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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-01-15
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Charlotte Bunch, 1944-
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Charlotte Bunch is an author, educator, scholar and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. She is currently a professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She has written many pieces which have focused on women's and human rights in the world. Bunch has a Bachelor's degree in History and Political Science from Duke University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6531,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Charlotte Bunch is an author, educator, scholar and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. She is currently a professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She has written many pieces which have focused on women's and human rights in the world. Bunch has a Bachelor's degree in History and Political Science from Duke University.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"John F Kennedy; Bobby Kennedy; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X; \nWomen's Movement; Social Activism; Baby Boomers Generation; \nThe 1960s; Student Christian Movement; Kent State; Sexual liberation \n"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":4609,"3":{"1":0},"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">John F Kennedy; Robert F. Kennedy; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X; Women's Rights Movement; Social Activism; Baby boom generation; Student Christian Movement; Kent State; Sexual liberation; Activism<br /></span>
Duration
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117:12
Subject LCSH
Authors; College teachers; Women's rights; Human rights; Bunch, Charlotte, 1944--Interviews
Transcription
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Charlotte Bunch
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 15 January 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:07:53):
I check this every so often. So, I think it will take there. I am a proud graduate of The Ohio State University.
CB (00:07:59):
Right.
SM (00:08:05):
When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
CB (00:08:11):
Oh, I think when I think of the (19)60s, what comes to my mind first is the Civil Rights movement, the Black Civil Rights movement. For me, the (19)70s is the women's movement. So those are the shaping, biggest parts for me of that era.
SM (00:08:32):
When you were young in say elementary school where you lived with your parents, I believe you lived in New Mexico?
CB (00:08:37):
Yes, right.
SM (00:08:38):
Grew up there. What kind of environment was it and families you lived around, and students you went to school within those early years? Was there anything during those early years that sparked you and said there is something wrong? Or when did you start thinking about activism and the issues that we involved in civil rights and the women's movements and so forth?
CB (00:09:03):
Well, I grew up in a family that was not terribly political but were community activists. My parents were very involved, and my mother was the first woman president of the local school board in a small town. My parents were very active in civic affairs. So, I grew up in an ethos that you had some responsibility for the life of your community. So, in that sense, I grew up with a kind of activism of my own parents, but it was not so much political activism. It was more sort of social concern activism. So, I always thought about doing things like that. Somebody gave me a book called Girl's Stories of Great Women. I read about Elanor Roosevelt and Jane Addams, and Susan B. Anthony, so I always thought it would be really interesting to do things, missionaries. I thought I might be a missionary. Missionaries came to my local church and showed pictures of poor people and what they did to help them. So, the notion of living a life of service in that sense was very much the ethos of my childhood. The town I was in was a small, relatively backward, conservative town, so it was more my family, really, than the town.
SM (00:10:33):
Was there one specific event, whether it be a local event, a state event, a national event or a happening that really, the first time that... You had these small things. You got the commitment to serve, but was there something that really?
CB (00:10:49):
Well, I think what really transformed that into social activism was not in New Mexico but was when I went to college. In 1962 I went to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. And the thing I remember most distinctly is I attended these dialogues that the Methodist student movement had with students from the Negro college, and it was called the North Carolina Negro College. We met African American students, and I saw in the paper one day that one of the guys that I had met was being arrested for his civil rights activism, and they were dragging him off to jail. So, I think of that as t moment when all of a sudden, I realized that I knew him. He was a nice guy. We had had a good conversation. And it sorts of sparked that there was something important and something wrong that this nice student who I knew, who was an African American, was being drug off to jail. So, I got interested in the civil rights movement, and I think that is really the one incident I remember the most. The first action I think I was involved in was, actually, some of us did a sit-in at the local Methodist Church, because it was still a segregated church. And we did what we called a pray-in. A group of us from the Methodist student movement went to the local Methodist church in Durham and sat on the steps outside and did a pray-in to protest the segregation in the church. So that was really my entry to thinking about social activism.
SM (00:12:42):
When you did that for the first time, because it takes a lot of courage. See, there is always the fear of what might happen if I am arrested, or is this going to be on my record, or will I be expelled? And then some, if I do not go along with my friends, then they will think that I am a chicken or whatever it might be. What were your feelings when you went to that first sit in or protest?
CB (00:13:08):
I think my feelings were, actually, I was so excited. I was nervous. I was nervous about what could happen, but I was so excited about doing something about something that I cared about. And I think I had been there about a year, so probably beginning of my sophomore year or the end of my freshman year in college. And I went with some of my friends; we decided together. Sara Evans was actually my best friend, and we did a lot of these things together. And it was at that point in time, Duke was a very conservative campus, and we were in the Methodist student movement. And the Methodist student movement was a place where people who thought differently were gathering, and we were studying racism and talking about these issues, and it just felt like the right thing to do. I did not worry about my friends. And I guess I felt safe. Initially, doing it at a church, I did not think they would arrest us. Our first action was a pray-in, and gradually, I went to other demonstrations, but I did not want to be arrested. I was not unafraid of being arrested. I was not brave. I was not one of those who jumped out in front of the cops and wanted to be arrested. I was not looking to get arrested, but it felt like the right thing to do.
SM (00:14:57):
Dr. King always used to say that " If you are afraid to be arrested or pay a price for your actions, then you really may not deeply care about the issue, because when you see justice or injustice..." Or even though it is a law, and it is an unjust law, you have a responsibility to change it or show in a peaceful way, change, you do not like it, through action. One of the things about the boomer generation is they are oftentimes attacked by conservatives like George Will. I tried to get Newt Gingrich to interview. He is always too busy. I understand that. He is a historian, too. Through the years, I have read some of the commentaries of both of these gentlemen, and they are kind of symbolic of many others who love to generalize about that era of the (19)60s, (19)70s and basically the boomer generation and the reasons we have a lot of problems in our society today, albeit not really the terrorism aspect. That is most recent, but the reason why we have all these issues today is because of that period, and they kind of look upon it as a negative. And I am talking about lack of respect for authority, the high divorce rate, no sense of responsibility toward a partner, drug culture, the sexual revolution and all the other things. It goes on and on, lack of respect. And, of course, at that time, a lot of complaints were against the military, too, and that particular thing, or anybody in positions of responsibility or authority. When you hear or you read, or anybody writing about that time period and they make those kinds of comments, what is your reaction?
CB (00:16:49):
My first reaction is to be totally annoyed with them, because I think that the people that were, certainly the people that I became a social activist within North Carolina in the civil rights movement from (19)62 to (19)66 were people who were deeply committed. Both the white and the Black people were taking a lot of risks. I mean, it was not easy in the south to be speaking up against these things. It was not popular. I hear these guys like Gingrich and others say it was a fad. Well, it was not a fad. It was a deeply felt conviction. And I think that it was challenging authority, but it was challenging patriarchal, racist authority. And I would still challenge patriarchal, racist authority. It was not challenging authority for its own sake; it was challenging oppression in the name of order. And it was challenging a certain kind of authority, which was an authority that was arbitrary, that was discriminatory and oppressive. I was an organizer; I believed in order. I was not an anarchist. I did a lot to structure the organizations I worked with. But we did not believe in dominant domination of people by one person or one leader. So, I think that they completely missed the point because they want to miss the point of what that movement was about.
SM (00:18:36):
They are both boomers, too. I think George Will might have been born in (19)40.
CB (00:18:40):
He is a little bit earlier, I think, yeah.
SM (00:18:41):
But Newt Gingrich is a boomer.
CB (00:18:42):
Yeah, he is a boomer, yeah.
SM (00:18:43):
Yeah, he was born in early the early (19)50s.
CB (00:18:46):
I mean Newt Gingrich is like a lot of guys on the Duke campus that I knew. I mean, there were a lot of them that really hated us because we were challenging the given authority structure, and they were, especially some of the white men in the south that I remember that he reminds me of, they were expecting to inherit the privileges of their parents, of their fathers in particular. So yeah, some of them, they were angry. They did not want this order to change because they did not understand that there were people who wanted to change that order. It worked well for some of them.
SM (00:19:29):
I would like to know your experience, because I was just talking to Bettina, too, on that. We all know that anybody whose read history like you have and been a part of it, that women were oftentimes treated as second-class citizens in the civil rights movement, in the sense of they were involved in the Montgomery bus boycott very strongly there. And there are the Dorothy Heights, and the Fannie Lou Hamers of the world. But overall, in the civil rights movement, that is an issue. Also, in the anti-war movement there was this issue, and in some of the people that I have interviewed in some of the other movements, whether it be the Chicano movement or the Native American movement, and even in the gay and lesbian movement, because David Mixner even made a comment about this, that women have oftentimes been put in the secondary roles. I would like your personal feelings about, as a female, being an activist in the boomer time frame here, about what you had to go through. Because we all hear that women were really secondary until the women's movement came about, and then of course, men were the problem. The women's movement became strong in the late (19)60s, the early (19)70s so to speak. Your thoughts on your experiences and whether that is really true.
CB (00:20:45):
Well, I think it is true, overall. I mean, as a generalization, yes, it is true. But there are multiple layers of that truth. I mean there are many different ways in which that manifested itself. So for example, in my story, I now think because I came into civil rights through the student Christian movement and the churches, and because I came in through the south from North Carolina, my leadership got encouraged by those student Christian movement leaders. And I was the president of the North Carolina Methodist student movement by my second year in college, and I was then the president of the National Student Christian movement and began an ecumenical project and experiment, so my leadership was actually nourished in this period. But it was nourished because there were women in the church who gave me encouragement and space. I think it was also nourished because in the south at that time, there were more white women than white men who were joining the civil rights movement, because women were more sensitive to these issues. I think there was a certain kind of space that I had as a student in the south coming into this through the churches that not everybody got. I mean, obviously, I had natural leadership skills, or I would not have been able to do that. I mean, I know that now. I did not know that then. So, when I began to feel the second-class status was actually not in the early (19)60s in North Carolina, but when I graduated from college, and I went to Washington, D.C., and I became part of the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington, which, I do not know if you know IPS, but IPS was the left wing think tank of that era. That is when I discovered how sexism worked. That is when all of a sudden, I went from being a fairly well-known leader of the student Christian movement based in the south and then nationally, to experiencing the invisibility that many women talk about, where all of a sudden... And I think one reason I became a feminist organizer so quickly is a little different that some other women. It was like, "Hey, I have led a national movement." And I would be sitting at the table of these seminars, and I would say something, and the men would ignore it. And 10 minutes later, a man would say something similar, and they would say, "Hey, what a great idea." and I was like, wait a minute. I mean, I am not used to this. So, there are many different layers of the story. It is not that none of us were ever encouraged; but for me, it was the growing up phase. You go from being a student to the adult left, and that is when I realized how sexist it was. And I actually think it was worse in the north than the south. This is a part that as somebody who's mixed heritage, my mother's from the north, my father from the south. I grew up in New Mexico. I see different aspects of the country, and I actually think some of the sexism was worse among northern white men, who actually felt more entitled in some ways than southern white men who were more understanding that they were oppressors because of the racial issue.
SM (00:24:41):
Some of things you are saying, Dr. King saw this too, because Dr. King knew. That is why he went north.
CB (00:24:47):
Right.
SM (00:24:49):
I know that Bayard Rustin was against him on his anti-war stand, Vietnam. We did a national conference on Bayard, so I respect Bayard. But on that particular thing, I think he was wrong; Dr. King was right. And a lot of the things that he went through when he came north, because he knew there was racism up here in the north. And all we have to do is remember Cicero.
CB (00:25:08):
Exactly.
SM (00:25:10):
I was in college, and I saw. I could not believe the way they treated him.
CB (00:25:12):
Right, exactly.
SM (00:25:14):
Before we go to the next question, I do not think you knew, but my grandfather was a Methodist minister.
CB (00:25:19):
Oh, really?
SM (00:25:20):
Yeah. McKiernan's an Irish-Catholic name, but my grandfather was abandoned along with his brother, by his father. He went off to Wall Street to make a lot of money, and he was raised by his grandparents. He was born in 1895. He died in 1956 when I was a little boy. But he was the minister of the first Methodist church in Peekskill, New York, from 1936 to 1954.
CB (00:25:42):
Wow.
SM (00:25:43):
He was well-known in Peekskill. And if I had lived long enough, I would have loved to have asked him about Paul Robeson's visit. You know?
CB (00:25:51):
Mm-hmm.
SM (00:25:51):
That terrible thing that happened, and Pete Seeger was with him. Because I interviewed Pete.
CB (00:25:55):
Oh, interesting.
SM (00:25:56):
And Pete told me about that, but I have read about it in the history books, too. Because a lot of people do not know Pete Seeger was with him.
CB (00:26:01):
I did not know that he was with him them.
SM (00:26:03):
Yeah, and they were going to kill him, too. So, it was just amazing, the links here.
CB (00:26:10):
So, I think that it is true that there was a sexism, and women were, in general, treated that way. But it does not mean that no women were able to exert leadership, as you said there were. Not only in Fannie Lou Hamers, but there were a lot of women. And I think particularly in the southern movement and among the white women, there were a lot of women who played fairly strong roles in a lot of those activities, but they are not the names of the highlights of history.
SM (00:26:41):
Yeah, people use that picture of Dr. King, too, with the march on Washington, and you see Dorothy Height over to the right, and you see Mahalia Jackson down below, but you do not see very many women there at all. There are a lot of women out in the audience, but there just are not the many up there. When you look at this boomer generation which is 70-some-million, and I want to let you know that I am trying to make sure this is inclusive, because some people have felt that when you talk boomer, you are talking white male. And I have had a couple people talk about that. So, this process is, I am not going to finish this project until I know that I have inclusion here. I am trying to get more women involved. I am trying to get African American perspectives. Certainly, I am trying to get Native American perspectives. I am going down to Washington to meet Paul Chaat Smith at the Native American Museum. And I am trying to get others to talk about it. I have already talked to a couple leaders of the Chicano movement on the West coast. I am trying to get a field, because boomers are everyone. They are male, female, gay, straight, Black, white, every other color you can imagine. And so that is what I am trying to do here. Because when I think of the boomer generation, I think of 70-some-million with all these different ethnic groups and the way they live their lives, and a lot of people do not, and this has been brought to my attention from some of the people.
CB (00:28:02):
It is true.
SM (00:28:03):
A lot of people think boomers are white males, so that is been a very sensitive thing.
CB (00:28:08):
I think of boomers as both men and women; although I do think that I think the term is more identified with white than with people of color. I do not think of it as only the men, though. I always think of myself as at the outside curve of the boomer generation, and I think of my younger sister as the boomer generation. So, I do not think of it as only the men. Although, I do think it has been used mostly in relation to the predominant white community.
SM (00:28:40):
When you look at this generation, what do you think some of the strengths are if there are some characteristics that are positive, and some of the characteristics that may be negative from your viewpoint?
CB (00:28:50):
Well, I think the most positive characteristic of being in the boomer generation was our belief, which I still have, that you do not have to accept things just because that is the way they are. That notion that change is not only possible, but change is a good thing, and you really can and should think about what you believe in and how you want to try to make it happen. I think that is, for me, the positive ethos of the (19)60s was the notion of change and the notion of making your life around what you believe in, and trying to figure out how to do that. At least that is what I identify as the positive. And the belief that equality and justice were important values. And I continue to believe that, although, the way one acts it out may be different in different historical moments. But I think that was the driving energy, and in some ways the... moments, but I think that was the driving energy and in some ways the prosperity of the predominantly, and maybe that is why I think more predominantly of the white part of the boomer generation, but prosperity was coming to African Americans too, starting to, made you able to see that consumption and things was not everything. I think part of our ethos was we were the generation in a way that did have it all. It was a prosperous era that we grew up in. If not when I was born, it certainly was by the time I was in school. And so the notion that all you had to work for was material prosperity, did not motivate me. I appreciated that, but it was not a driving force. I wanted something more.
SM (00:30:56):
That is beautiful because you see... Money. I could have been a lawyer. I chose higher ed. You do not ever make more than 60 grand in higher ed.
CB (00:31:06):
Yeah, exactly.
SM (00:31:07):
The richness with me was the ability to work in a university environment and to be around young people and to hopefully have an influence in their lives in terms of preparing for them for the world that they are going to lead and run and experience. That is what our role is. There is nothing greater than being a teacher or an administrator that works for students.
CB (00:31:26):
Yeah. There is nothing greater than doing the work that you love, whatever it pays. And I think our generation understood that in some ways, because many of us, and I do not deny the fact that there was still poverty, but many of us, a large number of us, grew up with enough security that we did not feel that that was the only purpose in life. And some of the negatives may come from not understanding well enough what those limitations meant in other people's lives. And I think there have been some arrogances around class and racial issues in the early part of the movement, not understanding enough where people who did not have the security came from. But I think we learned that.
SM (00:32:15):
I think some of the things that I have heard about, I have read an awful lot. I am reading demographic materials too. And one of the things is that a lot of boomers have become very rich, very rich, including Vietnam vets. There was a period a couple years ago, it might have been maybe 10 years ago, that of the 50 richest Americans, 10 of them were Vietnam vets.
CB (00:32:39):
Interesting.
SM (00:32:40):
At the time that... Well, Ross Perot, well, I am not sure if he was a Vietnam vet, but he was in that group too. So, I find this interesting because they are also attacked as being the consumption, the credit card problems, and got spend now... And it is again, generalizing on characteristics and be generalizing, blaming an entire group, which is impossible to do.
CB (00:33:10):
Yeah. As you know, because you are doing these interviews, there are different strands within the boomers. I was part of the political strand of activism, and we had our own critique of some of the hippies strand. On the one hand we liked it that they were critical of the establishment, but we thought they were too self-centered also. My part of the movement, the political part, we were critical of some of the hippies. We thought they were too self-centered. They were just taking the freedom we were trying to create for themselves and not giving back. So, I think that is also important to remind people that there are many strands within boomerdom, even within what you might call the left of boomerdom.
SM (00:33:59):
Have not even gone into the people that went into communes because communes... Easier way of life, but they just dropped out.
CB (00:34:09):
Dropped out, yeah.
SM (00:34:11):
And they raised family. What do you think about this category? A lot of boomers thought they were the most unique generation in American history when they were young. I can remember feeling this and hearing it, just a sense that we belonged as a group. There is a sense of community here, and a lot of people say what happened to that community as they got older? But what are your thoughts when you hear the boomers say that we were the most unique generation in the history of this United States of America because many of them felt when they were young that they were going to be the cure-all, the panacea, they were going to solve all the issues and create peace, love and harmony and end war and racism, sexism... All these things. Well, obviously those things still exist.
CB (00:35:07):
Yeah, I think that is where the people who say that the boomer generation is arrogant have some justification. I think that we did a little bit too much think that we could change it all. I think the good part was we believed in change and it was worth working for. And probably the arrogant part was not understanding well enough what it really takes to make that happen. And sometimes just thinking almost too highly of what we could do. And I am a lifelong activist, so I watched the people who dropped out, and I think some of them did not understand that this was about a lifetime. This was not just a moment. But I had a sense of history. I was a history major myself, although I never became a historian. But maybe I had less of that because I grew up in a small town. So, you do not grow up with a sense of being a part of this big ethos. And I am always a little bit skeptical when people think we are the most unique thing that ever happened, so I might put that as somewhat true, but not on the more positive part of who we were.
SM (00:36:36):
When you look at the (19)60s for the boomers now, we know when it began for you, but when you look at this generation, what do you think most of them would say when the (19)60s began and when it ended? Were there watershed events for both?
CB (00:37:00):
Watershed events for the boomers?
SM (00:37:02):
For for the boomers themselves. And along the same line, what do you think... Again, everybody's different. I have asked this. Some people are specific. "So, this is the one..." But I think the event that may have shaken their lives more than any other event.
CB (00:37:19):
Yeah. I think there are several watershed events, probably subcultures of that for sure. There is certainly a series of... I do not know if it is an event, but there is certainly two or three watershed moments in the early (19)60s around civil rights. The March on Washington is the high point of that. But I would say the killings in Mississippi of the four. And the other killings, those several killings during Mississippi summer, that was a watershed time, the four of them. And then Mrs. Lucio, the Philadelphia woman, and I cannot remember exactly when all of that happened.
SM (00:38:03):
Leeozo? I forget her name. From Chicago.
CB (00:38:09):
And for me personally, the Selma Montgomery March I went to.
SM (00:38:13):
You were there?
CB (00:38:14):
I went to the Selma Montgomery March. I went from the National Methodist Student Movement, got asked by some of the people working in the United Methodist Church to go down to Montgomery. And we worked with the Montgomery end of the Selma Montgomery March on finding housing for everybody who came to march. So, we lived in the Montgomery community. I took a week off school and I went there. And we were in the Montgomery part of the march. I did not go to Selma, but we were working to help. We had a whole student group, an integrated student group working to help with housing for the march. So, I think that configuration, Mississippi Summer, the Selma Montgomery March, the March on Washington, those were watershed... Maybe different events were watershed for different people. But that was a watershed time in race relations for my generation. That is when we got it that this was important, whichever one it was that turned you, but that configuration of things.
SM (00:39:25):
Did you meet Dr. King or JL Chestnut? Do you know who JL Chestnut is, the great lawyer from Selma?
CB (00:39:31):
Well, I was a student. I saw them. [inaudible 00:39:33]. We had Martin Luther King speak at our National Methodist Student Movement Conference. So, we had him there as part of our presence. I was not personally... We have a picture here of one of the other women in our group introducing him at that conference, the Methodist Student Conference.
SM (00:39:57):
Oh, my God. Wow. I got to get this book. This just come out?
CB (00:40:02):
No, it came out a couple of years ago.
SM (00:40:03):
[inaudible].
CB (00:40:06):
Well, it is Rutgers University Press. I helped get it published, but they never promoted it well.
SM (00:40:14):
Well, this is a [inaudible].
CB (00:40:16):
But for what you are doing, and especially to bring you some of the women's voices. Because this is specifically-
SM (00:40:22):
I might like to interview Sarah.
CB (00:40:23):
... about the women. You should interview Sarah.
SM (00:40:25):
Where does she live?
CB (00:40:26):
Minnesota. I will give you her email or you can get it. But if you look at that, you may choose to interview others too. But Sarah, you should definitely interview Sarah.
SM (00:40:38):
I think it is important because you are only the third person that I have ever met who has actually met Dr. King or been in a room with him. The first person I ever met was a person who was a student at Michigan State University when he spoke. It was a PhD professor. And he said, this would be about a short time before he was assassinated, and he was in a big auditorium in Michigan State or a gym, some big facility, and he seems very close to him. And I do not know if he is saying this to me just for drama, but he said, "I think something is going to happen to him. He is too good to stay alive." That was an unbelievable statement. "Too good to stay alive."
CB (00:41:22):
Wow.
SM (00:41:22):
And he said, "It is almost like when you saw him on the stage, it was like there was just something different about him. He was just a great speaker, but there was this ambience." Could you explain what it was like if you were in the audience, what it felt like to be listening to him?
CB (00:41:40):
Yeah, he had a very powerful, moving presence. Sometimes you are around people that you just feel you are in the presence of some kind of greatness, I think it was. I was never in a personal situation with him. I was in the audience on a couple of occasions, and it was that sense of inspiration of somebody who really embodied doing what he believed in and made you want to do the same. My memory of it was very inspiring. And it made you feel that it is possible. I do not think I had any premonitions of his death. I would not say that I had that, but I had a sense that this person was moving history, and he inspired me and made me feel like we can make things change, things can be done. And it was a quiet leadership. It was a strong, steady, quiet leadership. It was not a bombastic leadership.
SM (00:43:04):
You are right on. James Farmer was on our campus, he was totally visually impaired. But I spent two days with him. And so, we shared a lot of things besides the programs. And I asked him what it was like to be in a meeting with him. And he said he did not speak much. He just listened. We had to go... "And Martin, what do you think?" Well, this person you saw at the pulpit in church or on the stage is not the man who was in meetings. He was listening to everything and taking it all in before he made a decision. And David Hawk, who I interviewed yesterday, was in the meeting with him when he was deciding if he was going to give the speech at Riverside Church in 1967, Rabbi Heschel and how important Rabbi Heschel is, very important, in inspiring him to go do it. And that is another man in the Civil Rights Movement's that is got to be talked about more, the Jewish rabbi. And he said the very same thing James Farmer said. He did not say hardly anything in the meeting. He was listening. He was a listener.
CB (00:44:03):
He was a listener. That is right. And when he spoke, you listened. Because he did not bombast you and speak all the time. You knew when he spoke there was something you wanted to hear.
SM (00:44:15):
I got a few more general questions, then I am going to get with a lot of women's issues here. This is one I have to read to you because our students put this together when I was at the university in the late (19)90s. We took a group of students down to see Edmund Muskie. I got to know Senator Nelson, and he helped us organize some trips to meet leaders. So, this is for eight to 14 students. Senator Muskie had just gotten out of the hospital and he had been watching the Ken Burns series when he was in there. And you could tell he was not feeling very good, but he still met with us. And we asked him this question. This was actually a question that was written by students because they wanted to know-
CB (00:44:51):
Is this still...? Oh yeah, it is still right. Sorry.
SM (00:44:58):
They knew about 1968. So, here is the question. Do you feel that the boomer generation is still having a problem from healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart? [inaudible] divisions between black and white, the divisions between male and female, gay and lesbian, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not. Then they put in here, what did the wall play in healing the nation beyond the veterans? Do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or are we wrong in thinking this? Or has... The number of years has changed here... That made a statement that "time heals all wounds" is truthful? Is there an issue within the boomer generation, is what I am saying? Is there an issue on healing that there seemed to have been... And Muskie responded by saying that he would not respond to it. His response was, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And then he went on for 15 minutes about how the issue of the Civil War killed 400 some thousand men, actually almost wiped out an entire generation. And he said, "For what?" He got real emotional, well emotional for him, and he did not even talk about (19)68.
CB (00:46:20):
Well, I do think (19)68 is another watershed moment in terms of the (19)60s. I think (19)68 is a watershed moment for a number of things, including actually becomes really a watershed period for women, (19)68, (19)69. But I think it was a watershed moment in terms of the Vietnam War and definitely the growth of that, and the Democratic Convention, of course, as the symbol of that. But I would not put all of those [inaudible]. I would say that the (19)60s boomer generation has not healed from the divisions between those who questioned authority and those who upheld it. And the divisions between those who questioned the Vietnam War in particular and those who did not. I think some of those things have not healed. I think that is true that some of those divisions have not healed. I do not think the (19)60s were a division between black and white or even male and female. I think those issues are very different when you are talking about what are the divisions. Because what the (19)60s did around black and white and around male and female and gay and straight is bring forward the voices of the oppressed. And I think the (19)60s laid the groundwork for the possibility of new relationship across racial lines for, eventually, what I think were beginning to experience of a more equal male female relationship. And ultimately a better relationship between... It is not even relationship, an opening up of our rigidity around sexuality and sexual orientation. So, I actually think that the wounds that may not have healed are the wounds from whether you were for or against authority. And you see that in the Clinton, Bush... Two holes of the (19)60s still playing out.
SM (00:48:44):
Senator Kerry too.
CB (00:48:47):
And I think that still has not healed. But I think on the other issues, the (19)60s did not make those wounds. The racial wounds go much earlier. The racial wounds, for me, the (19)60s began to address the racial wounds so that we might someday reach a place where there will be a difference. And on male, female, I also feel it started a process that yes, there is still, certainly the sex wars, culture wars over sexuality indicate that the culture is still divided. But it did not get divided by the (19)60s. The (19)60s opened up new possibility. So, to me, they are different, they are different things with each of those. None of them are resolved. They are still ongoing, but they represent different things. And if anything, on racial issues, I think the (19)60s opened the greatest possibility because before the (19)60s, we did not have anything like... If we were not divided on race, it was because we were accepting an oppressive situation. And actually, we were divided because there are 100 years of people struggling over the racial issues before the (19)60s.
SM (00:50:08):
Jan Scruggs wrote that book, To Heal a Nation. Of course, he is the founder. He is an interesting person in his own right. Now, he will not be involved in this process because he is... Diane Carlson Evans will, but he will not. Muller will, but he will not. I understand. He is a different person and he has had a lot of issues building the wall. He is a really good man though. So that is the bottom line. But in his book, To Heal a Nation, he thought his goal was that though the wall not only heals the veterans and their families, which is a primary goal and pay respect for those who died and served in that war, but to also start the healing process for the nation. And that is why he titled his book that. Do you think the wall has done anything to heal a nation with respect beyond the boomers? How about the anti-war people who I have always felt... I did not serve in the war. I was in graduate school. I could not go because I broke my arm. I was in a lot of things. But how many parents have actually gone down to that wall since it was built in (19)82, when the kids are saying, "Dad, what did you do in the war?" Reflecting on who they were.
CB (00:51:18):
I think the wall was an important lesson for all of us. If you think about anti-war activism in this era around Iraq, we were all... And I was not a leader in it, but I certainly participated in it. We were all much more careful about the fact that the soldiers who died were not the ones that should be vilified. That it was the people sending them. I think we learned from Vietnam. I think that the wall was a very important symbol that the division should not be between those who died or who fought and those who did not. But between those who sent people to fight and those who thought it shouldn't be done, and I think the new anti-war movements are much more careful about that.
SM (00:52:14):
I agree.
CB (00:52:15):
So, I think we did learn something from that wall. I am not sure it healed the Vietnam War moment, but I think it taught us as a people. It was a part of something we learned. And I would not say the wall did it, but the wall helps. It is part of that. It is part of that process.
SM (00:52:33):
As a non-veteran, I have been down there since... It gets kind of emotional for me because I have been down there since '93 and I have gone to the Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremony. I just want to get a feel and taking probably a couple thousand pictures of the speakers and all... [inaudible] came and everything. I might do a book on that sometime as a non-veteran. But I still see that there is of people have healed and he is an awful lot, but a lot of men [inaudible]. And you can see it through the tears, but you also see it by those who refuse to go. I am going back here, but Bill Ehrhart, the great Vietnam poet who I interviewed in Philadelphia, tremendous poet. He says, "I cannot stand the wall." I said, "Well, why?" He says, "Because the fact that it throws my buddies in my face, the names. The names are nothing to me. It is who they were." It was his perception. And he did not like it for that reason. It is not the way he... So, there is divisions even [inaudible]. And I said, "My golly, you would even got divisions over the wall." The other issue was the issue of trust. Because I prefaced this question by when I was a first-year student, I remember was in the philosophy class, and this teacher was talking about trust. The whole lecture was on trust. And I think Socrates was there and Aristotle, you are bringing everything in. But in the very end, the bottom line was that if you cannot trust someone, then you are not going to be a success in life. "And I cannot trust somebody and be a success in life?" I am remember going back and talking to my friends about that. And of course, the boomers were not a very trusting generation because they did not trust any of the leaders that were in positions of responsibility at that time. Most of them. Or the 15 percent of the boomers that were activists. And that is they did not trust the presidents, the presidents of universities, ministers, rabbis, corporate leaders, politicians. If anybody who was in a position of responsibility, I do not like you. That is a lack of trust. And there is a lot of reasons for that. It is seeing leaders lie to the American population, whether it be Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or Watergate, one of the enemies lists. And a lot of people did not even trust Gerald Ford, that he had a deal with Nixon. And Eisenhower lied about the U-2 incident. Anybody who was cognizant, I think boomers were a little more well-read than they are today, the college students. So, your thoughts on, is this a generation of people who just cannot trust, and what has this done to their kids and their grandkids in terms of this passes on to them?
CB (00:55:28):
Well, I think that it is true that part of the legacy of that period is distrusting particularly political authorities. And being unwilling to accept the excuses because we felt we were lied to. I think it is true that today, politics in America have suffered from that because we have a very distrustful and aggressive political culture. Maybe some of that came out of the (19)60s, I am not sure if I want to blame it on that. But in my own experience as a (19)60s activist, I did not distrust everybody in authority, but I did not trust them unless they did something to prove they were trustworthy. I did not distrust every minister or every president of a university. I thought some of them were okay because of the way they dealt with things. But I did not trust them just because they were authority. And I think we did see the breakdown of the notion that you should follow them just because they were in authority. And I do not think that is bad. But I think the bad part is that we have not had a political period since then in which our political culture has given us reason to trust our politicians again. And I think that is really sad. I think what is sad is that they cannot be trusted because we have not learned how to do politics in a way that does not lead to all of this. So, there is some-
SM (00:57:24):
What is really amazing to me is when I saw, when President Obama was speaking joint session of Congress and that congressman stood up and said, "You lied." He apologized, but he really believes it. And I know conservatives who said they would have said the same thing. "He is a liar." That throw back memories of politicians coming to university campuses and being shouted down, speakers and everything. So, he has not even been given much of a chance.
CB (00:57:55):
No, I think there is a... The problem is not just that we do not trust. The problem is that we do not have a culture that we feel we can trust them. And that is a problem. And I do not know that I have more to say on it than that. But yeah, I think that is an issue. Yeah.
SM (00:58:19):
I have some questions here about in the area of the women's movement. I know this is a very broad question, and I know Bettina said that she did not have the time to... We were toward the end of the interview, but when you look at the women's movement, 1970 on... I know a lot of the great things it is done. But if you were to reevaluate it, what are the mistakes that have been made, many of them by the boomers who have taken over the leadership roles, and what are the strengths? And what are the good things they have done? And where do they still have to go? I know about men. Men still have got to get it. I know that. We all know about pay. That whole issue is still in the... I think we are going to get beyond the pay thing. I think the pay thing-
CB (00:59:09):
We will get beyond the pay thing. Well, since you started it, I will start with men then I will come back to the question. I think the real issue for men is household responsibility. I think the issue that men have to get is the work that women do in the home. I do not live with men. I am a lesbian, so I do not experience it personally, but all of my feminist straight friends, if there is one issue that they are angry still about men, it is the degree which most men have not assumed the responsibilities of sharing the work of their homes. I think on a personal level, that is the issue that at least I hear women complain about the most. Apart from sexuality, which is much more complicated-
CB (01:00:02):
...Apart from sexuality, which is another much more complicated issue. So, I do not want to go there, but I mean, in terms of male, female roles in this country. I think that is probably changing more with younger men. I am not sure it will change with older men, but I think it is changing. Certainly, it has changed with some of the younger men, not all of them, but certainly with some of them. In terms of the ... I mean, it is a huge question. I am trying to think what I could say that is useful. I think that-
SM (01:00:38):
In terms of the leadership now. Dr. Roche Wagner, one of her magic moments in the interview. Do you know her?
CB (01:00:47):
No, I do not.
SM (01:00:47):
Dr. Roche Wagner. She is up in Syracuse. She is an activist. She said, "First off, women." I said, "Who are your role models?" And she said, "Well, no, no, no, no. We do not do that in women's movement. We do not take a Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. I mean, it is all of us." She corrected me on that when I was starting to say these things. When you think of them, do not put a name on it, but the women's leaders and the strategies they have used. Because one of the things that really upset me as a young administrator was when the Equal Rights Amendment did not pass. Because my first boss was one of the leaders of the ERA in Ohio. Dr. Betty Menson, I do not know if you have ever heard of her, she has passed away. And she was in her early fifties, and she was working on her PhD. She was, for almost six months, she was in constant communication, working in the office, spending time beyond. She paid for the bill if it was work there. And then I remember when that did not pass in Ohio, and I can remember hearing her reaction after she had put two years of work.
CB (01:02:02):
Right.
SM (01:02:02):
In the Equal Rights Amendment. So, it was what has there been any strategies or mistakes that have been made by the women's movement that could do it all over again?
CB (01:02:15):
Yeah. I do not know whether you would know what to do to do it all over again. I think that the strength of the women's movement, in terms of what it has achieved, is that it really brought the issues of power and domination and violence and how we live our lives together with the politics of that era. It really brought home that these questions we were asking about injustice, and oppression, and power, and ultimately violence against women were also aspects of people's personal lives. And really brought home that what is, to me still one of the fundamental, unresolved, but important questions of our day. Which is the link between violence in the home, violence against women and children, and violence of war. I still believe that these are connected, and that is what the women's movement has tried, on some level to bring home. That the way in which you dominate and violate and allow that to happen in personal life, whether it is in the family or in racial violence on the street, or homophobic violence. Ultimately is connected to the way in which we accept the violence of war and the violence against the earth and global climate questions. To me, they are all manifestations of a domination mode of being, and that somehow all of these movements in their own way are trying to overcome. But what I think the women's movement contributed is that politics is not everything personal is political. But what happens personally is also, there is also political dimension to it. I am not saying every single act is political, that would be absurd. But that there is a political dimension to daily life, that has to also be part of the change. I think that is what the women's movement has tried to communicate. Sarah's book, personal politics, the personal is political. I mean, there are all these slogans from it. But what it has really been fundamentally about is that those things we call personal are not outside of the realm of political dynamics and dimensions and affecting the world. Now, do we know how to change that? It is huge. I mean, racism is also huge, and we have not accomplished that. These are dynamics with hundreds, if not thousands of years of history behind them. I think we were all naive about how fast these changes could happen. I think the women's movement was naive, but I think we are also part of the Boomer (19)60s naivete. In the sense that we all thought by wanting to do different and better, you could. And on one level, I think we have led lives that were the beginning of very important changes. But we underestimated how deeply ingrained all of these things are, and how much it takes to actually change them. We thought whether it is the Equal Rights Amendment, which seems simple because it is a legal instrument, or violence against women. Which is a much more difficult deep issue in terms of daily life. I think we underestimated how strong the forces were that we were trying to change.
SM (01:06:00):
What I like about your background is you are linked to the United Nations. When I think of the United Nations, I always think of Eleanor Roosevelt, and I just think she was way ahead of her time and every other way. She was the conscience of FDR, and she put them in this place several times.
CB (01:06:15):
She definitely did.
SM (01:06:17):
But what I really like about your background and when I see a real big plus in the women's movement is the global aspect. What started out as a women's movement, whether you go back to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and I have taken my members of my family over there to Seneca Falls. I remember taking my dad over there before he passed away, and we had a great day over there, and sitting on her porch. One of my favorite pictures is my dad walking up the back stairs in the Elizabeth Cady Stanton's home. I said to myself, "How could she have done all this and this house so far away? And Frederick Douglas came here, and this is the actual room where they sat and all the people that came through there." But not sure what question I was getting at there.
CB (01:07:06):
Well, you were about the global.
SM (01:07:11):
It is the global aspect. Because you see, we have to prepare millennial students, and we should have been doing this with generation X-ers too. To prepare students for the world, these are world issues now. And the women's movement was about issues here in the United States, but even in some of the early books, women were thinking about the world. I had one of the first booklets from a convention that was held, and they seemed to be ahead of the game in so many things. This is a world issue.
CB (01:07:40):
Right.
SM (01:07:42):
Is this one of the positive things that I am saying here, that what was something for the United States is global, and that the women's movement has played a key role in this? And you in particular could played a key role?
CB (01:07:56):
No, I think that the women's movement, because I mean, Virginia Wolf said, "As a woman, I have no country." Because women did not even have citizenship and the vote. I think that the identification of the women's movement with women elsewhere enabled us more quickly to see the global connections. Not every woman, but as a group, and to understand that these dynamics and issues we were talking about were happening to women elsewhere too. Yes, you could have a movement about it in the US but you could not say that this is only a US problem. Even to the extent that racism was a global problem, but it had a very particular US history. It was more of a national phenomenon. I think that did kind of make us look outward, and our predecessors did. I mean, Eleanor Roosevelt did, and Virginia Wolf did, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton looked out too beyond this country. So, I think there is that dimension to it.
SM (01:09:06):
I like your thoughts too. Another thing that I look at the women's movement as being, at least the things that I have read. Johnnetta Cole, former president of Spelman College, wrote a book in the late (19)90s, a really thin book, and she was still president there. She talked about the conflict of being a female because she was a ... It is okay for her to be involved as a female in racial issues, but when she starts crossing over into women's issues. Well, I think some of the men did not like it, and certainly some of the women did not like it. "Your role should be in race because you are black." "Well, am I female first, right? Or am I black?" She brought it up in her book about the conflict, and that was really a revelation to me because she wanted to belong to both. But she was a little hesitant. Had you seen that too, or?
CB (01:09:54):
Well, I think there was a period, I think it is less so now, but I think there was a period when many women of color were feeling like they were being forced by one movement or the other to choose what was most important. A whole way of thinking has emerged in women's studies that I think is also now more present in the rest of the world about intersectionality as a result of that conflict. I mean, they really got us and many people to think about the fact that these things affect each other. It is not just one or the other. How you are treated as a woman is affected by your race and how you are treated as a black person is affected by the gender and sexual orientation, and all the other things have evolved in class. I think this way of thinking is now much more understood as a result of the geneticals and the people who first talked about that conflict.
SM (01:10:54):
I know one of the things that is still a big issue in higher education now that I have left it, but I have sensed it for a long time. I hope they are doing a better job, and that is between gay and lesbian students and African American students. Because when we ... Did you get a phone call?
CB (01:11:07):
No, just going to turn off the light. That is bright.
SM (01:11:14):
This is your interview. But when we had a conference on Byron Ruston, several black male students did not want to be involved, because he was a gay man, and they did not know about it. They were raised within their church that this is wrong, and their ministers had preached that it was wrong. But the big issue in the university is people of color who may be also gay or lesbian, and in the fear of going into a gay and lesbian office for fear of what their friends say. The pressures for young people and their peers are unbelievable today. And I still think we have a long way to go on that particular issue.
CB (01:11:46):
Oh, we do. We do. Absolutely. I actually think that the women's movement has made space for gay and lesbian issues to emerge more broadly than they would have otherwise. Because gay and lesbian issues are also challenging gender, and there is a natural connection between women's challenging gender roles and gay and lesbian. They are not the same, but there is an intersection there. But for people of color, I work with lesbians of color all over the world, and it is a constant struggle. I mean, I work with women all over the world and every culture. Muslim lesbians, who are all struggling with how to work out. They are very committed to women's rights, and if they come out as a lesbian, that will make it harder for them to work on women's rights. I mean, I just had lunch with one today who was talking about, "How do I manage this?" I mean, this is a constant struggle because the lack of acceptance of this issue means that the space for all the people of color who are lesbian and gay is very, very narrow.
SM (01:13:02):
I guess as I get older, and as I have more experience, it is just the whole business of you cannot be who you are. America is supposed to be about being who you are, being comfortable with who you are. We are a part of a community, the greatest thing that we all have is our differences. Some people say our differences. I think our differences are is our strength.
CB (01:13:25):
It is our strength.
SM (01:13:26):
And that we need to respect everybody for who they are, and what they are. We got a long way to go on that. I can understand religious beliefs, but not anybody that believes that they are better than someone else.
CB (01:13:37):
Well, most religious beliefs do not justify any of these things. If you go to the core of the religions. I left being an active, having come out of the student Christian movement. I left being an active Christian when I came out, because I was like, "I have no interest in a God or a religion that thinks I am inferior."
SM (01:14:01):
Women's leadership in the church is an issue.
CB (01:14:04):
I do not need that. But I do not think it is inherent to any of the religions. What I know from the period when I was more involved in religious movements is that whether you are talking about Islam or Christianity, any of them. All the cultural trappings about women's roles and sexuality come from the cultures. They do not come from the religious ideas. They come from the cultures at the moment that those ideas were born and developed. They vary from place to place enormously, because they take on the cultures of where they are. Those cultures are cultures, but they are not religions. The religious ideas do not have to be attached to these cultural trappings. The unfortunate thing is people get the cultural trappings mixed up with the core ideas.
SM (01:14:58):
Who were the people, the books that you read when you were at Duke? Or say 10 years out of Duke, when you were young? What were the books that had the greatest influence on you? What were your peers reading? Were there authors, writers that just had a tremendous influence on you?
CB (01:15:17):
Oh, sure. I mean, in that period of time. I suppose initially it was the James Baldwins and the Frantz Fanon and people that I was reading about the dynamics of race in the world. Then over time, Simone de Beauvoir, some of the early writings of feminism. Even Betty Friedan's book at that point. I read Betty Friedan's book when I was a college student.
SM (01:15:53):
Came out in (19)59, I think. Feminine Mystique?
CB (01:15:56):
Oh, thought it was more (19)61. But anyway, it was that period. I read it when I was a freshman in college, and I said, "Okay, I am not doing that." I mean, it was very helpful. It was like, "Okay, I am not letting that happen to my life." So, these were influential in those kinds of ways as well. I also read a lot of theology when I was a student, because I was involved in sort of radical theology circles and Paul Tillich and all these people. They were helpful as you sort your way through those moral dilemmas of your life.
SM (01:16:48):
How about the music now? The (19)60s music was unbelievable. Obviously, the folk music, the rock, and certainly the Motown sound. But how important has music been in your life in terms of the artists and what maybe the messages and the music? Has music been a very important part of what you have done and the boomers that you have seen it was important to them?
CB (01:17:14):
Well, I think it has been an important part of the Boomer experience, yeah. I think probably the music that was most important to my political life was women's music. Was the Holly Nears and the Meg Christians and the Chris Williamsons. The emergence of the women's music culture was very important to the women's movement in the seventies. As we were trying to gain a sense of validation of our identity and our realities, and certainly Holly Near was important. Part of her importance is that she came out of a larger folk music tradition too, and still is a part of a larger folk music tradition.
SM (01:17:59):
When I first get to see her, was in Slaughterhouse-Five as a 12-year-old.
CB (01:18:02):
You were lucky.
SM (01:18:04):
I get to know her, right? But I do not know her to real well. But we brought her to campus and she really supports this project.
CB (01:18:12):
Yeah, no, she is wonderful. But I think mean, the folk music of the (19)60s that was important to me, initially was just literally the Civil Rights songs. I mean, the singing of the We Shall Overcomes and the We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder and all those kinds of things. That was important as a mobilizing music. But the music that probably most affected my political work was the Women's music.
SM (01:18:40):
You ever listen to Peggy Seeger? She is real good.
CB (01:18:43):
She is great.
SM (01:18:43):
She is unbelievable too. She was in England for all those years.
CB (01:18:47):
Yeah.
SM (01:18:49):
I am going to read some stuff. This is the part where I just mention a name or a term. Just give a few words or thoughts, and you do not have to in any detail. It is called "What does this person mean to you? Or what does this mean to you?"
CB (01:19:06):
What is the association? Okay.
SM (01:19:08):
What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you?
CB (01:19:10):
The Vietnam Memorial, the Wall?
SM (01:19:16):
Yeah, the Wall.
CB (01:19:17):
Well, we kind of talked about it. So, I guess it means to me a reminder that that war is about the death of people.
SM (01:19:24):
About?
CB (01:19:24):
The death of people and real people. In this case, the Americans who died, there should be one with the Vietnamese who died too.
SM (01:19:38):
Kent State and Jackson State?
CB (01:19:39):
Oh, Kent State was very important to me. I was in Hanoi. I was on a trip to North Vietnam, with an anti-war trip when Kent State happened. I was on an anti, a mobilization against the war movement trip where I had been invited to go and talk to them about the potential of the women's movement as an anti-war force.
SM (01:20:02):
Now, who invited you to that?
CB (01:20:05):
The Mobilization committee to end the war in Vietnam. Again, because I had a history of working in civil rights, and then I went to the Institute for Policy Studies, and I had worked against the Vietnam War from the Student Christian Movement. So, I knew those people. Then when I became a feminist, I was one of the feminists who was still linked to that world of the anti-war movement.
SM (01:20:32):
Who was on that trip with you?
CB (01:20:37):
Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez, her name, she is now called Patina Martinez. Chicano woman who talked about the Chicano movement, who was also a feminist. A guy named Frank Joyce from Detroit, who had started People Against Racism, one of the white organizations against racism, and a guy named Jerry Schwinn, who was Return Volunteers. We were all constituencies that the Vietnamese asked to know more about, because none of us were primary anti-war movement. We were all against the war, but we all represented other constituencies. They asked to meet with representatives from those constituencies to talk about the potential for mobilizing those constituencies to be stronger forces against the war in Vietnam.
SM (01:21:30):
And how did you find out all the way over there that Kent State had happened? Do you remember the moment?
CB (01:21:37):
I do not know if I remember the moment they told us.
SM (01:21:42):
Because the bombing was on April 30th, 1970.
CB (01:21:45):
I was going to say, what was it? It was April 30th.
SM (01:21:46):
And on May 4th was the shooting.
CB (01:21:50):
I think we were actually in Laos when the bombing happened, the April 30th bombing. And I think we had just gotten to North Vietnam, and I think they must have told us.
SM (01:22:04):
One of the people I know that have gone, according to Daniel Berrigan went, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, and Herbert went and what is his name? Stan Lin went, and there were a couple others that, but I think David Hawk even went.
CB (01:22:18):
He probably did. There were actually a lot more trips than people realized. I was there, and then I helped organize a meeting with other women's movement people with the anti-war movement.
SM (01:22:32):
Yeah, Watergate?
CB (01:22:34):
Oh, Watergate. Watergate is probably the height of distrust of the presidency. Also, important belief that we could actually do something about it.
SM (01:22:47):
How about Woodstock in the summer of Love? The two different things, (19)67, the Summer of Love, and (19)69 for Woodstock.
CB (01:22:55):
Well, I kind of go back to what I said before. I was in the political side. It was like, "Okay, let them have their fun."
SM (01:23:06):
Already talked about 1968. How about just the hippies and yippies? They are two different groups.
CB (01:23:13):
Yeah. Well, the yippies were more explicitly political. Yes. Even though-
SM (01:23:18):
Theatrical.
CB (01:23:19):
Theatrical, and sometimes we found them. I mean, by the time they were really big, I was also already a feminist. And we found them really very male. I do not know that it was the yippies, but there was one group, I do not want to blame it on the yippies. But there was one moment that is actually a turning point in 1968 for the women's movement. When at one at the counter inaugural for Nixon, would have been (19)69, I guess. There was a big demonstration called the Counter Inaugural, and I was living in Washington at the time. Some of the guys proposed, probably jokingly, but a strategy of raping congress people's wives who voted for the war. It was one of those moments in which we said, "Do you know what you are saying?" I mean, it was like, I mean, just talk about how did Women's Movement consciousness come? Another point at which Marilyn Salzman Webb was speaking at that inaugural about women's liberation, and one of the guys yelled our, "Take her off the stage and fuck her."
SM (01:24:36):
Oh my God.
CB (01:24:36):
I mean, these were things that were being said in that period.
SM (01:24:41):
Wow.
CB (01:24:41):
I associate some of that kind of mindless sexism with some of that kind of behavior of some of those guys who thought a little too much of themselves and not of the rest of us.
SM (01:24:59):
I know General Raskin, was in that group, but he was not, he is a little different though. SDS, Students for Democratic Society and the Weathermen.
CB (01:25:13):
Well, SDS was a great organization before the Weatherman. I worked a lot with several of the presidents of SDS as a part of my liaison with the Student Christian movement. I think they were really an important organizing force. And the Weathermen were our crazies, our political crazies. They, I think, represented forgetting what Martin Luther King had tried to teach us about the fact that what you do matters, even as you are trying to make change. And I think it was a very sad ending for SDS. I understand how they got there, but I think it represented going to violence in exactly the opposite of what King had tried to teach us about.
SM (01:26:12):
I recommend a book that is out right now. Mark wrote the book. I do not know if you have read it.
CB (01:26:16):
I have got it. I have not read it yet.
SM (01:26:17):
You ought to read it. You talked about the sexism and that. Oh my God. And you see, this is before the Weatherman. I mean, some of the things that SDS did in terms of women is just.
CB (01:26:29):
Oh, there is some terrible stuff.
SM (01:26:29):
Nothing to be proud of.
CB (01:26:29):
There is some terrible stuff.
SM (01:26:32):
I think probably those women who easily succumbed in those days would be very embarrassed if they did that as they have gotten older. How about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the Young Americans for Freedom?
CB (01:26:48):
I thought the Vietnam Veterans Against the War was a really important group. I thought it was a breakthrough. Young Americans for Freedom, I just remember as the enemy.
SM (01:27:00):
They were conservative. They served against the war though.
CB (01:27:06):
I had forgotten that they were against the war. I guess they came later.
SM (01:27:09):
I had to read Lee Edwards, and he said, "This is the one forgotten story."
CB (01:27:13):
That is an interesting point. When I was dealing with them was before they were against the war, and I forgot that they... That is interesting.
SM (01:27:19):
Do you know Tom [inaudible] he wrote ... Tom is a politician from Texas, and he has got a book coming out in a couple weeks? But he wrote a book on his years as a Vietnam vet, and he was the head of the Young Americans for Freedom.
CB (01:27:32):
Oh, I did not realize that.
SM (01:27:34):
He says, "I am not sure if I am that proud that I was against the war." I have got a couple more, see how we are time-wise here. I know this tape, I got 10 minutes on the tape.
CB (01:27:43):
Let me just get a little bit.
SM (01:27:44):
Take a break then 10 minutes on the next one here and then we are done. What do you think of Jane Fonda?
CB (01:27:52):
I like Jane Fonda, she has her wackiness. But I think she was brave when it was important to be brave and that she cares and she is a celebrity. Sometimes celebrities go a little wacky. But I think she was a brave woman who cared and tried to do what she could.
SM (01:28:15):
I want to interview her, but she said no a couple of times. Then I kind of lost touch with her, now. I think she was Ted Turner at the time. I was trying to get ahold of her. But she does not talk a whole lot about it anymore.
CB (01:28:27):
No, I think she got burned. I think she got burned by how badly they vilified her.
SM (01:28:32):
Yeah, some Vietnam vets say that she has not really answered. Anyways. Tom Hayden?
CB (01:28:39):
Oh, I have more mixed feelings about Tom Hayden. I think he is brilliant. I think he did a lot of great stuff. I think he was a sexist pig, I had a really hard time with him. I thought his attitudes toward women were very bad, but I also think that he was an important thinker about these issues.
SM (01:28:58):
How about Timothy Leary?
CB (01:29:00):
Drugs Leary?
SM (01:29:02):
Good old Leary. Part of his ashes are up in space right now.
CB (01:29:08):
I was never very big in the drug culture. So yeah, it was kind of like, "Okay. Yeah, it is not a big part."
SM (01:29:15):
I never understood it how a PhD, and a distinguished one, would go in that direction. I never quite understood it. Some of the others would be the Black Panthers. Just your thoughts on them as a group? But also, on individually, the Huey Newtons, the Bobby Seals, the Elders Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Stokley Carmichael, H. Rap Brown. They are all unique personalities within the group.
CB (01:29:45):
I did not know any of them on a personal basis. So, my observation of them was as a political force that I admired in many ways and also felt worried about because I thought there... worried about, because I thought their stance on Black pride was really important. But I was not totally comfortable with the embracing of guns and violence, because I have always... I am not a pacifist, but I am a very strong distaste for accepting the military and the violent solutions, whether it was Weatherman or the Black Panther. And I guess I am a non-violent advocate without being quite a hundred percent pacifist, I think. So, I had problems with that part. But, we all have our struggles with the issues of separatism. And they were sort of symblomatic, really, of the kind of Black separatist mood. But I also think they did some really important things.
SM (01:31:00):
Dr. King and Malcolm X?
CB (01:31:02):
Well, King, we have already talked about. I had enormous respect for him. I also think Malcolm X was brilliant and really pointed to things that we would not see otherwise.
SM (01:31:20):
But Muhammad Ali?
CB (01:31:24):
Yeah. Also, all of them really, when you think about what they stood up for and what Muhammad Ali went through to be against the war. Remarkable.
SM (01:31:36):
Got stripped of his title.
CB (01:31:38):
Yeah. Remarkable bravery.
SM (01:31:41):
[inaudible] viewpoint. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
CB (01:31:53):
Well, opposite forms of the same problem. The brilliant one who was horrendous, and the stupid one who was horrendous.
SM (01:32:03):
I can never remember that quote he always gave about the... You know the quote he always said about anti-war activism.
CB (01:32:12):
Yeah. No, I mean, Nixon's cynicism in having Agnew as his vice president has only been matched by John McCain's cynicism in having Sarah Palin.
SM (01:32:29):
John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy.
CB (01:32:30):
I was a big admirer of Bobby Kennedy. And I felt like he understood what it meant to try to bring change. And had he not been assassinated, I do not know what could have been different. I was a little bit less sure about Jack Kennedy. It is interesting what you said about Eleanor Roosevelt. When he was first elected, I was not yet a political activist. And it was just interesting. And I was still in high school. And as he was there, I got more and more into it because I got more and more engaged with it.
(01:33:18):
And certainly, as a moment of symbol of the change, I kind of had the feeling that had he lived, we would be more critical of who he was. That in a way, he got to do the best of what he could do and then he died before the worst parts would have come out. But who knows? But I was never a big kind of JFK, rah, rah, rah. I actually was much more moved by Bobby, but that may just have been the age I was at when they were both out there.
SM (01:33:54):
How about Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara?
CB (01:33:58):
Oh, God. Well, Lyndon Johnson is a tragic figure to me. I grew up in New Mexico. I knew about Lyndon Johnson from Texas. And I think that he did a lot for civil rights and believed in it and made some risks for it. But he made such blunders in the Vietnam War and his own pride, it was kind of like a Greek tragedy in some ways, that the better part of him got overtaken by his role in the other part. And what was the other one you said? Oh, McNamara.
SM (01:34:36):
McNamara.
CB (01:34:37):
Well, it is just this whole phenomenon of bright guys who let themselves get into this. I feel-
SM (01:34:45):
Bundy is the same.
CB (01:34:48):
I fear we are about to watch it again with Afghanistan, so I am not...
SM (01:34:53):
How about Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern?
CB (01:34:56):
Well, I did not work on their campaigns, but I think we all loved that they stood up. And that to me represented that there were some people who would stand up in the Congress and run for president and voice our views.
SM (01:35:16):
Hubert Humphrey and Barry Goldwater.
CB (01:35:20):
Oh, I think Hubert Humphrey is another tragic one like Johnson. Who somehow, and maybe because of him being with Johnson at the same period, started out really caring about things and let himself get drug into the establishment and losing his vision. And probably that is people like Hubert Humphrey in particular, even more so than Johnson, probably influenced my feeling that I never want to be a politician. Because I felt like, I want to make change from the outside. Because I see people who I think once did stand for something good. Early in my life I saw people, what became of them when they became politicians. And I thought, I do not want that.
SM (01:36:14):
Hubert Humphrey's unbelievable, because in (19)48, he wrote a book on civil rights and racism, which was a classic book. He was way ahead of his time on that as a white man and a white politician. Yet he knew that if he went against Johnson in (19)68, that Johnson may decide to even run again. I think the power that Johnson had over his psyche, and that if he had gone against Johnson, he probably would have won the election. He was coming close to winning it even at the end. They said another week, and he probably would have won the election. But this, not disassociating himself from the president. It killed him. He was not gung ho for the war.
CB (01:36:48):
No, but he did not...
SM (01:36:52):
And Goldwater and Buckley, the conservatives.
CB (01:36:56):
Well, I liked, when I was a high school student, I read Conscience of a Conservative. And I got really turned on because it was the first time I ever read good political theory. But then I realized soon after that I was on the other side of the theory that I wanted. But I always had a soft spot for the fact that I found that book really stimulating. And there were some moments when he was really good, but of course, he chose the wrong side of history overall. And that is where we leave it, with the notion of bombing Vietnam and all of that. Buckley, I guess by the time I started to read Buckley, I was more cynical about conservatives no matter what. But they are bright guys. They said things that sometimes made sense. You had to listen.
SM (01:37:54):
Goldwater conservatives that I have spoken to really put him up on a pedestal. And the irony is that he was the man, along with Hughes Scott from Pennsylvania, that had to walk into the White House and tell Nixon, out of here.
CB (01:38:09):
Oh, really?
SM (01:38:10):
Yeah, it was Goldwater and Hugh Scott, Mr. Pennsylvania. And when they went to the White House and had the closed-door meeting with Nixon, it was over. That was the final thing.
CB (01:38:23):
I had forgotten that.
SM (01:38:25):
Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, the Catholic priests, and Daniel Ellsberg.
CB (01:38:31):
Yeah. Well, these were important figures. They weren't people that I personally did any work with, but I certainly admired the Berrigan brothers' stand, and certainly Ellsberg's. These were all important people in terms of exposing what was going on. But they weren't major in my own personal development. But I certainly think of them as important markers.
SM (01:39:00):
Of course, Ellsberg and then Benjamin Spock, those are my last two.
CB (01:39:06):
Oh, Benjamin Spock.
SM (01:39:09):
The baby doctor.
CB (01:39:10):
Yeah, the baby doctor. Yeah. I do not know. That is a funny one. Yeah.
SM (01:39:22):
Something about, he died the same day my mom died. Actually, the day before my mom died. And I actually went to see my mom. I did not know if my mom was going to die. And said, "Benjamin Spock died. Just died." And let her know about him. Of course, he wrote the baby books, and a lot of people complained that he was the guy they were raising. But he was involved in protests, and a lot of people admired him for going out there and doing that.
CB (01:39:45):
Well, I do admire that part. Yeah.
SM (01:39:47):
You notice, I said a lot of these are men. I already talked Gloria Steinem, and Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan. But are there any females that I did not mention that I should have mentioned here when I talk about personalities?
CB (01:39:59):
Angela Davis.
SM (01:39:59):
Yeah. Well, Angela Davis. Right.
CB (01:40:03):
Angela Davis was very important to all of us as a woman who stood up, and being a Black woman, and being visible in that moment. Absolutely. She was a marker for many women about women who were strong women, and in the the anti-racism struggle. There were other women that were important to me, but I am trying to think if there were women besides Angela Davis that I would put at that visible place.
SM (01:40:50):
Eleanor Roosevelt was alive when Boomers were alive. She died in (19)62.
CB (01:40:56):
Eleanor Roosevelt was certainly a symbol for women. So was Margaret Mead. In fact, I was on a committee with Margaret Mead for the World Council of Churches, and she was a very important figure in women seeing both that you could be different, and what she said about gender roles in other parts of the world. And Simone de Beauvoir, of course, not American, but certainly was somebody that... Kate Millett.
SM (01:41:31):
And Susan Sontag.
CB (01:41:32):
Susan Sontag.
SM (01:41:33):
Her first book is unbelievable.
CB (01:41:35):
Susan Sontag. And Kate Millett. Kate Millett's Sexual Politics. In terms of getting out some of those issues around sexual politics and sexuality, and rape, and violence, Kate Millett was a very important moment, her book.
SM (01:41:56):
When the best books are written on the Boomer generation, what do you think they will say? When I say this, some of them are being written now, but normally, the best books are 50 years after a period. We are talking the (19)60s now, we are talking, well, it is almost 50 years now, 40 years. So, 10 years from now, the best books. But I am really talking about as they pass on, what do you think the historians and sociologists will say?
CB (01:42:22):
About the generation as a whole?
SM (01:42:24):
About the generation as a whole.
CB (01:42:25):
Not just the part that was social activist, but the generation as a whole?
SM (01:42:29):
Yeah, everything. Because the question is, did the boomers shape the times or did the times shape the boomers? And some people think it was all about the events that shaped them and not so much. It is amazing how...
CB (01:42:44):
Yeah. Well, in terms of that, I always think it is a mixture. You do not make history unless the times are right for it to be made. But it has to happen by somebody doing it. And so, I think that we did make history as boomers. It was a change-shaping time in this country. But I think that the conditions, we talked a little bit about that earlier in terms of the prosperity and all the rest, were also present for that to happen. So to me, it is always both. When I think about my own work, I could not have made the breakthroughs I made in my work if the time was not right, things had not been happening. When we worked on women's rights as human rights we knew the fact that the Cold War had ended and the old human rights association with sort of Cold War was gone, that we could make a breakthrough. It is not that nobody else had thought about trying to do that. And the time has to be right, but somebody has to make it happen.
SM (01:43:58):
Are you pleased overall with boomer women and the way they have lived their lives? Because their parents, their moms, raised kids at home. And the father was off to work in the fifties and the forties. Are you pleased with the accomplishments that boomer women have made in the battle that they waged?
CB (01:44:20):
I think overall, yes. I think boomer women have really fought an important fight, by which I do not mean it has been all negative. I think we have also lived really interesting lives as a consequence of being the first generation to really get to try to live our lives differently as a generation. There are individual women who lived their lives differently, Margaret Mead or Eleanor Roosevelt. But to be a generation that felt permission to try to live differently has been exciting. It has been really a challenge. Sometimes hard, but it has been exciting. And, overall, I think we have had a lot of important things happen as a result of that. But has it all succeeded? No. The fact that we did not get or figure out how to get enough childcare for women so that women still feel torn between being at home and raising their kids and family and career. These issues and tensions are not solved. But I think we did what we could to say it can be different and to start that process. It will take several more generations probably to figure out how all of that works out. And hopefully, we will resist the backlashes.
SM (01:45:50):
Dr. King used to always say, and is his lesson to all of us, and his birthday is today, is not it? The 15th? And of course, we are celebrating on Monday. His lesson is, if you are ever going to get anything done, agitate. Agitate, agitate. I think Frederick Douglass said that too.
CB (01:46:06):
Yeah, I think so.
SM (01:46:06):
Agitate, agitate. I think that kind of thing, that is important. I am done with questions. Is there any question that I did not ask that you thought I should have asked? When I was coming to this interview? Is there something that I...
CB (01:46:19):
I think the only thing that I would add that I think you did not get into is that-
SM (01:46:24):
Got other questions here, but we do not have time.
CB (01:46:26):
Well, you said something about sexual liberation. And actually, I think that there is an interesting conjunction of the first phase of sexual liberation was in the (19)60s for many women. Initially, we thought it was positive, but it was actually very negative because many women felt that it became a period in which men just thought they could have access to women's bodies. And I think that actually some of that experience played very much into the women's movement and the degree to which the women's movement really was able to put forward why issues like reproductive rights, and birth control, and violence against women were so important. And so, I have not yet seen, I have not read a lot of the (19)60s books, but I actually think there is talk about the sexism of men in the (19)60s movements and the second-class status that you mentioned. But actually there is also a thread of both liberation, because women felt positive about sexual liberation, and we felt negative about it both. Because there was some degree to which we also wanted greater freedom around sexuality. But it also exposed the male hierarchy in sexuality and brought on the recognition of some of those issues. And I think over time, even the freedom around gay and lesbian liberation that came with that, I think there is something very interesting that could be looked at in terms of that. Because when people talk about sexual liberation, they do not very often talk about the difference in what men's experience of that and women's experience was. And for women, it was very complicated, the whole (19)60s sexual liberation.
