeah.
DH (02:26:11):
Whoever... the first Bush was not that bad, actually. I mean, I knew Dukakis, and obviously we liked Dukakis. And the Bushes run nasty ... he ran a nasty, nasty campaign. But in fact, once in office, he closed off. He ended the wars in Central America. He just closed it off. So I was glad he closed off the wars there. And he withdrew nuclear weapons, not only from South Korea, but we used to have a lot of nuclear weapons on a lot of bases around the world, and a lot of aircraft carriers. He pulled them back. There were many fewer nuclear missiles on US submarines and aircraft carriers, and stationed in our bases abroad, so that was good. And I agree with his ... I mean, he did some dumb stuff like going after Noriega, but actually, I agreed. I supported the first War on Iraq. I thought that the US national interests and the regional balance of power would be adversely affected should Saddam Hussein be enabled to have kept Kuwait. I think that would have adversely affected the balance of power in the Mideast. And I supported the war to expel Saddam from Kuwait. Unlike some of the friends from the anti-war movement, who opposed the first Iraq war, I supported the first Iraq war.
SM (02:28:50):
The Uber generation has had two Presidents, George Bush, second George Bush and Bill Clinton. Do not the comment very much detail on them. But the comment I want you to react to is what some people have told me. "They are just typical boomers."
DH (02:29:08):
I have never thought of-
SM (02:29:09):
That is what they have in common. They are typical boomers.
DH (02:29:14):
Is not George Bush...
SM (02:29:15):
George Bush is...
DH (02:29:15):
Is not he too late for a boomer?
SM (02:29:16):
No-no-no. He is the same age. He was born in (19)46, I think.
DH (02:29:29):
Oh, okay. Oh no, so he is.
SM (02:29:30):
Yeah. I think Bill Clinton and him are the same age.
DH (02:29:31):
Oh.
SM (02:29:34):
I think what they are referring to was some of the qualities, when I mentioned this, some of the qualities that some people have given me of what boomers are, they are positives and negatives, and they will use the negatives for those two. I wonder your thoughts on that?
DH (02:29:54):
Well, I have yet to find what... well, if there is a redeeming quality to George W. Bush, I have not discovered it. Clinton was the political genius of our generation. He really is a political genius. There is nobody in our generation that had better political instincts, but he squandered it.
SM (02:30:26):
Right.
DH (02:30:26):
He totally squandered it. So the only thing you can say about his presidency is that he did not get convicted for impeachment.
SM (02:30:51):
He survived.
DH (02:30:52):
But...
SM (02:30:54):
I am down to my final two. One is a very general question, and the other one is that, are there pictures, when you think of the period when you were young, are there pictures that were in the news that you say, "That is that picture." You know how a picture says 1000 words? These are the pictures that really define the time when I was young. When I talk about young, I am talking about teenager, twenties and thirties, before you turned 40.
DH (02:31:26):
Sure.
SM (02:31:28):
What were the pictures that were either in the newspapers, or the magazines that really upset you or that stood out amongst all the pictures during the Vietnam War, and...
DH (02:31:38):
Well-
SM (02:31:38):
...the (19)60s and (19)70s.
DH (02:31:40):
The Vietnam War would have been that naked girl running down the street.
SM (02:31:43):
Kim Phuc. Yeah.
DH (02:31:49):
In Vietnam and the... the Viet Cong guy getting assassinated, shot in the head at Tet.
SM (02:31:53):
Yeah.
DH (02:32:02):
The civil rights movement, people getting hosed. Was it Selma? Birmingham.
SM (02:32:10):
Birmingham.
DH (02:32:11):
No. Was it... where did people get hosed?
SM (02:32:13):
Well, near the bridge. They were heading to the bridge, and-
DH (02:32:16):
Well, that was-
SM (02:32:19):
That was downtown. No, it was not Birmingham.
DH (02:32:22):
Either Selma or Birmingham.
SM (02:32:24):
It had to be Selma, because Birmingham was... King was there, and that was the...
DH (02:32:30):
But the people getting hosed, getting blown off their feet by hoses, fire hoses. The force of the water. That would have been... that one.
SM (02:32:41):
There are three pictures from that period who made the top 100 pictures of the 20th century. One of them was Kim Phuc running down ... the other two were Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the (19)68 Olympics.
DH (02:32:58):
Oh yeah-yeah.
SM (02:32:59):
Remember that? And they were not Black power. And Tommy Smith has really been upset about it. He was not a Black power person, did not like the Black Panthers at all. It was about discrimination against Black people in America. You have written about this, but we had them on our campus. And the third one was Mary Vecchio over the dead body of Jeff Miller at Kent State.
DH (02:33:20):
Oh yeah. Yeah.
SM (02:33:21):
Those were...
DH (02:33:21):
Yes. Iconic.
SM (02:33:24):
...monumental pictures. The other one, and the last question I am going to ask is that if you can go back to those (19)50s, not for the experience that you had down south, but say the experiences when you were in elementary school, and junior high school. The (19)50s, the black and white TV, the television shows that we all watch in that era. Everything seemed so calm and peaceful, even though we had the threat of nuclear war. The Cold War was going on. If you were young enough... I was four years old, but I was a four-year-old, I saw these hearings on television. That man scared me. Senator McCarthy. McCarthy hearings, blaming these people for doing things. Oh boy, he scared me. So I remember McCarthy hearings, I remember... but still, most of the people in the (19)50s that I knew, it was a great time. Your parents gave you everything you wanted. You had Christmases and Easters and everything. And the television shows were Howdy Doody, and Ed Sullivan Show and all the cowboy and Indians. And I was not sensible about what Indians should be, Native Americans. And they were portray bad. And all the sitcoms and all the other things seem to be so calm and peaceful, yet it was that generation who went into the (19)60s and really rebelled. We all know about the generation gap. So in your (19)50s, was that your (19)50s, before you went down South?
DH (02:35:07):
Oh sure. Oh yeah. Wonderful childhood. It just revolved around family, church and sports.
SM (02:35:17):
Did your parents ever-
DH (02:35:18):
-and rock and roll.
SM (02:35:19):
Did your parents ever bring up anything that was going on? Because I love my parents, but I do not ever remember ever talking about what was going on in the South.
DH (02:35:31):
Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, they would have been like Eisenhower Republicans, but they were politically... well, I would not say they were politically engaged. I mean, they were not active in politics, but they followed it. Huntley Brinkton. And that is when they first started televising the national conventions. So they would have been unsympathetic to the discrimination, and to the mistreatment of...
SM (02:36:27):
The Black religious people?
DH (02:36:30):
...who were... so, they did not have the kind of identification with it that I had, but they thought it was wrong. I mean, they thought discrimination was wrong.
SM (02:36:48):
I wanted to ask you last, what do you think the lasting legacy will be of the young people, of the boomers, once the best history books are written? And normally the best history books are written 50 years after a period. Sometimes after the generation has passed on, too.
DH (02:37:14):
Well, I am not sure of much of anything. I mean, I think it sort of... there was a population bulge, and we gave ourselves, and other people gave us a sort of identity, which was... and then within the last five years or so, our parents' generation, the World War II generation, was proclaimed to be the greatest generation. Is that?
SM (02:38:06):
Mm-hmm. Yep.
DH (02:38:09):
But other than this bulge, this demographic bulge, I am not sure if 50 years from now... if there is any lasting legacy, it is probably rock and roll. Music.
SM (02:38:30):
What do you hope your lasting legacy will be? What do you hope it is, when people remember you?
DH (02:38:36):
Let me think about that.
SM (02:38:41):
That is okay. You got a lot. If you were before an audience of college students today, and during the question and answer period, somebody stood up and said, "What was it like to be young in the 1960s," as a general question, and why cannot we feel that way today? How would you respond to that?
DH (02:39:16):
Well, the first thing I would say is it is like being at the center of the universe. You felt that kind of fight ...in one sense connected the world, from Footer Hill, was enormously intense. And I think if they do not feel that way, I think part of their reason is that they did not narrow in their own interest. And you have to go out and get that feeling of vitality. You have to [inaudible], and if you do not invest in anything then you do not have a thing.
SM (02:40:15):
That is a good point.
DH (02:40:17):
So start caring about something and acting on it. And at the very least, vitalize your life.
SM (02:40:29):
I was not as activist as you were, and some of the other people, but being in college at that time and being young, I do not think I have ever lost it. I remember Roy Campanella, the baseball player, he said, "If you ever lose the kid in you, it is over." And certainly when I say the kid, the youth in you, because this seemed to be a feeling that anything was possible, that your voice counted. "I can make a difference in the world." There was all these feelings among a lot of the young people of that period. And we are not only talking about white people, as one of my interviewees said, we are talking about African Americans as well, people of all colors. Because I have interviewed one about Latino boomers, and working with Cesar Chavez. And there was a feeling amongst even Native American youth. I mean, there was a feeling that they could make a difference, that things were really changing. And today's young people, again, either when we had a program on the Generation Xers, they were either sick and tired of hearing boomers talk about when they were young, or they wished that it was like that when they were young. Just your comments-
DH (02:41:43):
.. know that anything was possible, but that anything was missed.
SM (02:41:47):
Yeah. Yeah. So I do not sense that amongst today's young people, although they are concentrating so much and getting a job and getting their degree, and getting on with life, and times are very difficult economically. But it is-
DH (02:42:06):
...far before the economy collapsed from modern university and become job trained. In the attitude of most students, and most administrators, and a lot of the faculty.
SM (02:42:18):
Do you feel, and final question, do you feel that the Beat generation had anything to do with influencing the Boomer generation? Alan Ginsburg, and Kerouac, and Burrows and the writings of that period? Because they basically challenged authority.
DH (02:42:36):
They certainly had enormous impact for me. I mean, part of that, the Bay Area, always go to City Lights Bookstore there. And I remember [inaudible] (19)60s, and of course, [inaudible] Dan and Mary Frank. Kind take off from that starting point.
SM (02:43:12):
Is there any question that you thought I should have asked, or did not ask that you would like to make a comment on?
DH (02:43:21):
No, I do not have any questions. I just have answers.
SM (02:43:26):
Well, David, what an honor to talk to you. I will keep you updated on my project. Do you have a color picture of yourself too?
DH (02:43:32):
I have a black and white.
SM (02:43:37):
That will be fine. Because I take pictures of everybody and I am using my photographs at the top of each little section for the oral history project, so I would need a picture of you.
DH (02:43:49):
I have got the book jacket picture, but I can send it.
SM (02:43:54):
Okay, very good. And...
DH (02:43:56):
Send me an email reminding me.
SM (02:43:58):
Yep, will do. Boy, I would love to interview your former wife.
DH (02:44:02):
Good luck. She is on the road right now.
SM (02:44:04):
Yeah. Well, I do not know, but David, thank you very much. And you are still living in the Bay Area, you are lucky.
DH (02:44:11):
Yeah, well, I live in Marin County.
SM (02:44:13):
All right. Right across the bridge.
DH (02:44:15):
Yep.
SM (02:44:16):
Very-very lucky. Well, you have a great day.
DH (02:44:20):
Okay.
SM (02:44:20):
And carry on and continue to be who you are.
DH (02:44:23):
Well, thank you. Good luck with your project.
SM (02:44:25):
Thanks, bye now.
DH (02:44:25):
Okay.
SM (02:44:30):
What you just heard was the ending of the tape for David Harris, given on the 7th of November, 2009. Excuse me, 6th of November, 2009. Thank you.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with David Hawk
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Hawk, David R. ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Amnesty International; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers; Hawk, David R.--Interviews
Description
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David Hawk is a former Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA, UN human rights official in charge of the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and author. Hawk has been a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights and taught at Hunter College, CUNY. Currently, he teaches in the International Relations Department at the University of South Florida (Tampa). Hawk is a graduate of Cornell University and Union Theological Seminary, and he also did postgraduate work in International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Magdalen College, Oxford.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-01-14
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In copyright
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.196a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.196b ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.196c
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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164:52
-
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/fdbc01f71b432d6ff00a8d6aee9b37d0.mp3
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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
2010-01-15
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Charlotte Bunch, 1944-
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Charlotte Bunch is an author, educator, scholar and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. She is currently a professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She has written many pieces which have focused on women's and human rights in the world. Bunch has a Bachelor's degree in History and Political Science from Duke University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6531,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Charlotte Bunch is an author, educator, scholar and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. She is currently a professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She has written many pieces which have focused on women's and human rights in the world. Bunch has a Bachelor's degree in History and Political Science from Duke 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
MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"John F Kennedy; Bobby Kennedy; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X; \nWomen's Movement; Social Activism; Baby Boomers Generation; \nThe 1960s; Student Christian Movement; Kent State; Sexual liberation \n"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":4609,"3":{"1":0},"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">John F Kennedy; Robert F. Kennedy; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X; Women's Rights Movement; Social Activism; Baby boom generation; Student Christian Movement; Kent State; Sexual liberation; Activism<br /></span>
Duration
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117:12
Subject LCSH
Authors; College teachers; Women's rights; Human rights; Bunch, Charlotte, 1944--Interviews
Transcription
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Charlotte Bunch
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 15 January 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:07:53):
I check this every so often. So, I think it will take there. I am a proud graduate of The Ohio State University.
CB (00:07:59):
Right.
SM (00:08:05):
When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
CB (00:08:11):
Oh, I think when I think of the (19)60s, what comes to my mind first is the Civil Rights movement, the Black Civil Rights movement. For me, the (19)70s is the women's movement. So those are the shaping, biggest parts for me of that era.
SM (00:08:32):
When you were young in say elementary school where you lived with your parents, I believe you lived in New Mexico?
CB (00:08:37):
Yes, right.
SM (00:08:38):
Grew up there. What kind of environment was it and families you lived around, and students you went to school within those early years? Was there anything during those early years that sparked you and said there is something wrong? Or when did you start thinking about activism and the issues that we involved in civil rights and the women's movements and so forth?
CB (00:09:03):
Well, I grew up in a family that was not terribly political but were community activists. My parents were very involved, and my mother was the first woman president of the local school board in a small town. My parents were very active in civic affairs. So, I grew up in an ethos that you had some responsibility for the life of your community. So, in that sense, I grew up with a kind of activism of my own parents, but it was not so much political activism. It was more sort of social concern activism. So, I always thought about doing things like that. Somebody gave me a book called Girl's Stories of Great Women. I read about Elanor Roosevelt and Jane Addams, and Susan B. Anthony, so I always thought it would be really interesting to do things, missionaries. I thought I might be a missionary. Missionaries came to my local church and showed pictures of poor people and what they did to help them. So, the notion of living a life of service in that sense was very much the ethos of my childhood. The town I was in was a small, relatively backward, conservative town, so it was more my family, really, than the town.
SM (00:10:33):
Was there one specific event, whether it be a local event, a state event, a national event or a happening that really, the first time that... You had these small things. You got the commitment to serve, but was there something that really?
CB (00:10:49):
Well, I think what really transformed that into social activism was not in New Mexico but was when I went to college. In 1962 I went to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. And the thing I remember most distinctly is I attended these dialogues that the Methodist student movement had with students from the Negro college, and it was called the North Carolina Negro College. We met African American students, and I saw in the paper one day that one of the guys that I had met was being arrested for his civil rights activism, and they were dragging him off to jail. So, I think of that as t moment when all of a sudden, I realized that I knew him. He was a nice guy. We had had a good conversation. And it sorts of sparked that there was something important and something wrong that this nice student who I knew, who was an African American, was being drug off to jail. So, I got interested in the civil rights movement, and I think that is really the one incident I remember the most. The first action I think I was involved in was, actually, some of us did a sit-in at the local Methodist Church, because it was still a segregated church. And we did what we called a pray-in. A group of us from the Methodist student movement went to the local Methodist church in Durham and sat on the steps outside and did a pray-in to protest the segregation in the church. So that was really my entry to thinking about social activism.
SM (00:12:42):
When you did that for the first time, because it takes a lot of courage. See, there is always the fear of what might happen if I am arrested, or is this going to be on my record, or will I be expelled? And then some, if I do not go along with my friends, then they will think that I am a chicken or whatever it might be. What were your feelings when you went to that first sit in or protest?
CB (00:13:08):
I think my feelings were, actually, I was so excited. I was nervous. I was nervous about what could happen, but I was so excited about doing something about something that I cared about. And I think I had been there about a year, so probably beginning of my sophomore year or the end of my freshman year in college. And I went with some of my friends; we decided together. Sara Evans was actually my best friend, and we did a lot of these things together. And it was at that point in time, Duke was a very conservative campus, and we were in the Methodist student movement. And the Methodist student movement was a place where people who thought differently were gathering, and we were studying racism and talking about these issues, and it just felt like the right thing to do. I did not worry about my friends. And I guess I felt safe. Initially, doing it at a church, I did not think they would arrest us. Our first action was a pray-in, and gradually, I went to other demonstrations, but I did not want to be arrested. I was not unafraid of being arrested. I was not brave. I was not one of those who jumped out in front of the cops and wanted to be arrested. I was not looking to get arrested, but it felt like the right thing to do.
SM (00:14:57):
Dr. King always used to say that " If you are afraid to be arrested or pay a price for your actions, then you really may not deeply care about the issue, because when you see justice or injustice..." Or even though it is a law, and it is an unjust law, you have a responsibility to change it or show in a peaceful way, change, you do not like it, through action. One of the things about the boomer generation is they are oftentimes attacked by conservatives like George Will. I tried to get Newt Gingrich to interview. He is always too busy. I understand that. He is a historian, too. Through the years, I have read some of the commentaries of both of these gentlemen, and they are kind of symbolic of many others who love to generalize about that era of the (19)60s, (19)70s and basically the boomer generation and the reasons we have a lot of problems in our society today, albeit not really the terrorism aspect. That is most recent, but the reason why we have all these issues today is because of that period, and they kind of look upon it as a negative. And I am talking about lack of respect for authority, the high divorce rate, no sense of responsibility toward a partner, drug culture, the sexual revolution and all the other things. It goes on and on, lack of respect. And, of course, at that time, a lot of complaints were against the military, too, and that particular thing, or anybody in positions of responsibility or authority. When you hear or you read, or anybody writing about that time period and they make those kinds of comments, what is your reaction?
CB (00:16:49):
My first reaction is to be totally annoyed with them, because I think that the people that were, certainly the people that I became a social activist within North Carolina in the civil rights movement from (19)62 to (19)66 were people who were deeply committed. Both the white and the Black people were taking a lot of risks. I mean, it was not easy in the south to be speaking up against these things. It was not popular. I hear these guys like Gingrich and others say it was a fad. Well, it was not a fad. It was a deeply felt conviction. And I think that it was challenging authority, but it was challenging patriarchal, racist authority. And I would still challenge patriarchal, racist authority. It was not challenging authority for its own sake; it was challenging oppression in the name of order. And it was challenging a certain kind of authority, which was an authority that was arbitrary, that was discriminatory and oppressive. I was an organizer; I believed in order. I was not an anarchist. I did a lot to structure the organizations I worked with. But we did not believe in dominant domination of people by one person or one leader. So, I think that they completely missed the point because they want to miss the point of what that movement was about.
SM (00:18:36):
They are both boomers, too. I think George Will might have been born in (19)40.
CB (00:18:40):
He is a little bit earlier, I think, yeah.
SM (00:18:41):
But Newt Gingrich is a boomer.
CB (00:18:42):
Yeah, he is a boomer, yeah.
SM (00:18:43):
Yeah, he was born in early the early (19)50s.
CB (00:18:46):
I mean Newt Gingrich is like a lot of guys on the Duke campus that I knew. I mean, there were a lot of them that really hated us because we were challenging the given authority structure, and they were, especially some of the white men in the south that I remember that he reminds me of, they were expecting to inherit the privileges of their parents, of their fathers in particular. So yeah, some of them, they were angry. They did not want this order to change because they did not understand that there were people who wanted to change that order. It worked well for some of them.
SM (00:19:29):
I would like to know your experience, because I was just talking to Bettina, too, on that. We all know that anybody whose read history like you have and been a part of it, that women were oftentimes treated as second-class citizens in the civil rights movement, in the sense of they were involved in the Montgomery bus boycott very strongly there. And there are the Dorothy Heights, and the Fannie Lou Hamers of the world. But overall, in the civil rights movement, that is an issue. Also, in the anti-war movement there was this issue, and in some of the people that I have interviewed in some of the other movements, whether it be the Chicano movement or the Native American movement, and even in the gay and lesbian movement, because David Mixner even made a comment about this, that women have oftentimes been put in the secondary roles. I would like your personal feelings about, as a female, being an activist in the boomer time frame here, about what you had to go through. Because we all hear that women were really secondary until the women's movement came about, and then of course, men were the problem. The women's movement became strong in the late (19)60s, the early (19)70s so to speak. Your thoughts on your experiences and whether that is really true.
CB (00:20:45):
Well, I think it is true, overall. I mean, as a generalization, yes, it is true. But there are multiple layers of that truth. I mean there are many different ways in which that manifested itself. So for example, in my story, I now think because I came into civil rights through the student Christian movement and the churches, and because I came in through the south from North Carolina, my leadership got encouraged by those student Christian movement leaders. And I was the president of the North Carolina Methodist student movement by my second year in college, and I was then the president of the National Student Christian movement and began an ecumenical project and experiment, so my leadership was actually nourished in this period. But it was nourished because there were women in the church who gave me encouragement and space. I think it was also nourished because in the south at that time, there were more white women than white men who were joining the civil rights movement, because women were more sensitive to these issues. I think there was a certain kind of space that I had as a student in the south coming into this through the churches that not everybody got. I mean, obviously, I had natural leadership skills, or I would not have been able to do that. I mean, I know that now. I did not know that then. So, when I began to feel the second-class status was actually not in the early (19)60s in North Carolina, but when I graduated from college, and I went to Washington, D.C., and I became part of the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington, which, I do not know if you know IPS, but IPS was the left wing think tank of that era. That is when I discovered how sexism worked. That is when all of a sudden, I went from being a fairly well-known leader of the student Christian movement based in the south and then nationally, to experiencing the invisibility that many women talk about, where all of a sudden... And I think one reason I became a feminist organizer so quickly is a little different that some other women. It was like, "Hey, I have led a national movement." And I would be sitting at the table of these seminars, and I would say something, and the men would ignore it. And 10 minutes later, a man would say something similar, and they would say, "Hey, what a great idea." and I was like, wait a minute. I mean, I am not used to this. So, there are many different layers of the story. It is not that none of us were ever encouraged; but for me, it was the growing up phase. You go from being a student to the adult left, and that is when I realized how sexist it was. And I actually think it was worse in the north than the south. This is a part that as somebody who's mixed heritage, my mother's from the north, my father from the south. I grew up in New Mexico. I see different aspects of the country, and I actually think some of the sexism was worse among northern white men, who actually felt more entitled in some ways than southern white men who were more understanding that they were oppressors because of the racial issue.
SM (00:24:41):
Some of things you are saying, Dr. King saw this too, because Dr. King knew. That is why he went north.
CB (00:24:47):
Right.
SM (00:24:49):
I know that Bayard Rustin was against him on his anti-war stand, Vietnam. We did a national conference on Bayard, so I respect Bayard. But on that particular thing, I think he was wrong; Dr. King was right. And a lot of the things that he went through when he came north, because he knew there was racism up here in the north. And all we have to do is remember Cicero.
CB (00:25:08):
Exactly.
SM (00:25:10):
I was in college, and I saw. I could not believe the way they treated him.
CB (00:25:12):
Right, exactly.
SM (00:25:14):
Before we go to the next question, I do not think you knew, but my grandfather was a Methodist minister.
CB (00:25:19):
Oh, really?
SM (00:25:20):
Yeah. McKiernan's an Irish-Catholic name, but my grandfather was abandoned along with his brother, by his father. He went off to Wall Street to make a lot of money, and he was raised by his grandparents. He was born in 1895. He died in 1956 when I was a little boy. But he was the minister of the first Methodist church in Peekskill, New York, from 1936 to 1954.
CB (00:25:42):
Wow.
SM (00:25:43):
He was well-known in Peekskill. And if I had lived long enough, I would have loved to have asked him about Paul Robeson's visit. You know?
CB (00:25:51):
Mm-hmm.
SM (00:25:51):
That terrible thing that happened, and Pete Seeger was with him. Because I interviewed Pete.
CB (00:25:55):
Oh, interesting.
SM (00:25:56):
And Pete told me about that, but I have read about it in the history books, too. Because a lot of people do not know Pete Seeger was with him.
