177 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/42646d95192a07a5fd4680a0da1ab574.jpeg 019b5a9eb59cfeac4d3f555856175032 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b36b14bd398cfaa6e534e583cb0756a4.mp3 44b1cba641c4cf09468fa281510249ad 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 ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Bruce Schulman Biographical Text Dr. Bruce Schulman is the William E. Huntington Professor of History at Boston University. Born in New York City, Dr. Schulman is the author of three books and the editor or co-editor of five others. His teaching and research concentrate on the history of the modern United States, particularly on the relationships between politics and broader cultural change. Dr. Schulman received the B.A. summa cum laude with Distinction in History from Yale University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:29:51 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 Date of Digitization 11 February 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Andrew Jackson; Corruption; Yale University; 1960s; Free Speech Movement; 1970s; Ronald Reagan; Idea; 1950s; Richard Nixon; Boomer generations; Disco; Students; University; Protest. 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. Bruce Schulman https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2f1d61fcdf18d23844db8b7742c40309.jpeg f47565f41ecc3ab999a7d4bfdc3020d9 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/914d7944c5f3373f0f0dce1d0f2cbb9f.MP3 6a121421de28ede3d56b6443c0f5f98c 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 24 June 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Nancy Bristow Biographical Text Dr. Nancy K. Bristow is a Professor of History at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. Her research focuses on the area of 20th-century American history, with an emphasis on race and social change. Dr. Bristow is the author of several books including American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic and Making Men Moral: Social Engineering during the Great War. She received her Bachelor's degree from Colorado College, and both her Master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:29:57 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 Digital file Date of Digitization 24 June 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Kent State, Jackson State, Blacks, Campus, Books, Students, History, Young lives, Shootings, Power, Martin Luther King, Mississippi, Boomer generation; 1960s. 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: Nancy Bristow Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 24 June 2022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Start of Interview) SM: 00:01 Nancy Bristow. NB: 00:01 Okay, we are all set. Can you hear me? I can hear you perfectly. SM: 00:07 Okay, great. I always start out with my first question, finding out a little bit about the person I am interviewing. Could you tell me about your background, where you grew up, your early influences, your family, and early interests? NB: 00:21 Sure. SM: 00:21 And high school, college and-and how did you pick history as your career? NB: 00:27 But what, sure. So, I was born in Portland, Oregon in 1958. So, I grew up during the period of the Vietnam War and the civil rights struggles, but was just a child during it. I was not aware that I was interested in history as a young person. In fact, if you told my high school history teacher, I went to Beaverton High School in Portland, Oregon, if you asked him what I became, and then told him it was a history professor, I think it would, would cause of heart failure. He could not have imagined, if I had a course that I hated, it was history. But, that was because I had not gone to college yet. I went to Colorado College, which is a small liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, at a remarkable undergraduate education. And I had planned to major in German, but turned out not really to have the capacity for that. And so by chance, I took a history course because I thought it had a really neat name, it was England Age of Kings. And I thought, well, that sounds cool. And it changed my life, the Professor George Drake, who went on actually to be the president of Grinnell College, was my professor for that class, that I discovered that history was about people, and about what happens to us, and helps us understand who we are now. And that course, it literally within a couple of days, my life path was set I suppose, but I did not know it then. But I just, absolutely loved the class, had a kind of intellectual excitement that I had not really felt with any of the other classes, I had taken though I was a successful student all the way along, I thought I would major after I gave up on German, I thought I would do English, but always felt sort of ungrounded in that field. And history gave me that sort of grounding in the lives of actual people, people that had really lived the lives that, that you know, I was reading about, and ultimately would write about. In terms of early influences, my family has been tremendously important to who I became, I think, reaching all the way back to, to great grandparents that I knew who were working class people from Pittsburgh. And they raised up my father who was fortunate enough to get to go to college, as did my mother, they were both first generation to college students, that we did not have the language for that at the time. But both came from working class families, my mom's mother came from Ireland, was an immigrant. And both of them I think, were really serious about education. So for instance, when I went off to college, my parents gave me a credit card, which I could use for any kind of emergency, or to buy books, could just use it, for emergencies- SM: 03:01 [chuckles] Yes. NB: 03:01 -the kind of empathy that is necessary to be successful in the craft. And I think it can be learned, I was lucky that I think I learned that as a, a pretty young person. My grandma was a church going woman and who really, lived the Christian ethos, I think, in a way that that so many, perhaps do not, she really did embody that. I lived it seriously. I was not thinking of it through a Christian lens, but she very much was kind of, you know, just always cared about other people and really looked after other people. And I think my parents instilled in us the sense that, that was an important part of being a human being and second, that you are not anybody better than anybody else. And do not go fooling yourself because of what you do for a living, or where you live, or what language you speak does not make you better than someone else. And I think that was also really formative for me. -and books, and they just really have this deep investment in the value of education. And they paid for college for myself and both of my siblings, which is an extraordinary gift, not as expensive a gift as it would be in 2022. But nevertheless, a real contribution to the lives of their children, again I think it speaks to the value that they both placed on education, and the things that it would make possible for you. It had been a really meaningful experience for both of them, and I wanted us to have that same experience. But the other thing I think they gave me was a real sense of, and this goes to my grandparents as well, a sense of the importance of every, every human being. And again, I did not have language for it growing up. But, a real profound concern for injustice, and a preoccupation with-with the wellbeing of other people was really instilled in me through my grandparents and my parents. And I think it makes you a better historian because it helps you begin to have- SM: 04:03 I can see that as a scholar that what you have done in this book, your, you care about everybody. I, you know, it is just a tremendous book, you went to Berkeley too, correct? NB: 05:00 I did. I got my PhD at Berkeley, my masters and my PhD. I had not known what I would do when I finished college. And it was really a singular lack of imagination that took me to graduate school. I thought, well, I will just keep studying since I like doing this. And, then I was very lucky. Berkeley was good for me. I had some very, very valuable educational experiences there, obviously with people like Lawrence Levine and Paula Fast were my primary advisors. [crosstalk] But it was more important almost just to be in the Berkeley context, which was a place with a lot of activism- SM: 05:38 Yes. NB: 05:38 -and a community that was very, very diverse. And that was really good for me because I had grown up in Portland, Oregon, which is a, you know, relatively small town back in the day and still quite residentially segregated, as I was growing up. SM: 05:50 Did you take any courses from Harry Edwards or Todd Gatlin? NB: 05:54 No, I did not, I did not. They were not in my, then this is one of the things I regret about my education, is it was not as interdisciplinary as it would be if I did it again. So they were over in, you know, psychology or excuse me, sociology, so it was not even occurring to me to go over and take courses from them. And I was not studying the (19)60s yet. It is the other thing. SM: 06:14 Right. NB: 06:15 I think was intimidated by the subject matter, because I had lived it and it was still pretty fresh in my mind, not in a, in an adult kind of way. But I knew that it mattered a lot to me, and I was not ready to take that on. Like, I do not think I understood that at the time. But it is clear to me now because I love teaching the (19)60s. But I did not write about the (19)60s Initially, I wrote about the First World War era, because I think it had some of the same kinds of issues. SM: 06:40 Now you are also, in terms of, you are the chair of the African American History Department? NB: 06:46 No-no-no-no-no-no, I am, was the chair of the History Department. My term ends on like, next week, Thursday, for which I am very grateful. So I am just a professor of history. There is an African American studies program that I teach in, but I am not the chair of it. SM: 07:03 Okay, very good. Could you give a brief description of your books, the other books that you have written before this current one, just your scholarship up to this point? NB: 07:15 Sure. My first book was called "Making Men Moral: Social Engineering during the Great War," and my purpose in that book was really to explore how the military conceptualized the relationship between its fighting forces and the civilian population. And to get at that I studied, one particular agency that had its purpose, the creation of moral crusaders would be the kind of language I might use. That, they were thinking about the soldiers through a very particular lens, and what that crusader would look like had very particular sort of social and moral positioning. And so, the agency I studied, how does its job creating these soldiers who would be as pure in body and mind as you were in spirit, I mean, just this, really wanting to create an ideal kind of American so it was sort of an Americanizing program for all the American troops through recreation, social hygiene, education, and ultimately law enforcement, as needed. So, it was a really interesting study about the power of the state, and what it looks like when the state has the power to implement its moral vision. And, really a piece of sort of my interest in the progressive era. And then my second book, looked at the influenza pandemic of 1918. So, staying in the same time period, interested still in the role of the state in the lives of individuals, but looking at it in a particular, sort of social catastrophic moment. Turns out, I am really interested in the idea of, sort of culture and catastrophe, and how we as a people, as a community, as a nation engage with, and work our way through, and ultimately remember or forget these major moments in our history. So that one, I was really interested in the social experience of American people during this pandemic, and the ways in which social identity really differentiated the experiences. So, it mattered whether you were male or female, it also mattered profoundly as it did in our current pandemic, what your racial and class situation was. SM: 09:19 Yes. NB: 09:19 It also mattered whether you were a healthcare professional, if you were a doctor or a nurse, because those were such gendered positions at the time. And then also really interested in how public health navigated both popular interest in being saved and then ultimately, popular frustration with the ongoing difficulties of the pandemic. So both an interest in the social experience, and the sort of, role of social identity, but also interested in the sort of, state civilian relationships as well. So, those two are connected because of the time period because of my interest in, in issues around social reform, issues around the state, and the individual. And also really interested, increasingly across time in the meaning of race, and the meaning of class in people's lives. And the reality that even in these moments when we talk about being a singular nation, right, we are unified by the world, we are unified by the pandemic, the ways in which that is simply not true. SM: 10:22 This leads into the new book, which is, "Steeped in the Blood of Racism." What drew you to the Jackson State story? And I love your title too, because the subtitle "Black Power, Law and Order and the 1970s Shootings at Jackson State College." I just did an interview yesterday with Mr. Ruffner who took pictures at Kent State. NB: 10:47 Right. Right. SM: 10:47 And the fourth and he talked about, we talked about the whole concept of law and order that was happening at Kent State with Governor Rhodes and- NB: 10:55 Oh, that is right. SM: 10:56 -and all those people there they were, you know, some of the students were so called criminals and all this other stuff. NB: 11:02 Right. So, criminalizing of the young people is one of the things that the two stories have in common. SM: 11:07 Right. NB: 11:08 So I, I came to the Jackson State story, actually, by way of interest in, I was really interested in state's repression in the Black Power era. And my original plan was to write a book that looked at a series of events in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s: the murder of Black Panthers, the, assault on civilians during civil disorders, the treatment of Black college students. So, looking at different contexts within which the state is enacting violence against Black people, and using new language, the language as you suggested of law and order to justify it. For the wake of the civil rights legislation of the mid (19)60s, the sort of straight out you can just murder Black people does not work any longer. It does not mean that the murders will not continue to happen, but that the state will need new justifications for that kind of behavior. And Jackson State, it was a really classic case of it. I had planned to write this larger book and then an editor at-at Oxford asked if I wanted to, write on a single one, and create a volume that was more focused. And I was like, "Well, yeah," and I have started with Jackson State, so let us go with that one. I got onto Jackson State, though, to do justice to him, a student of mine and one of my courses, a young man named John Moore, wrote a paper on the shootings at Jackson State and it really intrigued me, because they had not known much about the shootings prior to his paper. And it really inspired me to want to know a lot more about what took place there. And the discovery that this was really racial violence, this was, you know, the state perpetuating violence against Black bodies, which it had done, you know, with a history reaching all the way back to slavery. And so, I was really interested in exploring how the shootings were justified because, of course, no one ever did, no one was ever prosecuted for the crimes. No one, ever you know, they, it-it is just a horrific injustice that went, you know, completely, a pursuit of justice was-was unsatisfied, I will-will say that, so interested both in how that could be possible, when this was clearly murder. And then secondly, really interested in why so few people my age, remember what happened to Jackson State, and everybody knows Kent State. And so, that really telling this as a story of racial violence and the ways in which white Americans do not remember racial violence so, that each police shooting can be treated in a sense as a one off, right. Trayvon Martin should not have had a hoodie on or he would have been fine. SM: 13:43 Right. NB: 13:43 Eric Garner should not have been selling illegal, so you know, go down the list of things. Tamir Rice should not have been playing with a plastic gun. Right? No, the fact is that each of these people were part of a long arc of history in which we talk about needing to pursue law and order, and we do it as a justification for, the control of, of Black citizens. SM: 14:04 In the state- NB: 14:05 I was really interested in that. SM: 14:06 -the state of Mississippi and that whole period, I just did not read off of another person, on the Freedom Summer, and what was happening in Mississippi at that particular time, and in (19)64. But, this whole business of Jackson, understanding the history of Jackson in conjunction with this school that had many different names over the years since its founding. NB: 14:17 Yeah. Yep. SM: 14:28 And I, just imagine what African American students were going through, through that whole period- NB: 14:35 Right. SM: 14:36 -living in that community. NB: 14:37 Right. And that is the thing that I think is really interesting about Jackson State, which is, right, it is a historically Black university at that time, a college within a state system run by a higher education board that is all white. SM: 14:51 Yes. NB: 14:52 And, that wants nothing more than continue to control these Black students. They have to have a good Black school. So, they put limited resources into this institution, it is always under resourced, even today I suspect it is still deeply under resourced. But so, they have this institution, but they are going to control these young people to the best of their ability. So, they have president after president who really keeps a lid on any kind of activism and even up into the 1960s. You know, students who do protest in the early 1960s who were Jackson State students are expelled, if they are caught, for instance as, as supporting the Tougaloo nine in the early 1960s, at a sit-in locally, those kids are thrown out of school, the Ladner sisters, for instance. And so, you have a campus that is sitting right on the edge of Lynch Street. And again, that is a name that may sound, may resonate differently to our ears, but it is actually named for senator John Lynch, who was a Black, a Black representative in the U.S. Congress that was a Black man out of Mississippi during Reconstruction. So, John R. Lynch Street is actually a name with some pride behind it. But right on Lynch Street, literally a block off campus, is the place where the major NAACP rallies are taking place when Jackson is up in arms, when African Americans are really protesting in Jackson, and, you know, the city is, is, you know, in the midst of a, of a, of a revolt by the Black community, its headquarters are, you know, a block off campus. SM: 16:28 Wow. NB: 16:29 So, you have kids who are trying to navigate that. So, the institution is seen as, sort of very repressive, and ultimately regressive, that Tougaloo gets all the praise for having been activists. But in fact, there were always students at Jackson State who were pushing the edges of, of the envelope, so to speak, some of them being expelled as a result. And starting in 1967, the school gets a new president, who really does begin to give students more voice. He reestablishes the student government, the student newspaper begins to have an actual voice to talk about, you know, issues that are social political issues. So, it is really an institution and a transition time in 1970, it is still primarily kids coming first generation to college, many of them coming off of farms, you know, the children of sharecroppers, so kids who cannot afford to get in trouble, kids whose whole families are counting on them, to get an education, and to help the family. So, it is a very, as you say, unimaginable the kind of tensions that these young people were living in the midst of, even as what they were trying to do is get an education. SM: 17:36 You did a great job on explaining all of this. And if, if, if a young African American student got involved in an activist activity there that he could be kicked out of school, or it could affect his remaining at the school because he wants to graduate, get a job, and for a long period of time the school is involved in preparing young people to be, I think teachers in Black schools. NB: 18:01 Yep, absolutely. SM: 18:02 And, and they, this was a job opportunity. And, so there was that. And also, it is interesting with, some of the people I have interviewed about Kent State, is, you know, Kent State was not known as an activist school for a long time. It was more of a conservative school. And I know they had a real big and strong SDS chapter there. And, they played a major role. But still, when- NB: 18:29 When, they had had, there were a lot of children of, of Labor Union activists. SM: 18:30 Yes. NB: 18:31 In fact, there is the wonderful book, I do not know if you have had a chance to interview Thomas Grace. But- SM: 18:39 Yeah, I did. NB: 18:40 -yeah, his book is just terrific on establishing that there was a history of activism at that school. It just was not well known that you would this- -these assumptions that were made. And I think there is some of the same story at Jackson State that, Robbie Luckett-Robert Luckett, who runs the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State has done a really good job, I think, recapturing that history in the current exhibit that they have on campus right now, about the Lynch Street corridor and the ways in which Jackson State was very much always a part of what was going on, even if it was a great risk to those students who participated. SM: 18:48 Yes. Yeah. One of the most important things that was happening in America and certainly in the south, and all over America was in 1966. Could you describe the meaning of "Black power"? And when these two words became the slogan for African American students in the (19)60s. We all know the Stokely who had been a member of Snick for many, many years. He was there in Freedom Summer doing all his thing, but he had different views than some of the others in Snick. He and H. Rap Brown and others became more radicalized. Could you explain when this kind of happened and the effect that it had on college campuses? NB: 19:55 Sure. And it is hard to track. I would say that though the terminology comes popularized at that point in 1966. The ideology, A, had not had long been there. Many people think of, say, the Black Panther Party as being the heirs of Malcolm X. So, we have other voices- SM: 20:12 Right. NB: 20:12 -throughout the civil rights era that are calling for a different kind of, of approach to making social change. Civil rights activism based in nonviolent direct action really is an appeal to the conscience of those who have power. Right. It is asking white people to see that they are wrong, that it is immoral to do things like segregate and appealing on them, to change their minds and to become as, in a sense, better neighbors, better citizens. By the summer of 1964, when you have civil rights, you have the murder of civil rights activists during Freedom Summer, you have, you know, an extraordinary number of acts of violence against civil rights activists, generally speaking, and then in 1964, at the Democratic National Convention, you see mainstream, liberal Democrats really turn their back on the activists from Mississippi who come to the convention- SM: 21:03 It is amazing cause- NB: 21:03 -with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party asking that the Democratic Party itself unseat the white Mississippians and see other delegates to the convention who have created a Democratic Party that includes Black people as well as white people. And when the white liberals do that, for some who had gone along with nonviolent direct action, it is kind of the final straw. The idea is you even the people who purported to be our friends, cannot be counted on when push comes to shove, when their political well-being is threatened in any kind of way. So, I think for a lot of young people who had thought of nonviolent direct action, not so much as a way of life, but as a tactic, that shift was underway by 1964, even though we do not talk the language of "Black power," really, until 1966. I think the other thing that is really essential here is that by 1966, you could see that even with the passage of civil rights legislation, a lot was not changing. If you live in Oakland, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of (19)64, does not do anything for you, neither does the Voting Rights Act. So even as we see political empowerment taking place in the south, by the late 1960s, for a lot of African Americans, the civil rights legislation did not actually have much meaning. So, there was a kind of raised and disappointed expectations that encourage people to think about the need for a different strategy to make change, that what is really essential in the United States is power. And so you have got to get some and the way you get that as you start to think about Black nationalism, you think about economic determinism, which is or excuse me, economic Black nationalism, which is to say, spend your dollars in stores owned by Black people, spend your dollars where it will come back in tax revenue to your own community. And political Black nationalism; do not vote for anybody who does not have your back, they may not be Black, but they have got to have your back, spend your vote wisely. And then sort of social or cultural, Black nationalism, that just speaks to the need to look to your own community for wellbeing and to think about creating change from within rather than looking to the white community for change from without- SM: 21:03 Yes. NB: 21:45 -and so by 1966, I think it is a combination of frustration. And the reality that things are not changing, and experiences with the white community that suggests the sort of limits of what is possible through nonviolent direct action in a country that is so steeped, so deeply immersed in, in a white supremacist history and system. SM: 23:21 It is, it is, it is something here also, it is kind of a deja vu story in America. After the Civil War and Reconstruction, you know, people were supposed to have the right to, you know, for a lot of freedoms, probably up to about 1877. NB: 23:47 Yep. SM: 23:47 And after that, then all these, did the extreme opposite. And, you know, everything that we knew about Mississippi in 1964 was, was it all had dots going back to that 1877 rights, right up to the Ku Klux Klan, and the- NB: 24:09 Yep. SM: 24:09 -citizen councils, and all these things, preventing African Americans from just about everything. They were never treated equal. The one thing that shocks me the most over and over again, it is in your book and in other books, is how they talk to people of color by using the N word. It just- NB: 24:26 Right. SM: 24:26 -it just upsets me terribly. NB: 24:28 Right. Well, I think it was not only that, but even the kinds of, sort of basic slights all the time, so, not calling you by your last name, not using Mr. And Mrs., forcing you to get off the sidewalk, or out of the way for a white person was very intentional. It was intended to degrade, right. And I think that is why the N word is so powerful is that, it was a representation of a whole system of slight and of degradation that was intended to send a message that you are less than I am. And-and, you know, just the ways that, that would then, create ways of living in the world for white, think about white young people growing up in that world, of course, they assume that they are better. And for young Black people how hard it is then to assert yourself and to understand your own capacities, right. There is ways in which, you know, it just was so cruel. It just it, yeah, I agree with you. It is just, it is unbelievable. It is, it is easy to be upset by things like lynching, of course we should be. But that is only one piece of this whole system that was designed to degrade people's lives. SM: 25:41 And, and what is happening today in America, I worry, again, is this, the third chapter of- NB: 25:46 It sure feels like it. SM: 25:48 -like two steps forward and three steps backward, two steps forward, three steps backward, especially in the area of voting. I mean, even John Kennedy, when he was president, you know, he wanted to get a bill passed. But one thing he did not include in that bill was voting. NB: 26:05 Right. SM: 26:05 And- NB: 26:06 No, that is right. SM: 26:07 -so when you look at the killings at Jackson State, and I am so glad you wrote this book, because, you know, Kent, I have been to 14 remembrance events at Kent State and they have done a fantastic job- NB: 26:19 Yeah. SM: 26:19 -in making sure that what happened at Jackson State is part of the Kent State story as well. NB: 26:24 They sure have, they sure have. SM: 26:26 And could you, describe the history of the school? You have done it a little bit already, about the, it, what, it is your, it is your material that you built up proving that what happened on the 18th of May was racist. Yeah, 14th, 14th of May. Oh the, yeah 14th, excuse me, yes 14th. NB: 26:46 No, I think it is really important because it is very, I mean, I think it is important to note that the young people who suffered at Kent State and at Jackson State feel a real sense of community with one another. And it is something, I think there is great gratitude, both directions for that. Kent State itself has done a great job, retaining the story of Jackson State alongside their own, and I applaud them for that. But one thing that has happened is, Kent State become the kind of iconic story for the period, which made it really easy for Jackson State to kind of just slip off the page, so to speak, that itself, I think is-is a result of white supremacy and our failure to recognize that this was a racially based murder. And, you can see that so clearly. So, Jackson State was a historically Black institution. By 1970, I think there is three or four white kids going to school there. There is the children of professors, I think. But, there is really just a couple of kids there. It is, it is really silly, historically Black and predominantly, or actually exclusively Black school at that point. And it has a history of over the course of the 1960s, having engagements with the police that end in, in police violence. They are always overreacting to the slightest, any kind of unrest on the campus will bring in Thompson's tank, which was an armored tank, purchased for Freedom Summer, will bring in, you know, large numbers of heavily armed police in a way that just was not happening nationwide, right. This is a period of great activism on college campuses. And in general, you do not see the immediate response being sent in, in, you know, a large armed force. At Jackson State that is the routine response to any kind of unrest. And there is unrest every summer, starting in 1964, of some sort. The other way you could really see this, that this is a result of racism, that this is white supremacy being enacted, is you could look at a number of things first, when they hear that there is a dump truck on fire on the campus, instead of saying okay, so what should we do? They instead, quickly hand out a bunch of riot gear, and shotguns, and run out to Jackson State. There is no talk about what the mission for the night is, they do not brief the troops. So, everybody goes in without a clear sense of what their job is when they get there, right. That is, so they are in complete panic mode. Because, why? Because these are young Black people. So they assume, as one guy says, "Well, once they started burning the, you know, burned that, we figured they burned down the town." So, they have already conceptualized these kids as criminals. Now, why is that racially infused, because in Mississippi, that is something that had long been done, A, but also as you start to look at some of the things they do: A, all the way through, they refer to the young people using the N word, they come in with armory, with armaments that are better suited for, for warfare than they are for crowd control. If you had any regard for these young people's lives, they would not have been armed in the way that they were. And then finally, that they opened fire on them. They open fire and shoot for 28 seconds because a bottle broke on the pavement. You do not, it is completely against protocol to do so. They would not have opened fire on a group of young white people. But, because there is no regard for these young Black people's lives, they open fire and continue to fire for 28 seconds. They shoot over 400 shells. I mean it is, it is shocking. And they are shooting from almost point-blank range. SM: 27:16 Owie. NB: 27:21 I mean and to look at, and to hear these young people talk about what happened. It is so clear. And then in the aftermath, they literally do not assist the wounded, or the dead. They yell at the young people using the N word, and tell them to go check on these kids, two of whom die. Several others of whom are injured, they do not assist the kids. They pick up their own shells instead. It is, it is not until the National Guard arrives- SM: 30:59 Yes. NB: 30:59 that the students are assisted in helping those who are injured, or, and tending to the two who had died, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green. So, it is so infused with racism. And yet it is, it is undeniable when you look at the evidence up close. SM: 31:14 After it happened in your book, several people said the National Guard was supposed to take over for them, they were supposed to leave. Then, that probably would not have happened if the National Guard were there. But, it is the fact that the Jackson Police and the state troopers were there. NB: 31:30 That is right. And they are called in because a dump truck is lit on fire in the middle of the street. And the night before, there had been some unrest but, the police never enter the campus. So even though there was unrest on campus, nobody was injured. Nobody was hurt, clear lesson there. The next night when this dump truck is lit on fire, the police and the highway patrol rushed to campus, all in a fluster. And when the, they are rushed to campus to, to, quote, "Protect the fire department." Well, the fire department leaves once the dump truck fire is out. And what do the police and highway patrol marched into the middle of campus, there is no reason for them to enter the campus, no reason for them to march toward the middle of it. The mayor says, the National Guard chair says, number of people who were on site say there was nothing going on in the middle of campus. I did not know why they were marching there, and it was against their orders. They marched in the middle of campus. They turn their weapons on a group of young people in front of a women's dormitory. Kids who until they arrived had been hanging out. SM: 32:31 Right. NB: 32:32 As one guy said to me, "Yeah, we were all just hanging out. It was a nice Mississippi evening, to where all the lovers world, were, it was a women's dormitory." Women had an earlier curfew, it turns out. So, the men were all hanging out in the sort of, sway in front of the dormitory. When these you know, this heavily armed crew marches on them, and turns their weapons on them. So, of course they yell at them. But, when they are asked to clear the street and to move away, the students do, there is no question about it. The students are behind a chain linked fence when the police opened fire, and the police had no reason to be there. SM: 33:07 Where was the- NB: 33:08 In fact, you know, the National Guard is, is completely upset the commander that they have done this, he says literally, "They have done it all wrong." SM: 33:18 I-I know that the college president was around, he was keeping track of this. A plus over from Jackson State over Kent State, is the administration at Kent State was nowhere to be found. NB: 33:30 Right. SM: 33:31 And, talk about an inept administration, faculty members were kind of- NB: 33:37 Right. SM: 33:37 -doing their thing. But at least at Jackson State, the President was around, and was concerned, and but he was not at that scene. NB: 33:45 No, that is right. He was actually at his home at the time, because, because he knew that there was some unrest. And as soon as the shootings happened, a number of young Black men primarily approached his home, which is right near campus, and said, "You know, you have got to, you have got to come out here you have to see what they have done to us," and he immediately did. And he helped probably, to prevent a much larger loss of life because some students were wanting to march on downtown, and that would have been catastrophic. And, he helped the students. He did not, I will not say calm them, what he did is he asked another student who was there who was well known among the students, highly regarded, and was known to be able to recite Martin Luther King speeches by heart. And he asked him to recite, and that young man did, and it slowed things down enough for students to then talk about what they ought to do, and they realized what they should do was to stay on campus, but they refused to, to go back into the dorms. The president said, "Go back inside," and they said, "Why? Well, we were not, we were not safe in there. We are staying out here tonight." And so, they spent the night in front of the dorm. It was shaped like an H, and so they were in the sort of lower part inside the two legs of the H. The west wing on the left is where the shooting took place. And they spent the night there, but President John Peeples absolutely was, was crucial and remains really close with many of the students from that era. They all speak so glowingly- SM: 35:14 Right. NB: 35:14 -of him. When they finally had their graduation, where they got to walk across the stage last summer. He was absolutely in. He was there and was the commencement speaker for them. So, he is well known to have been very, very important. And then that young man, Eugene Young, they nicknamed him, his nickname was Jughead, he, too, was really crucial in helping the students sort of slow down enough to realize that it would be, suicidal to leave the campus grounds. SM: 35:45 You know, I knew Jean. He came here- NB: 35:48 Did you? You are so lucky. SM: 35:49 -I met, he came to Kent State several years to speak at some of the programs on the- 30th, the 1st or 2nd of May in some of the buildings there. And, I was sad when I heard he passed away. I know he had been on the previous year, he had been on Democracy Now, talking about it as he paid tribute to those who had died. But, he, he was so good as a speaker. NB: 35:54 That is right. And that is what everyone says. SM: 36:14 Yeah and, and he and, I remember he was staying at a hotel, and I was staying another hotel, and he did not have a ride. So, [chuckles] I took him back to his hotel. But, we were in another theater downtown because they were doing some programs in the, in the theater. And he was just, I mean, he was, it was like you go to grad school, and you meet your new grad students in your residence hall. You talked to him once and you were friends. NB: 36:42 Yeah. SM: 36:42 He was, he was that good, and that friendly. I remember when I came back to Kent State, I had heard that he passed and it touched the people at Kent State, so. NB: 36:52 No, everybody, everyone has spoken so highly of him. It is one of my, I will not say regrets. But I just, I wish I had started my project a few years earlier. So, I might have had the chance to meet him. And honestly, not only for the story that I know, he would tell, and I would love to have had the chance to learn from, but also just, he just sounds like an extraordinary human being. SM: 37:14 Oh, yeah. He is, he reminds me of a professor. I mean, he was,- NB: 37:18 Yeah, that is right. SM: 37:19 He was just, he was intellect, he is an intellectual. He is very calm, though. He is a gifted- NB: 37:25 Yep. SM: 37:25 -gifted speaker but calm. NB: 37:27 And you know, he was a part of the civil rights activism in Jackson as a young child. SM: 37:31 I did not know that. NB: 37:32 Yeah, so in the early (19)60s, he is a part of the of the activism in Jackson. And in fact, he comes up if you read Dan Moody's book "Becoming of Age in Mississippi," which is an account- SM: 37:41 Oh yeah. NB: 37:42 -of, sort of, grassroots activism, she talks about little Jean Young. SM: 37:46 Oh, I will check that out. NB: 37:47 Yeah. So he came by his activism early, and was really a part of, of those, you know, the student efforts of the early 1960s in Jackson. SM: 37:56 Now the Black power, I want to get back to the Black power situation again, around (19)66. That was coming to Jackson State as well. Some of the things that the students were demanding. And this is important to know, because I think it is in your book and another book I read. When people say how did these changes happen? It was because of the African American students. NB: 38:19 That is right. SM: 38:19 That made it happen. Not some, not Stokely Carmichael. Not- NB: 38:24 That is right. SM: 38:24 -it was them. And, and I saw this at Ohio State because that is where I went. I went to grad school at Ohio State. NB: 38:30 Right. SM: 38:30 And the Black studies, the arrival of Black studies- NB: 38:34 Yeah. SM: 38:35 -on campus and the legitimacy that it is an academic program was a big challenge- NB: 38:39 Yes. SM: 38:39 around there. And of course, the Black student unions were getting big, bigger, and the Black student papers, and student programs at Ohio State. This is the same time period; Ohio State had a lunchtime program from 12 to 1 in the Ohio Union. And it was for African American students, and on African American issues. I went every single one. And they only had 25 or 30 people, I was there as one of the few white people that was in there [chuckles]. But I will never forget when Jesse Jackson came, oh my god! NB: 39:09 Yes, there you go right! And, I have heard him speak once when I was in, 1978. Yeah, at his church, quite a. SM: 39:18 Yeah, well, yeah. Well, Jesse was there and of course, he had his afro and he was, you know, dressed like, he was young. [crosstalk] He was a young guy. And then I also remember Kathleen Cleaver coming to Ohio State, she spoke in Mercian auditorium, one Friday night, and I remember it was, and the place was packed and she had her own guard, you know, the Black Panthers guarded her. And, we were waiting and she finally came in. And, she spoke for a while and she said, "Well, I was met at the airport by the police," [laughs] of course, and they escorted her to get to Ohio State. And so, she started to speak and they had two guards up on the stage and they were just standing there, not moving, one fainted. NB: 40:06 Oh wow. SM: 40:07 And she is only into her speech for a couple minutes, and this, one guy faints and falls down, then somebody thought he had been shot. So- NB: 40:15 Oh yeah. SM: 40:16 I will never forget that. And, they ran up there to protect her and everything, but it was- NB: 40:21 Oh yeah. SM: 40:22 -but it was during this Black power and, and Black pride, and the afro hair dos, and everything. NB: 40:29 Black is beautiful was a really important concept, right? SM: 40:32 Yes. NB: 40:33 Even today, I know that my own Black students still suffer from not only colorism within the Black community, but you know, being taught that to be the way they are, to look the way they are, is not going to get you where you are needing to go. So, they talk about you need to dress professionally. You need to wear your hair professionally. And they are telling kids even in 2022, right, that to wear your hair naturally, either does not look good or is not professional. So, it is still here, If you can imagine the power of the messaging of Black is beautiful, right? Wait, to be me is a beautiful thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. SM: 41:06 Yeah. And they were, and they were challenging at Ohio State now, whoever were there, they were challenging the legitimacy of the new Black studies program. The person they had hired, his last, his last name was Nelson, Dr. Nelson. He was an academic scholar from someplace afar that came in to lead this. The credentials were unbelievable for this man. And he was given the chance to start at Ohio State and he did a great job. NB: 41:34 Yeah. What an opportunity, right? And that is some of what is going on at Jackson State. Right. And in the, in the late 1960s, is the arrival of Dr. Peeples in 1967. He says, we are going to have a revolution in our books. And he talks about having, you know, a high-quality education, we are going to show them something, we are not going to do it by having you know violence, we are going to do it by having a great education, turning you lose on the world. And what he means by that is, that students will begin to have a voice, and that African American life, and culture, and history will be a part of what they have access to, and he found what becomes today, the Margaret Walker Center. He begins to invite Black writers to campus, He allows Stokely Carmichael to come, and others are like, "Why are you doing that?" he is like, "Well, you do not understand. You have to allow people to express themselves." SM: 41:37 Yeah. Yeah. NB: 42:23 You know, it was a brilliant move on his part, in terms of engaging a sense of trust with the students who are like, "Whoa, really, you are going to let Stokely Carmichael come," and Stokely Carmichael meets with him, and he is really surprised. And he says to Stokely Carmichael, "I am part of a new generation of college presidents, we are going to be a little bit different than what you remember," and so he is, he is also facilitating. So, even as students are, are claiming more power, they are fortunate enough to have an administrator that recognizes that, that is the right thing to allow. That, that is really important for their well-being. And so, it is this beautiful sort of, growth of, within the context still of a white board of higher education. So for that president, he is navigating something very difficult, which is trying to protect the students from this, you know, the white board of higher education, but also allowing them, and I should not even say allowing, but getting out of their way so they can do the things that they want to do, which is to express themselves to study, you know, what is going on with the war to ask, and raise questions about voting rights to, you know, explore the inequities that they are, they are experiencing its students at a college in a system in which the other schools are better resourced. I mean, they are so aware that what they have at Jackson State is not the same as what is at the University of Mississippi. SM: 43:40 Yes. NB: 43:40 And they are unhappy about that. And he is making space for them to know that at least. So it is, it is a, I do not want to say magical time. But I think it is a time of such extraordinary expansion of possibility. And I think that is important in understanding why the police might assault the campus, right. And that is the campus they attack. It is not a campus in which things are staying the same. It is a campus that is changing. SM: 44:06 Right. You bring up another, other important thing that, it was not the first time has students died on college campuses. If you have, you know, we think about Kent State and the four that died and the two that died at the Jackson State but, do not forget the those who died in Orangeburg in 1968. NB: 44:25 That is right. SM: 44:26 Jack Nelson wrote a great book on this. NB: 44:28 Yep. Yeah. SM: 44:29 If you have not read the book. NB: 44:30 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. SM: 44:31 But I you know, and I know that one, two died at Berkeley too, I think in, early on during shootings or something like that. So it has happened before, but the publicity for Orangeburg was just like the publicity at Jackson State, which was nothing. NB: 44:50 Right. Well, that is one of the things I find really interesting is absolutely, there was no, no publicity for Orangeburg. Not only that, but the only person who does prison time for it right, is Cleveland Sellers who is actually a Black activist. SM: 45:04 Yes, I, yes. NB: 45:05 Right. There is this terrible assault on young African Americans, and the only person who faces prosecution is someone who is not responsible for it. But, the other thing I was going to say about Jackson State that is really interesting is that it actually does get publicity at the time. It actually is on the front page, and not in the same way that Kent State was, but it is on the front page of The New York Times, it is in, it is on NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, it is in the one-year anniversary, Playboy runs a multi-page story about the funeral for James Green. So, it is not that people did not know about it in 1970, many people did. And that is why the forgetting of it for me is all the more important to trace. Because it was known and then unknown, how do we do that? And, we do it again, and again, and again, as a white community, it turns out. SM: 45:54 When the tragedy or the killings, Alan Canfora, used to say- NB: 45:58 Oh yeah. SM: 45:59 -let us start making sure we say the killings at Kent State not the tragedy, and it is the killings at Kent State and Jackson State. NB: 46:06 Yeah, yeah. SM: 46:06 And, but the shootings at Kent State or when it, it happened it, it affected America like I have never seen before. NB: 46:18 Absolutely. SM: 46:19 I will look at the college campuses reacting to it all over the country. You know, after Nixon gave the speech going into Cambodia, which we have been in for a long time already. NB: 46:28 Right-right. SM: 46:29 And the fact is that I am, I am just one example of probably millions of college students at the time who said, you know, it affected their lives forever. Now- NB: 46:41 Oh, yeah, absolutely. SM: 46:42 -but then 11 days later, the, to it, no one talks about the, it should affect their lives as well. And you get to thinking, well, who is creating a racial issue here? NB: 46:56 Right. SM: 46:57 Is, you know, we are not talking about Jackson, we are not talking about the state of Mississippi. We are talking about what is happening in the media. What is happening in the- NB: 47:05 Yeah no, that is right. SM: 47:06 -yeah, I am, I am still trying to, boggled, my mind is boggled on this issue. NB: 47:12 Right. But I think it is a really, I mean, I think you are going right to the heart of, of what is so important, which is, how do we manage to make some things remain part of our national narrative? And, other things do not. So, if you look at a high school history book, I bet they will include Kent State today and I bet they will not include Jackson State. The very best college textbooks are beginning to include Jackson State. But again, how is it that we, we, you know, how is it that we move from knowing it to not knowing it, and it takes a great deal of effort, it seems- -to me, and it is, it is not somebody, it is not conspiratorial, it is not somebody saying, "Oh, let us remove this from the story." But rather, it is a much more insidious series of small laps by newspaper editors, I looked, I tracked the Chronicle of Higher Education. It was fascinating to watch how it went from having several pages on what happened to Jackson State at one point. I cannot remember if it is the fifth-year anniversary, but a few years out, they have a big come, you know, two-page story big spread on Kent State. And then they have a little you know, what do you have those little sidebars called "Others Who Died," and that is where they put Jackson State. SM: 47:43 Right. Oh wow. NB: 48:20 And that is that effort of like, again, they are not trying to be cruel, but they are imposing sort of a white supremacist historical lens, here is the one that matters, here is the ones that do not matter. Right? SM: 48:31 Yep. NB: 48:31 And it happens, and that is how we make it happen. It makes us, it just makes me very conscious of the ways in which white supremacy is so systemic. I mean, there is a reason we use that kind of language, it is because, it is in the air we breathe, we commit it constantly, without even realizing we are doing it. [crosstalk] The needing to be so conscious of that is, is one of the reasons I think to know history is so important. SM: 48:53 When it first happened, I was reading the press about Kent State. And, it was the talk about "Well, why did not, why did not happen at Berkeley, or Columbia, or a University of Wisconsin, or Harvard Square," that were, you know, even Ohio State, and Ohio University, by the way, was the most liberal of all the campuses at that time and had some of the worst protests. NB: 49:21 Right, oh yeah. SM: 49:22 And so, but nobody died there. But they died at Kent State, which the press kind of made it look like they were a conservative campus that has not- -really been that active. And then the same thing is true you brought up in your book with Jackson Spade, Jackson State trying to compare with Tougaloo. NB: 49:31 Right. Right. SM: 49:40 And you know, that had a history of activism and Jackson State had not so- NB: 49:45 Yeah. SM: 49:46 -it is a, yeah, and your book is going to help this, definitely going to help this. NB: 49:53 Certainly the purpose of it, and I think it is the reason people were willing to speak with me, because here I am a white scholar, they have never heard of contacting them out of the blue, asking them to talk about a horrific event in their life that has tremendous meaning to them. And yet, you know, you know, dozens of people were willing to tell me their stories. And I think it is because they want the story to be known, and they are frustrated by the way in which it has been forgotten. It irks people deeply, that the story of what took place on that campus is not broadly known. And so, if my book can do anything toward that, it is only because the people to whom it happened, want that to happen, and were willing to help me, with the work I was trying to do. It was a stunningly supportive and kind response that I received from every single person I interviewed that had some connection to the school at that time. SM: 50:47 What is become, the Jackson State of today, I just want to know, I know they do have remembrance events every year. NB: 50:54 Yep. Yep, absolutely. SM: 50:55 And that is very good. And I know sometimes they have small numbers. Kent State has not had a high, a lot of, heavy numbers in recent years as well. But, it is still a steady group that comes. Is it important that it happens? How is Jackson State right now in terms of, you know, the school is, is it, you know, the courses is, is there activism on campus, is? NB: 51:22 You know, I do not I, it is a very, very different place than it used to be. At the time when it was Jackson State College, it was a single campus, and a relatively small campus. Today, it is a sprawling University, with pieces all spread all over Jackson, the city, featuring different things. So, you know, schools of media or that kind of thing spread out, too, it is a very different place, it is much, much larger. The home campus, which was the original Jackson State College, I believe, is still desperately under resourced. They, the library, for instance, I know is understaffed, because I have spent a lot of time in that library. I do not actually know the personality of the school. I know that there are still a number of remarkable people working there. I have met some of the historians there, and they are just first rates and people who really care about this story, and have made an effort to keep it alive. So, they have been very actively involved in the memory work. As I mentioned before, Professor Robert Luckett, who runs the Margaret Walker Center has been fundamental to the efforts to keeping the story alive. But, I do not actually know the personality of the students per se. I did interview a couple of young people just out of curiosity, their familiarity with the story itself. And it was interesting, my sense is that many students who go to school there really do not know much about what took place. There are those that do, and who are part of the remembrance efforts. But I think, in general, most of the students are not aware, which is odd, because in fact, like the major, beautiful sort of walkway in the midst of campus is the Gibbs Green Plaza, named for the two young men who were killed. But, and my sense is that the campus is-is like Kent State, I think it is very hard to keep the memory alive, even though I think both institutions have worked hard at it. The other thing I would say about Jackson State is, for a time, the campus was, the administration was interested in remembering the killings. Then, there was a period during which I think they were tired of being known only for the killings. And, I think the administrator sort of pushed back a little against the remembrances. And, that was certainly the case when I was first starting my project. I was not, how can I put this, upper administration might not have been that excited about this being a story that people were talking about. There is somebody I supposed to interview, who was a staff member who was not actually allowed to talk to me, which was very odd. I think that is over. And, I think they are back to understanding just how important this is. And they had a, a wonderful series of events planned for the 50th anniversary, which were tragically undercut because of COVID. But last year, on the 51st anniversary, they had a beautiful graduation ceremony right on the plaza right at the site of the shootings. And it was, you know, supported by the University, and was really just a remarkable event. So, I think the campus today is a place where that story is, if not broadly known, it is nevertheless, one that is considered really important to the institution, and there are people working hard to make sure its memory is as present as possible. SM: 54:47 You know that, that reaction or maybe lessening the remembrance events or something like that. It could be the generations are shifting here now, and that the boomers are now the older, the elders. NB: 55:00 Oh yeah, oh yeah. SM: 55:01 And millennials are now taken over in terms of leadership positions. Millennials themselves cannot stand the word diet and, that they say that is a boomer generation word. NB: 55:17 [laughs] SM: 55:17 So now the CEO of Coke is, I think, is going to be getting rid of the word diet on all their drinks, eventually, it is going to be zero sugar. Because, millennials let it be known to Coke and Pepsi that the diet thing should stop. That is from another era. [laughs] NB: 55:35 You know what, oh that is very funny. I am sitting here with a Diet Coke in my hand. SM: 55:39 [laughs] Well, I drink it all the time, so. NB: 55:41 I literally have one in my hand as we are speaking, so. [chuckles] SM: 55:44 Did-did you ever see the other book that was written on Jackson State by Mr. Stoppard? NB: 55:49 Yes, I did. Yes, I did. SM: 55:52 Yeah, he wrote that. I interviewed him- NB: 55:55 Oh, good. SM: 55:55 -maybe six, eight months ago on that book. And I think that, then that was a dissertation or something like that, he was writing a paper and then ended up becoming a book. NB: 56:06 Yeah, yep. And he did a lot of really important research that was very helpful, helpful for me, because he had collected some resources, and that alongside with resources collected by Jackson State itself, meant that there is an amazing Gibbs Green collection that is held both in the archives at the university, but also in the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, they have a microfilm copy of it. So I was able to access some things, that would have been much harder for me to find, without the work that he had done. So I am very grateful to him for the, the work that he had done on the story. I think the, the one place that I would, would push back is that he talks about, he uses the language of riot. And I think that is really a misrepresentation. SM: 56:50 Right. NB: 56:51 In the spring of 1970, the kinds of things that were going on at Jackson State can hardly be called rioting- SM: 56:56 Yeah. NB: 56:57 -in a time when there was such extraordinary unrest nationwide. So that is really, if there was one place I really wanted to push back on. It was, it was to, make the case that this was a murderer, and be racially charged, and racially motivated. SM: 57:12 I-I was amazed that he had the courage to go to Jackson, and to be walking around, and be in that environment for a while because of, when he wrote the book, it was pretty close proximity to what had happened I guess. NB: 57:25 Yeah, no, that is right. SM: 57:26 So, you know, I asked him, if he was afraid he was not afraid, just wanted to get a story, so. NB: 57:32 Yeah-yeah, no, exactly. SM: 57:35 Yeah, I do not embrace it when you are talking about boomers, you are talking about African Americans as well. And what, as a scholar, what has been your thought on the boomer generation as a whole, it was 74 million, it was the largest generation in history. And now the, the millennials are the largest generation, they are about 78 million. So your thoughts on, you know, only about 7 percent of the boomers are really involved in any sort of activist activity. And, of course, 93, we are not, percent we are not in that large generation, so. And oftentimes, the media portrays the (19)60s is, it is all about that 7 percent and not about the 93 that were just going about their daily activities and trying to make a living. Your just, just your thoughts on the impact of that generation. NB: 57:58 Wow. Well I think, and this is, it is such a large topic, but I would say that, to suggest that it is only 7 percent, I would not want to demean, nevertheless, the impact that that generation had, I think they were able to, in fact, awaken the nation to some really serious questions, and issues that changed all of our lives. Now, the fact that today Roe has been reversed, makes me feel like the changes we thought were permanent may not be. But when you think about the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, I mean, these are, and Roe for that matter. And you think about where we have come in terms of LGBTQ rights, you think about all of the transitions that have taken place, the ways in which the meaning of who is really a citizen, and what that means has expanded. It is extraordinary, what that time period made possible. And you really do have to credit especially the young people who, who, you know, did the work of calling and enacting change. It was not going to happen without the activism that, that 7 percent did. And so, I think the I think the boomer generation did extraordinary things. The other thing that is interesting to me is, is when we think about how are we defining who an activist is because my own parents were very traditional in the sense that my mother was a homemaker. My father was, you know, out working for a living, we were very traditional family in some ways, but we were also well aware of the war in Vietnam. And the day that Kent State happened, you know, my mom served dinner in what would be sort of our more formal setting, which we did not usually eat out, except if we had guests and because it was this big, terrible moment in our nation's history. So, we were not an activist family. But we were certainly awakened by and cognizant, awakened by that generation, and cognizant of the issues because of the young people of that generation. So, I think the impact is really quite extraordinary. And I know there has been enormous pushback. But I will use the language I guess, just as conservatives generally, to discredit that generation, in ways that I think are unfair. Surely there were, oh, what was the word I even want? There were people who went too far, there were things that were foolish, find me a generation of young people where that is not the case. [chuckles] And you show me a miracle. SM: 59:39 Yes. NB: 1:00:53 Right-right. I think for, for whatever failings that generation had then, and has had subsequently, its accomplishments, I think, are not to be, should not be misunderstood. I think they are enormous. And I think we continue to live with those. The fact that I am a college professor, as a woman, is because of that generation, right. Civil Rights Act made it possible for me to have the job I have to get into graduate school and to get a position that simply would not have been possible without it. How long and how permanent those changes will be, I think, is much, much more up for grabs than I ever could have imagined. SM: 1:01:32 Yeah. I-I did not know that that vote took place today. I did not know, so. NB: 1:01:43 Oh, sorry. I am pretty sure that is right. I have, yes. I believe it was overturned this morning. SM: 1:01:47 Oh, my God. NB: 1:01:48 I think the decision came down. SM: 1:01:51 Wow. That is going to be, woah. One of the things I want to talk about here- NB: 1:01:57 Yep. It overturned Roe v. Wade today. SM: 1:02:01 Wow. NB: 1:02:01 And apparently, the part by Thomas, has written something that says, you know, and this is only the first effort, you know, now we have really got to get to work overturning the, I do not know what he said. So, I will not repeat it. SM: 1:02:13 Wow. NB: 1:02:13 But I need to read it because it sounds like there is an intention. It is- SM: 1:02:17 Right. NB: 1:02:17 -sort of terrifying, if you have the values that you and I seem to have. SM: 1:02:20 Yeah, and I am, I think the if, the voting issue is another thing that is- NB: 1:02:26 Yeah, me too. Oh. SM: 1:02:26 -scaring the heck out of me. I work on the elections and I cannot believe that we are talking about this. NB: 1:02:32 No, me either. SM: 1:02:32 2020, 2022. I want to talk about the, when Black power came about and of course, Dr. King and non-violence. When you think of non-violence, you think of the, think of Dr. King, you think of Byard Rustin. And, you know, most of the- NB: 1:02:47 Reverend Lawson. SM: 1:02:49 -Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, John Lewis, Julian Bond, Shirley Chisholm, that whole group- NB: 1:02:55 Right. SM: 1:02:55 -Roy Wilkins. When Black Power came, I can remember a picture of Stokely Carmichael standing next to Dr. King. NB: 1:03:06 Yep. SM: 1:03:06 And he is talking and Dr. King is kind of motionless, with his hands, I think, on his chin or something like that. And it, it almost made it look like he was lecturing to Dr. King, [chuckles] and I, you know, when you think of the changes that happen, nonviolent, nonviolent protests was crucial, in the changes we did in America. And then also, we know what happened with Black power, it also helped change in a different way. NB: 1:03:38 Yep. Yep. SM: 1:03:39 But then we get then we also have the Muhammad Ali's, of the world taking stands against the Vietnam War. NB: 1:03:47 Yep. SM: 1:03:47 And Dr. King in 1967, did something that no one thought he would ever do, and that is a– yes, speech at Riverside Church. And, of course, was Rabbi Heschel right next to him who had influenced him to do that speech. NB: 1:03:55 Speech at Riverside Church. SM: 1:04:04 So your thoughts on this whole business about, you know, Black power and nonviolent protest be the, you know, not a battle, but you know, a petition. NB: 1:04:04 Right. Well, I think that is the key, well I think that is the key is that, I think it has really been unfortunate the ways in which at the time, certainly the media, publicized this as if it was an internal struggle, and certainly there was that going on. But, you know, Dr. King remains close friends with a lot of those young people who are advocates for Black power, right, the fact that they have different approaches to it does not mean that their end goal was not the same. And this is a point my students will always want to make. They will say, "Well, but wait a minute, what was Black Power trying to get and how is that different from what Dr. King was trying to get?" The point as well, different routes do a lot of the same things. And so for me, I continue to think about, the reason this is important to me is I think it is really relevant in the context of trying to make change in 2022, I would argue there is always room for lots of approaches to creating change, because you will change some things with that appeal to conscience, you will change some people with that appeal to conscience, non-violence, for me will always be the approach that I would have to adopt. There is nothing in Black Power that says it is not also nonviolent, by the way. SM: 1:04:18 Right. NB: 1:04:23 The thing that was different in Black Power is the articulation, both of a determination to claim power, but also a determination to create one's own lives and to be self-determining, and also to defend oneself. And that is, I think the part that was, was most troubling for someone like Dr. King. The reality is that Dr. King's people had carried guns in their, you know, in their, the trunks of their cars and, and many of the people involved in nonviolent direct action, were willing to be armed as needed. And so, in the context of that moment, historically, even the issue of self-defense strikes me as one that did not divide the camps as, as vividly as the press is portrayed. And I think many historians have worked hard to show the ways in which there was actually great continuity between those, the parts of the movement, not only in terms of people, but that many of the ideas that we associate with Black power have roots reaching back all the way through the Civil Rights period. Are they two different approaches? Absolutely. Are they necessarily in competition or in conflict? I am not as condensed. SM: 1:06:28 Yeah, I know that, Snick, Stokely was part of Snick. And he, Black power to kind of took over Snick as well. NB: 1:06:36 Yep. SM: 1:06:36 And some people that had been there a long-time kind of left Snick, John Lewis- John Lewis went back and they became a congressman. [chuckles] NB: 1:06:40 And some were eventually thrown out, [crosstalk] kicked out the white members in (19)66, so. Right, right. SM: 1:06:50 I do not know, if, he really was not into that, so. NB: 1:06:53 No, that is exactly right. No, but it was a very painful, very painful turn of events for those who are really dedicated to nonviolent direct action, as a way of life which clearly John Lewis was. And as Dr. King was, so that, yeah, there was there was so much tension and so much anger, and some of it right played out and sort of lashing out against one another, which you know, is, as I look at, as a historian, I am seeing, oh, divide and conquer, how effective and I can see it happening sometimes with young people today where, you know, those old notions of are you radical enough? Are you Black enough? Are you, you know, are you fighting the fight hard enough? You are not doing it my way. That is often, you know, you start thinking about agent provocateurs from the F.B.I. back in the day, right, some of that friction was surely promoted by right the F.B.I., and its COINTELPRO, and by others who were like happy to see conflict within the movement. SM: 1:07:50 Right. NB: 1:07:51 So, I am always cautious about seeing these things as a fight from within without also wanting to look for what, what are the external pressures creating that? SM: 1:07:58 I think Black power also had somewhat of an influence on African American students in their protest against the Vietnam War. Because at Kent State University in 1970, you did not see any of Black faces, you might. There was an effort, James Michener wrote the first book on Kent State, it got full of mistakes, full of mistakes, and everything else. NB: 1:08:09 Yes-yes. SM: 1:08:11 But, what he does talk about in there is there was an effort made to make sure that no African American student was on the, out there with a white stripe- NB: 1:08:23 That is right. SM: 1:08:24 -on that protest. And that, you know, because our role is to be fighting for civil rights issues, not about the Vietnam War. And- NB: 1:08:37 It is also because they knew they get, you know, they knew that they were, would get, you know, they would be the first ones to get hurt. SM: 1:08:43 Right. NB: 1:08:44 And they knew it. SM: 1:08:46 Yeah, and that that is really interesting, because nobody talks about it. NB: 1:08:52 Right. SM: 1:08:52 And if you look at the pictures, I do not see any African American students. NB: 1:08:56 That is why I think Tom Grace's book is really useful. SM: 1:08:59 Right. NB: 1:08:59 I think he really fills in the relationship between the anti-war activists and the Black union students who are also very active on campus, and were engaged in anti-war activism but that they were really aware of what were the danger moments, and when they saw white students acting out, they were not going to get in the way because they knew that they would be the, the targets. SM: 1:09:17 I want to read something that you wrote in, on page 59 of your book. NB: 1:09:22 Let us rip that bad boy open and see what I said. SM: 1:09:25 And it is, it is the beginning of the second paragraph there is, I just I grew up down here. I just, I said I have to have this in the interview. "This was certainly true in Mississippi, where the growing influence of Black power prompted a hostile and militarized response by the authorities. Across the state at the historically white institutions that had begun integrating at the HBCUs, African American students are organized first on their own campuses, and then between campuses across the state. Like African American students around the country, they focus on the persistent white internalism of those who control their educations, the absence of student voices and campus governments. I know that, I experienced that, the need for an intrusion of African American curriculum, faculty and administrators into their educations and the career, and the under resourcing that lead to a second-rate educators and education." I thought that was a very well written, I had to, I had to quote it, and it is get into the, the law and order thing. So I just, I do not know if you have any more to say on that, or? NB: 1:10:37 No, I just it goes back to a point that you made earlier, which is, as we think about the changes that were taking place, on college campuses, in particular, when thinking about Black college campuses, the ways in which students were in the lead, right, they were the ones who understood what they wanted and needed. And that is how we end up with a wonderful African American studies programs that we have today, with some of the, the still too limited Black leadership on our institutions. That, they understood what they needed, and what they wanted. And they were the ones really pushing for the change that, you know, so many of us, you know, came to be the beneficiaries of I would say, in my own case. And, and also, I would note that that paragraph is based on work that was done by other scholars who have done the work of researching, and helping us understand the kinds of things that were taking place in that, in that era, beyond the Jackson State campus. SM: 1:11:32 Right. NB: 1:11:34 I think especially of, of Professor Williamson, who's up at the University of Washington here, right in Washington state who has just done wonderful, wonderful work on the history of Black education in Mississippi and more broadly, Joanne Williamson, she wrote, "Black Power on Campus," on the University of Illinois, was one of her early books, and then she wrote, "Radicalizing the Ebony Tire, Ebony Tower," which was really, really influential for me. SM: 1:12:01 You, you talked about the trials afterwards as well, and, and nobody was really charged with a crime. NB: 1:12:10 No. SM: 1:12:11 Yeah. NB: 1:12:13 No, they were not. The two. It is really horrifying. The two grand juries are influenced by their, the first one is led by a federal grand jury by a horrific man who was well known as a racist, long beforehand, he had overseen the trials for Freedom Summer, for instance. And so, it was the murder of Cheney Schwerner and Goodwin, Goodman over Freedom Summer, and he, his, his sort of charges to the jury are just laced with the sort of law and order, racially inscribed law and order rhetoric that we associate with that time period, and that is so costly, and the same sort of viewpoint is done by the hounds, Hinds County grand jury as well. So, the only person who is ultimately charged with, first charged with a crime is a Black man, not unlike what happened in Orangeburg, and eventually, the charges against him will be dropped for lack of evidence, and he will plead out on another on another charge. So, no the legal system is a complete failure for them. When they tried to sue, they are unsuccessful in the first suit. But, they had known all along that they would likely be unsuccessful at the local level. But when it goes to appeal, they are successful. But, it turns out that all the officers are covered by sovereign immunity. So, they try to take the case to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court is unwilling to hear it. SM: 1:13:45 The, Kent State is, has been paying tribute for years for the four who died and the nine who were wounded. And I know Jackson State has been paying tribute to the two who died. But, what about the ones that are wounded? And, do they keep, is there a list so that people do not forget the students who were wounded? NB: 1:14:07 I think that is a really interesting question. I think the answer is kind of no. I think some of those who were wounded have been very outspoken and active, including one man whose-whose written a couple of personal accounts of what took place on those days, but the vast majority of them have, have been relatively quiet. Vernon Steve Weakley is the man, I should say his name aloud who has written a couple of books about his experiences with the shootings, and what it meant in his life, and he has been very active, and very public about it. But there are others who are, who are quiet about it, who have chosen not to, to be public figures about what took place in their lives. Some of whom were really anxious to be interviewed, some of whom were, I did not know how to find, but so it is, I can say that many of those who were at Jackson State in 1970, have gone on to really remarkable public careers. I tried to talk about that, in my book, the ways in which many people were inspired to try to make change, because they could not, you know, could not stand what had happened to them- and to, to the kids around them. But I also know that there are people whose lives were really influenced, you know, in negative ways by what took place, and who, you know, really feel that, that what was possible for them and, the capacities they had, went somewhat, unmet because of the, the derailing that, that shooting had-had in their life. SM: 1:15:14 Right. You know at Kent State, I think two of the nine, just want, want to have their privacy, so. NB: 1:15:40 Yeah, yep. SM: 1:15:41 But, seven of them have been willing to come back to events and speak, and. NB: 1:15:44 It has been interesting people who, who had not been to events who were there, not necessarily people were injured, but just even people who have been at the dorm that night. I talked to one man who had not been back in, I was there for the 45th. And he had not been back for any of the remembrances until that one. SM: 1:16:03 Wow. NB: 1:16:03 Turned out, he was a really close friend of Philip Gibbs. And he ended up letting me interview him, he was not sure about it. And I said, you know, just think about it. There is no pressure but, and we ended up having a really, really powerful conversation, and- SM: 1:16:18 Is there anything for those two that had been done in their name, besides having a plaque or a- NB: 1:16:26 We had a whole, there is a, the whole plaza walkway through the middle of campus, so they closed off Lynch Street. And it is a plaza, kind of walkway through the middle of campus, and it's named for both of them. SM: 1:16:35 Very good. Very good. NB: 1:16:37 It is really good. And that was, that was a plan that people had, I think in mind, perhaps, from the get go, because the students had wanted Lynch street closed for a long time. SM: 1:16:45 And when you kill a person, or a young person you are, you are destroying a legacy of that person. NB: 1:16:50 Yep, no that is right. SM: 1:16:52 Every young person deserves a legacy. NB: 1:16:54 Yeah, that is right. SM: 1:16:55 That is why it is so sad. I have a simple question here. Did, did Black lives matter at Jackson State in 1970 and in the America of 2020? And again, the simple question, Do Black lives matter at Jackson State, In Jackson, Mississippi, and in America? NB: 1:17:16 What, in today? SM: 1:17:17 Today. NB: 1:17:19 Whew. I cannot speak to Jackson, or to the campus, I think with the insider knowledge that the question deserves. I think that the state of race relations in the United States right now is, is, is, is devastatingly unchanged. For all of I think, very sincere concern expressed in the spring of 2020. I have not seen measurable change. I am seeing instead the taking away of Black votes, which is for me incredibly regressive, and will be devastating to the well-being of the country. I see ongoing police shootings of young Black people even in my own community. I see outspoken racism, being, you know, spoken by people in leadership positions. I see people being elected to office who have continued to support what I would argue with, you know, a horrifically racist president who was voted out in 2020. So, I think we are, I, do Black lives matter, they matter enormously. Are they treated with, that as if they matter? No, no. SM: 1:18:39 It is another issue that I, you kind of reflect upon or, you know, these great stories, your books, revealing the truth about what happened at Jackson State. It is how all this hard work that was done for so many decades, is now being challenged, to, for setbacks and, and of course, everything's red state, blue state, you know, hawk and dove, and all these other things. So, you know, they always put you in a category so, if you even question, or bring it up, you are one of those. So it, it you know, I, keep bashing some of the people that gave their lives. We did a program once at Westchester University, about the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement, the ones that Dr. King used to always talk about, the people will never hear from, but were involved again, never knew. NB: 1:18:39 Yep. SM: 1:18:40 And-and they are probably turning over their graves knowing what is going on, if they knew what was going on today. And that is why as you mentioned, I mean, I think the voting rights issue is such a substantial one, because its implications are so deep, and the vote was so hard fought, I mean to gain, and that it could be being taken away so insidiously. And with such, and yet with such openness is just, I just did not expect it. And I should have that is, that is my you know, that is my whiteness speaking that I can be so naive sometimes. Well at least we know there are two artists who sang songs that reflected on what was happening in Mississippi in the, in the (19)60s and early (19)70s. NB: 1:20:22 Absolutely. SM: 1:20:23 And that is Nina Simone. NB: 1:20:26 Yep. SM: 1:20:27 "Mississippi Goddamn." NB: 1:20:29 One of my favorites. SM: 1:20:30 And Sam Cooke. NB: 1:20:32 Yep. SM: 1:20:34 And his famous song. And, boy, when you listen to Sam Cooke, I did this with another person. I said, "it brings tears to your eyes." NB: 1:20:42 Yep, it does. SM: 1:20:44 And, and his life ended in a sad way. NB: 1:20:47 Yep, that is right. SM: 1:20:49 So, it is just amazing. I have a couple of general questions here that I wanted, I wanted to just ask you. Does, does time you know what happens in time, is things just like a cemetery, you put a stone up and it fades away over time, and does time kill all remembrance events, once those who were alive are no more? NB: 1:21:15 I do not think so. I think Americans could name all kinds of historical moments and have actually really powerful deep feelings about them, that are far removed from themselves. And that is where what we choose to have, say in our history curriculum really does matter. It is why I think when you see right wing activists calling for the removal of what they are calling critical race theory, it is about trying to decide what we are going to remember what we are going to forget. SM: 1:21:48 Right. NB: 1:21:48 And they are very intentionally trying to make sure that we remember a very particular version of our national history, that is false. But that is, is what I would call whitewashed. And I choose that word very intentionally. SM: 1:22:01 Right. NB: 1:22:02 So, no, I do not think it is it, I think, in fact, Americans, and I would say, I think even human beings generally, part of what makes us human is having a connection to what came before, to having that sense of connection across time in many cultures, right, the ancestors remain alive and with us. So, no memory, and that it should always, but is it always lost, I just think, I just do not think it is true. I think what we remember is very carefully constructed. Again, I do not usually think of it as conspiratorial, increasingly in 2022, it feels very conspiratorial, or people very intentionally trying to decide what kids are going to learn to remember what they are going to be, not ever be exposed to so that it can be forgotten. SM: 1:22:45 I only do this based on you know, I go to a lot of events, and I have seen the numbers get smaller and smaller. NB: 1:22:52 Yep-yep. SM: 1:22:53 And just, Josiah Bunting III, you know, a conservative, but he is the chair of the World War Two Memorial. He talks, he, when he speaks at the memorial, he has tears in his eyes because he says, "As time goes on, I am, we are doing this memorial to remember what happened in World War Two, that they saved the world." But as time goes on, and it is, it is a lot of people coming there. But the people, there is fewer and fewer attending the events, and fewer and fewer, World War Two vets alive. And then you go to the Vietnam Memorial that opened in 1982, the same thing is happening there. NB: 1:23:32 Yep, that was really interesting. SM: 1:23:34 The numbers are dwindling. And at Kent State, even though they were getting great numbers, sometimes. I know the 50th anniversary would have been a big one. NB: 1:23:41 Yeah, that would have been amazing. SM: 1:23:42 But, their numbers are even going down as well. NB: 1:23:44 Yep. SM: 1:23:45 So, I worry that, it is just me because I was a history major too, like you. NB: 1:23:50 Exactly. [laughs] SM: 1:23:52 We cannot forget our history. And that leads me into this question here. What are the main lessons from the (19)60s and early (19)70s that are still in with us? And what are the lessons learned that have been lost as time goes on? NB: 1:24:10 Those are huge questions. I guess the first lesson learned is that change is possible, that collaboration work, that every person's life is of equal value. And then if we could learn that, it would make for a healthier world for all of us. And alongside that, that the forces in here, I am thinking both the systems in place but also literally the white supremacist, not only systems but the, the viewpoints that undergirded are deeply-deeply-deeply woven into the fabric of the country, and how we live and are, are not easy to unfurl or to pull apart. And we can see that I think in the backlash that, that takes place relatively quickly, and that we are living with even, you know, obviously living with right now, that change is never permanent. So, the hard-fought battles of the 1960s does not mean that we do not have to continue to fight for, for justice. And that justice, I mean, in particular, racial justice, because it is the center of this story. But the other forms of justice, for all human beings, for all the ways in which we are different, that does not change the fact that we are each valuable, but that battle is an ongoing one, that one can only avoid, if one has extraordinary privilege, and that it is incumbent on those that have it, myself included, to be a part of that fight. Because it takes it does, in fact, take some power, as well as a lot of hearts, and energy, and commitment, and sacrifice, to create the kind of change that, in the 1960s was made, not by those with power, but ultimately by those who demanded it. As many people have talked about, including Martin Luther King, those whose names we will not know, but who nevertheless, were the heart of the battle. SM: 1:26:15 Yeah. In the past, there is a lot of dialogue. I know in the (19)90s, I can remember on college campuses, there is an awful lot of dialogue, but where is the action? Where is the deed? And-and-and many deeds have come but now the deeds are being challenged. And there does not seem to be the dialogue, because what happens now is that people do not listen to anybody they-they, we have very poor listeners. They, it is my way or the highway. And that kind of a mentality that kind of scares me today in the world. I am a believer that conservatives and liberals can work together- NB: 1:26:56 Absolutely. SM: 1:26:57 -that red and blue work together, the Black and white to work together. NB: 1:27:00 Absolutely. Me too, me too. SM: 1:27:01 And in the, in the interfaith councils of the 1960s, with- NB: 1:27:05 There you go. SM: 1:27:06 -Rabbi Heschel, and Dr. King and the civil rights leaders, and the Catholic priests- NB: 1:27:12 That is right. SM: 1:27:12 -Father Hesburgh. I mean, they work together, they had lots of differences in our beliefs, but they could work together for common cause. NB: 1:27:21 Right, and it has to do with having an awareness. What do I want to say, being able to imagine lives that are not your own. SM: 1:27:28 Right. NB: 1:27:28 Even though you may disagree, you can understand why someone is coming to the place they come to, so that you can then find the commonalities that you might have as well. No, I agree completely. And I worry so much, because I think so much of what is happening right now, here my partisanship is right, my partisan position is so obvious, but I feel like so much of what is being pushed right now from the right, has a singular lack of that kind of empathy- SM: 1:27:55 Right. NB: 1:27:55 -or that kind of awareness of others whose lives are not the same, that you could use the kind of language that, that candidate and then, President Trump use to talk about people from other countries suggests a singular lack of an appreciation for the humanity of other people who are not you. SM: 1:28:11 Right. NB: 1:28:12 And I really feel like that is being rewarded now, in some ways. And, I find that horrifying. SM: 1:28:18 I agree. I agree. I am going to, my last question is something that I have been asking everyone, and that is, what advice or message would you like to give to future generations of students, faculty, and national scholars who will be listening to this tape 50 years from now? What words would advise, 50 years, we are not going to be here. The Boomer generation will not be around anymore. The people who experienced all this stuff from the (19)60s will be gone and (19)70s. Just your thoughts, what words would you advice, give advice to future generations? NB: 1:28:58 I am not a big advice giver. So, I will take this one to a very simple place, which is what I do for a living is teach history. And at the center of that is really teaching young people to both think critically and question everything, and everyone apt to do it with a little bit of humility. And those were lessons that have been taught to be brought to me by my colleagues, especially my colleagues in African American Studies. And I think that, that has been really sound advice that is been given to me, which is ask questions, think critically, question every source, and every person, and everything, and every idea. But as you do, so bring some humility to it. SM: 1:28:58 Very good. That is great word of advice, I would say. NB: 1:29:43 Yeah, I did not create it. It comes to me from others. SM: 1:29:46 All right. Well, I think. that is it. I want to thank you very much for this interview. NB: 1:29:50 Well, I thank you so much. It was a real pleasure to think about these things alongside you. SM: 1:29:55 Yeah, let me turn my tape off here. (End od Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Nancy Bristow https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/95a13fc705c68ad4a1494433ac34da39.png c4ed98e01e9d3d4d98aefeb461a5eb23 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/32dc6a5ce929e9d1dc6489a26b88e8f1.MP3 d4b646efdadc8404a6e5b9d76f44e1c4 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 22 June 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Kevin Boyle Biographical Text Dr. Kevin Boyle, a native of Detroit, Michigan, is an author and the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University, with a particular interest in modern American social movements. Dr. Boyle is the author of The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968, and Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, as well as several books and articles. He is currently at work on The Splendid Dead, a micro-history of political extremism and repression in the early twentieth century. