45 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/90031e42d659c7ca5763871875ca4ba3.jpg 1ff1ff891becf40006356538fb2095e6 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/26f2707fd361354719492264d3886f2c.mp3 6269af5d5e862c9fac359acd0a5b5963 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 Oral Histories Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories from 1960s Binghamton Alumni Description An account of the resource In 2019, Binghamton University Libraries completed a mission to collect oral interviews from 1960s alumni as a means to preserve memories of campus life. The resulting 47 tales are a retrospective of social, professional and personal experiences with the commonality of Harpur College. Some stories tell of humble beginnings, others discuss the formation of friendships; each provides insight into a moment in our community's rich history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Irene Gashurov 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 2017-2018 Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/browse?collection=18">McKiernan Interviews : 60's collection of Oral Histories</a> 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 2019-07-08 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Steven Diner Year of Graduation 1966 Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text University Professor Steven Diner is a Harpur College alumn who went on to work as a Professor of History at George Mason University and served as Chancellor from 2002 - 2011 at Rutgers University- Newark. As a History Professor at Rutgers, Dr. Diner specializes in immigration reform. In 2011 Diner was the inaugural recipient of an award named in his honor by the Rutgers Institute for Ethical Leadership for demonstrating a long-term commitment to 'strengthening civil society through ethical leadership.' Dr. Diner has published two books and numerous articles on higher education and public policy. 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. Steven Diner Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Diner, Steven ; Gashurov, Irene Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource University Professor Steven Diner is a Harpur College alumn who went on to work as a Professor of History at George Mason University and served as Chancellor from 2002 - 2011 at Rutgers University- Newark. As a History Professor at Rutgers, Dr. Diner specializes in immigration reform. In 2011 Diner was the inaugural recipient of an award named in his honor by the Rutgers Institute for Ethical Leadership for demonstrating a long-term commitment to 'strengthening civil society through ethical leadership.' Dr. Diner has published two books and numerous articles on higher education and public policy. 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 2019-07-08 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Dr. Steven Diner.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2019-07-08 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni Extent The size or duration of the resource. 70:02 minutes IIIF Item Metadata UUID fca0a349-cc9a-4a72-968d-aa8e5302782f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/9188b5a18f78ad90c188e0650897ad58.mp3 9edbb3625af9323648635dc62fe856b6 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 Oral Histories Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories from 1960s Binghamton Alumni Description An account of the resource In 2019, Binghamton University Libraries completed a mission to collect oral interviews from 1960s alumni as a means to preserve memories of campus life. The resulting 47 tales are a retrospective of social, professional and personal experiences with the commonality of Harpur College. Some stories tell of humble beginnings, others discuss the formation of friendships; each provides insight into a moment in our community's rich history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Irene Gashurov 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 2017-2018 Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/browse?collection=18">McKiernan Interviews : 60's collection of Oral Histories</a> 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 2019-08-29 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Mabel Payne Year of Graduation 1971 Biographical Text Mabel Payne is owner and president at Research, Analysis, and Development in Education (RADE) Associates, LLC. After graduating from Harpur College with a degree in history, she completed advanced degrees in education from SUNY Albany and in organizational psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. She has extensive experience in designing and implementing professional development and train-the-trainer events; post-secondary career and educational group and individual counseling; grant proposal design; and report preparation and editing. Digital Publisher Binghamton University Interview Format Video or Audio Audio 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 Mabel Payne Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Payne, Mabel ; Gashurov, Irene Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource Mabel Payne is owner and president at Research, Analysis, and Development in Education (RADE) Associates, LLC. After graduating from Harpur College with a degree in history, she completed advanced degrees in education from SUNY Albany and in organizational psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. She has extensive experience in designing and implementing professional development and train-the-trainer events; post-secondary career and educational group and individual counseling; grant proposal design; and report preparation and editing. 