CB (00:26:01):
I did not know that he was with him them.
SM (00:26:03):
Yeah, and they were going to kill him, too. So, it was just amazing, the links here.
CB (00:26:10):
So, I think that it is true that there was a sexism, and women were, in general, treated that way. But it does not mean that no women were able to exert leadership, as you said there were. Not only in Fannie Lou Hamers, but there were a lot of women. And I think particularly in the southern movement and among the white women, there were a lot of women who played fairly strong roles in a lot of those activities, but they are not the names of the highlights of history.
SM (00:26:41):
Yeah, people use that picture of Dr. King, too, with the march on Washington, and you see Dorothy Height over to the right, and you see Mahalia Jackson down below, but you do not see very many women there at all. There are a lot of women out in the audience, but there just are not the many up there. When you look at this boomer generation which is 70-some-million, and I want to let you know that I am trying to make sure this is inclusive, because some people have felt that when you talk boomer, you are talking white male. And I have had a couple people talk about that. So, this process is, I am not going to finish this project until I know that I have inclusion here. I am trying to get more women involved. I am trying to get African American perspectives. Certainly, I am trying to get Native American perspectives. I am going down to Washington to meet Paul Chaat Smith at the Native American Museum. And I am trying to get others to talk about it. I have already talked to a couple leaders of the Chicano movement on the West coast. I am trying to get a field, because boomers are everyone. They are male, female, gay, straight, Black, white, every other color you can imagine. And so that is what I am trying to do here. Because when I think of the boomer generation, I think of 70-some-million with all these different ethnic groups and the way they live their lives, and a lot of people do not, and this has been brought to my attention from some of the people.
CB (00:28:02):
It is true.
SM (00:28:03):
A lot of people think boomers are white males, so that is been a very sensitive thing.
CB (00:28:08):
I think of boomers as both men and women; although I do think that I think the term is more identified with white than with people of color. I do not think of it as only the men, though. I always think of myself as at the outside curve of the boomer generation, and I think of my younger sister as the boomer generation. So, I do not think of it as only the men. Although, I do think it has been used mostly in relation to the predominant white community.
SM (00:28:40):
When you look at this generation, what do you think some of the strengths are if there are some characteristics that are positive, and some of the characteristics that may be negative from your viewpoint?
CB (00:28:50):
Well, I think the most positive characteristic of being in the boomer generation was our belief, which I still have, that you do not have to accept things just because that is the way they are. That notion that change is not only possible, but change is a good thing, and you really can and should think about what you believe in and how you want to try to make it happen. I think that is, for me, the positive ethos of the (19)60s was the notion of change and the notion of making your life around what you believe in, and trying to figure out how to do that. At least that is what I identify as the positive. And the belief that equality and justice were important values. And I continue to believe that, although, the way one acts it out may be different in different historical moments. But I think that was the driving energy, and in some ways the... moments, but I think that was the driving energy and in some ways the prosperity of the predominantly, and maybe that is why I think more predominantly of the white part of the boomer generation, but prosperity was coming to African Americans too, starting to, made you able to see that consumption and things was not everything. I think part of our ethos was we were the generation in a way that did have it all. It was a prosperous era that we grew up in. If not when I was born, it certainly was by the time I was in school. And so the notion that all you had to work for was material prosperity, did not motivate me. I appreciated that, but it was not a driving force. I wanted something more.
SM (00:30:56):
That is beautiful because you see... Money. I could have been a lawyer. I chose higher ed. You do not ever make more than 60 grand in higher ed.
CB (00:31:06):
Yeah, exactly.
SM (00:31:07):
The richness with me was the ability to work in a university environment and to be around young people and to hopefully have an influence in their lives in terms of preparing for them for the world that they are going to lead and run and experience. That is what our role is. There is nothing greater than being a teacher or an administrator that works for students.
CB (00:31:26):
Yeah. There is nothing greater than doing the work that you love, whatever it pays. And I think our generation understood that in some ways, because many of us, and I do not deny the fact that there was still poverty, but many of us, a large number of us, grew up with enough security that we did not feel that that was the only purpose in life. And some of the negatives may come from not understanding well enough what those limitations meant in other people's lives. And I think there have been some arrogances around class and racial issues in the early part of the movement, not understanding enough where people who did not have the security came from. But I think we learned that.
SM (00:32:15):
I think some of the things that I have heard about, I have read an awful lot. I am reading demographic materials too. And one of the things is that a lot of boomers have become very rich, very rich, including Vietnam vets. There was a period a couple years ago, it might have been maybe 10 years ago, that of the 50 richest Americans, 10 of them were Vietnam vets.
CB (00:32:39):
Interesting.
SM (00:32:40):
At the time that... Well, Ross Perot, well, I am not sure if he was a Vietnam vet, but he was in that group too. So, I find this interesting because they are also attacked as being the consumption, the credit card problems, and got spend now... And it is again, generalizing on characteristics and be generalizing, blaming an entire group, which is impossible to do.
CB (00:33:10):
Yeah. As you know, because you are doing these interviews, there are different strands within the boomers. I was part of the political strand of activism, and we had our own critique of some of the hippies strand. On the one hand we liked it that they were critical of the establishment, but we thought they were too self-centered also. My part of the movement, the political part, we were critical of some of the hippies. We thought they were too self-centered. They were just taking the freedom we were trying to create for themselves and not giving back. So, I think that is also important to remind people that there are many strands within boomerdom, even within what you might call the left of boomerdom.
SM (00:33:59):
Have not even gone into the people that went into communes because communes... Easier way of life, but they just dropped out.
CB (00:34:09):
Dropped out, yeah.
SM (00:34:11):
And they raised family. What do you think about this category? A lot of boomers thought they were the most unique generation in American history when they were young. I can remember feeling this and hearing it, just a sense that we belonged as a group. There is a sense of community here, and a lot of people say what happened to that community as they got older? But what are your thoughts when you hear the boomers say that we were the most unique generation in the history of this United States of America because many of them felt when they were young that they were going to be the cure-all, the panacea, they were going to solve all the issues and create peace, love and harmony and end war and racism, sexism... All these things. Well, obviously those things still exist.
CB (00:35:07):
Yeah, I think that is where the people who say that the boomer generation is arrogant have some justification. I think that we did a little bit too much think that we could change it all. I think the good part was we believed in change and it was worth working for. And probably the arrogant part was not understanding well enough what it really takes to make that happen. And sometimes just thinking almost too highly of what we could do. And I am a lifelong activist, so I watched the people who dropped out, and I think some of them did not understand that this was about a lifetime. This was not just a moment. But I had a sense of history. I was a history major myself, although I never became a historian. But maybe I had less of that because I grew up in a small town. So, you do not grow up with a sense of being a part of this big ethos. And I am always a little bit skeptical when people think we are the most unique thing that ever happened, so I might put that as somewhat true, but not on the more positive part of who we were.
SM (00:36:36):
When you look at the (19)60s for the boomers now, we know when it began for you, but when you look at this generation, what do you think most of them would say when the (19)60s began and when it ended? Were there watershed events for both?
CB (00:37:00):
Watershed events for the boomers?
SM (00:37:02):
For for the boomers themselves. And along the same line, what do you think... Again, everybody's different. I have asked this. Some people are specific. "So, this is the one..." But I think the event that may have shaken their lives more than any other event.
CB (00:37:19):
Yeah. I think there are several watershed events, probably subcultures of that for sure. There is certainly a series of... I do not know if it is an event, but there is certainly two or three watershed moments in the early (19)60s around civil rights. The March on Washington is the high point of that. But I would say the killings in Mississippi of the four. And the other killings, those several killings during Mississippi summer, that was a watershed time, the four of them. And then Mrs. Lucio, the Philadelphia woman, and I cannot remember exactly when all of that happened.
SM (00:38:03):
Leeozo? I forget her name. From Chicago.
CB (00:38:09):
And for me personally, the Selma Montgomery March I went to.
SM (00:38:13):
You were there?
CB (00:38:14):
I went to the Selma Montgomery March. I went from the National Methodist Student Movement, got asked by some of the people working in the United Methodist Church to go down to Montgomery. And we worked with the Montgomery end of the Selma Montgomery March on finding housing for everybody who came to march. So, we lived in the Montgomery community. I took a week off school and I went there. And we were in the Montgomery part of the march. I did not go to Selma, but we were working to help. We had a whole student group, an integrated student group working to help with housing for the march. So, I think that configuration, Mississippi Summer, the Selma Montgomery March, the March on Washington, those were watershed... Maybe different events were watershed for different people. But that was a watershed time in race relations for my generation. That is when we got it that this was important, whichever one it was that turned you, but that configuration of things.
SM (00:39:25):
Did you meet Dr. King or JL Chestnut? Do you know who JL Chestnut is, the great lawyer from Selma?
CB (00:39:31):
Well, I was a student. I saw them. [inaudible 00:39:33]. We had Martin Luther King speak at our National Methodist Student Movement Conference. So, we had him there as part of our presence. I was not personally... We have a picture here of one of the other women in our group introducing him at that conference, the Methodist Student Conference.
SM (00:39:57):
Oh, my God. Wow. I got to get this book. This just come out?
CB (00:40:02):
No, it came out a couple of years ago.
SM (00:40:03):
[inaudible].
CB (00:40:06):
Well, it is Rutgers University Press. I helped get it published, but they never promoted it well.
SM (00:40:14):
Well, this is a [inaudible].
CB (00:40:16):
But for what you are doing, and especially to bring you some of the women's voices. Because this is specifically-
SM (00:40:22):
I might like to interview Sarah.
CB (00:40:23):
... about the women. You should interview Sarah.
SM (00:40:25):
Where does she live?
CB (00:40:26):
Minnesota. I will give you her email or you can get it. But if you look at that, you may choose to interview others too. But Sarah, you should definitely interview Sarah.
SM (00:40:38):
I think it is important because you are only the third person that I have ever met who has actually met Dr. King or been in a room with him. The first person I ever met was a person who was a student at Michigan State University when he spoke. It was a PhD professor. And he said, this would be about a short time before he was assassinated, and he was in a big auditorium in Michigan State or a gym, some big facility, and he seems very close to him. And I do not know if he is saying this to me just for drama, but he said, "I think something is going to happen to him. He is too good to stay alive." That was an unbelievable statement. "Too good to stay alive."
CB (00:41:22):
Wow.
SM (00:41:22):
And he said, "It is almost like when you saw him on the stage, it was like there was just something different about him. He was just a great speaker, but there was this ambience." Could you explain what it was like if you were in the audience, what it felt like to be listening to him?
CB (00:41:40):
Yeah, he had a very powerful, moving presence. Sometimes you are around people that you just feel you are in the presence of some kind of greatness, I think it was. I was never in a personal situation with him. I was in the audience on a couple of occasions, and it was that sense of inspiration of somebody who really embodied doing what he believed in and made you want to do the same. My memory of it was very inspiring. And it made you feel that it is possible. I do not think I had any premonitions of his death. I would not say that I had that, but I had a sense that this person was moving history, and he inspired me and made me feel like we can make things change, things can be done. And it was a quiet leadership. It was a strong, steady, quiet leadership. It was not a bombastic leadership.
SM (00:43:04):
You are right on. James Farmer was on our campus, he was totally visually impaired. But I spent two days with him. And so, we shared a lot of things besides the programs. And I asked him what it was like to be in a meeting with him. And he said he did not speak much. He just listened. We had to go... "And Martin, what do you think?" Well, this person you saw at the pulpit in church or on the stage is not the man who was in meetings. He was listening to everything and taking it all in before he made a decision. And David Hawk, who I interviewed yesterday, was in the meeting with him when he was deciding if he was going to give the speech at Riverside Church in 1967, Rabbi Heschel and how important Rabbi Heschel is, very important, in inspiring him to go do it. And that is another man in the Civil Rights Movement's that is got to be talked about more, the Jewish rabbi. And he said the very same thing James Farmer said. He did not say hardly anything in the meeting. He was listening. He was a listener.
CB (00:44:03):
He was a listener. That is right. And when he spoke, you listened. Because he did not bombast you and speak all the time. You knew when he spoke there was something you wanted to hear.
SM (00:44:15):
I got a few more general questions, then I am going to get with a lot of women's issues here. This is one I have to read to you because our students put this together when I was at the university in the late (19)90s. We took a group of students down to see Edmund Muskie. I got to know Senator Nelson, and he helped us organize some trips to meet leaders. So, this is for eight to 14 students. Senator Muskie had just gotten out of the hospital and he had been watching the Ken Burns series when he was in there. And you could tell he was not feeling very good, but he still met with us. And we asked him this question. This was actually a question that was written by students because they wanted to know-
CB (00:44:51):
Is this still...? Oh yeah, it is still right. Sorry.
SM (00:44:58):
They knew about 1968. So, here is the question. Do you feel that the boomer generation is still having a problem from healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart? [inaudible] divisions between black and white, the divisions between male and female, gay and lesbian, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not. Then they put in here, what did the wall play in healing the nation beyond the 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 are we wrong in thinking this? Or has... The number of years has changed here... That made a statement that "time heals all wounds" is truthful? Is there an issue within the boomer generation, is what I am saying? Is there an issue on healing that there seemed to have been... And Muskie responded by saying that he would not respond to it. His response was, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And then he went on for 15 minutes about how the issue of the Civil War killed 400 some thousand men, actually almost wiped out an entire generation. And he said, "For what?" He got real emotional, well emotional for him, and he did not even talk about (19)68.
CB (00:46:20):
Well, I do think (19)68 is another watershed moment in terms of the (19)60s. I think (19)68 is a watershed moment for a number of things, including actually becomes really a watershed period for women, (19)68, (19)69. But I think it was a watershed moment in terms of the Vietnam War and definitely the growth of that, and the Democratic Convention, of course, as the symbol of that. But I would not put all of those [inaudible]. I would say that the (19)60s boomer generation has not healed from the divisions between those who questioned authority and those who upheld it. And the divisions between those who questioned the Vietnam War in particular and those who did not. I think some of those things have not healed. I think that is true that some of those divisions have not healed. I do not think the (19)60s were a division between black and white or even male and female. I think those issues are very different when you are talking about what are the divisions. Because what the (19)60s did around black and white and around male and female and gay and straight is bring forward the voices of the oppressed. And I think the (19)60s laid the groundwork for the possibility of new relationship across racial lines for, eventually, what I think were beginning to experience of a more equal male female relationship. And ultimately a better relationship between... It is not even relationship, an opening up of our rigidity around sexuality and sexual orientation. So, I actually think that the wounds that may not have healed are the wounds from whether you were for or against authority. And you see that in the Clinton, Bush... Two holes of the (19)60s still playing out.
SM (00:48:44):
Senator Kerry too.
CB (00:48:47):
And I think that still has not healed. But I think on the other issues, the (19)60s did not make those wounds. The racial wounds go much earlier. The racial wounds, for me, the (19)60s began to address the racial wounds so that we might someday reach a place where there will be a difference. And on male, female, I also feel it started a process that yes, there is still, certainly the sex wars, culture wars over sexuality indicate that the culture is still divided. But it did not get divided by the (19)60s. The (19)60s opened up new possibility. So, to me, they are different, they are different things with each of those. None of them are resolved. They are still ongoing, but they represent different things. And if anything, on racial issues, I think the (19)60s opened the greatest possibility because before the (19)60s, we did not have anything like... If we were not divided on race, it was because we were accepting an oppressive situation. And actually, we were divided because there are 100 years of people struggling over the racial issues before the (19)60s.
SM (00:50:08):
Jan Scruggs wrote that book, To Heal a Nation. Of course, he is the founder. He is an interesting person in his own right. Now, he will not be involved in this process because he is... Diane Carlson Evans will, but he will not. Muller will, but he will not. I understand. He is a different person and he has had a lot of issues building the wall. He is a really good man though. So that is the bottom line. But in his book, To Heal a Nation, he thought his goal was that though the wall not only heals the veterans and their families, which is a primary goal and pay respect for those who died and served in that war, but to also start the healing process for the nation. And that is why he titled his book that. Do you think the wall has done anything to heal a nation with respect beyond the boomers? How about the anti-war people who I have always felt... I did not serve in the war. I was in graduate school. I could not go because I broke my arm. I was in a lot of things. But how many parents have actually gone down to that wall since it was built in (19)82, when the kids are saying, "Dad, what did you do in the war?" Reflecting on who they were.
CB (00:51:18):
I think the wall was an important lesson for all of us. If you think about anti-war activism in this era around Iraq, we were all... And I was not a leader in it, but I certainly participated in it. We were all much more careful about the fact that the soldiers who died were not the ones that should be vilified. That it was the people sending them. I think we learned from Vietnam. I think that the wall was a very important symbol that the division should not be between those who died or who fought and those who did not. But between those who sent people to fight and those who thought it shouldn't be done, and I think the new anti-war movements are much more careful about that.
SM (00:52:14):
I agree.
CB (00:52:15):
So, I think we did learn something from that wall. I am not sure it healed the Vietnam War moment, but I think it taught us as a people. It was a part of something we learned. And I would not say the wall did it, but the wall helps. It is part of that. It is part of that process.
SM (00:52:33):
As a non-veteran, I have been down there since... It gets kind of emotional for me because I have been down there since '93 and I have gone to the Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremony. I just want to get a feel and taking probably a couple thousand pictures of the speakers and all... [inaudible] came and everything. I might do a book on that sometime as a non-veteran. But I still see that there is of people have healed and he is an awful lot, but a lot of men [inaudible]. And you can see it through the tears, but you also see it by those who refuse to go. I am going back here, but Bill Ehrhart, the great Vietnam poet who I interviewed in Philadelphia, tremendous poet. He says, "I cannot stand the wall." I said, "Well, why?" He says, "Because the fact that it throws my buddies in my face, the names. The names are nothing to me. It is who they were." It was his perception. And he did not like it for that reason. It is not the way he... So, there is divisions even [inaudible]. And I said, "My golly, you would even got divisions over the wall." The other issue was the issue of trust. Because I prefaced this question by when I was a first-year student, I remember was in the philosophy class, and this teacher was talking about trust. The whole lecture was on trust. And I think Socrates was there and Aristotle, you are bringing everything in. But in the very end, the bottom line was that if you cannot trust someone, then you are not going to be a success in life. "And I cannot trust somebody and be a success in life?" I am remember going back and talking to my friends about that. And of course, the boomers were not a very trusting generation because they did not trust any of the leaders that were in positions of responsibility at that time. Most of them. Or the 15 percent of the boomers that were activists. And that is they did not trust the presidents, the presidents of universities, ministers, rabbis, corporate leaders, politicians. If anybody who was in a position of responsibility, I do not like you. That is a lack of trust. And there is a lot of reasons for that. It is seeing leaders lie to the American population, whether it be Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or Watergate, one of the enemies lists. And a lot of people did not even trust Gerald Ford, that he had a deal with Nixon. And Eisenhower lied about the U-2 incident. Anybody who was cognizant, I think boomers were a little more well-read than they are today, the college students. So, your thoughts on, is this a generation of people who just cannot trust, and what has this done to their kids and their grandkids in terms of this passes on to them?
CB (00:55:28):
Well, I think that it is true that part of the legacy of that period is distrusting particularly political authorities. And being unwilling to accept the excuses because we felt we were lied to. I think it is true that today, politics in America have suffered from that because we have a very distrustful and aggressive political culture. Maybe some of that came out of the (19)60s, I am not sure if I want to blame it on that. But in my own experience as a (19)60s activist, I did not distrust everybody in authority, but I did not trust them unless they did something to prove they were trustworthy. I did not distrust every minister or every president of a university. I thought some of them were okay because of the way they dealt with things. But I did not trust them just because they were authority. And I think we did see the breakdown of the notion that you should follow them just because they were in authority. And I do not think that is bad. But I think the bad part is that we have not had a political period since then in which our political culture has given us reason to trust our politicians again. And I think that is really sad. I think what is sad is that they cannot be trusted because we have not learned how to do politics in a way that does not lead to all of this. So, there is some-
SM (00:57:24):
What is really amazing to me is when I saw, when President Obama was speaking joint session of Congress and that congressman stood up and said, "You lied." He apologized, but he really believes it. And I know conservatives who said they would have said the same thing. "He is a liar." That throw back memories of politicians coming to university campuses and being shouted down, speakers and everything. So, he has not even been given much of a chance.
CB (00:57:55):
No, I think there is a... The problem is not just that we do not trust. The problem is that we do not have a culture that we feel we can trust them. And that is a problem. And I do not know that I have more to say on it than that. But yeah, I think that is an issue. Yeah.
SM (00:58:19):
I have some questions here about in the area of the women's movement. I know this is a very broad question, and I know Bettina said that she did not have the time to... We were toward the end of the interview, but when you look at the women's movement, 1970 on... I know a lot of the great things it is done. But if you were to reevaluate it, what are the mistakes that have been made, many of them by the boomers who have taken over the leadership roles, and what are the strengths? And what are the good things they have done? And where do they still have to go? I know about men. Men still have got to get it. I know that. We all know about pay. That whole issue is still in the... I think we are going to get beyond the pay thing. I think the pay thing-
CB (00:59:09):
We will get beyond the pay thing. Well, since you started it, I will start with men then I will come back to the question. I think the real issue for men is household responsibility. I think the issue that men have to get is the work that women do in the home. I do not live with men. I am a lesbian, so I do not experience it personally, but all of my feminist straight friends, if there is one issue that they are angry still about men, it is the degree which most men have not assumed the responsibilities of sharing the work of their homes. I think on a personal level, that is the issue that at least I hear women complain about the most. Apart from sexuality, which is much more complicated-
CB (01:00:02):
...Apart from sexuality, which is another much more complicated issue. So, I do not want to go there, but I mean, in terms of male, female roles in this country. I think that is probably changing more with younger men. I am not sure it will change with older men, but I think it is changing. Certainly, it has changed with some of the younger men, not all of them, but certainly with some of them. In terms of the ... I mean, it is a huge question. I am trying to think what I could say that is useful. I think that-
SM (01:00:38):
In terms of the leadership now. Dr. Roche Wagner, one of her magic moments in the interview. Do you know her?
CB (01:00:47):
No, I do not.
SM (01:00:47):
Dr. Roche Wagner. She is up in Syracuse. She is an activist. She said, "First off, women." I said, "Who are your role models?" And she said, "Well, no, no, no, no. We do not do that in women's movement. We do not take a Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. I mean, it is all of us." She corrected me on that when I was starting to say these things. When you think of them, do not put a name on it, but the women's leaders and the strategies they have used. Because one of the things that really upset me as a young administrator was when the Equal Rights Amendment did not pass. Because my first boss was one of the leaders of the ERA in Ohio. Dr. Betty Menson, I do not know if you have ever heard of her, she has passed away. And she was in her early fifties, and she was working on her PhD. She was, for almost six months, she was in constant communication, working in the office, spending time beyond. She paid for the bill if it was work there. And then I remember when that did not pass in Ohio, and I can remember hearing her reaction after she had put two years of work.
CB (01:02:02):
Right.
SM (01:02:02):
In the Equal Rights Amendment. So, it was what has there been any strategies or mistakes that have been made by the women's movement that could do it all over again?
CB (01:02:15):
Yeah. I do not know whether you would know what to do to do it all over again. I think that the strength of the women's movement, in terms of what it has achieved, is that it really brought the issues of power and domination and violence and how we live our lives together with the politics of that era. It really brought home that these questions we were asking about injustice, and oppression, and power, and ultimately violence against women were also aspects of people's personal lives. And really brought home that what is, to me still one of the fundamental, unresolved, but important questions of our day. Which is the link between violence in the home, violence against women and children, and violence of war. I still believe that these are connected, and that is what the women's movement has tried, on some level to bring home. That the way in which you dominate and violate and allow that to happen in personal life, whether it is in the family or in racial violence on the street, or homophobic violence. Ultimately is connected to the way in which we accept the violence of war and the violence against the earth and global climate questions. To me, they are all manifestations of a domination mode of being, and that somehow all of these movements in their own way are trying to overcome. But what I think the women's movement contributed is that politics is not everything personal is political. But what happens personally is also, there is also political dimension to it. I am not saying every single act is political, that would be absurd. But that there is a political dimension to daily life, that has to also be part of the change. I think that is what the women's movement has tried to communicate. Sarah's book, personal politics, the personal is political. I mean, there are all these slogans from it. But what it has really been fundamentally about is that those things we call personal are not outside of the realm of political dynamics and dimensions and affecting the world. Now, do we know how to change that? It is huge. I mean, racism is also huge, and we have not accomplished that. These are dynamics with hundreds, if not thousands of years of history behind them. I think we were all naive about how fast these changes could happen. I think the women's movement was naive, but I think we are also part of the Boomer (19)60s naivete. In the sense that we all thought by wanting to do different and better, you could. And on one level, I think we have led lives that were the beginning of very important changes. But we underestimated how deeply ingrained all of these things are, and how much it takes to actually change them. We thought whether it is the Equal Rights Amendment, which seems simple because it is a legal instrument, or violence against women. Which is a much more difficult deep issue in terms of daily life. I think we underestimated how strong the forces were that we were trying to change.