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Detroit, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:35:34 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 DIgital file Date of Digitization 22 June 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Boomer generation; Movements; 1960s; Vietnam war; Anti-war movement; Activism; Americans; Civil Rights Movement, Radicalism, Martin Luther King. 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Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Kevin Boyle Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 22 June 2022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Start of Interview) KB: 00:00 My neighborhood, grade school and high school. And then for undergraduate, I went to the University of Detroit, where I graduated in 1982. So I was there in the late (19)70s and early (19)80s. And then went to graduate school in, at the University of Michigan, where I completed my PhD in 1990. And I would love to have a really exciting story about why I became a historian, but I do not. I really, always gravitated, even in high school to that. I enjoyed most history classes. And when I got to college, I thought that I was going to be, go to law school, I have an older brother, who was going to law school, so I thought that I should do that. And then, I had the wonderful experience of going to a place that was small, and where people, the faculty knew you. And I remember so distinctly a faculty member taking me aside at one point and said, "Have you ever thought about graduate school," and it was like light bulbs going off, you know that someone would think I could do something like that, and have that sort of life that I saw that these faculty members had that seemed wonderful to me, you got to read books, you got to write, you got to teach classes. And so by, say, my junior year of college, I thought, that is the path I would pursue. I had no idea what that meant. My parents were high school graduates, but they had not gone to college. And, I had no idea what that meant. But, it sounded like a very good life. And that is what I did. SM: 01:48 Now, where have you taught over the years? KB: 01:52 I, my first job out of graduate school was at the University of Toledo, which was part of the Ohio University System, the public at bio system. And I taught there for three years. But then I moved to UMass [University of Massachusetts] Amherst, which I loved. I taught there for eight years, then, I just sound like I cannot keep a job. Then, I moved to Ohio State where I taught for 11 years. And then in 2013, came to Northwestern. SM: 02:23 Those are some great schools that you taught at, of course. I went to one of myself, Ohio State. [crosstalk] I was, I went to higher education and student personnel work. So, it kind of set me on my way, for a career in higher education. The book itself, that you, why did you write, "The Shattering?" KB: 02:47 For a number of reasons, my first- my dissertation and my first book, a lot of it dealt with the 1960s. So, this was an era that I had been immersed in for a very long time. I was at Ohio State, I taught a course on the 1960s, which was one of my favorite things to teach. And I really felt as if, in teaching that course, I felt as if there were some wonderful overviews of the 1960s, books that tried to do, or kind of sweep up the 1960s. But none of them really worked for me. So when I taught that course, I would never had a textbook that I used, for a variety of reasons, there were wonderful books that just were not right for me. And I felt that, I would like to give a shot of writing the sort of book that I would have liked to have seen available, to kind of take that I wanted to take on it. And that is, was the origin of "The Shattering." SM: 03:46 When you look at that period, 1960s and 1970s, (19)75, what, not just of your book, but what is it about that period that fascinates you, [crosstalk] that, sparks your interest that your, your antenna goes up? KB: 04:03 I think there is a number of things. And this, actually will tie back one of the main things, will tie back to, growing up in Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s. I was first drawn to the (19)60s as, because of the, really profound moment of racial change. And I think that, that experience is so deeply ingrained in anyone who lived in Detroit, which was such a center of racial conflict and racial tension in that period. That was, so that was kind of the origin point, that here is a period where in all sorts of complicated ways the United States confronted its duty of division. Now it did not solve that division, [chuckles] but it did confront it in multiple ways. And that is, I think, one of the most important stories of the American experience, not just the 1960s, but the American experience. And then, it expanded out from there to the other complex of issues that I think are so decisively important in that period, really dramatic impact of Vietnam War in multiple ways, and the intimate experience of the Vietnam War. The, what I do in the book, that really dramatic expansion, that dramatic confrontation over the government's role in the public role in the regulation of sexuality. But other issues as well, that did not make it into the book, because I did not want to have the book sprawl out in so many directions that it kind of lost the sense of depth and focus. Here is a period for the United States, it embraces the challenge or is confronted with a challenge, I think, is a better way of putting it, of its fundamental promise, its fundamental promise of equality, its fundamental promise of opportunity. It is here that those issues come bursting to the forefront. And I really am, I have literally been drawn to the ways in which that confrontation plays out, and some mixed results of that constitution. I think that is what makes the (19)60s so fundamentally important, and the fact that we are living with those issues in a really direct way to this day. SM: 04:20 Yeah, I agree. What you do in your book in the area of civil rights and issues dealing with African Americans is, goes way back, and you do a great job of connecting the dots, I always call them, I was a history major too. And connecting the dots between this period, and this period, and this period. And, you know, talking about, you know, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that there were people that were fighting for equality and justice, and, and there was white supremacy and that whole thing, but what is interesting when you talk about that era of the 1950s, that we always talk, as many people talk about is the age of innocence. It was not so innocent, because- KB: 06:40 Oh my god, no. [chuckles] SM: 06:47 -because African Americans were already activists and trying, and you know, and you talked about Little Rock, you know, you talk about what happened at Montgomery bus boycott? Could you talk a little bit about that, the perception that many Americans have, before he talked about the (19)60s, that (19)50s, which was so important for the (19)60s? KB: 07:50 Yeah, I think to me, there is kind of two really key points that you are really hitting on both of them. One is that, one of the challenges of writing a 1960s book now is that there is this very imposing body of literature that has extended the periodization of movements like the civil rights movement, that movement does not start in Montgomery in 1955. It does not start with Brown v Board of Education, in 1954. It has got this long history, that the Civil Rights Movement has of the (19)50s and (19)60s has to be embedded. That is one of the challenges of writing the book is you got to give people that backstory, because I think that is the story, that there is a continuity, not a break. But then to your more immediate point, 1950s has this kind of, it has, it has been wrapped in this kind of power of nostalgia, it is kind of like you said, Age of Innocence, and Age and, of Complacency. And that is nowhere near the complexity of that, of those years, there is a kind of political coalition that is formed, that takes form in the 1950s, that Dwight Eisenhower is really central inbuilt. It is a political coalition that plays to the benefit of a large swath of Americans, to middle class Americans, to the upper end of the working-class Americans, which is overwhelmingly white, to people in suburban America, but it is a political coalition, and its aim is to provide for those people. And it does that really effectively, and that is for millions and millions of people. It is really important. But there is also this huge number of people, and African Americans obviously are kind of the key group who are shut out of that system. But that system is set up in a way to exclude them, and they are demanding entry into that system. That happened throughout the 1950s, some of them, Little Rock is a perfect example of that. It is one of the most explosive moments of civil rights period, because it is a fundamental constitutional crisis. That is not simply the confrontation out on the street in front of Little Rock High School, though, of course centralized. So of course, that is one key part of it. But it is also a fundamental constitutional crisis. This is about the right of a governor to defy through the National Guard, through the force of the military, constitutional law. And that is 1950 suffrage. The culture front, there is fundamental issues going on, in generations in American culture in the 1950s. So, the idea that somehow America was an innocent place that suddenly lost its innocence in the 1960s, as the [inaudible] read it, of American history, Americans love the idea that we were innocent people. We do it all the time, something dramatic happens in the United States, the first thing people say is, "Ah, we were innocent before September 11. You know, we were innocent, before John Kennedy was assassinated. We were innocent before this, and that," it is a cliché, it is a trope. SM: 11:26 And what is interesting as a little boy, when I was very young, I was sitting in the T.V. room, and my mom was working in the kitchen, and McCarthy was on, it was the McCarthy hearings. And so I am, I am a little, I am a little boy in 1950. I did not quite understand it. But I did not like him. I did not like that voice. I did not like that man. And then, of course, as I start finding out, my parents talked about him too. You know that is, that is not an innocent period. That is certainly not an innocent period. And certainly the Cold War, the whole concept of Russia, and the nuclear bomb. That is not an innocent period. So, there is a lot- KB: 12:02 No, definitely. SM: 12:03 -going on leading into the (19)60s. So, for sure. KB: 12:05 Yeah, that is a great example. I wish I had thought of it, a terrific example. SM: 12:11 When, I have a question here, too, regarding your, the knowledge of the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, and looking back and forward, as a historian, this is just your technique, and writing is so good. You go back to periods, and then you, you know, in the area of the Vietnam War, or foreign policy, in the area of civil rights, in the area how government overseas, or sexuality. Did when, when you saw that picture in that book- KB: 12:44 [laughter] SM: 12:45 -of the, Cahills were you thinking all of this at the very beginning? Or were you just fascinated by that picture? And by the way, I have that book. [laughter] KB: 12:56 No, I had, I was just fascinated by the picture, there was something about that photo, that, and I cannot even tell you what it was that really hooked me. When I, you have the book, you know that the caption does not even tell you, it says, "Patriotic American on the west side of Chicago, 1961," that is all it says. There is no mention of Cahill, there is no mention of who these people are, does not say where on the west side of Chicago. I was just fascinated by that picture. And then when I started teaching, over the years, of teaching that course, that I mentioned at Ohio State, I kept being pulled back to that picture. And at some point, or another, I thought, man, it is kind of embarrassing that I am showing these kids this picture. And I have no idea who these people even are. And so that is when I started to look for their story, that was a completely random search for a story because it started with this picture. And it was only as I started to learn who they are that I started to see [inaudible]. These people really are emblematic of a really kind of key dynamic of the 1960s that gets almost no attention. And that so, they became something, that their story became something that I could hang a bigger analytical point on. But no, it all started with looking at that picture, God knows when, and thinking, man, that is interesting. SM: 14:23 You know, you used two words or two ideas, and they are so important in this book, and particularly when you are talking about the person you just talked about, but you are also talking about my parents, and you are talking about the post-World War II generation, the people that came home from the war, and that is that issue of security, and upward mobility. KB: 14:42 Yeah-yeah. SM: 14:43 I mean, that is so, that is so truthful. He talked about truth. That is truth. That was the truth. KB: 14:50 I really appreciate that. Yeah, and that was the key for me, with that photo once I started putting, getting some information about it. Because it is, in many ways, it is a simple matter of math. That when you see Stella Cahill in the back of that photo, right, tucked away in the back. And I cannot, let me see, it was 1961. She was born in 1960. Right? So she would have been 44-45, because she was 44 at the time because senator birthday. And all you got to do is the math, if you were 44 in 1961, what that means is that you were born at a time, you lived through some of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century, right? You lived through the Great Depression, you lived through World War II as a young adult, kid in the Depression, a young adult in World War II, I had no idea that they had also lived through the terror of the Spanish flu, where she lost her father, and the poverty of the working class, of the lower end of the working class. I had no idea that was the story I was going to find that was just what I came up with. But, the point is that this was a woman. Like your parents probably, like, my friends, they do it a little different because they did not grow up in the United States. But does not matter, the point is that all, these millions and millions of people in the United States who had lived these lives of profound insecurity, and that they finally have this chance to have a life, that is not spectacular, there is nothing extraordinary about the Cahill story. But, that is the beauty of it, see is that they are able to build the safe, stable sense of, you know, of kind of boring lives that I really admired to that. The problem is that those were lives that were bounded by these other forces, right? That their life out on that, very ordinary side street, way out on the west side of Chicago, was bounded by race. There was not a single Black person in that picture in a city that was a quarter Black by 1968. [crosstalk] SM: 17:06 Go ahead, no you go ahead. KB: 17:09 Obviously, they did not think about that. It was not like they were, they owned that house since the (19)20s. This was not the case, their story was not the case of white flight. My guess is it never crossed their mind much about whether Black people lived in their neighborhood or not, it was a naturalized thing. It so happened that the Cahill family and again, this is just wind block, made their living on a firm that relied on the military industrial complex. Now they did not make big bombs, they made coffee yearns for the military, [chuckles] but they were tied in military industrial complex. They grew up, their kids grew up in very parochial worlds, those Catholic schools, and their Catholic parish. So, they lived in a society that was bounded by all these restrictions that often-excluded other people, or that played on power relations, relied on power relationships. Those are the very things that get challenged in the (19)60s. SM: 18:09 When you, those same categories again, when you get into the (19)60s, and you talk about the Vietnam War, you talk about the Civil Rights Movement, and of course, the issue of sex, you know, the Roe vs, versus Wade, and all the other things. It is, that creates a tension of its own. KB: 18:27 Yep. SM: 18:27 You know, civil rights creates tension in the, in the racist community who are white people who believe in white supremacy, you got, you know, Vietnam War, when people are coming home, you know, how they were treated when they got home. You know, veterans had a hard time, they were not treated well- KB: 18:44 Right. SM: 18:44 -when they returned from the war. So you really hit it, you really hit it very well. I one of the most important things in this book, and you bring it up to is talking to ordinary Americans. You know, we can talk- KB: 18:59 Yeah. SM: 18:59 -we all know about a lot of the civil rights leaders, the Black Power leaders, the politicians in Washington, and leaders who are elected, well known leaders of movements, but it is your ability to talk to the ordinary person like the Cahills and, and others. Could you talk about that, how important that is in the history of any era? KB: 19:20 Yeah, that is really fundamental to me. There is no doubt that powerful people, presidents, and Supreme Court justices, and major civil rights leaders, major movement leaders are important that they shape history, they do. And I think that we are fooling ourselves if we somehow claim they do not. So I think things that are fundamental parts of the story, of the 1960s. But it is also important to see how ordinary people shape and are shaped by large historical forces. To me that is the, that is the part of history that I really love dealing with. I mean, my wife will tell you that I maybe just got a little more fixated, and I should have been a Cahill. [laughter] You know, because I found it so fascinating to dive into an ordinary person's experience, and a huge part of the (19)60s history, about the ways that ordinary people intersect with these large stories. And so, one of the things I have tried to do, the Cahills were the biggest example. One of the things I tried to do throughout the book was weave in the stories that other people swept up in the moments of the 1960s that I think are so pivotally important. So it was important to me to talk about Elizabeth Eckford, walking down the street in front of the troops in front of Little Rock High School in 1957. It was important to me to talk about the Roe v. Wade story through Norma McCorvey in Roe, you know, whose life is very complicated, because ordinary lives are very complicated. And I wanted to get a sense of that story out to, or what I see, as you know, that really fundamental tragedy of Alison Krauss at Kent State, you know, and of course, we know about the events at Kent State it is not like I am uncovering something that has not been written about a million times. But I wanted to do was to find an angle on it that got the human story of Kent State through. And so, I what I did was tried to talk about the reporter going back to her high school to find out what he [inaudible] about her, after her killing, after her murder at Kent State, because I wanted the sense of the tragedy of that event. And the way you get at that is to the experiences, the intimate experiences of ordinary people. SM: 21:57 Yeah, I actually go to Kent State, I have been to 14 remembrance events at Kent State. And- -and I, you kind of get the feel that you know, all four of the people that died there. You get to know who they were- KB: 22:03 Wow. I bet. SM: 22:11 -even though you never met them. And of course, the nine that were wounded, but also how important it is that they have never forgotten at Kent State, those that died at Jackson State, which, a lot of America has forgotten, but certainly at Kent State they have not. And so, when you look at the, the three areas that you talk about in the book where "The Shattering," took place, I have interviewed a lot of people. And I asked a question regarding what was the watershed moment of the (19)60s. KB: 22:15 Oh, yeah. SM: 22:42 Watershed event, a one event that defined the period or you feel had one of the greatest impacts on that decade or the, plus the early (19)70s. And, and of course, there is civil rights, there is Vietnam. But for you, I am talking about you as a historian, I know you have picked three, but is there, Is there one that stands out above everything else? KB: 23:15 Yes, absolutely, it is really a great question. And I know keep saying that, but actually, these are terrific questions. The pivotal event of the 1960s, in my mind, is the Children's Crusade in Birmingham in the spring of 1963. Because what that does, is that is the moment in that event, that "The Shattering," really takes place. It is there that the political alignments that have defined American, the American public life for decades and decades just get shattered open. In that moment where the president of the United States was finally forced to decide which side am I on. And it is at that moment, that the political space of the 1960s that the political realignments of the 1960s are created. So it is, I am not saying that, that event shapes everything that follows, but it creates a new context for everything that follows. SM: 24:22 Very good, you know, that march on Washington in (19)63 was something and- KB: 24:28 That is, I think that is one of the great misunderstood events. I mean, now there has been a lot of good scholarly work on that, though, I am not sure how far it reaches. But the thing that, now I am going to get sort of preachy, [chuckles] kind of literally, I think. What I, one of the things I found most difficult in teaching the course, and I try to do with the book as well, is not simply to say and this is the way scholarship has gotten to say, you know, this was about much more than civil rights. It was about the fusion of civil rights and economic troubles and that is absolutely true, and that is really important. What I find maddening, understandable, but maddening is the way that people dismiss [Dr.] King's, "I Have a Dream," speech. And the problem is that as Americans, we have heard it too often, and so it has become a cliché, it has become a string of clichés. And because of that, it is impossible to hear how radical a speech that is. It is impossible to hear the point of that speech that what King is doing in that speech, is he is holding up in the most powerful and public of moments, this radical vision of the beloved community. And one of the things I really try, I do not know how effectively I did, but it was really important to me is to restore, well, let me put it this way, one of the things that scholarship has done, and it is a good thing that scholarship has done, not being critical of that is it is tried to revive the radical king, the king who talked about fundamental economic change. And that is really important. And I agree 100 percent, with the value of doing that. The problem for me in that is that what we have, underplayed and sometimes really are quite dismissive of, is the radicalism of his religious vision. He was first and foremost a religious figure, that there is a profound radicalism in the religious vision that he is presenting to the United States. And I would love to see more of an emphasis on that. But when he talks about when he talks about passive resistance, when he talked about radical love, when he talked about these fundamentally religious topics of redemption, what he was doing was presenting Americans with an alternative way of living, of conceiving their relationship to each other, and to the nation. And why we see, why we dismiss that is just kind of ridiculous idealism, and embrace as radical, an economics agenda is because we are too locked into a very strict sense of what counts as radical. Now, of course, the economic agenda is radical, but so is this vision where he was saying to Americans, "You can, in fact, we replace hatred with love," that is a radical vision. That is a radical reconstruction of the ways that the nation operated and that human beings related to each other. And yet, somehow, we see that it is just kind of rhetoric. SM: 27:42 Dr. King, was an amazing human being in so many ways. You know, he created not only tension, he created tension within his own group, within the African American community. He did not- KB: 27:54 Oh yeah. SM: 27:55 wave like a, "I am going to go to Chicago, there is a lot of racism up north." While he got there, many people in the, in, you know, other civil rights leader says "No, it is in the South," no, it is also in the north. And he went north and knew no one, you were explaining it in your book. Then, of course, his speech on Vietnam. Oh, no, you know, you do not give a shit about Vietnam. You know, it is, you know, you got to deal with civil rights issues at home. And, and then, the challenge of Black power when Stokely Carmichael or H. Rap Brown, you know, you represent more gradualist approach, we are going to, you know, we are just going to do it. KB: 28:08 Yep. Yeah-yeah. SM: 28:34 Everything King was doing was creating tension in not only communities that were racist, but also in communities that supported what he was doing, but did not like the techniques that he was using. KB: 28:49 Yeah, absolutely. I think that is absolutely right. SM: 28:53 Yeah, in the four presidents that you talk about in the book, you did a great job on all of them. And you give a lot on Eisenhower, which I am glad you did. Because, when you are talking about the (19)60s, oh, he is he is meeting John Kennedy, the day of the election, and talking about Vietnam, and all this other stuff, but it was much more than that. Of the four presidents, when you think of the (19)60s, it is Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Which one do you feel had the greatest impact on the (19)60s? KB: 29:25 That is a great question. I keep saying that [chuckles], but I am really fascinated by that. You know, I think it depends on which angle you look at it from. I was, I was surprised myself how important Dwight Eisenhower turned out to be. But and how it kind of, he hovered over the (19)60s as this kind of model that people were, firstly Richard Nixon wanted to emulate. But I think I would argue that it is a balance between Lyndon Johnson for the dramatic moment, the ways in which he actually embraced change, and by the forces of reaction that he originally or even getting there so that he unleashed that I think particularly of the backlash against civil rights, and the kind of more conservative critique of the Vietnam War. And Nixon, who I think to this day has a really enduring impact on American society, and it is one of the ironies of the 1960s, is that here is this period of deep and profound change that results in a kind of conservative reconstruction of American society. And Nixon is a fascinating figure in that reconstruction. Which is, [crosstalk] so, given Kennedy, kind of the least, importance in the 1960s. SM: 31:18 Do you- KB: 31:18 Which is also surprising. SM: 31:20 -yeah there was, there was thoughts also that there were 2 (19)60s. Now, I have read this in books. There were 2 (19)60s, there was a period 1960 to (19)63, and then there was a period (19)64 to (19)75, because a lot of people talk about the (19)60s as the early (19)70s, too. Your thought on that, and of course, it revolves around the assassination of President Kennedy, and the impact that had on America, and the world. KB: 31:49 I think I do believe that the (19)60s periodization, pushing, definitely pushes into the early (19)70s. I used, once upon a time I think, people, this is a long time ago now, people had a tendency to kind of cut things off in 1968. I think that, that really ruptures important continuity. So I agree with the extension of the period into the (19)60s into the early (19)70s. I am a little less inclined to see that really sharp distinction in the 1960s. I think there is a lot more. There is, it is not just it is not continuity, but I think that the break is not as sharp as that concept of two 1960s suggests it is, I think there is more of a coherent narrative between those periods. There is, there is clearly changes (19)65, I think, is a really important, transformational moment in that, that is the point where the war escalates, that is where voting rights is secure, that is where Griswold was handed down. That is why I devote a chapter to what I called, "The Revolutions of 1965." But I do not, I am a little less convinced by the idea of our kind of (19)60s, the early idealism, and then the divisions later on, the divisions were pretty deep in the early (19)60s too, and the 1950s, as well. SM: 33:16 I think some people try to, who were believing in those 2 (19)60s. We were saying that, well, there was violence in the, well, it all started with the violence against J.F.K., and it just continued. It was violence, and but there was violence going on before that [chuckles] in the south. KB: 33:36 Exactly-exactly. SM: 33:37 So they are generalizing kind of. Now, some of the, I like your thoughts too on the civil rights organizations of the (19)60s. Certainly Snick was a very important one, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Corps, the Urban League, the Black Panthers, the NAACP. Could you talk about, about some of these organizations, and the impact that they had on the (19)60s? And age had a lot to do with some of these too, because Snick were mostly young people. And, but the- KB: 33:40 That is the SCLC. I mean, it was, so was SCLC- SM: 34:16 Huh? KB: 34:16 -you know, I mean, one of the things that is so startling to my students is how young Martin Luther King was, you know, when the Montgomery Bus Boycott started, in (19)55, he was what, 25? SM: 34:16 Right. Yes. [laughter] KB: 34:28 You know, he always seemed older, but he is, but in any case. So in creating the breakthrough moment of the civil rights movement, that moment that runs from the Children's Crusade in (19)63 through Selma in (19)65. That is really good at this critical breakthrough moment. There is no doubt that Snick and SCLC are the driving forces. because they are the organizations that are pushing the direct confrontation of nonviolent protest in the American south, without their pushing that, then the breakthrough moment would not have happened. And that is a really dramatic and challenging moment in a lot of ways. Children's Crusade in (19)63 is an incredibly complex thing to think about because it was about risking children's lives. And there is a serious moral question that runs through that decision to bring kids as young as 8, 9, 10 into the streets of Birmingham, knowing they have could have been killed. But Snick and SCLC [inaudible] two civil rights activism of that period. That get, they are challenged more and more by this long tradition, that runs through the nation of Islam stretches back to Garveyism to the nation of Islam, and then through its movement, Black nationalism, over to Snick in the mid-1960s. The division, the long-standing divisions in Black political life, come to the forefront in the mid-1960s, first with Snick's turn to Black Power in (19)66, (19)65-(19)66 with it is breakthrough in (19)66. And then with the rise of the Black Panthers, really in (19)68, so the Panthers had theirs- SM: 34:42 Right. KB: 34:46 - in (19)67-(19)68. With so, with the rise of Black power, and here is one of the things to me, that was really important to me, in writing the latter parts of the book. The NAACP, everybody in kind of moderate wing of the movement, I think has the most radical moment of the rights activism in the entire 1960s. And that is the movement towards the integration of public schools in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s via busing, that is the most radical social experiment of the entire 1960s racial movement. Because what that does, but the NAACP does with that part of the Civil Rights is it says, no longer should it be completely on the shoulders of Black people, particularly Black, young Black people, children to bear the burden of racial change. Now, it's got to be shared by white families as well. And what that does is it pushes the civil rights movement into parts of white America that it had never touched before. There was a huge swath of white suburban America in the 1960, that, of course, saw the civil rights protests on T.V., but of course, saw it in the newspapers, but it did not touch their lives. They did not have Black people living in their neighborhoods, there was nobody sitting down at a lunch counter anywhere in suburban Chicago or suburban Detroit. And then suddenly, what the NAACP does with the busing movement, is it says, oh, no, you are part of the solution too. That is the most radical moment of civil rights activists in the 1960s. At the same time, I am not trying to diminish the Panthers. But, here were the Panthers who were talking about radical change, but whose primary program was a free breakfast program for poor kids. I am not saying there is anything wrong with the free breakfast program. I am simply saying, that is a pretty mild program you got going on there, when you are talking about the revolutionary change. Here is the NAACP that everybody thinks of as racial moderate, who defined themselves as racial moderates, for a good part of the 1960s who are pushing change that is going to bring racial change directly into the homes of millions of white people across the country. And that is fascinating to me. SM: 39:07 Snick, the people that were in Snick, the leaders that came from this is unbelievable. KB: 39:14 Oh. SM: 39:15 I was looking at the list just last week, there is about 60 names of people who went on to become, you know, in all walks of life, leaders of organizations, running for office heading- KB: 39:26 Yeah. SM: 39:26 -you know. Julian Barnes, just one of them. I mean, one other thing and just, I have heard this today, where are the leaders? Where are the Black leaders that used to be the leaders of the (19)60s and when you when you think about it, there is some truth. You had a Roy Wilkins, you know, Martin Luther King, you had a James Farmer, you had a Whitney Young, you had a Roy Wilkins. You had young people like John Lewis, and Robert Moses, and Stokely Carmichael, and Panthers like Bobby Seale, and you know, Fred Hampton, who was murdered, and-and Huey Newton, and then you think of Malcolm X, the Muslim, Muhammad Ali, [inaudible] with the young. It is just, they were on the news all the time they, you saw them there. They mean they were known. I do not, today, I do not really see that many. And, where are they? KB: 40:24 I think the media landscape has changed so dramatically. You know that here was, one of the really important I wish I had done more about this really, aspects of the 1960s was the novelty. The still novelty of television, you know that the idea of having T.V. news in your home was still 10 years, was new to a huge number of Americans, it did not have a history longer than about 10 years, in the early 1960s for most Americans. And in some ways that is comparable to the world that we now live in, where the generation that, of young people today are living with a technological world that they think of as natural, but is actually more than 10 years old, you know, the idea that you are having your news delivered to you on these multiple platforms that you carry around with you. And I think what that is done to a certain extent is that it is dissipated our sense of political movements. So that, you know, there were only three networks in most of America in the 1960s. They had the ability to kind of create public figures in a way that the more diffused media landscape does not, but that it has not changed, I think, the movement, the ability of a movement to build, if anything that I think it's accelerated it. You know, one of the things that I have stressed with my students lately is that, as a percentage of the nation, more people marched in the protests after George Floyd's murder, in the summer of 2020, then marched at any point in the course of the 1960s. So of course, when in the 1960s, about 10 percent of the population, participated in at least one march or protest, somewhere in the course of the 1960s. Ninety percent of Americans never joined a protest anywhere in the course the 1960s. In the summer of 2020, somewhere about 14 percent of Americans joined at least one march. SM: 42:45 Wow. KB: 42:48 It can still be there. But I think like you said, the sense of kind of key personalities at the start of them. That is changed. SM: 42:58 That word, that comes up in the (19)60s all the time, the word about freedom. KB: 43:04 Yeah. SM: 43:05 When you think, I, you look at some of the main events and Freedom Summer, which was so historic in 1964, you had- KB: 43:13 Yeah. SM: 43:13 -you had the Freedom Rides early in the (19)60s, you had the free speech movement at Berkeley, which is a historic happening. And of course, the man who led that movement at Berkeley was one of the young people at Freedom Summer, Mario Savio. Your thoughts on the word, "freedom," with respect to all the things that were happening in the (19)60s, in terms of the three categories you are talking about and how important that word is? KB: 43:42 Yeah, it is, it is a fundamentally important word that had different meanings for different people. So that when the civil rights activists of Freedom Summer, or the activists have the Freedom Rides used that word, they meant freedom from oppression, freedom from the oppression of the Jim Crow system. Free speech is connected, as you said, that there is a direct line from Mississippi to Mario Savio up to Berkeley that fall, but there is an expression of freedom from structures of, kind of, university structures of mass education. And then you get to the politics of freedom that runs through say Haight Ashbury in the Summer of Love, there it is freedom from constraint. And that is a really, very different sense of freedom, you can do as you want to do, was a very different sense of freedom than John Lewis on a bus challenging the segregation of bus stations. SM: 45:01 Right. KB: 45:02 That is a very different concept. And it is one of the tensions that went through the (19)60s, and that runs through, that, individuals should be free to do as they choose. And another to say, individuals should be free from systems of oppression. That is a really, very different things. SM: 45:27 The birth of beats played a very important role in the (19)60s too, in terms of, they were ahead, ahead of their time in the (19)50s. But they all had, they had an influence too, and they were, everything and everything they were about is freedom. [chuckles] KB: 45:42 Yeah. SM: 45:42 Do it, do it my way. [chuckles] KB: 45:44 And that is another really good example of the (19)50s as being a much more complicated period than we think of it as being, right. SM: 45:53 Yeah. What is the, you know I have, I have been amazed and I have thought about this ever since I was in college, and now I am in my early (19)70s. And that is, why does Vietnam, this war, it was not World War II, it was not World War I, it was not Korea. It was not the Gulf War, while the Gulf War was not that big, but it was not the, the wars in the Middle East. What is it about this war from (19)59 to (19)75, that has really shaped this nation, not only his foreign policy, but in everything? Why-why has the Vietnam War continue to have such an effect on our society? George Bush in 1989 said that, "The Vietnam syndrome was over," when I heard that I said, "Where has he been?" And, [laughter] that was, that was in 1989. But just your thoughts, why does Vietnam still, to this day affect us in so many ways? KB: 46:58 I think there is multiple reasons for that. One really obvious one, is that and it ties back to something we were talking about a couple minutes ago, Vietnam was the first, in some ways almost the last, televised war, so that suddenly what Americans could see who had never been to war. So, you are not talking about World War II veterans, but their families or younger families, could actually see if what war actually looks like, and war is a horrific thing to see. So I do think that was one key piece of it. For the first time, you know, Americans, the American government censored World War II, and obviously, the means of communication were different, to a really dramatic degree, so that Americans could see, you know, the war movies where nobody bleeds, it is a whole different thing to see the footage of someone getting shot in the head on the streets of Saigon, or the young girl running down the street, down the road, being napalmed, to the photos from me live, to see the horror, that war actually is, is one key part of that. Another key part of it is the really, really deep effects that the war has, in turn, and I think we still underplayed this, in terms of domestic economic policy. And I do try to play a bit more about this, the war has an absolutely destructive effect on the American economy that gets replayed over and over again in the United States, in the decades since with the triggering of inflation, with the destruction of the post-war international economic order, so I do think that is a key part of it, as well. And then there is this fascinating thing that happens with our sense of the anti-war movement it is two fascinating things, because there is, of course, a massive anti-war movement, or as I try to suggest in the book, there are multiple anti-war movements in the United States. One of the things that is odd about our sense of the anti-war movement, is that when we tend to think of World War II is the standard by which we measure American wars, when in fact, World War II is the anomalous war, Americans have always had strong protest movements against wars. They just come in different forms. There is a massive anti-war push against the Civil War. There were strong oppositions to World War I. There were strong oppositions to the Philippine Wars and the Spanish American War. There was massive opposition in particular forms to Korea. The popularity of the Korean War just absolutely plummeted in the course of that war and it certainly fueled the rise, not the creation, but the rise of McCarthyism. But somehow, we see the anti-war move into the night of Vietnam, as somehow really new and different. Now, they are in their form, they are very large, and that is certainly traumatic. But I think that is kind of lodged, that is that Vietnam syndrome, right. SM: 50:23 Right. KB: 50:23 Somehow the United States government is complicit in a disastrous war, which of course, the United States government was complicit in disastrous war. That is what we have to shake, that we are going to make the military strong again, and beloved again, then we are going to prove the United States could be a world power that it was before Vietnam. It is just funny that we tend to think of it as anomalous when in fact, it is in the American tradition. That is what Lyndon Johnson was terrified of, not afraid of [inaudible], of the left but of the anti-war movement of the right, which he assumed he was going to get slammed by, which was what had destroyed Harry Truman and Korea, it is the anti-war movement of the right. And we actually see that playing out today, where it is a great criticism of U.S. involvement in Ukraine is from the right. And that ran through Vietnam as well. So, I think Vietnam has an outsized influence, because of the visuals of it, because it did in fact, have an outsized effect on society. And because of that anti-war movement, that, or anti-war movements that were so fundamental to the polarization of American politics. SM: 51:47 The war, not only those who participated in the war, we knew what was going on over in Vietnam. What was happening in civil rights in America was actually happening with a lot of the African American soldiers in Vietnam. KB: 52:00 That is right. SM: 52:01 The experience they have and they were certainly dying in large numbers too, with their names that are now on the Vietnam Memorial. But- KB: 52:08 Yeah. SM: 52:08 -it is also the fact that when-when they came home, there was no welcome for the Vietnam vets. KB: 52:14 Yes, yep. SM: 52:15 And it took the building of a wall in 1982, to, for the first time the Vietnam vets, they were welcomed home, and tried to heal the nation, but no other war, that I can think of, had where Americans just kind of said nothing, or looked down on this. KB: 52:36 Yeah, I agree completely. And I think the American soldiers experience in Vietnam, not all-American soldiers, obviously, but the American soldiers experience in Vietnam was for them, I think so profoundly disillusioning because of the way the war was fought. And then they come, they came home to a sense that what they had done, was not recognized was not valued, was some cases, seen as in fact, complicit in war crimes. And, it is devastating because I will give you a really small example, I lived, when I was teaching at UMass, I lived in a small town. I did not live in Amherst, I lived in a small town outside of Amherst, I could not afford Amherst. And every Memorial Day, there would be the Veterans of Foreign Wars would do a little parade. And, veterans refused to allow the Vietnam vets to march in their parade, this is, you know, the late 1990s. Because, and so they barred the Vietnam veterans from our little town to participate in the parade on Memorial Day. SM: 53:53 Wow. KB: 53:54 And you know, I guess that would be the more conservative version of disrespecting those soldiers experience and those soldiers sacrifice. SM: 54:06 Yeah, I am. One of the individuals I interviewed, John Morris, who is a Vietnam vet from the Westchester area, when he came home somebody took them to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Office and they told him to leave because, because he was a Vietnam vet, and yes, John is unbelievable. Before I ask my next question, there is something here regarding John Kerry's speech too that I thought was very important during the war, when Vietnam Veterans Against the War threw their, you know their-their medals away, and then John Kerry spoke before the Foreign Relations Committee. I think that is a powerful speech, a very powerful- KB: 54:46 It is. SM: 54:47 -very powerful speech, but the man who allowed that, that hearing to take place Senator William Fulbright, he had written several books that were classics on the Vietnam War, you probably We read them. But he, I mean, yeah, we ended up bringing, I took a group of students to see William Fulbright before he died down to Washington. And, and he was, he wanted to know why, I knew Senator Gaylord Nelson, so we actually talked about the war. And I took pictures, and then I took pictures of him with our students, and then I had put it in my office. And we invited Harry Edwards to campus, you know, Dr. Harry Edwards from Berkeley who was- -and of course, he was the one of the leaders of the protests at Cornell in (19)69, and the (19)68 protests in the, and everything. And Dr. Edwards came in and said, "What is that picture doing here? Why do you have a picture of that cracker?" [laughs] Yeah, in your office, and I explained to him, "Well, I know that, you know that Senator Fulbright was not good in the area of race relations, but he was really good in the area of foreign relations and, and, and he had already apologized for what he had done in the, in the one area, but he was powerful in the other area, trying to save lives." But I just want to throw that as an anecdote. [laughs] KB: 55:29 Yes. Yeah. And you know what it says to me, the world is a complicated place. We all do better to recognize it. [chuckles] SM: 55:38 Yeah. [chuckles] One, one very powerful moment you talk about in your book, too, is when Black power came to be. When Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, you know, he was really, he was really to the extreme left but, but it was Stokely and his challenge of Dr. King, Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, young Louis Bebo, all the loss and all the civil rights leaders who believed in non-violence. That was, the Dr. King's beloved community versus Black power. Could you talk about that? Because that was powerful happening. KB: 56:56 Oh, yeah. So, I think this comes back to something we talked about a good bit ago now. That, the tradition of Black nationalism, Black power, is very deep in the Black community. So it stretches back at least to the 19, late 19th century, this argument that essentially says, "Look, people are never going to agree, just surrender their power, we have to force them to, and we have to do it, or we have to separate ourselves out from the Black, the white community as the only way to build to safety and security for our community." That is a long tradition. And one of the things that happens in the 1950s, and particularly in the 1960s, is that whites are confronted with that tradition for the first time. So, they see Malcolm X and they think this is coming out of nowhere. It is not, it is coming out of this long political tradition, but it is a minority political tradition inside the Black community. It always was, it is in the course of the 1960s. And so when Stokely Carmichael embraces, creates that phrase of "Black power," and nationalizes that phrase it causes massive media attention. The other side of the, the Black political traditions, the sides that is represented by the NAACP, or by Dr. King, or by John Lewis. They have their, Rushton is probably the smartest analyst at this moment in my mind. They say, "We know this, this, it is not like we have never heard of this idea before. This is part of the political tradition in our community. But whites are going to be terrified by it." And as Rushton says over and over again, "We are in minority community. And so we cannot have, we cannot afford to have a politics that alienates whites, because they have got, they have got the real power here." And his great fear, and he is coming from another, a different political tradition, is great fear is what Black power is going to do, it is going to intensify the white backlash, and it does. So, the truth of the matter is that while Black nationalism is not new, while it is a powerful expression, and powerful critique of white society, and I think, in my mind, a really important critique of white society, politically, it is got disastrous consequences, because white support for civil rights was always dead. And what King had done is he had managed to build up enough white support to push through these fundamental changes in the law, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. And, but he knew how thin it was at the height of the nonviolent movement in 1963, about half of white Americans think that it is a violent movement. [chuckles] Because they are so ingrained with the idea that Black people are violent. And it is such a troupe of American racism. King knows how thin it is and what Black power does is it plays to that. It said, it plays on that idea of what you, you think I am about, you are right. But, it is your fault. And that is a really dangerous politics to play in the United States. Because as Rushton realizes, losing white support is so harmful to a movement, to a minority movement in American society, in some ways what, this is the kind of odd turn and I am not sure I would even stand by it. So, let us see how this goes. In some ways, King's side of the movement, Rushton's side of the movement, NAACP's side of the movement, they actually might have understood the depth of white racism better than Black power does. Because Black power has at its heart, one piece of itself that seems to think that whites aren't going to assert the power they have, whereas King, knows they will. SM: 56:58 Yeah. Yeah, that was a great analysis there, excellent. And I know, Malcolm X was one of the required readings in the sixth. I went to Binghamton University, and I remember reading the book on Malcolm X, and by "any means necessary," was kind of a scary term. [chuckles] We will do anything- KB: 1:01:44 Yep. SM: 1:01:44 -or we will shoot if we have to, that was kind of the, but-but-but if you know, Malcolm, you know, he grew and evolved over time. And that the last two years of his life, he was changing, I think, in much better ways. And then sadly, he was murdered. And, we never will know those ways that he would have gone. KB: 1:02:06 Yeah. SM: 1:02:08 The other thing here is, during the (19)60s, there were many movements. I know, you have made mention in your book that, you know you concentrated on civil rights, but they are, the (19)60s was about the movements to as well. It is not just the civil rights movement, but the gay rights, the women's movement, the environmental movement, Native American movement, Chicano movement, even the farmworkers movement. And of course, the Vietnam veteran’s movement. And so, your thoughts on that? Was not, but I think civil rights movement was the model that most of them used. KB: 1:02:43 Yeah, absolutely. Civil rights is both, it is, you said, it is both the models that they used, the inspiration for those other movements. And it is the pathbreaking movement, as I said, you know, as we were talking, maybe half an hour ago, I said, since that, that sort of, march from 1963 is so fundamentally important, because it opens up that space, it opens up the space for other movements to then step in as well. You know, take the women's movement, for instance, National Organization of Women is founded out of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which is a creation of those children in the streets of Birmingham. So, that case is kind of a direct line. The united farmworkers movement comes out of grassroots organizing that is very much tied to the King model, you know, it runs through [inaudible] in Chicago, but it is very much tied to King models, a shortcut that is for safe, kind of grassroots activism, that people like Ella Baker was so important in defining. So, one of the painful things for this bucket, and I mentioned this in the introduction, one of the painful movements, things about this book is say, I am going to leave important stories out, right, because what I want to do is I want to have these tight focus on what I think are the really critical, the most important of all those important movements. And, you know, it pains me I mean, it is I was finishing the book, especially on Latino politics. It really pains me to leave that out. But, I do agree that civil rights is the standard by which other movements are set. SM: 1:04:31 Yeah, and it is a well-known fact that people that were involved in the anti-war movement, used the civil rights movement as their model. KB: 1:04:39 Absolutely-absolutely. SM: 1:04:39 And over and over again. And you talk also, you know, when Black power came, and challenged of nonviolent protest. That-that happened in the anti-war movement too, when the weathermen, you know Students for Democratic Society. KB: 1:04:41 Yep. SM: 1:04:43 You know, they, people would quit SDS, if they had, they had to go all the way of the weathermen. KB: 1:05:02 Yeah. SM: 1:05:03 That violence was not the way, because you know, violence in the end, never solves anything. KB: 1:05:08 Well, and on top of that, you know, the federal government is, wields, has at its disposal, a level of violence power that is so greater than any social movement is going to have. Now, I am not trying to say that the federal government is inherently a violent organization. It just has greater power. This is wonderful moment. Remember the old "Eyes on the Prize," series. There is this great moment in the episode that deals with Mississippi, University of Mississippi crisis in (19)62. And they are interviewing, the filmmakers are interviewing Burke Marshall, in the Justice, Kennedy Justice Department. And he says this really fundamentally true thing. He said, "You know, these people down in Mississippi," and he is talking about white people in Mississippi, "They can fund the federal government. But in the end, the federal government is going to win. Because if the federal government wants to it can send the battleship down the Mississippi River." And that is fundamentally true, the weathermen could talk about staging days of rage. But in the end, if it came to it, they were not going to topple the federal government, you know, when the urban rebellions hit in cities like Detroit, in the end, they were repressed by massive force, and people were killed. That is the challenge of movements that embrace violence, but it is, it can be even an understandable decision, right? That you have tried the nonviolence it does not seem to be making the changes you want to see. But in the end, the federal government or state and the state government, for that matter, have way more violent capabilities. SM: 1:05:41 Oh, yes. I remember that, you may remember this too. There was a paper back that came out I think it was in the (19)70s by Ovid Demaris called "America the Violent." [laughs] So and, it goes into the, that violence is all bad. KB: 1:07:19 Yep. SM: 1:07:20 But, America is very used to it. KB: 1:07:23 Very, yes. SM: 1:07:24 Yeah. Colonel Harry Summers, I do not know if you have heard of him. He is the, he is the man, the original editor of Vietnam Magazine, and he was an author- -of a couple of books on strategy in Vietnam, once told me we were trying to get him to come to speak at Westchester University to be, for our, when we bought the traveling Vietnam memorial, and we did a four-day event, and we had Vietnam War programs the entire semester. And sadly, he died of cancer before he could come. But he told me over the phone, that college professors who teach courses on the (19)60s on the Vietnam War, rarely talk about the war from a military point of view, mostly from the protester's point of view, or the politician's point of view. So, think tank point of view. Your thoughts on that? Because he was adamant on that, and he was the founder of Vietnam magazine. And, he was actually writing a speech. And I said, when he died, I tried to say, "Can-can I get that speech from his wife," wife said, "No." But he had written a speech to present and I am sure the wife has also passed away. But your thoughts on that, that the universities that have been concentrating on teaching courses on the Vietnam War and on the (19)60s, rarely present the military point of view? KB: 1:07:32 Oh, yes. Yeah, I think that is actually a valid criticism. I think that is fair. You know that, I mean, obviously, I cannot speak for everybody who teaches a course. But, that certainly would be my impression as well. And, I think I probably do quite a bit of that myself. And I think that is probably a valid criticism. SM: 1:09:08 Yeah, I just bought two books from a used bookstore, and it is the U.S. Army books on the Vietnam War, so. [laughs] And they were expensive. [crosstalk] KB: 1:09:19 Like that, you know, those federal government histories that come out of the Department of Defense, or they come out of other, they are great, you know, they are very particular kinds of history, but they are really useful. SM: 1:09:33 Well I, that three of them just came to this, and they were $50 apiece. I bought them. KB: 1:09:39 Oof. SM: 1:09:39 I, because I want them, I have never seen them before. So anyway, one of the other things is you talk about the ordinary people, could you list maybe a few more, not so well-known people from your book that people may not know, but their- KB: 1:09:55 Sure, so. SM: 1:09:56 -experiences are just as important as well-known people? KB: 1:09:58 Well, because we are talking about Vietnam, I talked about, I tell the story open the chapter on Vietnam, actually with this story of James Farley, who is an ordinary soldier in Vietnam in 1965, who ends up being featured in a Life Magazine story about the war. So, this sounds an awkward thing to say, I hope it does not sound jerky to say this. But the passage in the book that I am actually most proud of where I feel like strongest about is in that chapter, where I talk about ordinary soldiers who were killed in the war, 1966 to 1967. And I kind of list, people whose names I pulled randomly. Well, not randomly, but I pulled from the Vietnam War Memorial, from different parts of the country, and about their bodies coming home, and the flags being presented to their families. That is really important to me to talk about the ordinary soldiers, you know, who were drafted or who volunteered, and ended up as frontline troops in Vietnam. I mentioned talking about Norma McCorvey, that was really fundamentally important to me. All the way through, I try to bring in as many people as I could, whose story is people that maybe they know the events, but whose stories they do not necessarily know, so protesting against the war, like this, the folks or the kids at Kent State. I just think it is, again, I guess I am repeating myself, just so they feel like fundamentally, the one, both, the import, those powerful, important people we know, and those ordinary folks down in the neighborhoods, or down in these horrible moments. SM: 1:11:53 Very good. One of the things you say in the book, you quote Daniel Bell early in the book. KB: 1:12:02 I asked. [chuckles] SM: 1:12:03 Dan, and I actually interviewed Daniel Bell, he was not well, but I interviewed him up at Harvard. And the thing is, could you talk about that, what he said? KB: 1:12:15 Yeah, so this is one of the kind of classic senses again, it kind of takes us back to the 1950s, that you know we had entered into an age of consensus, that each was the great causes of the past had been set aside, and that we had created a consensus society and needless of that, I am not a big fan of increasing consensus society. And I just think that is, you know, I am a great admirer of technical writing, but it is fundamentally wrong, I think, to say that we are, the 1950s was a period, post-war period, is a period of consensus, is to say that, is to miss all those people that the consensus excluded. And, it is a huge portion. [chuckles] It is a substantial portion of American society, because it was not a consensus. The Civil Rights folks did not believe that there was a consensus in the United States, the beats, did not think we have a consensus in the United States. What happened in the 1950s was that Dwight Eisenhower, who was a brilliant politician, portrayed himself as a hapless one. This brilliant politician, managed to create a political coalition that pre-sagged the Republican majority, he was building the modern American Republican majority, not the one that exists now but, the one that would consolidate under Richard Nixon in 1972, was ticking away, it would already broke solid south, it carried most of the upper cells in both of his elections, he consolidated the white vote, white vote becomes Republican in the United States in 1952. And it has remained that way in every single election since then, except for 1964. But it actually starts in (19)52. He consolidated the connection between the upper end of the working class and the American middle class, particularly in suburban areas, he was building a Republican political coalition that, then gets and that is the, that is what we call a consensus is, in fact, a particular political alignment that was committed to certain things. Pursue a Cold War, but do it off the front pages, maintain racial segregation, but without the kind of brutality of the Jim Crow stuff, which is the democratic political order. We maintain middle class, middle brown culture that Dwight Eisenhower perfectly embodied that excluded people like gay and lesbian Americans. That is a political construction that Daniel Bell and other commentators in the 1960s, called a consensus. Well, it was not the consensus. It was a political culture that arranged particular groups of people, a lot of them in a particular order. And then the (19)60s, cracks that open, and what Richard Nixon tries to do, was his goal really, is to put it back together again. SM: 1:15:29 Yeah. KB: 1:15:30 Because he is in fact, trained by, in politics, by Dwight Eisenhower, he thinks of himself as trying to fulfill, to recreate what Dwight Eisenhower created. The problem, of course, is that he was not. He was no Dwight Eisenhower, [laughs] and that the changes of the (19)60s were not reversible in the way that Richard Nixon imagined them to be. So, that is why I think, you know, I start with Daniel Bell, because Daniel Bell sets that standard. We are a consensus society, the end of the ideology, but it is, it is wrong. SM: 1:16:03 Yeah, it is interesting when, when I did speak with him one, one name that came up that really drew his attention was Mark Rutte. [laughs] KB: 1:16:14 Hm, interesting. SM: 1:16:14 He had a lot, he had a lot of thoughts to say on Mark Rutte so, at Columbia University, so. KB: 1:16:21 Yeah. SM: 1:16:24 When you look at the Boomer Generation what, just your general thoughts on the Boomer Generation? Yeah, I-I asked this question early on in my interviews about the, you know, when I was young, even on this campus at Binghamton, there was this feeling, this aura of we were living in different times, and it was great to be young and, and all this other stuff, and we were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society. And it was, it was a youthful feeling. But, you know, we know the history now. Now, the boomers are now the oldest generation, per se. KB: 1:17:00 Yeah. SM: 1:17:01 And we are all reflecting on what really has been done. And in knowing that, in terms of those who participate, you talked about numbers, those who participated in any kind of an activity or protests or, you know, society's issues, it might have been 7 or 8 percent of that 74 or 76 million. Just your overall thoughts on the boomer generation, we are the most, the most unique generation in American history? KB: 1:17:30 No. [laughter] SM: 1:17:30 Okay. KB: 1:17:33 Really, no, that was not. That was a bit quick. Let me expand on that a little bit. I do think that what you said a minute ago, I think you said a couple of really important things a minute ago. Yes, there was a uniqueness to the Boomer Generation in that, that was a generation that grew up, that turned out to be this relative, this very brief period of stability and security for millions and millions of ordinary people. So, I think of, they grew up in the world fundamentally different than the one their parents grew up in, because they have that sense of security that their parents, in particular, my mother never had. That is important. And, when Tom Reid supports you on statement, that is one of the first things he says, right? We are the generation raised in comfort. So, I do think that makes it an unusual generation, an unusually lucky generation. I also think that you are absolutely spot on, to point out that the activist portion of that generation was never as big as people have come to think it was, and as boomers themselves have a tendency to think it was. And it is an understandable thing, I do not mean to be critical about it. But, memory has a way of turning everybody brave. There were massive numbers of young people who never joined the protest movement, who went to their classes, who got the degrees, if they were lucky to go, enough to go to college, which over half of them did not, who got the opportunity, you got married, you had children, who lived completely ordinary lives. I do not mean that as a criticism. I have great admiration for ordinary lives. But, it is not the story that people tend to tell themselves. I have given a lot of talks over the years on civil rights activism, and particularly, I cannot tell you how many white people in particular have told me they marched with Dr. King. Now I am sure some of them did- SM: 1:19:48 Right. KB: 1:19:48 -but a lot of them is that many white people were following Dr. King, every time he walked out the door that would have been a crowd of white people around. It is just the way that we tend to think of the past. We tend to, you know, there is clear studies of this. We tend to think of ourselves as always being on the right side of history. That is [inaudible]. So one of the things and we have talked a bit about ordinary people, I would have loved a bit more to tell you the truth on the Cahills, and they were the Cahills's children and their reasons that I did not follow that. I had more information that the Cahill family asked me not to use, and I honored that. It is about order, the boom, the Boomer Generation did have the great fortune of living in that particular moment of stability and security. But, they also lived ordinary lives, many-many of them. And yes, the minority were central to those changes, there was also a very strong conservative sentiment inside Boomer generation, a lot in the 1960s. A majority of college students, at least in (19)65, (19)66, (19)67, fully supported the Vietnam War. You know that is, that sentiment changed over time. But, support to the Vietnam War actually increased with educational level, except for those with graduate degrees. So, the more college education you had, the more education you had, high school to college, college to graduate school, or professional school, the more likely you were to support the Vietnam War. That is not surprising, given the dynamics of part one and looking at people understood, they were stuck with the war, in the way that people with higher education were not. That is one of the dynamics of the war. SM: 1:21:47 Yeah, and also, when you are teaching the (19)60s, another thing, if you are talking about the criticism, of what I talked about earlier, the conservatives, also were involved in the anti-war movement, and there was a- KB: 1:22:05 Yeah. SM: 1:22:06 -young America, I think it is Young Americans for Freedom or whatever. Definitely, Edwards has written about this, and that he is very concerned that if, you know, he teaches a course, I think at a Catholic school in Washington, D.C., and he teaches on the Vietnam War, and he makes sure that the conservative point of view is also part of the (19)60s- KB: 1:22:26 Yep. SM: 1:22:26 -because we you know, William Buckley, he is an important figure, I mean, his T.V. show with all the people he brought on. I mean, he is a very important figure because he brought everybody on that he opposed- KB: 1:22:38 Yep. SM: 1:22:38 -as well as people that he supported. And, and he had young people in the audience that were conservative and liberal. But I think talking a course on the (19)60s has to have the also the conservative point of view and the, you know, the student organizations that were against the war. KB: 1:22:54 Yeah, I think, I tried to get across it in the book is I think there were three anti-war movements. So it was a radical anti-war movement, one that we tend to think of as the anti-war movement. SM: 1:23:07 Yep. KB: 1:23:08 There was a liberal one that operated on different premises, you know, that did not see the war as a sign of the evil of American imperialism, that thought is a mistaken application of Cold War policies, the wrong place to be fighting on the right principle, and then there is a conservative anti-war movement. And that movement, wanted actually the escalation of the war, because they wanted, they believe U.S. was not using its power to its full effect. They wanted the 20 percent of American people in the 1960s, in (19)67, wanted the U.S. to use nuclear weapons on North Vietnam. And that movement and it had mass marches, there was a mass pro-war- -march in New York City in the spring of (19)67. There were massive marches, pre-war marches, or at least anti, anti-war marches in response to the march on the Pentagon in 19- [crosstalk] I think they call it the Hard Hat March. Was that the Hard Hat March or something like that? SM: 1:23:55 Right. KB: 1:24:08 And the hard hats in (19)70, which is tied with Cambodia invasion. SM: 1:24:16 Yeah, yep. KB: 1:24:17 That is a huge movement. And it just does, and people do not even know it is there. It plays in the polls enormously. You know, and they hate the war because what they hate it the way that the United States is pursuing the war. They do not like the way that it is a war of containment, instead of- SM: 1:24:36 Right. KB: 1:24:36 of a war of victory, and that it is killing American [inaudible]. SM: 1:24:41 I got four more questions. KB: 1:24:43 All right. SM: 1:24:44 The Vietnam Memorial opened in 1992, and its purpose was to, to heal the veterans, and their families. Those who served in the war and the families of those who lost loved ones in the war. It's done a pretty good job. I have witnessed that in person over the years. But the bottom line is this: Jan Scruggs wrote a book around the time the wall was, no 10 years after the wall was, sort of, called to heal a nation. Do you feel that Vietnam Memorial that is the second most visited memorial in Washington has healed our nation from this war? KB: 1:25:20 I think it helped America. A memorial can heal, can do all of that work. But I think it has helped. Like you I have been, like millions of Americans, I am not claiming anything exceptional. I have been to the wall, where you see veterans, touching the wall, putting personal tributes at the wall, and you realize what a powerful, you know, there was an awful lot, is it? Well, no, not a lot of controversy about the form that the memorial took. But I think it was, turned out to be a beautiful expression for veterans and their families. So, you know, I am a great admirer. As I think a lot of veterans are the beauty of that memorial. SM: 1:26:13 And also the Women's Memorial that opened in 1993. You know, the women had to fight for representation as well. KB: 1:26:21 Yeah. SM: 1:26:22 So, it is like everything connected to the (19)60s, there is battles [laughter] in everything and, and there has been some and they had, the three-man statue was a battle. I mean the, so in the course now there is thinking of a group that wants to do, pay honor to the dogs who served in Vietnam. Well, they put a stop to that. But- KB: 1:26:44 Yeah, that is probably a step too far, and I am a great dog lover. Oh, Rustin is fundamental. Because what Rustin does is, well, first of all, because he is a key component of one other strand of the civil rights movement, which is the strength of the civil rights movement that connects activism, racial activism, with radical pacifism, and with socialist politics. So, he is a bridge between various pieces of the movement between a piece of the movement that is tied to a Philip Randolph unionization, socialism, and to the radical pacifist tradition, which is a tiny little tradition in the United States. And it is through valve two connections, actually, that he becomes the, one of the architects of King's rise to prominence. You know, it is Rustin, who makes King, the national figure that he becomes after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, you can just see it in the newspapers, it is Rust, as he is taking this local, dramatic local story and turning it into a national story because he was a brilliant, brilliant political organizer. And it is Rustin, who then serves as the kind of organizational anchor along with Ella Baker, who is a friend and colleague of his- SM: 1:26:47 Yeah, one of the, I am very pleased that you talked a lot about Byard Rustin in your book. There is a long time that he was kind of a forgotten man, he was bad. Some people thought he was a bad man, because he was a communist. He was gay, I mean all this other stuff. And he is from Westchester, which is where I live. And, and so and we had a national tribute to him when I was working at Westchester University. But you, you did a great job of putting him in his role, not only with the march on Washington, but in other areas. Could you talk to us a little bit about why Byard Rustin is important when you talk about the (19)60s? KB: 1:28:47 -in New York City political circles, who then give the substance to the organizing work that the civil rights movement, King's brand, strand of the Civil Rights Movement does. King is a, not a great organizer, but he had really great organizers behind him, and Rustin as a theorist of the movement, and as an organizer of the movement really gives that southern movement much of its shape. Excellent. Yeah, he is, they named the high school after him in Westchester but the battle, the name that, was a battle. SM: 1:28:47 Right. KB: 1:29:23 I can imagine what do you think was the bigger part of the battle, his radicalism or the fact that he was gay. SM: 1:29:28 I think it was, that he was, some people, I think it was because he was gay, and also because he was a communist. And, and but finally I-I went to some of the meetings. I actually stood up once and said some things, but I just sat there. I was in amazement that, but they finally did it and, and, and now Brother Outsiders are being shown all over the country, you know, the film. KB: 1:29:54 Yeah. SM: 1:29:54 And Walter Nago, who I am close friend of, it was his partner and Walter goes, to film and shown. And so he is finally getting the recognition he deserved 40 years ago, so- KB: 1:30:06 Yep, exactly. SM: 1:30:08 Now, two last questions up. Was there one person in the (19)60s that you personally liked above everybody else? And is there one that you dislike? KB: 1:30:20 Oh, that I dislike? [laughs] I think I mean, I know this is a cliché answer. But, it is worth acknowledging, I will just acknowledge that I have just such enormous admiration for Martin Luther King. And I think, and I think it is because he was a flawed human being who, but who also upheld these kind of extraordinary principles. And so, you know, I know that is a cliché answer, but I think it is an honest one. Someone who I really, really dislike, hm, and there is a lot of candidates for sure. SM: 1:31:11 [laughs] KB: 1:31:14 Who would I put at the top of that list? Oh, that is a tough question. I do not know, I would have to think about that one. SM: 1:31:23 All right. Well, if had come up with it let me know. [laughter] KB: 1:31:26 You have got a deal. SM: 1:31:27 One thing, when we started the interview, I think, we did not, something cut off at the very beginning, which was when you were talking about, could you just redo again, your growing up years, I got your college experience- KB: 1:31:39 Oh, sure. SM: 1:31:40 -just your-your growing up years, and that, that early years, those early years? KB: 1:31:44 Sure, so as I mentioned before, I was born in Detroit, Michigan, in October of 1960. To be exact, I was born on the same day as the second Nixon Kennedy debate. And I grew up in Detroit, in an all-white neighborhood in Detroit that was kind of lower middle class, upper working-class neighborhood. I went to the, my neighborhood's parochial schools for grade school and high school. I did not mention that. But I will add that when I was in my teenage years, the neighborhood that I thought of so much as, as my home, underwent the dramatic racial change of white flight. And living through that I think, also had a really big, left a really big mark and my sense of the racial, the cost of American race, one part of the enormous cost of American racism. SM: 1:32:44 All right, and my very last question is this. And I have been doing this now for my last 15 interviews. KB: 1:32:49 [chuckles] SM: 1:32:50 And what is a message you would like to relate to people who listen to this lecture, who will be hearing it 50 years from now, for generations yet unborn, long after we were gone? What would you like to say to them? KB: 1:33:07 I think what makes the 1960s such an important and compelling period in American history, is that maybe a minority of, undoubtedly a minority of Americans believed enough in the promise of this nation, to demand that it be, that promise be fulfilled. And, they did not manage to do that. They did not manage to make it all the way to fulfilling that promise. And in some ways, the dynamics of the 1960s helped in the long run to move America even farther from that promise. But they believed enough in this nation, to take seriously the promise that it made in its founding documents, and to believe that they could through their own acts of courage, and sometimes enormous sacrifice, make the nation, move the nation closer to that promise. And that is an enormously important thing. SM: 1:34:23 Very good, Dr. Boyle. I want to thank Dr. KB: for being interviewed today about his book, "The Shattering: America in the 1960s." It is a winning book. And I think I mentioned to you, Dr., Dr. Boyle that Dr. Nieman who was the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost who is going back to the history department in a year, he is writing a book right now. So he will be away for a year but, he is pushing this book to be one of the books that is going to be used for the (19)60s course. KB: 1:34:59 Oh, cool, as he should. SM: 1:35:00 I am not sure if I have not seen Dr. Nieman since he announced he was leaving as Provost because he is working on his own book now but you know, I do not know if you know Dr. Daniel Nieman he is, race is a very big issue in his career. He is, you can look him up. He is a tremendous scholar. He loves Abraham Lincoln. And he, he was the dean of the school at the time, we started this Center for the Study of the (19)60s. So well I want to thank you again, I am going to turn this off and then give you final instructions. Thanks. (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. Kevin Boyle https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/603424bc48167a5be22a64408df683c8.jpg 09c4a0496654acb27ca52a20011d1394 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2d5ec16551d82678bddcb2274dfcda28.MP3 3dc3ee062adb6503d6b24b67395394be 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 24 June 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Julian E. Zelizer Biographical Text Dr. Julian E. Zelizer is a Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and a CNN Political Analyst and a regular guest on NPR’s "Here and Now." He authored and edited 22 books including, The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society (2015), the winner of the D.B. Hardeman Prize for the Best Book on Congress. Dr. Zelizer focuses on the area of the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century of American history. Dr. Zelizer has a Bachelor's degree from Brandeis University and he obtained a Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:05:29 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 Digital file Date of Digitization 24 June 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Books; Rabbi; Religious leaders; People; World, Religion, Martin Luther King; Anti-war movement, Protest; Activism; Jewish life; Judaism; Cincinnati; War; Jews; Writing. