130 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/0c1104ed0fb3a0a1e44aa826908d9bcf.jpg 6ece1a61dab48f9a1fbf3271a03ac523 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/32917909293bb94458f8389ee5f641d2.mp3 66d45c3b65f66d3125cca06306c3f673 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 2011-02-12 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Michael Kazin, 1948- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Michael Kazin is a historian and professor at Georgetown University. Kazin's research focuses on the American social movements from the 19th and 20th centuries. He received a Bachelor's degree in Social Studies from Harvard, a Master's degree in History from Portland State University, and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford University. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7043,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Dr. Michael Kazin is a historian and professor at Georgetown University. Kazin's research focuses on the American social movements from the 19th and 20th centuries. He received a Bachelor's degree in Social Studies from Harvard, a Master's degree in History from Portland State University, and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford 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="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;George McGovern; Foreign policy; Conservatism; Generation gap; The Wounded Generation: America After Vietnam; Vietnam War; McCarthyism; Montgomery Bus Boycott; The moon landing; John F. Kennedy inaugural address; Neo-liberal; Radicals; Higher education; African Americans; Pop culture of Nineteen sixties; Richard J. Hughes; New Leftist; Harvard University; Students for a Democratic Society.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14275305}}">George McGovern; Foreign policy; Conservatism; Generation gap; The Wounded Generation: America After Vietnam; Vietnam War; McCarthyism; Montgomery Bus Boycott; The moon landing; John F. Kennedy inaugural address; Neo-liberal; Radicals; Higher education; African Americans; Pop culture of Nineteen sixties; Richard J. Hughes; New Leftist; Harvard University; Students for a Democratic Society.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:54:16 Subject LCSH Historians; College teachers; Georgetown University; Social movements--United States--19th century; Social movements--United States--20th century; Kazin, Michael, 1948--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: Michael Kazin Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 12 February 2011 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:02): Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing. MK (00:00:11): [inaudible] if you rather, but this is more comfortable. SM (00:00:12): That is fine. It carries pretty good. MK (00:00:16): You got two of them, huh? SM (00:00:17): Yep. MK (00:00:17): Stereo. SM (00:00:18): For the last maybe hundred interviews I have had two, because Peter Goldman gave me some advice there too. He said, you need to have two interview tapes because if you are redoing the tape and something that happens to one, you got a second one. Could you tell me a little bit about your growing up years? I know you had a famous dad who was a literary critic and a very well-known critic, but what were your early influences? Who were your role models, teachers, historians, and how important was your dad in shaping who you became? MK (00:00:53): Well, I will deal with him first, I guess. I was born in 1948. My parents were actually divorced when I was one and a half. I have no memories of them living together. So direct influence in terms of being by the house, there was not any, I saw him once a month or so. We had a difficult relationship. He was not very good with little kids. He was only comfortable with people if he could talk about books and ideas. And when you are five years old, you do not really do that. So, we had a difficult time, but by the time I started at junior high or high school, at least, I do not remember exactly when people said, "Oh, are you the son of Alfred Kazin?" He was part of this world of what Irving Howe called the New York Intellectuals. And I grew up in a suburb of New York, Pinewood, New Jersey, near just a one exit off the South East Parkway from George Washington Bridge. SM (00:01:53): It is Englewood, is not it? MK (00:01:54): Yeah, Englewood. So I kept hearing about him. I read his work when I was in high school and we argued about politics. When I was in high school. He was a Cold War liberal, and I was beginning to be an anti-war liberal. And then of course, later on, a radical. So I think the conflict between us, which was partly personal and partly political, was constructive, I think, to teach me how to argue about politics with someone who is very smart. And also I learned to take ideas very seriously. And also, without thinking about it at the time, I certainly learned that you could have a pretty good life being a teacher and a writer, which of course is what he was. He was more writer than teacher. He taught all the time, but his real passion was for writing. He taught only because he could not make enough money writing. If he could have made enough money writing, he would not have taught. Which is not true for me. I love teaching. So other influences. My mother, of course, who I grew up with, who was on the left politically. She had gone to Russia in 1936 when American liberals as still thought Russia was a pretty good place, at least a lot of them did. And just as a tourist, she went. And she had been involved in various popular front groups in the thirties, a fellow traveler, old term for that. And she had friends who I met, some of whom were emigres from Nazi Germany, who got out just in time in the thirties, and I met them growing up. And our next-door neighbors were left-wingers. They subscribed to a magazine [inaudible] called the National Guardian, which was a left-wing magazine. You might know of it. Again, late (19)40s. In fact, one 4th of July they had a barbecue, and they had The Weavers over to sing- SM (00:03:59): Oh my God. MK (00:03:59): In the backyard next door. SM (00:04:01): Pete Seeger. MK (00:04:03): That was pretty cool. This is, I forget exactly the year, sometime in the (19)50s. So I grew up in, what I understood later was a particular kind of left liberal background, people who had been close to the Communist Party at one point, but no longer were, it was mostly Jewish, not all Jewish, certainly. And my schools, I will not go into great detail, but my schools were influenced too. I went to a public school until seventh grade in my hometown, in Englewood, New Jersey. And it was an integrated school. And in fact, my first two teachers were Black, first grade and second grade teachers. And so, I think, again, in retrospect, I never had an experience of seeing Black people always under me. And I was a great baseball fan, still am. And I used to go to games in the [inaudible] grounds in Englewood and crowd was almost half Black at that time. Baseball was a very popular sport among Black people then, much more than this now. And that was important too. I was a Dodgers fan. The Dodgers had signed Jackie Robinson. So this was all part of the gestalt of politics and culture at the time. So, I would not say I had any role models per se, but clearly my parents were the biggest influence on me and being part of this whole milieu. I met my father's friends. I met Norman Mailer, met Robert Loeb, Richard Hofstadter, who was his best friend. These, in retrospect, very important intellectuals. But at the time, I just thought were my father's friends. And I identified very early with left-wing causes, civil rights movement. There was a sit-in Englewood for integrated schools. And my mother would not let me go, but I talked about it at my school. SM (00:06:19): How old were you at that time? MK (00:06:20): 14, I think. SM (00:06:20): Okay. Wow. MK (00:06:22): She was afraid of violence. I wanted to go to the March on Washington (19)63. I forget why I did not go, but I did not for some reason. But I started to go to anti-war demonstrations very early in early (19)65. And also my stepfather, Mario Salvadori, who was a professor of engineering Columbia, helped to sponsor the anti-war teach-in at Columbia. It was one of the first anti-war teach-ins in, I think it was January (19)65, February (19)65. I do not know exactly when. And I ran for a school president at one point too. And I was [inaudible] because I had talked about my views about the war and so forth. And I remember one poster of the candidates who ran against me showed Khrushchev on one side, Castro on the other side and me in the middle all of us shaking hands. So, I lost, that is why I lost. And also, I worked on political campaigns. I worked on John Kennedy's campaign as a 12-year-old in Englewood. And at the time, when Englewood was basically Republican and Nixon was very popular. I worked on Johnson's campaign in (19)64. I was head of a group called Young Citizens for Hughes. Richard Hughes was running for reelection as governor of New Jersey. So I was not a new leftist yet. I was still a liberal Democrat. But I like a lot of people I knew, there was a continuum in some ways between being a liberal Democrat, at least there and being leery about the Cold War. My mother took me to a SANE nuclear policy, the group SANE rally in Madison Square Garden in I think (19)58, which was part of their campaign for a nuclear test ban treaty. And I heard Dr. Spock speak, he was a lead speaker at the time. SM (00:08:25): William Sloan Craws was connected to that. MK (00:08:25): So as I said, there was a lot of stuff going on. SM (00:08:28): Did you talk to your dad? When I looked at what your dad, the people that he liked the most, Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, they were the really big thinkers of the 19th century that he, and, of course, they were role models to a lot of people on the left, especially Thoreau and Emerson. Did he ever talk to you about them? MK (00:08:45): Not so much. Part of our conflict was that I tried to stay away as much as possible from people he liked. He loved Henry Adams, I did not meet Henry Adams until I was much older. He loved Dreiser loved. I did not meet Dreiser until I was much older. So if my father wrote about somebody, I made a point of not reading until I was older. SM (00:09:00): I can understand. MK (00:09:01): We read Thoreau and Emerson High School a little bit. SM (00:09:07): How did you end up at Harvard? How did you pick Harvard? MK (00:09:12): Well, it was Harvard. Obviously, back then, if you get into Harvard, you would try. And also, my father had always wanted to teach there. He was a great admirer of people. He was friends with [inaudible] Junior. He looked up for Perry Miller, a great scholar of the Puritans who was a Harvard teacher. And he would have wanted to teach at Harvard if he could have. So certainly, to get into Harvard back then for a upwardly mobile intellectual Jewish kid was the pinnacle of academic success. So that is why I applied. I did not think I would get in, but I did. I applied other schools. I did not get in everywhere. I did not get into Stanford where my daughter goes Now, I did not get into Haverford, but I think I was very political. Harvard probably liked that in my application. I think my statement I wrote about why I wanted to be US Senator. I said, "I do not want to be president because it is not time for a Jewish kid to be president yet. But I would like to be Senator." SM (00:10:27): Was Chuck Schumer in your class? MK (00:10:30): He is one year younger, I think. SM (00:10:31): And was David Eisenhower also there at that time? MK (00:10:39): Yeah, actually, no, he went to Amherst, I think. He did not go to Harvard. But in my freshman dorm, he was friends with one of the kids in my freshman dorm. And we used to have parties and he and Julie Nixon would come to these parties and bring their own bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Like the secret of service, they do not drink from anybody else's. SM (00:10:58): I remember years ago reading about him that Fred Grandy, the actor, his father had picked him to be kind of the role model for David when he went there as a first-year student. MK (00:11:10): I think it was Fred's room where the parties were. SM (00:11:13): Yeah. Fred was a year older than him. Anyway, now, you were very active at Harvard and you became president of the Students for a Democratic Society, which had one of the largest- MK (00:11:23): Co-chairman was the actual name. SM (00:11:26): That was one of the largest chapters. Even I remember this back then, it was the one of the largest chapters of SDS, I think, in the country at that time. MK (00:11:34): I am not sure. SM (00:11:37): What was your student life like? I really want you to talk about the experience of the Harvard Yard experience because that is a historic event. When you think of Columbia of (19)68, when you think of Harvard in (19)69, when you think of Ken State in (19)70, these are really historic events to me, as a person who studied the (19)60s. What was the main issue? Describe what was going on there in (19)69, how this all evolved. MK (00:12:08): Well, of course, this happened after the student of the left had been growing for a couple years, beginning with in many ways, with the free speech movement from Berkeley in (19)64 and going onward. And of course, things got really amped up with the escalation of the war. And then with the Columbia strike in the spring of (19)68. In Some ways there was a kind of emulation competition going on. I think without emphasizing it too much, we felt, "Well, Columbia SDS can shut down their school. How come we cannot shut down our school?" Because I had a lot of friends in Columbia SDS, some of whom died in the townhouse explosion. Ted Gold and I was friends with Mark Wood. We worked together at SDS regional office in New York in (19)67. So, I knew a bunch of people. But anyway, the key issue, of course, was the war as it was everywhere. That is why you had a large new left as you know. It would not have happened without that. And we were very responsible, I think, contrary to the image that a lot of people have about the students running amok and going crazy and smashing things. We believed in organizing. We had a careful campaign, which is probably detailed in that WHRP book. We began in the fall of (19)68, some ways coming off the Democratic Convention in Chicago where I was and got arrested. And we decided, "Well, what is the main tentacle of the octopus of the war machine on campus? Well, it is RTC." Now, there was not much. RTC maybe had 30 people in it. It was not a big deal. But other people in the country were attacking RTC. It was one way we could localize issues of the military and the war. So, we started petition to, in a very responsible way, to try to get the administration to abolish RTC on campus. And they refused. And so we kept going to meetings and making some noise, faculty meetings, and some people got arrested for disrupting a meeting. But in the end, we got, I do not remember how many, but we had many thousand signatures because the war was very unpopular at Harvard, as it was a lot of campuses like that around the country, so it was not a problem. And then had house meetings at the Harvard houses. We had house meetings in Harvard Yard where the freshmen lived. We did what organizers have always done. I spent probably, that was my junior year, I spent most of the year organizing, not much time on classes. And we basically had The Crimson on our side, the daily newspaper, which was useful, of course. They would report on our meetings. I do not want to go into great detail about this, but we had two pretty antagonistic factions within SDS as you probably read about. One was my faction, which is we sort of called the new left faction. It was sort of loose. We liked rock and roll, and we thought there was nothing wrong with smoking dope. And we wanted a sort of vaguely radical democratic society. Was not too sure what that might mean. We were very pro Vietcong, we were pro the Cubans, but we were very supportive of Black Panthers and other Black power groups. But we were very critical of what we saw as sort of dogmatic Marxism. And of course, the other side was the Progressive Labor Party, which was a group, as you probably know, that was [inaudible] for the Communist Party in the early (19)60s over supporting the Chinese and the Sino-Soviet Split. And they were very hard-nosed about how you have to organize workers and do strike support and men should cut their hair, women should wear dresses and very counter-culture of all kinds. So we had a lot of divisions and they tended to be actually on campus actions more militant than we were. So when it came down to deciding, when the faculty did not agree to abolish RDC, we had to decide what to do. And at first, people in our faction were not in favor of taking a building, taking University Hall, which was the administration building on campus, the main one. But the PL group called the Workers Student Alliance always was in favor of it. They believed in being more militant. And also they wanted to build their faction nationally. And they knew, if they were the leaders of a chapter which shut down Harvard, this would be a feather in their cap. And there were three co-chairs of SDS. I forget exactly why we had three, but that is the way it evolved. Two of them were from their faction. I was the only one from our faction. But PL because they were so hard line on dogmatic had a certain, was not as popular in the wider student body as our faction was. So, a lot of people who were not in SDS looked to me, I think more as a leader than they did to those people. So again, and this, of course, is always true at the time, if you want to have a militant action, you do it when the weather is nice. And, of course, up in the Boston area, it did not really start until April. So April 9th I think is when we took over University. Again, this is all detailed in these books. But we had a very tempestuous meeting the night before going back and forth. And I thought we had to seize the moment or seize the time as the Black Panthers used to put it. And so if we were going to force the issue, we had to do it then. So, I was always in favor of taking the building, even though the first votes in this meeting were not in favor. So somewhat manipulatively, I must admit, I kept the issue alive. And PL was prepared with that too. So in the end, I think the vote was inconclusive. I forget exactly what the vote was, but I have not gone back and looked at these books to check. But we decided we were going to have a march after the meeting was over that night, I guess April 8th it was and march through campus. And I had a list of our demands. And I, the historian already, nascent historian, I knew about Martin Luther tacking these 95 theses up on the door of the cathedral in Germany. So, I decided to go to the President's office and tacked the demands up on his door and made some little speech of some kind. And then as we walked around Cambridge after that, our faction and the PL faction decided we were going to take the building. So we spent much of the night putting together leaflets, passed them out on campus. And at noon we went to University Hall and kicked the deans out. PL people picked the deans up and took them out. They wanted to show them a little of who they were, which in the end they got arrested. Some of the people who did, they got arrested for that. And you want me to go into University Hall, what happened there? SM (00:19:41): Yeah, you took over the hall. How long did it take? MK (00:19:45): We were there for basically from noon until about 6:00 AM the next morning when the police came in. And there was a big debate. Actually, I was not inside University Hall when the police came in. I thought someone should go out of the hall and first of all see if they were in and if they were, tell people that the police were coming. And then I thought I would go back in the hall. But I went outside and the police started to come in almost as soon as I got outside. So, I said, "Well maybe I will stay outside and not get arrested and get the stuff going." And also, to be honest, in retrospect, I was a little scared too. I did not like the idea of just sitting there and getting my head beaten. And again, I think it was probably a good decision because the other leaders of the chapter were arrested. So I was able to start a rally on the steps of Widener Library right in Harvard Yard, denouncing the police and calling for a student strike as other people were doing too. And the student strike basically started spontaneously, in large part, not necessarily because everybody at Harvard thought we had done the right thing by taking the building. There was a lot of people... Got the dog on your tape there? SM (00:21:05): Yeah [inaudible]. MK (00:21:06): A dog passed by [inaudible], but it is her turf. SM (00:21:08): Brody does the same thing. MK (00:21:10): Zoe shut up. SM (00:21:13): Brody just barks because he does not want anybody to leave. MK (00:21:15): Really? She gets upset when we go on a trip. As soon as we bring her back downstairs, she knows what is going there. SM (00:21:22): Oh, boy. Does she bark? MK (00:21:23): No. Sits in front of the front door and says, "You are not getting past me." Where were we? Oh yeah, the strike. So as often happened, it happened at Columbia too, other places, the student movement grew large partly because students were in support of our basic anti-war position, even if they were not in support of our specific politics, dogmatic imperialism, supporting the people fighting American troops and so forth. But they really got active when they saw their friends getting clubbed by police. And we would not have had a huge, good strike without that if we just sat there. In fact, ironically, if the administration just let us sit in that building and they just waited us out, we probably would have had to leave in defeat. But in the end, the calling the police in, which of course they had a legal right to do, galvanized the student strike. And we had big meetings at the Harvard stadium across the river, 10,000 people, 12,000 people, obviously the cover of Black Magazine because it was Harvard. Now, what we were doing was not all that different really from what was happening on hundreds of campuses around the country. SM (00:22:45): In happened in Hamilton too. MK (00:22:45): It was Harvard. That is the reason it was a big deal. And we knew that. We knew we would make a splash by doing this. I must say though, one of the things that I realized, and I have written about since then was, you can see how happy or glad I should say, the police were to bust our heads when they came in. And this a [inaudible], the idea of driving their cruisers into Harvard Yard, leaving deep ruts in the grass of Harvard Yard. These were mostly middle class white guys from Cambridge, from other parts of the Boston area who all thought Harvard was these stuck up, privileged, rich people. And to them, I think, even though all of us certainly were not rich, lots of [inaudible] kids and so forth, but to them it was pretty clear, they took a certain glee I think in smashing into Harvard and smashing up these unpatriotic freaks who had [inaudible]. SM (00:23:48): James Fallows was there too, I believe around that time. MK (00:23:50): Yeah. [inaudible] here now. SM (00:23:52): And then, of course, just recently, the death of John Wheeler, the murder. And I had interviewed him for my book. And he had been at Harvard too later on after he had served in Vietnam. MK (00:24:02): Jim was president of Crimson. I am not sure if it was that year, but maybe the year before. SM (00:24:09): And he had written a lot about how guilty he felt about avoiding the draft. MK (00:24:12): [inaudible]. SM (00:24:12): Yeah, yeah. And of course he became close friends of Jack Wheeler over time, The Long Green Line, the book that was written. You went on to Portland State and then you went on to Stanford. Were you as active politically on those campuses? MK (00:24:25): Oh, yeah. SM (00:24:26): Now when- MK (00:24:27): Did not have much at Stanford. By then it was the mid (19)70s. And if you are getting a PhD, you do not have much time. But I got active in the early (19)80s again in the nuclear freeze movement. But Portland State, well first of all, I went to Portland not to go to school, not to go to university, but because I was kicked out of Harvard in the fall of (19)69 for leading a demonstration against the people of the Center for National Affairs, which Henry Kissinger had set up, sort of a think tank/elite department. And I went to New York, started work on Liberation Mews Service, this underground press service, sort of like the AP of the Radical Press and long story. But basically they had taken a feminist turn. There were too many men on the collective. They said I could work there, but I could not join the collective. My girlfriend who I met there was not happy about it, but basically, I would not be able to stay there as a man. So, they liked my work a lot. So, I looked at all the papers that were coming to the office there from all around the country, all over the world, for that matter. And the one from Portland, Oregon was a really nice paper. And I always like the idea of living on the West Coast for a while. I had lived in Berkeley for a while, in the summer of (19)69. Actually. Oh, it was (19)68. And so I called up the Portland paper, I said, "Do you need a staff member?" They said, "Sure, $25 a week." And so I hitchhiked out to Portland. And while I was there, the paper, long story, it fell apart basically after about a year. And I had a few jobs, working restaurants and working at Portland State University and Tate Library. And I said, "Well, I always liked history. The revolution might not be happening. I would better think of something to earn a living. I do not want to be short order cook for the rest of my life." So, I applied to Portland State history program just to try it out. SM (00:26:41): And then you went on and got your PhD? MK (00:26:42): Yeah, but while I was there, I was involved in the anti-war movement, which, of course, still going on. SM (00:26:47): A very liberal area out there too, Portland. MK (00:26:51): Yeah. And of course, we had that newspaper that I helped edit, called the [inaudible] Bridge. And I got involved in a free clinic. I was involved with a group called Medical Committee for Human Rights, which was in favor of national health insurance. And actually, it had been originally started by this guy, Howard Levy, who was an army doctor who turned against the war. And I was also involved in, we had a little campaign to impeach Nixon during Watergate. So whatever was going on, I was involved in. And I worked for McGovern, which was sad. But I did for a short time. SM (00:27:26): That was quite at a defeat. I saw McGovern in 1972 when he flew into Columbus, Ohio. He got off the plane but never really left tarmac. And I could not see him very well, but I heard him, Ohio State had a big contingent there. Big. MK (00:27:39): Is that where you went to school, Ohio? SM (00:27:43): Yeah, grad school. I was there for five years I noticed that you had been a professor, and adjunct professor at a lot of different schools from San Francisco State, Stanford, Santa Cruz, even went to Europe for a while and taught there. And then of course- MK (00:27:59): I went to Europe; it was after I was already a tenured professor. SM (00:28:03): And that of course, you have taught at American and now at Georgetown. When you look at your peers, and you have probably been asked this before, and it was not any condemnation of the two generations that have followed the Boomer generation in terms of... But when you compare the students from your era, the students that you went to class at Harvard and Portland and so forth and the students that you have been teaching over the years, do you see a big difference within the generations? And what would those differences be? Because I like the millennials that are today. I know they are doing a lot of things, but... MK (00:28:43): I do not think as deeply about generations as some people do, I guess. I think about groups within generations and they have to all... We know from polls today that Boomer generation is probably more conservative on a lot of issues and has been for a while than younger generations are, certainly on issues like gay marriage, on abortion, on US foreign policy. So, the image that people often have that the Boomer generation was full of leftists, it was not true then, and it is not true now. There was a certain group within it who certainly were, and college students tend to be more than people that did not go to college. But I often tell my students that the most popular candidates in 1972 among people who were from my generation, a lot of them had been voting for the first time, were both for George McGovern and George Wallace. So rebellious figures were popular, it was just not necessarily rebellious figures on the left. And I have written a little about this in my book on populism. So, there is a real division within the generation, I think, more than there was some lock step. One of the things which is true though, and of course, I see these younger generations mostly through my kids who are now 19 and 22 and through my students over the years, and one thing I have noticed since I have been teaching for, wow, 35 years now in college and some in high school too. I taught some high school in the late (19)70s. One of the things I see is that there is less desire, I think, to mix it up ideologically, less desire to really fight over essentials, more inclination to be civil towards other people's opinions, sometimes to a fault, I think. I am always trying to get my students and talk my kids too, to really see that that is a lot at stake in these different points of view. And there is nothing wrong with having sharp arguments about these things. But I notice, especially kids my age, to a certain degree, I have noticed this for the last 10, 15 years of my students too, that they are loath to really take on someone from their own generation, really argue fiercely with them about issues. They feel somehow being impolite or perhaps that in the end, the differences do not matter as much as getting along matters. And that is very different from our generation's feeling as you know. We can be accused of a lot of things, but not taking politics seriously is not one thing we cannot be accused of. SM (00:31:48): Kind of the Rodney King mentality, cannot we all just get along? MK (00:31:50): Yeah. And it is fine. I am not in favor of revolution. I have not been for many, many years now. I am a liberal democrat basically today and I think conservative Republicans have terrible ideas. And I think if they do not explain why I think they do is fine. And I have considered this with my class and I am very empathetic with them. I draw them out, evaluations they give me show that they respect that, and they know I do not agree with them, but they do not argue for conservatism as much as I would like them to, to be honest with you. There is a lot of lazy liberalism on my campus anyway, and my views in general. And I think it is important for my liberal students to hear arguments well-articulated and well defended and vice versa. [inaudible]. SM (00:32:42): I was feeling, when I read the first biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton, I remember when she was in high school, her teacher- MK (00:32:49): In Illinois? SM (00:32:51): Yeah, in Illinois. She was a Goldwater girl, and her friend was a big supporter of LBJ. They had a project, you probably know, have heard about this, and she wanted to debate her friend representing Goldwater. Well, he said, "If you are going to learn about the other point of view and the positions of the people that you are opposing, then you need to learn backwards and forwards what they stand for. So you are going to represent LBJ and your friend's going to represent Goldwater in the debate." And as a result of that experience, Hillary became a liberal. That is a true story. MK (00:33:26): I did not know that. SM (00:33:27): And it was all based on this teacher who realized the true learning and we tell this to students all the time that you can be emotional about your feelings, but knowledge is just power. Know the issues. When you hear Newt Gingrich make statements about President Obama, well you study President Obama and where he stands on things, but you need to study Newt Gingrich too. Just do not take a line here and then- MK (00:33:51): I started to write about conservatism about 20 years ago and it was partly because I wanted to understand why they were doing so well, for someone who did not agree with them. But also it is useful because you learn to not demonize the other side and actually- MK (00:34:03): It is useful because you learn to not demonize the other side. And actually it leads to more civil dialogue, I think. It does not mean you agree with them more, but you at least understand why they have come to that position. SM (00:34:13): Do you like the term, the Boomer generation? I get a sense you like groups within the generation as a- MK (00:34:20): I mean obviously generations matter. I mean they listen to some similar kinds of music. They are affected at the same time of their lives by certain kinds of events. So, I am not saying generations do not matter. I just think this is a big, big country and it is also a big, big world. And to assume that somehow generational experiences are all the same, that is just not the history. I mean also more and more historians; it is just sort of transnational ways of looking at things. And I do that some too and obviously the generation I was part of, especially the cohort of it, there were people in Italy and France, and Germany and Britain, and Japan and Argentina, and Mexico were going to a lot of the same experiences. And to generalize about how the experiences affected them would be presumptuous. What I really know about without studying it, about what a kid growing up in Tokyo who happened to join Jim [inaudible], the Japanese left-wing kids’ organization. What specifically was driving that person? Was it same thing as driving me as a Jewish liberal New Yorker? Probably not. Some things, yes, some things, no. SM (00:35:34): The generation gap is a term we all know. It was defined as the disagreement between the older generation, the younger generation or between parent and child. And if you remember 1968, Life Magazine had that front cover with a guy with glasses on. It was kind of a black silhouette with the fathers pointing at the son and the son pointing at the father. So the Generation Gap was well known. But in the book, the Wounded Degeneration, which was a book that came out in 1980, there was a symposium that included James Fallows, Phil Caputo, Jack Wheeler, a young man then. Who else? Bobby Mueller and Jim White was an unbelievable symposium. And basically they were talking about a lot of different things, generation gap. And they brought up this very important thing. MK (00:36:22): All men are all white. SM (00:36:24): Yeah. And there was another writer that I cannot remember, he was a columnist though, not a vet. And the issue came up and said that the boomer generation has always been labeled as a service generation. That is not what your country can do for you. That Kennedy inspired so many people in the Peace Corps Vista. Well one of the gentlemen in the conversation said that this is a myth, that this generation is a service generation. The reason it is a myth is because they did not serve in the war in Vietnam. A service generation is one when your country calls, you go. And this was Jim Webb I believe, who was the at the time was... And so, he said when we start talking about the generational gap between parents and children, I think it is equally important to talk about the intra generational gap between those who went to Vietnam and those who did not. MK (00:37:19): And those were in the military, and those who did not. As you know, most people went in the military, did not actually go to Vietnam. And that chart, that was chance of circumstances, other charts since then, I always show my students because they have the sense of you in the army and you in combat. Not true. But obviously the idea of being in the military and making that decision when if you are from a certain background like my background, you could get out of it, which I did. That was a huge division as well. I always tell my students about when I had my physical in 1970, it was May 18th I think 1970 if I remember exactly, it was in the middle of the student strike after Ken State, after Jackson State, the biggest of student strike in American history. And I would come from Cambridge, I dropped out of Harvard, but I was a student anymore. But it was clear they did not want anybody from Cambridge like me. And I got out, I will not go into the details of how I got out, but it was not hard and walked out. There was this guy sitting there, short hair, looked pretty gloomy. And I believe that counselor, I said, "Hey, I just got out. You want me to help you get out?" I said, "Where are you from?" He said, "I am from South Boston." Irish, catholic kid probably, I am not sure. And I said, "Get out. Hell, I do not want to get out. If I do not pass this physical, my parents' going to kill me." Because everybody's family had had been in the military and he actually was afraid he would not pass, because he would bring disrespect on his family. So that was an important experience to me to have that interaction. SM (00:38:57): Did you have any conflicts with any of your fellow students in Harvard or Portland regarding over the war or any of the other issues? That would be the intergenerational battles. And then did you have battles within your family with your mom? MK (00:39:10): No, my mom was very- SM (00:39:11): And your dad. MK (00:39:12): My father was opposed to the war. By the time I was eligible for draft, it was (19)66. Because I had a two S for a while, then I burned my two S card. Actually, I am sure you will love this for the book, I actually rolled a joint in my two S card and smoked it. SM (00:39:30): Oh my gosh. That is a magic moment. You cannot go to jail. MK (00:39:41): Yeah, right. Well it was a party. It was party. I got pretty stoned in my dorm. But I mean I thought, again, it is a class thing that Fallis talked about in an essay. I thought the draft system was the cemetery against other class people, which it was. And so, I wrote to my draft board and said, I understand I am doing my draft, but I said, "I am giving up my two deferment and this is a terrible system." And of course the draft boards were all local. So they wrote to my mother or my father, I forget who in the state. "He is putting himself up eligible for draft." And I said, fine. So I went to physical but then failed. I purposely failed the physical. It is not that I wanted to go, it is just that I did not think it was fair for me to have a legal way out when a lot of other people did not. So where were we? So basically, yeah, so that was my experience with that par generation gap. And I went to a private high school in New Jersey, Englewood School for Boys, it was then called. Now it is called Dwight-Englewood School. And there was only one kid I knew who went to my high school, who went to the military and he enlisted, he became an officer. But clearly, I mean that itself shows, I mean this is a whole generation of people. When the draft was on, none of whom, as far as I know, were actually even drafted. He enlisted. SM (00:41:01): Wow. I got so many different angles here. I am coming with this interview. And in your opinion as a historian, a person who studied social movements, I was going to have you do comparisons here, but I am really going to concentrate on the movements of the late (19)60s and (19)70s. But the first question I want to ask, is there any link between McCarthyism of the (19)50s and the red baiting in the late (19)40s and (19)50s that we all know about? Because there is a lot of fear of speaking up. People sometimes felt they were being watched and many were reported and people that were all fear of being linked to somebody or something connected to being a communist. Is there something between what was happening in the (19)50s and what we call in the six (19)60s where we have seen more and more people speaking up and thus, we see these great movements because there is no McCarthyism happening now. MK (00:41:56): Well, there is an attempt. They did not fail. SM (00:42:00): Yeah, it is an attempt. We have seen precedence in, we know that there is prices that people pay for standing up for the beliefs. We know that. So many of the anti-war people that I have talked to believe that they are veterans as well as the people that served in Vietnam. Not in terms of military veterans, but in terms of the damages, broken noses. I have had a few people that- MK (00:42:19): Even though I am supportive of most of what I did then- SM (00:42:22): You are not going to go that far. MK (00:42:25): Got the stretch. I mean we purposefully put ourselves in danger. So whereas if you were drafted into the army and sent to Vietnam, you might not like it, but you had orders. Nothing. SM (00:42:36): Those movements really could not have happened in the (19)50s though. Could they? Even civil rights was happening and people were taking the risks and Dr. King and- MK (00:42:46): That is a different matter. That is a different matter. I am talking about people like me, white middle class kids who were in the [inaudible ]. That was a different matter? No, of course if you were a black person in Mississippi or Alabama and you took your left hand if you wanted to, wished to vote. I mean that was very different. That was very different. Well, I think that the impact of McCarthyism did not last really much since the (19)60s. As you know there was this famous demonstration, Francisco City Hall to protest The House Un-American Activities Committee hearing 1960. And the people who were supportive of the committee, made a film, Operation Abolition, which they thought would expose the communist threat trying to abolish this stolen, patriotic anti-communist committee. And the film was left at it, it felt completely flat. And more people saw the film, said, "Hey, that is a kind of cool kid protesting." And the police attacked them and so forth. So it was a backlash. Todd Gitlin has written his book on the 60s talk about this. Todd's a friend of mine. And so I think that certainly in the south, the civil rights movement with the COINTELPRO program, really with Hoover trying to tar... King with being a communist. So his aid, Stanley Levison having a communist of course has to basically get out of the inner circle and so forth. Under all that was going on, Hoover was still a powerful figure. But among people I worked with, sort of middle class whites, especially in places like New York City and the Bay Area in Chicago, college towns and Swarthmore and Wellesley, and even some places like Chapel Hill, Madison, Wisconsin, McCarthyism was not a cause. These were liberal places would never like McCarthy anyway, and never liked Hoover anyway. And so, the real division was between people who were supporting the Democratic administration and people like us who were denouncing it. So that conservative anti-communism did not really have a place there. I remember there was this guy, Joe Mulotmuraz, his name was, he was from Hungary and he had immigrated after the revolt of (19)56 have been put down by the Soviets and their allies. And he used to show up at every FDS meeting, every FDS rally at Harvard, anywhere in Boston home of the Hungarian Freedom Fighter. He is also an anti-Semite, which has a long history in Hungary. And he had a sign saying communism is Jewish and denounced this. And it was a joke. I mean no one took this guy seriously and he was not the antisemitic, he was like the crazy right wing anti-communist who always showed up. And after a while it became a sort of pat. It was like, "Hey Joe, we missed you last time." I mean he was so serious and he was not convincing anybody. SM (00:46:06): How important were the following events and shaping the times that boomers were alive? And what I am referring to here is, it is amazing how people book state the number of boomers there are, I think 79 million is the actual figure. I heard 74- MK (00:46:22): I think about the (19)60s as well as was active in it. That number, I do not know. SM (00:46:26): 79 is, let us give or take a few amount. But what I am trying to get at here is we know that the new lesson, we know that the anti-war movement was a small number of people comparison to the entire generation. And basically, what I am trying to get at with this question is not so much that these particular events influence and created protests, but that it is subconsciously affected the entire generation in terms of their lives as young people and their lives since as the oldest Boomer turns 65 this year. So, I am listing these events and just simply say which ones are few that you feel really get all of a generation. Congresses Board of Education in (19)54, the Montgomery Bus Boy Act in the (19)50s, the lunch counter protest in (19)60, freedom Summer in (19)64, the Free Speech Movement in (19)64, (19)65. Kennedy's election and his inaugural speech in 1961, Sputnik in 1957, the Kennedy assassination in (19)63. MK (00:47:36): You want me to go each one? SM (00:47:38): Oh no, no, not each one. I am just saying which ones you feel really affected all. And some of them may not affect all, they might affect the new left more than the Civil Rights Act of (19)64, (19)65, the year 1968 when Nixon was elected and certainly Ken State and Jackson State in 1970. And the election or loss of George McGovern in (19)72. And certainly, the escalation of the Vietnam and Reagan's election in (19)80. MK (00:48:04): Well make course without doing research specifically about that, I am just going to speculate because again, it would be great research project to take and maybe someone is doing it to take a scientific cross section of the boomer generation, different cohorts chronologically, different regionally, racially, men and women, et cetera. Yeah, as far as I know, no one has done that. It would be interesting to do that. Someone should do it. Or maybe someone is doing it. Maybe someone has. I should know. But again, just speculating pretty wildly because I believe in research. Clearly the most important events that influenced everybody were ones that influenced all Americans, which is presidential elections. I mean, you forgot about things like the moon landing for (19)69, Woodstock, which probably more if people think about what they still think was important about the (19)60s, those things are more important than any of the things you mentioned except perhaps Kennedy's election. And so Kennedy's inaugural. But again, at the time, how many people actually watched it? Probably not that many. Well a lot did, but there was in American Divided at the end, I think we found a poll done late (19)90s. I think when the first edition of our book came out, people actually, Americans were asked which these things about the (19)60s are most influential to you. And it was the Beatles, Woodstock, and the moon landing, none of them specifically political events. And that is important to realize, partly because people like to remember things that made them feel good. And all the things made people feel good. I mean, human beings are like that. Our lives are fairly short. We rather think about the Beatles than think about Vietnam. And that is probably true of people in Vietnam too. So I mean clearly the war, everyone knew the war was going on. All young men, unless they had some easy out had to think about, do I want to go in or not? And the civil rights stuff you mentioned clearly was any black person, any African American, could not be influenced by those things in one way or another. They were all over the black class, all over. People knew people who were involved in them. Whites, again, I do not know for sure again the research project to figure that out. But if you were in Greensboro, North Carolina, then obviously, or around near any place, citizens were taking place in 1960 that mattered If you were involved in a school that was beginning to be desegregated sometime after Brown, as it took a while, yes. For that to happen, all the liver speed was meant really slow most places and so close cases to actually make it happen after that. I think I am always amazed. I have my students in my 1960s lecture course, which I am teaching right now. I have taught it many times, have them do oral histories. Someone like you are doing with someone from the (19)60s and they have to put in a more demo context. Really do it about race, and they do it with a white person and race is central to it. I am almost amazed how unaware most whites were about what was going on in these terms. I mean, again, most people are making their own lives. They do not feel themselves being involved in making history. Dick Flacks you might know is- SM (00:51:54): Oh yeah, I interviewed Dick. MK (00:51:55): Yeah. He wrote an essay called, Making History. And then he wrote about and read his book on the left, he read his book. And he talked about that. And it is obvious in ways, but somehow a lot of historians forget that, that people do not see themselves as part of this world, historical things. They think about their family, they think about maybe their ethnic group, they think about their church and their religion, but basically they neither have time nor interest in thinking about the larger world and politic people somehow forget that. After the Democrats lost the house in (19)94, I had lunch with Dick Gephardt who had been the majority leader and would have been the speaker of the house if they won. And with some other people, was not just me, in his spacious office, he was about to lose because Republican was taking over. And he said sort of tongue in cheek, he said, "We have polls which showed that 75 percent of the American people neither consume nor wish to consume politics." And that sort of stuck with me. And he was a pretty skillful politician and he understood that most people really, really, we just assume politicians go away and politics go away. SM (00:53:12): In your own words, can you describe... The boomers are reaching 65 this year, the front edge boomers, I think I read that 3,500 people a day are going to be turning 65 until the last Boomer turns 65 from the group from 64. And so, the question I am trying to ask you- MK (00:53:39): I just say, just one quick thing about that, again, the generation really 18 years, I always question that. Barack Obama is a boomer, but is his experience of the (19)60s is really, really much like that of yours and mine? I do not think so. SM (00:53:54): That is what Todd said. And many others besides Todd. Todd said he does not like generations period. He does not like the greatest generation, but Tom Brokaw kind of emphasized, did not like Generation X and you did not like anything. He was like, what you were saying, things within generation. I have learned from this project that the people that were born between 1937, (19)38 and 1945 are closer to the first 10-year boomers, the first front edge boomers than the last 10 years in the boomers. MK (00:54:23): No- SM (00:54:26): Because if you can remember as students, one of the first things you learned and I learned in grad school when I went to Ohio State is the Harry Edwards book where he breaks down the differences between the radicals, the activists, the anomic activists, the militants and so forth. And the revolutionary. And he talked about it and he said a lot of the young people in college, they were being led or inspired by graduate students, students who were in their mid to late twenties. Now those are people born between (19)40 and (19)45. And one thing I have learned from Missy Havens, Richie says, "I am a boomer. I was born in 1941, but I am a boomer and it is because of the spirit of the times that has nothing to do when I was born. It is the spirit." George Hower was born in 1916. He is part of the spirit of the time. So that is one thing I think you really hit the mark. And this is one thing I really learned by doing this book is- MK (00:55:30): Well, I think Mr. should be better sociologist often than, and one of the things sociologists teach is that who influence you the most in politics, as you say, people who are just a little bit older than you. It is peers and people who you see as leaders. And Todd, he is five years older than me, Tom Hayden is maybe six or seven years older than me. I am not sure. I mean, I was in FDS. The people who founded FDS were obviously going to be my mentors in a way. And they were all, as you say, were born before (19)46. SM (00:55:59): Yeah. Rennie Davis was the same. And that whole group is there. I would like your feelings though, in terms of, just as a historian, you teach the (19)60s. When you teach the (19)60s, you have to talk about the (19)50s and certainly the late (19)40s. MK (00:56:15): The first lecture I did was on the (19)50s. SM (00:56:15): And between (19)46 and (19)50 too. Cause when we started being born at that timeframe. Just in your own words, describe America in terms of whether it be culturally, politically activists wise between 46 and 60? MK (00:56:33): That is a good question. Well, it is a combination of clearly economic growth and shared economic prosperity. More shared than any other time and American history. Any other time in world history actually, we know now, given what is happening in Europe and Japan, even in the Soviet plot. Eric Hobsbawm, his book Age of Extremes, wonderful book, which is a world history of 1940, 1989. And he calls these years the golden age, late (19)40s, early (19)70s. It began after World War II, of course. But at the same time there was a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear that nuclear war had happened, that communists were gaining. There was a lot of racial tension in the cities in the north as much as south. My friend Tom Sugrue has written a book that sort of a very important book called, the Origins of the Urban Crisis. I do not know if you know that book. SM (00:57:39): I know Tom Sugrue, but... S-U-G-R-U-E, right? MK (00:57:43): S-U-G-R-U-E. Yeah. And he points out that about Detroit. Other people have written about this in other cities at the time. If black people tried to move into white neighborhood in late (19)40s, early (19)50s, they often would meet with mobs saying, forget about it. And even though civil rights laws were on the books and some of these states from late 1940s on, it was very hard to, if you are a black person, to get an apartment or a house in a white neighborhood, realtors and final council. And then if they decided, of course, famous block busting- SM (00:58:19): Got 30 minutes, I think we still got 30 minutes. MK (00:58:23): Yes. SM (00:58:23): Because I know that was the one order there. MK (00:58:35): That does not matter, but I am just looking at just ordinary black people wanted to move with the white neighborhoods who did not have any politics to speak of. SM (00:58:43): Yeah, we are okay. MK (00:58:44): Because of course that shows not just racism, but also insecurity on the part of white people in this neighborhood that they felt understandably, that if black people began to move in their house, which is what they had more money stock into than anything else, was going to go down at value, they were afraid their schools would be problems. Of course, they were afraid that their daughters and sons might get involved manically with black people. And so just on and on and on. So, the glory of (19)50s was glorious economically in the aggregate compared to other times in American history. And compared to recent times too. But it was clearly still a time of great insecurity and in great anxiety, many people who were doing better were not so sure that the better times was going to continue. It was a time when institutions were very strong. Labor unions. People forget, were stronger than ever before in American's history. And that had something to do with the prosperity. And obviously corporations are strong. People thought they could go to work for big corporations, GE or Westinghouse, or thrift meat packing or Ford, and you could work for the rest of your life until you retired. And then when you retired, you would have a pension. You would not have to put your money in the stock market like you do now. But at the same time, people would come out of the depression, come out of the war, and they did not know whether this could continue. They did not have great optimism that their kind of country would always be as prosperous as it was. And of course, with the Cold War there, in 1960 debates, when Kennedy talked about the missile gap, which was of course a complete lie, it was all on the other side. But nevertheless, people believed him enough because they said, well, Soviet Union seems to be gaining and all these countries are communists and communists are causing trouble around the world. And so there is this fear that, yeah, the United States are in pretty good shape now, but who knows what the future will bring. And of course, there was youth revolt in the (19)50s too. Rock and roll riots and Elvis, and juvenile delinquents and all this stuff. SM (01:00:53): Gangs. MK (01:00:53): Yeah, exactly. So comic books, there were congressional investigations into comic books. SM (01:00:59): James Dean. MK (01:01:00): It seems hilarious now that people be thinking comic books were a threat to the republic. But nevertheless, as in history, nothing is spontaneous, nothing comes from nowhere. And everything happened in the (19)60s, the seeds were sewn for that earlier. I mean, a lot of them before the (19)40s and (19)50s too. But certainly, in the (19)40s and (19)50s already, you have debates between