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 2019-08-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Mabel Payne.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2019-08-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni Extent The size or duration of the resource. 66:10 minutes IIIF Item Metadata UUID 287d99d8-f2b6-488b-a7a1-12ab7d7add1c https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/11e96e7b6f69bdd302e037857363dbd3.jpeg 25968e418b636a12ce371c37e884d620 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c0f0f216fe0ed4a578bcad7eee85f77c.mp3 8830f30d5cf228b4e9400020677347e9 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 2022-01-28 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bruce Margolin Biographical Text Bruce Margolin is a criminal defense attorney who specializes in marijuana and drug laws. Margolin grew up in Los Angeles, California. He has been practicing law since he was 25 years old, after earning his law degree from Southwestern Law School in 1966. In 1999, Margolin was awarded the Criminal Defense Attorney of the Year award by the Century City Bar Association. He has been executive director of the LA chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws since 1973. He is the writer of the Margolin Guide to Marijuana Law. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:38:32 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Law; drugs; Los Angeles; The trip to India; Criminal attorney; Practising law in California; Late 1960s; Communal movement. Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bruce Margolin IIIF Item Metadata UUID 9ccbbf0b-f678-4838-8442-713a713cbf37 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4b23a2afaf99b6dab64a85355200660d.jpeg 563439027250c4068115ecb23206422c https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ae54f44eedda68f83ba71a6c6393bf79.mp3 774e1898e207f751fb6e3974a9f60e42 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2022-01-27 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Tim Spofford Biographical Text Dr. Tim Spofford, a native of Cohoes, NY, is an educator, author, and editor. Spofford's early writing was inspired by the killings at Kent State University and Jackson State University. In his first book, Lynch&nbsp;Street, he describes in detail the killings of Black Students at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. Spofford received a Ph.D., in English from the State University of New York at Albany. He has taught writing and journalism in schools and has produced numerous articles that have appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, Columbia Journalism Review, and Mother Jones to name a few. Spofford is the author of two books. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 2:19:29 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Rebellions; Riots; Voting rights; North and South; College students; 1960s; Liberalism; Radicals; Republican Party; Race issue; Neo-segregation; Resistance. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Tim Spofford Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 27 January 2022 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:03 All right. TS: 00:08 All right, let us roll. SM: 00:09 All right, Tim, I, as I do with everybody that I interview, the very first questions that always kind of around the same and that is, please describe your early years where you grew up. Your parent's background, your early experiences in elementary and high school before you went off to college, your background. TS: 00:28 Sure. I was born in Bennington, Vermont, a small city, mill city. My parents were working class. They had factory jobs before they married. My father had one after he married. And he, when I was three, moved to Troy, New York, another mill city, mid-size on the Hudson River, not far from the capital, Albany. And, they stayed there a brief time. And he-he was working in a steel factory. Allegheny Ludlum Corporation and Watervliet to another city nearby. And, a number of Black people started moving on to our block. And it was probably, it was probably I say a number. I think my mother said loads, but I was probably one family and they moved out. My parents were extremely poor and uneducated, did not have, did not finish high school, even. And-and they fled across the river to an all-white town Cohoes, New York, c-o-h-o-e-s, New York. And that is about 11 miles north of Albany, the capital. And-and that is where I grew up. And-and they were poor to start with, and they got poor, my father was an alcoholic, child abuser, and a gambler and not a good combination to raise seven children. SM: 02:24 Wow. TS: 02:24 I was the oldest. I was the oldest. And while his pay was not bad, by the standard of the day, the fact that he had seven children and all these bad habits, made us one of the poorest families in the city. What is quite germane is that, as young as maybe five, I started hearing stories that I heard throughout my childhood, from playmates, school friends. I remember walking to school one day and-and some friends that was walking, the walk was about a mile. So, we, we talked a lot. Anyway, they said that Black people moved into our city once and we were hustled out in the middle of the night. I