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Julian Zelizer Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 24 June 2022 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:04 Can you hear me? JZ: 00:05 I can hear you just fine. SM: 00:06 Okay, great. Well, Dr. Julian Zelizer. Thank you very much for agreeing to do the interview on your book, "Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement," and that was an amazing book. Could you describe your, your early years, where you grew up, your early influences in your family and peers? Where you went to high school, and college, and-and how did you become interested in history? JZ: 00:31 Sure. Well, thanks for having me. And I grew up in a place called [inaudible] New Jersey, which is a suburb in northern New Jersey. My mother was, still is a professor of sociology. While I was growing up, she taught at Barnard College. And after I went to college, she moved to Princeton. My father, Jerry Zelizer is a conservative rabbi, in [inaudible], that is where his synagogue was at a place called the Bay Shalom, and I was an only child. So, I grew up there. And I would add, since it is relevant, my father's father was also a rabbi in Columbus, Ohio. And his father, my great grandfather was a rabbi in, in eastern Europe. So, I grew up in [inaudible] and I went to, until eighth grade, a place called Solomon Schechter Day School, which was a Jewish Day School in Cranford, New Jersey, which was half Jewish Studies and half secular studies. And then I moved to [inaudible] Public High School, where I graduated in 1987. And in high school, I started to gain an interest in history. But, it was not anything I was planning to do. To be honest, I, it was just classes I enjoyed. But I was not someone who knew exactly where everything was going. And when I grew up, I did grow up going to synagogue, every week, our house was kosher, I was the rabbi son. It was very important to shaping my identity, in retrospect. Then I went to Brandeis University, between 1987 and 1991, where I started to really gain a focus of what interested me. In my junior year, I won a fellowship at Brandeis, through the Ford Foundation, they were providing fellowships to students who might be interested in academia. And they paid you a stipend, which I am sure was not that much, but at the time seemed like more money than I ever made. And over the course of the year, you have engaged in an in-depth research project and whatever your discipline was, and worked closely with a mentor. So, I started working on the history of liberalism in Massachusetts, during the 20th century with a historian named Jim Kloppenburg, an intellectual historian. And it was coming right after Michael Dukakis had locked to George H.W. Bush in 1988, which was the real first election I focused on in-depth. And I was just curious why the label of a Massachusetts liberal had been so damaging to Dukakis and, and I spent a year working on this project using original resources. And I just really started to enjoy that kind of work. And I continued with this my senior year as a senior thesis project that ended up being like 300 pages. SM: 03:43 Wow. JZ: 03:45 And by the end, I knew I was either going to do history as an academic or journalism, one of the two, as a way to study politics. And I decided in my senior year that academia was the way to go for me, and I applied and I got into Johns Hopkins University. And I went straight from college to graduate school where I was there from 1991 to 1996, when I received my PhD in history working with someone named Luca Lamba. SM: 04:19 Wow. What, your history of, of the rabbi background is, I was reading in your book that your grandfather received an award the same day Dr. King received an award at a function. Could you talk about that just briefly before we get into the main part of your book? JZ: 04:36 Yeah, I mean, the fascinating part of working on this biography of Pashto was obviously there was an element of exploring my father and grandfather's world. Both of them went to the Jewish Theological Seminary, where Abraham Joshua Heschel was a professor for most of his career, and to look back at the world of American Judaism in the 1950s and (19)60s, when my grandfather was a working rabbi, my father was studying and then become a rabbi. And I found these points of connection, which were really amazing. I was just looking by chance, at the program, I found all this old material. I think my father, I am not sure, but I think my father had found all these boxes of material when my grandfather passed away. And he asked me if I wanted them, I took them. And in it was the program for when my father graduated and was ordained as a rabbi. And I was just kind of thumbing through it. And it turned out that Heschel, a king was there to receive an honorary degree, and Heschel was obviously there as well. And my grandfather received an honorary degree as well, at that same moment- SM: 04:58 Wow. JZ: 05:00 -in the program. So, there, everyone was in the room. And it is kind of just symbolic of this project and, and kind of how it was different from some of my other work. SM: 06:07 Your father and grandfather so linked to history, and now you are linked to it. And now you are teaching it, and writing about it, which is exciting. When you look at the period, 1960 to 1975, what comes to mind as a historian, and as a scholar, who is written about this era in different ways? JZ: 06:28 A lot of things I mean, certainly political turbulence, and social turbulence is what I instantly think of with a question like that. It was a very contentious 15 years, or however you want to demarcate the period, where some of the most fundamental elements of what America is about were being questioned. And they were being challenged from left and right. And that ranged from the way race relations were part of the history of this nation and racial inequality was so ingrained in the institutions and culture of the country, to what did the US do overseas? And what were these principles that politicians talked about when they deployed military force? And how did they compare with the reality on the ground? And those are just two of the questions. There were many others. How do we handle poverty in this country? What does the government, what is the role of the government in education? And it is just incredibly broad, and it culminates in (19)74, really, with a big question about political power and presidential power with the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon. So, it is just an incredibly tumultuous period, but not all in a bad way. And that is part of what I have learned, while studying, including writing this book, a lot of the questions were important ones that were being asked, and they really press the nation to think about its values, its aspects, its basic moral core, and what it was going to stand for, for the next few decades. SM: 08:13 You know, the life of Abraham Joshua Heschel was, I mean his whole life, you can study a certain section, and just study that for the rest of your life. Because how did this person become who he became? And this is a kind of a general question, there will be other ones later in the interview, but the life of Abraham Joshua Heschel, I think, fits into the decade known as the (19)60s and early (19)70s, as a religious leader, an intellect, an author, a thinker, and one heck of an activist, extraordinaire. Your thoughts on his role as an icon of the (19)60s and his role in Judaism in general? And I will be asking more questions too. JZ: 08:54 Sure, I mean, that is how the book starts, it actually starts with that framework. And I have, early in the book, one of the most iconic pictures of him, but also an iconic picture of the 1960s. It is a picture of March 21, 1965. It is one of the many marches that took place in Selma for voting rights. And this was a march where King called on religious leaders to come and, and march as a show of support from the religious community for the need for legislation to protect black American voting rights. And in that photo, which most American Jews, and many American Jews have seen at some point. King is marching alongside Heschel, Fred Shuttlesworth, John Lewis, some of the iconic civil rights leaders of the period, in both a moment of civic euphoria in some ways, and also, a scary moment. Because a few weeks earlier, the state authorities had beaten protesters simply for the act of protesting. And that picture is so important because it reflected not only activism in the 1960s, in this moment when so many Americans decided to take to the streets to demand social justice, but the role religion plays in that mobilization, something that is often forgotten. Religious leaders were integral to many of the progressive political movements of the period, and Heschel has come to embody that interconnection. So Heschel, as a civil rights activist, as an anti-Vietnam activist, as an activist who fought for the rights of Jews who are living in the Soviet Union, and much more, really does reflect some of the spirit of the 1960s. And, and a forgotten place of religion in that particular world. And simultaneously, and we will talk about it more. He was also a very important figure, which brought him to this place, in kind of being a public, religious intellectual, something we do not necessarily have any more, writing books that received widespread attention about theological questions. How do we think in the post-war period after the Holocaust, after the nuclear bomb about God, and a relationship of individuals to the divine? SM: 11:32 Yeah, you did a great job in every aspect of his life, very beginning when he was young. Wherever you live, there was anti-Semitism, and he had to, he experienced that, he lived in poverty. The economics conditions are not good within his family. Could you talk a little bit about how this great rabbi who became an icon of the (19)60s were how he evolved from those very beginnings when he was in Warsaw, throughout through Europe before he came to the United States in Cincinnati. JZ: 12:09 Yeah, I mean, he has an immigrant story, which is part of what fascinated me also about him to understand that trajectory. He grows up in Warsaw. He was born in 1907. And January 11, 1907, and, and he grows up in a family of very, that comes from very distinguished Hasidic rabbis. Hasidism is a sect of what today we would call Orthodox Judaism. But very traditional, but also very spirited. It was a kind of Jewish community that prayed with exuberance that devoted much of their life to studying the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, and more. And he grows up in Warsaw being trained to be a rabbi, he is a prodigy, his family assumes he will continue with the tradition. And his father died when he is very young, and in 1916, as part of the influenza outbreak of the time and Heschel's just nine years old. But he continues with his training, his uncle trains him as a rabbi. But during these years in Warsaw, where he lives in, in the Jewish community, and is surrounded by Judaism, in terms of synagogues, and publications, he was always interested in the secular world, even as a young boy. He becomes fascinated with a group of kind of radical Yiddish, secular poet who works nearby. And I described a scene where he goes into their offices and asked if he could publish poetry with them. But ultimately, he leaves Warsaw, which is a big move for someone of his background, and he decides he wants to study at a university. So, he goes to Vilna, first, where he goes to, a high school, essentially, that trains him in secular education. And then he moves to Berlin, where he goes to the University of Berlin, and will work on ultimately a PhD in, in Philosophy. And he continues with his Jewish studies but by the 1930s, he is a guy who is still very religious, and religion is integral to how he thinks of the world. But he is also become deeply enmeshed in the highest intellectual circles of the world at that time, in Berlin at this university of philosophers, of other kinds of social scientists. And he writes his dissertation on the Hebrew prophets, and is fascinated with these figures who told the world that they could essentially hear God, and raged about everything that was bad in the country. He teaches at an adult education school in Frankfort, a very distinguished institution. But in 1938, he was kicked out of the country. He has been watching the Nazis rise to power and in 1938 the [inaudible] rounds up Jews who were not from Germany and expelled them, including him from the country. He goes back to Warsaw, he is able to escape. But ultimately in 1940, he receives a fellowship from the Hebrew Union College, which is a seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio training reformed Jews. And the head of it a guy named Julian Morgenstern, has a fellowship program where he is trying to rescue Jewish, Eastern European intellectuals. And he hears about Heschel, and he is one of the people who receives a fellowship, and comes to Cincinnati in 1940. So, his trajectory is one that always from a young age, mixed very intense Judaic study in the Hasidic tradition, combined with a fascination with the world of the secular, intellectual university. SM: 16:11 Yeah, the thing is though, right away, you notice the connection between Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel, in terms of they both had deep desire for interfaith relationship in terms of social activism and the issues of the day, whether it be racism, the war in Vietnam, even Russian Jewry, which he was involved in, as well as dealing with the Catholic Church, and their-their historic treatment of Jews by saying that Jesus was-was, was killed by the Jews, these kinds of things. He was dealing with a lot of particular issues. He has got a lot of supporters, but he has got a lot of people that are challenging him, too. So, he, he is, he is one heck of a person in terms of history books. You have a quote, in the very beginning of the book, which is, you have already made references to several things. But, I am all over here. Your book is so good with respect to quotes. Wherever he lived, you got some quotes about what he said about certain conditions. And, I am trying to memorize them. So, if I ever make a speech, I can always refer to them because they are, they are unbelievable. This is one you have at the very beginning of the book. I just want to read it. And have you comment on it, commenting on it. "There is an evil, which most of us condone, and are even guilty of, indifference to evil." Dr. King was talking all about this too, indifference with something he could not stand. "We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved to the wrongs done unto other people. Indifference, indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous, a silent justification it makes possible, and evil ripping us and expansion becoming the rule and being in turn accepted." Could you comment on that? JZ: 18:16 Yeah, that is really, it is a, it is a very important quote in my mind to understanding some of what was driving Heschel. And it is a quote, it also resonated with King who spoke about indifference all the time, in the letter from Birmingham jail, King, famously lashed out, not against the open racists of the south. But he said, the preachers who were because they said they were being pragmatic, were not doing anything. They were the real danger, was the moderate who was more dangerous than the extremists because they allowed the extremists to continue And Heschel agreed with that. I mean, part of where this came from, was Heschel watching the Nazis rise to power. And ultimately, while he was in Cincinnati from 1940 to (19)45, watching the American political community do very little to save Jewish refugees, and even watching mainstream Jewish organizations be very timid in his mind, about making this a central issue and putting enough pressure on politicians. And it was that indifference, which terrified him and he, during the 1940s saw the cost of that indifference. It allowed Nazi Germany to literally ravage the Jewish community. It allowed, you know, the Nazis to ultimately kill many of his own family members, including his mother and three sisters, and the way in which indifference was so important in the Christian community, the Jewish community, to the heart that unfolded during the war would remain with them. And he would spend a lot of the rest of his career, talking about that, really attacking people who were not doing anything, attacking people who were sitting on the sidelines, even when they knew things were wrong. And not understanding that to not act was in some ways, becoming part of the problem, which is what that quote is about. And he talks a lot about this in the book that he publishes based on his dissertation on the Hebrew prophets. And, the Hebrew prophets were not indifferent. They were the opposite. They were people who were often considered. Often, some said they were drunk, or they were not psychologically stable, because they were walking around, screaming and raging about what everyone was accepting as normal poverty, inequality, violence, injustice. And he admired the prophets because they did not do that. They spent their whole life saying this is not acceptable. And so, I think once he reaches the 1960s, and he sees the different movements taking forth, it is almost inevitable for him, to not be indifferent, and to actually devote the last decade of his life to these political struggles. SM: 21:15 You know, the prophets that you just mentioned, are throughout the book. I mean, in various issues in his life, what would the prophets do? And really, he was constantly thinking about them. And during the 1960s, in the part you talk about Selma and Washington and that era, and at the very end of the book, you know, the prophets are brought up in quotes over, and over, and over again, what would the prophets do? And, you know, I wanted to mention, too, that the books that he wrote, were amazing. I know that some of the people that were involved in the Civil Rights Movement and some of the people that were activists, like Father Barragan, Daniel Barragan, who I knew, looked up to Rabbi Heschel as a mentor. Because of the you know, this, making that religion was very important in dealing with the social issues, you know of our time, whether it be the nuclear bomb, the nuclear war in [inaudible], which is what the Berrigans were going after, and the Vietnam War. So, things like this, but it is the books, you know, these books, I have two of them. But the, the books were "The Sabbath Man is not Alone, God and Man is not Alone," "Man's Quest for God and God in Search of Man." Have you, did you have a chance to read all these books? JZ: 22:36 Oh, yes, I read them several times. Some of them are difficult to really absorb. But I read them carefully. Because what I really started to understand as I wrote the book, was there was a clear connection between what he was writing and thinking about in the 1950s. And he is really writing about, in the Sabbath, he is writing about why religion in the modern world, "God in Search of Man," or "Man is not Alone," two other books that were famous works of his where he is talking about the relationship of the individual to God, and how the individual could open themselves up to ultimately hearing God's path of. I started to see, these are not separate from the world of activism that he ends up in, they are often treated that way. You know, first he was a writer and theologian, then he became an activist. But, when you read the book, and you read these books several times you kind of see the path that would ultimately lead him to find the activism so compelling. So, the Sabbath is an example. It is not obvious. But it is basically a book of why does the Sabbath matter? Why in the modern world of finance and consumption, should people take one day a week, which is Saturday for the Jewish people, and not do any work, not use any electricity, devote themselves basically, to prayer and introspection. And he writes about it, in terms of Jewish tradition, but he also tries to make an argument that this is an antidote to the rampant consumption that Americans were engaged in, it was a way to take control of part of the time that an individual experienced and separate it from, from that modern from that modern world. So, he is thinking about how to make the secular world a better place, through religious commitment. And in these other books, he is writing about how if someone is truly pious, if they devote themselves, to prayer, to committing, to engage in what Jews called the Mitzvoth, the good deeds that are obligated of every Jew. They, they ultimately become more spiritual, they become more pious, and they can hear what God is thinking and trying to communicate to them about the world and what is wrong in the world. And he ultimately thinks about this through the Hebrew prophets. But he thinks of it also in terms of what he has seen, from the activists all around, and including many religious activists, non-Jewish, from seeing Barragan, who are also forging these connections between their own religious slash theological beliefs, and the great issues of the day. SM: 25:36 Throughout the book, when you are talking about those, not the books of Sabbath, but the Sabbath itself, that was a very important day for him. And what- -no matter where he was in his life, whether, whether he was in poverty, or whether he was, you know, in New York City, being a professor. I mean, it is a very important day, something, he would not want to do something on that day that had any effect on the Sabbath. And so that was very important. Could you talk about, you know, Cincinnati becomes an important part here. I was talking to somebody about this book, and they said, why did he come to Cincinnati? But could you talk about his time in Cincinnati, and then finally, his, his moving to New York City? JZ: 25:45 It was. Yeah, so the Cincinnati years are quite important, although they were often overlooked. And they are from 1940 to 1945, again, he has brought here by Julian Morgenstern, who was the head of the Hebrew Union College. And he has brought on as a fellow, although they ultimately make him a faculty member. And it is a very difficult five years for him. First, he is living in a reformed seminary and reformed Judaism, basically was the effect of a branch of Judaism in the United States, and in Europe as well, that did not actually require practicing many of the traditions that more observant Jews thought were essential. So, the Sabbath, for example, a traditional Jew will not use electricity on the Sabbath, Heschel would, they will not drive a car, they won't go to a supermarket or store. But reformed Judaism was not quite as strict and allowed for all that. So, here Heschel spent five years living with these individuals who were being trained to be rabbis. But he saw, they did not keep kosher. None of, many of them could not read Hebrew. They did not have the practices or the knowledge that he thought were essential to being a rabbi. It was also during these years, that the Holocaust unfolds, then as I said, his mother and three sisters would all be killed during these years. So, he is all alone. He is living in this seminary, where kind of an oddity, and he does not really mesh with most of the students and faculty around him. And, he is listening to the events in Europe, and he is mourning as different family members perish. And it is during these years, finally, in Cincinnati, that he starts, just starts to engage in a little activism. He goes, for example, to Washington in 1943. Together with an orthodox rabbi in Cincinnati, and he participates in something called the "Rabbis March," which is a group of 400, traditional and observant rabbis again, what we call orthodox today, who marched through the streets of Washington, meet with members of Congress, they try to meet with the president unsuccessfully, to demand that the American political community does something about eastern European Jews. So, these are important years, and he is also gaining a sense of some of the differences of American Judaism as it was taking form, and what was still strong in different parts of Europe like Warsaw. And, he leaves in 1945, the Jewish Theological Seminary, which is in New York, it is a seminary, and it is also where conservative rabbis were being trained. They, a guy named Louis Finkelstein, who is the chancellor offers Heschel a full-time faculty position, in part because he thinks Heschel will be inspirational to conservative rabbis who are being trained because he has that knowledge. He has that background in Eastern European Judaism that was becoming more distant for younger generation of rabbinical students like my father. SM: 26:40 It is really, I have a couple of quotes again from several parts of your book and I, it just reiterates what you have been saying about what he believed in, but the quotes are just wonderfully written, and wonderfully put together. "We affirm the principle of the separation of church and state, and we reject the separation of religion, and the human situation. And, and second one I want to quote here is "To be pious, to be a pious person meant creating a connection between spirituality and progressive politics, leading to battles against social injustice, and the militarism in the lived world." And the third one, final one, here, "He would, he wanted to repair the world by ending injustice, and injustice he saw in Europe, in his youth, and in his battles." This is, you are wording this basically, in America during the Civil Rights era, his desire to end the Vietnam War, that, this, his last years of his life when he, when he is in New York, it is amazing what he did. And, he is everywhere, he is going, he is giving a speech, or he is going to a protest, or he is, you know, going to try to get groups to interface together to work against an injustice someplace in the world. Can you talk about this, the importance at this particular time in the (19)60s of the interfaith connection that he was so involved in? And so Was Dr. King, and I, and I am a firm believer after reading this book, that if Dr. Heschel had not been here, in America, there would not have been a person like him to work with Dr. King. There were a lot of people that want to interfaith within his group, but to get your thoughts on this, on this real close connection between this interfaith effort? JZ: 31:44 Yeah, I mean, there is a lot, of a lot of points there. On the first one, there was an interesting part of the book, and, you know, he is trying to find this balance between what is the role of religion and say, in the political world. And yet, as the first quote you read, says, he is not someone who is saying, you know, religion should guide public life, he is a believer in the separation of church and state. And so, there is always this question of what are the lines, and some of his critics would argue that sometimes they were turned off, by the way, he invoked religion, because it could lead to a kind of fervor, and, and kind of a dogmatic view of issues that isn't always best in politics. It was interesting to think of some of these debates and read them both in real time and retrospectively, but ultimately, he believed that religion just had an important role. And it was not simply that if you are religious, you will see, that you have to join, cause a and cause b, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, he has this other argument which is interwoven through much of his writing after 1945, where, if you have a society where religious questions which are ultimately, questions about ethics and morality, are no longer part of the conversation, no longer part of the lived experience of, of people, then secular society can become extraordinarily dangerous. And, he saw that part of how we ended up in a world where a Holocaust against Jews could happen, or where we could use technology, like the nuclear atomic bomb to just raise two cities was because spirituality had lost its place in modern society, and that these questions that gradually faded from what many people thought about and it led them to be hardened, it led them to be indifferent. And so, he was trying to kind of craft an argument about why religion, as someone who appreciated science, he appreciated modernity, he appreciated the consumer world, but he was trying to argue that even in that if we do not have this religious core, we are in danger, we will end up doing terrible things to, to each other. And he found this interfaith community when he engaged in activism on different issues that was like minded, and the interfaith element was quite important and it was really interesting, he really rejected religious leaders, Jewish or otherwise, who, you know, believed that religions had to stay separate, believed that the basic ritualistic differences between religions rendered any effort to work together as, as impossible. One example, a concrete example was between 1962 and 1965, the Vatican in Vatican two is revisiting a lot of its most controversial doctrines in the wake of WWII and the anti-colonialism. The church is trying to look at parts of the doctrine that had been used by forces of hatred, and anti-Semitism is one of it and, doctrine related to the idea that Jews need to be converted, or that all Jews are responsible for the death of Christ become what the Vatican is discussing, and Heschel is recruited as a secret liaison to the Vatican, to talk with Vatican officials, including the Pope, about these questions, and to lobby the Vatican to change its ways. Well many Orthodox Jews when they learn that this happened, it is ultimately revealed by the press that he was part of these discussions. They are furious with Heschel, they say, this kind of interfaith dialogue is not right, that you should not be discussing with Catholics or vice versa doctrine. There are two different religions, but Heschel railed against that way of thinking. And when he has involved in the anti-Vietnam war movement, it is the interfaith connections, which really drives what he does. And then finally, yes, by the end of his career, and by the time of his death in 1972, he was everywhere, it is kind of like a [inaudible] of American history at that point. And given where he started, just as a, in the Jewish community of Warsaw that this is a guy by the end of his life, presidents are aware of, Popes are aware of, the media will cover all the time, is really a mark of the kind of impact he was able to have. SM: 36:55 Well, he had an influence on Dr. King, for sure. And, I learned something in your book about the fact that the group that Rabbi Heschel was involved with, the clergy concerned about the Vietnam War, or clergy and laity concerned about Vietnam were the ones that invited him to speak at Riverside Church in 1960. No, yeah, (19)67 against the Vietnam War. That is so historic, I never saw the connection. I thought Dr. King just came. JZ: 37:29 Right. And I did not either, actually, I mean, I knew about that speech, it is one of the most important pieces, if you study the history of the Vietnam War, and the politics. King had been very reluctant to speak out against the war, in part because many civil rights leaders did not want him too, many supported the war. In (19)67, the Vietnam War is still popular. Many were scared that if they angered Lyndon Johnson on the war, he would, you know, essentially get back at them by withdrawing his support for civil rights. And King himself was really conflicted over what to do, he famously makes a speech at the Riverside Church where finally decides to, he cannot stand it any longer. And he makes a blistering speech about the war, about the cost of the war, about what it is doing, both to the Vietnamese and here in American society. And it is a turning point, because after that King is forever part of the anti-war movement. It gives the antiwar movement broader support in many ways, because they get connected to the civil rights movement. But the way, [inaudible] was an event organized by this group, that Heschel was part of, it was- SM: 38:46 Yep. JZ: 38:46 -these religious leaders, who King was very comfortable with, he knew all of them, who invited him to speak at this event at the Riverside Church. And if you watch the old videos of it, I believe you can even see it online, Heschel is sitting there right next to him as King delivers this- SM: 39:03 Wow. JZ: 39:03 historic speech. And again, I have seen it, I have heard it, I never like focused in on who organized this thing. So, it is really I think it is an important moment. And you can see the kind of effect Heschel and his cohorts are having by (19)67. SM: 39:19 I wonder if even President Johnson saw that, or maybe he did, maybe he, because he was very upset with Dr. King. But, you did not hear him being upset with anybody else. But, he could have been upset with many of the others as well, who were there from different faiths. And I believe the minister there was Wyatt T. Walker, was not it? I believe that was, he was the minister at that church at that time. And I also want to bring up the fact that, the impact that Rabbi Heschel had on people from other faiths, his mentees, and they both said, they said this and I had all, they all came to my campus over the years. Daniel Barragan, Williamson Coffin, and Richard John Newhouse, and they were all they considered Rabbi Heschel, a mentor. And they were, my golly, they were powerful people themselves. JZ: 40:13 So yeah, they did. You are talking about some of the most important figures of that decade. And, they really admired him. And for Heschel this was important because within his own community, he was pretty controversial. And even at the Jewish Theological Seminary, some would say he had more enemies or opponents than supporters. Some of this was because he was critical of American Judaism, including the way rabbis are being trained. He did not think they were learning enough theology. They were focused more on, on textual analysis and understanding Jewish law. He was an outspoken critic of the modern suburban synagogue, he would make all these speeches, where he would say that the synagogues being built around the country were beautiful, and they offered all kinds of services, but they were devoid of prayer, they were devoid of spirit, there was no reason people would remain attached to it. And this was a direct attack on what his colleagues were trying to do, including the famous guy named Mordecai Kaplan, whose, all his writing was about the centrality of the synagogue. So, he was controversial because of his thinking, because of the way he approached the rabid and, and he was also controversial politically, again, most mainstream religion supported the war in Vietnam as late as (19)67, and (19)68, including the rabbinical assembly, and I have a statement they released in (19)67, where they condemn this group that Heschel is part of. And Heschel is really the focus because he is the Jewish leader in this group, and say they disagree with it. And they do not think what he is doing is right. So, Heschel found a lot of comfort and solace in these connections that he made outside of the Jewish world where you would have people like John Bennett, or Barragan revering him and really admiring what he was doing. And I think psychologically, at that moment in his career, this was extremely important. SM: 42:21 Well, the thing I noticed in the, in the book, you talk about the importance of memory; memory meant an awful lot to him. Here is this man who wrote all these great books, articles, you know, everything, taught students in the classroom. Yet he has this quote, Jewish said, or something that you put in the book, Jewish education to him, should foster Jewish memory. The vital sounds of Jewish education are not books, but the bearers of memories, those who engage with the spirit and bear witness, beware of that, which is, I cannot remember printing I am sorry about that. "Beware of that which has been passed down." Now obviously, throughout his life, he never could forget the Holocaust and every element of actions, even in the civil rights movement, when he saw the poverty and the terrible things happening to African Americans, they could not vote. They were being, they were being hanged. They were being denied their freedoms, treated as second class citizens. That memory of his he does not have to read a book for that, he witnessed it. And I think that is an important thing, too, that your memory is important. Any thoughts on that? JZ: 43:43 No, I think it is, it is true. Ironically, I mean he, he tried to do some of this in his book, I think he was, he was not simply concerned with people won't remember the Holocaust, because in his lifetime, that was almost inconceivable. But he did talk, he talked, for example, when he was trying to garner support for the issue of Soviet Jewry, in the early (19)60s, when it was not really an issue. There was not a movement yet. He, he reminded people to think back to the 1940s, when so much of the American Jewish community established we did not do enough to put pressure on politicians. And he worried that by the (19)60s, a lot of the Jewish community was forgetting that, and forgetting the costs that could be incurred from that kind of, you know, forgetting of the past. But, he was also really worried that American Jews were no longer able to remember that world of eastern Europe that he saw it was so glorious, even with the anti-Semitism and even with what ultimately happened yet, slightly nostalgic look, or memory of the early 20th century in that world in which he was born and raised, and he wrote a book called "The Earth is the Lord's." It is one of his, it is his first book after the war. It is published in English. And it is called "The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe." And it is more, almost like a sermon or a eulogy than a book. It is a poem, all about the magic that he remembered in eastern Europe, where you had a world of Jews, who were focused on studying the Bible, studying the Torah, who devoted themselves to that over material concerns where he argued, every person regardless of wealth was equal, because knowledge was the commodity and everyone was allowed to devote themselves to that knowledge. And he talked about the enthusiasm and fervor of the Jewish community where he was raised. And of course, again, a lot of that was nostalgic, he did not talk about the immense poverty and suffering, he did not talk about some of the problems that led him to leave ultimately. But, the book is about memory. It is a plea that Americans- SM: 46:06 Yep. JZ: 46:06 -use after the war, do not forget that world, which because of the war, was now literally being lost, not just in terms of memory, but physically. SM: 46:15 Yeah, I, just about everything he touches is something you can learn from, you could get a young person, please read this book or please read about the life of Rabbi Heschel, and you will learn something about life. The rest of the interview, I want to concentrate on Rabbi Heschel and the (19)60s. Could you concentrate on, right now on Selma? In the book, you state that he, he was actually watching a program on the Holocaust on T.V. when they broke in and talked about what was going on in the south in Selma, and how they had beaten the protesters. And, John Lewis actually had his head cracked at that one. And, and he said, I got to go south. He could not, it was, just his reaction to what was happening in Selma. And of course, a couple days later, Dr. King organized another March, and he wanted to be part of it. Could you talk about that? JZ: 47:19 Yeah so, so he has, he had been following the civil rights story for, for many years already. He was an avid watcher of the evening news, he would watch it every night, he read the newspapers. And, he said that in the process of revising the Hebrew prophets, his dissertation to be a book, he, then was changing, and he was seeing the connections between what he was writing about, and the protests that he was reading about. He gets involved in civil rights, years before the Selma march. The most important I will highlight is, in 1963, Martin Luther King invites Heschel to speak at a meeting in Chicago, of interfaith leaders on religion and race. And, Heschel gives one of the keynote speeches and I quote a lot of the speech in the book because it is really, it is quite powerful. Cornell West would later say that the speech he delivered in (19)63, is "One of the most, it is one of the best speeches by a white person on race since abolition," and one of the topics. And, he basically said in that speech, which King is watching, that you cannot be a religious person, if you are a racist, that race and religion cannot coexist in the same heart. And, he attacks religious leaders who are being indifferent, who are not seeing that they have to take on this problem in American life, and the speech is covered in the press. And it really puts him on the map in the civil rights community. And before (19)65, he continues to speak in interfaith gatherings about race and religion. He does some protests and activism on the street, in New York City, on issues of education and religion. But ultimately, it is in March (19)65 that this all picks up, and it starts on March 7 1965, that is the first march, Heschel's not there. That is called and remembered as Bloody Sunday because protesters are marching and when they are on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the authorities violently attack them, beat them, beat many of the protesters, including John Lewis, who is the head of a group called Snick, who has his head cracked open by a police baton. And, it is an important moment because the media covers it. And as you said, ABC News cuts away, they are showing the Sunday night movie, "Judgment at Nuremberg," a movie about the Holocaust, to show exactly what was taking place in the south. And, and Heschel is aware of this. He is watching this and he is following the news. And then, he gets this invitation to come to a subsequent march on March 21 where King's bringing religious leaders because the goal after Bloody Sunday, Lyndon Johnson, the president of the United States, has called on Congress, finally, he called on Congress to pass the Voting Rights bill. And so, the marches in Selma are an effort to build pressure on Congress on the administration to follow through with that promise. And then, Tim gets the invitation to go home on March 21. And he is very scared. He is truly frightened. Because going to Selma is not like a trip, I am got to get through part of a protest, Bloody Sunday shows the stakes were high that violence was a reality. And he and his family, he has a wife and daughter, are terrified. But, he decides that he has to go, he decides at this point, there is no turning back. And so, he ultimately goes, he travels there. He is picked up by Andrew Young, whose one of the important civil rights leaders who carries around a copy of the Prophet, and has read it religiously, and really admires Heschel. And then, Heschel participates in this march. And I recount kind of how the march unfolds, I found this amazing diary, where he jotted down notes about the experience that are in his archives. And it is an incredible experience for him. He feels the religious fervor from, from the event and he understands what activism can be in a new way. He famously said he felt like he "was praying with his leg," on-on that day. And he also meets, one last thing, a lot of younger Jews who were there who said they were not really religious ever, they had no connection to Judaism. But one young man who's a reformed Jew says to him, driving back to the airport, that because of that day, because of the march in Selma, and meeting and seeing Heschel who, at this point, he has changed physically, he literally looks like a prophet, he has a long white beard, his hair is overflowing, that because of that day, he understands the connection to the tradition in a very profound way. And I will add, Heschel's also horrified, he is, he is, he loves what he does, he loves the movement, but he also sees the ferocity of the, the racism as they march, they are surrounded by, you know, Alabamians, who, you know, holding up signs, with horrible racial epithets, and often anti-Semitic ones as well, they are often connected in the minds of the white racist, and he does not ever forget just how deeply rooted racism is in this country. SM: 53:13 Yeah, you state in there often that he said at this time, "That racism is our most serious domestic evil," and he said, "It was easier for the children of Israel to cross the red sea than for a negro to cross certain university campuses," which is amazing. It is true. It is, you know. JZ: 53:35 Something that King, I mean, King and him connect on, as other civil rights leaders do in seeing some of the commonalities behind the Jewish experience, and Jewish oppression and anti-Semitism with the Black American experience. And they did not see those two as separate causes, especially in the mid-1960s. And, you know, King would talk about Moses and Exodus and often use that story in his own, in his own speeches. SM: 54:07 Well, his stature was certainly growing at this time, because you also state in the book that he was invited by President Kennedy to come and speak with him about the issues that were being faced in the area of race in America. And, he sent a note to Kennedy could you say when he said to him? [laughs] JZ: 54:27 Yeah, I mean, this is about, about civil rights and I mean, I do not have the text in front of me. But he is really, if I remember correctly, really urging the president to implore religious leaders to make this an issue front and center. SM: 54:48 He said, please, I got it here, "Please demand religious leaders, personal involvement, not just sound declarations." JZ: 54:56 Yep. Yeah, he, he wants, again, it comes back to that theme of indifference even proposes, cannot remember the details of the proposal to, to Kennedy, you know, some kind of substantive action that leaders can take to commit themselves to these causes. He is frustrated with how many people are basically willing to do nothing, even religious leaders, he respects about questions like racism. SM: 55:25 To show how Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel are on the same wavelength, around this time, you know, he was arrested in Birmingham, and then he wrote the letter to the Birmingham Jail. And you talk about this in your book, where King condemns the pragmatism and, incrementalism of white moderates describing them as, "a greater threat than racists extremists." And basically, what he is saying, people always say, [crosstalk] Well, wait, just wait, just wait. And Dr. King had this all the time, when he first became the new minister, in his first church. He talked about this, and they had just fired the previous minister, and because he was kind of an activist and kind of a radical in their eyes. And they looked at him and said, "What another one?" [laughs] That was early on in his career, but he was always dealing with these things. Could you talk about the, the, his involvement against the Vietnam War? JZ: 56:29 Yes, so, this really becomes a central part of his activist career, even though we talk about civil rights. And it was quite important, it does not even come close to the amount of time and energy that he expended on the fight against Vietnam. And he starts in 1965, which I tried to convey, it is hard to convey to a moderate reader in the book, that the idea of really starting to organize against the war in 1965, was a pretty dramatic thing to do. I mean, there was not an anti-war movement to speak of. Those who were involved in anti-war activism were seen as really fringe and pretty radical. It did not have the kind of support civil rights was starting to garner by that time, but he gets involved with a small group that will ultimately be called clergy and laymen concerned about Vietnam. It starts as a group of religious leaders protesting government efforts to crack down on anti-war protests, but quickly it reforms and becomes a group of religious leaders who are critical of the war in, in Vietnam. And the group tries to position themselves as separate from the most radical parts of the anti-war movement. For example, they do not support avoiding the draft, they do not support burning draft cards. But they use religious language and rhetoric and also religious, organizational power, meaning all the membership lists of churches and synagogues to start to grow this organization and it grows. And one of the things they do, is every year, they go to Washington, they bring members to Washington as part of a mobilization that would take place in late January and early February in (19)67, (19)68, (19)69. They would have protests, they would have rallies, they would do kind of media events that reporters would focus on, they would meet with administration officials and legislators to keep putting pressure on Washington to bring the war to an end. And what they bring to the table, in these years when the anti-war movement still did not have mainstream support, was a kind of moral legitimacy that college students could not bring. They were not the hippies and the beatniks on the college campuses who could quickly be dismissed by some politicians as just radical students. These were respected religious leaders. And the group just keeps growing and, you know, by (19)69 and 1970, they were a very important, and known, and formidable part of the anti-war movement. And King increasingly becomes more radical as the years progressed, gradually more supportive of people who are refusing to be part of the draft and going to jail for doing so. He is very defensive of college students who are engaging in protests and says they have the right to do that. And some of his colleagues said that by the end of his life, he died in (19)72, the war was consuming him. He saw this as just an epic tragedy, that was emblem of what the United States was doing wrong, and its relations with the world, and also a tragedy for the American soldiers for the Vietnamese, who were dying, for something he did not think was necessary. He was not a pacifist. But this anti-war movement defined the last real seven years of his life. SM: 1:00:18 You quoted here that he said Vietnam "is an ecumenical nightmare, for Christians, Jews, Buddhists are killing each other." And this organization he was belong to, and he was involved in it, is, was very upset with president too, in Vietnam and what they were doing to the Buddhists, themselves- JZ: 1:00:37 Right. SM: 1:00:37 -and other religious groups. So, not only are we talking about it, he used to say this, another quote, you put in the book, [inaudible] which was a manifestation of a world without God, well, here we are in Vietnam, the United States is supporting this temporary government, hopefully it would survive. But in reality, they were, you know, killing Buddhists. They were discriminating against Buddhists. Buddhists hated that, too. I mean, the government, and we were supporting them. So, it was, it was everything, you look at Vietnam, there is something wrong here. And it took religious leaders like Rabbi Heschel, and Dr. King and many others from different faiths to really, you know, have an impact on the world against this war. I guess we are near the end of our time here. I want to add one final, there is a quote in the book here, and I want you to just respond to it, you wrote this quote, and it was on page 230. And, and this was your quote, "What was so important about Heschel was not that he heroically risked his life. But then he became an emblem for a kind of moral heroism that inspired, and continued to inspire others long after his moment had passed. He serves as a reminder of the often-forgotten role that deep religious conviction held within progressive movements that bent the arc of the universe toward justice." Now, that is brilliantly written. But, any other thoughts on that? JZ: 1:02:14 Look, it was my thoughts. I mean, the book is my thought, but it is a part of the history of religion in the United States that I think has gotten, it has been somewhat forgotten. I think, I say in the book that when people think of religion in politics, in 2022, or whenever they are reading the book, the major storyline, the major issue has been the religious right, and politics, the growth of- -your moral majority in the (19)70s, in the connection of religion, to the battle against reproductive rights and, and different kinds of schooling and more. But there was this whole world in the (19)60s, which I just found fascinating, where people like Heschel, were at the forefront, at the center of progressive political movements. And they did it not just as religious people who happen to agree with progressive causes, but as people whose religion in their minds, led them inevitably to partake in fight for social justice here in the United States, the connection was impossible to ignore. That is what Heschel reflected. And I think, whatever your politics kind of recovering that world today, is something that is extremely important. And thirdly, if you are someone involved in some of these causes, the way in which religion can be part of that conversation, part of that effort is an incredibly important lesson from his life, and one that we need to examine through him, and through other figures of the time. SM: 1:02:43 Yep. I end all my interviews with a question and it is just a very fast, what word of advice would you give to future generations who are listening to this tape, 50 years from now? What word of advice would you give to them? Because the purpose of The Center for the Study of the (19)60s is not only to, you know, do to create research and scholarship materials and for students, faculty and national scholars, but to reach people who are yet unborn too, so that they never lose their, their history. But they are always thinking about where they are, where they are at right now. What advice would you give them? JZ: 1:04:34 Well, if I am connecting my advice, to Heschel's story, it would be what we talked about earlier that it is important, whatever your religious perspective, to keep asking questions about our ethics, our morality, our basic values in society, and to never be indifferent to those kinds of questions, and to understand that we need to always ask those questions, if we are going to have a better country. We are going to have a better community. This was an insight that I derived from Heschel, which I think is incredibly powerful. And then if we do not ask those questions, we put ourselves down the path of a very bad road. And, and we cannot afford that. SM: 1:05:25 Dr. Zelizer, thank you for a great interview. I am going to turn off the tape. (End of Interview) 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. Julian E. Zelizer https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e30fd1fd6ea3e4c8d2cb1b49f2c45289.jpeg 5356fad19d153f75ed864f97deae0973 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3141ee307dae58dd26fd6c7cb483f2df.MP3 93f507b97db9ab2eab5c7cf62b557e87 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 22 June 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bruce Watson Biographical Text Bruce Watson is an educator and author who specializes in American culture and history. He has written several books and feature articles for Smithsonian, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and American Heritage. Watson also publishes a blog called the Attic. He has taught at Deerfield Academy, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Bard College, and Hampshire College. Watson received a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master's degree in Elementary Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:39:28 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 Digital file Date of Digitization 22 June 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Mississippi; Protests; Freedom; 1960s; Volunteers; South; Race; Black;&nbsp; Fannie Lou Hamer; Vote; London B. Johnson; Free speech movement. 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 Bruce Watson https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/51bd747121c54af5d94405738f3f9e98.jpeg a9a6adaa484fdc34f5cfdba7c85f433b https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/56b971be93b7aeb0b94a44b539d6d866.mp3 d662a106a623ea36fcfdf901c66477ab 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 23 June 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Elizabeth Jane McCarthy Biographical Text Dr. Elizabeth Jane McCarthy grew up in Cohasset, Massachusetts.&nbsp;&nbsp;She is a nurse, educator, and activist. Dr. McCarthy served in Vietnam as a nurse in the 95th Evacuation Hospital in Da Nang. Upon returning from Vietnam, she went to nurse anesthesia school. She worked as a nurse anesthetist for several years and returned to school for her Ph.D. in Physiology from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda. Since her retirement from the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, Dr. McCarthy is teaching graduate nursing students at the University of North Florida, Drexel University, and the University of Maryland. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:35:39 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 Digital file Date of Digitization 23 June 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Vietnam war; Nurse; People, Wounded; Home; Memorial Wall; Veterans; Remember; Uniform; Hospital; Dead; Lives; 1960s. 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: Jane McCarthy Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 23 June 2022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Start of Interview) SM: 00:10 Thank you, Dr. McCarthy, for agreeing to do this interview. And I would like to start the-the interview by having you, read the, read the speech that you gave at the Vietnam Memorial, the wall, on Memorial Day 2022. And we are going to start with this and then throughout the interview, I will ask questions and linkage to it as well. JM: 00:38 Okay. Okay, here goes. Peter Cogill, KIA, February 1967. Craig Simeone, KIA, May 1969. Eddie Murray, GIA, July 1969. Allen Keating, KIA], October 1969. Dennis Reardon, KIA, November 1969. Those are the names on this wall, from Cohasset. A small town in Massachusetts where I grew up, eight boys in all from Cohasset died in Vietnam. This is why we have Memorial Day. This is why I march each year in the Cohasset, Massachusetts Memorial Day Parade, to remember those friends, those young boys that we lost in Vietnam, to remember the high cost of war. We are here now on Memorial Day once again, here more than 50 years later to remember this loss, to remember the high cost of war. Many of you out there also served in Vietnam. Nurses like my friend from Boston, Kathy Pines, and corpsman and medics, physicians, helicopter pilots, helicopter pilots that I never knew because your job ended when my job began: bringing the wounded to us at the hospital, and radio guys at the hospitals and in the field, like my friend Dick Churchill, who called in the choppers for the wounded. All those who helped in the hospitals and in the field cared for those wounded, please stand. And let us just thank them. And gold star mothers like Joanne Churchill, your sons were not alone, as these veterans were the ones caring for the wounded from the field to the hospitals. Can you want it that is out there who made it back? These nurses, and docs, and corpsmen, and medics are the ones that were there to take care of you. I served as an Army nurse in Vietnam, in 1970 and 1971, just after my friends on this wall, had made their sacrifice. I was not in favor of the war, and did not understand what we were doing here. But I knew many of my friends were being drafted and killed. I decided what would be of more purpose, at that time in my life, a new 21-year-old nurse, then to care for those wounded but were being drafted and sent off to war. I joined the Army Nurse Corps after 10 months working here at the Walter Reed Army Hospital. I was ordered to the United States Evacuation Hospital in Da Nang, south Vietnam. I have worked in triage or what we call here, the emergency room. What was called there priyad and receiving, receiving the wounded. I took care of 18 and 19-year-old young men, boys. I really saw a 20-year-old, shot up, frightened, alone, and afraid to die in a war they did not understand. How does a 22-year-old girl from a small town in Massachusetts tell a 19-year-old soldier that he does not have a foot or leg anymore, and they have wounds. The patient is expected to die because they were not candidates for surgery. I just tell them, or I sat with them until they died? I wonder why we were fighting this war. I thought I would find answers in Vietnam. But I did not. I did learn that war causes deaths and mutilation. So, what was it like coming home? Looking back now, I had a classic case of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, I believe, I believe all of us that witnessed the atrocities of war, experience post-traumatic stress to one degree or another. I had, nightly, trouble sleeping hypervigilance, depressed, I was not eating. In those days, there was no such thing as PTSD. You were told to just put one foot in front of the other and go on with your life. For me, that meant school, work, more school, work, and having my own family. I did get some help along the way. In 1993, we had the dedication of the memorial for the nurses over there. I remember being here. We had a parade of nurses down Constitution Avenue, and each of us had our banner of our work behind, standing behind the banner for our hospital in Vietnam, and we stood behind this banner, and the veterans were on the side of the road. It was very quiet. And you would hear every once in a while, when the veteran guys in their wheelchairs, they would see the sign of their hospitals and you wish you would hear them yell out, "You took care of me, you took care of me. I remember you. You took care of me." This was so healing for all of us, for the vets, and for us the nurses. And it was for us nurses to begin to realize that we needed to heal also. We saw those atrocities day in and day out. And we needed to be healed. And that is what both of these Vietnam memorials have given us over the year. And I am glad that we do what we do every Memorial Day here. At our nurse’s memorial, we have our candlelight service in the evening, AND the storytelling in the morning, And then this Vietnam program here at the wall in the afternoon, all remembering the high cost of war. I would like to end today by sharing a poem written anonymously, by a soldier who must have been wounded in Vietnam and cared for by nurses. It is called, "Angels in War." "Listen, now I have a story to tell about some women who lived through hell. They saw it in the war in a special way, sometimes 16 hours a day. There is a story of pain and strife and agony and fight for life. Listen now to this story I tell about these women who worked through hell. But they were young, like you and me. How much more special can they be? How many hands in the night did she hold while a young boy cried out, "I am so cold." Listen now to the stories they tell. These are the women who lived through hell. Let us not forget these stories they tell. For they are our sisters who lived through hell." SM: 09:14 That was, I was present at the speech this year. And it was a very powerful one. And you received a standing ovation from everyone who was there. And I knew when I, you accepted the, the honor to interview you. I wanted you to give that speech so that others can hear it not only today, but 50 years from now, to remember those brave young men and women who served in that war. And, and, and of course you state the eight who died from your hometown and you went to school with. And I just want to say those names are on the Vietnam Memorial. And I will be asking you some questions about that speech as we go on with this interview. But I do I want to start, start off by saying you mentioned five names. Is there anything a little bit you can say about those names like, Peter Cogill. Could you say something about Peter? JM: 10:13 Peter Cogill was, he was in my class, so I knew him growing up and [inaudible] Peter Cogill. I mean, you know, I knew him growing up, 1967. So, we graduated from high school in (19)66. So, he must have gone in right after high school, went into the army. And then, Craig Simeone he lived up the street from me by the football field, and he was in my class. And, you know, a good student, I am not sure, 1959, if he, you know, went off to college or something, I do not know. My best friend there is Allen Keating, and he was a neighbor of mine. And he was, I knew him, you know, from kindergarten on up, played in the neighborhood, you know, baseball, football. I, you know, I played all of that, did all that with the guys in the neighborhood, rode our bikes. And through high school, he was the captain of our football team. Just, you know, just so well liked by all of us. And, I think Alan especially was missed by so many. I have a friend, my friend that was Dick Churchill, he still wears his, Alan's, you know, on his wrist, like a bracelet, with Alan's name on it. So, those with a 1, 2, 3, Eddie Murray, Eddie Murray was in my class too, four, four of them that were in my class, Dennis Reardon was a year older, I believe, but I knew him. He was in my brother's class. SM: 12:07 When they came home from war, were they buried in the hometown cemetery, or were some of them- JM: 12:12 Yes. SM: 12:12 -buried in Arlington? JM: 12:14 No they-they-they were buried at home because those were the funerals. I was coming home to every six months. Yeah. Yeah, I do not. I do not, you know, back then. I do not remember anybody opting to be buried in Arlington. SM: 12:31 Right. JM: 12:32 My friend Chrissy, Chris was in Vietnam with me, a nurse, Chris McKinley, and she died about 15 years ago, we think from exposure to Agent Orange. And, anyway, and she had her, she was buried at Arlington. And, but I think back then I do not know if we just did not even know you could not be buried, but they probably did not want to be. No, they- SM: 13:10 Right. JM: 13:10 -did not want to be buried in Arlington. They wanted to come back home. SM: 13:14 Could you talk about, could talk about your hometown, your early years growing up? What it was like being in high school before you went off to college and went off to war? JM: 13:27 Yeah, Cohasset is a small town on the ocean halfway between Boston and the Cape [Cod]. So, it is a lovely little town. And I went to the schools there, through high school. And, and there were about 100 kids in my class starting out in kindergarten. [chuckles] And we were all together through high school. And it was a pretty well to do town. I do not know what it was, a lot of the, a lot went on to college. And, there is, you know, there is old money there, there is roots, I mean, my family went back. My mother's family went back several generations. You know, it is one of those towns where you came over on the boat and you did not leave [laughter] and go out but you just stayed. It was very New England. My grandparents had a New England farm and, meaning, you know, with vegetables, and chickens, and a cow, and all that. But, you know that they survived on themselves. And I had a horse growing up and kept it at my grandparents. But they kept, it was really there for us, and I would go up there to ride the horse, and I could run. And then, I had another race horse when I was about 15 that was close to my home, that people had and I rode the horse all through town, I would ride the horse down to the beach [chuckles]. I never run into the water, to heel his leg, and then run him back to town [chuckles]. It was that kind of a town. SM: 15:22 When you were in high school, were the, were the young people in the school pretty well informed about what was happening beyond their town? What was happening- JM: 15:33 Yeah. SM: 15:33 -in the (19)60s about the march on like, for example, civil rights, the march on Washington, the Vietnam War, all the things that were happening in America? JM: 15:41 Yeah-yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we were, we were, we were torn like everybody else, as I was torn, you know. As a matter of fact, when I was in high school and nursing school making that decision, do I go out and protest? With the flower children, you know, go out and protest, or do I join the army? And it was, it was that, those were my decisions that I was going to do one or the other. And, you know, most, by (19)68-(19)69. Most people, families were trying to avoid the drought, that is for sure. My brothers, I had two older brothers, and my parents went to the town. I do not know, I forget, man, what we call Mrs. Bouncer, the draft commission of something. And got, got deferments, my brothers every six months, because they were in school, and to keep them out of the Army, you know, and then by the time all these guys died, they came up with a rule, but Cohasset just lost too many. And we were not going to send any more over to Vietnam from Cohasset. No we were, we were very aware, very aware. I mean, you know, I remember the day that Kennedy was shot and Martin Luther King, and very much part of the, very much part of the illusion and disillusionment of the times. They were some difficult times, were not they? SM: 17:28 Yeah, you bring up a question I was going to ask later, but I will ask it now, because, you know, I call, you are probably what they call the, the early boomer group, which is the front edge boomers, and they were born between (19)46 and about (19)57. And, the impact a lot of this had on that part of the boomer generation was very strong, obviously. And the death of John Kennedy in 1963, and then the deaths of Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King in (19)68. It, people kind of remember, where were you when you heard that John Kennedy was killed? JM: 17:29 