SM (01:06:00):
What I like about your background is you are linked to the United Nations. When I think of the United Nations, I always think of Eleanor Roosevelt, and I just think she was way ahead of her time and every other way. She was the conscience of FDR, and she put them in this place several times.
CB (01:06:15):
She definitely did.
SM (01:06:17):
But what I really like about your background and when I see a real big plus in the women's movement is the global aspect. What started out as a women's movement, whether you go back to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and I have taken my members of my family over there to Seneca Falls. I remember taking my dad over there before he passed away, and we had a great day over there, and sitting on her porch. One of my favorite pictures is my dad walking up the back stairs in the Elizabeth Cady Stanton's home. I said to myself, "How could she have done all this and this house so far away? And Frederick Douglas came here, and this is the actual room where they sat and all the people that came through there." But not sure what question I was getting at there.
CB (01:07:06):
Well, you were about the global.
SM (01:07:11):
It is the global aspect. Because you see, we have to prepare millennial students, and we should have been doing this with generation X-ers too. To prepare students for the world, these are world issues now. And the women's movement was about issues here in the United States, but even in some of the early books, women were thinking about the world. I had one of the first booklets from a convention that was held, and they seemed to be ahead of the game in so many things. This is a world issue.
CB (01:07:40):
Right.
SM (01:07:42):
Is this one of the positive things that I am saying here, that what was something for the United States is global, and that the women's movement has played a key role in this? And you in particular could played a key role?
CB (01:07:56):
No, I think that the women's movement, because I mean, Virginia Wolf said, "As a woman, I have no country." Because women did not even have citizenship and the vote. I think that the identification of the women's movement with women elsewhere enabled us more quickly to see the global connections. Not every woman, but as a group, and to understand that these dynamics and issues we were talking about were happening to women elsewhere too. Yes, you could have a movement about it in the US but you could not say that this is only a US problem. Even to the extent that racism was a global problem, but it had a very particular US history. It was more of a national phenomenon. I think that did kind of make us look outward, and our predecessors did. I mean, Eleanor Roosevelt did, and Virginia Wolf did, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton looked out too beyond this country. So, I think there is that dimension to it.
SM (01:09:06):
I like your thoughts too. Another thing that I look at the women's movement as being, at least the things that I have read. Johnnetta Cole, former president of Spelman College, wrote a book in the late (19)90s, a really thin book, and she was still president there. She talked about the conflict of being a female because she was a ... It is okay for her to be involved as a female in racial issues, but when she starts crossing over into women's issues. Well, I think some of the men did not like it, and certainly some of the women did not like it. "Your role should be in race because you are black." "Well, am I female first, right? Or am I black?" She brought it up in her book about the conflict, and that was really a revelation to me because she wanted to belong to both. But she was a little hesitant. Had you seen that too, or?
CB (01:09:54):
Well, I think there was a period, I think it is less so now, but I think there was a period when many women of color were feeling like they were being forced by one movement or the other to choose what was most important. A whole way of thinking has emerged in women's studies that I think is also now more present in the rest of the world about intersectionality as a result of that conflict. I mean, they really got us and many people to think about the fact that these things affect each other. It is not just one or the other. How you are treated as a woman is affected by your race and how you are treated as a black person is affected by the gender and sexual orientation, and all the other things have evolved in class. I think this way of thinking is now much more understood as a result of the geneticals and the people who first talked about that conflict.
SM (01:10:54):
I know one of the things that is still a big issue in higher education now that I have left it, but I have sensed it for a long time. I hope they are doing a better job, and that is between gay and lesbian students and African American students. Because when we ... Did you get a phone call?
CB (01:11:07):
No, just going to turn off the light. That is bright.
SM (01:11:14):
This is your interview. But when we had a conference on Byron Ruston, several black male students did not want to be involved, because he was a gay man, and they did not know about it. They were raised within their church that this is wrong, and their ministers had preached that it was wrong. But the big issue in the university is people of color who may be also gay or lesbian, and in the fear of going into a gay and lesbian office for fear of what their friends say. The pressures for young people and their peers are unbelievable today. And I still think we have a long way to go on that particular issue.
CB (01:11:46):
Oh, we do. We do. Absolutely. I actually think that the women's movement has made space for gay and lesbian issues to emerge more broadly than they would have otherwise. Because gay and lesbian issues are also challenging gender, and there is a natural connection between women's challenging gender roles and gay and lesbian. They are not the same, but there is an intersection there. But for people of color, I work with lesbians of color all over the world, and it is a constant struggle. I mean, I work with women all over the world and every culture. Muslim lesbians, who are all struggling with how to work out. They are very committed to women's rights, and if they come out as a lesbian, that will make it harder for them to work on women's rights. I mean, I just had lunch with one today who was talking about, "How do I manage this?" I mean, this is a constant struggle because the lack of acceptance of this issue means that the space for all the people of color who are lesbian and gay is very, very narrow.
SM (01:13:02):
I guess as I get older, and as I have more experience, it is just the whole business of you cannot be who you are. America is supposed to be about being who you are, being comfortable with who you are. We are a part of a community, the greatest thing that we all have is our differences. Some people say our differences. I think our differences are is our strength.
CB (01:13:25):
It is our strength.
SM (01:13:26):
And that we need to respect everybody for who they are, and what they are. We got a long way to go on that. I can understand religious beliefs, but not anybody that believes that they are better than someone else.
CB (01:13:37):
Well, most religious beliefs do not justify any of these things. If you go to the core of the religions. I left being an active, having come out of the student Christian movement. I left being an active Christian when I came out, because I was like, "I have no interest in a God or a religion that thinks I am inferior."
SM (01:14:01):
Women's leadership in the church is an issue.
CB (01:14:04):
I do not need that. But I do not think it is inherent to any of the religions. What I know from the period when I was more involved in religious movements is that whether you are talking about Islam or Christianity, any of them. All the cultural trappings about women's roles and sexuality come from the cultures. They do not come from the religious ideas. They come from the cultures at the moment that those ideas were born and developed. They vary from place to place enormously, because they take on the cultures of where they are. Those cultures are cultures, but they are not religions. The religious ideas do not have to be attached to these cultural trappings. The unfortunate thing is people get the cultural trappings mixed up with the core ideas.
SM (01:14:58):
Who were the people, the books that you read when you were at Duke? Or say 10 years out of Duke, when you were young? What were the books that had the greatest influence on you? What were your peers reading? Were there authors, writers that just had a tremendous influence on you?
CB (01:15:17):
Oh, sure. I mean, in that period of time. I suppose initially it was the James Baldwins and the Frantz Fanon and people that I was reading about the dynamics of race in the world. Then over time, Simone de Beauvoir, some of the early writings of feminism. Even Betty Friedan's book at that point. I read Betty Friedan's book when I was a college student.
SM (01:15:53):
Came out in (19)59, I think. Feminine Mystique?
CB (01:15:56):
Oh, thought it was more (19)61. But anyway, it was that period. I read it when I was a freshman in college, and I said, "Okay, I am not doing that." I mean, it was very helpful. It was like, "Okay, I am not letting that happen to my life." So, these were influential in those kinds of ways as well. I also read a lot of theology when I was a student, because I was involved in sort of radical theology circles and Paul Tillich and all these people. They were helpful as you sort your way through those moral dilemmas of your life.
SM (01:16:48):
How about the music now? The (19)60s music was unbelievable. Obviously, the folk music, the rock, and certainly the Motown sound. But how important has music been in your life in terms of the artists and what maybe the messages and the music? Has music been a very important part of what you have done and the boomers that you have seen it was important to them?
CB (01:17:14):
Well, I think it has been an important part of the Boomer experience, yeah. I think probably the music that was most important to my political life was women's music. Was the Holly Nears and the Meg Christians and the Chris Williamsons. The emergence of the women's music culture was very important to the women's movement in the seventies. As we were trying to gain a sense of validation of our identity and our realities, and certainly Holly Near was important. Part of her importance is that she came out of a larger folk music tradition too, and still is a part of a larger folk music tradition.
SM (01:17:59):
When I first get to see her, was in Slaughterhouse-Five as a 12-year-old.
CB (01:18:02):
You were lucky.
SM (01:18:04):
I get to know her, right? But I do not know her to real well. But we brought her to campus and she really supports this project.
CB (01:18:12):
Yeah, no, she is wonderful. But I think mean, the folk music of the (19)60s that was important to me, initially was just literally the Civil Rights songs. I mean, the singing of the We Shall Overcomes and the We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder and all those kinds of things. That was important as a mobilizing music. But the music that probably most affected my political work was the Women's music.
SM (01:18:40):
You ever listen to Peggy Seeger? She is real good.
CB (01:18:43):
She is great.
SM (01:18:43):
She is unbelievable too. She was in England for all those years.
CB (01:18:47):
Yeah.
SM (01:18:49):
I am going to read some stuff. This is the part where I just mention a name or a term. Just give a few words or thoughts, and you do not have to in any detail. It is called "What does this person mean to you? Or what does this mean to you?"
CB (01:19:06):
What is the association? Okay.
SM (01:19:08):
What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you?
CB (01:19:10):
The Vietnam Memorial, the Wall?
SM (01:19:16):
Yeah, the Wall.
CB (01:19:17):
Well, we kind of talked about it. So, I guess it means to me a reminder that that war is about the death of people.
SM (01:19:24):
About?
CB (01:19:24):
The death of people and real people. In this case, the Americans who died, there should be one with the Vietnamese who died too.
SM (01:19:38):
Kent State and Jackson State?
CB (01:19:39):
Oh, Kent State was very important to me. I was in Hanoi. I was on a trip to North Vietnam, with an anti-war trip when Kent State happened. I was on an anti, a mobilization against the war movement trip where I had been invited to go and talk to them about the potential of the women's movement as an anti-war force.
SM (01:20:02):
Now, who invited you to that?
CB (01:20:05):
The Mobilization committee to end the war in Vietnam. Again, because I had a history of working in civil rights, and then I went to the Institute for Policy Studies, and I had worked against the Vietnam War from the Student Christian Movement. So, I knew those people. Then when I became a feminist, I was one of the feminists who was still linked to that world of the anti-war movement.
SM (01:20:32):
Who was on that trip with you?
CB (01:20:37):
Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez, her name, she is now called Patina Martinez. Chicano woman who talked about the Chicano movement, who was also a feminist. A guy named Frank Joyce from Detroit, who had started People Against Racism, one of the white organizations against racism, and a guy named Jerry Schwinn, who was Return Volunteers. We were all constituencies that the Vietnamese asked to know more about, because none of us were primary anti-war movement. We were all against the war, but we all represented other constituencies. They asked to meet with representatives from those constituencies to talk about the potential for mobilizing those constituencies to be stronger forces against the war in Vietnam.
SM (01:21:30):
And how did you find out all the way over there that Kent State had happened? Do you remember the moment?
CB (01:21:37):
I do not know if I remember the moment they told us.
SM (01:21:42):
Because the bombing was on April 30th, 1970.
CB (01:21:45):
I was going to say, what was it? It was April 30th.
SM (01:21:46):
And on May 4th was the shooting.
CB (01:21:50):
I think we were actually in Laos when the bombing happened, the April 30th bombing. And I think we had just gotten to North Vietnam, and I think they must have told us.
SM (01:22:04):
One of the people I know that have gone, according to Daniel Berrigan went, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, and Herbert went and what is his name? Stan Lin went, and there were a couple others that, but I think David Hawk even went.
CB (01:22:18):
He probably did. There were actually a lot more trips than people realized. I was there, and then I helped organize a meeting with other women's movement people with the anti-war movement.
SM (01:22:32):
Yeah, Watergate?
CB (01:22:34):
Oh, Watergate. Watergate is probably the height of distrust of the presidency. Also, important belief that we could actually do something about it.
SM (01:22:47):
How about Woodstock in the summer of Love? The two different things, (19)67, the Summer of Love, and (19)69 for Woodstock.
CB (01:22:55):
Well, I kind of go back to what I said before. I was in the political side. It was like, "Okay, let them have their fun."
SM (01:23:06):
Already talked about 1968. How about just the hippies and yippies? They are two different groups.
CB (01:23:13):
Yeah. Well, the yippies were more explicitly political. Yes. Even though-
SM (01:23:18):
Theatrical.
CB (01:23:19):
Theatrical, and sometimes we found them. I mean, by the time they were really big, I was also already a feminist. And we found them really very male. I do not know that it was the yippies, but there was one group, I do not want to blame it on the yippies. But there was one moment that is actually a turning point in 1968 for the women's movement. When at one at the counter inaugural for Nixon, would have been (19)69, I guess. There was a big demonstration called the Counter Inaugural, and I was living in Washington at the time. Some of the guys proposed, probably jokingly, but a strategy of raping congress people's wives who voted for the war. It was one of those moments in which we said, "Do you know what you are saying?" I mean, it was like, I mean, just talk about how did Women's Movement consciousness come? Another point at which Marilyn Salzman Webb was speaking at that inaugural about women's liberation, and one of the guys yelled our, "Take her off the stage and fuck her."
SM (01:24:36):
Oh my God.
CB (01:24:36):
I mean, these were things that were being said in that period.
SM (01:24:41):
Wow.
CB (01:24:41):
I associate some of that kind of mindless sexism with some of that kind of behavior of some of those guys who thought a little too much of themselves and not of the rest of us.
SM (01:24:59):
I know General Raskin, was in that group, but he was not, he is a little different though. SDS, Students for Democratic Society and the Weathermen.
CB (01:25:13):
Well, SDS was a great organization before the Weatherman. I worked a lot with several of the presidents of SDS as a part of my liaison with the Student Christian movement. I think they were really an important organizing force. And the Weathermen were our crazies, our political crazies. They, I think, represented forgetting what Martin Luther King had tried to teach us about the fact that what you do matters, even as you are trying to make change. And I think it was a very sad ending for SDS. I understand how they got there, but I think it represented going to violence in exactly the opposite of what King had tried to teach us about.
SM (01:26:12):
I recommend a book that is out right now. Mark wrote the book. I do not know if you have read it.
CB (01:26:16):
I have got it. I have not read it yet.
SM (01:26:17):
You ought to read it. You talked about the sexism and that. Oh my God. And you see, this is before the Weatherman. I mean, some of the things that SDS did in terms of women is just.
CB (01:26:29):
Oh, there is some terrible stuff.
SM (01:26:29):
Nothing to be proud of.
CB (01:26:29):
There is some terrible stuff.
SM (01:26:32):
I think probably those women who easily succumbed in those days would be very embarrassed if they did that as they have gotten older. How about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the Young Americans for Freedom?
CB (01:26:48):
I thought the Vietnam Veterans Against the War was a really important group. I thought it was a breakthrough. Young Americans for Freedom, I just remember as the enemy.
SM (01:27:00):
They were conservative. They served against the war though.
CB (01:27:06):
I had forgotten that they were against the war. I guess they came later.
SM (01:27:09):
I had to read Lee Edwards, and he said, "This is the one forgotten story."
CB (01:27:13):
That is an interesting point. When I was dealing with them was before they were against the war, and I forgot that they... That is interesting.
SM (01:27:19):
Do you know Tom [inaudible] he wrote ... Tom is a politician from Texas, and he has got a book coming out in a couple weeks? But he wrote a book on his years as a Vietnam vet, and he was the head of the Young Americans for Freedom.
CB (01:27:32):
Oh, I did not realize that.
SM (01:27:34):
He says, "I am not sure if I am that proud that I was against the war." I have got a couple more, see how we are time-wise here. I know this tape, I got 10 minutes on the tape.
CB (01:27:43):
Let me just get a little bit.
SM (01:27:44):
Take a break then 10 minutes on the next one here and then we are done. What do you think of Jane Fonda?
CB (01:27:52):
I like Jane Fonda, she has her wackiness. But I think she was brave when it was important to be brave and that she cares and she is a celebrity. Sometimes celebrities go a little wacky. But I think she was a brave woman who cared and tried to do what she could.
SM (01:28:15):
I want to interview her, but she said no a couple of times. Then I kind of lost touch with her, now. I think she was Ted Turner at the time. I was trying to get ahold of her. But she does not talk a whole lot about it anymore.
CB (01:28:27):
No, I think she got burned. I think she got burned by how badly they vilified her.
SM (01:28:32):
Yeah, some Vietnam vets say that she has not really answered. Anyways. Tom Hayden?
CB (01:28:39):
Oh, I have more mixed feelings about Tom Hayden. I think he is brilliant. I think he did a lot of great stuff. I think he was a sexist pig, I had a really hard time with him. I thought his attitudes toward women were very bad, but I also think that he was an important thinker about these issues.
SM (01:28:58):
How about Timothy Leary?
CB (01:29:00):
Drugs Leary?
SM (01:29:02):
Good old Leary. Part of his ashes are up in space right now.
CB (01:29:08):
I was never very big in the drug culture. So yeah, it was kind of like, "Okay. Yeah, it is not a big part."
SM (01:29:15):
I never understood it how a PhD, and a distinguished one, would go in that direction. I never quite understood it. Some of the others would be the Black Panthers. Just your thoughts on them as a group? But also, on individually, the Huey Newtons, the Bobby Seals, the Elders Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Stokley Carmichael, H. Rap Brown. They are all unique personalities within the group.
CB (01:29:45):
I did not know any of them on a personal basis. So, my observation of them was as a political force that I admired in many ways and also felt worried about because I thought there... worried about, because I thought their stance on Black pride was really important. But I was not totally comfortable with the embracing of guns and violence, because I have always... I am not a pacifist, but I am a very strong distaste for accepting the military and the violent solutions, whether it was Weatherman or the Black Panther. And I guess I am a non-violent advocate without being quite a hundred percent pacifist, I think. So, I had problems with that part. But, we all have our struggles with the issues of separatism. And they were sort of symblomatic, really, of the kind of Black separatist mood. But I also think they did some really important things.
SM (01:31:00):
Dr. King and Malcolm X?
CB (01:31:02):
Well, King, we have already talked about. I had enormous respect for him. I also think Malcolm X was brilliant and really pointed to things that we would not see otherwise.
SM (01:31:20):
But Muhammad Ali?
CB (01:31:24):
Yeah. Also, all of them really, when you think about what they stood up for and what Muhammad Ali went through to be against the war. Remarkable.
SM (01:31:36):
Got stripped of his title.
CB (01:31:38):
Yeah. Remarkable bravery.
SM (01:31:41):
[inaudible] viewpoint. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
CB (01:31:53):
Well, opposite forms of the same problem. The brilliant one who was horrendous, and the stupid one who was horrendous.
SM (01:32:03):
I can never remember that quote he always gave about the... You know the quote he always said about anti-war activism.
CB (01:32:12):
Yeah. No, I mean, Nixon's cynicism in having Agnew as his vice president has only been matched by John McCain's cynicism in having Sarah Palin.
SM (01:32:29):
John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy.
CB (01:32:30):
I was a big admirer of Bobby Kennedy. And I felt like he understood what it meant to try to bring change. And had he not been assassinated, I do not know what could have been different. I was a little bit less sure about Jack Kennedy. It is interesting what you said about Eleanor Roosevelt. When he was first elected, I was not yet a political activist. And it was just interesting. And I was still in high school. And as he was there, I got more and more into it because I got more and more engaged with it.
(01:33:18):
And certainly, as a moment of symbol of the change, I kind of had the feeling that had he lived, we would be more critical of who he was. That in a way, he got to do the best of what he could do and then he died before the worst parts would have come out. But who knows? But I was never a big kind of JFK, rah, rah, rah. I actually was much more moved by Bobby, but that may just have been the age I was at when they were both out there.
SM (01:33:54):
How about Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara?
CB (01:33:58):
Oh, God. Well, Lyndon Johnson is a tragic figure to me. I grew up in New Mexico. I knew about Lyndon Johnson from Texas. And I think that he did a lot for civil rights and believed in it and made some risks for it. But he made such blunders in the Vietnam War and his own pride, it was kind of like a Greek tragedy in some ways, that the better part of him got overtaken by his role in the other part. And what was the other one you said? Oh, McNamara.
SM (01:34:36):
McNamara.
CB (01:34:37):
Well, it is just this whole phenomenon of bright guys who let themselves get into this. I feel-
SM (01:34:45):
Bundy is the same.
CB (01:34:48):
I fear we are about to watch it again with Afghanistan, so I am not...
SM (01:34:53):
How about Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern?
CB (01:34:56):
Well, I did not work on their campaigns, but I think we all loved that they stood up. And that to me represented that there were some people who would stand up in the Congress and run for president and voice our views.
SM (01:35:16):
Hubert Humphrey and Barry Goldwater.
CB (01:35:20):
Oh, I think Hubert Humphrey is another tragic one like Johnson. Who somehow, and maybe because of him being with Johnson at the same period, started out really caring about things and let himself get drug into the establishment and losing his vision. And probably that is people like Hubert Humphrey in particular, even more so than Johnson, probably influenced my feeling that I never want to be a politician. Because I felt like, I want to make change from the outside. Because I see people who I think once did stand for something good. Early in my life I saw people, what became of them when they became politicians. And I thought, I do not want that.
SM (01:36:14):
Hubert Humphrey's unbelievable, because in (19)48, he wrote a book on civil rights and racism, which was a classic book. He was way ahead of his time on that as a white man and a white politician. Yet he knew that if he went against Johnson in (19)68, that Johnson may decide to even run again. I think the power that Johnson had over his psyche, and that if he had gone against Johnson, he probably would have won the election. He was coming close to winning it even at the end. They said another week, and he probably would have won the election. But this, not disassociating himself from the president. It killed him. He was not gung ho for the war.
CB (01:36:48):
No, but he did not...
SM (01:36:52):
And Goldwater and Buckley, the conservatives.
CB (01:36:56):
Well, I liked, when I was a high school student, I read Conscience of a Conservative. And I got really turned on because it was the first time I ever read good political theory. But then I realized soon after that I was on the other side of the theory that I wanted. But I always had a soft spot for the fact that I found that book really stimulating. And there were some moments when he was really good, but of course, he chose the wrong side of history overall. And that is where we leave it, with the notion of bombing Vietnam and all of that. Buckley, I guess by the time I started to read Buckley, I was more cynical about conservatives no matter what. But they are bright guys. They said things that sometimes made sense. You had to listen.
SM (01:37:54):
Goldwater conservatives that I have spoken to really put him up on a pedestal. And the irony is that he was the man, along with Hughes Scott from Pennsylvania, that had to walk into the White House and tell Nixon, out of here.
CB (01:38:09):
Oh, really?
SM (01:38:10):
Yeah, it was Goldwater and Hugh Scott, Mr. Pennsylvania. And when they went to the White House and had the closed-door meeting with Nixon, it was over. That was the final thing.
CB (01:38:23):
I had forgotten that.
SM (01:38:25):
Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, the Catholic priests, and Daniel Ellsberg.
CB (01:38:31):
Yeah. Well, these were important figures. They weren't people that I personally did any work with, but I certainly admired the Berrigan brothers' stand, and certainly Ellsberg's. These were all important people in terms of exposing what was going on. But they weren't major in my own personal development. But I certainly think of them as important markers.
SM (01:39:00):
Of course, Ellsberg and then Benjamin Spock, those are my last two.
CB (01:39:06):
Oh, Benjamin Spock.
SM (01:39:09):
The baby doctor.
CB (01:39:10):
Yeah, the baby doctor. Yeah. I do not know. That is a funny one. Yeah.
SM (01:39:22):
Something about, he died the same day my mom died. Actually, the day before my mom died. And I actually went to see my mom. I did not know if my mom was going to die. And said, "Benjamin Spock died. Just died." And let her know about him. Of course, he wrote the baby books, and a lot of people complained that he was the guy they were raising. But he was involved in protests, and a lot of people admired him for going out there and doing that.
CB (01:39:45):
Well, I do admire that part. Yeah.