heard that story. And I do not think it was just an urban legend. There were no Black people in our city and there were Black people in virtually all the other smaller and midsize cities around us. We were a city of about 26,000 back then. And so, I was looking at a book one day, "Sundown Towns," by a guy, I think it is Loewen, l-o-e-w-e-n. And he writes about, basically ethnic cleansing. And towns, towns where Black people were either purged from the city, burned out, lynched out, shot out, whatever. And-and in towns where, where there were signs up at the boundaries, saying in no uncertain terms, Black people and they did not often use the word Black, they used a less, a more expressive term. That you need to be out of here by sundown. And anyway, I believe his name is Loewen and, l-o-e-w-e-n, I think, he had a website and sure enough, my town was listed. There was a memory of a resident from the (19)40s or (19)50s, who recall police escorting a Black woman to a bus to get her out of town. SM: 05:02 Wow. TS: 05:03 So, I mean that is my parents were, you know, your garden variety racist. They were from New England and small town, city, Bennington whereby the way, abolitionist, Frederick Douglas ran his newspaper I believe, or worked with, worked on "The Liberator," I cannot remember which, which of the abolitionist's papers were printed in that city. And you know, I mean, New England has a proud abolitionist tradition. But it also has a proud racist tradition as well. And my parents shared in that they were also anti-Semites. Not, you know, not, I think garden variety, none of the most virulent, overt type, but just, you know, real racist and they were not afraid of using the N word. SM: 06:01 Wow. TS: 06:01 And so, I-I was a pretty conservative kid, I went to a Catholic high school, which kind of softened the more hard-edge racism that I encountered even from teachers in public school, because of the church's firm belief in charity, and so on. So-so then I went to Plattsburgh State College, State University, State University campus, in the Canadian border, and-and I read probably two books that really began to change my complete political orientation. And, one was the Kerner Commission report in 1967, which I read for one course. And then the, J. William Fulbright's "Arrogance of Power," about Vietnam, those were the two burning issues of the (19)60s. And I started college in (19)67. So those were the two burning issues. And early on, I read those two books like my sophomore year, and I began a pretty rapid change, becoming quite a bit more liberal. And then in (19)70, with the Kent State killings, it really disturbed my very little teacher's college community, which also had big air force base, a SAC, Air Force base with B-52 bombers, and a city of maybe 30-35 thousand, something like that. But it really unsettled that there was a power outage, it might have been sabotage and all the kids emptied the dorms. And we congregated and went into the street, and marched through the city, and went down to a big monument overlooking the Lake Champlain and-and then we marched to the federal building. It was a big, concrete, federal building, kind of a grand, neo classical building, and we took control of that, and I might say, we, I was there but I cannot take credit as any kind of leader. But, and we stopped the, processing of draft records. And there was a ceremony, we had a lot of turmoil, you know, student strike, I mean these things were real common. I wrote about these kinds of things in Lynch street. So, we had a student strike and four crosses, white crosses went up on the lawn, beside the pond in the commons of my college campus. And those represented the white students. And then, the 10 days later, there was a killing at Jackson State College in Mississippi. And there had been, oh, a, a, an attempt to burn the ROTC building there. As part of, you know, all the nationwide unrest after the Cambodia incursion and the killings at Kent State. So, there was something like that at Jackson State too, a protest in the daytime that was peaceful and, but there was always unrest on that campus, especially in spring because white people, racists, often would come through, straining through the campus on, on this major artery. They had come in their cars, and they would shout racial slurs out the windows and-and then the kids would throw rocks at them. And so there have been a number of shootings, which were related to this conflict over a period of years in the spring, and one was in (19)63, James Meritus, a famous, integrationist that you interviewed, he helped organize a number of protests along Lynch Street. That is the name of the street. And there were shootings that year. And then, then there was shootings along Lynch Street again, in 1967. I believe yeah, it was (19)67, I am pretty sure it was-(19)67. And then in (19)70, and then in (19)70, but what happened in (19)70 really overshadowed anything that happened in the prior years. There were a couple of kids wounded, but no one was killed, well, yeah, actually. Yeah, there was a non-student who was killed in (19)67, Benjamin Brown, and all of this activity happened on Lynch Street. And then, and then in (19)70, about 70 officers, roughly half from the State Police, roughly half from-from the city police. And they all came in armed, and state policemen had, they had some machine guns and rifles, and the police all had their pistols. And someone in the crowd of students did