Yeah-yeah, exactly. Right. Right. We knew where we were right, what you are asking me. SM: 18:02 Yeah where were, how did you find out, and where were you? JM: 18:18 Well, I was, I was in high school, and November 22nd, and it was at one o'clock in the afternoon. And they made, and I had majorette practice, I was the captain of the majorette group, majorette. And, they made an announcement on the PA system that Kennedy had been shot. And I guess they have dismissed school or something, but I went down to the gym. And by the time I go to the gym, then they announced that he had been killed. And, of course, we did not have majorette practice. That was a first. And then I remember, we did not have school on Friday, and then the funeral was Monday. But the horse, you know, and I remember going over to my friend Linda's house with her dad, in their house, and sitting in their den watching the funeral. SM: 19:22 Yeah. The shock, you know, we were, I am about the same age. We were, you know, we were young and man, that was a shock to everyone. And, and then, of course, as the (19)60s moved on, then we had the, within three months, the killings of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, and they were equally shocking. JM: 19:48 Oh, right. But, it was worse. It was scary. It was, you know, and it was sad. It was, it was very painful, very painful. SM: 20:02 When you were, again, you were, you were young, this is before you become a nurse. But, did you start questioning about America? Where was America going? You know, we are having some of that right now in the world today. With everything going on in 2020 people are asking these questions. Is our nation going to survive these things in the long run? Did you think about that? Did you think about any of this when, you, these tragedies were happening? JM: 20:34 Well, I think even when I was in nursing school, I did not understand. Remember, like I said, in my-my speech there, I did not understand why we were in this war. But I had this idea in my head that the government knew why we were. And I thought, if I went over to war, I would find out why we were in this war. And, so I still have this idea that the government knew what they were doing. But boy, did I get disillusion about that? While I was in Vietnam, I think I kind of got awakened that, no, they do not know what they are doing. And I mean worse than that, it was, I mean, to be very honest with you, what I found out was that there was this thing called the military industrial complex. There were people making lots of money off of this war. And, and that seemed to be what was driving them. There was not, it was not the Vietnamese people wanting democracy, they just wanted to know where their next meal was going to be, and they wanted to visit their relatives unknowing. And, you know, who are we? And then this whole idea that they would draft 18-year old and 19-year-old, I think that was done on purpose. Because they figured 18-19-year old did not know any better. You know, they were very more, more pliable than the 25-year-old. And because when I was, l I mean, the only guys I saw wounded and blown up were 18-19-year old. So they must have just really, it seemed to be pretty purposeful. SM: 22:22 Were your parents for or against the war? And did you have any, what they call a generation gap in your family over that war? JM: 22:31 Oh, well, my father had served in World War II, and he was in the Navy. And I thought, when I came up with this idea of going into the army, I had hoped that I would, what do I say, leaned on his, his sense of patriotism or something because they had to sign papers for me because I was only, I was 19, I think when I went in, I went in as I was still a student in nursing school. So, I went into the Army student nurse program, and they take me my last year, and then I owed them too. And so yeah, my parents had to sign in. I remember that day, you know, putting the papers out there after dinner, at the dinner table, and wondering if they would be willing to do it. But they did, and I mean, I think it is kind of crazy doing it. They work so hard to keep my brothers out of war. And then they are wondering, "Oh, my daughter comes home, then wants to do this." I, you know, they just signed, I do not know, I do not know what they were thinking. But I know, I think my father was very proud because he was, in the Legion he would, and you know, Cohasset you heard my speech, we have this- SM: 24:07 Right. JM: 24:07 -Memorial Day parade. And, and he went out within Vietnam. I know they were very upset when I, I mean, I came to Walter Reed. And then I had to go home and tell them, "I got to go to Vietnam." They were very upset. They were, they were not happy about that. Like I could do something about it. You know, they accused me of volunteering. But you know, I had to go. So, off I went. And that Memorial Day that I was away my father at the parade, at the end of the parade at the podium, you know, announced that I was in Vietnam and that he had heard from me. I think that morning, I am not sure I was allowed to call home once a month and so the town, not only my parents, but the whole town knew I was over there. And what I was doing, and then, you know, to come home, and then my father when I came home from Vietnam, I think in (19)72, for Memorial Day, he asked me to march in the parade, and I said, "No, not going to march, not going to put on that uniform." And I remember my mother coming upstairs and saying, "Would you please? Would you do it for your father? You will not do it for anybody else, will you do for your father?" So I said, "Okay," so I pulled out my summary chords uniform. I went down there, and there was only two other guys and me, because most days, remember, you did not put on a uniform. SM: 24:07 Right. JM: 25:51 You would get stoned, or rotten tomatoes, or whatever. And the three of us stood proudly and walked down Main Street of Cohasset, wearing our uniform. And since then, I think there is I do not know how many, 50, I do not know a lot more have come out. You know, of course, that was a long time ago. But, so then my father asked me to give my speech a couple of years later, some time to give a talk at the end of the parade, as the guest speaker, and I remember saying to him, "Okay, I will give you my talk, but it is not going to be a talk. You are going to like." Obvious, I had a lot of anger in me, you know. SM: 26:33 Right. JM: 26:34 And I said, "Yeah, I am not going to talk about heroes. I am not going to do that. I am going to tell you the truth about what, what I observed about war." And so, that was my first anti, anti-war talk on Memorial Day. [chuckles] SM: 26:54 Wow, that is a lot of courage. That is a lot of courage. But yeah, you had a lot of courage and desire to serve by going to Vietnam so, that it kind of came out in your speech. You know, you talked about the military industrial complex. You know, Eisenhower warned us about that, when he was leaving office. Be wary of the military industrial complex. And he, I was telling him this stuff that Kennedy, before Kennedy became president. So it was kind of, his thoughts were right on. Some of the other events of the 1960s, just like you, if, when you first heard, he probably knew where you were, or how about the shootings at Kent State in 1970. That was a shocker too, that killed people. Yeah, you know, there has been a lot of protests, but nobody has been shot. JM: 27:47 Yeah. Well, 1970, so and see, I was probably in Vietnam when that went on. And so in (19)71, or (19)72, I was in Colorado, and I joined, I was going to Colorado University, and I joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War protest group. So, I was right here with them protesting, you know, doing anything to get us the hell out of war. You know, I was pretty committed to this war was wrong, and we needed to get out of that. SM: 28:43 The, you chose a career in nursing, a career that helps you decide what you could do to serve your nation, which is, which is certainly honorable. And you were against the war, but you still went because of the eight that you knew had died from your hometown. You brought this up at your presentation at the Vietnam Memorial. That must have really created mixed emotions with you even when you were over there serving. Can you talk at all about, first off that the trip over, the flight over, usually when people from, who are going to Vietnam that trip over, they had a lot of feelings and when they got off that plane and felt that heat, that was the second thing and then saw others that were coming home? Just you know, that whole, your feelings over there knowing that these things are going on back in the United States. The anti-war movement was so strong. And I think part of the anti-war movement was also over in Vietnam because the African American soldiers were dealing with a lot of the civil rights issues as well that were going on in America. [crosstalk] JM: 30:06 Yep. Those are two separate issues. Those are two, there was an anti-Vietnam war movement in Vietnam, and there was a civil rights movement of the black soldiers that were being mistreated, you know, send off to jail. And, and we and, and that was scary. Both of that was scary. Now, the anti-Vietnam movement, I will tell you a story is that we, the docs and the nurses, you know, put, you know, we had officers and enlisted in the officers and all of that, and we, but we had a place, Lance's Bar, that where we lived in the barracks, well it was not a barrack, we call them hooches. But anyway, there is, and we would go there to, you know, get together, to say goodbye, have a party, either somebody was leaving, or somebody just came and, and would sing and have drinks, I guess, I do not know, sit around in a circle. Maybe, I do not, maybe 15 of us, 20 of us, and the docs and the nurses, you can imagine, you have got very close to these people. And at the end would always, end by singing, "You have got a friend, you have got a friend," James Taylor. And then would stomp, stomp on the floor at the end, "Peace now, peace now." Well, one night, the group had this same demonstration out on top of the bunkers, and Harvey was there. He is our radiologist taking movies of this, and singing the song, I guess and everything. Well, this got reported to somebody, I guess, the echo, and he reported to Saigon. And then Saigon had an investigation of us, and they all came up in their helicopters, and interviewed everybody. I cannot remember if I get interviewed or not, because I said I was working that night. I am sorry. I missed it, you know. [chuckles] And so, that was a big deal. So with our punishment, I remember was, they were not going to give us any medals. Of course, we laugh about it, because in those days in the army, right, if you did something wrong, they threatened you with going to Vietnam. Okay. Then when you were in Vietnam, they threatened you with going further north, near the DMZ, but we were already about as far north as you could get. [laughter] So, they took away our metals. And I remember a couple of the guys say, "You know, I was not going to wear those damn metals ever again anyway." So yeah, we had our own anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. And I remember the black enlisted guys, scaring, you know, they had weapons in their barracks and they were going to have a revolt and we had a couple of black docs, physicians, thank God, that went over and they went over, and talked to them, and calmed them down. So, we were okay. So yeah, there was there was, there was a lot going on, you know, to the, yeah, there was a lot going on. SM: 33:29 What was that feeling when you got on that plane heading to Vietnam? What were your- what was going through your mind there? That is a long flight. JM: 33:38 It is, it is. And I left from Washington, my family, I had gone home. And I was, I had to be in this wedding for my brother and I was the maid, and I was a, you know, bridesmaid. And oh, my God, my cousin had been injured in Vietnam, and my aunt is asking me to take care of them. And I am like, I was, I am like, "Oh my god, I cannot do all this people." But, and then, I got on a plane, came back here to Washington, to my friends here. And then they had to put me on a plane at [inaudible] and with my duffel bag, and that was it too, being back home in Cohasset, I remember packing a duffel bag and thinking, you know, how do you pack for a year? As a woman knowing there are no shopping malls, people. [chuckles] You know and, and figuring that all out, and packing the duffel bag, and I think they allowed me to have another suitcase, I had a croc suitcase. And getting back here to Washington and then Beth and M drove me to the airport, and then I flew to Hawaii and I called them I remember and I just cried. So then from, then on, Hawaii to Cyprus. I think I landed in Guam. And then on to Saigon, it felt like I cried every 15 minutes, I just cried. I just cried, I was alone. And then I remember being on this plane with 250 GI's. And somebody is saying, "For any second lieutenants out there, your average life is 20 minutes," or something and then someone else saying, "Look to your left, look to your right. One of you is not going to make it back." So it is a very long time, as a woman, as a young woman, 22. And, and, and I do not remember the guys like being overly friendly at all, somehow, or I might, just so caught up in myself, you know, I am scared. And then we come landing into Saigon there, and there were these, what, there is flares going off. And I thought they were bombs. Because what do I know, I do not know what bombs, I do not know anything like that, oh, my God. And, and then I got out of the airplane, yet somehow. And they put me in a hut somewhere that had concertina wire around it, for three days. And there was a guard there, and I did not know if he was guarding me to keep the enemy out or to keep me in. [laughter] I did not know what the hell I was doing. I remember reading a book, and I waited. And then they finally maybe I have got my uniforms then. Somehow, they took me somewhere to get uniforms, and put my name on the uniform. And then I went down to Saigon too, and I met with the Chief Nurse. And I remember her saying, "What are you doing here? I did not know you was coming." And I am thinking, "Oh, my God. All this. And she does not want me." But anyway, and then she goes "What am I going to do with you?" "I do not know," I thought- SM: 34:37 [chuckles} [chuckles] JM: 34:55 -you know, so then she said, "Okay, I am going to put you up with the knives at the backup." And I am going to, so they put me in a C-140 with another 200 guys. And we landed every 20 minutes or something you had to unload and load. In fact, it was nighttime by the time I got up there, and they could not safely get me over to the hospital. So, I had to stay at the airport with the red, with the Donut Dollies place. So I am like, "What the hell are you people doing here? Why would you?" Oh, but then they have got me over the 95th, somehow, somebody got me over there. And so, the Chief nurse was there. And she said, "Here, here is your mooch, go to there. Come back and see me in three days." [chuckles] Because she is such a mess, I guess she figures. So anyway, it was, it was not easy, no. And then she assigned me to the ICU. And because I had come from Reed and I had worked recovering from ICU. And then that did not work out well. So then she moved me down to this, what they call a pre-op and receiving which was, as you heard me say, essentially the emergency room. And she said, I know you can take care of your own patients down there. And you can call the shots more or less. So, I went down there and that is where I met Christy and Annie, and we just became best friends, the three of us, and uncovering the docks, you know, and we had a great team. So things, but it was, it was either. I mean it was, ugh. SM: 38:55 Were you there, [crosstalk] were you at this location the whole time you were in Vietnam? JM: 39:02 Yes. Yeah. I never went anywhere. And you know, you could not go anywhere either. SM: 39:07 How long were you there? JM: 39:10 Ten months. And you could not as a woman, of course you could not drive, of course, you did not have a vehicle. And you could not leave the compound, unless you were in uniform, in a vehicle, where the driver had agreed to take you to another military place. And the only place I went was China Beach where they had an officer's club and, you know, a change area and you know, so and that was, that was I think it was Army, might have been Navy. I do not know. But that was the only place I went to, which is often by myself. SM: 39:52 Were you a seven day a week nurse, or would you, did you, were you five days a week and two days off? JM: 39:59 No, we worked, we worked six days, 12 hours a day. SM: 40:02 Wow. JM: 40:04 Seven to seven or seven to seven. SM: 40:07 Wow. And what were your duties there? JM: 40:12 Well, that is the outright. So, down there in pre-op and receiving, I mean, I had to learn. It was taking care of the wounded, that came in. Amputations, leg [inaudible], above the knee, below the knee, hip wounds, back wounds, chest wounds, and then they came in hypovolemic shock. And so, you were, I was, I learned how to resuscitate somebody in a hypovolemic shock. So, that meant starting IV's. And, you know, my orientation to going to war as a nurse was when Bob Watson in at Walter Reed, he had been to Vietnam, he was an anesthesiologist. And he heard I was, when I am on orders, to Vietnam. So, he took me to the back, to the operating room. And he taught me how to start an IV. Because he knew I needed to know how to do that. And so, by the time I got over there to pre-op and receiving down there, I knew how to start an IV and essentially, so you know, the wounded came in on the choppers on the chopper pad, the corpsman would grab a gurney, go out and get the wounded, bring them in, we put them on the sawhorses. And then I go to work, cut off your uniforms. And started, check, get their name, get a feel on a blood pressure count, start their IV, if you can get something going in the hand, or the arm, if not, I can stick them in the external jugular, I put them head down. If they were in so much shock, I could not get into a vein, I go into the external jugular and I have gotten really good at that, and start an IV and then I would also be doing what is called a femoral tic, stick a needle with the 10-cc syringe into their femoral artery, and ask for a 10-cc's of blood to hook it to two tubes of blood, and I would send it with a corpsman over to the blood bank right across the hall. And then, he would give it to the blood bank person in exchange for two units of-of, O neg, low titer blood, because that is a universal donor. And then in the meantime, the blood bank guy is typing and crossing. So, the next units would be type specific at least. And in the meantime, I am back here starting the IV's, setting up something for blood to get the blood going. And looking at the wounds, I mean, not looking at them, changing the bandages and then oh, and then writing up an X-ray. So because we would want to get them on to X-ray if there was any abdominal or even the legs to see if there were any cracks in the wound, you know. So, we try to stabilize them enough to get them to X-ray, if they were not stable I would have to go with them to X-ray, pumping the blood, pumping the IVs, get them out of X-ray. And hopefully you have got a stable blood pressure, 90 anyway. And then take them up the hall to the operating room. And then those that were not that critically injured went over to what we call pre-op and I would come back and look at them, and try to get them ready better. For the, you know, you had to be prioritizing all the time. You know, this one is going to go, and this one we can wait. So, that is what my day was like. SM: 43:54 When the really seriously wounded individuals, how long were they there? Did they take them, do they take them away to another hospital after a certain length of time? And for those who were not hurt as much, what was the longest number of days that they would stay in at your location? JM: 44:13 I would say for about two or three days. And we would stabilize them enough so that they can transport and so, two or three days and they either went back to their unit if they were really like, you know could, if they were okay, or two or three days and they were medivac to Camp Sama. So, usually we could load them onto a bus, you know on stretchers, and take them down, they would take them down to the airport, put them on a plane, and medivac them to Camp Sama in Japan. Yeah-yeah. SM: 44:47 In your speech you talked about, you know, holding the hand of someone who died. Could you describe a few experiences with wounded or dying vets? What did you do for them, no names? But, what were their wounds? And were you with them when they died? You know, there is different groups here, there is those that may have lost an arm or a leg. And so they found out that they, one of their limbs is gone, and how they reacted and so forth. And those that you could not do anything for, and we were going to die. And just a couple of the times, the experiences and I do not know if you ever mentioned this at the speech, but the thing is, did you ever go back to the wall on Washington, D.C. and tried to look up somebody on the wall that you would actually try to help save? JM: 45:42 No, I did not come home with any names. And I think I did that on purpose. I did not come home with any names. I remember, people, maybe a little bit from Walter Reed. But I do not, but not, no, no. And what was interesting in Vietnam, we never, I guess a nurse, you are used to like, you know, you have patient conferences. You talk about the patients, right? And when Chrissy, Annie and I would get together on the picnic bench with a bottle of bourbon. We would not talk about any patient. We just stuffed it. We just stuffed it. And I remember with Tony, he was a surgeon, and Sherry and, we did not, we just did not talk about it. We just did not talk about it. And then when we, when I came home and I ended up in Colorado, and Chrissy and Annie were out there and couple of other nurses, a couple of docs, about 10 of us, especially in Cafe McKenna. That is right, she was an OR nurse. And we then, we talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked. But in Vietnam, we did not talk, and I did not come home with anything. Nope. SM: 47:16 Yeah, I know that. I have interviewed a lot of people and read a lot of books, and some of the stories about some of the people in Vietnam who are seriously wounded. Now, some of them survived. But, they would always be talking and asking for their mom, or their brother, or their sister, or their, someone in their family because not knowing if they will ever see them again. Did you have a lot of that, or? JM: 47:43 No-no. Well, you know, for the most part, and this is, I remember, if a guy came in alive, they survived. You know, because that is, that is, because we were treating hypovolemic shock, you know, and you pump them up some fluids and some fluids. They will pick up for you, they will survive. Now, the only ones that did not survive in my experience, anyway, were the head wounds, because the nurse, you know, I would call the neurosurgeon down, to come down and assess and say there is nothing I can do with this one. And so, so I would take that patient in the back. And, I would sit with him until he died. But he was not conscious, you know, but I would stay there, I would not leave him alone. But I remember thinking that consciously you know, that, I, that they came in alive. They would leave alive, for the most part, and cause most of our wounds again, were amputations, blank amps. SM: 47:44 Okay. Yep. JM: 48:55 As long as you could catch up. SM: 49:04 The, you had mentioned that R&R was very important. And you mentioned China Beach, I think there was a T.V. show about that. I think there is something there with China Beach. But- JM: 49:14 Yes-yes. Of course. SM: 49:16 You were up north, you were near the DMZ, were not you, you were, you were up north. So, how far away was China Beach, and describe what China Beach is all about for those who have never heard of it? JM: 49:21 Yeah. Well, right there was a show China Beach, and it was a real China Beach and it was not it. [laughs] And as I said it was, it, I guess it was considered it was, it was an in-country R&R. So I guess, you know, soldiers would come in from the field. I do not know if they had any space for them to stay. Maybe they did, but that does not concern me. They need a place to stay. But, they did have an old club that I think served food. And the beach was just absolutely gorgeous, just absolutely gorgeous. And we would go sometimes, like real professional surgeons and nurses, and put down on a Sunday, we would be quote "off," [chuckles] and sit on the beach, and swim. But I remember sitting there one Sunday with everybody, and we are looking over to Marble Mountain. And there were bombs being dropped and stuff. I mean, you could hear the war. And we all said, "Well, we better pack it up. We are going to have business soon. We better get back to work." And that was the craziness of it all. You know. [chuckles] We were enjoying a beautiful day at the beach, in our bathing suits. I remember, I did not bring a bathing suit with me. And I had to write my mother and ask her to send me a bathing suit. I said, "But make it be one for a nun or something." [laughter] So, she sent me a one-piece bathing suit with a skirt to it, you know. So, you know, I just wanted to be, you know, I did not want to be wearing any bikinis on China Beach [chuckles]. SM: 51:30 Now the, China Beach, it was totally 100 percent secure. Was it really? You know, Vietnam was not safe anywhere. But that was one area, you knew you were safe. JM: 51:46 Yeah-yeah. It I think it had a perimeter. And I mean, it was only a section of the beach and it had some kind of a fence up there. And whether, there were probably guards out there. I know we, we had, they had Air Force. There were lifeguards there that we were active duty Air Force. Because I remember talking to one and then he told me he was in the Air Force. I thought, well, that is a nice job [laughter]. SM: 52:22 Now, could you talk about how you left Vietnam, you were there for 10 months? And I remember reading something that a United States senator helped you get home. But could you talk about when that time came when you are leaving Vietnam? JM: 52:44 Right, well, like in February, March, I, I came up with my five-year plan. That is what I call it, my five-year plan, which meant I want to get back, go to college. Because part of my going into was I knew I had the G.I. bill because my parents would not let me go to college and I wanted to go to college. I really, really wanted to go to college. I had good grades. I loved school. I wanted to go to medical school. But my father. and I got into five universities, but my father said "No, you are going to go to Mass General Hospital School of Nursing." Okay. So, that is my part of this thing. I had had the G.I. Bill to go to college. And so, I applied to colleges again, while I was in Vietnam, I got into two universities. And then I put the paperwork in for school. I was supposed to go home in October, but I needed to go home in August, so I could start school, the fall semester. We put the paperwork in and nothing happened, and nothing happened. So, it had to be like July, and nothing was happening. And so, the IG was coming for the day, early in the morning. I remember there was a sign up that said that the IG will be here at 7:30 in the morning, in this little room. So I said, "Okay, I am going to go and talk to the IG." So, I did, and I told him my story. And I said, "I have not heard anything." He said, "Okay, let me look into it." Well, he got back to me and said, "Oh, your paperwork was lost." So I thought really, and I said, "Chief it must have fallen out of the airplane on the way back to Washington, D.C." I was quite cynical when I said it. [laughs] And so, you know, I came back and I realized this army was not going to do anything for me to get out of here. So, I was working nights one night, and I am sitting there and thinking, "Okay, what are you going to do?" I could write to Ted Kennedy. Okay, knowing that if you write to your Senator, your days are numbered in the military. That just is not something you do as an officer. As a first lieutenant in the army, but I decided, and writing a letter from Vietnam, you know, there was no postage, but it could be, somebody could be reading it on the way out of the country. But I did, I wrote an eight-page letter to Ted Kennedy and told him my whole story, I want to go back, I am here today, and they will not let me out of here, and I want to go to school. Well, six days later, on a Sunday morning, the Chief Nurse, Lieutenant Colonel comes running down, I am working. And she said, "McCarthy, go pack your bags, you are out of here." That is how I left Vietnam. SM: 54:31 [laughs] JM: 55:04 And I went back to my room, and I packed my stuff up in my duffel bag. And I found John Robuski, who had a Jeep, I knew he had a Jeep, and we got in our flak jacket and helmet. But that time, they wanted us to wear this blackjack and helmet all the time. And he took me to the airport. And that is how I left. I never said goodbye to anybody. SM: 56:07 But you were on your way home. [chuckles] JM: 56:09 Yeah-yeah. So I got on a plane to [inaudible]. They kept me there for a few days. And then they got me on a plane to Travis Air Force Base. And they processed me out in eight hours. And, you know, now I have been on a plane for 26 hours, and they made me dress up in my uniform, not [inaudible]. And they said I could not bring any [inaudible] home with me. But you saw me, I had my [inaudible], I stuff, I stuffed in my duffel bag to bring home with me. But, that was illegal. They did not want you to do it. But, I did it anyway. But, I had to put on my skirt, and jacket, and stockings, and high heels, black heels to ride on my plane home. By the time I got to Travis I could not even put the high heels on my feet. My ankles was, my feet was so swollen, they walked me around for eight hours, processed me out of the army, and then at the last stop the guy hands me a couple thousand dollars and said "Okay, see you." I definitely did not see other coworkers. I said, "Where am I supposed to go?" He said, "Well, where do you live?" And I said, "Well, I guess Massachusetts." "Then get on an airplane and go," "Well, where is the airport?" "25 miles down the road." I said, "How do I get there?" "I do not know, grab a cab." [chuckles] SM: 57:33 [chuckles] Jeez, very helpful. JM: 57:37 Yeah. Yeah, that is how I left the Army SM: 57:42 Now, you had, you had talked about you had a five-year plan and your goals were to continue our education. And you know you are, you are a doctor, you got a PhD. Could you talk a little bit about, you know, your plans and then on your rival home? I have a couple of questions about post-traumatic stress disorder and Agent Orange. But I want to, just your five-year plan because it was a good one. JM: 58:11 Yeah, it was three years. I knew I needed three more years to get my college degree, a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. So I had applied to, say Indiana University's School of Nursing, and been accepted into Colorado University. And then my plan was after that was to go to anesthesia school to become a nurse anesthetist because I had found out about nurse anesthetist at Walter Reed and I thought, "Wow, this is something," but I did not think I would have the guts or the know how to do it. But in Vietnam, I said, "I can do this," and then went nurse anesthetists in Vietnam too. And, you know, I figured, yeah, I can do this. If I can do that, I can do this. So-so-so that was my plan, get my college degree, and then two more years in anesthesia school. So that is what I did, I came back. I went to IUP, Indiana University one semester, then I got in my car and drove out to Colorado, went to Colorado University, and went to Loretto Heights College, finished up the degree there. And then I had applied to Fairfax Hospital School, nurse anesthesia, got in there and moved back here to Virginia, went to that program, cut through, cut through there, and then I got a job at the Washington Hospital Center for a couple of years, and then I moved up to Walter Reed again. So now, I am back at Reed civilian nurse anesthetists in 1970, (19)78. And I was working, and Bob Watson was there, the same guy that said goodbye to me, you know, I mean, you know, they have taught me how to start an IV now, and so in the whole department and Bob was my chair, and well, it was connected to the Uniformed Services University. And somehow, I found out about that, and I went over, and I talked to Bob about it. And he said, "Well, you know, you got to go to medical school," but I do not want to go to medical school, I think I want to go on to my PhD in research, to do research. So he said, "Okay," so I went over for a couple of interviews there, and they accepted me. And so I, while I was back being a student and I loved it, I absolutely loved it. I mean, it was really hard. But, I had to give up my job at Reed. And I was essentially in medical school for two years. And then you go off, and do the research for three years, basic science research. And, you know, it was great. It was, it was hard. As I said, it was very hard. But, I learned how to do some really significant research. And from there, I did a postdoc at Mammary Naval Medical Research Institute. And then FDA found me and asked me to come over and work there as their basic scientist because of my pre-doctoral work, which was in high frequency ventilation, and FDA was reviewing the first high frequency ventilators for infants, and my research was preclinical. But anyway, I was a [inaudible], I was living my hat at the time. And so that is how I got into my work at FDA. And I transferred from an Army Reserve. And I became an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, working at FDA. And so I was able to, you know, being in that uniform, Public Health Service for 20 years. With my work at FDA. SM: 1:02:08 Wow. JM: 1:02:09 That is a quick long story, is not it? SM: 1:02:11 But that is a great, I mean, it is a kind of, having a goal and doing it, having a goal, and doing it. And that is, it says a lot about you. And what you have done your whole life. Did you ever experienced Agent Orange? Did you ever have any effects of that when you were there? JM: 1:02:28 Well, I do not. Well, I mean, I do not, do people have acute effects of Agent Orange? SM: 1:02:37 Some people that have had cancer, they figured they got it from Agent Orange. JM: 1:02:41 Well, right. Right, you see, you do not have acute but long years and years later. SM: 1:02:47 I know many Vietnam vets and what they had to go through to prove they were victims of Agent Orange was kind of a living hell and. Right JM: 1:02:47 And my friend Chrissy that I told you about, and Annie's husband that she met there, both have strange Leukemias and died come from them. And, and I often though, and Chrissy did too, but it was our exposure to Agent Orange because we were cutting off their uniforms, right, when they came in, the wounded. And we did not wear, we did not wear gloves, [chuckles] we were not wearing gloves. And we, so we definitely could have been exposed to it. I had breast cancer about 15 years ago. And I think I put a claim into VA for it, but I never really followed up on it. Thank goodness I, I had an early, very early stage. And so, my treatment was successful. Well, my end was going through, my was, of course I never got in the Agent Orange thing, but my thing was hard that was hard was PTSD. SM: 1:04:17 Yeah, could you explain how you knew you had it? JM: 1:04:23 Well, it is not like, okay, okay. Okay. Let us see. I think like, I think I said my job. Looking back, I had classic PTSD and also how I knew that was, okay, when I was getting out of the Public Health Service retiring about 15 years ago or so, or 20, I do not know, 15 years ago. They told me make sure you go to VA and get an exit physical. So this is 2006, right, 25 years or something, or 30, whatever, 40 years after Vietnam, but they said, get an exit physical. So I said, "Okay," so I went down to VA in D.C. And part of that was, I somehow, I met with a clinical psychologist and they took my history. And I told them my symptoms when I first came home from Vietnam, you know, I did not sleep for six months, I did not eat. I was depressed. I was numb. I, you know, the classic stuff. And so he said, anyway, I remember him saying to me, "You have classic symptoms of PTSD." Okay, so I guess he put paperwork in for me to get, to get process for disability for PTSD. And I remember having to do that, I had to come up with letters that I was within Vietnam, and letters of people that knew me and Vietnam, and letters from psychologists with relationship things. And, yeah, I had to do a lot of work to get that but it did finally come through. I think I got 60 percent disability. But then seven years later, they, they asked that I do a reevaluation. So, I went back down to VA again in D.C., and I was seen by this civilian old psychiatrist who said to me, "Well, you look pretty good to me right now," and that was the end of that. SM: 1:06:46 I read someplace, because I have looked up several articles on you, that you were working with a younger nurse and, a woman came in, and died in the office or something like that. And he said, you were not as emotional about that, as you know, because you have seen so much death in Vietnam. JM: 1:07:07 Yeah, yeah. So, when I came back, I was in Indiana, and I was working, I thought, okay, I guess I am an emergency room nurse now. And I got a job at the city hospital there in Indianapolis. And in the ER, and I am working evenings, and I am working with a student who was assigned to work with me, a student nurse, old lady came in with a fractured hip in her bed, and I said, "Why do not you go ahead over to X-ray with her." So the student comes back, and she is crying. And I said, "What are you crying about it," she said, "She died." And I hope I did not say this, I thought about it. I thought, you were crying over that? I was holding a 19-year-old in my arms who bled to death in my arm, two weeks ago. And that is when I knew I ought not to be here. This is not a good place for me to be. So I was so numb, I realized that, you know, so I never did, I do not think, I left that job. But shortly after that, I moved out to Colorado. And I do not think, I worked at the city hospital there. But maybe the Chief Nurse knew enough, that could see that, I was damaged goods or something and then an ER with, anyway, I remember working in a pediatric clinic, and then they put me on the jail ward. But at least, I do not know. Yeah. Anyway, that is- SM: 1:08:51 Great. JM: 1:08:51 -that is what happened. SM: 1:08:53 When you came home from the war, you said you remember a Vietnam Veterans Against, Viet Vets against the war. And you were involved in some of the protests that they did as well. Did you attend, any of the activity that took place on that one weekend where they were actually throwing their, their metals over a fence, and going up to a microphone and, and then that was the same weekend that John Kerry gave that famous speech? Before the Foreign Relations Committee with William Fulbright. You know, he said something about the fact that, you know, how can you say, how can I keep on serving in Vietnam and say, I would be the last man to die in a war that, that was so wrong or something like that. Were you there that weekend? Were you aware that was going on, as a member of Vietnam Vets of America against the war? JM: 1:09:48 No, I did not. I do not, where was it? SM: 1:09:52 It was in Washington, D.C. JM: 1:09:53 No-no-no. No, I, do not know, I did not get involved. And really, I did not come to D.C., I did not. I was barely keeping my own life together, I think [chuckles] you know what I mean? I was not, I was not seeing like John Kerry. I mean, I did, as I said, in Colorado, and I went to a couple of meetings, a couple of demonstrations there. But even when I got back here to go to anesthesia school, I do not remember being really involved. It was not until, but then we had that, I was involved, but in a positive way, rather than a negative way. If you know what I mean, like (19)80-(19)82, we had the dedication of the wall, I was there for that. And in (19)93, I was there and that even, I went to the Congress for the hearings. You know, I was involved, but I do not remember going to any demonstrations. SM: 1:11:10 Yeah, that was just, that is how John Kerry's career really started. He gave that speech and it was a heck of a great speech. And he had a senator and William Fulbright that, that wanted him to come speak. And obviously, William Fulbright was not liked at that time by L.B.J. And so it was, you know, it was his historic time. You know, I like your comments too. You are a Vietnam veteran and how the nation treated Vietnam veterans is disgraceful upon their return. I have a story here I want you to respond to and it is just a typical example of how the vets are treated upon the return. Bobby Mahler who founded Vietnam Veterans of America, told me in an interview, and I have seen him several other times, that the reason why he created this organization was because when he came home, severely wounded, paralyzed from the waist down. He was in the hospital. And they had absolutely no wheelchairs at his hospital, and he asked for a wheelchair and he said, "We do not have any." And he thought that was ridiculous. He, people were coming home from war, and could not walk. And so he put in his mind, personally as one person, that I am going to do something to make sure this never happens again to other vets. And that is how he kind of, the reason why he formed Vietnam Veterans of America. And of course, he was one of the cofounders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, too. But your overall comments about how Vietnam vets were treated upon their return, it is, it is upsetting. JM: 1:12:54 Well, I do not, well, I mean, which comments? SM: 1:13:02 No, just any thoughts on how America treated its vets who served in Vietnam? JM: 1:13:06 Oh you are asking me what, what- SM: 1:13:09 Yeah. JM: 1:13:10 -I do not, I think I do not, this is my opinion. But, I do not think a parade would have helped. And I do not think my feelings, there was PTSD, or that, you know, having experienced war, we need to heal, we need to heal. And then I guess what we did with the wall and the memorial was healing. That is healing. I mean, I do not think coming home to a parade. I mean, there was nothing to celebrate, what are you going to celebrate? You were just in a war that nobody knows why the hell we were in this damn thing. I think it is more about so, it was not I was not all about that I got spit on and that kind of stuff. It was not about me. I mean, what we needed and Chrissy and I worked on that for years. When we came home I remember you know she was out in California and had a lot to do with that show China Beach. The producers worked with her, and interviewed her. She, a lot of the shows were based on her stories. SM: 1:14:38 Who you are talking about, Chrissy? Whose Chrissy? JM: 1:14:43 Chrissy was with me and, was a nurse there in pre-op and receiving. SM: 1:14:48 Okay. JM: 1:14:48 It was, yeah, yeah, we were best friends. We got home. She was in Colorado. And you know, we stayed in touch. But she was out in California, working with the, working, and on the side, you know, we all did our Vietnam stuff on the side. Then we, what we worked on was like the Vet Centers, you know, Vet Centers, and getting veterans help that way. We, we felt very, that is what we needed, where we needed to be putting our energy away. Not so much a parade, to get them some help. And they started these Vet centers on the sidewalks, you know, that was supposed to be if you were a veteran come in, and we will help you. And we needed to get them more help that way. I do not know if that is making sense. SM: 1:15:48 Oh, yeah, it does. It is a different opinion. And that is, that is important. JM: 1:15:52 I do not think I do not think a parade would have helped. SM: 1:15:55 Right. JM: 1:15:55 You know, I think that the Vietnam vets they had trouble with, we had trouble because we have witnessed atrocities of war. And what are you going to do celebrate that they needed to? SM: 1:16:08 Right. JM: 1:16:09 You know, we needed to process that. We needed to process with other veterans, with other, because you could not talk to anybody that had not been there. They did not understand. And we needed to support the veterans that way to help them get on with their lives. But I mean, and to help heal, and what they went through. SM: 1:16:34 You attended both of the- these historic events, the opening of the wall in 1982, and the opening of the women's memorial in 1993. As a veteran I have seen, I live in California, I could not come to attend. But, that picture of the wall opening is, man, there was a lot of people there. Could you, what was the feelings that, that was there, in 1982? Just-just being there, what did it, how did you feel? JM: 1:17:04 So, it was, it was very exciting. There was a lot of hoopla, there was a lot of, there was a, you know, a lot of veterans here on motorcycles. And so, there was that kind of celebration. But I think afterwards, you know, when-when, like, the wall was a very somber place. It was almost sacred, you know, and it was very different from any other Memorial. And when people would come in, like, I remember when Chrissy came in to see the wall for the first time, and my friend, Mike Camp, who was a psychiatrist. I think he was still at Walter Reed them, and we were in Vietnam together. And, and we both thought, we cannot let Chrissy see that wall by herself, and we met her at the wall. And we walked her through the wall, with her. I mean, that is, that is, that is what kind of a sites it is, when you see it for the first time. And, and then seeing the soldiers, you know, looking at the wall. So, there was a difference between to me anyway, that day when we celebrated the dedication of the wall. And then afterwards, the impact it has on veterans since, even to this day, you know that- SM: 1:18:41 Yes. JM: 1:18:42 -you have airplanes full of veterans coming in to look at that wall. And but then, you look at 1993 right, by then I was at the Uniformed Services University as a professor. I was in uniform now. And several of us went down to the dedication. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. You know, all kinds of nurses came in from all over the country. And I remember this friend of mine, another friend, Janet Smart, from Colorado. She and I were friends in Colorado. I mean, you know, when we ran the streets, and we skied, and partied, and she was a ski instructor, and she had been, she was a nurse in the reserve unit. But so I left Colorado, you know, and came back and now we were, what, 20 years later or so 15 years later, and we were at the Dedication of the Nurses Memorial. I am and I look up and she is tall like I am, and I looked over, and there was Janet. And we both said to each other, "What are you doing here?" [laughter] And she said, "I was in Vietnam," and I said "Well, so was I." We had been friends in Colorado for three years, never told each other that we had been in Vietnam. SM: 1:20:06 Oh my gosh. Yeah. JM: 1:20:08 Yeah. So, I mean, that just shows you how much you can stuff it. But that so anyway, that day I told her in my speech I talked about, the somberness. But the nurse’s memorial, I feel like it is still different. I can go and sit there, and I do not know, it feels more healing, and peaceful, or something underneath the trees. And whereas the wall, you know, if you really look at the wall, it has got all those names on it. SM: 1:20:48 You know, Jam Scruggs wrote, his first book was "To heal a Nation." And, and this is a question I have asked all the people I have interviewed. When Jan used to say a lot, "This is not a political entity. This is all about remembrance. This is about making sure that we never forget those who served in Vietnam and lost their lives. And those who did serve in Vietnam and came home, and for the families of those who are no longer with us," that, you know, it was all about that, it was about healing. He goes on and it is done a great job in terms of healing, the Vietnam vets, and their families. The question is whether what the job is done with healing the nation that was so divided in, in the (19)60s? And that everybody has their own opinions on this. Do you think that wall has helped us heal as a nation? JM: 1:21:49 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I think it was a turning point in, in how we looked at war, I mean, every other Memorial, is memorializing the heroes coming home. And I think that this memorial, is memorializing the high cost of war, and the pain of war. And I mean, I differ from Shannon, a bit there that it is not about remembering, it is about, it is about remembering these people. But it is also, it is about remembering the high costs of war, and we ought to think twice about getting into another war. SM: 1:22:39 Right. JM: 1:22:41 But that is very opposite meaning of every other Memorial where you look at "Oh, the soldiers, the heroes." I do not get that from the wall. I do not get that from, from looking at the wall. I get that this, we lost 58,000 men for what? And that is what even the soldiers, the way those soldiers are looking at that wall, you know. SM: 1:23:17 In your view, what is the legacy of the Vietnam War? And what were the lessons learned or lost in that war? JM: 1:23:26 Oh, I was hoping that we had learned the lesson of not getting into war. Nothing good comes of it. That is all we have atrocities, and lives lost, and countries ruin. When you think, you know that poor Vietnam country, the bombing, and everything, ugh. You know, wars are not good, nothing good comes out of them. And in this whole thing, you got a question. Somebody say, well, it was the domino theory. Really? Really, that is what we were told we were there because of the domino theory. Yeah, we lost and I do not see any dominoes falling here. And Vietnam, even though it was under communist rule, it was probably, it was probably better off than-than it was when it was being at war for 15-20 years. SM: 1:24:33 Who do you blame for the war, if you know? JM: 1:24:40 I think, I think all of them you know, the military industrial complex, the people making money off to the war. They were pushing it. The lobbyists, the weapons people, the convinced, and I knew Johnson he knew it was wrong. And then Nixon, you know, he did. It was the one time voted for Nixon was because he said he would get us the hell out of there- SM: 1:25:15 Right. JM: 1:25:19 -but I thought, I thought once we got out of there that we had learned our lessons, and then you see in (19)91, 20 years later, Bush invaded Iran. And I fell apart, then I fell apart. I just did not think our country would ever do that. And that is when I really fell apart with PTSD. Because I just, I, we could not turn the T.V. on in my house. We, you know, I could not I got really depressed, I just could not believe that we were doing that again. SM: 1:25:57 And now we are talking about building another memorial for the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, so. Because that is what I think Jan is, is somewhat linked to that effort, because he is always we are thinking about those who serve the nation, and so- JM: 1:26:16 I am not. Yeah, right, no. SM: 1:26:20 One of the questions I want to ask before I ask my final two questions is, do you consider the activists who tried to end the war as heroes like those who served in the war in Vietnam, both are not treated well, upon the returned? Nixon called the silent majority; his group was called the silent majority during the (19)60s and early (19)70s. And they are the ones that kind of were, after those who served the anti-war protesters and so forth. But they were trying to save lives. But, the ones that were not it for just fun. The true activist one to save lives in Vietnam, not only the people who served in Vietnam, Americans, but also the Vietnamese population as well. Would you consider them? You know, the divisions of the (19)60s are such that how could you dare call an anti-war protester a hero, but today, when you are talking about today's terms, looking at Vietnam vets who I consider heroes, and, and Viet, and then the anti-war protesters who are against this war for many, many years, all ages, not just young people, if they were sincere, and bringing people home to save lives, I consider them heroes. What are your thoughts? JM: 1:27:45 What that we care about the Vietnamese people too, is what you are asking? SM: 1:27:50 No, it was do you consider the anti-war, the people who were anti-war protesters? Do you consider them heroes too? JM: 1:27:58 Yes, absolutely. Thank God we had them, thank God. Because, you know, that helped get us the hell out of there. But if people just sat back and said, "Okay, let us keep going with this war." We were losing a 1000 men a month, were being killed. No, absolutely. Thank God for the protesters. I think maybe Nixon was who got us the hell out of there, do not you? SM: 1:28:24 Yeah. I agree. JM: 1:28:27 Right? SM: 1:28:28 Yes. JM: 1:28:29 Yeah, thank God to the protesters. We needed more of them. SM: 1:28:35 The, I have a question too as a general question, is several people have talked about the 1960s and early (29)70s as two different groups, two different eras. The one era was 1960-(19)63, and the second era was (19)64-1975, when the helicopters flew off the Embassy in Saigon, of course, they are referring to probably the era of Kennedy, and then his death. And then the second (19)60s started in (19)64. Or do you consider it all one? JM: 1:29:18 Well, yeah-yeah, I cannot say I could separate them. You know, that. What separates them into what? I do not know. Two different eras? Yeah. SM: 1:29:53 No. That is just something, one of the top military people at the World War II Memorial when I interviewed him-him, he broke it down in the 2 (19)60s. It is just a thought that some people have, said it was two different years in one year. JM: 1:30:08 No-no, they were not my life. They were the most influential years of my life. And they were all very much connected, that you know, then our president was killed. And that we were shooting people like Martin Luther King. I mean, then Kennedy was probably killed because of the civil rights that he was willing to, to work with. And so, it was that, and then we got this. I mean, I guess it was different than that. Then we have got another bunch of people that want to get into a war in Vietnam. [laughs]. Oh, God. SM: 1:30:56 Certainly, for the, your, your thoughts on the boomer generation as a whole? Do you have any opinions on them? JM: 1:31:05 Well, I am one, right? SM: 1:31:06 Yes, you are one. JM: 1:31:20 I think, I mean, I always thought that we were very illusioned. I mean, that Kennedy, remember, Kennedy, and he, he had the Peace Corps. And, you know, there were ideals we could strive for. We were very idealistic, that whatever we wanted to do, we could do, and what, and that is what I got out of the (19)60s, you know, whatever I wanted to do, I could do it, and I was going to go do it. And I think it was a woman, a young woman that my mother could not do, or chose or did not do, the things I did, that was another generation. But I decided I was going to, I could, I could see the possibility, the possibility. And I wrote that way, if you want to think about it that way, as a woman, that, you know, there was something saying to me, I could be whoever I wanted to be, and I was going to go be it. And I do not think I would have, I think we were the first generation to be able to do that. In other words, to-to be able to go and get myself educated, to have a successful career, to be a leader, and to have my own family. I mean, I was raised that as a woman, you could not do all those things. SM: 1:32:58 That is very well said, very well said. And I want to end the, this last question. What would you say to young people, or people who are listening to this interview, 50 years from now, long after both you and I are gone, and many of our generation is, the boomers will all be gone too? What words of advice would you like to give to those people? JM: 1:33:27 Well, you know, again, as a woman, that this was the beginning of those opportunities. And I do not know what is going to happen like with, with the, well with the Supreme Court, and remember as a woman in 1973, that those opportunities had just begun, for a woman's right to choose. And, we did not have those rights before. And I think that is what opened up a lot of doors, and I do not know what is going to happen, if those doors are going to close. And, but we had it in 1973. We had it as women, and then, and we believed in democracy, and we believed in equality of all, you know, all, at least I did, maybe I was naive, but I believed in a country where everyone could be equal. Black people, white people, we all had equal opportunity, or at least opportunity to do good things with our lives. And I think that is being challenged now with this autocracy with the Supreme Court, and this, these cowboys and whatever, you know, I hope we are going to be able to keep our democracy going, because that is what gives us the opportunity to do what we want to do from within, inside ourselves. And that could be taken away from us. I hope it is not. But I consider myself very, very lucky that I was right on the cusp of that. And I figured out a way to do what I wanted to do with my life and to not let things like the fact that I am a woman stop me. SM: 1:35:26 Well, this has been one heck of an interview and I want to thank you very much for-for agreeing to do this. I am going to turn the tape off now and say a few more comments afterwards. Thanks again. (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 Dr. Elizabeth Jane McCarthy https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4525b62ca2a901b7dfdaa444139be635.jpeg 2a5a8b3dbca90c992965d74960ee2e44 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/d57cb0b3669fed6f8a8f7e103d444924.mp3 bdf7a7d568a10675367e38f1ead59ad6 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 23 June 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Howard Ruffner Biographical Text Howard Ruffner was born in Cleveland, Ohio. After high school, he joined the Air Force in 1965. His experience with photography started when he worked at the Air Force headquarters in Waco, Texas. After leaving the Air Force, he started college in 1969. While studying at Kent State University, Ruffner started working as a photographer for the university's student newspaper. He was a college sophomore when the shootings of May 4, 1970, occurred. He witnessed and documented this event and his photographs appeared on the cover of <em>Life</em>. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:28:20 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 Digital file Date of Digitization 23 June 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Kent State shooting; Students; Pictures; National guard; Campus:&nbsp; Taylor Hall; Protest; Photographs; Yearbook; Kent State University; Building; Guard; Photographer; Film; Fire. 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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: Howard Ruffner Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 23 June 2022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Start of Interview) SM: 00:01 Alright, can you hear me? HF: 00:03 No, I can hear you fine. SM: 00:04 Okay. Thanks, Howard. I start out, could you talk about your growing up years, where you grew up? What your parents did for a living, where you went to high school, your early interests? And were you the first to go to college in your family, that kind of stuff? HF: 00:20 Well, my name is Howard Ruffner. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. I grew up in Lakewood, Ohio, attended Lakewood High School. And while I was a student, I worked my sophomore, junior, and senior years after school at various retail establishments in the Lakewood area. As far as growing up, I am the oldest of seven boys, all born eight years apart. And my dad was the general manager for a place that actually made waterproof paper and film. And, he never owned a car. So, the furthest we ever got was any place was any, anywhere anybody would take us. So growing up in Lakewood, we walked to school everywhere. And I graduated school in 1964, spent about a year after that working, and taking an extension course at Ohio State University at the same high school and then decided after that summer, almost a year later from graduation. A friend of mine interested in the Air Force and asked if I wanted to go with him. And I said, "You know what sounds like a good idea." So I enlisted the Air Force in May of 1965, and spent two years in Waco, Texas, and about almost a little over a year and a half in the Philippines as a T.V. director. SM: 02:03 Wow. HF: 02:04 So, when I came back to the states in December of (19)68. I went back to my old job where I was working as a railroad clerk in the accounting department. I worked there until March of (19)69 when I took a leave of absence and, started university at the beginning of March 1969. SM: 02:33 Well, now your parents, you say your dad did not have a car now- HF: 02:39 Right. SM: 02:40 -now at home, did you ever talk over the table about what was going on in America, like the Vietnam War, civil rights, a lot of the movements that were going on? HF: 02:53 We talked about the Vietnam War in terms of being drafted and that kind of effort there. The, I was the, by the way, I was the first person in our family to graduate from high school. And I was the first person to attend college and graduate from college, not the only one. And all of my brothers went to Lakewood High School for college. My parents they did not own a car, but we got along quite well. He bought a house in Lakewood, Ohio, and it could have been a more, could not have been a better location because it was walkable to all the schools we had to go to. Of course that back then walkable was a mile and a half, right? Today. It is today it is two blocks. Even if you go to school today, and it is two blocks away, somebody walks with you. So we did everything alone, right. My first interest my first interest in photography, even though I worked in a camera shop in Lakewood, Ohio for a year I never took a picture never owned a camera. My first experience with photography was when I was in the Air Force, I worked in the Information Office at a headquarters that headquarters trunk Air Force in Waco, Texas. And I did PR releases and like photographer assigned to that base got me interested in photography and set out with a four by five camera taking, taking some pictures of people and stuff like that. So he my first interest became when I got involved with writing press releases and then when they take photographs of people coming back from Vietnam or different parts of the world. SM: 04:47 Well, you were in the military at that time for that period before you went to Kent State. Did you ever experience [crosstalk], go ahead. HF: 04:57 No, I, I made a conscious decision to join the Air Force and realizing that I did not have any way I was going to keep a deferment going. And back then in 1965, if you were drafted- SM: 05:10 Yes. HF: 05:10 -you just got into a line and the person in charge of the line would look at you and say, "You know, we did not get enough recruits the marine, so you are a Marine, or you are a Coast Guard- SM: 05:20 [chuckles] HF: 05:20 -go to the Navy. I did not want to have any of those choices put on me. So I made my own choice. SM: 05:28 That is good you know, that, you are still wearing a uniform at that time. Did you ever experience the anti-war protesters, you know expressing feelings toward people in the uniform, yours or others? HF: 05:42 Not while I was in Waco, Texas, no. SM: 05:46 And- HF: 05:46 Never happened. SM: 05:47 -when you picked on Kent State, what was it about Kent State that, why did you pick that school? HF: 05:55 Well, a couple of reasons. One it was, was relatively close to home, which did not matter because I was not going to be going home anyway. Two it was a state school and I could afford it with the G.I. Bill. And three because it had a strong broadcast program and I wanted to continue my broadcasting work that I started in the service. And I had always, in high school, I did record house with two of my friends, we were always involved with radio. And that was just a natural thing for me to want to be, stay in the media. And that is why I picked Kent State. SM: 06:32 You picked a great school. Yeah, I did not go there. But I tell you, I have visited enough to know what a great university it is. And certainly the students that come from it, having known a lot of the people from the remembrance events. It is a great school. I, obviously, I am going to ask some political questions, too, because you served in the military, you did not go to Vietnam, but you did have concerns. Did you have concerns about America's role in the war? And were you for or against the war? And did you support Vietnam Veterans Against the War, when they came home and like John Kerry, and did those hearings before Fulbright's committee on the Foreign Relations Committee talking about their experiences and how we must stop the war? Your thoughts on any of that? HF: 07:20 I was not for the war. I did not understand why we were in that war, respect to those people who had to go and make their sacrifice. I did not join a protest group per se, because I maintain myself as a journalist first after having gone through the Armed Forces Radio and Television Journalism School. And, so I was against the war. I supported the people against the war. But I maintained my objectivity by being a photographer and reporting on what I saw. SM: 08:14 And what- HF: 08:15 There were no protests in say, Waco, Texas, we took a bus to downtown Texas, downtown Waco every day, and there were never any protests. And in the Philippines, all we did was we heard about things, because I was in the news department over there and quad forces GB. We have heard about the news and what was going on. But it was, did not have much to do with us. We were surprised at things like the Democratic Convention, prior to (19)68, and a variety of things. And when I came back to the states, I came back to Denver, Colorado, and I saw people that were obviously against the war. And it was, it was surprising to me, it was a, I came back to a different culture than when I left. SM: 09:06 Wow. When you were at Kent State, I think you took those pictures on the weekend of April 30 to May 4, 1970. You had already been a student there for one year. And I think you were involved in the student newspaper and maybe the yearbook as well. Could you talk about your very first year at Kent State and what it was like? Were there protests going on, even then, number one? And number two, your experiences with the newspaper and photography? HF: 09:36 Well so, I started at Kent State, March of 1969. And I was unsure of my ability to be a student so I focused on getting my grades and getting stuff before I decided to do anything photographically. And a little after, after midterms for the first semester, first quarter there I thought, "Well, I think I can handle this. So, I need to find a place that offers free film in a dark room." And I did not go to the newspaper, I went to the yearbook office. And I was immediately told, "Sure, have some film and take some pictures." So, I was more aligned with the student yearbook, then the newspaper, although I did do some work for the newspaper. And my second year there after working on the yearbook for the first year, I became editor of the yearbook my junior year at Kent State, and put out the yearbook that had the stars, the red and white stripes, and the protest story inside of it. SM: 10:45 Now, some- HF: 10:47 Go ahead. SM: 10:48 -some of your early photographs, not talking about the protests. You take general shots all over campus or in the community or? HF: 10:56 Well the yearbook staff did not limit my ability to take pictures as I was still learning a lot of different things about photography. So, and I was not involved in any relationships. So, my only focus was getting great and getting an opportunity to take pictures of different groups, different things, gymnastics, rugby, sports. I took pictures of the homecoming queens. I took pictures of anything, all day long, and sometimes there were assignments from the yearbook staff to take pictures of a fraternity or sorority, or get this, or that. But other than that, pretty much left up to my own. And in the 1970 yearbook, you will see a lot more of my work as I was doing photography pretty much, all the time. I mean, any place that can give you a free film back then and a dark room, it was heaven sent. SM: 12:02 That is great. Do you still have any your early photos of, before the tragedy at Kent State? HF: 12:10 I do and the university does. SM: 12:12 Good. HF: 12:13 We have got all the yearbook, photographs and stuff. SM: 12:15 Super, super. In 1970, your background states that you became a stringer for Life Magazine, and covered the entire weekend from April 30th to May 4th. Could you just describe some of the pictures you took? You know, just, just some of the pictures that you remember taking of not only the protesters but also of the National Guard, people, politicians who came. Most importantly, in this particular one, we were more than the pictures. What were you, personally experiencing, you were only a sophomore, and you were a photographer, and you were wanting to take pictures? But this is, I do not know if you were thinking this was a historic happening at that time, but it was. HF: 13:10 Well, first let us get the record set straight here. I liked the pictures from May 1st until May 4th. And I did not become a stringer for Life magazine until the morning of May 4th. And being on campus, Kent State is a suitcase campus, a lot of students go home to visit friends, be with family, or to do a part time job. And so on the weekends, it was a pretty empty place. But, things were happening on campus that were unusual and for me, that was just another opportunity to take pictures and I did not, I did not need an assignment, and I was not thinking anything other than the fact that this is something that is happening and it needs to be recorded and my journalistic instincts said, take pictures because what else are you going to do with your time? So, I was not looking for any kind of historic event or anything like that. So what, what happened was over the weekend, May 1, I took pictures of the bearing of, bearing of the Constitution by the history graduate students. And that was pretty, non-event, 600-1000 students showed up, listened to them at noon. And by the time lunch hour was about to end, the people who organized the bearing of the Constitution realized there was a looser crowd, it was Friday. So they said, "Let us redo this on Monday. Let us go back and revisit what Nixon did and what the Vietnam War is doing, and the Constitution." And so, they were retired from that event waiting to call again on May 4th. They knew that they could not keep a crowd on May 1st, after school, or on the weekend because we would be going home. So, Friday, I did not take any pictures of downtown camp even though I did not, I did not know that, what was going on down there. I did not leave campus, but on Saturday morning, there were lots of rumors, and things that were supposed to happen or might happen about the ROTC building. So, I just followed people around and took pictures during the day. Some pictures that, not that much happened until the school set up marshals, because there was a curfew set on Friday night about being in town Friday night, and they were concerned about what was going on. The curfew extended to the university. And that evening, is when the ROTC building was burned down. I was with the editor of the Daily 10 stator. And before the building actually caught fire, we were there. But he said, "Let us go to, let us go to town." He said, "I heard that the National Guard are already in town." So, we ran down the hill or we kind of walked down the hill toward town and halfway downtown, halfway off campus, we were met by three National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets who came out and stopped us from going into town. And they asked us, "Why, where were we going?" Bill showed his press pass and we both were allowed to leave campus and then come back. We came back as the ROTC building was burning. And I did not get any pictures of that. I did not have the right equipment, flash, or rotation. But I stayed up until two or three in the morning, taking pictures of the fireman putting out the final embers of the building. And took some pictures of people in their dorms, standing, looking outside, looking to see what was happening because about two o'clock in the morning, the National Guard showed up on campus. And I can remember that distinctly because I was surprised to see these, or what I called "half-track," vehicle leading the National Guard onto the campus and surrounding the ROTC building. And I took several pictures of that, that were published in the yearbook and published in my book. The pictures there because I had to, I had to document what was going on. So, about two or three o'clock in the morning, Saturday, which would be Sunday morning. I went back to my dorm, we got up early because I heard that governor, when I got up on Sunday morning I heard that Governor Rhodes might be showing up on campus. And I walked around campus and I took pictures of the ROTC building. People returning to campus, even Saturday, {inaudible]. So this is Saturday, Sunday morning, and Governor Rhodes did show up, he arrived by helicopter or something by the airport. And I went with other photographers and we met in, at the ROTC building with General DeCorso and Mayor Cetrom, and also took numerous photographs of that. Drove to an elementary school where the National Guard were bivouacked, and we took, I took a few pictures there. And then, Sunday was pretty much quiet for me in terms of walking around the campus and just taking pictures here and there. The guards were pretty quiet. Students were interacting with the guard in a way that seemed very friendly. One of the questions I have asked myself is, "Why would a parent bring their students to a campus with nearly 2000 national guards on it, in campus and around town, and be comfortable with that?" Then I thought about it, and I thought, "You know what, they probably felt that because the National Guard was there the, the rioters and the people who were causing the problems were taken care of, and their students would be safe with the National Guard," kind of an oxymoron, if you think about it. SM: 20:23 Right-right. HF: 20:25 It did not work out that way. So Sunday, I know that there was several gatherings of students in different locations, one by the Music of Speech building where I was, that is where we got tear gassed, so we had helicopters flying over our heads. And then there was a [inaudible], and there was a curfew on campus, but students found a way to get off campus, and head up toward the Main and Water Street or on the major intersections of downtown Kent. And I, I followed them out there and I got pictures of them sitting. And the, the whole problem with all that was going on at Kent State was the lack of communication. People today, that remember that we did not have cell phones, we did not have a T.V. in every room. People did not have the kind of information at our fingertips that we have today. And the students who went downtown and sat in the center of the street, asked for one thing, they asked for somebody, a representative from the school to show up and explain what was happening, who was in control. No one was, no one ever showed up. The guard shortened the curfew, and forced the students back onto campus earlier than the original curfew had been set up. They just made the unilateral decision to move students out of downtown Kent and back onto the campus, that Sunday evening. And I have followed students, some students had been banned, and they were in, taken into fraternity houses or, mostly fraternity houses. And I was told I could not come in because they had a wounded student in there, and so I just proceeded back to my dorm until Monday morning. Monday, about 9:30, 10 o'clock, I wandered over to the student newspaper office in Taylor Hall. And it was fairly quiet. We talked about what was going on. But then there was a phone call from Life Magazine, Chicago office, the woman on the phone asked if there was a photographer there who had some pictures from the weekend, and if she could talk to him. So, I was the only photographer who was during the whole weekend, that Bill can remember. So, he gave me the phone and they asked if I would send some prints that day of the weekend. And would I mind taking some pictures of the, whatever happened on Monday, and I agreed to take pictures on Monday, and send some pictures of that evening. That is how I became a stringer for Life Magazine that day, and you are right that, that does change your perspective, even though I-I was doing it on my own without any motivation other than just to capture images of what was going on. Now that Life magazine had given me an assignment, it made it more, gave me more focus. And one of the things that I had done earlier in the week on Saturday, made sure to get a press pass from Major Jones who was with a National Guard. So, I had a National Guard press pass that would allow me to move in and out of the lines, and that is what helped me on May 4th. SM: 24:16 Wow. Now you were, May 4th, when did you take your first picture on May 4th, approximately what time and where were you, when? HF: 24:34 [chuckles] Oh, it had been between 11:00 and 11:30, I was just walking down the hill in front of Taylor Hall and took a picture of the people standing in front of Taylor Hall. And then, I got down a little further and took a picture, a couple pictures of the crowd standing by the victory bell, and I took a few more pictures of that area. And then I thought, you know, there is only so many pictures, I can take of the students here. So, I might as well use my press pass to go down behind the National Guard because, the assignment, and I need to show both sides of the story, and at least see what the National Guard is doing. So, I walk down behind the National Guard lines, showed my press, press pass, had no problems. And all sudden, you realize it was a bigger deal than, than people might have thought it was because local T.V. stations from Cleveland were there, a national reporter named Mike Pappas was there. And they were all very interested in what was going on. I just stood and took pictures with the National Guard with their weapons, with their band, fixed band, [inaudible] ones. As they marched, as they drill, not drill, but as they gathered by the front of the ROTC building and we were about ready to go uphill. All this happened between 11:30 and say, 12:15. And around, around 12:15 or so, a jeep pulled up near the crowd and said, "You need to disperse and leave this area immediately. This gathering is not permitted, you need to leave this area immediately. Please disperse." And, the sad thing is that there was nothing going on other than students were chanting, and giving the guard the finger, and throwing stones that fell way short of the 300 or so yards that the National Guard was standing away from them. And there was no, there was no riot involved, there was no rushing of students at anything. And shortly thereafter, that is when the guard was told, "We need to break up this crowd." Now this goes back to the same situation, on Friday, May 1st, had the crowd been allowed to wait until one o'clock instead of 12:30, probably would have broken up by itself it already was divided. There was on the ground, maybe 3 to 500 students who are actual protesters, but behind them were people who are either on the way to class, or just observing. And then on top of that, there was another layer of people just observing, some people who are supporting them, but you know, on a campus of 18,000 students, you really only had 3 to 500 students were protesting, and whoever else was in that area was just an observer. And so, the guy decided to move up the hill and disperse the crowd. And I believe they did this without any reconnaissance because they had no idea how big the campus was. And they went up both sides of Taylor Hall to one side between Johnson Hall and Taylor Hall to Prentice Hall, Taylor Hall on the left. They chased students up there and then they get themselves trapped in a football field, the practice football field, which has a chain link fence that goes around three sides. And they had to make a decision as to how they were going to, what they were going to do next in terms of dispersing the crowd or not. So, there was a crowd of students across the street from the practice football field, and there was a street that separated the two, and the guard had a choice of going back down to the practice, to the ROTC building area through Prentice Hall and Taylor Hall. Or, to again confront the students and cause them to just disperse by going straight ahead and then making a right hand turn and going down between Johnson and Taylor Hall. Well, the interesting part is that to go up to Johnson and Taylor Hall would mean that they would have to climb an elevation of about 20 feet, would put them in a higher elevations than the parking lot and the practice football field. And, as they made their climb, that is the place. That is the point at which, between Taylor Hall and the pagoda structure, Guardsmen who somehow got to the very back of the line was moving up