SM (01:48:40):
Yeah. I am not sure if I mentioned this. I might have mentioned to Bettina that if I were to sit down to my mom, who loved raising me and my brother and my sister, and my dad was a really good dad, but he was always away at work. And he was there on the weekend, and the gardening and all the other stuff. But I think Sally Roesch Wagner, when I spoke to her, she said, "You never had that conversation with your mom. You do not know if she was a hundred percent fulfilled. You do not know, because what did your mom do?" Well, my mom, she went to Cazenovia College and she was an unbelievable stenographer. And she was so good at it that, before my dad married her in 1942, she ended up, when she was in college, also being the second secretary of the president of the school because she was so good at what she did. But then she gave it all up to raise the kids. She would not say she gave it up, but I never ever asked her a hundred percent. I never thought of it. And she said, "Well, that is why when you talk about the fifties, which the fifties to a white male and to a white female is totally different." And we are talking about the World War II generation. We are not talking about boomers now.
CB (01:49:55):
Right.
SM (01:49:56):
And that was a revelation, because I never had that asked. I never asked my mom that question, ever. And I wish she was alive today to be able to ask it. And it would not be offensive to my dad because my dad was open.
CB (01:50:09):
Right. Yeah.
SM (01:50:13):
But anyway, thank you very much. That was great. I am going to take a couple more pictures.
CB (01:50:17):
Oh, right. Okay.
SM (01:50:19):
And then I got to walk a couple blocks and, boy, driving out of this city will be a lot of fun.
CB (01:50:23):
Yeah. Unfortunately, your Friday afternoon, well, people might leave early on Friday. It might be...
SM (01:50:30):
This is the other book that I just bought that I think is going to be a good one. I do not know if you have seen this one, but Tom.
CB (01:50:36):
No, I have not seen this.
SM (01:50:37):
That came out six months ago. This came out this week.
CB (01:50:42):
Great.
SM (01:50:44):
So, this is more of a political one.
CB (01:50:47):
Good.
SM (01:50:51):
Yeah, I am going to definitely remember that book.
CB (01:50:59):
Yeah, you should order that book. Hopefully they still have it, I think Rutgers University Press.
SM (01:50:59):
Take this picture. I am going to actually take four pictures.
CB (01:51:01):
I assume I should turn on the lights.
SM (01:51:03):
Yeah. Do not have my record flash with me.
CB (01:51:06):
How do you want me? Do you want me at the computer?
SM (01:51:11):
Yeah, one at the computer. And then one close up. I do not know if you want to look...
CB (01:51:11):
You tell me.
SM (01:51:12):
Yeah, I will have you look. A close up here. Make it look different. [inaudible].
CB (01:51:21):
[inaudible] I am in a nice little hut.
SM (01:51:42):
How about with all your books?
CB (01:51:43):
In this light, it is probably more...
SM (01:51:43):
[inaudible] And I got a problem, because where I live I do not order promo.
CB (01:51:43):
Yeah, well I do. I put things that I want to keep, but I know I am never going to use, at the end of the day.
SM (01:51:43):
And one close up, and that will be it. That is it.
CB (01:51:43):
Okay. Great. [inaudible] The interview is over.
SM (01:52:39):
I will email you, and as far as me trying to get ahold of Sarah or any other female leaders, or boomers, or whatever, or you think it would be good for the interview for us as I have been doing this, I am going to be talking to Sam Brown now. Because you know Sam?
CB (01:53:01):
I know who he is. Yeah.
SM (01:53:03):
Yeah. Well, because David thinks I ought to talk to him because I did not realize they were so close to Senator McCarthy.
CB (01:53:11):
Oh, right.
SM (01:53:12):
They went to the, I went to the funeral too, but I was not as close as they were.
CB (01:53:18):
Heather Booth, do you know Heather Booth's name?
SM (01:53:18):
No.
CB (01:53:27):
The wife of Paul Booth, who was one of the SDS presidents at one point.
SM (01:53:31):
Is he still alive or?
CB (01:53:32):
I do not know about him. But Heather Booth was his wife and she was very active in Women with Liberation. And she went on to found something called the Midwest Academy. She is in Chicago. I think she is still there. She was very much a part of the (19)60s generation, early women's. Sarah Evan.
SM (01:54:02):
I know the one person I have not been able to get ahold of is the one that was on city councils in Sacramento. Goldberg. Her name was Rudy Goldberg, or...
CB (01:54:13):
I think it was Rudy Goldberg, yeah.
SM (01:54:14):
I do not know how to get ahold of her. I cannot get ahold of Holly. She is on the road all the time, so. I think Patina knows her real well. But she was a student working for her.
CB (01:54:27):
Oh, I mean, it would be great to go to Angela Davis, and Patina also-
SM (01:54:31):
Yeah, I tried. She gets so many requests that she never even looks at her email. So, she has got a person that works for her, but whether she passes it on, but maybe I will share. And there is another book that came out at time. In fact, I just ordered it and I am picking it up. I paid for it. It is dealing with a permissive (19)60s. It is called, it is something to do with a permissive (19)60s. So, I will email you about that too, because I just...
CB (01:54:58):
And I may think of other women too and I can send you an email. [Inaudible].
SM (01:54:58):
You know Ruth Rosen?
CB (01:54:58):
Yeah.
SM (01:54:58):
Trying to get a hold of her, but they say not around for a while.
CB (01:54:58):
That she is what for a while?
SM (01:54:58):
She is not there.
CB (01:54:58):
Yeah, she would be good too. Okay. Well, good luck on your drive back.
SM (01:54:58):
Yeah, I have got to drive by the university.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Charlotte Bunch
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Bunch, Charlotte, 1944- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
Subject
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Authors; College teachers; Women's rights; Human rights; Bunch, Charlotte, 1944--Interviews
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Charlotte Bunch is an author, educator, scholar and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. She is currently a professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She has written many pieces which have focused on women's and human rights in the world. Bunch has a Bachelor's degree in History and Political Science from Duke University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-01-15
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.36a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.36b
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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117:12
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/32264e48644f38df8546aeb227dd4a2b.jpg
60e741077397563658a521e7bce10d76
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3db5a7c4f78e21dc590b59cf38d0fe35.mp3
7058cd8ccdc32bf52785b0090d256f28
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Format
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
1997-07-16
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Ronald D. Castille
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Ronald D. Castille served on the US Supreme Court in Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2014 and was promoted to the Chief Justice in 2008, staying until 2014. Castille retired from office at the age of 70. He received his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Auburn University. He joined the U.S Marine Corps and received several awards along his journey. Castille received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law after his medical retirement from the Marine Corps."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":7043,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Ronald D. Castille served on the US Supreme Court in Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2014 and was promoted to the Chief Justice in 2008, staying until 2014. Castille retired from office at the age of 70. He received his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Auburn University. He joined the U.S Marine Corps and received several awards along his journey. Castille received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law after his medical retirement from the Marine Corps.</span>
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Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Anti-war protest; Civil rights movement; William Buckley; Bill Buckley; Hippies; Sexual Revolution; Drugs; the Vietnam War; Counterculture; Activism; Equality; Jim Crow; Segregation; Black Panthers; Feminism; Gay Rights; Native American Movement; Baby boom generation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">Anti-war protest; Civil rights movement; William Buckley; Bill Buckley; Hippies; Sexual Revolution; Drugs; the Vietnam War; Counterculture; Activism; Equality; Jim Crow; Segregation; Black Panthers; Feminism; Gay Rights; Native American Movement; Baby boom generation</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
73:36
Subject LCSH
Marines; Pennsylvania. Supreme Court; Judges; Castille, Ronald D.--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Ron Castille
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 16 July 1997
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:05):
So, I am going to do that here today as well. Thanks again for taking time out of your busy schedule. First question I would like to ask deals with the issue of, how much time do we have today? We have about an hour?
RC (00:00:19):
Yeah. Because we have to take a break at about three o'clock real quick to go ahead and get free ice cream sundaes.
SM (00:00:26):
And then we can come back?
RC (00:00:27):
Yeah, they are bringing them to the floor.
SM (00:00:28):
Oh great.
RC (00:00:29):
I guess some kind of commercial deal by the [inaudible].
SM (00:00:34):
I saw that in the hallway there, near the elevator. First question is today I have seen a lot of the media that commentators like George Will, I have even heard [inaudible] and several individuals, politicians from both the Democratic and Republican side who will look at the issues facing America today and the problems we have in America today and they will pinpoint them back to when the boomers were young basically blaming the problems on boomers for what is happening in America today. I would like your thoughts, just your personal thoughts from whether that is true historically, and from your own personal experience what your thoughts on the boomers’ impact and linkage with the problems of today in America.
RC (00:01:19):
I guess it did impact society in that just the opposite of what JFK said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Well that era sort of got away from that what I can do for [inaudible]. They go their individual rights elevated above everything else. It became kind of selfish to some extent in that the focus was not on the greater good of society but was on whatever made them happy. Hence all that stuff about free love, and dodging the draft, and what is good for me is what is right. So the focus became inward rather than outward. And we're probably only just starting to come back around.
SM (00:02:14):
So, in a sense you are kind of in agreement with those social commentators that a lot of the things today in America, whether it be the breakup of the American family, which is of course the high divorce rate we see today, the drug culture amongst young people which is on the increase, some of the strife we have, the lack of respect oftentimes for authority figures. You see direct relation to the boomer. It is a bloomer quality.
RC (00:02:38):
Yeah, I see that. It is all to that time. I kind of grew up in the (19)50s. That was the country and the parents and the church, [inaudible] the institutions of government held in high esteem [inaudible] Vietnam [inaudible]. For me it is all [inaudible]. The nation where everybody thought, at one time they thought the marijuana was really bad [inaudible]. It might have been the drug of choices at the schools, at the law school in (19)69, (19)68, graduated in (19)71. Just one side were the juicers, which [inaudible] and the doper is the one that smoked marijuana. I have got people that were experimenting with drugs and [inaudible] it is I guess the taboo that drugs were that [inaudible].
SM (00:03:37):
Check your [inaudible]. That will do fine. What do you feel is the overall impact of the boomer generation, if you look at the year 1997 as we are heading into 1998? This is kind of a two-part question. What has been the overall impact of boomers on America? Because boomers right now are reaching 50. Because boomers are categorized as people who were born between 1946 and 1964. And what would you say would be the positive qualities and the negative qualities of the boomer generation?
RC (00:04:19):
The negative, some of that I just spoke of. The elevation of individual rights over the collective common good. I guess the positive things, sure they make people a little more questioning rather than just going along with the institutions of society and questions about how they function, and some of the problems they have been ignored were brought to the forefront. So, there was more of a typical questioning of what was going around their society. The civil rights movements, the [inaudible], which was partly the boomer generation at the same time. And the [inaudible] all these different rights. Like the stop and search, and the suppression it was forward in the (19)60s. To some extent that is healthy questioning the society and what it is all about, what it does and how it handles some of the problems. But because we're better off today than we were back then, certain groups are always complaining about racism, if you could transport them from today back to the (19)60s you would find a totally different problem. I went to Auburn in Alabama, I graduated in (19)66, and I think in (19)65 was when they integrated [inaudible]. [inaudible] about diversity at Auburn. So, it was an all-white school [inaudible] civil rights because of that. So, I guess it was helping that they questioned society what was provided to people. So healthy skepticism and a willingness to make things better [inaudible].
SM (00:06:16):
One of the things that I am trying to get at is, because I work in a college environment today, and boomers were young once. There is a lot of activism happening during that era, but the overall impact that boomers have had on their children. I bring this in because I feel that looking at a term that was often used in those times, the generation gap. That was the world war two generation, the boomers, the gap that happened there. And now if there is such a gap between boomers and their children, which is generation Xers. Could you comment on your thoughts of that time using your own metaphor of your life? Any experiences you may have had regarding that generation gap. And also comparing that to a generation gap of today.
RC (00:07:00):
I guess back in the (19)60s there was a real generation gap once people started wearing long hair and listening to rock and roll. So yeah, that really was not the change or the gap that they referred to was [inaudible] age and changing totally. That Glenn Miller era, Elvis Presley and The Beatles. I think they [inaudible] trending styles. [inaudible] with whatever they were told and what was handed out to them. [inaudible] the IRME sort of started going back to as far as I can tell is trying to get more altruistic and involved in society [inaudible], no protests [inaudible].
SM (00:07:53):
Occasionally there will be protests, especially over issues like lack of representation on a student newspaper. African-American students might do that, and that is happened in the last couple of years at different universities. Lack of representation, but other than that no. I have not seen a whole lot.
RC (00:08:10):
That is what's changed. They are more willing to be, I would not say docile, but believe that the institution of society serves a function, and they have some good. [inaudible] just like, let us tear it down and start all over, [inaudible]. Then an organization like the SDS or weatherman frequency that we have.
SM (00:08:36):
No?
RC (00:08:36):
No that is the difference, I think [inaudible 00:08:38] were things that made this country strong over the years, morality. But unless you're just like us aides. I think they like to drink beer and stuff more, do not they?
SM (00:08:48):
It is a definite yes.
RC (00:08:51):
Well that is not a norm back in the (19)50s.
SM (00:08:54):
Party time was a very important term. This takes right into another aspect, activism. Activism was always an adjective to describe many of the boomers, but we know from studying sociology and so forth that only 15 percent of the 76 million boomers were really active. It could be liberals or conservatives, but it really got involved in some aspect of the issues of the time. And 85 percent really just went on with their daily lives, so to speak. Your thoughts on the concept of activism at that time? And whether that activism has transferred into boomers lives as they have approached 50. And whether they have been able to transfer that activism to their children.
RC (00:09:37):
I do not know about their children, [inaudible] children. Activism, the most active people of every-every color. [inaudible] and marching, and not willing to have a rational conversation, not willing to work [inaudible] active people of that time. I went to law school. I was I just at the battle in Vietnam. I spent 15 months in a hospital in Virginia. And at that time there was all those campus protests and all that stuff. It seemed that Virginia, [inaudible] got a small minority out there just yelling and waving the Viet Cong flag [inaudible]. Well, the institution was like college campus, functioning student newspaper, fraternities and things like that. So there probably was a small group of activists. I do not even think those people are activists anymore unless they are [inaudible] communities trying to make their [inaudible] traditional [inaudible] school and things like that [inaudible].
SM (00:10:41):
[inaudible], yeah.
RC (00:10:42):
If they were to walk out today, and you say how many other people are there like this? [inaudible
]. My perspective, [inaudible] is tainted to some extent. There have always been elected officials where we could have bettered society.
SM (00:10:59):
Would not you say though that what you're doing with your life is carrying out some of that activism. Going on to become a lawyer, going on to become a judge. And then you ran for political office. One of the most admirable qualities-
RC (00:11:10):
I am a [inaudible], I am not an activist. I was always involved in things. I was in the student body in high school, I went to Air Corps Marines, and that drove me to [inaudible] always be the best. And [inaudible] in student counsel in college too. Senator [inaudible]. So, he started to do that, I was always active in that sense and in that sense without more [inaudible] the existing system. When I was in law school I was the Vice President of the law school, I was one of the editors of the-the law school students’ newspaper. I was doing that. And I was elected DA two times here in the Supreme Court. It is not activism, I think they look at activism as destructive kind of stuff. I am more of a dragging on of tradition. Some people would call me reactionary.
SM (00:12:12):
But I can give you a [inaudible] Harry told me about that if you're talking about your contribution to society being a judge and a lawyer, that you got involved with the Vietnam Memorial here in Philadelphia. And the contribution to society and showed activism there of seeing something that needed to be done and doing it. That was certainly activism at its finest.
RC (00:12:33):
Yeah, that was a healing sort of thing. Everybody does a preliminary when I was in law school. There was probably a bunch of guys in Vietnam [inaudible] was an assistant DA. There were guys that he knew and served [inaudible]. I brought people all over the city. We have talked about it, [inaudible] publicity that I have because of the [inaudible]. That was sort of a healing tone. It felt like [inaudible].
SM (00:13:01):
[inaudible] year anniversary coming up.
RC (00:13:02):
Yeah [inaudible]. We did a good job on that one [inaudible] $2 million. I was actually and owner of the memorial at one time because [inaudible] gave us a property but on the condition that we turn it over to the Fairmount Park after we are through. But the Fairmount Park did not want it because I know [inaudible] raised X hundred thousands of dollars more from-
SM (00:13:29):
The ends of this issue a [inaudible].
RC (00:13:32):
[inaudible] I am on the board of the boy scouts, I am the US Ward[inaudible] handicap people are [inaudible] some kid of activities that help. Then we have sports [inaudible] it was more of the traditional sense of prolong what I think are good things-
SM (00:13:57):
[inaudible] the two major issues of boomers was certainly the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. And your point-blank thoughts on how important the boomers were in ending this war. Whether it is direct response to the students who were protesting on college campuses. Again, probably that 15 percent that were involved. How important were they in ending the war and what was the reason that the war ended?
RC (00:14:22):
They probably had some input in it. They actually got to see war a lot more than we did because of television. The Korea War, they did not have towers and TV and what brought things home pretty radically to the people. And then [inaudible] it was in your living room. So [inaudible] was [inaudible] a lot of the protest. None of them want to be there and get shot [inaudible] pressure. Probably rethink their positions. And then a lot of people came with us military guys that came back from Vietnam and started raising hell about it. [inaudible] what they did [inaudible] return their medals and speak out against the was saying [inaudible] the whole thing was misguided and screwed up. I think when those kinds of people started raising their voices too-
SM (00:15:17):
And their [inaudible]
RC (00:15:17):
Yeah.
SM (00:15:17):
[inaudible]
RC (00:15:18):
Yeah, they have [inaudible] saw them on TV [inaudible] educational channel. I think it is probably one of those [inaudible]. Yeah, when those people start speaking up [inaudible] students handled with care. We do not want people coming back and complaining about the screwed up [inaudible] lost. The thing was prolonged for years. They played a role [inaudible].
SM (00:15:44):
Also so when Jack Smith said from ABC news, because I interviewed him last fall he point blank said that the main reason why this war ended was when the body bags started coming home and mothers and fathers and middle America saw it on television. Said there's no other reason why, that is the reason why. Do you agree with that?
RC (00:16:04):
I absolutely agree with that. The first one where you could get a 15 minutes of combat right at dinner. This was the-the first-time war was an actual war, the reality of it was brought home by the [inaudible]. We did not get to see the whole thing. That is probably the military's biggest mistake was letting the reporters out into the field to do whatever they wanted.
SM (00:16:31):
Had more controls on that during the Gulf war. Remember they had to stay back there and they did not allow them.
RC (00:16:36):
They had to stay in the rear with the gear and they give you a brief.
SM (00:16:39):
How important were the boomers in the civil rights movement?
RC (00:16:43):
They were important too. I think other than the blacks down in south, if nobody came down to help them it would probably have still been the same. And the college kids were spending their summers down there. [inaudible] that I was in the south at the time so I can put the [inaudible] tremendously. Contested the old John Crow laws.
SM (00:17:04):
Have you changed your opinions at all on the boomers for the last 25 years? Your thoughts when you were a college student at Auburn, and then when you were a young professional and coming back from the war. Then to go through rehab and then now as a judge. Do you look at things differently or are you pretty consistent in your thoughts?
RC (00:17:22):
I am probably pretty consistent in my thoughts. A bunch of them were jerks, a bunch of them were cowards, [inaudible]. Or cutting back on the use of drugs. Some guys that served in Vietnam were addicts and stuff like that. I respected those individuals. I actually respected the people that said [inaudible]. The others I [inaudible] wen to Sweden and Canada. I hope they never come back. [inaudible]. Those individuals that totally evaded all responsibility.
SM (00:18:10):
[inaudible] all the respect of, if you were to have a meeting with several of those individuals to sit down and have a civil dialogue, or you just would not even deal with them?
RC (00:18:19):
I have dealt with them. One guy was John [inaudible] who we dealt with.
SM (00:18:23):
That is right, the one that Howard stern destroyed.
RC (00:18:30):
He was really helpful to us in [inaudible]. But he never served in the military, he was a war protestor himself. But no, he did not go to Canada or wherever. He might have had a deferment and everything. But I guess those people were misguided to some extent in that they were protesting the war and did not even have content. They started seeing the light after [inaudible 00:18:57]. So I work with people like that. The ones I do not like nowadays are the ones who were in Vietnam when they were in the military when they [inaudible].
SM (00:19:12):
Oh, I know that because I have been going down to them a lot the last couple of years to the ceremonies on Veterans Day and Memorial Day. And I will never forget that my conversation with Joe Galloway. I do not know if you know him?
RC (00:19:24):
[inaudible] yeah.
SM (00:19:24):
Yeah, he was US news [inaudible] and wrote report, he wrote When Were Young Once. That was an [inaudible]. I interviewed him and he said, that is the thing that upsets him the most. You cannot believe how many Vietnam imposters there are in there at the ceremonies. Yes, and they lie and they sit there and they actually have a medals on. There is no question that is the... We have got a target there because that is what Joe was talking about too.
RC (00:19:50):
[inaudible] he was the worst of them all. [inaudible]. It was a human example of stark cowardice [inaudible].
SM (00:20:02):
Later in the interview we are going to go over some names here, but now that you have mentioned his name, your thoughts on that book in retrospect. Whether you bought the book or have you read the book, your thoughts about that, knowing about 1967, that he knew back then that the war was bad mistake.
RC (00:20:20):
He was a coward, he did not [inaudible]. He gave a speech to Valley Forge Military Academy, a graduating class. Mentioned him [inaudible] in the military [inaudible] say what you think is correct. And this otherwise, and not mention [inaudible] power he was when he came to his conclusion that the war was wrong in (19)67. That is something like seven to 10,000 dead. But he did not say one thing to Johnson. [inaudible] and just never said one thing about it until 20 years later.
SM (00:20:54):
And one of the characteristics that boomers used to say, we are the most unique generation in American history. We are different than any generation that proceeded us. And because of the times with the civil rights, protests against the Vietnam War, the women's movement, the Native American movement, there were a lot of movements at that time. There was somewhat of an arrogance and the cockiness that the boomers at that time felt they were the most unique generation. Some may still feel that. Your thoughts on that terminology that the boomer generation is the most unique generation in American history.
RC (00:21:25):
They were just a collection of assholes. Probably the most unique generation we have ever had is the people that moved out of the east coast of the United States. They were going into Kentucky and Tennessee. I always go to these state parks and I look at these things and say, man can you imagine somebody driving a wagon through this place. [inaudible] unbelievable hardship to settle in a country. So the people who moved out of the original colonies and moved across the nation to California who's encompassing more than one generation. But the boomer generation [inaudible] danger was you might get drafted and go to Vietnam. Most of the time you will not be near that much danger in Vietnam.
SM (00:22:15):
Of the 3 million that served in Vietnam, how many actually served on the front lines?
RC (00:22:20):
[inaudible] something about that where they said for every soldier [inaudible] had had nine people packing them up.
SM (00:22:24):
This feeling that many hand that we are going to change the world in a positive way, that was a mentality in 1968, in 1997. Have they?
RC (00:22:38):
The generation before them is the generation that changed the world, the world war two people when they came back. American was a different place pre-world war two and then after world war two, [inaudible] the country up until the Bush [inaudible 00:22:55] Strongly against communism, Vietnam being part of it. But they held on against communism, and when those individuals that came back [inaudible] I am serving four years in the war I was just strongly as a country man [inaudible].
SM (00:23:14):
I referred earlier to the fact that sociologists and historians will say that 15 percent of the boomers, which is 76 million, really got involved with some sort of activism. And that could be liberals or conservatives. Whatever their stance was at that time on different issues. Some have said that that is a lessening of the impact of this generation has had, because they will say only 15 percent were really involved, 85 percent went on with their lives and did not really care about the issues. And thus, when you look at today and you see that their children do not vote and they do not vote that that 85 percent is having greater impact than the 15 percent as they have gotten older. Your thoughts on that and whether you feel that that kind of mentality is lessening the impact again on the boomers and their involvement in the issues of the time. Whether it be against racism, sexism, some of the issues linked to the movements.
RC (00:24:04):
I do not really know. Are you saying that they had no impact at 15 percent?
SM (00:24:12):
No, they had impact, but by saying that they had only 15 percent of them were involved was really 85 percent were not involved.
RC (00:24:21):
And they were involved in it at some extent in that they were carrying on the tradition of our society, the institutions, home, family, jobs.
SM (00:24:32):
They were involved.
RC (00:24:32):
To that extent though they have been part of what America is all about. [inaudible] by the activists. People talking about the way that you should be. Why should we take everything verbatim or per se or [inaudible] follow along, let us have some questions. Which I think I think that generation did that asking questions. And it did help change the [inaudible] problems of society. In the (19)60s with the civil rights movement, all this questioning of the status quo that everybody could be talking about it and [inaudible] who has to decide [inaudible] the debates started back in [inaudible] there was no debate in the (19)50s [inaudible].
SM (00:25:25):
I have been to the Vietnam Memorial, we got four more minutes on this side of the tape, I have been to the Vietnam Memorial many times. I am sure you have in Washington. Obviously when that wall was built, it was meant to be a nonpolitical statement. It was to pay on honor tribute to those who served. Knowing that in this nation the Vietnam veterans were not treated properly when they returned. And it was in a Jan Scrubs and the people involved in that, they did a tremendous job. And they certainly have encouraged many morals around the country like you that were involved in here as a nonpolitical entity. So, we were getting into the aspect of one of the goals of that wall, which was the healing. The healing of not only the Vietnam veterans and their families and loved ones. But just basically the divisions that took place in America at that time, even by those who were for and against the war. Those who served those who did not serve. Your thoughts on the healing process in America as 1997 with respect to, has the nation healed from this war? Which was one of the goals of the wall. And has it healed up certain groups more than others? And in what areas do we still have a long way to go with respect to healing and bringing our nation together because there were so many divisions at that time?
RC (00:26:46):
Well actually the first thing that brought the healing was when they had the unknown soldier from Vietnam [inaudible] at Washington. People filed by that by the millions I guess. [inaudible] realize, yes Anne.
Anne (00:27:06):
Pardon me, I just want to let you know that it is ice cream.
RC (00:27:08):
Okay.
SM (00:27:12):
People started filing by that.
RC (00:27:15):
[inaudible] then realizing that this guy gave up his life for his [inaudible] in Vietnam, it is still a dead American [inaudible]. That was really the first step, that soldier. And then the second one was the wall. When they built that that caused some problems too because to look at a black gash in another [inaudible]. It was pretty impressive to see [inaudible] two of those were really the beginning to getting over the Vietnam war. [inaudible] when it was the Gulf war [inaudible] when I served in [inaudible] to Washington [inaudible] started painting. There is still parts of society that think there is no healing. The blacks are real with the world. I think most of the problems commonly caused by Vietnam are probably behind us.
SM (00:28:17):
[inaudible]. Again, and we will go to the ice cream. The issue of the divisions. I have been to the wall and had a chance to try to get an ambiance or feel. I feel I must be there to get a feel amongst the veterans as I talked to them. I Got to know Jan and Joe Galloway and some of the people down there. I have brought students to the wall. I do hear things like we can never forgive Bill Clinton, he was the typical draft dodger. We will never forgive Jane Fonda. And obviously she's a lightning rod. But the question is, is this an issue in the lives of Vietnam veterans or is it an issue in your life that, I have moved on with my life time heals everything, the wall was doing a great job, but the divisions of that time, tremendous divisiveness, the lax, the shouting, the disrespect, all these qualities that some people may say have been transferred today into our everyday dialogue. Is it a direct result of that time? And where is the healing over some of these things?
RC (00:29:25):
I guess we are pretty [inaudible]. I do not think people like Clinton would go to clearly manipulate the system. To an extent they did not like [inaudible] because he had [inaudible]. One-time government had [inaudible] of the guy [inaudible]. The cherry-picked people on the [inaudible]. People like [inaudible] Clinton did it [inaudible] then he bailed out and went to Canada.
SM (00:29:53):
Fulbright helped him, Senator Fulbright was one of the biggest advocates against the war eventually.
RC (00:30:00):
I will not say too much, [inaudible] politicians can be.
SM (00:30:02):
Do you want to get that ice cream now, and [inaudible]. What are your thoughts on people like David Horowitz, or anybody from the left at that era who have become conservatives to the extreme right. Which David Horowitz has become. And of course, he was the editor at Ramparts magazine, now he is one of the leading conservatives going around the country bashing the boomers who were protesting the war and issues of civil rights. Your thoughts on those people who were on the left, who have just totally did an about face and that are condemning those who did not.
RC (00:30:45):
Maybe they saw the light. Maybe they saw that they were wrong. You cannot condemn a person. You can point it out that he was wrong, and then try to make amends for it. That just sounds like what the guy is trying to do. Could have made a moon [inaudible].
SM (00:31:02):
He is one of the biggest names out there now, of people on the college campus, speaking to a lot of different issues like that.
RC (00:31:09):
People actually come here?
SM (00:31:10):
Yes, he is drawing good numbers.
RC (00:31:13):
I was always amazed too [inaudible] I was running for DA or something. They said come [inaudible] be like two people, three people.
SM (00:31:29):
So [inaudible].
RC (00:31:33):
So, I guess the liberal [inaudible] sort of party in the background. Have you ever studied [inaudible] to some extent he was.
SM (00:31:43):
Just check this man. What do you feel your impact has been on society as a boomer? A person who now is in a very prestigious position. But if you were to look at your, as boomers felt they were going to be change agents for the betterment of the world, do you feel as a boomer or a little bit older than a boomer that you fall in that category?
RC (00:32:10):
[inaudible] I was born in (19)44.
SM (00:32:13):
You are in that area because a lot of people [inaudible] feel they are boomers right up to 55 and 56, even though they do not fall into the category.
RC (00:32:23):
[inaudible] maybe I have had some impact on society. Being an assistant DA, clearing the streets of criminals has some impact. [inaudible] being the DA of the city. Just fix it. It has had some impact on society. And with all the people on death row, it does not matter who [inaudible]. And then this job I am in now is in Speak with Justice, we have an impact on the law an- the structure of [inaudible]. I am trying to bring our hardcore [inaudible] towards the leftist positions [inaudible] personal rights [inaudible] everything else.
SM (00:33:12):
Do you see yourself running for political office again down the road?
RC (00:33:18):
Well I do not know, I could probably be in this job for 20 years [inaudible]. But what I am doing in this job is high level work. [inaudible] respect most of us. Mostly the lawyers. A larger section of society, never can say never. That is what my buddy Bob Dole is going to be president. I might have a shot at the US Supreme Court. What does a [inaudible] war veteran [inaudible]. I might someday [inaudible]. The way politics are now it is a whole different subject. Airing it all on TV and all negative with your opponents.
SM (00:34:04):
What is the lasting legacy of the boomer generation?
RC (00:34:09):
It would probably be much [inaudible] anything specific. [inaudible] that make people a little more skeptical and questioning about what goes on in society. [inaudible] anybody suggest anything.
SM (00:34:26):
[inaudible] would say women have gotten better equality over time because of the movement.
RC (00:34:34):
I guess I could [inaudible] civil rights.
SM (00:34:37):
Straight into the [inaudible] lasting legacy, but historians always have this mentality. Well the best history books are yet to be written. And or the best history books will be written in 50 years or 25 years. I am trying to look down the road 25 to 50 years when supposedly the best books are going to be written. Well, how do you think historians are going to treat that period from the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, during those times. The impact on America is changing [inaudible].
RC (00:35:07):
I think they are going to probably see the impact on the world, what we did to the world specifically [inaudible] and some of its allies’ cause [inaudible] that is 11 a year [inaudible] to some extent totalitarian. But one thing is our system of government and our economics system and the freedoms that are [inaudible]. Someone is going to [inaudible] that would be known as tox Americana. Just remind [inaudible] you got to go back to the early (19)60s or (19)70s. That is when there was to some extent [inaudible]. You can always go back to world war two, and then America stepping into Korea. [inaudible] a stronger face against communism. [inaudible] Russia is a [inaudible] country now. I guess the Russians must be [inaudible] to [inaudible] stay strong. And then we go in there and [inaudible] collapse. Nothing [inaudible]. To an extent all the generations had their war too.
SM (00:36:24):
Back to a question we talked about earlier about the healing process within the generation. Do you think it's possible to heal within a generation if the differences in opinions were so extreme? If so, is it important to try to assist in this healing process? Some of this book, project dealing with metaphors people's lives and their opinions historically and personally, is to say that there is no really clear-cut answers. There just needs to be better understanding how people felt. So that this mentality of saying that my opinion's better than someone else's or the pointing of fingers. We need to just really sit down and try to understand people better. How do you feel again about this healing? The effort to heal, Especially from the divisions of the war.
RC (00:37:12):
[inaudible] I guess all you really need to do is talk to a person. [inaudible]. I will never forgive the people [inaudible] Canada. [inaudible] Clinton [inaudible] Jane Fonda always preaching about the war itself [inaudible]. And then there is [inaudible] Americans [inaudible] let us lose the women thing or just being [inaudible].
SM (00:37:48):
How would you compare people who say that the Vietnam War, it may not have been the civil war in America of the 1860s, but it still was a civil war and it was a coming civil war. We were pretty close to a civil war. And your thoughts on people who thought that the many people went to their graves after the civil war without healing toward the other side or forgiving the other side. And that this generation of boomers are going to be going to their graves with still the bitterness in their heart. Thoughts on that kind of thought.
RC (00:38:24):
Well I do not really know if anybody is bitter anymore. I lost a leg in Vietnam and I am not bitter about having [inaudible]. I do not think there is a lot of people that to me seem to give much thought about it anymore. [inaudible] every waking moment or dwelling moment. [inaudible] is 25 years old and whether it is [inaudible].
SM (00:38:58):
How about this issue with trust? People will say, and again, I am using terminology, but we sense that there is a lack of trust in America today toward elected officials, people in positions of power and responsibility, whether they be Governors, Congressmen, Senators, principles of high schools.
RC (00:39:17):
Supreme Court Justices.
SM (00:39:18):
Right, Supreme Court Justices, Ministers, CEO, heads of corporations. Because the establishment, there was an attack against the establishment at that time. And that some of the mentality is never trusted people in positions of power and responsibility. And somehow that carried on to the children of today the Xers. Your thoughts on that and where we are in America with respect to trust and how serious that is in American thing.
RC (00:39:43):
I think I mentioned earlier we had a sense of skepticism in the institutions of [inaudible]. Skepticism is still there. Yeah, maybe it is good [inaudible] you cannot just go [inaudible], I think that is just skepticism which [inaudible].
SM (00:40:12):
The lack of trust all the young people have [inaudible] many boomers who are now over 50.
RC (00:40:16):
I do not know if it is a lack of trust or if it is skepticism.
SM (00:40:17):
Okay.
RC (00:40:18):
We accept it we just do not [inaudible] newspapers so they would do something [inaudible]. Not some big investigation. [inaudible] as they are. [inaudible] say what is this really about, was it a political move, was it this and that. So since [inaudible] question by the press, it is the next step that may be more cynical that everybody else.
SM (00:40:52):
As person who served and went to war, lost a leg, but really went when your nation called, do you feel strongly toward those who did the same? And I will come back, what are your thoughts as a person cared about America and then saw elected officials lie to America, Lyndon Johnson and some people say the Gulf and [inaudible] revolution was made up. We never really should have gone to war. So how Johnson treated the war, obviously you have already made commentary on McNamara, who ran the war. Or did not [inaudible]. And then what you saw with Nixon and Watergate. And then just a lack of trust in public officials because they lied to the Americans. And yet you went to Vietnam, served your country. And then you see the politicians back home lying. Just your thoughts. It does not have to do with you being a Republican or Democrat, just being human. Just your thoughts on those leaders of those times.
RC (00:41:49):
Yeah, there's a lot of veterans [inaudible]. I remember I had taken [inaudible 00:41:59]. I think we were sitting [inaudible] book and donate it to some veteran’s hospital or something [inaudible]. What was the question [inaudible]?
SM (00:42:16):
Just your thoughts on the impact it had on you after you served, came back and then saw all this and witnessed all this. What you are feeling as a young man. And then but you still went on and served your country and you are going [inaudible] office. And you have done a lot of good things, but still it had to have an impact on you in some way.
RC (00:42:34):
[inaudible] impact on me was [inaudible] when I was in Vietnam. It only took me about two weeks to figure out [inaudible] screwed up. And then that is the first thing you did when you got there they sat us [inaudible] rules of engagement. Do not fire at them unless you are [inaudible] casually. Then they would send you out on some stupid patrol when you come back, they'd send you out again on another stupid patrol. [inaudible] that is what we did, that is how it was doomed to fail. [inaudible].
SM (00:43:17):
Did you feel when you were going to go to political office, I am never going to be in like Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson or Robert McNamara? [inaudible 00:43:2] that was an inspiration to be better than them?
RC (00:43:27):
I guess I did go over to [inaudible] teach you a system to use [inaudible] trial advocacy and structure of the DA's office. Got these new DA's in [inaudible] your word is your bond [inaudible] people trust you [inaudible]. [inaudible] that is what people would trust [inaudible]. There is always going to be a first for people [inaudible]. So maybe let us say all these guys filled in like they did with Johnson [inaudible] suckered into a war that we could have won but did not win.
SM (00:44:17):
All the events when you read on from that period, from high school, college years and the years that you served, one event in America, one event that stands out of all others that had the greatest impact on you, what was that event?
RC (00:44:31):
Event in America?
SM (00:44:34):
Yeah, at that time it could be in Vietnam or there was one specific instance. People say the assassination of John Kennedy. Everything is different, everybody said a different [inaudible].
RC (00:44:49):
[inaudible].
SM (00:44:54):
Kennedy was that experience of his dad telling him that.
RC (00:44:56):
[inaudible].
SM (00:45:04):
Experience informed who you are, that you were injured?
RC (00:45:15):
[inaudible] a different person, that is for sure. I will not stay in the [inaudible].
SM (00:45:16):
One of the terms that always comes out of the youth of the (19)60s is the concept of empowerment, feeling that my voice counts, that people are listening to me. And so students on college campuses, even though they may have been radical and doing a lot of these things, there was a sense of maybe some might say euphoria, but there was a sense of empowerment that I can be a change agent. I am going to help end this war. I am going to help have civil rights and equality for a lot of different people in America. Do you feel this empowerment has continued amongst the 70 something million boomers as they have gone into adult life. And do you feel they have transferred this to their children, this sense of empowerment, which is basically self-esteem?
RC (00:45:56):
I guess that is one of the changes that happened in the (19)60s from the (19)50s. It seemed like in the (19)50s and early (19)60s the older you were the more you were respected and listened to. If you were young you were just the opposite, you were not listened to. So [inaudible] the younger folks with the experience of [inaudible] free speech [inaudible] school [inaudible] wrote an editorial about that. [inaudible] are you saying what a good thing it was [inaudible] the university [inaudible] your kids.
SM (00:46:38):
[inaudible].
RC (00:46:39):
That is changed entirely. I guess Kennedy [inaudible] that when this started [inaudible]. And so, the-the thinking is I got him, a college kid, [inaudible] somebody ought to listen to him. But I think that still carries on, we still have young people today, we dismiss them just because they're young. Kids can have good ideas and kids can participate [inaudible 00:47:09]. That was probably one of the main [inaudible] in our society [inaudible].
SM (00:47:18):
What event do you think defines the boomers then? And not your personal experience, but if there was one event in that timeframe [inaudible] that really defines the boomers.
RC (00:47:28):
Obviously, I could not ignore the [inaudible] it was just what was happening. Civil rights and women's rights [inaudible].
SM (00:47:37):
Coalition of many things?
RC (00:47:38):
Yeah, [inaudible].
SM (00:47:44):
I am going to just list a lot of names here. Just your overall, maybe a couple of sentences, thoughts on each of them. Positive or negative, your thoughts on them and maybe the thoughts that boomers may have had for these people. The first two are Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden.
RC (00:48:00):
She was a traitor, she should still get prosecuted. I know she tried to apologize a couple of years ago [inaudible]. She has never be forgiven [inaudible]. I think somebody [inaudible] of her sitting in that anti-aircraft gun, [inaudible] Jane the star. And [inaudible] Vietnam [inaudible].
SM (00:48:18):
Tom Hayden.
RC (00:48:18):
I do not know if [inaudible] protester or hell raiser, [inaudible] in California [inaudible]. I saw that [inaudible].
SM (00:48:43):
I saw them at Kent State. I saw them at the fourth anniversary of the killings at Kent State, and they were not speaking, they came together. And I will never forget being in that room with them, talking about what happened at Kent State, it was amazing. But she was certainly different. How about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin the-the Yippies.
RC (00:49:05):
They were just a bunch of nutty guys that is all. If today you saw them you would say, man what are these guys? It's like some kind of throwbacks or some kind of hippies.
SM (00:49:17):
You remember when Abbie Hoffman died, it was in the news. He died over in Bucks County, he had $2,500 in the bank and he had given all of the money away to help people. And he left a note, and the note said that he killed himself. He was an impressive man. But no one was ever listening to me so he just did not want to go on with his life because one was listening anymore. And I said, well maybe the eccentricity is on this man, but are many boomers feeling the same way who cared about the issues of that time? And maybe society is not treating those issues the same way as they did then. Like young people are not listening as much to those issues. And that is why it kind of affects more boomers than just an Abbie Hoffman. Are people listening anymore to some of those issues?
RC (00:50:05):
[inaudible] I did not forget what Abbie Hoffman [inaudible].
SM (00:50:16):
How about Dr. Benjamin Spock.
RC (00:50:19):
He probably always [inaudible]. I guess his philosophy was let your kids do [inaudible]. A lot of [inaudible].
SM (00:50:30):
Timothy Leary.
RC (00:50:33):
He is another crack pot. Oh, he was probably far more dangerous in that era. He would have [inaudible] I guess all types not just LSD, I think he was everything. [inaudible 00:50:47] take another drug [inaudible]. Some people would have followed that. Not specifically because he said it, but because there was this feeling of they were like yeah, it was not such a bad thing. [inaudible] not have the potential to really [inaudible] our society.
SM (00:51:05):
What about the black power advocates, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver that whole group, the black power movement and their impact on America? And your thoughts on it.
RC (00:51:15):
They had some legitimate gripes, there is no doubt about that. The blacks were oppressed to some extent by systems of government and the institution of government, the police and all that stuff. They still are [inaudible] Martin Luther King. But he changed the system, non-violent, said violence was not a very good thing.
SM (00:51:41):
That leads me right into Dr. King, your thoughts on Dr. King and Malcolm X.
RC (00:51:48):
[inaudible] I was there when [inaudible]. Everybody in the south canceled their subscriptions to Time when they [inaudible] I think his impact is going to be greater [inaudible] radical change in the south. And he did not even know it too and he did it within the system, he used civil protest.
SM (00:52:19):
Thoughts on Malcolm X.
RC (00:52:22):
I guess Malcolm was [inaudible] he got other people to be in tune [inaudible] he would be secretly [inaudible] and all that stuff [inaudible]. He was a really good leader, he was [inaudible]. He was even more strict than Baptist rules and Catholic rules.
SM (00:52:47):
Some of the political leaders of that time and we're going to go into the presidents here. Just a few comments on Lyndon Johnson.
RC (00:52:54):
He was actually the most impacted society [inaudible] president. [inaudible] was passed under him. All the civil rights laws were passed under him. Medicare and Medicaid, he created that. That is [inaudible]. The housing act, I think he did that. I think he passed six or seven major legislation. Impact on us is [inaudible].
SM (00:53:30):
Then John Kennedy.
RC (00:53:33):
He did not do that much did he. There is a lot of myth about it was Lyndon Johnson that did the stuff. [inaudible]. So, the most of the things they say about him are not even his work. [inaudible].
SM (00:53:51):
Richard Nixon.
RC (00:53:53):
He would [inaudible]. He was part of I guess the old two government [inaudible]. That government was the be all and the end all [inaudible]. But he did open [inaudible]. Any thoughts, I guess he helped to end the Vietnam war. It has always been a weird [inaudible].
SM (00:54:19):
Your thoughts on that combination of Nixon and Kissinger because the fact that in 1968 when he came in and promised Vietnamization, that he was going to end the war but he would not say how he was going to end the war. We just went over the 30,000 point of deaths in Vietnam, which means when he became president over 28,000 more Americans died in Vietnam. It took him four to five years to pull out and your thoughts on, we know how many Vietnam veterans feel about McNamara, but how do you feel about Kissinger who succeeded him in the Nixon administration, and Nixon and how long it took them to get out.
RC (00:55:04):
I guess they were always of the mind to get out, but they wanted to get out with some kind of [inaudible]. Did not want to just pack up and pull out. There was nothing wrong with it, once you made a commitment you have allies working with you and there was a lot of people in Vietnam who work with us and if we just packed up and left they would be dead meat [inaudible]. But they stalled on that one too long. At least [inaudible] put Jim on the trail to [inaudible].
SM (00:55:44):
Is there a bitterness toward Kissinger like there is towards, not in... Is there some bitterness toward Kissinger though?
RC (00:56:00):
[inaudible 00:55:53]. Yes Anne?
Anne (00:56:00):
[inaudible].
RC (00:56:03):
Okay. [inaudible] that is too slow and knew what they were doing. [inaudible].
SM (00:56:04):
How about Gerry Ford?
RC (00:56:10):
Gerry, [inaudible] Gerry. I know Gerry Ford. He was actually a good president. He surrounded himself with smart people. And I guess that idiot McNamara was [inaudible]
SM (00:56:27):
I do not think so.
RC (00:56:27):
[inaudible]
SM (00:56:38):
A couple more names and we will be done. Can you [inaudible] on this [inaudible]. Some of the other names, George Wallace.
RC (00:56:46):
George, I knew George personally. He sign my diploma from Auburn, I have spoken to him several times. He was Governor[inaudible]. I knew him personally [inaudible] segregationist. Going back to the south of the (19)30s and the (19)20s, deeper Alabama [inaudible].
SM (00:57:11):
How about Hubert Humphrey?
RC (00:57:18):
[inaudible] I do not think he did much as far as I can tell.
SM (00:57:18):
Do you think we would have been out of the war sooner if he became present?
RC (00:57:26):
Maybe, but I do not think anybody who got in could get out that easily or quickly [inaudible] because there is some major problems in and of itself. [inaudible] give you the war [inaudible].
SM (00:57:41):
How about Bobby Kennedy?
RC (00:57:42):
That idiot got us into it in the first place, [inaudible] over to Vietnam. They're just sending the [inaudible] advisors [inaudible].
SM (00:58:01):
How about Eugene McCarthy?
RC (00:58:03):
Eugene was all right. I guess [inaudible]. Some of the things he says were true about Vietnam [inaudible]. Was it really worth the life of one American? The Vietnamese did not care. Most of the Vietnamese were locked in a time warp, they lived in the 16th century. They might have had a radio in the village hall. They were just agricultural people growing rice and selling it and carrying on the-the generation. And not much had changed since [inaudible] 1500s. You have electricity in most of the places [inaudible]. They're houses did not have floors, they were dirt floors [inaudible].
SM (00:58:47):
George McGovern.
RC (00:58:47):
[inaudible] I guess he spoke out the most on [inaudible]. He was shown to be correct in some of the things he said. I remember Eugene McCarthy [inaudible].
SM (00:59:13):
Yes. Governor in (19)72, the democratic nominee.
RC (00:59:19):
[inaudible]. Was McCarthy a third party?
SM (00:59:21):
No, he was a Democrat and [inaudible] Bobby, there is a bitterness between the two of them, because Bobby said he went [inaudible].
RC (00:59:30):
Interesting.
SM (00:59:33):
(19)68 was quite a year.
RC (00:59:38):
[inaudible] was Humphrey [inaudible].
SM (00:59:38):
Humphrey Muskie.
RC (00:59:43):
Is Muskie still alive?
SM (00:59:43):
He died.
RC (00:59:43):
Really?
SM (00:59:45):
Died a year ago. He had severe Parkinson's disease and he had a bad heart.
RC (00:59:55):
Now he was old enough to be in history books, during the (19)60s.
SM (00:59:56):
I will recommend a book for you to read, it just came out by Joles Woodcover, he is from the Baltimore sun. It is a call 1968 a year in memory. I am just finishing, it is 500 pages, you will not be able to put it down. It basically goes over that entire year. So, as you are reading it you reflect about where you were in (19)68. Spiro Agnew.
RC (01:00:32):
I guess he was kind of a nice family guy, a young local celeb [inaudible] have much impact on.
SM (01:00:32):
But he created a lot of the lack of civility and dialogue with his assignment to go out on college campuses and really blast people. If you read (19)68 the book by [inaudible] even Richard Nixon was a little concerned about how far to the extreme he went sometimes. And he did not put a lid on it, but he embarrassed the president many times.
RC (01:00:55):
I guess [inaudible] civil dialogue and name calling. Because that was his specialty was to look up in the dictionary [inaudible]. But that was one of his [inaudible].
SM (01:01:06):
Neil [inaudible] wrote a speech for him.
RC (01:01:13):
That is another nut.
SM (01:01:16):
Phil [inaudible].
RC (01:01:16):
Phil [inaudible] somethings of some [inaudible] except when he called somebody one time.
SM (01:01:24):
Barry Goldwater.
RC (01:01:27):
I always liked Barry Goldwater, he was [inaudible]. I think he introduced me [inaudible] to the extent that world war two [inaudible] combat [inaudible] until he defends civil liberty [inaudible]. That man was something else. He had good ideas. And he was sort of carrying on the old style [inaudible].
SM (01:01:55):
There has been several books written on him in the last couple of years. They were waiting for his book. Everybody else was writing about him but when is his book coming out. Muhammad Ali.
RC (01:02:09):
He was another draft dodger. I remember him saying he is not going, I think his [inaudible] suspended him.
SM (01:02:18):
Yeah, four years at least.
RC (01:02:18):
[inaudible].
SM (01:02:18):
I read his book and he was a [inaudible] objector and he was based on his faith.
RC (01:02:23):
[inaudible] Muslims to me [inaudible] peaceful.
SM (01:02:28):
I saw him speak at the Ohio theater after I got out of grad school, when he was suspended. And he took the $3,500 in cash that was given to them and he handed it back and said, use it for a children's center. He did not take any money. He did not need it. So, it was amazing when I saw that.
RC (01:02:49):
Historically speaking that religion was a pretty [inaudible] religion.
SM (01:02:56):
Thoughts on the women leaders of that time, Gloria Steinem Betty Friedan, Abella [inaudible] the first Congresswoman [inaudible 01:03:05] power. And then Shirley Chisholm came in that. some of the women political leaders who turned things around for the women's movement.
RC (01:03:12):
I thought they were all generally great. A lot of the things they did, 40 percent [inaudible 01:03:19] somewhere along the line it would have been 2 percent. [inaudible] a lot of legitimate things to say [inaudible].
SM (01:03:30):
Some of the people from Watergate are John Dean and John Mitchell. Some of the people that were the operatives in the White House during that time, who were the staff of Richard Nixon, those people.
RC (01:03:43):
I guess John Mitchell was the old style, the president was always right [inaudible] whatever we do. John Dean was sort of like I guess he was [inaudible]. How old was he when he ratted out the president?
SM (01:04:00):
33 I believe. That is very young.
RC (01:04:01):
[inaudible]
SM (01:04:05):
And I guess he [inaudible].
RC (01:04:08):
At least [inaudible] Mr. President [inaudible].
SM (01:04:11):
How about Daniel Ellsberg?
RC (01:04:19):
I never was quite sure what is that thing was all about. I know he had some papers [inaudible] showed that Vietnam was one of those [inaudible].
SM (01:04:26):
[inaudible].
RC (01:04:30):
Yeah, hopefully [inaudible].
SM (01:04:33):
What about Ralph Nader who is still living with the activism of today in a different area.
RC (01:04:39):
He is okay. He is sometimes pushing the envelope. So, for somebody sticking up small causes, causes that that nobody else is sticking up for.
SM (01:04:51):
I want to say this, someone on authority told me this, that you cannot find anything negative against the guy because he lives in a small apartment in Washington. He washes his own clothes. Never got married. I do not think he even owns a car. It is amazing that you cannot get anything in the guy because I think several political leaders try to, including Richard Nixon. They could not find anything. There was nothing negative. He practiced what he preached. He makes good money, but he just lives a very simple life. His causes are his life.
RC (01:05:21):
Ever heard about [inaudible] he would not be as vehement if he worked in [inaudible].
SM (01:05:29):
Oh no, common cause was John Gardner. He started that, [inaudible] out of state. I am pretty sure.... Dwight Eisenhower.
RC (01:05:40):
He was a good man. He was a war hero [inaudible] but I guess to some extent it is true.
SM (01:05:48):
And the music of the year, the music that symbolize the (19)60s, when you had Janice Chaplain, Jimmy Hendrix, The Doors, The Beatles, all that music. Because that played a very important part in the war protest. Just that whole era of the music of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, which are really [inaudible].
RC (01:06:08):
I like the music of the (19)60s [inaudible].
SM (01:06:11):
[inaudible] Jim Morrison.
RC (01:06:14):
That there was excess of those people. And they were part of it, pushing [inaudible] electronic.
SM (01:06:36):
Mayor Daley from Chicago.
RC (01:06:39):
He made that city work. He was the old guard [inaudible] Nixon. [inaudible] like his father.
SM (01:06:59):
And once now in the Clinton administration too. That ends the basic questions. My final question is, are there any thoughts that, passing words of wisdom you might say with respect to this business about the healing again? Because again, this project is geared toward each individual's own historical perspective and also the metaphor part of their life. If you were to put in a capsule what that era has meant to you, just your own personal feelings of your young years. What it was like to be a teenager in the (19)60s, to grow up in the (19)50s, in the (19)60s and then the (19)70s to serve your country and come back. If you were share some final thoughts on your growing up years.
RC (01:07:47):
I do not know, I guess I started off in the (19)50s when it was more laid back. In school it was high school. I was on the team. I was captain of the basketball team. [inaudible] cheerleader and all that stuff [inaudible] it is going to make me step up to the plate. And things never changed, [inaudible] a career, whatever. What made me kind of step up to the plate [inaudible] things were changing. I was probably a little radicalized [inaudible] in the (19)60s. [inaudible] free speech. The importance of having students on the prestige of the university. [inaudible] I was considered a radical.
SM (01:08:42):
Were you a Democrat then?
RC (01:08:44):
Probably republican at that time. Being with the military, I can tell you when I was in college I was supporting Johnson, [inaudible] Johnson. At that time [inaudible] If you were working for [inaudible] because with Johnson [inaudible].
SM (01:09:02):
Think a lot of Vietnam veterans, because of that experience became Republicans as opposed to Democrats, because they looked at McNamara and Johnson. And of course, history will show Kennedy, you got to see him and realize he may have gotten this out but do you think a lot of veterans, did you experienced a lot of people that changed?
RC (01:09:20):
And they made them republicans and we did not call them that in the military service. [inaudible] from us all the military.
SM (01:09:31):
Final question is getting back to the wall in Washington. And then 1992, this is the 15th anniversary coming up. We are expecting a big turnout in Washington. It is amazing a time place. But again, your thoughts on the impact that the wall has had on America.
RC (01:09:51):
I think it is important [inaudible] see the names on it. It feels like having that statute they put up to [inaudible].
SM (01:09:59):
[inaudible]
RC (01:09:59):
[inaudible]
SM (01:10:02):
Over there.
RC (01:10:06):
Yeah, they [inaudible]. I think it is like they were in combat and they came in on the last patrol and they had 58,000 [inaudible]. Yeah, I think the wall is a [inaudible] of America. However, there was never a film of the war, you never see it. [inaudible]. I think it has made people appreciate the service individual. They [inaudible] anything else to do. But at least they see that those individuals are not [inaudible].
SM (01:10:46):
Do you think that, follow up for that, this last question [inaudible] coming from me, that the greatest amount of healing from the Vietnam veteran, and because now we see the first ambassador back in Vietnam who was a former POW Mr. Peterson. And there seems to be a lot of forgiving between the people who fought the war. Almost a kind of respect because of a warrior, you had your duty and we had our duty. So, there is more healing between Vietnam veterans and Vietnam and America than there is between Vietnam veterans and those who protested against the war, some divisions here. Do you think that is a good analogy and can we ever, as Jan has been trying to do with the wall, bring people together to have the ultimate healing, which is finally saying, I am sorry, I was young then, I want to be able to be a friend of a Vietnam veteran. I want you to understand where I was coming from, because I think there is a lot of guilt amongst many people when they go to that wall, where boomers who take their kids, and I did not serve. That even though they may not have tried to get out of the war, there is got to be... Everybody that I have ever talked to that goes to the wall, whether they served or did not serve, has this feeling. There's feelings, it touches people. It brings back the memories. I am just trying to find out about your thoughts on the final healing process.
RC (01:12:06):
Yeah, it is [inaudible] significantly. It was one of the major events that began the healing process. With other towns like us, we did five years after, we built our memorial, sort of right down to a local level. It was all started by that one unknown soldier leaving Vietnam and it sort of spread out [inaudible]. You see Vietnam mentioned all over the world.
SM (01:12:34):
Is Clinton's visit to the wall important for the healing?
RC (01:12:36):
[inaudible].
SM (01:12:40):
Because President Bush did not even go to the wall, but at least Bill Clinton did. I do not think Ronald-
RC (01:12:44):
[inaudible] Bush [inaudible].
SM (01:12:45):
He was asked, he just did not want to go. And I know that for a fact. He was asked, and he said no.
RC (01:12:51):
Similar to the [inaudible] too much.
SM (01:12:52):
Bill Clinton was asked and he was going to refuse but still went. So, I do not know if that was like the second visit to the wall, how important that was toward the healing and then the generation.
RC (01:13:09):
[inaudible] sort of hide what they did. Not hide it but [inaudible].
SM (01:13:14):
Any final thoughts?
RC (01:13:15):
You have to live with your past [inaudible].
SM (01:13:18):
Any final thoughts at all, anything you want to add?
RC (01:13:21):
No. I guess [inaudible].
SM (01:13:29):
I hope that is not the case. Thank you very much.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Ron Castille
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Castille, Ronald D. ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Marines; Pennsylvania. Supreme Court; Judges; Castille, Ronald D.--Interviews
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Ronald D. Castille served on the US Supreme Court in Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2014 and was promoted to the Chief Justice in 2008, staying until 2014. Castille retired from office at the age of 70. He received his Bachelor of Science in Economics from Auburn University. He joined the U.S Marine Corps and received several awards along his journey. Castille received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law after his medical retirement from the Marine Corps.
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1997-07-16
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McKiernan Interviews
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73:36
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McKiernan Interviews
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Date of Interview
2009-12-10
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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Roger Clegg
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Roger Clegg is the President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He specializes in legal issues arising from civil rights laws including immigration and bilingual education. Clegg received his Bachelor's degree from Rice University and is a graduate of Yale University Law School. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6531,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Roger Clegg is the President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He specializes in legal issues arising from civil rights laws including immigration and bilingual education. Clegg received his Bachelor's degree from Rice University and is a graduate of Yale University Law School. </span>
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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2 Microcassettes
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Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam War; Bill Buckley; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Kent State; Watergate; Richard Nixon; Counter Culture; Hippies; Yippies; The Black Panthers; Baby boom generation; President Obama."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">Vietnam War; Bill Buckley; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Kent State; Watergate; Richard Nixon; Counter Culture; Hippies; Yippies; The Black Panthers; Baby boom generation; President Obama</span>
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160:15
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Lawyers; Center for Equal Opportunity; Clegg, Roger--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Roger Clegg
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 10 December 2009
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:04):
Testing. One, two. I was not checking. First off, thank you very much for participating in this project.
RC (00:00:21):
Sure.
SM (00:00:21):
First question I would like to ask is, when you think of the (19)60s what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
RC (00:00:29):
I think of unrest, I guess. The protests, the anti-war protests, civil rights movement, riots, a very unsettled time. I think of the politics. I think of it as being a very political, politicized decade. I should say that I was born in 1955, so by the end of the (19)60s I was certainly politically aware, and was becoming interested in following politics. I was only five or six years old, so less so.
SM (00:01:32):
How did you become who you are? I have been asking this probably for the last 50 people that I have been interviewing. How did you become who you are as a person? Was there some magic moment in your life when you were in high school, college where you kind of knew the direction you were going, or the thought you had? Was there anything during that time when Boomers were young, and you were right in the middle of the Boomers in terms of (19)55 because it goes from (19)46 to (19)64.
RC (00:02:07):
I think in terms of my professional life and what I decided to do as a career, I have always been interested in politics, in history. I do not think that there was one particular moment where it dawned on me that this was something interesting. This is something that I have always been interested in. I think that I have always been a conservative with a libertarian streak. That is been true for a long time as well. And so, you put those two together and I am now a conservative lawyer. I do not think that there was a particular defining moment. That was something that was part of my makeup early on. I did not always want to be a lawyer. I tell people that the course that I took in college that persuaded me to be a lawyer was biochemistry. Up until then, I was thinking also medical school. I just decided, this is my junior year, that I really was more interested and more comfortable, better at political science and history, and things like that. That made the decision for me that I was going to go to law school.
SM (00:04:15):
Did you have role models when you were young?
RC (00:04:18):
I was going to say that it will be interesting to see if you have other people that give you this answer. For conservatives of my generation, I think that a lot of them had to have been influenced by Bill Buckley. He was a hero of mine. At that time, I think that there were not a lot of prominent popular culture conservatives. He was really it. Even if there had been others, he was clearly I think a star. I early on starting reading him, subscribing to National Review, watching him on Firing Line. I think he was a very influential person for me. Later on, I read other conservatives too. When I went to law school, one of my professors was Robert Bork. I was older then. This was the late (19)70s by then. When I was coming of age, Buckley was I think the person who was most influential. Obviously, in my own family, I do not want to ignore my parents. My grandfather was somebody who was also... He was not a lawyer, but he was very interested in politics and I had a close relationship with him. In terms of people outside my family, I would have to say it was Buckley. In fact, I remember when not long after I had come to work here, a guy who was also here left to go to work for National Review. I called him and said, "Look, I would love to shake hands with Wayne Buckley. Do you ever see him? It does not have to be a dinner or anything like that. I just want to meet him." He said, "Well, Buckley is getting older now. He does not come to Washington a lot, but he is going to be in Washington for this event at..." We were talking about ISI before and he was going to be I think honored at some ISI event. He said, "I can introduce you there." I got there and it was this huge event. This was before cellphones and all that. Stupidly, I had not arranged ahead of time where I was going to meet my friend. Anyway, what I decided to do was, everybody had to come through this one entrance and get checked in on the guest list. I got there early so I thought, well I will just hang out here and keep my eye peeled. Sure enough, Buckley came by. And so, I just kind of got in line behind him. At some point he turned around and I stuck my hand out. He was so... This was very not characteristic of him. He was so gracious. I said, "Hi, Roger Clegg. I write for National Review," which I was. I was a contributing editor for National Review Online. He just said, "Oh, hello Roger," and stuck out his hand. "It's good to see you. Have you met my wife? Here is my wife. Have you met my son?" Chris Buckley was with him too and everything. Anyway, that was my big moment, meeting my [inaudible]-
SM (00:09:03):
He came to Westchester University. We had him there, and we had him in Phillips Library for the lecture. He was a cool speaker. He was fantastic. He was very tired though. The issue that we had was the auditorium was very hot. It was before they did those renovations. During the program he said, "Can you turn the heat down?" Because it was really affecting him because you could see his face was getting red and everything.
RC (00:09:28):
How old was he?
SM (00:09:30):
We're talking mid (19)90s. Mid (19)90s, and he was a major lecturer there too. He was fantastic. When you think of the Boomer generation, what are some of the characteristics, the positive or the negative qualities, when you look at this 74 million population group?
RC (00:09:51):
Obviously, a group that big it is dangerous to generalize. There is all kinds of people in there. Yeah, when people think of the (19)60s and the Boomers, they think of I guess hippies, and the people who stuck out more. Obviously, not all Boomers were hippies and protesters, and things like that. That is what first comes to mind. I do not know whether it is fair to make generalizations like this. Obviously, we are thinking out loud here. Of course, the events that helped I think sort of shape that generation was the Vietnam War. And of course, a lot of people were understandably skeptical about the war, particularly when it was their own life that was going to be at stake. I think that for technological reasons, with the invention of the pill, the sexual revolution was something else that happened then. For some reason, drug use became more popular then too. These were all things that I associate with the Boomers, and these are all from my perspective are all negative things. I think that the sexual revolution was bad, drug use was bad. I think that the Vietnam War was badly run, but not a, I think what Reagan said, a noble cause. I think that a lot of the anti-war movement was very noble. As I say, all of those are making generalizations about a generation which are generalizations. There were obviously lots of people whom did not participate in the sexual revolution, who did not buy into the counterculture, and it is drug use and all that, and who served honorably and uncomplainingly in Vietnam.
SM (00:14:04):
Some people criticize the Boomer generation as they say that only 15 percent of that generation were involved in any sort of activism. 85 percent were not. I have read in books. When you figure that there is 74 million and 15 percent were involved in some sort of activism in some way, that is a lot of people.
RC (00:14:26):
Right.
SM (00:14:28):
I think sometimes when it is brought up, it is brought up in a way to make it look negative as opposed to looking at the final numbers of those individuals. You are right, other people have told me that it is very hard to generalize 74 million. When you could have 20 people in the room and two are really involved in activism [inaudible]. One of the interesting things that came out, I know when Newt Gingrich came into power in 1994, I read some of his things, speeches and so forth, he made some pretty sharp attacks on the (19)60s generation, the Boomers generation, is a lot of the reasons why we have a lot of problems in our society was a breakdown of the family, the divorce rate, the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority. Even going into the area of victimization. I am not saying he said that, but other people. Then George Will, whenever he gets a chance in his newspaper articles or [inaudible], I have got his books. He will have these little commentaries about this generation in which he is a part, and really make it kind of the same way, that there is more negative than positive. When you hear people like Newt Gingrich, George Will, and others attack this generation for a variety of reasons, [inaudible] problems as they enter society, how do you respond to that?
RC (00:15:53):
I think that... I assume that they are talking not about every person, but about the sort of social trends that marked the (19)60s. It is certainly true that there are... It is sloppy to suggest, if it is being suggested, that... I will not say sloppy. I assume that that is what they are talking about, and I think that anybody would have to agree that there are problems with saying, "These are things that went on the (19)60s. There were a lot of people, Baby Boomers, that supported these things. Therefore, the whole generation should be criticized." There were lots of people who did not share the zeitgeist. Conversely, a lot of the people who were not Baby Boomers also share some of the blame. These folks are following... The hippies had their older role models, Noam Chomsky, or Herbert Marcuse, and people like that. They were not Baby Boomers.
SM (00:17:43):
[inaudible].