not, well, there was a crowd of students in front of a, a women's dormitory and they did not like the fact these police were coming out on their campus on Lynch Street. And so, one of them threw a bottle, and it was bladdered in the street near the police. And they all, not all of them, but many of them opened fire. And there were- SM: 09:03 Wow. Oh god. TS: 10:18 -literally hundreds of rounds, literally, hundreds of rounds poured into the dormitories, in front of them, behind them, into a Roberts dining hall, trees, they hit trees. I mean, bullets hit the ground all over the place. I mean, it was a mess. And they wounded, I believe it was 12 students. And they killed two and four girls were hospitalized for hysteria. I mean, you can imagine- SM: 12:56 Oh, yes. TS: 12:57 -something, something that horrendous, that many bullets, hundreds, and the shooting went on for 38 seconds. That is how long, it was, you know. And I think Kent was something like eight seconds. SM: 13:05 Thirteen-thirteen. TS: 13:14 Thirteen seconds, okay, that is the title of Joe Esther's book, "Thirteen Seconds." And this went on for almost 40 seconds. I mean, just think about some machine guns firing that long. In any case, I was horrified by this and-and one day, two black crosses showed up alongside the four white ones on my campus. And there was a little quiet ceremony, but there was no big turmoil, the likes of which occurred after Kent. And there was, 1-3 or 4 days of media hankering, hand wringing about Jackson State, but it was really pretty quickly forgotten. And I thought, jeez, you know, somebody's got to write a book about that-that is, cannot be forgotten. And so, it took me quite a few years, I got some training in journalism. And I got a master's in English, and I started a doctoral program in English; English slash Journalism at the State University at Albany and I have been teaching high school and including in my teaching a fair amount of Black literature. And-and then, when I got into the doctoral program I got into, Doctor of Arts and English it allowed a, it required actually a second field of study. I mean, mine journalism and an I went about getting myself some coaching from some very good teachers in nonfiction writing, journalism, long form journalism. And-and that was the, I asked that my dissertation be a, a book, a documentary narrative, reconstructing what happened at Jackson State and got permission, that would be in effect my thesis and but, I spent way more time, and way more money [laughter], and way more travel than almost anybody I knew at, at the university who went out for a Ph.D. And because I wanted a book out of this, I wanted this to count, I did not want it just to be on microfilm, or in a file cabinet somewhere I-I wanted it to be published and a lot of people recognize what happened. And so, I spent almost a year living in Jackson, Mississippi, and traveling throughout Mississippi and traveling in, to Washington, because a lot of the records, the documents were there, I bought all kinds of copies of documents, FBI, the FBI files. There was a, as you know, Presidential Commission that Nixon ordered to look into student, pardon me, to look into student unrest from-from those times, sorry, I apologize for my asthma. SM: 16:57 You are okay. TS: 16:59 And so it spend a good time, a good deal of time in Washington, and I could still see all the burn marks, the scorch marks on the buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue, right near the White House, and from buildings scarred by the Martin Luther King assassination era riots in 1968. SM: 17:28 Right. TS: 17:29 Those did not go away. Until I would say, it was probably the early (19)90s, late (19)80s. SM: 17:38 Wow. TS: 17:39 That was still had the marks of a, of a riot, what I call a riot quarter. And it was very disturbing. I mean, to see that go on that long. And there were all these other cities, Detroit, Newark, that really never sprang back, that really never recovered to the degree that one would hope. Those cities were really-really harmed. [crosstalk] And-and it just was heartbreaking, you know. And so, after I did that-that book, which was published by Kent State Press, I-I was a working journalist by that time, teaching college journalism and high school English and journalism no longer interested me and I was working at a newspaper covering education, which I absolutely loved. But at the same time, I-I was not happy. I wanted to write another book. And I wanted something more, or less perishable, something more durable to my work, and I picked this up also in Plattsburgh, I took psychology, I was a psychology minor. And one morning in this big lecture hall, my psychology professor mentioned, Kenneth and Mamie Clark and their research with dolls, and how they show that Black children were spurning black dolls in favor of white dolls. Because they were internalizing the resentment, or they were reacting to the low, to the mistreatment of Black people and-and were experiencing low self-esteem as a result. And just about anybody who had written on the subject of self-esteem and being Black had pretty much concurred with the Clarks, back then, concurred with Clark's understanding of what their research showed. And, but after the Black Power movement in (19)68, well actually it started, started in (19)66. But after really gained steam (19)68-(19)69 that-that, that belief has been widely challenged by scholars of all kinds. But in any case, I thought that I