the hill, turned, some kneeled down a little bit, and fired their weapons. And I was about 80 feet in front of them and to the, to the side, John Clary, and Joe Lewis, who were within an area that I was within, and they were both shot. So, that was a pretty eye-opening experience- SM: 26:56 Wow. HF: 26:57 -because no one expected that and no one expected live ammunition. Even if they turned and fired, it was, they were shooting blanks, or shooting, maybe rubber bullets. I grabbed my cameras and knelt down on top of this grating in front of Taylor Hall. And when I started to get up, I was told, "Stay down, sit down, oh my god, they are shooting real bullets. People are bleeding up here. So, do not get up." SM: 31:14 Wow. HF: 31:15 So, that is how that event took place, pretty, pretty frightening that they actually shot real bullets. And again, I, I kind of sucked my emotions and just let my camera work for me because I took a picture of Joe Lewis, took a picture of John Clary, I got up and I started walking down towards the practice football field. I was told by some girls not to take pictures, I said, "No, my job is to take the pictures, somebody has to document this." And that is when I went down, I saw Jeffrey Miller lying in the street. And I turned to my right a little bit and I saw Mary Vecchio, I took several photographs of her, those appeared in Life Magazine. And I kept taking pictures of people, and their reactions to what had just happened. And it was, just an unreal experience walking around campus at that point in time- SM: 32:20 Oh man. HF: 32:20 -because nobody knew what was going to happen next. And you know, Alan Frank said it best when he said, you know, "Stay down, do not let, I cannot be a part of this. Do not let them shoot any more of you." Because the guard was scattered over the campus then, if you, if you take a careful look at some of the photographs, and not just mine, but many of them, you will see that even though the students are like in a huddle in a big circle, someplace. If you look close enough, you will see the guard, not too far away. SM: 32:56 Wow. HF: 32:57 And that was, that was what was scary, so. SM: 33:01 Did it ever, during this terrible, terrible happening, ask yourself, "Where is, where is the leadership of this campus? Where is the administration? Where are they?" And, and I, and then also, correct me if I am wrong, it was my, my information is that they were protesting against the expansion of the war into Cambodia. And that was initially, and then when the guard came on campus and showed their, their stuff that they were upset that the National Guard had, had come on to their campus. So, it was as much protesting against the war as it was against the, the National Guard being on their campus. And, and then the shooting. Oh, my God. Just your thoughts on that. Where was the administration? HF: 34:03 Well, my understanding is that the president of the university had just returned from a trip, I think it was to Iowa, and he was now having, during this time having lunch with General del Corso, a local restaurant. And the administration had more or less given control of the university to the governor and to the National Guard. SM: 34:31 Unbelievable. HF: 34:31 And, and the students. Like I said the evening before, I had asked for somebody from the administration to talk to them, and no one came forward. So the administration, from my standpoint, failed because they did not have control of the campus. They let the campus becoming military state and gave up. If you look at the pictures, even the administration building had National Guardsmen in front of the main door letting people in or out, so. SM: 35:04 Yeah, that is, this is an understatement. That was a massive failure in leadership at the administration level of the university, but it does show, which you already mentioned Mr. Frank and Mr. Lewis and others, faculty members who, who came to the scene, and were there with the students and trying to bring some sort of peace, and you know caring about the students. I mean, that says a lot about your faculty on campus. They deeply cared about the students that they were teaching. Yet, the administration was not there caring about the students that have applied and yeah, it just it was a terrible happening. And were you personally upset with the National Guard because they were on campus? HF: 35:53 Oh, yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was abysmal to say the least. You know, I just had no idea why they were, why they were on campus, because the ROTC building was done. There did not seem to be any other rumors, or anything going on around, other things happening. And it just made no sense that the National Guard, and what also does not make any sense is, why did the National Guard have fixed bayonets- SM: 36:26 Yes! HF: 36:27 -the whole weekend? Fixed bayonets are for hand to hand combat, concentration, close range stuff. And this is, a college campus with students, why do you need to have a fixed bayonet? When the Ohio State [inaudible] came on campus, they had batons. That is all they had. I mean, that is all they carried in their hands. SM: 36:56 Wow. HF: 36:57 They did not need a fixed weapon of any kind to show that they had control of the situation. SM: 37:04 In the afterwards of the tragic, I am going to say, Alan would say the killings. And, you know, I know, even Dean and John and they would say the killings at Kent State, quit saying the tragedy, the killings at Kent State. HF: 37:20 Yeah. SM: 37:21 The thing is, who gave them that order? Who's the person responsible for telling them to have the, the bullets? I know, they had a lot of trials afterwards. But, did they ever come up with a final, who gave the final order for that? HF: 37:39 To have weapons loaded? SM: 37:40 Yes. HF: 37:43 That is not something I can address. I do not know who gave them that order, or why they had fixed bayonets. I mean, they came off the trucker strike. And they had been shot at during the trucker strike, but did not shoot back. Here they were getting stones thrown at them that cannot even get close to them. And they, they fired back at students. A lot of unanswered questions, because no one knows. There is lots of rumors as to somebody gave an order to fire. But to me, it does not matter if somebody gave an order or not gave an order. Some people had it in their mind that they were going to turn to fire, and they did. SM: 38:34 Governor Roads being, being on campus did not help the situation. I know he is running for office and- HF: 38:41 Yeah, I forgot about that. SM: 38:43 Yeah, and he was talking law and order. Well, guess who talked law and order, it was President Nixon and Spiro Agnew, who were going all over the country making comments about any other protesters, they were. So you know, he came and he was elected, in part because he used law and order as one of his- the issues that he was going to come into the presidency for. And because there is a lot of activism going all over the country, and civil rights, and you know all the movements that were happening, certainly the anti-war movement in Vietnam, and here, you know, you can look the, I do not know how the president of Kent State could have survived his presidency. If he was sitting down, in downtown and he was out of town, and he comes in town, and he was sitting with a military leader, and not sending anyone in his place to kind of calm students down, or talk with a National Guard, or talk with anybody in authority. The governor, you know, it boggles the mind, basically. HF: 39:47 He had given up his authority. I need to take a break for five minutes. SM: 39:53 Okay, let me turn my tape off here and I will leave my- HF: 39:58 I will be right back. SM: 39:58 -yep. Okay, we are all set. Yep. One of the questions I wanted to ask you is that, I read someplace that you were working on taking pictures, but you even gave a camera to John Philo? HF: 40:16 So [crosstalk], as the National Guard dispersed the crowd in front of Taylor Hall, after the crowd was already gone the, National Guard was on both sides of Taylor Hall. John Philo and I met at the base of the hill, [inaudible] hill. And John said, "You have an extra lens I could borrow, I have only got a wide-angle lens," and I said, "I have got a short telephoto lens." So, I gave him my telephoto lens to use. And he took that, and then he said he was going to go off the left side and I said, "I will go off the right side." And then we split, and we just continued covering the event. So yeah, that was a true story. And I subsequently gave that lens to Kent State University, so. SM: 41:15 Wow. HF: 41:16 Anyway, so the whole [crosstalk], huh? SM: 41:20 That and he used that camera to take that picture that won the Pulitzer Prize, right? HF: 41:25 Yeah, he used that lens. SM: 41:27 Wow. I hope you he thanked you. [laughter] HF: 41:32 He did. SM: 41:34 Now, you were, I am just curious about what the student newspaper staff was doing at the time that you were taking pictures because obviously they were around someplace, recording all this. Did the, in the student newspapers over a several day period, before the campus was shut down, were they writing opinion pieces or articles on what was going on? HF: 41:58 I could tell you I was not involved. SM: 42:00 Alright. HF: 42:02 Seriously, I was I, so after the, taking pictures that day, and they told us that the university was closed. I continued to take pictures of students as they marched or walked toward their dormitories to get their equipment and their gear, clothing, books, whatever they needed, to leave campus. I stayed until about six or six-thirty, I had to call Life Magazine back to find out what they wanted me to do with my film and the stuff I, the pictures I had taken. And I was told to put everything in a box, they bought a seat for it on an airplane out of Akron. And to, give it to somebody at the, just get it there and put it on the plane and they would get it in Chicago. And so, I did not have a car. So, one of my photographer friends, Fetterman drove me to the airport and later drove me home that night. So, I was busy getting my own stuff out of there. And, again, when we talked about the campus closing, I mean, people did not have cell phones, we did not have Uber, they had to find their own way home. And as you know, the people said the telephone lines on campus were not working. So, it was it was a tough situation for lots of students, how to get ahold of their parents, or find a way to get into town, get a bus, get something. I am sure there was some help that I did not know about because I was worrying about my own way of getting around. And that was, that was a big issue. And then the, then after everybody left, the National Guard searched all that rooms for anything that would be incriminating, and took any film, or anything that would be something that they thought they could use later. SM: 44:15 They went into the residence halls and did that? HF: 44:18 Yes, all the residence halls. SM: 44:20 I did not know that. HF: 44:22 Yeah, I think you could check with somebody else on that, but verify the fact that the rooms were searched and anybody who left a camera or left film, unexposed film, that was taken. SM: 44:34 Well that is another legal issue, that the university, no university should allow that to ever happen. Wow. Well, again, lack of leadership there at the school protecting the rights of students and their property, my goodness. Did you know any other students, any of the students who were killed or wounded at Kent State before this tragedy? HF: 44:58 I did not know any of the students who were killed at Kent State or any of the students who are wounded. I got to know Dean Kahler when he, I donated some large prints to the university. And Dean came up to me and said, "You know, that is the last photograph of me standing." So, it was taken before the shooting, and it was taken just, you know, while the crowd was growing. So, that is how Dean and I connected. But other than that, I did not know Alan Canfora, even though I know I have got pictures of him with the black flag. Alison Krauss, I had taken pictures of in 1969, when she helped protest the war on Vietnam by leading a group marched through downtown, the city of Kent. I learned of all these people through my photographs, and it is quite sad. SM: 45:36 Right. Now John- HF: 46:06 To know that, you- SM: 46:07 -you go ahead. HF: 46:08 -go ahead. SM: 46:08 No, you go ahead. HF: 46:09 You know, it is quite sad to look at the pictures. I gave a talk at Hanoi University in 2016, and I showed them a PowerPoint. And in the PowerPoint, I would show students with books in their arms and then I will say, "Oh, that is Sandra Scheuer. She is going to be dead in 20 minutes. That is William Schroeder, he is going to die in 25 minutes." SM: 46:38 Woah. HF: 46:39 And it brought tears to the students at the university because they realized the sacrifice that some students made to help in the war in Vietnam. SM: 46:49 Wow, that was powerful. Your book is full of unbelievable pictures. And I know it is hard to pick, but I am going to ask you to pick, if you can, just a few of the ones that you are most proud of, or the ones that stand out in your mind of the, the best picture you took on the National Guard, you took a lot of them, is there one that stands out? HF: 47:16 Well, it stands out would be like, for them, there was four heads in the back of their heads [inaudible] as they marched toward the guard that stand out to me. There was, there was a couple of them there. SM: 47:38 How about- HF: 47:39 Well there is one of them, in downtown Kent that is a silhouette of the National Guard with cross bayonets and in front of a service station window, and you can see bayonets in the air and their silhouettes. SM: 47:51 Wow. HF: 47:51 It was the day before. SM: 47:55 How about the best pictures of the protesters? HF: 48:03 Well, the crowd shot that is, just shows them standing there, Mary Beko with her dog, you can see just with this raised finger, yeah just that, the beginning crowd shots there. And the guard shot that stands out to me that, is one of those that was taken just as they fired their weapons because they fired, and I took a picture of them as they turned and fired. And then I got down but, as I am getting down you will see in the picture that there is one guy who looks like he has got his gun aimed for me so that stands out a lot. SM: 48:48 Did you think you were a goner? HF: 48:51 Well I know that I was standing up there and I had a, back then I had an old 200-millimeter lens which stands out pretty far, and another lens in my camera and I thought you know, "I probably look pretty silly up here, look like a target." So, I turned and went down on my knees, and. SM: 49:08 Wow. HF: 49:09 So no, but I was 6, I was only 20 feet behind, I think it was Joe Lewis, who was the first one shot. He was supposed to stand 60 feet. I was 80 feet. So- SM: 49:21 Now- HF: 49:22 -yeah, I was quiet, close enough. SM: 49:24 How about, are there any of the state troopers and the, you know the-the politicians that came to stand out? HF: 49:35 Well, yeah, they have got some nice, she would call, nice journalistic images of Governor Rhodes inspecting the ROTC building and standing with Mayor Cetrom, and General del Corso. So, got other pictures that stand out, what are this? SM: 49:58 How about the best of the downtown shots and the, or the campus shots, just when? HF: 50:04 Oh, downtown. We are using the light of the helicopters to take a picture of the students sitting down, downtown. SM: 50:12 Wow. HF: 50:13 That stands out to me. It did not have you know, back then, the equipment was a little bit different than it is today too. So, you had to be a little more in touch with your equipment, than, than that so, you did not have time to run up and take light meter readings, or even if you had a camera with a light meter in it. It is still a lot of guesswork. SM: 50:36 Summers in the last couple of years you met with John Cleary. Now, did you? Did you stay in touch with John, when he saw that picture? Did you stay in touch with John over the years, or was this kind of a first meeting? HF: 50:51 We met for the first time with at Kent State University in 2019 when I, when I, when I shared my book, we had a book signing ceremony. Yeah, so that is the first time I met him. And I shared with him some more pictures that I had of him that were never published. SM: 51:10 Wow. HF: 51:11 So yeah, John and I, we stay in touch on Facebook, but we are not, you know, buddies, in that sense. We are just good. We just have something mutual in common that we both respect and both understand. SM: 51:24 Right. What happened to your film after it was shipped off? Because you, I guess that they had to, you did not know what the pictures were. I mean, you had not seen them. HF: 51:38 Oh that is right. SM: 51:39 So, what happened to your pictures? And most importantly, and I am so pleased that they came back to you, and they are yours. HF: 51:49 So here is two stories. One, I had a handful of negatives that I gave to the life reporter that were taken between 1969 and, and they were actually probably all 1969, and maybe a few from the first, no, I do not think anything from May 1, but 1969. And they have been lost and I am lucky I found some. But the film, I just put in a box, I sent to Life Magazine, they called me at two o'clock in the morning to tell me they could not find it. Then, they called me an hour or two hours later and told me they finally got the box of film, and then we were going to send her off via processing. I think it was about a week later, not quite a week later, maybe three days, two or three days. I got a call again, real early in the morning, one or two o'clock in the morning saying that one of the photographs that I had taken was going to be used for the cover of Life Magazine. And that was interesting, because I had not seen any of the negatives, the FBI had come to my house, asking to see all my prints. And I had yet to see anything other than the cover of Life Magazine and the images inside. And the fact that they put a picture of me inside of the editors, editors page. The, the photographs, were in the hands of Life Magazine, and then the FBI came to my house when they wanted me to identify who they thought were radicals on campus. And you know, a lot of people get concerned about what the FBI is going to do. But in this particular case, the truth stands for itself. I mean, you are not going to, no one is going to get identified as a radical that I know because, they are not. But the FBI kept demanding and seeing my negatives, and my pictures and I told him, I said, "You know, they are not mine. They belong to Life Magazine, and I have not seen any of them. And as they left my house, they said, "Well if that is what you want to do with your gov. money, Mr. Ruffner." And because I never agreed to share them with them I guess. Life Magazine, Life Magazine made a decision that they did want to get involved with, you know, in a case about having the FBI come to them and say they want the negative, and the prints, and they did not want to get involved with all that stuff. So, they sent me a photo of the negative that they had of mine, and actually a friend of somebody else's too. That, they just sent me a box, full of prints of every negative, and they sent me the negatives, and they said, "We are going to let you handle this." So, it was my deal. SM: 55:04 Wow. HF: 55:08 It was a big deal. I mean, having all those, it was the first time I saw them, so I obviously took my time and went through all the pictures, and looked at them in quite amazement as to what I actually had. Because even though you think you know what you have, when you are taking the pictures, you do not really know, so. And the fact that they chose one of mine for the cover, even though there were other people there who had similar photographs, it was quite a feather, so. SM: 55:37 Were there other photographers besides you and John Philo? HF: 55:40 Oh, tons. Campus newspaper, photographer, the campus, campus photographer who worked for the University was there, two of them, they have pictures of John Cleary. Call it very, very similar to my pictures. I mean, any picture could have been used. So, yeah. SM: 56:03 Wow. Now, when it was all over, when the, May 4th, and people are going home, the school shut down, of course. You know, the shootings, as you well know, set a wave of protests all over the country, and anywhere close to 275-300 schools were truly affected by this. And as far as Kent State goes, how was the campus when you returned in the fall? I mean, and honestly, I want to know how you felt, because you are an individual student, you were still a sophomore. I know you might be a little older, because you served in the military. But still, you were a young, you were a young student, and you were doing your job. But now, you know that this is affected the entire nation. You got the Time, Newsweek out there. So, you are a part of history. As a young person, how did you deal with this? HF: 57:06 Well, let us start with fact that I kept coming back to the university before school started, because people would want to have a walk through. Rolling Stone wanted to walk through, this news group wanted to walk through. And I was one of the people they, they called to help walk people through the campus. And then, even though the campus was closed, and it did open for summer school, and I attended school summer school that year. And I took regular courses, and it was like nothing ever happened other than the fact that it did happen. Does that make sense? I mean, things went on as normal, was not, summer school is different than a regular university, regular university time. But yeah, I went onto school and then in the fall, fall started. I got involved. I was just selected to be the editor of the 1971 yearbook, which would include the, the killings of the poor students in the routing of the night. And it was my decision as to how to deal with that in the yearbook. And I do not know if you have seen the yearbook, but Kent has always been to me, a mild campus. It is not like Columbia's or other places where they have a lot of radicals who get up on their soapbox all the time. And it is a conservative school. So, I did the yearbook in a way that shows that the shootings interrupted what would have been a normal school year. I do not know if you have seen the yearbook or not. SM: 57:53 Yes. I have not, I have not seen the yearbook, no. HF: 59:04 Yeah, that is The Timeline. SM: 59:07 Okay. HF: 59:10 So yeah, that was quite-quite beautiful. SM: 59:15 You went and you stayed, you stayed with that yearbook till you graduated? HF: 59:25 I edited the yearbook that year, and I stayed with the yearbook, but did not do a whole lot my senior year. I did not do a lot of photography for it. I had already gotten, I have gotten married within that time, and my focus was on getting my grades, and graduating, and I graduated. I started to camp in March of 1969. And I graduated in December of (19)71. So, even editing the yearbook I got out of there fairly quickly. SM: 59:59 Yeah. When you did graduate, there were more trials to come at Kent State over the football field, the trials of the families who lost loved ones, lawsuits, and do you kind of cover that in any way? HF: 1:00:19 Let me say that. I was a witness of the Scranton Commission hearings at Kent State. Then I was the lead witness in the two civil cases in Cleveland, Ohio, against the guard, and I was the lead witness because I introduced all the photographic evidence. And it took three days on the witness stand. And the, the attorney for the National Guard was a very, very good attorney. And he was very difficult, but I introduced all that stuff. And then, and then when the second trial came, I was also the lead witness. And by the time I had finished, and the second witness was called, they had agreed to the settlement which they announced, which was the monetary settlement, and a letter by the National Guard that everybody else said there is an apology, but they, they disagree. So I, in second trial, I believe was in 1988. And I have to say that, Kent State has been part of my life every year since then, because of the, because I was in a unique position to have photographs for the entire weekend. I got calls from media, I got calls from eighth grade science history students who wanted to do, there is a history competition every year for eighth graders. I became involved and I am still involved as we are right now, still involved with the Kent State shootings. And, it has been a part of my entire life. SM: 1:02:21 Wow. It, what were the final results of those hearings? There was a- HF: 1:02:29 Well the National Guard awarded [crosstalk]- -it was against the National Guard and Governor Rhodes we do not want to forget that. And in the state of Ohio had to pay, I forget what it was right now. The total amount of money but and the, the primary amount of money was going to go to Dean Kahler because he had been living in a wheelchair for so long that it was felt that he should be given something to live on. And I think the total amount of money was over $450,000. Do you recall? I am not sure. But the families of the four that died, they were compensated, then. SM: 1:02:31 -yes. HF: 1:03:23 Yeah. SM: 1:03:24 Yeah. And all- HF: 1:03:26 They-they did not get much in return in terms of monetary. They, the idea was to get the guard to admit that they did something wrong. SM: 1:03:34 Right. HF: 1:03:35 And Dean Kahler got the majority of the settlements. SM: 1:03:39 The question, Howard, that you have probably been asked 100 times, maybe more, was the question that came up about maybe about, 12 years ago at one of the remembrance events that Alan Canfora opened up with, that they have a tape where somebody taped the person giving the order to shoot. Now, I do not know what has happened since that remembrance event. But, others said they thought they heard it too. Did, when you are there you are close, did you hear any money give the order? HF: 1:04:04 I did not hear anything from where I was. And I was as close as anybody. And like I said earlier, to me, it did not matter if-if there was an order because if there was an order, I only think there was a predetermined decision by a group of guardsmen to get to that point on the hill, which was the highest point on the campus at that place, and turn and fire because others behind them are totally surprised and if they say some things like though they heard a gunshot, well, everybody would have heard a gunshot. But even General Canterbury is in that photograph of the guard firing, and he looks totally surprised. So for me, it does not matter if somebody said fire or not. There was an action that required some kind of coordination between different folks to turn on fire. SM: 1:05:25 And they knew there were bullets in there too. HF: 1:05:30 Yeah, yep, they did. SM: 1:05:31 They knew they were not blanks. HF: 1:05:34 There were armor, some of them had armor piercing bullets because they went through the steel sculpture. SM: 1:05:39 Unbelievable. Yeah, that hole in this, yep, that whole skill sculpture is still there. After Kent State and let people know what your career what your what happened with your career beyond college. I think that is very important. HF: 1:05:56 Well, I went to work for, I was a photographer's assistant for a commercial photographer for almost a year. And when I decided that, that was not going to go anywhere, I chose to go to Ohio University to get a degree in something that was not production oriented, I wanted to get a degree in something that was not easy for me to do, like take pictures or run T.V. cameras. So, I got, I got my master's in communications research, which was statistics. So, and after that, I went and worked for cable T.V. for a while. And then, I did a little freelance photography and moved back to Cleveland and kind of traveled with Ohio Bell where I was a writer, photographer, and all-around PR type person, and did my career with AT&T in New York, New Jersey, retired in Denver, Colorado, in government affairs. But during that entire time, I can tell you that I did give many talks at Kent State at many different locations. So yeah, my career even though I did not pursue a photographic career in its traditional sense, while at AT&T I did a lot of photography, and made photography part of my job description regardless of what kind of job I had. So, did multimedia shows I did film, I did video, produced a lot of, wrote scripts. So yeah, I had a good career and, and having had the Life Magazine and the George Polk award for photojournalism, that certainly opened the doors and did not hurt me getting inside AT&T getting into AT&T in Ohio, giving me recognition for what I was doing. SM: 1:08:02 The thing is, I think it is great that you did this book, that it is connected to Kent State, that you are still going out, and speaking about it. These are, this is something that should never be forgotten in our history. And this is all important. One things from going, I did not go this year, because I had an operation, I wanted to go to the remembrance event. But, I think four years, I think was four years ago was my last one. But there were several, several remembrance events where some of the panels talked about the fact that the truth is still not known. And the truth is, you know, like, who gave the order, like your speculation about those possibly played plan by us, certain number of National Guard. It is the it is the unknown truth that still haunts the people who want to know the what really happened. And the truth needs to be known because of the four who died. And, and so I think that, I do not know, have you heard anything more about the person who came several years back when Alan was here regarding the shooting, and that somebody gave an order then he had a tape? HF: 1:09:15 Oh, there is, somebody found a tape. They sent it to an expert. That expert said he was able to unscramble the tape enough to actually here an order to fire. The person who, the audiologist who did that discovery has since passed away, which, I guess hurt their case about taking that to court and saying, "Here is my proof." But other than that there has been nothing else said about that tape in quite a while and I have to ask people, I mean, what? If somebody gave an order of fire, how does that change, anything? If there was no the order to fire, it is more of a conspiracy. So, this whole thing is going to go down like John F Kennedy. SM: 1:10:25 It is true. HF: 1:10:26 There is going to be rumors and myths about what really happened. But, you know, in this case, I know for a fact, as I sat there and witnessed it, as I stood there and witnessed it, the National Guard turned and fired, and I did not hear a shot before me, you will look at the evidence, there was nothing thrown at them to cause them to turn and fire. There is nothing on the ground. No, Kent State is a manicured campus. Taylor Hall is a manicured piece of property because it is one of the showcases on the University at the time. There is no rocks lying around, there is no, you know, so somebody is going to have to convince me otherwise. But I just feel that there is the conspiracy. And if you will notice that, if you go and look at all the records, you will notice that the people who turn and fire are almost all from the same unit, so. SM: 1:11:25 And of course, the National Guard, just like students, they are now a lot older, and many are dying. So, who were who were there, because time has a chance to affect everything. You still- HF: 1:11:44 Except the fact that those who turned and fire were older than the National Guard. SM: 1:11:50 What was their age? HF: 1:11:52 I could not tell you that, but, but they were a part of the 107 Calvary, and they were an older unit. SM: 1:11:58 Wow. Alright. You still stay in touch with John Philo? HF: 1:12:06 Not really. No, we-we, of course, we get together on Facebook like everybody else. But, he has his life and I have mine. We are both happy with that. SM: 1:12:19 In your future, have you, have you taken pictures that you are just as proud of as the ones at Kent State in your later career, and what would those pictures be? HF: 1:12:37 Yeah, I promised myself that the last picture published by me would not be a picture of Kent State. I had an opportunity to lead a group of people to China. And some of those were my favorite photographs of foundries in China. That is something not everybody would get an opportunity to do. So, I have continued my photographic work in different ways. The annual report for the Colorado Red Cross one year, and took pictures of people from Bosnia. So, I try to continue my photographic work in ways that will surpass, although it will change, but I do not want to be known only as a Kent State photographer. So, I have been putting a lot of my work on Getty Images right now. SM: 1:13:38 Oh okay. HF: 1:13:39 Kind of spread, I got many pictures while I was in the service of popular people like Bob Loeb, and Art Linkletter, Raquel Welch you know, so I have, with General Westmoreland. I worked for, so I, you know, I continue to do photography. And right now, I am not doing what photography, I am retired. My wife and I, I have seven grandsons, we were spending more time with our grandsons, and doing kind of family photography. Nothing. We are not doing it professionally. I am just doing it as a snapshot or snap-shotter. SM: 1:13:55 Wow. I just have a couple more questions here. They are general questions. And, many people say the killings at Kent State changed the lives, changed lives forever, especially if you were a college student in the, in the United States of America. It was a shock to the youthful Boomer generation like Pearl Harbor. And FDR's death was a shock to the greatest generation. It changed. It changed mine forever. I do not know if you knew this. Alan knew it real well that I was going I go to law school and I changed everything. And when that happened, I was a senior at Binghamton University, and I graduated 1970. And I wanted to go and become a college administrator. So that, what happened at Kent State or Jackson State never happened again, I played in, I would play my own small role in that. And my story is not, is pretty typical. What happened to Kent State, to me is historic in a way that, way beyond the people even participated in it. HF: 1:15:38 Oh yeah. SM: 1:15:38 Because many people have written histories about the (19)60s say that, that tragedy, at Kent State, at a college that was not a radical college, but it was, you know, it was not known for that. But it happened there. And that showed to Middle America, and too, that the war had to end. And so-so that is what from historians’ point of view, but also from an individual point of view. And obviously, this has shaped your life, like no other. Do you ever have flashbacks? HF: 1:16:14 No, I do not have time for flashbacks because everything is for me, for me it is always still too current. You know, it is like our conversation today. I remembered, I can feel it. But not as a flashback, it is as a real happening that I live with all the time. As far as how it changed things, one of the things I think it changed, in its, its colleges today no longer pretend to offer a liberal arts education. They are not looking for students to be liberal arts thinkers and be generalists in that sense. A lot of schools have given up their- a degree in a liberal arts field that does not have any workplace recommendation. So to me, colleges have changed they are more, you go to college to get a job, and you get to go, you get into a program that your first two years are your regular stuff. But then you are really focused on being an engineer, being an architect, being a political science, but a liberal arts part of colleges has really become, you do not see history majors as much anymore, or English majors. Therefore, there are different schools. SM: 1:17:41 Yes. That is a very good analysis, that is so true. What do you want your, go ahead. HF: 1:17:51 No, I just, nothing. SM: 1:17:53 What do you want your legacy to be? HF: 1:17:58 [chuckles] SM: 1:17:59 In your own words, what do you hope your legacy will be? HF: 1:18:02 That my book, on Ken State is a factual and truth telling book, because I wanted people to remember, for sharing the truth about something that was so horrific, and something that should never have happened, Kent State should never have happened. Sargent Snyder gives a talk at Kent State, and I got to hear it on a podcast once. And I disagree with it completely, because during the podcast, he says, "Just before the shooting, sometime before the shootings," he said, "Somebody decided to declare what was happening at Kent State. Students at one end, National Guard another end, somebody said this is a riot. Well, it was not a riot, but the National Guard was given permission then to go up and disperse the crowd, and because they had bayonets, and stuff and weapons, they can shoot people, and Governor Rhodes gave them that permission days ago and took advantage of it." But it should never have happened. There was never a riot. Students were at one end, guards another round. It is like it is like we have learned today, take time, let things fizzle out, and oftentimes and in very tense situations. So, the best thing to do is to let things fizzle out. That should have been what happened at Kent State and there was no need for anybody to die and no need for any of the guards to be shooting or they should, they should have said at that point in time. He should have said, "We have got this under control National Guard, you may pack up and leave your bags, leave and take your bags with you." It would have been fine. SM: 1:18:02 Yeah. HF: 1:18:25 Nothing would have happened. SM: 1:20:15 That is why the lack of leadership that we mentioned earlier that it was in the administration. I think one other thing is about Jackson State that happened, like about 10 days later. HF: 1:20:26 Yep. SM: 1:20:26 And I think Kent State is so right on the students who have been leading these remembrance events for a long time, are so ahead of America as a whole, because it was Kent State, who made sure that what happened in Jackson State is not forgotten either. And then what happens there toward African American students, and what happened at Kent State, which was predominately white students. They are all one. And even though they tried to say that the protest of Jackson State was about, about the Vietnam War, it was not about the Vietnam War, it was about racism. It was about the history of racism within that area, and Jean Jung bless his soul, came many years to campus, I met him I actually had dinner with him once when he was here on campus. And, you know, that is what Kent State should be remembered for. Also, with this tragedy is that they cared about another campus that went something, a Black college campus in Mississippi, and saw the linkage between the between the killings at their school and the killings at Kent. HF: 1:21:46 Undeserved with very little justification, no justification [chuckles]. SM: 1:21:56 Yeah, that, you know, I am interviewing another person on that later today, or tomorrow. I guess I am just some final thing. So who do you just a general question, I got three more, and that is it. Why, who was responsible for the Vietnam War? I know we went to war, and we can blame a president. But in your view, everything has dots. The history is about dots. And when Kent State happened, there was a dot directly to it linked to a Vietnam War, and to a president. But it was something, dots go back on this too. So your thoughts, what caused, who do you blame for the Vietnam War? HF: 1:22:40 I blame Nixon because, he did a lot of fakery stuff and stopped Johnson from ending the war. And you can read the history about that. But he, he did some things to cause the Vietnamese people to support his position and not go to peace talks as they had planned with Johnson. So, I blame him for continuing what he did. SM: 1:23:14 Could you also kind of talk about the great things that have happened to Kent State with respect to making that, where this happen a historic spot, not only to have the Kent State Senator, which is unbelievable. But, markers being placed making sure it is it is forever remembered in terms of remembrance. And it is historic, and just everything Kent State now in terms of the administration is unbelievable. And I-I know that they have had issues over the years, but there is no question when you hear Alan Canfora say positive things about an administration and then it has got to be good. [laughter] Because he went through many years, where there was not so good. But, just your thoughts on the site where this all happened and your thoughts as a graduate of Kent State, who went through this, that this spot where it happened is forever preserved for history? HF: 1:24:18 It has to be preserved for history because that is how we learn, and how we continue to grow. Cannot, it cannot be forgotten because we do not want to have a, it is like a T and square. It is something that should never happen again. And as long as we can remember what happened at Kent State, good chance that will not happen again. SM: 1:24:49 What is the number one lesson of Kent State and Jackson State, the two together for future generations? HF: 1:25:02 Communication, and communication with the right people making the right decisions. It is all about communication and getting rid of politics and getting rid of egos. It is all about solid communication between individuals and people, especially about things that matter most, like people's lives. SM: 1:25:30 Right. And my last question is a question I have been asking now for the last 15 interviewees. Your tape will be listened to 50 years from now, long after you are gone, I am gone. And most of the boomer generation will be around either, so no one will be alive when Kent State happened. And that is the purpose of our centers to make sure that there is research and scholarship on these events. So, they are never forgotten. So what words of advice would you give to young students, faculty, national scholars who are studying this story, 50 years from now, words of advice? HF: 1:26:24 Words of advice to those of you who are listening to this tape, years from now, is really listen, and listen to the other tapes as well. And try to understand what mistakes were made, and how important it is to be able to communicate and be a part of the process and not hide from it. And Kent State should not have happened. But, protest in this country should be allowed, not violent protest, but protest, like they were at Ken State, it was just a protest. It is part of our culture, it is part of who we are. And it will never stop. But, respect communication of what is going on and respect people's lives. SM: 1:27:35 Very well said and I just want to say that I always ask a question, usually when I say what are the lessons learned and the lessons that cannot be lost from the (19)60s or from any of the Vietnam War, or even Kent State? You already answered that question. With one word, communication. HF: 1:27:57 Yep. SM: 1:27:58 You hit it right on the button. Howard, I want to thank you for this interview. HF: 1:28:05 You might, you might consider putting a link to the oral history I gave to Kent State too. SM: 1:28:10 I will do that. I got to deal with Binghamton University, but I will deal with that and I am going to pause the tape now. Thank you very much for the interview. (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 Howard Ruffner https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6b3ce70f63f39ade40bb7933b8dfbcbe.jpeg 861a5a56666b99a4dc9386e13c2901ed https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/111ffdd478bb5debea1b363cc14b212c.mp3 048f8020713e74a3d57c1c88d93b729d 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 24 August 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. J. Keith Saliba Biographical Text Dr. J. Keith Saliba is an associate professor of journalism at Jacksonville (Florida) University, where he teaches narrative nonfiction and mass communication theory. He has been writing about the Vietnam War and military affairs, first as a reporter and columnist, and later as an academic. He is the author of "Death in the Highlands: The Siege of Special Forces Camp Plei Me," a Military Writers Society of America 2021 gold medal winner in history. Dr. Saliba has a Ph.D. in Mass Communication and International Relations from the University of Florida. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:38:49 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 Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Vietnam; War; Veterans; Book; Special forces; South Vietnamese; Camp; Americans; Helicopter; Supplies; Vietnam War 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: J. Keith Saliba Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 24 August 2024 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:00 All right, I think we are going to start. Again, I am interviewing Dr. Jay Keith Saliba, is that the correct pronunciation? JS: 00:11 That is the correct pronunciation. SM: 00:12 Yeah. Well, thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed today. I would like to start off with a question about your upbringing. Where were you born? Your early experiences in high school and college, so forth in your beginning years. JS: 00:30 Born in Alabama, did not grow up there, though. I went back to visit quite a bit, had a family and so forth, but lived most of my life in Florida. And that is where I live now. Experiences, basically, kind of run a mill, you know, school and so forth. You know, nothing really to write home about it, they say, but you know, I do not know, maybe as it pertains to your book, some of my earliest experiences were, you know, sort of seeing in the 1980s, you know, the first generation, if you will, Vietnam, you know, gotten some separation from it. You know, and so I just, for whatever reason, I think it was a documentary, it was narrated by Richard Bass Heart, and it was called, "Vietnam: The 10,000 Day War," was playing, I do not know, maybe on PBS or something. But I was always a kid who's very interested in this sort of stuff. I know, I read the papers about foreign affairs, you know, at 11 years old, or whatever. And it is something about Vietnam just really struck me as fascinating. And I, of course, at that point, I knew nothing about, you know, all of the conflict and strife that, you know, that did in January in the United States or whatever. I just thought of it as just being a very fascinating subject. And I, I sort of looked at that, that documentary is the thing that introduced me to at a very young age, and I continue to revisit it, over all these years. SM: 02:13 Now, what year was that? Was that in the early (19)80s, that program? JS: 02:18 I want to say, I want to say it was. I do not think that is when it was actually created. But it was probably when I saw it, it was either late (19)70s or early (19)80s. SM: 02:28 What was, what was it about that, just seeing that war? Because obviously, you knew about World War I and World War II and Korea, what was it about Vietnam that, that really perked you up? JS: 02:42 Well, you know, it was, it was probably the tragedy of it, you know, the, even at that young age, I kind of knew that there was something that, that was very hurtful about the whole thing. And, and, you know, I saw all these guys who have gone and done, done what they were asked, what their government asked him to do, and I thought that they were not very well treated. And in some of the news accounts, and some of the popular media, I remember a time it is sort of, it is kind of been a theme that I have seen, you do not see it nearly as much anymore, because, you know, Vietnam sort of faded in the background. But you do see it with, like Afghanistan, Iraqian war, and an Iraq war, but it is the same sort of thing. It is sort of like the crazed, dysfunctional, you know, vet who, you know, you never know what he is going to shoot up or blow up, or you always has all these different problems. But I remember, that is what I saw sort of Vietnam, as being portrayed as in the popular media, movies, you know, that sort of thing. And now, again, you do not see that so much anymore with Vietnam, because it has faded in the rear view, but you see a lot of movies and shows, that depict these really dysfunctional Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and you know, all of that stuff just sort of rubbed me the wrong way from even, even from an early age. SM: 04:08 Oh yeah. JS: 04:09 But again, we are just kind of talking about Vietnam. No, obviously, at this point. And so yeah, I, I do not know. But it was fascinating too, there is so many facets to this, the story. Some of it was, political, military, you know, protests, all of these different things really, you know, sort of tied into this very, very interesting story that, again, I continue to come back to time and time again. SM: 04:35 What is interesting is when you saw this program, narrated by Richard Bass Heart, that is the era when the Vietnam Memorial was opened, in the early (19)80s, 1982 which was when the wall was opened and all the veterans- JS: 04:50 Steve, Steven you are breaking up here, can you hear me? SM: 04:54 Yes, I can hear you. JS: 04:56 Okay, maybe sometimes, if you call me right back, it might reset because you are really breaking up badly. SM: 05:03 Okay let me, let me call you again. And I will stop this right now. Okay, thanks. Here we go, very good. Yeah, I was just trying to say that, the, at the time you saw that documentary that was the time that the Vietnam Memorial was opened. And the timing was interesting, because that is when Vietnam veterans for the first time felt welcomed home. And, so kind of interesting that you got into it at that particular time. Before I actually start asking you questions about [inaudible], I would like to ask two things that I saw on your biography. You had done your master's thesis on Esquire's coverage of the Vietnam War. What did that, what, what did you learn from that from, from that project? JS: 05:06 Okay. Well, the you know, Esquire, as you may know, was sort of a hotbed of what was once called, "new journalism," or literary journalism, right, where you sort of use the tools of a novelist to tell nonfiction stories. And it is a, you know, it is a genre of writing that I have not only taught, but I have tried to employ some times in my own career and something I really enjoy. And so, I just looked at this unique partnership between Harold Hayes, who was the editor of Esquire at the time, and two, sort of gifted writers, John Sack and Michael Herb. And you are probably more familiar with Michael Herb, his work with dispatches- -and his, you know, screenwriting work with-with films like, "Apocalypse Now," and, and, and "Full Metal Jacket," right. You know, but John Sack was, you know, sort of a celebrated literary journalist who covered war, pretty exclusively, he did other topics, but he was always the type of guy who was drawn back to conflict, so. And so, they had a very unique partnership, and they really, you know, sort of gave some, a unique perspective to journalistic coverage of Vietnam, and, you know, sort of Esquire and Harold Hayes and his support, allowed them to go and just kind of roam around the country and, you know, absorb different stories and different perspectives, maybe you were not seeing as much in, you know, mainstream coverage. So that was what the thesis was about, was just sort of, you know, exploring that technique. And, you know, what those guys found out, you know, the, you know, with dispatches her, you know, it was really more of, even though it was kind of a nonfiction take, right of his, his experiences there. There were also some fictional elements in it. Whereas John Sack M, right, where he followed that empty infantry company through basic training all the way through their first action, Vietnam, that was, you know, much more factually accurate. And he did not take as many sort of literary licenses as her did. Both of them had their unique approach, and they were both supported by, you know, both financially, and, and, you know, journalistically by Harold Hayes and Esquire so they, they-they gave us a, you know, a unique way of looking at the Vietnam War that maybe in that mid (19)60s area that was not really coming out yet. SM: 06:31 Oh, yes. Yeah, you mentioned those movies. I used to bring quite a few veterans back to the universities I used to work at. And they had a lot of problems with a lot of the Vietnam movies that were made. Because they do not think, they did not think they were real. There were two that, there was the one that really bothered them the most believe it or not, was "Platoon". And I do not know, I do not know what you thought of the movie. But it was, I had three distinguished Vietnam veterans from Philadelphia and they disliked the film, they talked about it, but they thought it was Hollywood. And, and so, if there was one film and I am going to get back to what we are talking about here, what is the number one film that you have seen on the Vietnam War that you like? JS: 09:19 What did I like? SM: 09:21 Yeah, that is real. JS: 09:23 I like a lot of them. And of course, I am not being there, not even really being born for most of it. I do not know what it was actually like, but certainly what I have heard from some Vietnam vets when asked that same question, they sort of say that "Full Metal Jacket," to them represented a more accurate military life but of action in Vietnam. "Platoon," what, sure, Hollywood right, Oliver Stone, it was well done from a Hollywood perspective, but you could definitely see why vets would not like it. They were not portrayed very well in that film. And, you know, everyone, anyone is perfect in the first place. I always liked "Apocalypse Now," too, I even have the four-hour version of it. I liked " We Were Soldiers." You know, I got to meet and talk to Joe Galloway on several occasions, including through my book. And that was, you know, exciting. And, and to be able to kind of, you know, meet the guy that was, that wrote that and participated in that was, was great to me. So it is hard for me, Steven, to narrow it down to just one. SM: 10:38 Right. JS: 10:39 Those are certainly some of the ones that I liked the best. SM: 10:41 I know Jan Scruggs liked "Coming Home," because that was his inspiration to create the wall. JS: 10:47 Yes, yeah, you are right, that going back a little ways to that, but that I remember that one now, too. Yeah, another great one. SM: 10:54 And the other item before we get into the main reason I am talking to you is, you also had an experience recently talking about the psychological effects of the Tet Offensive. And I have done a lot of reading on that subject matter of 19, early 1968. But, could you just briefly describe what you were saying, when you gave that presentation in Texas? JS: 11:18 And I sort of combined two things. It is weird, because that Texas conference is really mainly historian that I came at it from a, you know, more of a mass communication researcher perspective, right? We have framing theory and-and, and confirmation bias, were the two perspectives that I linked to sort of look at the coverage of that. And so, my contention was that, by that time in the war, the journalists who were there had pretty much decided on what it was all about. And they you know, one thing about confirmation bias is it says that we humans, and that means all of us, not just you know, not just the-the unwashed masses, but everybody, including the most learned people in the world tend to see things through a certain prism, once we have decided that we have, we have just know what is going on, right, we start to see information only that confirms what we already believe. And so my contention was, as a journalist, at that time, were sort of immediately framing and putting into certain categories, what they were seeing, and they could not see anything else. And so, one point that I made was, is that that is why the narrative quickly changed from the Vietcong are winning on the battlefield, right. And I believe they pushed that to be at the beginning, but then they sort of changed it, even though the Vietcong were being devastated, actually, and really, they never really recovered as an effective fighting force after that. Both, either politically, or militarily, they had to really be, you know, their numbers had to be stocked with people from the north-north-north Vietnam. They, they then sort of morphed into this narrative of how it was a psychological victory. It was a, the Tet Offensive, was a moral victory. You know, because they, you know, just simply because they could do it, and all the rest of it. And so the journalist would push back on that, they would say, Well, this was in reaction to all the rosy proclamations that the, you know, the five o'clock follies, and all the rest of them would put forth, you know, every day. And so, you know, that is why maybe we have swing the, in exactly the opposite direction that we went from, well, they were telling us that we were winning and then this, they were able to launch this big, you know, attack. Right, so then it became, the narrative became that it was, okay, well, we will admit that it was a military defeat, and it devastated that political infrastructure, the Vietcong infrastructure, as well. But we were going to say, we were going to let everybody know that it was a psychological victory, it was a moral victory. And in the end, that is all accounts is that they were able to pull this off. So, that was really what I was kind of contending there that, you know, we all have blind spots. And when we, when we decide how things are, we tend to only see information that supports our preconceived notions. And my, my ideas were that by that time in the war, journalistic presence in Vietnam had been well established, and they had kind of, they all kind of decided this is how things are going, this is how it is. And, and even though they were looking at really a massive defeat for the Vietcong, they just could not, I do not know, allow themselves to-to put it that way or even just to, even see it for themselves. They had to almost invent a new, you know, a new outcome and a new standard for victory. This was not winning on the battlefield, but winning psychologically. SM: 15:06 Right? Well, I, I can tell you from all my reading and studies, I think it certainly surprised L.B.J. And, and I love that surprise of the Tet Offensive as being the beginning of many dots leading up to his surprise of withdrawing from running for president. I think there is two direct links there. I am going to get into the main portion, now of what I want to talk about, but I want to say it because of your book, I look at cities and locations as linking different eras in the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Certainly, these cities are part of that (19)60s, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham, Chicago, Kent, Ohio, New York City, Berkeley, Saigon, Hanoi, the [inaudible] valley, [inaudible], Miami and San Francisco. Cause, the major happenings happened during those, that era in those locations. And now, because of your book and learning more about Plei Me, I put Plei Me right in there. I just want to say that. My first question is, you know, I also read Joe's book on the [inaudible] valley, and I saw the movie. And he was very vociferous, when he always talked, I brought him to Westchester to speak, that the [inaudible] valley was the first major war of the Vietnam and during that period. And then of course, when I read the back of your book, he praised you, and what happened. I guess the question, the main, the main reason I am asking is why Plei Mei?. Because you know, you-you do so brilliantly your book, all the other locations, the small villages, this, different locations, and I know about Plei Mei's location near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But why Plei Mei, just your thoughts? JS: 17:06 When you say why-why did the North Vietnamese choose it, or? SM: 17:10 Why, Why did they, they were doing things out in the highlands, they were doing a lot of things, but why Plei Mei? JS: 17:18 Well, I mean, as you mentioned, it was, its proximity to home Chi Minh Trail complex was-was, you know, an ideal ingress point for them, right. I mean, they were able to stash a lot of supplies, a lot of men and material, across the border, but I will say that they tried to do something similar at Duco, a few months earlier. And, but they had two, they separate from two main drawbacks, from the Vietnamese, North Vietnamese perspective, and that was that, Duco, they did not have enough combat power to overcome what was, what was able, what the allies were able to bring against them. And two, and that, and this sort of correlates with that, was Duco's location was on a major highway. And even though it was right on the Cambodian border, you know, the South Vietnamese and their American allies could get supplies and things into Duco a lot easier even though it was surrounded, and Plei Mei was much more isolated. So, that is really what happened was, is they had been trying to do this sort of stuff for years. You know, this sort of, this lure and ambush where, you bring a remote outpost under, you know, siege and then not only crush the outpost, if you can, but you know, destroy the, the responding force, right, they just want to take these big chunks out of the South Vietnamese army whenever possible. And so, they tried it at Duco. But they did not have enough combat power, they did not have enough troops committed. And it was also in an auspicious location even though it was close to their base areas in Cambodia. They, it was, you know, you could get to it pretty easily you know, you could bring armor in there to Duco, pretty easily. And so, Plei Mei was much more isolated, it was a little farther away from the border. But you know, there was just that provincial route five, which linked it with highway 14, and you know, you would have to, that is a single lane dirt track, and it was a perfect spot for an ambush. So they could you know, they could secret all of these, these regular army forces around Plei Mei, and make them think that they were about to be overrun, right, make them, bring them under enough attack to where the south Saigon would have to send, or at least [inaudible] who would have to send in, you know, rescue force and then, then you could, you could isolate that rescue force on that little spin dirt track that was heavy foliage on both sides of the road, and then just destroy it. That is what they dreamed of, is destroying a large Arvin formation and then once that happened, once all those defenses were wiped out, they could pretty much roll through what you know, [inaudible] and [inaudible] because there would not really be anything else, you know, to stop them, I think [inaudible] even, they stripped down to where they really only had maybe a battalion in reserve to defend what was pretty, a pretty large town at that time. And so they had to bring in, you know, the-the first cab to, you know, that was part of the whole thing, right introducing the first cab- SM: 20:30 Right. JS: 20:30 -and kind of, sort of guaranteeing the provincial capital-capital safety so that Arvin could then go and rescue this besieged camp. SM: 20:40 One of the, one of the things that is very important too, is that the, we are talking about the early stages of the Vietnam War, and the Gulf of Tonkin was in (19)64. So, everything starts going forward there, even though we are there from (19)59 on, in support and somewhat. With McNamara, and certainly with Westmoreland being the general there at the time, they were all about numbers, it was bringing in the numbers, kill, the kill ratios. And we all learned about that, I, that we were all growing up with that. I, we all experienced it as young people as members of the boomer generation that reports every day about how many were killed on T.V., and so forth. So, it was all a numbers game, in the beginning, the feeling that America could just keep killing, and killing, and killing, and the Vietnamese would finally submit. And then, then some of the critics of the war, the very early critics would say, "Well, wait a minute, you do not really know about the history of Vietnam, and what the battles, they fought for centuries were against their enemies, their most recent being the French and now the United States." Your thoughts about, the numbers game that was being played at that particular time, right, before Plei Mei, and the American strategy up to that point that it was a numbers game? JS: 22:01 Yeah, and I think that directly stems from Westmoreland's, you know, restrictions. And the restrictions that were placed on him by, you know, the higher ups, L.B.J., number one. He did not want a wider war, he did not want American forces in Cambodia, or Laos. And, you know, when you allow an enemy to have that kind of freedom of movement and sanctuaries, just across the border of not one, but two countries, with really rugged terrain, with mountainous terrain, areas, you know, canopy jungles where you can, you can hide entire regiments without being seen from the air. And indeed, in the [inaudible] massive complex, that is exactly what they did. They had supplies, secreted in there. And they have would place it, the North Vietnamese could go and rest and recuperate and build up, you know, supplies and all of which can be completely covered from any aerial observation. So, so I guess, if I mean, looking back, in hindsight, you look at it, and you think, that does not seem like a smart way to go, it is just trying to, you know, you know, because if you are, if you are going to go by body count, you are going to go by, so this war of attrition, then it automatically incentivizes field commanders, who are, you know, looking for, at the very least some sort of success, you know, to maybe inflate what they see, or inflate what, with the counselor, right. So in hindsight, you look at it, you say, "Well, that does not seem like a very smart way to fight a war," is just, you know, trying to out kill the other, without destroying base, sanctuaries, and cutting off access, and all the rest. And there were various plans that were in the works to do that, invading Laos, and you know, completely cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail and, leaving that whole area occupied by strong forces, you know, none of that ever came to fruition. So I, to me, it just seems like, you know, that is what Westmoreland was dealing with. You know, in the book, "The Best and the Brightest," you saw sort of the calculated mentality, of a lot of the, president's advisors, and top military men at the time, it was all statistics and all, you know, analytics, and this is how you win is by you know, x number of this versus x number of that, all the, all the rest of it. And, and I do not know that it just seems like that belies, like thousands of years of human history that, that is not really, you know, that is not really how wars fought or won, certainly. SM: 24:40 You brilliantly talk about some of the leaders of South Vietnam, DM and, and his, his lack of leadership, I believe, because he has enemies himself. But, you talk also about the importance of morale. And what, and-and Plei Mei was really about morale as well. Because if it went down, that would look terrible to the people in South Vietnam who, and certainly the United States who were supporting the Vietnamese. And we lost this very important thing, because we knew that morale was also important to the North Vietnamese, because that is why they trying to do these surprise attacks, which ended up being the main goal of Plei Mei, by killing as many people as possible. Your thoughts on, the both sides trying to win this morale battle, so that whoever wins this or that, that will get rid of the government of South Vietnam or make the leaders of the North Vietnamese look bad? JS: 25:45 Yeah that and that was, that is part of the other aspect of it is, you know, Plei Mei was not just sort of this isolated thing, right. The real goal was to destroy large Arvin formations whenever possible- SM: 26:00 Right. JS: 26:00 -but what was [inaudible], you know, so a secretary of North Vietnam, what his, his ultimate goal was, was not to inspire an uprising among the South Vietnamese, right. And so, they figured that if they could make the quote, puppet, in Saigon look bad enough, that they could destroy enough of this forces, and winning up victories on the battlefield, it would make the people say, "Look, this is, you know, at the very least, this is inevitable, we need to rise up and get with on the winning side," at the very least, right, and you are right, that is about crushing the morale and inspiring this general uprising, he had hoped for the general uprising all the way through the 72 Easter offensive again, and it did not materialize again. Even though the North Vietnamese through, you know, upwards of 200,000 troops in a holy conventional invasion of the south in (19)72, it still did not inspire, it inspired a lot of panic, it inspired a lot of people fleeing, but it did not inspire this, this sort of general uprising that he, long hoped for, right. So that is, that side of things. And yeah, I mean, even though there were only a handful of Americans at Plei Mei you know, your-your prestige, becomes- SM: 26:00 Right. JS: 27:17 -entwined with holding on, that maybe even though these camps were, you know, part of the CG program, and offensively under the South Vietnamese special forces, it was really the Americans who were running it. And, you know, to lose something like that, and to have these guys overrun, and more importantly, to lose a very important, you know, government outpost like that would be, would be terrible. And I think that is why, you know, one reason anyway, right, why the first cab was introduced to kind of come in- SM: 27:55 Right. JS: 27:56 -and, and, and help save the day. But it was also this idea that, you know, we need to get the Americans in there, we need to test this new air mobile division, and we need to show what we can do. We need to, you know, it is time for us to take over, and it is time for us to actually win this war, because the South Vietnamese are not capable of doing it, you know. SM: 28:15 Right. JS: 28:16 And I think that was, there was a lot of, that was part of it too, this eagerness to get the first cab in there. SM: 28:24 Yeah, I think, at the very beginning of your book, you talk about President Kennedy and the fact that he liked Special Forces and, and he was he liked it because they were more flexible than, during Eisenhower's reign as president, where he still used the nuclear deterrent as a, as a force, a threat, to prevent conflict. And then, of course, we lost President Kennedy, he was assassinated. And of course, it is interesting, that within three weeks, Diem, and [inaudible] both, were both assassinated or killed in a coup. So, a lot was changing there. And also all these other leaders that came in, in the South before [inaudible] and [inaudible]. They, I do not, were there any decent ones that, that the people supported, before [inaudible] and [inaudible]? JS: 29:19 You know, it was, it was, it was a rough time, was not it? I mean, that is what coups do is that is they, they-they destabilize. And you know, Diem was, you know, even though, yeah, he was, he had his corruption problems, that is for sure. And he, you know, was not well loved and he cracked down on the Buddhist. I mean, they had their problems as well. I mean, these armed factions, some of them infiltrated by communist agents. I mean, there is all of these different facets, right, that is going on. So, I mean, he was dealing with a, a rough situation, and he was also paranoid, but he was also an ardent nationalist, and he was an ardent anti-communist. SM: 29:59 Right. JS: 30:00 So you know, and he, there was a certain level of stability with him in power, and, regardless, right, and so with his loss, then you were ushering in, you know, almost like, you can go back to Roman history, like this time at the barracks emperors, where there is just- SM: 30:16 Right, yeah. JS: 30:16 -one after an uprising, you know, and then being, you know, as either assassinated or, you know, at least put out of power. And then you finally get to, as you say, to event two, and, you know, things stabilized there, but also probably because the war had stabilized a lot more by the time, you know, [inaudible]'s presidency sort of matured. But, you know, good ones. I mean, I do not know [laughs]. You are right, yes. I mean, it is, it is just, you know, it, you are just wondering, you think back what, all the intrigue that was going on, and the different factions and, you know, not knowing who was who, and who you could trust and, and, and Diem was, was, you know, often vilified for, you know, putting people in power that he could trust rather than who were necessarily the most effective. SM: 31:11 Yeah. JS: 31:12 But then when you, you know, this is also the guy who gets overthrown in a coup and executed. So, I mean, there was probably some reason, right, some good reason for that paranoia. SM: 31:23 Yeah, he was also paranoid about the people that were helping the Special Forces, the Hmong, and the mana guards. I would like you to talk about, first off the twelve-man units. I, I learned a lot in your book, I learned an awful lot. And I have got to underline all of it, because I have learned so much. And could you talk about, when you talk about the special forces, these twelve-man units, what were they, and who were, what were the characteristics and qualities that was necessary, they were Americans now, but to be successful? JS: 32:00 Yeah. So as you rightly point out, President Kennedy saw a lot of value in so called coin, you know, counterinsurgency, and he thought it well, I do not know how much thought he gave it, but certainly some in, in the echelons of the military and political establishment thought that, you know, some of the lessons of the counterinsurgency, lessons from World War II had been lost, had been forgotten. And it was time, if you were going to take this flexible response approach, it was time to sort of reinvigorate them again, and Special Forces was, was a vehicle through which that could happen, at least from the Kennedy perspective. Where they, they were twelve-man alpha detachment, and they usually had two officers, a captain and a first lieutenant, First Lieutenant serving as executive officer. And then ten, ten enlisted, and enlisted usually were, you know, senior enlisted, at least, to the level of sergeants, and so forth. But you know, you would sometimes you would have other specialists in there as well, but, you know, especially some of these early guys, and some of the offshoots like, Delta, the Delta project, which I have mentioned in the book as well, I go over the book, you know, these are some grizzled characters. These are some hard-nosed fighters from Korea, and World War II paratroopers, and this is what you know, the type of guy that was drawn to Special Forces, who were the independent minded. They, they, they were very well trained, trained in weapons, and communications and demolition, and, and medical, you know, medical treatments and so forth, right. And they were often cross trained. So that you get, if one guy goes down with that specialty, someone else has training that can step up. But, there is a whole idea of really between, about these, alpha detachments was that they needed to be able to operate alone, they needed to be back in the back country, working with indigenous forces to organize them to, you know, talk [inaudible], whatever enemy they were fighting against. And again, this was not just in south, southeast Asia, but we were talking about even in Europe, they had units like this in place to try to, in case the Soviets actually did invade, then you would be able to operate behind enemy lines and organize you know, European citizens to put up a guerrilla resistance, and all this right. This is all tracking back to those old-World War II units. And so, the reviving this kind of stuff. And so what was the average Special Forces Trooper like he was, you know, he was not really young, he almost surely had conventional military experience. And, it was an air airborne billets. So, you know, they all had their jump wings. And they, but they were also sort of Mavericks, you know, kind of independent. SM: 35:09 Yep. JS: 35:10 And, you know, the conventional army looked askance at them, they thought, you know, you know, what are these guys doing, they were off on their own and these camps, so they were kind of running their own show, and, you know, they grow their beards, and they got their hairs- -into [inaudible], and, you know, all the rest. SM: 35:23 [laughs]. JS: 35:26 Uniforms and rags, and all the rest and, and, and, you know, but when it came down to it, and you are in the middle of nowhere, and you are in this little bunker, and all you got, besides you as a few other Americans and some [inaudible], who probably do not speak very much of their language. And then the beast out there in the darkness waiting beyond the wire, you know, these are the type of guys you want out there, and do not need nearly as much support and can think on the own, and can act on the own. And, you know, so, I guess in a way, that is what it is what it was, he was talking about Special Forces and these-these teams, you know, they were, they were unique and, and I again, a lot of them told me that this some of them were assigned there, they did not volunteer, some of them were assigned to it to fill out the ranks. And they said, it was not exactly career enhancing in those days, we, we sort of think of Special Forces now is like the greatest thing, you know, the average person thinks of him as like, you know, on a pedestal. But in those days, the regular army despised them, and, and even the guys who were, who were put into Special Forces, they knew, I mean, in a big, Cold War environment, the best way to advancement in the military was commanding of infantry battalion, or commanding an armored squadron or something like that, or even our artillery battery, you know, those were the names because they were expecting the big, the big set piece battles of the Cold War. And to be in Special Forces, some of them as one of my sources call them you know, "Those weirdos over on Smoke Bomb Hill," you know, they were always out there, eating snakes or whatever. SM: 35:26 Yep. [chuckles]. JS: 36:25 But now, I mean, we look at him as like, you know, we are, we do it, we think, the highest the highest about Special Forces operators these days. SM: 37:20 Well, I tell you, when the when the reinforcements had to come in to save, Plei Mei, getting Charlie Beckwith was very important. And I think, could you talk about, this is just one man we are talking about here. I think you had also said that he had, had not been in combat or something like that. You gave him a really great description of his whole background before he was given the, in charge of Delta Force. But, how he picked his men and what they had to possess to be, to pass by him so that he would be okay, you know, fighting by their, by his side, just talk about Charlie Beckwith, who he was and how he picked them, and what kind of men he wanted by his side? 38:10 He was, he was an irascible fellow, from all accounts, I mean, he had died before this book came out, so I was never able to talk to him. But just from talking to people that knew him, looking at, archival documents and so forth. He just was a, he was a character. And he, and, you know, he had his-his way of that he, he wanted things done, he wanted sort of an American version of the SAS the British, the Special Air Service of the British, right? He wanted those independent, tough operators who could do all kinds of things behind enemy lines. And, and, you know, he finally ended up getting the chance to do that when he was given Project Delta, which eventually, as you noted earlier, morphed into the current incarnation of what we call Delta Force. JS: 39:02 Right as operational, Operation Detachment Delta. So, we colloquially call it Delta Force. And so you know, that is what he wanted. He, one of my sources the late, great Yule White, who was at Plei Mei and recently passed. He passed maybe, within the last year. He said that Beckwith had, had an idea about the two types of men, there were two types of men in the world to Beckwith, they were either piss cutters, or dipshits. SM: 39:02 Right. [chuckles] JS: 39:35 And you really did not want to be in the latter category with Beckwith, right? SM: 39:38 Right. JS: 39:39 If he liked you, you were a piss cutter. And that meant, you know, you were a hard charger, you were someone who could get the job done. You were someone who, you could, someone you could depend on, especially in a fight. And if you were a dipshit, you better just stay away from them, you know, and get out of the unit if you can, and get away from them. And so, Yule White was, Beckwith referred to him as a piss cutter. But even then, years later, White told me I do not think I put this in the book. He told me, he said, he met Beckwith later on, and Beck tried to get him involved in some other thing, years later that he was doing and, and, Yule wanted to no part of it, he said he had [laughter] enough of that in Southeast Asia in those crazy times in Plei Mei, of course, he was wounded pretty grievously. SM: 40:26 I think, I think Beckwith, he wanted these people to be volunteers in Vietnam for six months, they must have earned a Combat Infantry Badge, and, and it be at least a sergeant. Now, I think there is one person that he ended up wanting, who did not qualify for hardly any of those. [chuckles] Because he considered him the first category. JS: 40:57 Yeah, that was Yule White. SM: 40:59 That was Yule White. [chuckles] JS: 41:00 Yeah, he had airborne and all the rest of it, but and he told me and again, he corroborated this, where I found elsewhere. But, you know, Beck would sent out these flyers, as soon as