my uncle Daniel Bell and C. Wright Mills about whether the United States is a plural society or is one run by a power elite? All that is taking place in the (19)50s already, a rather kind of debates between liberal and radicals that we think about in the (19)60s already happening, beginning to happen in the (19)50s. SM (01:01:44): How about the period 1961 and 1980? MK (01:01:49): What about it? How would you contrast it? SM (01:01:50): It is the same thing. Yeah. How would you contrast it with that whole period from John Kennedy's inaugural to Ronald Reagan's inaugural? MK (01:01:57): I think I am not a Marist anymore, but I am enough of a... I believe in important of economics lives enough to believe that when a boom ends, then a lot of other things are affected by it. And that happens in beginning in the late (19)60s, but really as in the early (19)70s with stagflation with the oral crisis. And so, I would, like most of historians and days, I would say the period is more (19)61 to (19)73 than it is (19)61 to (19)80. I mean, the rise of conservatives would be, of course, who knows kind of factually. But it can only be understood in the context of inflation, unemployment of fear that Keynesian remedies are not working anymore. That one of the reasons Americans were willing to elect liberal presidents from Roosevelt to Truman, to Kennedy to Johnson, and have not been willing to ever since, perhaps Obama's exception, but he did not run as a liberal, is because they saw liberals as whether they remember or not, as people who basically said the government will take care of you. The government will keep the economy afloat. And it did not. Even though Nixon was in power when the worst of it happened, the programs were basically the Keynesian programs. And Nixon was the first president, said he was a Keynesian. They are all Keynesian now. So I think that that was a key that you took a win. The (19)60s ended, it ended in the early (19)70s with the economic crisis, of course, with the end of the war. SM (01:03:40): Yeah. And I am the only person that said this. And that is that I knew in the fall of (19)73 that the (19)60s was beginning to end when streaking happened. And I am working on my first job at Ohio University, and I get a call from all my buddies that are still in graduate school there at Ohio State and Jones Graduate Tower. And they said, "You have got to get back here tonight." And I said, "What do you mean I got to get back there tonight?" "Oh, they are going to be doing the Rockettes behind the law library." And I said, "The Rockettes?" "Yeah, the girls are going to come out all naked and then the guys are going to file suit and then there is going to be a big streak across the oval tonight, and then they are going to streak the Olympics all weekend." And I did not believe it, but then I went, I said, "Oh my God, this is in the (19)50s where they just stuck themselves into-" MK (01:04:35): Telephone booths. SM (01:04:35): Telephone booths or in the laundromat. Oh I said, "Oh, boy." MK (01:04:39): Or a panty wave. Right. That is a good point. SM (01:04:42): So that particular period, so when you say the next period really is the onset of, I think the late (19)70s and the (19)80s is the era of Reagan and conservatism, would not you say? MK (01:04:56): Politically, yeah. We talked about this in America Divided, and I think culturally, people on my side continue to gain even, we did not have a movement per se, but feminism continues to percolate in various ways and continues to affect women. I mean, college students today, women, just think if you told them, well, what else we need, that you cannot really think about the engineer because that is a man's job. They would say, "What are you talking about?" The idea that is a man's job, a woman's job. But of course, we were growing up in the (19)50s, that was taken for granted. Ads in the papers said, help wanted, man. Help wanted, women. It was just expected. And I think race is lots a lot more complicated now because of immigration, partly, but also because I think people no longer, again, I mean the civil rights movement did not succeed in all the things he wanted to do. As king was an economic radical, not just a civil rights person. He really wanted a guaranteed annual wage health insurance. He was basically a democratic socialist. In fact, he said so in private. But clearly culturally you cannot be a public racist anymore in this country, and you cannot justify things on the base of race. Now you can still justify the basis of not like the immigrants, and that is partly racial, but that is more recent. And the whole thing about sexuality, which of course gays and lesbians have been able to more open sexuality and people thinking, if you love each other, why not have all the right to anybody else? That is a creature of the (19)60s, I think, too. SM (01:06:39): And the age crisis, which infuriated many of the gay lesbian leaders, because Reagan refused to even mention the word. And many believed that he cost thousands on thousands of people that dying because he could not even say the word. MK (01:06:53): Which is ironic, because as he was not anti-gay personally. I mean, Nancy had lots of friends who were gay and this whole Hollywood scene it was, and designers and stuff, he was hardly a fundamentalist on these issues. So in that sense, yeah, conservatives, I mean, we talked about this in American Divided, conservatives won for the most part politically. Though again, there is limits too. I mean, as you know, when they attack the healthcare bill last year, this year, they attacked it for jeopardizing Medicare, which of course Ronald Reagan said was socialism at the time. So there is a lot of these conflicts. I mean, America's never been as liberal as some people thought in the (19)60s. It was not as liberal then as its people thought, and it is not as conservative. And it was not as conservative in the (19)80s as people thought either. We have these conflicts in American history, which in many ways go way back and neither side wins a complete victory. SM (01:07:47): Would you say the culture was as ongoing with respect to even how they look at Bill Clinton and George Bush the second? Because here you have two boomers, one conservative, one liberal, and they are comparing them, and this guy is this way and this guy's that way. Is that just part of the culture- This guy is this way, and this guy is that way. Is that just part of the culture wars, the ongoing culture wars? MK (01:08:05): Well, the partnership was obviously very strong. SM (01:08:07): The Vietnam War. MK (01:08:09): If you look at it-it in the larger perspective, neither Clinton nor Bush... But both Clinton and Bush were, in many ways, Clinton was sort of center left. Bush was sort of center right. Neither was trying to roll back "New Deal", "Great Society" programs to any great degree. Bush was not a Tea Party person at all. We were not. And Clinton was certainly not a far-off liberal, either. And yet of course, both sides jumped on the other one, partly for Bush was because of the war, of course, in Iraq. But even before that, people saw him as illegitimate winning the presidency and everything else. And I think one of the results in the (19)60s is that people were politically active, which is not most Americans. People who are politically active really believe that the other side is evil. And I was saying before, earlier in the interview, that I think it is important to take a strong stance. But it does not mean that that Democrats and Republicans, as parties, are really ideologically bound parties. They are more than there used to be, certainly. But still most Americans who vote for Democrats, Republicans agree with some of the things the other party is for, too. Most Americans are not deeply ideological. SM (01:09:33): A major question I have been asking every person from the very first interview with Senator McCarthy is the issue of healing. Whether you feel that there is an issue within this generation of lack of healing for those who were... Support for the war, against the war, for the troops, against the troops, the divisions between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight. This question comes because a group of students came up with a question, they wanted to ask Senator Edmond Muskie when we took a group in 1995 to meet him in his office. And because they had seen the film on 1968 and they thought we were close to a second civil war. And they were not born yet, but they had seen the riots, some of the films in (19)60s, they had seen the riots. They saw two assassinations, King and Kennedy. They saw the Chicago Eight trial, they saw the terrible confrontation in Chicago that year. And they came up with a question and they thought Senator Muskie would talk about (19)68 and all the divisions. And I will give you his response after I hear from you. Do you think that part of the divisiveness that we have right now, that there is a link between what is happening today and what happened back then? The bitterness, the somewhat hatred between people with opposing points of view, that this is continuing, ongoing and that the generation itself, either consciously or subconsciously, because you cannot talk about 79 million, but it is something that I have brought up to everyone, and they have all had different answers to this. Do you think we have an issue with healing as a generation? And that many will go to their grave still bitter toward people who had opposing points of view, no matter the issue? MK (01:11:26): Again, it depends on who you are talking about. I think you have to separate people who were activists then and continue to think as activists now. People who were not much activists then, or they might have gone to a demonstration or they might have gone to a rock festival or something, but they were just sort of riding on the wave, whatever the wave happened to be. But those who actually started the waves and continued to want the waves to continue and not to break on the shore, that is the right metaphor. I think yes. I think on both sides, if you talk about two sides, continue to say that if you are on the left, that conservatives now are the same people who are wrong back in the Cold War in (19)64 and supported the war in Vietnam and liked the police cracking people's heads in Chicago and so forth. And of course, on the right, mirror image, "These crypto communists think America's not exceptional." I just wrote a piece. I have a column for the New Republic, and I just wrote a piece on American exceptionalism, how Obama can maybe take advantage of that concept. But as I said before, I think that if you look at issues though, there has actually been some healing. Or I would rather think of transcendence than healing. I am not sure it is healing. As often happens in history, after a while people no longer care to argue about certain issues. It is just not relevant anymore, either to their lives or to the society. It is not politically opportunistic to argue about it. I think we are approaching that with gay rights. Certainly already approached it with gay military. That is over. And I think we will approach with gay marriage in the next five to 10 years, as well. Already at the Conservative Convention downtown, the CPAC convention- SM (01:13:27): CPAC. MK (01:13:27): Happening now. No one. Did anybody talk about gay marriage? Not because they might not believe that it is wrong, but because they realize that most people do not care enough about that to vote on that basis. Abortion is still a very loud issue, and in fact, young people are probably more anti-abortion now than they were a few years ago. But again, it is not something that is central to the dialogue. And someone who is in favor, pro-choice and yet hopes that people do not have to have abortions, I think that in many ways that is where the center of Americans are. They do not want to make abortion illegal, but they would like it to as few abortions possible. So, there is ways in which people are transcendent to those debates. Foreign policy... Again, I will not go into all the issues, but yeah, I think that is basically where we are. That activists, core activists on both sides will not surrender. But the large majority of people from the boomer generation, I think, have transcended the idea that there are two sides. They have a more complicated position depending on the issue and depending on their experience. SM (01:14:37): Do you think the Vietnam Memorial, the wall... I want to ask you, when you went there for the first time, what did you first think in terms of... Were you having flashbacks of your youth? MK (01:14:48): No. SM (01:14:48): When you went to the wall for the first time? I am going to get back to this question of healing, but as part of it, Jan Scruggs wrote a book called "To Heal a Nation". And of course the goal of the wall was to heal the families of those who lost loved ones in Vietnam and also those who served the nation in Vietnam. And many are still going through unbelievable problems upon their return. Just your thoughts on whether Jan Scruggs's idealism of hoping that that wall would heal the generation, because we were so divided over the war, I do not know if there has been healing between Vietnam vets and anti-war people, but your thoughts on going to that wall and whether it will heal the nation anymore. MK (01:15:34): My first thought as someone who was spent important years of my life in the anti-war movement were that this was an anti-war memorial, because it is black, it is a gash in the earth. SM (01:15:44): Yeah. MK (01:15:44): It is right next to the Lincoln Memorial, which is a memorial to a war that was won. At least by the north, it was won. Great Greek temple, it is like a Parthenon. That one is also a war memorial. And I think it is a brilliant piece of public art. She is a brilliant architect, Maya Lin. But also, I was aware that people going there were able to have a mourning experience publicly and privately that they had not been able to have before. So I think it was wonderful in that sense. By the time it started, I forget when I first saw it, maybe two years after, three years after it was finished... (19)85, I think I came here first. I was living in California before then, so I had not been back there to see it. I was blown away by it. I really thought it was one of the most beautiful pieces of public art or architecture I have ever seen, because it allowed you... It made you think right away about the war. It did not tell you what to think the way I think the World War II Memorial does, which I hate. I hate that memorial because it just... SM (01:16:57): Ooh. MK (01:16:59): Oh, "All hail the concrete heroes." Wars are not that simple. People die in large numbers. And anyway, and the Vietnam, our memorial, I saw people there. I saw people crying. I went there at night, I think, the first time, and saw the candles there and people's faces reflected in the black marble, which is a brilliant effect. Now, clearly, this came out of a desire to heal those divisions, which even though those divisions were very raw, clearly enough people got on top of them, the Vietnam vets groups, scrubs, and others to realize that this was not a good thing. And it was not helping either side. Was not helping Vietnam vets, either. And of course, Vietnam vets themselves, we provided, as you know. SM (01:17:48): Oh, yes. MK (01:17:49): A lot of donors were Vietnam vets. We thought they had been betrayed by the country. So some folks, they were betrayed by the country for having sent them there in the first place. Some folks were betrayed by the country for not supporting them more once they were there. So, it is a mix. So, I thought, I still think it is a wonderful place, and partly because it allows all kinds of things to happen. Of course, a lot of people who go there and have petitions against Jane Fonda and people who were there and sold the flags of "Do not forget the MIAs, the POWs", even though there is hardly any evidence, there is still people there. It enabled a debate to take place on a more rational basis, which is very important. SM (01:18:30): But the bitterness towards Robert McNamara is still pretty evident, even though he wrote those two books. Because what he wrote, "In Retrospect"... I will never forget going to the wall. I went to the Vietnam Memorial, which I have been to the Vietnam Memorial, Memorial Day and Veterans Day, ever since I knew Lewis. And after he died, since (19)94. And the very first year I was there... "In Retrospect" was (19)95, I believe. And I have some unbelievable shots that I took there that because, so there were two "In Retrospect" books left at the center, and they had bullet holes in them. They had been taken to a firing range with bullets and left there. And I took about 25 pictures at different angles. Sure. Unbelievable. So the bitterness... But I interviewed Craig McNamara there in California. Craig's unbelievable. I do not know if you could ever get him into your class, if he is ever back in the east. He is a gem. MK (01:19:24): Has he written anything? SM (01:19:25): No, he does not write. No. But he runs a farm out in the North, up in the Napa Valley. It is a walnut farm. He has done very good. And I really respect him. He was an unbelievable person. He was anti-war. MK (01:19:39): I was friends with Bundy's son while in California. He married a friend of mine who was a radical sociologist. And Bundy came to... When I was in the freeze early (19)80s, he came to is this is McGeorge Bundy, [inaudible]. SM (01:19:59): Oh yeah. MK (01:20:00): He came to a meeting and he was very impressive, partly because he was so guilty. SM (01:20:05): Of course, what is really amazing about McGeorge Bundy is McGeorge Bundy, just like Robert McNamara, knew very early we should have gotten out it. MK (01:20:11): Yep. SM (01:20:11): And I bet... And I know both of them went to their grave thinking that. It might have even helped. MK (01:20:17): Well, the fair fact, McNamara commissioned the Pentagon Papers. SM (01:20:21): Yes. MK (01:20:22): It showed historicalness, but also when he quit, it would have been a huge impact if he had said "This was a mistake." But of course, he did not do that. SM (01:20:30): In (19)70, he went to Ashton. I got him in trouble. Do you say one of the qualities that defined the entire generation, though, is their lack of trust? It is not a trusting generation. Again, I am talking about... MK (01:20:42): I think America in general, since Johnson escalated the war in (19)65 and sent American troops in large numbers that year. I think Americans, since then, have not been trusting of any generation. I am not sure... Again, like Todd, I am dubious about thinking about the generation as a whole. And polls showed that. Polls showed it. As you probably know, from World War II up to (19)64, Americans... As you know, Gallop Poll has this every year. "Do you trust this institution, the authorities to do the right thing? Government, church, military, universities, et cetera?" And since that point, government has never had majority. Sometimes it is low, it is like in the teens, like during Watergate. Sometimes it's a little higher, like right after 9/11. Universities are, I do not know, twenties and thirties. Churches are a little higher. Military's usually higher. But in general, Americans as a whole do not have huge amount of trust for any major institutions or authorities. SM (01:21:51): I know specifically, for me, as a young person going into I think sixth grade or something like that around the time, it is that Eisenhower lied at the U2. That is the first time I ever saw a President lie. MK (01:22:03): Yeah. SM (01:22:03): Because I think everybody was shocked that this grandfather figure had lied to us. MK (01:22:12): Of course. Absolutely. Famously, FDR, who I think was a great guy, he lied. He knew the US was going to get into World War II, but he was not going to say it. SM (01:22:22): I wanted to mention that the result of the response to Senator Muskie to that question. Senator Muskie did not even mention (19)68 and then did not mention anything that was happening in America. The students were totally shocked because they were all waiting for this great answer from the Vice-Presidential candidate in (19)68. And he said, "We have not healed since the Civil War in the area of race." And he went on to give a lecture and he said, "I have just seen the Ken Burns series in the hospital. We lost 430,000 people in that war. Almost an entire generation of Southern..." MK (01:22:53): Civil War? SM (01:22:53): Yeah, Civil War. MK (01:22:53): It was more than that. It was 600,000. SM (01:22:53): Yeah. Well, the thing is, he went on to talk about that and he showed his emotion too, by the tears. And actually witnessed what the news media had talked about. The guy had emotion, and there is nothing wrong with that. (01:23:08): One of the things here, too, is the violence. You were a member of SDS. I do not know if you know Larry Davidson. MK (01:23:15): I was living there for a short time, too. SM (01:23:15): Yeah, I am going to bring that in. Larry Davidson founded at Georgetown. He was the founder, he is a history professor at Westchester University., And he founded SDS at Georgetown. MK (01:23:26): I never- SM (01:23:26): Lawrence Davidson. And he was on the front newspapers, he got arrested. His parents were not too happy with him because his father was in the military. But the question is this: he quit SDS because it went to the weatherman in violence. And so many quit. Do not you think? And Mark's done a great job in "Underground". I have interviewed Mark and I was with him for a whole evening at the Kent State last year. MK (01:23:53): I saw him. It is funny, I do not know if you know this. We had lunch, he had not finished the book yet, maybe three years ago. And he had come to Washington and I said, "Why come to Washington?" He said, "Well, the FBI invited me to Quantico to talk about terrorism." SM (01:24:06): You are kidding me. He did not say that he was there. MK (01:24:10): That is hilarious. So, he stopped to Washington on his way out of Quantico. SM (01:24:11): Oh my God. Well, I really like Mark. I love Mark. MK (01:24:16): I liked him back then, too. SM (01:24:18): But he admitted the mistake that was made that he would not have supported violence. And he says about it in the "Underground" book, really, that he was against it. And I think that is where he has had different disagreements. MK (01:24:29): He was not against it soon enough. [inaudible] Right? SM (01:24:31): Bernardine. I am interviewing Bernardine in about two weeks. But your thoughts on, SDS going to the Weather Underground the biggest mistake ever made by SDS was that? MK (01:24:41): Well, no, I think it began before then. And the biggest mistake we ever made was to basically think that revolution was possible in the United States, and talk that way. And to support people like the Black Panthers. This is for Weather Man, who basically talked about revolution. We really thought that. We are so angry at this country... People who run this country, what they are doing, and also at a lot of Americans for supporting what the country's doing, that we basically are not going to identify with the country and not going to make an analysis that any political person should be making of what is possible, and whether what we are saying is jeopardizing what is possible. So, on the one hand, yes, we have built some important movements and the anti-war movement, most important of them, at least for people like me. Of course, the Black movement was also on before then. But I think we... I just finished a book on History of the American Left. I have been thinking about this a lot. It is coming out in August. But ever since the New Left collapsed, there has not been a mass radical movement in this country. There has been campaigns here and there. There has been things like Chomsky and Howard Zinn who speak for radical causes and radical ideas. SM (01:25:58): Right. MK (01:25:59): But basically I think we did not... And it is not just our fault. Context has changed, too. But basically, we did not think about the future. We just thought... Look, we were kids. That is part of it. My wife is always reminding me that when you are 20, 21 years old, you can do a lot of things, but reflecting soberly is not usually one of them. And that is part of all that falling apart. We did not have mentors. And so I think our mistake was an analytical mistake, which came out of our putting emotions ahead of thinking. And some of that was useful. Being angry was important, but we should have coupled our anger with a long-term strategy. And we did not. We thought somehow that everything was coming down around us and we would somehow be able to take advantage of that. And you probably know the history of Nazis a little bit. Famously, the German communists had these battles with German socialists in the streets of Berlin where the Nazis were gaining in votes. And when the German communists were asked why it was more important to eliminate their rivals on the left than it was to fight the Nazis, the slogan was, I forget the German, basically "After Hitler, us. Hitler will not make it. Germans will not follow this crazy guy. And then they will want communists to go in power." And in fact, we believe that. I remember in (19)68, there was a chance Reagan would run for president, even though he had just been elected governor of California. And George Wallace, of course, is running for president. And I thought, "What would it be like if the presidential election came down to Reagan against Wallace?" Two people who, from my point of view, were both crazy right-wingers. And I asked some friends of mine from SDS, and they said, "Great. Country deserves that. Country deserves to go to hell that way." And when I was a Weatherman, long story, but basically people who were in my collective had to give these very short speeches on the subway at one point. Like 30 minutes. And one of the guys in my collective was a working class kid from Northeastern University, from Southie, actually, Irish Catholic kid. Jimmy, I forget his last name. Jimmy O'Toole, I think. And he was reticent about speaking. He just was not used to public speaking. He had to come up with something. So, the subways stops and is quiet all of a sudden. And Jimmy said, " This country sucks." A lot of people thought we thought this country sucks. That is not a way to convince the majority of Americans. SM (01:28:39): Knowledge is power. Knowledge is power. Know your stuff. MK (01:28:41): Anyway, so the message that many Americans received from SDS was "This country sucks." And that that is not a message that a majority of Americans... You are not going to convince the majority of Americans to hate their country. You are just not going to. SM (01:29:00): Yeah. MK (01:29:01): And you should not, either. So that is why- SM (01:29:03): One thing- MK (01:29:04): The Weathermen came out of that. See, the Weathermen did not come out of nowhere, it came out of that. We basically said, "Yes, this country sucks. Let us bring it down." SM (01:29:11): You were not in the group that was hiding, were you? MK (01:29:14): No, I left before it went underground. I did not go underground. SM (01:29:17): How we doing time wise? We got five minutes? MK (01:29:19): Five, 10 minutes. SM (01:29:20): Okay. These are just very important terms that, again, the people that are going to be reading this, this is going to be geared to our college students, high school students, and the general public at large. But mostly I want this to be in the (19)60s courses. I have got some great interviews. Jack Wheeler interview, Mike [inaudible], you cannot believe that interview. MK (01:29:36): You are going to have to cut it. You are going to have to make it shorter, though, because college students- SM (01:29:38): No, I know that. MK (01:29:42): [inaudible] pages. SM (01:29:43): Yeah. Just your quick definition of these terms, if you can do it. "Counterculture". What does that mean? MK (01:29:52): It means a set of behaviors and ways of thinking. Stop a sec. SM (01:30:00): Yep. MK (01:30:05): Basically behaviors and attitudes opposed to what people perceive to be the dominant behaviors and attitudes about sex, about drugs, about a lot of things. Friendship, music. It was, I think, more of a youth culture than a counterculture, per se, because so many people were able to be part of what we think of the counterculture, who were just basically consuming differently. Not necessarily changing their minds. Some of them changed their minds. But for the most part, again, they were activists. Everyone with counterculture was not Abbie Hoffman. SM (01:30:43): Right. Participatory democracy, which we know about was part of what SDS's foundation was. And also I believe participatory democracy was very important in the Freedom Summer and the Civil Rights Movement itself. (01:30:56): Bye. Nice meeting you. Take care. (01:30:58): Definition of participatory democracy. MK (01:31:10): Well, again, that is more easily defined because it was the New Left, White New Left, especially, but soon to be Black New Left's attempt to project a vision of the way they thought politics should work. As small scale as possible, as much based on ordinary peoples having a voice as possible, as opposed to representative democracy. It was utopian and impossible to run a society that way. But I think it gave rise to a lot of people joining groups. And in some ways it goes back to Tocqueville and goes back to the flowering of volunteer institutions, voluntary associations in various parts of American life. And I think it was important part of the New Left's appeal that people believe that everyone should be able to have... What was the SDS's slogan statement... Something like "Everyone should have a,..." I forget exactly. "Should be able to help decide, make the decisions that affect their lives." And that makes sense to me. SM (01:32:35): It is people as opposed to one specific leader. That was very important. Black Power. MK (01:32:42): Well again, Black Power had a specific definition at the time in the late (19)60s when it began to be talked about by Stokely Carmichael and others. Clearly was, in many ways, the latest phase of Black nationalist ideology. Black nationalism goes all the way back to Martin Delany and people like that, even before the Civil War. That Black people have to [inaudible] themselves to free themselves, and should also be proud of who they are culturally, how they look, how they dress, their history. So it was both connected to Jewish ethnic assertion, Italian assertion, Irish assertion and identity, and different from it because the history of African Americans in the United States is different from that of any other group for obvious reasons. SM (01:33:35): Why was Che Guevara so important to many people in the New Left? Mark mentioned, when we started having our conversation, he immediately started talking about Che Guevara and how important he was. And he was reading at Columbia. And even since then, why is Che Guevara, Herbert Marcuse, why are they so important? MK (01:33:56): But they are very different. SM (01:33:57): Yeah, I know. MK (01:34:11): Che was much more important than Marcuse. You want about Che? SM (01:34:11): Yeah. MK (01:34:11): Well, it was not that important to me. Ho Chi Minh was more important to me. But he was... First of all, he was cool. He was beautiful-looking. He was international. He saw himself as a citizen of the world. He had been in different countries, Congo, and he was Argentinian, but he was in Cuba helping to make the revolution. He was a writer, an intellectual, as well as being an activist. And that was of course what people like me in the left wanted to be, as well. And he was a martyr, and martyrs are always important. We would not have Martin Luther King Jr. holiday if Martin Luther King was still alive. SM (01:34:51): He was a doctor too, if I am correct. MK (01:34:55): Yes, he was. That was less important to me. And he wrote Guerrilla Warfare, and of course people were beginning to have this romance with guerrilla warfare. And Cuba had a special place. You probably read some of that Van Gosse book, "Where the Boys Are" and so forth. Cuba had a special place in the minds of New Leftists. C. Wright Mills wrote a book before he died called "Listen, Yankee", supporting the Cuban Revolution. And it was in our hemisphere, a lot of Cubans had been in the United States. Of course, then, we tried to overthrow the government. So it was in the minds of people becoming leftists, people already were leftists. It was going to have a very important place. A lot of people have been there. My in-laws, Beth's parents who were in the Communist Party took their honeymoon in Cuba in 1953 or something. SM (01:35:49): You were part of that group called the Vencer... MK (01:35:53): [inaudible] Yeah. I went to Cuba. SM (01:35:54): Yeah, did that- MK (01:35:55): That was after Che died. That was (19)69, (19)70. SM (01:35:57): Did that get you in trouble in terms of the FBI looking at you? MK (01:36:01): Well, I was already in trouble after I was a Weatherman. I was already in trouble because I had been a Weatherman. But yeah, I think my name was mentioned at Senate hearings. I think Senator Eastland from Mississippi said we were "little capsules of revolution", some metaphor he used. "Little missiles of revolution." SM (01:36:17): Has that affected the rest of your career in any way? MK (01:36:20): No, not really. Academia is a pretty safe place for people. SM (01:36:26): This is very important because Tom Hayden, when he came to our campus, really had to almost give a lecture to students on this, the difference between power and empower. Your thoughts on the difference between them. Students sometimes feel they have power, and then you use the term "empower" and they look like this. And if you use this term to boomers who are my age, who are conservative, "Oh God, the (19)60s." So just your thoughts and difference between power and empower. MK (01:36:59): I do not use the term " empower" too much because it seems like jargon, but... Well, power is obvious. Power is you have the ability to get people to do things you want them to do, either because you control institutions or because you have people believe that you are their leader. And "empower" has a connotation more of ordinary people feel that they have the ability to get power and to influence people in power. That is what I think. SM (01:37:35): And then just the difference between the Old Left and the New Left. MK (01:37:38): Well, again, the Old Left was people who became radicalized, mostly 1930s, some earlier. Again, generationally, it is complicated. But people whose primary ideological paradigm was Marxist and was focused on the working class and on the labor movement. Not to say they [inaudible] other things. And people who thought the battle over whether the Soviet Union was a good place or not was absolutely crucial to everything else. The magazine I am co-editor of now, Dissent, was very much part of the Old Left when it got started. And Patton, Irving Howe and other editors battled with people in the New Left, in the late (19)50s, because they thought New Leftists were naive about communism because they were socialists. And for them, the Bolsheviks and then Lenin and Stalin and all those people in the American Communist Party and other communist parties had destroyed any real hope for socialism, because it had made socialism equated with tyranny. In retrospect, I think they were probably right. But at the time, I thought... At the time most of them... I was an anti-anti-communist. I thought anti-communism was just a way of saying "People in power in this country continue, are okay. They might be doing some things wrong, but at least they are not communist, so we cannot really oppose them any major way." And of course, War in Vietnam, a lot of the people, the anti-communists Old Left, were either supportive of the war in Vietnam at first, or very ambivalent about it. Because after all, this was a war against Stalinists, as they put it. And the New Left of course, were people like me, mostly Baby Boomers, not all, as we talked about before, who got radicalized in the late (19)50s and (19)60s, when the key issues were first Black freedom, inequality, then Cuba, and then the war in Vietnam. And the issue of... Marxism was influential, labor. They were pro-labor, but these are not their priorities anymore. SM (01:39:48): And also the difference between neocons and neoliberals. MK (01:39:54): Well, neoliberals means something very different in Europe than it does here. Neoliberalism, here, was a term that was coined I think in the late (19)70s, early (19)80s, by people who were Democrats, capital D, who understood liberalism was in decline and disrepute. And they wanted to move somewhere to the right, less regulation, dubious about affirmative action, try to win back majority. And people like Paul [inaudible] were neoliberals. I am trying to remember some of the names now. It did not last very long. In many ways, Bill Clinton could be argued was a neoliberal. The Democratic Leadership Council, which just went out of business this week, was- SM (01:40:36): Did it? MK (01:40:37): Yeah. Was very much a neoliberal bastion. The think tank called Progressive Politics Institute still exists, but that DLC does not exist anymore. And it also is a way to show businesses, which of course all is very powerful in the politics of this country, that we are not just anti-business; we are just anti-business going off on their own and opposing regulation. So with neoconservatives, the term was coined by, I think, Michael Harrington, who was of course a socialist, or maybe Peter Steinfels, who was a left-wing Catholic. There were people who had been liberal-driven radicals in their youth in the (19)60s, mostly Jewish, who began to move to the right because they opposed the New Left, they opposed Black Power, and they identified with Israel and opposed the Soviet Union. Part of the Soviet Union was, they thought, tyrannical, and part of the Soviet Union was anti-Israel. And they thought that supporting Israel, supporting what they saw as mainstream centrist government was being attacked more by the left and by the right. And of course, most of these people ended up just being conservative, like Billy Crystal. And then his son, Billy. But at the time, they continued to support the welfare state as they understood it. They just were opposed to---Continued to support the welfare state as they understood it. They just were opposed to what they saw as some people on the left, who were trying to move things beyond where they should go. Anyway... SM (01:42:11): Two final questions. What lessons had the institutes of higher education learned from the student protests of the (19)60s and (19)70s? Are they lessons learned, and lessons lost? I say this, because when you look at the Free Speech Movement in (19)64, (19)65, it really did not have to happen, although I think eventually it would have happened because the war was coming, and so forth. What really gets me is that when Mario Savio, the things that always stand out, and why I think he is a very important person in the history of activism in America, but also in terms of what happened in free speech and higher education, is the fact that ideas matter. I know your father, ideas matter. Universities are about ideas. All ideas should be presented, all points of view. Yet the universities were still were at that time being controlled by corporations. MK (01:43:11): Well ... SM (01:43:12): The reason why I bring this question up is when you look at universities today, and I have been in higher education for 30 years until I left two years ago, fundraising, scholarships, doing a program, everything seems to be linked to we got to raise money. We got to raise money, we got to have a corporate link to this, this, prove that this program has value because is it bringing money in? MK (01:43:39): I think I told you now that was then, actually. SM (01:43:40): Yeah. When I interviewed two great educators, Arthur Chickering who wrote Education and Identity. One of the things in higher education in masters and PhD programs you learn about is seven vectors of development. The ultimate for all students is that they have a sense of integrity. That is what we all shoot for, knowing who they are. Like you, you know who you are and what you stand for. Activists have lived a lifetime. They have integrity because they are genuine. When I interviewed Alexander Aston and Arthur Chickering, I asked them, "Is there one disappointment that both of you have in higher education today now that you are," well, one is retired, one is still there. Yeah, corporations have taken control again. They are running the universities. MK (01:44:24): I think it depends on the university. I think it is less true at wealthy universities because they can get money from wealthy people who went to school there. Harvard, I do not think is owned by corporations. I think it is certainly true. We have a new business school, and we only have it because corporations have financed that. It does make sense in some ways, you want people to learn how to work in corporations, corporations might as well pay them, help them do that. SM (01:44:52): Yeah. MK (01:44:55): Part of the whole context of the (19)60s as I was talking about, was this unprecedented prosperity. I mean, state university campuses were being founded Every year. I mean, Ohio had 78. Pennsylvania, California, New York, I mean places that did not exist before for World War II. I think in some ways, people who grew up in that period, and then went to higher education, I did get a sense that sense of entitlement, I guess is the best way to put it, that we should be supported for whatever we think, and whatever we want to do. Now, I believe in tenure, I believe in free speech, of course. At same time, there are some people, and I say this as person on the left, some people on the left in academia who feel like somehow whatever they want to do, whatever they want to say should be, is sort of immune from criticism from outside. I mean, the war Churchill is the worst example of that, of course. Because, he even lied about what he did, but who he was. I think that one of the good things, not corporate takeover isn't good, but I do think that there is a lot of programs in universities now, at least in mine, others which where people do go back and forth between the outside world and world university, they all have internships and so forth. I think that is really good because it is important for the university to be in the world. Of course, you cannot avoid being in the world to certain extent. The whole ivory tower thing I think was and is a little over over-hyped. I think the best professors, to me, the best professors I had in college, the best professors now that I know of, are people who are continually in dialogue with people outside. I see myself as doing that because I do a lot of journalism, and I am still active in various things. I think certainly everyone has got to do that. I think it is important to have an important cohort, people in universities who do that, who do not see themselves as just completely apart from everything else. Now, at the same time, if you are an Aristotle scholar, I would not expect you, or want you necessarily to be involved with having ... Politically in your town. You cannot be if you want. Cannot be, you are not. But, for political scientists, for example, who studies, let us say Congress, not to care at all about what people think of Congress outside is a mistake, I think. SM (01:47:25): Of course, David Horowitz and Phyllis Schlafly, when I interviewed both of them, they were pretty clear that they feel that the universities are now run by the troublemakers of the (19)60s. MK (01:47:38): Yeah. See that is also, take it the other way. SM (01:47:41): That is the culture wars. Again, the whole concept of PC, being politically correct and everything, that is all part of the... MK (01:47:46): Yeah-yeah. I mean, I always say about conservatives when I have been on lots of church committees in history departments, both in American University, and here at Georgetown, here in Georgetown. We never get conservatives applying. It is not that we will not hire conservatives, it is ridiculous. I mean, conservatives do not go into history, or philosophy, or for the most part, or English departments, or American studies, or anthropology, or sociology. They go into government some, and economics, of course, and business schools. In general, students have decided that universities are hostile to them, or they just want to make more money. SM (01:48:29): That is what they go, many of them to think tanks like the heritage organizations. MK (01:48:31): Well, local schools too. Yeah. SM (01:48:34): The last question is kind of a three-partner here and oh, you put it all into one. I do not like to use the term the boomer generation either, starting to feel the same way as you and Todd, but when the Best history book, you are a scholar, you have written books. Your book on the 1960s was written in (19)95, I believe? MK (01:48:53): The first edition came out in (19)99. SM (01:48:54): (19)99. I think. MK (01:48:56): The 4th edition comes out in a couple months, actually. SM (01:49:02): Yeah. Well, I like the first edition. MK (01:49:02): Okay. SM (01:49:03): Because, I actually given a couple first editions to my family. MK (01:49:09): Oh, great. Thank you. SM (01:49:09): I have the original. MK (01:49:09): We keep updating it. SM (01:49:10): Yeah, something about the first ... I like first editions. I like the hardbacks. I am a hardback guy. When the best history books are written, I remember Steven Ambrose saying before he passed away, that the best books on World War II are usually 50 to 75 years after the period has happened. I guess this question came about when I go to the Civil War battlefield every year, and I spend a lot of time over at Gettysburg. I go there five, six times a year. There is a statue there. The last person who was alive, who was around during the Civil War, and they had a name person who participated in the war. What will be the legacy? What will historians and sociologists be saying? Do you think, I know it is hard to say when the last boomer has passed away? For the last ... Yeah. That might be the, and also, what would be the, what is the legacy of the generation? What is the legacy of Vietnam, and the legacy of the movements? Because, some people think the movements have gone backwards. MK (01:50:11): Well, I mean, I guess we should look at the new conclusion, the latest conclusion of the fourth edition of our book. Because, I am responsible, we provide the chapters, Morrison, I am responsible for that, for the conclusion. I wrote that mostly. It is a huge question. Again, never know for sure. I think that, as I said before, two things are going to be essential. One is the framework of prosperity, and the assumption on the part of a lot of people that prosperity would continue. There is insecurity, but nothing like now. Two, obviously the cohort, and the way in which it shaped, it divided people, and it taught people that there is only two choices in the world, either freedom or capitalism, and freedom or communism, as in this country, or in Soviet Union, socialism, or exploitation. I think that sort of dualism in the world, even though, of course, it was more complicated than that, but that expectation that has be on one side or the other, is something which is no longer true. It was not true for the most part before then either. It is very rare when we have a two-power world. We do not have one now, and we did not have them before then either. That shaped possibilities in many ways. Part of what, even though we were not necessarily aware of at the time, I think part of what the new left was trying to do was to find space in between those two. Basically, we liked the individual freedoms America afforded, and we liked the idea of a more collectivist, more egalitarian society that socialism. We wanted to put those two together. We were not successful. I think that impulse of ... Ray Mills talked about this basically his, before he died, he was trying to put together a conference of ... I think he even called it the Third Way, E.P. Thompson, the great, British historian I interviewed back in the early (19)80s. He said Mills was trying to put together, he was trying to invite the Cubans, and the Yugoslavs, and Martin Luther King Jr, and all these folks. He died before he put it together. Maybe he would not have been able to put together even afterwards. But that I think was the impulse that was there among new leftists. It was a good impulse, I think, in retrospect, but we were not able to carry it into fruition for all kinds of reasons. SM (01:52:46): Any final thoughts on the boomer generation? MK (01:52:49): No-no. SM (01:52:51): The legacy of Vietnam? MK (01:52:52): I think we had better music. SM (01:52:54): Yeah. MK (01:52:57): I always tell my kids, I stopped doing this, but I say, "Tell me which group that you like now, people will still listen to in 50 years the way they are still listening to the Beatles, stones, Motown and so forth." They have a hard time because they say, "Well, a whole musical genre, we might listen to hip hop, yes, but anyone hip hop artist, I mean...", so that is what was fun. SM (01:53:17): That is a great legacy too. MK (01:53:19): Yeah. SM (01:53:20): I think one of the legacies of the boomer generation is all the progress that has been made in so many different areas in terms of women's rights, and stuff. MK (01:53:29): Yeah. SM (01:53:30): It is interesting. I constantly put on my Facebook (19)60s and (19)70s. I got, in fact, with the Valentine's Day coming up, I just put on the Beatles song, which I think they did one of the greatest love songs of all time. And they- MK (01:53:44): Words of Love, that one? SM (01:53:46): One. Yeah. All you need is love. What is interesting, if you go to the YouTube, if you can find it is just, it is a classic. It is ... they are all dressed up. They got flowers in their ears. I remember that. MK (01:53:56): Yeah. SM (01:53:57): Then in the audience is Jagger. I mean, things are just sitting there listening. MK (01:54:01): Yeah-yeah. SM (01:54:03): It is like, "Oh man, what a time." What it is like forever. I often wonder, somebody who complained against the boomer generation often said they never grew up. I have had a couple people tell me that. MK (01:54:15): But again, it is a danger of generalizing by this generation. SM (01:54:16): Yeah. MK (01:54:16): I mean, usually when people talk about their generation, they are thinking about two or three people they knew. SM (01:54:16): Yes. Well, we at Westchester University, we are done. But, close off, thank you very much. (End of Interview) 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. Michael Kazin Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kazin, Michael, 1948- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Historians; College teachers; Georgetown University; Social movements--United States--19th century; Social movements--United States--20th century; Kazin, Michael, 1948--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Michael Kazin is a historian and professor at Georgetown University. Kazin's research focuses on the American social movements from the 19th and 20th centuries. He received a Bachelor's degree in Social Studies from Harvard, a Master's degree in History from Portland State University, and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford 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 2011-02-12 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.10.2016.72a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.72a Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 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. 237:12 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1e05132faf330ee912aff4e7e98a751d.pdf 06af09d39235712b479acfde9f735a88 PDF Text Text BINGH AMTO N U N I V E R S E ] S T A T E   U N I V E R S I T Y   O F  N E W   Y O R K d e e Ld D E P A R T M E N T MASTERS R ECI TAL Cabir ia Jacobsen, mezzo­soprano Pej Reitz, pia no Saturda y, Februar y 19%, 201 1 3 P.M. Casadesus Hall �PROGRAM Johannes Brahms Selections from Op. 57  (1833­1897) Vom waldbekrantzter Hohe  Es traumte mir Ach, wende diesen Blick In meiner Nachte Sehnen Unbewegte laue Luft u Chansons de BilItiS w s s Debussy   (1862­1918) La flute de Pan  La chevelure Le tombeau des Naiades & INTERMISSION  CZ Arias from Ariadante  E vivo ancora ...Scherza infid  G.F. Handel (1685­1759) Dopo notte Vignettes: Ellis Island  Prologue  Emma Anna Martha Clara Catherine Anna Epilogue: Anna ..Alan Louis Smith (b. 1955) �ABOUT THE PERFORMERS Mezzo­soprano C a b i r i a J  a c o b s e n  was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY.  She attended Northwestern University, where she received her Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance, and her Bachelor of A rts in Drama. While there, she performed the roles of Maurya/Riders to the Sea and Larina/Eugene Onegin with the Mary Ragland Opera Theater. She also appeared in concert with the many chamber music and choral organizations on campus. In 2007, Cabiria founded OperaHub in Boston, MA with three other musicians. Recently covered in Opera America, the company will celebrate its fourth birthday in june.  Cabiria has most recently been seen as Dorabella/Cosi fa n  tutte with Tri­Cities Opera, and will sing the role of Nicklausse/Les contes d’Hoffman on April 29th and May 1st.  Other roles with the company include Cherubino/Le nozze di Figaro, Mother and Grandma/Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel/Hansel and Gretel, and La Ciesca /G  ianni Schicchi. On campus, Cabiria has performed with the University Chorus in works by Corigliano, Vivaldi, and Schubert P e j  R ei t z,  pianist, is a native of the Binghamton Area. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in piano performance with accompanying emphasis. She attended Boston University, New England Conservatory and Binghamton University  She has studied piano with jean Casadesus, Victor Rosenbaum, Seymour Fink and Walter Ponce and accompanying with Allen Rogers. She has accompanied throughout the United States, in England, South America, Spain and at the American Institute of  Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. She was a winner of  the Artistic Ambassadors Program by the United States Information Agency in partnership with the john F. Kennedy Center for the performing arts. Pej was an official accompanist for the M TNA State and Eastern Division Competition held at Ithaca College and will play for the event again january 2010. She has been a guest chamber music artist in Morges, Switzerland. She also was selected to attend the Accompanying Workshop for Singers and Pianists held at Northwestern University with Chicago Lyric Opera Faculty and Coaches. She was recently in vited to the International Clarinet Conference to play a recital in Tokyo, japan. She was a g uest artist on the Cornell Summer Series. She was an official pianist at the International Double Reed Competition and Convention in 2007 at Ithaca College and was invited to play the 2009 Convention in Birmingham, England with the Glickman Ensemble She w ill perform with the Glickman Ensemble again this fall in Engleweod, N]. She was selected to accompanying at the Interpretation of S  panish Music in   adrid in Grenada, Spain coached by conjunction with University of M   usic summer 2008. She Teresa Berganza and at Mannes School of M was a Guest Artist playing tw o concerts in Granada, Spain this past summer and accompanied the Barcelona Song Festival in july. This past summer she soloed with the Catskill Symphony at the Otesaga in Cooperstown, New York under the direction of Charles Schneider. This coming summer she will accompany and teach at The International Spanish Music Festival in Madrid, Spain. She is currently on the fa c ulty  at Binghamton University since 1991 and Ithaca College School of  Music since 1 999. She is president of the local District VII  Music Teachers Association and is an active adjudicator for the National Piano Guild Organization. �PROGRAM Vom waldbekrdnt zter Hohe (From forest­crowned heights) From forest­crowned heights I cast the burning gaze Of my love­moistened eyes, Back to the meadow, green around you. I lower my gaze to the brook, How I want  to flo w with  it As a wave, Back, oh friend, to you! I fix my gaze to the pull Of clouds above me, Ah, to fly their flights. Back, oh friend, to you! How i would like to ensnare you My salvation and my pain, With my lips and my glances With your bosom, heart and Soul. Es traumte mir (I dreamt) I dreamt I was dear to you ; But I hardly needed to awaken; For even in the dream, I already knew That it was a dream. I already knew That is was a dream. Ach, wende diesen Blick (Ah, turn away that gaze) Ah! Turn away that gaze, turn away that face! Do not fill my innermost self with ever new fire, with ever new grief! If once, the tormented soul rests, And the feverish, w ild blood does not Roll, scalding, through my veins — One beam, one fleeting ray of your light awakens the full rage of my pain, which, snake­line, bites into my heart. I n  m einer  Nachte Sehnen (In my nigh t’s longing) In my night’s longing, So deeply alone With a thousand, thousand tears, i think of you. Oh, whoever beholds your face, Whoever is  intimate with the beautiful fire of your mind that glows through you, Whoever your kisses have burned, Who, over and above desire, Has submerged all  his senses in your breast, How should his soul and body rest in  peace If he were parted from you, You divine woman! Unbewegte laue Luft (Unm oving warm air) Unmoving warm air, Deep peace of nature Through the still garden night Only the fountain splashes. But in  my feelings sw ell hotter desires, But in my veins life quivers And longs for life. Should not your breast, too, Longingly rise with desire? Should not my soul call Through to the depths of your own? Softly with ethereal feet Do not linger, floating there! Come, oh come, So that we can give each other Heavenly satisfaction. �Chansons de Bilitis (Songs of Bilitis) ll. La fl i t e d  e Pan (The flute of Pan) For the day of the hyacinths, He gave me a flute Made of well­tied reeds. Bound with white wax That is sweet on my lips Like honey. He teaches me to play, Sitting on his knee. But I tremble a little. He plays after me so softly That I can hardly hear it. We have nothing to say, So close are we one to the other. But our songs want to converse, And turn b y turn, our mouths unite on the flute. It is late. Here is the song of the green frogs That begins with the night. My mother will never believe That I stayed so long looking for my Lost belt. La chevelure (The Tresses of hair) He said to me: “This night, I have dreamed. I had your hair around my throat. I had your tresses like a black collar Around my neck, and on my chest. I caressed them, and they were mine And we were tied together forever like that, By the same hair, mouth upon mouth. just as two laurel trees often have but one root. And, little by little, it seemed to me, So much were our limbs intertwined That I became you yourself, And that you entered into me Like my dream.” When he had finished He put his hands gently on my shoulders And he looked at me with such a tender gaze That I lowered my eyes With a shiver. Le tombeau des Naiades (The tomb of the Naiads) Along the forest covered with frost, I walked My hair in front of my mouth Flowered with little icicles And my sandals were heavy with snow, Muddy and hard­packed. He said to me: “What do you seek?” “I follow the trail of the satyr. His little cloven tracks Alternate like burrows In a white cloak.” He said to me: “The satyrs are dead. The satyrs and the nymphs too. In thirty years there has not been Such a horrible winter. The tracks that you see are those o fa  deer. But let us stay here, near their tomb.” And with the iron of his spade He broke the ice of the spring Where once the Naiads had laughed. He took up great pieces of ice, and, Holding them up to the pale sky, He looked through them. �Arias from Ha ndel’s Ariodante II. E vivo ancora . . . cherza infida (And I still live . . . Laugh, faithless one) And I still live, and without my sword! Oh gods, what should I do? What do you say, my sorrows? Laugh, faithless one, in the bosom of your beloved. By your fault I was betrayed Into the arms of death I go! But to break your shameful bond, I shall return as a ghostly sorrow, A naked spirit,  to torment you. The stories I heard about America! They have roast ducks and roast chickens that fly through the air. All you have to do is pick them out of the sky. And the streets are full of milk and honey. That’s how beautiful it is. Clara S turz Schmidt, born 1905, emigrated from Germany in 1923 at age 18. My mother was sick when I le ft. And when I left, she went partways with me. We had no clinic in our hometown, and she had to go to the clinic. She went with me when I left for America and went to the clinic on the same day that I left. And she said, “Oh, kiss me, because I’m not going to see you anymore.” [ should never have left her. Catherine Gae tano Gallippi, born 1914, emigrated from Italy in 192 2 at age 8. Dapa notte (After the night) After the night, bitter and deathly The sun spledors More beautifully in the sky. And the earth is bathed in joy. When we came to America, my mother complained, “My God, I thought America was supposed to be something great. They have gaslights here. We had electric lights in Italy.” Anna Zagar Klarich While in the horrible tempest My boat was almost destroyed; It arrived in the port, grasped by the shore. Vignettes: Ellis Island Martha Kallens Reininger, born 1911, emigrated from Germany in 1924 at age 13. IV. Emma Schmid  Schwarz, born 1907, emigrated from Germany in 1926 at age 18. The morning that I left, my mother was already sitting on my bed at five o’clock, telling me to be always nice and decent, clean, and do the right thing. Work hard, as good as you can, the best is not too much. And she says, “Always see to it that people look up to you, not down to you. And be a good worker.” And my mother always kept saying, “I know I’ll always have you. You are my youngest. I’ll always have you with me.” And it didn’t happen. I was the one that left, that went away the furthest. Anna Zagar Klarich, born 1902, emigrated from Yugoslavia in 1920 at age 18. I really didn’t have too much to pack. 1 had a pair of new shoes, and I was walking barefoot because I wanted to save my new shoes for America. And I had a new dress but I just wore my skirt and blouse because I was saving my new dress for America. I came into my mother’s apartment and she had lace curtains. We didn’t have that in Europe. And I was just admiring those lace curtains. They were so beautiful. And my mother said, “There are cookies in the kitchen. When you want, you just go and help yourself.” And she gave me her nightgown, a big nightgown and I put it on. I got up a six o’clock in the morning and then went into the kitchen and I got myself  four big cookies and I put them on my lap. And I’m eating my cookies and admiring those curtains and my mother peeked in my bedroom. And I was so embarrassed that I had these cookies in my lap and I was so hungry for cookies. She said, “Don’t be embarrassed. Just eat them. Eat all that you want.” I was in heaven. Epilogue: Anna Zagar Klarich This is my life and that’s how I lived it and that’s how I came here and that’s it. �NOTE S O N  T H E  PROG EAM Johann es Brah ms’ Op. 57 — Songs on tex ts by Da umer Claude Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis Published in the late summer o f 1871, the eight songs of Op. 57 received their first performance as a set on December 18'", 1872. United by a theme of erotic and unrequited love, the eight poems are all by Georg Friedrich Daumer. Only three other cy cles by Brahms consist of works entirely by one poet: the Ophelia­Lieder, Op. 33, and the Vier ernste Gesdnge. The cycle i s characterized in musical terms by a tonal trajectory from G Major in the first song, through several seemingly unrelated keys, to a center of E, ending in E Major. Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis were completed in March of 1898, and they contain some of  Debussy’s most descriptive and evocative music.  He described the poems (There are over 130 in the original set) by his good friend Pierre Lo iiys as containing: “all that is passionate, tender, and cruel about being in love, so that the most refined voluptuaries are obliged to recognize the childishness of their activities compared to the fearsome and seductive Bilitis.” The poems are part of a The five songs i chose comprise the first, third, fourth, fifth, and eighth song.  i chose them because they represent the over­arching trajectory of the cycle: beginning in fiery, tear­soaked longing, the narrator brings the audience through dream­like consciousness, into bitter fury, and finally to ecstatic (almost) satisfaction. Textually, these songs are deeply rooted in the natural, physical world.  The narrator’s experience of lo v e  and desire is intrinsically linked to the woods, the fields, and the waters of the countryside around him. Imagery involving blood, fire, and snake­bites evoke . . . well, you know. The first song begins with the narrator looking down onto green fields from “forest­crowned heights” The atmosphere is immediately one of unrequited longing and desire, and is reflected in the wide range of dynamics and registers throughout both the individual song, and the set as a whole. From this emotional beginning. Brahms pulls back and offers a more reflective, but still unrequited, lover, one who has seen his happiness in a dream, but knows it to be false.  The harmonic texture in this song mirrors the suspended sense of dreaming described in the poem itself. Pulled violently from this state of calm acceptance, the third song shows the narrator as openly angry and in deep pain from the start. She gathers herself together, however, and begins a slow burn of jealousy and remorse, of opening an old wound anew. This sense of a gitation  flows into the fourth song, in which the narrator describes many nights spent weeping over his lost love. He asks how anyone can find peace in the aftermath of losing such a passionate love, and the  many transitions to new  tonal centers emphasize  this sense of loss and confusion. in the final song, which is the last song of the full set of eight as well,  the narrator seems to have found peace. He describes a calm, unmoving quality of air in a still garden. This peace is  purely external, however, and again we find the narrator’s experience of love at odds with the serene nature around him. in  his veins, “life longs for li fe,” and his soul reaches out to a love that remains "floating” out of his reach, too “heavenly” and “ethereal” to give him the “heavenly satisfaction” that he once had, and is unable to find again.  Do you think his final plea was successful? is  the last music you hear the sound of resignation, or is his wish being granted at last? long literary  tradition in France; they were sold at first as a translation o f ancient texts discovered at a gravesite. Only after their initial publication did it become clear that they were the contemporary response to Moroccan and Algerian tribal women. Zohra ben Brahmin and Meryem ben Ali were tw o women with whom Loiiys had well­documented and apparently very exciting sexual relationships. Meryem ben Ali was the first Bilitis in many ways; Louys became aquainted with her in 1894, just months before he began work on the Chansons. He had previously described the character who would become Bilitis as 16 years of age, precocious, and inventive. When he met Meryem ben Ali in Algeria with his friend André Gide, she possessed all of these qualities and more. Zohra ben Brahmin was a later acquaintance, and became a true companion. Louys caused the scandal of the season in Paris when he brought her back with him and installed her in her own apartment.  She held a beloved place in Louys’ circle of friends, and was close in particular with Debussy, who was a good friend of Louys'. Bilitis’ companion throughout the first section of the cycle of poems, from which these three are drawn, is the shepard boy Lykas, who introduces Bilitis to her seductive powers. The first song, “La flit e,” is marked “Lent et sans rigeur de rythme. ” Although the key signature indicates B maj/g# min, pentatonic tonalities of the east take precedence over western ideas of key.  ”La chevelure” is  both the second song in Debussy’s setting of Trois chansons de Bilitis as well as the following poem to ”La flate” in Louys’ Chansons. Musically, this song has a much wider dynamic range than the first, and although it is marked “Assez lent” at the outset, the song has a lo ng rhythmic arc that pulses from  the firs t moment of the piece. Again, although a key signature is  indicated, musical devices outside of traditional conceptions of key are employed, such as eastern/ancient Greek — influenced chromaticism and pentatonicism. For the final song, Debussy chose to jump to the end of t h e fi  rst set o f Louys’ poems, to close the cycle with “Le tombeau des Naiades.” Debussy provides us with a “Tres lent” marking but once again creates an  evocative musical  texture that is alive with  motion.  The songs as a whole document the passage from innocence into experience; in the poem that directly precedes “Le tombeau des Naiades” Bilitis sings a lullaby to her newborn daughter. �G. F. Handel’s Ariodante Alan Louis Smith’s Vignettes: Ellis Island The whole thing! just kidding. In “E vivo ancora . . . Scherza infida” Ariodante has just been prevented from committing suicide by his brother, Lurcanio. The plot of Ariodante is, like many of Handel’s Greek mythology­inspired operas, obtuse and wacky yet also fabulous. The libretto was adapted from Canti 5 and 6 of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. Ariodante is a young knight in love with the princess Ginerva. She has many suitors, and an unfaithful friend, two things which prove to be problematic plot points. Dalina, her lady­in­waiting with a heart of coal, dresses in Ginerva’s clothes and accepts advances from Polinesso, one of the many hopefuls at Ginerva’s door. Ariodante sees this, and it is his horror at her betrayal that motivates him to seek his own death. When he is prevented from this, he turns his grief into vengeful anger, and sings the first aria I present here. The plot thickens when he is announced as dead in court, and Ginerva goes insane with grief! More plot thickening ensues, but in the end, Ariodante pulls ye olde disguise trick himself, and emerges triumphant with the girl on his arm. “Dopo notte” is Ariodante’s expression of relief and joy at finding himself betrothed to the right girl, alive, and rescued from his own bitter sorrow. “The earth is bathed in joy " for Ariodante and Ginerva. The music for Smith’s Vignettes: Ellis Island includes a preface written by the author. He writes: “This song cycle was actually the brainchild of Paul Sigrist, Jr., Director of the Ellis Island Oral History Project. I n 1997, he sent me a large number of excerpts from interviews he had conducted with persons who had passed through Ellis Island on their immigrations to America. He specifically chose excerpts in which ‘the use of language, narrative description or emotional content’ struck him ‘as being inherently musical in some way.” He selected specific quotes with music in mind.” The entire cycle consists of 31 songs, and was originally composed for mezzo­soprano Stephanie Blythe. They tell the story of young people, mostly between the ages o f and 21,    leaving their homelands in Europe for America, and their passage through Ellis Island in the Port ofNew York. Musically, the songs in Vignettes: Ellis Island draw on folk idioms, classic American song forms, and European­derived concert music forms. I do not know if Smith was influenced by Charles Ives in his creation of these songs, but to my ear there is a strong relationship to many of that composer’s works in this vivid cycle. The arias both follow a classic Baroque form: an unornamented A section in which a single emotion is illustrated is followed by a contrasting (both musically and textually) B section, in which an opposing emotion is presented. The singer then Acknowledgeme nts returns to the A section to sing the same material again, but this time, with ornaments or embellishments ofher own creation. In the first aria, there is also a recitative before the aria itself. Recitatives in Handel operas were often where the raw emotion of the drama was found. This raw emotion would then be harnessed and channeled into the more formal confines of the following aria. The creativity made possible by this combination of freedom and control is one of the most thrilling and emotionally pleasurable aspects both of singing Baroque opera, and experiencing it as an audience member. I would like to thank Diane Richardson for introducing me to the wonderful Vignettes: Ellis Island songs, and for her help with this program as a whole. My thanks also to Pej Reitz for being such an ex cellent collaborator, and for all of her help navigating the logistical details of a recital. Many, many thanks to Peter Sicilian for being an inspirational, motivational, and all­around wonderful voice teacher, and to judy Berry for her excellent and reassuring help with the beautiful German language! �Bingh amto n University  Musi c Department’s U P C O M I N G  E V E N T S Mid­Day concerts are held on Thursdays, 1.20 PM in Casadesus Recital Hall unless otherwise noted and are FREE Thursday, February 2 4  –  Mid­Day Conc ert — 1:20 PM –  Casadesus Recital Hall — free Saturday, February 2 6 — University Symphony Orches tra : Vive la France –  3 PM ­ ­ O sterhout Concert Theater — $10 general public; $5 faculty/staff/seniors; free for students Sunday, February 2 7  — Wind Symphony Con certo and Aria Compe tition –  6:30 PM –  Casadesus Recital Hall — free Thursday, March 3 — Mid­Day Concert — 1:20 PM — Casadesus Recital Hall — free Saturday, March 5 — Junior Recital : Mark R ossnag el, organ — 3 PM — First Presbyterian Church, Binghamton — free Sunday, March 6 — Wind Symphony : Passa caglia (Homage on B­A­C­ H) — 3 PM — Anderson Center Chamber Hall — free Thursday, March 1 0  — Mid­Day Conc ert — 1:20 PM — Casadesus Recital Hall — free Thursday, March 1 7  — Mid­Day Conc ert — 1:20 PM — Casadesus Recital Hall — free Thursday, March 1 7  — Friedheim Memorial Lecture / Recital Series : Robert Schumann’s Carnaval (Alice Mitchell, speaker and Chai­Kyou Mallinson,  piano)  — 8 PM — Casadesus Recital Hall — $5 general public; free for students (100 student tickets available) For ticket information, please call the Anderson Center  B ox  O ffice at 7 77­AR TS. � 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&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;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:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: PDF / Rosetta PDF with Rosetta audio/video link Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 audio disc Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 59:59:00 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE145413">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE145413</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. PDF Layout This field specifies how the pages of the PDF will be laid out. Enter only the CASE SENSITIVE keyword without quotation marks. [default: 'FacingContinuous'] Options: 'Single' - Only the entire current page will be visible and Zoom will be set to page width. 'Continuous' - All pages are visible in one scrollable column and Zoom will be set to page width. 'Facing' - Up to two full pages will be visible and Zoom will be set to page height. 'FacingContinuous' - All pages visible in two scrollable columns and Zoom will be set to page height. 'FacingCover' - All pages visible as whole pages, with an even numbered page rendered first. (i.e. The first page of the document is rendered by itself on the right side of the viewer to simulate a book cover.) 'FacingCoverContinuous' - All pages visible in two scrollable columns, with an even numbered page rendered first. (i.e. The first page of the document is rendered by itself on the right side of the viewer to simulate a book cover.) Single 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 Master's recital, Cabiria Jacobsen, mezzo-soprano, February 19, 2011 Recital Tape 2011-2-19 Description An account of the resource Held at 3:00 p.m., February 19, 2011, Casadesus Recital Hall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jacobsen, Cabiria Reitz, Margaret 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 2011-02-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3dc5a8e44b25942ae612f0bb7d09ef0f.jpg 46cad48db578547499c30b4a2271bd27 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/73caefc69f61acfde0eff5fa0888b5c2.mp3 9dfb83bd4edb322a0081fed67797dd6c 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 (Amplitude.js) 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 2011-02-21 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bernardine Dohrn Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Bernardine Rae Dohrn is a former leader of the Weather Underground, a group known for bombings on the United States Capitol. Dohrn has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Chicago. Currently, she is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Bernardine Rae Dohrn is a former leader of the Weather Underground, a group known for bombings on the United States Capitol. Dohrn has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Chicago. Currently, she is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;College; Race Issues; Women's Issues; The War on Poverty; Non-Violence; Chicago; Red Lining; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; The Other America; Michael Harrington; Gay Rights; Patriotism; Students for a Democratic Society; Kent State; Chicago Eight.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">College; Race Issues; Women's Issues; The War on Poverty; Non-Violence; Chicago; Red Lining; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; The Other America; Michael Harrington; Gay Rights; Patriotism; Students for a Democratic Society; Kent State; Chicago Eight.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 236:57 Subject LCSH Weather Underground Organization; College teachers; Dohrn, Bernardine--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>. 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 Bernardine Rae Dohrn Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dohrn, Bernardine ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Weather Underground Organization; College teachers; Dohrn, Bernardine--Interviews Description An account of the resource Bernardine Rae Dohrn is a former leader of the Weather Underground, a group known for bombings on the United States Capitol. Dohrn has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. Currently, she is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 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 2011-02-21 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.10.2016.8a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.8b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-01 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. 236:57 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&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;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:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 audio discs Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 28:36 42:10 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE145416">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE145416</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. 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 Vive la France Februaury 26. 2011 Recital Tape 2011-2-26 Description An account of the resource Held at 3:00 p.m., February 26, 2011, First Presbyterian Church. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Perry, Timothy Worden, Heather 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 2011-02-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound 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&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;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:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 audio disc Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 53:28:00 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE145420">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE145420</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. 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 Wind Symphony Solo competition, Februar 27, 2011 Recital Tape 2011-2-27 Description An account of the resource Held at 6:30 p.m., February 27, 2011, Casadesus Recital Hall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muller, Robert Reitz, Margaret A Weintraub, Samuel Marsiglia, William Gukowsky, Matthew Bartishevich, Jay Ramos, Benjamin Goldenberg, Adam Bessel, Daniel 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 2011-02-27 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/074eeefbc3f4cd948169391490fd99e2.jpg 5c5261217874e358939a16f5ad71a580 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e403aaf6ff4c9bd47b1740b6ffefcaf6.mp3 19d4eb30e0c6e4b5cd3bea2b388064f4 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 2011-03-02 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Julius Lester Language English Biographical Text Julius Lester (1939 - 2018) was an author, photographer, educator, activist, and musician. Lester was raised in the South and Midwest and received his undergraduate degree in English from Fisk University in 1960. In 1961 he joined SNCC and became their photographer documenting events like Freedom Summer in 1964, the Civil Rights Movement, and the U.S. atrocities in Vietnam during a trip to the country with other members of SNCC. His photography is well documented at the Smithsonian Institution and is part of a permanent collection at Howard University. After teaching for two years at the New School for Social Research, he joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1971 where he taught in the Afro-American Studies Department and the Judaic and Near Eastern Studies Department. Since 1968, Lester published 25 books of fiction, non-fiction, children's books, and poetry. His writings brought him much fame with numerous awards for both adult and children's books. 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 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 213:05 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Montgomery bus boycott; Kathleen Cleaver; Black Panther Party; Muhammad Ali; Civil Rights Movement; Angela Davis; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; James Baldwin; Thurgood Marshall; Leroy Jones; Emmett Till; Lynden Johnson.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14275305}}">Montgomery bus boycott; Kathleen Cleaver; Black Panther Party; Muhammad Ali; Civil Rights Movement; Angela Davis; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; James Baldwin; Thurgood Marshall; Leroy Jones; Emmett Till; Lyndon Johnson.</span> Subject LCSH Authors; Musicians; Political activists--United States; Lester, Julius--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: Julius Lester Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 2 March 2011 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Testing one, two, three. You answered the first three questions, so I think we might go right in the order of the questions that I sent you. I do not know if you have them in front of you. JL (00:00:15): I do not, but I can certainly... SM (00:00:20): I can just read them. JL (00:00:21): Sure. Yeah. You can go ahead. SM (00:00:23): Yeah. My first question is, in your own words, could you describe what the impact was of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in terms of it had not only on African Americans in the South, but basically, the impact it had overall in the movement? JL (00:00:44): Well, historically, there is a gap between when the Montgomery Bus Boycott happened and the movement itself. The Montgomery Bus Boycott happened in (19)56, (19)57 as I recall. And the impact at the time was not that great. There were no demonstrations or anything that followed that. I certainly think the impact was one of... Interesting that it happened. This was different, but no action happened. The next action that happened was... There was a sit-in at a lunch counter in Oklahoma City in 1959. And once again, this was something that happened, but nothing followed it. And then in February in 1960, the sit-in happened at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. And for whatever historical reasons that lunch counter sit in, set off a series of demonstrations and sit-ins in Nashville. And within months it spread all across the south. And so why that happened in 1960 and it did not happen in (19)57 after Montgomery, (19)59 after Oklahoma City, nobody knows. But that was the progression of it. And so, Montgomery was certainly very important both in attacking interrogation on the buses as well as introducing Martin Luther King Jr. and non-violence. But I think at the time, people took a wait and see attitude and just kind of wanted to take in exactly what is this, what is happening, and it is something worth counting on. And by 1960 people felt that it was. SM (00:02:55): Yeah, the boomer generation... I think higher education is the reason why they break these terms down like the greatest generation, the boomer generation, generation X, millennials, and now generation Y. And I know a lot of my interviewees have not liked the terms of trying to define a generation with a term because there is too many different people. But as it is defined, it is those born between (19)46 and (19)64. And so my question is really those individuals who grew up knowing the following African American names due to their presence on television or in the newspapers, could you just give your very brief comments, because there is quite a few here, what their impact was with respect to not only the lack but white communities and bringing equality to people of color. You could either talk about their strengths or weaknesses or their activism. Just very brief comments. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP. JL (00:03:55): Yeah. Well, NAACP was certainly the oldest civil rights organization having started about 1909 I guess it was. And so, it was a pretty mainstream organization and that certainly when the more radical activities of the 1960s began, our Wilkins was opposed to it. But interestingly enough of other organizations from the 1960s, the only one remaining is NAACP. And so that certainly as a mainstream organization, it has been very important not only on the legal front, but also in terms of... And what I mean by a legal front, I mean bringing suits, especially where school interrogation was involved, but also just in its ability to last, to endure. SM (00:04:53): How about James Farmer and CORE? JL (00:04:57): Yeah, I have a list in front of me so I can just go down it. SM (00:04:59): Okay. Very good. JL (00:05:01): James Farmer, CORE, was Commerce of Racial Equality, and it was started in the 1940s and the Freedom Rides of 1961 were started by CORE. CORE started off as a much more mainstream organization with a real commitment to non-violence. And then as the 1960s progressed CORE became more and more radical and pretty much radicalized itself out of the existence. James Farmer was head of the organization during the early 1960s, and especially during the Freedom Rise in 1961. Whitney Young and the Urban League. The Urban League is an organization, which still exist, and its focus has always been much more in terms of employment issues in the black community. And Whitney Young was the head of that organization in the 1960s and died in the mid (19)60s in a drowning accident in Africa. Martin Luther King Jr. of course, he was very familiar with SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with the organization that he organized and was very important in terms of organizing demonstrations throughout the South in the 1960s. Robert Moses was a member of SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, which I belonged to. And Bob Moses was a graduate of Harvard in mathematics, I believe it was. And he went to Mississippi in the early 1960s and very courageous. He essentially worked by himself in some of the worst places in Mississippi trying to get people to a vote. And he's kind of the legendary figure in the movement. John Lewis was one of the leaders of SNCC in the early 1960s and is now a congressman from Georgia. Julian Bond was a member NAACP in the... We have the past 10 years or so... Was a member of SNCC and if anyone has seen the documentary Eyes on the Prize, it is Julian Bond's voice that narrates that. James Meredith was Black man who was a marine veteran who integrated... Was the first black student in University of Mississippi, an event which set off riots in Oxford, Mississippi and President Kennedy had to nationalize the National Guard and call in the Marines. And I guess three people who were killed. James Meredith later became a very arch conservative. SM (00:08:01): Yeah, that is a shocker. JL (00:08:03): Yeah, he is an interesting fellow shall we say. Ralph Bunch was a US representative of the United Nations and played a part in the United Nations recognizing Israel in 1948. Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph were labor leaders and Bayard Rustin was very important and influential with Dr. King. He was the one who really introduced Dr. King to non-violent and played a behind the scenes role with Dr. King until he was associated with the Communist Party, and he was also gay. And so that he was kind of quietly ushered out of King's Circle. A. Philip Randolph was a labor leader who organized the union of Pullman car Porters on the railroad back in the 1930s and forties I guess it was. And the very first march on Washington. The idea of the march on Washington came about when in 1941, Randolph threatened President Roosevelt with a march on Washington, and I forget what his threat was, whether it had to do with the integration of Washington DC or the integration of armed forces, but it was something along that line which Randolph threatened a march on Washington if they did not come about. And the threat was enough to bring about whatever it was that he was fighting for. Mackenzie was head of CORE at one point. Vernon Jordan was head of the Urban League at one point and is a very high-powered Washington lawyer now and is a very, very close confidant of Bill Clinton. And when Bill Clinton goes to Mount Luther Vineyard, he stays with Vernon Jordan and Dorothy Height was head of the National Negro Council of Women, I believe it was. And she and Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young and several others were known as the Big Six Negro leaders they were called at that time. Stokely Carmichael was head of SNCC, was someone whom I knew. He was the one who introduced to America the term 'Black power'. H. Rap Brown, whom I also knew was head of SNCC after Stokely was head of SNCC. And Rap was much more into radical violence, even though Stokely was too. But Rap was a little bit more serious about it then Stokely was, [inaudible]or that was my impression, and Rap coined the sentence, "Violence is as American as cherry pie." Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver were founders of the Black Panther party. Kathleen Cleaver was Kathleen Neil and was a member of SNCC, and I knew her at that time. And then she met Eldridge and married Eldridge, and they were all very prominent in the Black Panther party. Muhammad Ali. of course, Cassius Clay play a very important figure in terms of his resistance to the war in Vietnam and refusing to fight in Vietnam. And another example of the importance that athletes took, I played in the Civil rights movement starting with Joe Lewis really, and then Jackie Robinson certainly. And Muhammad Ali is certainly always reviewed for that. SM (00:12:09): And Kurt Flood too. Definitely. JL (00:12:14): Fred Hampton was a member of the Black Panther Party in Chicago who was killed by the police. David Hilliard was also a Black Panther party member. George Jackson was... My memory of the details on George Jackson are limited. I did review his book for the New York Times, but he was killed attempting to escape from San Quentin. He became kind of an iconic figure for Black Panther party people, but my memory on him is vague. Angela Davis was associated with George Jackson and at one time was wanted by the FBI for armed activities or something, and later caught in the northern California system. Bobby Seal, Black Panther party member. Jesse Jackson identified himself as the successor to Martin Luther King Jr. Minister from Chicago ran for president in 1984. And the first Black person to make a credible run for president. Andrew Young was a very close associate of Martin Luther King Jr. And was mayor of Atlanta for a couple of terms at least. Ralph Abernathy was a minister who was Dr. King's closest friend. They had known each other since they both [inaudible] in Montgomery. Paul Robeson, the singer and actor, 1920s and 1930s. Very, very radical for his time associated with the Communist Party and went into exile for a number of years and lived in East Germany for a number of years. And I did meet him once shortly after he came back from East Germany. James Balman, who was a friend, was a very important writer. And his most important book came up in... Guess it was 1964, The Fire Next Time, which was two essays that really kind of captured the feelings of anger that were going through significant parts of Black America at the time. And certainly Paul, read the move correctly in terms of the predictions of violence that the book expressed. Thurgood Marshall, who was a lawyer for the NAACP Legal and Defense Fund, who argued the Brown vs Topeka case before the Supreme Court that led to the school desegregation decision in 1954. And he himself later became a Supreme Court Justice appointed, I think by Lyndon Johnson. Roy Innis was probably the last leader of CORE and the one who basically presided over its demise. Adam Clayton Powell was a very flamboyant congressman from Harlem for many, many years and was very important civil rights figure in terms of his willingness to speak out in very, very forceful terms, especially in the 1950s. It is when I remember him at a time when nobody black was really speaking out and Adam Clayton Powell certainly did. LeRoi Jones, Amiri Baraka, is a poet and dramatist Leroy Jones, when he was known as a poet most associated with the beat generation. And then he underwent a radical change and identified himself totally with Black issues and black nationalism. And so, he changed his name to Amiri Baraka and lived in Newark, New Jersey and still lives there. And then Richard Wright was the very important novelist who once again articulated, this is in the 1940s, I guess it was, when both Black Boy and Native Son came out and certainly articulated the violence that laid dormant in the emotions of Black American shall say at that time. And he later went into exile and moved to Paris where he died in the early (19)60s. SM (00:16:58): That is excellent description of all those gentlemen. And Dr. Hight. Number six here is really a listing of events. I do not have to read them all over here, but these were major events that really not only made front page news, but really were somewhat shocking to many in America. And it kind of awakened even white America about what was going on in the south. The Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman murders were, I know big front page when I was a little kid. And your thoughts on all these events in terms of how major they were in awakening this nation to the terrible things that were happening in the United States, of which I believe was totally hidden by the media, because if you look at black and white TV in the (19)50s, you hardly ever saw a person of color with the exception Nat King Cole. I think he had a six-week television show during that time period. JL (00:18:03): Yeah. SM (00:18:03): And then Amos and Andy had a show in their early (19)50s, which was kind of slapstick, and then you really did not have anything until you had Ice Spy and Diane Carroll on the nurse program and there was a big gap there, a lot of hidden things. Just your thoughts on these events. JL (00:18:22): Well, Emmett Till was 14, 15 years old and was from Chicago and was visiting his grandfather in Money Mississippi and was accused of whistling at the wife of a white store owner. And he was murdered very, very violently, very, very viciously murdered. His murder had a great impact upon young Black people my age because I was a bit older than Emmett Till. And that certainly it was one of those events that really create a lot of anger in those of us who later would go on to be the generation of the civil rights movement. And so here was a similar event for us, what it was for White America, I have no idea, but certainly Jet Magazine, the mother of Emmett Till had his body photographed and the pictures were published of his body in a Jet magazine or Black Magazine, weekly magazine. And it really, really had an enormous impact. And it certainly had some impact on White America because Bob Dylan wrote a song called The Death of Emmett Till, which was on his first album in the early (19)60s. The church bombing certainly in Birmingham in (19)63 that killed the four girls had a great impact because the march on Washington was at the end of August of 1963, and the church bombing came about three weeks later, about the third week of September. And so that church bombing should follow both closely on the heels of the march on Washington did get a lot of publicity and had a great impact, certainly. And I think it was the event that led President Kennedy... It was the event that led President Kennedy to introduce the Civil rights bill of 1964 into Congress, and no, Lyndon Johnson, I am sorry, Kennedy was not there at that time. It was Lyndon Johnson. And so that had a great impact on America nationwide. James Meredith, 1966, June of (19)66, Meredith was going to do a march against Fear, and he was going to walk from Memphis, Tennessee down to the state of Mississippi, and he got a few miles outside of Memphis, and he was shot, not killed, but he was wounded. But that led to others taking up the march. And it was on that march that Stokely Carmichael first used the phrase 'Black power'. SM (00:21:15): Wow, I did not know that. Wow. JL (00:21:19): And so that certainly got national attention. Delmont 1965 was really what galvanized the... It was after Selma that Lyndon Johnson introduced the 1965 voting white bill, and it was the march that we were going to march to. Well, I mean, the background was basically... There had been a young black man named... What was his name? Jimmie Lee Jackson, who had been murdered, at a demonstration for voting rights. And so the people wanted to march from Stalman to the capital in Montgomery to protest to the governor. And so, the first attempt of the march was met with a lot of violence by men on horseback and this, that and the other. And so subsequently, there was a march that was protected by federal troops. And so, the federal Montgomery March was very important in terms of the eventual passage of the 1965 voting right bill. The murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, 1964. Chaney was black and Goodman and Schwerner were both white Jewish from New York City. I knew the families of both Goodman and Schwerner, and they were murdered, and their bodies were not found. They were murdered in June. Their bodies were not found until August. And that certainly their murder came at the beginning of the Mississippi or Freedom Summer. And the Freedom Summer was when it was almost a thousand, basically mainly white college students went to Mississippi to register people to vote, and for the summer to begin with their disappearance certainly was an indication that going to Mississippi was a very, very dangerous thing to do that summer. And so certainly their murders were publicized in the nation certainly. It was an important event in terms of focusing the attention of the nation on Mississippi and segregation in Mississippi and just generally the atmosphere of violence against Black people in Mississippi. I mean, it was really a terrorist state as far as I am concerned. I was there before, and it eventually led to significant changes in how delegates were chosen to the Democratic Party. And so, the Democratic Party at that time, which had been controlled primarily about Southern democrats, changed after the summer of (19)64. And so subsequently, the Democratic Party was much more... Became much liberal and much more open than it had been previously. The Freedom Rides were 1961... At that time, it was black and white could not sit together on buses that were leaving the South. When I left Nashville, Tennessee in 1961, I had to sit in the back of the bus until the bus got to a Northern state, and then I could sit anywhere on the bus. And so, the Freedom Rides were to basically enforce the law, which already said that the segregated seating on interstate buses was unconstitutional. And so, the Freedom Rides started in Washington, DC and were going to end in New Orleans, they were organized by CORE, but they did not get any further than Mississippi. When they got to Jackson, Mississippi, people were arrested and put in jail. And so that led to people from all over the country getting on buses and going to the Mississippi and being arrested and going to jail. Before that, the people on the buses had met a lot of violence in both Birmingham, Alabama and Montgomery Alabama. And that also did get a fair share of publicity. But after that summer, there was no more segregation on interstate buses. The murder of Malcolm X 1965, February (19)65. At that particular time, one of the things that may be hard for people to grasp is that both during the lifetime of Malcolm and during the lifetime of Dr. King, they were not the heroic figures they are looked up on to be now. I can certainly recall the New York Times coming out with editorial against Martin Luther King and accusing him of throwing up violent by non-violent demonstrations. And so certainly with Malcolm X, Malcolm X at the time of his death was a minor figure, believe it or not. He was really not that well known outside the black community. And he was certainly seen as somebody who was extremely violent and what have you. And so, there were no tears lost, shed at the death of Malcolm X. And like I said, he is much, much more widely known and revered, and I think he's even been on a stamp than he was during his lifetime. And so, his assassination had little impact compared to the impact of Kings assassination. King’s assassination, certainly there were riots in New York City. There were riots in other places around the country because certainly even though King at that time was preparing the march on Washington, he had come out against the war in Vietnam and was really becoming a lot more radical in his thinking and in his actions in terms of trying to build a coalition of a multi-ethnic coalition as well as a coalition that would involve economic coalition also for whites and for people and what have you, not so, but his assassination certainly set off a great reaction both of violence and of creep at the time. The Little Rock Nine, 1957, I guess we are talking, were black students who integrated at Central High school and [inaudible] had to be escorted in by the National Guard, which Eisenhower nationalized at the time because the governor basically refused to let the students in. There was some violence around that, and that was one of the first events that was covered on television. John Chancellor, who was later an Anchor Man for NBC, covered that for NBC, and that was shown on television and did get a fair amount of publicity. George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door, this was the 1963, I guess it was, the integration of the rest of Alabama, and George Wallace made this show a pending in the entrance of the administration building, but it was all a show for his constituents because a deal had been worked out with the Kennedy administration where he was standing in the door. While he was standing in the door, federal marshals were escorting... Now, there were two students, Vivian Malone, and I forget the... I cannot think of the young man's name, but anyway, while he was standing in the front door, federal marshals were escorting the Black students in the back door for them to be registered into school. And so, he did that for show. It had no impact upon them getting into school whatsoever. He did not stop them from getting into school. SM (00:30:18): This is important because I know you bring it up in your book, one of your books, that we talk about the tragedies here, but we never talk about... It is like when Dr. King used to give speeches, he used to say that we all have it within us as individuals to bring change to this world, bring justice to the world. And so, it was the people that we never hear about, the people that... And it is the same thing here. We might emphasize Dr. King or Malcolm, and certainly the tragedy of Emmett Till, but there were 4,000 people as you brought up in your book, who were murdered, who were lynched. And this is something that I still think our students today are not aware of or do not seem to...still think our students today are not aware of, or do not seem to have an understanding. JL (00:31:06): Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah. Basically, starting after the Civil War, and especially after 1877, when federal troops left the South and the Reconstruction era ended, there began a campaign of terror against Black people carried out by the Ku Klux Klan, and then the local communities, of murdering people, often by hanging them from a tree, lynching them, as a way both of terrorizing the black community, and intimidating anyone who had any thought of doing anything, political, voting, or what have you. People were lynched quite often on trumped-up charges of rape, very few of which could have been proven. They were also lynched if they owned a prosperous store. The reasons why you could be lynched were almost infinite. It reminds me of the summer of (19)64 in Jackson, Mississippi, a civil rights worker was arrested for reckless walking, and so they could make up any charges they wanted. SM (00:32:33): Oh, my gosh. JL (00:32:34): And certainly, from about 1880 until 1970, I guess, the last... Well, no, we got to go into the nineties. There were lynchings in the nineties, but certainly close to 5,000 Black people, both men, and there were women also who were lynched, were lynched in the South. And Congress, the Senate passed a resolution a few years ago, apologizing for the fact that even though the NAACP tried every year from 1919 forward to get the Congress to pass a federal law against lynching, so that lynchers could be arrested and tried in federal court at least, Congress never did it. And so, the Senate did issue an apology for not doing what it should have done for all those years. SM (00:33:35): I know right here, and you may be aware of it, in, I think it is Coatesville, Pennsylvania, the murder of... They actually put a historic sign up a couple of years ago. It was torn down and they put it up again. And we are talking about, I forget, the professor from Franklin and Marshall came over and talked about it, but it was... There was one in the 1940s as a follow-up to this one that they were putting the marker up for. It is a terrible tragedy, and people were saying, "This happened here?" One thing that is very important, you talk about the March on Washington. We all know that Kennedy was very pragmatic with respect to, he was worried about what could happen in the city. And A. Philip Randolph, I think he trusted more than any of the other leaders. But there is a comment that, and I'd just like your thoughts here from your book, however, respond to your criticism that the March is a great inspiration to those who think something is accomplished by having black bodies next to white bodies. JL (00:34:48): At the time, and I remember the March on Washington vividly. My wife went to it, I did not. And I thought it was really a publicity thing. I thought it was good public relations. I did not see what else it would accomplish. And certainly, the fact that the four girls were bombed, were killed less than a month after it kind of confirmed my opinion at the time. Well, I was just never impressed with the March on Washington. I thought King's speech was great, but I just saw it as a PR thing. I did not see it as effective politics. SM (00:35:27): Yeah, the quote that you have here was, "The march was nothing but a giant therapy session that allowed Dr. King to orate about his dreams of..." I do not even like to use the word, the N word, "Eating at the same table of a Georgia cracker, while most blacks just dreamed of eating." JL (00:35:44): Yep-yep, yep. I would not repudiate those words now. SM (00:35:53): In your view, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? And what was the watershed moment? JL (00:36:01): Well, I would certainly say probably February 1960. And I would probably say that they ended with the death of King. I think King was the center, and when the center was not there, things fell apart. And actually, I would say, well, I will back up from that. I will say that the Civil Rights Movement had two goals, and the two goals were to integration, and public accommodation, and to ensure the right of Black people to vote. And those were accomplished in 1964 and 1965. And I would say the Civil Rights Movement ended in of 1965 with it fulfilling its goals. And I think one of the unfortunate things is that we never celebrated that we won. And so (19)65, the Civil Rights Movement ended. (19)66, you had the beginning of Black power, and certainly the mood turns much angrier, and there is much more rhetoric of violence and actual violence with the coming of the Black Panther Party. And then (19)68 King, and also the rise of Black nationalism also comes (19)65, (19)66, and then King is killed in (19)68, and certainly things are done by then. SM (00:37:33): Yeah. Actually, this bleeds right into question eight and nine on the second page there, is if you could describe the strengths and weaknesses of the activists who believed in the philosophy of Gandhi, that nonviolence is the only way to protest. And secondly, the change that took place, the strengths and weaknesses of activists who believed that going beyond nonviolence, via either armed confrontation, or burning buildings, or tougher talk, or being more aggressive, which these individuals are labeled. I know that Bobby Seale has said over and over again that, "We were not violent." I have seen him talk many times. He said, "We had guns to protect ourselves," he says that "but we never used them." Now, I do not know what your thoughts... So, what would be the strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches? Because these are the people that- JL (00:38:24): Well, the strength of non-violence was very, very effective as long as it was used against very recognizable institutions, segregated lunch counters, and things of that sort. The weakness of nonviolence is that racism does not exist in a concrete building where with the sign on it saying, " No coloreds allowed." Racism is so much more amorphous and resides in the spirits and the minds of people. And that is very difficult for non-violence to attack. The strengths of the Black radical movement was- certainly was that it was a movement aimed at changing the consciousness, number one, probably, of Black people, which is something that began with Malcolm X, beginning to change the consciousness of how Black people thought about themselves. And then also changing how Black people thought about white people and changing how white people thought about themselves. The weakness of the Black radical movement, despite what Bobby Seale says, is that if there is anything America knows about, its violence. And if you present an image of dressed in a black beret and black turtleneck and black pants and a black leather jacket carrying a rifle to white America, they know how to deal with that. And so that even though the Black Panthers may never have fired a gun, which I doubt very, very seriously, they certainly were what Lenin called agent provocateurs, and so they certainly provoked violence. And I spoke out against the Black Panther Party at the time, and I continue to speak up against them now. SM (00:40:40): Would you put the Weather Underground who split from SDS? JL (00:40:46): Yeah, I would- SM (00:40:47): As well as the Brown Berets that followed the Chicanos, who followed the Black Panthers in the same boat? JL (00:40:53): The Brown Berets, I really know nothing about, but certainly the Weather Underground, they were well-intentioned, but that certainly the way to attack America, the way to change America, is not through violence, because that is what America's good at, is violence. SM (00:41:21): I put the AIM leaders in there too, because the AIM went from Alcatraz in 1969 to Wounded Knee in (19)73. JL (00:41:30): Yeah, once again, I really do not know enough for about AIM, about the details of what happened at Wounded Knee to really talk about it. The other thing, which is really hard to get someone to understand, is that 1968 was an amazing year in terms of all the things that were happening in the country, and certainly, a lot of people believed that we were on the verge of a revolution, and that was people both in the government, as well as people on the left. And so, while it is easy to look back and criticize the Weather Underground, at the time, it certainly seemed like that it was going to be possible to bring about revolutionary change in this country. SM (00:42:28): Do you like the term Boomer Generation, and if not, what would be a better term to describe it? JL (00:42:36): It is not my generation. I have no opinion one way or the other. SM (00:42:40): But you know something Julius, can I call you Julius? JL (00:42:45): Yeah, you may. SM (00:42:45): Yep. One of the things that is interesting, because I think you found in the same category, is many of the people that were born in that period between say 1937 and (19)45, feel that they are more closer to the boomers, the front edge boomers, than those that were the last 10 years of the boomers. Because if you are in graduate school in the early (19)70s, we were taught that the leaders of the movement were usually people that were the graduate students, that were in their late twenties, which means they were born in that timeframe. So, in a sense, a lot of the people that are your age claim that they really have the boomer spirit, and I have noticed that. I do not know if you feel that, but you were a very important part of that spirit. JL (00:43:26): Yeah, I do not, and I do not because I feel like, well... I was born and was, I guess, seven years old when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. SM (00:43:49): Yes. JL (00:43:50): And I consider that to be a watershed event in world history. And I think there is a difference. For me, there is a difference between whether one was born before that happened, and whether one was born after that happened. The difference being whether you grew up believing, knowing that the world could be destroyed by the dropping of certain kinds of bombs, and whether you reached an age of consciousness without knowing the world could be destroyed. SM (00:44:23): Wow. Very well- JL (00:44:24): And so, for me, that is a