would like to write a book someday about this, Kenneth Clark and his wife, because I-I learned that they were very close, that they were very much in love and they worked together, their, all their married years. And-and all this really appealed to me as a second book about civil rights. And, it was not till 1993 that I started working on it part time while, while working as a journalist and-and that is hard to pull off for a particularly small paper where they are always getting you to crank out stuff constantly, as opposed to the New York Times where you write a story maybe once every three weeks. But I did it. And I, you know, I started it. And, but then I-I wanted to move south here to Florida, to work at a better newspaper. And it was very hard for me, very rough job, God it was even harder, the real sweatshop. And so, I-I put off the reporting, but continued the reading. And I did a lot of reading, and a lot of, Kenneth was extremely prolific. And I had hundreds of pounds of his, of his writings. [laughs] SM: 22:17 Wow. TS: 22:18 In interviews with him, I mean, you know, he just wrote tons of stuff, and tons of stuff was written about him. So, there were interviews of him, countless, I mean, he was the Black scholar of his era, the (19)60s and (19)70s. And so, I started, I was doing a lot of that, but eventually I said, I want out of this newspaper business. And I was 58 years old, retired from newspapering and went into this project full time and-and at the same time, a woman I have been needing to talk to at length for in-depth interviews had moved nearby in, in Sarasota area. This was, this was the Clark's daughter. And-and I would interviewed her only once, but she was living, she was on a visit to, to New York, but she was living in, first in Switzerland and then in Hong Kong, [laughs]. I could not very well write the kind of family chronicle, the in-depth biography that I wanted to write about that family, that Black family living in the suburbs. But, but starting out in Harlem, I wanted to write a really intensive biography about the way they lived, the way they thought, the way they, their activist lives, and so on. And the daughter was my key. And they had a son too, and he was very helpful to me. But, he lived in New York and I can interview him no sweat in New York, so I had no problem interviewing him there. But what Kate Clark Harris did for me was, as their daughter, she threw up in her garage door and open and allowed me to, to comb through several huge boxes. And I am not talking about little boxes like you get in an archive, but I am talking about huge boxes, stuffed full of family documents and-and it was a treasure trove. But the Clarks also, and this is why I needed to get out of the newspapering in business. The Clarks also had five hundred boxes, smaller boxes that kind you have in archives, in the Library of Congress, and I needed the time away from work, to read, and study, and copy an awful lot of those. Because as you know, when you are writing something in depth, you need copies in front of you, you cannot just walk down to the library when the library is 1000 miles away from you. And so, I spent nearly a year living in Washington, going through all that. And I interviewed Kate over a period of, you know, probably eight, nine years, long, you know, long interviews, probably, we had about 13, more than a dozen interviews, some shorter than others, but a lot of long interviews. And I finally got a chance to write that. And I spent 13 years researching, and writing, and editing, and finding a publisher, it took a long time. Nobody really gave any, me any encouragement in the publishing industry. Everybody said, "Nah, nah nobody is going to be interested in that." And but, finally, now, I think with Black Lives Matter, and after the Obama administration, I think there was, I think there was a renewed interest and I had three possibilities. One was Simon and Schuster, but ultimately, I went with Source Books. It was going to come out in August, the editing is done except for the proofreading. And-and that is my story. SM: 26:53 That is a great story. And-and I have the book, "Lynch Street," right in front of me here. I have a first edition copy of it. So- TS: 27:01 No kidding. SM: 27:02 -yeah, I have got some markings in it. But I think it is a great book. What I like about, I might repeat some of these things that you just said, but I want to go over them. I was very impressed with when you were doing the research for the Brooklyn Street, the number of trips you took down to Jackson, Mississippi, how you describe the environment from where you were living in upstate New York, or wherever it was, and then going there. And-and it is, it is the history, you go into a little bit about the history of Jackson, Mississippi, because of all the racism and the segregation and all the other things even before Jackson State was a college there. Could you talk a little bit about the history of Jackson, in terms of, because that is also I believe, was the home of Medgar Evers- TS: 27:08 Thank you. Yes, it was, yes it was. SM: 27:50 -he was killed there. TS: 27:56 Yes, he was. And, Jackson was the frontier capital city of a state that had slavery on an industrial scale. Most of it in the Delta region, where all the cotton plantations were. And then, after slavery, there was the, I should add, after Reconstruction, there was this, soon after Reconstruction very soon after it, sooner than other southern states. There