SM (01:39:47):
You notice, I said a lot of these are men. I already talked Gloria Steinem, and Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan. But are there any females that I did not mention that I should have mentioned here when I talk about personalities?
CB (01:39:59):
Angela Davis.
SM (01:39:59):
Yeah. Well, Angela Davis. Right.
CB (01:40:03):
Angela Davis was very important to all of us as a woman who stood up, and being a Black woman, and being visible in that moment. Absolutely. She was a marker for many women about women who were strong women, and in the the anti-racism struggle. There were other women that were important to me, but I am trying to think if there were women besides Angela Davis that I would put at that visible place.
SM (01:40:50):
Eleanor Roosevelt was alive when Boomers were alive. She died in (19)62.
CB (01:40:56):
Eleanor Roosevelt was certainly a symbol for women. So was Margaret Mead. In fact, I was on a committee with Margaret Mead for the World Council of Churches, and she was a very important figure in women seeing both that you could be different, and what she said about gender roles in other parts of the world. And Simone de Beauvoir, of course, not American, but certainly was somebody that... Kate Millett.
SM (01:41:31):
And Susan Sontag.
CB (01:41:32):
Susan Sontag.
SM (01:41:33):
Her first book is unbelievable.
CB (01:41:35):
Susan Sontag. And Kate Millett. Kate Millett's Sexual Politics. In terms of getting out some of those issues around sexual politics and sexuality, and rape, and violence, Kate Millett was a very important moment, her book.
SM (01:41:56):
When the best books are written on the Boomer generation, what do you think they will say? When I say this, some of them are being written now, but normally, the best books are 50 years after a period. We are talking the (19)60s now, we are talking, well, it is almost 50 years now, 40 years. So, 10 years from now, the best books. But I am really talking about as they pass on, what do you think the historians and sociologists will say?
CB (01:42:22):
About the generation as a whole?
SM (01:42:24):
About the generation as a whole.
CB (01:42:25):
Not just the part that was social activist, but the generation as a whole?
SM (01:42:29):
Yeah, everything. Because the question is, did the boomers shape the times or did the times shape the boomers? And some people think it was all about the events that shaped them and not so much. It is amazing how...
CB (01:42:44):
Yeah. Well, in terms of that, I always think it is a mixture. You do not make history unless the times are right for it to be made. But it has to happen by somebody doing it. And so, I think that we did make history as boomers. It was a change-shaping time in this country. But I think that the conditions, we talked a little bit about that earlier in terms of the prosperity and all the rest, were also present for that to happen. So to me, it is always both. When I think about my own work, I could not have made the breakthroughs I made in my work if the time was not right, things had not been happening. When we worked on women's rights as human rights we knew the fact that the Cold War had ended and the old human rights association with sort of Cold War was gone, that we could make a breakthrough. It is not that nobody else had thought about trying to do that. And the time has to be right, but somebody has to make it happen.
SM (01:43:58):
Are you pleased overall with boomer women and the way they have lived their lives? Because their parents, their moms, raised kids at home. And the father was off to work in the fifties and the forties. Are you pleased with the accomplishments that boomer women have made in the battle that they waged?
CB (01:44:20):
I think overall, yes. I think boomer women have really fought an important fight, by which I do not mean it has been all negative. I think we have also lived really interesting lives as a consequence of being the first generation to really get to try to live our lives differently as a generation. There are individual women who lived their lives differently, Margaret Mead or Eleanor Roosevelt. But to be a generation that felt permission to try to live differently has been exciting. It has been really a challenge. Sometimes hard, but it has been exciting. And, overall, I think we have had a lot of important things happen as a result of that. But has it all succeeded? No. The fact that we did not get or figure out how to get enough childcare for women so that women still feel torn between being at home and raising their kids and family and career. These issues and tensions are not solved. But I think we did what we could to say it can be different and to start that process. It will take several more generations probably to figure out how all of that works out. And hopefully, we will resist the backlashes.
SM (01:45:50):
Dr. King used to always say, and is his lesson to all of us, and his birthday is today, is not it? The 15th? And of course, we are celebrating on Monday. His lesson is, if you are ever going to get anything done, agitate. Agitate, agitate. I think Frederick Douglass said that too.
CB (01:46:06):
Yeah, I think so.
SM (01:46:06):
Agitate, agitate. I think that kind of thing, that is important. I am done with questions. Is there any question that I did not ask that you thought I should have asked? When I was coming to this interview? Is there something that I...
CB (01:46:19):
I think the only thing that I would add that I think you did not get into is that-
SM (01:46:24):
Got other questions here, but we do not have time.
CB (01:46:26):
Well, you said something about sexual liberation. And actually, I think that there is an interesting conjunction of the first phase of sexual liberation was in the (19)60s for many women. Initially, we thought it was positive, but it was actually very negative because many women felt that it became a period in which men just thought they could have access to women's bodies. And I think that actually some of that experience played very much into the women's movement and the degree to which the women's movement really was able to put forward why issues like reproductive rights, and birth control, and violence against women were so important. And so, I have not yet seen, I have not read a lot of the (19)60s books, but I actually think there is talk about the sexism of men in the (19)60s movements and the second-class status that you mentioned. But actually there is also a thread of both liberation, because women felt positive about sexual liberation, and we felt negative about it both. Because there was some degree to which we also wanted greater freedom around sexuality. But it also exposed the male hierarchy in sexuality and brought on the recognition of some of those issues. And I think over time, even the freedom around gay and lesbian liberation that came with that, I think there is something very interesting that could be looked at in terms of that. Because when people talk about sexual liberation, they do not very often talk about the difference in what men's experience of that and women's experience was. And for women, it was very complicated, the whole (19)60s sexual liberation.
SM (01:48:40):
Yeah. I am not sure if I mentioned this. I might have mentioned to Bettina that if I were to sit down to my mom, who loved raising me and my brother and my sister, and my dad was a really good dad, but he was always away at work. And he was there on the weekend, and the gardening and all the other stuff. But I think Sally Roesch Wagner, when I spoke to her, she said, "You never had that conversation with your mom. You do not know if she was a hundred percent fulfilled. You do not know, because what did your mom do?" Well, my mom, she went to Cazenovia College and she was an unbelievable stenographer. And she was so good at it that, before my dad married her in 1942, she ended up, when she was in college, also being the second secretary of the president of the school because she was so good at what she did. But then she gave it all up to raise the kids. She would not say she gave it up, but I never ever asked her a hundred percent. I never thought of it. And she said, "Well, that is why when you talk about the fifties, which the fifties to a white male and to a white female is totally different." And we are talking about the World War II generation. We are not talking about boomers now.
CB (01:49:55):
Right.
SM (01:49:56):
And that was a revelation, because I never had that asked. I never asked my mom that question, ever. And I wish she was alive today to be able to ask it. And it would not be offensive to my dad because my dad was open.
CB (01:50:09):
Right. Yeah.
SM (01:50:13):
But anyway, thank you very much. That was great. I am going to take a couple more pictures.
CB (01:50:17):
Oh, right. Okay.
SM (01:50:19):
And then I got to walk a couple blocks and, boy, driving out of this city will be a lot of fun.
CB (01:50:23):
Yeah. Unfortunately, your Friday afternoon, well, people might leave early on Friday. It might be...
SM (01:50:30):
This is the other book that I just bought that I think is going to be a good one. I do not know if you have seen this one, but Tom.
CB (01:50:36):
No, I have not seen this.
SM (01:50:37):
That came out six months ago. This came out this week.
CB (01:50:42):
Great.
SM (01:50:44):
So, this is more of a political one.
CB (01:50:47):
Good.
SM (01:50:51):
Yeah, I am going to definitely remember that book.
CB (01:50:59):
Yeah, you should order that book. Hopefully they still have it, I think Rutgers University Press.
SM (01:50:59):
Take this picture. I am going to actually take four pictures.
CB (01:51:01):
I assume I should turn on the lights.
SM (01:51:03):
Yeah. Do not have my record flash with me.
CB (01:51:06):
How do you want me? Do you want me at the computer?
SM (01:51:11):
Yeah, one at the computer. And then one close up. I do not know if you want to look...
CB (01:51:11):
You tell me.
SM (01:51:12):
Yeah, I will have you look. A close up here. Make it look different. [inaudible].
CB (01:51:21):
[inaudible] I am in a nice little hut.
SM (01:51:42):
How about with all your books?
CB (01:51:43):
In this light, it is probably more...
SM (01:51:43):
[inaudible] And I got a problem, because where I live I do not order promo.
CB (01:51:43):
Yeah, well I do. I put things that I want to keep, but I know I am never going to use, at the end of the day.
SM (01:51:43):
And one close up, and that will be it. That is it.
CB (01:51:43):
Okay. Great. [inaudible] The interview is over.
SM (01:52:39):
I will email you, and as far as me trying to get ahold of Sarah or any other female leaders, or boomers, or whatever, or you think it would be good for the interview for us as I have been doing this, I am going to be talking to Sam Brown now. Because you know Sam?
CB (01:53:01):
I know who he is. Yeah.
SM (01:53:03):
Yeah. Well, because David thinks I ought to talk to him because I did not realize they were so close to Senator McCarthy.
CB (01:53:11):
Oh, right.
SM (01:53:12):
They went to the, I went to the funeral too, but I was not as close as they were.
CB (01:53:18):
Heather Booth, do you know Heather Booth's name?
SM (01:53:18):
No.
CB (01:53:27):
The wife of Paul Booth, who was one of the SDS presidents at one point.
SM (01:53:31):
Is he still alive or?
CB (01:53:32):
I do not know about him. But Heather Booth was his wife and she was very active in Women with Liberation. And she went on to found something called the Midwest Academy. She is in Chicago. I think she is still there. She was very much a part of the (19)60s generation, early women's. Sarah Evan.
SM (01:54:02):
I know the one person I have not been able to get ahold of is the one that was on city councils in Sacramento. Goldberg. Her name was Rudy Goldberg, or...
CB (01:54:13):
I think it was Rudy Goldberg, yeah.
SM (01:54:14):
I do not know how to get ahold of her. I cannot get ahold of Holly. She is on the road all the time, so. I think Patina knows her real well. But she was a student working for her.
CB (01:54:27):
Oh, I mean, it would be great to go to Angela Davis, and Patina also-
SM (01:54:31):
Yeah, I tried. She gets so many requests that she never even looks at her email. So, she has got a person that works for her, but whether she passes it on, but maybe I will share. And there is another book that came out at time. In fact, I just ordered it and I am picking it up. I paid for it. It is dealing with a permissive (19)60s. It is called, it is something to do with a permissive (19)60s. So, I will email you about that too, because I just...
CB (01:54:58):
And I may think of other women too and I can send you an email. [Inaudible].
SM (01:54:58):
You know Ruth Rosen?
CB (01:54:58):
Yeah.
SM (01:54:58):
Trying to get a hold of her, but they say not around for a while.
CB (01:54:58):
That she is what for a while?
SM (01:54:58):
She is not there.
CB (01:54:58):
Yeah, she would be good too. Okay. Well, good luck on your drive back.
SM (01:54:58):
Yeah, I have got to drive by the university.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Charlotte Bunch
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Bunch, Charlotte, 1944- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Authors; College teachers; Women's rights; Human rights; Bunch, Charlotte, 1944--Interviews
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Charlotte Bunch is an author, educator, scholar and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. She is currently a professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She has written many pieces which have focused on women's and human rights in the world. Bunch has a Bachelor's degree in History and Political Science from Duke University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-01-15
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.36a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.36b
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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117:12
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Audio interviews
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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>
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
2010-01-30
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Paul Rogat Loeb, 1952-
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Paul Loeb, a native of Berkeley, California, is an author, journalist, and political activist. Loeb has published five books and has done interviews for TV and radio including CNN, NBC, and PBS. He has written for many well-known journals and newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist and many more. Loeb graduated from Stanford University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5003,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"6":{"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"}">Paul Loeb, a native of Berkeley, California, is an author, journalist, and political activist. Loeb has published five books and has done interviews for TV and radio including CNN, NBC, and PBS. He has written for many well-known journals and newspapers including the <em>Washington Post</em>, the <em>New York Times</em>, the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>, <em>The Economist</em> and many more. Loeb graduated from Stanford University.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
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MicroCassette
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Sound
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Video or Audio
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64:52
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Silent generation; Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Children of Silent Generation; Newt Gingrich; Senator Edmund Muskie; Ken Burns; Civil War; Confederates; Trust."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14275305}}">Silent generation; Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Children of Silent Generation; Newt Gingrich; Senator Edmund Muskie; Ken Burns; Civil War; Confederates; Trust.</span>
Subject LCSH
Authors; Journalists; Political activists--United States; Loeb, Paul Rogat, 1952--Interviews
Transcription
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Paul Loeb
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So
Date of interview: 30 January 2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
0:05
SM: Testing. One, two. Thanks again for doing the interview. This is again, the title of my book is called Magic Moments. And it is basically a takeoff of oral history interviews that I have been doing since I was working at West Chester University and then I retired to actually finish the book. The first question I want to ask is one of the writers that really inspired a lot of the boomers was Bertrand Russell, I-I have interviewed so many people and when I asked him Who were some of the influences on the boomers. Russell was one of them. And several people have quoted the very beginning of his book is kind of defining what the boomers are all about. And I like your thoughts on this at the very beginning of his autobiography, it says the three simples when asked what-what is the boomer generation All About and then respond three passions, simple, but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life, the longing for love, search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. What are your thoughts on Bertrand's thoughts there in his autobiography and how they might also be defined with a boomer generation?
1:25
PL: Well, you know, hard-hard question. I mean, I would say that, I mean, I was somebody who admired him, but I honestly actually had not read his work. So, so I am not one of the people who-who is sort of, you know, you know, who he was a pivotal figure for who but, I mean, I think it is probably two parts. You know, one of the things I think is really, really important to, to underscore is that there is no such thing as a monolithic generation. And so, if I looked at the people who were active, including myself, you know, during the Vietnam era, during the civil rights right stuff. You are all the, you know, social justice fight. And I look at the people like, you know, George Bush who are cruising through, you know, as drunken frat boys or-or, you know, or I mean, not just from the privileges, you know, but-but there were a lot of people who were not part of those movements. I think it is important to understand that the experience was fundamentally different. Um, there is a really good book, and-and have you seen it called Beyond the Barricades [The Sixties Generation Grows Up] by Richard Flacks and Jack Whalen? Do you know that?
2:29
SM: I think I have not.
2:30
PL: Okay, yeah. Because they were taking for granted, they did this, I do not know, 15 years ago, maybe they were looking at people in Santa Barbara, who were sort of very active during the period when the Bank of America got burned, although not always participating in it. And people were sort of hostile to those movements, you know, over-over and above the issue of the bank, when they really saw as people kind of following out those paths, you know, to this day, and, you know, so I got really angry when the media was sort of saying these tea baggers are probably the same people who were the radicals of the (19)60s that was like excuse me, where was your evidence? Have you interviewed any of them? No, you know, you know, there is, it is just like this assumption, I think, I think it is important to understand that, you know, those who have gotten involved to a certain, how to describe it to a certain degree. And there is a sort of threshold level. So, you know, if you were really involved and went down to Mississippi, or if you were organizing a whole lot at a college, you know, just doing all these things, the likelihood was that you stayed involved in citizen movement, and progressive movement. You know, if you were at the fringes, you know, I mean, it was not the same thing to me at the edge of a, you know, of a rock concert that, you know, was perfectly fine, but it was not. It is not a political engagement. And I think that there was a lot of conflation so there was conflation on two levels. There was a kind of false conflation of people who-who were kind of coming have shared some of the sentiments but were not involved with people who were involved. And then there was people conflation people who did not share any of the sentiments at all with people who were involved, and so you say, well look, you know, look, there was people on there, they were, you know, supporting regressive candidates or, you know, or whatever. But they never were, they never were engaged in a sort of progressive way to begin with. So, so I think that that that caveat, really important to make clear, and just any-any-any study of the generation. Now, if you were looking at those who were not getting involved, you know, and again, there was sort of two classes, there was two groups of three. You know, there was the people who were actively working for social justice or against the war. And then there was the people who are kind of at the periphery, we sympathize. Now, obviously, the effectiveness says of the movements of that time, it depended on being able to draw in those sympathizers so that their, their attitudes were not irrelevant by any means. But it to now, I think you just have to draw a very careful line where you end up, you know, basically creating a narrative. Somebody said, well, you know, they were a hippie then and look at them now and where did they go? Right. And, you know, so I think that is the point in terms of Russell's statement, you know, circling back to your question. I mean, I think, I think that there was an upwelling of compassion, and, you know, you know, whatever that character’s phrase, you would just use, you know, for something. I mean, I think there really was, and there was a sort of sense that does, you know, why are we-we are listening to us, you know, why are we not living up to our values, we should be living up to our values, and our values include treating people with justice. So, when I say I think that that, you know, that really, really was a current, you know, the need for love. I mean, I do not know, you know, do we need it more than other folks, you get more? Unless you are on that one. I like it, you know, it is like, I like to be loved, but, but you know, you know, my dad who is 81 got it. You know, it means a lot to him to. I am not sure that that is something that is generationally based to be honest. Right. You know, I would hesitate on that one. Um, but I think it was kind of upwelling of compassion. And I cannot remember the third aspect well.
6:14
SM: Well knowledge, the search for knowledge.
6:16
PL: Well, the search for knowledge, but I think that there was a sense that the, the verities of the times, which were sort of forged in the post, in the Cold War, post-World War. Two consensus that they were worth questioning, at least among a lot of people. Now, one of the, I did not tend to think, is that the completely legitimate critique, say from the left, and it has some point, dovetailing with some of the critiques from the right, and sort of helped to dismantle some of that social welfare state. That was a kind of unfortunate consequence. Right? You know, when I say search for knowledge, you know, the knowledge of basically saying, well, let us question everything. So-so I think there was that certainly people were trying to think things through anew. And that was good in many ways. But sometimes it made people a little contemptuous for what had been achieved. And that was-
7:10
SM: One of the things that when you look at the boomer generation is oftentimes the influence they had on their children, which is the generation Xers and actually now, when you go to the colleges, only about 15 percent of the men, millennials are sons or daughters of boomers. So, it is mostly generation X kids is so-
7:31
PL: So here is the thing he really because I did that book on-on students. Right, that really strapped I mean, problem, I think when you are trying to define that, is if you look at the generation X folks, a lot of their parents were from the what everyone calls that previous generation, the silent generation, you know, you know, Korean generation, and now it is kind of to charge but you know, the generation of sort of, you know, Korean age, and you know, came of age in the (19)50s. So, a lot of their parents were from that and again, you have distinguish between early and late boomer, I mean, boomers if you were coming up in (19)62, or three versus (19)68, or (19)69, totally different world, right, you know, and I mean, if you look at them in the figures in, think of this is in Seoul citizen, I could look, probably, I will look it up, because I know I know it is in there and therefore, I can just find it and give it to you, that, hold on a sec. What I am trying to find is the, of Wisconsin. That should do it. Okay, so basically, here is your- here is the figures laid is 19 sentences from Seoul citizen directly. The latest 1966 National antiwar demonstration drew more than 25,000 people. More than 70 percent of students at University of Wisconsin, a future radical hotbed bill approved of America's involvement in Vietnam. In the spring of 1968 not one 39 major newspapers in the Boston Globe survey, favored pulling out our troops? So, you know, when I look at that, what does that say that it is you are coming of age in (19)63 you are coming of age in a period where everyone is supporting the war, now coming age, and not that many are involved in (19)69 very different. So, I think that if you look at the children, the children of the, you know, of that previous generation, or have that sort of first, the non-engaged flights of the boomer generation, tended to be quite conservative. And in fact, that generation that cohort is, you know, is a very conservative cohort. Um, you know, in terms of their voting, you know, when they were they vote Republican. And but I think it is inaccurate to say, oh, these are the children of the (19)60s activists. And then, you know, and again, the millennials kind of split, you know, and obviously, every year, right, smaller, I mean, like, my stepson, graduated from college this year, I was at the tail end of the Vietnam generation. So, he is still the end, you know, Children of the Vietnam cohort, right? But, you know, he is kind of, it is kind of near the end of it. Um, so I think I think that um, again, it gets complicated because all depends on where you draw the dividing line.
10:15
SM: Yeah, I know that there was, there was another book that you are probably well aware of it was written by Wanda Urbanska, which was called Singular Generation. Yep. And she, she is written in 1986. She was a graduate of Harvard. And she mentioned that as other generations had been marked permanently by war, and it is aftereffects. Our generation, which is Generation X has been marked by divorce, which over half of our parents who were the boomers have been divorced in our reaction to the instability through the social protest movements, and a lot more of a stability in their lives? Not-
10:53
PL: Yeah, I do not know. I mean, I think I did. I did not remember the name, but I mean, certainly remember reading that theory. I mean, I am mixed about it, because um, I mean, certainly it is true that they are, you know, that divorce rates went up, but then you know, you know, I mean, my, well, this piggyback generation, but like, my grandparents on my mom's side, my mom's parents were in a 60 plus your marriage. That was a horrible marriage. You know, it worked out. I mean, it was, it should never have been married together. It was awful. And, you know, so I think, yeah, there is a tradeoff of divorce, but there was also the tradeoff of those people sticking it out in truly horrible marriages. You know, like my grandparents. And, I mean, from the outside, it may have looked good, but from the inside, it was abysmal. And they were torture, they were torturing each other every day. I mean, I you know, I watched it every time I did, I went over, right. And I love both of them, but still. So, you know, I think that it is a little tricky to say that they were you know, marked by- I mean, it did shift some things and certainly the entrance of women into the workforce shifts a whole lot. Probably I would say even more, you know, it because suddenly you had, you know women work. But you know, and then there, you know, and then it is complicated because it is the gen X folks, and these are the people that I actually wrote a generation of crossroads on. Mm hmm. Are they reacting against the, say the (19)60s protests directly? No, because they were too young. Right? They were, they were responding to the media's caricatures of those, which is what they have inherited. Because they were, again, they were too young to respond directly, because they did not, you know, they were not born yet. Or they were really tight and really young. So, so I think it is, yeah, so I think I would kind of take issue on that. I mean, I, you know, I think probably they more and more shaped by, you know, by the lull in direct participation, and by the sort of media caricatures of protests, and they were with any direct experience positive or negative.
12:59
SM: Paul, when you um, I want to ask you a question is how did you become who you are, um, when you first, you know, when we brought you to West Chester University back in the early (19)90s. And I remember you visiting the campus and I remember when you left, the students were saying he is so different, and he has got such passion. I wish I had it, because you are a deep thinker, but what made you who you are to be to think so deeply about these issues, not only about your generation, but the generations that followed? How did this happen? Well, who are the role models that inspired you?
13:38
PL: Well, I mean, I, I often say they were sort of a couple of people directly on there was a rabbi. He was in Seoul of a Citizen, Leonard Biermann, he was just very outspoken, and, you know, I was growing up and he was just, I could tell he was thinking off the rip. So, you know, that, um, that that made me more receptive. And there was a very outspoken young history teacher who was taking a lot of risks. And I think those were probably the two biggest models. You know, where I just saw people speaking out. And-and somehow, I just felt like I had a responsibility to do something about things that were wrong about that from the beginning.
14:19
SM: Did you ever in your life ever pay a price for this?
14:23
PL: Well, personally, I mean, I suppose so. You know, it sort of depends on your definition of pain of paying a price. I actually write about this in the new edition of soul citizen a little bit-
14:33
SM: When is that coming out by the way?
14:34
PL: April, March 30th.
14:36
SM: Yeah, because I got that. I got some of your books right with me here, including that generation at the crossroads. First editions of that.
14:42
PL: Yeah. So, um, yeah, I mean, I was very active at Stanford. And we were active around military recruiting particularly corporations tied to military, right and, um, so a bunch of my friend Pete Knutsen and myself and several other people went into a recruiting room where a few pictures of Honeywell was doing cluster bombs and we swiped pictures of their victims, and we refused to leave. And we ended up getting indefinitely suspended. So, you know, in that sense, I suppose I paid a cost in that I, you know, I did not graduate from Stanford. But I actually, you know, as I write, you know, reflecting on it, did it destroy my life did it you know, make, I mean, it was a little hard to make the transition, but I, you know, actually sound like a lot of new I moved to New York, a lot of new possibilities opened up so I, you know, the one of the lessons is, you may do something that looked like, you are paying a cost, but in fact, you are not really paying. I mean, you know, you are in some low abstract level, but it does not really make your life worse. So-so I suppose you could say that that was closest I have come to, you know, paying a cost beyond just, you know, you know what, everyone goes all insensitive. You know, you are going to get your heart broken periodically, you know, and that I suppose that the cost too.