RC (00:17:45):
Yeah, so... Norman Mailer, so forth. These people were not Baby Boomers, so you have got to blame them too. On the other hand, I guess that you cannot let people off the hook just because they themselves maybe were not direct participants. Edmund Burke, I think, said that "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for a good man to do nothing." If your friends are using drugs or protesting, or draft-dodging or whatever, and you do not condemn them or ostracize them, or if you smile and nod, well you are part of the problem. The other thing that is going on though is that people like to simplify history, and put things in categories. That is just part of what... This is very pleasing to think of history in terms of decades and generations. We have the (19)20s, and we think of it as being... Everything that happened in the (19)20s has to fit into this model of the Roaring (19)20s and the (19)30s, and so forth. We do that for the (19)60s too, even though there were things going on in the (19)60s that maybe do not really fit in with that model. And by the same token, we do the same thing with generations. We have the Greatest Generation, we have the Boomers, we have Generation X, and so forth, even though those kinds of generalizations are dangerous too. One thing about the Greatest Generation which gets very good press these days is they delay... Well, if you buy into this, you have got the Greatest Generation, and then you have these no-count Baby Boomers. Well, who raised the Baby Boomers? It was the Greatest Generation. So, if you buy into this they... One thing about the Greatest Generation is they must not have been very good parents, or there was some kind of failure there. Anyway.
SM (00:20:51):
Yeah, especially one of the qualities that WWII generation supposedly had was to make sure their sons and daughters were not lacking for things, because they went through the Depression, they went through a horrible war, and they did not want their kids to go through what they went through. They gave them everything, but they still rebelled. They did not rebel in the 1950s, but we are going to get into that a minute, the (19)50s. What are your thoughts on the movements? One of the qualities that is often defined when the Boomer generation is all the movements that were either started, or there was a carry-on mentality. Of course, the civil rights movement was already taking place in the (19)50s, and by the time the earliest Boomer is 46, they were like 18, 19. Many of them did go south though in the summer of (19)63. Talk about the anti-war movement, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano movement, the Native American movement, and the environmental movement. And I know there was even the disability movement was really starting to fledge around that time. Your thoughts on all these movements that came about during this time frame? These movements have been carrying on into today. Are these movements good, bad, or different? Your thoughts on the movements.
RC (00:22:12):
Again, I think you have to look at them individually, and you have to look at them over time. Some of the movements might have started out okay but then went off the rails, or developed splinter groups that were more problematic than the original movement. I am going to just give you a few examples. You have the anti-war movement, and they are... I guess I would be maybe the least sympathetic with it, particularly to the extent that it became Wallace and even revolutionary with the weathermen and the SDS, and so forth. That was the movement that I think was misconceived to begin with because I think that it was a poor... While the Vietnam War was not well-run, the basic idea of resisting communism was a good idea. Certainly, to suggest that people should dodge the draft, that not only was the war a bad idea, but that the Communists were right, and that it's an okay thing to hamper the war efforts in the United States, all of which is truly more extreme parts of the anti-war movement, I think reprehensible. The other extreme though, I think it is difficult not to be very sympathetic with the civil rights movement with respect to equality for African Americans fighting Jim Crow and segregation. I think that that movement and the Boomers who supported that, it is very... I think that they were right. That said though, some of the... There were excesses later on. Excesses is too gentle a word. The riots, the Black Panthers, things like that were reprehensible too. Feminism, I think it is more of a mixed bag. I think that changing the law so that women have more opportunities was a good thing. On the other hand, there were... I think that the feminist movement came to denigrate traditional female roles which I think that is not okay. There is nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home mom. I think that there are some feminists who suggest there is. You just sort of have to go through each of these movements. I think that some of the other ethnic movements, it's a bad thing for Chicanos to be discriminated against because they are Chicanos, just as it is wrong for African Americans to be discriminated against because they are African Americans. On the other hand, that does not justify violence. It does not justify quotas, racial preferences. Those things are bad. Gay rights, again I would be more nuanced than saying that well it was good or it was bad. I think certainly people should not be beaten up or brutalized because of their sexual orientation. On the other hand, I think that there is nothing wrong with individuals believing, as I do, that having sex with people of the same gender is immoral. That does not mean that we put those people in jail or beat them up, but it does mean that it is okay to say publicly "This is a bad lifestyle," and that it is okay to say that marriage is something that is between men and women, not between two people of the same sex. When you talk about was the gay rights movement justified or not, well it depends on what the specific aim of a particular part of the movement is at a given time.
SM (00:29:14):
How about the Native American movement, because that was really strong. It identified a lot with some of the more radical elements within the anti-war movement, because of Wounded Knee, and the takeover at Alcatraz, and Dennis Banks and Russell Means.
RC (00:29:33):
They actually killed people. I think that that is... I do not think that people should violate the law, and they certainly should not kill people, and they should not kill law enforcement officers, which the extreme elements of the Native American movement did. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with consciousness rising and protesting. People are being mistreated because of their ethnic group, that is wrong. There is nothing wrong protesting that and trying to change the laws to reflect that.
SM (00:30:32):
In 1970, Earth Day happened, and that really put this environmental movement... Of course, we are talking about Copenhagen, and all these issues, Dennis Hayes, and Gaylord Nelson, the Senator, was linked to it. I did not know until I interviewed a guest last week that Dennis Hayes and Gaylord Nelson had to meet with the anti-war movement. They had to meet with the leaders of the anti-war movement before they had Earth Day to make sure that what they were doing would not take away from what the anti-war movement was all about. They were liberals both in terms of bringing this about. Just your thought on that because this has carried on, and this curated an unbelievable divide. Just your thoughts on it, because that really is directly related to a lot of Boomers.
RC (00:31:21):
Yeah, well once again, I draw this sanction between the vile and a law-abiding, or violent versus the non-violent, and the law-following versus the law-breaking parts of these movements. Killing people or threatening people, or blowing up things because you do not like their environmental policies I think is reprehensible. I think that the...
SM (00:32:18):
I am always checking to make sure, and it is.
RC (00:32:26):
Some of the aims of the environmental movement I am very sympathetic with. I think that there was too much pollution that was allowed, and that passing laws to restrict, that pollution made a lot of sense. On the other hand, I think that there are reasonable people who can differ about-
RC (00:33:03):
More people can differ about a couple of things. One is, how bad the pollution is and what its effects are. And then, also about what kind of government regulation makes sense. We cannot just ban all pollutions because a lot of people would starve to death if we did that, literally. The pesticides, and industrialization, and farming, this is how we feed people. And just a flat out ban on any kind of technology that changes the environment is clearly not something that makes any sense. So, it becomes a line drawing problem of where are we going to draw the line? How much pollution is too much? And, should the government be in the business of micromanaging the private sector or should they try to create proper incentives? And conversely, should they ensure that there are not perverse incentives where people are actually encouraged to exploit resources or pollute. And again, there is this whole managed working environment division of the Justice Department. And reasonable people can disagree about this, there's this whole tragedy of the commons and if there is a role for government. But, I think reasonable people can differ about what the role of the government should be.
SM (00:35:22):
One of the big groups that came out of this rule was Amnesty International. And boy, they will confront ships and they will try to stop them.
RC (00:35:29):
Maybe you mean Greenpeace.
SM (00:35:31):
I mean, yeah, Greenpeace. Excuse me, Greenpeace.
RC (00:35:35):
Right. Right. Yeah, right. Yeah.
SM (00:35:35):
They will risk their lives to save whales and things like that. But that came as a direct result of, I think of... This generation oftentimes thought themselves as the most unique generation in American history. Its uniqueness. I can remember when I was young in college, a lot of students felt that way because they were going to change everything. They were going to end war, they were going to bring peace, harmony, change the world for the better, and be different than any other generation that preceded them or probably will follow them. So, this uniqueness became a mentality within many of them when they were young. And many of them still have it as they approach (19)60 because of the times they lived in. I have noted that students that I have worked with over the years, whether they be generation Xers, or those born between 1965 and I believe 1992 or something like that, and now you have got the millennials, which is the younger group. I think they were born, excuse me, they were (19)82, excuse me, millennials yeah, until (19)82. And, a lot of the issues that generation Xers had with boomers is that they got tired of hearing about what it was like when they were young. Or, the other extreme, I wish I lived then because there were causes I could get involved in. You had a cause. We do not seem to have any. Now, that was a couple years ago. Your thoughts about this uniqueness attitude that many of the boomers seem to have.
RC (00:37:14):
Well, I am skeptical of that. I think that one thing that distinguishes liberals from conservatives is, and of course I am a conservative, so I am biased, but I think that conservatism is inherently a little more modest and constrained in its vision of how much any individual and how much any generation can know. And, how much we should be willing to say that, "Well, we do not care about how things have been done. We do not care about other people's opinion. We have figured this out and we know the right way to proceed." I think that that, yeah, I mean, Thomas Sowell has written about this-
SM (00:38:38):
I like him.
RC (00:38:39):
...in a book called, Conflict of Visions.
SM (00:38:39):
Yeah, I like him.
RC (00:38:42):
Yeah. And the whole point of that book is there are these two separate, two very distinct visions. And, it goes back, this is sort of a summary of Edmond Burke or Friedrich Hayek. And so, I think that for any generation to say that, "Well, look, we have figured this out. We're unique. Everybody before us, they had it wrong. Everybody that came after us does not know anything. And in fact, the people in our own generation who disagree with us, they are wrong too." I think that that is a very arrogant and misguided approach to making public policy. On the other hand, I think that it is certainly true that for whatever reason, they may have been bad reasons, but for whatever reason, there was more political ferment during the (19)60s. And so, it may have been true that there were more causes to get involved with back then. Now, I am not sure that it was a good idea because I do not think a lot of these causes were a good idea. And, this is something where I disagree with conservatives. Some conservatives say that, well, it is sort of, national greatness conservatives that, "Well, people need a cause. And, they need to believe in something bigger than themselves. And so, the government of the country should provide that." Well, I do not buy that. I mean, I think it is true that people do need to believe in something larger than themselves, but I do not think it's the role of the government to do that. As a Christian, my own view is that the main thing that you ought to believe in that is bigger than yourself is God and serving Him. But even if I were not a Christian, I do not think I would say that, "Well, it is up to the government to give people something to rally around" I mean, okay, if you want something that you want to fight for, well go ahead and do that. But, try to do it in a way where you are not bossing other people around. I mean, if you think that there is a lot of poor people who are suffering and who need to be helped through food or educational opportunities, or whatever, that is fine, go do it. And get together with your friends if you want, and raise money, and buy food for them, or volunteer and go into depressed areas, and help kids after school. That is all great. But, you do not need to say that, "Well, we have figured out that this is the most important thing that needs to be done and we are going to force other people who do not agree with us to give us their money so that we can go do this."
SM (00:42:04):
You raise a good point, because the people I admire the most are people that oftentimes do things and they do not want publicity. I can remember, and I am not going to put this in the interview, but Charles Barkley, regardless of whether you like or dislike the man and what he has done on TV, and his gambling and all the other stuff, he has given thousands of dollars for scholarships to kids that do not have it. And he said, "I am doing it, but you do not let the word out." He gets very upset. "I am doing it because I want to do it. I do not want to have an article in the newspaper." Now obviously, someone found out about this and they have written things on Charles because he wants to be the Governor of Alabama one day. But, that is an interesting point there. I like the fact that when people do things, it is not because they want the world to know they have done it. It's, they do it because they want to help people.
RC (00:42:57):
Right. Right.
SM (00:43:00):
Again, what do you think are the... What was the watershed moment... Want to make sure we do not go over. Yeah. I am almost done with the first half of the tape. What do you think was the watershed moment when the (19)60s began, and the watershed moment when it ended?
RC (00:43:20):
Well...
SM (00:43:24):
Let us see here. Do I have to change this tape? Let us see. We have got about a minute I think left, then I will stop.
RC (00:43:37):
Okay. Briefly, I think you could mark the beginning of the (19)60s in a couple ways. You could say that, well, it is maybe with the civil rights protests that began in Montgomery, which we put it in, actually, the (19)60s, starting in the mid-(19)50s. Or, you could start it with the escalation of the war in Vietnam, which would put it in the (19)63 or (19)64, or something like that. I think the end of that, most people would say it is probably the end of the Vietnam War, or the end of American involvement. I think the Peace Accords in Paris were signed in, I think January (19)73, something like that. So, I think those are sort of how I would bracket it. I mean, clearly, the zeitgeist in the (19)60s lasted a little bit beyond 1969 because you had Kent State and the invasion of Cambodia, and all that stuff. I think that was actually in the (19)70s.
SM (00:44:39):
Yeah, it is interesting because there is a lot of activity through (19)73, and then all of a sudden, in the fall of (19)73 it just... So, (19)73 is a big year because that is also, we got out of Vietnam, and the activism started to really drop, and a lot of things were happening. In fact, I have written in my little segment, the introduction, that I felt it ended when streaking happened, and that was 1973 in the fall. And someone said to me when I was working OU, "Come to Ohio State." I said, "Why? Is there a protest? 'Oh, no. It is something new called streaking.'" I am going to switch the tape first. If I were to have 500 people, you may respond the same way about generalizing about boomers, too. But, if I were to have 500 people in an auditorium that were, let us say, the first half of the boomer generation, those born between (19)46 and say, (19)56, the one event that had the greatest impact, single event that had the greatest impact on their life, what do you think they would say? And when I say young, I mean really, when they were in elementary or secondary, or college, basically.
RC (00:46:25):
Well, of course everybody always says that you remember where you were when Kennedy was assassinated, something like that. And then, that may be true, but I am not sure if that really influenced people's lives that much. I think that the things that probably you had a direct impact on people's lives was becoming 18 years old and eligible for the draft. I think that that is probably really affected people, because I think that probably affected a lot of people's political outlook. I do not want to be unduly cynical here, but if you were not wild about the idea of going to Southeast Asia and maybe getting shot at, then it is very easy to want to come up for reasons why your reluctance to do that is justified. And so, you are going to be sympathetic to the anti-war movement. And, as you have sort of indicated, a lot of these movements, they were all interwoven. And so, if you buy into the anti-war movement then you also buy into a lot of these other movements. And, just generally buy into the whole left-wing agenda. And, I think that that probably happened to a lot of people.
SM (00:48:23):
It is interesting though, I know when I interviewed Ed Foner and Dr. Lee Edwards, Dr. Lee Edwards was adamant, the fact that the Young Americans for Freedom were a conservative organization who was as anti-war as the SDS. And they were conservative, diehard conservatives, and no one has written on it. There has been one book written about this particular group. I have had a lot of reactions. Some people do not remember them, but they have been left out of the history books. But, they were big-time anti-war. And they were to the right, and they were conservatives. I remember Bill Buckley even mentioned it in one of his books about the Young Americans for Freedom. So, there were conservatives who were against the war.
RC (00:49:11):
Oh, absolutely.
SM (00:49:11):
Yeah. Yeah.
RC (00:49:12):
That is true. That is true. And there has always been a strain within the conservative movement of people who, they're anti-Communist, but they are also isolationist, or they are very skeptical about foreign involvement by the United States. We see that even today with Ron Paul, for instance, that kind of, well, with Libertarians and also, people like Russell Kirk, I think, and others like that. And, I am sure it's true. Lee Edwards and Ed Foner were much more familiar with these groups than I was, because it was really a little bit before my time.
SM (00:50:02):
And Ron Robinson, who I interviewed, was one of the student leaders in that organization, now heads the Young America's Foundation with Pat Coyle. And, he did not even know the extent of what Lee was talking about. Lee's the historian, and he knows. And I said to Lee, "Why do not you write a book?" He has writing too many other books.
RC (00:50:25):
Yeah, he writes lots of books.
SM (00:50:26):
But anyways, I want to throw that in. I want to read this one. There were two basic issues I want to concentrate on in this book besides the general questions I have been asking. And then, I am spontaneously going in a different direction. The issue of healing and the issue of trust, which I personally have defined as part of this generation of issues that are affecting them. And, I want to read this. I want to start out by saying that when I was at Westchester University, I took a group of students to meet Senator Edmund Muskie about a year and a half before he passed away. I knew Gaylord Nelson, and Gaylord was able to secure nine meetings with nine senators, because we had brought him to the university. He was such a nice guy, and what a senator he was. He was a statesman. And so, we worked it out so that we met these senators. When we took the students to see Edmund Muskie, it was one of the best student groups we ever had. In fact, three of them have gone on for their PhDs by now. And, I had really picked them because we were going to ask some questions about the (19)68 convention, the tremendous divisions in the country, and all the things. We asked the question, and everybody was excited because this is the one question we wanted to ask them. And the question was this, and this is the way we read it, "Do you feel the boomer generation is still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore this nation apart in their youth? Divisions between black and white, divisions between gay and straight, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not?" And then, I throw in something here about what role has the wall played in partially healing the veterans and the generation. "Do you feel the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has 40 years made the statement, time heals all wounds, the truth?" When I ask him this question... And, I know two of the closest students. One just became, I am throwing this in here. I am not going to have an interview, he just became the Director of Admissions at Southern Illinois University. I am so proud of him. He is 38 years old, and he is now been the director of admissions at three schools. PhD. But, when we asked him this, we were expecting the 1968 convention, and he did not even mention it. He had a melodramatic pause. He had, looked like a few tears in his eyes, and he said, "I just got out of the hospital. I have been pretty sick, as you might know. And, I just saw the Ken Burns series on the Civil War." And he recommended that if we did not see it on PBS, that we get the tape. He said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And then, he went on to talk about the reasons why the 400,000 men who died on both sides, the lost generation of children that we never had, almost a lost generation compared to the numbers we have today. But, that was his response. I thought about it because I know veterans come back to The Wall, and I know that non-veterans come back to The Wall. And, some probably feel guilty that they did not serve when their kids asked them, "What did you do in the war, daddy?" Just your thoughts on whether you feel we have an issue with healing within this generation of 17-some million. I know you cannot break it down, but do you think it is something to be concerned about?
RC (00:54:09):
Well, I think that people who were on opposite sides during a big conflict probably do have a challenge to overcome that later on in life. And I suppose, that the more dramatic and important the conflict, the greater the challenge is. I mean, being on opposite sides of the barricades in the Civil War, knowing that somebody was shooting at you or shooting at your friends, yeah, that is probably something that is difficult to overcome. The (19)60s were not as dramatic but it is, I guess, more dramatic than whatever divisions there were, say in the (19)80s. There were people that like Reagan and people that did not like Reagan, but we were not shooting at one another the way we were in the Civil War. And we were not even throwing bottles at one another the way we were during the (19)60s. On the other hand, I think there are people who do not like people who disagree with them in any generation. And, they do not like people who disagreed with them... They do not like people who disagree with them now, even if they were in agreement 20 years ago. So, I think it can be over overstated. I mean, I am thinking in my own life, how would I feel about somebody of my generation that I disagreed with back in the day, back in the (19)60s? Well, I do not think I would view that as unforgivable. I do think that I would think that they were wrong, and there might be still a little distress there.
SM (00:57:55):
The Wall itself has done a pretty good... Jan Scruggs of the book, To Heal a Nation, obviously it has been a fair... You cannot heal a lot of veterans because the wounds will always be there for a lot of the vets. It has done a lot to help veterans and their families remember those who died and those who served. And so, I have been there for the last... I know how important it is to that side.
RC (00:58:18):
Yeah-yeah.
SM (00:58:19):
I have seen it. I have always wondered though, I guess, I even asked myself, I did not serve, and I was a college student from (19)66 to (19)70, then I went on to grad school. And, I could not go because I had asthma. Then, I had been in an automobile, not automobile, I was in a very bad accident at my house. And so, I can always say, "Well, these were my reasons." But, I know a lot of vets will look at you with an eye. When they hear asthma they, "Eh." Bronchial asthma, yes. Asthma from weeds because some people went in and were veterans who had problems with weeds like grass. So, I do not know. I just ask this. I have been asking to everybody. It's, "Ah, it's no big deal." And others say, "Yeah, you might have something there." Everybody has to heal on their own. So it's individual, so to speak. But The Wall has done a tremendous job. What do you think when you look at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington? And obviously, you have been there. What did it do for you, and do you think it has gone as far as Jan Scruggs says in his book, To Heal a Nation?
RC (00:59:37):
Well, I think that memorials do have powerful symbolic value. I mean, that is why we have them, right? And, maybe there is something uniquely powerful and healing about that particular memorial because of the fact that it was a controversial war, and because of the structure of it itself, and that you have all these individual names written on it. That, that helps the recognition. And maybe, veterans of that war are particularly grateful to have that recognition given the fact that it was controversial. Yeah. I mean, I think that that is... I do want to say one thing though. That I think that some of the emotion though that you are talking about, people might feel even without the context of a war. I mean, for instance, I turned 18 in April, 1973, and the Peace Agreement had been signed in January, 1973. And of course, the draft had ended even a year or two before that. So, I was never somebody where going to Vietnam was a real possibility. And then, the next war that the United States was in, I guess was not until Grenada, right? And by that time, I was through law school and in my mid to late twenties. And of course, there was not a draft. There has not been a draft since then. And yeah, I mean, I will tell you, the one regret that I have in my life is that I never wore a uniform. And I look back, and I do not know when I would have... I mean, there was not really a logical time for me to stop what I was doing. I mean, I could have gone into the army or into the service after college, or after law school, or something like that, but there was-
SM (01:03:19):
I think you can go in right up to 40.
RC (01:03:23):
Yeah. But I never did, and I regret that. I regret that. So anyway, I mean, I feel that even though I was not somebody who was not serving when other people were being drafted, or when there was a big war going on and I was sort of on the sidelines, and I did not have that, and yet I still have this regret.
SM (01:03:48):
Yeah. I do not know why I always ask this question. I have asked it to everybody and I have had some interesting responses. Gaylord Nelson was, in his own unique way, always responding in Gaylord Nelson way. And that is, he said, "I do not walk around Washington DC with lack of healing on their sleeve." He said, "But it did affect the body politic. And that is where the effect has been. It is the body politic. You keep bringing it up in just about every war." And we have even, as we are getting later on, when Ronald Reagan said, "America's back," it was back from the (19)60s. And then, George Bush, senior, saying, "Vietnam syndrome is over." Oh, boy. Because, some people really reacted to that, even more than Ronald Reagan. But, I have a question here. The second area is trust. Boomers, in their lives, saw a lot of leaders that lied to them. I am sure the leaders have lied throughout history, but when boomers were young and in college, they saw a president lie to them about getting involved in Vietnam with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. And, anybody who was up on what was happening knew that was a lie. There were things already written about it. If you were cognizant, and when you were in fifth or sixth grade like I was when President Eisenhower on TV said that, "The u2, Gary Powers was not a spy." I remember him on TV saying that, and then he lied. Why? And, I like him. And then of course, Watergate with Richard Nixon, and the list goes on and on. College students and the people of the (19)60s seen... The Vietnam generation did not trust anybody in position of power or authority, whether it be university or president, college administrators, ministers, rabbis, priests, politicians, heads of corporations, anybody in the leadership role, you cannot trust. And so, I am wondering if this is an issue that we define this generation as a very non-trusting generation. That it might have-
SM (01:06:03):
It is a very non-trusting generation that might have passed this on to their kids and their grandkids. I preface this again with a question that political science majors, of which I was a history major in political science, is that it is healthy. Political scientists always say it is healthy to challenge government and to not trust government, because that is what a democracy is. Keeps them on their toes. So you have got that extreme, but just your thought on the effect that these leaders have had and their lack of trust in so many leaders when they were young and the effect this may still have on America today. When I say this, I am not only talking about the activists. I am talking about the hundred percent, because subconsciously they all experienced the (19)60s.
RC (01:06:50):
That is a very interesting question. I do not know the answer to that. It would be interesting to try to figure out if people a hundred years ago were more or less trusting of these various leaders than they are now. I mean, again, there is a danger that each generation thinks that it's experiencing everything for the first time. That, oh, well, nobody else, no other generation has been disillusioned the way we are or is skeptical the way we are or whatever. Of course, it is not true. Each generation thinks that they are the first, but it is really not. Now we think that, oh gosh, the United States is polarized in a way that is never been polarized. There is a lack of civility, et cetera. Well, yes and no. You go back and you look at political campaigns that were run a hundred or 200 years ago, and they were pretty uncivil. I suspect that Southerners, prior to the Civil War were pretty skeptical about President Lincoln and did not trust him, thought he was a liar. I remember my grandfather, he certainly was not somebody... I mentioned him earlier, he was very skeptical about the veracity of different leaders. So, I think that skepticism about politicians maybe is something that is not brand new. Maybe the numbers are much bigger now. Maybe 50 years ago, 10 or 20 percent of the people thought that FDR was a liar, but now 80 percent of the people think that whoever is the president is a liar. So, maybe it has gotten worse. I just do not know. These other leaders that you talk about, the clergy, businessmen, so forth, well, again, I am sure that there were lots of... the whole populous movement was based on skepticism about the good faith of American corporations and businessmen. So, I do not think that they thought that John D. Rockefeller could not tell a lie. I do not know.
SM (01:10:23):
I know. As follow up, because I can remember Teddy Roosevelt when he was president and served two terms, he was very supportive of William Howard Taft taking over, but he came back in 1912 because he said Taft was a liar.
RC (01:10:39):
Yeah.
SM (01:10:40):
Lied. "He said he was going to follow through on my policies and did absolutely nothing." Friends to bitter enemies.
RC (01:10:47):
Right. Yeah.
SM (01:10:49):
So there is a lack of trust there. I think of examples, I always think of how the population responds, whether they respond... The activism in the thirties was something also like the (19)60s. I want you to respond to, what do these things mean to you? They do not have to be very lengthy or anything, but you have already mentioned what the wall means to you.
RC (01:11:13):
Yeah.
SM (01:11:13):
So what does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you?
RC (01:11:19):
Well, I remember more about Kent State than about Jackson State. I have to say that my recollection of Kent State was that it may well be that... It was a tragedy, clearly. But I remember when I was in the Civil Rights Division, learning that I think the Justice Department Civil Rights Division prosecuted the guardsmen there. I was very skeptical about that. I am not an expert on the facts, but this was a protest. Things were being thrown at these guardsmen. My instinct is to be sympathetic. Now, if the bottles had been thrown five minutes ago and the protestors were a different group of protestors and they were 300 yards away, well that is different. I just know about the facts, but that is my recollection, is that well, it was a tragedy. It was real wrong that these guardsmen did what they did, but the protestors should not have been throwing bottles at the guardsman either or whatever they were.
SM (01:13:01):
Watergate.
RC (01:13:06):
Well, I think that Nixon lied. He covered up. He abused government authority, abused trust, all of that. Was it an impeachable offense? I do not know. Again, I would have to go back and look at it. I mean, I remember the response of a lot of people was that, well, look, yeah, all what Nixon did was wrong, but it is not particularly new. These were things that other political leaders had done, and that to a substantial extent, this was an excuse that was seized upon by Nixon's political enemies. Example was a popular button at the time was, I was for impeachment before Watergate. Well, I mean, it was meant to show how right the person was. But I remember, I think it was Bill Buckley saying, well, exactly. That is the mindset, and that makes us skeptical about whether impeachment really makes sense here. I mean, I do not want to be a Nixon apologist. I did not like Nixon. In 1972, I was not old enough to vote yet, but we had a mock election at my high school. I supported the third party candidate then. John Schmitz was his name. Nixon was not a particularly conservative president, and there were a lot of things that he did. So, I am not a great fan of Nixon, but I think that I like Nixon's enemies even less. I am open to the suggestion that Watergate was seized upon by Nixon's political enemies to get rid of him. All that said, though, the way he handled Watergate was wrong not only politically, but also morally.
SM (01:16:04):
Goes right into enemies list. That was my next-
RC (01:16:07):
Yeah.
SM (01:16:08):
Just your thought on his enemies list. It is a long one.
RC (01:16:12):
Yeah, it was a long one. I think that it was described as being put together and that the machinery of the federal government was going to be used to screw, and those were his words, our political enemies. Well, that is wrong. I cannot do that.
SM (01:16:31):
How about Woodstock?
RC (01:16:32):
It was a bunch of stupid hippies. That would be my two-word response. I think there was some good music there. But was it a great moment for a Western civilization? No, I think it was probably not.
SM (01:17:03):
Going to have to put the Summer of Love in there too, which was (19)67.
RC (01:17:07):
Yeah. I mean, again, I think that I do not like the counterculture. I like the culture.
SM (01:17:17):
That is the next word. It is counterculture, because Theo Roszak wrote that very historic book called The Making of a Counterculture. He just retired. I am going to interview him. He just retired from the University of California at Hayward. He has written a brand-new book now on the Boomers in old age, some of his projections. I am not reading it until I interview him, but just the term counterculture.
RC (01:17:45):
You know what I said. I do not like the counterculture. I like the culture. The culture that was being countered was, I take it Western civilization and American culture in particular. I think that American culture is good and does not need to be countered. It can certainly be improved. To the extent that the counterculture was about getting rid of racial discrimination or stopping the dumping of poisonous chemicals into the water, our rivers, yeah, that is fine. But if it is about using drugs, having promiscuity, rejecting religion, no, I think that the culture is much better than the counterculture.
SM (01:19:17):
Two different groups, but the Hippies and the Yippies. The Yippies were Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and the Youth International Party.
RC (01:19:25):
Right.
SM (01:19:26):
Different.
RC (01:19:27):
Yeah. Well, I did not like the Hippies, and I like the Yippies even less. I mean, I guess the Yippies are a more radicalized and politicized version of the Hippies. I reject their Yippies political agenda and the lawless means they would use to pursue it. The Hippies, I would define I guess as people who embrace the counterculture, particularly younger people who got into long hair and bell bottoms and drug use and promiscuity and all that.
SM (01:20:11):
We have already set a few things. Students for Democratic Society and the Weathermen, they were different.
RC (01:20:18):
Well, sure.
SM (01:20:20):
I know for a fact that many members of SDS, when the Weatherman started, they split. It is over. Wanted nothing to do with that. So, those are two unique groups, even though they are part of SDS. Just your thoughts on SDS from its beginning, Tom Hayden created with the Port Huron Statement. Just your thoughts on those two entities.
RC (01:20:47):
Well, it was very left wing from the start. As a conservative, therefore I was unsympathetic with them from the start. So long as the agenda was merely dissenting and not lawless and revolutionary and violent, I would be unsympathetic but tolerant. But once an organization starts breaking the law, killing people, blowing up buildings and so forth, then they should be treated as criminals.
SM (01:21:35):
How about Vietnam Veterans Against the War? Because they took over the anti-war movement when SDS died.
RC (01:21:41):
Yeah.
SM (01:21:42):
They were major.
RC (01:21:44):
Well again, I mean, would draw the same distinction. I was anti-antiwar, but so long as the... the parts of the antiwar movement that were simply dissenting, you have to tolerate dissent in a democratic society until it becomes violent or lawless. I do not know enough about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I guess my-my recollection, I do not associate them with the violence and lawlessness of, well certainly of the Weatherman.
SM (01:22:42):
What do you think were the most important books that were read? What did you read when you were young? What do you think were the most important books for the Boomer generation? What were people reading then?
RC (01:22:57):
Well, and I mentioned from my side of the aisle, I was a fan of Buckley's. Of course, Buckley was publishing books that I remember reading, books that were... I mean, a lot of them were compilations of his columns and other essays, but he also had some standalone books too. I think The Unmaking of a Mayor, which was his [inaudible] running for Mayor of New York City against Lindsay, Up from Liberalism, I think.
SM (01:23:39):
God and Man at Yale was classic.
RC (01:23:40):
Why, sure. Yeah. I think that was written in the early (19)50s, McCarthy is an amazing and so forth. So yeah, I think that Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, there were lots of... the whole staff of National Review, James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers. Goodness knows that was a little bit earlier, but I think that those were all important books for conservatives. For the left, I remember The Greening of America by Charles Reich, reading that. Garry Wills was sort of an interesting guy who started out as, I guess as a conservative and became liberal. I remember reading Nixon Agonistes and I am not sure-
SM (01:24:58):
Classic book.
RC (01:24:58):
Yeah. I do not know how I would classify that. I think that Wills may have written that when he was in transition. But I remember it was an important and much read and discussed book then. Well, and then from the Martin Luther King, Why We Cannot Wait, his speeches, those were obviously very important books.
SM (01:25:32):
Your thoughts on the music and the art of the era? Obviously, we are talking about rock music, Motown, folk. What was the music that really turned on you and some of the conservative Boomers of that period? I thought some of this music appealed to everyone.
RC (01:25:51):
Yeah, no, I think that is true. I think that is true.
SM (01:25:52):
They had so many social messages in their music too.
RC (01:25:55):
That is true. Although I do not know that there really were very many, that there was much conservative movement, conservative music, conservative, popular music back then.
SM (01:26:13):
Burl Ives.
RC (01:26:16):
I guess The Ballad of the Green Beret.
SM (01:26:19):
He was a liberal, man.
RC (01:26:22):
But I enjoyed that music. I tell you, I am Bob Dylan fan. I like him. Of course, a lot of Dylan's work it is hard to... it is not maybe as easily pigeonholed, particularly in retrospect, as people think. Dylan himself is an interesting character. I do not know if you have read-
SM (01:26:56):
Yeah, I have read quite a bit on him and actually about the song, Like a Rolling Stone. People have read the words. You take away different meanings.
RC (01:27:06):
Yeah. Yeah.
SM (01:27:07):
In fact, one person I interviewed said, "Listen to the words. He is very critical of the Boomer generation. Listen to the words on a Rolling Stone." Now that might not be what he was later, when he was with Joan Baez, but just listen to the words.
RC (01:27:24):
Yeah. Well, and his chronicles and his memoir, I mean I was sort of surprised, but he talks about that era. He thought that Goldwater was a great guy. He singles him out among politicians like, "Yeah, I read. Oh, you really made a lot of sense to me." I liked a lot of the (19)60s' movement. I would say that probably the more stridently political it was, the more problem I would have. But a lot of it, you can convince yourself to like it. I remember Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the song Lucky Man.
SM (01:28:16):
With the eagle or the swan or whatever it was, or a dove. It was a dove on the cover.
RC (01:28:24):
Yeah.
SM (01:28:24):
Yeah.
RC (01:28:27):
I guess their biggest hit was probably Lucky Man. Right?
SM (01:28:29):
Mm- hmm.
RC (01:28:32):
I am sure it is supposed to be very sarcastic in characterizing this guy who was killed as being somehow lucky. But you read it, I said, "Well, it would not be such a bad way to go," to live and die. But no, the Beatles obviously have great music. The Rolling Stones had great music. Rolling Stones is another group that is interesting, that they certainly were countercultural and not role models, but their music was not really very political.
SM (01:29:17):
Well, I got two more questions and then I am just going to read some names, just quick responses and then we will be done. The one question is, there were three... someone corrected me and said there are four, but I am going to continue to say there are three slogans that really defined the era. I would like the one that you feel defines the era more than the other or a combination. One of them was Malcolm X's By Any Means Necessary. Of course, that was on a lot of residence halls and colleges. The second one was Bobby Kennedy, who... actually, I think it was a Henry David Thoreau quote. He said, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not." Then the third one was a Peter Max poster that was very popular on college campuses in the early (19)70s. On that poster it said, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." So those are three different slogans of an era, one being more radical, one more hippie-ish, and one sense of responsibility, the idea of making a difference in the world for other people. Your thoughts on those three? And again, I am going to make sure... this tape may be going to an end here. Yeah, I am going to... Okay, here you go.
RC (01:31:08):
Yeah. I was trying to think if I can recall other catchphrases from the (19)60s, burn baby burn, do not trust anybody over 30.
SM (01:31:31):
It was Cleaver [inaudible] kept saying that. I cannot remember what it was.
RC (01:31:37):
Yeah. Well, I guess of those, the one that... I guess the two that I would pick out as emblematic are the Bobby Kennedy and the Malcolm X one. Chronologically, the Kennedy one may have come after the Malcolm X one. I am not sure. But I think that the Kennedy one can unfortunately degenerate into the Malcolm X one. The reformist impulse that the Kennedy quote shows is everybody's in favor of reform. Nobody thinks that the status quo is perfect. I mean, Edmund Burke believed in reform. I think Burke said that when we change the existing institutions, we should approach the body politic as a son approaches the wounds of his father. You should be very gentle, very careful in the way that you treat those wounds and in the way that you try to make things better. The most important thing is to do no harm. When you start saying that, well, we're going to do things by any means necessary, that we have figured out what needs to be done and we do not care about process, we do not care about consensus, we do not care about following the rules in order to bring about what we think needs to be brought about, then you lose me. I think that you should lose anybody who is responsible. I think that unfortunately in the (19)60s, a lot of this understandable reformist impulse degenerated into the lawlessness and violence of by any means necessary.
SM (01:34:51):
What were the photographs or the pictures that stand out in your mind that really caught your attention during this time, that had the greatest impact on you? I have three that I will mention after you respond. And then there is a fourth that someone told me, "How could you forget that one?"
RC (01:35:13):
Well, I think that when I think of the (19)60s, I think of Vietnam. I guess the two photos of Vietnam that come to mind are the South Vietnamese official summarily executing the Vietnam guy and then the famous naked little girl running from the Napalm.
SM (01:35:45):
Kim Phuc. Yeah.
RC (01:35:45):
Yeah.
SM (01:35:46):
Mm-hmm.
RC (01:35:47):
I think those are the ones that come to mind about Vietnam. I think of, I guess maybe pictures of the Kennedy assassination, the still photos. I think of... I mean this does not really have anything to do with what we have been talking about, but the men walking on the moon. In terms of the Civil Rights Movement, I do not know. I can picture different photographs of Martin Luther King and other civil rights figures, but I cannot really think of a particular one.
SM (01:36:53):
There are, I think four pictures that are in the top 100 of the 20th century. One of them is the girl over the body at Kent State.
RC (01:37:04):
I could think of that one. Yeah. I was going to say that one.
SM (01:37:06):
That is one I was thinking of. That was Mary Ann Vecchio. Then the other one is Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the (19)68 Olympics in Mexico City with their fists up.
RC (01:37:15):
Right.
SM (01:37:16):
You hit the third one of mine. What was it now? Oh yeah, Kim Phuc, who we actually brought to Westchester University. But one that I was told that you cannot forget is the Mỹ Lai Massacre, dead bodies and I do not know.
RC (01:37:32):
Well, I was thinking about that, but I do not remember... I remember pictures of Calley, but I do not remember that photo.
SM (01:37:37):
Yeah, there are others. Yeah.
RC (01:37:39):
Yeah.
SM (01:37:40):
Of course, Spiro. The last question before, I just get the names here now, and I just want to get back to the (19)50s. Now, you obviously are younger than I am. Of course, Boomers, the frontline Boomers start going into seventh grade around 1960, (19)59, (19)60. So the thing that always puzzles me, and I would like your feelings on it, what was it about the 1950s that shaped this generation? I know we had Eisenhower as a president. He was a gentlemanly old man, but he was war a hero. The kids of this era grew up watching Mickey Mouse Club. All the westerns on TV, my golly, all these westerns were always, the Indians were the bad people and the cowboys. You had Howdy Doody for the real young ones, Rootie Kazootie. You had The Ed Sullivan Show. You had the black and white TV, three channels. The list goes on and on, on the types of TV shows that were on in the (19)50s. But parents are trying to give as much as they could to their kids. Of course, we're not talking about all the African American kids or others, but even in that period, there seemed to be a more stable family unit, even within the African American community in the- Well, the family unit, even within the African American community in the 1950s.
RC (01:39:04):
It is true.
SM (01:39:05):
Much more stable unit with a mother and father. They may not have had a TV set, but there were a lot of things happening, and then you get into the (19)60s or the beginning of the (19)60s when President Kennedy became president, and I know the war and the draft and all these other things, but there had to be something as children are growing up, given all this stuff, and they were rebelling against their parents, the generation gap, and all the other things. How did this happen? And two things that I remember. I can remember as a little boy overhearing the McCarthy hearings on TV and this man screaming saying, "You are a communist," and all this. I can remember that, and obviously the threat of nuclear war and all the other things, but my friends did not never seem affected by that. And then, of course, the beat generation where anybody that knew about the beats, they were the first to rebel against the status quo. There is a lot of stuff happening here. Just your thoughts on what was it about the (19)50s that shaped the boomer generation? Forget the (19)60s and the anti, all this stuff. What was it about it?
RC (01:40:22):
Well, I think the conventional wisdom would be that, well, the (19)50s were very stayed conservative era and repressive. Repressive of women, repressive of racial minorities, and that the (19)60s generation got fed up with that and wanted to end repression and to have more freedom, more equality, so that is what the rebellion against the (19)50s was about. I am not a social scientist, I am not a historian, but I am skeptical of that view. I think that there certainly was discrimination in the (19)50s, but of course the discrimination against minorities and women was not new in the 1950s. It was in the (19)40s and the (19)30s and the (19)20s and so forth, too. So it is kind of unfair to single out the (19)50s. In fact, the (19)50s in some respects, starting to move in the right direction on these issues. I think that a more cynical explanation of what happened in the 60s would be this. It was not a rebellion against the 1950s at all. That what you had was a generation that was spoiled. As we discussed before, the greatest generation had gone through the Depression and they did not want their kids to suffer, and so they indulged them. So you had that, you had a couple of technological changes with the pill, which made it much easier and less risky to have premarital sex. You had a continuing decline in traditional morality and religion. Again, this was not something that began in the (19)50s, but I think it maybe was continuing in the (19)50s. And then, the catalyst was that you had the Vietnam War and people for largely self-interested reasons, rebelled not against the (19)50s, but against this war. And as a result of that, and as a result of the fact that the ideology of the anti-war movement was interwoven with a lot of other left-wing ideology, bought in to the rest of the left's agenda, which did include rejection of all that was bad and good about the 1950s and American culture generally. I think Midge Decter wrote a book, which I have not read, called Liberal Parents, Radical Children, which I think may talk about some of this.
SM (01:46:04):
Good. How many years ago was that? I probably have that book.
RC (01:46:09):
Yeah, she must have written that I think in the (19)70s.
SM (01:46:18):
We're at the end here in terms of just responding to some of the names, just quick response. They do not have be any kind of great detail. There might be a few smaller terms here too, but I am going to start out with just your thoughts. Jane Fonda?
RC (01:46:35):
What do you want from me, a thumbs up or a thumbs down?
SM (01:46:38):
Just your thoughts, just a few words, what you think of her.
RC (01:46:42):
Well, yeah, I did not like her. She was, if not a traitor, she certainly... And if not, she did not engage in treason, she certainly gave aid and comfort to the enemy.
SM (01:46:56):
How about Tom Hayden?
RC (01:46:59):
It was... At a minimum, I am very unsympathetic to his political agenda, and my recollection is that the agenda was not only objectionable, but advocated lawbreaking and... Well, I will not say violence in this case, but certainly breaking the law.
SM (01:47:46):
And a follow-up is his close friend, Rennie Davis.
RC (01:47:49):
I do not remember Rennie Davis.
SM (01:47:52):
How about Abby Hoffman and Jerry Ruben?
RC (01:47:55):
Well, again, they were certainly on the Wallace part of the protests. Whether they were... I think that they certainly tolerated violence if they did not engage in violence themselves.
SM (01:48:14):
Chicago Eight, or seven, when they took Bobby Seal away.
RC (01:48:18):
Well, again, I would put them in the same category. I do not remember how... I mean, I am sort of drawing these distinctions between dissent, lawless dissent, and then violent dissent.
SM (01:48:30):
Right.
RC (01:48:30):
And the Chicago Eight, that was a trial about Wallace. I do not know what it was about. Well, I guess, actually did not they blow up a monument or something? I cannot remember if that was part of the-
SM (01:48:45):
Well, I know they took over a monument, but that was a whole group of people, but they did not blow it up though.
RC (01:48:49):
Yeah. Oh, okay. Maybe-
SM (01:48:51):
I have not asked this before, but since you're a lawyer, what do you think of William Kunstler?
RC (01:48:56):
Well, again, I do not like him. I think that he abused the legal system, acted very irresponsibly.
SM (01:49:09):
The premier of his documentary is Saturday. There is a documentary coming. He and Leonard Wineglass worked together in Chicago.
RC (01:49:16):
Yeah.
SM (01:49:18):
Timothy Leary.
RC (01:49:23):
Irresponsible. Advocate of drug use.
SM (01:49:27):
Dr. Benjamin Spock.
RC (01:49:33):
He wrote a decent book on child-rearing, but was wrong about the Vietnam War.
SM (01:49:41):
How about William Sloane Coffin?
RC (01:49:44):
Also wrong about the war.
SM (01:49:50):
How about the Black Panthers? And I am going to list them because there is five of them that are well known: Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver. There is five of them. They were well known. The other one was murdered, Norman, in Chicago.
RC (01:50:07):
Well, the Panthers were not only dissenters, but they were lawless and violent dissenters, and they killed people. David Horowitz, I think, was well written about this. I cannot remember... I mean, well, I do not remember anything about Kathleen Cleaver. Angela Davis, I remember, and I remember that she was convicted of helping a... Oh, I guess then the conviction was overturned on basically a technicality, and now she is ironically a law professor. She is a devout Communist, so I do not like her.
SM (01:51:09):
Kathleen, by the way, is a law professor at Emory.
RC (01:51:12):
Is that right?
SM (01:51:12):
A very good law professor.
RC (01:51:14):
That is funny. Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton and-
SM (01:51:23):
Bobby Seale.
RC (01:51:23):
... Bobby Seale, I would have to read up on which did what. I think that Cleaver was actually convicted of rape at one point, in addition to what he did with the Black Panthers. I think that, I cannot remember if it was Huey Newton or Bobby Seale that was killed eventually in a drug related-
SM (01:51:58):
Huey. He ended up getting a PhD too.
RC (01:52:07):
Yeah.
SM (01:52:07):
He was a smart guy.
RC (01:52:08):
Yeah. Well, I think that he's the one that David Horowitz talks about in his memoirs the most. Yeah, being smart, but very dangerous.
SM (01:52:16):
How about the Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, the feminists?
RC (01:52:29):
I actually think of Chisholm more as, not principally as a feminist, but-
SM (01:52:36):
Black, female politician, ran for President.
RC (01:52:39):
Right. As I said, I think that the feminists, I sympathy with providing more opportunities for women, but not sympathetic with the denigration of traditional female roles, which should also be things that could be chosen. And I think some of them, I think had a sort of generally liberal agenda, and so I would disagree with her about that.
SM (01:53:40):
Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
RC (01:53:46):
Well, I think that both of them did a lot of... Really let down Republicans and conservatives through their law-breaking. In both instances, I think that there are those who would say that, well, the penalty that they paid was disproportionate to the laws they broke, but nonetheless, they did break the law and I think they let us down.
SM (01:54:47):
I did not mention two other Black Panthers, H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael. They were big.
RC (01:54:53):
Yeah, yeah. And I put them in the same category. Advocates of violence. I think that Rap Brown is back in prison.
SM (01:55:00):
He is in jail. I think he is there for the rest of his life.
RC (01:55:08):
Yeah.
SM (01:55:11):
John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy?
RC (01:55:16):
Well, I think that John Kennedy is greatly overrated as a president, but is a much more conservative president than is remembered. He was strongly anti-communist. I think his views, he would have a very hard time getting nominated to anything in the Democratic Party these days. Bobby Kennedy, I think was also somebody who had, I think he was becoming more liberal as he got older before he was killed, but I think his... Both of them I think are more fondly remember today than they would have been had they not been tragically assassinated.
SM (01:56:43):
How about Teddy Stein?
RC (01:56:47):
Well-
SM (01:56:48):
Some people say he was probably the greatest senator during this timeframe in the (19)70s, when he became 62 to now.
RC (01:56:58):
Well, he certainly was an effective senator. I did not share his agenda, and I think that his significant faults were all whitewashed during the mourning over his death. And I think that some of that is understandable. When somebody dies, that is not the time to point out their faults, but he could be a very nasty politician as witness what he did to Robert Bork and had a personal life that was at least for long stretches, immoral, and even criminal.
SM (01:58:41):
How about Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern?
RC (01:58:47):
Well, I think that both of them are, unlike Kennedy, I think are personally very well-behaved, moral men. McGovern was a war hero, and I am not aware of anyone that is criticized their character. They are both political liberals, so I disagree with that, but I do not think that they had the personal failings that the Kennedy has had.
SM (01:59:40):
How about LBJ and Hubert Humphrey?
RC (01:59:45):
Well, very different. I mean, I guess, they had similar politics. Again, both of them, I did not share their politics. I think that Humphrey was someone, again, whose personal life and personal morality, I have not heard criticized. Johnson was a much rougher character.
SM (02:00:20):
Couple more here. George Wallace?
RC (02:00:28):
Well, he began as a racist demagogue and eventually became just a demagogue. I mean, think that he shed some of his racism. He is somebody who is political bottom line, I shared in many respects in terms of being more accepted in the civil rights area, but in terms of the war, the rejection of the counterculture, I was sympathetic, but he was, I think somebody who thinking conservatives were never entirely comfortable with.
SM (02:01:33):
Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, Catholic priests.
RC (02:01:37):
Yeah. I sort of have them same category as Sloane Kaufman. There were a lot of mainline clergy who were opposed to the war, and I do not remember... I did not share their rejection of the war. I do not think that... I think you can be a good Christian and also support the Vietnam War. I cannot remember whether to what extent they were not only dissenters, but also broke the law-
SM (02:02:35):
They did. They threw blood on nuclear weapons, and then they also destroyed direct records.
RC (02:02:40):
Yeah.
SM (02:02:42):
Barry Goldwater and Dwight Eisenhower.
RC (02:02:46):
Well, I liked Goldwater.
SM (02:02:57):
Yeah, it is the first time. I will turn this off.
RC (02:02:58):
I think Goldwater was hero to conservatives during the (19)60s, and I think Eisenhower was a president who for a long time was underrated, but I think there is now more recognition that he was a very effective and good president.
SM (02:03:22):
How about Harry Truman when boomers were babies?
RC (02:03:29):
Yeah. I think that in terms of foreign policy, Truman largely did a good job, domestic policy. He was a liberal, and I think less so.
SM (02:03:52):
Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon papers.
RC (02:03:57):
Yeah. As I recall, he stole and made public classified information.
SM (02:04:24):
Right.
RC (02:04:27):
Which the Pentagon papers were, and you should not do that. Even if you think that... I mean, this again gets to this conservative point that even if you're convinced you're right, that does not mean that you break the law.
SM (02:04:54):
John Dean?
RC (02:05:13):
I know that he was an excellent White House official and was one of the first people to blow the whistle, to reveal what the administration had done with Watergate, but I do not remember much else about him.
SM (02:05:55):
Muhammad Ali?
RC (02:05:57):
Was a great boxer. I did not share his politics, but he was not a political philosopher. I guess the question is whether he was a draft dodger or somebody who, for legitimate religious reasons did not want to serve. I am more inclined to the former view than the latter, but I have no window into his soul.
SM (02:06:53):
Woodward and Bernstein?
RC (02:06:57):
Good reporters. I have no objection to reporters doing their job.
SM (02:07:13):
Yeah. You already responded to Woodward and Bernstein.
RC (02:07:18):
Yeah, I think they were reporters doing their job.
SM (02:07:22):
William Westmoreland, the guy who oversaw the-
RC (02:07:26):
Yeah. No, he was the general in charge for a lot of the time during Vietnam. I am not really in a position to critique-
SM (02:07:39):
The ERA and why it failed?
RC (02:07:42):
Well, I think it failed largely because of the efforts of Phyllis Schlafly. I think that she was right to oppose it. The problem with the ERA is that nobody knew, and nobody still knows, what exactly it would do. And it does not make sense to amend the Constitution for what was essentially symbolic reasons when you do not know with a fair degree of certainty what the actual effects of that amendment are going to be. We already have the 14th amendment, which makes it very difficult for governments at any level to engage in sex discrimination. Nobody is in favor of prohibiting sex discrimination to the same degree that race discrimination is prohibited; and yet, I mean, there is a good argument that the Equal Rights Amendment would do that. And so, does that mean that, for instance, the military cannot make any distinctions with respect to sex? That sexual distinction is not going to be allowed with respect to government jobs where it is a bonafide occupational qualification? For instance, hiring prison guards or things like that, medical research. I mean, it purports to be a categorical ban on sex discrimination. I think that nobody is really in favor of a categorical ban on sex discrimination.
SM (02:10:06):
Harvey Milk, because he is the epitome of the gay and lesbian movement.
RC (02:10:11):
Yeah. I just do not know enough about that. Again, I said at the outset, I think that gay people should not be beaten up or jailed or anything like that; but on the other hand, I think that objection to homosexuality is not the same thing as racial discrimination or gender discrimination.
SM (02:11:01):
Tet.
RC (02:11:04):
Well, I think that... I guess it is now pretty much accepted that while it was a military failure for the communists in Vietnam, the Tet Offensive was a political defeat for the good guys of Vietnam and that the media bears some of the blame for that.
SM (02:11:51):
I am down to the final thing, which is the final presidents that we are going to ask about, but since you were a lawyer, I cannot leave without asking you, just a quick thought on Roe V. Wade-
SM (02:12:03):
Just a quick thought on Roe v. Wade and the two civil rights bills that President Johnson signed in (19)64 and (19)65. We're talking about three major events. Roe v. Wade was in the (19)70s, but these are major decisions in boomer lives.
RC (02:12:18):
Yeah.
SM (02:12:18):
So just your thoughts on the two civil rights acts. I have not asked this to other people. I am only asking it to lawyers.
RC (02:12:26):
Well, I think that one point that I always make about the two pieces of civil legislation is that in both houses, the percentage of Republicans who supported it was higher than the percentage of Democrats who supported it. Both pieces of legislation, yeah. And that is something that is frequently forgotten.
SM (02:12:50):
Is that because Everett Dirksen was such a big supporter of it. Because Everett was a big supporter.
RC (02:12:55):
Yeah, he was. And that would explain the Senate. It would not necessarily explain the House. I think that part of it was because there were so many Democrats at that time, so the Democrats were opposed to it. Yeah. But anyway, it shows, I think the Republicans now do not get enough credit for that. I think that both bills obviously had much good in them and were certainly well-intentioned. I think that in both cases, the way that the bureaucrats and the judges subsequently interpreted and enforced them turned them on their heads to some extent, so that instead of prohibiting discrimination across the board the way they were written and intended, they now are interpreted to allow, and in some places require politically correct discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity. The Roe versus Wade was a very bad Supreme Court decision. There is nothing in the Constitution, one way or the other, about abortion. And it was a classic instance of judicial activism for the court to read such a constitutional right into the Constitution. And it has had all kinds of bad consequences. Not only bad consequences in the sense that there are lots of dead babies because of it, but also bad consequences in that it has removed the whole abortion discussion from the political and legislative arena and put it in the courts, which are not really equipped to deal with those issues.
SM (02:15:09):
I am going to end with the Presidents, because we have already talked about many of them up to the 1970s. Just your thoughts on Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
RC (02:15:29):
Well, I think that Ford will be remembered positively for the role he played in the nation's healing. After Nixon, we needed a Gerald Ford. We needed a very down to earth man of strong, positive character who was a quite unpolarizing figure. Carter was one of the, I think, least successful Presidents of the century, partly because his policies did not make any sense, partly because of his own personality. And I think the failings of his personality have become more evident since he left office. It was just a very...
SM (02:17:12):
How about Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr.? Both of them. I am going to turn this-
(02:17:24):
Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr.
RC (02:17:27):
Well, I think Reagan will be remembered as one of the great Presidents, not only of the 20th century but also in American history, because of his leadership in bringing the Cold War to a successful conclusion, and also to returning the United States to free market principles at a time when we were headed away from them. And more generally, for a renaissance of conservative leadership. George Bush, Bush 41, I think that he was an unsuccessful President in terms of persuading people that he knew he was doing in terms of domestic policy. But I think that he may still be remembered well by historians because of his foreign policy.
SM (02:19:13):
The Gulf War.
RC (02:19:15):
Well, even before the Gulf War, he presided over the demise of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe. And that was a very critical period, and it could have gotten screwed up, but he did not screw it up.
SM (02:19:49):
The last two, obviously, Bill Clinton and George Bush. And I say these two gentlemen, because in some of my interviews people say these two gentlemen really define the boomer generation. And they give me their reasons. Even though they one was a conservative and one's ... I am not sure if Bill is truly a ... I think he is more center than what his wife's turned out to be. But what is it about them that people would say that both these men truly define the boomer generation? And then your overall thoughts on the [inaudible] Presidents?
RC (02:20:27):
Well, they were boomers. And I guess they were the first Presidents who were boomers. And I suppose in some respects, they were on opposite sides during the (19)60s. Clinton avoided serving in the war and smoked pot, even if he did not inhale. He certainly seemed to have bought into the sexual revolution. And I think you are right that to call him just a liberal is maybe an oversimplification, but certainly more liberal than Bush. I actually think that it's more problematic to call Bush a conservative than it is to call Clinton a liberal. And of course, Bush was not exactly a war hero either, nor was he somebody who eschewed mind-altering substances. But I think it would be hard to argue that Clinton was an unsuccessful President. I mean, he was President during a period of peace and prosperity. And I think that the extent to which he deserves credit for either of those, it is up for debate. And you can argue that by not being more proactive with respect to terrorism, that he sowed the seeds for 9/11. So I do not think he will be badly remembered because of the substance of his presidency. I think that he will always be associated with Monica Lewinsky, which is too bad for him, but I think it is also too bad for all of us. Bush, I said that I am not sure that you really can characterize him as conservative. I think that in terms of domestic policy, there are many respects that he was not a conservative. He certainly was not a small government conservative. He cut taxes. I suppose that that is conservative. But he also increased federal spending in lots of ways. In my area, a mixed record at best in terms of civil rights. I think that history will judge him based on the War on Terror and how that turns out. That was certainly his top priority. And I do not know enough, and it may be that nobody really knows enough yet to know how successful he was, to what extent what he did is the reason why there were no subsequent successful attacks in the United States, whether the progress he made in fighting Al-Qaeda and killing or capturing its leaders made a big difference. We do not know yet. And of course, depending on how this President does, that will affect how he has judged.
SM (02:25:26):
A question I asked earlier about the trust factor, about how many boomers did not trust because leaders did things; well, as boomers’ approach senior citizen status, as the frontline boomers are now 62 years old, eligible for social security, the last two Presidents have also done things that are just the same old SOS, as they say. President Clinton being on television, "I did not have sex with that woman," and then George Bush, the weapons of mass destruction. As many people believe, there's two liars right there again. So it is just some people interpret it as such.
RC (02:26:04):
Well, I do not know. Of course, I am a conservative Republican, so maybe I have my own prejudices, but I think those are two very different statements. And I think that Clinton's statement that he did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky is either a flat-out lie, or what would in some ways be even worse, a sort of ... I forget how he worded it exactly, but something like, "Well, since I did not have actual vaginal intercourse, therefore I did not have sexual" ... you know. It would almost be better to lie, I think, than to mislead somebody and pretend that you're telling them the truth, the whole truth, which is what you would have there. I am not convinced, and I am not sure that anybody ... well, there probably are some people, but I am certainly not convinced that Bush, at the time he said that there were weapons of mass destruction, did not believe that there were weapons of mass destruction.
SM (02:27:38):
Colin Powell said it, and many people think that ruined his career.
RC (02:27:40):
Yeah. I mean, if you make a statement that turns out not to be true, but you thought it was true, that is not a lie.
SM (02:27:49):
Right. I agree.
RC (02:27:49):
You have made a false statement, but it is not a lie. A lie, there has to be intent. So if Bush knew that there were not weapons of mass destruction and was deliberately making a false statement, okay, well that is a lie. And truth be told, that would be a bigger lie than lying about sex, because the stakes are higher when you are telling a lie in order to justify getting the United States into a war as opposed to trying to save your own political high. But I do not think it was a lie.
SM (02:28:32):
I end by saying that President Obama's of course the last President of the boomers, and he is a boomer. He would have been two years old in the very end, but he still is a boomer. And of course, [inaudible] does not remember all this stuff, but it's too early to judge him overall. A lot of people want to judge him early. But-
RC (02:28:51):
Nobel prize.
SM (02:28:53):
Yeah. That really shocked me. But a lot of people that were involved in the anti- war movement, a lot of the liberals from that period, a lot of my friends feel that finally, after all these years, we had one of ours back in there. It was not Clinton. It is Obama. This is a man who really ... even though he was not in the (19)60s, is part of the (19)60s because of who he is, what he believes. Your thoughts on just the short term. And most of the times, when I interview people, I never get a chance to ask some of these questions here on the Presidents because I have sometimes only an hour, sometimes 30 minutes. So it is great. Just your thoughts so far on President Obama and what he really stands for. And to a lot of boomers, he stands for progress.
RC (02:29:40):
Well, I think that that is what a lot of conservatives are afraid of. They too think that Obama is much more left-wing than he ran as. And I think that there's a lot of evidence of that. And we will see. But of course, we elect Presidents. We do not elect kings. And that is relevant in two respects. Number one, no matter how liberal a president is, there are political constraints on what he can do. We have existing laws, we have courts, and we have Congress. Even though the Democrats do not control Congress, changing the laws, he has to go through Congress, and there are enough Republicans there to slow or even stop more radical kinds of change. On the other hand, when you elect a President, you elect not just the President, you elect a whole administration. I think on some issues, like civil rights, the President himself may have somewhat more conservative instincts than the people he is likely to appoint. But you are stuck with the political appointees, excepting the relatively rare instances where an issue gets [inaudible] away to the Presidents-
SM (02:31:52):
A lot of people believe that if Hillary had won and gotten in, there would be no difference. Just a different color. Because she is a liberal too.
RC (02:32:00):
Well, yeah. I think you have to ask, whatever they themselves think of these different views, they are going to be facing the same Congress, they are going to be facing the same constraints, and probably a lot of the people that they would have appointed would have been the same people. And so it is not a choice between King Barack and Queen Hillary. It is between an Obama administration and a Clinton administration. And there may not be a lot of difference between the two.
SM (02:32:36):
When the best history books are written, and they are normally written 50 years after an event ... a lot of the best World War II books are coming out now, and I wish my dad was alive to be able to read them, because he died seven years ago. But when the best history books are written about the boomer generation, maybe as boomers have passed beyond when they are alive, what do you think historians and sociologists will be saying about this generation? Because after all, the people that will be writing these books will not be boomers. They will be generation Xers who will be reaching old age, there will be millennials who will be in middle age, and there will be the following generation, generation Y or whatever it is called. What do you think they will be writing about this generation, and saying about it?
RC (02:33:30):
I do not think that they will be writing about it as a generation. Think about it. I think to some extent, this is a phenomenon of the fact that we are in it now, but 50 years from now, I think that most historians will write about individuals. Individual biographies and the individual issues and events and all that. And they may write about radicals in the 1960s, or conservatives in the 1960s, or civil rights leaders in the 1960s or something like that. But as we have discussed, I think that there is too much heterogeneity among boomers for it to be a useful analytical device for most history. And I think that it is rare to have history, I think, that focuses on generations. I think that most history looks at events and individuals and particular groups of individuals. Now, sometimes there are exceptions to that. And when we talked about the Civil War generation, that may be different. When you have a cataclysmic event like that, where literally a whole cohort of people are swept up and have to go off to war and a lot of them are killed, that may be different. And maybe even the greatest generation, with the twin events of World War II and the Depression, maybe you can treat that generation as... But still, when you think about it, when Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation, this was something that was sort of new. People had not written about the (19)50s generation. Or I do not know what they would write about, but I think it is very novelty shows. This is not the way that history is normally written. And I think it will remain the exception, rather than the rule.
SM (02:36:40):
I cannot believe I did not ask you, just your quick thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr. He gave that great Vietnam speech, which set him apart from the other civil rights leaders, and he got criticized for it. But just your overall thoughts on him. You have already talked about Malcolm X. You have said some things about him. But Dr. King and his importance in this period?
RC (02:36:59):
Well, I think that King will be remembered. And the reason that we have a national holiday is because of his crusade for racial equality. And that was a literally heroic effort. I think the word heroism is overused these days, but in that time and place, he was putting his life on the line, and ultimately died because of the principle of racial equality. I think, unfortunately ... well, not unfortunately. In addition to believing in racial equality, he believed in economic redistribution and the anti-war movement and a lot of things like that, which are much more open to debate. But-
SM (02:38:13):
And he was a proponent that to get anything, you have got to agitate. You have got to continue to agitate. Now, he believed in the non-violent approach. He and Bayard Rustin were of the same realm, the non-violent approach. And that famous picture with Stokely Carmichael standing next to Dr. King. Dr. King had his arms like this, and obviously he was tense, because Stokely Carmichael was telling him, "Your time has passed." And he was telling him. And that is the same thing that Malcolm X did to Bayard Rustin in a debate they had at, I think, Columbia. "Your time has passed." Like James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin, all that group. Jesse, even though he was younger. "Your time's passed. Black power now." So Dr. King had to put up with a lot. Some people said he had the heart of a 70-year-old when he died, because he was under medicine, blood pressure. Unbelievable stuff.
RC (02:39:19):
Yeah, yeah, sure. I am sure that is all true.
SM (02:39:24):
But I have asked you a lot. Is there a question I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask that you wanted to add?
RC (02:39:30):
No, I do not think so. I will think about it. If there is anything I want to add, I will send you an email or call you up.
SM (02:39:38):
I have a waiver here, which I am missing. If I can find it here ... oh, got it. I guess we have to make a copy of this. Would you be able to make a copy?
RC (02:39:49):
Sure.
SM (02:39:50):
And then you could sign it and you can read it and keep a copy to yourself. I wrote on this one.
RC (02:39:53):
Oh, okay. That is all right.
SM (02:39:57):
See, the first 50 people, I did not know I had to have a waiver. I was new to this.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Roger Clegg
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Clegg, Roger ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Lawyers; Center for Equal Opportunity; Clegg, Roger--Interviews
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Roger Clegg is the President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He specializes in legal issues arising from civil rights laws including immigration and bilingual education. Clegg received his Bachelor's degree from Rice University and is a graduate of Yale University Law School.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2009-12-10
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.38a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.38b
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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160:15
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a478dacb6ed154c74e7fdacb9498d1ba.jpg
3598cf14be1cf3dd6e23d13511db4e8c
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b36e16b686b058c45d55ddb2a9a4be05.mp3
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Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-11-19
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Robert Cohen, 1955 May 21-
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Robert Cohen is a professor at New York University where he teaches History, Social Studies, Education, and Human Development. He received his Bachelor's degree at SUNY Buffalo and his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. Cohen also writes books and most of them focus on either history or people as a whole."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Robert Cohen is a professor at New York University where he teaches History, Social Studies, Education, and Human Development. He received his Bachelor's degree at SUNY Buffalo and his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. Cohen also writes books, most of which focus on either history or people as a whole.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span>University experience; University of South Carolina: Columbia: Berkeley: Free speech movement; Student protest; Walkout; Anti-war movement; Youth activism; SUNY Buffalo; 1960's; Social change; Welfare Rights Group; Black Panthers; Stereotypes; NAACP</span>
Duration
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199:21
Subject LCSH
College teachers; New York University; Cohen, Robert, 1955 May 21--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Robert Cohen
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 19 November 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:04):
Testing one, two, testing. Record this.