was a you know these-these rebellions all across the state. Riots staged by thugs, white thugs, to frighten Black people from the polls. There were shootings, there were killings on election days to keep Blacks away. And so, even though Mississippi had a very-very large Black population, the whites kept a total iron lock on political power. After reconstruction, it was very rapid counter revolution, once those Union troops left, and Jackson was that capital city and-and there were a good number of, of Reconstruction era politicians who were Black, and some of them went to Congress even. John Lloyd Lynch was one of them, and that street in the Black neighborhood, the Lynch Street neighborhood was named for him, I am trying to remember the name of the other fellow who lived in Jackson. First name was Jim and I cannot remember his last name. He was a Mississippi legend, Black legislator too, of prominence and he was buried on Lynch Street, and a Black cemetery there that still has this extraordinary Reconstruction era, 19th century monuments to them once they- SM: 30:34 Wow. TS: 30:35 -died. It is quite a, it is quite a sight on Lynch Street. But in any case, Lynch Street was the Black neighborhood, there was another one, which was a pretty lively business district, [inaudible] street. And many of the Black people in the city, the poor Black people lived in little rickety shotgun houses, three rooms open, you know, and they were called "shotguns," there is lots of theories when they were called shotgun. These are extremely narrow little, basically shacks. And I was just shocked by the level of poverty- in Jackson, I mean, you know, a capital city not, not just the Delta, it was up in the Delta too, the most abject kind of poverty, just unbelievable. The squalor, the smell of the-these decaying structures, which I imagine were probably built during slavery days. It is something that a northerner never-never set eyes on, and I-I was just appalled at the poverty. And, but in any case, Lynch Street had those kinds of houses in the side streets, off Lynch, and a lot of, on Lynch Street there were a lot of fairly rickety, whitewashed, wooden homes on piers that were pretty poor, but others were more dignified. There were middle class people that lived on the street it, it was not really completely a slum, there were some slummy sections. But it was, the heart of the political Black community. The Masonic Temple was there. And that was, you know, a fraternal group, that was Black. And-and there were major funerals, held there. Martin Luther King spoke there on occasion. And-and that was like, almost the beating heart of that street and Medgar Evers, and a number of white activists in the early (19)60s, or mid (19)60s, or early (19)63, the (19)64, the integration, protests, a lot of those emanated out of that building, the Masonic temple and Medgar Evers spoke there all the time. And-and he had these like, t-shirts promoting integration, and civil rights, and he would hand them out there, he would speak and-and Black preachers would speak with him. And, there were a lot of civil rights rallies right there on Lynch Street. And in (19)64, during Freedom Summer, a lot of the, white as well as Black students from the north, and the South, a lot of them Mississippians, a lot of Black, I mean, they were living in the homes of, of Black adults on that street. And they were working in the civil rights movement during Freedom Summer- SM: 31:21 Right. Wow. TS: 34:17 - there, they are fighting for voting rights and so on. This-this issue that we are living through today, voting rights is hardly new. And it just tears my heart out to see what we are going through right now. SM: 34:31 Yeah. TS: 34:32 Because, you know, I lived to see, you know, I remember a time I could see a time when Black people had trouble voting, and I saw the places where they struggled to win the vote. And, poor Medgar Evers was gunned down right in that city, and his funeral was held in the Sonic temple and all the great civil rights leaders all over the country flew into Jackson for his funeral in that Masonic Temple on Lynch Street. And then when the two students who were gunned down, killed in Jackson, Jackson State University, Jackson State College at the time, when they were killed Edmund, Edwin or Edmund, I forgotten, Edmund, I think it is Edmund Muskie's chartered jet and flew congressmen and senators and-and civil rights activists from Washington down to, down to Jackson, and they showed up at the, at the Masonic temple for the funeral of Philip Gibbs when he was buried there. And when he was buried in the in the city, and I am trying to remember, I think the memorial service was also. But excuse me, the funeral was held in Ripley, that is where Philip was born. There I believe there was the funeral for Jimmy Green, James Green. That is- it, that was held in the Masonic temple. I wrote "Lynch Street," 25 years ago so I am, I am reflecting back. So anyway, so- SM: 34:33 Well- TS: 34:38 -I do not know, how does that, does that answer your question? [crosstalk] Town was rich, rich in slave history, in the politics of the slavocracy, a city rich in civil rights history. And I was very-very excited about being there and doing that research. I loved it. SM: 36:47 I was impressed with your, the number of times you went down there and how you described the-the environment, the trees, the humidity, I mean, everything was just, you know, compared to where you were, I think