big difference. Also growing up with radio, as opposed to growing up with television, is also, to me, a big difference. And so, I do not see myself as part of the Boomer generation at all. SM (00:44:44): Please describe in a few words your role with SNCC as an organization photographer. I know you were assigned to cover a lot of the events and activities. I know you went with Stokely to Vietnam during that timeframe. JL (00:44:58): I went with him to Cuba, not to Vietnam. SM (00:45:00): Oh, okay. Cuba, my mistake. JL (00:45:03): Yeah. I went to Vietnam separately from him, but I was in Cuba with him. SM (00:45:11): Yeah. Could you discuss some of the events you covered, and what did you learn from that experience that you maybe did not know before you were that photographer? JL (00:45:19): Well, my role in SNCC was very modest. I came into SNCC in 1966 as a photographer. And by that time, the demonstrations and the voter registration campaigns were over. I did photograph, there was a riot in Atlanta in 1966, I photographed that. There was the riot in Newark in 1967, which I also photographed. But primarily my role in SNCC was to, number one, write and produce materials using the photographs. And so, I produced calendars using the photographs, and other materials, publications, that SNCC did. Also, when I was with SNCC, I also wrote my first book when I was living in Atlanta with SNCC, which was Look Out, Whitey! Black Power Gon' Get Your Mama. I wrote during the winter of 1966, I guess it was, (19)67. I was also a folk singer in those years. And so, I went to Cuba for a protest song festival. And the first day I was there, unbeknownst to me, Stokely showed up in Cuba. And so, I switched from the protest song festival to live with Stokely and go around with him. So, because of that, I got to spend three days traveling through the mountains in Eastern Cuba. I wanted to talk to Stokely, and so we spent three days traveling around the Sierra Maestras. SM (00:47:13): Wow. JL (00:47:17): And that was fascinating. That really was fascinating. And then also that year, I spent a month in North Vietnam. The Burton Russell Foundation had organized a war crime tribunal to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, the spring of (19)66, (19)67. And so, two people were sent from SNCC, myself and Charlie Cobb were sent from SNCC to get a testimony. This was during a time when the US was still denying it was bombing North Vietnam. And so, we ended up spending a month in North Vietnam, and I did a lot of photographing in North Vietnam, showing the United States was very definitely lying about bombing, since I was certainly very close to a bombing raid on more than one occasion when I was there. SM (00:48:05): Well, did you ever see Che Guevara? JL (00:48:05): Never did. Che Guevara was already in Bolivia when I was in Cuba. SM (00:48:06): Oh, okay. Yeah, because he was a hero to many of the new left students, particularly many of the ones that were in Columbia in (19)68. This next question is basically centered on the students who came south, the white students. And it is amazing. The majority of them, I believe were Jewish, because I am amazed. When I talk to everybody, the Jewish background, I know there were some Catholic white students as well, but there were a thousand that went south. And just your thoughts on them, in terms of their overall impact. And we all know that Mario Savio, he was not Jewish, but he was one of those students who went back to Berkeley and tried to hand out literature. And that is when all that stuff happened, and the free speech movement started because of it, because they were recruiting students to go south. And I know that Tom Hayden was another one who had been south, and others had gone back to recruit on college campuses. And there was also that period of time when there was a question over who was leading the organizations. And was there sensitivity within the Freedom Summer that African Americans instead of whites do the running of the events? JL (00:49:34): Oh, yeah. There was... Well, how can I put it? Most people in SNCC were opposed to Freedom Summer. They did not want all these white kids going to Mississippi. They also recognized that they had been working in Mississippi for three years. And again, very-very little publicity. People had been beaten and put in jail and close to being killed, a couple of them. And so, they also recognize that a thousand white students coming to Mississippi would bring publicity. One of the real ironies of all of this is that I think I mentioned before, both the Schwerner and Goodman families were friends of mine, and I was friends with Andrew, Mickey Schwerner's brother, and was talking with him that Spring of (19)64, and he said, "What needs to happen is for one of those white kids to get killed." And of course, not knowing that one of those white kids was going to be his kid brother. And so, that certainly, there was a recognition that they will bring the newspapers and the publicity will come with them. And so, the state was split up into congressional districts, and there was at least one congressional district where the SNCC leader who was head of the project in that district would not allow white students to work in his district. And so that certainly, there was a tension between who is running the show, and certainly I, myself, witnessed a certainly unintentional insensitivity on the part of some of the white students in terms of working with blacks, because they simply were not aware of the social dynamics, and what have you. And so certainly there was tension, and certainly the SNCC people involved made a great effort to stay in control and to give the orders. And it was a success politically, but internally, it was not a happy summer. SM (00:52:09): Yeah. I remember one of the leaders of the trainers was Staughton Lynd. JL (00:52:18): Yep. SM (00:52:18): And I guess they trained up north, and then they went south. So, did they have issues even with him being a trainer? JL (00:52:25): I do not think so, no. Staughton was real well respected. No, there is not a question about that. SM (00:52:28): Yep. Would you compare the... thirteen, there. Would you compare the SDS in the late (19)60s with its change from, we talked about earlier, about going more radical, to the SNCC and the same time period because we saw Stokely go from SNCC to more of a black power, more radical attitude. And just your thoughts on that. And some of the members of the... I think H. Rap Brown was in SNCC, and then he went to the Black Panthers. So, would you see the switches happening around the same time for those organizations? JL (00:53:05): Oh yeah. They were. And certainly, I think it had to do with a progression of political learning, going from thinking that the problem was segregation and lack of voting rights to a recognition that the problem was really systemic, and that the systemic part of it for Black people was racism. The systemic part of it for SDS was capitalism. So, it was like, how do you demonstrate? You do not demonstrate against racism; you cannot demonstrate against capitalism. You really have to change them. And so, the way to change them is through revolution. And so, people became much more doctrinaire, and that was certainly a lot of the reason for the downfall of both SDS and SNICC at that time. H. Rap Brown, Rap took on the title of Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party, but he never worked actively with the Black Panther Party. And I was close to Rap during this time. And so, he did that more as a... I am not sure how to describe it, but he did that more as a listening kind of a thing. He really never worked actively with the Black Panthers. SM (00:54:50): I am actually going to be interviewing Ed, E. Charles Brown, his brother. JL (00:54:55): Oh, yeah? SM (00:54:56): Yeah, sometime in the next three, four weeks. I guess Ed has had a stroke, but he's okay. And Ed, I want the story. He was very close to his brother, and it really had an effect on his health, I guess, the loss of his brother, to going to jail out west, and so forth. And he firmly believed that H Rap Brown was set up, and he did not kill that person. It is a total set up. So, I am looking forward to my interview with Ed. JL (00:55:26): Yeah. SM (00:55:27): In your eyes, how important were the Beats in terms of creating what I call an anti-establishment feeling in the (19)60s? We all know about Alan Ginsburg, Kerouac, Cassidy, Ferlinghetti, Leroy Jones, Gary Snyder. We all know that the Beats were very important in their writing, and people were reading them. But they were not large in number, and they were based in San Francisco and New York, in the Village. And we know the Bohemian lifestyle affected a lot of it. How did it affect the African American community? JL (00:56:02): Very little. Certainly, Beat Generation had an enormous impact upon me for the positive. And I certainly saw myself as part of the Beat Generation. Ended up spending the summer of (19)59 in San Francisco on North Beach specifically, because that is where it was happening, and that is where I wanted to be. But the Beat Generation had an enormous impact upon the hippies. The hippies came from the Beat Generation. And from the hippies, you go to Abbey Hoffman and Jerry Ruben and that whole group. And so, the Beat Generation had an enormous impact on the (19)60s through their impact on the hippies. But in terms of Black America, very little impact. SM (00:56:59): Let me change my tape here. Got to turn it over. How is your weather? JL (00:57:06): Today is warm, supposed to be a cold month. SM (00:57:13): Has not been melting the last three days. Well, anyway. JL (00:57:21): We have so much snow on the ground. It will be green, maybe, for a dog gone, unless we hit some 90 degree temperatures in here. It has been a miserable, miserable winter. SM (00:57:26): Oh, yeah. We are expecting snow on the weekend here. So, what were the writings, what were the books that you were reading in the (19)50s and (19)60s? What were the books that had the best... And obviously you are a great writer, but before you became that writer, what were you reading? JL (00:58:09): Well, certainly in our (19)50s, early (19)60s, I was reading, I was reading Kerouac, and I was reading Ginsburg, Henry Miller, D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Thomas Merton. Those were some of the people I was reading in the (19)50s and early (19)60s. SM (00:58:17): In the area of the Civil Rights Movement, and certainly in the anti-war movement, a lot has been written that the women's movement was a direct result of the sexism that took place within both of those historic movements. Your thoughts on that, because I know we had a program within our university that if Dr. King was sitting on the stage today, the first thing they would ask him is, "Why were you such a sexist?" So just your thoughts on the women's role in the Civil Rights Movement, and the anti-war movement, and the importance of, that is the one of the why the women's movement was created. JL (00:59:01): Well, I do not know that I am qualified to talk about that, because it was not something which... I think it is more complicated than people have talked about. It is not as clear cut as people have talked about, and it is just not something I want to talk about. SM (00:59:48): Yeah. I will make just one other comment, and that is, when you look at that March on Washington in (19)63, the only person you see a female, there is Dorothy Height standing to the right, and Mahalia Jackson, who sang, so that is been brought up. The Generation Gap, obviously a very big thing in the (19)60s. The Generation Gap was the differences between parents and students on culture, and certainly the counterculture. Certainly, they are staying on the war in Vietnam, or could have been on any of the movements itself. Was there a generation gap that in the African American community too, between parents and... Because when I talk the Boomer generation years, I am trying... Boomer generation to me, includes everyone, includes all seventy... The question is whether it is (19)74 to (19)79, I do not think we even know how many million we are talking about here, but the generation gap was very important because of the differences between parents and their children. Were there differences in the African American communities? JL (01:00:54): There were differences until the children got arrested. When the children got arrested, there was no more generation gap. The parents... I remember very clearly in Nashville, when the sit-ins happened, and the first arrest happened. The elder generation had been leery up until the point when the first arrest happened. The older generation provided support, food, money, what have you. And within the Black community, there was the generation gap comes later with the more cultural things. When the Afros come in and the wearing dashikis come in, and you have more of a generation gap over the style. But in terms of the politics itself, there was no generation gap. SM (01:01:54): In your book, Look Out, Whitey! Black Power Gon' Get Your Mama, the next part is basically just responding to some of your quotes, if that is okay? JL (01:02:02): Sure. SM (01:02:02): I think we are just responding to some of your quotes, if that is okay? JL (01:02:03): Sure. SM (01:02:04): First off, on number eight then, when you wrote the book, it was right in the middle of one of the most tumultuous times in the (19)60s. Of course, (19)68 is a noun because of all the tragic things you already talked about that happened, including the two major assassinations and what we saw at the Democratic Convention and actually tech, and so a lot of things. But to me, and this is me personally who had read it many years back, to me, this book is really a great description of the times and the divisions between Black and white, plus the feelings of people of color felt toward America that did not care about all its citizens. Could you comment on the following? I am just putting this here for the record. [inaudible] identified with a poor, the spies, the downtrodden, the humiliated. It was different from the students’ citizens in 1960 where people had to dress up in suits and ties to prove they were clean. Now, it is changing where the workers' dress fits the people they were helping through overalls and so forth. Just your thoughts on these changes because the approach that young African Americans took towards the protests at different times, making sure that the people that they were representing felt comfortable with how they looked. JL (01:03:27): Yes, correct. I think it is smart politics. You change your approach depending upon whom you are, what you are working for, and yeah. So, I think it was smart politics. I mean, certainly in the 1960s, early (19)60s with the sit-in movement, it was very, very important to get dignified. And although it was not much a matter of clean as it much was a matter of appearing non-threatening, put it that way. And looking no different than any well-dressed white person. And so certainly in terms of creating an image for the movement, it was the right industry to protect. And then when you begin working-working in a rural area in the south, both practically, it is impractical to go around in a suit and a tie and what have you. And also, you want the people with whom you are trying to organize to be comfortable with you. And so that-that is what some people do. If they were able to be in overalls, I never did felt the need to do that. Never felt that I could not do what I was there to do. Just by guessing like I normally did, and I normally did not wear suit and tie, and I normally did not wear overalls either. So, I think it is a matter of simply being a good organizer. SM (01:05:12): In the marching of Washington (19)63, I think Stokely was right on. But your thoughts on this that, and I just interviewed George Houser a couple of days ago, and I interviewed Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn too about her dad, Christopher Lasch, and we talked about the fact that the Civil Rights Movement was centered on the moral compass. And Stokely said, this is a quote "politics demands a certain rhetoric. It does not demand moral action to fit the rhetoric", is what Stokely said. This was certainly true when John Lewis had to remove one line from a speech that said, "I want you to know which side the federal government is on". I find that prophetic, but just your words and the fact that with John Kennedy and why he eventually allowed the march, it is number one. And in Stokely's comments about it should be strictly about the morality. JL (01:06:15): I am not sure what you are asking me. SM (01:06:18): I am asking you what are your thoughts on Stokely's comments that politics demands a certain rhetoric. It does not demand more action to fit the rhetoric, is what he said. JL (01:06:29): Yeah. Honestly, I am not sure I understand what Stokely said. What he said does not make total sense to me. And I guess I disagree with it. Yeah, I guess I am much more on the side of the rhetoric and the moral action being one and the same. And so, I do not know that I agree with what Stokely said. SM (01:07:04): This is another important thing too, because I grew up in Ithaca, New York area, and I can remember when Dr. King went to Cicero and all the, well, first off, the hatred up in the Chicago area toward Dr. King, but also the real divisions that were taking place within the Civil rights leadership about his decision to go north when Robert wanted to stay south. And you bring this up talking about the fact that segregation was an issue up north, and Dr. King knew it. Yet he was criticized for extending protests to the North because many of his peers wanted him to concentrate in the South. And I thought what Malcolm said about everything south of the Canadian border was south. Which I had not heard before and I am glad I reread your book. How important, well, was Dr. King and how heavily criticized was he within his own community for going north? JL (01:07:57): Well, I think the problem was that the tactics that had worked in the South would not work in the North. And so, he could not export the demonstration style approach of civil rights in the north, because the problems were very different. And I know that Dr. King had an apartment on the south side of Chicago, and I guess tried to live there for a time, but his efforts in the north were really a failure. And SNCCs in the North, SNCCs tried to do some things in Philadelphia, and they were also a failure. Malcolm X had much more sense of the temper of the Northern Black communities. CORE was much more of a Northern-based civil rights group and had much more of a sense of what was an effective way to work in the Northern communities than I think SNCCs or Dr. King did. And so, Dr. King I think was criticized because I think there were people who felt there were still a lot to be done in the South, which certainly there was, and he did not know the north. And so, he basically failed when he went north. SM (01:09:29): What did you think of his Vietnam speech? JL (01:09:41): His Vietnam speech was excellent. I thought his Vietnam speech was really a moral high point of his life and career. SM (01:09:43): And I agree. I agree. Can you talk about that? You already made reference to how important was Fannie Lou Hamer and her challenge with Lyndon Johnson in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in (19)64, but how important really was that in the scheme of things at that time? JL (01:10:00): It was extremely important. The Mississippi Democratic Party was all white, and that basically the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was organized to go to the convention in Atlantic City and appear before the Credentials Committee of the Democratic Party Convention to ask them to unseat the regular representative of the Democratic Party because there was segregation and to seat the MFDP instead. What the Credentials Committee was, it did not unseat the Mississippi Democratic Party, but it did offer two honorary seats to the MFDP, which they turned down. And Mrs. Hamer was very, very critical in all of that because she appeared before the Credentials Committee and her speech was so forceful and so eloquent that it was interrupted by Lyndon Johnson who came on television to make an announcement about something totally irrelevant because he did not want people to see her anymore on television. SM (01:11:18): Yeah, I remember watching TV when that one was happening. I was really into politics when I was a young kid. Again, this is an important quote from you. This is your quote: "if the press had screamed as loudly for the end of segregation and discrimination as it screamed for law and order, segregation would have a vague memory in (19)68. Somehow law and order became all important. Or when Black people take to streets and burn and wipe out a few of the white man's stores, law and order is never so important when the police are whipping N Heads on the weekend." And then you finally say, "law and order must prevail is the cliche of the (19)60s and the biggest lie because the American black man has never known law and order except as an instrument of repression". Any additional thoughts on that or is that? JL (01:12:14): No, I really had not read that in I do not know how many years, but that about summed it up. I mean, I certainly think that placed it pretty directly. SM (01:12:23): You have a way of really writing down. Your book is full of quotes. I could have had a hundred of them here. You are a very good writer, and you really expressed the feelings of the times too in that book. And then as a follow-up here, Ronald Reagan, if you remember, came to power in California under two banners, law, and order to stop the protests on college campus, IE the free speech movement in People's Park. And then, of course, to end the welfare state that he was against. And these were direct attacks on the protests and the welfare state handouts at work. He came to the presidency on those two goals. So, law and order was what Reagan was all about. So, in a sense, when he came to power in the (19)80s... JL (01:13:15): Well, but the law-and-order thing started with Nixon, and I think in the (19)68 election, it was certainly unfortunate that there was so much violence in the streets of Chicago at the Democratic Convention. And it certainly made it seem like the Democratic Party was the party of chaos and disorder. And Nixon campaigned very hard on a law-and-order platform, and we know the results. And so, Reagan was following up on Nixon. Nixon pioneered the law and order. SM (01:13:54): And also, could you describe the changes in the Civil Rights Movement? I think you put it beautifully in the book where you state in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, "we shall overcome" is the real moral, the singing "we shall overcome", and then we go to black and white together, and then we go to black power. So, would you say, just as you state in your book, those are the three shifts? JL (01:14:18): Yes, I would, yeah. SM (01:14:20): When was Black and white together? We all know that, I think, "we shall overcome" was probably up to (19)64, (19)65. JL (01:14:35): Well, "black and white together" was simply one of the versions of "we shall overcome". And so that as long as "we shall overcome" was being sung, "black and white together" was put off in the last verse of "we shall overcome". And so, they were both going on at the same time. Yeah. So "we should overcome", another important song that came out of Mississippi was "freedom is a constant struggle". But I mean, Black power, the chant was "what do you want? Black power. When do you want it? Now". And that certainly had its call, Larry, with the songs of Jim Morrison and The Doors, "we want the world, and we want it now". And so, there was certainly a shift from, I would say, the more patient and the approach that had more respect for political process being slow. And you certainly find that in the cadences of social overcome, which have a slow dignity to it, but then there is that need for immediate gratification that we find, and "what do you want? Black power. When do you want it? Now. And we want the world, and we want it now". And certainly, if I were to say, if there is one thing that characterizes boomers, the culture has inoculated them with the need for hints and gratification. SM (01:16:28): Yeah. Yeah. You just bring up, what would be the strengths and weaknesses of boomers, if you were to look at this? JL (01:16:36): Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear. I am really going to stay away from that completely. SM (01:16:42): Okay. All right. This is another quote. "It does not matter how many Ralph Bunche's, Jackie Robinson's and Martin Luther King's, the white man projects his models of what the meager should be. Blacks will always be more like Little John and Big Red". This was in 1968. How does it apply to 2011 when MLK Day happens, and Jackie Robinson's number 42 is now being recognized in all the baseball parks? Is this more about white men than Black men today? Explain in terms of (19)68 to 2011. JL (01:17:17): Oh boy, there is really no way to. SM (01:17:19): Is that really in a statement just at the times, the feelings, and you may have? JL (01:17:34): I mean, "Big Red" was written off next to us. And Malcolm X. And I do not remember who Little John was, but there is really no comparison between (19)68 and 2011. I mean, in 2011, you have, I do not know how many black millionaires, I mean, when I looked at professional basketball and pro football, I am looking at a bunch of millionaires playing a game, and majority of them are black, and the majority of them are not doing a damn thing with a million dollars to do anything for Black people. And so that what I said in (19)68, is in no way part of 2011. What we have in 2011, what we really have is so far away from the values articulated by King, the kinds of values that Jackie Robinson represented. We have Black athletes and entertainers now who are totally into the culture of conspicuous consumption and a narcissistic culture. And I think it is shameful and disgraceful. With millions that exist in the Black community now and they are spending it all on jewelry and cars and airplanes, and what have you, while people do not have places to live. And it is absolutely absurd. SM (01:19:11): You are so right on this. I wish you would write about this because I can think of one person who has done really good right now, and that is Magic Johnson, because I think Magic, even though he still has the glow of a rich man, he's given a lot back to his community. And that this is a man who understands where he came from in Lansing, Michigan, and he has never forgotten it. And I would also say Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is another person who has done unbelievable things. And of course, he is fighting cancer right now, but I would put those two that have done good things. But you are right on the majority. JL (01:19:47): Yeah. SM (01:19:55): And it is upsetting. The last quote I have here is just this one on number 19 here, "whenever a Black man asserts what wife try to put him down, but in the act of self-assertion is not a threat unless whites choose to make it so. Yet they always choose Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Adam Clayton Powell are only three examples of Black men that White America wanted lynched. What whites said to them was what has always been said to the Blacks, and you must think you as good as a white man", Stokely said. Now, just you still any comments on that. And then Silky said, hell, I am better. That is kind of Black pride. JL (01:20:39): Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, that phrase was, even when liberals said it, "you can be as good as a white person", was always kind of condescending. Given the record of white people, I would want to be better than white people when it comes to a lot of things. I do not know that I have any comment on that now. I do not know whether or not I would have to really speak think whether or not what I wrote then applies now. And that certainly, I mean, you do see it applying when a member of Congress tells the President of the United States when he is making the State of the Union address that you're lying. He would not have said that to a white president. And so that I think it may not be the general rule anymore, it certainly does still apply. And that certainly you would not have the number of- it is so odd that nobody challenged John McCain's citizenship, even though he was born in the Panama Canal, that Barack Obama's citizenship is still being disputed by a lot of people out there. And they simply would not do that if you were white. SM (01:22:17): I guess I had one more quote there, and then just in general, if anyone wonders why the anger of blacks is so often turned upon the white liberal is because, while professing to be a friend, the white liberal has generally turned out to be more white than liberal whenever blacks assert themselves. JL (01:22:34): Yeah. SM (01:22:35): Is that still true or was that (19)68? JL (01:22:38): Well, what is sadly true now is that when Kennedy died, the last liberal died. I do not see white liberals anymore. There is nobody, being from the state of Massachusetts, I certainly love Kennedy and miss Kennedy, because nobody spoke with the passion that he did about liberal causes, and there is nobody left, and that there are no white liberals anymore. SM (01:23:11): So that attack on the, remember there were several books out there, the L word. People were hiding from the L word. If they were hiding from the L word, then they were not really liberals. JL (01:23:21): They are not really liberals. SM (01:23:23): If you are proud to be a liberal, you stand up for being a liberal. And remember too, that in the (19)60s, the anti-war movement was against the liberal Johnson, as well as Richard Nixon. So, there was no liberal, conservative, did not matter. And then whites can never be accepted as allies with Blacks until they get rid of their arrogance, which leads them to think that they are greater authorities on Blacks and Blacks themselves until they stop going to the Daniel Moynihan or come to the ghetto and learn for themselves. Is that your direct relation to the Moynihan report? JL (01:23:57): That was in relationship to the Moynihan Report, but it is also just in general. The attitude certainly was, much more in the (19)60s, of the whites knew better than we did. And so, it was an attitude that said, well, you should go slow. You are trying to go too fast. And certainly, that was the attitude of the New York Times and a lot of the liberal journals of the time about the activities of the Civil Rights Movement. Slow down, be patient, what have you. Well, you know, you are not the ones being discriminated against. And whether or not, I certainly think that attitude has changed a lot, that as Black people, we have asserted our authority over our experience. And I think that for the most part, that is respected these days. So that quote would not apply as much now as it certainly did in 1968. SM (01:25:04): And then you also said something that I think is another. You have got some unbelievable quotes in here. "In Black culture. It is the experience that counts not what is said". That is a quote from you. JL (01:25:18): Yeah. I am not certain. Yeah. Well, I mean, you certainly have me at a disadvantage because you have read the book certainly far more recently than I have. SM (01:25:26): I almost memorized it. It is so good. I wish in graduate school. JL (01:25:35): I am certainly flattered. SM (01:25:35): Well, if I was a professor in graduate school right now, I would require students to read your book because, I am a higher education person, I believe they are not being taught anything about the history of higher education, about what happened back then. It is all about theory, and I am tired of it. JL (01:25:53): Yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah. Yeah. SM (01:25:53): Theory-theory, theory. And you got to know your history. And if you do not know your history and theory's only good until you get into the job, then you just simply, you have got to do your job. JL (01:26:05): Tell me about that. Yeah. SM (01:26:06): In your own words, could you define Black power? JL (01:26:16): Well, Black power was very simply the belief that Blacks could be in control of the institutions, of their communities, as well as be in control of the cultural and political definitions by which they are know. SM (01:26:46): You also mentioned in the book, and again, I have got you at a disadvantage because you have not referred to it in a while, but you also mentioned about Dr. King, that he did not "condemn black power outright, but sought to temper with love. It is important for the Negro to gain black power". But the term Black power is unfortunate because, this is Dr. King, "Black power's unfortunate because it gives the impression of black nationalism. We must never seek power exclusively for the Negro, but the sharing of power with white people". And this is Dr. King speaking again, and "any other courses exchanging one form of tyranny for another. Black supremacy would be equally as vile as white supremacy." Then you state "that is what white folks want, wanted to hear". All right. Those are Dr. King's thoughts. What are your thoughts on those thoughts? JL (01:27:35): Well, I would certainly, subsequent to that, to me in the (19)70s, I did write things in essential agreement with Dr. King. That certainly Black nationalism, as it evolved, was basically substituting the word black for the word white. It was simply white nationalism warmed over as it were. And so that essentially, there is no substantive difference between any kind of nationalism. Nationalism is always looking inward. It is always exclusionary. It is certainly, you know, you created them and an us kind of situation. And invariably you can have conflict. And so that now, I would certainly, well, as I did in the (19)70s. The (19)70s, I came much closer to agreeing with things King said than I did when he was alive. SM (01:28:42): A very important thing because you became a Jew at a certain point in your life, and you wrote another great book that I read quite a few years back on this, that you wrote. And what is interesting is, if you may recall on Sunday morning when Charles Kuralt was alive in the nineties, they had a whole program on Sunday morning looking at the history of the relationship between African Americans and Jewish Americans and how people were starting to forget that history as people were passing away. And so, a gentleman with a lot of money put together that conference down at the Carter Center. And so, the whole program was about interviews, and James Farmer was there. I know Rabbi Heschel's daughter was there looking at that historic relationship between the two groups because of the incident of Jesse Jackson and other events that were kind of splitting these groups. Young people may have thought they were historic enemies when in reality they were friends. Could you, in your own words, a person who, not only through your religion, but through your here history as an African-American, the important relationship between African-American is the Jewish Americans from the get-go in the Civil Rights Movement? JL (01:30:03): Well. SM (01:30:03): The partnership. JL (01:30:07): I am one of those who, since, from that point of view, I think that the extent the relationship between Blacks and Jews has always been exaggerated. It has been a relationship primarily between segments of the Jewish middle class and the Black middle class. It never was a relationship that involved the Black lower classes or the black working classes, nor the Jewish working classes. I mean, there were riots in Harlem in 1929 because Jewish storekeepers would not hire a Black person at stores. Same thing happened in Chicago in the 1930s. And so, I really think that it's such a distortion of the history of blacks and Jews, relations between black and Jews, and it paints a much more rosy picture of black-Jewish relationships than actually existed. Black anti-Semitism has always existed in the Black community, in black urban areas. And it came to the surface with Minister Farrakhan. Well, it came to the surface with Malcolm X and then with Minister Farrakhan in the 1980s. It was nothing new. It's been there all the time. So, I have also written about this. I just think the picture has been greatly, greatly distorted. The black Jewish connection was never as rosy as we have been led to think. SM (01:31:49): It is interesting because I interviewed David Garrow over at Princeton when he was here, and I mentioned that Rabbi Heschel was a very close friend of Dr. King and had a great influence. And he said, I am going to correct you on that. And he said, yeah, they were friends, but he did not have that great influence on Dr. King. And I was always under the assumption that Rabbi Heschel was one of the first people that persuaded King to give that speech in (19)67 on Vietnam. And he kind of, well, he did not say yes or no to that, but he kind of lessened the importance of that relationship. In your view, was Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King very close friends? JL (01:32:23): My sense is that they knew each other, and certainly Dr. King was going to go to Passover at Rabbi Heschel's home when he was killed that weekend. But I am fairly good friends with Susanna Heschel and Susanna never mentioned the name that her father and Dr. King were close friends. SM (01:32:51): Oh, okay. Could you talk a little bit about your WEIA radio days? A little bit about your WEIA radio days. JL (01:33:06): We are past 5:30. SM (01:33:08): Oh my god. We are. Okay. Could you have 10 more minutes? JL (01:33:14): 10 minutes, tops. SM (01:33:16): Okay then now I am not sure if I... Just briefly talk about how you became a radio disc jockey and what you did. JL (01:33:25): I was on, I had a show on BAI from 1968 to 1975. I basically got the show, those were my day as a focus singer and I had appeared on other shows in the radio station, and for whatever reason they liked me and began to offer me airtime substituting for people who were sick on vacation and what have you. I got my own show and basically it was a live show, two hours, and I would interview people on the air. For a while, the show was a place where Blacks could appear on the air without fear of being treated as a hostilely by an interviewer. The place where they come and express their views without any fear being condemned for those views. I would read the paper on the air, I would play music on the air. It was pretty much, what do I want to do? I really enjoyed the time I was on the air. I did Thursday evening show for a while and then I switched to a morning show, 7:00 to 9:00 in the morning and I really had a lot of fun when I was on the air. SM (01:34:45): Do you think that the boomer generation that has a problem with healing, that they will go to their graves like the Civil War generation, as a generation not truly healed from the tremendous divisions that tore apart the nation in their youth or young adults? JL (01:35:03): I have no idea. I have no idea. SM (01:35:04): The divisions between Black and white and? JL (01:35:06): And I have no idea. SM (01:35:09): Do you do not think see that? Well, I know that when Jan Scruggs wrote the book To a Heal Nation, he hoped that the Vietnam and Memorial would do that to help not only the veterans, but the generation itself. Have you been to the wall? JL (01:35:22): I have. I have. SM (01:35:26): What was your first reaction when you went to the wall and what was the impact? What were you thinking? Especially as a person who had been to Vietnam. JL (01:36:38): When I was in North Vietnam, I did not go to South Vietnam, but I was very moved by the wall itself and I was also very, very saddened by what a waste of lives. What the hell did those guys die for? They do not know. I do not know. And just one of all my classmates from college name is there, and it is like I was just saddened by the waste of the of lives. I do not know that we heal anything in this country as long as we do not take responsibility for what we have done and what we do. As a nation, we have not taken responsibility for the treatment of Native Americans. We have not taken responsibility for slavery. There are so many things that we have not taken that we have done that have been wrong and we have not taken responsibility for them. And until we do, I do not know that we can heal. SM (01:36:57): Yeah. When the historian’s kind of look at a period, it is usually about 50 to 75 years after an event happens. I know some of the best books now are being written on World War II and that is about 75 years. Well, 50 to 75 years after. What do you think historians and scholars will say about the boomer generation, the (19)60s, the movements, the period, the 65-year period between 46 and 2011, because boomers are turning 65 for the first time this year. What do you think they will say about this period and its impact on the nation? JL (01:37:40): Honestly, there is really no way I can respond to that. I mean, the changes that occur in the time period that you talk about are so extraordinary and so huge, and it is such a complex period and it's getting more complex. Honestly, do not know what they are going to say. I really, really do not. SM (01:38:17): And my last question is basically the last question on the last page is really about how important was music in the Black protest movement and the Black Power movements? I just got a list here of some of the people that I think were big during the period of the (19)50s, (19)60s and (19)70s. But as a musician yourself, and I know I think you performed with Pete Seeger. JL (01:38:42): Oh yeah, I did, yeah. SM (01:38:43): I mean, as an entertainer, really a person, you are an artist, you're a photographer, you are an entertainer and you are a great scholar, you're a professor, a teacher, an intellect. But how important was music on shaping the period? JL (01:38:58): Well, for music was certainly very, very, it is extremely important. Certainly, this Civil Rights Movement I do not think would have had the stuff it did without the music because the music certainly brought people together. A typical mass meeting, you sang for an hour or so and just singing melded together, people who were very afraid about going out on demonstration the next day. And the singing together certainly helped to helped them mitigate their fears as well as in jail situations, people singing it. Certainly, being able to sing, "I ain't afraid of your jail because I want my freedom," certainly was an expression of the spirit. And certainly, the spirit was one of, " You can put me in jail, but you cannot break my spirit." And so, the music was certainly important in the South and Civil Rights Movement. The music was certainly important when you come north and you have the protest song movement with Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton and people like that who were writing topical songs and protest songs. And then you go to groups like Country Joe and The Fish, and Jefferson Airplane and that whole era of rock music where the music was very, very politically oriented. And once again, the music was an expression of a different set of values. And then you find James Brown, I am Black and I am proud, and all kinds of things happening in Black popular music where once again, the music was much more an expression of values rather than Baby I love you and that kind of thing. And so, the music carries the 1960s. It is both an expression of the (19)60s as well as a source of energy and strength for the people who were actively involved. SM (01:41:30): As we end, you have been a teacher in the classroom all these years and then you were side by side with many of the students of the (19)60s. How have the students changed? What the students in the (19)60s and (19)70s were the students of say the (19)90s and today? JL (01:41:49): I retired in 2003 and I am no longer teaching, but certainly it was a great difference between the students of the (19)60s and (19)70s whose many of whose parents had been actively involved as opposed to the students of the (19)90s and into the decades of the new century. The present-day students are really through no fault of their own, are not politically involved. They are not that aware of what has happened or what happened in the past. And there are also a generation that at least as I knew them, resented being given responsibility and being held accountable for their behavior in the classroom. And I certainly could not fault them for being who they were, they were simply products of their parents and their teachers. But it certainly made it difficult for me as a teacher from a very-very different generation. SM (01:43:18): Yes. Well, geez, thank you very much. I really appreciate this, and you will see the transcript and I got your ones, the first three questions that you sent me and I am going to need two pictures of you. JL (01:43:31): Okay. SM (01:43:34): So, if you can email two, it could be a picture of you when you were younger or in your heyday or it could be a picture. I certainly want one current and you can mail those to me through email and I will be corresponding with you as in the summer because I am transcribing starting in end of March for about eight, nine months of hibernation of transcription. So, you will see your interview. JL (01:43:58): Okay. All right. Sounds good. SM (01:43:58): And I will tell you, it is an honor to talk to you. JL (01:44:00): Well thank you very-very much. Thank you very-very much. SM (01:44:03): And your students were so lucky to have you in the classroom. My goodness. JL (01:44:05): Well, thank you. I certainly enjoyed my years in the classroom. I did. SM (01:44:11): Well, you have a great day and thanks again. JL (01:44:13): You are very-very welcome and the same to you. SM (01:44:15): Yep. Bye. JL (01:44:15): Bye-Bye. Description 2 Microcassettes 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 Julius Lester Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lester, Julius ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Musicians; Political activists--United States; Lester, Julius--Interviews Description An account of the resource Julius Lester (1939 - 2018) was an author, educator, activist, and musician. His work primarily dealt with African-American culture, history, and folklore. Lester received a Bachelor's degree in English from Fisk University. Julius Lester (1939 - 2018) was an author, photographer, educator, activist, and musician. Lester was raised in the South and Midwest and received his undergraduate degree in English from Fisk University in 1960. In 1961 he joined SNCC and became their photographer documenting events like Freedom Summer in 1964, the Civil Rights Movement, and the U.S. atrocities in Vietnam during a trip to the country with other members of SNCC. His photography is well documented at the Smithsonian Institution and is part of a permanent collection at Howard University. After teaching for two years at the New School for Social Research, he joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1971 where he taught in the Afro-American Studies Department and the Judaic and Near Eastern Studies Department.  Since 1968, Lester published 25 books of fiction, non-fiction, children's books, and poetry.  His writings brought him much fame with numerous awards for both adult and children's books. 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 2011-03-02 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.10.2016.78a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.78b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 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. 213:05 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/251aa38a28237e1d23286755e1aef0e7.jpg 37444710e61ddb5fc3a64ff96bfda99f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e9c6c0e325fc164151439e56a37dfd7d.mp3 36e5623ab25c98ea26b8aee370c2f6cf 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 2011-03-03 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ernest G. (Ernest Gideon) Green, 1941- 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 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Ernest Green is a consultant, investment executive, and Civil Rights Leader. Green was one of the first black students to integrate at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, following the Supreme Court 1954 ruling to desegregate. Green graduated with a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Sociology from Michigan State University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:13311,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,4884200],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;9&quot;:0,&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Ernest Green is a consultant, investment executive, and Civil Rights Leader. Green was one of the first black students to integrate at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, following the Supreme Court 1954 ruling to desegregate. Green graduated with a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Sociology from Michigan State University.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;NAACP; Little Rock Nine; Vietnam War; Jimmy Carter; Civil Rights Movement; Baby boom generation.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">NAACP; Little Rock Nine; Vietnam War; Jimmy Carter; Civil Rights Movement; Baby boom generation.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 109:21 Subject LCSH Civil rights workers; Consultants; Investment advisors; Central High School (Little Rock, Ark.)--History; School integration--Arkansas--Little Rock--History--20th century; Green, Ernest G. (Ernest Gideon), 1941--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>. 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. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Ernest Green Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 3 March 2011 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): Testing one, two- EG (00:00:18): A downtown department store. And it was one of those hot days in Little Rock in the summer. And I went to the water fountain. I went to the water fountain for whites rather than the one for blacks. And I think the one for blacks was in the basement of the building and all of that. And I always thought of the person who admonished me for drinking out of the white water fountain seemed like a giant ogre who came out of the sky, removed me from the water fountain. It was the drinking of the water fountain that my first indication that there was something different between black and white folks. And about... Hang on a minute please. SM (00:01:25): Mm-hmm. EG (00:01:25): So that really was my first indication of being black in the South and during the 1940s and early 1950s. SM (00:01:34): How old were you when that experience happened? EG (00:01:43): I think I was six or seven years old. SM (00:01:43): Wow. When you had that experience, did you go home with your mom and did you have to talk? Did you have a discussion with her about what was going on because you were so young? EG (00:01:53): Well, I think at the time there was probably some attempt to rationalize it, but it did not make sense then or now. And that is one of those things that sticks with you, that there is a feeling of being unfair and that somehow, we had to change it. That is probably what I thought at that point in time, that this was something that did not make sense and a series of adult decisions that I would change if I were in charge. SM (00:02:38): Who were your greatest influences through your high school? This is before you went to Little Rock now for your senior year. Who were your greatest influences through your schooling up to that point? And secondly, give me some background information on your family, your grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters during that time frame. EG (00:02:59): Well, the greatest influences would be my mother, my aunt, my grandfather. My dad passed when I was 13. And my mother and aunt were school teachers. My aunt was the dean of girls at the local high school. My mother taught home economics at the high school. And then she stopped teaching when my brother and I were born, and she went back to teaching after about, I think three years after my brother was three years old as an elementary school teacher in the Little Rock school system. But she and my aunt taught school for over 40 years in the Little Rock system. SM (00:04:02): Did they teach in segregated schools or inte- EG (00:04:04): They taught in segregated schools. And they really were. But my grandfather was a retired letter carrier. They all were my biggest influences in high school, Horace Mann, which was the segregated high school. And there were teachers along the way since black school teachers were a fairly small lot, they all knew each other. And my mother and aunt it turned out were part of a group of teachers that supported a court case. There was a black teacher who challenged the school board on equal pay between white and black teachers. And that was in the 1940s when I was very young. But during that challenge, my mother and a group of the other teachers helped support the teacher who was bringing the court suit because she was fired immediately when she put the court suit forward. Obviously, once she was fired from teaching, she had no way of supporting herself while the case was going through litigation. So they were part of a group of teachers that helped provide for her pay and compensation. And since they did not make much money, I am certain that this was a real struggle to try to make certain that she had coverage. But the other part of that was that the lawyer that handled the case for the NAACP was Thurgood Marshall. And he stayed at our house for a number of times. This was before obviously hotels were open. And I was always amazed that my mother as a school teacher was able or willing to step forward and played this kind of role. Because you would not consider her a revolutionist. But she was one quietly in her own way and was an advocate for change. SM (00:07:06): When Thurgood was down there in the South, was Jack Greenberg with him? Because he traveled with them a lot? EG (00:07:12): I do not think, as far as I know, I do not think Greenberg was traveling with him. SM (00:07:19): Right. EG (00:07:20): But the more I read, the school equity cases were really forerunners for many of the school desegregation. SM (00:07:33): Yes. Wow. What an experience having Thurgood there at your home. In my readings, education was a very important in your family, it is very obvious from the experiences of your being teachers and so forth and the emphasis on education. And obviously they had a strong sense for what was right and wrong in our society, particularly in the South, which all played an important role in your courageous effort to attend Little Rock High School. Was that all a part of it? The reason why you- EG (00:08:10): Well, I mean, it was always my choice. I came home in the spring of (19)57 when the school board announced they were going to accept transfer students from Horace Mann to Central. And I wanted to apply and be considered to transfer. And I did not pay a lot of attention to the selection process of how the school board went through it. I mean, it is still to this day it is somewhat of a mystery to me. Obviously, they paid attention to their grades and I am sure some background and all of that and participation in events in school. But after they did all that, they would not allow us, the black students, to participate in any of the extracurricular activity. I am not sure why they chose people who were involved in the school and then turn around and block all of that. SM (00:09:32): So when you got to Little Rock, you just went to classes basically? EG (00:09:36): Well, as it turned out, that is all you could do. SM (00:09:38): You could not play sports, join the band, the chorus or any of those? EG (00:09:42): The band, the choir, sports you could not do anything. You had to just attend the classes. And I suppose this was their punishment for if you were going to be there, they were going to make it not the world's most pleasant situation. But the other thing, or one other fact about my mother. My mother received her masters from the University of Arkansas. They had a program that they ran on the weekends, a satellite affair in Little Rock. I think this was a response to a requirement to open up the university. And probably the expense side of having people to go all the way up to Fayetteville from Little Rock, which was quite a jaunt. And if they were working as teachers, that would have been quite difficult. But anyway, she received her master's from the University of Arkansas. And I do not know whether indirectly or directly they advised her or not to come up to the campus for the ceremony that they were not inviting she and the other black teachers that participated in this. Anyway- SM (00:11:13): What year was this? EG (00:11:14): This would be 1951. SM (00:11:16): Oh my gosh. EG (00:11:17): And it turned out that when they had sent her-her diploma, she was very upset about it and threw the letter in the trash that indicated that they would prefer her not coming to the campus. Did not invite her. Anyway, long story short, my sister has been following this for the last 60 years. And she wrote the Chancellor at the university this year. And the university is going to do a special commendation of my mother's diploma at graduation this spring. SM (00:12:05): Wow. That is, wow. EG (00:12:06): And we are all going up to participate in it and receive her diploma 60 years later as the member of the class of 1951. SM (00:12:22): Yeah. Just from hearing your voice, you must be so proud of your mom. EG (00:12:26): Oh yeah. SM (00:12:28): Oh my gosh. And you got to be proud of your sister for the persistence in doing this. EG (00:12:34): I am very-very proud of my sister and my mother. This was quite an achievement and the fact that she stayed with it for all this time. And then secondly, recognition. And I am sure this will be while they will be recognizing my mother, it will be recognizing a whole series of other teachers and graduate students who did not get there too. SM (00:13:02): You know what, Ernie, this will be an interesting parallel here. It would be nice if President Obama would come, just come unannounced just like Dr. King came unannounced to your graduation and just with no fanfare, just sat with a family. Would not that be nice? EG (00:13:20): Well, we- SM (00:13:23): I know it was a little more with the President, but still, I mean. EG (00:13:24): That would be a great touch. But he travels with a few people. SM (00:13:38): I know. That would shock them. I am going to get the into that, but could you explain a little bit more about the schooling prior to Little Rock? Because I know you were in what, Horace Mann school and then you were in another school for a while. EG (00:13:50): Well, there were two schools. Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School was the black High School in Little Rock for a very long time. And then right after the (19)54 decision, the Little Rock School Board built a new high school, Horace Mann. I say tongue in cheek, but it is probably true that there were more new schools built for black people in the South after the Brown decision than at any point in time in the history of this country. And all of it was done to try to thwart, I am sure black interest in going to the formally all white schools. But Horace Mann and Dunbar were regarded as premier high schools. And in many ways, I always said it was the quality of the teachers that these two institutions had. And coming out of a family of teachers, you had an opportunity to recognize exceptional teachers. In fact, now there is this one course that I took my 11th year at Horace Mann. It was Negro History at that time. And it was Carter G. Wilson's book that we studied. And the teacher who taught the course, I always said that Little Rock School Board had no idea what this woman was teaching us. But we studied slave insurrections and the protest movement, the beginning of the NAACP and all of a series of things that taught me that the black community was challenging this old system a long time. It was not something that was being accepted. And it may have helped reinforce in my mind that challenging the court decision was an important piece. SM (00:16:28): Yeah. Learning about probably Walter White- EG (00:16:31): And Roy Wilson. SM (00:16:33): ...learning about W.B. Royce and- EG (00:16:33): Right. SM (00:16:35): ...and Marcus Garvey and a lot of different people. EG (00:16:38): Yeah. We had quite an array of individuals that we spent time having to know about. SM (00:16:52): Three events that made national news before you went to Little Rock in (19)57 really were major events in the nation at this particular time. I have interviewed some people up from the media and the media portrays things when they were popular. When they are not, they kind of hide them. But certainly the Brown versus Board of Education decision of (19)54, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of (19)57, and then of course the Emmett Till murder, I believe that was (19)56. Those three events were major. Did they have an influence on you? EG (00:17:27): Absolutely [inaudible]. SM (00:17:30): All three of them in terms of wanting to go to Little Rock? EG (00:17:34): Well, the Brown decision, I was 12, 13 when that was handed down and as I am junior high school. I paid attention to it because the local newspaper had huge, bold headlines that I had never seen any that big. And they said that this was going to change the Old South. And I thought, well, the Old South was not for me. And I was ready for a change. And if this was one of the things that was going to change it, I am in favor of the decision. And then the Till murder, I was impacted by the picture that appeared in Jet Magazine of the disfigured body. And then just the recounting of how he had been treated and mangled and thrown in the river with the weights and all of that. And then the Montgomery Bus Boycott, I was a bit older and I was just really impressed by the fact that these individuals in Montgomery could take on the whole structure with an alternative transportation system. I knew who Rosa Parks was and I was beginning to pay attention to Dr. King. But the main thing about the Montgomery Bus Boycott that struck me was that ordinary citizens in Montgomery had decided to band together to create this alternative transportation as long as it was segregated. And I just connected with that because the rule in Little Rock was that if the bus became crowded and black people had to get up and move further to the back to give up their seat to someone white. And I just, that did not make sense then. It does not make sense now for me. And I thought that the Montgomery response was what we needed to have happen throughout the entire South. SM (00:20:06): What is interesting is when you look at the history of the church in Montgomery, where Dr. King took over after Pastor Johns left. When Pastor Johns was kind of pressured to leave because they thought he was kind of a rabble rouser. And then Dr. King comes in and within a short period of time, he is thrust into activism as well. You probably remember the scene in the movie where Dr. King finally, there is a movie made of this where Dr. King finally makes some comments in the church and the eyes were rolling around, "Oh, no. Not again." EG (00:20:40): No. Well, maybe part of that was knowing the level of conservatism by some people in Little Rock if that were to happen. That they would be quite upset or felt that you were rocking the boat and that this was a challenge that they did not need. SM (00:21:09): I know the NAACP was responsible for picking the nine students for Little Rock. And I know you are still, you mentioned earlier that there is still a question of understanding how this came about. But from my readings, is that your grades were excellent and that was definitely a criteria. And also the fact that school attendance was very important. Those were two criteria that were used in picking the nine students. The question I am asking is how did the NAACP approach your parents on this? EG (00:21:43): Well, I think it is a slight misnomer. There were more than nine that had been approved by the school board. And many of the others decided not to go forward. The number's somewhere around 20, 25 students that were picked. And that the thing that binds the nine of us together is that we all had somebody in our families who supported our desire to go to Central High School. I think most of us saw it as an opportunity to get the best high school education that the city had to offer. That there were more courses, more range of science labs and other things that we did not have at Horace Mann and Dunbar. And for that reason, in the initial students that they had, what the first court suit suing the Little Rock School Board, none of them got picked to participate. We were, I do not know the word self-appointed, but all of us decided individually that we wanted to transfer, wanted to transfer for as I said, a better educational format. And the other portion of that that I think made us all somewhat different was that we each had parent of parents or some adult who thought that the decision we were making was the right decision. SM (00:23:44): Yeah. The person you worked with there I believe was Daisy Bates. EG (00:23:47): Was Daisy Bates, absolutely. SM (00:23:48): Yeah. And I have read her biography quite a few years ago. I have a first edition of her biography, which is actually- EG (00:23:54): She was quite a lady. And she and her husband owned the black weekly newspaper, the Arkansas State Press. SM (00:24:03): What became of it? EG (00:24:04): Not only was she president of NAACP, but she was also publisher and editor of this weekly paper. And it was really the frontal engine that kept up with all of the changes going on in terms of race and race relations. SM (00:24:30): I know her life was threatened many times. Did you know any of the other eight before they came to Little Rock? Did you know them? EG (00:24:39): Yeah. Well we, let us see. Two of the eight, we went to the same church. Jefferson Thomas lived a half a block from me. I knew Terrence Robert's sister. Yeah, Little Rock was still small enough that, except for me, the students that were going into the 10th grade, I really did not know them because they were in high school. SM (00:25:12): Yes. EG (00:25:14): Two grades is a world of difference. But we either knew the family, knew a brother or sister, had some relationship so that most of the nine I knew of or knew somebody in that family. SM (00:25:32): Well, your career is well known to the nation, and I think Melba has written about her background too. But the other seven, what became of these other individuals? What became of Elizabeth Eckford? EG (00:25:44): Well, Elizabeth is living in Little Rock now. She is retired and we were all together just a few weeks ago in Little Rock. Jefferson Thomas, as you may not know, died this past fall. He had been quite ill. Terrence Roberts is a psychology professor. He has written a book. He is retired and doing lecturing. Carlota Walls Lanier has also written a book and she is doing lecturing and she who is in real estate out in Colorado. Minijean Brown-Trickey, is living back in Little Rock, also educator and doing some lecturing. Thelma Mothershed-Wair is in Little Rock and retired teacher. I think I have covered. Gloria Karlmark, Gloria Ray Karlmark is living in Sweden. SM (00:27:06): Wow. EG (00:27:06): And she has been living over there for 40 years or better. She has family there and she gets back occasionally. She was with us a couple weekends ago down in Little Rock for a special recognition on the part of the Benton Library. SM (00:27:30): And how about Melba? EG (00:27:32): Melba is a college professor in the bay area in California somewhere near San Francisco. And as you said, has written a book and is doing well. SM (00:27:51): During all these years, you have stayed in touch with each other over times? Even when you went off to Michigan State as an undergraduate student, did you often hear from these- SM (00:28:03): ...State as an undergraduate student, did you often hear from these younger ones what they were still going through in Arkansas? EG (00:28:08): We stayed in touch. We have been more in touch in the last 20 years than we were in the beginning because we were all developing our careers, going to college, building families, all of that. But in the last 20 to 30 years, we have had these 10th year anniversaries. We have had creation of this foundation that we have, and we have made an attempt, and with the internet, it is easier to stay in touch as some years ago so we have fairly well-connected. SM (00:28:56): Oh, yes. All of you knew the dangers and the potential threats, the possible harm. What were you and your family thinking leading up to the first day of school? EG (00:29:07): Well, leading up to the first day of school, I thought that it would be relatively quiet. I mean, until the governor said he was calling out the National Guard, we thought that the desegregation would be reasonably accepted. The reason for that is that Little Rock saw itself as a moderate city. They were very early in the aftermath of the (19)54 decision. The buses had desegregated quietly. The library had accepted Blacks. The med school, the law school had all had a few Black students. So we anticipated that things were going to be fairly quiet. SM (00:30:02): What is interesting is when you look at the South at that time, the Democratic Party was in charge of the south. EG (00:30:09): I remember it was. SM (00:30:10): A lot of things that President Kennedy did early on, even when he was running for president and then when he became president, he was a very pragmatic politician. He did not want to lose the votes in the South, so a lot of the issues linked to President Kennedy and his real interest in helping in the civil rights area is in question because he was a pragmatic politician. The question is whether a lot of the things he did was for moral reasons or political reasons. Do you have any thoughts on that? EG (00:30:41): Well, I remember fairly vividly that when I was in college, we always had lots of discussions about where the Kennedys were in terms of civil rights. I think whether it was his heart or the pragmatism of day-to-day politics, I was more interested in the outcome. I believe he was a reluctant participant, but the same could be said about Eisenhower. SM (00:31:18): Yes. EG (00:31:19): He was also a reluctant participant, but unintended consequences that I think also gave a real shot of energy to the civil rights movement was his sending the troops to Little Rock. SM (00:31:32): Yes. September 24th. EG (00:31:34): And that made a real big difference. I think for the first time the African American community saw that the government was willing to stand up for what was right. To me, that was a big boost in many of these communities to push the agenda forward. SM (00:31:57): I think originally, we were supposed to start school around September 4th. EG (00:32:00): Yeah. SM (00:32:02): Yeah. And then I think you started it really on September 25th. What was going on in that two weeks? Were you still studying? EG (00:32:09): We were studying. We had tutors. We had support. We had interviews, had press and all of that. But the main thing I was interested in keeping up with my classwork because I was the graduating senior of the group, and I wanted to make sure I could graduate that year. SM (00:32:34): These next few questions are centered on your experience during that year. Could you describe that year using different anecdotes and stories about everyday life for you and your eight peers? EG (00:32:48): Well, you could divide it into two categories. When the troops were there, our life was fairly quiet and minimal problems. There may have been some words passed. But when the troops were pulled out of the school, that is when the level of harassment began to rise. We had physical altercations. Really, it was, I said, akin to go into the battle every day. SM (00:33:27): Wow. How long were the troops there to protect all nine of you? EG (00:33:34): Well, they were inside the classes until right around Thanksgiving they were removed from inside the classes. So we had pretty much until November that we were able to be on our own. SM (00:34:06): How did the principal and the teachers treat you, particularly the white teachers? EG (00:34:19): Well, most of the teachers were probably somewhere in a neutral zone trying not to be seen as partisan on either side. Then there were a few who were very supportive and wanted to make certain that we had a positive experience. Then there were a few who were openly hostile to our being there and were not shy about letting us know it. SM (00:34:54): Yeah. I read someplace that if any of the nine ever did something wrong, you were severely punished. And if whites did things that were pretty bad, nothing would happen to them, or at least they had to have a witness to their- EG (00:35:17): That was an imposition of a rule that the school authorities imposed on us. But I think one was the nine of us figured out how, as well as we could, to survive that year and be protective of each other. So we are a pretty tightly-knit group of people. More importantly, that you tried as best you could to ignore what you could and what you could not, you had to deal with it. So I mean, it was clear that there were more pleasant ways to go to school than what we went through. But for me, for myself, I felt that the satisfaction of leaving there was going to be too great for me to give in, and that if I wanted to punish my tormentors, my best deal was to stick it out and graduate from Central High School. SM (00:36:31): Right. Because sometimes it is a lesson of life, if you let people know that you are real upset, you are letting them win. EG (00:36:40): That we learned early. SM (00:36:44): Also, I am not sure if Daisy tried to do anything with respect to the fact when she found out that you were not allowed to be involved in any activities of any kind. I am a student development person, and I believe that all students should be able to have life not only in the class, but in outside activities. Was there ever any thoughts on the part of the NAACP locally via Daisy Bates to challenge you are not being- EG (00:37:11): Well, they challenged that in the beginning, but that was a rule that the school board handed down. I assumed at the time the attitude was, if you do not want this, then we are not going to accept you at as part of the transfer of students. SM (00:37:29): Did you make any friends with the white students, and was there pressure on white students that if they became friends with you, that sure they would be pressured? EG (00:37:38): Big pressure on them that if they befriended us, that they were going to be ostracized. SM (00:37:49): Geez. EG (00:37:49): Called nigger lovers. In some cases, their parents' businesses were threatened and all of that. So yeah, I mean, it was a reign of terror that got handed down by the segregationists to try to enforce an attitude of isolation towards us. SM (00:38:14): See, I think it is important, a lot of our today's students, both Black and white, do not know our history and assume that the battles that went took place in the (19)40s, (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, that is old history, it does not apply to today. Yet my commentary here is that teenagers have all kinds of pressures in their lives, most try to fit in. But even today, we know that bullying is one of the major issues that is affecting a lot of students in schools because for some reason, because children are children, look at people who are different and they treat them differently. Yet in Little Rock, you had the added dimension of extreme dislike based on race, and you still had all the other things that teenagers were going through. EG (00:39:01): Right. Well, I think you are absolutely right. Anyways, all these peer pressures and attempts to keep students from recognizing their full potential, it is an area that we have to continue to fight against. SM (00:39:27): I read also in this story when graduation was near, it is my understanding of the principal offered to send you your degree in the mail, too. EG (00:39:40): Yeah. Well, that was a non-starter. SM (00:39:42): Yeah. Explain that. How he approached you. EG (00:39:44): Well, his approach was that I would be happier without having to go through. SM (00:39:55): I am losing you. EG (00:39:56): Oh. That I would be happier without having to go through the ceremony and that they would mail me my diploma. I just said that was out of the question. I planned to be there for the ceremony and regarded that as an important part of receiving my diploma, so I quickly dismissed that. SM (00:40:24): What was it like being at the graduation? I saw a picture on the web of you standing outside, and how some of the other students are out there too, just before your graduation, and- EG (00:40:37): Well, for me, it was a great feeling of accomplishment that year that I had not only endured that, but been able to navigate it and that I was getting on with my life to the next step, going on to college. I felt that receiving that diploma I had accomplished something for myself and for other Black youngsters in Little Rock that would come behind me. SM (00:41:18): When you went up and the principal handed you your degree, obviously your parents and your supporters were very pleased and clapping, but were there any cat calls? Were there any negative thoughts? EG (00:41:31): If there were cat calls, I clearly blocked them out and it did not resonate with me. But my memory was, it was pretty eerie silence except for my immediate family. I felt I did not need a large audience to tell me what I had accomplished, and that I was pretty pleased with myself and felt that this was the first step in moving my life along. SM (00:42:09): How many were in your graduating class? EG (00:42:12): There was 600-plus graduating. SM (00:42:12): That is a big school. EG (00:42:13): Yeah. It was a big class. There were a couple of thousand students at Central. SM (00:42:21): You mentioned earlier, was there a feeling during the year by you and your peers that you must succeed in the classroom because other young African- Americans were looking to you as role models? EG (00:42:33): I think of the nine, there were much stronger students than myself, but education was such a big chunk for each of us, and we were competitive people, so we were going to be achievers in that just because we saw a school as a place where you tried to do as well as you could. And that was our history, whether we were at the Black school or the white school. SM (00:43:06): Governor Faubus, every time I have seen him on YouTube, he bugs me. I just do not like him. I never liked him. But just the way he talks, the way he looks, everything. What did that man, what did he symbolize to you? EG (00:43:26): Well, he symbolized the old segregationists, and that was what we were changing and driving out. I mean, I did not meet Faubus until later in life, but during that year, I did not have any contact with him. SM (00:43:48): Did he ever change? EG (00:43:48): Well, he said he did. Yeah. He and Wallace, and a number of the segregationists said they changed. I mean, Faubus came from a very progressive background back. In fact, my mother voted for Faubus when he first ran for governor. He really decided that he was going to play his race card to ensure that he would get reelected I guess. SM (00:44:20): When Wallace stood before the schoolhouse door, James Meredith was going in the back way. I mean, it seems so fake because you do things for moral reasons, not for political reasons, and it looks like even Wallace did it for publicity. EG (00:44:39): Well, these guys were all politicians extraordinaire. SM (00:44:43): Dr. King came to your graduation. What an honor. He sat with your parents. Did you know that he was coming or did he just come unannounced? EG (00:44:54): Well, I did not know he was coming. He had been speaking at a college about 45 miles from Little Rock, and he was close. He was in touch with Mrs. Bates. I did not know he was sitting with my family until the end of the ceremony. But it is quite an honor as something that obviously looking back on it, really makes a great exclamation point for my graduation. SM (00:45:36): Here you are 18 years old, and you are meeting Dr. King? EG (00:45:39): I am 16. SM (00:45:40): Oh, you were 16. Well, you graduated very young, but you- EG (00:45:48): I turned 17 in September. SM (00:45:49): Wow. What did Dr. King say to you and you to him? Did you have a chance to talk? EG (00:45:57): I, Steven, have to point out that I was 16, graduating from high school. After we said the pleasantries and said hello to each other, then thank you for coming out, I was more focused on going to my graduation party than recognizing the historic moment of King speaking at my graduation. SM (00:46:25): Right. I was wondering what the people that were in that audience must have known it was Dr. King. EG (00:46:32): This was early on in Dr. King's career, and that could have been a large number of people who did not know who he was. That was just another Black male there that. It is impossible to think that Martin Luther King could have been anywhere without the world knowing who he was, but this was really before his real ascendancy and into super fame that we know now. SM (00:47:10): It is interesting you say that because I interviewed Julius Lester earlier in the week, and Julius was talking about Malcolm X, and he said Malcolm X was not a very well-known person during his life, but after his death- EG (00:47:24): In fact, I went to school with Malcolm's brother. He was in college with me, Bob Little, because Malcolm spent part of his time at Lansing, Michigan before he came to New York. We were part of a generation of people that all the luminaries now and all the stardom, they were just ordinary people and did not have the fame and attention that they have now. SM (00:48:00): You went off to Michigan State University, which everybody knows is Magic Johnson's University. But the Magic came much later, but- EG (00:48:11): He came after I did. SM (00:48:13): And Michigan had a great football team too, during Bubba Smith. And I know- EG (00:48:18): Bubba was... I was there during the Herb Adderley era. SM (00:48:23): Oh, the great football players coming out of there. Hall of Famers. EG (00:48:27): Right. SM (00:48:27): I think Carl Banks came out of there too. But you went to Michigan State University and received both of your Bachelor's and Master's in (19)62 and (19)64? EG (00:48:35): Yes. SM (00:48:37): Why did you pick a Big 10 school? EG (00:48:40): Well, I got a scholarship to Michigan State, and I suspect that a big part of the reason I got the scholarship hopefully, was because I was an outstanding student, but also the president of Michigan State John Hannah was chairman of Eisenhower's Civil Rights Commission. I believe that had something else to do with it as well. So I mean, it was a great fit for me. It has been a tremendous experience. I have maintained great friendships from that Michigan State experience, and I am a proud Spartan. I bleed green and white. SM (00:49:27): Well, I am a Buckeye, so we are adversaries there, Ernie. But in sports, they had great football teams. They had some great basketball teams too. But at this stage in your life, as you are heading off and getting your degree, did you know when you went to Michigan State what you wanted to become? EG (00:49:50): No, I was interested in exploring a wide range of opportunities. Well, I thought I was going to maybe become a lawyer. I looked at pre-law as an area, but when I got to State, School of Labor Industrial Relations was something that I paid attention to. I had a series of summer jobs in New York with a number of labor unions. The Ladies Garment Workers Union, and every summer I came back and forth. I ended up working in New York for the summer. So it was the widening of those experiences at Michigan State that really allowed me to figure out some new things. SM (00:50:49): You had a lot more freedom there too, because could not get involved in student life at Little Rock but at Michigan State, you can get involved in everything. What was student life like during those six years? EG (00:51:03): Well, I was an active student. I was involved in student government. I chaired the campus NAACP for a couple years, the political organization, the Young Dems. So I was pretty active. SM (00:51:19): You were in a fraternity too, were not you? EG (00:51:20): I was Omega Psi Phi. SM (00:51:23): Oh yeah. We got that at Westchester. EG (00:51:25): Charter member of the fraternity. SM (00:51:29): See if we had known that when you came to Westchester University, we have a process now that anybody who was involved in an African American fraternity is honored. EG (00:51:41): Ah, all right. Well- SM (00:51:42): And we should have done that when you were here. EG (00:51:47): Well, no, in fact, I am going back this fall for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the fraternity. SM (00:51:55): Oh my gosh. Where was it founded? EG (00:52:01): Well, I mean, the chapter that we had at Michigan State is 50 years. The fraternity itself is 100 years this year. It was founded at Howard University. SM (00:52:12): Okay, very good. Were there protests going on during the time you were there? Because you are talking about... I guess the protest really started later on, but that Freedom Summer was happening and yeah. EG (00:52:27): Yeah. I mean, my opinion as head of the NAA, we were protesting lunch counters at Kresges and Woolworths and sit in, and then of course a little bit later the Vietnam War. SM (00:52:47): Hmm. EG (00:52:48): Yeah. SM (00:52:49): Did you bring anybody to the university to speak, or what speakers came to your school when you were there? EG (00:52:55): Well, one of the speakers that we brought was Malcolm X. SM (00:52:59): Oh, wow. EG (00:53:00): I was president of the NAACP and the African Students Union, we co-sponsored Malcolm speaking to the university. SM (00:53:16): What was the turnout? Pretty big? EG (00:53:18): It was huge. It was overflow. SM (00:53:21): And what did the president of the university think when he was coming? EG (00:53:25): Well, freedom of speech. He may have thought that it was not something he wanted, but he certainly allowed it to occur. SM (00:53:39): Yeah. Was he talking about by any means necessary at that time? EG (00:53:44): Yes, of course. Yeah. SM (00:53:44): And challenging Dr. King, and admired Rustin and the whole thinking of nonviolence. EG (00:53:52): No, he was challenging nonviolence and the Civil Rights Movement and a whole series of things. SM (00:53:58): Wow. Any other speakers? EG (00:54:07): I cannot think of any other national speakers that we had. SM (00:54:15): What did you learn from your college years that you did not know from your experience at Little Rock? EG (00:54:22): Well, I think the one major thing was the set of relationships and how they have been helpful to me throughout my life, and many of them people that you would not ordinarily have struck up a friendship or a relationship with. I learned from my Michigan State experience to try and be as broad as you could in getting to know people. SM (00:54:56): How many African American students were at Michigan State at that time? EG (00:55:00): I think between graduate and undergraduate, probably about 300, 350. SM (00:55:05): And that is a campus of over 30,000, I think. EG (00:55:09): Yeah. SM (00:55:11): 38 I think it is right now or 40, somewhere around there. Was it a bike campus when you were there? EG (00:55:17): To a certain degree. I mean, the weather was so cold. I think bikes were probably one way of getting around. This was before buses and all, because the period of time that I went, they were just trying to figure out how to become student friendly. Most Big 10 campuses had to work at that pretty hard. SM (00:55:47): Yeah. I know now that they call the biggest bike campus in America, they have more bikes there than any other college campus. My only experience with Michigan State was when I went there in the summer of (19)71 to visit a friend of one of my... SM (00:56:03): ... the summer of (19)71 to visit a friend of a friend of one of my graduate school friends from Ohio State, and we were stopped at the entrance because they thought we were coming to create protest. They were very suspicious of us because we had out-of-state license plates. That was back in (19)71. EG (00:56:16): Well, they probably had a jaundiced eye about outsiders. Yeah. SM (00:56:25): Yeah. Now we are getting into your work life. I know that from (19)68 to (19)77 you worked for the A Philip Randolph Fund. What did the work entail, and was this the time that you really got to know A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin? EG (00:56:42): This was. This was the time of the apprenticeship program that I was the director of and had an opportunity to work with Bayard and to work with Mr. Randolph. SM (00:57:06): Now... EG (00:57:06): Well, this was also the effort on the part of the Randolph Institute to [inaudible] young African Americans into the Building Trades apprenticeship program. SM (00:57:21): And for a pretty young person, you were given some heavy responsibility then? EG (00:57:26): Yes. Well, and Bayard and Mr. Randolph encouraged that. They were big supporters of making certain that we had an opportunity to show our talent, show what we could do. SM (00:57:45): What is interesting is you remember this, Ernie, from the conference we had 10, going on 11 years ago now, I cannot believe. But one of the things that came out of it is the influence that Bayard Rustin had on so many young people in terms of being a role model, a mentor, and a believer. And I can remember someone at the conference saying that they once sat down, and they could come up with about 2,500 names of people that had been influenced by Bayard Rustin. He somehow really attracted people, did not he, with his ability to delegate and have faith in young people. EG (00:58:23): Yeah. No question about it. He was superb at that. SM (00:58:28): What was the relationship between Bayard Rustin and A Philip Randolph? Because I have always perceived that he kind of looked at his Randolph as a father figure almost. EG (00:58:36): Well, it was, that Mr. Randolph was someone that Bayard was... I am not aware of the full relationship, but that he admired Mr. Randolph immensely, and not only a father figure but probably closer to deity as you could get. SM (00:59:05): When you look at these two figures that I think need... Obviously, in Westchester now, there is greater recognition because the high school... I remember I kept you up to date on that. EG (00:59:15): Right. SM (00:59:16): And they got to make sure here... We got to always watch the school board here because there is always the possibility they may try to change it again. You cannot trust anybody here. But when you look at A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, what were the qualities that they possessed? These are things that I look at in leadership of, intelligence. EG (00:59:35): Well, I think the major quality was that these really are individuals who could see the future, and whether it was the protest activity, the Freedom Rides that Bayard did in the (19)40s, the first proposed March on Washington that Randolph had, going back to World War II. SM (01:00:00): (19)41, yep. EG (01:00:00): Yeah. The other marches and protests that they had before the (19)63 march. These are people who really could have a vision of who we are in a few years. SM (01:00:18): Could you hold that right there? I have to switch my tape here. Hold on one second. How is the weather down there? EG (01:00:25): ... problem. I am going to have to- SM (01:00:25): I guess we will- EG (01:00:25): I am going to have to leave in about five minutes. SM (01:00:32): Oh really? I got 30 more minutes, here. Oh, boy. EG (01:00:35): Can we call back? Can I call you- SM (01:00:38): Yes. EG (01:00:39): ... later on tonight or tomorrow? SM (01:00:41): Yep, sure thing. Yep. We can do it later tonight. I will get up a couple more questions in here, then we can finish it tonight. EG (01:00:47): Okay. Why do not we do that? And I can reach you on the (610) 436... SM (01:00:51): 9364. EG (01:00:53): 93, okay. SM (01:00:57): Do you want to stop now or just... EG (01:00:58): Yeah. I think this would be a good time for me to break, and then I will call you back. We will finish up this evening. SM (01:01:06): What time do you want to call? 8:00? EG (01:01:13): How is 8:30? SM (01:01:13): 8:30s fine. EG (01:01:15): Okay. SM (01:01:16): Thanks. EG (01:01:17): I will call you at 8:30. SM (01:01:17): Yep. Thanks, Ernie. Bye. EG (01:01:18): Thanks, bye. SM (01:01:22): Thanks for calling me back. The last question we were talking about was your impressions of A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. The March on Washington in 1963 took place when you were at Michigan State. Did you go to that event? EG (01:01:40): I did, and I drove all night, drove from Lansing to Washington. And we arrived the morning of the march, and I was with two other people. I was just out there among the 200,000 people participating in it. But I was at the march. SM (01:02:09): How close were you? Were you down by the... near the line? EG (01:02:15): I was by the Reflecting Pool, pretty far away from the... SM (01:02:18): Steps. EG (01:02:19): Yeah, the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, but yeah, close enough to be in the middle of... to have said that I was there. SM (01:02:36): That was such a historic event. During those years when you worked for Mr. Rustin and Mr. Randolph, did they often talk about that march because you were... EG (01:02:48): Well, Bayard did not spend a lot of time talking about it. I mean obviously, people around him... I had a chance to work with Rachelle Horowitz who was with the Workers Defense League and was one of the early people that was with Bayard, was staffing the Bayard tent. I always thought the miracle of the march, besides, of course, the leadership that Bayard and Mr. Randolph furnished was this was a whole period before cell phones and computers, and mobilize and move all of that humanity, pretty much on three-by-five cards, was an achievement that is unparalleled. SM (01:03:46): Yeah. I remember at the conference, and you may remember this too, I do not know who said it, but Mr. Rustin went out there very early in the morning, and there was not a soul there, and he was very worried. EG (01:04:03): Yeah, yeah. No. I mean, the buses, and people came by car and train, and they just all sort of appeared, just out of the ground, out of the sky. They all showed up. SM (01:04:16): I know there was an excellent YouTube that I listened to about a week ago that had Mr. Mankiewicz and James Baldwin and Marlon Brando and Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier and Charlton Heston. And they were talking- EG (01:04:35): Yeah. I mean, they had enough star power and all that. I mean, they were just participants. And while they were huge names, it was the 200,000 people who believed enough that this was the time to show witness, and they all came. SM (01:05:00): And you worked for Jimmy Carter too. You were appointed to the position of assistant secretary of housing and urban affairs. EG (01:05:08): No, I was assistant secretary of labor. SM (01:05:09): Oh, assistant secretary of labor. EG (01:05:11): Yeah. Oh. That is misinformation on the web. Yeah. No, the Google has the wrong info. No, I was the assistant secretary of labor and had responsibility for the Employment and Training program. SM (01:05:29): What did you think of Jimmy Carter? EG (01:05:31): Oh, I admired him. I thought Carter was... I thought he was an outstanding president, that as time goes on, I think, he will be understood more. And Carter really had as difficult at task as President Obama has. I mean, he was coming out of an economic doldrum and the oil shock and all. He got blamed for a lot of it. SM (01:06:06): Do you think it was a mistake to give the Malaise Speech? EG (01:06:14): Probably, because that was more than blaming the malaise on the time and the period. I have said many times that President Carter was probably better after he left the office than when he was having to deal with all the competing interests. SM (01:06:42): Yeah. He has been probably our best ex-president in terms of what he has done with his life. EG (01:06:47): Right. Yeah, absolutely. SM (01:06:49): The Carter Center, and he goes all over the world. At least he is away two weeks a year in some part of the world. He is always active. EG (01:06:58): No. He has been an outstanding, and he has had an intellectual grasp of all the things that are wrong with... or how things can be improved. I would not say things are wrong. SM (01:07:13): The one commentary, before I go to the next question, the criticism of President Carter is that he was so intelligent and so smart that he had to have his hands in everything, and he had a hard time delegating. EG (01:07:25): Yeah. He was not Lyndon Johnson in terms of how to figure out dealing with all the... especially the legislature, the House and the Senate. SM (01:07:41): You were an Eagle Scout, and I have a friend who was an Eagle Scout, Mike Arliss, and I know how difficult that is to even become one. And scouting has been a very important part of your life. How did you ever get started in that, and how did it impact your career? EG (01:08:01): Well, I got started in scouting because my best friend's grandfather was a scoutmaster, and it was, of course, some activity to be involved. And from that, I had received my Eagle Scout badge the year before I went to Central. When I was in the 11th grade, my friend and I, Waldo Brunson, were two of the youngest Eagle Scouts ever to receive the Eagle Scout Award. And many years later I went back to Little Rock. This was after college and all. And in (19)94, I think it was, they made me a Distinguished Eagle Scout. And I found scouting to give me a lot of leadership skills, and I benefited from that, I think, before I went to Central. SM (01:09:22): Was not there also that feeling that when you are a Boy Scout or even a Cub Scout, it is a feeling of camaraderie, fellowship, and also a lot of freedom. EG (01:09:32): Well, but also feeling of accomplishment. I mean, you have tasks. You have goals that you have to set, and it is a good preparation for future activity. SM (01:09:48): You have three kids, and I know one is an unbelievable historian, Adam. EG (01:09:54): Right. SM (01:09:55): What do your other kids do with their profession? And I guess the second part of my question is how did you teach them, when they were very young, about what you went through as a teenager in the South of the (19)50s? Because they grew up in another era, and here you are a parent talking to your children. EG (01:10:15): Well, my two daughters... Jessica lives in New York, and she is involved with a documentary film organization and has been able to make a career out of that. And then my youngest is a recent graduate of University of Miami, and she is soon to be a media... I think she is going to be my media mogul. She is both a... She studied communications at Miami and also minored in sports management. She has got a real ear and eye for the sports world. There was a double major between the media activity and the sports management. And the youngest, of course, is further away from any of the imagery of the (19)50s. But she is very savvy and so is Jessica in terms of the history. And they have seen from it that my difficulties were laying groundwork for them. And they see the past, the benefits from what we tried to do. And both McKenzie and Jessica have participated in a number of the events, and the anniversary affairs. They have been to Little Rock a number of times. They have [inaudible], and McKenzie particularly in those, the Jesse Jacksons of the world and others who played a role in the movement. In fact, McKenzie went to school with Andy Young's granddaughter. SM (01:12:29): Oh wow. EG (01:12:29): So it is a- SM (01:12:29): A small world. EG (01:12:31): It is a tiny world. And they recognize the benefits that they accrued from it. And I am always very pleased with their ability to recognize that and to want to contribute something during their generation. SM (01:12:55): Adam is an unbelievable historian, and I saw, of course, on Brother Outsider, but I had a chance to interview him last year. And then I know how much he has held in respect by all those people that were at that conference too. Did your experiences play a role in Adam becoming a historian? Because he has- EG (01:13:18): From me, he- SM (01:13:19): ...a tremendous knowledge of the whole Civil Rights era and all of American history. He is... EG (01:13:24): Yeah. Well, Adam comes out of a family of teachers on both sides, his mother's side and on my side of the family. So he caught the teaching bug early and wanted to continue to play a role. So I am proud of that spirit, that desire to pass on to the future generations, the information. He has done a great job with that. SM (01:14:05): You know what is amazing is... I am a history person. That was my undergraduate, and then my love of history. And for him to be at the University of Chicago right now, after going from the other school, I mean, I consider him one distinguished historian. And the interview I had with him was just outstanding. And his knowledge and his depth of understanding history in the connections that he can make between this event and that event is just... Well, they are very lucky to have him there. EG (01:14:35): Well, I think so too. Absolutely. SM (01:14:39): Now, the next question I have is when you look at the Civil Rights leaders that were very well known when you were going to college and so forth, Dr. King, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Bayard Rustin, and of course, John Lewis and Julian Bond and Dorothy Height. A J Muste played a role, too, in influencing Mr. Rustin. Nonviolence and Gandhi's approach was what they believed in. And then we had the next group that followed, which was Malcolm X. Then you had the Bobby Seales, the Stokely Carmichaels, the H Rap Browns, the Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, Huey Newton, Fred Hampton, and Angela Davis. And they had a different approach. It was more of a confrontational, by any means necessary, Black Power. Did you have a problem when this change happened? EG (01:15:41): Well, I mean, I always thought I was a lot more practical. I was somewhere in between the changes in style and approach. I mean, one of the reasons I found the work with the Randolph Institute and the apprenticeship program fulfilling was that we were results oriented. And sometimes some of the other activity was less results, and it is more optic. So yeah, I just felt there was still the strand that had been going on for some time. It was Du Bois and Booker T Washington. It was Garvey. It was something that we had seen before. SM (01:16:51): And actually, if you think about it, it was even Dr. King and Thurgood Marshall because if you remember, Dr. King admired Thurgood Marshall. But he also said that was a more gradualist approach, by going through the courts and laws and having laws passed. EG (01:17:07): Right. SM (01:17:07): Dr. King wanted it now. EG (01:17:10): Well, and I think each generation wants it now, but the reality is now requires a whole series of building blocks. If you think that the march at Edmond Pettus Bridge is really one of the things that helped bring about the Voting Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act eventually led to President Obama. But the length of time it took to get from across the bridge to Obama was what, 30 years? SM (01:17:54): Yep. EG (01:17:55): Yeah. I always thought that Little Rock would be just another story in the long line of school cases. And I am still surprised that it stood out as one of the singular examples of that whole era. SM (01:18:25): Where did you stand on Dr. King, two things, when he proclaimed that we need to judge people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character? And also he said we need to concentrate on people's economic conditions and not just race. And he was criticized for going away from the race issue toward more economics. And I think the conservatives today try to take Dr. King's words on content of their character as saying, "We got to get beyond race." They use it to their advantage. Get your thoughts on Dr. King's... on both of those areas. EG (01:19:04): Well, race is such a long and thorny part of this country. It is impossible to get away from race. But the economic, the ability to have decent jobs, decent housing all tied to the achievement... I see it as the achievement gap, the differentials between Black and white income. It is intertwined. It is not an either/or. That was the great experience working with Bayard and Mr. Randolph, that that got reinforced all of the time. SM (01:19:55): Dr. King was also criticized for going North, where many belief he should have stayed in the South and concentrated on racism there. And I think Bayard Rustin, if I am not mistaken, was against him going North and believed that he should have made his efforts staying in the South. And I just had an interview with Julius Lester, and he said he thought King failed miserably up in the North, and he should have stayed in the South. Your thoughts on that because Dr. King saw racism everywhere. EG (01:20:26): Well, that is where income gap and other things all intertwined. It was, excuse the pun, a lot less Black and white in the North than it was issues in the South. And whether it was Chicago or wherever, it was the politics of it, the history all made it more murkier than the battles in Birmingham and Mississippi and other places, and Arkansas. So yeah, in a lot of ways, I mean, Dr. King was always being pushed to do something else, other than what he was doing. SM (01:21:16): Do you think he failed in the North? EG (01:21:18): I do not think so. I mean, at the end of the day, he highlighted the duplicity that while you did not have formal segregation in the North, you had de facto segregation. And it was the same as the Jim Crow rules. Either formally or informally, you were not there. SM (01:21:47): Where do we stand today in the area of civil rights? Is there still a long way to go? Or where are the specific weaknesses still? Some people will say that all of the movements, not just the Civil Rights Movement but the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the environmental movement, the Chicano, Asian American, even some of the anti-war, that they have all weakened. They are not seen as much. They are not heard. And if they are heard, they are singular in their approach, and they do not work together. EG (01:22:21): Well, that is probably an apt criticism of them. Yeah. I think the Civil Rights Movement today is still wrestling with some of the same issues, education, housing, jobs, and trying to see how you can have a broader benefit. I mean, that is what all of these movements are suffering from, is how do you broaden the benefit space beyond just a few being able to grow and gain from it. To me, that is the issue we wrestle with in this country. SM (01:23:05): I remember seeing an interview with you on YouTube, where at the 50th anniversary of the 1957... It is at the high school. Somebody asked you a question regarding that there were very few African Americans still at the school in Little Rock. Is that true? EG (01:23:29): Well, that was in... They have general courses, and then they have all of the college prep on the advanced courses, and the number of African American youngsters in the advanced placement programs were relatively small compared to where they were placed in the general studies. This is an issue that I do not think is only in Little Rock. EG (01:24:03): I do not think is only in Little Rock, but- SM (01:24:04): It is all over the country. EG (01:24:05): With a lot of school systems. Yeah. SM (01:24:08): And I know it is that way in Philly. EG (01:24:11): And that is an issue that we have to address. And I always thought that my youngest daughter many times had the attitude of many of the teachers were that somehow, she could not do the advanced work. She proved for them to be wrong on that. It is a mindset that reinforces it. When I was a graduate student at Michigan State, did a study on just Detroit school systems and the extracurricular things that as the school turned more and more African American, the special programs like the chess club and the science fair, I mean, all these things started being removed. The assumption was they were removing them even before the students had an opportunity to discover whether they could perform the work or not. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and to me, this is one of the things that we have got to break through. SM (01:25:38): But I know that in 1999, all members of the Little Rock Nine, all nine of you received the Congressional Gold Medal. That must have been quite an experience. EG (01:25:51): It was. It was a high moment. Had not expected it to occur, going back to (19)57. SM (01:25:59): How did you find out that this was happening then? Were you called and said, please come? We are honoring all of them. EG (01:26:07): It is a long process. We were sponsored by Congressman Benny Thompson from Mississippi, and it requires the approval of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. SM (01:26:24): Wow. EG (01:26:29): Congressman Thompson proposed it on the house side and Senator Bumpers proposed it on the Senate side, Bumpers and Pryor. But it took almost a year for the whole system to work itself through. SM (01:26:47): Was your mother there? EG (01:26:49): No, my mother had passed. SM (01:26:52): Okay. I just was hoping she may have been there. And with respect to President Obama, do you think he has done a fairly decent job in civil rights or I know he has been caught up in all these other issues. Where would you put him? Would you give him a grade so far? EG (01:27:08): I would give him an A. I think that he has wrestled with a number of the issues because of what he inherited. And I am of the opinion that legislation at this moment is probably not what we need as much as some policy changes and his continuation on the economy. The economy affected particularly the black community. It devastated it. Home ownership, manufacturing, the industrial belt, loss of jobs. All of that has had a very detrimental effect. SM (01:28:06): It is interesting that he is so vilified by so many, and you watch television shows that... someone sent me an email the other day saying the reason why African Americans voted for President Obama was because he was an African American and they did not look at his policies. And to me, that is signs that that is a racist statement to me. Then also President Obama's critics say that he is the epitome of the return of the (19)60s. President Obama will say, "I have nothing to do with the (19)60s," because he was two years old. EG (01:28:49): Well, I think there is a segment of people in this country that just realize that President Obama is not Caucasian and they are still shocked. My view in a changing world in which the next 30, 40 years, the world is going to be multiethnic that a group of people here still clinging to the old days in Little Rock. They would like to reverse this country back to pre-Supreme Court decision in (19)54. SM (01:29:37): Now Ernie, one thing I will never forget is Henry Cisneros, the former mayor I believe, of San Antonio. EG (01:29:43): Oh, yeah. Yeah. SM (01:29:45): Before he got into trouble, he was speaking in the (19)90s at the NASPA conference that I attended. The higher ed conference. There was this young woman who stood up, a white woman, very well-dressed. She approached and she said he had just given a great lecture on what we were saying, that we were all going to be working for people who are of different color and so forth down the road and just be prepared because this is America. America's changing, and that is okay. It is part of what America is. She stood up and said that she was very afraid of the future and asked him what words of advice that he could give to her after she had just listened to this great lecture, which she should have gotten it. And basically his commentary was, "You need to prepare for the future because the future means that you are going to be working for people of different colors throughout your life." And it is not something to fear, it is just something to, it is part of the evolution of our country. It was an unbelievable moment. And she was afraid of... She was obviously was not prepared for all the changes. Do you think as a nation we have an issue with healing within this nation? Especially within the boomer generation, those born between (19)46 and (19)64, that due to the tremendous divisions that took place in the (19)60s and (19)70s between black and white, male and female, gay and straight. Even those who supported the war, against the war. Do you think that they are going to go to their graves like the Civil War generation went to its grave not truly healing to... EG (01:31:31): I do not think so. I think there is a lot more. My focus on change. I went back last year for my 50th high school reunion. The class that I graduated with at Central. I said that I could not find anybody in that room who would at this time, wanted to prevent me from going to school there. Everybody wanted to be my best friend. I am sure there is a segment of this country that they can assess to it, but I think for the most part, whether it is getting used to the Internet or getting used to the fact that the good old boys do not run it anymore. I see people making that adjustment and beginning to live with that change. SM (01:32:44): Our students asked that question to Senator Redmond Muskies in 1995, the year before he died. His response was they thought he was going to talk about (19)68 and the convention and all the assassinations that year and that terrible year. That is what students thought he was going to respond. His response is, "We have not healed since the Civil War and the issue of race." He went on to explain in detail, and he actually had tears in his eyes. He had tremendous emotion talking about it. And he gave kind of a history lesson of racism and talked about the Civil War and 600,000 men died in that war. And he made no mention of 1968 or the (19)60s. EG (01:33:35): I do not subscribe to that. I think that probably is a segment who would, or all these re-enacters, but most of the people know that the Civil War we fought, oh, about a hundred years ago, has got to be behind us. And if we want to survive as a country, we can get ourselves stuck in that. But going forward is going to require a lot more. SM (01:34:08): Would you say also that the boomer generation and I include everybody of color because when I am talking about the boomer generation, I am talking every color, ethnic group, male, female, gay and straight. Do you think as a group they do not trust? That is because of the experiences that they had growing up, the lies that were told to them by leaders in all capacities, and certainly at the national level with President Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin, Watergate with Richard Nixon, Eisenhower or the U-2 incident, McNamara and the numbers game from the war. You could not believe anybody. There was a sense that you could not trust anybody in leadership. EG (01:34:55): Well, I take the view that it is because we have so much more information and there is a certain innocence if America had the same focus on World War II and death camps and a whole series of other things going on that we have now, people would have been probably even a lot more suspicious about the outcome from the end of World War II or even the First World War. I mean, it is a fact of changes that occurred, the amount of information we have, the ability to question authority. All of that seems to me as is what the boomer generation has had an opportunity to deal with. SM (01:36:00): Yes, and it is interesting if you are a political science major. The first thing you learn in political science 101 is that not trusting your government means that is a strong citizenry because it is good not to trust your government. Keep them on their toes. EG (01:36:15): Well, and you learn to question everybody everywhere. SM (01:36:20): I only got three more questions and I am done. All right. Was the early civil rights movement sexist with respect to very few women were in leadership roles. I have read so many books saying that the women's movement came about because of the sexism that took place within the civil rights and anti-war movement. EG (01:36:41): We had the nine. We had six women and three young men, so we dealt with female leadership very early. And as far as the leadership of the Whitney Youngs and the Randolph's and Wilkins and all, my experience, when I was in college was a growing number of young women who were attending school and playing leadership roles. For me, it was the best of a problem. SM (01:37:30): And again, a lot of the women's movement people have said they have moved over because of that. And one of the examples that is used is that March on Washington in (19)63 when all you saw was Dorothy was Dorothy Height really to the right and Mahalia Jackson singing. So it was all men, but I guess everybody has their own perceptions. Where were you when JFK was killed and subsequently, where were you when MLK and Bobby Kennedy were killed? Do you know exactly where you were when all three of those things happened? EG (01:38:03): Well, when Kennedy was killed, I was at Michigan State. I was in graduate school when Dr. King was killed, I was coming to New York. Well, I was living in New York and I had just landed on a plane in LaGuardia. When Bobby Kennedy was killed, I am not sure where I was. I think I was in New York, but being in... And JFK I remember vividly where I was at the time I was there. SM (01:38:52): Yeah, I guess I have asked others. There were so many assassinations. You had John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, you had Medgar Evers, you had Malcolm X, you had even the attempt on Wallace and Gerald Ford was... Somebody tried to shoot him, but it was really had no chance. Then the Ronald Reagan. It seems like, and there are others too, what does that say about America when people in positions of responsibility... Dr. King used to always say, "You can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream." It is... EG (01:39:28): Yeah. Well, and I think my own personal experience that all of the political balance, I guess if we were protected by angels, because you could have walked into... This is before metal detectors and searches and all. They could have been guns at Michigan centralized. But, we have this wild west mentality sometimes. Then the availability of guns that I just think you have to continue to get people to try to settle disputes and something other than physical violence. That was, to me, the legacy of Dr. King, that the most important weapon is what is between your head and your brain. Tired a cliché as that may seem, that is still to me the important legacy of his teaching. SM (01:40:54): Well, do you think... You have been to the Vietnam Memorial? EG (01:40:59): Yes. SM (01:41:00): What Was your feelings when you went there for the first time? What was going through your mind? EG (01:41:06): Well, that a lot of people lost their lives for what was basically a changing set of demographics. And now we look up and Vietnam is a trading partner of ours, and we are sending tourists over there and people are buying and selling goods and services. It is- SM (01:41:36): Amazing what times does. EG (01:41:38): Yeah. And I believe that we had to lose a lot of good people for the country to understand this was a changing set of events over there that we probably should have let occur rather than trying to how to disrupt them. SM (01:42:04): You have been involved in many boards, but one that really interested me was the one that started in 2004, which was Scout Reach, where you were involved as a volunteer director of serving 600 boys in distressed areas of England. How did you become involved and... EG (01:42:27): Scout Reach? Well, Scout Reach is part of the effort to give scouting to young men who do not come from traditional middle-class families. And it was, I guess, part of the outgrowth of the service end of my growing up experiences that you are expected to try to serve and impact somebody beyond yourself and them. SM (01:43:04): Any Eagle Scouts out of there yet? EG (01:43:07): None that I am aware. Not yet. SM (01:43:11): Okay. I am sure the first one that makes it, you will go bring them to the United States or whatever. My last question is this, history books are often written 50 to 75 years after an event. And that is the best books are sometimes take that long to really understand the period. When you look at this post-World War II America, civil Rights, the anti-war movement, certainly all the other movements, the activism, the backlash with Ronald Reagan coming in 1980, the rise of the conservatives and so forth, and then back and forth. Now we have President Obama. So the last 65 years that boomers have been alive have been unbelievable times as you have described so well in answering some of my questions. What do you think the history books and the sociologists and historians will say after the last boomer has passed on from all ethnic groups and anyone who even is alive? EG (01:44:13): I think that this period is probably the most dynamic period that this country has ever seen. I view the last 50 years for me is probably some of the greatest changes that have occurred in this country and in this society. And the future is it is going to get faster, changes are going to be even greater. And I think this boomer generation has an opportunity to help prepare whatever we call the next generation to accept change and be ready for it to occur in a really rapid succession. SM (01:45:09): Well, the naysayers and doubters that criticize this generation, and there are many, a lot of them placed the blame on boomers for the ... Because of the sexual revolution, the divorce rate, the welfare state mentality, the lack of respect for law and order. These are terms that come from the backlash, especially toward anyone that was involved in activism. But what do you think? How do you respond to these people who make general commentaries that the problems we face in our society today go right back to that period of the (19)60s and (19)70s? The counterculture, the culture wars. We saw it with John Kerry when he ran for president in 2004, that they cannot get over what he said as a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. It is non-ending. EG (01:46:08): Well, but there is a crowd that would blame change on anything other than their ability to accept it. My attitude is we continue to push on and push beyond them. SM (01:46:27): My last commentary was, and I have heard this in my interviews, is well, the boomer generation said they were going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, and war, bring peace. Look at the world today. I would say they have not done it. When you hear that, and it is a general commentary toward this generation that thought they were so special. EG (01:46:52): Well, my aunt says that the founding fathers said that they were going to create a society of equality. And we had a lot of the leadership, Jefferson and Washington and others who were big slave owners. It is an imperfect world. We were always working to make changes. And my view is these ideals that we want to try to achieve, we just have to keep working on them. And that was my view when I went to Little Rock Central in (19)57 that I did not know if I would create a perfect world, but I knew I had to start somewhere. SM (01:47:38): And your current work that you have been doing since (19)85 to today? EG (01:47:43): Well, I have been an investment banker with a couple of firms, and now I am involved with an effort in partnership with a couple of other people to create a fund and private equity and see if we cannot grow some businesses. SM (01:48:07): And we need businesses today. No question about that. Ernie, I do not know if you have any final comments or all. I am done. EG (01:48:13): No, I think you have covered quite a waterfront, so I will look forward to seeing the final outcome. SM (01:48:23): Great. And what I will do is you will see your transcript. I am going to be hibernating for about nine months, transcribing all these myself. And then of course the final approval will be when you see it, and then you will make any corrections or whatever. EG (01:48:40): All right. I will look forward to seeing it. SM (01:48:43): And finally, I am going to need two pictures of you, but I will come down to Washington and take your picture sometime in the spring or early summer. EG (01:48:48): Okay, very good. I will look for it. SM (01:48:51): Ernie, thank you very much. Continued success in everything you do. My heart will be there at the University of Arkansas when they honor your mom. EG (01:49:00): Yeah. Okay. Well... SM (01:49:02): What day is that? EG (01:49:03): It is the Sunday of Mother's Day. SM (01:49:06): Wow. EG (01:49:07): So I think it is like the 13th or 14th. SM (01:49:11): Well, your mom will be right there with you. EG (01:49:12): All right. SM (01:49:13): She will be there. EG (01:49:15): Thank you. SM (01:49:15): Ernie, you have a great day and thank you very much. EG (01:49:17): All right. You too. Goodbye. SM (01:49:17): 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 Ernest Green Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Green, Ernest G. (Ernest Gideon), 1941- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights workers; Consultants; Investment advisors; Central High School (Little Rock, Ark.)--History; School integration--Arkansas--Little Rock--History--20th century; Green, Ernest G. (Ernest Gideon), 1941--Interviews Description An account of the resource Ernest Green is a consultant, investment executive, and Civil Rights Leader. Green was one of the first black students to integrate at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, following the Supreme Court 1954 ruling to desegregate. Green graduated with a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Sociology from Michigan State 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 2011-03-03 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.10.2016.195 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. 109:21 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/17025ee77a1c2eea81e97410525438de.pdf f5db21c9f617814677beeb5587b673b1 PDF Text Text BINGHAMTON U N I V E  R S T E S T A T E   U N I V E R S I T Y   O F   N E W  Y O R K d e e T M E N T [4 D E P A R M ARCH  MUSIC She Wvioni W nd i Sm yphony Rober t G. S mith, Condu ctor Daniel Fabr icius, Guest  Cond uctor Featu ring The Univers ity Flu te Trio The Univers ity Pe rcussi on Qu artet Sunday, M arch  6, 2011 3:00  P M Anderson Center Chamber Ha ll �PROGRAM Flute C ocktai l  A Harry Simeone ..  (1911­2005) Minuet,  Scherzo and B lues“  The University Flute Trio Mark Zh uang, Emily Morris, Natalie McCreary Georgetta Maiolo, Director Three Revolutionary Marches ........  I. Alleg ro con b rio  II. March of the Students’ Legion Ill. Allegro maestoso ..  Bedric h Smetana (March 2, 1824­May 12, 1884) Three Journeys to a Holy Mountain ...............Alan Hovhaness Sympho ny No. 2 0 for Ba nd, Op.  223 (March 8, 1911–June 21, 2000) I. Andante Espressivo ..........Percy Aldridge Grainger Molly On The S h o r e   (1882­1961) Irish Re el set fo r Militar y Band  St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 Toccata and Fugue in d minor............Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685–July 28, 1750) Trans. Erik Leidzen .. James Hosay Black Granite March 29, 1973 U.S. forces leave Viet Nam (b. 1959) &  INTERMISSION  c= Concertino for Four Percussion and Wind Ensemble  David Gillingham The University Percussion Quartet Devin Tr acy, Amanda Jacobs Benjamin Ramos, Adam Goldenberg Daniel Fabricius, Director Daniel Fabricius, Guest Conductor (b. 1947) B O U T ROBERT G. SMITH is Music Director and Conductor of the University Wind Symphony. Professor Smith holds degrees from Hartwick College, Binghamton University and has completed course work toward the Doctor of Musical Arts. Professor Smith also teaches advanced instrumental conducting and graduate wind conducting at BU. His career includes 32 years as a public school music educator. He conducts the annual Triple Cities TubaChristmas and is former conductor of the Maine Community Band, the oldest band of its kind in the United States. He has guest conducted all­county bands throughout New York State. Among other ensembles Smith has conducted are the Goshen College (IN) Wind Ensemble an d Orchestra, The United States Army Ground Forces Band (GA), the Southern Tier Concert Band (NY) and the Vestal Community Band (NY).  An active performer, he currently plays principal euphonium with the Southern Tier Concert Band and tuba with the Brass Nickel Quintet and the Crown City Brass Sextet. Smith is past president of the Broome County Music Educators Association and recipient of the 2005 BCMEA Distinguished Service Award. Professor Smith also has been active as an adjudicator for concert bands, marching bands, field bands, DCI drum and bugle corps and indoor winter color guard. Professional memberships include The Broome County Music Educators Association, the New York State School Music Association, the Music Educators National Conference, The National Band Association, The Association of Concert Bands, The Conductors Guild, The World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, The College Band Directors National Association and the International Tuba and Euphonium Association. DANIEL FABRIClUS has been a member of the Binghamton University faculty as percussion instructor since 1992. He also serves as Director of Bands at Owego Free Academy where he has developed an outstanding instrumental music program that features a concert band, two jazz bands, and various chamber music ensembles. He is highly regarded in the region as a percussion soloist and ensemble player. He has been a member of the Binghamton Philharmonic percussion section since 1982 but is also comfortable performing in popular, rock, jazz, and other styles. He has played as a free­ lance percussionist, accompanying national touring artists such as Michael W. Smith, Tommy Tune, Jerry Vail, Lorrie Morgan, Ringling Brothers Circus, the Smothers Brothers, and Ella Fitzgerald. Professor Fabricius has served the New York State School Music Association as an All­State Percussion adjudicator for many years. He also serves NYSSMA as the Instrumental Jazz Reviews editor o f The School Music News titled, Teaching Jazz the Jazz editor for the NYSSMA Manual. In addition to his collegiate work at BU, he has also served on the Summer Session faculty at Ithaca College. He has trained many student teachers from IC, and recently ser ved as a consultant and guest lecturer at the college for a summer workshop for Non­Jazz Educators. He has presented many clinics at music conventions and conferences and often serves as a guest conductor for honor band festivals. �ABO UT THE MUSIC  with music by  composers born iday’s program celebrates the month of March t. Patrick’s Day. I n addition to March, for an historical event and o f course, S er famous people were day’s composers many notable musicians and oth  include Franz Joseph Haydn, >rn in March. Other composers born in March wantner, Ctrad Kohoutec and '. Francis McBeth, Samuel Barber, Joseph Sch lude Desi Arnaz, Vincent rr Andrew Lloyd­Weber. Other famous people inc, Leonard Nimoy and James an Gogh and stars of Star Trek William Shatner oohan. nductor and composer who is arry  Sim eon e was a distinguished arranger, co e Little Drummer Boy. He est known for arranging the Christmas classic Thb as arranger for Fred Waring. tudied at The Julliard School but left to take a jo variety of  movie music fter moving to Hollywood he was successful in a   to produce a Christmas sked roduction jobs and later in television. When a l and recorded The Little hora ne C imeo ry S  Har  the bled Ibum he assem o Yo u Hear What / Hear. Jrummer Boy and later another then new song D layed by  just the flute  trio. The ‘lute  Coc ktai l opens w ith a graceful minuet p z flavored Blues. We  are very tand joins in for the rollicking Scherzo and the jazing with us tod ay. ileased to have the University Flute Trio  per form o pioneered the development o f 3edrich Smetana was a Czech composer wh  with his country’s aspirations to 1 musical style which became closely identified d in his homeland as the ndependent statehood. He is thus widely regarde  known for his opera The ather of Czech music. Internationally he is best ast (“My Fatherland”) which Bartered Bride, for the symphonic cycle Ma Vl f the composer’s native land, and portrays the history, legends and landscape o for his First String Quartet From My Life. ritten in 1848, an inflammatory These “ Thre e Revolu tion ary Marches” were w a, then a young man o f 24, etan time in European history. It  is known that Sm  raged in his city o f Prague. hting et fig stre hile  es w arch composed these m  third march also had a vocal text. Although written as pieces for piano solo, the wo easily recognizable and The “March of the Student Legion”  is based on tmus Igitur” and a European traditional sources — the student song “Gaudea “A­H unti ng W e Will Go". s  folk song resembling th e familiar tune known a r of Armenian and Scottish Alan  Hov han ess  was an American compose many cultures but is most  of  ancestry whose music assimilates the music  a kind o f exoticism. The  into rials mate  its’  urns y it t American in the wa  nostalgic. Among the most atmosphere is hushed, reverent, mystical and ’s catalog includes 67 ness prolific o f 20th Century composers, Hovha ripts indicate ove r 70 symphonies nusc symphonies and 434 opus numbers. Ma  comprised of  two or more and over 500 works as many opus numbers are individual works. pho ny N o. 20) was composed for Thre e Jo urneys T o  A H oly M oun tain  (Sym rst movement is in the spirit of the Ithaca High School Concer t Band. The fi  arcs, the last having the mood Armenian religious music in three great melodic of a spiritual.  breadth and vision, with Per cy G rain ger had a musical mind of  unusual ic to the latest twentieth interests spanning the ages from Mediaeval mus s and Arnold Dolmetsch he century developments. With Dom Anselm Hughe  later life he devoted his energies made modern transcriptions of early music. In achines on which a composer to the design and construction of Free Music m heets to be performed by the could write his music as graphs on  transparent s itch. machine free of restrictions o n rhythm and p ay gift for Grainger’s mother in Mol ly O n Th e Sh ore was written as a birthd eels, Temple Hill and Molly On 1907. It is an arrangement o f two contrasting r  of textures and The Shore, that present the melodies in a variety d long stretches o f thematic and orchestrations, giving each section o f the ban for string quartet or string counter thematic material. Originally composed  nd orchestra by the composer nd a orchestra the piece was arranged for wind ba in 1902. s in his synthesis and Joh ann  Sebastian Ba ch’s  main achievement lieal idiom of the late Baroque, advanced development of the primary contrapuntrial. He was able to and in the basic tunefulness o f his thematic mate monic and formal frameworks o f successfully integrate and expand upon the har nch, Italian, and English, while the national schools of the time: German, Fre e output. larg retaining a personal identity and spirit in his  ess is his treatment o f the organ Not the least among Bach’s claims to greatn  art. The Preludes and Fugues and his appreciation of it as a vehicle for creative ment such as the Toc cata  and include many of his loftiest works for the instru  as describing the fact that eted Fug ue i n d min or. The title m ay be interpr �Mem ber s o f  T he Win d Sy mph ony the fugue theme and subsidiary material constitute a  toccata, not that the fugue is preceded by a toccata, which, in the modern sense, w brilliant composition for technical display. The breadth e understand as a music makes it ideal for transcription for wind band.  and magnificence of this  A special thank you to Dr. Jonathan Biggers, Link Professor of Organ for his as sistant in the preparation of this work. During his 20 year military career J ame s Ho say rece Service medals, two Army Commendation Medals an ived two Meritorious commendation from the Chairman o f the Joint Chie d a personal letter o f Powell — after writing a special march for the Gen fs of  Staff — General Colin eral’ Now retired from the United States Army, Hosay re s retirement ceremony. sides in his hometown o f Norfolk, Virginia and writes exclusively for Curnow Mu sic Press. The title B lack  Gra nite is of  course a reference to  Washington, DC. The Viet Nam War is an event in the Viet Nam Memorial in  U.S controversial to this day. But let there be n o controv . History that is ersy regarding the high level of valor, courage, and honor displayed by the me Armed Forces during that conflict. Without regard to n and women of the U.S.  the politics behind the involvement, they served diligently and to the highe st sta ndards o f military tradition. This march is dedicated to the men and w omen who died in that war, to those whose heroic deeds went unsung, and to th find shattered remnants of what was once their “Am ose who  returned home to erican Dream”. Dav id G illing ham  has an internation reputation for  his works for wind band and percussion, many of which are now standards in the lit erature. His compositions have been recorded by, and are regularly  nationally recognized ensembles. Dr. Gillingham is cu performed by, rrently Professor o f Music at Central Michigan University. The Con cert ino f or  F our Perc ussi on a nd Win d en sem ble seeks to exploit keyboard, membrane, and auxiliary percussion instr ume nts with the marimbas, xylophone, timpani, vibraphone, and bass drums a s the featured instruments. These are assisted by the other percussion instrume wind ensemble and the solo instruments. We are ve nts to enhance both the Percussion Quartet performing with us today. A spe ry pleased to have The cial thank you  and welcome to ou r guest conduc tor, Professor Daniel Fabriciu s. Picc olo Kathleen Spelman Flute  I Mark Zhuang Lindsay Ralbovsky Raquel Goldsmith Judy Kahn Flute  Il Kimberly Hom Hagar Dayan Nicole Safran Christina Peragine Recorder Alexander Baron Oboe  I Kimberly Muller Oboe  II Hao Sun Bass oon Kristen Grennan Anna McAllister Sean Manning BP C larin et I Kerry Goodacre Jaclyn Adler Clarinet Mark Dello Stritto Abby Cohen David Morrissey Clari net Ill Sophia Schneiderman James Mayr Rachael Mott Joo Won Kim Trum pet I I Peter Schwarz Brian Lee Samuel Weintraub Carolina Montenegro Trum pet l ll John Marschhauser Jonathan Calhoun Anthony Smaldone Bas  Calrniet Alto Saxophone I Sopr ano Saxophone Lauren Ross­Hixson Trom bone  I Drew Perotti Alto Saxophone Il Anthony DeGelorm Trom bone  lI Matthew Kratenstein Teno r  Saxophone Stephen Kassinger Euph oniu m Andrew Kaufman Kenrick Georges Baritone Saxophone Toni Bruno F Ho rn I Carrie Buck Tuba Matthew Gukowsky Daniel Nevins Hayden Kramer EHornll Keyboard David Schwartz F Ho rn III Haleigh Doetchman Perc ussio n Adam Goldenberg Benjamin Ramos Mike McManamon John Erdman Rose Steenstra David Schwartz Trac i Rubin Natalie Rivera TRUMPET Olivia Santoro Nicholas Quackenbush � 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&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;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:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: PDF / Rosetta PDF with Rosetta audio/video link Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 audio disc Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 49:13:00 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE145429">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE145429</a> Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. PDF Layout This field specifies how the pages of the PDF will be laid out. Enter only the CASE SENSITIVE keyword without quotation marks. [default: 'FacingContinuous'] Options: 'Single' - Only the entire current page will be visible and Zoom will be set to page width. 'Continuous' - All pages are visible in one scrollable column and Zoom will be set to page width. 'Facing' - Up to two full pages will be visible and Zoom will be set to page height. 'FacingContinuous' - All pages visible in two scrollable columns and Zoom will be set to page height. 'FacingCover' - All pages visible as whole pages, with an even numbered page rendered first. (i.e. The first page of the document is rendered by itself on the right side of the viewer to simulate a book cover.) 'FacingCoverContinuous' - All pages visible in two scrollable columns, with an even numbered page rendered first. (i.e. The first page of the document is rendered by itself on the right side of the viewer to simulate a book cover.) Single 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 University Wind Symphony: March Music, March 6, 2011 Recital Tape 2011-3-6 Description An account of the resource Held at 3:00 p.m., March 6, 2011, Anderson Center Chamber Hall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Robert Fabricius, Daniel Zhuang, Mark Morris, Emily McCreary, Natalie Maiolo, Georgetta Tracy, Devan Jacobs, Amanda Ramos, Benjamin Goldenberg, Adam 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 2011-03-06 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3af0aaaaf33f3a72ec1cc707d907bac3.jpg 3216026ec51de77ea9b86d494134b1d4 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/62c085bf8fdc0d4558ba7f992896ba4d.mp3 63f56184dbd954919e6e2ccc02c5a85c 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 2011-03-08 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ladonna Harris Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Ladonna Harris is a Comanche Native American social activist and politician from Oklahoma. In addition, she is the founding member of Common Cause and the National Urban Coalition. Harris is also the president of the group Americans for Indian Opportunity. She had been an outspoken advocate on the agendas of the civil rights, feminist, environmental and world peace movements.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:6535,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Ladonna Harris is a Comanche Native American social activist and politician from Oklahoma. In addition, she is the founding member of Common Cause and the National Urban Coalition. Harris is also the president of the group Americans for Indian Opportunity. She has been an outspoken advocate on the agendas of the civil rights, feminist, environmental and world peace movements.</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 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 191:34 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Native American; Comanche; Culture; Assimilation; Senator Joseph Tydings; Bureau of Indian Affairs; Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; Baby boom generation; Stereotypes; Ethel Kennedy; Kerry Kennedy&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Native American; Comanche; Culture; Assimilation; Senator Joseph Tydings; Bureau of Indian Affairs; Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; Baby boom generation; Stereotypes; Ethel Kennedy; Kerry Kennedy</span> Subject LCSH Civil rights workers; Political activists--United States; Comanche Indians; Politicians--United States--Oklahoma; National Urban Coalition (U.S.); Americans for Indian Opportunity; Harris, Ladonna--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: Ladonna Harris Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 8 March 2011 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Testing one, two. And could you describe your upbringing and the importance that being a part of two cultures played in your life? Because I know your parents were, one was from Irish background, I believe, and one was Comanche? LH (00:00:23): Yes. SM (00:00:24): So- LH (00:00:26): Well, my Comanche side overrode my Irish side because my father left to California like all the good Okies did at that time to try to find work. And so when I was just a baby, he and his folks, all of his mother and sisters all went Bakersville, California, which was kind of the whole, The Grapes of Wrath, I guess. They were not quite that bad off because they were able to buy a little motel and use it for resources. But he never came back to Oklahoma. So I heard from him, periodically. I never really got to know him. So, my whole upbringing was Comanche until I started school. SM (00:01:18): What was it like growing up in the (19)30s, being Native American background at that particular time? LH (00:01:27): Well, in relative terms, my grandfather, my Comanche grandfather, was well off because his father was a Spanish [inaudible]. And during when they allotted the Comanche land to the Comanches, he put all of his children's lands together. So, we had a large with several, it was 180 acres. SM (00:01:57): Wow. LH (00:01:57): 160 acres, excuse me, 160 acres. And then each allotment, each person that was alive at that time got that. And so he put his sibling's land together and my grandfather then farmed it, which was not the Comanche way necessarily. But what was interesting was, that my grandmother was the second Comanche to be converted it to Christianity. So that was kind of the difference between us in the growing up. My grandfather was, he had eagle medicine and then took up peyote as part of his medicine way. And so, I grew up going to... grandfather driving me to church, driving us all to church, and going to church services. And he would sit out in the car. And then, after the church was over, we would visit around with people and then go home. And then he would sing his peyote songs in the evening as the sun was going down and he could cure certain illnesses with his peyote medicine. So that was kind of the atmosphere I grew up in, and we did not know that there was a Depression going on because we were pretty self-sufficient. By that time the grandfather had gotten... and my uncle lived close by and they had farmed together. And so that we had reproduced things. And so relatively, we were better off than say, French folks, who were kind of migrant, not migrant workers so much as, but sharecroppers. And he lived across the creek, but I never knew him at that time growing up. So, we just played on the creek, had lots to eat, we had all kinds of farm animals and grandmother had a garden. And we went to town on a Saturday and took milk and eggs and whatever that grandmother had to produce to take into town for trade. And it was a weird town, not weird, but it was a weird situation. In Temple, Oklahoma, there was a big department store that two brothers built right there in the flat plains of Oklahoma and Cotton County where there was not a population, but it worked. People from all around the region came and traded there. They had from cars to dry goods to everything, farm implements. So it was kind of like one stop shopping. And it was kind of fun to go to town and they would drop off the produce and grandmother would get money for a produce and give us some change to go to the movies and the Lone Ranger and all of those crazy Indians, kind of. So short subjects. SM (00:05:16): And Tom Mix was big then, was not he? Tom Mix- LH (00:05:18): Tom Mix and... SM (00:05:18): Gene Autry. LH (00:05:18): Gene Autry. SM (00:05:18): Yeah. LH (00:05:27): Lone Ranger was much later because he had an Indian's house. And... Go ahead. SM (00:05:30): Yeah, you are very proud of your Comanche heritage and could you give a little history about the Comanche heritage with respect to their traditions, cultures, and history? LH (00:05:45): Well, they just recently came... a book has come out talking about the Comanche Empire. And because of our ability, we came out of the north, out of the Shoshone from... We were related to the Shoshones, and we came because our family story is that they had a great illness outbreak. So we came south and then dominated and got the Spanish horse and dominated the plain. And they called it the Comanche Empire. There is no reason the author did with prejudice, with Western educational knowledge. So, he really investigated it and said that we were the only tribe in the United States that dealt with the Spanish, the French. We actually made treaties at different times, trade treaties with these different governments and then the Mexican government and the US government that we had actually worked with that many countries, nationalities and countries. So, that we dominated the plains and even came over the mountains here to New Mexico and that every tribe here has a Comanche dance, recognizing the... acknowledging the power of the Comanche. And the Hispanics have a theater performance about the Comanche, so that we had a great impact in this part of the country. So, from Colorado to down into Old Mexico, to over to Louisiana where we dealt with the French and up to Arkansas and Missouri corner, that corner. So, we dominated those because we became the horseman and we created, I mean, we embraced change more rapidly. When the Anglos killed off of the buffalo, we created a trade route. And what we would do, we would go down to Old Mexico and steal horses and come back and sell them to the New Mexican Hispanics, the Spaniards here in New Mexico, because they were treated... Since they did not find gold and precious everything in New Mexico, the Spanish in Old Mexico did not pay much attention to them so that they were very well... they did not have very many things to continue their lives. So, we developed a trade system and we were also very fierce. And we burned down Santa Fe a couple of times and we have great stories about our fierceness. And that when you saw a Comanche footprint, you could tell it was Comanche because it had a fringe that it would come across it and looked like a snake walked across the foot. SM (00:09:05): Oh, wow. LH (00:09:08): And so we were greatly admired in some ways and feared in others. We also stole children, and I have got a lot of that history of Spanish grandfather on one side and the Mexican Indian grandfather of my grandmother's, so that most of the Comanche have that kind of history that somebody in their family were. SM (00:09:40): And at it is high point, how many Comanches were there? LH (00:09:46): You know what? I will have to look that up because I have heard it and then I cannot remember. Now I know that there are 4,100 of us. And that is really a growing number. I think all tribes have grown in this decade. But we were very proud. Growing up with my grandparents, they were old enough to remember the old way and knew, but also smart enough to know how to deal with the contemporary situation. And whereas my mother, on the other hand, was really the transitional person who had to really make real hard changes like Indian boarding school. Though my grandparents went into Indian boarding school. They both got out of them before they were destroyed by the boarding school system, grandfather running away and grandmother having to go back to help get her aunt who was sick had go take care of her. But they got out of the Indian boarding school where they were. SM (00:10:59): What is the role of women in the Comanche culture? Is there a respect for women? LH (00:11:06): Oh, yes. And in most tribes, not matriarchal, but you inherit through your mother, and cure your mother's [inaudible] and you are our child. And inherit and they were the property owners. They owned their house, the teepees or the housing in most tribes that is how. And even in the Iroquois Nation, they had a formalized ways the dim mother's... [inaudible] what they were called. They were called pine mothers and felt that they were variations of that. But we were very much more democratic and participatorial. And the things that made the Comanches different when they came down on the plain off the mountains of Montana, that we broke up into bands, and we never were together until the after the Civil War. All of the military that was left in the Civil War came down to dominate us. And the Comanche powers and the Cheyenne, and they were all looking... the generals were all looking like... Oh, what the General's name? SM (00:12:33): Custer? LH (00:12:34): Custer. Yes. Like Custer, they all wanted another star on their... SM (00:12:39): Oh wow. LH (00:12:40): And so they built with them to help with the Buffalo shelter, built Forts from Fort [inaudible 00:12:46] to New Mexico. And in order to control us because the regular military did not until all of them had the guns from the Civil War and the people who wanted to go gain... What am I trying to say? Gain recognition or gain... go up in the military, like Custer. SM (00:13:23): Before I get into your high school years, if you could name some of the leaders of the Comanche in the 1800s or early 1900s. We all know about Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, but were there ones that really stood out? LH (00:13:40): Quanah Parker. Well see, that is the difference too than the other tribes. We did not have one Chief over all of them. Each band had different leaders. And it was that if people followed you, then you were a leader. There was not a leader who was inherited the position. There was not a leader who was selected by the group. Each person had certain divisions of responsibility. Like there were the elders who decided where we would move to. There were groups who would protect us to see that we were secure when we camped out. They all had different responsibilities. And so, for instance, if it said that when a person, particularly a man, would need to go on a hunting trip, he would send his nephew up to the camp and say that so-and-so is going to go down into Texas to either raid or to hunt buffalo, and if you want to come, join him under the tree at this section before sunset. So, if people came, they followed him because he had the right characteristics of a good leader, of a person who was generous, mostly, that was the first most important thing. Generous and was seasoned in combat or knew how to deal responsibly with other people's lives. And so that people followed you. So that we did not have... We had a transition leader that the government picked out for us, which was Quanah Parker. And he was a... After we were brought to the reservation, it's like we do today, when we go to Afghanistan, we have to have appoint some leader, one person. And when they're all tribal people, we always say, if the State Department understood Native Americans, they would understand how to deal with Afghanistan and other countries where tribal people exist. And so, what they do, just like they have done in Afghanistan, put this guy up who is corrupt. Well, this was not the case in Parker's place, but installed somebody so that was the person they had to make a deal with. And so that all of these different bands, there were about nine different bands of us who roamed all over those plains and rarely ever got together in one place. And so that it was... There's a book called On Being Comanche. And for a long time, Western anthropologists and people who studied different cultures never said that Comanche did not have any structure, so therefore they were not valuable. But there was value in, well, we did have structure, but it just did not conform to Western value systems, so they could not interpret it. Until just more recently seeing how valuable it was and how that the fact that we supposedly chose disorganized, that we could control the whole southern plains from Kansas down into Old Mexico. And so that they are now at a whole new different viewpoint of it. And my grandfather's father was a captive who became a War Chief, and that meant that people followed him during battle because he was brave. And it is the whole idea of being more, I say we're more democratic in participatorial than what we now refer to as democracy. Because all people were valued. The difference about tribal people is that we are communal and that we live, we're collected, and that the land we own, we own collectively. And the resources that come from those lands that are divided up amongst us. So that is so different than the capitalist society. SM (00:18:20): Is that still present today? LH (00:18:23): Yes. SM (00:18:24): So you kept it. Because when you read the history of Native Americans and different tribes, one of the pressures that you have always seen in America is Americanized. You must become Americanized. And that was one of the battles that I think of, at least from my study, culture meant a lot. LH (00:18:49): Absolutely. And that is what those Indian boarding schools and the missionary, they tried all these different things and they had a policy of... What do I want to say? Of assimilating. The federal policy was to assimilate into the American society where we would no longer exist. And then probably they could disband the treaties and what lands and things that we did have, because every time we would have land, like in Oklahoma, they had found oil there, then they would open it up for white settlement. So those kinds of things, but other people of color are integrated, but we were assimilated. So totally different approach to it. So that they used every method that they could think of to assimilate us, which was very hard and very difficult for my mother. SM (00:19:59): Yeah, I noticed that... Well, I have some questions that will follow up on this in a minute or so, but what were your high school years like? I know you met your future husband, Senator Fred Harris. How did you meet him and then fall in love and get married? And I know you played a very important role in getting him through college too. So just a little bit about that. LH (00:20:29): Well, I had lived in Bethany, Oklahoma, which was a suburb of Oklahoma City, but my sister was working for the... during World War I, I think, working for an airplane, Boeing airplane, putting airplanes together. So I was taking care of my little niece in the summertime. And then I just stayed over and went to school there a couple of years. And then I moved back to Walters. So when I moved back to Walters, my aunt was going to school there, and I asked her, "Well, who is the student president?" And she said, "Freddy. Freddy Ray," she said. She pointed him out. And I said, "Ooh, him?" And then later, he took the initiative and finally we started dating. But it was interesting, really. I was convinced that he must have been... He told me he worked for The Walters Herald, and The Walters Herald was our local newspaper and I just saw that he was like... I visualized him being a reporter, but of course he was a printer. But anyway, we had great fun. So, we became very close, got married, and probably my senior year he went off to college. We got married the next year, and then, which was the sign of the time that women were mostly, they were coming back from Korea. [inaudible] would come back from Korea, and wives were working and putting their husband... I guess, still the veterans from World War II who were going back to school so that they had a large segment of wives and families there. And we lived very, very, very simply, I guess. Folks would give us produce from the farm. My mother would buy clothes from me. And then we had Catherine first year and our first child. But I did not really have that much skill just coming out of high school but I was able to find enough work to... And then we lived in a greenhouse where we could grow flowers to pay for our rent, and then we would have some money to make. And then he would get scholarships. He was smart enough to get scholarships all through undergraduate and into law school. So, we just became... And so in his classwork, he shared what he learned with me. And then in law school, all of the law students, his class, would come over and study at our house, because he had great notes and they could discuss it. And so that I was a part of all of his learning experience, although I did not take the classes. And I was very dyslexic as well, and impaired learning going through the public-school system and through educational systems so I had to learn other kinds of ways. But I managed to hold down jobs and work. And then we went, after he graduated from law school, he immediately went into this law firm. And then there was a death of [inaudible]. But we became real partners in our relation... interdependent on each other in our relationship. And it went on for 31 years of existence. So, I think... SM (00:24:29): You see, in a sense, that your marriage was similar to just about all the marriages of that period where family and husband came first, and the wife sacrificed is basically for their husband and family. Is that true? LH (00:24:46): That is right. SM (00:24:47): Yep. LH (00:24:48): That is right. But the interesting part, from my Comanche background, one of the things that I learned, so I would not get my feelings hurt, I would study people and figure them out, and figure out how to deal with them in a way that they were comfortable with. So it was a skill I learned in high school, actually, to get through high school. I wanted to belong to this whole high school sorority. I would figure her all of that out and get myself in there. I was the first Indian person to be nominated for Football Queen and all those little things that... the popular things in high school. So, that was unique. And then after he graduated from law school, but even in his classes, he shared with me in a different kind of way. Like with his botany classes, we would go out and look at the trees and he would explain them to me as he was learning it. And then in anthropology, he said he took anthropology so he could understand me better. And then he became quite involved in Comanche culture. He can still sing today and still very well remembered in the Comanche. [inaudible] he does not miss being married to me. He misses being part of the Comanche family. But it was a fascinating, wonderful experience. And then when he ran for state senate, well, when he was in law school, he ran for the House of Representatives, and he would be 21 years old when he got sworn in, and he ran against the 68-year-old County Commissioner and lost by 16 votes, I think. SM (00:27:07): Wow. LH (00:27:08): So that was down in Cotton County, our old home, and then the ran for Senate to Creek County, Cotton County, and Comanche County. And we organized and just worked ourselves. And we had friends who made homemade posters. And television had just come in too. And I was the first wife that would appear on television. I was the first wife who would go to Oklahoma State legislature, and we were known as Freddy and the Indian by the older members of the- SM (00:27:41): Oh my gosh. LH (00:27:44): And because it was enduring. That was an enduring thing for me. SM (00:27:49): I noticed, I saw you were on the Dick Cavett Show once, and Dick Cavett was speaking to both of you then, but he immediately went to talk to you because you were well known, because you were the wife of a Senator in Washington, and you were getting more press than your husband. And you have probably seen that on YouTube. LH (00:28:09): Oh yeah. SM (00:28:13): What were your activities on behalf of Native Americans prior to going to DC? LH (00:28:19): Well, when Fred went off to the State Senate, I had too much time on my hand. I had two children though, but I had lots of relatives and friends who helped babysit for me. So what we did, I went to the University of Oklahoma that Fred was supposed to go to in the Southwest Center for Human Relations, put on the program to see about white-Black relations in Oklahoma. And it was early in the (19)60s before the [inaudible] in the South. And so, I said, " What about the Native Americans in Oklahoma?" And they said, "Oh, they do not have problems. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is taking care of them." And just said, "They're the problem. They're part of the problem, the major part of the problem." And I was so frustrated that I could not explain to them. They had no knowledge, these were the cream of the crop, OU University. And they had no idea about what was happening to Indians in Oklahoma. And we had 36 different tribes in Oklahoma, but some were pushed in for the [inaudible] from the eastern side of the state. And then the plains people were on the western side of the state. And so, I cried. I got so frustrated because I could not get them to understand what the problems were. So I burst into tears and that embarrassed them. So they started coming down to... They came to our house in Lawton, Oklahoma from Norman. And once a week [inaudible] seen people together and they began to articulate our own needs, mostly were Comanche relatives of mine. And then we organized and organized part of the state, the tribes on the western part of the state went over to the east- SM (00:30:27): Could you speak up a little bit too, please? LH (00:30:29): Okay. We organized the western side of the states, which mostly were plains tribes. And then we moved over to the eastern part of the state. And we ran into a lot of trouble that we did not realize. Because there were no books or nothing published about how to work in race relations or even about Blacks, much less Indians. But we organized, and because we had such high dropout rate, 75 percent dropout rates in some of our schools, so that was something we could organize around. And so, we organized the first Indian statewide organization of all of the 36 tribes in Oklahoma. And that was a major accomplishment. And then by that time, Fred was in the [inaudible] and we were able to get the war on poverty, our charter, and Chris Mondale could come to Oklahoma [inaudible]. And Ron Bart came to Oklahoma to talk to our youth. And so, I was organizing the tribes and we changed policy. The tribes in the east, the federal government is still appointing their leadership. But we asked them why they let them do-do that, and they tried... turned it around. And that really took a lot of power away from members of the Congress, which we did not realize at the time, because the Congress would recommend and they would... LH (00:32:00): ...would recommend [inaudible] they would get somebody that they liked with. The Congress members were all friends [inaudible] because [inaudible] the US Senate by then. One day a week, we were doing that, and the other day a week, we were integrating [inaudible]. We had the railroad track that had the Black community on one side and the rest of us on the other. One of my babysitters was African American. I saw her picketing at this theater and I said, "My goodness. Why in the world are we letting that happen?" And so, one day a week we would integrate African Americans and one day a week we would stop assimilating. SM (00:33:01): Yes. Different word. LH (00:33:02): It was interesting. Interesting thing to go on working both sides in the different. They were the same, but had this different ending that the folks wanted. So we were very, very good about integrating Lawton. The [inaudible] we used to tease him. He was on the mayor's committee and they could not get anything done. But our group was kind of an ad hoc group that we would find somebody who knew this restaurant owner and go and talk to them. We had the churches involved. Finally, we had one holdout. We got the military, Fort Sill, military college off base so that the soldiers could not go there and that was their main constituency or patron. So, they finally gave up and we integrated the whole town. Had one holdout, which was a swimming pool. We finally closed them down rather than them integrate. So... SM (00:34:05): This is [inaudible] LH (00:34:05): But we were very successful in Lawton in integrating. This was just at the time of the sit-ins in the South. SM (00:34:11): What year was this? LH (00:34:18): Oh, I am so... SM (00:34:18): (19)60s, (19)61, (19)62, or? LH (00:34:18): Yeah. SM (00:34:18): Yeah? LH (00:34:18): In that time period. I will make sure. I cannot think chronologically. I am... part of my... SM (00:34:28): What is interesting about the kids, I am one of them, growing up in the (19)50s, is that what the history of Native Americans or the American Indian is, they used to say all the time on television, from the Civil War till about the end of the (19)50s, what you learned about, basically, was a history of broken treaties between the government and various tribes. I know there's the one with U.S. Grant was well known in history books, perceptions that Native Americans were forced onto reservations, they lost their land, had to battle over everything with people coming West. You had to constantly fight and battle for everything. You lost the buffalo. Then on top of that, you had this perception out there that many Native Americans were drunks, were derelicts, and the labels being put on a population by the white population. LH (00:35:43): We were the vanishing race, was even part of the [inaudible]. SM (00:35:46): Yeah. LH (00:35:47): We even got national reports that we were vanishing. But what happened during the civil rights and the War on Poverty Program, we came alive and changed our whole methodology. The First Americans, the Native Americans, we changed the terminology to help people see us differently. Then this lazy, drunk Indian thing, though alcohol was a major issue, but that was something that the press would focus on it. Every Thanksgiving, there would be a story about poor old Pine Ridge, of course it still is one of the poorest counties in the country, but they would go and focus on them and their poverty level, whereas the rest of the country was not that bad. But we would be all stereotyped into that Pine Ridge drunk Indian syndrome. It still kind of goes on that way. But the press has changed quite a bit, mostly because the Native Americans got organized under the War on Poverty Program, Johnson. People say, "Well, it did not work." But it worked for the Indians. For instance, in Oklahoma, because we did not have reservations, we do not have reservations; we have individual land allotments and tribally-owned land. They were not called reservation. So, we were not able to get funding from the War on Poverty Program because we did not have reservations. That was some termination policy made in Washington. Soon as we moved to Washington and got with Art Schriver and became an advisor to our tribe. He changed the policy because what the money was going to the counties and the counties were the ones who would discriminate against Indians and they would not be get any of the funds to grow and help themselves. So, we changed that policy. Then we worked to change and break many policies. What we did, we used the money from the War on Poverty to undermine the Department of Interior's control over us. They were still acting like colonial government and had control of our lives from childhood to adulthood and controlled our resources and all of those things. So, we organized. We organized Americans for Indian Opportunity. So, we had a national organization then as well as the Oklahoma one. And we learned from that Oklahoma experience, was not an organized, and then the War on Poverty gave us a platform and we saw Schriver's support and Lyndon Johnson. We really made a lot of gain. Interestingly enough, we made a lot of gain under Nixon, who had another strange relationship with Indians that shows him to be pro-Indian Indian with all of his other faults. SM (00:39:17): But your husband had mentioned, I remember last summer in an interview, the Taos Pueblo? LH (00:39:25): Mm-hmm. Taos Blue Lake. SM (00:39:26): Yeah. That that is one major thing that you did in your life. LH (00:39:31): Yeah. SM (00:39:31): And also, the Menominee tribe... LH (00:39:34): Gained recognition. SM (00:39:35): ...gained recognition. Could you tell a little bit about those two? Because those are supposedly very historic events in Native American history. LH (00:39:42): Yes. Well, the government took the land that was designated to the Taos people. They took a part of the land which was part of their creation story, that they came from under this lake at the volcanic crater. It got way up in the mountain there above their pueblo. They took it over and let cattle run and people could use it. So, it was very painful for the tribe to see their sacred site being decimated. And they fought for 60 years. Some reason they came to Fred, I guess because they knew that he was married to an Indian. Fred, of course, called me in and then we all met with them, and Fred told the staff said, "If we do not do anything, we're going to help these folks." It was a very interesting... But this is how we worked together so well. Because by that time I had been involved with the Urban League, and because of my work in civil rights, I was known in the Black community as well as the Indian community. And then started women's rights as well, too. But by that time, women's rights were not the big issue of the day. So, we made it a civil rights issue. That was my part of the job. He had to convince the Congress, and he could not get it