RC (00:00:08):
Sure.
SM (00:00:09):
Yeah.
RC (00:00:11):
The president, this is the University of South Carolina. I can get the name of the person who spoke, I do not recall it offhand, but it was an administrator, who was explaining this freshman, or I think he called it First-Year Experience. And what happened was, after Kent State, I think it was, the student union building at University of South Carolina was taken over by the student protestors. And the president of the University of South Carolina was pretty upset about this. Like you said, why? How could students be so elevated from the university that they would take over a building? So how can we make them feel better about the university and better orient them? And those conversations led to this creating of this project, Freshman Experience. And it led to what emerged as a whole center at the University of South Carolina that launched this whole First-year Experience thing out of, became a big national, international thing. And now it has gone beyond that. I think there is a Sophomore Experience and there is a Senior Experience. There is a whole... And there's a ton of publications and all that. Anyway, this administrator, whose name I can, if you remind me, I can dig up, spoke at the conference. So he might be somebody, you want to interview. Shows that this had a sort of impact on educational reform. And it came at a place that you would not normally associate with a lot of student protests, which was the University of South Carolina, Columbia.
SM (00:01:41):
Well, and actually one of my questions later in the interview, deals with the impact that the student protest movement really had on college campus overall, because there is a lot of questions based on, now we are into our third generation since. And first question I want to ask you, I asked this to all of the people I have interviewed is, how did you become who you are? I know that you went to Berkeley, you graduated from Berkeley, you read it up also that you were involved in the 20th anniversary of The Free Speech Movement. But who are you? How did you become a history professor? What was your interest? How did you link up with The Free Speech Movement? Those kinds of things, and who were your role models?
RC (00:02:27):
Well, I became interested in student protests because I was involved in student protests. I was a high school student at the end of the Vietnam era. So I participated in the moratorium against the Vietnam War. And even as a high school freshman, I was involved in that. And this is in New York City?
SM (00:02:54):
That was (19)69.
RC (00:02:54):
Yeah. That is right. And the students, it was in public high school, James Madison in Brooklyn. But there was so much overcrowding back then, that we were not in the main building. We were in an annex building about half mile away. And so myself and some other students helped organize a walkout, a moratorium day, where we were going to walk out of the building and go over to the main building and join the demonstration there against the war, which is what we did. So I got involved and I got involved in the anti-war movement, in part because my brother and my older sister were involved in it. But also because my next door neighbor had been in the Marines. And I used to correspond with him. And he came back disillusioned with the war. And that got me very curious about what was going on with the war. So I think initially, I was interested in it because of the war in Vietnam. I also was very much interested in the civil rights movement. There was a African American student at Madison, who was the first black student to run for president, was Cornell with Knight. And my brother was involved in sort of this campaign, one of the people helping to manage this campaign. And administration was very hostile to it. And I think there was an interest in the civil rights movement itself. And I think, I guess I have always admired people like Bob Moses and they're always [inaudible]. So I think it was through those things that I first got interested. And just as an undergraduate, I was an undergraduate at SUNY Buffalo, and there was a lot of activism there too, centered around the anecdote of-
SM (00:04:37):
Oh, yeah. Governor Rockefeller, yeah.
RC (00:04:43):
Yeah. And so I think the student movement of the (19)60s always interesting movement because in part, I came out of that. So I am always interested in the student protest, youth activism in the (19)60s that came in through that experience about trying to stop the war in Vietnam and trying to fight against racial discrimination.
SM (00:05:00):
So you were at SUNY Buffalo, and then you went on to grad school?
RC (00:05:03):
Yes at Berkeley.
SM (00:05:03):
PhD At Berkeley.
RC (00:05:05):
Yeah.
SM (00:05:05):
Did you go to Berkeley based on the fact that The Free Speech movement was there? Or you thought it was a great history department?
RC (00:05:11):
No. I think it entered in my mind, that I might do something about The Free Speech Movement as a study, but it was really mostly because the history department was really such a great department back then, was not so much because of Berkeley's... And the stuff that happened with my connection with The Free Speech movement, was not part of my graduate program, was more like what I was doing because I was a graduate student activist. I was one of the people helped to found the TA union.
SM (00:05:41):
Teaching Assistant union?
RC (00:05:42):
Yeah, at Berkeley. That was in the (19)80s, it was called AGSE, Association of Grad Student Employees. And then, let us see, that is me back then. And we were trying to organize on that. And then I was also involved in the anti-apartheid.
SM (00:06:02):
Oh, yes.
RC (00:06:04):
I was the editorial page editor of the Daily Californian in the (19)60s. So when I left editor, they blew up some of the-
SM (00:06:14):
Wow.
RC (00:06:16):
...some of the editorials
SM (00:06:17):
Oh my gosh. Very good.
RC (00:06:18):
So yeah, this is back in the (19)80s. So anyway, that is the stuff that I was doing.
SM (00:06:22):
Yeah, the anti-apartheid, that was (19)87, I believe, was not it, the heyday of that?
RC (00:06:25):
Well, actually, a little earlier. It was actually (19)84, (19)85. Actually, the spring of (19)85 is when I first took off because it was a connection between 2010 anniversary of The Free Speech Movement, which-
SM (00:06:39):
(19)84.
RC (00:06:39):
... (19)84. And this was the poster from that. This is all the-
SM (00:06:44):
Oh my gosh. Wow, what a great poster.
RC (00:06:49):
It was organized by a guy named Michael Rossman, who was one of the leaders of The Free Speech Movement.
SM (00:06:53):
Unbelievable. That is-
RC (00:06:55):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that is how I got involved with all this. I think, again, it is a kind of extension of my own background, but also just an interest in social change.
SM (00:07:05):
And now you are teaching and making sure that future generations understand their history and-
RC (00:07:10):
Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah.
SM (00:07:11):
...which is real important.
RC (00:07:12):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I teach teachers too, so that is the other thing. This is part of the education school, and I teach in the history department. In fact, I am doing a course on the (19)60s now with Marilyn Young, who does-
SM (00:07:28):
Yeah, I interviewed her. Yes. Yes.
RC (00:07:30):
She does the history of the Vietnam War. Yeah. And I think also, I would say that, the attempt to try to get the people to remember what happened in the (19)60s and just to understand history of social protest more generally. So yeah, I have been involved in this, there was a project, actually, we were working on trying to organize the fifth anniversary, some events around the Port Huron statements, fifth anniversary-anniversary in (19)62. So Tom Hayden was here, and we're going to organize some events around that too. But yeah, that is really what I am just interested in. Teaching students history of, well, I guess not just the, I would say, I have also written a book on the thirties, on student protesting in the thirties, so it is not just the (19)60s, because this is, there is a-a continuum here, protests that is always going on in the United States.
SM (00:08:25):
One thing is a takeoff because it was my second question is, when you were there in (19)84 and you were a graduate student and you was involved in the planning of the 20th anniversary, what was the difference between (19)64 and (19)84, in terms of the optimism or the feelings of the leaders in (19)64? Because I know Mario Savio was still alive, and Jackie Goldberg and obviously Bettina and others. Where were they in (19)84, in terms of their feelings toward the university that they feel like they had accomplished a lot on at that particular time? What made that such a special event?
RC (00:09:10):
Yeah. Well actually, I will answer in a second, but just reminded me, have you seen the film, Letter to the Next Generation about Ohio State students?
SM (00:09:16):
No, I have not seen that. I went to grad school at Ohio State, that is where it was.
RC (00:09:20):
Oh, then you would have to see this film that is by Jim Klein, called Letter to the Next Generation. It is a film where, he has 1980s students looking back on students from the 1960s. And actually not 1960, but really cannot say, 1970. So you should probably interview him if he's still around because he did a whole movie about this.
SM (00:09:40):
Well, that was anti-war at Ohio State in (19)72, (19)73. And then...
RC (00:09:43):
Yeah. Well, because what he is doing, is he is looking at what happened to that generation in the (19)80s?
SM (00:09:48):
What is his full name?
RC (00:09:50):
I think it is James Klein. Just Google the book.
SM (00:09:54):
Klein?
RC (00:09:54):
Yeah.
SM (00:09:54):
Okay.
RC (00:09:55):
If you just Google the movie, it is called Letter to the Next Generation. Okay.
SM (00:09:57):
And I thought I was up on things.
RC (00:10:01):
No, it is a really interesting film. I always use it when I teach about the (19)60s because they ask, like what you are saying, about how the generations are different. Now, you were asking about what their attitude was? What the-
SM (00:10:12):
Yeah, and what did you learn? Obviously, you knew about it, but what did you learn in (19)84 that you did not know about what happened in (19)64, particularly by having that opportunity to meet Mario firsthand and the others firsthand?
RC (00:10:27):
Well, I think the main thing was just seeing the, first of all, I think one thing was impressive about them was, that they had maintained their interest in democratic change. They were still very idealistic. They did not advertise it like, we made history and you cannot. They wanted to empower people. They thought it was important to let the next generation know what had gone on and their generation. I think that Mario was very involved in the movement against US intervention in Central America. He was very concerned about that. Bettina had been very much concerned about that as well, but also very involved in founding women's studies and gay lesbian rights, woman's issues. Jackie Goldberg had been on the city council and the state legislature in California. These people all had ongoing concerns with social protests. And also the idea was, this is a lot more sort of deeper than taking over a building or something. It was not just bang, bang, bang, boom, boom, boom. It was really a lifelong commitment to trying to make America a more just society. And sort of understanding that I think was important for people. But also, I think it was that, in terms of the students in my generation, it was also seeing that, you had the possibility of making change. That this was not something that was unique to the (19)60s or it was not some brilliant genius that created this, but rather conditions were conducive to it and people felt like that they could make a difference. So I think, what happened at Berkeley, was we had this enormous rally and a series of events about the Free Speech commemoration in October of (19)84. And then I think it sort of startled people that, they could get so many students out because, at that time, the press had been acting as if those students are really all a bunch of yuppies and no one's going to be active anymore. And none of that was really true. But there was a lot of hype about it. And I think this showed that, hey, there is a big progressive community here. There is a big left liberal subculture, we can do things. And I think that fed into this activism against Reagan's imperialist policy of Central America and also this dealing that we could do more on the issue of anti-apartheid. And that was really something that the movement was really getting launched in DC and then Columbia University. Berkeley was not first, but then when to hit Berkeley, it was really big. And in part, I think because in the fall there had been this discussion about activism through these collaboration events.
SM (00:13:12):
What I like about your book and you talk about Mario, but you make, and your introduction and throughout the book, it is very important for people to read it, I think. I think Your introduction is great because there is two things. The media has a way of building up myths. And one of the myths is that when SDS split, with the weatherman and then the concept of the Black Panthers, some people said they were violent and some people said they were not. The media had a way of taking on the weathermen, as if this was the way the anti-war movement students were. They were all this way, this is the way. And so you make sure that, in your talks with Mario, that that is not true, that the majority of the students were not violent at the very end. And why has the media, in your opinion, tried to portray this generation the way it has? Just sensationalize things.
RC (00:14:06):
Well, I think a few things. One with the Panthers, I, there definitely was violent, there were wrenches that were very violent. And in New Haven, they tortured and killed somebody. The Bay Area, there was somebody killed. So I think there is, and the weather just a few blocks from here, blew up a building. So it is not that they are not sensationalizing that did happen. But it is a question of, how representative of the thousands and millions of people who are involved in this movement. It is like, yeah, if you have a demonstration and a hundred thousand people march not violently, and then a hundred people throw rocks, who is going to make the headline? So I think that there is an issue about... News is almost by definition what is new and different. And if you have had five years of people doing these large marches against the war, that is not considered news anymore. What is news is, when people carry a flag or blow up a building, that is what is considered news. And that is the story. I was involved in high school anti-war movement in New York City, and it never would have occurred to us to do anything violent. We did not think about that. It was not even a temptation because we just thought anything like that would did not make any sense. And most people would not think that made sense. So I think there is that. I think there is a way in which some of the stuff that happened, this agenda dynamic to it, seems like very masculine and Hollywood to do things that are violent. Or even the style of the panthers, black leather and black berets and there is something slick about it. In fact, there is this book by Thomas... You know this book, Sweet Land of Liberty by Thomas Sugrue about the-
SM (00:15:55):
I have that, yes. I have not read it, I have it though.
RC (00:15:58):
Well, what is interesting, by the way of example, he does not dwell much on the Black Panthers because he does not think they had much real impact in changing society. Whereas, if you look at the welfare rights movement, which did benefit lots of people, in other words, they got a lot of people out of poverty and they got government assistance of people who really needed it, but it was not big and flashy. Nobody was wearing berets or anything, leather and berets and taking guns out. And it would be just like that. If you try to depict that in a visual, you would have a bunch of people sitting in a bunch of rooms organizing meetings, which looks like, well, that looks boring, but actually it is helping poor people more than the Panthers did. So he highlights, I think there is statistics like that. And by the way, that movement was headed mostly by women. I think it was tied in with the Great Society's community action. Committees that, like you said, at a place like Philadelphia, 70 percent of the people who were involved in the leadership of that were black women. Now, most people who say in the (19)60s, if you asked them about this welfare rights movement, would you draw a blank? If you ask them about the Black Panthers, they would know that right away. But the question is no, which is more representative? Which is having more of an impact? And I think it is the welfare rights group. But I also think that, what is sensational, what is going to make headlines is what is unusual. It is not to say the violence had no role. You think about the big ghetto rebellions, there was not in fact, there was a kind of outburst of anger and violence that awakened America to some pretty terrible social conditions people were facing. But I do not think that is really... If you looked at Berkeley, for example, Berkeley in (19)64, The Free Speech movement was almost entirely non-violent and it was not even about Vietnam. An issue, if you ask students, they would not even know what it is about because, despite the name, they would think I must have something to do with Vietnam or something because it's the (19)60s, or the draft or whatever. But nothing to do with any of that, just about free speech that grew out of activism that is connected to the civil rights movement. Which was, at that point, pretty relentlessly non-violent. So I think, yeah, there is a way which the (19)60s gets dealt with, through one of the most sort of technicolor, exciting image. Not just violence, but also sex, drugs and rock and roll and thinking about the summer of love and all that counterculture. But if you look at the picture of the students marching to the Regents meeting of The Free Speech Movement, Mario is wearing a tie and coat and the woman are wearing skirts looking... The fact at that point, they were being baited as beat... Like the attack on the students' movement at Berkeley at that time was hip... The word hippie was not even used yet. It was still, people do not think about beatniks. So, it was like beatnik baiting. In other words, oh, there must all be in sandals and have long hair and beards and all that. And this is 1964, the beetles had just come to America, there was not really a counterculture as there would be later in the (19)60s. So, what I am saying is there are distinctive eras within the (19)60s, not just one era. And there's a way in which the easiest way to deal with something is like these stereotypes. And so I think that, there is a lot of obfuscation and a lot of misunderstanding in the (19)60s, because the way that is remembered is through these very dramatic late (19)60s images, both the violent ones that you were alluding to and countercultural ones that, again, it is not that it is based on nothing because there were groups like the Black Panthers and Weather Underground, but tiny. And the NAACP, had a thousand times more members than the Black Panthers. So why are we paying so much more attention to the Black Panthers than the NAACP? Or the same thing you could say about, with The Free Speech Movement is non-violent, so why is it very few people know it is history? It is in part because that is not the images that people have.
SM (00:20:09):
You bring up two other important points too. And I think when, in the book on Mario Savio and the others about longevity, when you talk about Mario, you are talking about a lifelong activist. He might have had the problems of the depression, some of the other things, but deep down inside his central core was rights. Even as you bring up all the time, the rights was a very important part of what the (19)60s was all about. And there were many people. And the media, again, oftentimes tried to portray that the (19)60s generation or the boomer generation, not just the activist, but overall, they went on to become yuppies. I heard that in Philadelphia, when I was living there, there is a whole section and a lot of them were making money on Wall Street. They were in their early thirties and so forth. So there was that business about longevity. And the other important point you bring up, which is really important. We know Reagan came to power because of the backlash, when he became governor and the whole thing. But this perception, the media again, that Reagan, the Reich came to dominance, so to speak. And what happened in The Free Speech Movement in the protests in the (19)60s, basically, I would not say it was defeated, but the backlash put America back on the right track, so to speak. And you bring up a very important point in the book that, yeah, there may have been a backlash, but it did not have an effect on the rights movement and all the movements. Could you kind of talk about those other two things that the media oftentimes tried to portray?
RC (00:21:49):
Well, I think that the shift to the right has been very powerful and it is very difficult to deal with, in other words, to overcome it is just that it does not mean the other people disappear. We tend to deal in very simple decade thing. The (19)60s was this, the (19)80s was this. People that have not died, they are still there, or there is a core of people who are still active. So it is very simplistic to think that they do not... The other thing is that there has always been a trend in American history, with officers such as [inaudible] talks about the cycles of American history going between liberalism and reform and privatism and conservatism. So that is nothing new. And the thing is that, the attempt of the right to bring back the (19)50s, or you want put it that way, which has always been the project. Look, you can say, the problem with the analysis, is that the assumption is that the way things are, is the way that they always will be. In other words, thinking when people were making those arguments about Reaganism or Bushsism, whatever you want to say, it was when they were in the White House dominating things. And they have had a lot of political success, so it's easy to think that that is really what matters. But remember that Obama, the election to be president would never ever happen if it was not for the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of the (19)60s. In other words, so you could just easily argue that, well, the right was just a blip on the screen and it is really the left that is making a difference because we have a president who is African American, which never would have been impossible before the (19)60s or without the (19)60s. But I think, the way I see it, it is an ongoing struggle. In other words, that the right tries to impose its own agenda politically and culturally in America. And there is a lot of resistance to it because a lot of things have changed because of what happened during the (19)60s. Women are not willing to be subordinated the way that they were in the (19)50s. There is a resistance when they try to get rid of, say, Roe versus Wade. Or if you think about the attempts to, every time the US intervenes abroad, there is much more resistance now than there would have been before Vietnam. So whether it is Iraq or Afghanistan or Grenada or Nicaragua, there is pushback in a way that there was not before. So the dynamic, in other words, there is always a right left conflict in the United States. The question is, who is winning and how that is going? And I think that what the (19)60s did was, it gave it a lot more, the left, a lot more resources and ideas about how to push back. So I think, that from my perspective, I think that the backlash events against the (19)60s is very powerful and very worrisome. But on other hand, look, why is it the rights always worried about Murphy Brown or whatever is going on in Hollywood? And this feeling like that there was a cultural revolution in the (19)60s that they lost, even if they take local power, that is why they are so furious, is that they feel like, well we took Congress back, or we took the White House during the Reagan and Bush years. Why is this culture still so progressive? Still so-
SM (00:25:09):
Good point.
RC (00:25:12):
... defying conservatism because there were political transformations that came out in the (19)60s, but then there is backlash and there is also postal transformation in the (19)60s, and they had not been able to reverse all of that. So you turn on TV set now you are going to see, well, black folks on TV, you are going to see women on TV and roles that they would not have played in the (19)50s or early (19)60s. So there is a lot of things I think that the (19)60s changed in an enduring way that I do not think are ever going to go back. But I also think, yeah, there has been.... You know there is another book, Framing the (19)60s, where we talked about the way that the right has used the (19)60s over the years, have you seen that?
SM (00:25:51):
I probably have that. I try to keep up. I have not read them all.
RC (00:25:54):
Yeah, that is this one. He talks about the way that Reagan and Bush, all these guys-
SM (00:26:00):
Framing the...
RC (00:26:02):
Framing the (19)60s. ... using the (19)60s as a kind of whooping boy to try and basically say that we need to be rescued from the way that America was corrupted and ruined by this decade of disorder and chaos and violence. So in a way, it has given them something to run against. But on the other hand, I think, it strengthened the left in lots of ways that. In other words, what is the simplification is to think that, well, because we won the last election, there has been some great mandate and this huge change that, like Ingrid calling Clinton the Countercultural McGovern. And we were going to get rid of all the things the (19)60s wrecked about America. And basically overreaching and ended up getting kicked out of power because there was a lot of support, not from a government, but just for a different type of society where women have rights, where black have rights, where we're concerned about the general welfare and not just about private profits. So I think that this whole push to the right, has been in part, fueled by this reaction against the changes in the (19)60s. But a lot of people disagree with them and they do not win every election. How do you explain Clinton two terms, then Obama's? And I do not mean to make it just about Democrats and Republicans because it goes deeper than that. Clinton said that if you look back on the (19)60s as a disaster, you are probably a Republican. You look back-
SM (00:27:34):
[inaudible]
RC (00:27:36):
...probably. I think there is something to that, but I think it goes beyond party politics. I think it is more about how are we organizing our values and our lives? And that I think on issues of foreign policy, that runs especially deep. The idea that the United States should not just go around pushing other countries around. And if they do that, then, especially in an aggressive way, there's going to be resistance here. And there has been.
SM (00:27:58):
It is like Bobby Muller when he came back from... I know Bobby quite well, he came to my retirement party and he said that one of the things he learned about being in Vietnam was, that when he came back, he knew America was not always right. And that was hard for him because when he went into the Marines, he thought America was always right.
RC (00:28:17):
Well, yeah. Yeah, I think that is true. I think that a lot of people were awakened to the idea that United States, on some level, is not that different from other great powers. And that acts in a self-interested way and sometimes this regards to the rights of other nations. And so the whole question of, when I talk to my teachers, I ask them, how are you going to teach about America's role in the world? Are you going to act as if the United States is just a benign force at all times? Or is the United States an imperialist power? That is a question that I think needs to be asked. Or if you think about Osama bin Laden, the United States during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, act like they were freedom fighters. A decade later, then they were terrorists. Is sort of like, well, there is lots of examples. Think about Iran helping to overthrow Mossadeq. And then you end up with the Shah imposing the Shah, and then you get the rise of the Islamic Republic and Khomeinism. In a way, a lot of these things are connected to stuff we did, or thinking about overthrowing Allende. And the idea that, after that you have Pinochet. A lot of times, by messing with other countries internal history, the way that we do, we get outcomes that are worse than what they started out with. So I think that, that is one of the things that came out of (19)60s is saying, well, look, we are not going to always assume that just because it is US foreign policy, it does not make sense. We are going to ask you, what are you doing? Are you respecting what this other country is about? And is the outcome worse than it was when you inherited it?
SM (00:30:04):
President Obama is damned if he does or damned if he does not. It is interesting, depending on who you read, supposedly he does not like to identify with the (19)60s. But people, his opponents, criticize him as being the epitome of the (19)60s, in fact, way to the left.
RC (00:30:26):
So there is always this ridiculous political dynamic in the United States, that anything that is even moderately left to center is seen as being... You see these books that are published that depict him as a socialist. Really on the cover.
SM (00:30:35):
I hear that, there are people who might, Facebook, some of my conservative students-
RC (00:30:39):
Or Gingrich, it is completely nutty. I think that, he is so moderate that, I think in a way he sees himself as a post-partisan president and wants to go beyond the (19)60s. So I think that, in a way, maybe one of his mistakes is not understanding, that this whole politics of backlash, that the right in this country's organized and a way they cannot even be civil about it. They have somebody saying, well, my goal... Even in a place and time, like the (19)60s, there is some degree of bipartisanship. You respect the office of the presidency. Here, just this week, they wanted to meet with them to talk about the budget, they are too busy. What I am saying to you is that, in a way, I see the way that he is treated, by the right, as kind of an extension of this unfriendliness towards black rights, towards civil rights. There is an element of that there. I do not mean it is just about race, but I think there is a part of that there. But I also think he is very moderate. I think of him as being... My perspective on him is that, he's been too much thinking that he can move beyond those... He wants to, it is admirable to get United States out of this mode of this left, right dynamic, but there is really no way to, because that is the way, the Republican Party is organized. They're organized basically, to wage class warfare on the poor and that is basically it. And also, I think to have this sort of imperial presence, and it is hard to disengage from that. But you cannot disengage from that if you do not understand or you are not going to articulate. Well, look, we need to have something that is like that, a new, new deal. We are entering into a period of liberal reform or progressive reform and be able to change the discourse. Right now, it is amazing to me, going around the (19)60s, I think there is a whole way in which... It is like Hoover's, it is basically that you are saying that you want to go back to small government, essentially the magic of the free market and deregulation. And that is what caused the crash in the first place. I have a tea party seat at my class, I talked to him about this small department. How do you explain, you think about the last depression we are in, what pulled us out was World War II, the greatest deficit spending in American history. So that was suggest that, the small government solutions that you are talking about is not the way to get out of it. In fact, when Roosevelt used a small government approach in (19)37, it caused a recession. He had a kind of [inaudible], he scaled back on these programs and he got this huge upsurge in unemployment. So I do not know, I guess what I think about this whole thing is that, it is kind of over the top, these attacks on him. On the other hand, I think that he is part of the (19)60s legacy and is resented for that reason. And even though he does not want to identify that way, and I think that is admirable in a certain sense, that you want to not have this partisan, you want to get out of this partisan, but you cannot because the people on the right, see him as an extension of... I think what you see with the right is, any kind of government dimension that is seen as... They do not make the sense between liberalism and socialism.
RC (00:34:03):
Any kind of government dimension is seen as... They do not make-make sense between liberalism and socialism. And so, they are nutty in that way. There is a big difference between someone who is liberal and someone who is a socialist and that is lost on them. So, I think that in my film, there is a lot of this discussion about Obama... Reflects some of these same issues except that he wants to hold himself above or away from this and it's not really working.
SM (00:34:29):
When you look at the boomer generation, do you look at the entire... Actually, there is 74 million people in that generation. People have written about the (19)60s, a very small percentage were activists. Depending on who you talk to, I said 15 percent and I have been corrected many times by historians. Thomas Power says, "Steve, 5 percent." But what I am asking here in this question is, if you look at the entire 74 million and, in your book, you concentrate on Mario and some of the new left, what are your thoughts on the whole generation as a whole?
RC (00:35:10):
Well, first of all, I do not think generations make history. I think people who are active make history. The American Revolution was John Adams. That estimate was a third of people who are opposed, a third were supportive, and a third were neutral. So, to speak about 1770s generation is not particularly meaningful because the Loyalists lost. The apathetic did not make much difference. The people who made the difference were those who were-
SM (00:35:35):
The few.
RC (00:35:38):
...involved in the Patriot cause, so I think that is always true. History has always made by minorities. In other words, what kind of history would you write if you highlighted the fact that the majority of people were not involved. It would be history of inactivity, indifference. So I do not really think that is... To me, I know that argument. The same thing is true, Melvin Dubofsky made that argument about the (19)30s. He wrote an essay called The Not So Turbulent years. And there is a trilogy, or no, a two-volume work by Irving Bernstein called The Turbulent Years about the (19)30s. It's about the labor upheaval and all that. And he wrote an article saying, well, that is really got it backwards. Actually, I do not know if he still, but he used to teach at Binghamton, Melvin Dubofsky, great labor historian.
SM (00:36:30):
That is right.
RC (00:36:32):
Anyway, so he made the argument that what we really need to figure out is not why a minority in the labor movement was active and striking, we have to figure out why majority did not strike. And I do not think that is wrong. I think, yeah, we need to know both. So my feeling is, the boomer generation is probably more affected by the cultural changes of the (19)60s. More feminists, more egalitarian, less racist than... In other words, they were there. But like this book I am doing on the South, probably the majority of Southern students, no, definitely majority, were not involved in the student protests. And actually were kind of either indifferent or hostile to it, but still their campuses were changed by it. At the end of the... There is a book about, I mean we are doing a book, there is also a book that came out very recently, I think it is called Sitting in and Standing Up. It is by Jeff Turner at University of Georgia Press, about southern student protests in the (19)60s. And what he found, and what we found in his essays that we are looking at is that the college campuses of the (19)60s started out in the South pretty conservative places. If you were at a place like the University of Alabama, Georgia, there would be no Black students at all, very traditional gender roles, not much academic freedom. By the end of the (19)60s, of course with desegregation that had changed, but also because of the student movement, the anti-war movement had an impact even in the Deep South. So what I am saying to you is those campuses... Today, if you go to a place like the University of Georgia or the University of Alabama, I am sure there would be a woman's studies program, a Black studies program. There would be people who write about American foreign policy in a critical vein. As I am saying is that these institutions were transformed and became more progressive, even if majority people, majority students politically are just sort of mainstream. So I think people were changed by the culture and political atmosphere, even if they were not activists. I do not really... I just do not think that a good way to make history is just by counting numbers, just by counting how people are participating and how many are not-
SM (00:38:51):
I think some people that have actually kind of emphasized this for people that are trying to lessen the impact these people had by just concentrating on the numbers.
RC (00:39:02):
Yeah, and I would say that that is a way... You can never really do political history that way because politics is not made by... For example, when we think about 1961, are we concerned with the majority of people in Massachusetts who are not involved in democratic politics or are we trying to figure out what John Kennedy was about? He is one person, right? Well, he is one person who made a big difference because he became President of the United States. So there is a way in which if you really take the logic of that argument, then you are only going to do a certain type of social history and you are not going to look at political history. So it is not just about the (19)60s. As I said, you can the same argument about the Revolution. You can make the same argument about Secession. ow many people were actively involved in the secessionist movement? It was a minority, but it had this enormous impact on the South and on the country. So I do not think that the boomer... When people talk about the boomer generation as a whole, I would not expect any generation the majority would do anything. You are talking about just millions and millions of people. But the fact is that that generation gave birth to the largest mass movement of college student protestors in the history of this country and that is very significant. The first generation that really, a large percentage said no to racism and said no to imperialism, that is significant. That does not mean that a majority of people of that generation, if you look at the polls, majority of people were in the 18 to 21 age group supported the Vietnam War till very-very late.
SM (00:40:38):
That is right, (19)66.
RC (00:40:38):
So even beyond, there is that book by Wattenberg and all those, The New Majority that shows that. So it is definitely the case that we are not talking about a majority of that generation doing anything.
SM (00:40:52):
Do you like the term boomer?
RC (00:40:55):
Well, I think that is just reflects the baby boom. I do not have a particular problem about it. To me it is not the generation itself, that idea, it is just the basic demographics. It does not tell you all that much. I do not know.
SM (00:41:10):
Yeah, well one of the things [inaudible] we learned when I was in grad school at Ohio State when reading Harry Edward's book Black Students and some of Kenneth Keniston's books and so forth, is that the (19)60s generation was divided into so many different areas. And Harry talked about the differences between militants, anomic activists, activists, radicals and so forth. That was the first time I really learned the difference between them. And what he was basically saying is that the leaders of the (19)60s movements were oftentimes those born between 1938, (19)39 and (19)45. Because you look at Tom Hayden, you look at Mario Savio, they were in that (19)40 to (19)45 period and they were part of a spirit. But it is a spirit that-
RC (00:42:04):
Yeah, I think that is true probably for the earlier (19)60s. I think that with the... Remember that both Mario and Hayden were part of the founding fathers and mothers of the New Left. But if you look at the late (19)60s generation, they would fall into that later range. But I do not think, for me it is like saying when I was growing up in that period, I did not feel myself particularly identified as being a boomer. That term does not really have much all that much meaning for me, I think it is a question of the way I see in college campuses. Essentially, you have different subcultures that are either consciously or unconsciously competing to set the tone of their generation. So you have a more academic, more traditional, maybe more political, they're all different types of subcultures that are competing. And in the (19)60s what happened was a sort of more activist subculture really began to dominate. And that is to me what is significant. Not the demographics that it was the largest generation of young people. I think what happened probably could have happened no matter how many young people there were, I guess you could say because there were many more kids in college that had made it possible for this group to have a larger impact. But it is not necessarily so, if you look at the (19)30s, my first book was about student protests during the Great Depression. There was no boomer generation there, but they were the first generation to have mass student protests, the sort of depression generation. I guess what I am saying is to me that is not really the central fact of the era. I guess I would say that probably the fact that it was mostly more affluent era helped to make it so, but when people, you talk about the boomer, they are talking about boomers are talking about the size of the generation. There were so many young people because of the baby boom. And I think that is kind of, to me it is not really the central issue or the central factor that made this all possible. It is sort of the background demographic. And I think the way that it's talked about is, it is often a put down, the boomer generation are these... Because there is so many, they think the whole world is their generation and their self-indulgent and self-centered and all this stuff and I think a lot of that is kind of overstated. I do not think I hardly ever use that, even though I have written a lot about the (19)60s, it is not a term that I have used. I wrote also about student... The southern stuff I have written about is about the opposite end of it. It's about southern students resisting integration at one point. I did not get to finish it, but I was doing a book and I published some articles about the University of Georgia desegregation crisis in (19)61. And I was going to do a comparison of the desegregation crisis in the University of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi. And those students, they said that they were activists initially, they were active on the other side. They were active in resisting change. My article on the Georgia group was called Two Four Six Eight We Do Not Want to Integrate. It is about these white students who essentially rioted outside the dormitory of Charlayne Hunter, later on Charlayne Hunter-Gault, first Black student at the University of Georgia. And they were part of the same boomer generation that Charlene was, or earlier incarnation of what I was. But how is that meaningful? In other words, what does that explain to you? Also, the Young Americans for Freedom-
SM (00:45:43):
Yes, the brand-new book out on that too, by the way.
RC (00:45:45):
Yeah. Which book were you-
SM (00:45:51):
It is a brand-new book by a guy named Pre, Primo? It is really in depth, real thick book.
RC (00:45:57):
I have this book about, there is several different things, but there's also this Rebecca Klatch's book, A Generation Divided about-
SM (00:46:04):
Oh, I have that.
RC (00:46:05):
...about the New Left and the New Right, looking at the... You see some parallels, but I am just saying if it is a generational thing that makes people progressive, then how do you explain this stuff on the right that is going on?
SM (00:46:15):
I will email you the-
RC (00:46:16):
Sure.
SM (00:46:16):
It is a brand-new book, just came out.
RC (00:46:18):
No, I had not seen that yet. So what I am saying to you, is to me, it is such a massive group and such a huge category. It does not explain too much. That is why I thought-
SM (00:46:28):
In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? And what do you think was the watershed ruling?
RC (00:46:34):
When did the (19)60s begin? Well, there is a lot of people have different perspectives on that. People talk about the long (19)60s. I think that from my perspective, in terms of setting the tone of the decade, really the February of 1960 with the sit-ins in North Carolina, that is at Greensboro, that is really helped to set the tone for what happened politically in the (19)60s. And as far as when it ended, I think that that is more difficult. You could say that it ended with the Vietnam War. There's a lot of dispute about to what extent the social protests of the (19)60s actually ended because a time when after SDS had imploded and the anti-war movement kind of came to a screeching halt because the war ended, you had the beginnings of the feminist movement, you have the upsurge of gay and lesbian liberation, the birth of the environmental movement. So I think it is kind of a complicated question. I think that I tend to think of the United States as a culture that does not have these neat little beginnings and endings. The (19)60s ends as a political... The anti-war movement ended. But in a sense it was reincarnated again every time a new US intervention happened, it's like what's her name talks about this, she rejects the whole idea of the frontier. I am forgetting her name. Patricia Limerick. This is a book about the legacy of conquest. She is the founding mother of the New Western history. And she talked about how people... When does the frontier, when does it close? And she said, "Well, it opens every time there is a dispute about Indian land." Or in other words, her view is that the period ends when you have people looking back on it with... When they make up these sort of Disneyland type of tourist attractions about it. And you could say, well there is a Woodstock museum or something. But it comes back as soon as there is a dispute about land rights and there are. In other words it is like it all starts to come back again. But I think in terms of the larger dynamic, could say that there's a lot of different points we could say. Well, the right, really absurd. Was it the reelection of Nixon in (19)68? Could you say that Chicago and the reelection of Nixon in (19)68 ended the (19)60s? Well, I guess the reason why it is a difficult question is because the (19)60s changed so much and there were so many different areas. You think about legal history, political history, social history, cultural history. There is a lot of different manifestations of the change that the (19)60s made. And you take this Tinker decision about students having the rights in school. There have been a lot of decisions because the Supreme Court moved to the right, whether it is Bethel versus Frazier or any of the other decisions, the bang hits for Jesus one more recently. There is a lot of shifting away from those rights because the (19)60s ended with those decisions or the fact that they still have not thrown Tinker out. Is that so that there's still continuity? So I think you could say the same thing in terms of politics. Does the (19)60s end when Reagan got elected president, then is that really because he was a nemesis of them? Well then how do you explain Obama? But I guess the way I think of in terms of there being mass movements in the streets, that did end with the end of the Vietnam War. And so I think that Doug [inaudible] has an article about this whole question about did the (19)60s ever end? And if you have this concept of the long (19)60s, it could seem like, no, it never ends. But definitely there is a change in the way the politics are organized. There is not like massive... There are not mass movements and mass protests in the streets and on college campuses. And that really ended in the early (19)70s. So I would say probably that is how I would say-
SM (00:51:15):
The person that you co-teach the course with, Marilyn Young. Has she stated to you when the (19)60s began? Because I asked that question to her.
RC (00:51:22):
No, we have not gotten to that yet. I do not think I have [inaudible] what would she have said?
SM (00:51:25):
She said it started with the Beats.
RC (00:51:27):
Oh, the Beats. Yeah, we actually, we started talking about the Beats. But I mean, that is culturally right?
SM (00:51:31):
Yes.
RC (00:51:31):
So I think that I would agree that the roots of... There is a lot of different roots in the (19)50s that make the (19)60s possible. But I think politically I would say, again, that question when you talk about the (19)60s, you could also say, well, in terms of the court cases, you say the (19)60s began with Brown, right? In (19)54.
SM (00:51:53):
(19)54.
RC (00:51:54):
So I think it depends on what is it you are focusing on? Is it culture? Is it electoral politics? Is it politics in the street? Is it judicial politics? You would have different answers depending on which of those you are focusing. It is sort of like saying, "When did the Great Depression end?" People say, "Well it did not end until World War II." And I said, "Well macro economically that is true. But if you look at the immediate crisis like the farm crisis or the banking crisis, no, those ended much earlier." So I think that depends on which you were talking about. But I think that if you asked me as a political story, then I would say that it began with the idea of mass protesting, possible as a civil disobedience as a source of social change. It began with the sit-ins in began in Greensboro and it ended a little bit after the war ended. It actually began to cool right after Kent State, in terms of mass protest in the streets. That is what I would say. But in terms of the cultural dynamic and the spinoff of other movements it's a very gendered answer. If we think, well the anti-war movement is what made the (19)60s, then what about the feminist movement which really hit a stride in the (19)70s? The same thing, gay liberation and lesbian liberation, those are things that really took off in the (19)70s. The same thing as the environmental movement and then the upsurge of the anti-nuclear movement. So I think it is maybe a little too sweeping to say it ends here and begins there. But I think something did change in the (19)70s in the sense that they're being mass in the street’s kind of protests.
SM (00:53:38):
Since people are going to be reading these oral history interviews, I know what the Free Speech Movement is and so do you, but my question here is if you could just briefly describe what the Free Speech Movement was, what it was not, why did it happen? Who were the student leaders and why was this event so important for colleges in (19)64 and beyond?
RC (00:54:03):
Well, the Free Speech Movement was basically what its name said. It was a contest over freedom of speech initially, where the administration... It started as a kind of board dispute where the university ends and the street, the city begin. And that is a kind of interesting dispute to begin with because in a way, what that was about on the corner of the south corner of the campus is saying that you can have the right to do political advocacy if you are off campus. And they thought that the strip of land on Bancroft and Telegraph avenues was off campus. But then it turned out, they found out that some of the little political tables they used to do organizing were actually on university property, that that strip the land that they thought was owned by the city was actually partially owned by the university and part of it was owned by the university. So then it was violating this university regulation about political neutrality. But if you just think about that, what that means is there's more freedom off campus then there is on campus. The First Amendment will protect your free speech rights off campus but on campus, you cannot do political advocacy. And just think about what that says. I mean, the university is supposed to be a place where you have academic freedom and the free expression of ideas is treasured. And instead, we're saying that, "Well, if this becomes part of the campus, it is got the kiss of death on it." It is sort of like, "No, you cannot do protest here. You cannot do advocacy here." So that is a reflection of the lack of political freedom on campuses, especially Berkeley on campus, that is ever since the Red Scare of our (19)30s. There is a mini Red Scare in the Bay Area after the general strike, where in (19)34 the university put these regulations out about political neutrality that you cannot do advocacy on campus. And that is very oppressive. Basically, it was done to protect the university from being red baited by the university, by the right wing and the state legislature. But how can you have freedom in a university if you cannot have free speech? And how can you have free speech if you cannot advocate? They thought, "Well, you could talk about anything but you cannot advocate something." Well, that is a ridiculous distinction. It is a distinction without difference, there is no way that... Mario said, "You would have to be like a Solomon to be able to make that kind of a distinction." And it was not tenable. And when they got pushed back with, then it would collapse. But the point is that these rules were restrictive and it was reinforced by the loyalty oath and McCarthyism. And even though this is 1964 and the president of the campus, Clark Kerr is a liberal, he is still towing the line with these very restrictive regulations. And so, what really brought this to a head was students were very much affected by the Civil Rights Movement and by the civil rights protests against Barry Goldwater because they had the Democratic... The Republican Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. So students wanted to participate in these things. And then the university tried to clamp down when they found out, the Oakland Tribune reporter came and found out that this is not city property, it is campus property. So therefore the university, "Oh, we have to then stop this organizing." And the students said, "No, we know. Why should we be restricted in our ability to speak and our ability to protest." And the university was not flexible. And the university students began first very politely trying. That is another thing that is important. They did not immediately say, "Okay, let us take over a building." That is not the way people operated back then. They said, "Let us try to petition, this is unreasonable. Let us get the university to reconsider these policies." But the university would not reconsider. It was basically saying that we do not think that the university should be playing this role. And so they would not compromise. I mean, not compromise, there was really no way to compromise in the sense that you either are going to have free speech on campus or you're not. The university wanted to make these compromises, as well. "We will let you have these tables but you cannot advocate political action." And then they changed the position and said, "Well, you can advocate political action, but it cannot be illegal." Well if you are advocating action against racism and that leads to a sit-in, that is illegal. So you are restricting their speech, their ability to make the university a place where students are involved in trying to serve society can organize against racism. And the students felt that was wrong. And that in turn, led to social, to protests, to sit-ins. And that in turn, I think had several effects. One was that it showed students that even though you by yourself are not powerful as a student using civil disobedience as a great equalizer, you can as a student have power if you are organized together. So that is one piece of this. The other thing that I think that the protests led to was students, after they said, "Well, the university is restricting us and this is not right." Then they began to say, "Well, wait a second, why is the university doing this?" In other words, what happened was it began as a movement was about free speech, but it evolved into something else beyond that. Because what I am saying is what happened is once the free speech issue is surfaced, then it led students to wonder, "Well, why is the university doing this? What's wrong with the university itself that it restricts freedom of speech?" And they came to this conclusion that the university was too close to what they call the military industrial complex. And so, was willing to sacrifice freedom of its own students and faculty in order to ingratiate itself with the powers that be. And so in other words, it led to this whole critique of the corporate university, which today is very much in vogue amongst some scholars who would look at the way that the university's become so much... If you look at David Kirp's book Shakespeare, Einstein and the Bottom Line, there's tons of books this criticize the university for being essentially, almost like a business. Or Sheila Slaughter's book Academic Capitalism. There is all this critique of the university as losing its sense of mission. So I think that the point is that it started off as movement just to... Mario came back from Mississippi and no intention at all of launching a mass movement at Berkeley. They were not interested in protesting about the university. They were just intending to keep on doing their activism in the Bay Area. There was all this activism in the Bay Area against discrimination in the local stores, in hotels on Auto Row. They thought they would continue to do that. It was just because the university basically was trying to stop them from doing that by denying them their free speech rights, that they began to focus their attention from off campus to on campus. And then once they started to focus it on campus, they began to be critical of the university because why is the university repressing free speech? And what came out of this movement were several things. One is that it showed that the students could be effective.
SM (01:01:15):
Hold on a second. Mine is to prepare people to be administrators in higher ed.
RC (01:01:25):
Oh, that is interesting.
SM (01:01:26):
Well, go ahead.
RC (01:01:30):
What I was going to say is that then what happened was... What was significant of the Free Speech Movement was that it won. Most student protests lose, historically. They won. And they won in part because the students had a core issue that a lot of people agreed on, that people should have the right to speak freely. They won because they were mostly non-violent. And so even though it seemed the majority of people in California were opposed to the movement because all they focused on was how disruptive it was. They thought there were riots, there were not riots, there were protests. The students at Sproul Hall did not rush the building. They marched in slowly. It is almost like a formal ceremony. When Joan Baez singing We Shall Overcome and you are walking into a building, that is not like some hijacking going on. That is like a very public act of deliberate and moderate civil disobedience. Non-violent. So what the Free Speech Movement showed was that when students have a large grievance and organized in a non-violent way against it, and also when they start to try to appeal to the faculty, because the Free Speech Movement was not just a student movement. That is another mistake people make. Campuses are not just students and administrators. Very important are the faculty. And what was really going on during the Free Speech Movement and my colleague Reggie Zelnik's article was about this, it was the administration and the students were competing with each other to win over the faculty. And in the end, the students won over the faculty because the administration was so blundering and repressive and worst of all was at the Greek theater when they took Mario off the stage by his tie. And they tried to gag him, basically gagging him. The administration kind of discredited itself. And the students, the faculty eventually on December 8th with their resolutions sided with the Free Speech Movement. And Kerr looked back on this when I interviewed him, the president of the university, looked back on the revolt as a faculty revolt as much as a student revolt. And he was right about that. The faculty, it took a long time because the faculty had loyalty to the university and to the administration. Faculty did not take over any buildings. They are not going to sit in, they generally have more loyalty to the institution and to the administration. But in the end they sided with the students. So I think what it showed is that if you really organize people and educate them on a big issue, and you use civil disobedience non-violently and as a last recourse... In other words, there is another sort of stereotype of the (19)60s that student protest is all about you go take over a building. That is not the way things worked in the Free Speech Movement. That was the last thing they were trying to do. They thought they could win without that. Civil disobedience caused people to get arrested, suspended, it is very painful. It is not the first thing that you do. It is really the last thing that you do. And they only used it when they absolutely felt like they needed to. And so, December 2nd to 3rd, Mario gave his famous speech and all that. They did take over the administration building, but that was because they felt like nothing else had worked. And the faculty eventually sided with them I think because despite the fact that for its time it was very militant, they were non-violent. They had a really important grievance and they spent the whole semester explaining it to people. It is not like these big dramatic moments that you should really focus on when you think about these moments, it is the long, difficult and even tiresome and boring, not boring, I would not say boring, the long and tiresome process of educating people about the issue that you are working on.
SM (01:05:27):
Like Tom Hayden does constantly.
RC (01:05:29):
Yeah.
SM (01:05:30):
With his Facebook page.
RC (01:05:31):
Yeah, so what I am saying is that what the Free Speech Movement showed is that students can have an influence in shaping history and as long as they organize intelligently, non-violently and in a sustained way and remember that they have to appeal to people outside of their own group, which is what the students did because they brought the faculty along with them.
SM (01:05:55):
It is interesting that Clark Kerr wrote that book, The Uses of the University, which was required reading in our graduate program at Ohio State. And that is the outline of the corporate world that we are talking about here. When I interviewed Bettina she said she really did not like Clark Kerr, but then in later years there was some situation where they were brought together for some reason.
RC (01:06:17):
Yeah, he wanted to get some feedback on his memoir, I think.
SM (01:06:21):
Yeah. And she said, "I really like the man." He was not as bad as he portrayed and of course he was fired by Reagan.
RC (01:06:28):
Well, I think the thing is that Kerr was basically in a lot of ways an admirable person. He had worked with Paul Taylor and Dorothy Lang, a very progressive background. And if you look at his master plan for California higher education, it was about providing accessible, cheap, higher education to the entire, no, universal higher education.
SM (01:06:54):
Wish it was still that way.
RC (01:06:55):
Yeah, I know. So in a way, he was caught between the right and the left. I do not think he was a bad person. He just made some pretty big mistakes in handling the protests. But look at his overall career, he was about... And even the stuff he was talking about, I think he was slightly misinterpreted by the Free Speech Movement. He was not uncritical of corporatization at the university. If you read that book carefully. He does have a kind of celebrating tone, but he does have some sort of... In fact, he is sarcastic at point. He suggests that there is some language in there that Hal Draper took him to task for. But he is sort of saying that, you could prostitute yourself and go too far in the quest for profits, a university could. So he was not uncritical. Oh, and by the way, I forgot to say that once the Free Speech Movement had shown that civil disobedience and students could be this effective force for change, I think that paved the way for what happened with the anti-war movement. That in fact, the Scranton Commission on Campus Unrest talked.
RC (01:08:03):
... that in fact, the Scranton Commission on Campus Unrest talked about the free speech movement as the Berkeley invention, which is mass protest, civil disobedience. In other words, it showed that, and just in the semester before you have got all this mass protest on the antiwar issue, that students could be a force for social change. And if they used these tactics.
SM (01:08:24):
And of course those tactics were the tactics that Dr. King used, and he would-
RC (01:08:27):
Right, the civil rights movement.
SM (01:08:28):
Yeah.
RC (01:08:28):
They were bringing, I mean, really the free speech movement brought the tactics of the civil rights movement, the early civil rights movement and the black student movement onto college campuses.
SM (01:08:36):
And the teachings and-
RC (01:08:37):
Yeah. Yeah. If you think about, for example, the sit-in movement, that was a predominantly Black movement in (19)60, (19)61. So, really the people who first, the students who first used civil disobedience on college, no, the first college students to use mass civil disobedience were black students mostly, but they were not using them on campus. They were using them at lunch counters. Was using them as a tool to get rid of Jim Crow off campus. What the free speech movement did was take those tactics that had been so successful off campus, and used them on campus.
SM (01:09:05):
It is interesting, when I interviewed the late Gaylord Nelson, the senator from Wisconsin, talking about Earth Day, he had a meeting with I think David, well, some of the organizers of the moratorium, and did not want to step on their toes, so there was a partnership there from the get-go. And the importance of the teaching was very important at the very beginning of Earth Day. And Gaylord Nelson wanted to make sure, and he worked with them. Yeah, I know Michael Rossmann, boy, I wish I had met him. In his blog, and I had been reading a lot of stuff before I came here today, he made a comment that really upset him towards the end of his life saying that, "The media has always portrayed Berkeley as this liberal school from the West," And he disagreed with that. He said, "It was not a liberal school. The students were what made this happen. It was not a liberal school. Why do you think we were fighting for these issues?" Your thoughts on Michael? He was really critical of the perception that the media portrays about Berkeley then and now.
RC (01:10:08):
Well, I think it is complicated. I think there was a... It depends on what you are talking about with Berkeley. There was a core of civil liberties-oriented faculty at Berkeley, who had resisted the loyalty oath from the McCarthy era, and they were the same core people. Some of those were in the same core of people who were resisting the administration, repression during the free speech movement. Now, it is complicated because Strong, the Chancellor, and Kerr, as the president, were also in the loyalty oath. So, those were on the protest of liberty side. So, it is complicated. I do not really think I totally agree with him on the idea that the faculty, the administration, that I think there were... I would say that Berkeley was a progressive place. I mean, look, it was the first, and Rossmann was a part of it even before the free speech movement, back in the late (19)50s, SLATE had been formed. So, there was a kind of progressive tradition at Berkeley.
SM (01:11:08):
It was (19)58, I believe.
RC (01:11:09):
Yeah, that went on. And before that it was called TASC, Towards a New Student Community or something. And I think that was made possible in part by the fact that, first of all, Berkeley was aspiring to be a national institution, which meant that it got really top talent in terms of academics. We had some very progressive faculty who were emerging there, some people like Michael Rogan in Political Science, Ken Stamp and Leon Litwack in History, Charles Muscatine in the English department [inaudible] the loyalty oath, and then became a great educational reformer. So, I think that there was a liberal and left subculture there, both on the student body and the faculty. And because of the quality of the place, there was a cosmopolitanism about it, and it was a tradition of the Bay Area that went back all the way back to General Strike, about there being, and there were progressive institutions like KPFA. And so, there is a sort of a left subculture out there. But there is also, I think what he meant was that if you look at the elections, like the student government elections, it was very rare that the left got anywhere. There was a big frat and sorority culture. It was in some ways like a typical Midwestern or Southern campus with a large traditional collegiate culture. And right on the eve of the free speech movement, in fact, I think it was Art Goldberg had told Bettina, "Oh, they just got defeated again in the student government elections." This is sort of like the left did. [inaudible] like, "Oh, well, now this campus is so conservative. We will never get anywhere." And that was going into this myth of this Berkeley being this ultra-radical place, where it was easy to organize. I think that is what Michael meant. In the early (19)60s that was not the case. There was a large, very conventional culture to the place that this insurgency was sort of beginning to challenge. But it was the idea that the average Berkeley student was radical. This is just not true. In fact, I did this article on the chapter in my book on the free speech movement about the rank and file. It's called This is Their Fight, and had the [inaudible].
SM (01:13:16):
It is the paperback [inaudible]. Yeah.
RC (01:13:18):
Yeah, that is right. That looked at the statements that the students made to the judge just before they were sentenced for their arrests for the sitting-in the Sproul Hall. And most of the students were not radicals. They were very reluctant to sit in. They did not want to break the law. They did not want to violate university regulations. They were just pretty moderate. But they felt they had no choice because they wanted to preserve free speech. So, if you look at the number of people who had a radical analysis, saying, "Well, universities are schools of corporations, and we need to resist imperialism and racism," who had this radical critique. It a very small minority. And in fact, if you think about there never would have been a mass movement at Berkeley if it could not reach beyond the small radical core. It had to be able to speak to mainstream students and to moderates and to liberals. And that is really what the free speech movement was able to do. So, I think that is what he meant. In other words, the idea that the Berkeley is this other, and it is like something out of Mars or something and all these aliens, that is how he got this movement. No. You got this movement because he was able to mobilize what was in many ways not a very unconventional campus to really, in fact, if you look at Larry Levine, his essay and the free speech book. He was a faculty member. He had just come from City College in New York when he came to Berkeley in the early (19)60s. And the first thing, the first demonstration he came into contact was not a politics, it was a panty raid. And he was saying, "Oh my God, what am I getting into?" What is this culture like? So, I think what Rossmann was right about was there was a dominant student culture that was setting the tone that was not politically radical or even particularly liberal, but that the movement kind of challenged that and sort of toppled that.
SM (01:15:06):
What is amazing is that some of the things that were happening in Berkeley were also happening in Harpur and SUNY Binghamton, because Dr. Dearing, within a year after I graduated in (19)70, retired and went up to Upstate Medical Center because his health had gone down. He died actually three years later, but they fired Professor Liebman in the Sociology Department for leading a protest in downtown Binghamton. And when they had the anniversary of the class of 1970, which was my class, this past year, a lot of them were not going back because what's happened is they're building it all up is this, the (19)60s and tie-dyes. And to me, not taking the seriousness of a lot of the issues that were facing the campus at that time. And my high school, when I was in high school, a graduate of SUNY Binghamton was fired from my high school. And that is the reason why I think I really wanted to go to Harpur College, because if somebody is fired for... Because they thought he was a communist. And this is the mid-(19)60s. So, it is a lot of connections between Binghamton and Berkeley in terms of the kinds of students and-
RC (01:16:21):
Oh, sure.
SM (01:16:22):
... And the kinds of issues. And the president who was respected, Bruce Dearing, I do not know if you have ever heard of him. He was respected, but they kicked their OTC off. And when all the residence halls became, when the fraternities became so big, it really disturbed me because the college in the woods right now in SUNI Binghamton is basically all frat guys. And I lived there, and we would not have a frat guy around. They had to go to Cornell to be in fraternities. We banned them. They were banned at Binghamton. They had had to go to Cornell. And so, it is a lot of stuff kind of linked. We were a much smaller school, but we were kind of in, our heart was here.
RC (01:17:03):
Oh, sure.
SM (01:17:03):
No question about it. Mario Savio, to me, I mean, you have done an unbelievable book, and I really believe more Americans and young people need to know about this man. I state here, and I just want to put it in here for the record, and that is that who was he? Where did he come from? And just briefly, how did he rise to the top? And what I really like about him was that his motives were totally pure in so many ways, because he was... We were raised in at Ohio State University in the theme of student development, overcoming obstacles in one's life. And to know that he was a stutterer, and to be able to stand up in front of all those people and say what he did. And then also what I like about many of the leaders of the free speech movement you're bringing out so well, it's not about me. It is about us.
RC (01:18:09):
Yeah.
SM (01:18:11):
And he did not care about a political career. He cared about an issue that was so, see, that is what I want. That is what to me was the (19)60s was about. Just your thoughts on Mario and-
RC (01:18:21):
Oh, yeah. Well, I think that Mario basically came at it from a moral position. He came up, he was the oldest boy in a Catholic home, and he was going to be, he had a religious sensibility. He was going to be a priest. And eventually, he did not go that direction. But I think in a certain sense you could see that same moral sensibility as expressed here. He had a very strong sense of right and wrong. And he felt that, particularly with the civil rights movement, he saw what happened at Birmingham where people were being attacked, kids were being, black kids were being attacked by police dogs and fire hoses, that this was really wrong. He felt both shamed and inspired by those protests, ashamed that America would do this and inspired to try to do something to help. And so, I think he had a very strong impetus towards to help those who were being oppressed. Even before the civil rights movement, he had been not before the civil harassment, before he became involved in the summer, he went to Mexico and did poverty work to help poor peasants in Mexico. I think that he felt that one had to take a stand to stop something that would have, to stop evil. And that is what he was really doing. He felt in a way the civil rights movement was, even though he was not religious anymore, he felt that it was, that racism was sinful. And that the attempt to rid of it, to get rid of it was almost like God showing His hand in the world. Even though he was not religious, he still talked about it way, kind of a post-Catholic way of speaking. He had not lost that kind of way of thinking about things. He was pretty broken with his church. And I think that when you think about Savio, that is really what he was about. It was saying that we had to take a moral stance to stop evil and to make democracy possible. And then he went down. So, he became active in the Bay Area civil rights movement, got arrested. When he was in jail, that was about the Sheraton-Palace to try to stop the discrimination in the hotel. And while he was in jail for that, he found out about this Mississippi Freedom Summer and decided, "Well, I am knew tried to go down there." And he did. And he went down there and saw, there, look, in the Bay Area, if you got arrested, it could be inconvenient. Hold on a second.
SM (01:20:41):
Yep.
RC (01:20:43):
Sitting in against racism, you can get arrested or possibly hit over the head or something. You could get hurt. But mostly it is about you could get arrested. In Mississippi, you're risking your life. When he was on his way down to Mississippi, in Oxford, Mississippi getting trained by SNCC and the cultural organizers, they found out that the three civil rights workers were missing, Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. And so, it was really clear from, Bob Moses said, "Do not kid yourself. They are not coming back. And nobody will think any less of you if you just decide, 'Look, I do not want to put my life on the line.'" And the amazing thing is, nobody left. They all went, because they felt like this is really the most important thing happening in America, if not in the world. We are going to stop this pattern of racist violence and decent and disenfranchisement. This is going to stop now, and we are going to help make it happen in collaboration with the black community. It is not that we, mostly white college students are going to save the day. We are going to show solidarity. And down there, this was a movement that was led by black people, by heroic student organizers of African American descent and former students like Bob Moses, and being supported by people within the African American community of Mississippi. And when he was there, he saw, I mean, this is a whole other level of activism because you are risking your life, but you are only there for the summer. Those African Americans who are down there, they are risking their life and their property and their whole futures in a way that is not just the summer. In other words, you go to sign up to vote, and you could lose your land or you could lose your life, and you could have this pattern of harassment that goes on for years, right? And so, what Mario began to see was this is a really a deep and heavy-duty thing. And they were talking about which side are you on? Are you trying to really make America a more democratic place, and what are you willing to do about it? And so, when it came back to Berkeley, and he had the memories of that, he felt when these administrations are trying to cut down the free speech area that made it possible for Berkeley to be a recruiting ground for this kind of activism, the idea is, "Well, look, we were not just kidding down there. That was not some summer lark. This is serious. People down there are risking their lives for their freedom, and you are going to tell me that you are going to stop me from doing this?" And so, essentially what it was about was the solidarity that you're going to take a stance. And also, there is no pretense. There's no jargon. It is very plainspoken. He called it a Jimmy Stewart kind of approach to oratory. We are not talking about the bourgeoisie or the proletariat or high theory. We are talking about just right or wrong, and this is wrong, and we have got to do something about it. And that was not just something that applied to Berkeley and to the free speech issue, but became a lifelong thing for him. That is, when you see people, he came, why did he, he really did not want to be a politician. He was not a politician. He was a brilliant philosophy and science student. He was meant to be a professor or an award-winning scientist. And he wanted to be able to focus on that. But it kept happening that things kept happening in society that he could not put his head in the sand. So, when Reagan is funding this terrorist war in Nicaragua, or the United States is supporting a government in El Salvador that has death squads, or the Apartheid, the United States is subsidizing Apartheid or the anti-immigrants, anti-affirmative action stuff was happening in California in the 1990s. He felt, "I have got to take a stand against this." Or even in his home university at Sonoma State, when he was, really the struggle that he died in the midst of, it was, if we raise these fees, like what is going on now, then the working-class kids are not going to be able to come here, and education should be accessible. So, I think with Mario, what it was really about was a feeling that, "I need to stand up for what's right." And I think that did have an effect on him as a person that I think that it helped him in some way. That was not why he did it, but it did help him work his way through. He had a very hard childhood. He'd been abused as a child. And I think that affected his speech. He had a very bad stammer. And in a way, the liberation of the students, people talk about the (19)60s, being able to find your voice. In a way that was what it was for him. He found his voice by trying to give voice to others by trying to help others be free of their oppression. He became, here you had somebody who could not speak as a child. And now he was a great orator. And to me, that is really symbolic of what the (19)60s at its best was about, was about standing up to help others, and in the process of trying to change and help free others, you are self-freeing yourself, because racism was not just about black people being hurt by it. It also hurt us as a society. It hurt whites as well. It hurt all the generations that were coming up, being raised on intolerance and hatred. So, I think that for Mario, and it also had to do with, it was just this idea that when things were, when something was oppressive and unjust, you have a responsibility to try to do something about it. Even if you are busy doing something else, even if you would rather be doing something else, even if it does not, if it is not good for your career and certainly not good for your health. And in a sense, he died. He lived because of it. In a way, he died because of it too. He died. He had been involved in all these anti-affirmative, in his defense of affirmative action, in challenging those valid initiatives against affirmative action and against immigrant rights. And so, he kind of exhausted himself in that and the [inaudible] battle, and he had a weak heart and he died in the midst of the struggle. His wife thinks that he was so compassionate and so concerned and so activist that you could say that he worked himself to death. Now, that may or may not be the case, but the point is think about how that compares to the stereotype about people from the (19)60s who sell out, who [inaudible] out their politics. It is the exact opposite of that.
SM (01:27:11):
Yep, [inaudible]
RC (01:27:12):
Yeah, he never cashed in on any of this. It was really about, "Look, we do not need some great leader to do this. We can do this ourselves." And that was another thing. That is one of the reason why he stepped out of leadership. He did not feel like, you should not need a celebrity leader. You should be able to organize movements where, if you are a good organizer, you will organize your way out of a job because people should be able to organize themselves.
SM (01:27:35):
That is the Benjamin Barber mentality. Benjamin Barber has written the books on citizenship and the nation that requires a strong president. Well, we want a strong president. But when you have stronger citizens, that is the greater democracy.
RC (01:27:50):
Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that is the idea of participatory democracy, which Mario kind of embodied.
SM (01:27:55):
Here, I know we are getting out close to the end of our time here, and I have got, we are not going to finish the questions, but is there a connection between the free speech movement and the following events? And I will just list these events. Kent State, 1970, Columbia in (19)68, Harvard Square, the March on Washington in (19)63, the moratorium of (19)69, Earth Day in 1970, Chicago Convention in (19)68.
RC (01:28:22):
Well, I think that-
SM (01:28:23):
Any connections there between the free speech movement?
RC (01:28:26):
Well, I think that just the later events in terms of protest, the idea that you can make a difference by going out in the streets and protesting, I think those are all, but they're all very different events. So, I would say that I would not attribute everything to the free speech movement. I think that there is a kind of way in which there is this ethos of being able to make change through social protests that is connected in all these things. And the later student events you are talking about the idea that the generation, that young people can make a difference, that if you think about those later events you are pointing to. I think there definitely is a connection there. But I would not want to attribute every, in other words, I think if you think about it, the civil rights movement helped to make the free speech movement possible. The free speech movement helped to make the anti-war movement possible. The anti-war movement helped to make the women's movement, the gay liberation movement, environmental movements possible. So, I think there is a connection there between this sort of ethos of social criticism, social protest that the free speech movement helped to promote. But I would not say it was by itself. I think there was these cycles or this pattern of activism that when you get people in motion and they have an impact, then that in turn, on one issue, that in turn can affect them on other issues.
SM (01:29:44):
I will try to make these brief here, but one of the things about-
RC (01:29:48):
We can also finish on the phone too. I mean, in other words, we do not have to. In other words, we can always pick it up again. There is not really, you do not have to feel like you have to get it in. I mean, I am available. We can always-
SM (01:29:58):
Well, this is fascinating. Your students are very lucky to have you because I am a firm believer that students need to know their history, and they do not know enough of it. I have had too many students tell me that the Vietnam War was before World War II, and I have heard stories still that in high school, teachers, at least particularly those that were going to high school in the 1990s, that they do not... Their classes stop in the (19)60s. They do not go beyond. They stopped the history. It is like me when I was in school, it was John Kennedy stops at the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty or something like that. But the thing, this is a question that, because you talk about Allan Blum and the closing of the American mind. You have got the David Horwitz’s writing all these books because he went from a liberal to a conservative. And political correctness is something that was so prevalent on college campus in the (19)80s and (19)90s, and some say it is still there today. What are your thoughts on those issues? Particularly, I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly and Phyllis Schlafly and David Horowitz both believe that the student protestors of the (19)60s are now running today's universities, and they are also teaching the students of today. They run all the studies courses, women's studies, the black studies, the gay and lesbian studies, environmental studies, Asian American studies, Native American studies, Latino studies. They are all the liberals, the left from the (19)60s, and they are only giving one side. So, that is the Schlafly’s and the Horowitz’s. And then you have got Barney Frank, who is a Democrat. He wrote a book called Speaking Frankly, which I think is a very good book, way before all this issue of the environment. And he talks in there about the fact that after the (19)72 election where people supported McGovern, that the Democratic Party will never survive if it cannot stay away from the anti-war people. It has got to make the separation. The Democratic Party has to go a different direction. It cannot be the Teddy Kennedy types. It has got to be a totally different direction. So, here is a Democrat, powerful, even then, a gay Democrat saying that, "We must separate ourselves from the anti-war and the activists of the (19)60s within the Democratic Party." You have got Schlafly and Horowitz saying that today's universe, you have got political correctness saying that as a result of what happened, maybe starting with the free speech movement and the protests and so forth.