15:59
SM: I know it is.
16:01
PL: You are going to feel like overloaded. You know, you know, too many things. But-but not in the sense of, you know, I am not I have not been tortur- I mean, I have been, you know, I have been in civil disobedience a few times, but I knew I was going to get arrested. So, I was not, you know, that was not an honor. It did not feel like a real cost.
16:18
SM: Yeah. So how do you respond when you I say to specific instances in 1994 when Newt Gingrich came into power, and this is not an attack against republicans or anything, but when he came into power, I read some of his speeches. And he made a lot of commentary about the (19)60s and about the Vietnam generation. And a lot of the bad things that were happening in America at the time he came into power is due directly to that era. Back there, back in the (19)60s, and I know George will oftentimes when he writes, we will, we will take a shot at the right generation and there is several others that put the blame of everything in our society on that era.
17:01
PL: Well, it is garbage. I mean, basically people who read, you know, goof supported nothing but a regressive social order that hand power over to the wealthiest. And when people just shut up and be silent about it, and said they were scapegoating, those times when people actually challenged it, and they do that, of course, by trying to caricature the excesses, because every movement going to have it? You know, flaky moment? And, you know, but I mean, it is, I would argue that it is, it- Well, I mean, maybe it is their belief, but I call it bad faith. You know, certainly bad history. Not that day.
17:38
SM: I know, you cannot generalize a whole generation, because we are talking anywhere between 70 to 78 million people that were boomers, I have got books that say we had 74. But can you- kind of I know there was the-the early boomers, as you mentioned, who were really involved and then you get the later boomers who did not have the experiences as like the early boomers, but can you, can you give some qualities, some strengths and weaknesses of the generation?
18:08
PL: Well, again, I do not like lumping it together.
18:10
SM: Okay. Very good.
18:11
PL: You know, I am very hesitant. Because, I mean, I can talk about the strengths of the people involved in the movement, but-
18:18
SM: That, I think that is what I am going to get at, because-
18:20
PL: Okay, what that I can do, but I just, I just want to make clear, I mean, Gingrich is part of the generation.
18:25
SM: Yes.
18:27
PL: Karl Rove was part of the generation I think he is, yeah. You know, so these people who is, you know, I mean, I feel nothing in common with these people. Is not that I am a carbon, we are both carbon-based life forms, you know, and even their- you know, I feel a hell a lot more common with my friends dogs than I do with a Gingrich or Karl Rove you know, so we are going to random-random dog I meet in the street. So, you know, in terms of the movement itself, Frank, I think, you know, there was a really powerful moral witness and people did have this sense of, you know, I am going to try and actually act on something again, even if there are not, as you mentioned, even if there are some costs. I think that that is very powerful. Now, you know, sometimes it got kind of megaloman- megalomaniacal, I mean, you know, there were people who believed revolution was around the corner. And, you know, and we were things that created a culture of fear, did things that created the juice that people like Gingrich and wail on those folks used to sort of create the caricature. So, to that was certainly destructive. But you know, but it was mostly destructive. I mean, was not really that society. I would it was mostly oh, no, but-but-but destroying the move. I mean, if I looked at the people like the weathermen, or there was this group, where I was at Stanford, strutting around with the little A.K 47 buttons on their jackets, and, you know, they did help destroy the movement. There is no question about that. And, you know, and-and I think, you know, there are some serious, you know, at least criticism or blame or whatever. And some of the people I mean, if you look at somebody like Mark Raj, who is very active with the weatherman has been very-very, you know, publicly self-critical and just said, look, you know, you know, yeah, we did, you know, we did some things, you know, we were important. We did things in good faith, but we were all different things, many, many things that were disastrous. Do not romanticize those things because they are not worth, you know, they are not, they are not things that should be emulated.
20:28
SM: Mm hmm. I am interviewing him Monday.
20:30
PL: Okay. Oh, yeah. Tell him hi.
20:32
SM: Yeah. Yeah. What are they? What are the qualities that many boomers though used to say, and I am this might be across the board in that is this feeling of uniqueness, that we are a very unique generation, we are going to end war? We are going to bring healing to the world, almost kind of a utopian kind of a mentality.
20:54
PL: You know, I think there was an interesting move, if you look to the part of it was the economy and the size of the generation, I mean, I think that there was this sort of sense of profit, there was a sense of possibility that, you know, I felt like, I mean, it was not true for everybody. I mean, if you grew up economically really poor, you did not have that kind of possibility. Or you did not have nearly as much. But I mean, if you grew up, certainly, if you grew up middle class, you really did. And you saw it, okay, things are going to get better. And you can do whatever, you know, you could do whatever you-you know, sit your heart on, and-and you could attack the society could tackle problems. And there was a lot. Yeah, I mean, do not forget, there were I mean, at that point, in right after World War II, I mean, Europe and Japan's economies were in ruins, you know, they had been bombed, you know, and fought over. And so, we were really the lonely large, you know, the large, healthy, advanced industrial power, because, England, but they were a lot smaller, and bombed to, you know, they kind of emerged unscathed, strong and just, you know, dominated that post war era. So, I think some of that rubbed off in the sense of I mean, tendency was arrogance to those who was possibility, you know if it was good and bad, but I think it did say, yeah, we could solve the problem. Now, you know, fast forward to now, it is a lot bleaker. People are a lot more skeptical and cynical. I think that is true.
22:17
SM: Oftentimes, in when you talk about the generalities that the Gingrich’s and will use it continue. I know, Will does that all the time. I have got one of his latest books. He has got a couple essays in there taking the shots. But another thing that was often used against the generation was something that may have been sure that only 15 percent of the boomers were truly involved in activism in their youth. Right, and they use it as a negative knowing that if you really look at the statistics there, you are dealing with 15 percent of 70 plus million, which is a lot of people.
22:53
PL: Yeah, I mean, I just, I mean, I do not know if I would just, I do not think it is a negative. It is just the reality. I mean, it is just as, yeah, you know, this was not everybody. And it usually is not in any context in any social movement. And look at what was accomplished, I would say an awful lot of really important powerful things by, you know, a relatively modest amount of people. And that should be an inspiration. I do not think it should be a knock, knock. And it certainly should not be a knock on those people who acted like somehow there was something wrong with them, because it was not 100 percent of the people throwing them. I mean, that would be a ridiculous argument.
23:33
SM: That is like when you look at the generation X that you have talked about, which are the kids, oftentimes the kids of the Korean War era, or, you know, the (19)60s. These qualities oftentimes come out here. And maybe you can generalize again, even about the generation Xers. Here is some of the qualities, the parents’ divorce rate. They grew up in an era radically different from the one that gave rise to the (19)60s generation. The parents divorce rate, the downturn in jobs, the one in four household where there is a single adult to be financially self-sufficient, singular in loving relationships and that and rebel against chaos and disorder where the boomers were rebelling against the system, that these are certainly some of the qualities that the generation Xers have. But maybe we are dealing with the same thing, Paul. Yeah, I think, cannot generalize about them either.
24:26
PL: Yeah, I think there is divisions within the generation. I mean, it really is, you know, they are, you know, they are the, they are people. You know, I think that the economic instability is real. I mean, let us, you know, recognize it basically, since about (19)73 of the US economy for most people, and going downhill for the rich it is not, most people it has, and so they were very much affected by that. And you know, and so they grew up in that context, so does not you know, as a quote millennial, those of us hearing coming of age in Vietnam, we are, you know, was a period of rising, you know, rising standards of living and rising affluence and, and, you know, surely being fairly distributed. So, you are not fairly but you know, more so than now. So, I think I think that that affects, you know that the insecurity affects people. I think the media stereotype protected people. I think, I mean again, the divorce rate is so complicated because if I looked at the people who did and did not get involved, and the ones who like when I was doing generation, the cross, who had what I would consider sort of generous, or socially engaged sensibility, you know, some of them came from, you know, pro down, you know, intact homes. Some of them came from divorced home. Some of the most just people with the awfulest sensibility came from, you know, very traditional family. So, I do not think you can necessarily, you know, sort of draw on the divorce act, just say, okay, this leads people to withdraw from engagement, this leads people to engage. It is very complicated. And I always try to make four arguments either way.
26:08
SM: In your eyes, when did the (19)60s begin the watershed moment? And what was the watershed moment when it ended?
26:15
PL: Oh, I do not know. You know, I mean, it, you know, it is, there is lots of watershed, you know, I mean, there is the obvious ones, you know, Berkeley Free Speech Movement, there is the, you know, the early sort of second wave of, I mean, the Civil Rights Movement is building and building, but there still was a kind of surge with those effects. I think we were (19)59 even. So, it is like the Greensville the lunch counter said in some of the first places. I am always bad on dates, but, you know, those were in the very beginning and they kind of, you know, took things to a level higher than they have been, you know, so you could date that, you know, when does it end? You know, hard to say I mean, obviously, by the time the Vietnam War ends in mid (19)70s. It is over. But is it still, you know, I mean, I think you would be insane to say that, like the year 1970, which had Kent State, which had the most kind of the highest level of protests in anywhere was not part of the (19)60s, obviously it was? And it was no, you know, I mean, you could say that there is turning, you know, when King or Kennedy was shot, that was the turning point and stuff starts spiraling down. And, you know, maybe, well, attendees pretty early, but you know, are in and, you know, in (19)68, I mean, yeah, I think people started damping hope to at that point, you know, getting more cynical and despairing. But you know, it is hard to know when it exactly ends. I mean, I, I remember I moved after I got kicked out of Stanford, which was it was the spring of (19)72 that I got kicked out. And so, then I moved to New York City to finish school in the fall of (19)70. And I thought, gee, New York, the whole lot less active than then, you know, we were in the bay. area. Well, maybe that was maybe it was not. But part of what we are seeing is the beginning of sort of the diminishing energy of those movements. They are still around, they still were pretty large, but they were definitely less than they had been two years ago. You know, two years before and by another two years, they were markedly less still.
28:20
SM: When we took a group of students when I was the university, I would say about 10 years ago, we took a group down to Washington, we met Senator Muskie before he passed away. And the students were working on questions with me. And the question we wanted to ask is what he felt about that 1968 convention and whether we were heading toward a second Civil War kind of breakdown of our society. And so, I want to read this because this is the event question that we asked him and then he responded in a totally different way than we thought he was going to. Here is the question. Do you feel boards are still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore this nation apart in their youth, divisions between fat black and white, gay and straight male and female divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not? In your view, what does the Vietnam Memorial play in healing the divisions that was primarily a healing? Or was it just primarily healing for veterans? And finally, do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation not truly healing? And the reason why they said that is because I have taken students to Gettysburg, and we had people there talking about how had not healed since the Civil War. Am I wrong and thinking this or is four years made the statement Time heals all wounds a truth? I am really getting into the question here. Do we have a healing issue in the nation within this generation? That never really came to terms with the divisions? And when the-
29:55
PL: Well, that is a good question I mean, you know, certainly some of the divisions are there, and all the gay, straight one is there less than I think in the younger people, but certainly in older people, you know, if you were gay, it was a miserable time to be gay. But the too there, there was a sort of, there was different kinds of divisions, if you have listened to there was the, you know, the divisions of class and race and all that, you know, which, you know, which our society is still very much wrestling with. And then there was a sort of political division. You know no, I mean, you know, I think that there partly because people did continue on down the, you know, a lot of them, you know, there are certainly still some lingering, you know, if you are really on the other side, and hostile to these movements, you know, I probably have a little bit of mistrust. On the other hand, you know, we have had the sort of crucible of eight years, or I do not know what your congress but-but-but it was that eight years of George Bush, and, you know, so I am like to look at people's response during that period a lot more closely. If they are my age than I do their responses 40 years ago and say, well, where were they? Which side Were they on? Did they respond? Did they do anything? You know? And so, if somebody, you know, if somebody responded, in a way question where I think we are the fastest abuses of the Bush period, and they were on the other side for me during Vietnam, I think my response, if anything is gratitude. It is like, oh, that is great. You know, 30-40 years ago, they were on the other side. And now here, you know, now here, they are, they are recognizing that there is a real problem push. So, if anything, I probably like more Facebook them, anybody who has been active on my own side all along. On the other hand, the people who were like, you know, gung-ho for Vietnam and gung-ho for Iraq and all that. Well, you know, I got to say that I do not think they have been very good for the country, you know.
31:53
SM: Right, yeah. It is kind of the, the way muskie responded was that he did not respond at all about the-the (19)68 convention and, you know, confrontation between the police and the and the young people. He basically said that we have not healed from the Civil War. And then he went on for about 15 minutes to explain why he felt that way. Because he had been in the hospital, he saw the Ken Burns film series when he was in the hospital. And he said, do you realize as young people if you know your history that over 430,000 men died in that war? And it was almost an entire generation that we could have? We could have that we lost because of the best.
32:35
PL: Yeah-yeah, that is kind of interesting. I mean, I would, I would say is that that he, basically, that the Confederates never completely surrendered, and are a destructive force in our society still. I mean, that is, you know, I mean, if I looked at the base of the Republican Party, not all of it, but a bunch of it is in that, you know, old unreconstructed doubt in some ways and those old power structures that just, you know, I mean, they, you know, slavery ended and then there was segregation, and they made a few accommodations. But you know, it the white party of the South, you know, not entirely, you know, but a lot of it is its strongest base. And it is basically, you know, it is the party, though it is the party that resisted any attempt that, you know, those seats resisted any unionization. Right, you know, workers did not have any alternative. The religious institutions will, you know, with every, you know, some really important exceptions, primarily lined up on the the ones in the white culture are lined up on the wrong side in the Civil Rights battles, you know, and are still supporting to me my own kind of culture of plantation politics and greed. And again, I mean, I do not, you know, I know incredible activists in the South, they are doing wonderful thing. But I do think this that sort of unreconstructed Confederacy is, or you know, they are not-not unreconstructed. You know, only modestly reconstructed, etc. inveterate ethic. I think he is still alive and well, and, you know, it was running the show and a lot of ways during the Bush years. So, um, so that would be the way that I would say that from it. The number who died well, you know, that is a long time ago and I do not, you know, they had whatever legacy, you know, obviously those people were not around afterwards. That does not, you know, by now they would have all been dead anyway. So that is a failure.
34:22
SM: But I think the last Civil War veteran died in 1924. They have a statue for him in the Gettysburg Battlefield.
34:30
PL: Yeah. So, you know, it is a politics that is continued and that, that is real.
34:34
SM: You can kind of see it when you go to go to Gettysburg, you go on the southern side to see all the flags and flowers left on the north, you do not see anything. So, I just find that I go over four times a year and it is amazing. Two qualities here that I think are important in the boomer generation, this is all 70 plus million. And that is even though people may not have been involved in that 15 percent that were, you have got to say that the boomers were kind of a movement generation with the civil rights, the antiwar, and certainly the gay and lesbian, Native American, Chicano, environmental movements that came forth. And the second quality is the fact that they are very- they do not trust. And that was for obvious reasons, because so many of the leaders lied to them. And-and so and so, do you consider this generation of very non trusting generation and then a generation that really is a movement generation?
35:34
PL: Well, I mean, I think that there is more. Yeah, I think there is more skepticism. You know, that is definitely true, certainly than the- Well, again, it is tricky, because I think that all the generation now is equally untrusting. So, I think you know, that it is a period of the time, you know, pre (19)60s posting the level of reciprocity, that that is what I would argue the difference is.
35:58
SM: Do you think that some political science professors will say when they teach American government that a little bit of skepticism is healthy for democracy.
36:10
PL: Oh, a little, yeah. I mean, it is definitely you want skepticism, but you do not want it to devolve into complete cynicism and uptake. You know, that is the that is the line that that we have got to be walking its sort of-
36:25
SM: What, Jan Scrunch wrote a book on the Vietnam Memorial called to Heal a Nation, and it was the kick, it came out about 1987 I believe it was pretty good book. And he talks about building that wall not only to heal the Vietnam Veterans and their families and those who died in the war, but in a sense to heal the nation as a whole. With respect to that war. What do you think that wall was done?
36:50
PL: I do think that what is interesting is the people who visited whatever their perspectives are moved by it. The ones who support the war, you know, they sort of see, you know, here are the people who died in the just cause and the ones who oppose the war, like myself see it as a testament to just the complete madness of that war. But, you know, and by-by basically going to, I mean, you know, you should, you know, to really be realistic about the impact of that war, you would have a memorial as well for the Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians. And it would stretch, you know, halfway across Washington, DC, you know, I mean, a million to 2 million people died. But for the at least for the US side, it does come to you know, how do I describe it. People respond and are moved by the death. And everybody's respond by interestingly though, the number of times I have been there, the-the sort of political writing systems that they have this sort of kind of heroic that you nearby of the GIS and stuff, he goes to that I mean, they kind of give two seconds of a look. And it does not ring true, I do not think. But the wall rings true. And wall rings true for everybody.
38:07
SM: Of all the terrible events and good events that happened in the (19)50s (19)60s and (19)70s, is there one that sticks out in your mind more than any other? That may, that may have had been the greatest shock to a generation not only the activists, but the subconsciously affected the entire generation?
38:29
PL: God? I do not know. I mean, nothing, you know, I mean, there is still, there is obvious terrible events, you know, like assassination. Um, and, you know, there is sort of moments of great possibility, like, the huge protests and marches and stuff. But I do not really think that I do not think you can say here is the defining event or something like that.
38:52
SM: In your I think you were born in (19)52?
38:54
PL: Correct.
38:55
SM: Yeah. Obviously, you were very young in the (19)50s. But there was something About that you are talking about boomers. Now we are talking about from (19)46 to (19)64. And then you got the two groups. As we talked about it, everything seemed to be hunky dory, everything was fine. You know, parents were home from the war, giving their kids everything, they wanted. And even though we had the threat of nuclear disaster every day and McCarthy hearings for those that can remember early on about that man yelling on TV that people were communists and the fear and all that other stuff, and then the television shows of the (19)50s where kids seem to always be happy, and there did not seem to be too many African Americans or people of color on those shows. And then all of a sudden, the (19)60s came and some people saw realization that the- what was going on in the (19)50s was really they were hiding things right. I interviewed, Richie Havens, and Richie Havens said the (19)50s was the hidden generation. Everything was hidden and the truth finally came out? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have you when in your studies of young people, when you study them? Do they talk about the media and the-the-the effects that it has had on them?
40:17
PL: No, I do not you know I think I think they take it for granted. I mean, I think to say, oh, you know, it is like, they do not even think that much about oh, you know, I do not think they, they think this is, you know, this is what the media influencing me, this is how the media is influencing. They just think, no, this is what I know about the world, and I do not think they think that much about, like, where it came from.
40:56
SM: What, I am going to ask a couple questions here about specific events, and how but what they mean to you in the big scheme of things for the-the boomer generation and maybe in American history as a whole. What does the Kent State and Jackson state killings mean to you?
41:14
PL: Well, what they meant to me is that they are, you know, a couple of things. I mean, they, they meant that the Nixon, you know, regime, which I sort of blame for them, in some ways, certainly, in the case of Kent State, and I think probably Jackson State too, you know, sort of there was a test that, you know, go ahead, you know, fire on protesters, that they were willing to kill people. And I think it did really scare people make people angry. It had a dual effect. I mean, it, it escalated things. But it but it also, it also kind of, you know, probably did dawn people somewhat but it definitely it definitely raised the stakes.
42:00
SM: What does Watergate mean to you?
42:04
PL: Well, I mean, Watergate, it is interesting because it is it. It is a profound betrayal of the political process. And fortunately, it came to light. What is discouraging though, is if you fast forward, the Republican Party did not stop doing those things. So, you know, the [inaudible] politic was about exactly the same kinds of things. And the abuses in Florida, 2000 and Ohio 2004 that, in my view, both cases elected George Bush and reelected him. Um, those were coming out of the same. I mean, you know, it is sort of like you have got the rules, and you may not like the rules, but you live within the rules. We may try and, you know, you know, whatever at the end, you know, if you act in a certain way and your party gets a little advantage because of the way the rules happened to be written, well, that is life. But when you start breaking the rules, then it can get pretty ugly pretty quickly, which I think it did in the case of Watergate. I mean, I know evil pro was the guy who hired the guy [inaudible] He was the guy who hired G. Gordon Liddy originally. And he said, and he went to jail for Watergate and then really repented. And he said to me, he said, we almost destroyed. He said, as a judge, too. But, you know, when we were talking, I said, you know, we almost destroyed democracy. We are so convinced that the stakes were so high, that we had to do whatever we needed, whatever needed to be done, and we almost destroyed democracy. Pretty scary.
43:39
SM: What does Woodstock and the Summer of Love mean to you? They are two different things.
43:45
PL: Well, I mean, Woodstock was a concert. I mean, I guess it got a solid. Yes, it did get mythologized. But, you know, by the right in the left, you know, left is like, you know, Woodstock nation. You know, the right is like the dirty hippies are taking over. It was a big you know; it was a big concert. I mean, I, you know, if I lived on the East coast, I probably would have gone to it. I did not because I lived on the West coast. But, you know, I think that the idea of inflating it into some statement, or political movement is just ridiculous. I mean, it was, you know, other than the fact that, you know, it shows that there are a lot of people who like rock music and like to smoke. Yeah, we did not take other drugs. And then there was a general sentiment against the war. But it was not an activist effort. It just never was. You know, the Summer of Love was in it was sort of I mean, like, I well, I guess that is a slightly well, no, that is I think that is where that song I was thinking there as there was that Eric Burdon song about San Francisco and stuff and where is flowers near here? Yeah.
44:48
SM: Lee Hazelwood. I think.
44:51
PL: That was Lee Hazelwood without yeah-yeah-yeah. Burton wrote song about?
44:54
SM: I am not sure.
44:58
PL: I cannot, Burton wrote some terrible songs. I just remember always being from whoever gave oh, hold on a second. Maybe the furnace people are here.
45:10
SM: A few more minutes here. Okay, go.
45:14
PL: Yeah, so oh, I always this sort of say I mean, I, you know, I think that, you know, that psychedelic, that you know, mixed effect. And for me, I enjoyed the stuff that I took, but I always really, whoever gave Eric Burdon acid, I was I was just, you know, a tire Hitman because he was so good before he took acid. He was so insipid after he you know, it is bad. Yeah. I mean, there were musicians who said, you know, when they bloomed when they took acid, but he was, you know, again, I look at the Summer of Love and oh, that was what I was thinking of a girl called Dan dos. I mean, I was pretty stupid. You know, it was like, well, yeah, there was a whole bunch of people coming in. Uh, you know, to the Hayden wherever and I mean, it was, I do not know, again, maybe because I am more rooted in the political side, just sort of feel like, it was nice, you know, nothing against any of those folks. But the idea that somehow growing your hair out, you know, well, you know, we are taking smoking marijuana instead of drinking alcohol would somehow usher in a political change is just kind of silly and I think the media kind of inflated that.
46:36
SM: Let me turn my tape here we got fifteen- What-what did the counterculture mean to you?
46:40
PL: Well, again, I think the counterculture was sort of a yearning, you know, and again, I mean, you know, some of it did get realized. I mean, for instance, Vermont politics changed because of the counterculture because a lot of people settled and went back to the land in Vermont, and it was a small state and, you know, if they are, you know, now they got Bernie Sanders. So, it was not completely apolitical, and it was not completely detached to the impact. But I think that, generally speaking, again, it was just it was lifestyle, and it was recreation and no and-and that was fine. I had nothing against it. I mean, I, you know, I would like some of those drugs. But you know, in moderation, you know, otherwise I would not have bought near with, and I am glad I did not go near. Yeah, I have always had a pretty sharp dish and, you know, soft and heartbroken, you know, never touched those other ones. I am glad I did not. Um, but I do think that, you know, the, the idea that you can sort of carve out your own private retreat. I think that that that is sort of a very American fallacy. We are all interconnected, and you got to deal with the big public issue.
47:52
SM: What about the hippies in the hippies. Your thoughts on them?