he took over Project Delta. And he said, "I can promise you a metal, a body bag, or both." And he stuffed them in every outgoing mail bag that was going to go out to Special Forces, eight camps around Vietnam, and he dumped a bunch of those fliers in there. And he says, the response was overwhelming. There was a bunch of guys who wanted to go, they were already out there on the fringes, already out there. You know, in these, in these camps, pretty much doing whatever they wanted, there was very little oversight, you know, so they were just they were on their own. And, they wanted even more they wanted to, they wanted to take it up another notch, and do some Long-Range Reconnaissance and all the rest of, is what, you know, Beck would get started with Project Delta. SM: 42:00 Did not he-he- he promised them they either get a medical badge, or body bag or both? JS: 42:10 Yeah, well. Medal [inaudible] SM: 42:12 [chuckles] Yeah. JS: 42:15 That is, that is a heck of a sales pitch, whatever group that worked. And so you know, and as I said, when he got to, you know, he had been clamoring for such a command for years, and nobody wanted to be part of Beckwith right in the upper but he had a few friends. And they finally said, Look, we were giving you this project, Delta, you know, go to go to Vietnam. Mm-hmm. And he showed up in in, I believe, was NhaTrang. And tried to, you know, see what his guys were up to, they were all nowhere to be found. They were all party and downtown, and you know, with the bar girls and all the rest. And he just, you know, he went ballistic and fired nearly all of them. And that is when he put that call out. He says, if these guys do not want to do what I want them to do, then they were going to go- and then I am going to find my kind of guys. And that is that is how we did it by reaching out with those flyers and saying, look, I can promise you a metal of body bag or both. And you got to be these certain things and come on, but he liked [inaudible] even though he was not he did not have the CIB. At that point. He liked White. And he thought he was a peace guard. And he was older, you know, 31 I mean, that is, that is what Beckles was looking for, you know, they one of the sources said, These guys made you feel good, because they were older. You know, they had they had their brizzle they that white and their beards and-and you know, they had been through some shit and Korea and World War Two, and you just felt safer and better when those guys arrived on the scene? SM: 43:03 Yep. Yeah, when I visit the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, I always see people who are a few of the Montagnard who are there. And they make reference to it sometimes in some of the guest speakers, but I do not think there has been enough written about them and-and their importance in the Vietnam War, especially being our fighting side by side with Americans. Because in reality, I believe you state pretty emphatically that they did not like the Vietnamese that well, because they were treated as less than human almost by them. And could you talk a little bit about the role that the Hmong and the Montagnard have played in the Vietnam War? Now you describe it in the very early part of the war and in 1965, and 64. But they were they were there throughout the war. So who are they? Where did they live? And-and how important were they in the war for America? JS: 44:54 Well, um, the and I will hasten to say this, I do not know about the Hmongs but I do know about the mind yards that not all of them were on our side. There were minors who sympathize with the Vietcong. And were, you know, be a con agents. So there was always that danger, right. And several special forces camps were sort of attacked from within. Because the Montagnards that were in there were actually Vietcong agents, even though they were ethnically Montagnards. You know, so I think that sort of disdain, you know, went, you know, kind of both ways, right, I oftentimes think of the way the Montagnards were looked upon by the Vietnamese is the way that like the Americans of the Old West looked upon the Indians, right? The Native American tribes, it has been there a long time, but they just did not, they did not like them. And they did not treat them well. And they were different. And they were primitive by their standards, and all the rest of this sort of, and of course, that empathy was returned heartily by, you know, tribes to the Apache and Comanche and so forth. Right. Same thing with the-the Montagnards. So they were not uniformly on the American side, but they were there, enough of them were, especially when they could be with Americans. And they could see sort of, like the broader advantages of being with Westerners, right, with new technology and education and improved agriculture, and things like that, they can kind of see their own their own self-interest. And plus the, you know, largely the Americans that they dealt with did not, you know, they were not, they were not conscripting them, like the Vietcong were and so forth, it was more of a, a little bit more of a partnership rather than kind of conscripting you into the service of the infrastructure. So they were they were very valuable. And, you know, the, the civilian regular Defense Group. CG, right was something that was valuable early on, because it helped secure, otherwise endangered villages from being taken over by the Vietcong in the back country. It sort of taught though, in law, these were mountain art villages, right. And so it taught them to defend themselves. And, and it is sort of spread, if not total allegiance to Saigon at least resistance to being taken over by the Vietcong. Right, so this is something they were happy with. But when one the program began to morph into an offensive instrument, rather than self-defense, but actually organizing the Montagnards and into strike forces, and saying them out and putting them on ambushes, and, and really even more so uprooting them from their, you know, their ancestral lands and moving them into these heavily fortified camps, it is sort of, you know, you got some manpower, and at least for the most part, this manpower was not being used against you. But it was not quite that organic, you know, self-defense, vibe that was going on early on the program. And a lot of the reason for that is, you know, because it was the control that was devolved from CIA and Special-Special Forces to, you know, MACV. And so they wanted, they wanted to, they had all these guys on their arms, they want to put them out there and do interdiction and, and, you know, ambush and offensive operations against the Vietcong. But they were they, you know, it just like we were seeing, you know, just like you see all the PTSD that people in Iraq, who helped us, you see the people in Afghanistan, who helped us the interpreters and all the other people who put their faith in the United States, you know, in the end, they get abandoned. And that is what happened with the Montagnards. SM: 49:03 Yep. JS: 49:05 And they have got, you know, and you know, some of them really had some pretty terrible experiences, and so-called reeducation camps and all the rest after the war, and, you know, horrific injuries, and, you know, all the promises that were made for pensions and, and health care, and all of these things that, you know, they were promised earlier on in the war, obviously, they cannot be fulfilled, that there is no longer a South Vietnamese government in the United States long gone. And so they were left just left out to dry and, you know, it is just, it is tragic. And it is, it is, it is infuriating. And, and I guess it is just, you know, the way we do things, you know, because you see it repeated in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to this day. SM: 49:53 When you look at the-the early part of the war in 64 and 65. I looked at the leaders that were leading at the time in South Vietnam and in America, and all of them were under a lot of pressure, they felt that- Johnson did not have it in the beginning because he had a lot of support for the war and everything. But the one person that stands out as a leader is Ho Chi Minh. I remember reading a book that said the in before he died, that he was Vietnam. There was no question even the people in the north and the south, he was admired by a lot of people because of who he was and experience and he had one- is the one that wanted to support the Geneva Accords. And-and of course, the United States and South Vietnam would not have anything to do with it. But that because they probably knew that, you know, he would be the one that they would be elected or whatever. But that just I do not know if you have ever thought of that. But they-they revered him. So people have been off for the on their side revered Ho Chi Minh. JS: 51:07 Yeah, one thing that I would- that I learned over the course of all this is that by the time all these figures died in 69, and so by the time a lot of this stuff was transpiring, even the early part of the war, he had already become something of a figurehead. SM: 51:21 Right. JS: 51:21 And, but he was still a symbol, right? SM: 51:24 Mm-hmm. Yes. JS: 51:26 -Calling many shots anymore, even-even into the even into the early and mid (19)60s. He just getting old, you know, but SM: 51:33 Right. JS: 51:33 -he had been around a long time. And he had to gather gravitons. He has had the chops. And you know, and I think to do from a strictly real politic perspective, he was willing to do or say whatever it took to get, you know, what he wanted? And that was the independence of Vietnam under whatever government. SM: 51:51 Mm-hmm. JS: 51:53 You know, so, but you are out and you are right. I think the average person in Vietnam would look at him and say, you know, that is, you know, that is Uncle Ho, that is the leader. SM: 52:03 Yeah. JS: 52:03 That is the That is the guy. Right? Who's, who's been at this for decades? SM: 52:09 Yes, yes. JS: 52:11 Yeah. And that another reason why Giáp was so revered too, because he had, you know- -not only was he effective military commander, but he-he paid his dues. He been in there for so long. And of course, you know, all when you start getting into political machinations of what was going on in Hanoi, you know, Lai [inaudible]. And, you know, he had usurped you know, they were on two opposite sides of things. SM: 52:17 Yep. JS: 52:19 Mm-hmm. -And, and, and he had you serve both-both Ho Chi Minh and Giáp and, you know, marginalize them, but still recognizing that, you know, they, they had their people who revered them. So, it is interesting to see the different, you know, leadership qualities, but they were always [inaudible] Giáp and his, his, his supporters were always going for the big, dramatic win, and Ho and Giáp we are all about, you know, let us take it slow. What is going -on mental it is going to happen, you know, let us not you know, and, and believe me, the Vietnamese are South Vietnamese, South Vietnamese communists, were, you know, quite skeptical of Lai's wild strategy, because they knew they were going to be the ones who took the [inaudible]. And they did in (19)68, when they rose up in Tet, they took horrific beating. And they destroyed all these carefully built, you know, cadre and infrastructure over the years and not to mention, you know, just plain old main force units just wiped out. And they took a huge hit for My Lai’s desire, this dramatic victory in this this win-win now mentality. Right. Right. Right. SM: 53:49 Early on, when he early on in your book, you talk about the first group that was taken care of Plei Me and then the tragedy were four, four were killed in a helicopter crash. And I think it is important that people read your book, because not only do you describe this important whole event itself, and it is linkage to early part of the history of the Vietnam War. But the fact is, it shows that Americans are dying little by little by little by little. If you look between (19)59 and (19)65, how many really died, you go to the Vietnam War and you see that there is, you know, how it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. We are, we are, we do not talk about the Americans who are dying now in (19)64 and (19)65 advisors. And so you really do a great job of that, you know, itis sad to hear about number six died here for died here, but those add up JS: 54:54 Mm-Hmm. SM: 54:54 -and they are Americans. And I almost cried when you when you talked about the helicopter that crashed and the four young men, the four men who died their age, whether they were married, you know where they came from. And you-you did a great job. And in some in sections of the book about their backgrounds where they came from how they ended up in Vietnam, I mean, a tremendous job, just but could you talk about those four their pictures or in the book two of those four that were in that helicopter? JS: 55:30 Yeah, that was, that was the-the helicopter gunship that was trying to get- they had been running. They have been running close air support all through the night, up until that point, and because, you know, the Air Force could not get there soon enough. So they were really the kind of the first responders if you will, and they, you know, they had run story after story. They had gone back. refueled rearm that on how many times and then they were tasked with putting in Captain Lanny Hunter who was the-the C two surgeon, and they felt like if they could get him into the ground on Plei Me , then they would- he would be able to do things not only you know, care for the wound and everything but also it was something that he called the physicians mystique, it would make the-the guys who were there kind of look and say, you know, the doctors here the real doc, not a medic, but a real surgeon, a real who knew a lot of the guys who was well respected. And they said it can it can it not only it can, he can do things and help save lives that an average medic could not do but he could also inspire he could also be you know, a real morale boost. And so he agreed to do that he talked it over with his-his commanding officer and they said what you are doing at first light and this was the very first morning of the of the Plei Me siege. And so but the you cannot just fly a medivac chopper in by itself, you got to have some kind of gunship support. And so these two crocodiles, which is what the-the 119th called, they were, they were gunships. They were, they were alligators and crocodiles, right the alligators with slicks, they were the ones who killed the troops and, and supplies and so forth. And the gunships were the ones who were just the bristling helicopters with weapons. And so they say you got to fly in. And that is what happened is they flew in, and they were going to, they needed to get Lanny Hunter into the camp. But they also needed to get some wounded out, they needed to drop off some supplies. So you tried to get make the most out of every helicopter run into this into the teeth of all this anti-aircraft fire. And, you know, what happened was they- you know, they went in the metabank, that love Lanny Hunter was on came in, and sort of when he went into his flare, he came in too fast, maybe and caused them to be a little too high. And so he was a sitting duck. And so what happens is the gunships have to go and draw fire away from them. And they did that. But they unfortunately went right into the teeth on the southern portion of the camp of where most of the North Vietnamese anti-aircraft fire was concentrated. Got shot down. And you know, and the real tragedy for the whole unit 119 was they-they could not go get those guys, the area was just too hot. And they just, you know, they died like that in there. They crashed SM: 58:47 Mm-Hmm. JS: 58:47 -molting bolt in flames, and they all burned. And they were just young, you know, young guys, SM: 58:53 Right. JS: 58:53 -wives and kids on the way and everything like that. But they could not go get them until the siege was over, because it was just too much fire too much, too much any enemy activity. So they just stayed out there for days and days and days. And finally, you know, as you know, for the book, I was able to talk to one of the guys who went on the mission to get them. And it was just a really, really horrific event and heartbreaking to say the least. SM: 59:18 And you lost another one there and Mr. Bailey. JS: 59:22 Yes. Joe Bailey. Yep. Yep. And he was he was on the ground, right, one of the one of the Special Forces troopers occupying or, you know, garrisoning the camp SM: 59:36 Mm-Hmm. JS: 59:36 and then to go out and try to rescue these guys who had been shot down and the way they were man, the way they described it was this, you know, because I asked them all the same question. I said, "Why would you risk yourself to go and get someone you did not know" or "Why would you risk yourself to help some guy on the ground that you did not know?" And they all said the same thing "It was because they do it for us, you know." So it is like reciprocal agreement, that even though we may not know each other, we were all we were on the same team, and we were going to try our best to save you under any circumstances. So the guys that were in that helicopter that got shot down, we were trying to help the guys on the ground, and they had been helping them all night running gun runs, you know, to try to suppress the NBA attacks. And, and on the flip side of that, the guys on the ground saw that helicopter go down, and they said, We got to go get them. SM: 1:00:36 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:00:37 It does not look good. But we got to go try. And they went out onto the wire, and they got ambushed, and they got, you know, Joe Bailey lost his life that day trying to help guys who he did not even know, but who would have to help him. SM: 1:00:52 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:00:52 And that is that free to call that thing that is in the military that that so many of them say they miss that you just you cannot you know, just some average civilian or something who did not know who you can trust. You know, meanwhile, this guy, they do not know each other, but they were, it is just part of the ethos. They tried to help me so I am going to go try to help them and I made and lose my life in the process. SM: 1:01:13 We need that in America today. JS: 1:01:17 Well, the [inaudible] right- SM: 1:01:18 -[inaudible] about everybody. JS: 1:01:22 That is what a lot of these guys coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan have said in the past is like, you know, how do you know who to trust? -You do not have that camaraderie. You do not have that, that that brotherhood, that sisterhood that you had, while you were downrange. And, you know, Sebastian, younger, I do not know how what you know about him. But you know, if you are interested in such things, he has written, you know, very, very passionately and persuasively about, you know, young men in combat and what they miss, about being in combat- SM: 1:01:55 Hmm. JS: 1:01:56 -and about being military and so forth. SM: 1:01:58 Hmm. JS: 1:01:58 And, you know, he is a guy, you know, he is one of those, those long form journalists, as literary journalist who goes and does the thing. You know, he is with the guys. Right. And that is one thing that is, that is always impressed me is the, you know, he spent [inaudible] spent months in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan with his group, and he did a 3-3-3 documentary films and- SM: 1:02:23 Wow. JS: 1:02:24 -at least one book on it. So I do not know, Steve, if you are interested in things like that. I just throw his name out there. SM: 1:02:29 Well, I am very interested in and of course, I knew Wallace Terry, who wrote Bloods. And he was with the African American soldiers by their side during the war. JS: 1:02:39 Yeah. SM: 1:02:39 -yeah. So that is something and of course, Joe Galloway. Oh, can say about Joe, my goodness, one of a kind. Could you give us- for people who are studying this down the road? Plei Me, you know, it had been there a while but as you start your book with that first group, and then you have got the back with group coming in and three reinforcements with Delta Force, and then the [inaudible] comes in, right to the very end of your book, you talk about the reason why Plei Me, the soldiers and Plei Me survive. Could you talk about the thanks that you gave to the groups that came in that dropped the food that dropped bombs around the sort of camp? Could you talk about those people who risked their lives to say these to save Plei Me. JS: 1:03:33 Yeah, I mean, I heard it described by many sources that it was just a wall of anti-aircraft fire every time you would approach that camp like you would like, like if you were out in the woods, and you have got a stick and you actually hit a hornet's nest and they will just come buzzing out I mean, every time that they would fly their helicopter or fixed wing aircraft near that camp, this round would just light up with an aircraft fire just trying to just shoot down as many aircraft as possible kill as many people as possible SM: 1:04:03 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:04:04 and of course you know all that ratchets up the pressure right on we got to get this relief force there and of course their ideas they want to ambush the release force too. Yeah, I mean, think about that for a second. I mean, all of those guys and those helicopters and in those-those a One Sky Raiders which was like a, an old-World War Two prop plane that they use for close air support and Vietnam. And you know, coming in and laying down Napalm and you know, cluster munitions and 20-millimeter cannon fire, all of this to constantly try to beat back the NBA assaults on the wire to try to, you know, to bomb them at least enough to keep them far enough away from the camp even so that they could not just constantly rain down fire SM: 1:04:56 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:04:57 benders and you know, and then you get the resupply, right, coming in, on-on-on-on these big transports for both the Air Force and the Army. And, you know, these are lumbering aircraft compared to, you know, a Canberra, you know fighter bomber or SM: 1:05:21 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:05:21 even a helicopter and maneuver around these things are pretty much flying in a straight line, and they would make up these pallets of supplies. So that they would, they would drop even faster because the area that they could drop the supplies in was very, very limited Plei Me was not that big to begin with. And then they had this sort of inactive defense that went far out away from the act of the active line of defense where there were man gun trenches and all that they had sort of like a no man's land that was outside of the camp with barbed wire and claymore mines and things like that. But if supplies landed in there you would be you take you take your life in your own hands trying to even get to it because it was constantly under fire, SM: 1:05:38 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:06:07 -And so the just the skill of the pilot, and the Air Force, or I am sorry, these special forces, riggers, right the ones who rigged the pallets up in the first place, specifically, so that they would drop quickly. And so the planes would come over, they only have a second or two to release the load. And they wanted it to drop right into the camp. So they not only the guys who get it, but so that the NBA could not get it SM: 1:06:07 Right. JS: 1:06:32 -It is the level of skill. And meanwhile, you have got the board air controller, sort of like I would like it him as like the conductor of an orchestra. And he was up there in a little O-1 bird dog observation plane. It is like a Cessna. And you know, he was marking things down with a grease pencil on his plexiglass of his of his of his of his plane, you know, all the different flights that he has got stacked up and he was in ease and again, he was orchestrating all of this and calling in okay, you know, flight 2 you can go now SM: 1:06:32 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:07:06 -going to run, okay, we have got a supply run coming in, imagine the pressure, SM: 1:07:11 Yeah. JS: 1:07:11 -of that skill that is involved in that, all of that to keep these guys on the ground alive. SM: 1:07:18 Yep. JS: 1:07:19 -And, again, not knowing any of them. Really, I mean, you might, you might have met a guy here, there. But for the most part, there is guys on the ground that need help. And in to do all that and to bring in all of that heavy-duty ordinance so close to the base, but not kill anybody. was amazing. They wanted some, including the camp commander Harold Moore took some shrapnel from close air support, they came in too close. And a couple of Montagnards were crushed to death when a supply pallet came right down on top of their gun trench. SM: 1:07:54 Wow. JS: 1:07:54 So it was not it was not without hazard. SM: 1:07:57 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:07:57 But most part in a hot complex situation. These guys really, the skill and determination they exhibited over that week was just amazing. SM: 1:08:09 Could you give um if someone wants to know more about Plei Me, what would be the date, the date the month and the days in 65. JS: 1:08:20 Mm-Hmm. So that is going to be October 19th through October 25th is the official length of the siege 1965 There are things that happened before it there was leading up to it and there were some things that happen after it. SM: 1:08:37 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:08:38 Both are talked about in the book, but that siege itself ran from October 19 to which was a Tuesday I believe all the way through the 25th is when the seed was officially lifted when that South Vietnamese armored Task Force finally arrived. SM: 1:08:55 Yeah, and-and then the La Drang Valley was only about three days later. JS: 1:09:01 Well, well- SM: 1:09:02 -that means remember, like, JS: 1:09:05 The pursuit started almost immediately. But you are right. When you think about the, you know, Colonel Hal Moore -and most of the seventh and what we think of as the beginning of the La Drang on November 14. SM: 1:09:13 Yep. Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:09:19 That would be that was after a really frantic pursuit of the forces that had to besiege Plei [inaudible] and Plei Me that was always the big complaint from American commanders at that time. Was that the Viet Cong and again, they thought these were the Viet Cong up until maybe halfway through the siege and they started to realize oh, this is actually the PAVN right People's Army of Vietnam as the NBA. And so that one complaint they always made was that they were always allowed to attack and then just drift away and to pick and choose their time. They were going to attack and the first cab was like, we were not going to do that we were not going to allow them just to attack and run away and regroup, we were going to pursue that. We were going to we were going to kill them however we possibly can. And so it was a frenetic frantic pursuit over those weeks until how more landed has the first of his battalion in at the, at the base of the Tupac massive in on November 14. And it was marked by some success. But mainly, it was, it was, it was pretty frustrating for SM: 1:10:32 Right. JS: 1:10:32 first [inaudible]. SM: 1:10:33 Yep. JS: 1:10:34 You know, they-they could pin him down sometimes, but the you know, they-they burned a lot of fuel. And they had a lot of mechanical problems because they kept running the helicopters so hard. You know, they get an A for effort. They were trying to make it happen. But they got a quick introduction to how difficult it was to deal with that terrain and with an enemy that can, you know, can hide and disperse. And but they both sides finally got their battle on November 14th. And we know what happened after that. SM: 1:11:06 Yep. Joe Galloway was lucky to get that, or unlucky. But I think he would say lucky to get that helicopter ride into the area. 1:11:16 And he came into Plei Me to you know, he sort of BS his way on and had a buddy and all the rest of it. That got him into to Plei Me and he told me that story for the book. So he kind of got that first. You got his debit there and then left with the first [inaudible] and then ended up, you know, of course, going in a couple of weeks later. On that first. SM: 1:11:41 You-you talk about also toward the end of your book, The you break down the losses from Plei Me how many Americans died? And how many of the enemy you think died? Could you break that down a little bit more? 1:11:56 Yeah, well, we had seven Americans who were killed. 11 if you count the four guys that were on the recon, that really re-catch up, it was a gun, gunship escort for when Beckwith was looking for a proper LZ for his insertion. So those that have a mechanical player, but they still died and they died in service to their country. And when the rotor came away from their helicopter, technically, you could say that they also perished in the siege because they were directly participating. Then you had you know, scores of South Vietnamese and Montagnard were killed. And the NVA regiments that were there were they fared pretty poorly. The counts on the 33rd regiment, which was the one that actually laid siege to Plei Me are much more accurate. Whereas the 32nd, the one that was tasked with ambush in the relief column, they- body counts are not nearly as reliable. But the 33rd definitely took a horrific beating. And one of the reasons was and ironically, it may have been because their seeds went on so long, that they just were they were subjected to relentless and brutal air bombardment SM: 1:13:23 Yes Right. JS: 1:13:23 -and attacks from the camp itself for seven days, you know, nearly you know, and, and doing the-the South Vietnamese relief force was so slow in getting there, it just, it just drove the siege out day after day after day. And these guys just were pummeled. So I do not remember the exact figures off the top of my head, but I know that several, several, several companies pretty much cease to exist. In the 33rd I know that several battalions they lost all I think all of their battalion commanders was killed, or maybe two or three, they lost a lot of a lot of their equipment, which at that time was in really short supply for the North Vietnamese, you know, there was any aircraft guns and, and, and recoilless rifles and all that stuff was-was gold to them, especially in those early days and they lost a lot of that, but also lost a lot of manpower. -32nd even though it had taken a beating out there on Route five, again, body counts are not as reliable. Most sources seem to think conservatively they lost a couple of 100 guys, which is still a chunk, you know, that is a lot that is a that is a lot of people to lose, and but they were able to escape and make their way out and I do not think that they saw any more action for quite some time but the 33rd was harassed and chased the whole way from Plei Me by the first cab until they actually got to the base areas in the Ia Drang. And I think if memory serves now we are getting into Joe Galloway's territory here. But I think that the 33rd did participate somewhat in the Ia Drang battles, it was mainly the 66 NBA regiment, but I think the 33rd did in that course they lost more guys. SM: 1:15:18 Right. JS: 1:15:19 So, by the time it was all said and done, they and they abandoned South Vietnam and started across the border to Cambodia, SM: 1:15:28 Right. JS: 1:15:29 Both of those regiments, the 33rd. And the 32nd that besieged Plei Me were pretty badly mauled. But they could then take-take refuge in Cambodia, and get replacements and rest and recuperate and get more supplies. And then when they were ready, they could go back into the fight, which is what those sanctuaries allow them to do. SM: 1:15:54 I have a couple of questions now that are just general questions on Vietnam, and I just like your thoughts. A lot of the books and a lot of historians have stated that America was not prepared for this war. They did not understand the culture of Vietnam, they did not, they were not prepared for a guerrilla war. I think Special Forces though, were pretty good at countering them. But they did not understand the language. They should bet-bet-better understood the history. And when Robert McNamara wrote his book, In retrospect, several years ago, he admitted that he, he knew we were not going to win the war. But he still left in 1967. And the war was still going on. And I know Senator McCarthy never forgave him for that. Because I interviewed Senator McCarthy and said that, In retrospect, was a bunch of garbage in his view, because he should have done that way before 67. Your thought about America? What has America prepared for this war? JS: 1:16:54 Prepared? That is right. What are we talking about? Are we talking culturally, politically, militarily? All of the above- SM: 1:17:01 -all of the above? Because, you know, because did they understand guerrilla warfare? Do they understand the history of Vietnam? You know, all you had to do was listen to Ho Chi Minh, he could have told you everything. So just your thoughts? JS: 1:17:17 Yeah, I mean, I think right, culturally, I think that, that they did not, they did not even a lot of Americans did not even know where it was right. And they did not, they did not really see public fans are the nuances of, you know, Cold War geopolitics, it was pretty much like, where our president says, we need to be there. Those are the commies we need to do. And that is probably the deepest it was ever thought of by, you know, just on the average American, those who are even aware of it. Then you get the guys who are charged with prosecuting the war. You are right. I mean, ever since 1945, in the end of World War Two, America had been preparing for a large set piece, geopolitical struggle against the Soviet Union, and to a somewhat lesser degree, China, right. SM: 1:18:22 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:18:22 And so the emphasis was on, you know, big weapons, big units, air power, all the rest to defeat a foe that could pose an existential threat to your country. And-and, of course, you know, Vietnam was not that, you know, it was. So I agree, I think today, they were taking somewhat by surprise, I think that they thought that kind of like the incremental. The incremental approach gradiated pressure that McNamara approach with LBJ is at least acquiescence, right? SM: 1:19:01 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:19:03 To keep the pressure up, and, you know, keep trying to get concessions and keep trying to get them to come to the bargaining table. I mean, they did not I do not think they knew what they were dealing with. And you would think that you could look and just see from the-the perspective of the French. But again, I think that the Americans thought at the time, and they were justified in thinking that we had more capabilities than the French SM: 1:19:29 Right. JS: 1:19:29 -we had, we had better weapons, and we had better tactics. And we were- the French had just gotten beaten in World War Two and works for some of the reasons we supported them in Vietnam was to try to get them back on their feet because we saw it as a way to do as an anticommunist block to have a strong France again. Probably a lot of Americans leadership did not they did not want to see colonies anymore. They did not want to see they knew the third world was changing. You are right. I think a lot of these things it took them by surprise and-and just like inch by inch, step by step, they got deeper into something. And I think by the time they realized and adjusted strategy, and then we are talking getting into (19)72, which kind of comes to my, my second book that will be coming out here in a few months, is that, you know, by that time, all of the goodwill and all of the political capital, everything had been expended. SM: 1:19:47 Mm-Hmm. Mm.-Hmm. JS: 1:20:12 And that by that time, Congress wanted no more part of it, and neither did the American people. And so, you know, that is the Nixon felt, felt a heavy pressure, he had to get out, and he had to get out. And, you know, the election of 72 was-was the-the new Congress coming in the new was going to be sworn in, in early 73, 93rd Congress, and he knew it was going to be hostile to Vietnam, especially it had been growing more so. And so I think that by the time they figured it out, they figured out how to fight the war, what the priorities should be, and all the rest of it. That coupled with the defeat of the Viet Cong in 68 Tet all of those things came too late. And I think that by the time they figured out what they should do, and then Watergate happened in Nixon lost all of whatever little capital he had, and then finally resigned. And at that point, we just pretty much washed our hands of the whole thing and, and left South Vietnam on its own. In the process- SM: 1:21:44 Yep. Arthur Schlesinger, the historian who was a special assistant to President Kennedy, said, said that Kennedy picked the best and the brightest for his administration. And of course, administration stayed on with LBJ, a lot of them after Kennedy was assassinated, set for Bobby who took off within a year. Look at what they did under Kennedy and Johnson. And when we are talking best and brightest, he is referring, I think, and mostly to Robert McNamara, and McGeorge Bundy. JS: 1:22:23 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:22:23 And can you throw Dean Rusk in there as well? I get that. Yeah, they might. is bright, always smart. That is the question I want to ask. And, and I do not think they were very smart. If they could not see what was happening, and particularly and I have different views. I have interviewed Robert McNamara's son. He has got a new book out too, on his father. And I have a little more and even Bobby Mueller grew to like Robert McNamara in overtime because he debated him. However, what Eugene McCarthy told me after In Retrospect came out is that his book was a bunch of garbage is what a lot of people felt because it was a little too late. JS: 1:23:11 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:23:12 If he knew this before, he should have been in the office with LBJ and said stop. I- you know, so, you know, just when you say you know, the best and the brightest, it always goes to Arthur Schlesinger because he was in that group from Harvard, but maybe they were not the best in the brightest, after all. Any thoughts on that? Oh Yeah- yeah, Halberstam wrote that. But you know, Fletcher's always saying it [inaudible] JS: 1:23:33 Yeah, I mean, that is the that is the book right? It is, we-we look at that and and-and we see it was Halberstam right? Who wrote the book- -Yeah, yeah. And it is true. I just I think that, you know, there is this adage that you fight, you are always trying to fight the last war. And I do not know, I think that they were trying to blame a-a-a-a- the American way of war. I think you are trying to bring it and make the war fit the way we wanted to fight it rather than the realities of what was going on. And again, slash injure or Eugene McCarthy's take on McNamara, you know, it was a little too late. And I would add to that, I would say that, you know, in a different sort of little too late, it was like, they finally figured it out. And we were having real success, but it was too late because they had already they had already burned all the bridges and SM: 1:23:50 Yep. JS: 1:23:53 bended all the little and no one believed him anymore and, and then, at that point, they just the people just wanted out in Congress, you know, was going to make that happen one way or another and I just I would look at it, Stephen, I just look at it. It is such a such a tragedy, right? SM: 1:25:04 I agree. Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:25:05 But if you get if you do it, right, if you do it, then the very least you can do is to is to be successful and to be and to win the thing. And this is what we come back to our beginning of our conversation, the thing that struck me as a young kid starting to watch this stuff starting to study, it is like, it just seems like such a waste. -and one of these guys lost, and then countless others who were named and, and who do you know, even though I said, I did not like the caricature of the Vietnam vets, it is in popular media, I mean, a lot of them did have a lot of problems. And a lot of them came overcame those problems, a lot of them went on to live a very happy and successful lives and still do. In fact, the great majority of them do. But the thing is, is you make that if you make that commitment, and you tell these young men to go do something, at least have the decency to be successful, and make their sacrifice worth something. And to me, that is, that is the tragedy too. And the tragedy is the is the millions of Vietnamese who were who lost their lives. And we were- SM: 1:26:15 Yes. JS: 1:26:16 -we were just split. And-and so, you know, what was all that for, you know, to-to, again, I hate this keep coming back when we spent 20 years in Afghanistan, and yet the scales of the enormity of what went on were not, were paled in comparison to-to Vietnam. Still, what was it all for? I mean, what was all those guys who were killed and lost legs? And what was it all for? If you are just going to wash your hands and-and bug out in an embarrassing display at the-the Kabul airport or in Saigon in 75? You know- SM: 1:26:29 Yes, It is like, it is like in your book use you talk about when all the bombardment is happening around the outskirts of pre-May in how parts of bodies around the wires? I mean, you know, after the all the bombing and taking place, these are these are human beings to from North Vietnam or the Viet Cong. I mean, they were they were babies, ones that have parents that love them and had families and they end up on body parts on a on a, you know, on a wire around a camp it is tragic. And I think the one thing you said at the very end of your book, because that person who saw that soldier, and it was actually thought that the soldier was just in the one I am talking about with a maggots. JS: 1:27:46 Yes, yeah. SM: 1:27:47 Could you talk about that, too? Because this is what the tra- this is what tragedy war is all about? JS: 1:27:53 Yeah. No, it was I think I called it one of wars, little atrocities. I mean, it was just, you know, somehow this, this North Vietnamese soldier had escaped the bulldozers that would have pushed all the bodies into the trenches that they dug themselves and then covered him over and he was propped up against them some foliage. And he would have he had died and compound fracture of his leg probably bled out at that moment, but he had the maggots had gone to work on his face instead of the leg wound. And, you know, the guy I told you about the helicopter pilot, who was walking around kind of looking to see, what he could see was just guessed. You know, he could not he could not believe his eyes. And it is you put it so well, I mean, he hears these guys, and they will they suffered, they suffered on their way down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, they starved and they were sick. And you know, these are things that, you know, we do not really think about, but just the hardship of just that, of just war itself, not even being shot or anything else, just the physical toil that it takes on your body, even as the young man and then at the end of that whole long, arduous, starving sick trip and they get to their their reward is to storm into this camp, and get bombarded by Napalm and become body parts in the wire. And a tragic thing that I found out in my research was is that the the NBA commanders knew that those that they were sending these guys into this mall have-have heard horrific fire. But they had no intention of taking the camp at that point. They just wanted to make the defenders think they were about to be overrun. SM: 1:29:40 Unbelievable. JS: 1:29:41 And in these guys against the wire and getting them slaughtered, knowing that really the whole point was is to first destroy that ambush or ambush that relief column and then overrun and destroy the camp. That was all part of the plan. And they knew it. I do not know if the I do not know if the company commanders knew it, but certainly the regimental commanders must have known it. That that was part of the plan. SM: 1:30:07 Yeah. -wars, not only hell, it is insanity. And then that you just proved it there. And Jan Scruggs wrote a book called Heal a Nation. I do not know if you saw that book. And it was about the importance of the wall and healing America, and certainly healing the families and the loved ones of the Vietnam soldiers who lost their lives in the war. Did that, as Jan said, heal a nation, does a wall heal the nation. JS: 1:30:07 So but- 1:30:39 I think that it certainly had a powerful effect. And I you know, I have been to it several times. And I have, I have, I seen the reverence with which the people approach it. And not all the guys are, you know, 70s, you know, in Vietnam age, you know, I mean, a lot of young people too, and, and people from different walks of life, and mean, something. And, you know, another thing I think, that helped heal the nation was-was Operation Homecoming, which was, as you know, once the Paris Peace Accords, were finally signed, there was the agreement to get the Viet W's out. And, and the reception that those guys got, everywhere they went, and the POW bracelets and the people the way they were treated, and the way that the-the citizens came up around the country to greet the planes and all of that. I mean, it was really inspiring. And that is what I asked again, that is, that is part of the second book that I am publishing this this winter, is I asked him, what was that? Was that a healing effect on the nation? And I really think that it was I think, law and things like that. helped me get a little better in the end. SM: 1:32:09 Did you talk to Jan Scruggs at all? If not, he is a good man to talk to. JS: 1:32:17 Steven I, I will, if I had the chance, I will reach out. But I do have to say this, but I have to go because I got to take my son to eye, to his eye appointment. SM: 1:32:28 Very good. JS: 1:32:29 So- is there any kind of last thing you wanted to ask me or? SM: 1:32:33 Yeah- I was going to say if there is one word that stands out in the 60s and 70s, what is that one word? JS: 1:32:44 60s and 70s. alike, all the way to the end of the 70s. SM: 1:32:47 What is there is one word that comes to mind when you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s? What is that word? JS: 1:32:56 Chaotic. SM: 1:32:58 Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, my mind was Vietnam. Yeah. And the last thing I want to ask is, and this is just-just your thoughts? Why did we lose the Vietnam War? And who was the most responsible for this loss? 1:33:14 Why we lost it, I think the strategy, my view was ultimately the strategy. I think that the American- whenever would have lost the American people if we were if we were actively winning, rather than just holding off rather than trying to hold territory or rather than just trying to accumulate body count. But then that opens up an entire other hand, does not it? What how would the Chinese have reacted? If we invaded Laos? I was a Chinese or how would the Soviets have acted if we invaded Cambodia, or at least, you know, create a buffer zones- SM: 1:33:58 Right. JS: 1:33:59 -that help prevent those supplies? And, you know, that is the that is the thing is that it is- we do not know. I mean, you got hindsight, we can both look back, and we see the mistakes now. And maybe we do not even see it, maybe we still do not see it. But it is just at the time, you know, Korea loom large and that experience and having all those Chinese forces come in. And I know that America's leadership did not want to do it. They also wanted to, in some ways for NSA, we were not even fighting a war. And if you are going to do it, you got to, you got to go to the American people and say, here is what we have got. SM: 1:34:43 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:34:44 What we need to do, can you support us and lay it on the line and say, this is what we really think is happening. ' SM: 1:34:53 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:34:53 This is what we need to do. And I do not think that the leadership did that. And I think that the Because of that, it constrain the strategy to one of attrition and holding, you know, trying to hold on to South Vietnam territory, and really fighting it sort of a defensive that. SM: 1:35:15 My last question is this real fascinating go. I have been asking the last 25 people I have interviewed, what word of advice would you give to the people who are listening to this interview? Who are not even born yet? These tapes are going to be at our center, and people that are born 50 years from now are going to be probably looking at your book listening to this tape. What words of advice would you give to them? JS: 1:35:46 I would say this, sometimes nation states have to go to war. Just make sure that you get your government to fully explain why you are going to war and-and why it is necessary and what they intend to do to win it. SM: 1:36:06 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:36:09 If they cannot answer those questions satisfactorily, then you have got to not support what is going to happen. And, again, war are sometimes necessary for any sovereign nation, but you do not do it. You do not engage in it. Unless you fully believe and intend to win, and the secure objectives. And if you cannot do that, and your government cannot explain that to you, as a citizen, then you need to be mighty skeptical of it. SM: 1:36:41 Well, thank you very much, Dr. Saliba. I am going to turn this off now. And I just want to thank you for doing for doing the interview with me and I wish you the best on your new book. Are you still they still-still there? JS: 1:37:00 [inaudible]. When the book comes out [inaudible]- SM: 1:37:07 Oh, I would be looking forward to it- JS: 1:37:17 [inaudible] SM: 1:37:22 -well, all that-all the people in Binghamton they are-are going to know so that is all you know, we got Dr. Nieman Dr. Nieman in the History department. So you know, you are going to be known that this book, I just want to say that this book that you just written is so important. So important. And I learned an awful lot that I did not know. And I thank you for this and the people anybody connected with Plei Me. I mean, they are American heroes. They are American heroes. That is all I have to say. And what will happen is we will be sending you a copy of this tape digital copy to your email address from Binghamton and then you can listen to it and if you if everything's fine and Okay, so we can place an onsite loan with your picture and a brief biography. JS: 1:38:15 [inaudible] SM: 1:38:15 And I tell it to your university that you work at is very lucky to have you that is all I had to say. JS: 1:38:20 [inaudible] I like that- SM: 1:38:26 [chuckles] Yes, you are lucky you are You take care. You be safe now. Bye now. 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. J. Keith Saliba https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/aa6714ac1373e3e0291339a997b1fb26.jpeg b22dfcc2a2a1fc731506083d55ec02ec https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/20ebb2699282f659b6de50de5f8f96a7.MP3 2f0ec11b4235a21ed16da008d2d2a0b1 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 25 August 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Frye Gaillard Biographical Text Frye Gaillard is a historian, educator, and author. He has been the writer-in-residence in the English and History departments at the University of South Alabama since 2007. He is the author of more than twenty-five books, including With Music and Justice for All: Some Southerners and Their Passions; Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award; The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina, winner of the Gustavus Myers Award; and If I Were a Carpenter, the first independent, book-length study of Habitat for Humanity. Professor Gaillard specializes in Southern culture and history. He graduated from Vanderbilt University. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 2:06:14 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 Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Book; South; Thought; Joh F. Kennedy; Vanderbilt; Martin Luther King; 60s; America; People; Americans; History; Young generation; Issues. 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: Frye Gaillard Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Oral History Lab Date of interview: 25 August 2022 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) FG: 00:00 All right. All right, we are ready. Okay. SM: 00:03 Again, thanks again for agreeing to be interviewed. My interview today is with Professor Frey Gaillard, author of the book, A Hard Rain: America in the 19(19)60s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost. Could you talk a little bit in the very beginning, I do this with all of my interviewees? Talk about- FG: 00:24 Sure. SM: 00:25 -your early life, your parents with their parents’ occupation, where you lived, and your high school years. FG: 00:32 Okay, sure. I grew up in Mobile, Alabama, was born in 1946. And so, I found myself coming of age as a- when I entered my teen years, during the Civil Rights' years in the Deep South. My family was sort of quietly part of the status quo. It was an old white southern family, my father was a judge, his father was a lawyer. They were not particularly wealthy, but they were prominent and, and did not really- they were not mean-spirited people in their support of the racial status quo and segregation and that kind of thing. But they were part of it. And, and did not question it. As far as I could tell, and I was raised not to question it, either. You know, there was interaction between Black folks and white folks, but it was always on a basis that was, you know, that was not equal. It could be, it could be kind and civil and polite, but-but, you know, white people just occupied a higher place an order of things. And, you know, all of us were raised to assume that was how it should be. I always, in the back of my mind was not comfortable with that. But I tried to push it away. And I was a kid and had other interests. Anyway, I was a big fan of Alabama football and, you know, love to play those kinds of games, myself. And then, but then, as I talked about, in-in the book, A hard rain. I just happened to be on a high school field trip in Birmingham, when I saw Dr. Martin Luther King arrested. And there was just something about that moment, that was deeply troubling. And I still- I have to confess, tried not to think about it very much, but I could not help it. And it just kind of not at the back of my mind until I went away to college at Vanderbilt in 1964. And got there were the first class of Black undergraduates. And they were just very bright, impressive young people. And, and so there was a lot of talk, you know, private, constructive conversation about these kinds of issues on campus for those four years. And, you know, it just, it was where my identity as a writer and as a human being really kind of formed. I think. SM: 02:30 Mm-Hmm. Mm- Hmm. I remember reading that part of the book where you are on that field trip. And you just happen to see Dr. King being arrested, I guess. And- FG: 03:39 Yeah. SM: 03:39 -you talked, I am remember reading it. You looked at his face, and- FG: 03:46 Yes. SM: 03:47 -he-he thought he was smaller than you thought he might have been. He was shorter man. But the mere fact- FG: 04:03 Right. SM: 04:03 -his face, could you explain that? Because that was very descriptive. FG: 04:07 Yes. So, I mean, I walked out of the hotel where we were staying, and there he was being shoved roughly up the sidewalk by these Birmingham policemen, and he could not have been more than five feet away from where I was standing on the sidewalk. And his- I do not know. And so, I just look, I found myself looking right into the face of Dr. Martin Luther King. You know, who I knew about but, you know, had not had, had been raised in such a way that I did not have any particular sympathy for him prior to that, but there was something in the sadness of his eyes. You know, there was neither fear nor anger, but I thought at least I did not think so in my 16-year-old mind, but-but I did- I think that I saw this deep sadness, and it just, it was just deeply moving in, and I felt later looking back on it, I felt like history had a face. And it was the face of Martin Luther King. And, and it was so human, you know, and so vulnerable and yet so strong all at the same time. So, there was such, you know, dignity and grace about it, but like, you know, I just thought, you know, he is so sad about the way things are, you know, and that is how it felt to me as a kid. And, you know, I do not know what was in Dr. King's mind, for sure, obviously. SM: 05:19 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 05:29 But you know, but we all you know, a lot of us in my generation had some kind of epiphany moment like that- SM: 05:52 Mm-Hmm. FG: 05:52 -if we grew up in the South, where we came face to face with the injustice of it all. And we were moved to think about it. And-and so that was the moment for me. SM: 06:03 Yeah, it is interesting that in close proximity to this experience, was the letter from Birmingham jail that he wrote himself on scrub paper- FG: 06:13 That is right. SM: 06:13 -in the prison. And I am going to have a question on that later in the interview. FG: 06:17 Okay. SM: 06:18 I-I, your book goes into a lot of these things in terms of your interest in history, your interest in journalism, and I know you were- I think you have worked in your high school paper. And then in college, could you- how did you become interested in history itself in journalism, and, and please give us those early experiences in high school in college, where that kind of grew? FG: 06:43 Okay. When I was in high school, my parents sent me to a private school for high school. That was all fight. They did not foresee, I do not think that that we would have some of the best teachers of history of- there was a course called humanities where all the, you know, those kinds of disciplines, literature, history, religion, science, all of these things were kind of woven into a sort of them, you know, this-this reflective course on just on mankind and stuff. And these were some really brilliant young teachers in their 20s, who were teaching us, and they just all happen to be there. And, you know, one of them went off and became head of the Russian department at Georgetown, another one became an English professor at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, and other one became the dean at the University of Alabama, so on and so forth, four or five of them went on to teach in higher education. SM: 07:36 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 08:02 And they were just wonderful. And so, it- you know, I just developed an interest in history because they made it a story, you know, and, and as I went off to college, I had, yeah, I had worked for the high school paper, and I worked for the college paper, but I did not necessarily plan a career in journalism, until, you know, it became a way to connect and think about all these powerful events and movements that were shaping the country in the (19)60s. And, and I just thought, you know, this is a way to, I mean, I want to, I want to be close to those- SM: 08:44 Mm-Hmm. FG: 08:45 -changes in those events. And yet, I did not want to be swept away by them. I have sort of never been a joiner, I do not think and, and so I just found I really liked writing about them. And, you know, being involved in discussions and you know, that kind of stuff. So. So, increasingly, that is what I did, you know, in and then, in college at Vanderbilt, I had some wonderful, wonderful professors also, I majored in history. There was no journalism major, and I am not sure I would have done that, anyway. So, I majored in history and took a lot of humanities and you know, other courses like that a lot of literature or religion, philosophy. And so, the, the unfolding story of history, kind of had a broad context based on my education. And then the other thing that happened was at Vanderbilt, there was a student organization that I became part of that that was free to bring any speaker we wanted to-to campus. SM: 08:58 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 10:01 It was totally student run. And that was an exercise in academic freedom that the Chancellor of the University a wonderful man named Alexander Hurd was very supportive of. And so, you know, we brought Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and, you know, in some people on the right to William Buckley and George Wallace, and but, you know, you know, we even brought Black Power advocates Stokely Carmichael. And so, there was a kind of engagement with the, with the great voices of the (19)60s that was-was pretty direct, you know, for students at Vanderbilt in those days. And so, all of that, you know, just what happened for me is that journalism and history became kind of the same thing. In my mind, it was like journalism is just the first cut at it. SM: 10:57 Mm-Hmm. FG: 10:57 You know, but if you are a journalist, you have a chance to come not in every story you write, but kind of overall to, to try to guide your own career and write about stuff that matters. And so that is what I wanted to do about how I got out of college. SM: 11:16 Well, I would tell you just-just these few seconds here, minutes of talking about the kinds of speakers you brought there when you were a college student. Have you ever thought yourself of writing? I know, you have written you were writing books? And have you ever thought of just concentrating on that college experience at Vanderbilt and the speakers you brought? I think it is amazing that you brought conservative and liberal speakers, and, and that the school was very supportive of academic freedom. That did not happen everywhere. FG: 11:47 No, it really did not. It was kind of a, you know, the opposite experience from-from Berkeley, for example, you know, where, you know, in in 1964, the reason there was a free speech movement at Berkeley was because students there could not do what we could do it Vanderbilt, you know. And so, you know, and that movement produced, you know, some amazingly eloquent voices like Mario Savio, who was the leader of that we can get into that later. SM: 12:06 Right. Yeah-yeah. I have a question [inaudible]. FG: 12:22 But Vanderbilt was the opposite. We did not have to push for it. It was just an opportunity that was there because-because Alexander Hurd was the Chancellor of the University. And he thought this was what education was all about. And, you know, there was a, you know, it would be good to write a piece about those, or maybe a short book about those-those-those years at Vanderbilt, because it was it was an extraordinary time, you know, and interestingly, despite the occasional spasms of controversy, it was a time when Vanderbilt sort of skyrocketed to national prominence in a way that was, you know, it became a national university based in the south- SM: 12:26 Mm-Hmm. Right. FG: 13:09 -during that period of time and raised a whole lot of money because people respected what Chancellor Hurd was presiding over. You know, there were some similar things. Emory University, defended the right of one of their professors, Thomas Altizer to write about the Death of God and, and you know, even during a major fundraising campaign, and it was controversial, but Emory flourish. So, it is interesting that some of these, and Duke University had some, you know, a lot of student activism. So, some of these southern- SM: 13:11 Mm-Hmm. FG: 13:33 -universities that were brave about this kind of stuff, made an important contribution, I think. 13:54 Yeah. And obviously, the school and the students involved in this are helping to prepare the youth of America in the South for their future. FG: 14:04 Yes- SM: 14:04 -Where all points are all points of view matter. FG: 14:08 Yeah-yeah. That is the that was the great lesson that many of us took away from those Vanderbilt years. SM: 14:15 Mm-Hmm. FG: 14:15 You know, it was, it was a, it was a powerful thing, a powerful moment. SM: 14:21 When you titled your book, A Hard Rain. What did you mean by how did you come up with that title? FG: 14:30 It is, you know, I -let us see, what would the cane phrase be? I borrowed it from Bob Dylan. You know, is his song A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall- you know, was such a was such a metaphorical look at the same kind of stuff that I was looking, you know, it was it was a, it was this poetic meditation on the times and I [inaudible] I was working on the book for two years, but I had the title, I had the subtitle- SM: 14:44 Yep. Mm-Hmm. FG: 14:58 -exactly as it is now. But I could not come up with the title. And then one day I just happened to have the radio on. And that song played on the radio as a as an oldie, you know, and I thought, "Ohh" if I am not poetic enough to come up with a title, I will let Bob Dylan do it, you know, and so-so, you know, with-with-with attribution, I, you know, I, although you cannot copyright a title, so I was really okay, in a way, but-but, you know, I just that that just became the title of the book, it just seemed to be a poetic way of phrasing what I was writing about. SM: 15:48 You do a great job and several year chapters on looking at President Kennedy. I think the one thing that struck me was early in the book where you talked about the ugly American, the book written by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, and-and how it really touched Kennedy, saying Kennedy felt that was very truthful about what was happening in America today. Because- could you explain why that book was that way? Why he was so touched by it, because I remember he gave books to most of his staff, please read this. FG: 16:04 Right. Yes-yes. SM: 16:15 Explain what the main- FG: 16:26 Yeah- SM: 16:27 -message was in that book? FG: 16:29 Yeah, it was a book that, you know, it has been a long time since I have read it. And I do not remember all of the plot lines in the book. But basically, it was about how Americans were behaving, you know, diplomatically, officially and unofficially, to and their engagement with the world, particularly in Asia in that book. And, you know, how we seem to arrogant and how we seem insensitive, and manipulative and all of those things. And so, I think that became part of Kennedy sensibilities, and, and was part of the reason that one of the first things that he did was, was to begin the Peace Corps, you know, where he wanted to put, you know, send young people out to represent the best in America. And, you know, it was even as it was, Kennedy was also a, you know, a product of World War Two in the Cold War. I mean, he was a young, a young naval officer, I think, and, you know, the, during World War Two, and was genuinely, you know, a war he wrote- almost was killed in combat. And so, all of that view of the world, you know, the cause the contest between communism and democracy, in his mind also was one of the defining things. And so, you know, he became caught up in the early years of [inaudible] in increasing involvement in Vietnam. SM: 17:50 Mm-Hmm. FG: 17:50 And I always wondered if he had not been killed, whether which would have prevailed in his instincts, would it have been the-the Cold War imposition of, you know, of communism versus democracy onto this little country in Southeast Asia in a way that did not really fit? SM: 17:50 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 18:41 Or would it have been the ugly American in wanting to avoid that and-and try to think about letting countries find their own way, you know, with-with those Peace Corps type sensibilities have restrained him ultimately, from what proved to be the futility of the Vietnam or in the deadly futility, that horrible tragedy of that, or in so many ways, you know, and we will never know. But, you know, Kennedy was a fascinating figure to me, certainly had his flaws and feet of clay. But, you know, had this amazing ability to inspire hope and idealistic commitment among people in my generation, for sure. SM: 19:35 You-you-you mentioned the in your book, also a little section where Kennedy is at Hyde Park meeting Eleanor Roosevelt. And-and I think it was the second visit in August of 1960, that she finally gave her support him, because she had always supported Adlai Stevenson, and she still had reservations about Kennedy but-but I just want to let you know I was there that day. FG: 19:45 Right. Oh, you were [inaudible]. Oh my gosh! Wow! SM: 19:59 Yes. Several ironies here. There is several things in your book where I was there to where I had met this person. And I had time with this person- FG: 20:11 Oh my gosh! Wow! SM: 20:11 -Julian Bond, I knew quite well. And this particular situation is we were coming back from her summer vacation. And my mom said, “Let us take the kids over to Hyde Park. We are not that far away.” And so, we got there, we got there. And [inaudible] was only $1 to get in. But my mom had a headache was staying in the car. So, my dad and my sister and I, we walked across the street, and there was a man for humanity, just walking in. And my dad asked what was going on John Kennedy was in the library with Eleanor Roosevelt. FG: 20:11 Oh wow! SM: 20:12 And so, and we were at the end of this group of people at the library and there was a limo up there on the end there, and we were there, not very long, and someone yells, he was coming up the side door. And then I split I am a little kid. And I split. FG: 21:00 Uh huh. SM: 21:00 And my dad was fast. My sister was on his shoulders. And he got into the car. And as he was getting the car, he only shook one hand, and I grabbed the hand of the man who was shaking his hand, he looked at me, and my sister touched his hair. And FG: 21:16 Oh, wow. SM: 21:16 And he got in. And that was it. They drove off. And, FG: 21:19 Oh wow. SM: 21:20 -and so, you know, we just happened to be there. And of course, as history proved, he ended up winning the election and becoming president- FG: 21:27 Right. SM: 21:27 -and he was assassinated. And it all goes back to me, you know, and the one thing- FG: 21:32 Yes, yep. SM: 21:32 -the one thing that always goes back to me is as a kid, why did not they go in the library and meet Eleanor Roosevelt? Because- FG: 21:38 Yeah. Yeah. SM: 21:40 -you cannot see her. But, you know, I was only I was only in fifth grade. So anyways- FG: 21:45 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. SM: 21:46 But I want to say that touched it. Now, you are interested in Kennedy, you touched on several times how you felt and some of your peers felt that they liked him. Certainly, when that book, The Ugly American came out to the one of the things that struck him was that these diplomats in that novel, had no interest in the [inaudible], the language, no interest in the culture of- FG: 22:08 Right. SM: 22:08 -the people they were serving. And Kennedy- FG: 22:11 Right. SM: 22:11 -did something different. And you brought up the peace score. But you know, that he also was involved in the Alliance for Progress and volunteers and service to America. Could you talk about all the things that he tried to do, where people were serving, trying to, you know, show that we cared about people and that they need the need to learn a language? FG: 22:19 Right. Yes-yes. And that was, you know, there was just something qualitatively different, it seemed to a lot of us in that stance that he took, you know, I mean, we, it was easy to believe him easy to believe that he meant it. And, and it just seemed, in a profound way, like the right thing to do. You know, it was, you know, and it was not that, you know, the Peace Corps, you know, instantly transformed the whole world or anything, but it, but that in the Alliance for Progress, and other things meant we were trying, we began to try to engage with the world in a different way, a less arrogant way, less insensitive way. And, and that, you know, those sensibilities went along with what was happening at home, too, with the Civil Rights Movement. And, you know, and sort of, you know, reframing that sense of privilege that-that a lot of white Americans had, and it is a long process, you know- SM: 23:39 Mm-Hmm. FG: 23:39 -kind of working through that and working past it. And I am not saying, Kennedy, you know, achieved the pinnacle of all of that. But, but, but clearly, that process was something that mattered to him. That is what we felt. And-and so it made it something we began to think about to as young people. SM: 24:00 You use, you mentioned, I remember the section perfectly where you said in your senior year, you felt he was leading the young people in the right direction. FG: 24:12 Right. SM: 24:13 He was he was a good role model. That says something. FG: 24:19 I am sorry. SM: 24:20 That says something when you in those times when a lot, he was a young politician, and he- FG: 24:27 Right. SM: 24:27 -he gave a great inaugural speech as not what your country can do for you and what you can do for your country. But still, he- FG: 24:33 Right. SM: 24:33 had he had the Creed the deeds. FG: 24:35 Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there were critics, and I understand this, who thought he moved too slowly on civil rights, you know, who that he did not, you know, embrace that cause as fully or as quickly as he should have. And, you know, I think you can certainly make that case. You know, he was also a very pragmatic politician and yet, you know, in 1963, when George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, you know, Kennedy gave a speech that night, embracing the moral validity of the civil rights movement. And, you know, and right around that time, you know, they introduced the Civil Rights Act that passed in 1964. And so, you know, we do not know how far he would have gone if he if he had not been assassinated. And, you know, certainly props to Lyndon Johnson for, you know, having the legislative skills to get that important legislation, and maybe the even more important Voting Rights Act of 65, through Congress on a bipartisan basis, you know, but Kennedy, you know, kind of set all that, in motion, I think, in terms of the sort of moral framework, in terms of the governmental response, the white response to the issues being raised so powerfully by the Civil Rights Movement- SM: 24:47 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 25:45 -Dr. King, but also the young people in snick, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, people like John Lewis, and Diane Nash, and CT Vivian and Bernard Lafayette. And, you know, just this remarkable cadre of very young people who, who were in their own way, kind of setting the moral agenda for the country in a way that you know, that people of power, like the Kennedys eventually had to respond. SM: 26:45 Mm-Hmm. FG: 26:45 And so, I do not mean that Kennedy, I do not want to take credit from the activist and give it to Kennedy. But-but Kennedy, there was something moral, I thought, ethically in tune about his- the instincts, he brought in his response, most broadly speaking to what the civil rights movement was saying, and then Robert Kennedy after his brother's death, and we can talk about this, too. SM: 27:15 Mm-Hmm. FG: 27:15 I think became even more viscerally committed to those kinds of those kinds of causes. And, and it was Robert Kennedy, who I would later actually have the good fortune to meet, personally. And so and so his humanity became a real thing to me because of the encounter with him. When he came to speak at Vanderbilt. SM: 27:41 He seemed to back to what we are talking about, but Bobby Kennedy seems to after the after the death of his brother, and I think you brought this up as well, that he became his own man. FG: 27:55 Right-right. SM: 27:55 He became his own man. And in the one thing he always stood for, was those that did not have anything the poor- FG: 28:02 Yeah. SM: 28:03 -the underdog. Everything was about the underdog. FG: 28:06 Yeah-yeah. SM: 28:07 You explain? Could you explain that? And that is why he was really evolving to the time of his assassination. FG: 28:15 Yeah, absolutely. You know, one, one theory of that, that some, some others have written, and I knew in Nashville, a couple of people who knew Robert Kennedy Well, and, and what they thought was that, you know, he was always sympathetic, but-but not. But-but was pragmatic on behalf of his brother, he was always sympathetic to the basic idea of civil rights. But he was also when he who is his brothers, man, almost his brothers, you know, I mean, political, you know, advisor almost like a fixer or- SM: 28:59 Mm-Hmm. FG: 28:59 -something. In those days, he was always very pragmatic about how that was expressed. SM: 29:07 Mm-Hmm. FG: 29:08 But after the death of his brother, people close to him, thought that his incredible pain that he felt over the over the loss of his brother, meant that he had identified powerfully viscerally with people who hurt with people on the margins. That is just how that that grief played out for him was, was a sense of what it meant to hurt in a profound kind of way. And so and so that is what he began to talk about was-was-was people who hurt wherever it was, whether there were, you know, as African American people in the ghettos or, you know, unemployed miners in in white miners in Appalachia or industrial workers in the Midwest who were- SM: 29:58 Mm-Hmm. FG: 29:59 -being laid off-off during rustbelt years or Native Americans on reservations, or Mexican American farmworkers in California, or, you know, he went to you went to South Africa and-and, you know, and created a profound response there among both whites and, and Blacks during, during the height of apartheid, you know, and he, he did not so much scold whites as to say, you know, we have to do better all of us who are caught up in this white privilege have to do better and-and, and you know, and with Black audiences it was like, you know, I see you I am here with you-you have my support, you know, those-those things, I think, you know, mattered profoundly in the sense that they were inspiring to so many people. You know, you look at the, the voting patterns when he ran for president (19)68, and just the turnout that he got, and- SM: 31:12 Mm-Hmm. FG: 31:12 -Black neighborhoods and, you know, I think on one Indian Reservation in South Dakota, or somewhere he got every vote that was cast, you know, in-in the, in the primary. But, you know, he also committed himself to reaching across the divisions and so at-at Vanderbilt, and at the University of Alabama, the same day in in March of 1968. You know, he talked about how the things we have in common go deeper than the things that divide us. SM: 31:21 Wow. Mm-Hmm. FG: 31:47 And so, you know, he was one of those politicians that did not want to exploit division, he wanted to heal it. SM: 31:55 Mm-Hmm. FG: 31:55 And, you know, that was a, that was a powerful thing, also. Now, all of that has to be translated into policy if he had won, and I am not saying that it would have been heaven on earth with Robert Kennedy is as president, but it would have sure been different than Richard Nixon is president. And, and so, you know, again, that that sort of moral inspiration that came from that family, even though the you know, even though all of the Kennedy brothers had their feet of clay, still, you know, still there, they were one of the richest- SM: 32:36 Mm-Hmm. FG: 32:36 -families in America, you know, caring, profoundly meaningfully about people on the margins. And for some, I was raised in privilege, that was a powerful lesson. SM: 32:48 And Teddy is probably the greatest Kennedys senator in history. When you look at Teddy- FG: 32:55 Yeah. Yes. SM: 32:55 -Kennedy's whole career when he did when his whole career stood for, I just want to get a couple more things on Bobby Kennedy, as you probably- we all saw this after King was assassinated. And the funeral was taking place at the church in Atlanta. And Bobby Kennedy was in the audience and the sun was coming through the side window, and it was shining on him. I do not know if you remember that. It was, it was on him and only him. And that- FG: 33:26 Yes. SM: 33:26 -that-that stood out. Like, I mean, I remember that watching that he could have the whole church and it is on him. And- FG: 33:34 Yeah. SM: 33:34 -just and then, of course, what he did in Indianapolis, the night of the assassination, the courage to go into the ghetto, and say- FG: 33:44 Right. SM: 33:44 -what you said, and it was off the cuff. FG: 33:49 Yeah, it was just an amazing, I mean, I wish I had been there and it was not, but I have heard the-the, you know, the tape of the speech, and I have seen the verbatim transcript of it and, you know, just the, just the, the spontaneous impromptu power of it, because, you know- SM: 34:07 Mm-Hmm. FG: 34:07 -he was not speaking from notes, he was speaking from his, from his heart and, you know, ending it with a with a quote from Escalus. You know, I mean, you know, and, and knowing, I guess he felt sure his audience would understand what he meant, what you know, and-and, you know, in the, just the fact that there were no riots in Indianapolis that night, in contrast, almost- SM: 34:16 Yes. Yeah. Yes. FG: 34:37 -every other American city, I mean, speaks to speaks to the power of one man's not only eloquence. But-but, you know, but just the massive the power of his massive goodwill on those kinds of issues. I mean, I just do not think you I see no reason to doubt the utter urgent sincerity of Kennedy in those years and what he was trying to do. And, you know, and then the next day he went to speak to and I think it was mostly an all-white audience, but business people, I believe in Cleveland. And he talked about the stain of violence on America. And, you know, the assassination, the riots, but also the violence, of a more subtle kind that having to do with the living conditions of the poor in America. And he cast that as part of the American violence that had to be had to be dealt with. So again, there was some, there was some profundity there in in the way he was framing issues that. I just feel is almost qualitatively different from most of the politicians that we have today. And I am not saying there. There was nobody who believes that but Kennedy had this way of not only saying it, but meaning it so obviously, that, that it just captivated people's attention. SM: 36:22 Yeah, I agree. Get just a couple more things on President Kennedy. And that is, you bring these up all throughout the book. In that first part of the book, some of the good things that he tried to do his-his speech at American University was very important because it talked about the Test Ban Treaty. FG: 36:40 Right. SM: 36:41 And it was, it was something that he wanted to do that was good for humanity. It was not going- FG: 36:46 Right. SM: 36:46 -to end the proliferation, but he wanted to have this. He was also when you look at the Bay of Pigs, he admitted he made the mistakes. I have always- FG: 36:57 Right-right. SM: 36:57 -thought how many people admit I blew it? He did? FG: 37:02 Yep. SM: 37:02 And he was very- FG: 37:03 Yep-yep. SM: 37:03 -honest about it. And he wanted to make sure he would not do it again. And then also- FG: 37:08 Right. Right. SM: 37:08 -of course, there are some things that you question because the coup for Diem and Nhu in Vietnam, a couple, you know, about a week or so before or two weeks before he was assassinated? We all thought I wonder, did he? It is my understanding. He did not he did not expect them to be killed. He thought they were going to be taken away from the country. Is that true? I do not even know. FG: 37:30 Yeah, I do not know, either. You know, there is all kinds of speculation and I confess, I do not know the answer to that. But, you know, it was, you know, it was a moment that I think just got us in deeper. And, you know, and so it was, you know, and it certainly you know, I mean, it shows the competing instincts that he still, that he still had, I mean, he was still kind of groping, I think, for yes. SM: 38:05 Right. FG: 38:05 -an understanding of that issue. And, you know, and we just do not know which way it would have gone head he had he lived because the, you know, the-the United States was being pulled deeper and deeper into it, you know, because of Cold War sensibilities that may have fit in Europe, but-but did not fit as well in, you know, in Asia, where, you know, in retrospect, it was clear that Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese, you know, had their agenda for national liberation, but not to be a stalking horse for any other power China or Russia or anybody they, you know. So, you know, the famous quote from or one that I had not known, but I read with, I think, from David Halberstam or somebody, but how Ho Chi Minh said something like, "One day the Americans will be tired of fighting, and then we will sit down together and drink tea." And, you know, and that is what happened, you know, when the- SM: 39:10 Mm-Hmm. FG: 39:11 -Vietnam War ended, you know, all of a sudden, you know, here you have, you know, Americans traveling freely to that place, John McCain, who was tortured- SM: 39:23 Mm-Hmm. FG: 39:23 -as a political, you know, pow going-going there. And, you know, and being treated with dignity and honor after-after the hostilities subsided. So, you know, it was, but we do not know how far-sighted Kennedy would have been about all of that. SM: 39:45 He-he-he did- FG: 39:45 I have hoped, you know, I mean, retroactively, retrospectively I-I think he might have been, if nothing else, more pragmatic than Lyndon Johnson, but who knows. SM: 39:58 You know, yeah, and of course, He-he knew when he was in Dallas for obvious reasons, because- FG: 40:04 Mm-Hmm. Right. SM: 40:04 -he knew that the that he needed to get the Democratic vote and the election, the (19)64. And that is why-he was going down south. So, he was pragmatic there too, as well. He knew what he was doing was right with his civil rights bills. But still, he was pragmatic, and he had to be pushed. FG: 40:22 Yep. SM: 40:23 And- FG: 40:24 Yep-yep. SM: 40:24 -one thing I want to say, too, I think Bobby Kennedy was very important for President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because- FG: 40:31 Yes. SM: 40:31 -all these views coming in from, you know, you go bomb all these other things. But if Bobby was a man, he could go with Bobby. And they go into a room by themselves with no one else around and [inaudible]. And so, I think part of the reason why this all worked out in the positive is that Bobby was by his side. FG: 40:52 Yes. SM: 40:53 I do not think there is any question about that, during that Cuban Missile Crisis? FG: 40:58 Yeah, I think, I think that is absolutely true. It was, it was a remarkable moment of presidential decisiveness, not to bomb Cuba. And it turns out, you know, it could easily really have triggered a nuclear strike, because some of those missiles were, in fact operative. And the generals, you know, who were urging Kennedy to-to, you know, to attack Cuba. I mean, they did not know that that Cuba already had access to nuclear missiles that would reach Miami at least. And, you know, who knows what would have happened, but Kennedy had the will to John Kennedy had the will to resist the generals. And I think- SM: 41:41 Yep. FG: 41:41 Robert Kennedy was was-was part of this of the source of that strength, you know, he, he more he just thought morally, it was wrong. Just queasy to him to have a country our size attacks a country Cuba's size, he just did not like that whole idea. But then, you know, and then there was that moment when Khrushchev sent two competing messages. One that seemed to be coming from his heart and favoring a peaceful solution, and the other one very bellicose and really belligerent. And they were thinking, well, how do we respond? What do we do? And- SM: 42:21 Mm-Hmm. FG: 42:22 -Robert Kennedy was one of those who said, Just answer the one we would like. SM: 42:26 Yeah. FG: 42:27 I mean, it was such a simple human thing. But you know, his human instinct said, the first one, the peaceful one. Sounds like something Khrushchev really means. And it, it turned out to be to be right, you know, so it was. Yeah, it was, it was a pretty amazing moment. And you think about what might have happened in subsequent administrations and a similar moment and use your shutter you know. SM: 42:58 Yeah, he was very good, because he had gone to the Vienna conference with Khrushchev, and he was kind of, you know, he was young and not quite sure of himself. And so that was the time- FG: 43:08 Right. SM: 43:08 -that crew chat to really put the pressure on him. But then you learn from studying history that Khrushchev liked the bully people. However, he liked leaders from other countries who were adversaries who would make a decision. And Kennedy- FG: 43:22 Right. SM: 43:22 -made a decision not only on the quarantine and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but also what was happening in Berlin at that time. And thank- FG: 43:31 Right. SM: 43:31 -the Lord that the leader of East Germany decided let us build a wall, because that correct- FG: 43:36 Right. SM: 43:36 -because everything happened, and I think Khrushchev respected him for that. I- it is just like, so anyway, so is, so you did a wonderful job bring authors and musicians and artists into this book. I? I am a big right. I am a big reader. And you-you mentioned some of the great ones here. Could you talk about it? I obviously you are very well read. And you can see the importance about not only nonfiction, but fiction, great writers- FG: 43:44 Right. Right. SM: 44:12 -I can write books that really tell the times the temper of the times, but done in the in a fiction wet fictional way, could you talk about the Eudora Welty and Harper Lee and in those- FG: 44:27 Yeah. SM: 44:27 -times, especially during the what was happening in Mississippi. FG: 44:32 Yeah, well, you know, Harper Lee, was To Kill a Mockingbird, which came out in 1960. You know, that book retrospectively is- has been criticized, you know, for having a sort of paternalistic view of race relations. In some extent that is true, but it also gave us a in the south especially I think gave us a portrait in the person of Atticus Finch, of what decency might look like. And, and then that became even more sharply defined by the movie and Gregory Pecks interpretation of Atticus Finch which, you know, which Harper Lee is said to have, have loved. She and Gregory Peck became close friends. And so, you know, just that powerful depiction of an inclination to be fair, and just and, and believes that there should be equality in the eyes of the law. You know, those were powerful themes in 1960. Now, they may sound more like truisms today, but, but she was swimming upstream as a white writer from the south from Alabama, lower Alabama, southern Alabama when she when she wrote that. So, you know, I think that was a was a powerfully important thing. And then you had Eudora Welty in Mississippi who, when-when Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963, right in the same 24-hour period that George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door and John Kennedy gave his marvelous speech about civil rights. Medgar Evers, who is the leading civil rights proponent in Black leader in Mississippi is shot and is in the back and his own driveway by Klansmen named Byron de la Beckwith. And Eudora Welty wrote a piece for The New Yorker, in which she tried to get in, into inside the mind of, of that white assassin. She did not call him, Byron de la Beckwith, but she was, you know, but she was, she was trying to, you know, imaginatively understand that toxic hate, that would produce such a person. And, you know, this was, this was 23 years after, you know, she, she, she both burst onto the scene as a short story writer with-with a marvelous story in 1940, called "A Warren Pass," where the where the heroin is an elderly African American woman, impoverished, trying to take care of her severely injured grandson. And, and the humanity of this Black woman puts the white characters to shame in this novel. And here is, here is a white writer in the heart of Mississippi, writing this in 1940. And that had been Eudora as Eudora Welty his legacy of empathy and understanding through throughout her time as a, as a writer continuing on into those (19)60s with that short story that appeared in the I am pretty sure it was the New Yorker. SM: 45:56 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 47:46 I am saying that from memory, but I think that is right. And, you know, and so, you know, that is, that is kind of amazing. And then, you know, you had and you had Joseph Heller's Catch-22 about the foolishness of war that was published right on the eve of, of our escalation into Vietnam. It was, it was set during World War Two, but-but-but it marked the stupidity of war in a way that was hilariously funny, but also, but also profound, you know, and so, so you had those kinds of, you know, of-of, not provocative novels that were, that were appearing, you know, in the (19)60s. And you also had, you know, powerful other powerful works of nonfiction. You know, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962. And Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, about gratuitous violence in 1965 or (19)66. Whenever that came out. Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize winning the Armies of the Night about the protests at the Pentagon. You know, you had Willie Morris's Harper's Magazine without with Writer's Life, David Halberstam and others, putting a human face on. The dramas of the of the of the era. You know, all that was, I think was just so important in deepening the country's sensibilities during-during that time. SM: 48:41 Mm-Hmm. SM: 50:10 Yeah, I just open the book. That section that you have on Rachel Carson is just so well written with some of the quotes. And if you do not mind, can I just read a quote you have from her in the book? FG: 50:23 Sure. SM: 50:24 -yeah, it is on page 89. And there is a short one on page. I think it is 91. But I think these words from Rachel Carson 1962 are very important. FG: 50:34 Mm-Hmm. SM: 50:34 These, these sprays, dust and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes. Non selective chemicals have the power to kill every insect, the good and the bad, to steal the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger in the soil. All this though, though, the intended target may be only a few weeds, or insects, future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind. And then on the second page, here, I just have just a rubbery briefing, Carson- FG: 51:26 Mm-Hmm. SM: 51:27 -Carson was rushing to the finish the book, she knew she was dying, her body was ravaged by a rapidly with metastatic breast cancer, and who knew what poisons may have been the trigger toward her? And it is, it is like, she was such a great writer, but, you know, but that book came out in 1962, as well. And in rain, Kennedy read all her books. FG: 51:54 Right. SM: 51:55 All three of them. FG: 51:56 Yes-yes. It was sad that, that his copy of her earlier book, the sea around us, was next to Henry David Thoreau's book on Kennedy's bookshelf. So he was deeply impressed with Rachel Carson, and kind of in subtle, but important ways. You know, he took her very seriously. And I think he appointed a commission to study this kind of thing. And, and, you know, so she became, you know, for one thing she was, you know, silent spraying was kind of a polemic about, you know, the downside of the chemical, pesticide industry and all of that. But as you just read, it was such a beautiful writing as well, you know, she- SM: 52:48 Right. FG: 52:48 -had this sort of literary quality. And then, and then, you know, she pushed back and with-with support from Kennedy and some others, against the notion that, you know, gosh, you are only a girl, what do you know about science, you know- SM: 52:48 Mm-Hmm. FG: 53:02 -people who were literally saying that, and she just stood her ground and in-in this powerfully eloquent way. So in a way, she was kind of like a feminist figure, as well as an environmental hero early on, you know, who-whose writing kind of help triggered and environmental consciousness. So, you know, I mean, we have these amazing figures during that time that, and I am sure I left out, some- SM: 53:31 -you left that 1/4, one that sound the very same page. And that is Michael Harrington. FG: 53:35 Yes. SM: 53:35 And the he wrote the other America and- FG: 53:39 Right. SM: 53:39 -Kennedy- Kennedy read that book. And a lot of his policies were geared toward the poverty and the poor. But I just want it this is just a very brief quote. And I will not be quoting anymore, but this is a quote from Michael Harrington, in your book, "Here are unskilled workers, the migrant farmworkers, the aged the minorities, and all the others who live in the economic underworld of American life. If these people are not starving, they are hungry, and sometimes fat with hunger for that is what cheap foods do. They are without adequate housing and education and medical care. But even more basic, this poverty twist into forms of spirit, the American poor, pessimistic and defeated. And truly human reaction can only be outrage." And then he quotes here who did not wrote, "We must love one another or die." And that was Michael Harrington from the other American and I just remember when it came out that Kennedy was reading it. FG: 54:39 Yes-yes. He was apparently a voracious reader and, and in one of his very last cabinet member meetings that Kennedy attended, you know was part of before he was assassinated. There were there was the story about him sort of doodling on a yellow legal pad. and just writing the word poverty- poverty-poverty. SM: 55:03 Wow. FG: 55:05 And, you know, and so it fell to Lyndon Johnson to really try to get, you know, translate all of that into-into policy. But, you know, Kennedy was clearly, you know, changed in his understanding of that issue by-by Michael Harrington, who was, you know, who was a writer of great profundity and compassion? SM: 55:33 Could you talk a little bit also, as it is hard to say a little bit, because this is a lot of the musicians of that period of the importance of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan beyond the mere fact that they are saying music, they also wrote it. And they and writer- FG: 55:51 Right. SM: 55:51 -music became great hits for many of the rock groups of the (19)60s and (19)70s. But could you talk about the importance of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Nina Simone and Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, and- FG: 56:07 Yeah. SM: 56:09 -Mary and a whole group? FG: 56:10 Yep. Yeah. You know, it is music is, in the whole book that we are talking about music was a theme that I returned to, you know, from 1960 on up through 1969. I mean, I thought it-it very often captured, you know, what was what was what was going on, you know, the, the similar in 1960, just the similar musical sensibilities of Sam Cooke and Elvis Presley, one Black, one white, both from Mississippi. Elvis, being a huge fan of fan of, of Black music, and Sam Cooke actually being a fan of, you know, white music. I mean, love country music, you know, he was, he liked Hank Williams, he recorded great country song Tennessee Waltz, and did it in his own way. And so, that sense of, of music being our common ground that these two iconic performers had, you know, that was, that was important. I mean, they Sam Cooke later became, you know, more-more direct and his social commentary with the song like a change is going to come, which he wrote, and it came out in 1964, I think. But then Elvis, you know, in 1968 or (196)9 whenever it was, you know, did that really powerful song in the ghetto- SM: 57:49 Mm-Hmm. FG: 57:49 -which was actually written by a country singer named Matt Davis. But-but-but-but it was, you know, it was a powerful attempt at empathy by-by this white musical icon, so, you know, there, there is that, but then there is a sort of direct witness of, you know, Pete Seeger. And, you know, and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Odetta and Nina Simone, you know, singing about injustice and injustice, so, you know, the possibilities of justice and, and the, and the reality of injustice. You know, Peter, Paul and Mary, you know, during the, the Selma to Montgomery march she had Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary and interestingly Tony Bennett, coming to perform on the last night of the march to kind of the-the weary spirits of the marchers, you know, you know, in 1965, the birds recorded a rock-rock group cut folk rock group recorded Seeger’s [Pete Seeger] song Turn! Turn! Turn! which was mostly the just a quote or slight paraphrase of the book of Ecclesiastes To Everything There is a Season. Seeger, who always had this sort of dry, self-deprecating sense of humor said, but yes, I did add six words. SM: 59:33 [chuckles] Yep, yeah. FG: 59:35 And, and the six words were, I swear it is not too late. SM: 59:41 [chuckles] Yep. FG: 59:41 And that comes right after his right after the part of Ecclesiastes, where they talked about how it was a time for peace, you know, and so, the Ecclesiastes is-is this wonderful literary meditation. But as I say in the book, you know, Seeger added six words that made it more intentional and indirect, and-and then the birds beautiful rendition of it, you know, made it something that people thought about, you know, it was, you know, so again, all of that is, is so important. And then you have, you know, somebody like Johnny Cash, who, in 1964, has a top five country hit with, with the Ballad of Ira Hayes, which is about wretched conditions on Indian reservations. You know, that-that was, you know, so it was not just, you know, the folk musicians who were, you know, thought to be left leaning, but you know, who have Johnny Cash from the heart of the Country Music mainstream- SM: 1:00:59 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:00:59 -this powerful ballad of empathy. And then, you know, in 1969 cash has his own television show where he deliberately brings musicians from whoever identified with opposite parts of the political spectrum together on his show. So you- SM: 1:01:17 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:01:17 -have Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard, you know- SM: 1:01:21 Right. FG: 1:01:22 -Arlo Guthrie, you know, Judy Collins, people like that on-on this country music show. And then, you know, in 1969, at Woodstock, you know, the last song, played at Woodstock was the Star-Spangled Banner. But it was played by Jimi Hendrix- SM: 1:01:43 Yep. FG: 1:01:43 -on electric guitar. And, you know, there is something powerful about-about that, I mean, a very iconic rendition. But-but-but there it was, you know, right. So anyway, yeah, music is an amazing force, and that whole decade, so creative, and so heartfelt, and so intelligent. SM: 1:02:07 Yeah, very well said. I want to get into the area where Dr. King, we talked a little bit about him. We talked earlier about the time you saw him being arrested, and then he wrote the historic letter from Birmingham jail. FG: 1:02:23 Right. SM: 1:02:23 You said something very important in in that little section there you stated that he could. He was very good at kennel. And what is the word I want to use defining the debate, but he- FG: 1:02:41 Yes. SM: 1:02:41 -lacks strategy. And he had people behind him that worked with him like Andrew Young and James Bevel and Dorothy cotton. I met all these- FG: 1:02:50 Right. SM: 1:02:50 -people at my university. FG: 1:02:53 Yes, yeah. SM: 1:02:53 But-but-but he had these people that came up with a strategy. Could you talk about this is not Birmingham now with the protests after the killings of the four young girls at the church, the protest Bull Connor and everything and he wants a James Bevel came up with the idea of children. Let us bring the children out and protest and Dr. Golding hesitated. FG: 1:03:17 Right. SM: 1:03:18 -your thoughts on that. Yeah. FG: 1:03:19 Well, you know, if bevel in and others thought, you know, we are, we are running out of adults to-to who are willing to risk or who can even afford to be arrested and go to jail. So, so let us bring the children let us bring college students, let us bring high school students, you know, sometimes maybe even younger people than that, and let them be arrested and see what that if that does not grab the conscience of America. And it did. But you know, King's, you know, paralyzing hesitation was, yeah, but do we have the right to, to put children at risk, you know, and-and, you know, and then and then later, as you alluded to, for children were killed because they attended the church that had been the staging ground for-for-for this movement, you know, when that church was-was bombed, and, you know, so King felt all of that deeply and sometimes, you know, his-his-his gift was not so much decision making as it was, you know, framing the moral issue, not that he was not personally brave, he absolutely was and he you know, he, he sometimes took great personal risks and all that but-but he was surrounded by these strategists, and I think it is a good thing you know, Andrew Young and you know, bevel and some of those others. But-but kings great gift was putting these issues is in a way that you just even if you wanted to disagree with him, and you still could, but you could not dismiss him. And, you know, that was just his, you know, I mean, he used time honored principles as the anchor for this really quite radical change that he was calling for. SM: 1:04:55 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:05:21 He talked about, you know, our founding documents in America that we are all created equal, and the whole Judeo-Christian idea that we are all children of God. And if that is the case, then we are brothers and sisters of each other. And he evoked and invoked those things. to great effect is, you know, his-his whole, his whole, tragically short life. SM: 1:05:49 The Birmingham bombing of the church where the four girls are killed. He gave the eulogy. FG: 1:05:56 Right. SM: 1:05:57 And the basic premise of his eulogy was to forgive not to have the bitterness. FG: 1:06:04 Right. SM: 1:06:05 And then you, as a young reporter, interviewed one of the parents of the for one of the four kids that was- FG: 1:06:14 Right. SM: 1:06:15 -killed. Could you talk about that interview? FG: 1:06:17 Yeah, the-the person that I was honored to interview and it remains, maybe the most singular experience of my whole life as a writer, was getting to talk to Claude Wesley, whose daughter, Cynthia Wesley was one of the young girls who was killed in the church bombing. And it was a few years later, but what I always had wondered about was, if you were, if you were Mr. Wesley, and a few days earlier, your-your beloved daughter has been killed. And Martin Luther King comes to town and says, forgive, and do not be bitter. How does that land with you? You know, and-and so finally, in the interview after talking, you know, more historically and abstractly, I just went ahead and asked Mr. Westley that question, and-and I will never forget, I mean, I think I can quote it all these years later, almost exactly. But he said, you know, I said, "How does it feel to be called forgiveness when bitterness and rage would be a more natural instinct," and he said, "Oh, we were never bitter." He said, "We tried to treat Cynthia's death, in the same way we treated her life in bitterness had no place in that." And then he said, "There was something else we never did. We never said, Why us? Because that would be the same thing as saying, why not somebody else?" And he said, "A Christian cannot ask that question." SM: 1:08:03 Hmm. FG: 1:08:04 And, and it was just the most profound affirmation of the moral grounding of the Civil Rights Movement. I thought that I had ever heard. I mean, it was, I mean, yes, Martin Luther King put it beautifully, powerfully in into abstract concepts. But, but here was Mr. Wesley who just embodied it in his very, life, you know, I mean, it was humbling to, to see this, you know, this short, wiry, wispy, 70-year-old at that point, little man who had been a marvelous high school principal in Birmingham, but always done his part. But there he was just in just-just give just, you know, it is like that biblical idea of the word becoming flesh. I mean, Mr. Wesley just embodied all of this stuff in such a powerful, profound way that, you know, I just, I just sat kind of in quiet off for a few minutes. SM: 1:09:19 Wow. That is one heck of a story. And what became of him? FG: 1:09:28 You know, I do not know, he, I never talked to him again. I think by then he had retired as a principal and, you know, he got older and finally died. But, you know, he was just such an impressive person. And, you know, there were others too. I do not mean to say, you know, I mean, obviously, other parents who dealt with that same tragedy and horror and, you know, and others who were deeply influenced Little Angela Davis who later became the radical voice of Black power. You know, she was from Birmingham and some of those girls who were killed were her friends. And so it was this radicalizing moment for her different people did different things with-with that. But that is what Mr. Westley did. And, you know, it was there was something. SM: 1:10:25 In your chapter on Freedom Summer, a very historic event in 1964. In the summer, he talked about another book. And I know this book very well. Charles Silverman's Crisis in Black and White. Let me mention to you that I went to-I was a history major here at Binghamton University. I took a sociology course in 1967 68 with Dr. Liebman. He did not he did not last too long here. He was, uh, he got too involved in activism, I think but, but what happened is, that book was required reading. FG: 1:10:32 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:11:00 Yes. Yes. There was a line in there that I will never forget that Dr. King said it has stuck with me my entire life. And this came from Silverman it was the two sentences something like the fact that Dr. King said "I never feared the bigot." The people I [crosstalk] people- FG: 1:11:20 Oh, okay. SM: 1:11:21 -were the people that were the fence sitters. FG: 1:11:24 Yes-yes. Yes. SM: 1:11:26 And that has stayed with me my entire life because that is truth. FG: 1:11:32 Yeah. SM: 1:11:33 -there was truth. FG: 1:11:35 Yes-yes. Silberman's book, I thought was just a wonderful primer for some of us who were, you know, just beginning to seek a deeper understanding of that issue. And, you know, and that is what Silberman had done, you know, he was not Black, he was Jewish, but he, but he wanted to understand and so he just dove into it as a as a really gifted journalist, historian, writer. And, and, and, you know, there is a lot of wisdom in the book, but just that very deep attempt at empathy and understanding thought was one of the great legacies of that book as well. SM: 1:12:19 Yeah, I have a quote, I will do this. It is a brief quote you have in your book again, and it is from Dr. Sherman's introduction, and I am glad you put it in the book. "For 100 years, white Americans had clung tenaciously to the illusion that time alone would solve the problem of race. It has not. And it never will. For time, as Reverend Martin Luther King points out is neither good nor bad, it is neutral. What matters is how time is used. Time has been used badly in the United States so badly, that not much of it remains before race, hatred completely poisons the air we breathe, what we are discovering in the United States, all of it north as well as South West as well as East is a racist society in a sense, and to a degree that we have refused so far to admit, much let us face." And then I have one very soft quote here. From him, if I can read this, More than anything, I was struck by this as you were struck by the fact that he was fearless. Rather than cringing at the philosophy of Malcolm X. Silberman set out to understand its appeal, this emerging alternative in the minds of many Blacks to nonviolent message of Dr. King. And that gets sent to the fact that he was quoting a lot of Malcolm X here in this book as well. FG: 1:13:40 Right. Right. Yes. Yes. And, you know, and Malcolm X was, you know, was such an important figure also, you know, I mean, he was, you know, he was not an advocate of violence, he was an advocate of self-defense. SM: 1:13:58 Yep. FG: 1:13:59 But as, as, gosh, now, I am blanking, but when the great African American actor who spoke at Malcolm X his funeral. SM: 1:14:09 Ossie Davis. FG: 1:14:11 Yes, right. When did Yes, sorry. When-when did he, meaning Malcolm ever do a violent thing? SM: 1:14:19 True. FG: 1:14:19 Well, he, he, you know, he was very disciplined. And, you know, and his philosophy was very dynamic and was continuing to evolve. And, you know, one of the one of the best understandings of Malcolm X to me was, was, you know, Alex Haley, who co-authored the, you know, with-with Malcolm The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Alex Haley was from the south. He was from Tennessee, and he had slightly different sensibilities, but he came to love Malcolm X and respect him and in the afterword to- in the autobiography of Malcolm X, you know, Hailey just gives such an-an empathetic understanding of the humanity of Malcolm X. And I also write in there about what I think was Malcolm X is only real trip to the South, where he came to Selma, just before the Selma to Montgomery march and spoke in favor of- SM: 1:15:26 Yes. FG: 1:15:26 Dr. King's efforts- SM: 1:15:27 Yes. FG: 1:15:28 in Selma. SM: 1:15:28 Yep. FG: 1:15:29 And so although they were often pitted as, you know, intellectual adversaries, and, you know, people who propose different paths for Black America, and to some extent, may have even seen themselves that way. There is that indication that they also at heart viewed each other as allies. SM: 1:15:52 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:15:52 And, you know, in the broadest sense, and one of the ironies of history is that when Malcolm was assassinated in 1965, he was 39 years old, when Martin Luther King was assassinated three years later, he was 39 years old. So these were two very young men who were on the public stage for a relatively short amount of time. But because of their strengths of character that they brought to it, even with different and evolving philosophies, you know, they just had such a powerful impact in providing momentum to the movement for Black freedom and liberation and racial equality in America in the (19)60s. 1:16:46 There, well said, Dr. King, of course, won the Nobel Peace Prize. And- FG: 1:16:52 Right. SM: 1:16:53 -you talk about that in your book, I mean, your book is so you, you hit everything about, and anybody who grew up in this period, like I did, you know, it makes us think even more about those times. When you have a, I just want to quote this, and I want your thoughts on this very last thing, and its speech, and a union talking about comparing science and technology and all the accomplishments we have made as a people in this area. "Yet, in spite of the spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited wants to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance, the richer we have become material, materially, the poor, we have become morally and spiritually, we have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. FG: 1:17:52 Yes. SM: 1:17:52 And that is speech. FG: 1:17:55 Yeah. I mean, you know, what a way with words, but also what do I do with the ideas? You know, I mean, it, you know, he could speak with such towering eloquence, but there is substance there, you know, it is not just poetic fluff. And, you know, and he, and he was a prophetic voice. I mean, he was edgy, you know, we can sanitize him all these years later, and kind of sweeten up his message. And when we look at the “I Have a Dream” speech, only look at the Olive Branch, you know- SM: 1:18:02 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:18:33 -the dream of the day will, you know, racial harmony, but not look at the demand for justice without which that harmony cannot exist, which was present in that speech, too. And, you know, King, the longer his life went on, the more the more edgy, his demands for justice became, and, you know, some-some people who had been his supporters began to criticize him after his speech against the Vietnam War at Riverside Church in 1967. You know, even liberal newspapers like the New York Times, and The Washington Post, basically wrote editorials saying who this King think he is, you know, he should stick to, to what he knows. You know, the Detroit Free Press was one of the only papers under a great editor named Mark Etheridge, who, who understood what King was trying to do in the Vietnam speech and supported him. And it is also interesting that he was King was introduced at Riverside Church by Rabbi Abraham Heschel- SM: 1:19:18 Mm-Hmm. Yes. FG: 1:19:43 -who had marched with him and Selma and they became, you know, powerful spiritual allies. You know, this Jewish theologian who was a seventh-generation rabbi and this, you know, American Baptist from the From the southern part of the United States who felt this great affinity for each other, and again, it just speaks to the fundamental grounding and seriousness of purpose that that King had, but that others had too and then King had turned his attention to economic inequality. And that was where he was when he was killed. And, you know, and we are no better off on that front. I mean, income inequalities is bad now, maybe worse than it was then. So, you know, could King have made a difference on that front? I do not know. But he certainly intended to try and was willing to risk the claim that had come his way for more and more profound changes that he thought were necessary to make America what it should be. SM: 1:20:54 That is why I think having Byard Rustin by his side was really important because Byard Rustin was always trying to tell us about the king. And Dr. King believed this too, that it is not just race, it is about class. FG: 1:21:05 Yes. Yes. SM: 1:21:06 And-and Ruston was an that when Dr. King went north, he some of the critics in the South are saying, why are you heading to Chicago, weighing the weighing on North, because there is racism there as well. But there is also- FG: 1:21:20 Yeah. SM: 1:21:20 -a class issue, what was the, you know, where he was killed, was a strike over wages- FG: 1:21:27 Absolutely. for sanitation, [inaudible] yeah, absolutely. SM: 1:21:36 -for many years, and he was a great organizer to the-the teachings were very important. And this is another positive thing for Vanderbilt University. Because you talk in the book about the teachings that were taking place at Michigan, and then of course, the big one at Berkeley. But it also happened that your school, could you talk about the importance of the teachings, and they were a threat to Lyndon Johnson, he did not like him. Yeah, sanitation workers, so it was about class. So Byard Rustin was a very important person to be by his side. FG: 1:22:03 Right? Yeah, the antiwar teachings that began, where, you know, you had professors and students who, who were opposed to the Vietnam War, and the deepening American involvement, and who saw what it was doing, certainly to Vietnam, where, you know, where so many people were getting killed, including civilians, and were American troops who were sent there, many of them brave, determined, you know, admirable young men, and they were all men at that point. But they sometimes did not even know who the enemy was because of the broad opposition to us, among the Vietnamese population. And so the troops were in a terrible position as well. And so some of these professors, we had one or two at Vanderbilt, but also, you know, students set all of these places thought at first, well, if we can just use information about what is happening, what is really happening. We can change people's minds, you know. SM: 1:23:11 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:23:13 They have faith in the, in the basic goodwill of policymakers and Americans in general. And Lyndon Johnson, you know, who had been so played such a heroic role in terms of civil rights and, and in his very dramatic attempts to address the issue of poverty. But boy, he hated people who opposed him on Vietnam. And so he hated the [inaudible]. And you know, there was a lot of red baiting of stood in not [inaudible] is what I meant to say, hated that. And, and there was a lot of red baiting of the motives of people who were involved in all of that. So, you know, I treat the Vietnam War in the book as a great American tragedy. I try not to demonize the young man who was sent to Centrify and I tried to interview some about their experiences and the trauma that they experienced, sometimes physical, PTSD, sometimes moral horror at what was happening around them. And so in some, you know, who were proud of what they had done, but, you know, and to also recognize that, that, you know, the horrors were, you know, not all just committed by Americans. I mean, the torture of John McCain was-was an example of that, and, you know, in his bravery is beyond dispute. But he also was, you know, on the impersonal mission of dropping bombs in you know, on the outskirts of, of Hanoi, and-and, you know, and so when he was captured, they hated him, you know. And so all of that, to me is part of the great tragedy you know of Vietnam tragic for the Vietnamese tragic for its divisive impacts on America tragic for the loss and suffering that American soldiers and their families experienced. Tragic for the moral standing of America, in the world. SM: 1:25:34 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:25:34 And finally, is how he men predicted we did just get tired of it and stop, you know- SM: 1:25:41 Yep-yep. FG: 1:25:41 -without achieving what we had set out to do and yet no direct harm came to us from Peace. Only from the war- SM: 1:25:51 -as the helicopters went off the Embassy in Saigon on that April day- FG: 1:25:56 Right. SM: 1:25:56 -what and then- FG: 1:25:57 Right. SM: 1:25:57 -a gross going then you see on the aircraft carriers, I am throwing the helicopters into the ocean. It was what a sad day. So several days, in fact. I You mentioned also in the book that there was a religious organization that came together when people would read bait or accuse people of being communists. They used to do this for a lot of the civil rights workers or any of the protesters and certainly a lot of the anti-war people. And I remember it was Father Barragan, Daniel Barragan, and Rabbi Heschel that were two of the leaders who- FG: 1:26:31 Yep-yep. Right. SM: 1:26:31 -responded to somebody who had made those kinds of charges. And they said, That is ridiculous. They are patriots. They are not communists. FG: 1:26:40 Right-right. Yep. Yep. Those were, you know, that is another theme that threads its way through the book is the is the power and the significance of faith and, and the ethical grounding. That faith provided some people from Dr. King to Rabbi Heschel to Father Barragan. You know, and a lot of others, and then there were other manifestations of it, too. I mean, Billy Graham was a was a very interesting figure during that time, who, you know, had more or less decent instincts on-on the issue of race, and yet he was a committed cold warrior, but also kind of timid about taking any kind of social stand. And then you had emerging late in the decade, the Christian right, led by Jerry Falwell. So, you know, that is another thread that you- SM: 1:27:43 Yep. FG: 1:27:43 -tug on during that during that decade. And it is, it is very empowering. It is very important. And I tried to catch a sense of its importance as best I could. SM: 1:27:56 In the 1964 elections, we all know, I will be Jade, the Goldwater in a landslide. I think Goldwater won six states, but a Goldwater changed the Republican Party forever. And Change Politics forever. Of course, that is when Ronald Reagan came when he gave that speech in favor of Goldwater and he came on the national scene as well. But then on the other side of the Democratic Convention, Johnson had more problems than we thought, because of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. And what was going on there. I mean, so (19)64 may have been a, a landslide for the Democrats, but in reality, a lot of history was happening. FG: 1:28:36 Yeah, that is right. And, and I think that it was an elusive landslide. You know, it was the, the sort of Lyndon Johnson consensus was starting to crack apart in (19)64. And the conservative forces and America conservative movement was-was taking shape and, and the spokesman for it, you know, the figure who embodied it, you know, first it was Goldwater, but then it became Ronald Reagan- SM: 1:29:18 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:29:18 -who was a politician we learned, some of us to our chagrin, have enormous talent, who really put an appealing face on the-the, on the conservative movement in this country. And, you know, and so it became a powerful force in the same decade, where, you know, a lot of historians including me, were inclined to write more about the liberal movements in the decade but you know, there was this-this-this powerful emergence of the American right, that began to take shape. During that time as well. SM: 1:30:01 Mm-Hmm. the and of course we in Buckley live formation of National Review. FG: 1:30:09 Right. SM: 1:30:09 And of course, the young Americans for freedom. I have had a couple interviews where people are upset that we never talked about the Young Americans for freedom and the conservative movement that was also against the war. FG: 1:30:21 Right. SM: 1:30:22 So-so that is. FG: 1:30:24 Right. SM: 1:30:24 Something for another day, but there is certainly no question that Buckley was a major figure in the (19)60s. FG: 1:30:28 Major figure. SM: 1:30:31 Yep. [crosstalk] go ahead. FG: 1:30:34 He came to Vanderbilt Buckley came to Vanderbilt in 1968. And debated Julian Bond. SM: 1:30:40 Yeah, what was the main thrust of that debate? FG: 1:30:43 It was, you know, we were talking about the role of dissent in American society. And the interesting thing is, I do not, it was so overshadowed by what had happened the day before they spoke in that debate the day after Dr. King was killed in Memphis. SM: 1:31:01 Oh, wow! FG: 1:31:02 And so there was a very somber mood at the, you know, there were 5000 people listening to them. SM: 1:31:11 Wow. FG: 1:31:11 And, you know, Buckley was more subdued in his sarcasm, then he, you know, that was his kind of debating trademark. And- SM: 1:31:19 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:31:20 -you know, it was funny, a little human aside, Julian Bond was terrified or die do debating Buckley. When I was getting bond to come, he said, Buckley will chew me up, "I am not coming to bite him." And I sort of jokingly said, "You have got truth on your side, Mr. Bond." And so anyway, he came in, I really liked Julian Bond, he was a funny, smart as a whip. You know, deeply committed guy. And William Buckley was, you know, just incredible intellect himself. So it was kind of the philosophical. They were sort of philosophical embodiment. So these two electrical currents running side by side and in American life, so it was a real privilege to get to see them together. SM: 1:32:20 Yeah. You mentioned about he made a comment that if we were going backwards in the area of race, he would like to own somebody. Well, I think that was. FG: 1:32:27 Oh, yeah. Julian-Julian. They were having a this is an anecdote. [crosstalk] I was told Ray Charles, she says that all the snick activists were sort of saying, you know, the white people are so racist, that they probably want to bring back slavery and bond in this right [inaudible] said, "Well, if it slavery does come back, I think I would like to own Ray Charles." I mean, it is just hilariously funny. It is I do not know what it means. I mean, he was, you know, I mean, he was just, he was just that irreverent and right, human. SM: 1:33:04 I brought him to West Chester University. And we are Martin Luther King speaker one year, and I picked him up to the Philadelphia airport. And I always got, well, I had already gone down. I- he invited me to his class, I spoke about oral history interviewing to his class at American University. I interviewed- FG: 1:33:22 Cool. SM: 1:33:22 him for the-the-the-the Center for the Study of the (19)60s A long time ago. So that interviews on site, but what happened- FG: 1:33:31 Right. SM: 1:33:31 -is this. We are getting off. We are walking out of the airport, and someone says, "Hi, Mr. Lewis," and he it without a strike. He kept going. He said, "You are right. I am John Lewis." And he just kept going. Like he was, you do not even know me between him. And that was the first thing, then riding- FG: 1:33:50 Yeah. SM: 1:33:50 -back to the, to the university. And I noticed he was smoking. Well, he was not a smoker. He had not been but occasionally he did. FG: 1:33:59 Uhm-huh. SM: 1:34:00 And we got to the back of the university, we always want in the back way, because of the fact that goes right up to the elevator. And so we were going in the back way. And he said, "You know, Steve, I spent my entire career trying to go in the front door, and here we are going in the back door." And then I got in the elevator and he said, "I need your opinion on this. Do you think my wife will know if I smoked? Because the smoke beyond my raincoat because, you know, she does not want me to smoke." He-he was unbelievable. And then when we took him to Washington when it took some more students to Washington to meet him. But one of our African American students said I am never going to vote in the election. So let us not talk about that issue. And they will somehow, he brought it up. FG: 1:34:45 Uh-huh. SM: 1:34:47 And "You are of course you will all believe in voting, no" to and she said "No." Would you know for the next 30 minutes the conversation was between him and her. FG: 1:34:56 Well, interesting, well. SM: 1:34:58 About importance I wish I had taped. It was about voting. And so anyways. FG: 1:35:03 Yeah. SM: 1:35:03 So he had a sense of humor. He was a great person when he died. I was very sad. Very-very sad. Yeah. Yeah [inaudible] [crosstalk] I want you to comment on of course, Mario Savio and Cesar Chavez. Okay. He is very important. And because he was part of Freedom Summer, and he was only 21 years old. And could you talk a little bit about what you said in the book about him? FG: 1:35:27 Yes, Mario Savio was a fascinating figure to me, because he was, you know, more or less a contemporary he was few years older than then I was, but not much. And, you know, he went to Freedom Summer as a volunteer in 1964. And was powerfully moved by the sense of community among African American people in Mississippi. And he had, Savio had been raised Catholic. And though he had become much more secular, in his view of the world, still, he, those some of those Catholic patterns of thought, remained, even if the content had changed. And he wrote that, that while he was in Mississippi, he felt like he was being held in the bosom of the Lord, as he said, I mean, there was something almost sacred to him about the sense of community and the struggle for equality that he encountered in the Mississippi, in Mississippi when he when he went there. And so he came back to Berkeley with that powerful sense of having been moved by the bravery of these of these African American people who lived with so much oppression, and were fighting back against it was such extraordinary courage, and then discovered that he was not allowed to talk about that, or pass out flyers about it on the University of California Berkeley campus because of limitations and freedom of speech. And so that was part of what helped trigger the free speech movement and, and some of Savio speeches, some of them impromptu that he gave as a as a spokesperson for that movement. And he-he never thought of himself as the leader of it. It was more diffuse and democratic than that, but he became the spokesperson because of his power with words. And, you know, it was almost in Martin Luther King territory. I mean, he was just amazing in the way, you know, he tried to frame all of that, and you know, Joan Baez, came in and sang and supported that movement. And, you know, Savio was viewed as an extreme radical by the Berkeley administration. But, but a lot of what he said, you know, holds up all these all these decades later. So, you know, he died relatively young. And, you know, and I was sad about that, I never met him, but, but I did follow him. And, and, and thought he was a pretty remarkable figure, you know, he studied with equal enthusiasm, both physics and philosophy, you know, I mean, it just spoke to the, to the depth and breadth of his intellectual interest to go along with his activism. And then Cesar Chavez, you know, and all this is the, you know, the sort of the, the California, the West Coast, contributions to the (19)60s, we have spoken about the emergence of Reagan and California. SM: 1:38:21 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:38:43 But you had Berkeley free speech, and then you had the farmworkers strikes, and, you know, say as our Chavez giving voice to the same kind of non-violence that Martin Luther King did and leading, leading essentially a labor strike on behalf of better wages and safer conditions, and making common cause sometimes with the emerging environmental movement, because of the use of pesticides and so forth in the in the fields. And so very powerful witness by-by this Mexican American man who found a powerful ally and Robert Kennedy who, who spoke up for the for the farmworkers. So, you know, if a lot of the (19)60s flowed out from the south and then from the, you know, universities in the Midwest during Vietnam, you know, here was, here was the West Coast- SM: 1:39:32 Mm-Hmm. Right. FG: 1:39:48 -know, another powerful tributary in this great river of events in the (19)60s. 1:39:52 He believed in nonviolent protests, just like Dr. King, and he was also not afraid to go to jail, and there is a scene. FG: 1:40:00 Right. SM: 1:40:00 You in Your book where you talk with his wife went on a protest. And they were told not to say a certain word. And he said, I" want all of you to yell at this highest as everybody can hear it, "and- FG: 1:40:11 Yes. SM: 1:40:11 -believe that they would be arrested. That that is kind of like the philosophy of Dr. King. If you if you are afraid to go to jail, but you should not go to the protest, if- FG: 1:40:20 Right. Right. SM: 1:40:21 -you know what it is, there comes a price for everyone eventually. And- FG: 1:40:26 Yes. SM: 1:40:26 -certainly, Cesar Chavez was in the same light as Dr. King. FG: 1:40:31 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I never met him either. But I wish I had, because he was a, he was a major figure during that decade. And we have not even really talked about the women's movement. SM: 1:40:45 No- FG: 1:40:47 That also gained so much momentum during that time. So it was- SM: 1:40:51 -Lesbian movement as well. And I kind of- FG: 1:40:54 Yeah. SM: 1:40:54 -just general questions here, and then we will end, I was wondering if I could interview again, sometime later in the year, to maybe do more of the second half of your book. I have read everything, but I wanted to get this first half really covered. And I have some general questions here. Of all the stories in your book, you may have already said this, but could you pick out two the standout in your view, all the things you described? FG: 1:41:24 Oh, my goodness. You know, it is, that is really, that is really hard. Or for me to do in a way, I mean, in a generic sense, they, you know, the assassinations of the (19)60s were so heartbreaking. And so history changing, you know, that I would have to talk about the assassinations of both Kennedys and Dr. King, not to mention Malcolm X or Medgar Evers or those others, but so that would be one thing. But on a personal level, you know, the two most important things to me that I sort of dropped into the book, were seeing the rest of Dr. King and Birmingham and, and meeting Robert Kennedy, when he came to Vanderbilt and- SM: 1:42:19 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:42:19 -confirming to my own satisfaction that he meant everything he was saying, you know, on the- SM: 1:42:24 Yep. FG: 1:42:25 -campaign trail, I just had that feeling. So those were the two most important things personally. But you know, but-but the assassinations, the, you know, some of the brave affirmations that, you know, King and the Kennedys made, you know, those were, those were powerful, too. So I know, I am not narrowing down as much as you [crosstalk] SM: 1:42:52 Mm-Hmm. That is very good though. FG: 1:42:56 Right. Yeah. SM: 1:42:56 All the assassinations. By golly, it is, you know, my next question is when you look at America of the (19)60s, the period (19)60s, (19)75, period, what are the issues that are still with us today that have not been corrected? FG: 1:43:14 You know, I think almost all of them. You know, I think race is still an issue in America today. You know, the backlash against President Obama proved that we had not driven a stake through the heart of racism in America, and then the, the ability of President Trump to appeal to the worst in people with, you know, whether it was, you know, defining Muslims or immigrants as the other, or, you know, or later, more directly, you know, demonizing the Black Lives Matter movement, whatever, whatever it might be. I mean, those kinds of racial divisions are still with us. So that is one thing. Income inequality is as severe and destabilizing in America as has ever been. You know, the women's movement, you know, the reversal of Roe v. Wade, a lot of women see as, as an attempt to push back on the ability of women to control their own lives, and they think that is, but it is actually the unspoken motivation of it. So there is that. And then, of course, the environmental movement, which was taking shape near the end of the decade. You know, now we were living on the edge of climate catastrophe. SM: 1:44:46 Right. FG: 1:44:46 So, you know, those things at the at the, at the very least. And then there were labor struggles during the (19)60s and the- SM: 1:44:55 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:44:55 -labor movement is, you know, there is little glimmers that it might be experiencing some revival after- SM: 1:45:04 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:45:04 -going pretty, pretty dormant for a while, although we do not know. But anyway, I think, you know, I think most of the things that we were talking about in one way or another police brutality, which triggered the hot summers of the late (19)60s- SM: 1:45:21 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:45:22 -and in almost every case, the riots were triggered by moments or allegations of police brutality, you know, we see again with George Floyd. So, so, so there it all is, you know, plus, plus the philosophical debate between the conservative movement and the- SM: 1:45:42 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:45:42 -progressive or liberal movement, I mean, all of it, all of it is, is still with us. The (19)60s, raised hopes and caused divisions and gave us people who wanted to heal, but also gave us people who wanted to exploit divisions, and we see a lot of that today. SM: 1:46:06 History is-is something we should all learn from. So the lessons learned are never lost. What are the- FG: 1:46:14 Right. SM: 1:46:14 -what are the lessons we have learned from that period that we were, we have been discussing today? And what are the lessons lost, if any, in your view? FG: 1:46:25 Well, you know, I think that, that one lesson is that we can ensure broaden the meaning of American democracy, that we should make a place for more and more people in it to live full and valued lives, whether they are people of color, whether they are women, whether they are, they are people who are gay, or transgender, or, or whatever. That that that is the fundamental. That is, that is the fundamental American story, if we want it to be, I mean, Thomas Jefferson raised that possibility that was sort of a guiding star for the country, potentially, when he said, We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And, you know, it has been a long journey in the direction of that and to expand it from men to women, as well. And- SM: 1:47:25 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:47:25 -you know, and so that is part of the American story, and in my view, needs to be the American story. But the opposite, the pushback against that hope, is also there, and the guy who wrote those words on slaves. And so, you know, that is the other sort of schizophrenic part of the American character. And that is still with us to the dark side. SM: 1:47:50 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:47:51 So-so, you know, so that is the, that is the, that is the warning of the (19)60s that our lesser angels are still alive and well. SM: 1:48:02 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:48:03 And, and so here we are, you know, SM: 1:48:07 I think one key word or two key words regarding this period is that truth matters- FG: 1:48:16 Right, yes. SM: 1:48:17 -matters. And when you look at a lot of the people that all these protests for all these causes, and all of the unjust strife- FG: 1:48:25 Right. SM: 1:48:25 -and inequalities and being treated poorly, all these things, the people that were doing, it knew that truth matters. FG: 1:48:34 Yes. Yes. SM: 1:48:36 That is a very important two words. Just three more questions on done for today. FG: 1:48:42 Okay. SM: 1:48:42 Jean Scruggs, the founder of the Vietnam Memorial, wrote a book called To Heal a Nation. FG: 1:48:47 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:48:48 And certainly the wall was built in 1982. The veterans came together for the first time really, where they felt like they were, you know, cared- FG: 1:48:58 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:48:58 -and cared about. So- FG: 1:48:59 Right. SM: 1:49:00 -but how can we heal as a nation from this war? FG: 1:49:05 From the Vietnam War? SM: 1:49:06 Yes. FG: 1:49:08 You know, we have not yet I do not think we need to, you know, I thought that, that we would, I thought when Jimmy Carter, in his first act as president granted amnesty to people who had left for Canada and said, "Come back home." I thought that was powerful. And then when the Vietnam Memorial happened and-and-and officially said to American soldiers who had fought during that era, we honor your courage and sacrifice. I thought that should have been those two things. Oddly, were kind of the book ends of what should have been healing from the war. At least from the American perspective, and, you know, but then, but then we did not, we did not learn anything from it on the po- on the policy level. And so, you know, along come, you know, you know, the-the, the first Gulf War in the 1990s. And then- SM: 1:49:33 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:50:25 -you know, and then George W Bush's- SM: 1:50:27 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:50:28 -foreign policy that destabilize the Middle East and proved once again, the limits of American military power. And so and so those, you know, and then and then the, the attempt to appropriate the meaning of the Vietnam War, and in, you know, and only try to retroactively view it as some kind of heroic chapter in American diplomacy or American history, you know, in taking nothing from the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers. But, you know, it was not a triumph. In-in any way. It was. It was a, it was a tragedy. And we have- we are not very good in this country, at-at an honest look at our own tragic mistakes. SM: 1:51:17 Mm-Hmm. Yeah, I know that a lot of the soldiers that came back from the Vietnam War, appreciate being, at least for a while, being told welcome home because they were not during that- FG: 1:51:30 Yes. SM: 1:51:30 -period from (19)75 to (19)82. No question about, but the thing. FG: 1:51:36 And-and they should be, they should be welcomed. I mean, that is, you know, that is part of the part of the healing. But anyway, go ahead with [crosstalk] Right. SM: 1:51:43 -are tired of having people tell them Welcome home, because they know they do not mean it. It is just a slogan to them. But then I have- 1:51:43 -My I go the wall every year for the last two years from Memorial, our last 20. Some years. I am a [inaudible] they have veterans, they I talked to veterans, and a lot- FG: 1:51:59 Right. SM: 1:51:59 -had a couple of them, tell me now that have reflected on it over a long period of time, that why would we be welcomed home? I mean, we lost the war. We came home. FG: 1:52:12 Yeah. SM: 1:52:12 That was an unpopular war. So why did we were not going to have parades like World War Two? Korea did not have any parades either. But- FG: 1:52:21 Right. SM: 1:52:22 -so why, why do you expect us to be welcomed home when it was such a catastrophe in the first place? So a lot of the veterans are thinking deeper now about this whole welcome home business too. So. FG: 1:52:35 Right. SM: 1:52:36 And of course, the main thing is they are all getting old. And-and they are- FG: 1:52:40 Right. SM: 1:52:40 now realizing like World War Two veterans that they are only going to be here so long. So they are, so what is happening in during this period needs to be told and needs to be recorded down for history. FG: 1:52:53 Right. SM: 1:52:53 There is a lot of going on there. FG: 1:52:57 Right. SM: 1:52:57 One of the things is, I am not going to add, I will just say this. I have gotten a lot of answers. When did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? Well, I do not think it was ever ended. I know, George Bush- FG: 1:53:07 Right. SM: 1:53:07 -George Bush said in 1989, the Vietnam syndrome was over when I heard that I just about laughed. You remember when he said that? FG: 1:53:17 Yeah-yeah. I do and, you know, I thought it was wishful thinking and off base? SM: 1:53:23 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:53:25 So, you know, yes-yes. No, I think I think it is the issues that the (19)60s represented. You know, and, you know, that were so apparent, then those issues are just absolutely alive and well, and all of the debates and struggles and so forth, continue. And maybe that is just the way of history, you know, it has it has never contained in-in, you know, in the way that historians would like to, you know, I could write a book about a 10-year period. But, you know, it did not really start those things in 1960. And they certainly did not end in 1970. So it is just an abstraction. That is a convenient way to start and end the book. But, but history does not start in the end and- SM: 1:54:15 Right FG: 1:54:15 -in, in those neat kinds of ways. Yeah. SM: 1:54:18 I have two more [crosstalk] FG: 1:54:19 I would be glad to talk to you. You know, later if you know about the other parts of the book. SM: 1:54:25 Oh yes, Certainly-certainly, I would like, having a second interview regarding the women's movement. Certainly the movements for the Native American movement of the gay and lesbian movement, and certainly a lot more to about the latter (19)60s. I want to end this by saying this make a comment and you respond to it. When I look at the year 2022. I see a nation and extreme divide, just like the (19)60s the people and the characters are different. What some of the same issues are still with us. In fact, some of the issues seem to be returning through an effort to return to an earlier time before so many, many battles for justice had been won. Are we going to read this? Are we a nation going forward or backward? FG: 1:55:15 I think that we will have a much clearer answer to that question within the next two years. I have recently written a new book with another writer appeal, it is a prize-winning columnist named Cynthia Tucker. SM: 1:55:35 I have the book. FG: 1:55:36 Call this other, yeah, and Southernization of America: Story of democracy in the balance. SM: 1:55:41 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:55:41 And we in that book by saying, it could go either way, you know, we were, we could go forward or we could go way backward. And, you know, the structural challenges to the very way of doing our democratic business in this country are being put in place, and if those carry the day, along with this very energetic set of, in my view, far right, way beyond conservative far right priorities. That, that, you know, that make it hard to have honest civil discussions of our, of our problems, and we could be in for a really dark and difficult generation in this country, if not more- SM: 1:56:39 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:56:39 -or, you know, we knowing that maybe we can stave off the worst, but in the meantime, the depth of division in America right now feels to me, at least as deep as it did if the end of the (19)60s. SM: 1:56:56 Mm-Hmm. Yes, I will end this by a quote that I think Barbara Tuchman said, but I think it is well known that the first casualty of war is truth. FG: 1:57:08 Right. SM: 1:57:09 And it is so true. And I end each of my interviews with a question. The people that will be hearing these interviews are many of them are not even born yet. At the center- FG: 1:57:21 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:57:21 I study the (19)60s, these interviews are put on to CVS and Aviva studied and researched. Our goal, I think, hopefully, is that we also finally will get PhD candidates who want to concentrate on that period between 1960 and (19)75, history majors- FG: 1:57:37 Right. SM: 1:57:37 PhD, right. So these are all important. And so that you your voice, your picture, and your books will be here forever. And so what you said, we will be having influence on people long after we are long gone. Could you if there is a word of advice that you would give people down the road that are no that are that we will be hearing this 50 years from now and beyond? What would you say to them? FG: 1:58:06 Well, you know, I think the (19)60s began as a period of time when people thought they could make a great country even better. That was the sort of idealistic heart of the (19)60s at the very beginning. And as it count encountered the intractable reality of our problems, the depth of our problems, whether they are economic or racial, or having to do with gender or the conflict between, you know, our, the engines of our economy and, and our environment, whatever it might be, that generated the pushback. You know, that that idealistic goal- You know, in some cases turned bitter, in some cases led to deep disillusionment, but the but the heart of it, that belief, that, that we have the potential in this country to be special, and we need to make it true. You know, that still, it seems to me has to be our north-north star as Americans- SM: 1:59:29 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:59:29 -and, and the (19)60s emphasize that. SM: 1:59:34 Well, thank you very much. I am going to turn the tape off and I will talk to you on the other side. Hold on. Thank you. Okay. All right. I am back. That was great interview. Great interview. Yeah, well, what will happen is, I interviewed six people about four weeks ago, and then I interviewed a person yesterday and you today. So there is going to be a new-new tapes that are going to be have to be digital. I think they are already. Yeah, they are already digitized, they just have to be sent to you by email. And then you will listen to them and approve them. And then once they are approved, then they will be placed on site with the other 100-238 that are already up there. And so that and-and I am going to be keeping-keeping doing this as long as I can. So I am going to keep adding and adding to the process that down the road. I am interviewing six more people in a month. So it would be a while a while from now to interview you again, would you be able to be interviewed in late October? FG: 2:00:40 [inaudible] what you are doing is important. Interview [inaudible] SM: 2:00:53 Okay. FG: 2:00:57 You know [inaudible] what we talked about is what I think [inaudible] SM: 2:01:13 You know, I believe, I have conservatives and liberals that I have interviewed. I remember I interviewed David Horowitz. And I brought David to Westchester. He is not liked by a lot of and, and he is kind of crazy in some of his ideas, but I have always liked them. And, and he agreed to do an interview with me and he said, You are the only one you are only a liberal. And I had an interview with I hate because I liked him because when he first came to our campus, some of the liberal professors were ready to go in his throat and we walked out of the room, I said that we are not here for that. He just heard David's here to give a lecture on this is about six. This is about 10 years ago, but-but I read his book, radical son, I do not know if you have ever read it. It is a great book to read because he was the world's number one leftist for a long time. He came from a leftist family. And I think he is kind of gone overboard now with his thinking, but, but I know what he has gone through. He has lost a daughter. He has had cancer. He has done a lot of things. He has written a lot of books, David [inaudible], and he has written books with and Mr. [inaudible] just recently passed. So I just, you know, he is on here, and he agreed to do it. So anyway, but I find that you-you are one heck of a writer, I-I could not put this book down and I underlined it-it is almost ruined with underlines. But the thing is, it is so well, it is, it is, it is history, and I kind of live that history. But I lived it up in New York state while you were living in I was born in 19- December 27, of (19)46. So we are the same age. yet and I admire your time at Vanderbilt, I spent my career in higher education. And I love any university that allows all points of view to be heard, no matter what era. FG: 2:03:10 [inaudible] SM: 2:03:25 Well, I, in my career in higher education, I have met just about everybody from the (19)60s because they all came to campuses. You know, I brought him I was at Westchester for 22 years. And then I was at Ohio State for a few years and I was at Ohio University. I brought David, I do not know if you ever heard of his name? Oh, my golly, people's Bicentennial commission from 1976. I forget the name. He was he was a radical now he is a multimillionaire businessman. But anyways, so I will get you will get this in the mail sometime in the next two to three weeks. And then make sure we have a picture of you that has been okayed, you can mail that to my email address so that we placed on site and a brief interview, then more extensive interviews will be coming forward down the road. And- FG: 2:04:21 [inaudible] very enjoyable [inaudible] . 2:04:30 It is just, yeah, it is the Center for the Study of the 19(19)60s at Binghamton University. You can go on site. There is 238 interviews on site right now. A couple a couple of them have some damage to them. I know Ed Rendell when I interviewed him, the former mayor of Philadelphia. I was supposed to I was supposed to interview him in his office. Well, he got too busy and he says come with me. And so I am interviewing him in his limo going to a funeral. funeral of a fireman. And what happened is he never turned the tape on when I asked him the question he only put the [inaudible] he answered the question. So-so yeah, and we tried to get his family to okay the tape but he has got Parkinson's now and I cannot even be contacted. So we got him on site even though it is just him answering questions. Yeah, but anyways, at least we got so I kind of consider you the CBN Woodward or the south. FG: 2:05:31 Well, that is very flattering. SM: 2:05:34 Yeah, because you know, you are you really are on top of the (19)60s and everything you are right. I do have your new book as I did order it. I do not know what I am going to get a chance to read it. But, but I will be contacting you myself in terms of trying to set up the next interview. And you would be safe and continue writing. Thanks, have a great day. 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 Frye Gaillard https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/fc30ee2fd372ebf02c4536163950fbf9.jpeg 5e5141893c5b151f074de2f225227105 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ab39013ab21ad7a7292913056a47c428.mp3 262a9be4733457fd91d9f14768408b1b 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 2022-10-28 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Kate Clifford Larson Biographical Text Dr. Kate Clifford Larson is a historian, author, and consultant. She is the author of several books including Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter; and Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. Dr. Larson is a specialist in 19th and 20th century U.S. Women’s and African American History and a consultant and interpretive specialist for numerous museums, and community initiatives related to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in Maryland, Delaware, and New York. She earned a Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Simmons College in Economics and History, an MBA from Northeastern University, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of New Hampshire. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:40:12 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 Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Mississippi; Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer; White; Women; Black; Sharecroppers; Community; State; People; Vote; Mississippians; Book; Students Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Kate Clifford Larson Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 28 October 2022 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:00 Great. All right. I am speaking with Kate Clifford Larson, who has written a brand-new book called, "Walk with Me," it is a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, and thank you, Kate for agreeing to be interviewed. KL: 00:16 Thank you for interviewing me. SM: 00:18 Now, could you please tell me about your growing up years? Your, your when you were in elementary school, high school, college, and how you became interested in writing biographies. KL: 00:33 So, I grew up in Lewiston, Maine, which is a mill town in South Central Maine. And, you know, I just, my dad was a lawyer, and he was a history buff. So, we were brought up very much interested in history. There were books all over the house and, and, you know, we go on vacations or trips, and our dad would take us to this historic site and tell us stories. So, I had that, that love of history growing up. So, when I went to college, at Simmons in Boston, I majored in Economics and History because I just, I loved history so much, but I also enjoyed economics. And I, you know, I followed the, you know, the tracks to, into the business world, and I worked for an investment bank, I got my MBA at Northeastern University. And, you know, I followed that path. But, I was always interested in history. I, you know, I used to love to go to old bookstores and get old books, and I did antiquing with my husband. And sometimes, I would find old diaries that people had written in, you know, people would sell them in their bookstores or antique stores. So, I amassed quite a collection of diaries, and most of them were women. And I just became fascinated by these women's lives that they were writing about in their diaries from the 19th century or early 20th century. So, I, it was just something that I was attracted to. And in the, I guess it was in the late (19)80s, or early (19)90s. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, had come out with a couple of books. One was, " The Midwives Tail," which was an amazing book about a midwife in Maine, which I really loved reading, because I came from Maine and I-I just, I knew those landscapes, and it was fascinating to me. And she also wrote, "Good Wives." And so, I read both of those books. And it just hit me that I loved history so much, and I love stories about women in the past, so I decided to leave the investment banking industry and, and go back to Simmons and get a graduate degree in women's history. So, I, it was like a, it was such a relief to admit that I really loved history. And I was privileged enough. And my, my husband and my, my family were very supportive of me, you know, moving on, and striking out in a new career path. And when I was at Simmons, in, I took an African American History course with a professor that I had back in the (19)70s. I adored him, his name was Mark Solomon. And he was teaching an African American History course. And I had never taken that, African American history as an undergrad. And in two weeks of taking that class, I knew that I wanted to study not only women's history, but African American history. And that set me on the path of learning about Harriet Tubman, who had not had a biography written about her since 1943. This was in the early (19)90s. So that was shocking to my professors, to me, to everybody. And I-I thought, "Well, gee, I will write my master's thesis on her," and my faculty members, my advisors were like, "Whoa, wait a minute, this is a huge project. Why do not you do your master's on something else, and then go on, and get a doctorate, and do your dissertation on Tubman and that way, you will have more training and skills to be able to take on such an iconic figure." And so, I did that, and I went to the University of New Hampshire to get my Ph.D. and that is where I worked on my dissertation of Tubman. And that hooked me on biography. I just love being able to tell history through the lens of one person's life and delving into that person, that woman's life, that person's life in a very deep way. I just love that emotional and intellectual connection that I have with my biographical subjects. And so that really, the Tubman work just changed my life and set me on this track of being a biographer. SM: 03:58 Wow. When you wrote the Tubman book, and now you have written the book on Fannie Lou Hamer, what, do you, did you often compare them in terms of what they did, how, who they became, their experiences they had growing up? What were, what was common about both of them? KL: 05:24 So, you know, I learned about Hamer in graduate school, I did not, was not aware of her as a young adult in well, I was a child during the (19)60s, a young adult in the late (19)70s and into the (19)80s. I did not know anything about her, but I learned about her in graduate school. And I admired her and I just thought there was something interesting, but I did not learn that much about her. I just learned the surface. She, you know, spoke at the Democratic Convention, she talked about being a Mississippi sharecropper, and, and the violence in the south. And that was about it. So, when I learned more about her, you know, over the years, I noticed they were biographies being written about her. So, I started reading more and more about her. And I began to get that feeling that yes, she was very similar to Harriet Tubman, just 100 years later. And, you know, it just took me maturing as a scholar, and, you know, becoming more and more aware of, of the diversity of the twentieth century because I focused very much on the nineteenth century. And I just I, it, Fannie Lou Hamer seemed like, someone that I really needed to pay attention to. And so, when I, after I wrote my book on Rosemary Kennedy, which was a long-long, long, process I came out of that, and I was thinking about the next project and Fannie Lou Hamer was really right there at the top of my head saying, you know, like, almost like knocking on my head saying, "Hello, hello." So, I decided to pay a little bit more attention to her. And it really was stunning to me. The similarities between Hamer and Tubman, how they came out of, basically, nowhere, even though that is somewhere and it was really important to them. They came out of a, it was a very difficult circumstances, deeply rural communities, they had limited access to education, actually, Tubman had- did not have access to formal education at all. Hamer had very little. So, I had to learn to, to look at their lives in a different way than I would at a traditional life of someone that had access to all sorts of privilege like a, Rosemary Kennedy. And how, how do women like Hamer and Tubman rise up out of those circumstances? And how, you know, are they natural born leaders, which I think they are, and I think there are many natural born leaders. But not every natural born leader, every leader actually ends up leading because they do not have the support and the circumstances around them that propel them forward. And in, in Tubman's life, she needed the support and care of her family in the community there that helped raise her and protect her in slavery, and then taught her the skills she needed to be this incredible leader. And the same thing with, with Hamer, she had limited education, she lived in a community that was incredibly oppressive against Black people, and the violence perpetrated against people in Mississippi, people of color in Mississippi and elsewhere, was just horrific. And so, she came out of that because of the fierce strength of her family, to protect her help her grow and learn. And the community that you know, by out of necessity and out of survival, the community had to be strong together to protect each other. And so, that was the similarity between Tubman and Hamer. This really strong community and family, and powerful faith that help them survive their darkest moments. They turn to their God to guide them, to comfort them, to give them a sense of moral certainty, and makes them feel that they were loved and protected at times when that really was not happening. So, the similarities are striking. And it made me think of, of paying attention to other leaders in this world that do not come from Ivy League educations, or privileged background, or all white, and because leaders can come from anywhere and they are here today in our communities, and how do we recognize them, because they need support, they cannot do it on their own. SM: 10:02 One of the things that, after reading your book, in every area of her life from her childhood to early adulthood to adulthood. And finally, when she passes, she believed in one thing and, everything she did it was work, work, work, get the job done. And I was, even she had health issues and everything in her life. But, could you talk about that strong work ethic that she had when she was a child working in share, as a sharecropper. And then later in life when she was involved in certain causes and was snick, and everything, she was just a hard worker. KL: 10:47 Yeah, so I think that was the essence of life in Mississippi at the time period. I mean, work meant food, work meant, you know, being able to have clothing, or a roof over your head. So, it was, I do not know, if it was a work ethic, it was out of necessity. If she had a choice to work at something else, she would have found something else that would have been more satisfying to her. Being a sharecropper is incredibly difficult, back-breaking work. And in that environment, it was abusive. You know, the plantation bosses tried to cheat the sharecroppers constantly. So, it was not, I would not say it was an ethic. I mean, it certainly is an ethic. Yes, it is an ethic. But it is, it is rooted in the need to eat, and have clothing, and a roof over your heads. And, but she, what her, her pride in the ability from a young age from the time she was a teenager to pick 200-300 pounds of cotton a day, is that speaks to that work ethic that you are talking about. But it was one of the few places that she could find tremendous pride, this young girl, being able to pick the same amount of cotton as an adult man and an adult woman. So, that work ethic comes out and is displayed in different ways. And of course, you know, she just was a high energy person, she had this, this incredible, like the-the young civil rights workers that worked with her talked about her kinetic energy and her inspirational movement, she just was on the move constantly. She was always moving forward and thinking what, what is the next thing to do, how to do it, she had passion to make change. And that is what drove her to work so hard. It was not, once she was able to feed herself, and have a roof over her head consistently. Her next drive, that ethic to, to work to make change is what drove her. So, she moved from food and housing insecurity, to, you know, civil rights insecurity and- SM: 13:14 Right. KL: 13:14 Making the world a better place. So that is, those were the drivers of her passionate work ethic, if that is what you want to call it. SM: 13:21 Yeah, there were two things on, early in the book that, that really kind of upset me. And it was, learning about this, Senator Eastland. And who he was, he was such a racist, and he was a very powerful senator. And then, of course, John Stennis, who, you know, we know later in years, he was pretty much similar. Their attitudes toward people of color was so, not shocking, because if you study it, it is part of what you expect during that period. But still, to hear it. And to know that Lyndon Johnson had to deal with him on a daily basis, and some of the other senators in the South who believed in white supremacy and keeping the people of color down. Just your thoughts on Senator Eastland and the senators of her state. KL: 14:08 Oh gosh, they were horrific human beings, and they were in the Senate for a really long time, which was not so long ago. And, you know, we are hearing the echoes of that racism today. People are more clever about how they use that language when they are in public, and they give speeches, but it is the same violent, racist rhetoric, that is just, you know, twenty-first century style. And he was, he was a, he was such a bigot. And so was Stennis, and it is interesting, you bring up Lyndon Johnson, so when I did my work for this book, I spent a lot of time listening to those Oval Office tapes. You know, he set up that system to tape everything in the office. He could not stand those senators, he could not, he just thought, he knew they were wrong. He talks about it on, in some of these tapes, how they are wrong. And you know, Black people deserve to vote, and they should have their, you know, representation and etc. And he was trapped in a world, at that time, that was struggling to move into the twentieth century and overcome these racist strangleholds on the-the beauty of freedom and equality in this country. And he needed those southern votes in order to become the president elected in, for, after Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson becomes president. And then the election is right after that in-in 1964. And Johnson wanted to be the nominee, so that he could move forward Kennedy's agenda and his own agenda for the country, a more progressive agenda, including civil rights, but he could not really come right out and say that to the world, especially to southerners, because Southern Democrats because they would not have voted for him. As it turns out, many of them did not, but he still won. But he-he faced these intractable racists who saw, they, their world was just literally black and white, and any person of color was ignorant and beneath them and had no, no place in the political sphere, in a govern, place of government, to, you know, make laws and make, they you know, that he just believed that white people knew what was best for Black people. And it was just disgusting. It really was disgusting. And this is what Hamer and her community and Mississippians lived with. And there were white Mississippians who did not go with this thing. They were trying, they were very supportive of the civil rights movement. But a great majority of them were definitely in favor of Stennis and Eastland. They were horrible people. SM: 17:00 You had another example of this at the time that Fannie Lou Hamer was going to run for Congress. And she and another citizen of the state went to the Capitol, and they were going to register to run for Congress. KL: 17:17 Right. SM: 17:17 And the-the young white woman, could you describe that, the young white woman who met them and was going to give them a form that goes back to the corner of the room and starts talking about them? She used the n word. KL: 17:30 Right. So, and, I think this is what Hamer heard everywhere she went, the N word, it was not, you know, an African American, or Black person, they, the white people use the n word constantly, just it was everywhere. But, I think it is the-the tone that Hamer heard, when that happened, this, she was trying to file her papers to run for Congress. And, she was there with an associate. And she-she, they were, they-they were, they were missing some papers that need to come from elsewhere in the state. So, the civil rights activists are gathering those papers and trying to race them down there in time. And the white woman there, the counter is, you know, whispering to her coworkers. But of course, not really whispering, they can hear everything that the white woman is saying, and she uses the n word. And there is this tone to it. Like, it is, it is just this, there is evil intent in it. It is just, you know, I cannot say it. I do not, I do not want to repeat the words- SM: 18:37 Yes. KL: 18:37 But you know, the tone, the people know [crosstalk] that tone. So, that is what she lived with. That is what she faced, but it made her more determined, you know, she was getting that reaction in the clerk's office. And she was getting it out on the streets, but she knew that she was hitting a nerve. And it was important that she show everybody that you need to stand up and, and do something, you cannot just keep complaining. And it is funny, because at one point in her life, she was going along and doing what she could to make a difference, you know, for her family, and maybe right there in the community. But at one point, she realized, and we can talk about that point in her life that, that, change had to come, and that she needed to be the change she was looking for. And that was an important moment. I think many people come to that moment. And they-they, there is a crossroads, are they going to be the change? Or are they going to continue to go along the path that you know where nothing is going to, you know, change? SM: 19:03 Like Rosa Parks. KL: 19:06 Yeah, exactly. Making that decision, that moment in time. SM: 19:34 For those of you that are, would be listening to this interview, could you really go into detail about the definition of white supremacy in the south, particularly in Mississippi? Because it is, it is so, it is, even though you know what is happening, the more you read about it, and the more examples you stated in the book, the more upset you become, that this can happen, that human rights as like Fannie talked about, eventually human rights. KL: 20:16 Right-right. SM: 20:16 And, you know, treating people as human beings. Could you talk about how serious it was, even in the justice system, even when people could not, you know, could not vote. KL: 20:29 Right. SM: 20:30 Just talk about that white supremacy. KL: 20:32 So, the white supremacy, it was, and it was a lot of white male supremacy that was the overarching, I do not want to call foundation, but the-the crown of this white supremacy pillar, of white supremacy. And so, it, it permeated everything in Mississippi. Literally, everything was affected by white supremacy. So not only did Black people not have the right to vote, they did not have many rights at all, they could not enjoy the public library because the libraries were segregated, and there was no money to build Black community libraries, restaurants were segregated, bus stations were segregated, everything was segregated. Public buildings were segregated, there was a line in a clerk's office for, you know, Black people and a line for white people. And of course, the water fountains, and the bathrooms, and all of that. So that is just a visual that you could see every single day. It was in hiring, you know, Black people were hired for the menial jobs, paid as little as possible, cheated. You know, white supremacists could get away with, gee, not filing those taxes to pay for Social Security for Black people that they hired to work for them. So, Black people would go and retire and they would find out there was nothing in Social Security for them, because the people they work for, for decades, never put into the Social Security system for them. And, and then those employers never got in trouble. There was never, there were never repercussions. Loans to purchase, homes were denied, schools were segregated and the Black schools in Mississippi, only 12 cents out of every dollar, went to, an education dollar, went to a Black school, the rest all went to white schools. Black teachers were paid less. The transportation to schools was spotty in like, say the Mississippi Delta, you know, where children were scattered, you know, miles and miles apart. And to get to school, it was very difficult. They needed bus service, but that might not be provided by the town. Medical services were segregated, hospitals often would not treat Black patients in the same room, you know, emergency rooms or clinics that they served white people, some doctors would not even treat Black patients. Black women were denied access to hospitals to deliver babies, they relied very much so on midwives. Whereas white women, 80 percent of, of childbirth, white children were born, born in hospitals, delivered by doctors, whereas only 20 percent of Black women had that benefit. So, the child survival rate, the mortality rate for Black children, by the time Hamer was born in 1917, and into the 1920s and (19)30s, 1 out of 5, 1, a quarter of all Black children died before the time they were five years old. That is horrific- SM: 23:53 Wow. KL: 23:53 Because there was no access to health care. Sanitation was poor. You know, of course, they would set up you know, good sanitation systems in white neighborhoods, but they would not do that in Black neighborhoods. And particularly out in the fields, where, like in the Mississippi Delta, the sharecropper cabins were on the low point of the property, the worst soil and that is where they would have the, sharecroppers and their outhouses, and in rains, then everything would flood and disease would spread rapidly. It was, it was a horrific, horrific place. And then just the sheer intimidation, of Black people who try to aspire, to do something more to get ahead in the world. You know, Hamer tells the story of when she was young, her family had started to make a little bit of money being sharecroppers, it was a, during the 1920s, the prices of cotton were high. Their father, her father was able to buy a used truck and some farm animals, like a cow and a steer, etc. And, a white neighbor was jealous and he poisoned the food trough for the animals and within a matter of hours, they all died. And there were no repercussions to that. Mississippi has the highest lynching rate of any state in the country, one of their counties, Hinds County has the highest lynching numbers of any county in the country. It was a very violent, violent place. And, you know, the-the efforts that white people went to, to prevent Black aspiration, Black rights. Just it knew, it knew no bounds, and there were no repercussions to whatever white people wanted to do. SM: 25:43 And we're talking about the justice system as well, because two of the major events you talk about in the book is, the Emmett Till murder. KL: 25:53 Right-right. SM: 25:54 And certainly, the murder of Medgar Evers and you know, the trial and, how they are all let off in short periods of time, the people who committed these terrible crimes. KL: 26:03 Exactly. It is a, it is a blood, a stain on Mississippi. It really is a stain on Mississippi. And, and as we are talking about Emmett Till, there is a film coming out today, I believe it is the day that it is premiering, about the murder of 14 year old Emmett Till, a Chicago boy who was sent by his mother down to Mississippi to spend time with relatives and he was murdered by, these white supremacists who ended up being in law enforcement, believe it or not, just it is stunning. But, they murdered him about six miles from where Fannie Lou Hamer was living at the time in, in, in 1955. And, and the same thing with Medgar Evers. He was assassinated in his driveway, in June of 1963, the same day that Hamer and her colleagues from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, that had been arrested and put in the Winona County Jail. They were released after being terrorized and beaten for four days. They were released on, the same day that Medgar Evers was assassinated. SM: 27:09 Wow. KL: 27:10 And the, you know the-the white supremacist who killed Medgar Evers, all these people they got off, they did. It was like a joke. And, and the authorities in Mississippi often knew that violence was going to take place and they did not do anything about it. In fact, they had, they had like a secret service group, it was like a KGB, it was the sovereignty commission that had its own investigators and spies, that would spy on the Black community and keep records on people in, in the Black community and their white sympathizers, much like the FBI did. And, and they knew about plots to, you know, kill people, harass people, fire people, chase them out of town, that kind of thing. And they did nothing. It was just, it was state-sponsored violence, terrorism, murder, you name it, the state was complicit. And when people were caught, white people were caught, you know, doing, committing violence, murder, etc. They-they universally, were not convicted. It is just you know, I do not know, I, it is just stunning to me. And it was such a short time ago. That is what is shocking. It is one thing to write about Harriet Tubman and slavery. That was 150-170 years ago. People just really cannot get their head around it. But this happened 50-60 years ago, and it still happens across this country, too. SM: 28:36 I think I, sent, I go back to Senator Eastland. I believe after World War Two, when the African American troops came home, I think it is in your book, you state that, they were coming back and hoping you have equal rights- KL: 28:52 Right. SM: 28:52 -in, back at home after the war, after serving their nation. And his commentary was, that the African American troops had been raping women in France- KL: 29:01 Right, and- SM: 29:02 -trying degrade them as, in any way he could. KL: 29:05 Exactly. And of course, that is the old stereotype, the trope, that enraged white southerners that, that made them want to fight the Civil War to keep slavery. And also, after the Civil War to prevent Black people from getting rights is by, portraying Black men as rapacious beasts who all, the only thing they wanted to do was rape white women, and Eastland fed right into that, he told lies, he should have been sued. He should have been barred from the Senate for that kind of comment. And, and so you know, and it did not happen, but when Black soldiers came home to Mississippi, they were attacked. There was one man that was murdered pretty quickly. And you know, because they came back they have been fighting for freedom around the world for liberating, oppressed peoples, they come home and they have to go to, you know, the segregated, whatever, even if it was available, they had to go to the segregated places, they could not sit at the front of the bus, they had to sit at the back. You know, they were spat on-on the streets. I mean, who does that? It is just, it is just incredibly awful. And we, as a nation have forgotten it. And it was not so long ago, it has been percolating, it is still there. It is not wide out in the open, like Eastland used to talk and behave. But the tones are still there. And some of the words are still-still there. And it is frightening, very frightening. SM: 30:33 Now, this is important because you talk about this, too, that even though Fannie Lou Hamer only went, I think sixth grade education, she was very well informed. And, a question I want to ask you, and please explain, is how informed was she about what was happening around the state of Mississippi with all these things, not just locally, but through the state and through the nation on these terrible things that were happening to people of color? KL: 31:01 Right, so of course, through the grapevine she would hear about what was happening of, to people of color in her community, it would just, you know, the church, out in the field, people would say, "Oh, did you hear what happened to so and so." She, when she became, nationally known, and she would give speeches, she would say she knew nothing about the Civil Rights Movement, until 1962, when Snick came to her church. That isn't true, she was actually extremely well informed. And she was part of a, national, sort of underground civil rights movement that was going on in Mississippi during the 1950s. And, it was very dangerous to be involved in civil rights activities because you could be murdered for it. You could be harassed, you could be evicted, you could lose your job. So, but she was, she-she was, she tried to get memberships in the NAACP, she would go out and canvass and, and there was a big event that happened every year in Mississippi it was called, mine, "Mound Bayou Days," it was like three or four days in May. TM Howard, he was an insurance salesman, and also a doctor who ran this big event in Mound Bayou, and they would invite outside speakers, like Thurgood Marshall came to speak there in, in the 1950s, and Mahalia Jackson would sing there. And, they would have this huge barbecue and people, African Americans would come from all over the state, and Tennessee, and other states, to you know, listen to speeches, and to gather, and sing, and things like that. So, she was part of that, actually, one of her relatives told me about how she would work with, this relative's father, and they would cook up 500 chickens for the barbecue and, and so she was there. And they would have secret meetings, while the mine, Mound Bayou days were going on and everyone was celebrating and listening to speeches. She was attending private meetings about civil rights and how to move them forward in Mississippi. So, she was very well aware. And she did talk about how she was made aware, it is almost like she would tell two different stories out on the campaign trail trying to get people interested in, in civil rights, she would say that she used to clean the house of the plantation owner where she was a sharecropper. And she would see magazines and newspapers discarded in the trash, well she would collect them all, and bring them back home and read them all. So, she did keep up on current events and, and also in the church, you know, someone would have a copy of "The Crisis," or the "Chicago Defender, “newspaper. And so, she would get to read it there, or the barbershop might have some, some things that people could, could read. So, she was informed. But you know, living there on the ground in Ruleville is different than reading what is happening on the, in the, on the national level, and the national level does not know what is happening to her in Mississippi. SM: 34:14 Right. KL: 34:14 So, there was that, that is why she, in part of her compulsion to make a change, like people needed to hear about what was going on in Mississippi. And that was her voice, once she decided to be the change and she got up on stage. She let people know what was happening in Mississippi and they listened. SM: 34:35 One of the things that was taking place if things were not bad enough in Mississippi, and in the south is when the Citizens Councils were formed. KL: 34:44 Yeah, right. SM: 34:44 Could you talk just briefly about that, and what they were and, and why they were formed? They had the KKK already, I just- KL: 34:52 I know [chuckles]. SM: 34:52 Yeah. KL: 34:53 It is, it is insanity when you think about it. So, after the-the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education and the order to desegregate schools came down. The, white southerners flipped out, they freaked out and started coming up with ways to prevent this from happening. And so immediately, there was a man in, in Mississippi and his name is escaping me at this moment, I apologize. He started the Citizens Councils, because they wanted to make sure. And he used language like, "You know, our white daughters were not prey to Black men in the classroom." You know, we did not want, and they used horrific lane, language, about you know, middle school and high school Black boys as "monkeys and apes," and they were going to "attack their white daughters if they were allowed to be in the same classroom." So, they formed the Citizens Councils, and white citizens, you know, vowed to, it was like a, it was like white collar clan, actually, you know, it was, because some people did not want it, some more elite people in Mississippi, white people in the south did not want to join the clan, they see, that looks more like low class to them. So, the Citizens Council gave the elites something they felt looked more respectable, but it was the same evil, it was the same horrific attitudes and racism. It was just, you know, it was painted a prettier color. And, and more powerful people were part of it. But they did work with the Klan. And so, there was a very fine line between the two of them, if, or maybe a dotted line between the two organizations. And, you know, Fannie Lou Hamer said something really interesting about the Klan, and I would love to quote that for you right now. Hold on one second, let me just find it. SM: 36:48 Okay. KL: 36:49 She, you know, she was such an astute observer of human beings and their-their belief systems. And she just, I do not, I just find her to be, because she, it is a lived experience for her, she was able to articulate it in a way that a Martin Luther King could not. He inspired in one way, and she inspired in another because she could talk about something so personal and what was happening on the ground in Mississippi. So, this is what she said about the Klan and, and white supremacy. And because of her deep faith, she always had this as a theme that she did not hate anybody, despite what happened to her in Mississippi and how she was treated by white supremacists. But she, so she said, "I really do not hate any man. There is got to be something wrong psychologically with the person to have me beaten because of the color of my skin. Hate is like to cancer," she said, "It eats away at a human being until they become nothing but a shell. That same hate will make you stay up at night. That is the reason you have the Ku Klux Klan, and all these other hate groups, that a man should stay up all night trying to figure out how he can fix a sheet to make a point in it, to go out and terrorize another human being is really stupid. The point is not in the sheet. It is in his head." It is such a powerful, powerful statement, and it is true. So, this is, this is what she lived with. And so, while the Citizens Council was, you know, legitimized by the state in a sense because it, you know, it had officers and it was, you know, they had an office and they hired people to coordinate the different councils, but it started in Mississippi, it spread throughout the South. And so, while they had contact with Klan members, and sometimes Klan members were members of the council and vice versa, they also became tightly interwoven with the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which was like that KGB organization I-I mentioned before. So, the Citizens Council was privy to the-the spying that these, the sovereignty commission investigators did on Black people and then civil rights workers. And so then, they would let you know, white employers know, "Hey, your guy was at this civil rights meeting," and so that white employer would fire that employee the next day. Wow. So, it was just a vicious, vicious circle of hate and, and terror, and manipulation that was going on there in Mississippi and other southern states. SM: 39:39 One of the things is that Fannie Lou was a really good organizer. And with that work-work, work, mentality. Could you talk about before she made links with Snick and worked with them? Could you talk about any other organizing she did when she was younger? Whether it be as a sharecropper or, during, people that were having problems with poverty, with food, with clothing, and she always seemed to be doing something, even though she did not have hardly anything, she was always thinking about helping others. KL: 40:13 Right-right. So, there was an interesting part of her life. I mean, there were so many things she did, whether it was through her church, you know, the church women doing fundraising to raise money to buy food for starving families in the community. You know, those are the basic things that she would do, but in the field. So, this was a common thing where the bosses, the field bosses, or the plantation boss would try to cheat the sharecroppers and weigh their cotton and underweight it. And they had these contractions, they would bring up these scales, they would bring out in the fields, and they had weights that they would attach to a counterweight, and they were called peas. And so, Hamer noticed that some of these peas had been altered so that they miss, read the weight on the cotton that the sharecroppers would pick each day. And so, they were being cheated, so they would get paid less. So, Hamer noticed this, so she got a hold of her own pea. And when the plantation boss was not looking, she would switch out the altered one for the actual, real one. And so that she would be able to make sure that people were paid accurately. And her fellow sharecroppers thought she was crazy to do that, because if she gets caught they figured she would get not only fired, but she could have been killed. So, she was very brave that way. And, you know, she was, she would negotiate in the morning. So, they would travel around once they were, one plantation, if they picked all the cotton, one place, then they would hire themselves out to pick in other plantations. And so, sometimes they would arrive in the morning, and so they would bicker with the plantation boss, or the field boss about how much they were going to get paid per pound. And Hamer, what, it was said, would bicker the best deal for those pickers, and so, she was admired. She was already a leader, in a sense, in the community for-for justice. And so that, that carried her forward so that when Snick did arrive in Ruleville, Mississippi in 1962, they recognize pretty quickly that she was an emerging leader in that community. SM: 42:31 Yes, she is unbelievable. I-I wrote something down that I just want to share. I put down here that her astounding ability to deal with life and death issues while never losing her focus to achieve very positive deeds for others. She was always seemed to be doing things for others, which is, she was a selfless person from the get go. And, and I want to talk about this too, because I want to get into the areas where, really divided into sections in the book, "The Mississippi Appendectomy," the Winona, whenever she was beaten, and certainly there was even the time when her house was shot at, she was not there, but she could have been killed. Just, her mental health. When you think about what African Americans were going through, not just, not just Fannie Lou, but everybody there that, you know, their mental health, how they could even survive that. Could you talk a little bit about her mental health throughout her life and how she was able to recuperate, and I know she had a lot of faith, her faith in God was strong. But still, she had a makeup, to refocus after- KL: 43:46 Right. SM: 43:47 -tragedy and continued serve others. KL: 43:49 Right. So, she did, she continued to weather storms and to face down violence, experienced violence and, and grief, and all of that, and rise up afterwards. And, and a big part of it is, her faith that, you know, her, her psyche, her mental health took many punches. But she found her way out of darkness, through her faith. But also, I credit her mother and her father. She, and the tight family and community she lived in, you know, they-they, she had a very strong mother that was a model for her. And-and there were other women in the community that were models for her. And so, she-she had that sense of security in, in the community, that there were people there that loved her not only just her family, but other people in the community, and that they were survivors and she could survive too. And of course, she was raised to protect herself. You know to, to pay attention to the landscape of white people because you never knew when a white person was going to attack you or do something awful to you. So, she had that radar so, she was insulated in a sense, because she was so prepared. And that is awful that you have to grow up being acculturated, and prepared, for anything that might, violence or whatever comes your way, perpetrated by a white person that hates the color of your skin and what you represent. SM: 45:20 Wow. KL: 45:21 So that was, that is how she survived. Of course, not every person of color did survive, the things that she survived. And that is why, what I write in the book is, "The Mississippi Appendectomy," in 1961. She went to the hospital and Dr. Charles Durrell there, in Ruleville, was supposed to do surgery on her, to get, to take out some uterine tumors. Benign ones, but he gave her a hysterectomy, and never told her. And this was a, it was so common that white doctors did this to Black women that it was called, "A Mississippi Appendectomy." And you know, a woman would, could go into the hospital, this was reported at the time, went into the hospital for, a, an appendicitis attack and came out without her uterus. This happened to Black women and poor white women at the time. So, Hamer comes out of the surgery, thinking the tumors are gone, and maybe she possibly could get pregnant because she and her husband, Pap Hamer, had been trying for years to have children of their own, and she would have several miscarriages, stillbirth, and it was having difficulty getting pregnant. And so, they wanted to their family to grow beyond the two girls that they had adopted. So, she gets home to recuperate, and it is a long recuperation from a hysterectomy. And, the cook of the plantation, in the plantation bosses house comes to her and says she overheard the plantation boss's wife, Mrs. Marlow, speaking to her friend telling her that Dr. Daro had sterilized Fannie Lou Hamer. Fannie was crushed, she was angry, she was filled with hate and, and, and just went to a very dark place, her mother died the same year. So, she was filled with this pain, and grief, and loss of her mother, the loss of her ability to have babies. It was all taken from her. And she just, she really hit the depths of depression. And, she worked her way out of it. She had two little girls at home, she had the beef, therefore her husband, Pap, the community. And when, that, shortly thereafter, in 1962, that is when Snick arrived in August of 1962, in Ruleville, and she decided to go because it was that moment that I mentioned earlier, when she decided that she either, you know, had to just exit and not participate in anything anymore. Just be at home and do her sharecropping, and that was it for the rest of her life. Or, she had to look for a way to make change in her life. And when she went to the meeting of those young snick people, she realized that not only did she need to be the change that she needed to see, those young people were the change that she was looking for. And so, that was a moment in her life. And it, it sent her brain into this recovery mode, and it, she became energized and passionate because she had seen the darkness. And she did not want to live there. She wanted to move towards the light and, and find a path to freedom and equality. And that is what happened. SM: 48:53 Another tragic moment was, that time when she was at the Staley cafe, bus depot- KL: 49:01 Right. SM: 49:01 -and Nona, could you talk about that? And I think, there is, the one, you mentioned in the, describing the situation that she did not want her husband to know about what happened. KL: 49:13 Right. SM: 49:13 She kept that kind of a secret because she feared that he would go out and shoot somebody- KL: 49:18 Again, right, yes. SM: 49:18 -and then he gets killed- -just your thoughts. Right. KL: 49:20 So-so after Snick came and she tried to register to vote, and of course she could not because those literacy tests in, in Mississippi were unpassable and only 5 percent of eligible Black voters were registered to vote because they-they had so many barriers to voting. So, Hamer tried to register to vote, went home, the Marlowe's evicted her, and so, she had to find another home. And Snick immediately hired her because they recognized her leadership and oh, from the fall of 1962, into the spring of 1963, they sent her to various classes to learn different techniques on how to be a civil rights worker, to encourage people to register to vote, how to pass the test, all that kind of thing, and to practice nonviolent protest techniques. And so, in June of 1963, she and some Snick colleagues, young people that were half her age, were coming back from a training session in South Carolina. And they were on a continental Trailways bus. They, the buses and the terminals across the South were now integrated by law, they had to be integrated. So, these young people were testing the integration. They sat wherever they wanted to on the bus, despite the anger of the bus driver who wanted them to sit at the back of the bus. And then at each bus terminal, they tested the new laws that said each interstate bus terminal had to be integrated, no more separate lunch counters, no more separate bathrooms, or drinking fountains, and separate waiting rooms. So, they had no problems going out there and then coming back until they hit Winona, Mississippi, and they hit the bus terminal there. And the young people went in to sit at the lunch counter and then to use the bathrooms, which they were denied. And so, someone at the-the Cast Dailies Cafe, the bus terminal restaurant, called the police who arrived and arrested all of them, including Hamer, who was not even trying to test any of that, she was on the bus and she came off the bus to see what was happening and they arrested her. And the local police and the state police took them to the Winona County Jail. And for four days, the young people and Hamer were terrorized, and assaulted, and violently so, and Hamer was also sexually assaulted. And, they nearly killed her with the beatings that they gave her. She suffered permanent kidney damage as a result of the beating, her eye became permanently damaged too, because of the way they hit her head. And the, bruises on her were horrific. And she, she really almost died. And in the, in the jail cell that she shared with a young Snick worker, Sylvester Simpson, she was laying on her stomach on the cot because she was so badly beaten. And she asked Sylvester to sing the gospel song, the spiritual "Walk with Me, Jesus Walk with Me." And that is, by, why I called the cover of my, I put that as the title of my book is, "Walk with Me," because she needed her faith to help her survive and not lose consciousness. She was so afraid. But she came out of that, she, they were released from-from jail on the same day. As I mentioned before, Medgar Evers was assassinated in June of 1963. And I think the sexual assault and the beating was so brutal. She did not want Pap to see- SM: 53:01 Right. KL: 53:01 What happened to her, or to know the extent of what happened to her because, as you said, he would have gone out and shot somebody. He was, he was a man, that was his wife. And he was at great danger and she knew that. So, she did not go home for a couple of weeks, she traveled to Atlanta, to New York City and to Washington, D.C., where she gave testimony about what happened to her. And I pieced together the details of her beating through the FBI files, through her interviews with civil rights workers, NAACP folks, and then the trial of the men in the jail that beat her so badly. Of course, they were acquitted of any- -assault charges. But the testimony during that trial was horrific. And the details that emerged are just horrifying. So eventually, I am sure Pap learned, maybe he did not learn about the rape. I do not know. She confided that, into, with friends of hers, you know, civil rights workers. But I do not think, I do not know if she told Pap or not. I do not know about that. SM: 53:50 Right. Yeah, her life was in danger many times throughout, throughout this period. And, I can remember two items you state in the book, one of them was, one, she was not at home one day and someone came by and shatter, shattered her house. And, and where she normally sits, I think was only like a foot above where she would normally would have been sitting if, if she- KL: 54:39 Right. SM: 54:39 -was at home. And then, there was another scene where she came home one day and the entire street was dark, all the lights are off. And, and she did not know, if like there was a power outage and no, it was not a power outage. They all turned the lights off because they were, they had been threatened. KL: 54:56 Right. And there was one instance where white supremacists drove down the street, shooting at any and all houses, they would do this in the Black community, particularly during the (19)50s and (19)60s, when the civil rights movement started, you know, gaining traction, and every civil rights gain was met with tremendous violence by white southerners. You know, every time there was, like the March on Washington in August of 1963, a couple of months after Hamer was brutally assaulted in Mississippi, the response was the bombing of the-the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and four little girls were murdered. So, you know, every celebration, every movement forward was met by some massive resistance. Well in Ruleville, Mississippi, tiny little, Ruleville, the resistance was white yahoo racists, going around in their cars and blasting their shotguns into Black homes. SM: 55:55 Right. KL: 55:55 And there was never any police presence to stop it. Never. So, it this is what she lived with, you know, people were killed, hurt maimed. It was, it was horrific. It was really horrific. SM: 56:07 I am going to get into this section, very important part of your book and important part of her life was her work was Snick, which was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the people she worked with. She worked with some unbelievable people, and, and they had faith in her as well. So, it was a two-way street. Could you talk a little bit about time that she linked up with Snick? Bob Moses, was the, I remember, I think you said, someplace in the book, somebody had made a comment that, it was right to have a man named Moses. [laughter] KL: 56:42 Yeah, right-right, right. SM: 56:43 And that, was that, was a great to put that in there. KL: 56:45 [laughs] SM: 56:45 Because it is so true, because he was an unbelievable person, he had been a teacher, up in New York. And, and you know, Ella Baker and, and certainly John Lewis, and Julian Bond, and of that unbelievable group of people from Snick. That begin, could you talk about the beginning where they met? KL: 57:03 Yes-yes. SM: 57:04 And then we will go into some of them, what they did. KL: 57:06 So, I am glad you brought up Ella Baker, because Snick, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee with her, her vision, and she was an older Black woman that worked for Martin Luther King, brilliant woman. And during the, sit-ins in, you know, 19- in the 1959, 1960, where students would go into these segregated lunch counters, like Woolworths, and they sit down and try to integrate it and they would be attacked. And then, they started the Freedom Rides. You know, John Lewis is famous for the freedom line ride, rides, where they would take buses from northern states into the south and test the interstate laws that said these buses had to be integrated, and so are the stations, but the southern response was bombing these buses, attacking them. When they came to the terminals, people were killed, and Louis was badly beaten. So, she is watching these young people willing to put their lives on the line and do all this stuff. And so, she decided she should organize them. So, Bob Moses was noticing the same stuff as he was teaching math in, in New York City. And he goes down to Atlanta, he meets Ella Baker, and with John Lewis, and as you said, Julian Bond and all these amazing young people, she organizes them into the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or Snick. And they decide they are going to go to the worst of the worst, and that is Mississippi. And they are going to, she tells them, you know, you are all these young, bright, energetic people go into these communities, and do not tell them what to do, or tell them what you are going to do for them. You find out what they need, and how you can help them get what they need. And try to identify local leaders, because you have to nurture local people, you cannot insert yourself and tell everybody what to do. So, that was brilliant on her part. So, Bob Moses goes to Mississippi, and he starts, you know, building a community there with other organizations like the NAACP, and the Council of Federated Organizations and, you know, other civil rights organizations, they are in Mississippi, and then other civil rights workers follow him there. And so, that is how he ends up meeting Fannie Lou Hamer, when they decide to have a meeting in Ruleville, to talk to local residents, as they had been doing throughout Mississippi a great rest of their lives about registering to vote. And that is when she went there. And she saw these young people and she could not believe what they were saying. And you know, one of, they taught, they used biblical language, and they are in Hamer's church, William Chapel in Ruleville, and they are using biblical language to say, "You know, God meant for everybody to be free and, and equal." And, and then there were young people talking about the law, the Constitution, the law is "You have these rights, you need to fight for it. It is, these things that they are doing to you are illegal, it is wrong, we need to fight, because it is in the Constitution that we should be equal." So, she was like, "Wow." And I would love to tell you what she said about Snick. Once she became involved with them, she said, "Snick is the type of people that regardless to what they say, call them far left, because a lot of people call them, like hippies. And you know, they were way too far left," quote, and radical and she said, "Call them far left and radical and beatniks, and all kinds of things, but they are still willing to go into areas with the people that is never had a chance to be treated as a human being. And some have given their lives for the cause of human justice." She said that Snick volunteers showed, quote, "More Christianity than I have ever seen in a church." That is powerful. SM: 1:00:54 Wow. Yep. The, one of the things. Another one of these examples when she worked with Snick, was what happened in Hattiesburg, where it was the whole issue of voting. Could you talk about the issue of voting? And here we are talking about it again, in 2022. I just cannot believe we are talking about it again. And, you know, what was the issue in Mississippi with respect to voting, and if you could give some of the statistics and numbers of those who, how many citizens are were of color in that state at that time? And how many were actually voting and what they were doing to try to prevent people from voting because that was one of the reasons why Freedom Summer evolved? Still there? [silence] All right, we are back. KL: 1:01:57 Okay. So, I think we were talking about Hattiesburg and the rallies there. And so, I, you know, she, the- the rallies that started so she, you know, becomes part of Snick and, and night, the winter of 1963. They start with these rallies. And they have one in Hattiesburg, where they try to get people to register to vote. And so, the resistance in Mississippi is that so there, there were, half the population was Black and Mississippi at the time, but only between 5 and 6 percent had been able to register to vote because Mississippi had all these barriers, which included the literacy test. Poll taxes, you had to pay poll taxes, if you pass the test, then you have to pay poll tax for two years before you are eligible to vote. That is only really for Black people, because they did not, they did not require white people to do that. There were illiterate white people that were registered to vote. And but, when it came to Black people, they used every excuse, and they would have to answer questions about the Mississippi State Constitution, interpret these arcane laws, and rules, and things. It was just, it was ridiculous. And then if by chance you were able to pass it, then if you went to try to vote, sometimes the-the, the towns would give misinformation to the Black communities about where you could go vote. So, people would go there and there would be no polling station, or they would go to a polling station and there would be armed white people outside to intimidate you from going to vote. And some people they watched who went to vote and if they voted, they would get fired from their job the next day. SM: 1:02:05 Yes. Wow. KL: 1:02:27 So, there were all these ways that white Mississippians found to, to prevent Black people from exercising the franchise and it was just disgusting. So, the Snick was there they heard loud and clear, that Mississippians, Black Mississippians wanted to be able to vote and they needed to vote. And but, the white Mississippians were not going to let them, so they would have these rallies and then they would encourage people to go down to the courthouse and register to vote. And so, in Hattiesburg this happened and you know, this was one of the earlier moments that Hamer was part of this movement and, and people flew in from around the country to help the people in Hattiesburg register to vote but they were threatened by white supremacists. And, there was the state police there and National Guard that was brought out and, and it was, it was just, it was, it was so intimidating. And there is Hamer just marching with everybody else and facing down the intimidators and trying to help people exercise their right to register and make a difference. SM: 1:04:52 I think there was a man there too in that building in this, in the courthouse that was well known for not registering African Americans. I think that you have told me. KL: 1:05:04 That is right. SM: 1:05:05 Yeah. KL: 1:05:05 Yeah. Sarah and Lind were this notorious court clerk in Hinds County, Forest County, excuse me, and he refused to register any Black people. And he had for a very long time. And, and so he was, you know, a focus of, of efforts to get Mississippi to start letting Black people vote and get rid of these ridiculous tests. And even after, asked and the federal government stepped in and said, "You got to stop doing this you have to register Black people to vote." Theron Lind continued to defy court order, after court order, after court order to register Black voters, he was so defiant. He was sued, he was hot, you know, he was brought into court time and time again. And he continued to refuse, he became the poster child for you know, these. It was almost a carrot. SM: 1:06:09 Oops. Still there. Oops. Okay we are back. KL: 1:06:15 Okay, so we were talking about Hattiesburg, which was actually, the winter of 1964. And so, the interesting thing is, by 1964, she was really beginning to take a more pivotal role in what was going on in the civil rights movement in Mississippi. And with the help of the Snick workers, activists, she is having access to stages. And it is, it, her voice on the stage inspires so many people. And if you listen to these recordings, there are recordings in the moon collection at the Smithsonian, for instance. And they have some of these, like the Hattiesburg rally and other rallies. And you can hear some of the speakers usually middle class, men are up on the stage talking. And the crowds get very restless. And then all of a sudden, you know, they will call Fannie Lou Hamer up to sing, they always had her singing. And the crowd would always "Hush," and they would be so excited when Hamer came up. And she watched how they reacted to her versus how they reacted to all these men. And eventually, she started talking on stage and she spoke the language of people who were experiencing the same thing that she was. And so, it she had a tremendous impact on the movement there in Mississippi. And Snick, really, they just were in awe of her, these young students were in complete awe of her. And so, you know, she helped found with local people. And with the support of Snick, they founded a new Democratic Party in Mississippi called the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. And she became their vice chair and that set her off on this incredible path to changing the world. SM: 1:08:15 Yeah, the whole thing about Freedom Summer was the idea that Mr. Moses had and others was to bring in college students from around the country, but black and white students from you know, prestigious schools, Ivy League schools, some of the prestigious state universities and-and African American colleges, and it kind of worked. There are a lot of people that, that came could you talk about that, because I know Fannie Lou was in, in Ohio, which is where they did their training. I think- KL: 1:08:45 Right. SM: 1:08:46 James Forman was in charge of the training. And, and she, they did a lot of speaking there. And- KL: 1:08:52 Right-right. SM: 1:08:53 And, yep. KL: 1:08:53 So-so the-the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and in conjunction with Snick, and other organizations in Mississippi decided on this concept of Freedom Summer, and they would bring in young people from around the country to help people to register to vote, because this was the big thing and white Mississippians had been telling. And actually, white southerners had been telling the rest of the nation that Black people were not interested in vote, they could register to vote, but they were not interested in voting. So, the MFDP, and Snick, and all these groups got together and held mock auction, elections so that they could prove to the world that Black people, yes, wanted to vote. And so, but they really needed to try to register the people to vote, to really be able to vote in, in elections. So, they had a training session for 800 students. More than 800 students signed up to be part of this Mississippi Freedom Summer, and they were trained at Western Reserve University or Western College for Women in Ohio. And Hamer went up there to do the training sessions along with people like Bob Moses, and John Lewis, and James Forman ran the-the whole thing. Some of the students, so they were taught nonviolent techniques, protest techniques, etc. And three of the civil rights workers, young Snick workers that were part of this group, some of them had already been working in Mississippi. Another one was part of this new wave of students, Andrew Goodman coming out of New York, and they were down in Mississippi while the training sessions were going on in June. And these three civil rights workers, Mickey Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, were abducted and murdered by the Klan in outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and they went missing and they were missing. And of course, everybody knew in their gut what had happened to them, even though their bodies were not found for two months. And so, the young people in, in Ohio, some of them decided not to go to Mississippi, they were frightened. They realized, well, this is real, this is really serious. The violence that is down there. But more than 800 ended up going down there and spreading across the state. And they went into communities. They lived in the communities, they were harassed by white supremacists, but they stood strong, because they had leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer, who endured far more than they were enduring. And, she motivated them and excited them. And they helped people try to register to vote. They also built freedom schools, because education, as I said, so little was spent in Mississippi on education for Black students. They opened up freedom libraries, they opened up libraries so that Black residents could go and, and experience a library. And they held classes so that adults and children could take English, and math, and science, and things like that. So, it was an amazing summer and they built community centers. These young people were incredible, and they stared down danger every single day. But the disappearance of Schwerner, Goodman, and Cheney was a reminder of how dangerous that place was. And, they really changed the landscape in Mississippi. And in the meantime, Hamer became more and more dedicated to moving the needle forward and challenging the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party that had no Black people in it and did not represent half the population of Mississippi. And that is what propelled her to the-the, the national stage is when she and her colleagues from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, elected delegates, and they went to Atlantic City where the Democratic National Convention was being held that August. President Lyndon Johnson was hoping to be the nominee for the right, for the presidential election in November. And so, Fannie Lou Hamer and the MFDP wanted to challenge the delegates that were being sent by the all-white Mississippi party. So, they met in the Credentials Committee meeting in August, and they challenged those white Mississippians and NBC News was filming the whole thing, live coverage of the national convention. And they taped this challenge to the Mississippi delegates. And Fannie Lou Hamer got on stage and gave a speech that was about eight minutes long. She had no notes. She spoke from the heart about what was happening in Mississippi, what it was like to be a Black Mississippian, and the violence that was perpetrated on her, and what the white supremacists were doing, and what democracy was not like in Mississippi. And, Lyndon Johnson heard her speaking on the television that he was watching in the White House at the time. And he got very nervous. He knew her voice had power. That her story would resonate. And he needed those white southerners to vote for him. And so, he had NBC pull away from her coverage. And they went to the White House where he was standing at a podium. And he made like a three-minute little speech about John F. Kennedy dying, nine months before, it was something he just made up on the, on the fly. And then they go back to the convention room and Hamer had just finished speaking. And Lyndon Johnson thought he had dodged a bullet, that it would be okay. You know, they were challenging, but they would not win the challenge and then he could keep the southern white Democrats in the party long enough to get through the election. What he did not expect was that NBC News would replay her testimony that night to a national audience. And people were stunned, and they were moved, and they were activated. And he realized, uh oh, and you know, to make a long story short, the white delegation was seated, but they refused to take their seats. They were so ticked off that anybody paid attention to Fannie Lou Hamer and her colleagues. They are from Mississippi. And so, they left and most of them I believe ended up voting for the racist candidate, Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater. So, that is when she really hit the national stage and everyone took notice. And she had a voice, and she had learned to use it. And she continued to use it for years and years in pursuit of civil rights, and equality, and justice. SM: 1:15:50 Well, because of that, I think in 1968 at the next convention, which was in Chicago, that historic convention where all the protests were against the war. She spoke again. KL: 1:16:02 That is right. So, four years later, those white Mississippians were not giving up. And they sent an all-white delegation to Chicago, and Fannie Lou Hamer is reconstituted, Freedom Democratic Party. Challenged them again, only this time the Democratic Party rejected the white southern Democratic Party candidate delegates and accepted Hamer's group, it was diverse, and in gender, and in race. And so, they were seated. And Famer received a standing ovation at the convention that year. And it was a powerful step forward, and her voice, she stayed an active part of the National Democratic Organization Committee, because she insisted that there be not only race parity, in delegations from every state coming, moving forward, but gender parity, and she insisted that they start conversations about food insecurity, and housing insecurity, and access to medical care, and, and so on, and so forth. She really was, preschool education, etc., she just was a powerhouse, she just did not stop. And, you know, the civil rights movement was waning in a way that the anti-war movement was becoming front and center. A lot of those young activists were going back to college, graduate school onto professional physicians. So, she started focusing a lot on the local community back in Mississippi, while still maintaining a presence on the national level and becoming involved in the women's movement, etc. But her heart and soul was really back in the fields, and in the towns, and villages, and communities of Mississippi. And, she was continuing to try to make a difference there. SM: 1:17:49 Her voice was always very important, even for the Snick, when they had the issues between white students and the Black students, certain members of the Snick, who are African American had concerns about having white students involved in this, because they should be in the leadership roles, not them. But she said, if, I am correct me if I am wrong or right, that, you know, we were fighting to integrate, and not segregate. And we are trying to end segregation and what we do not want to do that to the people, the white students who want to work with us. Let us work together. KL: 1:18:25 Right-right. It is exactly what she said. And that started causing a rift between her and some members of Snick. As they moved in through the (19)60s. 19(60), by (19)65, (19)66, some of the young Black males Snick workers were becoming more attracted to the like, the Black Power movement and the Black Panthers. And, they felt they had no patience for Fannie Lou Hamer. And when I was doing the research, I was looking at the Snick meeting minutes, it was, that she would might not be there. Sometimes she was there. And sometimes they would complain that she was too old. She was not, she did not represent them anymore. They did not want to deal with her. They wanted to go and be you know, it was Black power. Only Black people could be in the movement, no white people. And so, they cast her out basically. And, and she, you know, she understood their point of view, but she thought it was wrong. And so, she moved away from them, and they moved away from her, and went on their trajectory. So, but there were other civil rights activists that still stuck by her and she worked with them. And then, as the movement really grew and embraced, you know, women's rights too. There were young Black women who wanted to be part of this second wave feminism and, and so, she was part, she was friends with Gloria Steinem, and Betty Friedan, and Bella Abzug, and Shirley Chisholm, and, and Dorothy Height, and all these you know, rising Black female, and white female activists that were fighting for feminine, for female rights as well. And so, she, she wanted to be part of that because she knew that women were discriminated against even though she was very defensive about Black men, she felt that they were targeted more than Black women were, so she had a more traditional view of you know, the men should be able to be protected more than the women kind of thing, they needed their rights too. And so, she clashed with young Black women activists like, Medgar Evers's wife, Myrlie, she-she clashed with her. She clashed with Eleanor Holmes Norton, even though they were very-very close, and very good friends, and other young Black women activists because Hamer became very-very, a very-very conservative feminist. She was anti-abortion and anti-birth control. And so, we can understand the anti-abortion point of view, but the anti-birth control issue, just, no one could understand that, and especially the young women, they just had no patience for her and they grew very intolerant of her voice, they thought she was irrational and, and not considerate of their point of view as young women in their reproductive years. So, part of her, the way she looked at it, as, as a direct result of her own hysterectomy, without her permission, and her denial of her ability to have babies. And so, the anti-abortion thing, I think, was a more of an older person point of view. Because I know as a young woman, she helped facilitate X women getting access to illegal abortion services there in Mississippi. She was the go-to person that young women would go-to, and then she would help them access those services. But after her, her hysterectomy, her sterilization, she did not do that anymore. So, you know, she just she, she still was a powerful voice. But, there were other voices that were contrary to her voice, and they were all struggling to be heard. SM: 1:22:09 I know Eleanor Holmes Norton stated that she thought that, Fannie Lou Hamer was the second-best speaker she had ever heard behind Dr. King. KL: 1:22:20 Yeah, I actually, other-other, yeah. Others said that too. Even some of the people that I spoke to interviews with some of the Snick workers and young activists, they said, yeah, she was just an amazing speaker. And you know, I-I point to her Baptist minister father, and her own innate abilities, her sensibility about an audience, and her own passion. She knew how to deliver that she knew how to speak softly, and then raise her voice. And had, she had a tempo, to the way she spoke. And there was a pattern to her lectures and her speeches. And people really were very, very motivated and attracted to her, through her voice. And she would always add music too, and get people singing and energize that way. So, she-she was incredibly gifted. SM: 1:23:12 Talking about her stand down, those students who are white, who came down to the south to work with Snick. One of those students was Mario Savio. And of course, he went back to Berkeley, you talk connecting the dots, you know, here you got Fannie Lou Hamer, very vocally supporting the, you know, working together, not just Blacks-Black, Black Americans. And what happened is, Mario goes back to Berkeley, and then he is where the other students there at Berkeley. And, of course, we know the whole history there, but the free speech movement, because they tried to take literature away that was being handed out in Sproul Plaza. And because they thought, we are not supposed to hand out political literature, and the students went against this. And a lot of the literature was about Freedom Summer, about going back, and helping with the voting in the, in the south, and other issues- KL: 1:23:17 Right. SM: 1:24:01 -around the country. So, in a sense, her presence, fighting for those white students, directly linked to the free speech movement that took place in Berkeley in the fall of 1964. So, there is- KL: 1:24:23 Right-right, exactly. And I met people who were young students, and she would go, she did a college circuit, she would go around to different colleges and give speeches. And I met a couple of people who said that they heard her speak, they quit school and went to Mississippi, because they were so influenced by her, they just were wowed by her. And, she really had that power. You know, so there was a, one of the young people who was a high school student getting-getting ready to go into college. He met her in Mississippi, he was from Mississippi, it was Dr. Lesley Burr Macklemore. He was a civil rights worker. And he met her in (19)63. And he said, she was the star that they all as young Snick workers, she was the star, the person that all of them were wowed by, no one equaled her storytelling, he told me. He said that she testified, she preached, she led them in rousing freedom songs, she was always the center of attraction for them. And another civil rights veteran wrote that she was a power, that Hamer was a powerhouse. And they quote, "She would shine her light and people caught the spirit." And that is, I think it is a beautiful way to express that. She just, was this incredible inspiration for people and she inspired them to risk their lives to bring civil rights, and equality, and freedom. SM: 1:24:24 -a connection. Another one, another one of those white students I believe was Tom Haden. So- KL: 1:25:58 Oh, right-right. SM: 1:25:59 Yeah. KL: 1:25:59 Oh, yeah. SM: 1:26:00 And also, you know, the-the other powerful people that were with Snick. James Forman is historic, he was one of the leaders of the training and everything and, and I got to know James Bevel, because we have rounded- KL: 1:26:12 Oh, yeah. SM: 1:26:12 -Westchester University twice, and he was a fiery person. But, I think- KL: 1:26:18 He inspired, he inspired Hamer that day in William Shapel in August 1962, when she heard him speaking from the pulpit, and talking about God and, you know, equal rights, and freedom, and quoting from the Bible, she was like I am in. He, he really moved her and influenced her. SM: 1:26:38 -Yeah, he, James Bevel used to say, he, when people talked about him, he was often times punished more than anybody else and beaten more than anybody else, because he would never give in. KL: 1:26:51 Tragic-tragic. SM: 1:26:52 You know, so, I got a question here just about you in terms of, of all qualities that Fannie Lou, Fannie had, what skills or what, what would you like to emulate from her in your life? KL: 1:27:14 Her persistence, her perseverance, even when, you know, the road was really hard and dark, she, she, she kept moving, much like Tubman too, and so I, you know, with all my privilege, I would like to be able to do that, and, and keep moving, and keep fighting, and keep trying to make the world a better place. And not stop. There is no reason for me to stop. And, I think that is the inspiration that I get from Hamer and from Harriet Tubman. SM: 1:27:50 Would you say the same thing, those same things for future students, current, and future students? [crosstalk] Young people, what can they learn from her so they can emulate it in their lives to make the world a better place. KL: 1:28:08 So, you know, young people, particularly really young children are deeply inspired by Harriet Tubman. There is something accessible about her, Fannie Lou Hamer, we need the world to know about her, and make her accessible because she was accessible. And we need to, to bring that forward and talk about it a lot. Because if she could inspire people, young people who became activists and who were activists back in the (19)60s, we can do that today. And these were young, you know, we complain in politics today that young people are not really interested. Well, we need to, it makes them interested and get them inspired. And learning about Fannie Lou Hamer, what she fought for, and struggle for, and we are still struggling, and fighting for some of those same things. Let us use her as the vehicle to get kids motivated. And, and also identify the Fannie Lou Hamer is in our communities today, who can-can go out, and inspire more people to make change, and to make a difference, and to make sure that everybody has access to the ballot. SM: 1:29:14 Could you talk about her life, after her time with Snick? And after she actually ran for Congress, and, and her speech in (19)68 at the Democratic Convention, what were the causes she was involved in the rest of her life? KL: 1:29:28 So, I already talked about like the, National Organization of Women, the National Women's Political Caucus, and those kinds of organizations. But, she really started focusing a lot on Mississippi, and her own community, and she established a cooperative farm so that sharecroppers could grow food because some plantation bosses would not allow sharecroppers to plant their own gardens for food. They wanted that cotton growing right up to the cabins. So, she provided that farm, so that people could grow food. They had a pig bag where people could get piglets in the spring and then in the fall, they could slaughter the pigs for food. And then, so she did those kinds of things. She helped bring in, you know, head start, and, you know, children's preschool, education, and housing, and things like that. So, she was very oriented locally. She tried to stay relevant on the national stage. And, she continued to give speeches and things. But her relevancy was supplanted by the war movement, the anti-war movement, which she was against the Vietnam War. And also, you know, the Civil Rights Movement changed and altered. And so, she struggled in her health, her health, just deteriorated, from you know, (19)63 until the day she died in 1977. So, in the early to mid (19)70s, she had many health problems, she was in and out of the hospital, she was exhausted. And she, you know, she struggled financially. And eventually, she developed breast cancer, and died from complications of that, and her kidney disease, and hypertension. And she had basically been abandoned by the Civil Rights Movement, and all those workers. Pat was very angry about that, that he felt that she had been abandoned, considering everything that she had done for the movement, and for all of them. And so, it was a, it was bittersweet. It was really sad when she died at the age of 59. And almost alone, just her family around her and a couple of friends, so. [crosstalk] SM: 1:31:33 [crosstalk] You know, another part of the-the story of Fannie Lou Hamer is-is her health. Because one of my heroes is FDR, and we all know what he went through and in 1920s, with Polio, and then he became president, he was in a wheelchair, and he had a lot of issues, but he still did-did a lot for humanity. And, he was a leader. And I look at Fannie Lou Hamer, in the same way, she had diabetes, she had all these issues, but it goes to show that just because someone has health problems- KL: 1:32:09 Right. SM: 1:32:09 That does not mean you cannot go out and change the world for the better. KL: 1:32:14 Right-right. People with disabilities deserve the respect and, and, and honor that everyone else does. And the disability does not define them. It is just part of who they are. But if they are a leader, they are a leader. And we should follow them and support them. And, you know, this is, this is, you know, really relevant right now with the election that is going on in Pennsylvania- SM: 1:32:39 Oh yes. KL: 1:32:40 With John Fetterman, who has suffered a stroke, and he has some auditory delays, etc. And that is a disability right now, and he is being mocked for it. Just like the-the newspaper man back in, in 2016, during the election, when Donald Trump mocked the disabled newspaper reporter. You know, we have to just, we have to stop that there should be no limitations on anybody. SM: 1:33:06 I agree. KL: 1:33:07 If they have the energy and the desire and the, you know, the-the want to do things and work and change, make change, then they should be allowed to do that. And we should support them. And we should all be part of that movement forward. SM: 1:33:23 Yeah, the- I guess one of the last questions, well I got two more questions. But what, the next to last question is about if you could list for those people that are really into leadership. And we, and I have worked with a lot of students who the first thing they want to know, what were the leadership qualities of a person that made them be a leader, could you just list some of the qualities? KL: 1:33:45 So, that is a fascinating question. And I think there are some, there are some qualities, but I think that we need to really look at leaders and where they come from. And we have this image of the leader as someone who is polished, and who has elite education, often has a privileged background, etc. And, they have access to resources. But many leaders actually do not come from that background. And like a Hamer, sixth grade education sharecropper, no financial resources whatsoever, but she had something about her and it comes out of her childhood and her young adulthood. On those landscapes in Mississippi, she learned while she did not have perfect diction, and she did not have perfect penmanship and, and literacy, you know, traditional literacy skills like that. She had other literacies, like many other leaders who do not have the benefit of those elite educations, they have literacies. They have literacies, they develop on, out in the fields, in the forest, on the water, in a community, in the church, in segregated bathrooms, you know, in difficult environments, they have literacies they learn from those places, and those experiences that not everybody has. And so, Hamer with her tremendous people literacy, she could read people, she could read an audience, she could, she could, you know, read the landscape of a room, and of the-the pulse of people. And, that is her gift. And she brought that to the stage. And she knew how to, to enunciate, and, and talk about the things that were important to other people. Whereas a Martin Luther King, who had tremendous, you know, great education, a beautiful voice, he, he spoke and inspired people, but he did not speak to them on, this, in the same way that Hamer could speak to people at their own intimate, interpersonal, very personal level. And, that was her gift. So, leaders are not all the best educated with the most, you know, access to resources. SM: 1:36:11 You mentioned that- KL: 1:36:11 And so- SM: 1:36:12 You mentioned that in the book about some of the civil rights leaders said she did not look the park. KL: 1:36:17 Right, that is right. Especially some of Martin Luther King's colleagues, Ralph Abernathy and others. They were disgusted by Hamer. She, first of all, you know, there was lots of misogyny going on anyway, and women had second class status regardless, but you know, they-they criticized her. Ralph told her, you know, he was embarrassed by her because, you know her, she was, her clothes which were borrowed. And when he met her, she was wearing clothes that she borrowed for the Democratic convention. And that her diction, her speech embarrassed him. And he wanted her to go home, and go away, to leave the business to him and other men. Basically, that is what he said to her. And, and other civil rights activists, elite civil rights activists, felt that way about her. And she did not identify with them at all, either. And she just told them to, you know, you know, no man is going to tell me what to do. Only my husband is going to tell me what to do. So, she just fired right back. But there was class prejudice against people like Fannie Lou Hamer. SM: 1:37:17 Yeah, she was, she is something. I am glad you wrote the book. It is a tremendous book. And I hope more and more people read it. And I hope this brings her, up the pedestal, I know, you are described, the very end of the book, her death, when she died, and she was kind of alone. And, people taking care of her. But, when the funeral happened, there were a lot of people there. Yeah, there were [crosstalk] some big names were there. So, they cared about her. KL: 1:37:51 Yeah-yeah. SM: 1:37:52 But they should have cared about her when she was near the end as well. KL: 1:37:55 Exactly-exactly. SM: 1:37:57 Are there any other thoughts, you, that I did not raise that you might want to state about Fannie Lou Hamer? KL: 1:38:03 Just know that she is just one of my heroes, and I hope she becomes heroes to the readers of my book because she is incredible. And we need to celebrate her. We need a national park in her honor, by the way. SM: 1:38:17 Wow. Count me in if you are going to get a group. KL: 1:38:20 All right, great. [laughs] SM: 1:38:22 Yeah, and let us see. You are probably going to write another book soon. Have you chosen who that might be? KL: 1:38:31 I have, but I am not ready to talk about it yet. SM: 1:38:34 Is it Ella? [laughter] KL: 1:38:36 No. Oh, my God, I would love to do that. But no, no, there is a great book about Ella Baker already out there. SM: 1:38:41 Right. KL: 1:38:42 Yeah. SM: 1:38:44 My last, my last question is what, I, the question I ask to everybody, and that is, since people are going to hear this 50 year from now, long after we are both gone, and many in this, in their lives, they are gone. What words of advice would you like to give to students, faculty, national scholars, people who listen to this interview? What words of advice would you like to give them? KL: 1:39:10 So, to keep the records, preserve the records, tell the stories and, and do not erase anything. Just preserve it all and carry it forward and honor the people that are carrying, you know, freedom and democracy forward because this is a perilous time. And I hope 50 years from now, people will listen to this and go back another 50 years to when Hamer was battling the same issues, and find the heroes in our past and celebrate them. SM: 1:39:44 Okay, well, I have been speaking with Kate Clifford Larson, author of "Walk with Me," a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. Thank you very much. And, you have a great day. KL: 1:39:56 Thank you very much, Steven. Bye-bye. SM: 1:40:00 You still there? Thank you. (End of Interview) 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. Kate Clifford Larson