RC (01:32:34):
Well, let me tell you-
SM (01:32:34):
Gone the other direction.
RC (01:32:35):
Yeah, I mean, first of all, I mean, I would say this, that I think it is very simplistic to say the university is all one thing or another, just like I was saying before with the boomer generation. It is a very large, complex thing. I mean, on the one hand, what about, I mean, if you look at the University of California, it is a great example. I mean, BP had this huge center for corporate, as what's his name was saying, David Kirk was saying in this book on Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line that Mario, by talking about the corporatization of the university was being prophetic. A campus where with the dean of the business school is called the Bank of America Dean. So, the idea, what I am saying to you is that you could make, they focus on a few liberal studies. What about, who has the computer science departments? Who has the business schools? Who is heading the law schools? I mean, the idea that the university was headed by a bunch of radicals, then how could you explain the incredible corporatization of the university? That is such a simplification. The university does all these things that are pillars of the computer revolution, of corporate capitalism. To make it like the university's all one thing, that it's been taken over by radicals, is you are lopping off two-thirds of the university, and the ones, parts of the university that have most of the money. You know what I mean? Why would the universities that, if they are on the left, why would they even have business schools? Where does that come from? So, I think that it is such an oversimplification to judge. You are judging the entire universities by a few disciplines or departments that would lean to the left because of the nature of those departments or disciplines. I think that is really simplistic. I mean, I do not really think of the universities as, I mean, look, if you look, there is a whole literature about the universities, including this one. We had a TA strike that crushed the union. The universities are not being run by radicals. I mean, that is absurd. There is an influence in terms of ideas of people on the left and liberals, sure. That is the case. The majority of academics are liberals, but in terms of, it is such an overstatement to act as if the university is somehow part of the revolutionary left when the university, how do you explain all the stuff about corporatization? And look at the critique by Sheila Slaughter who look at the university as corporate capitalism embodied. I mean, there is a struggle. The university is a contradictory place. Some of the people who were student radicals have gone into academia, but there's lots more people who were never, like you are saying, the majority of people in the boomer generation were not radicals. So, the idea that they have taken over the university is really absurd.
SM (01:35:22):
Yeah. And my proposition and just your thoughts on this maybe, I have got two more questions, and we will end here, is that today's universities are afraid of the term activism, activists. Volunteerism is, 95 percent of the students are involved in volunteering. A lot of it's required, but a lot of them are doing it. And that is very good. Some people say that is activism. Well, I do believe that is short-term activism. I am talking about the mentality of the Mario Savio’s, the Tom Hayden’s, the Bettina Aptheker’s, which is, "It is my life. It is part of who I am. It is part of my very being. It is 24-7. It is not two days a week at two hours." And I think you are right on that. I think a lot of the people that run today universities are boomers who were not activists, who had the experience of being on campuses and seeing what activism does to a campus, knowing that we are in tough times. And if there's any protests, maybe students will not come to the college.
RC (01:36:17):
Well, if you look at the disengagement with the students, like Dick Flacks has got the study about California freshman.
SM (01:36:21):
I am interviewing him. Yeah.
RC (01:36:23):
Yeah. I mean, if the universities are about making students radical activists, they are doing a pretty poor job. Right? I mean, because you can run academic programs that just are about academics and do not have an activist ethos. So, I think that, if what David Horowitz and Phyllis Schlafly were saying, "Look, for God's sake, we have two wars going on," right? Two, not one, two. Where is the mass protest? Obviously, if the left had taken over college campuses and was there to build mass movements, they are not doing a very good job. Right? So, I think it is a very simplistic view. I mean-
SM (01:36:56):
Do you think they are afraid of that? Do you think that the universities, people may be the board of trustees or the type of administrators are afraid of activism because it brings back memories of the (19)60s? It could happen again.
RC (01:37:09):
No. I think it has been so long since they had a mass protest. I do not think that is something that is on their minds. I think that if it came, if it emerged, they probably would feel that way. But right now, I mean, there is also, remember there is a new generation here. There is a 21st century generation of students that is very influenced by computers that may not be, you may be thinking about this too much in a 20th century vein. In other words, that there is a whole new way of looking at things, and activism has been reduced to pushing a button on a computer, which does not necessarily really change things, but people might think that it does.
SM (01:37:44):
Brought a picture up.
RC (01:37:46):
That is right. So what I am saying, saying is- it is not necessarily the case that if there is activism, that it would take the form of the (19)60s, or anybody's worried about that, in a way. So, I am just saying I think that the idea that the university are breeding grounds of activism is, it may be in some ways a more interesting place if that was the case. But it is not true. On the other hand, there are books that show that, let me qualify that, there is this new book that came out by Mark Warren, Fire in the Heart. He looks at lots of people who are involved in [inaudible] activists today, and says that people who are activists, some of them did come through those programs that Phyllis Schlafly and those guys are complaining about. And I think, in other words, but that is only a minority. In other words, you can learn to oppose racism and become activists on the college campuses. You can. But that is only a small group that is.
SM (01:38:40):
Wow, this is interesting. I thought I was up on books.
RC (01:38:45):
Yeah. Well, yeah.
SM (01:38:46):
You are really up on them. My last question here, and I asked a little of this-
RC (01:38:48):
Let me just tell my student I will be right with her.
SM (01:38:49):
Yep.
RC (01:39:00):
So I do not lose her.
SM (01:39:01):
Okay.
RC (01:39:01):
Hey, how you doing? I will be out in about a minute, okay? [inaudible] Okay, sure.
SM (01:39:04):
Okay. What did the university learn from the student protest, particularly the free speech movement? What did the university learn from the free speech movement itself? And how has the university changed for the better? And what areas does the university structure still exemplify what the free speech movement was fighting all about in (19)64, (19)65? In other words, is Mario was here today in this room, and I was asking him this question, your response may be different from his, but would he be positive or negative? Or where would he be?
RC (01:39:33):
Well, actually, he did think that there had been some progress made because he was talking, in the last chapter of the book, he talks about Sonoma State, that the university was not all white anymore. And so in fact, he felt the university was retreating from being free in terms of money at just the wrong time. Just as the university was getting to be desegregated, and there were people of color coming, that all of a sudden it was thousands of dollars. And some people would say, "Well, is that an accident?" Back in the (19)60s when most students are white, it was pretty much free in most places, many places in the public universities. Now that it is probably gotten desegregated to some degree, now it is expensive. It is an interesting argument. So, I think in that sense, he would feel like he felt like there had been progress made in terms of accessibility to higher education. And also, I mean, definitely in terms of free speech, the university, now most universities allow students student rights, and even spread to the high schools through the Tinker decision. So, I think that had changed. I think in terms of the, but the basic issues about what the critique of higher education in terms of how much do we care about teaching? How much do we care about that function of the university serving the poor, that still has not, that is still there. In other words, that university is still about getting big money and trying to service corporate America and the defense establishment. Its top priority is not how can we wage a war on poverty? That is not what is at the top of the agenda for universities. It is like my university, where are they rushing to build a campus? Not in some starving Third World country, but in oil-rich Abu Dhabi. So, I think the idea is that the basic issue about what is the service mission of the university? Who is the university serving? That that has not really changed as much as people like Mario would like it. He thought the university should be a center of the attempt to make America more democratic and more egalitarian. And that would mean giving students of color and working class students more access to higher education. That would mean building an ethos among students that would think, "Okay, how can we change society?" And also if you are going into academics, how can you think-
RC (01:42:03):
And also if you are going into academics, how can you think critically about society? In other words like generating new ideas to make the society a more just, not just about demonstrating, but okay, what are we learning about our social problems through our studies that we can then act on later on?
SM (01:42:16):
I think course of this, that the whole issue of fundraising in higher education today is a major issue. We talk about links to corporations, but at the school that I just left, and I know this is the case at several other schools, they had cut back on student life activities and in some places, they are very observant of the fact that if a particular speaker or form or program could affect in any way, the dollar flows from donors, they are a little hesitant to support it. And so by they have ways of controlling it in subtle ways by cutting off the amount of funds. So they cannot bring in controversial speakers. And I think that is a big concern about free speech issues. It's done very subtly as we see racism still exists in our society in a very subtle way.
RC (01:43:07):
Oh, I agree that the universities do not want to... That dynamic is still there. What I meant about free speech was if students want to organize on an issue, people would know you cannot come down the same way that they did in (19)64. You cannot say that. So...
SM (01:43:19):
I have a few more questions, but maybe-
RC (01:43:21):
You can do it on the phone.
SM (01:43:22):
... 30 minutes. 30 minutes [inaudible].
RC (01:43:22):
Sure. Sure.
SM (01:43:22):
But I really appreciate it.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Robert Cohen
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Cohen, Robert, 1955 May 21- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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College teachers; New York University; Cohen, Robert, 1955 May 21--Interviews
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Dr. Robert Cohen is a professor at New York University, where he teaches History, Social Studies, Education, and Human Development. He received his B.A. at SUNY Buffalo and his PhD. at the University of California at Berkeley. Cohen also writes books, most of which focus on either history or people as a whole.
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McKiernan Interviews
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Date of Interview
2010-12-22
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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Ellis Cose
Language
English
Biographical Text
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178:08
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African American editors; African American Authors; Cose, Ellis--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Ellis Cose
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 22 December 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:05):
Testing one, two. One of the questions that I have asked everybody in the interview process, I normally ask it toward the end of the interview, but I am going to ask it in the beginning this time, is that do you believe, as a boomer, that the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing from the divisions that took place in the (19)60s and (19)70s, the intense divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who were for the Vietnam War and against it? I ask this question because I took a group of students to see Edmond Muskie in 1995, and we asked that same question to him, and the students felt that he was going to respond based on what happened at the convention in (19)68. And, of course, (19)68 was an unbelievable year with a lot of tragedy. And so, they thought he was going to talk about the 1968 conventions and the tremendous divisions in the country. I will let you know what he said, but what are your thoughts?
EC (00:01:18):
Well, I guess my thought is that I am not sure that I agree the whole concept of healing to begin with. I think that we are all shaped by our times in a huge way. We are shaped by the things that are important to us in a huge way. And if by healing we mean that as we approach old age, we resolve those issues and we agree about those conflicts and we reach a state of harmony with one another, I am not sure that that happened. I think that we have certainly put the Vietnam War collectively as a nation behind us, and I think that the emotions that were invested in that once upon the time are not nearly what they were, even among people who were directly involved with exception here or there. I also think that if we look at the question of race, clearly, we have come a huge distance in this country when it comes to the ability of white to see African Americans as [inaudible] beings. Though, interestingly enough, I mean, I just finished turning in the manuscript for a book that looks at generations, including the boomers, those who are treat boomers, the silence, so calls and also the millennials. And one thing that is very clear to me is that in terms of how capable different generations of races are of seeing each other as human beings, a lot of that has to do with the generation in which they were shaped. Not so much with the conflict of the generations, but just the ethos of a particular generation. People who grew up in segregated setting have an awfully difficult time getting beyond that, it is not a question of healing, it is just that their entire experience growing up was of believing that people were destined to be separate. People who came up right after segregation have a different way of looking at things, but they were still raised in society where it was a big deal for blacks and whites to marry each other for blacks and whites, to be close friends with one another. And those people in large measure never get to a point where they get beyond that. It is not a question for me of conflicts, it is not an issue of, " I was a segregationist or an integrationist," and therefore we heal somehow, there is a language of healing, and I am very familiar with it. I hear it a lot. There are different groups which come together to do what they call healing. That whole idea implies that once upon a time people were whole. Somehow in the course of event, they develop a wound and then they are going to go and somehow heal this wound. I just think it misconstrues human relationship. So I guess my answer to that is that yes, I think that to some extent we get over the conflicts of the past, but I just do not really accept the language of healing that...
SM (00:04:50):
Yeah, when Senator Musky responded, the students again that came with me, none of them were alive during the Vietnam War. They had all seen these on videos and so forth, and they were surprised that Senator Musky did not even comment on the (19)60s or anything to do with (19)68. He basically commented that we have not healed since the Civil War over the issue of race, and that he went into detail talking about it. And another thing too, when you think of healing, a lot of people from the Vietnam War think of Kim Phuc because she has come, the girl in the picture from the Vietnam War. I interviewed her and the whole interview with her was, she is a very forgiving and healing person, and we must move on. And one other comment before getting the next question is when I interviewed the late Gaylord Nelson at his office at the Wilderness Society, I knew him quite well. And he said, he was struck by the question, he says, nobody is walking around Washington DC talking about not healing from the Vietnam War or the divisions that took place at that time. They do not wear it on their sleeve, but he said it is permanently in the body politic. And that is where the impact really is in the politics itself. Just a little side light of this question now, do you feel that the Vietnam Memorial itself has helped the nation heal?
EC (00:06:17):
Well, it runs into the same issue. I do not believe in this concept of healing. I just do not. I mean, think it is great, and I think it has acknowledged the contributions of people who through no fault of their own, got involved in the conflict that the nation collectively ended up repudiating. And so I think that is a good thing. But I think healing is almost clinical therapeutic concept that does not really apply to what happens in the context of a national conflicts, except for people who were very much on the front lines of those and did suffer some sort of clinical result as a consequence of that. And in those cases, I think it goes individual to individual. Some individuals are capable of healing, some are not. But I do not think that nation heal in that way. I think that is something that individuals do within themselves.
SM (00:07:23):
I have done a lot of reading on your background. You have got your website's great, by the way.
EC (00:07:26):
Thank you.
SM (00:07:27):
I think you have a great website and there is some great biographies of you, just small biographies of your background and your books and the themes of your books, and certainly your growing up years. But I always ask this because the people that are going to be reading these interviews will not have read your books and will certainly will hope they will after the interviews. But how did you become who you are? What was it like growing up in Chicago as a teenager? What were your college years? Was there activism on your campus when you were an undergraduate student? And were you involved in any of the organizations at your college?
EC (00:08:11):
I came to writing for a very simple reason, and then I have written about this before. But basically the reason I became a writer was because of riots in my community. I came up on the west side of Chicago, and I was a kid in high school when Martin Luther King was fascinated in 1968. And my community literally went up in flames. And the same thing had happened to that same community on the west side of Chicago in 1966. It went up in flames in that instance because of a police conflict, which is actually what led a lot to the riot of the (19)60s of a conflict between a citizen and the cops. And that caused an uprising. It took indeed, of course, it came just the King. But in both instances, there were fires, there were tanked, the community, and there was pretty significant violence. And as a kid, we were watching that and then reading the press reports at the time, I realized that the press reports that I was reading about bore no resemblance community about my community, bore no resemblance to community that I was living in. And this gets, actually into your previous question about healing. And my point about generation, if we go back to the late (19)60s, this was the time when the major newspapers, firstly had no black reporters at all. There were an exceptions here and there, but the so-called major media simply saw no reason back then to hire blacks. And so when they covered something like a racial conflict or a riot, they covered it as if they were covering a third world community they did not understand, full of people who were irrational and who were not full human being. And you can see this very clearly in any of the coverage of those days, if you go back and read some of the accounts, the riots from back then. And I made the decision, even though I was not terribly interested initially in being a writer, that someone needed to write about these kinds of things that had some understanding of these communities. And it happened to coincide with an ongoing conflict I had was with an English teacher over doing assignments because I was a bright kid and the assignments in my way of thinking or mind numbingly stupid. I got her to agree that my assignment would be to write a paper on riot and why they occur in the communities [inaudible] have them. And she ended up agreeing to this for my assignment for English for that year. And for the first time, I got excited about writing and ended up turning in a manuscript of somewhere between 130 and 200 pages as I recall, which she received, took home, read, came back and told me, I am going to give you an A for the course, but I am not really capable of grading this, judging this, you need to send it to a professional." I had no idea what a professional writer was really. She advised me to send it to Gwendolyn Brooks. Because Gwendolyn Brooks was a poor [inaudible] Illinois. Gwendolyn Brooks read it, got in touch with me, essentially told me I needed to think about becoming a writer as the profession. And that launched me into becoming a writer. I also happened to get a job as a columnist for the Chicago Sun Time when, well, when I was 18 as a columnist for their school supplement publication, but I was 19, became a columnist for their actual newspaper. So all of that obviously influenced heavily my decision to become a journalist, to become a writer.
SM (00:12:40):
Was that experience in Chicago when you were young, how did that affect your psyche? You were having the experience of someone who was saying you were a really good writer. Can you hold on a second? My cell phones? Hold on one second. Hold on one second. Hello? Yes-yes. No-no-no-no. I am ready to head off. Yeah, well, I cannot get any over there any earlier though. Okay. Okay. Oh, just get me a couple hamburgers. That is it. Okay. Yep, that is it. I am actually on the phone with my landlord. Upper window. Okay. All right. Thanks, Jim. Bye. Ellis, you still there?
EC (00:14:06):
Yes.
SM (00:14:06):
My brother has gone because he is getting an eye appointment today. That is why I am leaving early.
EC (00:14:13):
Well, you asking.
SM (00:14:13):
Yeah, I was asking about the psyche.
EC (00:14:14):
Psyche.
SM (00:14:15):
What was it about you personally that even though these very terrible things were happening in this country, that you felt within yourself that you were going to be a success as a writer? It was a kind of, nothing was going to stop you.
EC (00:14:31):
Well, I never thought, even as a very, very young man, that I was not going to be a success at whatever it was that I decided to do. Why did I feel that way? Well, it certainly was not the result of coming up in the projects. There were not a whole lot of folks who were particular successes in the projects. But I think it was my psychology, and my psychology was shaped, I am sure by some measure, by the fact that I knew I was a very bright kid. Despite the fact that I went to terrible inner-city schools, which had all the terrible things happening to them that you read about, and that the teachers, at least many of them were very uninterested in teaching much of anything. And despite the fact that the schools at least found that I went to did not but they were fairly violent. I was always acknowledged as a bright kid. I always tested off the charts. When time came for me to go to high school, I got into a high school out of my neighborhood, which was when high school considered, it was at the time the fitted the best public school in the city because I tested well and always tested well. And so I knew I was a bright kid, and so I knew I had potential, at least mental potential. I also knew that I was a hard worker. So despite the fact that there were lots of messages that came to kids in my community here, "You are never going to be anything. You are going to be a failure. You are never going to amount too much in life." I just found it very easy to tune that out because it is, from my perspective has just been a part of me.
SM (00:16:31):
I was talking at some of the major events when you were young, even very young. How did the following event shape your consciousness as a young African-American teenager and young adult, and obviously some of these things, you were born in (19)51, so you were very young, nine or 10, I am not sure if you were aware of all of them, but as you aged, I broke down in some of these events. You were 12, 13, 14, 18, 20. But I am just going to list some of the key events that in the civil rights movement that were part of that 20-year period, and just any brief comment you can and how important you felt it was not only for you personally, but for our nation. The Montgomery Bus Boycott.
EC (00:17:21):
Well, the Montgomery Bus boycott. I was barrel as an infant pretty much at that point. I read about it as an adult or as a young man I suppose. But we are talking in about (19)50s now. I would have been three or four years old. And so in terms of my having any consciousness of that happening at the time, I had absolutely none. I was just way too young for that.
SM (00:17:51):
And that would include also the Brown versus Board of Education decision, and-
EC (00:17:54):
Well, same thing.
SM (00:17:55):
Little Rock Nine.
EC (00:17:55):
Yeah. I was a bit older when Little Rock Nine occurred, of course, but still, I was the age of six, seven, eight, nine, not really consistently reading the newspaper at that time. We would probably have to get out of the (19)50s.
SM (00:18:16):
Yeah, they-
EC (00:18:17):
Get to a point where I would be aware of the conflict that is swirled around the whole issue of civil rights.
SM (00:18:26):
The other ones are when you were 13 and up, and that is the March on Washington (19)63, Freedom Summer in (19)64. And certainly the terrible tragedy of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman being killed. Were you aware of those events as of 13, 14-year-old?
EC (00:18:45):
That is interesting. I am sure I was aware in some vague way, and clearly the March Washington was a huge event and I would have been, what? 12 at the time that took place. I am sure I was aware of it, but looking back, I cannot say I have a cautious memory of what I was thinking at that time. I am certain I was not aware of. I am certain it was part of a lot of things I was beginning to be aware of that were happening around me. I remember realizing somewhere along the way, or at least concluding somewhere along the way, that the South was a very ugly place full of ugly, bigoted people. And I think really that was an opinion that was shaped by the news event at the time. But I cannot say if you go incident by incident, I did not know anybody who went down to Washington, yeah for the march on Washington. I did not know anybody who was involved with the with freedom rights, I mean, was a poor kid from a poor community on the west side of Chicago. The people I know were not doing those things. They were basically just trying to make it. And so I cannot say that any of those events shaped me in the way that they would have shaped me if I was five or 10 years older. I cannot say that any of those had a huge impression on me. The first discreet event of the (19)60s that I can remember making a huge impression on me other than the riots themselves, which had a huge impact on me because that was my community that was being torn apart. Other than that, the first event of the (19)60s was as you can say really, really shook me was Martin Luther King's assassination.
SM (00:20:47):
Yeah, that is on my-
EC (00:20:47):
- [inaudible] of (19)68.
SM (00:20:52):
And certainly MLK's assassination, certainly the over representation of African Americans who served in the Vietnam War was well documented at that time. And then Dr. King's Vietnam speech back in 1967, and then of course, the rise of the Black Panthers. Your thoughts on those?
EC (00:21:16):
Well, the Black Panthers I was aware of, and because they were in the west side of Chicago that was and my introduction to them was that all of a sudden these people appeared. And again, I do not remember exactly what level of how intimate my knowledge was, but I do remember being told, I think by friends of mine, that there was this conflict between the gangs on the south side and what I was coming, the big gang on the south side was something called August of the Black Peace Stone Nation, which is started off as, there is a Blackstone Rangers. And this may be apocryphal or may not be, but I do. But I do remember being told as a teenager that the Black Panthers were planning to set up shop on the South side, and that the Black Peace Stone Nation told them, no, that was their turf, that was their territory, and they were not going to make way for another gang. So I remember that dispute, at least as I understood it at the time, having taken place. And the rise of the Black Panthers happened to coincide with a time when I was starting college. And so I was very much aware of them by that time. And there were people I knew who had links to the Black Panthers, and so I was aware of them. I admired them in a certain way. I felt they certainly dressed again pretty cool, their leather jackets and whatnot. I liked their attitude in terms of their being a standup group who were going to not take much of anything from anybody. I remember when we're talking about early college years by this point, and at that point, I was very much aware of all these things that were going on. And I do remember of reading Eldridge Cleavers. Was it Soul on Ice?
SM (00:23:30):
Yep. Soul on Ice.
EC (00:23:32):
Somewhere back then. And being disappointed in Eldridge Cleaver, because I realized that not only was he a rapist, which I knew that he was a rapist, but I had assumed he had sufficient political consciousness that he had transcended that. And at some point, Soul on Ice becomes a defend of rape as a political act, which I thought was just absurd. So reading that affected the way that I felt about the Panthers, I had no respect for him after reading that and began to think maybe the Panthers were not this noble organization that I had assumed they were.
SM (00:24:23):
What is amazing about the Black Panthers, and when I have talked about and interviewed other people, they say, you are dealing with some major personalities here that are different. You have got Elders Cleaver, you have got Kathleen Cleaver, you have got Bobby Seal, you have got Huey Newton, you have got Stokely Carmichael, you have got H. Rep Brown. You have got, I got Elaine Brown.
EC (00:24:45):
Yeah, Elaine-
SM (00:24:46):
Dave Hilliard. And you see, you are dealing with a lot of different-
EC (00:24:49):
I am not sure Stokely Carmichael was, there were actually a number of the Panthers. Certainly it was not temporary.
SM (00:24:57):
Right. I think he did become a panther.
EC (00:24:58):
It is possible. You obviously studying this, I am not, but I do not remember him being very prominent with the Panthers because he became prominent as another kind of character. But yeah, and certainly Huey Newton was a totally different character than Eldridge Cleaver mean, then they ended up having a huge dispute at the end of the day. And by this time, we were getting into the years. So I was a journalist, and so I have never really covered the Panthers as a story, but I did know some of the characters. At one point, I interviewed Bobby Seal at another point, Kathleen Cleaver I interviewed. So I knew some of these people were at least in passing as a journalist and had impressions of them and was certainly around at the time when the big split occurred between the so-called East Coast and West Coast Panthers, and the Eldridge faction and the Huey Newton faction. And remember, they were saying very ugly things about one another. So that was also part of my reassessment of who and what the Panthers were. But I remember initially just being one, attracted to them and thinking that they were very interesting. Two, respecting the fact they were willing to stand up to police violence, things of that nature. Three, respecting the fact that they were not at this time a sort of black militancy. They were a group that was not racist in the sense that they were willing to embrace various races as long as you agree with their program. But three, think that there were some individuals who were truly screwed up, who were involved with them. And Eldridge Cleavers being first on that list of people who thought were totally screwed up clearly if the history of Houston Newton, there was a history of somebody who was not terribly well adjusted either, and who did all kinds of things. So at the end of the day, I had a mixed assessment of the Black Panthers, but I was certainly aware by that time being a 16, 17, 18, 19, when they were in their heyday, being very much aware of them, there was a sense among a lot of people, and it was, that included, I passaged, but a whole lot of folks who were activists at that time. There was a sense that we were in throes of revolution, that something huge was on the verge of happening in the United States, that we were about to overthrow one system and have it replaced by another. And I remember lots of people getting swept up in that sense. I was not one of them. I just never thought that [inaudible] analysis made a whole lot of sense. It was on target, but I certainly recall it.
SM (00:28:19):
Well, one of the things that also was taking place at this time was what was happening in the prisons. We all know what happened with Angela Davis and the murder, I guess at George Jackson in San Quentin. So that was a big issue. I know on college campuses, we were talking about that all the time. And because when I was in graduate school, I actually went to Mansfield Reformatory and was there for two semesters and could not believe how prisoners are being treated. It was a maximum-security facility in Ohio.
EC (00:28:51):
Well, there were a lot of issues. There were not simply the prisons, it was the politicization in a way, and then the incarceration of people. Or in effect political crime. And it was (19)69. I recall very clearly when you had the murders of Mark Clark, that Hampton in Chicago and was at that point, I was very active in those student politics and was one of the leaders of the protests that we had at the University of Illinois Chicago at the time, which stem from that shooting. Which seems to us then, and actually being now looking back, have been a political assassination. So there was a lot of, among folks I knew, including myself, a lot of anger and outrage and those kinds of things happening. And certainly as we look back, we did not know through the extent of the time how involved the FBI was in monitoring these groups and provocateur times in these groups and even...
EC (00:30:03):
... and been a provocateur at times in these groups. And even, obviously, been a provocateur in times of his relationship with Martin Luther King Jr. All of that was going on. So it was much broader than just prisons I think. It was the youth of the arms of the criminal justice system to attempt to repress this movement in many respects. And I remember being aware of that. I remember being angry about that. I think I was much less aware of what was going on in prisons in general.
SM (00:30:41):
I know that Attica was one of the biggest events. I think it was in (19)71. And of course, that was a tragedy from the get-go, and that was a follow-up to what was happening at San Quentin with Angela Davis and so forth with George Jackson. But I find it interesting that there is a book out now, and you have probably written about this many times, about the fact that the Jim Crow of 2010 is actually what is happening with the African-American male in our prisons.
EC (00:31:15):
Well, I do not accept the term because I think Jim Crow was very different than what is happening with prisons. But I do think that is a national tragedy. And I do think that, in many ways, our criminal justice system is racialized. Why do not I think it is Jim Crow? Because Jim Crow, you had everybody who was black in a community who was made to act in a certain way because of laws that mandated made certain behaviors. That is not what is happening with the prisons. But I think we do have a huge percentage issue now of African-American males, and also a very large percentage of Latino males for that matter, whose life options are totally destroyed having to do with their involvement in the criminal justice system. So I think it is criminal. But I think that one of the problems with just the way that people in general tend to look at things is that we tend to want to always compare one event to another event that we are familiar with as if they are the same thing. I think that the over incarceration of people of color and people in general in this country is a national tragedy. I do not think it is Jim Crow, and I do not think it particularly adds to the analysis to call it Jim Crow.
SM (00:32:41):
Right. You are aware of that book that is out now?
EC (00:32:47):
Yes.
SM (00:32:47):
Yeah. It is...
EC (00:32:47):
[inaudible] it is fascinating, yeah.
SM (00:32:49):
Yeah. It is doing quite well.
EC (00:32:50):
Yeah.
SM (00:32:50):
You are a gifted writer, and you already mentioned the fact that [inaudible] you read when you were in college. What are the books and writers who influenced you as a young man? Not only as a journalist, but as a person who covered some of these issues in the United States? Did you read James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison?
EC (00:33:13):
Well, you named the two that had the most impact on me when I was coming up and discovering my voice as a writer. I was a big admirer of Baldwin in particular. I mean, he wrote clearly more than Ellison did, but I was a huge admirer of his and read everything of his I could find. And I remember it was probably The Fire Next Time, I think may be the first thing of his that I read, which explained what was going on in the streets. And in a way that, for the first time, made sense to me. Certainly, a Black Boy... Not a Black Boy, a Native Son rather. When I read that, I was just blown away by how beautiful of a writer Ralph Ellison was. By his ability to sort of capture that story, that voice, that time. So both of those were... I mean, I also in that era remember being very impressed by Hermann Hesse, who I just thought was a very interesting writer. But it was really Baldwin was number one. So much so that initially I remember thinking that maybe I did not need to go to college because Baldwin did not go to college. And he did very well as a writer, so why should I waste my time going to college. I remember thinking about that at the time.
SM (00:34:50):
Did you ever have a chance to read Harry Edwards' book, Black Students?
EC (00:34:55):
I do not think I have read that book, no.
SM (00:34:59):
Yeah, because that was very popular back in (19)71. Of course, Harry's the one that encouraged the students-
EC (00:35:08):
[inaudible] I know who he is. But I do not remember reading that book, so I do not think it was from the books that I read.
SM (00:35:09):
Yeah. The other ones were, well, I do not know if [inaudible] was Michael Harrington, The Other America.
EC (00:35:15):
Oh, yeah. No, I read that at some point, but I cannot say that it was a huge...
SM (00:35:22):
Of course.
EC (00:35:22):
... an influence on me in terms of journalism or any other way. I just thought that he was doing important work, and was one of those things that I read.
SM (00:35:32):
The other one that seemed to have an influence on some boomers is LeRoi Jones because he was a beat writer and...
EC (00:35:40):
I mean, I have read LeRoi Jones and I read some of his things-
SM (00:35:43):
Amiri Baraka.
EC (00:35:45):
I mean, for my taste, at the time at least, he was a bit more avant-garde than I was. And he just did not grab me in the same way. And then I remember also... Yeah, so I just did not have the same sense of Jones or Amiri Baraka as he later became. I mean, I was influenced by some of the Chicago set of writers. Don Lee, who later became Haki Madhubuti, I remember being impressed by. And some of the other writers who I got to know in Chicago as a young man. But as I said, I mean, for me by far in terms of convincing me that I could become a writer, I think it was Baldwin. I mean, and reading him that, okay, this guy is doing something I think I can do.
SM (00:36:42):
Do you like the term boomer?
EC (00:36:47):
I mean, it is obviously a term that is been coined and accepted widely for people in a certain demographic, so I do not have a particular problem with it, but yeah.
SM (00:37:01):
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear someone talk about the boomer generation?
EC (00:37:07):
I do not think that certain traits come to my mind. What comes to mind is the post-World War II generation and the 20 to 25 years beyond that. And just because of the fact that so many of these people peaked... Well, peaked is not the right word, but came of age in the (19)60s and in that era. It certainly evokes thoughts of the (19)60s and the cultural transformation in the country that occurred then.
SM (00:37:46):
The next few questions deal with the Moynihan Report from (19)65. And then recently, Rich Lowry from the...
EC (00:37:57):
The New York Times.
SM (00:38:00):
Yeah, the National Review commented on, actually, only three months ago on the Moynihan Report. But I want this in the record, so if you would bear with me, I just want to read this and get your comments on it. And that is that when the Moynihan Report came out, these are very important things it says here. "In the decade they began with school desegregations, decision of the Supreme Court, and ended with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of (19)64. The demand of Negro Americans for full recognition of their civil rights was finally met. In this new period, the expectations of Negro Americans will go beyond civil rights. Being Americans, they will now expect that in the near future equal opportunities for them as a group will produce roughly equal results as compared with other groups. This is not going to happen, nor will it happen for generations to come unless a new and special effort is made." And there were two reasons that Moynihan wrote for putting this report together. First, the racist virus in the American bloodstream still afflicts us in (19)65. And then second, three centuries of sometimes unimaginable mistreatment have taken their toll on the Negro people. Then that says here what is an interesting is the report that Lowry says that Moynihan was basically shut out. At some point, the report was being listened to, but then as the war in Vietnam was raging on and on and there were disagreements over policy and so forth, the Moynihan Report went to the back burner. And this is what I would like you to respond to from the original report, if that was written by Moynihan. "The gap between Negro and most other groups in American society is widening. Is that the Negro family and the urban ghettos is crumbling. A middle class group has managed to save itself, but for vast numbers of unskilled, poorly educated city working class, the fabric of conventional social relationships has all but disintegrated. So long as this situation persists, the cycle of poverty and disadvantage will continue to repeat itself." And then he ends in this section by saying, "A national effort is required that will give unity of purpose to the many activities of the federal government in this area directed to a new kind of national goal, the establishment of a stable negro family structure. This would be a new departure for federal policy. But almost certainly offers the only possibility of resolving in our time what is after all the nation's oldest, and most intransigent, and now its most dangerous social problem." And then he ends by saying, "What Gunnar Myrdal said in An American Dilemma remains true today. America's free to choose whether the Negro shall remain her liability or become her opportunity." And-
EC (00:41:12):
I mean, I think what is interesting about the Moynihan Report, there are two things. I mean, one is that it became this political hot potato in the sense that progressive social scientists, African-American activists, and other people attacked it because they thought it was blaming the victim. They thought it was an attack and some sort of... And he used the word mythology in it, though you did not read that part. They thought it was an attack on the black community just because of the language that he used because [inaudible] the things that he described. I mean, I think the other thing that is interesting is that the trends that he was worried about. Two things about those. I mean, one is his idea of the rate of children being born out of wedlock, et cetera. If you look at the numbers he was reporting at the time for African-Americans, they are pretty close to what the numbers are for white now. So what he was really giving voice too, even though he did not know it himself, was an emerging trend in society, not just in African-American communities. But what's also interesting about that report is that in some ways it was prescient. I mean, he did in fact put his finger on some real problems. And I think that because of the language that he used, because of the times that he wrote this report in. Having less to do actually with the Vietnam War, I suspect, than with domestic politics. The message was never really paid attention to. I am not sure if it had been paid attention to, that the tools were in place to do anything about it at any rate. But I think if you set aside just some of the rhetoric of the time, which is difficult to do, and just look at what he was trying to do, it was actually an impressive work of scholarship.
SM (00:43:11):
Yeah, he wrote that. It is interesting. I was reading background. He was sitting downstairs and he did it on a typewriter.
EC (00:43:21):
Well, everybody wrote on a typewriter back then.
SM (00:43:21):
Yeah. And only 100 of the reports actually were ever handed out. It was not widely distributed. This is how Lowry, Lowry wrote this three months ago, and this is his commentary on what he considers the failure of the African-American community. He said, "Moynihan had talked about and he believed that the richest inheritance any child can have is a stable, loving, disciplined family life. He wanted to create a sense of urgency about the fact that black children were disproportionately denied this inheritance." And then the black out of wedlock births had increased from 18 percent in 1950 to 22, 23.6 percent in (19)63. And he saw that as a weakness of the family structure. And he also linked it up as unemployment fell, out of wedlock births continued to rise, illegitimacy had developed a dynamic of its own. Then the Johnson administration-
EC (00:44:17):
Right, right. So what is Lowry's bottom line?
SM (00:44:20):
The bottom line is that he feels that the African-American family has... The illegitimacy rate is skyrocketing today in America. He says here, "The black out of wedlock birth rate is-"
EC (00:44:35):
I mean, it means two things. I mean, one, just as a matter of statistics, clearly, we have had a huge rise in the out of wedlock births. Particularly in the black community, but also in the white community. I mean, my problem with an analysis from someone like Lowry is [inaudible]. First of all, he is an ideologue. So I do not take anything [inaudible] someone like that says seriously because he is an ideologue trying to make an ideological point. So as a scholar, I just have no respect for that. But it is true that even ideologues make isolated facts that are true. And it is true that there has been a huge increase in out of wedlock births. That is occurred for a whole set of reasons. But the problem of the right-wing ideological analysis, the problem I have with that, aside from the fact that it is based in ideology, which means that it is not a thoughtful analysis. Is essentially that it comes from a place where people think there is a white community and a black community that are totally separate from one another, that have no impact on one another. And that there are these trends that spring up just out of the blue that take place in this so-called different black community. And that is just absurd. We have in America, we have trends that occur and they are certainly more prominent in poor communities and communities of color in some cases, in other communities in other cases. But something that begins with an idea that the black community did this, the black community did that, the black community ought to do this, is so racist and stupid that it is not worth responding to.
SM (00:46:28):
Yeah. It is interesting because of the right wing or the conservatives have also said that talking about the entire generation, all the boomer generation, the breakdown of the American society, most of our problems today center around the generation that came of age after World War II in the (19)60s and (19)70s. The drug-
EC (00:46:49):
Well, again, I mean, I am not terribly inclined to engage stupid analysis. Because at the end of the day, this is just stupid stuff. It comes out of ideologues who sort of have some idea that they could go back to some kind of society they imagined happened. Or what would have occurred if there had not been the so-called cultural revolution. That is just dumb.
SM (00:47:15):
Why do you feel that the right or conservatives continue today to always, what I call a... There is a backlash. The constant backlash against any progress that was seen to be made in the (19)60s and (19)70s. It is ever present. You hear it today on Fox constantly.
EC (00:47:38):
I think people are... And you have to ask these people too.
SM (00:47:43):
And I have.
EC (00:47:45):
And I doubt that they really know because I doubt they have that ability to reflect on their own psychology that clearly. But my suspicion is that you have a lot of people who were in effect very comfortable with the way that things used to be. And do not like the fact that they got shaken up. And in addition to that, you have a lot of people who have a point of ideology, do not like the fact that government got into the role of trying to help poor people. That government got into the business of trying to integrate society. That government got into the business of doing things that they would prefer the government have not done. And I think a lot of it stems from there. I mean, I think that Barack Obama is right when he makes the analysis that there are a lot of people still fighting the war, so the 1960s. But that sort of coincides with my point, which is that we are shaped by the era that in which we were raised. And I think that a lot of folks who came of age at a certain time, they have a certain analysis of that and they just did not like what was happening to their society. And I think you see echoes of that in a sense in the Tea Party movement now where their whole model is we are going to take back America. Well, take it back to what? Thing is there is never a clear answer about that.
SM (00:49:19):
Yes. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? And what was the watershed-
EC (00:49:25):
[inaudible]
SM (00:49:25):
What was the watershed moment of that whole era?
EC (00:49:32):
I think there were lots of moments there. And again, and not to be difficult, but I am just not sure that I can frame it that way. I mean, there were fairly lots of things that happened. I mean, there was the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The decision of Johnson to resign. The Black Sunday event in Selma, the passage of the Voting Rights, the Civil Rights Act. The so-called Summer of Love. I mean, there were all these huge events that took place in the (19)60s. And then there were the riots. There was the Watts riots in (19)65. There were the huge riots that broke out in the wake of the assassination of King. There was the [inaudible] commission and his report, which for the first time ever pointed at white racism as a cause of a problem of a serious nature in the black community. You have a government entity sort of making that analysis. I am not sure, and I know historians love to do this and journalists love to do this, love to pick one point and one thing and say it was this, this, this and that. There were lots of things. But I think they also built on things that happened in the (19)60s. I mean, you would not have had the segregation banish we had in the (19)60s had it not been for the decision in (19)54 with Brown v. Board. You would not have had that if you had not had the cases that were originally brought in... that were the predecessor cases they had brought in the (19)40s. So there is a lot of stuff sort of leading into the (19)60s. And there was a, in that sense, sort of continuum. I think they just sort of peaked in the (19)60s in some way. And you had what seemed to be just one huge change after another taking place, which hit people in a huge way. And dependent upon what your interests were at the time, I think the (19)60s event that shook you is different. I mean, for some people it is obviously a lot of the stuff around the Vietnam War. For other people, it is a lot of stuff around civil rights. For other people, it is a lot of stuff around the rise of the hippies and the Summer of Love and things that went on of that nature. I think it just depends. I do not think there is an answer for that that sort of applies to everything and everybody.
SM (00:52:22):
Do you feel the Beats had any role at all in the anti-authoritarian attitudes that many boomers had when they started going to high school and college in the (19)60s? Because the Beats were members of the Silent Generation. And their writings, even though they were not large in number, their books were well read and they were anti-authoritarian in just about every way.
EC (00:52:50):
Well, I mean, there were certainly the Beats, the hipsters. I mean, they were certainly a sort of precursor to the hippies. And did they create this set of movements in the (19)60s? No, I do not think so. I mean, I think the movements of the (19)60s were [inaudible]. I mean, I think they gave some kind of intellectual context for them. I mean, I do not think what happened was that you had a generation that all of a sudden became anti-establishment and then started acting out. I think you had huge events that had an impact on people. I mean, you did have these huge battles taking place over civil rights. You did have the Vietnam War, which was directly affecting lots of young men who were not all that crazy about going to fight in a war in a country that they had no problem with. You also had the introduction of birth control, at least a new kind of birth control. And therefore a sort of sense of sexual liberation that had not existed before. So all of these things sort of took place. And I think that at the end of the day had more impact than the published writings of a few writers.
SM (00:54:34):
I think you have already answered my next question too because it was really getting into some of the things that well-known people had said. Quotes that are linked to people. I will mention these. Malcolm X, "By any means necessary." John Kennedy, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Robert Kennedy, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not." Then you have the, "We shall overcome," which was the civil rights feelings of the South. And you had the Timothy Leary, "Tune on, turn on, dropout," kind of attitude. And then you had what Muhammad Ali said, which I think was a very important influence on many, many boomers when he said, "I am not going to Vietnam to kill little yellow babies when we are not taking care of little black babies at home." And then Bobby Muller, when he came back from Vietnam saying, "I learned that America is not always the good guy." So would you say that all these kinds of quotes are really... Just to what you were saying, it is part of our very being. They influenced a lot of different people in different ways.
EC (00:55:49):
Well, I mean, I think the quotes came out of the times. I do not think the times came out of the quote is basically my point. I think the reason these quotes resonated with people were because you did have a huge war in Vietnam. I mean, obviously, if it had not been, Muhammad Ali would never have said what he said. The reason Malcolm X's quote resonated was because you had a huge battle going on over basic rights for African-Americans at the time. Otherwise, what he said would have made no sense. So I think that that... And the same thing with, "We shall overcome." I mean, I think that these sorts of things stem out of huge sort of social events that were occurring. So as I was saying in an answer to your previous question, I do not think that the words were the things that drove the event. I think the events drove the words.
SM (00:56:50):
Very good. I am going to change my tape here.
EC (00:56:58):
[inaudible] might be a little bit of snow, but I do not think it is going to affect anything serious.
SM (00:57:04):
Could you discuss, this is very important, when you look at college campuses in the 1960s, late (19)60s and certainly early (19)70s, the term Black Power was everywhere. And it was all over the country too. And we saw it. I remember seeing a clip recently, Kathleen Cleaver explaining why she had an afro on a college campus. And it is tremendous, it is only 15 seconds. But what was the purpose of Black Power? What were its goals and the ultimate impact that it had on people at that time? Because it was a little bit beyond what Dr. King and Bayard Rustin were thinking about when they were involved in the Civil Rights Movement. What was Black Power?
EC (00:57:51):
I think, well, Black Power meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But I mean, I think at its essence, it was an articulation of a desire of to take control of their own destiny. To not be reliant on either the goodwill or the bad intention of white Americans. And to strike out an individual... Not individual, but a collective political path that could lead to empowerment of black people. I mean, that in its essence was what the idea of Black Power was about. Now people have very, very different ideas of what that meant. You have the Nation of Islam, the black Muslims, who thought that it basically meant having an independent nation totally separate from White America. You had other folks, some who were involved in movement politics, who thought that what that meant was black people taking charge of all leadership roles and movement activities, and moving white people aside. You had the other folks who thought it meant something else. So I am not sure you can look beyond the general sort of ideas of it, say it meant one thing. But I think what it came out of was this sense of... I think it was very much a generational sense. It came out of this sense that white people basically could not be trusted. And that the destiny of African-America, of African-Americans needed to be an African-American path.
SM (00:59:43):
It's interesting because I was at Ohio State in (19)71 and that was very powerful on our campus. And in the Ohio Union, African-American students and white students were having separate dances, and they could not even go to the section of the union where the dances were. There were a lot of issues there at the time. And some of the students-
SM (01:00:02):
... issues there at the time, and some of the students went off to Linda McKinley High School to get guards for their dances without consulting the campus. What is interesting here is if you look at the study of Kent State University, you do not see any African American students protesting there. You read some of the books on Kent State, and there was a split happening between African American students and white students, particularly in the anti- war movement, that...
EC (01:00:30):
Well, there was not a split that happened.
SM (01:00:30):
Well, so...
EC (01:00:36):
I think that reflected a society that was intensely segregated, where African Americans... And we are still dealing with this. We are still dealing with this. It's not as if, prior to the eruption of the so-called Black Power Movement, you had an integrated society of Blacks and whites and they were doing lots of things together. That was never the case. So, it is hardly surprising that when you had a movement to bring up, they reflected the segregated nature of society. So, of course, we had white leaders; you had Black leaders, you had white activism and Black activism, and even around civil rights. Yes, they did come together and there was a huge effort to form some sort of multiracial coalition. But this, again, goes back to where we began this discussion, which is I think we are very much creatures of what shapes us. There were very few white Americans at that time, and also not that many Black Americans, who came up in anything remotely resembling an integrated setting or integrated society. There was this very strong sense that there were just two communities, and I think for many people, it was just impossible to bridge that gap, even among many people who considered themselves [inaudible].
SM (01:01:59):
I think you are right because when you talk about activism of the (19)60s, you are only talking 5 percent, possibly, of the entire generation of 74 million that were even activists.
EC (01:02:09):
Yeah. And even among the activists, I think they carried a lot of the racial baggage of their generation.
SM (01:02:19):
If you look at the studies, though, of the (19)60s, you see that when the African American students protested the lunch counters in the South, many white students all over the country empathized and protested in various cities that same situation. Then you had a Freedom Summer where quite a few white students went South and risked their lives, and you had the many of them coming back to Berkeley at the free speech movement. So, there was that linkage between...
EC (01:02:50):
No, I am not saying there was not a linkage. I think there had to be a linkage. I mean, my God, you have people fighting for civil rights. How could they not consciously try to make some linkage? But I am saying that despite that, what I would call a real sort of beyond race, post-racial set of conditions never existed even within the movement.
SM (01:03:16):
Good point. Could you describe Boomer Generation now, born between (19)46 and (19)64, the oldest is 64 this year, and the youngest is 49. Could you describe, in your own words, the America of the following periods that Boomers have been alive? Just general comments about the periods, for all Americans and then secondly, were African Americans might think of this period as well, the period 1946 to 1960.
EC (01:03:53):
I guess the question is just too broad for me to get my head around. It's just too broad. I mean, I am not sure what you are looking for.
SM (01:04:03):
Well, when you think of that period in America, (19)46 to (19)60, just a couple of words that to describe it.
EC (01:04:10):
Well, I do not think of that as one period because if you think of (19)46, you are thinking, at least what I am thinking of, is post-war: The nation is still sort of putting itself together after that. You are thinking civil rights is very few people's agenda at that time. You are thinking of an era where, by and large, segregation is accepted as the way of life. If you go and move up into the (19)50s, and then you are obviously talking about an awakening that occurred at some point, driven largely by the events in Montgomery and elsewhere in the South, where all of a sudden, the country begins to question collectively what in the hell they were doing and what should be the status quo? Again, driven by... And your cutoff date was the early (19)60s?
SM (01:05:27):
Yeah. I had the (19)61 to (19)70 period.
EC (01:05:31):
Yeah. I think it was a different period. I think that post-war, and I was not around then, but I have read about that period. I think we were adjusting to being in a post-war situation. There was a certain celebration of having made the world safe for democracy. I think there was a huge unawareness of what was going on in our own backyard. There was a backlash against many of the Black troops who came back and were expecting to be treated as equals or at least hoped they would be, and were relegated immediately to the back of the bus. There were, in some cases, violence against the Black soldiers who had the temerity to demand to be treated as equal human beings. You had just a sense of incomprehension among white Americans that Black folk would be interested or entitled to any treatment other than the sort of treatment that had been meted out for years and years. Then you had, as I said, the awakening of the beginning in the middle (19)50s when there were all these huge protests and the rise of the civil rights movement, when at least thinking Americans, and in this instance, I am thinking of white thinking Americans, had to say, "My, God. Something is wrong here. Let us take a look at this and see if we can do something about that." Then the (19)60s is very different. I mean, being in the (19)60s, you had a country that had been wrestling for some years with the demand for equality, but you also had an international community that was taking interest at that point. That was, in various sectors, condemning the United States for articulating a concept of equality, but yet not being able to live up to that itself.
SM (01:07:54):
Yeah. That period, (19)61 to (19)70 and then (19)71 to (19)80, I guess some people think there is a linkage between those two, that the early (19)70s was basically a continuation of the (19)60s.
EC (01:08:08):
Well, as you probably could surmise from what I have said all along, I think everything is a continuation of something else. My mind does not work that way that it was this discrete little period that was not connected to the period before that. I just do not think history works that way. I do not think people work that way. I think that we are always sort of building on what came before.
SM (01:08:33):
Would you say, though, that when you start getting into the 1980s and Ronald Reagan, that is the period of backlash?
EC (01:08:41):
Well, there were periods of backlash all along the way. I mean, when whites effectively marched out of the Democratic Party after the Johnson years, that was a backlash. That was a huge backlash, certainly against civil rights. I do not think you had any period of struggle where there was not backlash, but certainly I think that by the time Reagan got into office, you had, I guess, a national mandate for a certain bit of politics.
SM (01:09:29):
Yeah. Of course, we talk about the culture wars. We have seen them on university campuses, at least I have seen them my whole life, for over 30 years. That certainly is a quality that defines what America's all about in that period. As a journalist, you mentioned it early on, but have you seen a racism and prejudice during your years in the profession? You told me about the early years when very few African Americans, but now as... And I know Asso Moore real well. I have known Asso for 30 years, and he shared so many things about what happened with him when he came up. But once the African American journalists were a very important part of the scene, you still see the subtleness? Basically, what I am saying, as a journalist, have you seen racism or prejudice during your years in the profession? Just your thoughts on that.
EC (01:10:28):
Well, I think anybody who is honest would have to answer of course you have. But again, that goes back [inaudible] to my personal experience. But I think that Americans have this dopey idea that people are raised with a certain set of beliefs, and they come up holding to these things, and all of a sudden they get enlightenment and, boom, they go from being racist to not racist. That is not any equivalent human being that I know of. I think that if people are brought up and they always keep a lot of the beliefs that people are brought up with unless they are some extraordinary kind of person. So, it is impossible for me, just intellectually to conceive of a profession where Blacks were totally excluded; it was considered natural to do interviews about communities but not interview anybody Black; where the Black community was looked at as some foreign and hostile place; but then, boom, you get the civil rights and all these people suddenly start seeing things totally differently. No, of course not. Has racism become unacceptable in society? Yes, it has. Has it become a much more subtle... Of course it has. Personally, I think things have reached the point where there is really little to be gained by calling people racist because nobody in this country considers themselves racist anymore. Everybody considers themselves enlightened, even if they do not happen to have any Black friends, even if they do not happen to believe that Black people are capable of doing certain things. They still do not think they are racist. So, I think the whole idea of calling people racist does not make a whole lot of sense. But do you see things happen all the time in society that are rooted in people's racial preconceptions? Yes, of course you do, and of course I have.
SM (01:12:35):
It is interesting, Elvis, that the subtleness is the adjective that now describes racism or sexism or homo... There is a subtleness, supposedly, in our society. It is what really Dr. King, if you read his writings, that he feared the most. He feared the fence-sitter he did, where people, I do not know where you stand at an issue. He could deal with a bigot because he knew who they were. Obviously, his supporters. But the fence-sitter was the one that he was most afraid of. And that is always stuck with me. So, in my years in higher ed, when I see people that just say nothing, I think of Dr. King, and they're a bunch of fence-sitters. You got to say something.
EC (01:13:20):
Well, I am aware of that, and I think you're right in your interpretation of what King said, but I am making a different point, which is this: Even people who declare themselves not racist and who therefore would not consider themselves fence-sitters are not necessarily free of racial prejudice. I do not know how many social events I have gone to organized by white journalists, some of them terribly important, where it becomes very clear that they do not have any Black people in their lives. They just do not invite people. I remember years ago... What was it? Maybe 10, 15 years ago, when Paul Delaney left the New York Times. He was the senior-ranking Black journalist at the time. There was a party given for him by one of the top editors there. I remember being struck with the fact that the only Black people at that party were the three of us who Paul had invited. Now, from my way of thinking, it is not possible to operate in a world where you do not have any Black friends, do not see any Black people, do not think you have anything in common with Black people, and yet at the same time, to think that you are totally free of racial prejudice and preconceptions. I just do not think that is possible.
SM (01:14:54):
Remember when we invited you to West Chester, you had written your book Nation of Strangers, which, a great book.
EC (01:15:00):
Thank you.
SM (01:15:02):
I passed it on to my niece to read a couple years ago, and she read it. She liked it, too. I am just using this: Do you think we are still a nation of strangers, here in the year 2010, with the divisiveness between groups and so forth?
EC (01:15:22):
I think we are becoming less so generationally. I think that the analyses that I would have made, certainly when it comes to racism and ethnic groups and the estrangement that I would have made 20 years ago is not quite the one I would make today. I think that people, and particularly younger people, are becoming much more comfortable than folks in the Boomer Generation and certainly the folks in the Silent Generation with reaching across the so-called racial divide. So, I think we're evolving, and I think a lot of it has to do with the transformation in generations.
SM (01:16:12):
Do you feel the media has done a good job over the years covering the events that shaped the Boomers? I say this because there is a recent book out by Professor Young at Lehigh University, I am just starting to read it, which basically says that the media has portrayed the (19)60s and (19)70s in more of a sensationalistic way, concentrating oftentimes on the bad or the highly controversial over the serious and highly analytical substance types of approach. What are your thoughts on how it has been covered?
EC (01:16:47):
Well, I think the reality is that that is just a consequence of the media doing what it always does, which is to try to sum up things, which is to try to point to what it considers something that is most significant, which is the focus on something that is attention-grabbing, which is another word for sensational, and which is to try to find trends whether or not they're there. That is sort of the conventional approach to journalism in this country. So, of course, I think it is going to not be a balanced or fair view because that would be sort of saying that you expect to see a portrayal of an average, ordinary sort of society by reading the front page. Well, the front page is full of people who get shot, full of people who do awful things, is full of people who are engaged in great political battles. That is not what most people's normal life is like.
SM (01:18:01):
Yeah. One of the things of the (19)60s, and again, well, I want to make sure it crossed every ethnic group, and that was the generation gap. Did you have a generation gap in your family, between you and your parents on the issue of the war or on any of the social issues that you got involved in as a young person?
EC (01:18:21):
Well, I am not sure I would call it a generation gap, but yeah, my parents and I saw things quite differently. But I am not sure that... I think the events were more colorful back then, in some ways, than they are for some generations. But I am hard-pressed to think of a generation that does not see things differently than their parents in some way. I think my parents did not understand how I could admire at least some things about a group like the Black Panthers, who they thought were just sort of thugs. But I think the first time I brought a white friend home, actually, well, a white friend home who was female, at least, my mother just thought this was crazy because she was a product of the segregated South and did not understand how it was even conceivable to have a white friend who was female without being worried about terrible consequences. And so, her reality was a different reality. So, there is a generation gap, but certainly we looked at things different because of our generation.
SM (01:19:47):
Yeah. You remember that Life Magazine cover that had the young man with the long hair with his father pointing a finger at the sun?
EC (01:19:55):
Yeah.
SM (01:19:55):
They are talking about the generation gap. Then the book, The Wounded Generation, Jim Webb brings up in a conversation with James Fallows and Bobby Mueller and Phil Caputo, that the real gap, yeah, it was between parents and their kids, but the real gap was between those who went to war and served their country in Vietnam and those who did not, what he called the intragenerational gap. Do you agree with that?
EC (01:20:26):
You are going to get the same answer from me on a lot of these questions, which is those kinds of analyses is just way too pat.
SM (01:20:36):
That came right out of a transcript from a...
EC (01:20:37):
Right. Right. I mean, as I said, yeah, there were differences obviously. I know people who went to Vietnam; I know people who did not, and in some cases, there was not any sort of gap at all in any meaningful sense. But sure, the guys who went to Vietnam had a very different experience than the ones who did not. Part of the reason a lot of people did not go to Vietnam, it depends on what year you're talking about, the younger folks because they got better lottery numbers; the older folks, because they were better at playing the system. So, yeah, sure. There was a gap there, but it started off with a gap, particularly if you had people who were gaming the system to stay away from the war and people who decided to go. So, you had a gap before they even went.
SM (01:21:29):
Right. I know we are getting almost to the end of our time here. I got just two questions left. One of them is dealing with the women's movement. The women's movement evolved out of the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement, and there's been at least a lot written about the apparent sexism that took place in both the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement, which pushed women into their own movement. Are you in agreement with that?
EC (01:21:58):
Well, yes and no. I think that more out of the civil rights movement than the anti-war movement, in a sense that A Feminine Mistake was written in (19)63, as I recall. That was before the anti-war movement had really picked up any steam. That is, for me, where I would sort of put as the marker for the beginning of the modern feminist movement. I think it is as good a place as any. But I think clearly, when you had all of this talk about equality and you had all this movement for social equality, you were going to have women who looked at that and said, "My, goodness. Some of this applies to us, too." So, I would say much more out of the civil rights movement, which was in full-force by the time the women's movement began to take off, than the anti-war movement, which came a little bit later.
SM (01:22:57):
As a take-off of this question, do any of these movements of the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, and I am talking about the environmental movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano, Native American, women's movement, do any of these mean something in 2011? Because others have commented, they are all kind of separate; they are all kind of into their own world now, and they seem like in the (19)60s and (19)70s they were together on many issues.
EC (01:23:30):
Well, I am not sure I would agree with that either. I mean, if you look at the very fact that the Mexican American Legal Defense Education Fund and the Puerto Rico Legal Defense Education Fund and American Legal Defense Fund, I mean they named themselves after the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. I mean, that was a very conscious decision. They were, in effect, copying what the NAACP had done in a very conscious way. Well, all these groups still exist. Some of them are still very prominently fighting. And there is a... What is it? The Conference for Civil Rights out of DC, which still is an umbrella group which tries to hold them all together. I do not think they have gone their separate ways. I think they are probably as much together in a sense as they ever were. Now, I think the larger question is whether the groups rooted in that time, and those groups are all rooted in that time; they were sort of formed around the civil rights era or shortly after it, how relevant they are to today's time, I think is the larger question, not whether they are still in cooperation. I think they still are.
SM (01:24:52):
Actually, this is a two-part question, and this is it. One of the things I have heard and read about over the years, and you have seen it on the news, is critical of the African American leadership today in America. How can you try to compare it with the era of the (19)50s and the (19)60s and the (19)70s, when you had Dr. King and Bayard Rustin and James Farmer, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young. I mean, John Lewis, even though he is still very important today as a congressman, but you have these very powerful, visible, respected, although some people did not like them that were racist, and trying to compare... There has been articles written that, "Where is the African American leadership today?" Have you thought about that or written about it?
EC (01:25:45):
Well, again, I think that is sort of a stupid place to begin in terms of the people who write that sort of stuff because, again, it has to do with my way of looking at the world. Martin Luther King did not just one fine day sort of spring out of nowhere and lead a movement. Martin Luther King was recruited for a movement that was already in process. The idea that a great man came along and totally changed everything that is happened before is so ahistorical, I do not know where to begin. The reason you had these larger-than-life figures is because there were larger-than-life issues that they were dealing with that were very clear, and they demanded the appearance of larger-than-life issues, so [inaudible] larger-than-life people who could embody them. You had certainly some very-very gifted people. I think the other thing you have to realize is that if you were an African American who was supremely talented and a great public speaker and had certain sort of skills in that era, you did not have a whole lot of options. So, you had a huge number of these people who were being, first of all, going into the church, and then you had the church funneling them into the movement. Not all of them. But a lot of these people sort of came that route. They did not have the option of becoming a lawyer on Wall Street. No big law firm was going to hire them. They did not have the option of working for some big corporation and becoming anything important. No corporation was going to have anything in a position. So, I think a few things you have to sort of just acknowledge: One is that if you were going to really shine, there were a limited number of areas wherein which you could shine. If you had talent, one of those areas was going to be the big movement of the day. I think the other thing though, as I was saying, is that times shape the people more than people shape the times as far as individuals go. Yes, all those people you name were supremely gifted individuals. And yes, they were courageous and they were insightful and they helped move us to a place where we needed to be moved. But the fact of the matter is if they had not, somebody else would have, because the times demanded that.
SM (01:28:27):
And in studying Bayard Rustin, we all know there would have been no Bayard Rustin without A. Philip Randolph.
EC (01:28:32):
Yeah. [inaudible]. Yeah. I would agree.
SM (01:28:34):
And what a great man he was. My last question is legacy. The best history books are often written 50 years after an era or an event. I know it is hard for you to probably to answer this, too, or to speculate, but what do you think historians and sociologists and writers will be saying about this generation, and I mean an all-inclusive generation, Black and white, male and female, gay and straight, every ethnic background you can imagine. What do you think they are going to say about the Boomer Generation once the last Boomer's passed?
EC (01:29:10):
Well, I think they will say that it was a generation that happened to be in America at a time when some huge events took place and, really, in terms of demographics, it was a huge generation, which is why one of the reasons it is called the Boomer Generation. In terms of events, it sort of bore witness to some of the defining events of that century. So, what would they say about it? I think they would say that a lot of big things happened during the era of the Boomers.
SM (01:29:48):
Okay. Is there any question that I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask?
EC (01:29:56):
I had no idea what you were going to ask, so...
SM (01:30:00):
One final thing, and thank you very much, Elvis, for...
SM (01:30:03):
One final thing, and thank you very much, Ellis, for... And I owe you lunch.
EC (01:30:06):
Oh, sure. Well, we can [inaudible]
SM (01:30:07):
I am going to do that because I come to New York. I have got about nine people. I got to take their pictures that I have interviewed on the phone, and I will be in communication with you. But do you think one of the qualities that probably is a good quality, but some people say is bad, is that this is a generation that really does not trust because they had so many leaders lie to them while they were growing up, whether it be Watergate or the lies about Vietnam, or even Eisenhower's U2 lie. They saw so many leaders lying to them that trust is, they're not a very trusting generation.
EC (01:30:46):
Well, that is a psychological question. I would not characterize the generation that way. I mean, there was certainly the phrase of the time, do not trust anyone over 30.
SM (01:30:58):
But Jerry Rubin changed that to 40 when he realized he was turning 30.
EC (01:31:06):
Oh hell, over 30 I mean, so of course. I do not think you can pick a psychological trait and use it to define an entire generation. I just do not. I think there are people with that generation who are... But to me that is much more, that is asking what analysis of personal psychology, which goes beyond, well beyond my expertise. But I just do not think those kinds of terms apply to an entire generation.
SM (01:31:37):
Very good. Well, thank you very...
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Ellis Cose
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Cose, Ellis ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
Subject
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African American editors; African American Authors; Cose, Ellis--Interviews
Description
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Ellis Cose, a native of Chicago, is a columnist and editor for <em>Newsweek</em>. He is the author of a dozen of books including the best-selling <em>The Rage of a Privileged Class</em>. He became a columnist at the age of 19 and he became a contributor for the <em>Times Magazine</em>. Cose appeared on several shows and he has been interviewed frequently around the world. Ellis earned his B.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Illinois and a Master’s degree in Science, Technology and Public Policy from George Washington University.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2010-12-22
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In copyright
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eng
Type
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.41a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.41b
Date Modified
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2017-03-14
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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178:08
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2d5d5d1acd340ee7e11f95270b9db9c8.jpg
dc7b81eee20f7051c4c7e6cccea9ae34
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/599cc92d10398b3c283450517bb3efb0.mp3
f4fd3d4f02c80656886f78cda14f058a
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
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Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2011-04-06
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Belva Davis, 1932-
Language
English
Biographical Text
Belva Davis is an award winning journalist who has covered politics for over forty years. She has anchored three major network affiliates CBS, NBC and PBS. This includes a political affairs program on KQED-San Francisco that is one the most watched public stations in America. In 2008, Belva Davis was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. She has received eight regional Emmys for reporting on a variety of topics including the AIDS Epidemic, Castro's Cuba, Bready Cancer and Learning Disabilities. She was the first African American woman on the West Coast and was profiled in the NEWSEUM, the world's first interactive museum of news. Davis is the author of the book <em>Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life in Journalism</em>.
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"African American Women; Prejudice; Civil Rights; Women's Movement; Black Panthers; Second Class Citizens; Journalism; Affirmative Action"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":2,"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">African American Women; Prejudice; Civil Rights; Women's Movement; Black Panthers; Second Class Citizens; Journalism; Affirmative Action</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
186:31
Subject LCSH
Women television journalists--United States; Radio journalists--United States; Davis, Belva, 1932--Interviews
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
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
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Interview with Belva Davis
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Davis, Belva, 1932- ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
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Women television journalists--United States; Radio journalists--United States; Davis, Belva, 1932--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Belva Davis is a television and radio journalist. Davis has won eight Emmy Awards, and she has been recognized for her hard work by major groups such as the American Women in Radio and Television and the National Association of Black Journalists.