47:56
PL: Well, I mean, the hippies were an attempt to politicize the counterculture. Anyway. To some extent it worked. I mean, they, you know, I mean, I never liked Jerry Rubin, I always thought he would just be a jerk, you know, and then the kill your parents’ stuff. No stupid. But you know, Abbie Hoffman was a great, I mean, he was a great founder. And he was, you know, he funny and imaginative. And I remember being a teenager being really inspired by him because he was so creative. And there was such a sense of play, and humor. So, I think that that, you know, that that 10th actually was, you know, I liked what they did. I mean, you know, does he could he really make a movement of it? I do not know, but you could, you could certainly use elements of it in any movement that you know, display and the humor and they, you know, I mean, I remember when they scattered money, I think they walled off the stock exchange with plastic, you know, barriers now, but it was true money down on the floor, and all these brokers were like, scrambling for it is, I mean, that was a wonderful moment. And you know, and it was completely nonviolent. It was creative, and I, you know, did-did that move American politics in a good direction? Yeah, I think it did. You know, um, you know versus stuff that created real fear of backlash. So yeah, I liked the moment they did.
49:06
SM: Your thoughts on the Students for Democratic Society/Weathermen. And then the Civil Rights Movement/Black Power, Black Panthers.
49:16
PL: I mean, I think in both cases, that you know, what happened is that a lot of frustration and bitterness is that the pace of change was slow. And so, you know, a lot of these so if you look at some of the people that were, you know, in SDS, even the ones that some of the ones went in weathermen started out very idealistic, and they were an accountant, or were they all the players, but like, you know, they were like teaching in an alternative school in a poor neighborhood and stuff like that. And then I think they just got weighed down by guilt and anger. And, you know, here was what they were doing, and people were dying, which was true, and the war was not ending so you have to escalate and bring it home. And when they did not recognize is a that the peaceful nonviolent protests were having an impact. But Nixon just did not acknowledge that. I mean, was a huge more horrendous stop from nine to stop them from potentially using nuclear weapons and vs North Vietnam. And you know, in his in his memoirs and all those, you know, memories, people worked with them. But people are getting really frustrated, you know, and so and then what they did basically destroy the movement because people looked at, and they thought, this is crazy. You know, both people in the movement, people sympathetic. And then people outside it just said, the fear. And allowed Reagan and George Wallace and all these people to run against it. The same thing is true to some extent on the black, you know, the black nationalist movements from the Black Panthers is you had people who well its complicated. Um, you know, certainly there were good community projects that some of those did, you know, the free breakfast and the free clinics and all that stuff. And they kind of built the political base that led to changing what you know, well in the Panthers, open, good ways, but again, all the sort of militaristic running around all that day is to make them good targets for the cops to, you know, go crazy. And then you add in with that sort of militaristic, you know, kind of style, he will the door for other abuses. So, you have, you know, people like, you know, doing you would not be getting involved in, you know, your bad news, hard drugs and you know, essentially, you know, destroying his own promising life, but also helping again destroy the movement. So, I just think that it is really important to be mindful that that, you know, if you kind of create a culture of fear, it has got a high potential backlash.
51:36
SM: Yeah. And, and again, that could be the reasons why you hear the Gingrich’s and the Wills. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It was like, Richie Havens, when I interviewed him, last week said that his parents raised him to be one of the good people. And that was a very important thing, and he made similar comments that you are making about the fact you know, that make sure that what you do is for the right reasons and so forth. What do you have the last one here is the Vietnam Veterans against the war? Your thoughts on them?
52:09
PL: Hugely important. I mean, usually, I mean, the reason the right hate is John Kerry is because he was involved in that group. I mean, so, you know, what they were, you know, it was the testaments to the death. And nobody had greater credibility. I mean, if you talk about turning points against the war, when significant numbers of veteran turned against for that was when the war had to and, you know, that was when they could not continue it. So, you know, I think that it was tremendously important organization, you know, made a huge impact. And, you know, people in the end, and that is why I always get angry at the stuff about the myth about spitting on soldiers. I mean, it probably happened a couple of times, but by and large, people in the antiwar movement were pretty, I mean, they kind of reach out to the bat, because they knew that if they, you know, they did their compassion. They knew that they were caught in the middle, but also, they knew that most people at least the anti-war movement that you know, if they did speak out, it was a very powerful testament.
53:04
SM: But what did you see when you saw that helicopter flying off the roof at the embassy in in on April 30, 1975. That the war was finally over.
53:15
PL: Well, I think it was anti-climactic. It was like the word gone and kind of wound down but had not quite. And then okay, it was over. I mean, I think it was just finally released that it really is over. Because I think that was mostly-
53:27
SM: When all the things happened in Cambodia with the Kamer Rouge. Did you ever have any second thoughts?
53:32
PL: No, because I mean, basically, not at all. I mean, you know, because Cambodia was a, I mean, it was a stable country. I mean, they call it what it was, they did not call I think they call it like the Paris of Southeast Asia. I mean, it was it was a stable country that we went in, and completely destabilized, destroyed the existing structures created this void that Khmer Rouge entered in and accrue. Of course, they were horrible. You know, but to blame the answer. I mean, you know, the blame the antiwar moves perfect Khmer Rouge is just has no relation to reality. I mean, you know, we were not for Nixon, he would not have happened. You know, and yes, you know, there is probably a handful of people who initially, you know, like, you know, they are not trusting their point then. But I think pretty quickly, you will realize, you know, how awful they were. But again, the number of causation on you know, the causes that Nixon expanded the word of Cambodia and destroyed that country.
54:31
SM: Richie Havens said something last week when I interviewed him, he said that Woodstock served a very important purpose is first off, he said it got us involved in a lot of different types of music, but-but they could not hide us anymore. And he was talking about 1959 was because a lot of the musicians that came out in New York City at that 1959 period, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Richie Havens, and the list goes on and on there, Peter Paul and Mary, they were kind of being hidden by society. And then they exploded in the (19)60s.
55:07
PL: Well, it certainly is true is that there is a lot of, you know, there are a lot and havens is currently one of them. There are a lot of musicians for bearing witness. And I mean, they kind of had a how to put it. I mean, they were voicing, they were voicing the common concern. And that powerful then that amplifies it. But I mean, I think when everyone does that, it is really powerful. I mean, I think that there was I mean, I remember riding on an airplane next to Jack Cassidy from just an airplane.
55:35
SM: Oh, yeah.
55:36
PL: And I was talking with him. And he said, you know, we wanted to play blues and all of a sudden, we were like, asked to lead the revolution, you know what to do? There, there are false expectations placed on or impossible expectations placed on some of the musicians. But-but I also think that, you know, in that sense, I would agree with Havens that, you know, when some when-when you hear a lot of people you are powerful music that talks about the real issues of our time, it has an impact. And you know, and last, I mean, it was not just the phone, you know, I mean, the, you know, it was it was a whole spectrum of people who are speaking out through their music and that was influential.
56:15
SM: He also said it would be he felt that that are not generally we had to create our own voice because we were the last generation that do not speak until you are spoken to generation, and he was pretty emphatic about that.
56:31
PL: Well, I mean, I think that there was there was a loosening up, you know, and that, you know, and, and it is this sort of nostalgia for the old Lord or kind of, you know, be silent and-and-and-and-and accommodate that. You know, I think that that is what they want to go back to.
56:50
SM: Right after you came to West Chester University back in the (19)90s. We did two programs, two major programs, where we brought in boomers and generation Xers, we had it in the theater. We had one in the fall and one in the spring to talk about the issues. The final conclusion, two conclusions came out of that conference is that and regarding the generation Xers thoughts about the boomers, the generation that preceded them, number one, they were tired of hearing about the times, and all the nostalgia that the boomer generation kept talking about. And then the other group said, he was, I wish we could have lived then during a time when there were so many issues and causes. I just wish we had issues like that.
57:33
PL: Well, I think both of those are still running. I mean, so, you know, especially now, he later, you know, the idea of I mean, like, I mean, I remember when I was growing up, and like I was sick and tired of like these World War II vets, like, oh, we were you know, we were so wonderful. And I mean, yeah, it was like, yes, you did a really important thing. I am going to certainly acknowledge you are courage and all the rest of it, but on some level, I was higher. You know, I was tired of grandpa's stories. On a certain level, and even, you know, even though important things were done, and, you know, so I think that there is the, you know, the idea that the be all and end all on the eternal reference damned for any protest or for anybody comes afterwards because you can never meet it because it is sort of an unrealistic standard. The flipside is the as you said, the romanticization of like, well, if I live there, I do not so I am not so yeah.
58:27
SM: Yeah, and finally, the conclusion is here that of those two major programs because we brought in TV personalities to actually moderate in some of our faculty were boomers actually got upset with the students. But another coupl- some of the qualities the boomers have a- the boomers always have to have a cause to be happy. Some of the students said the boomers are arrogant, boomers think they are better than other generations because they speak up more and challenge the status quo. Boomers are quick to judge people's weaknesses rather than their strengths, so that these are like some of the things that came out of those-
59:06
PL: Yeah, but you know, I think he is on the media stereotype. There has been- I mean, again, having I mean, you will, you know, quick was quick to judge me. And I think, you know, if you are, if a country is going in, you know, wrong war, you want to make a judgment about that, you know, if you have a debate on a political issue, you want to make a judgement, what is wrong and make a judgement? You know, I do not see anything with that. I mean, it is, you know, if you say they bill, you know, they are condemning us for not living up to well, I do not know, certainly, there was a feeling that that did, where people who bought the media line, were dismissing subsequent generations far more than sure then that was wrong. So, I did hear I did hear that I mean, I, when I was talking when I was doing generation, the crossword that I am doing a book on student values and people would say did they have any values. And, you know, that was that was born of misinformation that was born of reading these condescending Ed report that was important back to talking with people. And reciprocally. The, you know, the students saying, yeah, they all betrayed their values. They all sold out, the generation X people think, you know, the boomer generation, they all sold out, they betrayed their values. Well, that was garbage too. But again, based on the same kind of media stereotype.
1:00:27
SM: Well, your book, I am almost done here. I got two more questions. Generation yeah, generation the crossroads is one heck of a book and in there you list some of the qualities that about the generation Xers which again, are the- a lot of the kids and I know you can generalize this he could, but he must have some experiences what-what kind of parents do you think the boomers have been? When some of the things that you listen to your book, the qualities that most of the generation had- was is a sense of individualism, a mistrust of social movements an isolation from the urgent, big things that are happening in the world at the time, maybe some historical ignorance. And then you look at some of the other qualities that they are more interested in the smaller picture, when they are in the state of the world, their whole differences in how they parent their interest in the body, which is more important than certainly the (19)60s generation and work seems to be more important, you know, in the generation Xers, all these things, what do you I guess what I am getting at is what had the boomers passed on to their kids.
1:01:43
PL: But see, again I you know, this is where, I mean when I look at, you know, it depends on who you are talking about, right? If I look at so when I was interviewing students, and I said, you know, I looked at these students who are really just, you know, greedy, you know, called greedy or detached or just whatever, because they did not have parents who are social activists, none of them did. You know, and if I looked at the people who were involved, not all but a disproportionate chunk, often did have to parent do I mean, I think that they are these firms have to actually finally get engaged, keep taking these stands, and then they pass it on. And you know, wherever the whatever the, you know the lines of okay, this year at that year, wherever they fall, you know, they are passing something on have a tradition of engagement, and the people pass on the tradition of disengagement. They do that, too. So, you know, it just seems to me that, um, you know, that is just really wrong to say, you know, here is this generation passed on somewhat dubious values, because the answer is which part of the generation did that.
1:02:55
SM: Good point. My last question, Paul, and this is the last one. It is about the university. What did the university, the college learn about from the (19)60s? We know about the Free Speech Movement? We knew about the activism that was happening on college campuses, like-
1:03:11
PL: Like how does the university?
1:03:12
SM: Yeah, and-and it seems to me today, and we know the students are involved in massive amounts of volunteers and probably 95 percent. So, you cannot say they do not care. However, my sense is that universities today still have not learned from the (19)60s because they were afraid of rising activism, which to me is a little bit different than volunteerism, it was 24/7 mentalities as opposed to two hours a week and the universities learn anything from the past, or are they doomed to repeat the mistakes they made back then?
1:03:47
PL: Well, I mean, I think, again, it depends on who you are talking about. But I certainly I think that there is certainly people who are trying to get their students engaged in a [inaudible] the people, you know, and then there is also you know, once you do sort of feel like that okay, why do not they just shut up and let us run this run the university or the college? You know, I mean, and I have seen both attitudes, obviously, I think one produces a better play a better, I will say a better educational experience. You know, even if there is contention, an argument and all the rest of it, I think ultimately, it is a better educational experience. You know, so, I mean, that is the stream that I am much more supportive of.
1:04:28
SM: Right, well Paul, thank you very much. Sure. I will, you will certainly see the transcript. I have got a lot of I am doing all my interviews by May 15. And then the transcripts and all and so I will be in touch with you down the road. Okay, great. And you keep carrying on Paul.
1:04:46
PL: All right. Say hi to Mark Rudd.
1:04:47
SM: Oh, I will, okay, bye-bye.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Paul Loeb
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Loeb, Paul Rogat, 1952- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Authors; Journalists; Political activists--United States; Loeb, Paul Rogat, 1952--Interviews
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Paul Loeb, a native of Berkeley, California, is an author, journalist, and political activist. Loeb has published five books and has done interviews for TV and radio including CNN, NBC, and PBS. He has written for many well-known journals and newspapers including the <em>Washington Post</em>, the <em>New York Times</em>, the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>, <em>The Economist</em> and many more. Loeb graduated from Stanford University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-01-30
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.82
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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64:52
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c457856abb4886eee1e189755a557783.mp3
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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
2010-02-01
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Mark Rudd
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Mark Rudd is a political organizer, author, math instructor, anti-war activist and he was part of the Weather Underground group. Rudd attended Columbia University and became a member of Students for a Democratic Society in 1963. He got his commitment to \"fight for imperialism\" by watching the revolutionary movement in Cuba. Mr. Rudd was a leader of the campus protests at Columbia University in April 1968."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6539,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"6":{"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,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Mark Rudd is a political organizer, author, math instructor, and anti-war activist who was part of the Weather Underground group. Rudd attended Columbia University and became a member of Students for a Democratic Society in 1963. He got his commitment to "fight U.S. imperialism" by watching the revolutionary movement in Cuba. Mr. Rudd was a leader of the campus protests at Columbia University in April 1968.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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175:20
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Westchester University; Bayard Rustin; Baby boom generation; Kent State; Segregation; Utopia in Four Movements (film); Decolonization; Nonviolence; Black power movement; Howl (poem); Jews; WWII; Germans; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; George Jackson; Students for a Democratic Society. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5009,"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}]},"10":0,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Westchester University; Bayard Rustin; Baby boom generation; Kent State; Segregation; Utopia in Four Movements (film); Decolonization; Nonviolence; Black power movement; Howl (poem); Jews; WWII; Germans; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; George Jackson; Students for a Democratic Society. </span>
Subject LCSH
Peace movements—United States; Authors; Weather Underground Organization; Political activists--United States; Rudd, Mark--Interviews
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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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Transcription
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Mark Rudd
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 1 February 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:03):
Testing one, two, testing. I found that Mark, before I get with the questions that even the boomer administrators who run universities today have a tendency and a fear of going back to what was.
MR (00:00:18):
Right.
SM (00:00:18):
Because there is a symbol that it is disruption, and anyways.
MR (00:00:28):
One question is not... was not Westchester State at one point a historically black college, or am I confused?
SM (00:00:32):
No-no, just the reverse. Back in the early (19)50s and right into the (19)60s, there were very few African-American students at Westchester University. In fact, it has become a very sensitive issue at programs dealing with Dr. King in the past couple years because more and more African-American students who were at the university during that, that timeframe had to live off campus.
MR (00:00:58):
Right.
SM (00:01:00):
They were not allowed to live in residence halls. And now obviously that is changed a lot, and we have probably one of the largest African American populations in the state system with almost 10 percent of our campus being African American students.
MR (00:01:15):
10 percent?
SM (00:01:17):
10 percent.
MR (00:01:18):
And Westchester... Westchester is a largely African American town, is not it?
SM (00:01:22):
Oh, no. Westchester is mostly a white, conservative, middle to upper class town. It is the 25th richest area in America.
MR (00:01:34):
Well, what is the... There were demonstrations in around (19)63, (19)62, (19)63, and (19)64 in Westchester. Kathy Wilkerson writes about them in her autobiography.
SM (00:01:53):
I have not read her autobiography. I know there were protests at Westchester. Of course, Bayard Rustin is from Westchester, and Bayard was a graduate of Henderson High School. He was a star athlete on the football team, but he was not allowed to even go to the movie theater.
MR (00:02:13):
Right.
SM (00:02:13):
And he had to sit upstairs and he was arrested as a young high school student before he went off to Cheney. And we are talking now the forties and the early (19)50s. And so historically, it has had some major issues. And the most recent issue was the naming of Bayard Rustin High School, which became a national issue because he was going to be named in the third high school. And there was a group of people that wanted to prevent him because first off, he was a former communist. Secondly, even though they did not say it was because he was gay. And there are a lot of reasons, and I was involved with about 50 or 60 other people and trying to prevent this name change from going back to some other name. And so that the community itself, the university is much more progressive than obviously the community. In some sense, the community, even though it has become more liberal in some of its administrators, I mean politicians, it is still got a long way to go in terms of social issues.
MR (00:03:24):
Right. What is the historic black college? Is it Lincoln?
SM (00:03:28):
Oh, no, the historic black college, there is two of them. Lincoln is the private school, and that is only about 25 miles from Westchester University and then Cheney University.
MR (00:03:39):
Oh, Cheney.
SM (00:03:40):
And that is this campus of a little over 3000, and it has been struggling to survive. It has had a lot of problems financially with weak administrators and fewer students coming, but they have just hired a president the past two years. It is keeping it going. They have been hiring some pretty good administrators, and it will always be there because it is one of the historic schools.
MR (00:04:05):
Well, I hope so. It is coming up February 1st. Is today February 1st?
SM (00:04:11):
Yes, it is today.
MR (00:04:12):
This is a good place to start. February 1st, 50 years ago, 1960 was the day that black students from the historic black college in Greensboro, North Carolina sat in at the Woolworths lunch counter. And that was the beginning of an almost spontaneous uprising of black students from historic black colleges, from all black colleges in the South. Their role in the civil rights movement often does not get acknowledged much, or at least it does. People know about it, who know about the history, but most people who do not know about the history do not know much about the Civil Rights Movement, how it was organized or how it happened, and they think it was all Martin Luther King's dream.
SM (00:05:09):
It is interesting in the interviews that I have had so far, when we talk about the (19)50s, those Civil Rights events, and then very early in the early (19)60s, (19)60s and 61, how much was hidden? So people that people did not know, and so everything looked like things were okay in the (19)50s, but in reality they were terrible.
MR (00:05:32):
Right. It was not the golden era.
SM (00:05:34):
Mark, what-
MR (00:05:35):
My wife was watching Mad Men and freaking out over the, remembering the position of women at that time.
SM (00:05:42):
Oh, yeah. Well, definitely. You were young. Mark, when did you first recognize or know what was going on? What happened February 1st? I-
MR (00:05:54):
Think it was the demonstrations and the protest and civil disobedience of black people in the South. I must have been on February 1st, 1960. I was 12 years old, and I looked at... Saw these images of young people sitting in and it just stopped me. I had to pay attention.
SM (00:06:24):
So you were sensitive very early on?
MR (00:06:27):
Well, not hypersensitive, considering that I did not know any black people and personally, I lived in an all-white suburb of Newark, New Jersey and New York City. And I would not call myself hypersensitive. I still went about my 12-year-old things, but I always was the kind of person who paid attention to current events. I loved current events.
SM (00:07:04):
Well-
MR (00:07:05):
I was the kind of kid who I always read magazines and newspapers, and there was something... I think it was growing up in the shadow of World War II. Current events.
SM (00:07:20):
Were you one of those individuals that read The Weekly Reader that had all the political news for elementary school kids?
MR (00:07:26):
My parents had Time and Life. That, I assume. I would read the newspaper. I read the New York Times every day in high school, but we could get it at Study Hall and I get it for free and something. I read... No, my Weekly Reader when I was a little kid, I suppose.
SM (00:07:55):
I kept all mine. I still have them in stacks.
MR (00:07:58):
Oh, so you were that kind of person also?
SM (00:07:59):
Yes. And in fact, I, they are treasures to me because when John Kennedy was running for president and all those things. I have them in my Weekly Readers. Great pictures. Most people threw them out. I kept them.
MR (00:08:13):
How old are you?
SM (00:08:14):
Oh, I am 62.
MR (00:08:16):
Oh, we are the same age.
SM (00:08:17):
Yep. (19)47. We are in (19)47. December 27th of (19)47.
MR (00:08:24):
Well, I am six months older then.
SM (00:08:27):
Well, we are in that same group. I was at Binghamton when you were at Columbia. I knew all about what you were doing when I was a student there. I want to ask you-
MR (00:08:36):
I did not catch that you were at Binghamton?
SM (00:08:39):
Yes. I went Binghamton University.
MR (00:08:40):
Right-right-right.
SM (00:08:41):
It was Harper College. In fact, last week I interviewed Richie Havens and I asked Richie a question. I said, Richie, "Do you remember your first college concert?" And he said, "Yes." And then I said, "Well, I remember you when you came to my school. It was Harper College, the Arts and Science School at Binghamton." And he said, "That is unbelievable, because that was my first concert." That was 1967.
MR (00:09:07):
That is wonderful. Well, I have a dear friend who is the same age as us who went to Harper. I would not know her... Oh, it is Marsh. Her name is Linda Marsh.
SM (00:09:18):
Linda Marsh.
MR (00:09:19):
She was from Western New York State and she went to Harper.
SM (00:09:25):
Yeah. Well, it is a great school.
MR (00:09:26):
And then later they, several key Columbia people who had reported us. Immanuel Wallerstein.
SM (00:09:31):
Oh yes.
MR (00:09:36):
Terry Hopkins. Several other people jumped over to Harper.
SM (00:09:45):
Yeah. Well, it is a great school. One of my former professors, Dr. Kadish is still there. All the rest of them have either retired or died.
MR (00:09:52):
I just met a guy named Melvyn Dubofsky, labor historian, who did his whole career there. Do you know him?
SM (00:09:59):
That name rings a bell.
MR (00:10:01):
Yep. Yeah. I just met him the other day.
SM (00:10:05):
I have a question. This is a very important year coming up. This is the 40th anniversary of the Remembrance of the Tragedy at Kent State.
MR (00:10:12):
Yes.
SM (00:10:13):
And I know that if Allison Krause's sister and Alan Canfora are organizing the Remembrance event, hoping lots of people come back and they got these tapes for... They found out the real truth about who gave the order to shoot. So there is a lot of things that are going to take place at this year's event. But in your book, I think I have told you, your book is superb, right? I have underlined it. I have read it. I was rereading my underline. So I am basing my questions on a lot of the things you have written about for more explanation. You talk about Kent State in your book. How about-about had one of the strongest SDS groups.
MR (00:10:52):
Yes.
SM (00:10:52):
Even though when the tragedy at Kent State happened, people were saying, "Kent State of all places?"
MR (00:11:00):
Yes.
SM (00:11:00):
What was it about Kent State University that was different than the others with respect to SDS and its activism?
MR (00:11:06):
Well, I do not know if I can fully answer that. See oftentimes I use Kent State as an example of a state school that was in revolt. So we tried to portray it as not different, but I actually think it was some kind of conjunction of its late location in a demographic. It mostly took the children of the upper working class and the lower middle class from northeastern Ohio. Akron was the biggest city and that was the tire maker. That was-
SM (00:12:04):
Yes.
MR (00:12:04):
-the place where tires were made. And so you had this whole industrial union kind of an ethos. Then you had Jewish communists, Jewish kids of Communists and social backgrounds from Cleveland. Quite a few there. In fact, that the chapter had a... I think one wrote about this, but one of the oddest aspects of the shooting was that three out of four of the victims, the people who died rather, were Jewish on a campus that was only three or 4 percent Jewish.
SM (00:12:58):
Yes.
MR (00:12:58):
And in the chapter, the SKS chapter, it was not a majority Jewish, but it had a few of the leaders were Jewish. So you had this kind of mix that I always thought the people there were very serious. They did not have a lot of money. And even at Columbia, the chapter was not made up of really wealthy people, but they were not like elitist kids, but they were very serious. On the other hand, I have been back several times, twice actually in the last decade, and I have noticed that it is a very cold place, meaning that only a minority wants to acknowledge that the crimes of the shootings-
SM (00:13:54):
Yeah.
MR (00:14:00):
-and a lot of people still to this day say that the victims deserved it.