you, the book is very good, too, because of the fact that, you know, Kent State is well known, Jackson State is well known too, but not like, it evolved as you wrote in your book. I, that speech that Nixon gave on April 30th of 1970, you know, did tear this, the-the universities apart all over America. And you do a great description in your book about all colleges, you know, women's- TS: 37:28 Right. SM: 37:28 -colleges, Black colleges, you know- TS: 37:32 Even seminary. [laughs] SM: 37:33 Yes, seminaries. I mean it, it affected everybody. And the thing here is that it was, it took place in Jackson, Mississippi, that had such a terrible history of its treatment of African Americans. And it was segregation. It was, you can see a lot of people did not probably know a whole lot about Jackson State now, I believe, the coaches, which is a pro football players, now the head coach there at Jackson State. And the question I want to ask here is, again, that speech, if you could put it in your own words, how that speech itself really tore this nation apart. Because Nixon at that particular time, was trying to de-escalate the war. And this was like, I, college campuses, how there was an escalation. TS: 38:27 Well, we sure did. And we were, we were outraged. And-and what young people today have a great deal of difficulty understanding is one of the reasons why we, (19)60s students were so activist was that our lives were in danger. [chuckles] I mean, this was not some philosophical, some abstract academic debate. Our lives were in danger. If you went to Vietnam, you had a pretty good chance of dying. And if you were working class, and you are from a working-class town, you knew people who went and lost their lives. And so, this was very much a part of everyday life, and to watch television, and see the president come on and saying, you know, remember, all that stuff I said about a, a draft lottery. Remember all that stuff I said about the Vietnamization of the war effort in Vietnam, and how I was going to be bringing the American troops home. Well, forget about that. I am, I am marching into Cambodia, and oh, my God, I mean, it was like, dropping a match on a, a tinderbox. I mean, it was just unbelievable. And I knew at the time because we were, our city had a sack base, and I knew Air Force guys. And I knew that they told me, they told me, I could not believe it. They said, "You know, we have been doing flights over Cambodia. And we were bombing Cambodia," and I said, "What? You are not supposed to be doing that-that is illegal." They said, they were very knowledgeable, they said, "Yeah, we know it is illegal. And, but it is really happening." And this was before, it, that April speech. So, I already knew about it, it was already very concrete to me. But to see the President of the United States, come on, and actually justify it, and announce it. Wow, I mean, I- SM: 40:49 These-these are your words. This is a quote that you have in your book. It is on page 24. And this is Nixon speech, speaking that night toward the students or the people who were protesting. And I will just briefly be mentioned here, "My fellow Americans, we live in an age of anarchy, both abroad and at home. We see mindless attacks on all the great institutions, which have been created by free civilizations, in the last five hundred years, even here in the United States, great universities are being systematically destroyed." And that was part of his speech. TS: 41:25 Right. SM: 41:26 And-and, of course, we all know what him and Nick or Agnew we are doing for a long period of time, calling them bombs. And I think you have said that in your book, too. TS: 41:36 That-that, that remark, even more than the speech. I mean, the speech was the abstract embodiment of the policy. And we were horrified by that. But when they actually, you know, off the cuff, referred to us, and I cannot remember which one if it was Nixon or Agnew, I certainly knew at the time. I think it was Nixon, when I heard that. I mean, I can tell you that that really drove a wedge between young-young college students and the Republican Party. And-and really, the whole country because most-most parents were pro-war. I mean, this was a working-class nation at the time. People were not all that educated, sophisticated, unaccustomed it was right after WWII, it regarded themselves as, [coughs] excuse me, super patriotic. And-and, you know, our parents were not supportive at all of our anger, and our lashing out at, at this, at this war, and this-this incursion into Cambodia. It drove a wedge through generations, and through classes of people and-and there were students against students in our town, and I am sure of towns all over the country, they were very-very conservative. Very loosely goosey, people on the extreme right, who were running around town, threatening to use guns against students, or to protect their-their drugstore or whatever, we had one guy like that, and there were, there were just jockeys who lost their jobs over this. I mean, they would, there were people who were making comments on radio, and television that lost their jobs. You know, professors that got in trouble for their role on the campuses. It was just an incredible, turbulent time. SM: 44:06 Well Jackson State and Kent State are so united in so many ways, not only because they, the remembrance events that Kent State have always included Jackson State, but, and vice versa. But the one thing that, is personal experience myself, is that on