Belva Davis is an award winning journalist who has covered politics for over forty years. She has anchored three major network affiliates CBS, NBC and PBS. This includes a political affairs program on KQED-San Francisco that is one the most watched public stations in America. In 2008, Belva Davis was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. She has received eight regional Emmys for reporting on a variety of topics including the AIDS Epidemic, Castro's Cuba, Bready Cancer and Learning Disabilities. She was the first African American woman on the West Coast and was profiled in the NEWSEUM, the world's first interactive museum of news. Davis is the author of the book <em>Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman's Life in Journalism</em>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-04-06
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.42a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.42b
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2017-03-14
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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186:31
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e09602564888cb535a1cf72f2e6818e1.jpg
11e30afd5821d4df4fe3e34767957fb8
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/98996c55002c71552f2c66be354d826d.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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
2010-03-11
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Morris Dickstein
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Morris Dickstein is a scholar, historian, academic, essayist, book critic, and public intellectual. Dr. Dickstein is a Professor Emeritus of English and Theater at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City and he is the author for several books. He graduated from Columbia with a Bachelor's degree and earned his Ph.D. from Yale University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Morris Dickstein is a scholar, historian, academic, essayist, book critic, and public intellectual. Dr. Dickstein is a Professor Emeritus of English and Theater at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City and he is the author is several books. He graduated from Columbia with a Bachelor's degree and earned his Ph.D. from Yale University.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Literary critic; American, Culture; 1960s; Writers, Poets; Politics; Brooklyn College; Beat writers; Counterculture; Dropouts; Columbia; Woodstock; Vietnam; Baby Boomers; Activism; Social protest; the Communist party; Immigrants; Poverty; Black nationalists; Separatist; Freedom Summer; Drugs; Veterans; Black Panther Party; Women's studies; Gay studies; Political correctness; Kent State; Separatism; Hippies; Yippies
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
93:50
Subject LCSH
Scholars; Historians; College teachers; Dickstein, Morris--Interviews
Accessibility
Copy/Paste below:
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Dr. Morris Dickstein
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dickstein, Morris ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Scholars; Historians; College teachers; Dickstein, Morris--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Morris Dickstein is a scholar, historian, academic, essayist, book critic, and public intellectual. PDr. Dickstein is a Professor Emeritus of English and Theater at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, and he is the author of several books. He graduated from Columbia with a B.A. and earned his PhD from Yale University.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2010-03-11
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.43
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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93:50
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McKiernan Interviews
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-06-21
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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Alice Echols
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Alice Echols is a professor of History and Gender Studies at University of Southern California. She authored four books and several articles. Dr. Echols has a Bachelor's degree in History from Macalester College and a Master's degree and Ph.D. from University of Michigan."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Alice Echols is a professor of History and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. She authored four books and several articles. Dr. Echols has a Bachelor's degree in History from Macalester College and a Master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.</span>
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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Interview Format
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Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"SDS; Racism; Weathermen; Affirmative Action; Women's Studies; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Graduate Employees Organization; Activism; Feminism; Women's Movement; Racial Discrimination; 1960s; 1970s; Environmental Movement; Anti-War Movement; Soul Music; Funk Music; Disco Era; Identity Politics; Sexual Revolution; Janis Joplin; Roe v. Wade; Sexism; Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Abortion Rights; Demobilization; John F. Kennedy Assassination; Drug Culture"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059},"12":0}">SDS; Racism; Weathermen; Affirmative Action; Women's Studies; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Graduate Employees Organization; Activism; Feminism; Women's Movement; Racial Discrimination; 1960s; 1970s; Environmental Movement; Anti-War Movement; Soul Music; Funk Music; Disco Era; Identity Politics; Sexual Revolution; Janis Joplin; Roe v. Wade; Sexism; Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Abortion Rights; Demobilization; John F. Kennedy Assassination; Drug Culture</span>
Duration
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145:52
Subject LCSH
College teachers; Echols, Alice--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Alice Echols
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 21 June 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:04):
Alice Echols.
AE (00:00:08):
Okay.
SM (00:00:09):
My first question is, when you were in college during the late (19)60s and early (19)70s as an undergrad and then in graduate school in the late (19)70s through the mid (19)80s, what did you see both socially and culturally? What stood out? I know that you have written in Disco about the music and the movements that were taking place in America in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, and some of the influences that were happening too, and not only African Americans, but women and gay and lesbian Americans. Just your thoughts on your college years and what you saw.
AE (00:00:51):
Do you mean on campus? I mean-
SM (00:00:54):
Yes, on campus.
AE (00:00:55):
Okay. Okay. Well, I went to, as an undergraduate, I attended Carleton College, which is in Northfield, Minnesota. It is sort of surrounded by cornfields. And yeah, there were not a lot of attractions beyond the campus. There were a few, but there were not very many. In fact, I left Carleton and did my senior, so my last, pretty much last year and a half, I guess I would say, at Macalester College, which was in Saint Paul. I did that for a number of reasons, but certainly, one of the reasons I transferred... Because I had a lot of friends at Carleton and we stayed friends, and they were a big piece of my story. I am still Close to some of them. But I went to Macalester because it was a more politically active campus. As I said, it was in the city. It had, I think, the greatest proportion, the highest proportion, I believe, of EEOC students of any college campus. And it also had, and this is kind of remarkable, it had... The student council or student government had been able to hire an organizer to organize students, and he was a Saul Alinsky trained organizer. And so, how many college campuses could that be set up? Probably none other. Highly unusual. Very much greater population of minorities, especially African Americans at that campus when I was there. And to make it even stranger, this was pretty much underwritten by DeWitt Wallace money, which is to say Reader's Digest money. At a certain point in time, you cannot trust me on this because it is a sort of more hearsay than anything I have actually read, but I think he pulled a good deal of his money from Macalester. But in any case, it was a very different kind of experience. At Carleton, we smoked a lot of dope, and people within my friendship network certainly dropped a good deal of acid. I did not do much of that myself because I never had as well a time, but it was a... Carleton was a college campus, which was pretty intense by virtue of being in the northern frozen tundra. So, there was not a lot of activism happening. We were one of the colleges to go on strike as a result of the invasion of Cambodia. And I have this very, very dear memory, and I may be completely wrong about this, but Kai Bird's name started to cross my radar some years ago. I think that Kai Bird may have also been a student at Carleton. But the long and the short of it was that it was not as politically active a campus as Macalester, which is, again, one of the major reasons that I switched. For me, I mean, college was... I had gone to Sidwell Friends in DC, so I had gone to a prep school. I was fairly well-prepared, I would say, academically. Culturally, socially, well, there was a lot of sex. Not very much of it, for me, very meaningful. And I do think that many of us felt as though men... I should say that among the women with whom I was friends, I certainly think that there were friends of mine who were having more fun sexually than I was probably, but I still think that there was a way in which there was some pressure to be heterosexually active. There was really no overt feminist consciousness at Carleton when I was there. I remember my roommate who became a Wall Street banker turned organic farmer, a wonderful woman. And this is much, much later, obviously, in her life. I remember her showing up with Kate Millett's Sexual Politics, and it was like, "Wow."
SM (00:06:05):
Wow. Yeah.
AE (00:06:08):
This was highly... Feminism was not part of the fabric of that school yet. Although I do remember, I think it was after I had already moved to Macalester, Gloria Steinem and Margaret Sloan, who was her sidekick then, African American woman who was very important. They came to campus and there was a huge turnout.
SM (00:06:29):
Wow.
AE (00:06:30):
And they were great. I mean, they were just wonderful. That probably would have been, I would imagine (19)73, I suspect, (19)72 or (19)73. But feminism was not a very lively presence. There were rumors. I remember the first transgender person I ever met was at Carleton, but was, again, not somebody who I at least understood as having any kind of feminist... This was SM. And it was rumored that when this person had... Well, I mean, let us just say that I was not really aware of any openly lesbian or gay people on that campus. Now, when I went to Macalester, I was living off campus. It was much less intense. It was much more of a commuter campus. Carleton was not. Everybody who was a student there lived on campus pretty much. And it was not even possible to have a car. I mean, when I was at Carleton, I had one of the few cars that you had to park it off campus and pretend that you did not own it. So, it was a kind of hot house. And I do not mean necessarily altogether intellectually so. It was sort of claustrophobic. We often tended to... It was easy to get involved with your best friend's boyfriend and stuff like that would happen. So, there was a lot of that kind of drama around. Macalester was different. As I said, it was a commuter college. There certainly was the beginnings of a feminist and lesbian feminist community there in Saint Paul. And I got introduced to it a little bit when I was a student there, but it did not... I was still rather nervous about all of that and what that meant. It really did feel like jumping off the cliff sort of to even get involved with any group. Not that I am particularly aware of there being any on-campus groups. I think I left there probably about (19)70... This is when it gets tricky. Probably, I think it was the summer of (19)74, and that is when I moved to Santa Fe. So, just to try to answer your question a little bit better, my sense was... I had been politically active, you have to understand, before I went to college. And I write about that in the introduction to Shaky Ground. I had been involved in a strange, little group outside of DC where I had grown up that was supposed to be fighting racism in the suburbs, and more specifically at University of Maryland stuff. I had done a good deal of... I had read a good deal of stuff that summer of (19)69 of some of the people who we met, because we hung out at the SDS house in DC, and we supported breaking furniture workers and did various things. Taxicab drivers went on strike that summer and we supported them at Union Station. But we were allied with this SDS office in DC that I think was viewed by the national office as rather dysfunctional. I do not know if it was. I do remember Bill Ayers coming here and being there one evening when he told us... He was very provocative, and he told us that we really had to pick up the gun if we were serious about fighting racism and stopping the war.
SM (00:10:26):
Is that when they were going to the Weatherman?
AE (00:10:30):
Yeah. This was when Weatherman was developing. Trying to remember when the War Council was in Flint, Michigan. It may have been... I think it was right around that time. You'd have to check, but there was Weather people around that factor. And I remember one of them trying to recruit me to go to David's grave, and it just did not make sense to me, actually. And I cannot really tell you why, except that I think I was probably nervous, made uncomfortable by the violence and also the elitism, I think. But again, this could very much be retrospective because certainly, I have been pretty critical of Weatherman in my hourly work. And let me just say, I was not impressed by Bill Ayers. I thought he was a real prick. So, when I came to Carleton, I thought that there was going to be more political activism. And what I found was some people who indeed had a political consciousness, but it was a pretty... Really, the life at the campus was really organized. I mean, at least among my friends, it was really about partying and keggers, and smoking dope, and the occasional dropping of acid, and having a lot of sex. It was not that... And I am not saying that that does not have a political dimension, but this was not a very strong political campus. Although that said, I did take a class with Paul Wellstone when he was-
SM (00:12:26):
Oh, yeah, the former senator who died in the plane crash.
AE (00:12:29):
And he was really incredible. I remember taking the class with him on civil disobedience. And there were indeed some political people there who influenced me. So, I do not know. I was one of those people who I suppose could have gone in the direction of further political activism of that sort. Organized, in other words, some sort of variety of left activism. And what happened to me was I ended up after college... Or again, on both campuses. Although at Macalester, there was less [inaudible]. And oddly enough, even though it was a more political campus, I do not remember being that much more politically involved. But be that as it may, I ended up moving with a bunch [inaudible] to Santa Fe, New Mexico, because I just fell in love with it when I came and visited. And one of my friends had grown up here and had been as an architect in Santa Fe and was just somebody who knew Pen La Farge. I think he was the half-brother of Peter La Farge, a folk singer in The Village and was the son of Oliver La Farge, the writer who was the author of Laughing Boy. And so, we stayed in this wonderful house that had belonged to Oliver La Farge. It was still in the La Farge family while Pen was at graduate school in Boston. We lived there for a year. And during that time, I heard about this interesting program in women's studies at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. And I started to go to their meetings. Again, this is something that I write about again in the introduction to Shaky Ground, but that experience was really pretty life changing because this was not... Even though it was ostensibly meant to be an academic program, this is a pretty wild and wooly one. I mean, this one-
SM (00:14:55):
It was certainly new.
AE (00:15:01):
It was new. It was definitely new, and one had the feeling that there was very little out there, actually. And one was really making the curriculum. But it was unusual in the sense that community people like myself, because I had not gotten my BA. But I got my BA from Macalester, not from UNM. I was not doing anything there but working as actually a gardener trainee too eventually. But community people were able, like myself, were able to speak in the program for a period of time, which was really probably not a great thing. But looking back on it, I do not think I had the expertise. I do not think I had the skills to teach effectively. I do not think I knew enough. But nonetheless, being part of that group of mostly graduate students, because there was, I believe, only one faculty member who was married, I think, to someone in the philosophy department, and I think taught as an adjunct at the university. I think she was the only faculty member. Again, very, very telling, working as an adjunct. That would change over time, but when I was involved, which probably would have been about, I think it was probably (19)74, (19)75. Again, my dates here are fairly shaky, but it was a really impressive group. I mean, impressive, yes, a lot of smart women in that group, and it was a group only of women. A lot of political tensions between socialist feminists and those who were more mainstream and those who were lesbian feminists. This was my first real introduction to lesbians, and they both inspired me and terrified me. But I would say that there was probably more in the way of admiration than terror. But they were so super articulate. They were so articulate. They were so sure of themselves. They did not seem like the kind of miserable, dysfunctional losers that they were meant to be. And that really did completely blow my mind. And so, I began to tentatively... I eventually moved to Albuquerque. I started to go to the lesbian bar. And indeed, my first visit there was terrifying because none of those women were there, but it really was life changing. Two of the women who were part of that Women's Studies Collective, as we were called, had ties to Olivia Records. And that was the all-women's record company that recorded only women, people like Cris Williamson, and not Holly Near, but Meg Christian and several others. I mean, it was a pretty accomplished group of women, Lucia Valeska, who would then go on to be one of the heads of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. This is not to romanticize it. I would say that... This was what? Probably, as I said, (19)74, (19)75, and they were all... There was a kind of dogmatism there that I did not like. I have never been a big fan of dogmatism. So, even then, that is certainly in play. I had a kind of uneasy relationship, I think, at first to that group because I was perceived very much and indeed did identify first as bisexual. And that was not a good thing to be in those days. You were not seen as farther along. You might think that lesbian feminists would think, "Oh, well, there is a bisexual. So, at least, she's more open than her heterosexual sisters." But no, it's not that way at all. It was much more the case of people, those folks, regarding you as really lacking conviction. You were seen as wishy-washy. You were seen as being the epitome of the liberal. And as you know in the (19)60s, in the long (19)60s, there was really nothing worse than being a liberal. People would rather deal with, in some sense, at least this was the rhetoric, would rather deal with somebody who was overtly inimical to their aims than somebody who they felt was dodgy in the way that they felt liberals were. So, I think bisexual women were really seen as dodgy characters, sketchy characters. And so, yeah, like many bisexual women, I did come out. And indeed, I suspect that even probably some of the women who were, I am quite sure this is true, who were the most vociferous, fiercest lesbian feminists have since gone back to men. But I did not really. I did not. But I would say that those were both wonderful years and scary years. Being involved, not so much in that collective, but in that first community and going to the bar, going to the lesbian bar, it was a very scary thing to do. It was not in a good neighborhood by any stretch of the imagination. There was sometimes men who would prowl the parking lot in order to beat up guys. That never happened to me. But I remember evening or nights when men were chased away. There were fights inside the bar for sure. There were tensions between Chicanos and Anglos, between working class women and middle-class women, between town and gown. I would not say antagonism but mistrust or distrust. So, it was a pretty... It was also a wonderful place in many ways, although it was a complete [inaudible]. But I would say you really did feel like you were leaving your life behind. And I started to see much less of my friends in Santa Fe when I moved down there, and I came out. Relations with my family became much tenser. They had been a little tense because I had been involved in these political groups. And I can remember calling my mother up to tell her that I was coming out, and she was just so actually relieved that I was not calling to say that I was joining some terrorist group. That actually, her reaction, I would not say that it was great, but it could have been a lot worse. There was definitely, I think, an element of relief.
SM (00:23:16):
So, your generation gap between your parents was over this issue?
AE (00:23:21):
Well, I would say my father was a pretty interesting character because he had been a new neoliberal and he subscribed to I. F. Stone weekly, at a point in time when actually it could have hurt him because he ended up, he worked at the Veteran's Administration, and he became the head of the mortgage loan guarantee division. And that was a job, it was a position that required congressional approval, as I understand it. And they could subpoena anything, everything, anything, including what he was subscribing to. So, that was pretty nervy of him. But over time, I will say that he became, and this was a source of a lot of conflict between us, he became a Reagan nut. He ended up moving to the right. For all I know, he voted for Nixon. I am just not sure. But he ended up moving to the right. And we did have fights about racism and about affirmative action, and about the ERA, and abortion. Yeah, we definitely did. Not so much as my mother. My mother was not as politically invested as my father was because he worked at a government agency. I do not doubt that he saw a good deal of abuse and fraud, especially in his workings with HUD because he had [inaudible].
SM (00:25:08):
Do you think the McCarthy hearings had anything to do with his fear of what could happen to him if he was a liberal and...
AE (00:25:23):
Well, no, because he was subscribing to I. F. Stone. And I. F. Stone, as you know, was-
SM (00:25:24):
Yeah. Pretty much, yeah.
AE (00:25:31):
Certainly, was judged a dangerous lefty by some people in the administration. And I think by the time that my father... This would have been during Nixon's years when he was going up. So, I do not know. I do not really think so. I think he had every reason to be fearful given Nixon and given that administration about what might happen to his appointment. And it ended up not happening. He ended up being fine, but he was an odd person in that, as I understand it... Again, I have not checked this independently, but as I understand it, he was the first person at the VA in his division to hire an African American. And indeed, I had lunch with my father and this man a number of times. And he was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a man that could be characterized as an Uncle Tom. He really was not. So, my father was odd. I would say he was an interesting mix, who over time, I think mostly goes to the right, turns to the right because of the riots in DC. I think what happened there were friends of his were attacked by Black people in the street, including people who he knew to be very honorable liberals. That really changed him, and it was very hard to see that happen. It was hard to experience that. But we did continue to... So, he goes to the right. And for years, he would send a weekly letter, both of them, both of the parents would. And he would include a page usually, which would deal with current events and his sort of sense. He was forever making disparaging comments about gays and lesbians and feminists, and you name it. And finally, towards the latter part of his life, my mother, finally, because we had a big, serious falling out at some point, I think it was in the (19)90s, and my mother persuaded me to ratchet that down, ratchet that rhetoric down. And in fact, before my mother died, she really became quite wonderful. Now, because father has died, she became much more open to-
SM (00:28:22):
Did you pick the University of Michigan for your master's and PhD because you wanted to be real competent in your knowledge of the subject matter that you were talking about earlier?
AE (00:28:34):
I had applied to a number of schools including UCLA, I think Yale, which I did not get into. But I think UCLA was definitely one of them and I did get in there, and Michigan and Yale. I think there was another school that I did not get into, and there was another one that I did, maybe Wisconsin. I ended up going to Michigan because it was meant to be very good in women's history. And Robin Jacoby was then a young and tenured faculty member there and Louise Billie was in European history. And so, it was very strong in social history. And as you know, women's history really grows out of social history. And there was a young urban historian there by the name of Elizabeth Pleck, whose husband Joe Pleck has done a lot of work on sex-role, as they were called, through sex- role socialization as it was involved in at that point in time. So, I really went there because of its reputation as a very strong department, but one that was especially strong, I hope, in women's history. That turned out not to be true. It turned out to be a very conservative department that I was getting into. For instance, Liz Pleck was denied tenure pretty early into my- [inaudible]. Pretty early into my time there, Robin Jacoby did not go up for tenure, knowing she would not get it. And they did not make any replacement. There was no real woman's historian hired there in the US side, which was what I was supposed to be in, until Phil Carlson was hired, which was, I think the year that I was... the year that I was defending or the year before I was defending my decision. So I effectively had the decision. I remember very clearly going and had... I had nobody to work with. I will get back to that interesting problem in a minute. But I went to Michigan also because it was Ann Arbor, it had this whole aura of, and history of radicalism, right?
SM (00:30:59):
Yes.
AE (00:31:00):
And so I was very eager to be there. And I knew that women's studies there were meant to be really interesting and it was really interesting. It was so terrific. This is where Gal Rubin was a graduate student and Kathleen Stewart or Katie Stewart was a graduate student there, and there were other people and it was just the most amazing collection of people. Believe me, it was a wonderful, wonderful experience to be part of that program. And that is really where my intellectual life was, it was not in history. History was still very conservative and that changes. Indeed, it is changing by the time I am finishing up, but really much too late to help me. But I was also part of the so called women's community there, which is to say really, basically the lesbian community and the collectives that ran the women's Bookstore in town. And then there were various struggles there, three of the VA nurses who again, we argued wrongly accused of killing people. This was legalized prostitution. Ann Arbor was the home of legalized marijuana and we thought legalized prostitution. So we were sort of the leading edge of the, I would say, the protest front before the sex board actually emerged. And some of it actually was because of the fact that a number of the women who were the most active women in the lesbian family community there also worked as bus drivers at the Unionized Trust company in Ann Arbor and also moonlighted as prostitutes. They worked, they were sex workers at a brothel that were city corner from where I [inaudible] later in the [inaudible]. So politically I was involved in the Graduate Employers Organization too, but that was not really where my heart was as much as it was in the women's community over time as against, over time as those organizations there were fewer of these mobilizations and I became more involved ultimately in writing the dissertation. So I became less politically active, but I was pretty politically active at first in my first years in Ann Arbor. But the person, the people who really saved me back to faculty members, and it was Barbara Fields, the Columbia historian, Barbara [inaudible], who I had done coursework with and had been on my world. And she and I ran into it. But there were a grocery store and she offered to co-chair my committee. And Louis Hilly, who was the Europeanist, was the other co-chair. But it is quite telling that in the dissertation it was really about radical feminism in the recent past. I had no one to work with others in, and they were Louis me. I am not complaining in the sense that they were wonderful to work with, but it was not their field. This was not their field. It was still mean. The history department there, as I said, was still fairly backwards.
SM (00:34:32):
I got a lot of questions here that are looking at the era. Can you discuss, I just had an interview last week with Susan Brown Miller and some of these questions I asked her too, and though she had some individual questions about her background, but please discuss the movements that evolved in the late (19)60s and (19)70s. And I am talking about the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the environmental movement, the Native American movement, the Chicano movement, but civil rights movement was already taking place. But please discuss the movements that evolved in the late (19)60s and (19)70s and why they seem to have declined once the Reagan era began in the (19)80s. And a lot of people blame Reagan because of the administration, but the movements were, a lot of them were shoot offs from the civil rights and anti-war movement for a variety of reasons. I got questions down the road for that, but your thoughts on why they do not seem to be as visible today that is my perception and they really have not been as visible since the (19)80s.
AE (00:35:50):
Well, I do think that the (19)70s is a period in which there is a good deal activist biology, and so I do think the (19)70s, the business character, I do think by the time he gets the (19)80s, absolutely, I think it is true. And there was a cultural shift of course, that put him into office as well was inimical to the kind of political organizing that had characterized the (19)60s and into the 1970s. So I think that that was the fast. But I also think that it is very, very hard to maintain movements. Movements by their very nature or some, maybe not seminal, but they are limited. they do not just go on forever. And there shifts and they change and they rarely are, and they usually go through foul periods. Now, I do not know who is to say that there is not going to be some sort of resurgence of feminism tomorrow. Certainly people have thought that that was going to happen any number of times since the (19)70s, but I guess in the (19)80s, I have just been reading this wonderful book by 15 sample called The Feminist [inaudible], which is a history of, for the first and the second place. And one of the things that she points out, and I think this is really key, is that in part because of Reaganism and the tone that Reaganism took on feminist fear. Because faith that you felt if you were a feminist, and I would say if you were a member of a sexual or racial minority as well, or somebody who was elected, it was not one of the things that keeps movement going is a sense that you are gaining, you are actually gaining ground. We have had the experience of losing ground and having to fight and fight and fight, continuing to fight for abortion, for instance, that was getting acquittal away, continuing to fight for the era that was a losing battle. We thought that she had managed to diminish the possibilities of foreign adventures, right? Involvement in the affairs of foreign government, well, no, as Iran. So there were a number of ways in which I think people who were associated with those movements, the challenges to affirmative action, certainly there were a number of programs that had been instituted, especially during the LBJ and even during the Nixon years that were dismantled during the raging years. And I think there was this sensation that many of us had of a total fatigue. And then they are having to gear up around the pornography battle and faith in the first, within the sum movement, but it was also an internally divide movement. So one of the things that Christ stamp points out in her very really brilliant book is that when we are looking at feminism, it is not case that the movement end, which is, I would have to say that I would now revise my argument in daring to be bad. I think that radical feminism does sort of peter out. But feminism as a whole, I think that I was far too harsh on liberal feminism. I think that then becomes the ancient, I mean, as I say in my book, even the radical feminist engine cuts out and it was less liberal feminist. I do not feel as now as gloomy about that. I think an awful lot was accomplished. And I think as a result of what I was going to say that Chris in her book is that as a result of Reaganism, you find American feminists working globally and having great success in working globally. Which is not to say that global feminism has been unproblematic because there has been a tendency, as she points out in her book, to flatten women's experience out and not be yearly as attentive as one should do the sort of local conditions and traditions. But nonetheless, I think that made a huge difference. And so I would not say that feminism totally heated out. And I think there are still conversations that are happening. There are still, I would not say that there is a movement in the way in which there was in the (19)70s, but there is still happening. And I think it is even significant when you have people like Lady Gaga saying quite forthrightly on the Larry King show, that yes, she is a feminist and that she wants to change the way that girls and women think about themselves.
SM (00:41:51):
You wrote a book on radical feminism, and of course a lot of people I have interviewed are proud to be feminist, but they do not say they are radical feminists. How do you define the difference between a radical feminist and just a feminist or a mainstream feminist, or what is the difference?
AE (00:42:08):
Well, I think that really defies easy descriptions. I, again I would have to say, I really tried very diligently in that book to give a definition of radical feminism that would be broad enough to include even radical feminists who did not agree with each other.
SM (00:42:39):
Hold on one second. I have to turn my, okay.
AE (00:42:47):
But I mean, Susan Brown Miller, I do not know how she identified herself to you in her interview, but for instance, she was involved in a group called New York Radical Feminist. And I would say still that what characterized radical feminism, and this is where I would be more critical of my book now, is that I think that this began to characterize liberal feminists as well over time because it was a very powerful idea. Which is the idea that personal is political, which means this is an idea by the way that I think has been understood, has been used in ways that have not always been productive. But be that as it may, I think that the personal is political was originally an idea that was really put forward by Seawright Neural the radical sociologist, and then popularized somewhat by Hayden and then further picked up on by the woman who begin to form these little groups that become the basis of the Women's liberation Movement. And what the personal is political really means is that there is that personal life, this area of our existence that we usually assume is purely personal, actually has the political dimensions. And so it actually says something about the culture in which we live that, for instance, heterosexual sex at that point in time often was a three-minute affair that did very often was more centered around male pleasure than female. It was significant and said something about the culture that there were certain people who were changing the diapers and cooking the meals and cleaning up, et cetera, et cetera. That was what it was really, I think originally supposed to mean. Not that if you lived with a man or if your hair was long, or if you wore high heels and you were not a feminist, which is very often the way that it was construed, I think. But so a radical feminist was somebody who really felt that the real focus of our political activism needed to be around the personal and needed to be around the psychological. Not to the total dismissal of dealing with and working on employment discrimination or rape laws or violence against women more generally. But that the real meat of this, the real meat of the struggle was psychological and it was relational. And so for me, radical feminism was really about an immense challenge to personal life and to the sort of social organization of private life. And again, in some cases it led to things that I think were unfortunate. The personal political was one of the arguments that was used to by some feminists to supports the impeachment of Clinton. And I myself, could not have cared less. I should not say I could not have cared less, but I did not think that that should be the basis of impeachment. But I do think that the attention to personal life, whereas liberal had been much more tuned to sort of more conventionally understood political realm of employment discrimination laws, legislation. But here is the thing, over time, inevitably the radical feminist's agenda, the sort of focus on the personal, it be very visible and so now begins to organize CR groups now takes up the struggle more effectively than radical feminists does. Abortion rights and rape laws and on and on and on. So the liberal feminist, the liberal feminist, played an incredibly important role, and they were themselves changed and transformed by radical feminists. I would say radical feminism played a role in the women's business, not unlike the role that, for instance, Nixon rights. It pushed the issue it went deeper and sometimes in somewhat wacky ways, but it was still liberal feminism would never have developed as it did without that kind of push for radical feminists. Does that help too?
SM (00:47:53):
Yes. I have some names here. Would you put Gloria Steinem and Betty Fordam and Sherry Height? Would you put them in the liberal feminist where you have, but you would have Bella Abzug, Robin Morgan, Andrew Derkin, Susan Johnson, Jermaine Greer would be more in the radical.
AE (00:48:16):
Well, I think one of the things that I really feel at this point in time is that I am very uninterested in making those kinds of distinctions, in part because very often those distinctions were much more meaningful in the very early years of the women's movement. And over time I think became less so. Certainly somebody like Dudy Friedan had no use for radical feminism. On the other hand, she herself, her thinking was to some extent transformed by what was going on within the radical feminist sphere. But I am not comfortable making those kinds of judge, I just do not think it is, it gets us anywhere. Let us just say that at its best, at its most optimal radical feminism and liberal feminism when they worked together, were able to really accomplish a lot, sometimes in a kind of good cop, bad cop way.
SM (00:49:24):
The (19)60s and early (19)70s are often defined as the era that defined the color culture that includes long hair, unique dress, drugs, rock music, the sexual revolution. And a lot of people say that the (19)60s included goes right up to 1973 and that the real (19)70s began in the mid (19)70s, but the (19)70s were also important. So basically what I am saying is, and I have heard this from other people, that a lot of the things that define the (19)60s, many of them really defined the (19)70s and were more important in the (19)70s.
AE (00:50:08):
Well, yeah, that is maybe argument that I make in the disco book. I think this notion of the me decade, it was a great essay from Will, but think we have outlived, I think there was an awful lot of, if you want to talk about narcissism, there was an awful lot of narcissism in the (19)60s too. And I think, but to get at the question of the (19)70s, I think that what is distinctive about the (19)70s is that over time, one does have the feelings as a result of the loss of Vietnam, which different parts of the population experience differently right? As a result of that, as a result of the energy crisis, as a result of the shuttering of factories as a result of the recession and stagflation, it is a different kind of consciousness mean you do not have the sense of nearly the same sense, which was very important for the underwriting of protests. This sense of, hey, this is let the good times roll. This is just not going to end. We are going to continue to be able to live for $30 a month in a beautiful, somewhat rundown Victorian in the middle of a city. So that sense of optimism and hopefulness, I think begins to take a beating. And I think, again, more systematic research has to be done on this. And when that sort of sense of pessimism sets in, and I think also the political assassinations take their toll. I think in black communities, certainly the sense that you are able to elect mayors is important, but it is also becomes increasingly undeniable that these are cities that are in pretty bad shape. So I think, again, I think that the periodization is probably going to vary somewhat depending upon the group that one's talking about. But I think if you think about the (19)60s as being a time that did involve actually both collective action and assigned an ethos of individualism, if you think about it at the time, which was pretty hedonistic and pleasure oriented. This goes through, this runs through the threads that run through the (19)70s, and the kind of hedonism that you might have seen at the full auto auditorium becomes much more available to more people in disco culture. And in fact, one of the things that is quite striking about disco culture is that it is not, I do not want to oversell it, I do not want to romanticize it because there was racial discrimination in discos, but it is a much more integrated nightlife than what you found at Hip Ballroom where black people tended to be not typical. Something of a rarity.
SM (00:53:59):
Hold on. Somebody is calling. I will let it go. My cell phone. I will just let it ring. Yeah, it is interesting because as a student at Ohio State in the early (19)70s, this is before disco, African American students had their own dances and white students had their own dances, and there was this black power thing and there was a lot of intimidation going on. And then disco came about later in the (19)70s itself. Would you say, as some people have told me that some people think that the (19)70s were more about the sexual revolution and drugs was more a (19)70s thing than a (19)60s thing?
AE (00:54:42):
Well, I think drugs become, drugs had been part of various, if you think about it, if you think about pharmaceuticals, the (19)50s were a drug era. You think about just the very casual use of speed in the 1950s. There was a reason that so many beatniks were so many of the beats were using feed. It was that it was pretty much the drugs that a lot of people were using. And it was easy to get at Carlton, they would hand it out at examination time. And that was way into the (19)60s. So I think it depends on the kinds of drugs that you are talking about. And I certainly would not make the argument that a lot of people do that the (19)60s were good drugs and the (19)70s were bad drugs. I think that is very simplistic. But I do think that drugs in some sense become more available. I think that the sexual revolution affects more people in the 1970s. I think certainly gay liberation really changes the landscape for Williams Samaritans. So I think that it is absolutely true that there is more sexual expressiveness. There is probably, again, do not quote me, but there is certainly a lot of drug use. I think it does permeate the population more fully. And I think some of the biggest protest marches actually happened in the 1970s. I think all of that is true.
SM (00:56:38):
One of the things I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, and I know David Horowitz, who you are aware of, a liberal who became very conservative and has attacked the (19)60s generation in many ways. You teach women's studies and well, another areas, how do you respond to the criticism of colleges today that the troublemakers of yesterday now run today's colleges and oversee departments like women's studies, gay studies, Asian studies, and black studies. It is a criticism that some more conservative people make toward the universities today.
AE (00:57:21):
Well-
SM (00:57:22):
And it is not only been since 2000. It was all through the (19)90s too, and probably the latter part of the (19)80s.
AE (00:57:31):
Well, I think that it would be fair to say that the university tend to be places where faculty members tend towards the liberal. I do not think that that is the preserve only of women's studies department. There tend not be, there are departments called things like lesbian and gay, bisexual, transgender studies. I do not know. I am associated, I have taught in many places in women's studies, gender studies, LGBT, I have encountered some dogmatism. But anybody who has read my work knows that I am really not dogmatic. I am not a defender of weatherman. I am not a defender of, I have been known to be critical of the last, I have been known to be critical of other strands of feminism. I am not really a very [inaudible] person. And in fact, that whole term, politically correct or PC was a term that was created that came about within the feminists and sort of larger progressive movement as a way of poking fun at that kind of the more ideologically oriented amongst us. And so I tend to think that actually in the programs that I have been involved with, that there has been a good deal of debate. And these are not places that are characterized by semi-Nazism as some people have alleged. I think I am somebody, and I know I am not alone in this, who when she teaches feminism, will often teach well, I always teach people who are critical of the movement as well. I will teach Camille Pollia, I will teach people who...
AE (01:00:03):
... I have taught Phyllis Schlafly. I think it is really important for students to be exposed to something other than simply a certain strand of feminism, a certain kind of let us say, gay and lesbian history writing. So, I have always encouraged people in my classes, and I have seen this a lot among other faculty, encouraged people to question orthodoxies no matter what the orthodoxy, even if it's a political tendency that is represented in the program that I am teaching in. I do think that feminists have been really extraordinarily self-critical, perhaps not in ways that Schlafly and Harwood would agree with, but I think we have certainly taken on board very seriously the criticisms that, for instance, women of color have made of these women's studies programs. So I would say I am very well aware of those criticisms, of course, but somebody like myself, who I really do think of as in many ways, really a free thinker. I have not felt constrained, shall we say, by my involvement in these [inaudible 01:01:47].
SM (01:01:48):
You are a cultural historian, and of course the boomers have been alive since 1946. The oldest Boomers are 63 going on 64, and the youngest Boomers are 47 going on 48. So they have all been around a while. So I break it down here, and I have been asking this to all of my interviewees, at least the second half of my interviewees, is, in your words, define the culture of these particular periods. I will do one at a time here, define the culture of the late (19)40s and (19)50s and how the (19)40s shaped the (19)50s and the (19)50s shaped the (19)60s. It does not have to be anything in length, but just general, what it was like to be a kid growing up in America, or a young parent like the Boomers parents or World War II generation raising kids in this era. Just define the culture of the late (19)40s and (19)50s, and then how the (19)40s shaped the (19)50s, and how the (19)50s shaped the (19)60s.
AE (01:02:54):
Well, I suspect that it goes farther back. I mean, I suspect that certainly the (19)30s did a lot of shaping of the (19)60s in the sense that initially a lot of the people who were (19)60s activists, and by that, I mean people who were involved, not in Young Americans for Freedom, I am talking about the people who were involved in FBS and other left-leaning groups, the liberal groups, what they knew about the (19)30s and the left through the (19)50s was very sobering. So I think that to a great extent, there was a caution about dogmatism and about relying upon a predetermined or any kind of dogma, any kind of Marxist-Leninist thought. There was a real uneasiness about that, which of course was an uneasiness that was encouraged and to a great extent by some of the liberals who were mentoring people like Hayden and others. So I think that, you have to go even further back. When it comes to my own childhood, I think the way that I make sense of it, and I write about this a bit in the Janice book, is that Lord knows Port Arthur was not Chevy Chase, Maryland by a long shot, and her parents were not my parents. But I do think that many of us grew up feeling as though our parents were just completely unreasonably invested in a kind of safe and secure existence. They wanted stability, they wanted safety, they wanted stability, and they did not want excitement. This is what I believe in the Janice book I talk about, I think I quote Peter Coyote about the adventure shortage.
SM (01:05:21):
I am interviewing him in three weeks.
AE (01:05:23):
Yes, check it out. I am pretty sure that he's the one who talked about the adventure shortage, and I did not interview him. I could not get to him so more power to you. But I think that that is true. I think many of us growing up did feel as though there was an adventure shortage. I think there was also a sense that a number of the people that I interviewed for the Janice book talked about, which was this sense of potential oblivion. I mean, I had nightmares myself about Soviet troops marching down the street. I mean, those of us who lived through the Cuban missiles crisis and were aware of and worried about the arms buildup, I think did grow up feeling fearful. I suspect that all of that, the sort of enthusiasm that our parents had for stability and for a lack of excitement and the kind of adventure shortage that that resulted in, and these sorts of fears about nuclear destruction, probably made us take risks. It did not make us better, it did not make us more noble. It did not make us the best generation or a better generation. It made us different. I think, again, each of us dealt with us differently, and some people took no risks at all, but a lot of us did take risks, whether it was deciding to come out as a lesbian as I did, which believe me, was not a great career move, although you would not know it now, but for a long time, I did not have a tenured position, and this had to do with the kind of risks that I took in my work and it had to do also with the fact that I was not at all closeted. It was pretty easy to tell from my acknowledgements that I was not exclusively heterosexual. So a lot of us took risks, I think as a result of that, as a result of feeling this kind of claustrophobia. A lot of us grew up in suburbs that did not have a lot happening in them also. So I think in particular, many of us were drawn to African American culture and African American music. Eventually, certainly for me, and I am sure this is true for some others too, from listening to soul music, you started to read Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver, and there was for sure some pretty problematical stuff in Eldridge Cleaver. But nonetheless, this stuff changed the way that you understood power and the way that you understood America. So I guess that is what I would say.
SM (01:09:05):
Yeah. You do not have to go in, because I got quite a few questions here, and your explanation was beautiful there. You have talked about some of these things, but if you could define how the culture of the (19)60s shaped the (19)70s and how the culture of the (19)70s shaped the (19)80s.
AE (01:09:24):
I do not know if I can really do that. I mean, I think-
SM (01:09:33):
From a Boomer's perspective.
AE (01:09:35):
I think that the (19)60s got its best, and there was a worse to the (19)60s, too. I mean, I am not a romantic, I am not somebody who thinks that everything about the (19)60s was just hunky-dory. I do not. I think that there were some real mistakes. I teach the (19)60s, and so some of my favorite books are things like... Oh, what's the name of this? The TC Boyle book about the commune, which is so funny. It is just really a devastating critique. "Drop City," devastating. But at its best, I mean, the (19)60s gave people, and I know this is an overused word, but it gave some people a sense of empowerment. At the same time, it made others feel, who had been used to taking certain privileges for granted, it made them feel angry about the loss of that. But certainly for people like myself, it was an incredibly empowering experience. You really did feel as though the world could be changed, a war was stopped. I am just looking outside because we are having a hailstorm, and I am trying to think if I should call you back in a minute and move my car.
SM (01:11:23):
You are having a bad storm.
AE (01:11:27):
Yeah, we are having a hail storm, so I am just looking outside. I think it is okay.
SM (01:11:32):
Let me know, and then I could call you back in 10 minutes if you want me to.
AE (01:11:36):
I tell you, why do not you call me back in five?
SM (01:11:41):
Okay.
AE (01:11:41):
Okay?
SM (01:11:41):
Yep. Bye.
AE (01:11:41):
Okay, great. Okay, bye.
SM (01:11:46):
You were talking about the (19)60s. I think you were finishing up on the culture of the (19)60s and the influence on the (19)70s, and then the culture of the (19)70s. Basically, what I am really asking here is because we are talking about when Boomers have been alive and the feelings that Boomers have. It is 74 million people so they have experienced all these. So what the (19)70s, the (19)80s, and the (19)90s, and the (20)10s mean to them, just from your perspective.
AE (01:12:16):
Well, I think that probably the fact that I was involved in the feminist movement and the gay and lesbian movement, these were movements that did have real momentum through a large part of the (19)70s. So I think that for me, and again, this is taking into account the fact that obviously, as I said, look at what's happening as regards to global feminism, had I made that move, then I am sure my feelings would be very different. But the feelings that I had, I would say in the (19)70s, I think that I still had a sense of momentum. I think in the (19)80s, the (19)80s definitely felt like a real break on change. I think that is when I felt, and I am not sure, again, this is hard to know, it is not clear to me to what extent I felt this and to what extent this was what I was reading in at the time. But it did feel as though there was more of a backlash in that decade against feminism. Then of course, there was, in this period, this was when I was teaching, it was the beginning of AIDS, so that really reverberated. So I think there was this sense of, that I was probably not explaining very well, but I think that there was frequently this sense in the (19)80s of not only not momentum, but of having to defend the victories that you had won much, much earlier. It led to a kind of wariness, at least on my part, a kind of fatigue. I was quite pleased when Clinton won. If you were to go beyond that, obviously from the standpoint of 2010, I am almost 60, the way that the culture has changed, it takes your breath away. It's difficult sometimes to comprehend how much it has changed. In the sense of being able to be, at least in my world, pretty openly gay, being able to not have nearly the kinds of impediments that I would have had and that I did have when I first was studying history because I am female. There is just so much that is changed. On the other hand, we have this incredible poverty and we have this environmental disaster and on and on and on. So I do not know quite what else to say. I mean, I think I would say this about the (19)60s though, to go back just for a moment, that my predominant experience of the (19)60s, well into the (19)70s, was this sense of really being able to have agency and feeling a real sense of empowerment and seeing it in other people, and just really how beautiful that was. It is kind of amazing, if you consider how, for instance, the university has changed, now we can look at the fact that the university has changed in all kinds of ways that are agreeable to me, whereas other parts of society a bit more resistant to change or have actually changed in ways that have contributed to greater inequality. You think about banking, you think about the lack of regulation. But if I think about the university, I think one of the reasons that that place has been so transformed is that so many of us from the (19)60s did have the sense of we can really do this. Right? That was such a strong ethos.
SM (01:17:33):
Yeah, you make a good point here about the fact that in the (19)80s there was this feeling of the gains that had been made, now there was greater challenge, and it is like you are fighting the battle all over again because that is when affirmative action was challenged. So the African Americans, I know about Latinas, Caesar Chavez working with them, of course, the labor unions were set back in those times, the women's movement. I know a lot of attacks on the environmental movement took place then. Certainly, I think just about every movement we have discussed, the anti-war movement was almost nonexistent. There was a small group of anti-war, but then we saw it all over again in the early (19)90s in the Gulf War. So my next question, I am getting into some of the disco questions, which I am kind of excited about. This is Steve McKiernan now. When I think of disco, I think of Barry White, Isaac Hayes, the Bee Gees, Tavares, Thelma Houston, Donna Summer, Sylvester, Chaka Khan, Andy Gibb, Gloria Gainer, and I forget the, again, oh, Love Unlimited Orchestra. However, in this same period, these groups were very popular. And I do not know, I think Mothers and Fathers and Sisters and Brothers would be on that other side. But I think of Earth, Wind and Fire, Cool and the Gang, Eddie Kendricks, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, the Isley Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack, and Patty LaBelle. Now, I do not know if you categorize them in the same as you would the disco performers. They are all around the same time, though.
AE (01:19:30):
They are all around the same time, and you will doubtless remember that one of the early big disco hits before a lot of people were really very aware of disco, was Lady Marmalade, which was done by the group Trio LaBelle, and which Patti LaBelle was a member, and certainly Earth Winds and Fire was great. Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway back together again. I used to play them all the time in [inaudible] where I DJ'ed. Again, I tend not to be particularly driven by the urge to categorize in that way. In the book, one of the arguments that I make very early on, and I am pretty attached to this idea, is that when it comes to rock music, nobody says about heavy metal, "Well, that is heavy metal. That is not really rock." Or nobody says about punk, "Well, that is punk. That is not really rock." Other words, we understand rock as being almost infinitely malleable. It's a big category that can kind of attach all category. It can contain a lot of different kind of phonics, a lot of different kinds of sounds. But that is not been true of disco. And so there will be people who say, "Oh, well, Michael Jackson was not really a disco artist." "Oh, the Philadelphia International Group, like the OJs, they were not really disco." It just goes on and on and on.
SM (01:21:14):
Yeah, the Stylistics were another group of that period. And the Delfonics, I mean, there was group after group and they were all great.
AE (01:21:22):
They were great, and many of them were produced by Tom Bell. So I would argue a couple of things. I would say, first of all, that those distinctions between artists do not mean that much to me. That when I think about disco and when I try to define disco, what my definition of it is, the music that certainly took as its template soul music, but which transformed it in ways that made it much more lush, much more symphonic, was characterized very often by as you know, the four-four thump. But it was music that included anything that really worked on a disco dance floor. That could be Betty Hendrick, and often was, it could be Parliament Funkadelics, One Nation Under A Groove. It could be Patti LaBelle. I mean, to me, it's whatever worked. I think because disco has been so stigmatized, people have been very eager to define disco very narrowly, as really referring to only the most classic disco records in, again, a very narrow and circumscribed period. Now, that said, I do think that there are some differences between funk and disco, although I would say that there is an awful lot of disco dance floors featured funk. And the Isley Brothers, for instance, did a song called "Fight the Power," that was a great song and a very political song just as The Temptations did a song "Papa was a Rolling Stone," that also was a very socially conscious song. These were songs that played in early disco. "Papa was a Rolling Stone," I think was three years before "Fight the Power," but nonetheless, this kind of music, music by Black musicians who sometimes define themselves as more oriented towards funk, sometimes more towards disco, sometimes more towards R and B, sometimes more towards rock, like Chaka Khan or LaBelle, they were all being played for a period of time on disco dance floor until disco became Disco with a capital D and then the sound narrowed somewhat. But phonically funk tended to be more about getting into a groove and finding that groove and digging deep into that groove. Whereas disco phonically, orally, it sounded more obviously constructed because it was. It was music that was remixed an remixed in ways that emphasized its dance ability. It was music whose musical movements often had a kind of arbitrary feel to it. Why do the horns come in there? Why suddenly does the vocal end here? So I think that made it phonically somewhat different from funk. But on a dance floor, I always found that most people were quite eager to dance to the full spectrum of what was danceable. I do not know if I answered your question.
SM (01:25:08):
A lot of rock musicians, so were really into rock in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, and jazz musicians too, could not stand disco because from what... Hold on. Okay, here we go. A lot of musicians did not like it because of the fact that it took jobs away from people because they were com-
AE (01:25:39):
Oh, yeah. That is true. I think that there was a whole segment of the rock community that hated disco because of the fact that a lot of rock venues, rock clubs went disco and understandable. But of course, there were a lot of other criticisms made of it too, and that it was boring and predictable.
SM (01:26:07):
Well, some of the things that I heard around the years when I was at Ohio State, and then of course my years as an administrator at Ohio University through (19)76, is that when you think of disco, well, the (19)60s is over because the (19)60s was about activism, the (19)60s music was messages. The folk musicians, the rock musicians, they had a lot of messages in their music. This was just pure dance. That is one of the criticisms. Another one is that the (19)70s began when disco began, because a lot of people of the (19)60s think that up to 1973, that is still the (19)60s because of the way that is. And that the (19)70s really began around (19)74 and (19)75, and you had "Saturday Night Fever," the movie, and that is when it really began the Disco era. Just your thoughts on all that hodgepodge that I just mentioned.
AE (01:27:15):
Well, again, I think most music of the (19)60s was not political music. It was music that very often yearned to be meaningful. I would say it very often tried to be meaningful, but I do not think very much of it actually was political. I mean, if you really look at it, if you really look at the most popular. If you look at the very earliest music that was popular on disco dance floors, what's interesting is that a lot of that music actually was not utterly apolitical the way that it has been represented. Again, a song like "Fight the Power," most people would say, "Oh, well that was funk," but it was being played in discos. So I would say that there is a shift over time in disco to a less overtly political register. Now, I think that one of the groups that is most interesting in this respect is Chic, the Bernard Edwards- Nile Rodgers group, because Nile Rodgers had been a member of the Black Panthers. Chaka Khan had been involved with Black Panthers as well. I would say that both of those musicians, both Nile Rodgers and Chaka Khan, and I would say this is true of LaBelle as well, who were popular in the early years of disco, these are musicians who wanted their music to be empowering. So "I am Every Woman," now not everybody will think of that as a political song, but I think Chaka Khan did actually. Not everybody will necessarily think of "We Are Family," as a political song, this is the Chic song, but Nelson Mandela has said that when he was in prison, this was a song when it would come on the radios that the guards were listening to, it kept him going. It was a song that Nile Rodgers claimed to have written at Woodstock. Certainly the vocal Trio LaBelle did a number of songs, which were really pretty overtly political. But I think that what is interesting about disco is that to a great extent, it is music that is not overtly political. It is satisfy-
AE (01:30:03):
... political. It is satisfied with getting people dancing. And to the extent that there is a political message in any of it, it is usually rather hidden and obscured. For instance in the song, Good Times by Chic, many people thought that, that was the song that is completely out of touch with America. It seemed, for many people, to be a song celebrating the good life in the midst of a terrible recession, but it was tongue-in-cheek. It is just that nobody expected a disco group to be smart enough to do a song that was tongue-in-cheek. As Nile Rogers said, "If this had been Bob Dylan, everybody would have said, "Check out Bob. Pretty cool."" But because it was a disco group, people took it at face value. So I think that, I do think that disco tended to make its meaning obscure, it tended not to favor the politically explicit. And I think that is really interesting that, that is true. I think to some extent, because disco was really about, to a great extent, about escapism and it was much more about taking evasive action. Again, as I point out in my book, there are songs that do make political points. But this was not really, there was not very much finger pointing music, to use Bob Dylan's expression, in disco. But again, I think partly that the meaning was made on the dance floor. I mean, the meanings were made in the kinds of contacts that happened between people. The ways in which, at its best, racial boundaries were crossed, gender boundaries, sexual boundaries were crossed. So I think that, more often than not, was where the meanings were.
SM (01:32:22):
I will tell you one thing, going to a disco in downtown Columbus in 1975 was a lot different than going into the Ohio Union in 1972, where there was total separation.
AE (01:32:36):
Mm-hmm.
SM (01:32:37):
One of the questions here is disco, you bring this up in your book, was basically performed by Black performers. It is often scorned as a terrible period for music between rock and roll and the Motown sound of the (19)60s and mid-(19)70s that, we already just went over that, to the new wave music in the (19)80s. Does this scorn or attack have anything to do with racism, prejudice, or the lessening of the value of something because it does not come from the majority?
AE (01:33:07):
Well, I think unfortunately, by the time we get to the attacks on disco, it comes to be understood within the community, within communities of rock, was that rock music is a largely white genre, with the exception of Jimi Hendrix. If you were to tune into classic rock stations in 1977, and I mentioned an article by Bill Marcus who talks about a Bay Area station that does a history of rock that includes precisely one Black artist, and that is Jimi Hendrix. So there is this sense, by the time we get to the mid to late (19)70s, that rock is really... that Black people do not belong in rock music. Which is, of course, such an irony given the fact that you would never have had the rock music without Black musicians, because R&B is the essential backbone to rock. So yeah, I mean, I think there is a sense in which you have to understand the backlash against disco as certainly involving a certain kind of racism. And if you look at the two DJs in Detroit that tried to organize an anti-disco army, they called themselves the Disco Ducks Klan, I think it is. And they hatch this plot to go on stage wearing white robes. I mean, that cannot be accidental, the use of Klan, the use of... The decision is later aborted, but of course it is. I think it has to be understood, within the context of a situation, a moment in which some white heterosexual men feel under attack. They feel as though their music is being shoved off the airways. They feel like they are being shoved out of certain jobs because of affirmative action, because [inaudible]. And so, I do think that disco comes to, it is a lightning rod of sorts for a lot of discontent about racial minorities, and about feminism, and about gay men. Because certainly, even though a lot of people were unaware of the fact that gay men were the, really, disco's early adopters, a lot were not. And a lot of people did know that there were significant numbers of gay men who were among disco's poor constituencies. So I think that, the backlash against disco is inseparable from homophobia and racism, and probably as well from a kind of uneasiness about feminism. I also think, and I argue this in the book, that for some rock and rollers, it was also the case that they felt as though their style, their way of being [inaudible], their masculinity, was threatened by this new style. Which today, we would sort of characterize as metrosexual. This sort fastidiousness, personal fastidiousness, attention to clothing, attention to grooming, attention to looking good, a buff body, and a willingness to dance. And these are all sorts of characteristics that women like in this. And they like their boyfriends and husbands to look good, dress up. To, basically, look like gay men. And the biggest affront to a lot of the disco folks who were white was that, the men who were sort of responsible for these new norms were gay men who had no use for women. So, you know.
SM (01:37:20):
Wait, you write beautifully... Barry White is one of my favorite artists of all the time. And again, I worked for the university, and most, I know there were some gay and lesbian students at Ohio University in these dances, but obviously, they were not out. But I think when you describe the difference between Barry White and James Brown, it is beautiful. Because you talk about vulnerable masculinity, Barry White pleasuring the ladies. And I have got my notes here, from being a sex machine, James Brown, to a more loving style that was Barry White, and what a difference. And so, I never thought of it that way. But obviously, when you listen to Barry White, there is a respect for women there. And there is a respect, whereas with James Brown, it was all about sex.
AE (01:38:23):
Yeah. Well, with James Brown, it was all about what he wanted sexually. And I mean, listen, I am a great lover of both of their music, but I think it is really true that Barry White was much more woman friendly. And so I think that, that kind of shift, it is hard. I mean, that is something that becomes more obvious later, as you look back at the era. I think it was harder to see at the time. But I also think that, one of the reasons that rap developed the way that it did was as a backlash against that kind of love man style that was characteristic of White.
SM (01:39:10):
Yeah.
(01:39:11):
I have a quote here from your book, and this is, I think, in your introduction. "Throughout Hot Stuff, I placed disco within the discourse of feminism, de-industrialization, globalism, ongoing struggles for racial justice and greater sexual preferences." And you have already gone over most of this in your commentary, but does that really put it in a nutshell?
AE (01:39:35):
Yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean, I think it is just that disco, I mean, I think it is a great paradox for many. I mean, it is a paradox of sorts because disco was primarily music about getting down, which is not to say that sometimes it was not about something else. But it was, in its essence, about getting down whether on the dance floor or in the bedroom. And much of this music did not strive to be more meaningful. And yet, it nonetheless both expressed and aided and abetted a number of changes that were absolutely central to American culture, in that period. And it is just paradoxical because the music itself did not, for the most part, strain to be meaningful the way that (19)60s music did. And yet, it had such an impact. But it is an impact that, I think, some people, especially boomers, resist learning about. I mean, there was... I opened the book with a great article by Andy Costumes who was the journalist who wrote at the Nation in The Village Voice, and he published this article about disco. And he talked about the contempt that so many of his (19)60s friends had for it. And yet, both of us had a very similar experience. I mean, there were a lot of my friends who were (19)60s people who hated disco because it seemed synthetic, it seemed unnatural, it seemed sleazy. It seemed like a real regression back to the sort of universe of bubblegum. And yet, there was a lot. Because they did not go to disco, they really did not know all the work, all the cultural work, that music was doing. Because Costumes was gay and because I am gay, that gave us a different perspective because we were part of those clubs. And we could see the way that the music was actually being used. And one of the things that I wanted to do in that book was that, I have been very influenced by the work of musicologists and scholars of music, like Susan McClary and Simon Firth. I mean, many of others have been. And they talk about how music is too often seen as a reflection of the culture, and not often enough seen as actually doing cultural work itself. It is not understood as changing us, making us, changing us, socializing us. And one of the things I really came to believe as I wrote this book, it was not something that I understood at all well as I began it. But I came to understand that as I was working on it, was that disco... Everybody always looks at punk and says, "Ah, punk." This was a really transformative moment, you know? And yet, I see... Actually, I do not want to get into a hierarchy here. But, I see a whole lot of change happening in the way that people understand their bodies and the way that they understand their gender, and their sexuality in these years through disco. And so, that was something I really wanted to make manifestly clear in the book.
SM (01:43:13):
Well, something that really struck me was one of the criticisms of all the movements today, or the issues, was identity politics. You hear that from the more right-side that... they criticized identified politics. And of course, the (19)60s was about that. But you say the (19)70s was a time when numbers of gay men, excuse me, African Americans, women, ditched predictable social scripts. Disco played a central role in the process, which broadened the contours of Blackness, femininity, and male homosexuality. I often wonder where Native Americans and Latinos fall in there. But what I want to comment here before you respond, as a person who has worked 30 plus years with college students, the most important thing we want to see when they walk into university to when they graduate, besides a sense of knowledge about why they were there, is a sense of self-esteem, a feeling of comfortableness with who they are and a sense of belonging. And it seems like everything you talk about, about disco, and particularly in terms of the gay and lesbian community, and women, and African American as a whole, that this helped in that feeling, in our society as a whole. And I know from seeing students dance in the (19)70s that the criticisms that we are seeing today, and actually we have seen since that time, the students that I have worked with, they loved it, so.
AE (01:44:54):
Well, yeah. I mean, I think that disco did enable, especially gay men and women across the board, who generally like dance better than men. I mean, again, it is a generalization and there're exceptions, but it tends to be true. And I think African Americans as well, it did afford them real kinds of opportunities for changing themselves. And I do think that, you do find people in all those categories, all those identity categories, who do ditch social scripts. I mean, I would say, and this is a kind of thread throughout the book, I do think though that, that was scary just as it was in the (19)60s. I mean, change is scary. And for instance, and it is not... there are losses too. And so when we are talking about disco, and we are talking about women, we are talking about sexual expressiveness, I mean, I think it is significant that Donna Summer and some of the other disco divas end up renouncing that world because on some level it makes them uncomfortable. And I do think that the sexual revolution of (19)70s made a lot of women uncomfortable. I think that, for instance, when you are talking about African Americans, there was a way in which what had been so exciting about disco to so many Black musicians and producers, which was that it allowed them to occupy the kind of sonic territory that had been more the preserve of white musicians, right? Sophisticated, symphonic arrangements, very kind of sweet music, music that was not necessarily gritty and was not recognizably Black. That was all very liberating. But it came to feel, to some African Americans, like a selling out of Black music. And when we come to male homosexuals, I think that the move away from effeminacy to gay macho also meant that certain categories of men who were effeminate really felt sidelined. So one of the things that I tried to express in the book is that, as liberating as all this stuff could feel to these three groups, there were certainly dissenters. There were certainly people who did not buy it or people who came to feel disillusioned. So I think both of those things are true. Change is like that, isn't it? I mean, you know?
SM (01:47:47):
Yeah.
AE (01:47:47):
It is obviously, it is dialectical. And so, it makes a lot of sense that you would then have this kind of ambivalence.
SM (01:47:55):
Yeah. I think that what you are talking about here, when you listen to Barry White and his music from (19)75, Let the Music Play, and then when you hear Marvin Gaye, What's Going On, his album in 1971 is the difference of night and day. One is just really about, I will not say having fun, but just getting out on the dance floor and being free. And Marvin Gaye, that is a very important thing, it's a sensitivity and sensitizing people to the issues that we must all care about. But that there is a difference there, one may be more macho than the other, so to speak.
AE (01:48:33):
Yeah. And the thing about Marvin Gaye that is interesting is that, then he goes totally into bedroom music himself. I mean, and I think that is a really, really interesting phenomenon and it is one that I write about in the book. And I cannot say that I have cracked the nut here, that I totally understand it. I think it's fascinating that you find R&B going through this shit where there is this period, and I think it really begins early. I mean, it begins as early, I think, as (19)71. And I think it goes through, it sort of peaks in about (19)74. And I think Fight the Power is one of the last instances, I think of (19)75, but do not quote me on it, is this really fascinating period of social commentary. And much of it is not about racial uplift, it is about confusion, it is about feeling sold out, it is about disappointments. And yet, it is like then you have R&B turning on a dime and becoming... You see it with Papa Was a Rollin' Stone from the happy people. I mean, that is a really interesting shift. And I do not know exactly just what to attribute it. I mean, I think it could be that, that kind of music of reflection and social commentary and disappointment got to be almost a cliché. I mean, I think that, that is quite possible that it was just so flooding the airways. And it could be that there was this sense of, enough already. But in any case, it is a very interesting shift that it does turn, and it turns so emphatically towards something else.
SM (01:50:31):
You mentioned in there that you think that Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, their song was the first disco song?
AE (01:50:40):
Well, I say that a lot of people think that it is, The Love I Lost.
SM (01:50:45):
Yes.
AE (01:50:45):
I am reluctant to actually name one. I mean, I think there's that, I think, Girl You Need a Change of Mind. I mean, I think there are some contenders out there. I mean, there are certain elements that are beginning to cohere. But I think, yeah, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. I think, The Love I Lost is a key moment. Yeah.
SM (01:51:18):
But you have got to admit one thing, that Saturday Night Fever really awakened this nation to disco with John Travolta dancing. And here's a guy that is not a gay male, he is a macho male, but he is out on the dance floor wearing those clothes and feeling comfortable wearing those clothes and really into dancing. And they had the Bee Gees music in the background, and you had Tavares. Would not you say that, that is a historic moment when that movie came out?
AE (01:51:48):
Yeah. Yeah, I would. I would not argue against that, no.
SM (01:51:56):
You wrote a great book that I read a long time ago, I did not reread it, but Janis Joplin. And the question I want to ask you about her, is her life and death an example of the counterculture gone wrong, because drugs killed her?
AE (01:52:14):
Well, I think, yes. I mean, in some ways, drugs killed Janis, but I think [inaudible] killed Janis. I mean, I think that the disappointments in life, I think, I mean, she could never hold on [inaudible], right? And I mean, who knows? Had she lived in the age of Prozac, I am sure she would have been medicated. And probably her music would, I do not know what her music would be like. People have written about this a lot now. I mean, but we have the kind of works of art that fed off in programmed misery and unhappiness if the writers were medicated people. So I do not know, but I do not think she was... I think that the counterculture... And many of us of the boomer generation were attracted to risks and were reckless. I think that was one of the, it was part of what made it so exciting, and also so dangerous that people played with that. Janis knew what she was doing. Janis knew that she was taking a risk every time. I mean, after all, she was no stranger to ODing. So she knew what she was doing. And I think in her case, I guess I would say that, there is both this element of recklessness that is generational. And in her case, I think also very much driven by the fact that there is a lot of person unhappiness there.
SM (01:54:03):
Yeah. I interviewed a person who loved Janis, knew her. But she committed a sin in the drug community, she brought alcohol.
AE (01:54:13):
Yeah-yeah. So she-
SM (01:54:14):
And she was never forgiven for that by some purists who did not drink, but they were into every other drug you can imagine.
AE (01:54:24):
Yes, exactly. Yeah, no, it is absolutely true that there were people who really thought that Janis' love of alcohol was just completely, made her kind of beyond the pale.
SM (01:54:40):
This is a question I ask, because I know... this is Roe v. Wade. And I asked Susan Brownmiller this question last week, and I went to her apartment in New York and it was three hour interview. It was a great... she is a very nice person.
AE (01:54:54):
Yes, she is a very nice person.
SM (01:54:55):
Yes. The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the most important legal decision since the end of World War II, during the time that boomer women had been alive, so we are talking about the (19)63 years. Is there any other legal decisions that are more important than that one?
AE (01:55:12):
Well, I think that there was a lot of... I think there were some decisions around equal employment.
SM (01:55:27):
Brown v. Board of Education.
AE (01:55:29):
Oh, well, I mean. I think, yeah. Again, I mean, I would say it is very hard to... I would advise against those making any kind of hierarchy. I think that there are some legal decisions that have been very important, that would include Brown and Roe v. Wade. I think some of the stuff that has not been studied very much, but is interesting, are some of the rulings around equal employment, especially their applicability to gender. And so, I think those were important as well. And these happened in the (19)70s. So I think, again, Roe v. Wade was very important. Would I say that it was the most important? I probably would not say it was the most important, but it is important. But of course, it's flawed, and that enabled it to be picked away at.
SM (01:56:27):
One of the things that is historically documented is the excessive sexism in the other movements at the end of the (19)60s, during the (19)60s and before the (19)70s began. And that would be in the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement. I talked to people in every movement, and they said it was in the gay and lesbian movement, it was in the Chicano Movement, it was in the Native American movement, and it was in all the movements. And the question I am asking here is, sexism in the movements of the late (19)60s and early (19)70s played a very important role in stimulating the onset of the second wave. Is that true? And secondly, without the sexism, would the movement have gone in a different direction, because it was so dominated by white men?
AE (01:57:16):
Well, I mean, I think white men...
SM (01:57:22):
And Black men, because of the civil rights movement.
AE (01:57:24):
Well, I think that all men... I mean, in the case of white men, you had men who were accustomed to feeling entitled. They were accustomed to a certain kind of entitlement based upon their skin color and their gender. I think when you are talking about men of color, because of the way in which they were constructed by the dominant white cultures, they often did not necessarily feel that sense of entitlement. But that did not mean that they were any better, at all. I mean, it meant that very often they were, as Fran Beal put it in writing about some Black male activists, I mean, it was like they were trying to... I mean, their idea of what their women should be like was derived from the pages of, might as well have been from Ladies' Home Journal. And they had a very macho kind of aspect as a result of being disempowered. So yeah, I mean, it had a terrible... I mean, it's paradoxical. Because it was for the feminists who... For people like Susan Brownmiller and Ellen Willis, and all of the others who played such an important role, Fran Beal, Margaret Sloan, Marco Jefferson. I mean, all of them. It was crushing to feel how little feminism mattered and how disparaged it often was. It was really terrible. But on the other hand, it did, of course, enable the development of the second wave. I mean, it was so strange that women did begin to organize autonomously. I mean, I guess I would say that, I think I am probably... I guess, the only other thing I would say is that, I think that one of the things, one of many reasons that I have written critically about Weathermen is that-
AE (02:00:03):
...that I have written critically about Weatherman is that I think both Weather and ... I think there is certain elements of the Black freedom movement, as well in the sort of fetishizing of revolution, the kind of vanguardism that they assessed, really ensured that women would have to go their own way, and that it would be a painful break. Yeah, I think it could have been different. I mean, I think if people had remained committed to participatory democracy, if people had really listened to one another and been respectful, then yeah, it could have turned out differently, but it did not.