SM (00:14:07):
Yeah. When you just-
MR (00:14:09):
Not sure I answered your question.
SM (00:14:12):
Yeah, it does. I think the whole thing, this tape, you are, are you aware of the tape that is going to be played?
MR (00:14:17):
Yeah. Yeah. I am in touch with Allen.
SM (00:14:19):
Yeah. Well, I tell you, it is going... Are you going to be able to come back?
MR (00:14:24):
I do not know. I have not figured it out yet.
SM (00:14:27):
I would love to see you. I would love to meet you because-
MR (00:14:29):
Are you there going to be there?
SM (00:14:30):
Yeah, I am going to be there. I have been there the three of the last five years. Because I feel it is important. I took students at a high university back in the fourth remembrance year when Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden were there, and Julian Bond and Holly Near. And in those days, there was a more... We want to make this an educational experiences for all the college students in Ohio. So I worked at Ohio University, and I brought students back, and we learned the importance of communication. And when you do not communicate, this is what happens. And that is been lost. But I thank the Lord we had the Allens and the [inaudible] and Allison Cross's sister, working to make this continue.
MR (00:15:20):
One year... When was that? I think it was (19)95. They asked me to, if I would play the role of one of the four in the march and the role of Allison Krause and her mother was there, and we walked together and I held the first half hour of the vigil. That is done all night.
SM (00:15:52):
Yes.
MR (00:15:52):
I stood with flowers that they gave me playing the role of Allison Krause for the first half hour. And I put them down on, this was on the spot where she was killed. I put them down on the ground. Then the next morning around noon, the parking lot was reopened again. And I went to that spot, and all the flowers had been run over by cars.
SM (00:16:18):
Oh, geez.
MR (00:16:18):
It is a cold place.
SM (00:16:23):
Yeah. Last year I was at Jeff Miller's spot, and what you do, you have a half hour shifts and it goes all throughout the night.
MR (00:16:33):
Yeah.
SM (00:16:34):
And I was there for a one to 1:30 for Jeff. It was very kind of chilly too. But I was at that spot this year, you know, hold the candle.
MR (00:16:43):
Yeah.
SM (00:16:44):
Yep. And then of course, the march every year, the candlelight march where you walk around the campus and everything with the candle lights.
MR (00:16:52):
It is a good thing.
SM (00:16:54):
Yeah. I think it is important as a member of the more radical segment of the Vietnam generation, and again, I am talking more about the activists now or the organizers... I know how important Che Guevara and Mao Zedong as Sunni Binghamton, people were walking around with those red Mao Zedong, little booklets and everything. They were very popular. But what was it about she Che Guevara and Mao Zedong that really turned on the anti-war group?
MR (00:17:25):
That was the idea of the heroism of liberation. And we live in a country where the politicians are anal and are corrupt and are [inaudible] mouthed, and they are an embarrassment. So is not it wonderful to have some notion that somewhere in the world people are heroic and altruistic?
SM (00:18:01):
Well, some of some people that I have talked to in my interviews, and again, as I do more and more interviews, I get more and more different responses. And then I use some of those responses in my upcoming interviews. One of, not so much about Che Guevara, but when they talk about Mao Zedong, they call him a murderer. And because of the cultural revolution and all the millions that he killed, and so they have a tendency to attack the activists of the (19)60s as "Why would they be linked to a murder?"
MR (00:18:30):
Well, see, the idea of revolution, especially armed revolution, is that it is a smaller amount of violence than the great amount of violence the system in China, they had brutalism and they had up until the 20th century and terrible poverty and degradation, and this is true still in a lot of parts world, including China. But the idea that you could create an aesthetic and that revolutionary violence to do it is a great heroic. We thought we were living through a heroic moment in history. And violence, if you have to do violence, is like a war. It was a war for liberation. Obviously... It was incredibly utopian to think that a whole society could be remade along, egalitarian and [inaudible]. And myself, I will probably not make that mistake again. But at the time, we were incredibly idealistic. I thought that the world could be remade. Sam Green, the filmmaker who made the Weather Underground movie made now has a new movie called Utopia and Foreign Movement. And it is about, four examples of utopianism of better or worse. And his view is that there is no more utopianism. And that is a problem too.
SM (00:20:38):
Well, that was one of my questions coming up is when you use smaller amounts of violence as opposed to the larger amounts of violence, do not you think that backfires? Dr. King he always professed non-violent approach and I think you mentioned in your book that was more of a gradualist approach, and-
MR (00:21:02):
But yeah, I have come around to it to a nonviolent strategy too, of advocating a nonviolent strategy in all chains. Because I do recognize the inherent problems with violence, demonizing the enemy, and creating the... You still there?
SM (00:21:26):
Yep. I am here.
MR (00:21:27):
And creating the cycle of revenge, et cetera. So I have come to that. But no, there were in the (19)60s, remember that was the era. This is one of the most difficult things to convey to young people. That was the era of decolonization in the world. And many of the decolonization struggles were violent. Now in India was not violent. They had a great leader with a great philosophy, but the results did not look so good at the time. China, which had a violent revolution, seemed to be made making much greater progress than India, which was still a class society in the (19)60s, and still is. Although it does have the largest middle class in the world, which I guess improves the life of 150 million people, it has still got about a billion people who are in terrible poverty. So again, we were utopians. We thought that China was a better model than India. We thought that Cuba was making very great progress and still Cuba is a great model in some ways. I mean, if one asks the following question, "Where would you rather be at the bottom of society in Cuba or in one of the American neo colony, the Central America. Who has a greater opportunity for life, a Cuban [inaudible] or a Honduras [inaudible]?"
SM (00:23:08):
So what was what is really amazing is when you study the history of the (19)60s and (19)70s, and you look at Dr. King and study the comparisons between him and Thurgood Marshall, Dr. King's nonviolent approach was a step beyond Thurgood Marshall's gradualist approach and getting laws passed. And then when Stokely challenges Martin Luther King telling him that your time has passed, or Malcolm X in a debate with Bayard Russin tells him the same thing that your time has passed. I am not sure if Stokely really realized that only a couple years before in America, nonviolent protests was pretty radical.
MR (00:23:50):
Yes. Yes.
SM (00:23:50):
Compared to the Thurgood Marshall trying to get laws passed.
MR (00:23:53):
Good thing. The Black power movement was saw itself as part of the global liberation movement. Personally, I think I was a supporter of black power. It was a challenge as a white person. It was a challenge to the whole white movement, how we would respond to the notion of black liberation, black autonomy. Now of course, I see it as a terrible black power, as a defeat for the black freedom, but that is in retrospect.
SM (00:24:25):
Yes.
MR (00:24:25):
Time we were caught up in the notion of global liberation.
SM (00:24:31):
One of the other things that, and I caught a lot of things in your book that I was rereading it, prepping for the interview, is we had Tom Hayden on our campus about seven years ago, and Tom came to speak as part of our activist days, and we had a dinner prior to the program. And in that dinner, he wanted to know if the student's government association had power. And then they said yes, and they gave them their definition of power. And Tom shakes his head, and that is not power. And yet, and then he went on and gave a lecture of the difference between power and empowerment. And he was basically saying, "You are not empowered." And you state in your book that the protest movement, Columbia, was not about student power empowerment, but it was about fighting the American imperialism abroad in Vietnam and racism and the economic conditions of blacks at home in America. Is there any conflict here? Tom says you students need to feel empowered, but you were not after empowerment.
MR (00:25:39):
No. Well, I am not quite sure. I mean, I would not necessarily disagree with Tom. I mean, what is empowerment? But I mean, when one confronts the problems of the world, one becomes empowered. And conversely, if you are given, I do not know, are given or somehow get power within an institution, does that even confront the bigger problem? I do not know. I cannot answer that. It is complicated for my little head.
SM (00:26:22):
Well, one of the questions I was going to, from the questions I gave you over email about the importance of the beat, and I did not know that Richie Havens was a beat.
MR (00:26:29):
Yeah. Very important. Mean, they were true cultural rebels. And I was aware of them from a very early time in my life. I would say 13, 14, 13, 14. They were cool.
SM (00:26:48):
Yeah. Well, I was looking at the play for the poem, Howl, which was in the 1950s that was banned in many schools. And of course, the poem expresses the anxieties and the ideals of a generation alienated from mainstream society. But some of the quotes, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked, dragging themselves through the Negro streets, had dawned looking for an angry fix. Angle headed, hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night." Very prophetic words. And obviously they had an impact, and they were a precursor to what I consider the activism of the (19)60s.
MR (00:27:37):
I think so. I believe so. For me, they were. You know? I lived in the suburbs, but I knew that there was something wrong about the suburbs that they had. They had forgotten a lot of light. Newark emptied out to create the suburb that I lived in, and my family even moved from Newark. But there is something left behind there. A lot of people left behind there. It was literally white flight that when he talks about Negro streets, that those are the streets that my family fled.
SM (00:28:19):
One of the things that I think is just fantastic in your book is, and again, I keep going back to your book, it is the scene where one of the people you looked up to at Columbia, one of the older students, was it Dave Gilbert or one of them, talked about what happened in Germany and comparing it to America. And how we cannot let that happen again. We cannot let what happened that happen again to the Vietnamese people, what happened to the Jews in Germany and in Europe.
MR (00:28:49):
Well, I noticed that I called the first chapter "The Good Germany."
SM (00:28:52):
Yes. That Could you, because again, this is a different venue. People may not have read your book, but could you talk a little bit about that experience and your feelings on this, and that is really a lot about who you are and what you became.
MR (00:29:07):
Yeah. I was a Jewish kid growing up. I was born two years after the end of World War II growing up, thinking about it, aware of the Holocaust. My father had been in World War II. He missed the fighting in the Philippines by a few months. But I saw the World War II was the great divide, the great heroic good war, and we beat the Nazis. And so the question then was, who were these Nazis? What were they up to? And I guess that reality, the reality of World War II was so bloom, so large that I felt I had attention. And one of the questions about World War II-
MR (00:30:03):
...attention. And one of the questions about World War II was where were the German people? Questions still exist. Just last night I read an article in the current New Yorker about Dresden, the rebuilding of Dresden, and the consciousness of the people of Dresden. They see themselves as victims of American air power, firebombing, total destruction. And yet they know nothing about their own country's participation in the genocide. It was not talked about. It is now 60 some years later, and the question of the of role of the German people in the rise of Nazism is still on the table. So at that time there was a phrase called "Good German", meaning somebody who willfully ignored or denied or seen what was happening. Now the phrase the "Good German" has lost its metaphorical power. Have you tried it on some young people lately?
SM (00:31:24):
Well, I left the university in March, but...
MR (00:31:28):
Try it sometime and you will find that by and large people have no idea what "Good German" means. When we were growing up, everyone knew what an ironic metaphor.
SM (00:31:40):
Right.
MR (00:31:41):
And so we always asked where were the Germans, the good Germans? Where were the German people? Same when I found out about the crimes of this country, I did not want to be a "Good German." Quite simple.
SM (00:31:57):
That is real important for young people. And actually I am a firm believer that people evolve over time. So I think older people can change too. I am one of those people who believes that. But I think this feeling that you really bring out in the book also, the we did not know mentality of silence and denial and ignorance. And I think sometimes ignorance on purpose. And you saw it in Vietnam with the terrible atrocities, and certainly we know them now that what happened. And we continue as Americans to forget that it is not only the soldiers that we are losing, American soldiers, but it is the citizenry of the nation that we are in that we are killing. And it continues today.
MR (00:32:38):
Absolutely. There is a memorial to 50,000 American dead in Vietnam. But there is no memorial to the millions of Vietnamese that we killed. And it is the same way now in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they are not Americans, they do not count. But it comes down to a very mundane level. Americans go and shop at Walmart and they see all this stuff that is pretty damn cheap. And they do not ask the question, "Why is this stuff so cheap? Who's making it? How much are they being paid? What is the environmental cost? What is the cost of the family? What is the cost in social dislocation in China?" That is a willful...
SM (00:33:36):
You talk about Malcolm X a little bit in the book in several sections, and one of the areas is when Malcolm saw the connection between the people's struggles in Vietnam and the Far East and what was happening in America with African Americans and people of color. And you felt that was why he had to be killed. When you look at some of the other individuals, not only of Malcolm, but Dr. King, Fred Hampton, even George Jackson, who was really a powerful speaker within the prison community, and even to some sense... I know you do not like a lot of the liberals and Bobby Kennedy, but he kind of changed in his last two years of his life. Do you see a connection that they all had to really go because of their stands on things?
MR (00:34:26):
Obviously in retrospect, it is hard to miss those connections. I might add too, that anytime a black person advocates armed action, they are going to be a [inaudible], they are going to be killed or jailed.
SM (00:34:43):
Getting back to...
MR (00:34:49):
Malcolm X's slogan was by any means necessary. And that eventually he had to be killed. That the government killed dozens of Black Panthers because they were advocating revolution. Blacks with guns. It was very scary.
SM (00:35:07):
Certainly Dr. King went against the Vietnam War and some people thought that was his death sentence.
MR (00:35:13):
Yeah-yeah, exactly. One year to the day, one year before his murder, he came out publicly, now. Absolutely.
SM (00:35:24):
I do not know if you were ever a Bertrand Russell fan. But I am a big Bertrand Russell fan because I think a lot of people from our generation read him as a good role model as an older person. And he lived a life that really stood for something. In the beginning of his biography, and this was brought up by one of my interviews when I asked the person, "What would you like your legacy to be once you are gone?" And this is a very well-known activist just like you from the (19)60s. And he said, "Well, I just want you to read the first paragraph in Bertram Russell's book because that is what I want to be remembered for."
MR (00:36:06):
What is that?
SM (00:36:07):
And here it is. He starts it out with three passions, simple, but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life, the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions like great winds have blown me hither and thither in a wayward course over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of the spare.
MR (00:36:34):
That is good writing.
SM (00:36:37):
And that is Bertrand Russell. And now I have been reading... Actually it is his autobiography. It was written in three parts. But this is the part from the time 1872 to 1914. And we all know right up to the time he died, he was the same guy he was when he was a young guy. Your thoughts on those three, because you are dealing with love, you are dealing with knowledge...
MR (00:37:05):
Knowledge and justice. Well, the love part is hard. One tries for love. I would not have defined it as my goal because it either comes or does not. I have been lucky in my life. I have been surrounded by love. But I grew up in a family in which there was much love. And so I do not see it as abnormal. I see it as the human condition or as an inspirable human condition. And everybody could go for it. So I am not different from anyone else. But I once heard Ramdas, Richard Albert, say that he learned from his guru in India, that the goal of life, love everybody and always tell the truth. And so I bring it down to two and I would not separate them because what is justice? So I think knowledge and justice are pretty good. Love everybody and always tell the truth.
SM (00:38:33):
Yeah.
MR (00:38:34):
Sometimes you have to dig find the truth though.
SM (00:38:36):
Yeah. When you responded to the question of the overall impact on the boomer generation, you were very good in letting me know. And others have said the same thing, "You cannot generalize 78 million Americans." But I love the way you divided it. The comments that you made was, "We helped the Black Freedom Movement. We helped them in the war in Vietnam, and we fought for the equality of gays, women, disabled, and fighting nuclear power." Do you see any negatives? And the reason why I bring this up is the drug culture, women being treated as objects and certainly violence, which not necessarily the violence that we always talk about with SDS. I am talking about what we saw in Watts and what we saw in the cities during that time. Cities going up exploding.
MR (00:39:32):
Well, yeah. I think that every deviation from non-violent struggle has been negative. And that would include spontaneous nihilistic uprising and saying it would also include calls for arm struggle. In retrospect, every deviation that I made away from non-violent struggle and democracy, too, was a terrible negative and had terrible results. So that is one big negative. Human condition, though has plenty of negatives, discrimination, and exploitation. And I probably participate. I write about this, the privilege that I have as a male within the movement led me to exploit women. But I think all that is inevitable and it will continue. But the big lesson that I take is the necessity to hold the nonviolent gratitude. Howard Zinn died last week.
SM (00:40:59):
Yes, I know.
MR (00:41:00):
And I remember back in 2000... I guess Susan Danburger of NPR asked him, she asked a lot of smart people on the radio, "What is the contribution of 20th century to the 21st?" And I remember him saying the idea of non-violent political action. That really got me. He chose one thing. And that was the idea of nonviolence. And so I reduced it down to one thing, which encompasses, incidentally, love too. Because in nonviolence you cannot dehumanize your enemy to the point where it is okay to kill him.
SM (00:41:59):
Mark, I do not know if you saw, but on Democracy Now, they had an excerpt from Howard's last speech at Boston University.
MR (00:42:10):
Oh no, I did not hear it.
SM (00:42:12):
Yeah. And I have got to get a transcript of it because he passed away within two months. But basically what he was saying... Let me turn my tape here over. He was talking to a room full of college students at Boston University, and he said, " I was a pilot in World War II and I dropped bombs on people and I killed people. I was told to do so. I did not know those bombs had chemicals in them that would last long after the war ended. But when the war ended, I got a letter in the mail." And the letter in the mail came thanking him for his service. And all World War II veterans got this letter from one of the secretaries in the government. And basically it said, "Thanks for helping us to create a better world." Because they had defeated Nazism and, of course, the Japanese. And what is interesting... Then he went on for the next 10 minutes at unbelievable words about making the world better. Then he went on to talk about all the killing that has taken place in the world since World War II. He talked about Vietnam. He talked about Iraq, Afghanistan, and he talked about all the other conflicts and wars and weaponry and so forth. So he was basically wanting young people to reflect in a lot of different ways. But it was the way that only he could say it because he is very good with the words. So I just want to mention that.
MR (00:43:52):
Oh, yeah.
SM (00:43:53):
Because I want to get a transcript.
MR (00:43:59):
Howard's whole career has a lot of integrity and he uses his personal experience. He used his personal experience really well, and he held to his principles. He is a great model.
SM (00:44:15):
You had also made a comment, and I thought that was pretty good though, where you said "The impact of boomers on succeeding generation is they hate us. We have all the good jobs and we have all the good music and sex." What is interesting, we had a couple of panels at our school when I was there between the boomer generation and Generation X students. Actually, we filled over 500 in the room for both programs. And two things came out of those programs when Generation Xers were talking about boomers. Number one, they did not like them. Just like you say, "They hate us." They are tired of hearing about what was the nostalgia.
MR (00:44:57):
Are you writing a book about boomers?
SM (00:45:01):
And then it... Huh?
MR (00:45:03):
Get off it already?
SM (00:45:03):
Huh?
MR (00:45:05):
Get off it already.
SM (00:45:07):
Yeah. And then the second part was, "I wish I had lived then. I wish I had the causes that they had. I wish I had something to fight for."
MR (00:45:19):
Right. Right.
SM (00:45:20):
There was nothing in between.
MR (00:45:22):
No, not only that, but that they do not see the causes now. And that is understandable too, why they do not see the causes now. Because I did not see the causes now until I blundered into a mass movement. And that mass movements make things easy. You are surrounded by people who think like you and you have a critical math. Now it is a lot harder. You have to be out there on the fringe.
SM (00:45:55):
That is important because we all know when a college student goes off to their first year of school that peers are the most important influence, even more than faculty members on them.
MR (00:46:06):
Right.
SM (00:46:07):
And obviously that was true with you.
MR (00:46:09):
It was easy for me, comparatively speaking. To join the movement was easy because the movement was big and growing.
SM (00:46:19):
Could you describe two terms that I think are very important in your book? And that is functional rationality and substantial rationality. That really got me, because McNamara fit the first one so perfectly.
MR (00:46:37):
Like you figure out your goal and then that is your goal and McNamara's functional rationality. But the deeper rationality involves an evaluation of both the means and the goals. Do the ends justify the means? Do the ends justify the means? No-no.
SM (00:47:10):
Well, I had mentioned three slogans to you in my email and one was the Peter Max, and you had mentioned that you did not think...
MR (00:47:22):
But that was not for me. That was for a lot of others.
SM (00:47:25):
Yeah.
MR (00:47:26):
I thought that one was some... That is all right.
SM (00:47:28):
Would you say, and I just added one, would you say "Truth to Power" may be another one that is very important? And are there other slogans that you think more define the...
MR (00:47:37):
"Truth to power" is a pretty good one. "Truth to Power" was not that [inaudible] slogan.
SM (00:47:45):
Well, I know Dr. King used it.
MR (00:47:47):
Yeah-yeah. No, that is great. Let us see. Logan. Logan. Well, "By any means as necessary" was the slogan. But it is not one that I hold to now.
SM (00:48:02):
Right.
MR (00:48:14):
We powered to the people of Logan. All the SDS cards up until the end... The slogan of SDS was "Let the people decide." And that was consistent with our ideology of participatory democracy. And when the Weathermen took over, we still let that one go and we substituted the Panther slogan "Power to the People." "Power to the People" sounds good, but it is a bit simplistic cause people think all kinds of things and there is all kinds of people. But people are not unitary, that is for sure.
SM (00:49:07):
The media oftentimes, and you brought up even your comment to me, the media has made you think this way and make students think this way. But you also state in your book that many of your peers have gone on to be very successful in life. Doctors, lawyers, heads of companies and teachers. You name it. And oftentimes the media likes to portray the generation or as one that gave up on their beliefs and their ideals and really have not contributed at all to America. Your thoughts on that?
MR (00:49:40):
No. When I wrote that... I think you are quoting from the epilogue of the book. And in that I am actually talking about the people who came back for the 40th reunion of the Columbia strike. And many of them were not successful. But that does not mean that they have lost their ideals or their motive or motivation. Not at all.
SM (00:50:05):
Yeah. Cause I think...
MR (00:50:05):
Remember Columbia was a middle class place or an upper middle class place or a ruling class place. And the idea of it was that you go there and then you take your place at the top of society. That is still the idea. And so it is very hard to get away from class privilege.
SM (00:50:25):
Well...
MR (00:50:25):
Very difficult.
SM (00:50:28):
When I was reading your book, and then of course even knowing about you even before your book came out, that being underground must have been very difficult for you. Because you have even said... I have seen some interviews when you were on CSPAN, and that you are a person of ideas. You want to be doing something, you want to be helping people. But hiding, you cannot do anything.
MR (00:50:51):
Right. I think that I recognized that very shortly after I went under. I recognized that on May 4th, 1970, about a month after I described sitting on a park bench in Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. But I think that it is interesting that even though I ostensibly gave up all my privilege, my class, I still actually retained quite a bit, even in the underground, even when I was a nobody. I got a job at a factory in the Kensington and Allegheny, K and A neighborhood. And in that factory, I started at the bottom as the laborer. And it was not long before I was promoted to be in charge of a warehouse. Why? Because I had communications, so. That the black guy who started on the same day with me, did not have. He did not speak English the same way I did. He could not communicate with the Jewish manager. I could read. He could not.
SM (00:52:11):
You had to use a fake name though, did not you then?
MR (00:52:15):
Oh, yeah. I did not put down that I had gone to Columbia University. I made up some high school somewhere and said that I had not graduated and that was it.
SM (00:52:25):
When did you know you had to go from one place to another because you went different parts of the country?
MR (00:52:34):
We always wanted to stay a couple of jumps ahead of the FBI. So if there was a security breach of any sort, we would [inaudible] a car or somebody ratting. That was the word. Okay. Help us rat it on me being in Santa Fe. Then I could not be just one step ahead. Had to be two steps ahead. So that necessitated moving. So whenever there was a serious security breach, then we would move. And the security breach would not necessarily be about where we were. But it could have even been the previous place.
SM (00:53:25):
This is really...
MR (00:53:27):
Because you do not want to live on the edge. You do not want to live believing that at any moment the FBI could come knocking on your door.
SM (00:53:36):
Do you feel you are still being watched even though you have...
MR (00:53:38):
Nah.
SM (00:53:38):
They are not watching anymore?
MR (00:53:43):
How many million people do they have to watch?
SM (00:53:44):
Yeah.
MR (00:53:45):
Well, nah. That is just paranoid. You cannot live paranoid. That is the main thing.
SM (00:53:56):
Well, I think your life is an example though of what Dr. King always said. And even though people might say, "Well, you cannot compare Mark Rudd to Dr. King." But Dr. King always said that there is a price one pays for one's beliefs.
MR (00:54:09):
Not sure I played the price. I never missed out on a [inaudible] in my life. I never missed out on an opportunity. Had Easter in a public school. I have not paid any particular price.