out of the committee because Senator Anderson from New Mexico was against it. [inaudible] go against a sitting Senator. He told Fred that, "I do not mess with your Indians and you do not mess with mine, and we're not your Indian's senator." So, they started this struggle. Then I had a young friend who became a White House intern and White House fellow, and she got very interested in the issue, and I became her mentor. She got me into the Lynn Garment and Nixon. The only picture of Nixon and people of color were with the Taos people, and it went all around the world and it made him look like he was really for brown people. So, I says, "I think they will owe the Taos people [inaudible] for your election." And he agreed. He called the Republican side of the Senate and said that the White House going to make a non-partisan bill and to work with Fred. And so he did. He said, "Come on over." And I went over. So, they sent me over and he gave a staff person to work with me and Fred, and then I would go and work with maybe the civil rights issue, not just an Indian issue. I got all the civil rights groups, labor and other people to support it outside. But Fred had to get it out of committee, which was where Anderson was ahead of that committee. So, that is how we would work [inaudible] could work both sides of any issue and make it happen. And that was the success of it. There were so many funny stories in that, getting there with Fred was the knothole gang with Rich Mandell and by Bobby Kennedy. We lived right around the corner from Hickory Hill. McLane got to be friends with them. And that is how I got to know Schriver so well, and we would go up Anisburg as well. So anyway, there were four of them that were all came to the Senate at the same time and worked together as a group, called themselves the Knothole Gang. But Congress passed the Taos Blue Lake. That was a great first victory of any Indian reclaiming their land, getting their land back. So, that was why it was so historical. Then the next one that was there was the Menominee that had been terminated. That was during the Eisenhower administration, though Eisenhower himself was not for it, but the study came out and he just let it happen. That was that vanishing race syndrome. So, they were terminating tribes, which means they were no longer tribes; they would just be a part of the county or whatever community they were in. And so they had terminated the Menominees when they got a big land settlement. They told them that they could not get their settlement money until they terminated themselves. So some of them did, some of them voted, about half of them. Anyway, it was poorly done... carefully done. Ada Deer, who was the Menominee woman who came and told us that, and I was concerned. I could not see the Congress ever changing their mind on termination. But she worked and she stayed with us most of the time and ride in with us and then walk [inaudible] calls to Congress and get somebody, and then we would have a reception for the Menominee. People would come into town to lobby their Congressmen. Just doing things like that to bring attention to the issue. Not only did they reinstate the Menominees as a tribe; Congress voted that they would never use termination as their national policy because it was so destructive. So, that was turning around old policy, the past into contemporary more understanding of what it was like. Then there was another piece of that with the Alaskan claims. The Alaskan claims would not be settled. So, they came to Fred again. But the lawyers, I have forgotten to ask who the lawyers were who were for the tribe, were going to agree for, what, 10 million acres and a whole bunch of money. Then the Eskimos way up where the oil was, and they discovered oil there, and that is why they finally decided they have to settle with the Natives in order to produce that oil. So, these people came to Fred and said that "we were subsistence. We live off the land, and land is more important than the money." So, Fred introduced legislation for 60 million acres and the White House and their lawyers had agreed to 10 million acres. But we got enough support where they got 40 million acres and a whole bunch of money... SM (00:47:45): Wow. That is... LH (00:47:46): ... settlement. But we were not smart enough to know that they're getting [inaudible] in Alaska, made them into corporations because we did not think about how they were going to govern themselves. So, they set up corporations and they felt that they could buy the corporations and do away with the Indian profits ownership, but they still are going. Some of them are going better than others, the corporations up there. They tried to change it back to governing like we do down here. SM (00:48:26): Who were the Knothole Gang again? LH (00:48:29): Mandell, Bobby Kennedy, and Tidings. SM (00:48:33): Senator Tidings. LH (00:48:35): Uh-huh. SM (00:48:35): And Teddy was not part of that? LH (00:48:37): No. SM (00:48:38): Oh, okay. LH (00:48:40): He had already been in the Senate. SM (00:48:43): Yeah. And you were part of the Knothole Gang, right? LH (00:48:46): Yeah. SM (00:48:47): Behind the curtains. LH (00:48:48): Yeah. I drug around and plotted with them. Then Fred was chairman of the party. When Jonathan appointed me to be a... He was really doing different things. He said, "You're not owned by the Department of Interior." He appointed the first Indian to be head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They would go to the Smithsonian and get a war staff and knock the deadhead wood out of the Department of Interior. So, with that kind of attitude, then he appoint me to the Indian Opportunities Council, where I was the only woman and non-elected leader to sit on it. Then, of course, after the war came along, I mean, not that it is already there, but the war just destroyed all those good works that the civil rights movement and all the things that we were doing. SM (00:49:56): I have a question here, which is just based on a perception as a white kid growing up in the late (19)40s... Well, actually the (19)50s, early (19)60s, because this is what white boomer kids became, and this is how they entertained themselves in the (19)50s. Bear with me as I just give these descriptions, and it gets to a question here. The boomer perceptions in the late (19)50s and early (19)60s, television and movies and comics and coloring books, everything was about cowboys and Indians. They were the biggest toys. There were outfits, TV shows. Indians were always the bad guys. Saturday morning movies was very big, would be Westerns for kids. Then the adult movies were in the afternoon and the evening. TV had a Lone Ranger with a very good Native American in Tonto. But the majority of the TV shows, Native Americans were portrayed as the bad guy or the enemy or the evil one. Every white boomer had played cowboys and Indians, never thinking about the true meaning of what they were doing as youngsters. LH (00:51:20): Uh-huh. It is a stereotype. SM (00:51:23): Pardon? LH (00:51:24): They continued the stereotype. SM (00:51:29): Yes. Did these experiences shape many attitudes of the boomers to the point that when they matured in the early (19)60s and late (19)60s and (19)70s, they saw the lies and the real truths here, too, just like they saw a lot of lies throughout America because when you looked at television, you saw the stereotypes of Native Americans, but then you never saw African Americans. I think during the (19)50s, Nat King Cole had a show for six weeks. There was a show in the early (19)50s called the Amos and Andy, but it was more slapstick. You did not really get to see any African Americans until the (19)60s. So, there's a perception here, in different approaches, that African Americans were second-class citizens, and then the way they portrayed Native Americans, that they were second-class citizens. So, just your thoughts on the influence that this had on a whole generation of young people. LH (00:52:33): Yes. Well, where it starts is in our educational system. We do not study American history. We study Europeans coming to the Americas, and so there is no knowledge; you have no working knowledge about Native Americans until you get to college and you have to take a special course in Native American study to learn about them. So, there is no place to have an experience or a learned experience, even, about Native Americans. So, that starts the problem. Why we were so effective and our organization became so effective, is that people became so embarrassed on how little they knew. That is how we were able to get them to change the federal policies about Indians with every department having an Indian policy statement. But what the boomers did when they went through that whole Vietnam War exercise, they had a little broader mind experience, but they did not have any base of learning to fall back on. But all of our time and energy was to educate the decision makers, policy makers, and the general public. And it's still a major issue. SM (00:54:06): Yeah. I can remember, and you may remember this as well, but in the (19)50s, there was a cereal that came out in the early (19)50s, and it that had pictures of Native American leaders. You could the whole box up, and I still had them. That was a respectful portrayal of Native Americans. I do not know if that is Kellogg Sugar pops, but I remember I still had those. That, to me, upon my reflection was the only respectful portrayal that I ever saw of a Native American except Tonto on The Lone Ranger. LH (00:54:43): That is right. The next one came was... Ohm God, what is the name? What is the name? Oh, the wolf... Oh. What is the name of it? SM (00:54:58): On Daniel Boone? LH (00:55:00): No. SM (00:55:00): Oh. LH (00:55:02): Wait. No. He was not. Daniel Boone was an Indian color. SM (00:55:08): I mean, Ed Ames was on one of those shows. I forget, which one. LH (00:55:13): Yeah. All of they were just kind of marginal. We were always marginalized. Yeah. I was just trying to think of... SM (00:55:19): When... LH (00:55:19): …of the first movie that showed Indians and that they had their own language and own culture with... Why cannot I think of it? SM (00:55:33): I know another one where there was a sense of respect. That was on the Walt Disney. The Native American who was in a lot of the movies there. There was an advertisement of his crying, a tear was coming out. They always treated him with respect, I remember. LH (00:55:50): I had an opportunity to meet him in California. They honored him for his good work and his imagery. SM (00:55:58): When you raised your three kids in the (19)50s and early (19)60s, how did they handle these perceptions that were on TV all the time? They had to go to school with kids that had grown up and seen this. What were your kids, and how did you explain this to them as they were growing up, particularly since you were in Washington when they were probably in elementary school? LH (00:56:25): Catherine, the oldest, was exposed to that whole civil rights and then the beginning of Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity. So, she was knowledgeable about all these things that we were working on. When we got to Washington, she said at dinner table one night... You remember the Love case that was at the Supreme Court to decide where there were some states had laws against mixed marriages, mostly was between Blacks and whites. But this particular Love case was a Indian and a white person, I guess that was it. So, Catherine came home and said, "Mother, you and I should go to jail because you and dad are breaking the law," and we were living Northern Virginia. I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "Well, the Love case, if we went to jail, that would really dramatize the unfairness of that law." So, we had a long talk about it at the table. My son, who was, I do not know what age. He was about 10 or 12. He said, "You mean you and dad are not married?" We had to explain it to him. But he was real proud of his great-grandmother, my grandmother, came to visit us and her Comanche clothes, but she always wore Comanche clothes. She campaigned for Fred in her Harris headliner shaw. She met Lady Bird Johnson and gave her a shaw when the Johnsons were out campaigning Oklahoma. Then, she invited us to the White House and we have pictures of grandmother. Fred said, "I am not letting y'all out of my sight. I am going with y'all to the White House." So, she gave us a tour of the White House and picture of my mother and my grandmother and Catherine and I and Fred in the Green Room with Lady Bird. She got so much attention and all the members of the Congress, and of course, Vice President Humphrey was showing her around and doing all kinds of things for her. The press wanted to interview her. They asked, "Would she be interested?" I said, " Yes." I said, "I am sure she would, and let me ask her, though." I asked her and she said, well, if I would be with her, she would. And then I said, "Sure." Because it will not be hard. You're smarter than they are. You can keep this laugh then. They asked, "Well, what do you think of Washington?" She said she had been in the White House. She had met with the vice president and every member of the Congress, practically. So, she said what impressed her the most was all these trees because we lived in the southern plains of Oklahoma and did not have any trees except on the creek banks. She said, oh, these trees were the most things that impressed her the most. SM (00:59:44): Oh, wow. LH (00:59:46): So, she just had a great, great time. The children invited her to their class to meet their teachers and their classmates. So, it was a big [inaudible] surprise that they [inaudible] her off. Then Ethel and her children, because I was teasing, their children were asking me if I lived in a teepee, and I would get after Ethel about, "Gosh, what are you teaching your kids?" [inaudible] grandmother came to visit. She invited us over for tea and all children were there, and the big old slobbery dogs. They would ask her questions. Carrie Kennedy would ask her the most questions. So, grandmother said, "I will give you an Indian name," and said the one who is always curious or always interested. So, she can tell you her Comanche name now even as a grown woman. SM (01:00:50): Wow. LH (01:00:50): She remembered that so well. That was kind of the way we lived in Washington. We were different, Fred and I. I was told, somebody asked... SM (01:01:06): Could you hold on one second here? I have to turn a light off here. Yeah. LH (01:01:08): We do not have weather like we did before. We jumped the mountain. The snow would be in the mountains, and then we would jump it and then go onto Oklahoma and have tornadoes and stuff, ice storms and rain. So all those, you just watch it go from here over the mountains to the East Coast. They are going to get some more and bad weather right now. I think Dallas is predicting, and Oklahoma, predicting tornadoes. SM (01:01:43): Yeah. We had snow just a couple days ago. LH (01:01:47): Where are you? SM (01:01:48): Well, I am in Philadelphia. LH (01:01:48): Oh, okay. SM (01:01:51): But we did not have much. It melted already. But my sister lives up in Binghamton, New York. Her daughter and her family lives up in Rochester. They got 26 inches two days ago, and my sister got 15. LH (01:02:02): And some more weather is coming their way now. SM (01:02:09): Yeah. It has been a crazy winter here. You can finish that story you were talking about. LH (01:02:14): Okay. Where were [inaudible] SM (01:02:15): You were talking about Ethel and the kids and... LH (01:02:21): Oh. Well, it was the first time she had ever flown in an airplane. It was just a really wonderful experience. Just to describe that, I always had a space, but when he was in the state Senate, I would sit on the floor of the Senate at a chair next to his desk and go to his hearings. But I was very different. I was the only wife that would go. But it made a lot of difference to the older members. They would invite us to go, the old guys who were not messing up or messing around, and they would invite us out to eat with them and help Fred go up the ladder of leadership in the Senate because he was serious. I would act as hostess to all those guys in do the ashtrays and fix them drink or do something. Then Fred would ask me, "What did I think about so-and-so?" Because I would know enough about the subject that Fred was working on to listen to what was being said. So, he would depend on my interpretation of people a lot because I studied them all my life. SM (01:03:48): That is what I call teamwork. LH (01:03:50): It was. SM (01:03:52): Yes. LH (01:03:52): He had enough Comanche language that we would tell that here comes somebody. "Here comes your friend, or here comes your enemy." SM (01:04:01): Yes. LH (01:04:02): And it just [inaudible] LH (01:04:02): ...becomes your enemy. SM (01:04:05): Yes. LH (01:04:05): And then nobody could even pick up, it is a very soft thing. And we had teased each other in Comanche. And when he was chairman of the party, I had a room in the Watergate there, where we started Americans for Indian Opportunity, actually, when Nixon was listening, was taping them, I guess, we used to accuse one of our people for. But they would make a decision in the evening and I would always be there and ride back with Fred, listen to all of them. And then they would always, a lot of people would say, even in Oklahoma, would say, "There is [inaudible] LaDonna," because I was the first wife to ever do anything like that, be prominent. And what we found out was when we campaigned, that my presence, men would behave differently and then we would get all of his classmates in law school to come and their wives would come and it would create in a whole different environment because we had not had the women's rights movement come along yet. SM (01:05:13): Yes. LH (01:05:13): And so it was a real important thing. It changed people's behavior. And we found it as an asset. And besides, that is the way we worked and that is what we were comfortable with. And we just did it, whether it was popular or not. It became popular, then everybody. SM (01:05:30): Before I get into your work and yours, a lot of the appointments to various committees by President Johnson, you mentioned a couple of them already, could you discuss, what you know here, the role that Native Americans played in the Vietnam War? I know many were drafted or joined, like a lot of African Americans, to improve their circumstances in life. LH (01:05:56): Mm-hmm. SM (01:05:56): How many went? And how many died? And how were they treated upon their return, particularly into the tribes? And were they treated like Vietnam veterans all over America? Well, they were not treated very well. And were they stereotyped during their service? And I say this because I read a book once, where one of the leaders in Vietnam, at a platoon, and he put the Native American on point because he is Native American, so he must be very good at that. So that was stereotyping right there. So, I am not sure if that happened a lot. But in your experiences with Native American Vietnam vets, how have they been treated? LH (01:06:41): Well, in every war, we would have more Native American volunteer and go into service, percentage to our population than any other peoples in the United States. Every war. World War I. World War II. And in World War I and II, we had code talkers, not just the Navajo code talkers in the Pacific, but the Comanches had code talkers on the Normandy Beach and going into France. SM (01:07:11): Mm-hmm. LH (01:07:14): But they were never recognized. The French government honored us, the Comanches, but the US government did not, until just recently. And then everybody had died except one of them. Then next to us were Hispanics. So that it was kind of like... And you say, "Well, why would they do that?" Well, it was their homeland. They were protecting their homeland and they were always honored. We would always have feast and religious ceremonies and powwows honoring them when they came back. And I was just reading, they had a big front page, in our tribal newspaper, about our World War I veteran and naming them and they have honored them. It's a big thing. They have veterans mother... World War II started that mothers have... If your child was in the armed services, they have these mothers, I cannot remember the right title for them, where you put a flag up in your window and all of that. Well, all through the Vietnam thing, when they would come back, we would honor them. We would have a powwow and religious ceremonies around them. Dances, ceremonies around them. Returning safe, though. SM (01:08:41): That is really more than anybody else did in America for any vets coming back because we all know, most were not welcomed home. They just came home. LH (01:08:52): That is right. I have one friend who went twice. And I said, "Why in the world did you go back and volunteer again?" And he said, "Well, because it got where I had learned some, had so much experience in the first time, that all I did was keep those boys alive. And they all would figure out how to get in my platoon." And he is a lieutenant. And he said, "And my whole thing was to keep them alive." But that is why he went back the second time. SM (01:09:34): Was there any issues with post-traumatic stress disorder amongst the vets from the Vietnam? LH (01:09:41): Yes, because [inaudible]. SM (01:09:41): Was there a good, strong support base? LH (01:09:43): They were always put up front, just like you described, that they were good scouts. They would be good scouts. SM (01:09:51): Right. LH (01:09:52): But of course, they never had those kinds of experience by the time Vietnam came along. Maybe World War II. I mean, One. But not since then. That was the stereotype. And then they got more Medals of Honor and anything than any other group of people, percentage of their population, too. So that was the other thing. And I do not know how we are doing in this horrible thing that we are in now. SM (01:10:30): Yeah. Your kids are boomers and they are defined as part of that generation that was born between (19)46 and (19)64? LH (01:10:40): Yes. Kathryn was in Harvard and she would bring all her Harvard kids down, who were protesting in the war, and they would bail them out with you and oh, it just would make you cry. They were getting ready for protesting. They had their blood handkerchief, their Vaseline to protect from teargas. And all of them were just awful. And my youngest daughter participated more marches than anybody in history, I think. Poor People's March. The Hispanic, Chavez's March. SM (01:11:21): Oh, yes. LH (01:11:22): Vietnam marches. And I have forgotten that. And the women's. SM (01:11:25): Wow. Now, your oldest was at Harvard. What year was she there? Or years? LH (01:11:46): She graduated a year early in school. We were just talking Sunday night. SM (01:11:46): Was she there when Harvard Yard happened? LH (01:11:52): What was Harvard Yard? SM (01:11:52): That is when they protested. They took over Harvard Yard. Took over the building. LH (01:12:00): Yeah, I guess so. The other thing, too, was that that horrible Democratic Convention in Chicago. SM (01:12:07): Oh, yes. (19)68. LH (01:12:07): And she was with us. And we sat up in the windows and watched the sight below us and cried and cried and cried. SM (01:12:19): Yeah. That experience in Chicago, was the whole family there in Chicago? LH (01:12:26): Yes. Well, the two oldest ones, the littlest one. SM (01:12:30): What did that experience of seeing.... Some people say it was a riot and some people say it was police brutality. It depends on what angle you're coming from. What was your read? LH (01:12:39): It was police brutality. Just outright craziness. And it was such a horrible time. We were, of course, for Humphrey. And Fred and Mondale were running his campaign. And then Humphrey was considering Fred for vice president, told his vice president running mate and what is the name? What is our senator's name that became his running mate? SM (01:13:07): Muskie. Senator Muskie. LH (01:13:10): Yeah. Had he chosen Fred, that we might have gotten past a lot of this anti-war stuff. I mean, because of Pres position. And we tried to change Humphrey and we never could. I do not know exactly what hold President Johnson had on him, but in some way, he would not... I guess it was his own belief because he was such a good man, that he just would not let go of that war. And that campaign was horrible. He battled with him, all over the country. SM (01:13:43): Yeah, in my interviews, I had somebody that was very close to Senator McCarthy, who was looking out the window of his hotel room, looking down, just like you were. And the person told me, he showed no emotion. Just watched. Whereas others had tremendous emotion and he was shocked because he thought he would be upset about what was happening, but he just did not say anything. Yeah, that (19)68 year was unbelievable. LH (01:14:16): And campaigning and it was just horrible. SM (01:14:21): Well, what did that say about, not only about the experience of how Native Americans have been treated, and we all know the civil rights rule was happening, the women's rule was starting, the environmental movement, the Chicano rule, the gay and lesbian. They were all evolving at this time. But what did this say about America to you? LH (01:14:45): Well, I never separated. One of the things that we... We have an ambassador's program, a leadership program for young Native Americans between the age of 25 and 35. SM (01:15:00): Mm-hmm. LH (01:15:01): And we reinforce their cultural identity and say, "How do you do that and live in a contemporary situation?" Because if you try to divide it up, you get paranoid that people say you live in two different worlds. And I said, "You cannot live in two different worlds." You can be who you are and know your cultural identity and you still be contemporary at the same time. It is not an either/or. And always, the American society's always try to make it an either/or. You had to give up being Indian in order to be a good American. But we say that is nonsense and that is what hurt us most, by trying to live like that. But I could never separate my stuff, that I was a Comanche Indian doing. But I was doing these things that were in the women's movement. I was the convener of the women's political caucus and bidding for Dan and Bella, Doug and Gloria. And started off with all those people. Now, it was hard to make people understand how to bring people of color into the circle though. That was the hardest part. SM (01:16:28): Mm-hmm. LH (01:16:31): But I learned so much from the experience of it, even the negative part of it, that I do not resent it. There were times I probably... Somebody said, when I talked to these young people, I said, "You're blessed because you have an Indian worldview, your tribal worldview, and then you have an American worldview." And so that gives you two ways of looking at an issue and said you have to figure out techniques and methodology to overcome barriers that you are confronted with, that I have used every time, from trying to use logic, to that I cried or flirted. There is not any method I did not try. So just have a broad conception of how you solve a problem. Not just that there's just not one way of solving it. SM (01:17:32): You worked with many boomers in your life and you certainly raised three. Based on the people that you witnessed, remember there are 70 million people in this generation, of which only between five and 10 percent may have been activists, based on those that you knew or witnessed, what are some of the qualities you admired about the boomer generation? And which you did not like about the boomer generation? LH (01:18:00): Well, I liked that they did take on the war and that they taught us how to look at it differently. So, I admire them for that. SM (01:18:14): Mm-hmm. LH (01:18:17): And most of them have stayed involved, like Kathryn has stayed involved with non-profit kinds of work or education. So, she has got a law degree. She works mostly in education and then nonprofit. And within the Indian community, she's an advisor to our program, where my youngest daughter is actually the director of our program now. SM (01:18:38): Excellent. Yes. LH (01:18:41): And our son is out in LA television production, so he is a little different, but he is still involved with his cultural identity. SM (01:18:51): Mm-hmm. LH (01:18:53): And so, we still go to Comanche there... Things that we do at home, back to Oklahoma. And so, it has been a real... So, I do not see the need to make it an either/or, that I see to go in way that I can do that as a Comanche Indian woman and do it as effectively as anybody else can. And kind of that attitude. And that I have, in many ways, have a special responsibility. SM (01:19:34): Yeah, you have been in it for the long run. Longevity means a lot. And that actually means genuineness, too, in terms of your passion for something. Your work, over the years, on behalf of not only Native American issues, but you have been involved in women's issues, environmental issues, peace, you have even gotten involved in mental health issues. I would like you to define activism, in your own words, and why it is today that some people fear this term and feel more comfortable with the term "volunteer"? LH (01:20:14): Okay. They are telling me I am going to have to ditch my write-in. I think that is a very good question. I think it is because my Comanche culture, that the more... What's the right word? What is the... The more blessed you are, or I do not want even put it in a religious term, but the more you have, the more you have to give back. SM (01:20:53): Mm-hmm. LH (01:20:53): You have a responsibility to give back, so that the good things that happened to me are the recognition that I received, that I have more obligation to give back to the community. So that value came through my Comanche [inaudible]. And a lot of people have it, through their religion or other kinds of ways of looking at it. And it is terrible that we have, and particularly it seems that liberals have, kind of dropped the ball this day and age. And that fundamentalists have kind of taken over. And in some way, they seem less generous and caring for the general public, for all people. SM (01:21:51): Right. LH (01:21:53): And I have a great concern of that. We teach our young ambassadors and we also have a sister organization in New Zealand with the Maori. And we are working with now with Ainus in Japan. And Bolivia, Indians in Bolivia. But that they all have those same values, too. It is interesting that when you belong to a communal society, like tribal society, that you have an obligation for the group to move with you, that you cannot move by yourself. The whole group should be moving up with you, is the ideal. And that is what the value, that most people value the most, is they see it in the person that does that. You are valued in the community because you are generous. SM (01:22:58): You have to leave in eight minutes? LH (01:23:00): Yeah. We got one more question. SM (01:23:04): I got two more questions. I got a lot more, but I guess I can get these two in. LH (01:23:10): See if we can call it again tomorrow and finish up. SM (01:23:12): Maybe. Would that be possible? LH (01:23:13): Uh-huh. Sure. SM (01:23:16): Yeah. What time would you like me to call tomorrow? LH (01:23:19): Tomorrow is Wednesday, huh? SM (01:23:22): Uh-huh. LH (01:23:23): Okay. Let us try 10 o'clock tomorrow. SM (01:23:26): 10 o'clock, which would be 12 o'clock my time. LH (01:23:30): Yeah, because I wanted to tell you about Pennsylvania [inaudible]. SM (01:23:33): Yeah. This will be my last question at Aiden. LH (01:23:35): Okay. SM (01:23:36): What are your thoughts on the American Indian movement? It is a group that one could describe as more confrontational group willing to do violence to protect Native American rights and property values. LH (01:23:52): Yes. SM (01:23:52): And the question is, were they the Weathermen and the Black Panthers of the Native American movement? LH (01:24:00): Well, I probably should not put them in that category, but they were urban Indians. That is the other thing. Half of our population now, they live in urban areas. SM (01:24:14): They were from Minneapolis? LH (01:24:15): Yes. SM (01:24:16): Yes. LH (01:24:16): That was started in Minneapolis, then all over. So, there were people from reservations that joined it. But like you say, their style was more confrontational. Our was more trying to be reasonable, reasoned. But they were helpful to us because when they acted out radical, then we looked like we were tame. But we had the same goals. But our methodology was different. SM (01:24:46): Mm-hmm. LH (01:24:47): So that they were valuable to helping bring about change. But it was because they made us look reasonable and easier to deal with. SM (01:25:01): Yeah, your work I would say was more in the system, like Martin Luther King and Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, John Lewis, and Jesse Jackson. I think they were more in the system. LH (01:25:19): Yes. Change the system because they are the ones, they have control. SM (01:25:23): Right. And the people that were a little more confrontation where the John Trudells, Russell Means Dennis Banks. They were like Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Cleaver, Hampton, Brown, Davis. Those people. LH (01:25:37): And they let their hurt... They were hurt. And that one of the things we had to deal with a lot in our leadership program, is how to manage that, so that you do not medicate yourself with alcohol or dysfunctional behavior. SM (01:25:57): Right. LH (01:25:59): Because those things can hurt so bad that it is difficult to overcome them. So that is one of the things we examine, in our program. SM (01:26:08): And then the last thing in this question regarding the American Indian movement. Maybe we ought talk about this tomorrow? And your thoughts on when they took over Alcatraz in (19)69. LH (01:26:20): Yeah. SM (01:26:21): The Bureau of Indian Affairs in (19)72. Then the wounded knee situation in (19)73. Those were historic events in the (19)60s. LH (01:26:34): Yes. And I was much involved in a particular one at the BIC, BIA takeover. So, I will have a lot to comment on that. SM (01:26:40): Why do not we do that tomorrow? And thank you very much. LH (01:26:43): You are very much [inaudible]. SM (01:26:47): Yeah. I feel like I am a friend of yours already. LH (01:26:51): [inaudible] share with us, but he was thinking about it, either. We were already committed because Humphrey had been such a good person to us, as a young... He came and campaigned for us. And he did just so many good things. And we would always wind up... I would have Oklahomans come visit us and we were lined up at his office and he would come out take pictures [inaudible]. SM (01:27:20): He always had a friendly nature. He would be on Mike Douglas Show. And he was on Mike Douglas quite a bit. And he was always jovial and friendly. And one thing people, and I will close with this, people do not realize he wrote a book in 1948 on civil rights. LH (01:27:35): Yes. SM (01:27:36): 1948. LH (01:27:41): He deserves much more credit than he [inaudible]. SM (01:27:41): Yeah, I agree. Well, I will call you tomorrow. LH (01:27:43): All right, my dear. I look forward to talking. SM (01:27:47): Yeah, same here. Have a good day. Bye. LH (01:27:48): Bye-bye. SM (01:27:50): ... as we were ending our conversation yesterday. And so I just wanted to hear, again, your thoughts. I think I was trying to rush through that last question. Just your overall thoughts on the American Indian movement. And I was trying to say, I was wondering if you thought it was more of a confrontational group, similar to the Weathermen that SDS became, or when the civil rights movement changed from Dr. King and Bayard Rustin and the non-violent protests, the Gandhian method to the more confrontational Black Panther method? LH (01:28:30): Well, I hate to compare them. SM (01:28:31): Yes. LH (01:28:32): [Inaudible] them because they were different, but in some ways similar. And I do not think it would be appropriate to compare them to those groups. Two things, is that they were urban people. I think I mentioned that yesterday. SM (01:28:49): Mm-hmm. LH (01:28:50): And they were, half of it was, and this was government policy, putting them in urban area. That was part of the relocation, it was called. It was a national policy of taking, because there were not any jobs on the reservation, because it was lack of imagination and creativity. There were not any jobs on the reservation. So, they said, "Well, let us send to the cities and sent them to manufacturing jobs." So, they just went around. And I had a cousin who went through it and he was sent to Detroit to work on cars. And the amount of suicide. I mean, the program did not work at all and it was just a horrible program. But they kept it up for about 10 years. I do not know why, even after we proved, over and over again, it was not working. And it was part of that termination and relocation, part of that Eisenhower report. It was not his report. It was some paint group that came out, that I mentioned earlier, about we were the vanishing race. And so they were... Again, it was an attempt to assimilate us. So, they took people off the Navajo and took them to Los Angeles and dumped them. And they said, "We are not going to put them together because we do not want barrios," or whatever we call the Black community. And so, they scattered them all over town, which made them really lost. SM (01:30:29): Yes. LH (01:30:31): And I think one of the things that drove them, drove the AIM group, was to reaffirm their identity. And that is how I view them, because I have gone to their meetings. I know them all very well. And so they were trying to reaffirm their identity as well as try to change the policy. And how to articulate that whole failure of the urban relocation program. And no one could quite articulate it at the time, but just the anger and the hurt from it, was part of their behavior. SM (01:31:23): I know the three names that are the most well-known are Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and John Trudell. And I remember reading about John Trudell, that his family died in a very... I think there was arson. And he lost his wife and two kids. And they never quite understood what happened there. LH (01:31:42): I know. The FBI was supposed to have looked at it. He accused the FBI. SM (01:31:44): Mm-hmm. LH (01:31:50): But he worked for us in Oklahoma, for Indian Opportunity, for a while, when he was passing through. And then he went out and got... And then that is what happened and it radicalized him. SM (01:32:00): Right. LH (01:32:01): And so, he has been a real strong activist. And course, Dennis, Dennis and particularly Russell. Russell was a dance instructor for... I have forgotten now, where. And I am thinking out in Chicago, but someplace. And the whole... Finally, they all got together. I mean, what happened that the urban people organized themselves, sometimes it was just the bar where they went to have a drink after work or something. And then they finally started urban Indian centers. And I was very... Under Johnson and I had hearings on, because I said half of our population were... Sorry, I have got a frog somewhere. SM (01:32:49): That is all right. LH (01:32:54): Let me drink a little bit of water here and get [inaudible]. SM (01:32:55): Okay. LH (01:32:55): And under the Johnson administration, as part of his National Indian Opportunities Council... Excuse me. SM (01:33:14): Some of the events, I am just listing them, but the four major events that I remember and what I have read about two of them- LH (01:33:23): I... Go ahead. SM (01:33:25): ... that certainly was the takeover of Alcatraz in (19)69 and Wounded Knee in (19)73. And I know they also took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs in (19)72, in Washington. And they also took over Mount Rushmore. Those are four major activities that AIM did during that (19)69 to (19)73 period. But Alcatraz and Wounded Knee were the big ones. LH (01:33:50): Well, they were not responsible for Alcatraz. That was kind of the... It was a local idea that started up, so AIM did-did come in, Trudell and everybody. It drew a lot of outside people. SM (01:33:58): Mm-hmm. LH (01:34:08): But I do not give them credit for that takeover. But I do not need to say that. But I do not need to be putting- SM (01:34:17): What was the purpose of Alcatraz? I know they were there 13 months or? LH (01:34:26): ... Well, they wanted to make Alcatraz their urban center, take it over and run their programs out of it. That was the urban Indians. There were two groups in San Francisco when I had hearings there. There was what? In Oakland and then San Francisco proper. And had the hearings about how many arrests they made. And the sentences were longer than other people. There was all kinds of horrible complaints about how the city treated them. And so that was one of the reasons that they did the Alcatraz. But the first one they did was the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Was not it first? SM (01:35:05): You may be right. Yes. LH (01:35:11): Yeah. Well, we were of cursing Washington then. We were courting some plunders, my director and I, Margaret Gover. And who happened to be Kevin Gover, who runs the museum now. She and I were having dinner with some possible funders for AIO. And we said, "Well, we heard that they were some Oklahoma Indians down in the occupation." So, we said, "Let us go down and see who is there." And we went there. And of course, there was the big crowd all around. And John Trudell saw us and said, "Oh, there is LaDonna. Come in." And Mike, he would come in. So, it was kind of like the Red Sea opening up. SM (01:35:56): Yes. LH (01:35:56): It all bear [inaudible]. So, we went in that night and Commissioner Lee- LH (01:36:03): And Commissioner Louis Bruce was there, and they were... It was being occupied, but here was all of the BIA [inaudible] trying to figure out how to get them out, or see what they want. Well, my God, it was so weird. You just cannot imagine. It was like... What is the term? Unbelievable, given how you could get in that set of circumstance. Well, when they got in there, Louis Bruce loves to say that they spent the night with me that night. So we stayed there all night, to keep them. I did not think they would storm the... US Marshals were going threaten to storm. So, then the AIM guys, Russell and them says, "Well, we are ready to negotiate out, but we want to negotiate with a certain party," like... Oh, God, I cannot think of everybody's name. He was Secretary of Health and Human Services at the time, in the Nixon administration. So, I said, "Well, have we all requested it?" And they said, "Well, no, we do not know who to talk to." And I said, "Well, do y'all have any contact with him?" And they said, "Oh yeah, they are in the building with the US Marshal." So, I said, " Go sit down and talk to them and tell them that you are ready to negotiate under these, with this thing." So, they did. And they came back and said, "Well, they did not have the authority to make any decision." So, we stayed there all that night. And the next morning I went back and started calling. And of course, so much like AIM's activity, the whole city was out of session, and Nixon was back in California. So I started calling Leonard Garment and everybody I knew in the White House to say that it's going to be horrible if... because the US Marshals, again, said they were going to storm the building. So, I kept calling and calling and calling, and finally found out, and Brad Patterson was one person they would talk to, and the guy, [inaudible] who later became Head of the Pentagon. So finally, they agreed, but in the meantime, they kept threatening and threatening. And then I do not know why, some of the young people in there busted up some toilet and did some stupid things. Anyway, they got out. They negotiated out. The government paid them to go home, paid for their fare to go home. And then the next day we went back down there, and Margaret was taking in some food and they said, "Oh, every tribe has an office, and there is a Comanche." And I said, "Well, I better go see who's there from my tribe." And it was my kids, had gone earlier with Maggie and her children, who were Comanches too. They were sitting in that room and acting like they had taken it over. SM (01:39:25): Oh my God. LH (01:39:25): The ridiculousness of it was so absurd. The whole strategy and the outcome, they did get a lot of attention, and it was so hard to work through because there was not any logical... They did not have a set thing that they wanted, but they did negotiate out. So, what I was trying to show you, they could get into situations, but they could not figure out how to get out. SM (01:40:06): Was that what happened at Wounded Knee too? Because they were there for a long time, but their grievance at Wounded Knee was the terrible tragedy of 1890, I believe, and the original Wounded Knee. LH (01:40:19): It was Wilson and the Goon Squad, remember? SM (01:40:22): Yes. LH (01:40:27): And it was chairman of the Pine Ridge. And he was supposedly... He had his law enforcement. And again, I do not know exactly all of the grievances, but as soon as it happened, I called the same people that negotiated out the White House. And I said, "Why do not you set up a committee like Vine Deloria and some prominent Indians, come up there to talk to them and see what their grievance, and let them articulate what it is, the grievances are, and see if we cannot get them out?" And so, Brad Patterson of the White House said, "Oh, Ladonna, we think we have got it all figured out." And I said, "Well, if there is any deaths or any violence, that is going to be in your cat." Of course, they constitutionally sent in the National Guard, which they did not have the authority, the governor did not have the authority to do. So, nobody was convicted of anything except, what is his name, that is still in prison today? He is the poster child of that. Everybody perceives him to be a political prisoner and not- SM (01:41:33): Oh, Peltier. LH (01:41:34): Yeah, Peltier. SM (01:41:34): Leonard Peltier. LH (01:41:36): And he was there and apparently he had... When he was arrested, had guns in his car, illegal guns he did not own, or whatever. So they had to chance to arrest him. And he became, because the judge let everybody else go, because they did not have enough, they did not anything to charge them with, and the action of the state was all wrong, and the Federalist government was wrong, and what they did. So all of that, and the two deaths happened at the very last of the occupation. So, I think Peltier was guilty of carrying those guns, but whether he was guilty of the death of the FBI, but FBI just went nuts. And to this day, they cannot get him out of there. We thought we were going to get him out under Clinton, and Clinton had to back off. So, if you can imagine, that former FBI man picketed the White House, I would have fired their behind [inaudible 01:42:46] the President. He had to back down that off of it. So that shows you that he was an example of- SM (01:42:55): Yes. LH (01:42:55): It was revenge more than it was justice. SM (01:43:00): I think there were two Native Americans killed there as well as, I think I heard over a thousand were arrested, or 1,400. It was a large number, were arrested. LH (01:43:13): They were all in the church there, and people were smuggling food in, they could go past. Oh, again, it was the not ridiculousness, but I was trying to think of it, of how they got in there, how they got fed for all that time. And then the people that got killed in it, it was like a bad grade B movie. And very poorly planned and executed, the whole thing. And so, the White House was not, on my part, and Vine Deloria and others, and let us get them out, and find [inaudible], but the White House would not move on it, because I guess they thought the governor was going to take care of it. SM (01:44:06): Right. You and your husband were in DC during an unbelievable time. I guess it was (19)65 to (19)80 or (19)78, I think it was. When did your husband... You started in (19)65. When did he leave? LH (01:44:25): When Carter came. SM (01:44:28): Okay. Yeah, seven... So those 15 years were, well- LH (01:44:33): Yes. They were the best years actually, in many ways, because of the civil rights and the war on poverty, all the good things that were happening, positive things that were happening. Of course, that horrible war. SM (01:44:46): Yeah. I have just your response. This is a general question, and then just you can respond to it, that your husband was a key senator looking at all these issues, from civil rights, anti-war, Native American issues, obviously, women's rights and gay rights, gay/lesbian rights were coming about in (19)60s9. Then you had Chicano rights. LH (01:45:06): Oh, yes. SM (01:45:07): And I have talked to even Asian American rights, because I have talked to several people on that. And then you had the environment, of Earth Day in 1970. And when you look at all these events during the time from the Chicago that you talked about yesterday, in 1968, and Kent State in 1970, and you had the King and Kennedy assassinations in (19)68, you had McCarthy running for president in (19)68, and McGovern in (19)72. And then Carter of course ran for president and won. And Humphrey, you were supporting of him. LBJ withdrew in (19)68, and then Nixon came in in (19)68. You had Watergate in (19)73, and Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon. And then in 1980, you had Reagan coming in with his law and order, kind of a backlash to what had happened in the previous administrations. You witnessed all this. LH (01:46:02): Yes. And was involved, to some degree, almost in every movement that took place, particularly the women's movement. As I said yesterday, I was the convener of the women's political caucus that still exist today. It was an exciting time, and a person can make a difference. That is, I think the main thing to say, that an individual could contribute to it. And a lot of people came, did that, in the women's movement, and the civil rights. And it was a very tragic time. Of course, Bobby and [inaudible] were our neighbors. And when we... Oh, it was just awful. And we were friends and we supported Humphrey over him. Just the tragedy. And then it made it harder when we went to the funeral, we attended the funeral, on the train and all of that. It was very emotional and very tragic for those kids. And even after that, we supported Joe Kennedy when he ran for Congress. Me and my daughter, his age, my children grew up with those kids. So, it was- SM (01:47:43): Did you feel, basically you, because I did speak to your husband, did you feel that we were heading toward another civil war? The divisions were so intense, especially in (19)68. LH (01:47:51): But you know what? I feared today more than I did then, because I guess we had some successes. We had successes along the way, that made a difference in how people behaved. So there was a lot of tragedy involved in Birmingham and all of those things that the African American community had to go through. I served on the board of the Urban League and the Urban Coalition. So we cross-generated. In many ways, I was kind of the token Indian, but I felt that I was learning a lot of different kinds of strategies and that it was very useful. I played all those roles. I said I did not mind being token, if you know you are being token. That was all right. And people then started... Like, the Girl Scouts of America asked me to be on the board, because they were trying to be diversified. And unfortunately, still all of that is... We are going backwards in all the gains that we made in the (19)60s on civil rights, and the attitude of the government now, with the interesting Tea Party group. SM (01:49:31): Yeah, and the budget cuts, they are unbelievable, particularly in education. LH (01:49:35): And they do not make sense. They really do not make sense in the scheme of things. But what to say about it? It is just weird. SM (01:49:45): Yeah, but you saw that period when the anti-war people were coming to DC, and they were not very popular, because most of the nations supported the war. And then as we got into the middle and late (19)60s, more and more people started going against the war. But you saw the tremendous divisions support the troops, and it was just an unbelievable period. LH (01:50:13): Well, Fritz said he would go over to briefings at the White House, and all these generals were telling them, not like what we are doing now, telling them, "Well, we will be able to do this. We will be able to take control." Excuse me. SM (01:50:32): Yes. Yeah. That was interesting. And then, of course, when Richard Nixon talked about the, what do you call it, the silent majority? LH (01:50:43): Yes. SM (01:50:43): Most of America was supporting him and the pro-war forces. What did your husband and you think about that? LH (01:50:56): By that time, we had finally decided that... because we were so entrenched in civil rights, and Fred was head of the Kerner Commission. I was on that. I was appointed on the National Mental Health Department. Anyway, the department had a committee of people to look at the mental health of children. And I was appointed on that board because I had been active in mental health for Fred in Oklahoma, looking at them and reporting to him, because he had... So, I was only Senator's wife, but was interested in that and they asked me to be on it. And I start staying. Of course, I was very much involved in Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity, and had not quite started [inaudible] yet. And I always felt, well, oh, I am so glad, because I want to be around psychiatrists and psychologists, because they may have some answers that we could use. And unfortunately, they were just like everybody else, that they had not had any learned experience about people of color. SM (01:52:29): Wow. LH (01:52:33): And I was the only person who was not a professional in the field, a psychiatrist. And so, I would periodically say, "Well, that would not be so with Indian children, and I do not think it would be so with children of color." And I loved them individually, but collectively I just was so... I felt frustrated. But I liked them so much. I invited them over to my house for supper, and for Fred to meet them. Franklin Roosevelt's granddaughter was there. I cannot think of her first name now. But anyway, everybody came. And it so happened that my folks from Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity were there. And in Oklahoma, there was the African American Harvard Professor of Psychiatry, who was doing some work in Oklahoma. And I forgot why he was there, but he and I were like the token black and Indian on lots of the boards and things. So we got to be friends. And he went back to Harvard. SM (01:53:57): Is that Dr. Pusant? LH (01:53:59): No, it was not Pusant. Pusant was a mentor of his. It was Chet Pierce, Dr. Chet Pierce. He did a lot of work with the... And when he would come to Washington and go to dinner or lunch with him, he would say he predicted the people's behavior about me and him going, not that they recognized me, but just an African American and perceived to be an Anglo, how their behavior was. So it got to be quite a thing. It was a long friendship from Oklahoma, then back to Washington. Anyway, I invited him to that dinner, and my relatives who were running Oklahomans for Indian Opportunities was intimidated by everybody had at least two or three degrees in psychiatry or sociology or social worker. And one of the men with these two or three degrees had a bolo tie on, but it was wooden. Bolo ties, that was the Indian neckwear. And so, he had a little too much to drink and he went up to this man and said, "Just be [inaudible] glad [inaudible]. I am glad that that was not turquoise, or I would have to whoop your ass." They just shocked everybody, that they saw that kind of anger in the Indian community, because they would not believe me. They would just like... It was like so many places in my life, I was always at... When is it when you just give somebody a little bit of a nod of acknowledgement, but not take them seriously? I think it was [inaudible]. SM (01:56:04): Yeah. LH (01:56:06): So, they would never, because I was not professional, and so they would not take me seriously. But after they talked with Chet Pierce that evening, and he of course was very professional, and he talked, and he was not threatening, but here comes the Indians, threatening. So they accused me, or teasingly accused me of planning it. And I said, "I did not. They just happened to be there, and I had already invited this group over for dinner," but we did not match because we were looking for new ways of dealing with problems in Oklahoma. So, they started a commission on the mental health of minority children. And they put me on that committee, and we got Chet Pierce and Price Cobbs, who wrote Black Like... What is the book? Black Rage. SM (01:56:59): Oh, yes. LH (01:57:01): So, we got [inaudible], one a Puerto Rican, and one a Mexican-American from Mexico, people from the Jewish community, and Japanese, a person who was a psychiatrist who was interred in one of the Japanese camps, and generation growing up in a Japanese concentration camp here in the State. SM (01:57:30): Yes. LH (01:57:31): And what others? And myself and Ada Deer, of course Price Cobbs and Chet Pierce. So we came out, we immediately were all working in civil rights, and we immediately came to an agreement. And the committee who appointed it, or created it, said that the blacks had taken over. They were too radical. And of course Ada Deer and I were the two Indian, two radical ones. Ada Deer was the social worker. And so, we came out with... White racism was the number one mental health problem, because the people that were discriminated against were hurt, and the people who did