SM (02:00:57):
What are the major accomplishments of the women's movements in the second wave, and what are the greatest disappointments?
AE (02:01:06):
Well, I mean, I would say probably the greatest would be the expansion of ... Well, I guess many things, but I mean, at the level of policy, basically, we live in a culture in which discrimination against women, gender discrimination in education and employment is ... it happened, for sure, but it is not, for the most part, seen as a good thing, right?
SM (02:01:42):
Mm-hmm.
AE (02:01:42):
So I think it is widely ... Discrimination against women is just ... I am trying to think of a way to say this that sort of takes in the complexity of it. To a great extent, it is no longer tolerated. I think that is the biggest thing. I mean, violence against women, which was just assumed to not exist or exist on the margins and not be very important, and very often was understood as [inaudible] being a woman's fault has been completely reinterpreted. That is an enormous shift. It is not to say that there's not violence against women that happens in this world, and there are not people who turn a blind eye, but it is really significant, a very significant change. Significant change in the understanding of the importance of sexual freedom for women. I mean, again, coming back to the ... too often [inaudible] in a way that none the less seems to ... for some women to have been understood as nothing more than pleasing men, but I still think that there has been significant ... I think we are talking about employment. We are talking about education. We're talking about violence against women. We are talking about right to sexual pleasure. All of those things. Abortion rights, all of those things. There have been major achievements in women's athletics. Again, more can be done, more needs to be done, but there has been considerable achievement.
SM (02:03:38):
This is just a general question. I have asked this to everybody. Again, we have talked about the (19)60s. When, in your opinion, did the (19)60s begin, and when did it end? And what was the watershed moment in the (19)60s? I ask the same question again. When did the (19)70s begin and end, and what was the watershed moment in the (19)70s?
AE (02:04:00):
Well, I do not really know. I mean, I am not trying to cop out on this. I think that this is something that is constantly ... that is changing and shifting. I mean, obviously, it just depends on what one's looking at. I mean, the (19)60s do not really begin, in some sense ... I mean, what we know as the (19)60s, a kind of period of protest. They do not really begin, for instance, gay and lesbians, until really late in the game. But if we are looking at African Americans, you can argue that in some sense the (19)60s begin in (19)55. You could go back even further. I mean, you could go back to the demobilization after World War II and the fact that so many Black soldiers had different experiences in other parts of the world and that emboldened them in certain ways. It created a shift in consciousness. It really, I think, depends upon the group in question, so that is why I am sort of reluctant to say. But clearly, you could make the argument that the (19)60s really begin back in the (19)50s. You could put it at (19)54, (19)55. You could similarly make the argument that there was an awful lot, if you're looking at college campuses, that was the same in 1964. That not very much change had actually happened, and you do not begin to really feel those shifts until probably (19)65, (19)66. Still, they really remain the land of ... many of them, many college campuses, the land of the beehive and the crew cut until well into the (19)60s. So I think I am just not ... I am sort of uneasy making those kinds of generalizations, but clearly, shifts do happen and shifts in consciousness over a long period.
SM (02:06:16):
Do you remember, I know you do, but I have been asking this, when you heard John Kennedy was assassinated?
AE (02:06:23):
Yeah, I do very, very well because I was in a Quaker meeting. I forget the day of the week, but we were having a Quaker meeting at Sidwell Friends, where I was, I think in the ... Would I have been in the seventh grade? No, no, no. Anyway, I was at Sidwell Friends. Bobby Kennedy's two boys ... two of Robert Kennedy's sons were students there. I am sure everybody at that Quaker meeting remembers it because we did not know what had happened. None of us knew. But what we did know was that in the middle of this meeting, they were ushered out. So, again, we did not know. I did not know. I remember taking the bus home, public transportation, city bus back home. It really was not until I walked into the house that I knew what had ... I knew for sure what had happened. Yeah.
SM (02:07:28):
Yeah. Were you another one of those that watched four straight days of TV?
AE (02:07:32):
Watched a lot of it. Yeah.
SM (02:07:36):
Yep. One of the questions that ... When Newt Gingrich came into power ... I do not want to always refer Newt, but in 1994, and when George Will writes a lot of his articles, and more recently, Huckabee on his TV show and others, they like to take shots at the (19)60s generation as to the reason why we have so many problems in today's society is because it goes right back to that time in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. They are talking about the drug culture, the sexual freedom, the lack of respect for any sort of authority, the challenging that took place, the beginning of all the isms, all these things. They blame some of the problems we have in our society today and the unwillingness to talk to each other on that period. Your thoughts on those individuals who continue to attack the (19)60s generation, which is basically attacking the Boomers. The way they lived. The way they acted. It's not all of them, now, because there is 74 million and only about 10 percent, or maybe even 5 percent, were involved in activism, but blaming them for where we are today. That includes the divorce rate.
AE (02:09:06):
Well, I think it is a very easy deflection for conservative politicians, many of whom have had their own marital problems, have not they, to continue to bash the-the (19)60s. I mean, when in point of fact it is hardly a problem that ... I do not know how you get from (19)60s protestors to Newt Gingrich having an affair with another woman when his wife is dying of... I do not know how you-
SM (02:09:41):
Yeah.
AE (02:09:43):
I mean, I just think it is a kind of scapegoating that these folks have engaged in all along. I think that it is true that the right wing actually... I mean, I think what I would say is more significant is... because I think that marriages are difficult things to make work. Especially when you are in denial, and especially when you are ... I often wonder if those people who are most apt to be pro-family in their rhetoric, and to bash the (19)60s, and gays and lesbians and feminists, I mean, do not really do it in order to be deflective. I mean, not just with their public, but personally deflective. You know?
SM (02:10:34):
Mm-hmm.
AE (02:10:34):
I mean, because they cannot really cope with their own indiscretions and transgressions. Because certainly, I mean, there has been such a parade of right-wing politicians who have screwed up. I mean, it is hardly the case that this is ... that the marital woes and the ... What is the word I am looking for when you have relationships outside of marriage?
SM (02:11:06):
Adultery?
AE (02:11:08):
Yeah, adultery, but there is another word. Begins with a T and I cannot remember it. But anyway, that liberals and leftists have any kind of monopoly upon whatsoever. I just think it is a kind of case loop that they just constantly run. What I would say is that that lack of ... I mean, it is true that the (19)60s was about challenging authority, and this was a message that I think was picked up on by conservatives. You look at, for instance, the anti-busing protestors in Boston and other places, and they directly borrowed the tactics of (19)60s activists. You look at the anti-abortion movement, and you see the same thing. There is a real borrowing of [inaudible]... that kind of commerce. I mean, there was a real circulation of attitudes and stances and ideas, actually, between the right and the ... I hesitate to say the left because I do not even know if we have a left in this [inaudible], but there has been significant amounts of circulation there. The thing that strikes me is that I am just consistently struck by, if you want to talk about incivility and rudeness, by the extent of which this has been so absorbed and modeled by the right wing. I think that they have become models of incivility in a way that most of us on the left or within liberalism just have not.
SM (02:13:03):
Well, one of the qualities that is been defined within the generation as a whole is their inability to trust. Obviously, they experienced leaders that lied to them as they were growing up. In the Vietnam War, we all know about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and certainly Watergate with Richard Nixon. If you were really in tune as a young boomer, you knew that Eisenhower lied about U-2. You see constant... McNamara and the lies about the numbers of people that were being killed over there. The number scheme. So many things. It is a quality that has somehow been aligned with the generation. Of course, we all know about Jerry Rubin and do not trust anyone over 30, and then they switched it to over 40 when they were getting close to it. But also, there is a conflict here too. It is the fact that if you are a political science major, one of the best qualities one can have as a citizen is to not trust your leaders because that shows that democracy is alive and well. So that is a normal thing. But then psychologists will oftentimes say that if you cannot trust someone else, then ... You have got to be able to trust somebody. That is not a good quality either. Would you say, first off, that they ... I think we can say about the generation. Was this a trusting or ... Is this a quality that you see within the generation, they do not trust, and is it a negative or positive?
AE (02:14:42):
Well, I think that ... I mean, I would say this about the generation as a whole, that, if anything, people trusted too much. I mean, they assumed that America was the country that it said it was. Many of us, we grew up with this Cold War rhetoric. I think many of us assumed it to be true. So I think it was our faith in America being different, and being democratic, and being the beacon of liberty that then caused ... that it helps to explain the philosophy of the anti-war movement and end of some of the other movements. It is that you grew up thinking that you were living in this country, which was a citadel of freedom, and then you discovered that, hold it, it was more complicated. I think as a consequence, people ... I mean, I tend not to be a conspiracy theorist. I think that most of the important left-wing thinkers are not, but are we skeptical? Yeah, probably. I do not think that skepticism is a bad thing. I think conspiracy theories, that can be disabling in its own way, because then it's sort of like, "Well, why bother, if this whole thing is sewn up?" Of course it cannot be sewn up because you would never have really had the (19)60s, and you would never have really ... you would never have had the changes that have taken place. You know?
SM (02:16:37):
Mm-hmm.
AE (02:16:37):
That is what I would say.
SM (02:16:39):
I only got four more questions here, so we are almost-
AE (02:16:42):
But Steven, you know what? I am going to have to get off in just a few minutes.
SM (02:16:48):
Okay, yeah. I am going to ask... Let us just cut this down to two questions here then.
AE (02:16:52):
Okay.
SM (02:16:52):
This is a big one, because this is the issue of healing. I took a group of students to Washington, D.C. in 1995. Actually, the students that came with me, 14 of them ... It was our Leadership on the Road programs. We met Senator Edmund Muskie before he passed away. The students came up with this question because they saw the films. They were not alive. They saw what happened in Chicago in 1968, of all the divisions. The whole world is watching what happened there. Of course, he was the democratic vice presidential candidate. They thought he would respond to this question based on that experience. The question was basically, "Due to all the divisions that were happening in America in 1968, do you feel we were close to a second civil war? Number one. But most importantly, do you think that the divisions between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war and those who were against the war, those who supported the troops or against the troops as a generation, are going to go to their grave, like the Civil War generation, not healing from the divisions that took place in their lives?" So it was a generational question, because they'd cite the Civil War, and some things had come up with those gatherings in Gettysburg. It was very obvious that no healing had taken place when so many people went to their graves in the Civil War. Muskie answered in a certain way. How would you answer that question? Do we have a problem with healing in the nation? Is it an issue?
AE (02:18:31):
Do we have a problem with healing in the nation? I do not know. I mean, I tend to think that a lot of ... that the (19)60s are used politically to great effect, and they continue to be. I mean, there was an article recently about this in the New York Times. I cannot recall what it was about, except that... I cannot remember the issue that the author was exploring. But I think it's become a political... People make political hay with it. But honestly, am I able to have conversations with neighbors who I know feel very differently about certain things? Yes. Am I able to have conversations with colleagues who I know think differently about a variety of issues that were hot issues in the (19)60s? Yeah. I mean, I do not know. For me, personally, no, I do not see it as being ... I do not see it as being quite like that. I mean, I guess with the Civil War, though, I mean, eventually you do have a kind of reconciliation that happens between North and South. That is through reconstruction and the denial of rights to Blacks. And this increasing move in the north away from an ideology of equality towards one that stresses separatism indifference. Eventually, that point is reached through unfortunate ways. This would be late in the lives of that generation, for sure. But for our own, no, I guess I do not. You know?
SM (02:20:27):
Yeah, Senator Muskie responded. He did not even respond to 1968. He made no comment to them. He gave a melodramatic pause for about a minute. It looked like he had a tear in his eye. We have it on videotape. Basically said, "We have not healed since the Civil War due to the issue of race." Because he just saw the Ken Burns series and it had really touched his life, and he said, "When you lose 430,000 men, and you almost lose an entire generation, that is another issue in itself."
AE (02:21:00):
Yeah. I think he is right about that. I mean, I think that...
SM (02:21:08):
Others have said to me that ... In response, he said, "You ought to be a little more specific on this question because if you simply say those who fought the war, the three million plus who went to Vietnam, and those who protested the war, you might have some issues there."
AE (02:21:24):
Yeah. I think that that is possible. Although, I will tell you, I mean, one of the things about my background is, by virtue of going to a prep school, I was in school with Robert McNamara's son.
SM (02:21:39):
Oh.
AE (02:21:39):
There were other people who were sons and daughters of policy makers and government leaders who were in that school.
SM (02:21:48):
The name of the school?
AE (02:21:51):
Sidwell Friends.
SM (02:21:52):
Okay. Yep. Yep.
AE (02:21:54):
It's where the Obama daughters are. It is where many, many presidents put their kids, right?
SM (02:21:58):
Right.
AE (02:21:59):
It would seem. So, I mean, I did not know that many people who actually went to Vietnam. I really did not. of course, that was not unusual in the Vietnam War. I mean, there were a lot of people who went to college, especially elite colleges, who did not know anybody who went to war. I have subsequently had contact with people who were military people who went to fight. What struck me, actually ... Maybe this is because I am in Santa Fe part of the year, and that I am in university communities to some extent, but what struck me is the extent of which so many of the people who I met and have met, who did serve in Vietnam, really shared many of the views that I had about that war. That is been quite striking to me.
SM (02:23:03):
You have been to the wall on Washington, do you think the ... Jan Scruggs wrote the book To Heal A Nation, do you think that wall has helped heal the nation in any way?
AE (02:23:13):
I do not know.
SM (02:23:14):
Beyond the veterans.
AE (02:23:15):
I do not know. I just do not. I mean, I could not say.
SM (02:23:21):
My last question, very last one, and thank you for going over the time, I truly appreciate it, is that when we're talking about boomers now, who were born in 1946 and beyond, we're talking about a lot of different presidents from Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson. Of course, we had Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton, George Bush the first, George Bush the second, and President Obama. I do not think I have missed anybody in there. Jimmy Carter, of course. What presidents, when you look at them and you look at your life's work, not only with gay and lesbian issues, but with women's issues, which ones are the ones you most admire in terms of those two issues?
AE (02:24:27):
Well, I think it is too early to say about Obama. I mean, I have been disappointed, as many have, with a lot of what he has not done. So it's too early to say. There was a lot that I admired about Clinton, but I did not admire the Welfare Reform Bill. But this does not ... I mean, a lot of my criticisms about Clinton go to other things beyond the issue of gender and sex discrimination. I have to say that in many respects, I have admired Clinton. It's too early to tell about Obama. I would say that.
SM (02:25:29):
Are there any questions I did not ask you thought I was going to ask?
AE (02:25:32):
Oh, well, yeah, I mean, there would be any number of questions that you could have asked. It is not as though I have been sitting here thinking, "Gee, why has not he asked me this?"
SM (02:25:43):
Right. Okay.
AE (02:25:44):
I have not. No. I have not.
SM (02:25:45):
Okay.
AE (02:25:47):
Now, when is your book coming out?
SM (02:25:49):
Let me turn this off. One second.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Alice Echols
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Echols, Alice ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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College teachers; Echols, Alice--Interviews
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Dr. Alice Echols is a professor of History and Gender Studies at University of Southern California. She authored four books and several articles. Dr. Echols has a bachelor's degree in History from Macalester College and master's and Ph.D. from University of Michagan.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-06-21
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.44a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.44b
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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145:52
-
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a9b52159bca4537d09179dff56cdcc8d
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c0024555d5db98fb83571e496f22849e.mp3
9844b63db1f037b916adf6373b9e352a
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
ND
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Lee Edwards, 1932-
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Lee Edwards is an author, educator and a leading historian of American Conservatism. He is a professor at the Catholic University and Chairman of a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington foundation. He has appeared on many television broadcast and his books have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and many more. Dr. Edwards has a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University and a doctorate inPolitical Science from Catholic University. He also holds a doctor of humane letters degree from Grove City College and attended the Sorbonne in Paris for graduate work."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":8401665,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10,"26":400}">Dr. Lee Edwards is an author, educator and a leading historian of American Conservatism. He is a professor at the Catholic University and Chairman of a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington foundation. He has appeared on many television broadcasts and his books have been reviewed in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, the <em>Boston Globe</em> and many more. Dr. Edwards has a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University and a doctorate in Political Science from Catholic University. He also holds a doctor of humane letters degree from Grove City College and attended the Sorbonne in Paris for graduate work.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Counterculture; Tom Hayden; Woodstock; Jerry Rubin; Young Americans for Freedom; Civil Rights Movement; Baby Boomers; Feminism; Activism; Richard Nixon; Jimmy Carter; Lyndon B. Johnson; Eugene McCarthy; Hubert Humphrey; John F. Kennedy; Gerald Ford; Black Panther; Muhammed Ali; Daniel Ellsberg; George Wallace; Robert McNamara; The Beatles; Janis Joplin; SDS"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">Counterculture; Tom Hayden; Woodstock; Jerry Rubin; Young Americans for Freedom; Civil Rights Movement; Baby Boomers; Feminism; Activism; Richard Nixon; Jimmy Carter; Lyndon B. Johnson; Eugene McCarthy; Hubert Humphrey; John F. Kennedy; Gerald Ford; Black Panther; Muhammed Ali; Daniel Ellsberg; George Wallace; Robert McNamara; The Beatles; Janis Joplin; SDS</span>
Duration
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112:41
Subject LCSH
Authors; College teachers; Historians; Edwards, Lee, 1932--Interviews
Transcription
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Lee Edwards
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So
Date of interview: 7 August 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
00:11
SM: This is working properly, and I know it is. When you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s? And what-what is the first thing that comes to your mind? When you think of that era?
00:20
LE: Well, for me, it would be the rise of the right. And I have to warn you that I am going to be giving a class I am teaching a class at Catholic University starting in three weeks, on the politics of the (19)60s, really happy to say that it is oversubscribed, and I had to put a cap on it. And what I am going to be doing with these with these students, their politics majors is the Department of Politics. They are Catholic, and I am an adjunct professor, and have been for 16 years now. They are Catholic, is to present both sides of the picture. I mean, normally, they hear about John Kennedy, they hear about SDS, they hear about the Port Huron state, but they hear about Dr. King, they hear about the civil rights, movement, revolution, and so forth, all of which is certainly very much important in history. But what I am going to give them is the other side, not only rise to the left, but the rise of the right, and that is Barry Goldwater, Young Americans for freedom to share instinct, Ronald Reagan being elected governor, and so forth. So to me, that is the great untold story. But most historians political story, as is the rise of the right during the 1960s.
01:39
SM: So, when you think of the (19)60s, what do you think of? Yeah, that was thinking, you know, and since you raise a very good point, because there is a book that has come out in the last two or three years, to actually paperback, it is the Young Americans for freedom and your involvement in the antiwar movement, and they were real big antiwar. So that is great that you are doing that, when in the boomer generation is really defined as a group born between 1946 and 1964. Oftentimes, you find that a lot of the people that were the leaders of some of the protests were actually two, three and four years older, born in the early (19)40s, or (19)42. Around that time, when you look at the boomer generation, just your thoughts on some of the criticisms, the middle level they have over the years, by the likes of George Will, Newt Gingrich, that basically a lot of the things that are wrong in America today are because of what the boomers did during the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Particularly the drugs, the issues of sex, a counterculture? You know, I just liked your thoughts on-
02:46
LE: Well, I think it is, I think it is a little bit I think it is true, up to-to a point we would talk about, for example, the design of the counterculture and a turning away from the-the philosophical and moral moorings, which-which existed before that there was a narcissism, there was a radical emphasis on-on I, on me, the so called me generation, and so called, feels good, do it. So, I think that is, it is valid, that that that many in the boomer generation were, were guilty of an excessive self-centeredness, and narcissism and willingness to-to experiment in all kinds of ways, without perhaps, giving too much thought to-to the consequences. At the same time, I do remember one thing incident this, participate in 1968. I was at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. And we were there my wife and I, because we just read the book called you can make the difference and we were promoting the book and as a conservative how to do it political action. And everybody was-was-was in a good humor. I mean, the cops the Chicago cops were in a good humor or and the people that we met in the streets were in good humor, and even the young people when we met and we were there and talking with them on the streets and so forth. They could humor what was what happened was that a certain group of leaders, radical leaders, radicalized the, the young people there, deliberately provoked the cops into using excessive force, and brought about the chaos of the Democratic Convention and we will just never forget was his extraordinary difference between the mood before the convention And then what happened during the convention by what I think were professional revolutionaries, whether you are talking about what was his name, David Dellinger, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman Tom Hayden. And Tom Hayden certainly was very much a, a professional, political revolutionary for any Davis landed and really knew what he was doing. And that was to try to radicalize these young people. And they succeeded. So, I do not want to I do not want to put all of the blame. Simply on-on-on the baby boomers themselves, I think they were used and manipulated by-by certain people, at times, at times. And certainly, I can attest to that in my own personal experience in (19)68.
05:46
SM: When you look at the boomer generation, at the time of (19)68, when boomers are obviously in their youth, late teens, early 20s, and how you reflect on today, in the year 2003, what were your thoughts in that (19)68, about that generation? And what are your thoughts today has changed or is pretty consistent?
06:03
LE: I think, probably (19)68, we were my wife, and I were probably a little bit in despair when they know what was going to happen to America with these young people. Whether it was Woodstock, or was the counterculture whether it was what we thought was being so unpatriotic by their opposition to the war. And so many other ways, and but I am always something of an optimist. And so I was hopeful, prayerful that maybe they would mature in time. And I think that was what has happened. I mean, we know the examples of Jerry Rubin becoming a stockbroker and other leaders of the so called the Chicago seven, who became less radical, with the exception of Tom Hayden. as they got older, as they got married, as they began raising children, they were saying to their kids are having second thoughts who want to do drugs, forgetting very convincingly that they have been doing drugs and doing sex in the (19)60s, so-so time and maturity, and experience has as changed, I think they have changed the boomer, large parts of the boomer generation.
07:27
SM: The boomers, some again, I was young at that time, I can remember conversations and all they were all over the country and read them in newspapers. And that is that boomer generation thought they were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society that they were going to be, they were going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, that there is the most unique generation in American history. Just wait, because you will see what the good things, we are going to do your thoughts on that kind of an attitude that they had at that time? And whether they have done it?
07:58
LE: Well, you know, young people, left or right, are always idealistic. They always think they can change the world. And I think it is good that they have that, that those feelings, but otherwise the world would not get changed. I think certainly we on the right. And I was a little bit older than some of the people you are talking about on the right. But certainly, we did change the world through the-the-the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964, which led to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1966, as governor of California, which led to his election as president in 1980. So I think that you can it can be argued that Young Americans for freedom did set out to change the country, and it did. Now, the baby boomers did do some good things. I think that their part in the civil rights revolution, and the Civil Rights Movement was an epic victory. For-for-for America, not just for blacks, but for all-all Americans black or white, or brown or a red or what have you. And I think they deserve full and adequate, a full-full credit for that. And some of the other areas. Not so, so happy about their-their impact on our politics. You know, the so called Vietnam syndrome, which affected our foreign policy for a number of years. The counterculture which we are still struggling with, what is the right balance? I think also that the baby boomers deserve credit for the initial women's movement because women were not being treated fairly and even handedly. My wife, who was a conservative was also a feminist. He was a conservative feminist in the (19)60s because she said that she was not getting equal pay for, for the same for the job that she was doing, that men were getting more or getting more for. Then, of course it got became radicalized in succeeding years. But I think in those two areas, the feminist movement and the civil rights movement, that the movers did make salutary contributions to American society.
10:34
SM: Do you feel that the term I was talking about full Miranda, and an activist, as I as I define an activist, a person who believes that he or she can make a difference in this world, he did not even throw the politics out here. You can just say, activists or just liberals or conservatives or whatever. Now the concept of activism was I was see something was very strong within the boomer generation. As a person was raised children, what are your thoughts on the activism of the boomers have they passed it on to their kids? Number one. And number two, is the whole concept of empowerment. The lot of the boomers are involved in activist protests or whatever that were head of, that we were not up to create violence, but we are really sincere and moral in their efforts, believe they can change things. And just your thoughts on that.
11:32
LE: Well, obviously, I for political activism, I was a political activist myself in the 1960s. So, I think that the boomers? Well, as I said, I think it is important, I will keep saying it over and over again, we are not only all liberal, there were many-many conservative boomers. Right. And I think that is a very important point we have to keep making here that the boomers were not all at one particular philosophical hue. There were conservative boomers, as well as liberal voters. And they were active in American freedom as well as SDS that is making in my class, they became activists, because their fathers and mothers were-were not they-they-they came out of having won World War II. But we had some experience, even in the Great Depression, they were concerned about, you know, making a living, starting a family, having a building a house, buying a house. But you know, the good life, the American life American dream. The Boomers came along and had the luxury of political activism because it meant to worry where the bread was coming from and have to worry about a job. So they took advantage of that. And as I say, we were able to do good as well as not such good things for our, for our country, have they passed that along to their children. In any generation, any one generation are only going to have five or 10 percent of the of that generation, they are going to be active as politically activist, it was a higher percentage in the (19)60s, with the boomers because of the Vietnam War, primarily. And then also, a second one, second contributing factor was the civil rights. So those two things combined to increase the level of participation, from probably 10 percent to I have seen some figures in low 20s 20 to 25 percent. On the campus.
13:55
SM: I know that term that is often used numbers is 15 percent of the students are involved in some sort of activity now students, young people, college students, were involved in some sort of an activism. And some of the critics say only 15 percent of 70 million people were really involved in in any corner of activism. That is a lot of people still, you know, consider most time. Quick question here. And this is just a general question of concern. I have not gone to reach them that folder is are you concerned as an educator about the-the inability of our young people to vote? And the fact is, do you feel this is in any direct way, a feeling of a sense of lack of empowerment that their voice does not count? So why do it. and it is and-and having the parents who were the people who were supposedly activists and talked about the importance of their voice being heard, not passing this on again to their children?
14:55
LE: Well, again, I we have never had high as high percentage of political involvement as the as the utopians want. And, and if, if the figures, you know, we have all seen these figures were 50, or 60 percent, or something like that, and turnout for elections and so forth. That was at a time when we did not have as many people as we have today, when we did not have the kind of situation where we have a lot of Hispanics who do not vote, or we have a lot of African Americans who do not vote and a variety of reasons for that. So, I do not I do not think I mean, if you were to look at the number, probably of the children of the boomers as separate, apart from the various people who come in through immigration, I think you will find that the percentages are about the same. I may, I maybe I am being too wrong about this. But I that is, that is my impression, and there are a lot of political activists, but to to-to-to engender political activism, you must have causes, you must have issues, which will activate people. And we just simply do not have those same kind of overriding issues that we did. Back in the (19)60s, for example, those people who had the most people, the mobilization people against the war in Vietnam, following the not so much 911. But that poll period, they are leading up through Afghanistan, and then Iraq, you did have a number of people demonstrating against those of conflicts and, and are getting involved in, but the numbers are much smaller. And why was that? Well, one obvious reason was the no one was going to be drafted from Harvard, or Yale or Wisconsin to go fight in Afghanistan or Iraq, because we do not have the draft anymore. We have a volunteer army. And that was one of the major factors in motivating young people to get active in the 1960s. They did not want to go to fight and perhaps die in Vietnam, which was a very real possibility, through the draft.
17:28
SM: One of the important issues of that particular period, obviously, with the anniversary of Watergate, which are going through right now, is supposedly lack of trust that a lot of the boomers had in anyone in position of leadership, I can remember, again, on a college campus, they would even listen to a minister, if anyone was in a position of authority to not be the university president of the United States or United States senator or congressman, it could be the head of a corporation, anybody who was quote, labeled a leader, including ministers. And in the trust factor, I, I worry about this as a person, I am going to start with that folder, because I have worked with college students that I think need to trust people. I can remember psychologists telling me in a class once that people who cannot trust me not be successful in life, you have got to have some people in trust. Do you feel that boomers, you know, you cannot define an entire 70 million people but that in some respects, the things that happened in the in their youth, the negative effect that it had on them, whether it be Watergate, or the Vietnam War, or a lot of other things? They just did not trust anyone in leadership has been passed on to their kids. And so that was we have an ongoing problem on the issue of trust in America.
18:45
LE: I think it is a very valid question. And the way I the way I put this I have written a little bit on this is that I think that Americans, generally and baby boomers specifically were traumatized by the period from about 1963 through about 1978, (19)79, starting with John Kennedy's assassination, then the Vietnam War, then the murders of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy in 1968. Then Watergate and Richard Nixon aligned to the American people and using illegally unconstitutional the powers of his office to cover up his unlawful actions. And then finally, Jimmy Carter's inept handling of the presidency in the late in the late (19)70s. Culminating in his trying to blame the American people for what was going wrong going on rather than themselves. It was the public the public's melees that was to blame not his own being taking the-the letting the economy spiral into his Your unemployment rates and interest rates and all the rest of it. So, I think that was what I call a, a psychological depression through which Americans and particularly baby boomers suffered and endured during those 15 years or so. And that it was only with the election of Ronald Reagan that we began to come out of that, through his optimism, his vitality his repeating to the best of people of using some of the same techniques of his favorite President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to lift up the spirits and, and to rephrase the only thing to fear but fear itself and-and Reagan's idea that the best days are yet to come, I think resonates with the old FDR rhetoric. So that that has been a problem which we have had to deal with. Yes, I think that has been inevitable that the baby boomers have passed that on to their children.
21:05
SM: When you look at the Vietnam War, and the ending of that war, what do you think were the one or two most important reasons why the war ended? Was it because of the antiwar movement, like many people believe on college campuses that by constantly protesting and maybe Americans aware? Or was it when bodies start coming home in middle America start protesting against the war?
21:28
LE: Well, I think initially, it was the-the protests, which-which forced the issue onto the, into the front pages, and maybe people pay attention to it. But we have to remember that. Up until January of 1968, most of the polls showed a solid majority of American people handling and supporting rather the-the Vietnam War was with the Tet Offensive, which was the real shocker, and which just stunned not only American people, but also members of Congress, and also the median voter pride cake, made his famous trip to Vietnam, came back and said, look, we really ought to get out of Vietnam. And LBJ is alleged to have said, well, you know, if we have lost bought a private kite, and we have lost the war, or words to that effect, we have lost the man in the street. So that on top of that, you have the ever increasing numbers of Americans being drafted you then you had the number increasing numbers of deaths, we had the realization that he had been lied to as to who was winning the war. And so all of these things came together. And people said, in effect that is enough.
22:53
SM: When you get into the war itself, the whole concept of healing to as a nation. Your thoughts on the impact of the Vietnam Memorial was- had, obviously it has had impact on Vietnam veterans and their families, and the warriors who fought and died in that war. But what effect has it had on the nation as a whole? And secondly, do you think that a lot of members of the boomer generation are having second thoughts about that serving? Or having second thoughts about? It is like, all I can say is, it is like a child or young children with their parents at the wall and the parent and the child looks up to the dad and says, “Dad, what did you do during the war dad?” It is, just it is a thought that is that do you think there is some, do you think there is a problem with healing within the nation with respect to this particular war and what it did to our nation at tour nation apart? So within the psyche of the boomer generation, and also in the body politic of the country?
23:59
LE: Well, I think first of all, that the Vietnam Memorial has-has-has helped the healing, no question about it. That is one of the most popular memorials here in Washington, DC. It is very touching to see, particularly veterans and their families and the survivors that come there, and the names, touch the wall and so forth. So, I think it has been tremendously important in the healing process. But I do think, though, that the-the scars of that war are still there with the baby with the baby boomers who oppose it at the time. Some of them probably have just said, oh, well, let us let us move on. I think some still think it was an unjust war. They still think it was the wrong war. They still think that we should not have been involved and I think that will always be there. So, I think, at least certain leaders that I have that I have heard or the interviews that they have given, they certainly have not regretted their opposition-based database for me to post to it.
25:22
SM: One of the one of the interesting scenarios during that period is the fact that Dr. King spoke up against the war as a civil rights leader took a lot of courage. Even that phone wreck, he mentioned it was a great interview, talked about the moral leadership of Dr. King, he was a moral man, he is problems like a lot of people have personally been more a leader. But I would like your thoughts as obviously personnel who is going to be teaching a course on what curries it takes for an African American leader of that magnitude to be against the war when he was criticized by his peers. And it was at that very same period of lack power mill was taking place and they were looking at people like King Ruston, Farmer young in the red Wilkins, is your time has passed. Just your thoughts on Dr. King's antiwar stand?
26:10
LE: Well, I think I have to divide that Dr. King's legacy. And the two parts number one, I think as the as the leader of the civil rights movement, and standing up to people like O'Connor and other bigots and racists like that. I think he showed extraordinary leadership. He was certainly somebody I looked up to, as a matter of fact, other line by conservative I was there at the March on Washington, in 1963. Here in Washington, DC, I wanted to be there and want to see what it was like feeling. And I was deeply touched to move by, particularly by his, by his speech by his dress. So, I think without his leadership, without his example, that we would not have had the-the advances that we did, we would have had the Civil Rights Act of 64 W. H Rights Act of 1965, and so forth. I am not so sure about his opposition to the Vietnam War. I do not know. I am not quite sure why he did it. Was it out of moral conviction? Or was it an attempt on his part, to sort of show more radical young blacks that he could take a-a strong position on a more current issue? I did not, I do not, my recollection is he did not seem to be as comfortable and as convincing in that role, as he was in his earlier role as a civil rights leader, well, maybe that is unfair to him. And-and I do not want to in any way, denigrate him, or diminish his try to diminish his-his extraordinary contributions in the first part of that decade.
28:23
SM: When I read some of the reasons, I believe there is, I think, two speeches that he gave two major speeches on Vietnam, one of the Riverside Church in New York City, I have copies of them. And some of the people sent me that he actually gave a third speech, Vietnam, Rabbi Heschel, I believe was a very important person persuading him to-to go against the war. And I am trying I do not know if anybody has written biographies on Rabbi Heschel, but I am looking for the-the impact and I might have to go to the Jewish center to find that out because he had a tremendous influence on Dr. King. I do not know that story on Vietnam. I am going to go into some names of the period here and just your comments and reactions to them and I am going to come back and have two or three final questions. Your thoughts on Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda.
29:11
LE: Oh, golly, golly coffee Well, I you know, I just think Jane Fonda cause such extraordinary pain and anguish and, and real harm to our, to our fighting men. And also, to the POWs if you read some of what John McCain said about devout Jane Fonda it was- she refused to, to be honest about what she saw in the POW camps in the north, and I never have been able to forgive Jane Fonda for what was as close to an act of treason as I think you can get. Tom Hayden, I think it was a professional, agitator, radical and always with-with a definite cause in mind, whether whatever he said or whatever he did and that I am I am very pleased that he failed because I think he would have taken America in the wrong direction.
30:17
SM: The yippies, the two people, you all think of are Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.
30:22
LE: Yeah. Right. Well, I think they were entertainers. I think that they were engaged in shock tactics. I do not know that they ever took the revolution that seriously, but Hayden did. Lanny Davis do they were serious revolutions.
30:53
SM: I am going to interject a story here. I am going to change the tape. Just a couple of names here, Lyndon Johnson.
31:08
LE: Well, Lyndon Johnson was, was a man of obsessions is obsessed with the idea 1964 of winning by the largest margin ever in presidential politics and besting his mentor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's margin over Outland, in 1936. And that was why he said and did the really reprehensible things that he did say about Barry Goldwater, accusing him of somebody caring about nuclear Armageddon, and then destroy Social Security and all the other things that he said that he allowed his people to say about very cool water. He was also obsessed with the idea that he had to he had to win, quote, the Vietnam War, but he had to do it his way. And therefore, he kept trying to manage it. Not a military man. And all he did was to bring about the deaths of 10s of 1000s of Americans. He was also obsessed with the idea that he could, he could not be, he would not be corrupted by political power. But in point of fact, he-he was and was someone who used everybody around him, whether it was men or women or aide or mistresses, or all the rest of it, for his own personal satisfaction. aggrandizement has been one of the one of the most personally reprehensible men we have ever had in public office, certainly in the White House. He Did one. One good thing. And that was the-the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or whatever x-x 1965. Great Society again, it was an obsession and this idea that he could make over and make a great society, just through spending money and his idea of management from the top. It was just this obsession is this grandiose utopian dream, it is.
33:39
SM: Bobby Kennedy.
33:44
LE: I think a man caught-caught by his name, caught by his family caught by his reputation, forced to probably to run for president and probably did not want to force to pursue that. That goal in the name of his brother in his family. I do not, I do not know what would have happened to him if he had gotten the-the nomination in in 1968. Just how, what kind of a campaign he would have run because he was beginning to show some appreciation for the private sector and some of his speeches. So, he was not as liberal as some people made him out to be or hoped that he would be a very dramatic person. I think.
34:38
SM: Eugene McCarthy.
34:42
LE: A brilliant iconoclastic again fiercely independent. A poet as well as a politician somebody who I think is not very easily put into a particular catalogue, or category rather, party or philosophy certainly made a difference in, in American politics through almost defeating Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire. Without that Richard Nixon were not elected president in 1968.
35:32
SM: The bitterness between McCarthy and candidate Bobby Kennedy is very strong.
35:38
LE: Yeah. Well, Eugene was-was told by Bobby I am told that, you know, if you go, I will not. And then, after McCarthy almost spun to Hampshire, Kennedy, realizing just how vulnerable Johnson was got into it, and never forgave him for that to Catholics, by the way.
36:00
SM: George McGovern.
36:04
LE: Well, George McGovern, a, an ideologue who saw the error of his ways he certainly in his later years was not the same kind of pacifist and an anti-capitalist that he was running in 1972.
36:31
SM: Hubert Humphrey.
36:33
LE: The happy warrior, love to love politics, love to talk about politics, love to practice politics. Came out of the nonpartisan tradition of Minnesota, and got chewed up by the much superior, well-oiled political machine of the Kennedys and West Virginia, and then was humiliated by a by Lyndon Baines Johnson, as vice president, deserved better than he got.
37:06
SM: You think that if he if curiosity, if he had spoken up against Johnson against the policy that he might have won the election in (19)68 because he was coming on toward the very end in history books say that it said go on another week, he would have been an excellent, he was really-
37:25
LE: He might have the AFL CIO did a brilliant, magnificent job of almost winning the election in 1968. And it really turned out really turned to that neighbor coming on strong. And so it was Humphrey. Yes, that is, that is possible. Humphrey, who I think probably was-was worried about, you know, backlash among-among some Democrats. And maybe he could see that he was coming on strong, I thought he could pull it out without risking that possible division in the party.
38:05
SM: John Kennedy.
38:10
LE: Well, you know, it is so hard to think rationally about him. But we have learned so much about him. Since I, I know this in the (19)60s, and I had a chance to see him up close because I was a press secretary to the United States senator in the late (19)50s. And early (19)60s, and I saw Kennedy in action on the Senate floor. Close was closed some this is where you are and where I am. And he was he was charismatic. He was charming. He was, I thought, extremely intelligent. Dynamic. Just captivating loved us used to love watching him in the press conferences and enjoying him with those presidential press conferences. But a very flawed man, I am not talking about the sexual peccadilloes. But it was a certain, I think, weakness or a certain uncertainty there at the core, which showed in his non reaction to going up with a sense of direction of the Berlin Wall in his withdrawing CIA support of the Bay of Pigs operation and his ambivalence about the war in Vietnam. At the same time, he did show some true grit with the Cuban Missile Crisis. So I think hard to sum him up. Do not know what he would have turned out to be if he had run for the election? Whether you would have won one way you know that in October of 16 Free. Time Magazine did a poll of Goldwater versus Kennedy. And it was a near tie. Really? Yes.
40:11
SM: What do you think of John Kennedy? The critics that drew I just had to review debt to Jim Hilde. He is a professor at Temple University. He is a liberal professor. And he was mentioning that in the revisionists are all really hurt the Kennedy image. And then except-
40:30
LE: For people, right, except that the people I mean, whenever there is a public popular poll name, your favorite president, John Kennedy always winds up in the top three or four, someone just came out a month or so ago.
40:44
SM: But when you ask him, one of the terms that I always remember hearing about President Kennedy when he was a pragmatic politician, yes. So that, for example, when Harris Wofford or whoever Bobby Kennedy made the call, or Mrs. King made the call to get Dr. King out of jail. John Kennedy did it Bobby told was the right thing to do. And Harris was involved in it. But the question is, there was always the thought of the impact that would have on the southern politicians, but any even the how he responded to the March on Washington 63, when he worried about or maybe riot or something in the streets. And the effect that supporting the March on Washington would have been the effect on the south, the Democrats This is the question I am asked basically trying to get to is, did John Kennedy truly care about the black man. truly care? Or was this a pragmatic, just a pragmatic power?
41:42
LE: Yeah, I think I think it was strictly pragmatic politics. I do not think he truly cared about it. I think in that sense that Bobby Kennedy, later in that decade, showed more true caring and empathy with the with the plight of the African American. I think you are right; I think Kennedy was ruled by the by his brain, not by his heart. But I think Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy is coming more, or as rules very often by his heart is.
42:12
SM: Very-very good. I want you to talk about Barry Goldwater. He is the next version.
42:19
LE: Well, a very unlikely revolutionary. But he was, I mean, he was a college dropout, wrote a book. So 3.5 million copies, it was a son of a millionaire who liked to hang around and jeans and go unshaven and go down the Columbia River up in the Grand Canyon. A salesman but also global elite and fiercely in the idea of individual freedom and unlimited government. A guy with from knees and eyes who yet first his life flying airplanes during World War II. And somebody who just was determined that he was going to offer a choice not an echo in 1964 which is why he went to-to Tennessee and seven we have got to do something about this TVA sellable sell part of it often went out to South Dakota, great big plowing the contest and said we are doing the farm subsidies and went down to Florida and said we got to privatize at least part of social security. I mean, these are not, you know, pragmatic.
43:40
SM: Right.
43:44
LE: This was a man who said this is going to be a campaign of principles, not a personalities and just stuck to it. And as a result of that, although he lost badly, the-the election to Lyndon Johnson still provided a-an inspiration for all sorts of people to get into politics, including it folder, and add crane both who got into politics as a result of Barry Goldwater and who provided Ronald Reagan with the opportunity to make a TV address, which made him for the first time in this life, a national political star and-
44:27
SM: I was I saw my home on TV.
44:31
LE: California, if it had not been for Barry Goldwater being the nominee, Ronald Reagan would not have made that speech and would never have become the, I think the governor of-
44:42
SM: Richard Nixon.
44:44
LE: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde brilliant man, filled with insecurities filled with seething with animosities towards his enemies, resentful at the same time understanding you can trust a communist and only to be a communist. Somebody who loved his children and was fiercely loyal to his friends, but-but hated his enemies, test all kinds of combinations I think Jacqueline.
45:23
SM: Spiro Agnew.
45:27
LE: Oh man who was caught up in and sort of carried along by events. He was always sort of the, fortunately for him the right time to first become governor and then to become vice president. Again, personally and morally flawed individual who did not see anything wrong. And sitting there in his office in the White House, which is where the Vice President has office in those days and receiving a payoff in a brown paper bag from a Maryland lobbyist. I mean, it is just makes you want to shrink him in repugnance.
46:13
SM: Gerald Ford.
46:16
LE: Good man, honest man decent man did the right thing by pardoning Nixon a minor figure in American politics but did that one major thing which was the right thing to do.
46:31
SM: Some of the African American leaders, you already made reference to Dr. King with any other thoughts on Dr. King.
46:46
LE: I think truly one of the most inspiring Americans of the 20th century.
46:56
SM: How about Malcolm X.
47:01
LE: A reflection of the of the anger and resentment well justified of African Americans, somebody who seemed to be changing toward the very end of his life. And maybe might have made some very interesting contributions to better relations between-between whites and blacks in America tragically cut down.
47:35
SM: The Black Panther Party was a Huey Newton’s and the Bobby Seales of the world.
47:40
LE: Well, I am I am I am influenced by-by Horwitz Collier on that destructive generation so forth. I think these cynical power-seeking hedonistic opportunists who were using people did not really give a damn about-about African Americans. Just their own power, sexual and personal recommendations.
48:06
SM: How about the women's movement, the leaders Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem leader.
48:12
LE: I think any of them I think, the beginning of the movement, I think, as I said earlier, I think some of them have the right idea that women had were not being treated fairly and accurately in the marketplace. But I think it slipped away from I think a certain maybe a certain arrogance set in and then then all of a sudden they allowed the real radicals to take it over. I think alienated a lot of a lot of conservative if you vote conservative feminists and that is not an oxymoron, like my wife.
48:49
SM: How about Muhammad Ali?
48:52
LE: Cassius Clay, but yeah, yeah. Oh, I a sweet-sweet fighter. Somebody that you just need all of his with his grace and, and power and endurance to for that matter.
49:15
SM: Throughout the antiwar stand things. Yeah, a conscientious objector, seemed to be sincere in that.
49:21
LE: I think you are right to take that position.
49:24
SM: So, I am in Columbus side bid. He came and he was dethroned. And I was working at Ohio University at the time, came down to see him at a theater they paid him $3,500 to come and speak. And at the very beginning of the trailers for protesters outside against on a rally and he gave the $3,500 back to the local community that needed it for four in the city. He did not need the money. He gave three the cash back.
49:53
LE: I am not surprised. I have always thought he was very sincere. Somebody, man of conviction. I really, I was always my impression.
50:05
SM: Timothy Leary.
50:10
LE: Well, I think he probably deserved the hand that he got. I think that he misled so many people think the arrogance was pretty, pretty evident from the very beginning. And I think it is, it is, it is appropriate. He is really a minor figure in this whole story. We are talking.
50:40
SM: Daniel Ellsberg.
50:46
LE: Well, there-there is somebody who after signing a document, by violated it by stealing the documents, and then turning them over to the to the New York Times and The Washington Post and others in direct violation of his word. So, it is hard for me to feel much sympathy for a perjurer. He is an imposter.
51:23
SM: How about George Wallace?
51:27
LE: George Wallace was a at best, a cynical opportunity to opportunist and at worst, a bigot and a segregationist. He was-was a was a demagogue the way that he would appeal to the-the baser emotions into people. And I think he has been given more attention than he deserves as a major political figure of the time.
51:59
SM: Robert McNamara.
52:08
LE: Well, what can you say about somebody who said publicly that we are winning the war in Vietnam, and then at Georgetown party said that we were losing it? And then it has never been able to satisfactorily explain the dichotomy between these two positions should have a decent thing by this resigning the Secretary of Defense.
52:34
SM: John Dean.
52:41
LE: I vote pass on Dean.
52:44
SM: The music of the year, because the music of that period was so influential in the antiwar movement, whether it be the Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin as well I think if I Dylan's.
52:56
LE: Yeah, I think you have got to differentiate between the different kinds of whatever you are talking about, you know, hard rock and electronic rock or rock and you know, Joplin and Hendrix.
53:06
SM: Richie Havens.
53:09
LE: Those guys right now, I watched I went to so Woodstock at the movie. I did not go to Woodstock in person. And one sense it was fascinating. But to me it was also so it was it was not only chaotic, but it was an archaic and in a sense that he would say it was sort of the-the combination of the of the counterculture ethic and so three days of drinking and drugging and unprotected sex with people behaving more like animals than that human beings as opposed to that, I think that music would have to include you know, the-the Beatles would have to the Beach Boys would have to vote even-even-even Elvis. And then that kind of music is far different.
54:17
SM: Then I am pretty much done here. It is a couple questions at the very end, just your gut level reaction to these terms from the period SDS.
54:32
LE: Faux revolutionaries, F A U X.
54:37
SM: Counterculture.
54:43
LE: Hedonistic destructive self-destructive, destructive and self-destructive.
54:53
SM: Pentagon Papers.
55:12
LE: A chapter in American journalism. Which is not as-as salutary as many journalists think.
55:27
SM: Woodstock, I think we are covering may come off of the Beatles, John Lennon.
55:39
LE: I mean, I sort of liked the Beatles. I mean, I did not listen to him a lot by sort of like the Beatles. And then again, I did not know that those see in the Sky with Diamonds was, was a plug for LSD, which shows you how naive I am.
55:51
SM: But you know, when John Lennon died in 1980, and voila, Beatles he was the one that was the big anti-war. That is the one that Nixon did not like, and all the other kinds of things. You just some general individuals that were over in Vietnam, we in Westmoreland president to general Kochi, and Maxwell Taylor, certainly great names of people that ran the war in Vietnam. Well, I am going to change the tape here before we. Go, if you look at the Vietnam War, I think that is the question we were talking about we looking at the Vietnam War. What is the main reason that that war ended?
56:41
LE: I think the young played a very important role as they always do. If you want political and social change, you know you young are the place where it happens. And there is very little current anyone else can do to speed things up as the young want to be passive or just alienated. You know, there is no other source of truth unless you have a tense labor situation. And that would be the other example. Right now we have a situation in which people are afraid even to go out on strike, is there going to be replaced? We have people who are afraid to complain about their work conditions, because they will be downsized. The real thing about students is they not only have time on their side aside, but there are very few threats you can make against them. They are not, they are not in the system yet, in that sort of way. Now why did it take them that long? I do not know how many it was it was I mean, guys sign of the veritable obstinacy of the system, which is demonstrating itself again. These days, I-
58:11
SM: I want to go over again, talking about how important you say the students, the ministers are in a movement, because you were talking about that on the tape. And-
58:18
LE: I think ministers are very important, and they are paid to be moral. There. They make it possible for other people to do things. In other words, if you are in a congregation, and you may feel a certain way, but you do not feel like you have sort of a moral authority to do it. I mean, a lot of people do not. Whereas if the minister helps to bring some people out of their out of their shell in that regard. I have seen situations in which kind of nations on the other hand, I have been very restrictive on the ministers.
59:11
SM: Okay, one of the issues, again, is the issue of healing. I have had an opportunity to go to the Vietnam Memorial for the last couple of years that Veterans Day and Memorial Day ceremonies. And I like your thoughts on the importance that the wall has done for America, not only for Vietnam veterans, but for America itself. And on top of that, do you feel that there has been healing between not only within the Vietnam veteran generation but amongst those who were for and against the war?
59:45
LE: Ah, I suspect that the-the memorial has been the has had the strongest effect on those who were directly involved in the war or who had people friends, relatives who were, I have a friend whose name is about the 39th up there on the wall. However, I think what is sometimes called Healing is really amnesia and a simple time you know, there will be come a time when there will be nobody with any direct contact with Vietnam, at which point people will have a harder time relating to that wall. Versus they do-do a civil war monument in Gettysburg. And that is in the nature. However, as monuments go, it has, it has been an extraordinary one. I take people around town visitors around town, it is one of the places I always want to take them especially I want to take them at night because I think, as a special quality at nighttime. You enter it in the dark.
1:00:57
SM: Has there been healing between those who were for and against the war? The divisions were so-
1:01:04
LE: I do not think they even talk about it do they? I mean, it is not it is like, again, it is almost it is more a matter of it is no longer important. That is what is so absurd about war, in the first place is that you can kill 50,000 People of your own people and what was it 2 million of others? And then you-you know, a few years later, it no longer makes a difference. I am not sure I use the word healing. I mean, it is not a word that comes to mind. It certainly has lost its place in the semiosis fear no longer has the symbolic power at once did. And I cannot explain to my own sons what it was like what the fuss was about. And I suppose I lose have the same problem. I recall trying to understand how to how hard it was to relate in any meaningful way to my fact that my parents both lost brothers in the First World War. But that was a war that I had no connection with. On the other hand, I had a lot of connection with the Second World War in the sense that as a child in Georgetown, we did have blackouts and we had I stood on the roof and look for German planes and, and relatives would bring German insignias back from the war and my father was working for the government. So all those things added to it. And then after the war I went to went to France in the still in then in the (19)50s You know, maybe 10 years after the war. And there was still plenty of places which were shell marked. They were all over Europe and 10 years later, there were cranes I think the French word is grew these great big because literally they looked like cranes and Europe was rebuilding itself but at the same time you could see buildings that were still had all the marks of having bombarded and when you were in Paris, I remember this the number that what struck me was the number of men in wheelchairs so then I went back maybe 10 or 15 Later years later and there was nobody in wheelchairs in Paris and that is what happens if you do not have those experiences and it just cannot mean the same thing.
1:04:51
SM: Let Me- start again. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.
1:04:56
LE: Yeah I always like Abbie Hoffman better than Jerry Rubin for two reasons. I guess first of all that Abbie Hoffman had a real sense of humor, which I related to and Jerry Rubin eventually sold out. Hartman was a bizarre and he was a, he was a- it was a truly eccentric character, and I guess maybe a little bit sad character in many ways. But he was he was sort of the sort of the spirit of the (19)60s. And I found out the other day that when I was at Harvard, I had been director, news director of the radio station at the time that that Fidel Castro came to America. And it was a, I was responsible for getting the-the broadcasts of Fidel Castro out from Memorial Stadium and went all the way down to Cuba and to Latin America. It was very exciting. And Fidel Castro went to the faculty club for dinner, and came out with his lieutenants and all the students were there clapping room that and then I interviewed one of his lieutenants at Hays big for telling you about all of these out in the mountains. Well, it turns out that Abby Huffman was at that Memorial Stadium speech that same night, which I think sort of-
1:06:25
SM: how do you feel about the suicide note that, that Abbie Hoffman left when he died in Bucks County several years back and supposedly said the note, no one is listening anymore. And I guess he only had about $2,000 in the bank, but you have given a lot of his money away and kind of civils involved and causes. But when I heard that, I thought, is that symbolic of a boomer, especially those that still care about the issues of that time that no one is listening anymore? He is just a symbol that.
1:06:57
LE: Yeah, well, you see, that goes back to what we were talking about earlier. If you are an existentialist, you do not expect anybody to be listening. I mean, it is you are engaging in and like Sisyphus, you are rolling a rock up the hill is going to roll back, but you still have no choice. You know, what is it the plague in which [inaudible] as the doctor who was taking care of people, even though that, you know, the plague, so far, as anybody knows, is incurable. That is a that would be the, I think the different from way I sort of approach it in a way that that someone like Abbie Hoffman might have approached it. And I do not know what that comes, what sort of experiences that comes out of, you know, where you help people end up having a different approach like that. And some people might say, hearing me speak, you know, wow, terribly depressing. What you have just said is, but in fact, I think it is tremendously optimistic because of sustaining I mean, if you, if you realize that it is not your is not within your power to determine the outcome of what you do, is only within your power to make the choice to do it. And, and so that you do not control history. You, you, you it is not, it is not within your privilege, to be born at the right moment. And I was talking to somebody the other day about how if, you know, was it better to have been in our 20s in the (19)60s, and have to live through all this shit afterwards? Or the other way around? You know, would we be happier if we had, you know, come into the (19)60s When we were 16? Now, the answer is probably no, because we would probably be like our parents and would not have liked it very much. We probably did the right thing, and we are now paying the right price for it. But in any case, it is it is nothing we can do anything about. So, Camus said somewhere that the-the-the only sin we are we are not permitted is despair. And I think that there were an awful lot of people who set up too large a fantasy. And I do not think it is wrong to have myths and hopes and dreams, but I think that they have to be within the context of knowing that it may not work out. And that way you-you continue to have the strength to keep trying let success come as a surprise rather than as a necessary standard by which you judge what you are going to do.
1:09:46
SM: Let me let you get that. Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda.
1:09:52
LE: Oh, I never paid that much attention to. I was never very much involved in all that. You know, I mean, that was not my (19)60s. I mean, I was, certainly was aware of it, but it was not it was not central to anything I did.
1:10:06
SM: How about Muhammad Ali?
1:10:11
LE: I was sort of I was sort of interested in because in the early (19)60s I had been in the when I was in the Coast Guard had been in Louisville and I was visiting Hugh Haney was a cartoonist there. And it was in the lobby of the Louisville courier journal. And here comes his young black guy doing all this crazy stuff. I said, Who else? And he said, well, that is a new fighter name, Cassius Clay. And so I met him. I did not meet him, but I saw him before he was famous. So, I do not remember what my reaction is whatever I would say would not be honest. Because I do not remember. But he was against the Vietnam. Yeah, I do not I cannot tell you what, what I thought of that. But I approved, but I did not leave a strong impression.
1:10:54
SM: How about some of the older individuals Dr. Benjamin Spock, the Berrigan brothers?
1:11:00
LE: I Like them. I-I-I in my local work, you see, the truth of the matter is because being in Washington, you got to see how things were organized, you know, the big demonstrations and, and the truth of the matter is, a lot of these things would not have gotten off the ground a lot without a lot of old leftists both locally and nationally. It was the old leftists some of them, I presume, were communists, who really put things together. They knew how to do it. And it is part of the story of the (19)60s that has not been told, because it was assumed that there were all these brilliant young people who staged these marches. Well, there were a lot of people who were, and you know, who went back all the way back to the (19)30s. You know, and had a lot of experience in this sort of stuff. There were lawyers say in town, like, like David Ryan, who was an old (19)30s National Lawyers Guild lawyer, people like a balloon folks like that. Now I like for a for a Seventh Day agnostic I have a I have a certain fondness for ministers. I do not like I do not like t-shirt very much, but I like ministers when they are good. And, and I think that the Bergen brothers, you know, sort of lent a good moral cast to the to the show, as the Duck Fuck.
1:12:40
SM: Some of the politicians of the era starting with John Kennedy and then his brother Robert Kennedy.
1:12:49
LE: Yeah. I covered the covered the hearings of the investigation into the teamsters union as a young radio reporter. And her is something I wrote recently about that. My radio days. Among those seated at the long panel table was young John F. Kennedy, Democrat from Massachusetts. His brother Robert served as a counsel for the committee. At one point a prostitute witness made some off color comment that bought brought guffaws from the audience and Bobby's own giggles were amplified by his mic. The humorless Chair John McClellan wrapped his gavel and told Kennedy. This is not a joking matter. It would be the only time I ever saw Kennedy look chastened. I was not particularly impressed by the Kennedys. They struck me as lightweights hardly in the same class with Humphrey and Dirksen. I wrote in a September 5, 1959, letter, quote, the Kennedy brothers like to remark about the Quakers came to Washington to do good and did very well. Jimmy Hoffa, who was a student of corrupt told me once in the midst of the racket’s hearings, Bobby Kennedy is trying to make headlines for his brothers so he can get into the White House, but he cannot find his way out of this room and quote, now that the labor reform bill is passed, one big source of Kennedy headlines has disappeared. Let us hope the Kennedys do likewise. That was what I wrote.
1:14:20
SM: Oh, wow. Well, that was (19)59. What are your What are your thoughts on Kennedy from 15? John Kennedy from (19)59, to (19)63. And Bobby certainly through 1968.
1:14:31
LE: Well, the best thing that Jack Kennedy did was to bring my wife from Wisconsin to Washington where I could meet her merrier. I mean, she was part of that generation that was, and by today's standard, it was an extraordinary group of people. She came to work for Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. And it was, it was a very-very exciting time, it was a time in which passion and commitment was not only favored, but you could get bills passed based on it. And so, Kennedy himself, I think, was not the myth that he was made out to be. Started, I think the tradition of what I call mob politics. And I think he paid a heavy price for it. You know, he won the election from all appearances by the assistance of the mob, and in Illinois, far too close to the really deeply corrupt side of politics, and I think started a precedent, which, like I say, may have resulted in his own death and certainly set a pattern for, for future politics. In my book, I have a chart of what I call mob politics or history of mob politics. And it starts with Jack Kennedy, in Illinois. And it my thesis is that for 30 years, our politics had been repeatedly interrupted by a variety of crooks. Freelancers out of controls, crooks and-and others that have distorted our-our political system, then so I do I do. You know, I blame him for that. Bobby Kennedy, I believe was-was a quite a repugnant character in his early days when he was working for McCarthy. But I think he was it would be in a category of very, very small category of politicians who actually improve with age. I have seen that very, very rarely. And I would have to say, even though I was a supporter of Jean McCarthy, by the time that that Kennedy was running for office, I you know, and I was I could live with that. I would find something here.
1:17:20
SM: Okay, we are into the area of civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.
1:17:26
LE: Okay, Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the truly important people in my life and for a little bit eccentric reason is that I read stride towards freedom. While I was in college, and I was very-very moved by it, it was, it was perhaps the most important book I read while I was in college, even though it was not on any reading list. And what particularly moved me was that I was a product of a Quaker school, German ham friends in Philadelphia, and I had never really gotten to all the pacifism. stuff, it always seemed to me a lot of what the Quakers did seem very mushy, and I, and what Martin Luther King did for me, which was sort of unique was that, well, where I sort of connected with him was not just on the Civil Rights thing, but even more so on his description of his own struggles with pacifism and, and how he resolved them. And so that I came to know, King not as a civil rights leader, so much as but as a person who helped me think through some of my own problems, you know, which is an interesting experience in itself. Now, I would later learn things about the reality of King which, you know, as with everybody is not always what it appears, I mean, for example, everyone is very reluctant to get involved in Montgomery Bus Boycott initially. And in fact, it was a guy named Ed Nixon who was a member of the Sleeping Car Porters union called him up finally and said, you know, and I said, we want to use your-your church for meeting place, so Monday and King said, well, let me think about it. And a few couple days later, he called back and said, I made up your mind he was in King says, well, yeah, I think that will be okay says good because we have got 200 People coming. So, I mean, just that, you know, that sort of contrasts with the, with the popular image of and yet it also was a story. Yeah, I mean, I think it is a very common story of, of greatness inside. It does not-not just come, you know, burst out for I want to hear king with a girlfriend of mine at Howard University and I think 1960, who was speaking at Chapel. It was the first time I had ever done anything of a political protest, or I was a radio reporter here, I had covered the site covered sit ins, I had covered the sit ins and protests of that medical park. I had, you know, my girlfriend said, you know, I want to go here. And so we went and we, we got there a little bit late, and we had to sit outside, maybe there was a chapel was overflowing, and we sat outside and this beautiful day, listen to follow them quite closely, and I admired greatly. Malcolm X, I did not have that much consciousness. So frankly, I think Malcolm X has grown much larger and his depth and he was in his life. You are not meant to say that. But I think that is really true. I do not I do not recall, for example, being particularly conscious of Malcolm X as a factor in local civil rights. Things here in DC and this person, so biggest, most black city in the country Now may have been quite different in Chicago and New York, but-
1:21:56
SM: Would you, would you rate him I am sure, okay. Would you rate him like Bobby Kennedy in terms of one of those few individuals who kind of redeemed himself as he, as he got older because the last two years of his life, he no longer was going out and espousing the white man is a devil. He had been to Mecca and came back and Salva?
1:22:18
LE: I think there is that there is that element about it. And the other thing about Malcolm X was awkward relate to him is that he lived in Massachusetts, not far from Boston. And he was a musician. So I mean, I felt a feel sort of a companionship within there because I had that same period, I was at Harvard and a musician also. By but in terms of my own life, Malcolm X did not have hardly any influence.
1:22:50
SM: Could you comment on the Black Power advocates of that period? I always remember the scene of Dr. King was arms folded and Stokely Mark- Stokely Carmichael is speaking, saying that a new generation of black leaders is coming forth Black Power, Black Power, not the concept of Dr. King was all about, if you talk about the Stokely Carmichael's the H wraparounds. The Eldridge, cleavers, the Bobby seals, the Huey Newton's Angela Davis. The list goes on and on about the Black Power advocate like-
1:23:24
LE: It is like, it is like any politics. No. People spend a lot of time talking about a lot of interesting characters there are in politics that that are sort of interesting, but they are not necessarily over the long run, that they may just be sort of big players. Stokely Carmichael was clearly more than that. And as was Angela Davis. And the Panthers certainly had a big influence. On my feeling was that it was very often more anger than direction that the anger was-was-was well phrased, but the next steps were not, were not clear. And as I think I said in that article that you have got that I was, I was quite supportive of the Black Power movement made sense to me. I mean, I was an anthropology major, I understood what-what it was about. It did not it did not strike me as threatening or strange. And it did not, particularly it bothered me. What bothered me was not that that. STOKELY CARMICHAEL said the whites could no longer be in the civil rights movement. But that out of that post, riot period in this town, there was such a divide that came down between blacks and whites, which in many ways we have not recovered from. And, you know, there were I lost black friends just overnight. seemed like it was just because there was a whole different whole different paradigm moved into town. And there was nothing that one could-could do about that. And I do not know, you can say that it was wrong because it was not. I mean, the Black Power movement was right in its in its essence, but it like everything like that it has all sorts of spin off effects. The best civil rights leaders I ever knew, was a local one and never got a national attention guy named Julius Hopson Jr. Right there. And he was the head of the DC statehood party. He was he was a Marxist. Louise Hobson was a march within the status station. So he took a little bit different view of that he could always see the class element. And it was not just race. He did something extraordinary here in town, he went and he sued the DC school system for not spending equally in the various schools. And he pointed out as part of his argument, and while is maybe most dramatically illustrated in the comparison between black schools and white schools, you could also demonstrate it by comparing the middle-class black schools with the more black schools and was one his case. And we became, I believe, the only place in the country which dealt with all question of public schools and integration by saying that it was a, it was a money problem. And we did not live with not a busing was not done by busing. The only busing that occurred in in Washington DC occurred as a voluntary program at the suggestion of the of the school board. And in Montgomery County, and after a short experiment, the school board the black school board decided it was demeaning and stopped. Julia said had quite a different take on this thing. And he was strong enough though, to deal with Stokely Carmichael. He was a powerful, powerful guy, and-and-and was respected even though his particular form of civil rights activity was quite different. He, he said that this solution, for example, to the fact that nothing was being done about the rats in Northeast Washington was that he was going to collect the rats and trap them in and let them loose in Georgetown. And in fact, he only he only had a Volkswagen with one rack in a cage on top of it, but he sure got on the front page of papers for that.
1:28:33
SM: [Inaudible] Because there is any books been written on him?