SM (00:54:29):
One of the questions that I asked again is the question of well, healing. And you responded "Well, I would not sit down with George Bush." And mainly what I was referring to in that question about a problem of healing was I wanted to explain it more to you on the phone. I had taken students to Washington DC to meet Senator Muskey. And the students came up with the questions because they were curious about the 1968 convention. And they thought he was going to answer questions about possible second civil war, tearing the nation apart and everything. And so they came up with a question on healing. And I think what I sent to you was misinformation. I was really referring to the 15 percent of those who were in the anti-war movement, who were against the Vietnam War and the Vietnam Veterans themselves. And that is who I am talking about just between those two groups.
MR (00:55:29):
I never accepted the division description of my generation that the vets thought one thing and the anti-war people thought another. I never accepted that. For one thing, the vets were incredibly anti-war because so many vets were drafted. And also because the anti-war movement itself was so powerful that the idea of being against the war had gone into the military. So you find vets are just as split as the general population. My best friend is a marine vet, and he and I have much more in common than guys from his old unit that he occasionally sees. Because some of them have not gotten wise to the ways in which they were used. So I do not accept that generational division argument at all.
SM (00:56:43):
I think I sense this only because I go to the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day and Veterans Day every year. I have done it for 14 years. And I see the slogans and the dislike for Jane Fonda and when Bill Clinton came to the wall and how they were booing him. And even though it is supposed to be a non-political entity, there is still a lot of politics around there. You can sense...
MR (00:57:07):
That is the faction. Personally, I have only gotten that a few times in my life from this. And I have been in touch with hundreds of vets. I taught Vietnam vets. And for the most part I feel accepted by the vets as a veteran of the same Goddam war.
SM (00:57:32):
Good point.
MR (00:57:38):
Maybe I am different. But I would say that of my encounters with vets, maybe one or 2 percent have been hostel. There is a fraction of people who wanted to have everything that they were involved in, all their pain and suffering and loss justified. And that is understandable. Then you have got people who I would say, for the most part, vets are very cornered about the whole thing. And Gil put it, in a way, they murdered a lot of people. Those people did not ask them to come to Vietnam. They did not ask to be murdered. Somebody killed three to 5 million people. So somebody's got to feel bad about that.
SM (00:58:26):
I think one of the things that you bring up here... When I go to the wall, I look at the wall and I see not only Vietnam Veterans, I think of the 15 percent who protested the war, who were so sincere and genuine in their anti-war protest that I can see what you are talking about, Mark, about the links between Vietnam vets and those who opposed the war. Oftentimes it is those who did not give a darn about the war. And those are the ones that sometimes vet has had more problems with.
MR (00:59:01):
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Also, there is a lot more to be said on the question of the vets. My general view of the vets is somebody murdered three to 5 million people and that the vets were forced into that position have a hard time dealing with it, very difficult time dealing with it. They are reconciling their own behavior. So sometimes they get angry and they say, "Oh, well it is your fault." And other times they get angry at themselves. They drink and they wind up on the streets or they beat their wives or whatever.
SM (00:59:48):
When you were probably doing your teaching in New Mexico and were back in the system again and you saw President Reagan come into power in 1980, 81 and in his opening speech, and I have the quotes. But he said a...
SM (01:00:03):
And in his opening speech, and I have the quotes, but he said, "America is back."
MR (01:00:07):
What? Is back? Yeah.
SM (01:00:08):
Yeah. He said, "America is back. The military is going to-
MR (01:00:11):
Reagan was a horrible disappointment to me. And it was worse when he was reelected in (19)84 and I realized that he was going to be around for a long time. And remember in (19)80, when he was elected, I was barely aware of the war in Central America. But by (19)84 when he was reelected, I had become aware of the murder that our country was perpetrating in Central America.
SM (01:00:41):
And then of course, George Bush Sr., George H.W. Bush said that the Vietnam syndrome is over, when he became President.
MR (01:00:49):
Right, right. And in a way, he was right, because maybe he was a little premature in (19)91, but by 2003, the Vietnam syndrome was definitely over.
SM (01:01:03):
Yeah. You even bring up Vietnam on a university campus, even the word Vietnam, it just rings all kinds of "Uh-oh. Here we go again." I-
MR (01:01:13):
Yeah. Right. Well, I was talking to somebody, [inaudible], and said, "People do not know when Vietnam was. It could have been before World War II.
SM (01:01:26):
These are just quick-
MR (01:01:27):
And Vietnam is 45 years ago. And when you think of when we were growing up, 40 or 45 years ago before that was World War I.
SM (01:01:36):
Yes.
MR (01:01:36):
Meaning that it is in the dark ages.
SM (01:01:42):
Yeah. In fact, I have got the book Woodstock Census that came out in (19)79. I do not know if you have ever heard of that book.
MR (01:01:47):
No.
SM (01:01:48):
Well, I am reading it right now, because one of the authors is a big, well-known person not far from where you live. And I want to get ahold of him, because he co-wrote the book in (19)79. And they were basically saying in (19)79 that people are looking at the Vietnam War like we looked at World War II.
MR (01:02:08):
Right.
SM (01:02:08):
And that was 1979. These are just really quick ... I know you do not like generalities, but just a quick response here-
MR (01:02:17):
But tell me, before you get onto that, who wrote that book?
SM (01:02:20):
Oh, hold on. Can you hold on one second? I will go get it. Hold on.
MR (01:02:23):
Okay.
SM (01:02:24):
Yep. Okay. Are you still there?
MR (01:02:54):
Yeah.
SM (01:02:55):
Okay. The book was written by ... let us see, where is it here? Written by Rex Weiner.
MR (01:03:04):
Never heard of him.
SM (01:03:05):
Rex Weiner. If you go into the web, you will find out he is a big writer, written a lot of novels. And he has been a writer for a long time. And he ran away to Haight-Ashbury in the Summer of Love and brought home a souvenir case of hepatitis, studied the effects of drugs at NYU, dropped out to be a bum in Europe and became a staff writer for the East Village Other. And his best (19)60s moment was watching Timothy Leary fix a lawnmower. And the other author, her name is Deanne Stillman. S-T-I-L-L-M-A-N. She might be married now, so I could not find her, but I want to try to get ahold ... It is very good. And your picture is in here. He breaks down the sections and there is pictures at the beginning of each section. And there is a picture of you at Columbia in the one section.
MR (01:04:08):
Oh, well that is nice.
SM (01:04:08):
Yeah. And if I find it here, bear with me as I am looking, there is a section on drugs, there is a section on heroes, and I think that is where you are. Your picture is in the beginning of the heroes.
MR (01:04:22):
Yeah, but see, just a comment on me being a hero. I was really a media creation. I was one among many, many, many thousands of people who took risks and took leadership positions. And yet, I was still chosen by the media.
SM (01:04:46):
Yeah. And the media-
MR (01:04:46):
But if you want to pursue that question, take a look at Todd Gitlin's book, The Whole World Is Watching. It was written in the late (19)70s. He interviews a guy by the name of Michael... oh God, why am I blocking his name? He is a professor of peace studies. He studies oil. Margot, what is Michael's ... the professor, his wife was in peace development. Mike ... you know who I mean.
Margot (01:05:24):
Clare.
MR (01:05:26):
Mike Clare. Michael Clare. L-A-R-E. Michael Clare was in SDS. Michael Clare. [inaudible]. He is a writer for The Nation on oil policy. Good guy. He was involved in Columbia SDS. And he talks at length to Todd Gitlin in his book, The Whole World Is Watching, on the Mark Rudd phenomenon, of how the media created me as a leader. And so if these people list me as a hero, then what they have done is they have fallen for that.
SM (01:06:09):
Yeah. Well, I know that we had a period of time in the late (19)80s where we were asking students who their heroes were. And my generation, the heroes were people like Dr. King, John Kennedy, you name it. But that the generation Xers were talking about, "My parents are my heroes."
MR (01:06:35):
Oh, that is nice.
SM (01:06:36):
Or my uncle. So even within that generation, there was a change of how people looked at people and their-
MR (01:06:43):
Remember, it is the decline of utopianism.
SM (01:06:46):
Right. Sometimes their teacher. I know a person that was very influential in your life was when you were a student. I forget his full name. Potter?
MR (01:06:58):
Paul Potter?
SM (01:06:58):
Yeah. Paul Potter. You mentioned that his speech had such an effect on you.
MR (01:07:05):
Yeah.
SM (01:07:06):
And obviously there were other things that had an effect on you, but you seemed to really emphasize that one. What was it about that peer of yours that really had an effect on you?
MR (01:07:16):
How smart he was. I never knew him. I met him only in 1982. He died in 1984. I did not know him personally. But you read a speech like that, and it is true of the whole generation of the leaders of SDS, Tom Hayden and David Gilbert, a lot of others; these people had really understood what was going on. They had uncovered the truth, and they were a lot smarter and more relevant than the professor.
SM (01:07:51):
I think Rennie Davis fell in that category too, did not he?
MR (01:08:02):
I see the rise of a new student movement very slowly, but you do not have graduate students around. And the graduate students are important, because they know more.
SM (01:08:14):
Right. Just very quick thoughts here, and they do not have to be in detail. How did the (19)50s make the (19)60s?
MR (01:08:25):
Well, I think there was all this built up repression. But the biggest single thing, which we do not talk about enough, white people do not talk about enough, is the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement shook up this country. And that is got to be acknowledged. And so I will answer your question with one answer; the (19)50s was the rise to a mass movement, of the Civil Rights Movement.
SM (01:08:51):
How did the (19)60s make the (19)70s?
MR (01:09:01):
Well, there was a loosening of everything in the (19)60s, and then the (19)70s was kind of anarchic and nihilistic in a sense, or individualistic. And then that gave rise to Reagan and the 30 years of right-wing rule that we have had.
SM (01:09:22):
Yeah, that is absolutely going right in there. How did the (19)70s lead to the (19)80s and beyond? Yeah.
MR (01:09:28):
And one aspect of Reaganism, though, which should not be forgotten, is that the Civil Rights Movement unleashed black political power, especially in the South. And that caused the Democratic coalition to disintegrate. And the Democratic coalition had held the segregationist white South in the Democratic Party. So when there was a realignment in the (19)70s that led to Reagan, that entire racist wing of the Democratic Party split and went over to the Republicans. And we have still got that now. So people could say, "Oh, it was the excesses of the (19)60s," but at its real political core, it was a realignment in which the racists went to the Republican Party. I think that is got to be repeated about 500,000 times.
SM (01:10:26):
Mm-hmm. You talk about the biggest mistake that you ever made, obviously in the book, and I have seen you interviewed on C-SPAN and some of your other interviews, that was the breakup of SDS. And for obvious reasons, because SDS was the strongest anti-war group probably in history. But the question I want to ask is you were a personality, and so was Bernadine Dohrn, and so was some of the other leaders of SDS. How much does personality play within the leadership of a student group, not only as a plus, but as a minus? Because would not you say here the personalities played a negative? Because-
MR (01:11:12):
No. I think it is less personality than it is cliques. I think political cliques are the negative, and we had a clique. And the clique had lots of different personalities in it, but the clique was powerful enough to take over a big mass organization like SDS. So I think people have to look out for cliques, rather than personality.
SM (01:11:47):
You do not have to go into detail, but you consider that the biggest mistake of your life?
MR (01:11:51):
Oh, absolutely.
SM (01:11:51):
Yeah.
MR (01:11:52):
Going off SDS, are you kidding? Well, I thought I was doing one thing, but I did the opposite. I thought we were creating the beginning of a mass revolutionary movement among white people to join blacks in this country, and instead what we were doing was we were doing the work of the FBI for them. Absolutely the biggest mistake of my life, at the age of 22.
SM (01:12:19):
Well, idealism is one of the important things, and the people that you have mentioned who were in SDS, you were very proud of your intellectual strengths.
MR (01:12:33):
Too proud.
SM (01:12:33):
And the idealism. But you also mentioned in your book something; you said, "Idealism's downside is we believe our own ideas because we had them and we wanted them to be true. Do not believe everything you think."
MR (01:12:50):
Right.
SM (01:12:51):
That is important for students to learn. I have seen this in my working relationships with students. This is a very important little quote in your book, because I am idealistic, and I think you are too.
MR (01:13:04):
And so is [inaudible]. Especially the anarchist kid.
SM (01:13:07):
Right. Could you explain that in terms of learning a little more in detail?
MR (01:13:14):
Well, see, it is really more of ideology. People need to have an ideology; a set of beliefs that explain the world. It is sort of like a religious impulse, and once you get that ideology, then you think you have got everything figured out. One current ideology is anarchism, and I find a lot of good kids are stuck in this belief that we do not need governments, and that everything would be great if we just got rid of the government. And it is a totally religious belief. It does not represent reality. And I am not sure, for real learning to take place, you have to keep a certain skepticism, and even the skepticism in your own beliefs. Even scientists make this error. There is various research fallacies. I do not know the names of them, but they have to do with the idea that since you have a hypothesis, that the hypothesis must be true. But then scientific method holds that you have to do everything you can to disprove your hypothesis. So we need that same kind of cold scientific view of our ideas, and skepticism, and the belief that no ideology can ever describe reality.
SM (01:15:03):
One of the things-
MR (01:15:03):
The Buddhist precept that no belief structure is true, including Buddhism.
SM (01:15:15):
Your thoughts on just after the Vietnam War ended in (19)73? Well, the peace talks, and then (19)75, the helicopters go off the compound there in Saigon, which is now Ho Chi Minh City. Just your thoughts on what followed. And when you read the history books, what followed was an increase in the communal efforts, more increase in spirituality, and more going inward as opposed to working together as a group. So more of an individualistic-
MR (01:15:49):
We should have kept the organizing going, in retrospect. The right wing did keep the organizing going, but our generation eventually took right wing tower under George W. Bush. So the left did not keep the organizing going. That was our big error. Now we have got to come back to it and we have got to teach young people how to do it, how to organize.
SM (01:16:18):
Well, Richie Havens said that when a lot of people look at Woodstock, they just see this bunch of kids listening to great music. But he really reveals that half of the audience were not kids. There were a lot of parents with children there, and there were actually a lot of people in their 40s and 50s there. So that is something that is never told of the 400,000. But he says that Woodstock was much more than people truly understand, because it was an awakening that the kids of the (19)60s, who had been so hidden, were now being seen. And so he brings that up. And he also talks about the musicians of the late (19)50s and early (19)60s that were in Greenwich Village. And I know you knew all about this, and you were inspired by the Beats, that the Bob Jones of the world, and even the Richie Havens and Peter, Paul and Mary and that group, they could have been recognized a lot earlier, but they were not because they were kind of hidden.
MR (01:17:21):
Well-
SM (01:17:22):
And that the music kind of exposed and brought them out.
MR (01:17:25):
[inaudible] the folk song revival was that it happened at all. No such thing is happening now. But the folk song revival happened from the late (19)40s on into and through the (19)60s, and it was a lot of product of the left wing. And I think it was important, because it brought social consciousness to so many people. But in the current musical environment, you have nothing like that.
SM (01:18:04):
One of the things that I can vividly remember when I was a student at Ohio State, because I was in grad school in (19)71, (19)72 there, and of course I was at Binghamton up to that point, is I saw the separation between black students and white students really happening around that 1969 timeframe. And that was because the African-American students said, "I am not going to be protesting the war in Vietnam. We were going to concentrate on the issues here at home with the plight of African-Americans," ala Black Power, Black Panthers, and so forth. And even at Kent State, you cannot find an African-American student at that protest. They were told to not be there. And that basically-
MR (01:18:49):
That might have been in part a result of Black Power too, the idea of separation.
SM (01:18:57):
But what is really sad is when you were going underground at Ohio State in (19)71 and (19)72, you walk into the Ohio Union and black students did not want anything to do with white students. And they were having their dances in one section, and the other group was having their dances in the other section. And of course, the Afro hairdos were there. There was a lot of stuff happening. And one of the things that was so important about the (19)60s was a sense of community, of coming together, because so many of the movements came together. And all of a sudden, you are seeing these splits.
MR (01:19:33):
Right. Well, Black Power was a powerful thing. There was recently a book written about it called Columbia versus Harlem, or Harlem versus Columbia, by Dr. Stefan Bradley, a young black historian. And he talks about the black movement at Columbia. We were really only united with them for a moment. That moment was a very powerful moment.
SM (01:20:03):
I have only got a couple more questions, then I will be done. You mentioned a couple of the people that you read. I have it right here. I know there were three different books. What were the most influential books, Mark, in your life, that you read as you were young or that you have read since?
MR (01:20:25):
The Grapes of Wrath, the autobiography of Malcolm X, and oddly enough, a rather obscure book from 1974 called Labor and Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman. [inaudible] Review Press. The guy is a genius, an economist who himself was a [inaudible] maker machinist. And he analyzed the nature of the current economy, which was the computerization, the automation of the workforce in which the average skill level of labor is driven down. That is the whole point of computerization, is that machines take over labor, and so you do not have to pay as much, and you do not need a skilled labor force. And that then defined my whole career as a teacher at a community college, which was, "Why is there so much failure? It is because the economy does not need highly skilled workers." But anyway, as long as we are listing books, I am going to list as my third Labor and Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman. Have you ever seen it?
SM (01:22:07):
No, I have not, but I am going to go look it up.
MR (01:22:09):
Oh, do look it up. It is an amazing book.
SM (01:22:13):
Where do you put your book? Because I think your book should be in a classroom, should be required reading. You made a question to me, "How am I going to reach young people with this book project?" Because as mentioned, you have been somewhat frustrated. I firmly believe in youth as long as the adults do what they are supposed to be doing in terms of teaching. And if I was a professor in a classroom in the (19)60s, I would have your book as required reading. I mean-
MR (01:22:40):
That is wonderful.
SM (01:22:41):
No, I would.
MR (01:22:41):
It is coming out in paperback, so maybe it will.
SM (01:22:44):
And I know some professors who teach (19)60s courses, and I will certainly recommend to them. I do not know if the chair of the department will finally okay it, but I think it is just a fantastic book. And the two books that I wanted to know if you had actually read was The Greening of America, by Charles Wright.
MR (01:23:03):
I did. I did. And unfortunately, he did not prove right.
SM (01:23:09):
Yep. And the other one was The Making of a Counterculture, by Theodore Roszak.
MR (01:23:13):
I never did. Do you like that one?
SM (01:23:16):
I liked it. I wanted to interview him, but he is not well, so he says, "I cannot." He is not doing too well. So those are important. I also felt that Harry Edwards book, Black Students, I do not know if you have ever read it?
MR (01:23:27):
No. But Harry Edwards is an important guy.
SM (01:23:30):
Yeah, he is. But he is the one professor who defined the (19)60s activists more than any other. He broke them down into revolutionaries, activists, militants. And I know he also did what we call anomic activists, which are people who will just create havoc for no reason at all. You can just pay them and they will do it. They do not care. And it was in Black Students, we read that book, it was required reading at Ohio State, and I brought him to Westchester and I got a first edition signed. So it was pretty good.
MR (01:24:13):
Great.
SM (01:24:15):
If you had to live your life all over again, would you do it?
MR (01:24:17):
The same way?
SM (01:24:20):
Yeah. What changes would you do in your life, besides-
MR (01:24:22):
Non-violence. And organizing. Much more organizing. [inaudible] nature. And I think I probably would have gone earlier into the Democratic Party.
SM (01:24:37):
What do you hope will be your lasting legacy? Say that again, because the tape just-
MR (01:24:47):
The idea that mass movement, social and political, is possible, and that it takes organizing. And to not make the same mistakes that I did, which was not organizing and going into self-expression, which is what armed struggle is.
SM (01:25:05):
And I am going to end the interview with just... I had a whole list of names. I am not going to go through those names. But I wanted just your thoughts on four people, because they were really not liked by the anti-war movement, but I want hear it from you. And the four people are Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, and what is the fourth one? Oh, and I just wanted to know a little bit more of your thoughts on Kennedy and McCarthy, because you call-
MR (01:25:36):
Okay. Kennedy and McCarthy, at the time, we thought were diversions from the revolutionary movement, which were growing. And [inaudible] back into the system. We did not believe that the system was going to survive. We thought that there would be an end to this sham democracy that we have. So in 1968, when there was an election, SDS's line was, "Vote in the streets." So we were kind of utopian anarchists at the time, and we wanted to ignore those people. I have never hated anybody in my life as much as I hated Lyndon Johnson. To this day, I despise him. I hate Lyndon Johnson more than I hate even Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. I worked for Lyndon Johnson as a high school kid, and I should have written more about this part, but I went to some demonstrations for Johnson, and I felt totally betrayed. And whatever happens to you when you are coming of age, that is very important emotionally. So I hated Lyndon Johnson worse than I hated any President, before or since. Now, rationally, I know that that is not possibly true, that Johnson was a continuation domestically of the New Deal, and there was a lot of good stuff. But I still hate him. Even Nixon, who was the embodiment of evil, I did not hate as much as Johnson. Spiro Agnew was a joke. I loved Spiro Agnew because he was so obviously unqualified to be anything. He might have been qualified to clean toilets someplace, but that is about it. And I loved Agnew because he was such a joke, and he was so corrupt that they had to fire him. They had to get him to resign before Watergate played out. So did that answer your question?
SM (01:27:55):
Yeah. And obviously I had forgotten Mr. McNamara, the best and the brightest, which Kennedy brought in.
MR (01:28:01):
Well, I never liked McNamara. I still did not like him when he wrote his so-called apology back in the (19)90s. And I hated him in [inaudible], and I despised him on the day he died.
SM (01:28:17):
And finally, the women who were the leaders of the women's movement, Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan. But I know you guys were criticized, as many people in the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war movement, by being sexist, putting women in secondary roles. And I know I have interviewed people that were in SDS that were female, and they verify that. Just do you have any second thoughts?
MR (01:28:46):
I have a lot of respect for the founders of the women's movement. And even somebody like Robin Morgan, who eventually turned me into the FBI, I have respect for her ideas. I read her book in 1989, the Demon Lover on the sexuality of terrorism, and I learned a lot. But you might take a look at my essay, K and Me.
SM (01:29:19):
Oh, okay. I was reading some of those essays. J and Me. All right. Very good. And I guess that is it. Are there any questions that I did not ask that you thought I was going to?
MR (01:29:33):
No-no. That was good. That was a great interview. Please keep me informed of the progress of your book.
SM (01:29:39):
Oh, I will. And I really hope I can meet you. I want to get pictures of you, because I am doing that with each of the interviews.
MR (01:29:46):
Okay. I can send you any of the pictures in my book.
SM (01:29:51):
Yes. If you could send those, but-
MR (01:29:53):
No, wait. You have to ask for one or two.
SM (01:29:55):
Okay. Yeah, I will do that. Are you doing any lectures on the East Coast?
MR (01:30:01):
Let me see.
SM (01:30:03):
Lectures on the East Coast?
MR (01:30:03):
Let me see. There is one that is under discussion now in Pittsburgh.
SM (01:30:14):
Oh, okay.
MR (01:30:14):
In March. But watch on my website, I will announce it there.
SM (01:30:18):
I hope you can come to Kent State.
MR (01:30:21):
Maybe, we will see. I am involved in a political campaign here, reaching a climax in May, but we will see if there is a good role for me out there, I will come.
SM (01:30:33):
And you are still teaching, are not you?
MR (01:30:36):
At the moment? No. I taught last semester at UNM, University of New Mexico, but at the moment, I am not teaching.
SM (01:30:45):
Well, Mark, thank you very much for spending the time.
MR (01:30:49):
Sure. Good luck, Steve.
SM (01:30:50):
Yeah. And I admire what you did because you stood up and I knew about you when I was your age. You were the same age when I was at Binghamton, and I supported what you are doing. It was just the weatherman part, well, the rest is history, I guess. Mark, you take care and carry on.
MR (01:31:08):
All right.
SM (01:31:09):
Have a great day.
MR (01:31:12):
You too.
SM (01:31:12):
Bye.
(End of Interview)
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 Mark Rudd
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Rudd, Mark ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Peace movements—United States; Authors; Weather Underground Organization; Political activists--United States; Rudd, Mark--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Mark Rudd is a political organizer, author, math instructor, and anti-war activist who was part of the Weather Underground group. Rudd attended Columbia University and became a member of Students for a Democratic Society in 1963. He got his commitment to "fight U.S. imperialism" by watching the revolutionary movement in Cuba. Mr. Rudd was a leader of the campus protests at Columbia University in April 1968.
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
2010-02-01
Rights
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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.10.2016.106a: McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.106b
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.
175:20