the discrimination were hurting too, that they had issues that we should pay more attention to. Well, they would not accept our report. So all the professionals resigned from the committee. Business things I get into, and resigned from the committee. And we kept... Those of us who did not have anything to lose professionally kept on fighting them, but they never would print our report. And then when Fred... Fred was doing the Kerner commission, he had us come and testify. And the white racism was part of that Kerner Commission report. We testified before his committee. So, I just said- SM (01:59:11): And what year was that? LH (01:59:16): It was early in the Johnson period, because I was trying to think of who was the head of... Who was Johnson's First Secretary of Health and Human Services? SM (01:59:31): I should know that. Do not know. LH (01:59:35): But he was the one who set up the committee. But it was right at the time of the Kerner Commission, or what do we call it now, when downtown was burning and the- SM (01:59:58): Yeah. It was the Commission on National... Oh my God, I have it. I have the book, I have the paperback of the Kerner Commission book. I will have to check it. LH (02:00:12): And of course, Kerner turned out to have a bad reputation. Turned out was a bad reputation, but he still gets the name of it. But the worst part about it, it was a real good report, and Fred worked very closely, I do not know if he told you about this, but that Johnson got mad at him. And when Johnson got mad, he [inaudible] like a dead dish. Otherwise, he would be with his arm around you and talking right in your face. And we went to something at the White House and he told Fred, he said, "Well, Fred, I am surprised to see you up." And Fred says, "Well, why's that, Mr. President?" And he said... because he called him... You would have to get Fred to tell you this, he called and appointed him on the Kerner Commission because it was a recommendation Fred had made, to do a commission report. And Fred said, "What do you mean, Mr. President?" He said, "I thought..." Who was the mayor of New York at that time? SM (02:01:12): Lindsay? LH (02:01:16): Yeah. So me and Fred were the hardest workers on that commission, and really we're basically calling the shots, though Kerner was supposed to chair it. And then they had some people who really did not believe. It was not strongly forced civil rights on it. So, Fred went over and talked to him and said, "Well," like Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, that you have to figure out what's happening and get some solutions, or they will just keep festering. So, what was happening, the FBI was coming over there and telling them... It was Hoover still in office at the time, was telling them that this person met with somebody two years ago. SM (02:02:17): Can you hold on one second? (02:02:23): All right. We are back. LH (02:02:23): So finally, Johnson told Fred, said, "Well, the FBI was here, saying that they were communists." And he said, "They are not communists. They're people that are hurt about discrimination." And he suggested to be like Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, that if you do think it is communist, then to take the fire out of what they are upset about. So, they had a good talk then. But yet, what really happened was that the Washington Post came out and reported the report, that white racism was the number one mental health problem, before Johnson got to see it. And I do not know who leaked it to him, to this day. But it really upset Johnson and he did not ever embrace the report. But it was the handbook of the times, along with Black Rage and other- SM (02:03:31): Yeah, I have that book too. LH (02:03:34): Yeah. SM (02:03:35): What were the successes of the Native American movement in the (19)60s and (19)70s and beyond through today, and what have been the failures? And what are the main grievances today within the Native American community? So it's kind of a two-part question. What were the successes of that period, the (19)60s through today, and the failures in the efforts? And then what are the main grievances today? LH (02:04:09): The successes were those three things that we talked about earlier, was that the [inaudible] getting their land back, doing away with termination as a policy and reestablishing the Menominee and the Alaskan claims. So those successes gave us in voting, and then there was a whole new set of leaderships that came out of those programs, that became community organizers and then became chairmen of their tribes. And I feel like I was the product of that, as we organized Oklahomans for Indian opportunity. So a new set of leaders who came with some ideas of change, and we did. We have Indian 101 and you can- SM (02:05:05): Yes, I saw that. LH (02:05:05): And it starts moving up then. And then what we did when we organized Americans for Indian Opportunity, we started working with the federal agencies to... We took Johnson's message seriously, that we were not... The Bureau of Department of Interior was in our colonial office, that all agencies in the federal government had responsibility to Native Americans. So, we really took his message, and took it around to his secretaries, and interpreted it for them, to mean that we have to work with tribes, like EPA and environmental things and health and all of those kinds of different programs that were never doing anything. But we had gotten the Department of Labor and Commerce involved during the war on poverty, to put resources into the Indian community. So we got a whole set of new resources. And that emboldened and brought about new leadership and change on the reservations, and then within the government. So we were still in Washington, we had Indian desk in every federal agency. Well, the next time then when Nixon came in, he did away with all of them except the war on poverty put over in ANA, over in Health and Human Services. So, it is still alive today, in Head start. They were going to kill Head start over in Health and Human Services. So a group of tribal leaders came to me and said, "Would you help us set up a meeting with those people?" They were all friends. We had a national network of about, oh, 25 people, that if something went wrong, we could call everybody and it would activate this group of people over in leadership positions, and we would all move on it. Slade Gorton, we killed Slade Gorton because he was so anti-Indian. We did things like that. And then we took it on ourselves as AIO to... It was every new administration, that we would go. And then Nixon came along with his policy statement, was self-determination. So, we interpreted that to the department, saying self-determination means we had the right to self-government and make our own decisions, and that they cannot make policy decisions for us within our own tribe, and that we get to determine our tribal membership. It was before the federal government did it. So, a whole bunch of things changed. Just amazing. Many of the organizations that exist- LH (02:08:03): Amazing. Many of the organizations that exist today were started during that time. The NARF, Native American Rights Fund. And then, one of the things that we did, there was a report that came out, an international report, that there's going to be a food shortage and a fuel shortage and water shortage. We said, "How is that going to impact us?" And all of a sudden, we said, "Why are we the poorest people in the country, when we have land and resources?" So, we said, "Well, what are the resources?" So, we tried to find that out, and the Bureau could not even tell us. We sent some interns over there who did some research. We added percentages to it, like 35 percent of all the coal in the United States was on Indian land, 75 percent of the uranium was on Indian [inaudible], and oil and gas. So, one of the things we did in the Nixon administration is said, "With the creation of the new Energy Department, that you cannot have an energy policy when this much private land is held by Indian people, but Indian people had to be at the table." That was what we said. Frank Zarb was the Czar at the time, and he worked with us, and we slapped around the Bureau of Indian Affairs and got them to change their policy. We brought in experts from international negotiation, and said that the leases that the tribes got into, whether it was oil and gas, or coal, or timber, all of those things were negotiated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and they were running things as bad as [inaudible] that may be one of the African countries had a poorer contract than we did. We picked that and ran with it, and organized the Council of Energy Resource Drive. They called it the OPEC. But what that did for us, then, is that we got involved with Department of Energy and changed the policy of the Department of Interior, and then gave more control of their tribal resources in the hands of the tribes. And then, from there, the timber tribes got organized. We brought some people with specialty in to help interpret, because they were clear cutting Indian timber and not replanting it, and all of those things. And they were getting the lowest price possible for the resources. And that is why they were poor. So, we brought people together, the tribes together, that had oil and gas, had energy resources, and brought them together and they got organized, and we helped staff them until they got their own funding. And they are still alive today in Denver. And the timber tribes are organized. The fishing tribes are organized around natural resources to get a better price for their product. And then, going through that, it is an evolution. We find that the next thing that hit you in the face was that we were not under EPA. That we were considered part of the state, which the state did not have any jurisdiction over us. And so, we said we were falling through the cracks. So, we, under the Carter administration, got a ruling from the Assistant Director, who is a very dear friend of mine to this day, of the Profit Post, Barbara Blum. And she made an administrative decision, so we did not have to go through the tribes, we tried to get the agency to change their policy, and she made the policy that tribes had the right to create their own tribal environmental regulation. So, it gave us a lot of [inaudible] development on the reservation. And that also provided that the companies that were on the reservation had to renegotiate their contract with the tribe, because the tribes can set up their environmental policies to stop their forms of development. That- SM (02:12:56): That is a lot of success. LH (02:12:58): Yes. SM (02:13:00): As we stand today in 2011, what is the greatest need? LH (02:13:05): Well, it mostly is an informed public. It goes back to in the educational experience that people have has no basic knowledge of Indian people. And that is what I was going to tell you about Pennsylvania. Two years ago, I do a lot of lecturing around the country in colleges and universities, and the University of California there in Pennsylvania? Familiar with it? SM (02:13:34): Yeah. LH (02:13:35): They invited me, and I gave them my regular talk, in which I even said to you, is that we do not study American history, we study Europeans coming to the Americas. Well, the good president said that was so shocking to him, here he had two PhD degrees, and he did not know anything about Native Americas. So, he invited me to come back. They made me an honorary doctor. Then, we took our ambassadors and had a week-long program. And then, they're wanting to set up a Donna Harris Indigenous Institute there at the college, which they have done with African-Americans. Instead of having Indian studies or African American studies, they set up an institute where they would bring a teacher in that would work as faculty with the university to help to integrate it into the total college setting instead of just having women's studies and African [inaudible] Hispanic studies, and all that. Because that marginalizes. That is why we are not making any gains in education, because that still marginalizes, and particularly Indians, because the tribes are governments, and unlike any other minority in the country, we are governmental entities, and we should be in the textbook of government, political science. We should be a part of the literature of all those departments, so that they can see us in a different way rather than just a minority group trying to work for its rights. Basically, Laura, my daughter, was on Clinton's minority rights thing. And that was what they found on Indians that the lack of information about Native Americans was the biggest problem that we had, because we had to spend more than half our time educating people through the Indian 101 thing for them. And we do not mind doing it. But that keeps us from doing the activist kind of things [inaudible]. SM (02:15:55): Probably Native American college students that go off to predominantly White campuses, just like African American students, the one thing that upsets them more than anything else is when they are in a class, and hopefully teachers do not do this, but I still know they do, that if there's a student of color, they will immediately, "Well, you are a student of color. What do you think?" LH (02:16:16): Yeah. SM (02:16:17): You put pressure on a college student to be the educator of the other peers. And the people doing it are the teachers. LH (02:16:25): That is right. And they are probably one of maybe five students on the whole campus. So, really it is pressure. I know when, oh, yellow Springs, oh, what is it the little college up there? I was chosen by the students to be on the Board, there. SM (02:16:45): Yellow Springs? LH (02:16:47): Yeah. SM (02:16:47): Is that in Ohio? LH (02:16:49): Yes. [inaudible] college. SM (02:16:51): Antioch. LH (02:16:53): Yeah. SM (02:16:53): Yes. LH (02:16:53): And it is very progressive. SM (02:16:58): Oh, yes. LH (02:16:58): And that was what the Indian students complained to me about, said that, "We were always having to try to explain Indians to [inaudible] when we're trying to figure out what our role is. And the other thing is that, if you go through the American educational system, you still cannot find yourself within the history of the United States. And then, if you go on to Law or to some other specialty to get your PhD degree, by that time you have almost, not divorced yourself, but you have become less connected to your community, so the people back home get annoyed with you. It's one of the issues now. And that is what we try to work at in our Ambassadors program, is how do you maintain your cultural identity? SM (02:18:03): Another thing here is, you were involved in the Women's Movement, and I know you were involved in that organization at the very beginning. One of the things that the history books teach us is that one of the reasons why the Women's Movement came about was because of the sexism that was so prevalent in the Civil Rights and Anti-war movements. Not all, but many of the women who were in secondary roles went into the Women's Movement so they could begin leadership roles. And I think I have already asked this question, because I think you have already said that women are treated with a lot of respect in the Native American communities. But your thoughts on whether that is indeed true, that the Women's Movement that really came to fruition in the latter part of the (19)60s and early (19)70s was because many of the women had had it up to their ears with men in these other movements. And... LH (02:19:08): That is absolutely correct. One of the things that I noticed, and really got me involved, is I got to know a lot of the women in government who had offices, and they could not travel, which would have allowed them to gain higher positions in their department. Only men could travel. Women could not travel without being escorted, junk like that which kept women from raising in their position in the government. I was not really ready to jump into the Women's Movement. But when I got to know that as an issue, I got involved. And again, the women played a major role as, what is her name, that rode the bus. She was a major player in the movement, but never got the recognition. Again, it was always the males who got the recognition. So, that became an issue. We went through a lot of stress, and then they even had to organize the women of color, because they were not enough women of color moving in to the national movement. There were all kinds of reasons why. But just all of those things, it was taking a course in college to see how all of those evolved. SM (02:20:52): Yeah. What is interesting today is, when you interview people, you see what they call the mainstream feminists, which they say it was Gloria Steinem and Betty Fredan, the Frustrated Housewife as some people have told me. And the Feminine Mystique, the book that was written. And then, you had what they called the radical feminists, who look down upon the mainstream feminists, respect them, but do not like their approach. When you look at the movements that have really changed and grown and evolved since the late (19)60s, there is this split between the radical feminists and what they call the mainstream feminists. LH (02:21:40): If you look at who the radical feminist is, their lesbian. And it was an interesting interaction between the two groups. I remember meeting in New York, and a big group of them came in together, and were going to challenge our whole movement, our whole activity. And Maggie Glover said, "Well, do we all have to declare our sexuality to be in the Women's [inaudible]?" That was basically what they were demanding. They wanted to be-be more accepted, which was not a bad thing, but [inaudible] probably pretty radical [inaudible]. But we got past that. It was more of, how do you get women of color involved than it was a bigger [], so that they have the voice. Indian women did not really need it, but Black women felt that it was being disloyal, because they could get jobs easier than their male counterparts, because they were less a threat. And there was a whole underlining [inaudible]. SM (02:23:00): Yeah. I know that Johnnetta Cole, former President of Spelman, in her book, Sister Present, I forget the name of the title of the book, she talks about those pressures of being an African American, then being an African American female, and then wanting to be involved in the Women's Movement, all these different pressures. LH (02:23:21): Yes. And that was so. And it was very hard. And Anglo [inaudible] Movement people did not know how to deal with it. And it was with great pride that I was the bridge, but I could not make it work. I could not figure out how. Something would just break down right in the middle of it. And it was not intentional. It was... SM (02:23:53): Why did the ERA fail? LH (02:24:01): I do not know. I really do not know. I think, by that time, I have forgotten what it was all happening in my life. I got diverted. I think we were out here in New Mexico a bit [inaudible 02:24:13] Mexico. I cannot remember. But it was such a threat to people, the two-party people, all kinds of social things, threats, "Who do these people think they are?" SM (02:24:37): Yeah. LH (02:24:38): And so, that is my interpretation anyway. SM (02:24:43): One of the things that, when you talk about all the movements that were taking place in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, the Anti-war Movement and Civil Rights was ongoing, going through unbelievable changes in strategy. But then you had the evolution of the Women's Movement, the Environmental Movement, the Gay and Lesbian Movement from Stonewall, and Native American Movement, you had Chicano and Asian American, as well. And even the beginnings of the Disability Rights Movement was around this time, too. And certainly you brought up the issue. I am really glad you were involved in mental health issues, because I remember the only female that really seemed to care about this was President Carter's wife. She took it out as an issue. What- LH (02:25:31): I served on her committee, too. We did a special thing on Indian Mental Health, which there is no program for. There's one institution. And she was just amazed at our report. I had a Native American person who was on my Board, actually, he called and said, "Could I help you work on that?" And I was calling her on the other line saying, "Would you come help me?" But we visited heavily Indian populated states. And then, the mental health providers not knowing how to deal with different cultural people, and she was just amazed at that report. And of course, look what happened to her stuff, too, even Mental Health for Children. And was it Reagan that came along and just [inaudible] mental health, threw them out onto the streets where they're homeless now. We call them homeless, not mental health. SM (02:26:34): Yeah. The question I was getting at here is, these movements, when you saw a protest, you saw the signs of all these movements together. At the moratorium in (19)60s9, you might see the Native American movement, all the movements had signs. Now it seems like they are never together anymore. The movements have all become isolated and unto themselves. Am I reading correctly into this? LH (02:27:04): Yes, I think so. And that is what troubles me. My youngest daughter had a birthday party, Catherine and Manuel who were really the baby boomers. And I said, "You all are getting a lot of blame because you all are not activist enough." They are, she and her husband. But I said, "What happened to the Anti-war Movement? What happened to the Civil Rights Movement, which you were part of?" But there is no movement out there. I told you I went around and lectured in colleges. And at one point, I think about five years ago or more, god, [inaudible], but that I was going through liberal arts colleges [inaudible]. And those liberal arts colleges were all, "How are we going to go [inaudible]? They were majoring in business and da da da da da da, so that the whole direction turned toward obtaining wealth. And that is how I am seeing it now, trying to evaluate where in the heck we are, right now. SM (02:28:26): Oh, yeah. LH (02:28:28): The whole big push for about the last 10 years or more has been, "We're going to all be millionaires. How do we go to Wall Street and learn how to do that?" so that we have now all of these people that do not know how to function in what they're confronted with during this recession. We also do not know how to organize ourselves, because we disassociated ourselves from those groups. And we do not know who they are anymore. I try to stay in touch. I was made an honorary sorority sister of the Deltas, which is a Black woman's sorority. And I stay in touch through them. And of course, New Mexico, they have a very small African-American community. But I stay in touch with them. And they recognize that my national work, because it was the national organization that made me an honorary member, and the local membership has brought me in, which gives me some ties to all parts of the community. SM (02:29:43): Right. LH (02:29:44): Because we are mostly heavily Indian and Hispanic, Hispanic being the larger. But now, New Mexico has a lot of middle-class Hispanics, and they do not fit. The national, you have the Caribbean Hispanic, and Florida is dominated by the Cuban. And then, you have Puerto Ricans in New York, and that is another kind of island people. SM (02:30:19): Right. LH (02:30:20): And then, out here we have the Mexican, and now the immigrants that are coming, which is also an issue. One of the things we are confronted, with, the majority of them are Guatemalan who are [inaudible] escape persecution from their own country. And they have to go all the way through that horrible Mexico situation, and then get to the border, and they get across the border, and then they are deported back. It is something that, as an Indian organization, we have to look at. But the other thing is that it is a continuous program like the federal teachers. It is like the volunteer teachers who are very well-educated and they are come out here to work on Indian reservations, and they do not know [inaudible]. They have had to hire us to come and give them Indian 101 so that they can become effective teachers. Because all of a sudden, they are just thrown out here without any [inaudible]. But we accept that responsibility, and it brings in some resources for us. But again, it is time consuming, so that the continuous education of the general public is probably one of our big- SM (02:31:48): You taught 101 to the United States Senate, did not you? LH (02:31:52): [inaudible]. SM (02:31:52): Because I remember you had mentioned yesterday that your husband, obviously there's 100 senators, but did you do 101 for the 100 senators? LH (02:32:02): No. It was a group that had members of the Congress and the Senate who had Indian populations [inaudible] get the White House involved. And we brought Indians in. And again, that was one of our big success stories, because at that time, the Indians were the experts. And members of Congress [inaudible] so they did not have any excuse, and it was interesting. We had the literature on it. SM (02:32:35): In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? LH (02:32:41): I think, to me, it began with Johnson and the Civil Rights and [inaudible]. That was the backbone that started people changing, and changing their vocabulary, and changing what was politically correct, which has been a real disservice by many people by saying, you can go overboard with politically correct language. But it was so necessary. Even Fred's father who came from specifically Oklahoma, he had to control his need to say "negro." Including Johnson, too. Johnson had to learn to change his rhetoric, too. It was a great learning experience. And now, it's all [inaudible] nothing. I always wondered, during all this time, remember we were still fighting the great communist threat- SM (02:33:52): The Cold War. LH (02:33:53): Yeah. And all of that. And Reagan gets to take credit for what Gorbachev did, actually, and everybody gives him credit for bringing down the wall, and all that stuff. But he was slow in coming, and forced into it by what Gorbachev achieved. [inaudible] said, "who are they going to hate when they do not have the communist to hate?" Because, oh, the people would just talk like they knew a communist was right around the corner and going to take them over. Now, the-the poor Tea Party people have now found somebody to hate, which is Obama and the "liberal democratic party." SM (02:34:38): And all the activists from the (19)60s. LH (02:34:40): Yeah. All the activist- SM (02:34:42): No matter what the issue. LH (02:34:44): No matter what, we are going to change the social nature of those. That is really true. And so, they truly do hate us. And why they are worried, and why they are so dogged about it, is that, in my opinion, they are afraid that the browning of America is occurring, has occurred. And there is no one talking about it. Nobody preparing our society to accommodate it. And that is why immigration is such a big issue, and English First, all the kinds of [inaudible] that they think up. But what is so obvious is the immigration, so that the Hispanics get all of the recognition. But if you talk to Clayburn out of Oklahoma, he hates Indians and will say so, and thinks that we have too much rights. That is the new thing that they say about Indians, we have too many, because we have the right to be self-governing. And it is a very peculiar thing. And we're kind of glad that people are ignorant sometimes, because I think that they understand, here we are a collective tribal institutional government, but in the middle of capitalism, that we own things collectively. And people, they do not understand it, so they cannot quite figure it out. SM (02:36:20): And the attitude is, they do not like the victim mentality. The- LH (02:36:24): Yes. SM (02:36:25): And the anti-environment hatred. Oh, my gosh. LH (02:36:30): Oh, gosh. Well, goes particularly against how they interpret the Bible [inaudible] them interpret the Bible. There was the article in one of the Indian magazines, that one of the fundamentalists was preaching, they were going back to the first part of the Bible, saying that we were not the lost tribe of Israel, and we were not good enough to own this land. He was just far out. But you see how they are thinking, and where they are going to come from. And we are going to have a lot more trouble, I think, with this group than we had with any Republicans in the past. SM (02:37:18): Yeah. The culture wars are really going on, here. LH (02:37:25): That is a good point. The culture wars, and that browning of America is a part of it. SM (02:37:31): Yeah. And the anti-environment. I hear, in Pennsylvania, so much disgust for those people that want to save the environment. The dislike is intense. LH (02:37:50): Oh. Well, everything they do is so intense and ugly and rude and vulgar. No- SM (02:37:58): What was the watershed moment of the (19)60s and (19)70s, in your opinion? LH (02:38:04): The war. SM (02:38:05): Yeah. LH (02:38:06): It just brought everybody down. SM (02:38:07): Did the (19)60s ever end? LH (02:38:10): Did not for me. SM (02:38:11): Yeah. I have got a couple more questions and we will be done. One of the questions I have been asking everyone is this. When you look at the boomer generation, which your kids are part of, and when I say boomer generation, I mean all ethnic groups, all backgrounds, male, female, gay, straight, you name it, all boomers, all 70 to 74 million, so you cannot even come up with an exact number here, do you feel that this generation, the boomer generation, will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, as a generation not truly healing because of the tremendous divisions that were so prevalent, and the divisiveness that was so prevalent in their lives between Black and White, those who are for the war, those who are against the war, male against female sometimes, all these tremendous divisions and divisiveness. Some say the divisiveness that we have today is directly linked to the divisiveness back then, where no one listened, just basically screamed at each other. Do you feel that this boomer generation is going to go to its grave not truly healing? Is that an issue in your viewpoint? LH (02:39:31): I do not see it as an issue. I do not understand them. Mine have gone through this, but they have stayed connected to Indian causes, women causes, and productive rights, and those kinds of things that the far right is trying to over override, but they do not have the zest. They do not have- LH (02:40:03): They do not have the zest, they do not have the passion, and they seem rather dull. SM (02:40:11): You mean the boomers? LH (02:40:12): Yeah, and now. That they are dull now. They do not have any passion. SM (02:40:17): Well, as they have gotten older, they do not have any passion? LH (02:40:20): That is my [inaudible]. Because where are they? You do not see them organized. And we named a half a dozen real prominent people that were in that boomer group that stayed all night at our house to go demonstrate against the war, and they have all become very good professionals. They did not have children. Some of them did not have children. Like my oldest daughter, and her husband became a professional. It is a different kind of thing. I do not know. I cannot get hold of it. I do not know that I could interpret it. There is an AARP magazine section, there is a whole big story on the boomer's list. Boomers Mean Business, it says, but I have not read the story yet. But they are asking the same question you are. I guess I will read that and see if I agree. But I do not have to... SM (02:41:24): Some of the activists that I have talked to in my interviews have said that the activists themselves have continued to be activists in their own way, in different ways. But that the majority of the population that was not involved never got involved. LH (02:41:40): Yes. I just watched the, oh, flashback on Jim Taylor and Joan who sang with him. SM (02:41:50): Yeah, Carly Simon. LH (02:41:52): Yes, and how they were on drugs and everything. I cannot think of his name right now, but heavy-set guy with a gray beard and gray hair. Crosby would be- SM (02:42:10): Yeah, Crosby still is nice and young. Yes. LH (02:42:14): Well, he said it was a great life because it was between birth control and Aids. And that sex was fun and drugs, we could try anything, there were no limitations to what we could do. And said now they have to have reunions just to relive that, and trying to bring it back into some, which is alarming. SM (02:42:43): Well, the religious, not the Christians but the religious right or the conservatives will attack this era of the boomer generation, (19)60s, (19)70s as this is when the divorce rate started to rise. This is when people did not go to church anymore, they had inner spirituality. They were supposed to be such a social group, a community group, yet they all went internally and into their religion. This was the sexual revolution, drugs were rampant, they had no respect for authority, the protests were about law and order. That is how Reagan came to power in California's governor and as president on the issue of law and order. He was against those students at Berkeley and of course he was against the rise of the Welfare state. LH (02:43:34): Where do you see them? I do not see them actually psychologically affected by that, but seemed like they all went to become more wealthy and power, wanting power. I do not know. SM (02:43:51): I think the criticism really is of the counterculture and the people that did all those things. They feel that the breakup of the family and everything, everything started going downhill because of that generation. The people making these comments are Newt Gingrich, George Will in his writings, Fox News. Governor Huckabee talks about it all the time on his TV show. Rush Limbal on his radio show, Hannity, they all make these kinds of comments. Of course, that is Fox, but conservatives have been making this for a long time that America really went backward in the (19)60s and the (19)70s in their eyes. It is amazing. LH (02:44:40): Okay. Well, I guess we better quit because I just realized that long we have been talking. SM (02:44:46): Yeah. I got two more questions and then I am going to be done. LH (02:44:48): All right. SM (02:44:50): Let us see. Did you have any generation gap issues with your kids? LH (02:44:56): Not with my children, but I did when we started our program. We first started our program and we had kids, and we were going to run it and all. We found that identity, cultural identity, and people were trying to out-Indian each other. It was very hurtful, too, whether they lived in the city or they were... We always tried to have non-federally recognized tribes to make that one of the issues that people have to be confronted with. That was one of the main contingents of the group, that they were more Indian than somebody else, and that somebody's feelings were hurt because they felt that people were treating them as equal because they were from a non-federally recognized tribe like the Lumbees of North Carolina. We immediately jumped onto it and created a whole first part of the meeting into that they have to all know about their families, their tribes, their bands. And then the community from which they come, the Anglo community, the state, so that they can put themselves into the reality of who they are. We have a pretty close meeting, usually at my house, where they can talk freely, and it becomes very emotional. Some of the pains that they have gone through, how do they deal with racism if they have experienced it? How to let go of it and not let it control your life, and how not to have the anger that is so destructive it creates destructive behavior. But when I had that, I called one of my board members who was in his (19)60s and helped me with all this work. He said, "Well, how did it go?" I said, "Well, we are having trouble with identity." He said, "Hello, LD, I thought we did that in the (19)60s." I thought we had established identity back then but this generation, they do not have the historical knowledge of their ancestors nor do they have the contemporary knowledge of what happened in the (19)60s, because there is not enough written about it. So, there was that vacuum and that is why we created that Indian 101 to help them see a roadmap of how these things developed and how far down we have gotten in the 1800s. And how we have come up now in the (19)60s and how important the (19)60s were to them. And that it created this environment where they are more educated people and all those things, so they can get a holistic picture of how we got to this place. For ancestors historically and then through the (19)60s, which brought about so much change that created the situation we are not at. SM (02:48:19): I have two more questions, then we are done. LH (02:48:19): Okay. SM (02:48:20): This is a broad one. I am just going to list some names. What was it like working with and getting to know the following people? Now, you do not have to talk about everyone, but maybe there is a couple of anecdotes and I will just list them. President Johnson, Senator Humphrey, Bobby Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Wayne Morris, Everett Dirkson, Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Spirow Agnew, Richard Nixon, Senator Hart and Proxmire, NOA Whiker, Baker Gurney, Montoya Irvin, Musky Culver, Ted Kennedy and Margaret Chase Smith. Those were all names that were so well known in the 60s. Then, of course, the women were Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Lindy Boggs, who took over her husband. And then the first ladies, Lady Bird, Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Nixon, Mrs. Schreiber, who you got to know, and Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Reagan. I do not know if you have any anecdotes on these people because you got to know all of them. LH (02:49:28): Mm-hmm. Well, Hubert Humphrey was my hero. He was the most... He seemed to be right. I think as we discussed earlier, that he was the real civil rights and that darn convention, democratic convention to make the party take civil rights decision, and all the things that he did. There was something about him. He was so good-natured and when he talked to you, he was talking to you. He always showed a personal interest in and the conversation. He was not looking over his shoulder to see who was next in line. Johnson, we grew up in Oklahoma, so Texas is right over the border. He was much like Oklahomans, so we had a lot in common with him. He was sometimes prude, but his leadership was an interesting phenomenon. Bobby Kennedy was neighbors and a friend, and we were hosted by him and many times. They were very competitive. They even competed with each other, Bobby and Ted, and the Thrivers and their children, adults, would be competitive. It was interesting. They all had assets that you admired and some things that you said, oh my goodness. What drove them in these certain areas [inaudible]. Anyway, it was a wonderful time. I was annoyed with George McGovern because North Dakota was one of the worst states in the Union about Native Americans, and I made a statement thing that South Dakota was our Mississippi. I got a letter from his wife saying how dare I say something like that. He could articulate it, but he did not see it exotic, as in the Black/white relationship and not in... But we were friends, we were social friends, and there was a lot of social... You had dinner parties and you had members of the Senate, usually mostly members of the Senate, and the press, journalists. What do you call them? The dark and the little fish that goes with it? You had them too, because... And I liked the Eudaws. The Eudaws were great Indian advocates and great- SM (02:52:29): Oh yeah, Stuart Eudaw. LH (02:52:29): Stuart, he just recently died. I was sitting here looking at pictures of he and I. And Lee, his wife, and I did a lot of Indian art exhibits together. We were neighbors and we would share, and we would get to ride on the go with him on the Sequoia. Because we were kind of different, we got invited to so many ridings and going down the river in the Sequoias. Again, even the Republicans, you could talk to them. There were a few Republicans like Goldwater, and I am just trying to give a couple of others that would be invited to Democratic. SM (02:53:06): Everett Dirkson. LH (02:53:08): Dirkson and one- SM (02:53:10): Hugh Scott. LH (02:53:12): Yeah. SM (02:53:12): Yeah. LH (02:53:17): Some way, I got involved with the international, the Moroccans, because... Anyway, it was a wild experience to consider a Comanche girl from Cotton County getting exposed to all of this. It was just a marvelous, marvelous experience. I was just trying to think of how to do that. And we knew the journalist as well as we knew members of the Congress because they were so important to getting the message across as they were trying to... SM (02:54:03): Yes. LH (02:54:04): Now, that relation does not exist and it seems like we are not really getting good information. There is no investigative, well, the whole journalist. SM (02:54:14): My final question is, what is the legacy of Red Power or Native American Movement overall? As time goes by, when the historians are writing the books of this period, what will be the legacy of Red Power or Native American Movement, and what will be the legacy of the boomer generation, in your opinion? LH (02:54:39): Well, it was not just Red Power that did it. Well, I guess if you are putting Red Power, it is everybody that was activists are not the same. Are you just using it- SM (02:54:48): Yeah, I am using all. LH (02:54:51): Oh, okay. Well, we made such almost extreme changes in the federal attitude toward tribes, and that we gained control of our own lives and we were decolonized. That is what I said what the (19)60s did, decolonized us from the Department of Interior. We became now, where tribe used to work together, now they are all working on their individual, strengthening their own tribal government. Now, we have very wealthy tribes. The gaming tribes are over the top and other tribes are better off. We still have pockets, great pockets of property still up in South Dakota. But they have gotten together and they elected Johnson, and we can be swing votes. We found out that we can be swing votes in like New Mexico, Oklahoma, Montana, Arizona. When we get our act together like that, we can really make a difference. We did it for Clinton and for Obama, but we do not do it on a regular basis because leadership changes. But so that we are more involved in the political process. SM (02:56:20): What do you think the legacy of the boomer generation will be? LH (02:56:25): That they were born. The numbers and how ill-prepared we were for them. The sociologists who study the up and downs of our country gave us no warning that we were going to have this boom, and that created this problem. Then we rushed out and built colleges and overbuilt them for them. Just the peer numbers of them. Of course, that was because of the war. It was just their existence is their legacy. And that they made us change in some ways, and then we did not... But they made us change by the peer numbers of the positions. They took like sex, what is it? Sex, drugs and rock and roll, that period. And it gave a lot of freedom. It opened a lot of minds and freedom for people. So, I would just say that the fact that they existed was their legacy, that made us had to change, shift our gears to accommodate. SM (02:57:54): One final additional note here is books. You're obviously very well-read. We all know about Dee Brown's book, but who, in your opinion, are the greatest Native American writers? And that no matter what era anyone was born, if they read their works, they will truly understand the Native American's history in America? LH (02:58:26): Vine Deloria. His book, God is Red. SM (02:58:35): He would be the number one? LH (02:58:38): Yes. There was three books. His first book was best, I think, and then God is Red. And then, so we have got three books that he saw it and articulated it. The other is Scott Momaday. He had one book that was a Pulitzer Prize that cost him. It was talking about urban Indians, reading that, which is half our population. It was the [inaudible] that urban Indians went through. I count that as a very important book, too. SM (02:59:17): What is his name? LH (02:59:17): Scott Momaday. SM (02:59:17): How do you spell that last name? LH (02:59:19): M-O-M-A-D-A-Y. SM (02:59:24): Okay. LH (02:59:25): He is the Kiowa and his book was House Made of Dawn. We were invited to go to his, when he received the Pulitzer Prize. He was the first. He had never received it. Probably the only one to receive a Pulitzer Prize. There is some newcomers, but they're all anger books, angry. They do not give you a sense of direction. SM (02:59:51): How about, do you like Winona LaDuke? LH (02:59:56): Yeah, but she is narrowly an environmentalist. SM (03:00:02): How about Wilma Mankiller? LH (03:00:05): Oh, Wilma? Yeah, she wrote a book. She and I wrote it. We are in one book together, Beloved Women. She was at the Alcatraz, and we just lost her last year, latter part of last year. She became an urban Indian, then came back to the reservation. So, she's the picture of the transition of coming back and contributing to the tribe. I think she's symbolic of that. And she had a publisher that became quite a national speaker. SM (03:00:49): I am almost done here. Hold on one second. I know this is going to end it. I really appreciate the time that you have given to me. Bobby Kennedy's funeral train. But did you go to Dr. King's funeral? LH (03:01:06): No, Fred did. SM (03:01:07): Okay. LH (03:01:08): He and Bobby went to Doctor... I do not know exactly why I did not go. I think they were, the children, something about the children and I needed to say. Because it was very traumatic for all of us. We all took it so hard and personally because we were so involved, and he was such an image to it. In the same way, of course, with Bobby. The children would go over and swim in their pool and watch movies and do things, because they are special children. And besides, just the adults became friends, not just the children. SM (03:01:51): Did Fred ever talk about the picture of Robert Kennedy that was in Life Magazine? He was sitting at the funeral in Ebenezer Baptist Church and the light was coming through the window, and it was right on him. It made the front cover of Life Magazine. Was Fred with him? LH (03:02:11): Yes, they walked together in the parade. I mean, not parade, the funeral, the funeral [inaudible]. SM (03:02:21): Did he ever talk about that after Bobby was killed, the light falling on him in the church? LH (03:02:30): No, he did not because... I do not remember. He may have, but it was such a tragic thing. Everybody was mourning in peculiar ways. Same way with when President Kennedy was killed. I remember where I was and how angry I became. I said, "I hope people are satisfied," because in Oakland, they were preaching against him with these Catholics. SM (03:03:04): Well, your kids are boomers, and I guess I will end with this. That is, that here we had a president of the United States killed in (19)63 and we had the distinguished civil rights leader killed in (19)68, and then a United States Senator killed exactly two months later in 1968. I know your kids were teenagers or going to college or younger, but how do you explain that as a parent to kids when they see these kinds of things happen, murder in your own country? How were you able to talk to your kids about why, and just being a parent? LH (03:03:50): Well, they felt some of those things. They felt them the same way that we did, that they had lost something, and thought why it was they were exposed to the hate. That is what makes the Tea Party people so painful is that their rhetoric is so hurtful. And that we were exposed to that, and during equal, we integrated into Oklahoma and other things, particularly against African-Americans, because it was so overt. And recognizing these. I do not know. I how we dealt with it. I think they felt so sorry for us, too, because we were in such mourning that they were comforting us. I guess that is [inaudible]. SM (03:04:53): Yeah, and certainly your husband being in the United States Senate, having those two people killed a two-month period of time, it had to change the atmosphere within the Senate, too, I would think. LH (03:05:04): Yes, and I am sure it was very worrisome to the children, too, about going out and campaigning for Humphrey after Kennedy was killed. I am sure that they were, well, something, though they never articulated. I guess I was so stuck with my own grief that I would not considered them. Though, we discussed it to some degree and we sent food over and we did things that we're supposed to do to make ourselves feel better. It is an interesting question. I never thought about that. SM (03:05:50): I will end with this, and that is I think Dr. King, who was so prophetic in so many ways, and I want to see if you agree with this. He would always say... Let us see, what was the word I was going to say? Oh, my golly. I forgot my train of thought here. It was a word he always used when... Oh. He used to always say, you can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream. LH (03:06:13): Kill the dream. Yes. SM (03:06:15): That is a great lesson for young people, no matter what age they are. LH (03:06:18): That is right. SM (03:06:19): Because if people think they can wipe out a cause, it is like saying, okay, I am going to shoot... LH (03:06:27): Like it will stop. Yeah. SM (03:06:30): Yeah, it's like if you kill someone, it will stop what is going on. That is ridiculous. It is the idea. It is what is just. LH (03:06:38): Look what is happening in Northern Africa. They will never be the same. Just that is a gigantic world change. SM (03:06:51): Yeah, it is amazing. I am done. I want to thank you very much. LH (03:06:56): Okay. SM (03:06:56): You have given me three hours of your time and I really treasure it. I have nine to 10 months of transcribing. My interviews are ending this month, and then I got to just sit and transcribe all these. You will see your transcript. I am going to need two pictures of you, you can send by email to my address. A current picture and then maybe one when you younger with Fred. LH (03:07:22): Okay. SM (03:07:23): Because those pictures will be at the top of the interview. I was wondering, do you still go out and lecture? LH (03:07:30): Yes. SM (03:07:30): Have you ever gone out and lectured with your former husband? LH (03:07:34): Well, we did. Before we divorced we did. But we are very good friends and these other... Well, let us see. When our son comes in from LA, we always have a lunch. We manage to see each other at least once a month. SM (03:07:50): Well, I know when I interviewed him last summer, actually towards the latter part, he has tremendous respect for you. He brought up several points when I was interviewing him about, "You got to talk to LaDonna because she is the leader of this." You were an unbelievable team, and boy, what a life you have lived. You have got your legacy. LH (03:08:11): Yeah. SM (03:08:12): You have your legacy, and it is not only in your kids but it is in your deeds. I hope I can meet you sometime. LH (03:08:19): Yeah, that is what I was thinking. Maybe when I come back. I am right now going through a little cancer scare, so I am thinking sometime- SM (03:08:28): Well, I hope you are okay. LH (03:08:29): Yes, but I have to go through this medication. As soon as I get through that, I am going to California, Pennsylvania and start working on their institute, helping work on creating that institute. SM (03:08:45): Well, geez, I will drive over and meet you. We will take you to lunch. LH (03:08:48): Yes, and I have a crazy... Our only non-Indian board member is a crazy Greek. Dr. Christoff is there in Pittsburgh, and I was hoping he could come down. Maybe we can all get together and talk. SM (03:09:03): Yeah, and I could take some pictures, too. I was thinking, I have gotten to know Rennie Davis, the (19)60s radical. I do not know if you knew this, he became a multi-millionaire. LH (03:09:16): No. SM (03:09:16): Oh, yeah. You go on his website. Rennie is very successful. He went into some sort of technology business and made lots of money, then he sold it. Now, he has been doing spirituality stuff. One thing about him, when he left the anti-war movement in the late (19)60s or early (19)70s, a lot of the guys like Tom Hayden were saying, this guy has gone into a strange direction because he was into inner spirituality and all this other stuff. But he was the intellectual of the anti-war movement. He was the smart guy. He went to Oberlin College in Michigan. Now, because of what has been happening with the protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere, he's inspired now to go back out and talk. He hasn't talked about the (19)60s in 30 years. LH (03:10:02): Golly. SM (03:10:03): It's driving him. I interviewed him in Washington last summer when he was on one of his spirituality trips with his assistant, so he's a Facebook friend of mine. Now, he and Bobby Sealer are starting to go out next fall on the lecture circuit again, talking about this is the time, protest is necessary. America's going through some unbelievable changes. LH (03:10:28): I cannot understand how people can work and be so avid against their own self-interest. Like those Tea Party people are tearing down the unions and killing the middle class, being against... Can you imagine those poor people being against health? SM (03:10:50): Well, some people are comparing the Tea Party people to the anti-war movement of the (19)60s. I do not agree with that. LH (03:10:59): No. There was a positive outcome that they were trying to see. SM (03:11:04): Right. LH (03:11:07): You cannot see anything positive coming out of the [inaudible]. SM (03:11:09): Yeah, and the unions are under assault. Oh, my goodness. LH (03:11:13): I know. SM (03:11:13): They are called thugs in Pennsylvania. Anyways. LH (03:11:18): Okay, we will get on another- (End of Interview) Description 2 Microcassettes 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 Ladonna Harris Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Harris, Ladonna ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights workers; Political activists--United States; Comanche Indians; Politicians--United States--Oklahoma; National Urban Coalition (U.S.); Americans for Indian Opportunity; Harris, Ladonna--Interviews Description An account of the resource Ladonna Harris is a Comanche Native American social activist and politician from Oklahoma. In addition, she is the founding member of Common Cause and the National Urban Coalition. Harris is also the president of the group Americans for Indian Opportunity. She has been an outspoken advocate on the agendas of the civil rights, feminist, environmental and world peace movements. 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 2011-03-08 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.10.2016.129a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.129b 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. 191:34 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/24a5eb43622c1e0395ef5b94a0274609.jpg d1ec8b16e7af6cc9f36f4e9e253fb935 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/785040015d959e656dd2cb4265cb0b0b.mp3 2384887ef3a5c573cbfacfd9c4fae785 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 (Amplitude.js) 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 3/10/11 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sidel, Ruth Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Ruth Sidel is a scholar, author and educator. Dr. Sidel received her Bachelor's degree from Wellesley College, and both her Master's degree of Social Work and Ph.D. from Boston University. She is a professor at Hunter College and has also published several books. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:13309,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;9&quot;:0,&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Dr. Ruth Sidel (1933-2016) was a scholar, author, and educator. Dr. Sidel received her Bachelor's degree from Wellesley College, and both her Master's degree in Social Work the Boston University and Ph.D. from Union Graduate School. She was a professor at Hunter College and has also published several books.<br /><br /><br /></span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Civil Rights Movement; China; Women's Rights Movement; Political corectness; Civil Rights Movement; Anti-war Movement; Black Power groups; Baby boom generation.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:769,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0}">Civil Rights Movement; China; Women's Rights Movement; Political correctness; Civil Rights Movement; Anti-war Movement; Black Power groups; Baby boom generation.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:31:33 Subject LCSH Scholars; Authors, American; College teachers; Hunter College; Sidel, Ruth--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>. 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. Ruth Sidel Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sidel, Ruth ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Scholars; Authors, American; College teachers; Hunter College; Sidel, Ruth--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Ruth Sidel is a scholar, author, and educator. Dr. Sidel received her Bachelor's degree from Wellesley College, and both her Master's degree in Social Work and Ph.D. from Boston University. She is a professor at Hunter College and has also published several books. 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 2011-03-10 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.10.2016.206 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. 91:33