1:28:36
LE: Well, no books, I wrote a book about Washington called captive capital back in 1974. And I have a few interesting pages on that. Tell that story. I tell the story about local department store which he was trying to integrate. And they, they said they, they, they could not really find any qualified negros. But as Julius Hopson could bring some qualified people with you, they would be glad to consider them. And he said he was not running any goddamn personnel program. But if they did not have some blacks hired in the next two weeks, he was going to boycott the store. And he was very well, I mean, he-he talked up but he was actually extremely well educated. And that was why he was able to pull something out like this school suit because he could do this. He could out data, his opponents and then one of my favorite stories, maybe I do not know what I still got the book here. Here this is Julius Hobson on the nature of the struggle and the struggle is and whether you like a Nigger-Nigger likes a cracker or white he is a pig or any of that stuff I have called people Why do you and pig in the FBI never said a word. All I have to do is put on a dashiki get a wig go out there on 14th Street and yell Whitey is a pig and I am going to take care of them, and the FBI will stand there and laugh at me. But the moment I start to discuss the way goods and services are distributed I start talking about the nature of the political system and I show that. It is a core area of the of the economic system. That is when the FBI comes in for a cat- for harassment. Can Black people ever win the fight for freedom, so long as they accept America's exploitive capitalism as the economic system within, so they must wage the battle? Black people have not confronted this question whether from a lack of understanding or of our economic and political systems or from an unwillingness to challenge them, their silence is a betrayal of the trust of the black people they purport to lead. This will tell you I mean, I mean, this was this was now in the 1960s and (19)70s. This was a black man who was standing up and saying these things and needs on a local black minister. I was asked to speak at his church one Sunday, I went over there. And when I went there, I looked over the congregation, I would say, the average person in their head, I own a pair of Tom McCann shoes that their suits cost an average of $35, a piece that their shirts were from hex basements. And they were very poor and very illiterate, almost illiterate, people who were emotionally shocked, just came to the church to let out this screen. The Minister took up a love offering, he took up a minister's travel offering. And then he took up a regular he took up five or six offerings. So when he got to me to speak, I got up and said, God dammit, this is Christianity. I want no part of it. And I said, this son of a bitch is stealing from you. And the thing is, he is not just stealing your money. He is stealing your minds. And I refuse to be part of this. And I walked off.
1:31:38
SM: What a character. Well, thank you very much.
1:31:39
LE: Some of the chapters are the chapter on race and on, you got a technique and the history on neighborhoods, we will give you a little feeling.
1:31:49
SM: We are going to have you sign this to definitely before you leave. Thank you very much. A couple of politicians. I know you would probably like to talk about Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
1:31:58
LE: Okay, Lyndon Johnson was a crook who became a good guy who ended up as a tragedy. And he was, you know, if you read the early life of Lyndon Johnson, that you see very little that is admirable about it. But for a brief moment, in the 19(19)60s, he was an extraordinary president. Whatever happened afterwards, whatever happened before, you cannot deny that. Joseph Conrad says somewhere that the difference between a hero and a coward is paper, thin heroes and cowards are people who, for one brief moment, do something out of the ordinary. And what Lyndon Johnson did in the 1960s, along with Adam Clayton Powell, who was an equally false flawed man was extraordinary. Richard Nixon, I grew up hating. I mean, it was, it was early, it was his race against felon [Helen] Gahagan Douglas, my parents were talking about what a terrible man Richard Nixon was. And so that long before there was the 1960s, I knew that Richard Nixon was somebody to watch out for. In the last few years, I have learned that it could be worth grin, I will have to say, again, notwithstanding Vietnam, notwithstanding, Watergate, that Richard Nixon was our last liberal president, the last president to believe in the social welfare system around I mean, it took me a long, long time to understand that and the only way sometimes you learn these things is to see what happens later. But the fact of the matter is that Bill Clinton is incredibly to the right of Richard Nixon. And this flies in the face of what I always believed in what I was raised to believe, but all you have to do is think that Richard Nixon favored a negative income tax. And that was shut down by liberals like George Wiley who complained that it was not big enough. But if Nixon had succeeded, we might never be having the welfare dispute we were having today. Because we would have had structured it on an entirely different basis. We have there was a long list of things which slipped my mind at the present but there-there was a long list of issues. I do not want to say them because I will get some of them wrong. Have issues that people just do not even connect with, with the Nixon administration, which essentially-
1:35:06
SM: how do you feel the ca- so called enemies lists affected the psyche of the boomer generation? Because he had those lists, anybody who was protesting around college campuses, they were taking pictures on ovals. Anybody who was involved?
1:35:24
LE: I do not know. I mean, I, I guess I have had the honor of standing a chance to be on to enemies list because I might have been on Nixon, I guess it was not, I have never asked for my FBI file, I, you know, I, I feel I either would be disappointed if it was too thin, or angry if it was too thick. So, I would rather sort of leave that as a as an unknown. But I also am reasonably confident that I may be on Bill Clinton's enemies list. And I would say, this is no defense of Nixon. But but-but, you know, it is very hard to get people to look at these things realistically, you know, to step outside of your own ideology and look at the facts, the facts of the matter, that Chuck Colson went to jail, in part for looking at I think it was three FBI files, on people. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, they have had access to 900, at the least, at the least. And there is right now, you know, at least a reasonable journalistic supposition that I have seen that, that this whole White House Office database, when far beyond that, that it may have been directly tied into the FBI. Not that that, you know, you could just put your push a button and pull up somebody's FBI file, but you could automatically make a request to the FBI and a low level figure would make a decision and could send the file over. And it seems to be working. So now we have moved from-from-from paranoia, distrust and Machiavellian politics, to automated distrust paranoia, and Machiavellian politics. Now, that does not make Nixon a saint, it makes him, but it is something that you have to deal with. You have to deal with the fact that Bill Clinton is more conservative and Richard Nixon on domestic issues. There is just absolutely no doubt about it. And that on civil liberties is probably worse. I mean, it is a race, but he is probably worse. Bill-Bill Clinton has not he has yet to find a civil liberties worth standing up for. And he has played a key role in in the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment. He has a content he has an underlying he basically has a soul of a southern share when it comes to civil liberties issues.
1:37:55
SM: How about Senator Eugene McCarthy and Senator George McGovern?
1:38:00
LE: Okay, well, I was a McCarthy. supporter, I was a, I ran on a, we had an interesting thing. We had a combined Bobby Kennedy, Gene McCarthy, slate for democratic Central Committee and for convention delegates here, because the problem was, we decided that if we did not get together, Humphries would beat his boat. So I think this was a rare case of a fusion slate in American politics. And I was on as McCarthy, candidate for the Democratic Central Committee. And we won, and we had a wonderful Central Committee, and it was a wonderful, very, very progressive group, including the National committeeman was, there was the, there was the perspective, Phillip Pinkett support Hannity. But Channing Phillips, who was the first black person ever been nominated for president was the runner of our slate, the National Committee. So I was very pro McCarthy. Years later, I would come to know him and become quite good friends with years later. And I think that we just happen to share a lot of, of interest and love of politics, of humor, of irony of the importance of viral and in the world. And it has been a very pleasant experience. Governor McGovern, I certainly supported I was never one of his really great supporters. I was actually sort of pissed off at him very early because he had sent very strong signals that he was ready to endorse DC statehood. So, but what apart Ryan, John Hechinger to local members of the McGovern committee, were opposed to statehood and they got government back off. And it is funny, you know, when you are in politics, and you are around somebody and you see something like that happen, it really soured you because you, you draw a conclusion if you see it once, it is going to happen again. And so I never after that could be quite. I mean, there certainly was no data. There is support McGovern over Nixon. But in terms of my personal respect for the man, I just never could get it up to 55 again.
1:40:41
SM: How about some of the women leaders of the time Betty-Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, women that stood out in-
1:40:51
LE: Shirley Chisholm I liked in a big way. Better Friedan, I did not. She was not that strong on my scope. The glorious time was the other person. Bella Abzug. Yeah, she was she I enjoyed her, I thought she was saying that. But I also got later on got to know a few people who worked for her and she apparently was an absolute tyrant to work for. It was interesting, because of course, one of the things that-that is the real talent for those of us who are in our- grew up in the (19)50s is that we spend our entire lives adapting to one thing or another. Maybe one reason why we have never produced the president, although I think that in a way that we might produce a very good president, because we are a generation that has-has serially seen what this country is made up geographically. In other words, we grew up in Republican America. And we were sort of serially introduced to other parts of America and make our peace in our way. And then. And so my own generational bias, is that, that we would be actually quite good leaders. If-if-if it were not for the hubris of those who came before us and after us was not so strong, that we got squeezed because, see, the thing is that we cannot have any hubris because we have been beaten about the head too much. So, we, you know, we had the insert traditional arrogance of our parents, and then the-the, you know, the-the self-assurance of the, of the boomers on either side of this and we get squeezed out. And the woman's movement was part of that. I- my perspective on that was, again, a little bit strange, because I had grown up with four sisters. And one of whom went to Red Cliff. My father was not in any way supportive of them going even going to college. And I think he was quite negative and that so that I was aware of those-those tensions quite early. And having one of the things about the Quakers I think I can say this without exaggeration, certainly a German have French school is that I never heard, while I was there any feeling on the part of the of my women classmates that they were treated in a second class fashion, I think that has, that has been pretty generally true of the Quakers it just, it just was not part of their-their-their-their view. And I mean, in writing my own memoirs, you know, in writing about trying to remember 11th grade English class, I refer to an English teacher, who was seen far more interested in the, in the girls in the class, who were more sophisticated, you know, as women of that age often are, and are then someone like myself, you know, I always I found myself sort of, you know, not quite as clever as they were. And so that and then when I got to Harvard, I had a couple interesting experiences in this regard. The thing is you get to a place like Harvard, you suddenly you run into people going to boy’s prep schools. And it is, a, it is a tremendously different paradigm. Enormous and you can see why you have trouble when these folks get to be CEOs. It is But I was not aggressive about it was not a big deal for me, it just seemed like it serves stupid or natural. So I occasionally got myself involved in things like I was on the Harvard sailing team. And one time I did not have a crew, I could not find a crew. So, I called up a friend of mine at Radcliffe. And I said, you know, your name is Alice. And you know, nobody's going to notice that it is not a be either male or female have it proven for me. Well, when we reached in this race, Medford Lake, I will never forget it. The problem was that I won the race gave me undue attention, and it was discovered that I had a, a woman crew, and I was literally hauled to a disciplinary meeting of the of the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association. Was I look back on that, you know, I mean, look at that and go that was dumb. I am sure. You know, I mean, my reaction was not, it was not anger, it was not a cause. It just sort of seemed to me sort of stupid and sort of funny, you know, I mean, it was. And then later on, I also was involved in trying to get women at the radio stage, and unsuccessfully, but they did come a few years later, so. But I am not trying to suggest that I was any great. You know, it just was I had a different perspective on it. And then that worked against me, I think of a way a bit in a woman's movement, because when the women's movement did not come along, because it was assumed that my attitude was different sometimes. And because I was not prepared to sort of make all the advances, you know, that I might I, so that, that sometimes I did not know how to handle the issue very well, because it was not something that that had ever been a particular issue. And my growing up, and, and I believe I believe I handled it the way that I think is the smartest way to do which is you give people power. People do not have power, and they deserve it, and you give them and so that there are a number of from my, when I had a staff, they were putting out the DC Gazette. There were a number of women who wrote for that, who did very well in what is now president of the of the pen Faulkner Foundation. And I had a whole bunch of critics and eventually kicked them all out, because they were taking up too much space. And I did not know how to edit critics. But they- that was in (19)76. And we and it became a-a art paper called The Washington review. But there, which still exist today. But the point is that there were all those shifts going on there were all these little things little instance, you know, that you remember, like, when-when I first started putting out the paper, Kathy, my wife, Kathy, who was-was listed on the masthead as the editors wife, which I thought sort of adequately described her-her real role, you know, sort of ambiguous and-and as I said, in that piece I gave you know, so I had a Turneresque quality she is, you know, sort of threatening quality. And she actually had a column called editor's wife. Well, we are long when-when all these you know, new women movement.
1:48:19
SM: I cannot you imagine. Why aren't you the husband?
1:48:23
LE: Yeah, right. So I found my ass in the sling over that. And the curse the irony of it was that then they got Kathy me talking about the whole deal, we decided that maybe it was better to stay married than to have her working. So-so it was it was an interesting-interesting time that you-you had the sort of waves of change washing up you.
1:48:51
SM: Few final names here and then we have a final question. That is a few sentences for like Hubert Humphrey.
1:48:58
LE: Hubert Humphrey was my childhood hero. Hubert Humphrey came to my parents’ house in Philadelphia and gave a speech. My father was one of the organizers of ADA and Hubert Humphrey gave a speech and the thing I remember about the evening was a Joe Rao was there. I wish I met Joe Rao, Joe rouse doted on one of my mother's antique chairs and gave us money raising pitch, and I was very much you know, Huberdeau Humphrey was God. But I, Joe rousing even on a higher plane, because, you know, the idea of someone just standing up on one of my mother's chairs in their living room. And I looked at my mother, and she seemed absolutely super hungry, would say pleases, punch, right. And I sit down, there was a guy with real power. I told that story to Joe Ross shortly before he died and he laughed. He said, he no, he said, I remember that evening. Well, he said, went in there and I saw all these older people, it was an older crowd and said, I wonder what Hubert is going to say. And Hubert started right out talking about Woodrow Wilson. And but the thing I remember about that evening was then driving from my house to the airport with my father and Hubert Humphrey and he and Hubert Humphrey engaging in a 45-minute monologue in hallway. Wow.
1:50:26
SM: The musicians of the year, the (19)60s, boomers have always identified with the music. The Bob-Bob Dylan's and, and I just your overall thoughts. Even though you are not a boomer of the music of that era of the Bob Dylan's Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, the list goes on and on Janis Joplin.
1:50:49
LE: Well, again, I have to, you know, from where I have come from, and I was a, I was a jazz musician. I had my own DJ show jam with Sam on the college radio station. I am still today a piano player. I was drums then. But now I do the piano and vocals. But my world was the world of Miles Davis. And you know, Count Basie and the closest I got ever got to rock was I used to play I once played Earl Bostic on my show, who was a rhythm and blues saxophone player. And I was bawled out by the jazz director at the radio station because he was not jazz. Actually, just so basically, Dylan I never understood I to this day, I do not understand why anybody gets excited about Bob Dylan. Joan Baez has a beautiful voice. And it was not, it was, it was but for the most part, it was not part of my experience in a big way. I mean, it was not that I was negative towards it just was part of the background noise of the period. And but for my own tastes, I was into jazz and, and, and symbolically just as just as important for people who were boomers. You know, they have all these-these feelings, they relate to the music. To me, I relate to the alienation of modern jazz and to the sort of democratic spirit of mainstream jazz. Um, that is, it is just part of me in a way that rock is part of people who are into that.
1:52:38
SM: Do here is [audio cuts]
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Lee Edwards
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Edwards, Lee, 1932- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Authors; College teachers; Historians; Edwards, Lee, 1932--Interviews
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Lee Edwards is an author, educator and a leading historian of American Conservatism. He is a professor at the Catholic University and Chairman of a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington foundation. He has appeared on many television broadcast and his books have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and many more. Dr. Edwards has a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University and a doctorate in Political Science from Catholic University. He also holds a doctor of humane letters degree from Grove City College and attended the Sorbonne in Paris for graduate work.
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ND
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.46a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.46b
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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112:41
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a61c46fc62f49f369fa26455193be36b.mp3
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McKiernan Interviews
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-05-26
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Zillah R. Eisenstein
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Zillah Eisenstein is a scholar, political activist and Emerita Professor of Political Science at Ithaca College. Her work focuses primarilly on political struggles for social justice. She was able to document problems such as the rise of neoliberalism (both within the U.S. and across the globe), the growth of imperial and militarist globalization, injustices of racial laws, diseases and affirmative action in the U.S."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6535,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Zillah Eisenstein is a scholar, political activist and Emerita Professor of Political Science at Ithaca College. Her work focuses primarily on political struggles for social justice. She was able to document issues such as the rise of neoliberalism (both within the U.S. and across the globe), the growth of imperial and militarist globalization, injustices of racial laws, diseases, and affirmative action in the U.S.</span>
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Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
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1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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86:35
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Civil Rights Movement; Communist Party; Communism; Marxism; The Way We Were; Women's Rights movement; Feminism; Baby boom generation; Feminism; Racism; Black women; Abortion; Sexism; Second-Wave feminism; Women's studies; Eleanor Roosevelt."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">Civil Rights Movement; Communist Party; Communism; Marxism; The Way We Were; Women's Rights movement; Feminism; Baby boom generation; Feminism; Racism; Black women; Abortion; Sexism; Second-Wave feminism; Women's studies; Eleanor Roosevelt.</span>
Subject LCSH
Scholars; Political activists--United States; College teachers; Eisenstein, Zillah R.--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Zillah Eisenstein
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 26 May 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:03):
Testing one, two. Could you give me a little bit about your background, your growing up years, and what it was like to grow up... The influences that were a force in your life that maybe helped you in your career path? And also, when you are talking about this, I am always asking people about their college experiences. Was there something during their undergraduate years that had an influence on you that... Where you changed and went in a certain direction in your life?
ZE (00:00:38):
Well, my growing up years were enormously influenced by being the daughter of people who had been in the Communist Party and whose whole life was committed to civil rights activity. So, I had three sisters and we just grew up. Saturday mornings, you went and picketed Woolworths. I mean, that was...
SM (00:01:04):
So you learned that as a little girl, then?
ZE (00:01:06):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, my politics is from the womb.
SM (00:01:12):
Right.
ZE (00:01:13):
So in some ways just giving... As I was walking down here, I just thought, "Well, maybe I should just talk about my parents rather than myself." You know?
SM (00:01:26):
Talk about your parents, because...
ZE (00:01:28):
But I will just say just quickly, and then you can kind of do what you want with it. But my mother actually is the woman that... The way we were. You know?
SM (00:01:37):
Oh, yes.
ZE (00:01:39):
Okay. Well, it is based on her. Her name was Fanny Price. And I always forget his name, but the guy who wrote and produced the film, mom used to always say, "We were told that," and mom said, "Do not be silly." My mother went to Cornell, she went to the ACT School. She was completely poor, she got the [inaudible] scholarship. That is how she went to school. It was like the ritual story that was always told to us as children about work hard to get your intellect, and then you will go forth with whatever you want to do. But they did that as communists, not as liberals. But anyhow, when he wrote his book, the guy, whatever his name is, in the book finally, it came out I think maybe eight years ago, he says, "The woman who I was mesmerized by in my days at Cornell was Fanny Price." And-
SM (00:02:39):
The person, Barbara Streisand...
ZE (00:02:41):
Yeah.
SM (00:02:41):
Wow.
ZE (00:02:42):
I mean, my mother was really annoyed, she did not like the film, she said that was not... But mom did. When she was here, she founded the Young Communist League at Cornell. And then, of course, I never really heard very much about this until I got my job at Ithaca College and came here. And then that first semester, I was feeling pretty lonely here. It was kind of strange. And they came up for a weekend and she said, "Come on, let me take you on Cornell's campus and I will show you where I gave the first young communist [inaudible] speech." And it was on Bailey Hall and stuff like that.
SM (00:03:20):
Oh, my God.
ZE (00:03:20):
So anyhow, that is my roots and my sister's roots. I mean Sarah, who was Roz's friend, we both did... We did civil rights activism at a very you age. My two youngest sisters, when my father along with Staughton Lynd and Howard Zinn, the three of them are taught at Atlanta University. Well, no, Staughton was, I think at Morehouse. My dad was at AU, which was the graduate center for the Black colleges. And then Zinn was at Spelman. But there was a picket. I stayed home to study for my SATs, my sisters Julia and Gia, who were very young at the time, like seven and nine, I think. Anyhow, all of them were arrested. And Staughton Lynd came to get me to go help find them because my sisters had been separated from my parents and taken to juvenile detention. So anyhow, that just gives you a flavor. I mean, our life was very difficult and intense and rich as children. But there was a lot of anti-communism, we often were ostracized for that and it was not your typical upbringing. I mean, my father and mother lost their jobs pretty regularly because, still, of the leftovers of the hounding of people out of jobs. And so we grew up just everywhere. I mean, we lived everywhere.
SM (00:05:13):
What was it like? Because we are talking about the boomer generation, but a lot of people I am interviewing, one third of them are not boomers, they just lived during that time. So it has become much more than just a boomer thing. But when you look at that period after World War II, which is the red diaper babies and the pressures put on people who were affiliated with the Communist Party through the late (19)40s and the (19)50s, even into the early (19)60s, what was it like living in America at that time, being the child or of parents who were communists? And how did you get along with your peers?
ZE (00:05:48):
Well, I mean, it was very difficult. If you were kind of found out, oftentimes you were found out though, in weird ways. I mean, you would say something in a class discussion and someone would yell, "You are a communist." Like if you said something about equality or whatever. I mean, it is not like you walked around... Nobody walked around saying, "My parents were in the party." You would have to be out of your mind. But at the same time, there was such a vigorous social community that was part of the civil rights movement. That really was the way that an awful lot of communists... I mean, my parents joined the Communist Party primarily because of their stance against racism. And that is really what...
SM (00:06:37):
Yeah. Like Paul Robeson.
ZE (00:06:38):
Yeah. Well, I mean most US Communists, it was the place, if you were truly anti-racist, you would be a communist. Although most of the time people think communism meaning the economics... My parents were economic communists as well, but... But even the way that we were brought up, nobody had private money in our household. Nobody. And it has to do with how my own family functions now. But anyway, so that is that. Then I go to college. College already is the Vietnam War period. I do remember I had a job in the kitchens to help pay for school. And I remember waking up one morning and there was a picket line outside the cafeteria. And again, it was just kind of this memory bank. I did not know what it stood for but I knew I could not cross the picket line. That is just how I was brought up. So I remember going back to my dorm and then trying to find out what it was. And I was a student worker, but this was at Ohio University. Most of the people really were Appalachian poor and I worked with women, uneducated. They were at poverty wages, so was I, but I was a student, so it was not comparable. You know?
SM (00:08:16):
So you were at the Athens campus for your undergraduate degree?
ZE (00:08:18):
Yeah.
SM (00:08:19):
What was your major there?
ZE (00:08:21):
Political Science.
SM (00:08:23):
And what years were you there?
ZE (00:08:23):
I was there (19)64 to (19)68.
SM (00:08:27):
Unbelievable, my first job was at Ohio University.
ZE (00:08:31):
Oh, yeah?
SM (00:08:31):
Yeah, I started in (19)72. I went to Ohio State Grad School, in (19)72 got my master's degree. Then I worked at the Ohio University of Lancaster campus as Assistant Director of Student Affairs. And I know it was one of the most liberal schools in the state of Ohio at the time. And what really got me when I got there was the fact that they had purged many, many students out of that school. And they went from a campus of 18-5 to 13-5 in (19)72. And what saved Ohio University, were the branch campuses, which was at Lancaster. I think they had one at... Oh God, [inaudible]. Well, they had three branch campuses. We had 2000 students, so it had really helped them and they did not go under. After Kent State, I guess all hell broke loose.
ZE (00:09:20):
Yeah.
SM (00:09:21):
And I had some unbelievable experiences of being in that conservative community in Lancaster.
ZE (00:09:26):
Yeah.
SM (00:09:27):
But I lived in Columbus, I commuted. But...
ZE (00:09:30):
Well, so anyhow.
SM (00:09:31):
Yeah.
ZE (00:09:34):
So that actually, the politics there about the strike, became... I became very involved in the class issues that existed in Athens and worked and was trusted very deeply by many of the real workers as opposed to student workers. And then I was pretty active in anti-war stuff.
SM (00:10:02):
Did you have Dr. Hunt for any of your classes? Ron Hunt? He was a professor for the science labs.
ZE (00:10:07):
No.
SM (00:10:12):
Was there any generation gap with your parents? Because obviously they influenced you and you had the same values in terms...
ZE (00:10:18):
No. There were not...
SM (00:10:19):
You did not really have any generation gap issues because you were...
ZE (00:10:22):
No, I mean we were a real community because of the hostility in which our family existed. But later in my life, when I became a graduate student and was doing my PhD in feminist theory and was also becoming very active in the women's movement, as a socialist feminist but still in the women's movement, I had enormous conflicts with my father who really believed that communism was sufficient, you did not need an autonomous women's movement. So the politics, the political struggles that we went through were within progressive politics, they were not your normal left, right, or whatever.
SM (00:11:09):
I know that Dr. Johnnetta Cole, who I really know...
ZE (00:11:11):
Oh, sure. I know her.
SM (00:11:12):
...I am a big fan of hers. Her very first book, I think, was Sister President. And in that book, I remember reading years ago that she had a conflict there when she was in college because she was first of all, an African American. And second, well, she knew she was a female too, but there was a lot of pressure where she was going to school that you concentrated on race first and gender second.
ZE (00:11:36):
Right? Yeah.
SM (00:11:37):
Did you see a lot of that within the African American community during the times you were at... (19)64 to (19)68 in your PhD, that in the women's issues, that it was more dominated by white...
ZE (00:11:51):
A lot of them were. I mean, the mainstream women's movement, clearly white dominated. I became very involved in the early parts... When was it? I think it was maybe around (19)76 actually. Angela Davis, me, and Bell Hooks, the three of us did a big event at Haverford College. Hortense Spillers was the provost there then, and it was called Racism and the Women's Movement. Clearly, that was just huge conflicts that existed because the assumption about the whiteness of women or even the language that Blacks and women, Blacks are men, women are white. And then of course, Black women would say, "And we are just supposed to be brave." Okay?
SM (00:12:40):
Right.
ZE (00:12:42):
That is my whole life. I mean, all of my books, everything is about this question. So it is like I cannot really do it quick.
SM (00:12:53):
That is what is great about the interview process. We had asked questions I never expected to ask. We had JL Chestnut, the great lawyer who wrote Black and Selma on our campus many years back, 1990s, mid 1990s. We had the Black student union in that room. And the question I am asking is this, he started his lecture to talk about Selma and he looked over in the room and he says... Looked at the African American women and said, "I am very proud of you. You are doing great things." And then he looked at the men and he went after them. And it was almost as if the African American female in mid-1990s was very successful in life, whereas the black male is still having major issues because... Be in prisons and everything. And obviously, these males were going to be successful because they were in college and the... But they were a little shocked by it, and it was a great learning lesson. And to me, when you are talking about women's issues, that African-American women in the mid-(19)90s compared to African-American men in the mid (19)90s, obviously they were way ahead. In this man's eyes.
ZE (00:14:03):
Yeah. But I mean, we cannot... There is not time to...
SM (00:14:05):
Right.
ZE (00:14:08):
That is just also post-Reganism, it is the whole restructuring of the penal system. There is a whole new Jim Crow here and Jane Crow as well. So, I mean a lot of it is structural transformations and repositioning of women's labor, and particularly Black women's labor in the whole global system. I mean late (19)90s already. So the idea that you blame black men or that black men are the way that Cosby talks about it, or even Skip Gates, it is really, I think of incredibly retro politic. What you were asking is about black women, did they see a hierarchy of relationships between gender and race? And Barbara Smith, a well-known black feminist that I often have done stints with years ago. One time she was asked by a kid in the audience, which has been more difficult for you being black or being a woman? And Barbara said, "I am always both. So cannot answer that."
SM (00:15:21):
Wow. How has the relationship between men and women changed since 1946? Now, this is a broad question here, but we are looking at the boomer generation and I am trying to see what the women of the boomer generation, can you describe some of the changes that have taken place since 1946 with respect to some of the laws that were not in the books at that period after World War II, maybe even the activism, the movements, the creation of organizations, the sexual revolution of just some of the things that kind of define the women that were not born until after World War II?
ZE (00:16:08):
Well, again, I mean, I just actually started writing a new talk for this keynote that I am doing in Australia in about four weeks. And the question really is, for me, you need new feminisms just always need new politics because the structures of power are always changing. So on the one hand, it looks like everything has changed and everything has changed and nothing has changed. And both of those things are simultaneously true, I think. So mean, again, my answer would be different if we talked just even a year ago, but today, majority of women in the labor force, there are more women in the labor force in the US right now than there are men, first time ever historically. So the fact that there was in the early (19)70s through the (19)80s, enormous access to abortion. Right now, there is much less access to abortion. There are something like 80 percent of counties have no federally funded clinics at all. I have a daughter in medical school right now. In most medical schools, abortion is not being taught. Legally, totally the same. Okay. Roe v Wade, (19)73.
SM (00:17:36):
(19)73, yep.
ZE (00:17:37):
All right. But then there have been, and I did a whole book about this. There have been a series of about six different huge decisions that have whittled away at abortion, particularly for younger women, and that you need more consent, etcetera, from parents, doctors, etcetera. But the biggest issue right now is that although, and this is what I would say is abortion remains legal. So women in the US have the right to abortion, but they get to choose to have an abortion, but they do not get to have one. In other words, the access. And that is really. As we have become a much more unequal society since World War II. I mean post-World War II, it was a bit of a boom. And then we have been moving to now where we are one of the most economically unequal, I think one of the top five countries in the world. And what is his name? Jude, what is his first name? He has been writing all this stuff in the New York review of books. He was actually saying that inequality is much more devastating a problem for a society than even poverty is meaning the extremes of wealth and poverty.
SM (00:19:00):
And women still only make, and was it 80 percent of what a man's salary is?
ZE (00:19:07):
Anywhere between.72 to.77 cents on the dollar. But then of course, you still have sexual ghettos in the labor force, then you have, where you have women in the labor force in areas that did not used to be the case. You are still.77 cents to the dollar. So the sexual hierarchy of the labor force exists. But again, change. Well, 1971, you have a law that says sexual harassment on the job is illegal, did not exist before (19)71. You have all kinds of, again, laws that have changed the ability to bring charges of rape. You have even date rape law. I mean, all of that is new. Yeah, okay. A lot of the domestic violence law, new. And that all comes from technically a radical feminism that argued that the personal is political. And therefore that really is, I think, just one of the most revolutionary ideas of the last century. That idea has transformed politics every which way, including Bill Clinton and his penis. So...
SM (00:20:45):
What do you think of, I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, and she was very nice, and we got her on her campus. She is a distinguished lawyer and she has not changed one iota from the Phyllis Schlafly from the (19)50s in terms of a couple of things she said. "The troublemakers of the (19)60s are now running the universities, and they run the departments." And she was, I think, referring to women's studies and some of the other areas. And then she said she was wanted to run for political office, but she asked her husband, her husband said, "Please do not run." And so she did not run because she was one to please her husband. That was the most important thing, was pleasing her husband and not pleasing her.
ZE (00:21:30):
Oh, I mean, I have written on her. I spoke with her one night. She was disgusting. She comes out and she says, I want to thank, I forget his name, for letting me be here. And when I stood up, I said, I want, I am really happy to say I did not have to thank anyone for being here.
SM (00:21:48):
The second wave is what happened in the late (19)60s of feminism. One of the things that I have noticed in all the interviews is the amount of sexism that was really prevalent in just about all the movements. The anti-war movement was well known for being sexist in the civil rights movement too. In fact, I remember we had a program once where we had a speaker that said of Dr. King, were alive today and be embarrassed when he was talking about not having very many women. There were Dorothy Heights. You look at 1963 in the march on white, you see Dorothy Height over the right and Mahalia Jackson singing, but very few females. And even in the Native American movement there was sexism, in the gay and lesbian movement there was there is sexism. I could not believe it. It is prevalent in all these central movements. Was that the major thrust as to why women left some of those movements and really started that second wave was because of the sexism and the movements of the late (19)50s and (19)60s?
ZE (00:22:49):
Well, I mean, clearly, I mean, there is just many, many different ideas about that. But on the whole, for women who were political activists, many of them did feel as though they needed to really make their own autonomous space. And there was even a big difference between saying that they were not separatists, they believed in coalition, but that they really needed autonomy to be able to give voice to themselves within larger communities. And I am a little on the young cusp here in that, I mean, I was very involved in the anti-war movement, but really it was not sexism that took me in that movement that took me to the women's movement. It was actually the intellectual work I was doing. And also given my own upbringing in terms of communism and realizing that there was a system of patriarchy and masculinist privilege that no politics theorizes or addresses. And even today, what is so interesting is the minute you talk about anything that is related to sex or gender, none of the normal political categories work. So you can have right-wingers and even feminists coming together on particular issues because the issue's related to the body. And it has no place in any political theory.
SM (00:24:47):
I remember that going back to the movie, The Way We Were. I remember the scene where she is out there speaking, and of course people were throwing all these words to toward Barbara Streisand, but it was like they were negative, so to speak. And of course, Robert Redford was fascinated by her in the end, but because she was so different.
ZE (00:25:10):
Right, exactly. Well, that is what this guy says about my mom.
SM (00:25:15):
What I said here, the describe the second wave of what were the forces that made it happen and describe the boomer women and the roles they played. One of the things that is been interesting in the people I have talked to is in respect to the Civil Rights Movement, they said, this is not a boomer movement. The Civil Rights Movement was already well established, and the youngest boomers were probably 18 years old when all these things were happening. Although they did Freedom Summer in (19)64, we all know about the white students, predominantly Jewish students who went down with African American students. And so you cannot deny that. And that many of the people of the free speech movement had the experiences of being there and Freedom Summer, even. Abbie Hoffman and some of the hippies were down there at that time, but they were a little older than the boomers. They were like the pre-boomers. And then the other thing in development on the women's studies on college campuses, would you say that is a big plus that boomer women have...
ZE (00:26:15):
So what are you defining as boomer women kind of starting when?
SM (00:26:20):
Boomers are born between 1946 and 1964. But I have had issues just about everybody has the issue with, they do not like the term boomers. They do not like defining generations. And many of them do not even like Tom Brokaw. Greatest generation, come on. They do not like these generational things. They talk about events, they talk about periods, not about generations. But when we are defining that young boomer women of the (19)60s and the (19)70s and right into the Reagan period there...
ZE (00:27:00):
Well, I guess to me, it would make more sense to actually call those particular women. They were feminists at that time. So the most significant movement of my lifetime, for me, was the women's movement. It nurtured me, it gave me strength, it made me very brave. And that is where I got my sustenance. I was in an all-male program, all male professors for my PhD, and I was doing work, it was actually on the relationship between Marxism and feminism and political science, which was for most of my professional life, an enormously male dominated field, when my husband would sometimes go with me to the national meetings, he would say, "This is worse than lawyers." I mean, it is like all men. And now that is changed some, but I did not care. I was fascinated by political theory. It still fascinates me. But I am a political theorist who is an activist as well. I do not think theory, if theory cannot be used, it is not, to me, theory. Theory has to really articulate the presence and movement of your own being. So it is not something that is foreign and disparate. And that is, of course, how I try to get my students to think about it. So the point here though is that these feminists did, many of them fought very hard for women's studies. Now, I would argue that a lot of women's studies programs today no longer have the clarity of politics that they had initially. And I was part of some of the earliest fights at the University of Massachusetts, actually. Some people wanted to call it women's studies and others, including myself, wanted to call it feminist studies. And there was a huge debate about whether women, I women itself is a term that already authorizes a system. And what we were saying is, we do not want to be part of the university as it exists, as feminists. We want to change the university, we want to change the base of knowledge, we want there to be new things to be studied. And there has been, I think that the struggle no longer exists, but through the (19)80s and early (19)90s, it was a fabulous struggle on college campuses, I think. About really whether you wanted to be mainstreamed as a women's studies program or feminist studies or gender studies as it is called more often now, or whether you really wanted to be a dissident location in the university. In other words, that you were trying to... That there is just a contradiction in terms that you cannot really create the kind of knowledge base that you want. Meaning here, again, if the personal is political that no academic discipline is set up without the parameters of those really the borders between those realms in economics, it would have to be that the family is an economic unit, not that the economy exists outside of. So the point here was that it was just huge conflict and that the conflict was good and that, you know, you really wanted to bring that conflict onto your campus. That does not exist today.
SM (00:31:20):
But where would you put that political correctness? Would that be part of that debate too? The PC thing that was so big in the Chronicle higher education that was books have been written out.
ZE (00:31:30):
Well, the PC thing, I think, was just really, it was a right wing part of progressive politics, and it was just a way of trying to, again, be able to contain and authorize as though there are only certain answers are acceptable. Whereas I remember a few times in my own classroom where someone would say something and say, "Well, I do not know if this is politically correct." And I said, "No, actually there is no correct. That is the point here." Now think, okay, but the idea that you want to take when people are trying to get you to think openly and then you come back with what the old stuff, which is just to say that there is only one way to think. So to me, that was not even interesting.
SM (00:32:36):
But what you are talking on basically about this debate over women's studies is like the (19)60s, the debate over the war in Vietnam, the movements and all the issues within the movements, it is a continuation, which is a sign of activism. And activism is continuing. Whereas some people are saying that a lot of those people just went off to make a lot of money, raise their families, and they realized at a certain point that idealism goes by the wayside. Do you believe a lot of people within that generation continue today to believe in the ideals that they had is when they were young? Because one of the critiques of that period is that, it was a period, and it was a unique time, not a unique generation, but a unique and different time that allowed them to have the freedoms that today's students do not have. because they have to work. And so...
ZE (00:33:33):
Oh, that is just bullshit.
SM (00:33:34):
Yeah. But how do you feel about your generation or the boomers?
ZE (00:33:40):
Well, again, the people that I who had been involved with, then none of them went off to make a lot of money. Are there people of the boomer generation who were completely self-centered? Yeah, but that is part of the problem with this phrase, boomer generation. Okay. So I mean, the point here is that you just, I mean, it is kind of a false construction. The boomer generation is just these people who by accident, happen to share a historical moment. Okay. But that accidental or random sharing gives them nothing in common other than the shared historical moment. Yeah. So if you want to say that historical moment was one of opportunity, etcetera, that existed, but simultaneously with that was existing struggles against the Vietnam War, struggles against racism, and then the real struggles against patriarchy and sexism. But those are not...
SM (00:35:01):
You raised a good point. If you were pressed, and only if you would not even do it if you were not pressed. But if you were pressed and you do not want to use that term boomer, would there be another term? The other terms that have come out is that the Woodstock generation, the Vietnam generation, the protest generation, the movement generation, knowing that when, another thing is one of the criticisms of the generation of (19)74 to (19)78, I do not even know the exact numbers here, is that only really five percent to 15 percent, depending on whatever person you are talking to or book you have read, were involved in any sort of activism. Anyways, the 85 percent to 90 percent, 95 percent people just went on with their lives and were influenced by the times. But we were not out there protesting, and we were talking both conservative and liberals here now were not inbound in any of the movements, but we were still talking about a large number. If we were talking 74 million, even 5 percent to 15 percent is a large number. So yeah, you raise a really good point here, because so many of the people I have talked to cannot stand these terms.
ZE (00:36:15):
Who, well, I mean, can understand. I think that one can take a term and use it and say that the term itself is, it is important because it creates a continuity of your thought, but that at the same time that continuity is false or I do not like false. The continuity is much more complex than unity. There is no unity here, although there might be continuity. And then the real issue is that within the boomer generation, if you want to give that as the, or Vietnam, I would call them movements, Vietnam, the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, that there were movements and that some people were in multiple movements who also happen to exist in this period called or identified as the boomer generation. But that really, on some level, the problem with the term boomer is the idea that was these were the ones who actually made it, right? But in a lot these movements, nobody was interested in making it.
SM (00:37:43):
Do you remember that moment where you have already mentioned how important the women's movement was in shaping you, inspiring you, being the force that drove you in your life. Do you remember the moment when you left the anti-war movement or any of the other movements and said, "This is the movement that I most identify with?"
ZE (00:38:04):
No, because I have always been more, I mean, because the civil rights movement is like when I was five. And I mean, even the work that I do, I have always worked with more black feminists than white feminists. And it is so much of the work that I am recognized for, and the rest of the world is the intersections of political struggles. So when I went to Bosnia or Cuba, I mean, it is always because I refuse to... It is not the problem with seeing the women's movement, even as a singular movement, okay, it is made up of just cacophonous differences.
SM (00:39:00):
Worldwide. Yeah, global. Look, that is the question I have later on. I will ask it now. And that is, when did the women's movement become global? Because when you talk about the second wave, you know, read the first wave, you talk about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and then you about the period in the early part of the 20th century, and then the suffrage movement. And then you have the second wave movement of the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, but it was the United States movement. It seemed like the only person that seemed to be global was Eleanor Roosevelt who worked...
ZE (00:39:41):
But there were movements everywhere. I mean, and my newest in my book, Against Empire, one of the problems here is the idea that feminism is western and feminism is the United States. There were Egyptian feminists doing incredible things in the 19th century, you know, you have feminisms everywhere. The idea that now there are some countries that they have not used that term feminism, they will talk about women's movements. That is a much more encompassing concept. But that really what you are, if I can be so bold, what you are really saying is when you say, when did feminism become global? It is really...
SM (00:40:37):
It has always been?
ZE (00:40:38):
Yeah. When did the United States begin to recognize, when did the West begin to recognize other feminisms across the globe? All right. And even a lot of people talk about global feminism, and that is a way that they try to, it really means the women's movement in the US across the globe. And in my writing, I always talk about feminisms across the globe rather than global feminism. But if what you are also asking, early 1970s is really the beginning of the global economy. I mean, the modern global economy, and again, working with women of color, given the slave trade, okay, capitalism has always been global, so you got to be careful even about what, but the new modern, cyber, global, early 1970s. And is it interesting that, of course, that is when you start to have much more publicness and public viewing of the feminisms across the globe.
SM (00:41:47):
Where does Eleanor Roosevelt come into this? Because Eleanor, she was such an exception of a First Lady. To me, FDR was racist in some respects. And well, she put him in his place many times and she protected her husband. But obviously we all know about the incident at the Lincoln Memorial with Marian Anderson and her quitting the daughters American Revolution, the Declaration of Human Rights that she was found in the United Nations. She seemed to be in the 1950s, a female that was so at the forefront of everything. I find it interesting also, it is just a commentary here that the three people that had the biggest FBI records in American history are Martin Luther King Jr. Eleanor Roosevelt, and John Lennon. Eleanor Roosevelt? They must have worried about her because she was saying things that... Does she play in your thoughts, does she play any role at all in terms of an inspiration to those that found she died in 1962?
ZE (00:42:53):
Well, I think she was an inspiration to what you would call, I mean, of course, Blanche Cook, who...
SM (00:42:58):
Oh yes.
ZE (00:42:58):
She thinks...
SM (00:42:58):
Cook, yes.
ZE (00:43:02):
Me? No, she was not an inspiration for me and personally. And politically, I think that she is an inspiration within a kind of notion of liberal feminism.
SM (00:43:15):
I got to turn...
ZE (00:43:21):
And I do use these terms pretty technically, but liberal feminism here, and I mean that very much in terms of women who basically did believe that women should be given the same chances as men in our capitalist society. There was no criticism of capitalism as needing a system of patriarchy that could never give women equality. And Eleanor Roosevelt, on the whole, she was a liberal feminist, and liberal feminism is imperial. And it is used to, I mean, in my most recent political and intellectual work, I have really argued the way that feminism has been ill used by the United States to justify the wars, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the idea here of women's rights and fighting against the Taliban, etcetera, etcetera. Whereas the United States does not care about women's rights, not there or here.
SM (00:44:33):
Wow.
ZE (00:44:36):
But the argument, again, though, I am at this point in my life, I am uncompromising in the importance of the politics of every different form of feminism on this globe. And how could you not think that this is not the most central political struggle when everybody just, they need to wrap up, women not let you see their face need to [inaudible] their bodies to why is it that we have a medical plan? The one thing that could not be agreed on was abortion politics, East/West Germany, when they are trying to come together and unify, the only thing they could not agree on for a united constitution was abortion rights. Hello. So the point here, all right, and this has just been in really recent stuff with all of the issues around immigration, and the silence always is about the female in those dialogues.
SM (00:45:50):
I find it interesting too, my niece had a baby and she is finding all kinds of issues because of the fact that where she works, they have no place for privacy and this is an un... I have now read that this is a problem all over the country. When they want to nurse their child at work, there is no place for privacy they have to do in the lady's room. And then there is also the thing about the three month of the six weeks or three months, everybody agrees it should be three months of leave. And then it is, well, there has been a lot.
ZE (00:46:26):
But all I am saying is, how could anyone, right now, with more women in the labor force than men, how could anybody not think that there should be a daycare plan in this country? Yet, not a word. Now, my thing is the more silent something is, the more important it is politically. The noise...
SM (00:46:48):
Why are not there more people like you? Because of the fact we are talking about, okay, I am overuse this term. We are talking about boomer women who were in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, got involved in the women's movement. Many of them gone on to become corporate leaders and so forth. Where are, are the women who we are talking about...
ZE (00:47:08):
Those are your boomers who, or someone like Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice. I mean, the point here is, and we have not even gone there, that part of when you asked what has changed, and I said, well, everything has and nothing. So, just the fact that Hillary Clinton is flying around the Secretary of State. But also what is interesting is that she lost her campaign because she could not get it right. She really just screwed herself royally, I think by running as his wife. And that just was not going to do it. She either had to run as her own self and maybe she could have won that way.
SM (00:47:56):
Some people even said if she had divorced him after his presidency that she may have won. I read that.
ZE (00:48:01):
Well, no, but she wanted it every which way. But what is interesting is that in the end here, she was radicalized by the people who did support her in the end, which were older white women. That is who supported her. They were probably a lot of your boomer people actually. All right. But everybody else hung her out to dry. So is not it interesting that now that she is Secretary of State, she and Obama have said that women's rights have to be central to the US foreign policy. So I am just, now that is new and different. Okay. That is never been said before. Okay. Now whether that means anything is just something totally different.
SM (00:48:53):
The great writers of that period, obviously you are really into books and reading and ideas. The free speech movement, to me, I think it is one of the greatest things that ever happened in higher ed. I, that is my degrees and Mario Samuel and Bettina Abigail and all those people, I just love them because it was about ideas. The university is supposed to be about ideas and debate. And so have we gone back in the university, the university, I interviewed Arthur Chickering, who was the great educator education identity, and he was surprised that I asked him to be interviewed, but he is retired now. And he said the biggest problem today on university campuses that he is really upset with is we have gone back to corporate control of universities. And when you look at the free speech movement back in the (19)64-(19)65 of Berkeley, that was one of the reasons they were attacking the university. It was what Clark Kerr was saying about the multi diversity, the corporate takeover. And he said the knowledge factory, just that term factory turned students off. Seems like we are going back to that again.
ZE (00:50:05):
Oh yeah.
SM (00:50:06):
And I think that might be part of the problem with the attacks on women's studies, black studies, gay and lesbian studies, is that whenever there is a threat to the bottom line, things seem to disappear. Are you worried what is happening on universities today? What I am getting at is that the lot of the people that are running today's universities are those boomers that experienced what we went through in college, but now they are running universities and they are using the experiences maybe in not so good a good way or whatever.
ZE (00:50:41):
Oh, I think that the university system in this country is in total crisis, total ethical, political, financial.
SM (00:50:54):
I am sensing the corporate takeover again. Decisions being made...
ZE (00:50:58):
Well, yeah, I mean there is...
SM (00:51:00):
Especially in that tough economic times too.
ZE (00:51:02):
Well, but I think also what is being done is that the tough economic times is also being used to justify political shifts that, and I mean, I said that straight out to our provost. I said, "Look, if you want to make changes, say what you want, those changes. But do not say that it is for the economic crisis because what you are trying to do here has nothing to do with the economic crisis."
SM (00:51:30):
I think there is the fear of controversy again, and whenever there is controversy, but debate is controversy.
ZE (00:51:37):
But the other thing that is also difficult is that so many of the junior people now, they really, they have been educated and have moved through and become professionals, and all they know is neoliberalism.
SM (00:51:55):
How important, what I was getting at here was the books, the writers of the period when you were in undergrad and graduate school, the Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, certainly Gloria Steinem and what she did, the political powerhouse of Bella Abzug. She was from New York and I was from New York. So they were powerful voices, very powerful voices. And Mauricia, I am going to actually be interviewing Susan Brown Miller in a couple of weeks in New York City, and I heard she had some issues with Betty Friedan or debating him or something, but she was also in that group who was also in Freedom Summer and also wrote a book, a children's book on Shirley Chisholm. And it was really involved. Were there any influences? Were any of those people in Kate Millett?
ZE (00:52:48):
Yeah. No, these are not my people.
SM (00:52:50):
Those are not your people.
ZE (00:52:52):
I knew them. I worked with some of them. Bella Abzug actually asked me to, when Carter was president, he held a forum in, actually it was in Texas, and it was, what do women want? And Bella Abzug called me and asked if I would come to the meeting and I said, "No, I will not come." And she said, "Why not?" And I said, "Well, that bullshit. They know what we want. We are supposed to tell them and they are going to give us what we want? No, I will not come." So she actually talked to some other people and they called me about that. And they said, Zillah, go and try to get them to think in the terms that you are talking about. And I said, straight out, "The work I have done is I have tried to get Marxist to become feminists. I do not know how to talk to liberals, why they should become feminists." And so they said, "Well, do it. Try to do it." So I said, "Okay." And that was the beginning of a whole new, I mean, actually the politics that I have done, it is not like I sit in a cubby hole and think about it. That was the next stage of my life. I mean, my earliest work when I was in my 20s was Marxism and feminism, given what I came out of then this was happening in our country, the Betty Friedan's, etcetera, which I just thought, "Okay." But look, who was she writing about? She was writing about white middle class women in the suburbs. Okay. That is not really interesting to me. I mean, definitely not what the age I was, the politics I came from, get a life. So anyhow, so the next stage really was, so why should liberals? And I still remember I was on a run and I thought, "Okay, so what would you say to someone like that? Okay, you want equality with men. Okay, now, okay, as a Marxist sealer, what would you say? Well, which men do you want equality with? Everyone of who you want equality with rich men, right? Rich white men. But how about the working class man? You want equality with him, well we already kind of got that." But anyhow, and then out of that politics came a book that made me pretty well known in a lot of... It is called The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism. People there were so open to becoming radicalized as feminists. And therefore, my whole argument was in that stage of my life that if you become a radical feminist, you cannot remain liberal.
SM (00:55:49):
Wow.
ZE (00:55:50):
Okay. It is just a conflict in terms.
SM (00:55:53):
What is a liberal feminist?
ZE (00:55:54):
A liberal feminist is someone who believes that you can attain equality and freedom for women like men in capitalist, patriarchal society.
SM (00:56:07):
Is that Gloria Steinem? Is that what...
ZE (00:56:08):
Mm-hmm.
SM (00:56:08):
That is And Ms. Magazine and Mary Tom and all that group?
ZE (00:56:12):
Yeah. Although it is interesting. I mean, Ms. just recently, I mean, I have been doing this work for, what, 35 years? Just recently has really started to say, "Zillah, will you do a block for us?"
SM (00:56:24):
Oh wow.
ZE (00:56:25):
So, things change. And politics does get more com, but Gloria Steinem?
SM (00:56:37):
I think another one was Caroline Bird. You, she wrote some books too.
ZE (00:56:40):
I do not know that.
SM (00:56:41):
Yeah, I think we have already gone over this. Where have the women made the greatest gains? I think we have already talked. Where is there still needs, where are the needs still today? What is the goal? We are talking global here now, we are not talking to the United States. What this book is about is mostly about the US. Although I am interviewing a professor at Harvard who teaches Vietnamese history when I am up there, and I am going to talk about boomer generation from the Vietnamese perspective, 3 million that died, which now only the people that survive will make up only 15 percent of the Vietnamese population. But I can really now try to get the other side of those who died. And where do you see, I will say this country, and where do you see the world in terms of things that women need that still have not been achieved? Is there one thing you would like to see in your lifetime that would happened?
ZE (00:57:55):
No, I mean, if we are, let us just talk about the United States. There is horrible poverty among women in this country. Horrible poverty right now. And there is also less, I mean, when you ask that, what do women... I mean, first of all, I do not really think that there are particular things that women need, but so much of what women need as human beings, they share with men. So, I mean, I have always deeply argued and believed that when people talk about women, you know, you think you are talking about something specific. And when you are talking about men and human, you are talking about the universal and the general. Well, if we look historically, what has happened is that we say that we are talking universally, and we would never get to the specific needs of what women need in terms of what makes us particular, like abortion, like reproductive rights, like prenatal care. I mean, the things that are particular to women. Well, the truth is, if we actually met women's needs, all of their needs, economic, sexual, racial, etcetera, well then everyone's needs would be met. Got to flip it. In other words, the more specific you get here, the more universal and human you become. So when you asked me what is it that women need? Well, what we need is we need a different economic system that does not racially profile, sexually profile, and exploit on that basis. People need to have what they need as human beings. And that does mean food, shelter, clothing, education, dreams, hopes. We are so far away from that in our country right now.
SM (00:59:56):
Do you feel though that universities are, that professors are sometimes still part of the problem? Because I have actually asked a couple of my fellow students to go into a class where they are talking about poverty, and the professor will always say, "There is the poor, there is the middle income, and there is the rich. And then raise your hand." Why does the professor always have to say that there will always be the poor, the middle class, the rich, and they one actually did. And basically tellable history has shown that there is always poor. So he did not get, it is forever. Itis part of the human condition. It will always be, maybe we need to be asking the question that it does not always have to be. That there is the ultimate, but we still we are always striving for something.
ZE (01:00:54):
But I just, at this particular moment that I think that our society has become, for your boomers, driven, isolated, competitive, and selfish.
SM (01:01:10):
How about the criticism of the women's movement, and this may be a right-wing thing, but it is all about identity politics. When the movements took place in the late (19)60s, we are not just talking about the women or all the movement, Civil Rights, the environmental movement, the gay legend, everything. It seemed to be, there seemed to be a unity. Now, whenever there was a rally, a women's issues event, you would see the anti-war people there. You would see the Civil Rights people there. You would see the, they would all be there. Now when you see protests, you see a single issue. It is kind of like the criticism is that it is identity politics now. It is not the, it is single issue, it is women's issues, it is Native American issues. Native American issues are not going to be at an anti-war rallying. Whereas in the late (19)60s, a lot of the movements were together. There was more of a sense of togetherness. And now there seems to be a separateness. You see it on college campuses where self-segregation is very common amongst college students. And when you ask the people who run the Affirmative Action Office or multicultural affairs, who I am very close to, they will say, "Steve, it is their choice. It is a different time. It is their choice. They still believe in working together, but they like to close their doors. They like to be around people of their own kind." When we were hearing that back in the (19)60s. So where has the progress been made? So I am, what I am getting at is, has identity politics really hurt each of the causes that we are talking about here? That when you talk about women's issues around the world, I think you can really identify if it is the United States. But when you are talking about what is going on with the way women are treated in the Middle East, I mean, I cannot even really identify with that. That is just plain wrong. And I would like to see groups coming together again that identify with a certain cause, but then they also care about this cause and so they are going to be over there fighting so that when you have the issues you are talking about that you have the environmental movement saying the what is happening to women here effect directly affects the environment, civil rights, Native American, gay and lesbian rights, you name it, they are all together.
ZE (01:03:43):
Well, I do think though, that there are, at this point, through some of the environmental work going on and related to actually issues around food and sustainability, that there is more and more, I think there is kind of less identity politics than there was for sure in the (19)90s. But I also think that what we are seeing is the incompleteness of some of what started to happen with what got called as identity politics, specifying particular needs within the larger community, which clearly needed to happen given that the specific needs were not being articulated. Then just as you are ready for some of that to really start to build interesting coalitions, you also have some of the most right-wing politics in this country that really starts to destroy the possibility of some of that unification. And so I think that oftentimes that term identity politics confuses the who really is at the helm here and really how the politics emerged. And I think that identity politics did, I mean, if we are going to use that phrase that it became pretty conservative, but that a lot of the conservatism of it was not about the identity politics or the particular politics, but really had to do with the way that then they were re splintered by the Reagan period, by the Bush administrations that really were, and even Clinton, I mean, Clinton was pretty bad on a lot of these issues.
SM (01:05:53):
See, when you had the Three-Mile Island situation, there was a perfect example over the environmental movement in the women's world should be united because it was affecting children and their futures. The same thing on the tragedy down in the Gulf right now. I see that directly as a women's issue. Why are you saying the women's issues? Because that is, we are talking about food, we are talking about reproduction, we are talking about a lot of issues here. I mean, the environment in the women's movement to me, seem like a great mix in so many different areas because it is about the future of the human race.
ZE (01:06:26):
Well, I mean, in Africa, most of the leaders of the environmental movement are women and women's activists.
SM (01:06:35):
It is interesting that one of the questions I have asked everyone is the blame game that is often that I got to be unbiased here and saying it, but that when Newt Gingrich, I asked him to be interviewed. And, of course, I have asked him twice to the interview and he said, "No." But in (19)94, when he came into power, he along with other Republicans or conservatives, make comments that [inaudible 01:07:00] another one in many of his books, that a lot of the problems we have in the world today and in society today goes right back to that (19)60s and that (19)60s generation, that is a term they do not call them the boomers, the (19)60s, generation, (19)70s, that the sexual revolution, the drug culture, the breakup of the family, the divorce rate, the lack of respect for authority, the beginning of the isms, it is all about me, me, me, me, and not about we, we, we. And then Dr. King was always talking about, we-we. He always preached we, but they are very critical of everybody that was involved in that timeframe. And how do you respond when you hear, even Mike Huckabee has this TV show, I will not even watch it. There is a constant little jabs in there. I do not dislike him as a human being, but I do not like the jabs. And certainly even John McCain, when he was running for president or when Hillary was running before she had to drop out, he made comments about her too, being within that generation, even though he was a close friend of her. Those little snide remarks. And we knew what he was saying. How do you respond to people like McCain, Huckabee, Gingrich, who is a boomer, and George Will, and people like that. I know they probably sue me if I put them in. So that is part of the question. And so.
ZE (01:08:34):
You mean about their...
SM (01:08:34):
How do you respond when they say that the reasons why we have problems in our society, the breakup of the family, which could be a women's issue, lack of respect for authority, the marriage does not mean that much. A lot of them do not believe in same sex marriage either the man and a woman, either it is like Beck, the Beck Show or O'Reilly or Hannity and Home Hannity, that group. They are powerful influences on the conservative side, Rush Limbaugh being another. And when people listen to them, oftentimes they believe itis fact what they are saying. They have that much of an influence over people's thinking.
ZE (01:09:20):
Well, their depictions, I think are just totally faulty. They are historically inaccurate and they are politically pretty naive. I do not see the so much of what it is that they are saying as valid. And again, the whole issue of the me generation and the self-centeredness, of course, people said that about feminism from the start. It was the idea that women were selfish about their own needs and not concerned enough about family needs and children.
SM (01:10:15):
If you were asked, and this is again a very general question, but you have known a lot of boomers in your life. You have probably taught boomers and you have had friends who are boomers. What are their strengths and weaknesses? Can you generalize? We are talking about a generation now that might be different than the World War II generation that is certainly different than millennials of today that are on college campuses. And certainly that Generation X group, which really despising boomers, we had programs on them. Were those born from (19)65 to about (19)80. They did not like boomers.
ZE (01:10:56):
Well, again, I mean, for me, given what we have kind of covered today, to me, the boomer generation is really, it was one of the last periods of successful and multiple political movements in this country. I think the richness of anyone living in this particular boomer generation is that they have been nurtured by the sense of possibility that can exist through collective action. And I think that in the post boomer period, that has not existed in the same way. The anti-Iraq war stuff, it never got mobilized at the level of the Vietnam War. Now there are real reasons for that. There was a draft, it was a whole different economy. The way that we were at war with people so disconnected from that war at this moment. But to me, the roots that I have in the movements I was a part of have enriched me exponentially.
SM (01:12:34):
Who are some of the people that, you mentioned [inaudible], but who are some of the people that your parents or your brothers or your sisters and brothers and you actually worked with or met during the time of your activism prior to getting your PhD?
ZE (01:12:53):
Well, when I was little, [inaudible] was a friend of my father's, and then there were just lots of people in, I was really such a kid. I mean, I do not know all the names of... Many of them were famous people at the time when I was really young. Our house was always filled with activists. I mean the people like Martin Luther King, that whole generation, I do not know who, I mean Julian, I think it was Julian Bond actually, who was the lawyer for my parents when they tried to take us away from my parents because of the time when Gia and Julian were in detention. They were challenged in the courts for being... It does not make sense. I would need to be more careful about people's names for...
SM (01:14:10):
Well, I know Julian, so I interviewed him early on in my project.
ZE (01:14:17):
I am pretty sure he was the lawyer who, and then people in Atlanta, like Asa Yancey, and they were part of the Civil rights movement. Of course, in terms of my own life, Angela Davis, Jeanette Cole, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Barbara Smith. I mean, these are all people, again, very well known in certain arenas.
SM (01:14:49):
Do you remember also some of the specific protests you were at? Some people were in 1967 at the Pentagon when they levitated the Pentagon or some people were at People's Park Berkeley in (19)69.
ZE (01:15:06):
The first one I remember is 1971, and it was the first all-women’s March against the Pentagon for the Vietnam War. And actually in my house, I have framed one of the incredible posters, I carried it then. But that I remember as kind of really a first kind of autonomously, meaning as myself, as opposed to just my parents, my sisters, stuff like that.
SM (01:15:41):
See how we are doing here, we still good. One of the questions I have been asking two things. The issue of trust and the issue of healing. We took a group of students, I have said this, that I have asked this question to every single person we have interviewed, 170. But it was partially because the students came up with a question. In 1995, we took a group of students to Washington to meet Senator Edmond Musky, and that was part of our leadership on the road programs. And he had just gotten out of the hospital. I did not know that when he arrived, but he had been ill. And the question was this, due to all the divisions that took part in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, divisions between black and white, male and female, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops, those who did not at all, with all the assassinations that took place during that timeframe in (19)68 and the riots and the cities and the burnings and all these things that the current generation of students that I was bringing had only read about the history books. Do you think this was the beginning of another civil war? Did we come close to another civil war where the divisions, and secondly, do you feel that this generation, this boomer generation, is going to go to its grave comparable to the Civil War generation not truly healing from the war and all the divisions that took place? It was a broad question. It is about healing. I will tell you what Senator Musky said after you respond. But do you think, and then this is why I am going to be meeting with Robert J Lifton because I want to get his thoughts on the psyche and his thoughts on not just those who were in the war and protested the war, but the whole generation. Do you think there is an issue of healing here that even the divisions that you have had as you have gotten older, something really still stirs you when you are going to go to your grave really upset with like Susan Brown Miller, she was upset with, she had the division between her and Betty Friedan. I do not know. I do not know. I will soon find out what that song, but I read about it. So I heard it was pretty intense.
ZE (01:18:06):
Well, I do not know. I think that that question is maybe works better for people who had an identity and a political life during the Vietnam War and do not feel like they do anymore. I mean, for me, you heal and you re heal and you are scarred again and you heal again. And so, I mean, I have been through the stuff with the Bosnian war, particularly with women. I have been very involved with the Afghan and Iraq wars. So Vietnam was very significant at one moment in my life. But that is in the past. And I live in the present. And I think we have to remake our present all the time. So I do not know, life is, I have had a lot of pain in my life that has nothing to do with politics. I have lost my sisters to cancer when they were very young. I have struggled myself with cancer. I have a fabulous daughter who I [inaudible] the world that she is entering. So I mean to me, I do not get to not heal. I have had to heal.
SM (01:19:40):
That is brilliant what you just said because Senator Musky, I think the students are hoping that he would talk about 1968 because of the convention and all. He did not even mention it. It was to me, the whole question we were asking was about that. He said that we have not healed as a nation in the issue of race. And then he went, as we saw back in when he said he could not run for president, where he might show a tear in his eye. Well, he did show it. We had this on tape. He did not answer for about a minute. The students are looking at each other. What did we just do here? And we saw the tear. He said, "I have just spent the time in the hospital. I have been very sick." And he died sick within six months after this. And he said that, "I just saw the Ken Burns series and touched my life. 430,000 men died in that war. The south almost lost an entire generation. Now that is hard to heal from." And so he said, "The issue of race." And then he went on explain Why?
ZE (01:20:55):
Yeah, but I mean for me, what is going on in Rwanda, the way that people have had to repair themselves, the incredible atrocities in the Congo right now, I mean as a woman on this earth. But the point here is that you just do, I mean, do not know.
SM (01:21:29):
The other, just a good question of trust because a lot of the things that I have read state that this generation as a whole did not really trust a lot of people. And of course I can remember that experience as a college student where not trust. A lot of the people in this generation and particularly in the new left, did not trust anyone who was in a position of authority or responsibility, whether it be a university president, a United States Congressman or President, even a rabbi or a minister or a corporate leader. Anyone, you just cannot trust your leaders. And a lot of it was because they had witnessed political leaders lying, whether it be the Gulf of Tonkin, Watergate, other experiences. Do you see this as an issue within, even in the women's movement, the issue of trust that eventually, I remember what a professor said in my Psych 101 at Binghamton University once. He said, "If you cannot trust other people, you are never going to be a success in life." So there comes a point when you have got to trust others. And I do not know what your thought on thoughts are on the issue of trust, if that is an issue within the generation.
ZE (01:22:47):
Well, again, it is a made-up issue. I mean, do not trust anyone over 30. I mean clearly, all of that. For me, given my own childhood, just generational stuff, just has not really been much of an issue. And the question of I believe in people. I believe deeply in people. And if that means trust, I mean, fine. But I just think that the greatest challenge is as that the burdens that are created in this world that if you have no other choice but to believe that you can make an imprint and a difference. And that also my own, again, in my own life, people have always been there to help me through. And in my most recent book that is, it is about the Obama election. I mean...
SM (01:24:18):
When's that coming out?
ZE (01:24:20):
It is just out. It is called, The Audacity of Races and Genders. And then the subtitle is, A Personal and Global Story of the Obama Election. But there is one, it is made of 25 frames just, and it kind of goes all over the map, all over the globe, all over personal. And I actually, I was diagnosed with a rare and difficult form of cancer. And I had had surgery and then was coming through chemotherapy. And the election was, I mean this was during the primaries and there was this real tension that was developing between Obama and Clinton. And it was the issue here of he was a black man. She was a woman. He was black. She was a woman. And once again, in a lot of circles, the discussion was that feminism was going to get pitted against race. So several people who were working in the Obama campaign and friends of mine from who knew them etcetera, said, "Will you write something on this?" And I wrote this piece, which is in the book, it is called Hillary is White. And with the internet the way it is, it just went viral and it was translated into a gazillion languages, went throughout Africa. I mean, it was just unbelievable. And it was that into the campaign into, but I was really up.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Zillah Eisenstein
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Eisenstein, Zillah R. ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Scholars; Political activists--United States; College teachers; Eisenstein, Zillah R.--Interviews
Description
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Dr. Zillah Eisenstein is a scholar, political activist and Emerita Professor of Political Science at Ithaca College. Her work focuses primarily on political struggles for social justice. She was able to document issues such as the rise of neoliberalism (both within the U.S. and across the globe), the growth of imperial and militarist globalization, injustices of racial laws, diseases and affirmative action in the U.S.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-05-26
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In copyright
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.47
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
86:35