the college campuses in the late (19)60s, I was at Ohio State in the early (19)70s. The divisions between Black students and white students was pretty strong. TS: 44:30 Right. SM: 44:31 And the fact is that Black students were saying, "Well, we are going to just work on the area of civil rights and protest that way," whereas the white students can do the anti-war stuff. But when this speech was given on April 30th, and the students at Jackson State obviously you know, heard about the four killed at Kent State and then this happened, they were protesting the war as well. And it was, the, it kind of as you state in your book, very important. It united again, the civil rights people with the anti-war people. TS: 45:06 It, to some degree it really did. SM: 45:08 It is historic in my view in that reason. TS: 45:11 Yeah. Well, it was interesting to me that Joe Hester's book, alleges that the first student hurt by the National Guard troops at Kent State was a Black student who was, [inaudible] that is in that book. Black students were upset too, because they knew that they were being drafted disproportionately, and disproportionately sent to Vietnam. They did not have middle class white parents, who were doctors, lawyers, dentists, whatever, judges sitting on draft, local draft boards, deciding who was to be drafted or not. They did not have that clout. But, there were plenty of people who are white like that, and they got a break. And-and also, a lot of Blacks felt that they were being sent to the front lines and dying, and they were dying in disproportionate numbers to whites. These are facts that-that young Black people were very aware of. Again, it was not like this was an abstraction, that this was some academic debate. They knew this. And so, Jackson State had that attack on a ROTC building, there was a small fire. They had a protest, one day outdoors on the commons, that was peaceful, they cared. But, the funny thing to me is, though, that nationally, journalists tend to look through one lens at Kent, and one lens at Jackson. And-and I have never talked to a white journalist on the subject, who agreed that there was anything in common between the two. Almost all of them said that well that-that, that thing at Jackson was that-that was just civil rights. And that thing, that was just, that was just the war, those two issues were joined at the hip. SM: 47:36 Yes. TS: 47:36 I mean, those were the burning issues of the (19)60s. And if you are in the least bit liberal, you were concerned about both of them. And if you were radical, you were more concerned- SM: 47:49 Yes-yes. TS: 47:49 -just a little about both of them. And, there was a lot of common cause struck between Black and white students, there were a lot of panel discussions on the campuses that week or two of turbulence. And a lot of those tables, those roundtables, included students of both colors. And-and they were talking about this together and respectfully. A lot of white students were trying very hard not to take over anything that Black students wanted to do, to dissent. They treated them respectfully and respect was returned. That is, that was my experience from what I saw on television and personally in life, in real life on the campus. And it was, it was interesting, but the media did not get it. What the media saw was, the media felt that well, you know, those white kids, oh, you know, they were kind of like, dope smoking hippies with long hair at Kent State and-and they were wearing their kind of grungy, any worn regalia. And then those kids at, at Jacksonville, you know, they, they were kind of sharp dressers, and they were more concerned about civil rights, and conflict on Lynch Street, and the twain never met. I mean that-that was the attitude that I got. SM: 49:29 Yeah, they were, they were all wrong. And the fact is your book- TS: 49:33 They were wrong, they were wrong, yes. SM: 49:33 -people need to read your book and-and understand what happened there. You had some great interviews in the book as well and one of them was a quote, and this was the 35-year-old Jackson State student talking about the four killed at Kent State. Now I am not going to use some of his words, but this is the quote, "The kids at Kent State had become second class n's," you know, what n's stand for. Oh, I know, yeah, I know exactly who that was, yeah. So, they had to go. Anytime you go against the system, you become a n. TS: 50:03 Right. SM: 50:04 Regardless of your color. And-and that was a 35-year-old student at Jackson State talking about after the tragedies happening at Kent State. TS: 50:18 That is right. And you know, I have never forgotten that idea, that concept. And I had seen it a couple other times in my life. But I think it is true. I think it is absolutely true what that, what that young man said, and the thing was that our, our parents, our elders, had lost a lot of, they were disenchanted. They felt that they had created this really great world, this wonderful, technically sophisticated, materially rich, middle class society. And, these kids were turning their backs on it. While we were, I mean, it was there was a real anti-material streak to our generation. And we felt that older people were making compromises with the, over the lives of Black people here in the United States, and over the lives of Asian people in Southeast Asia, to keep their way of life, keep their own white privileged way of life. This was a feeling pretty general among progressive young people. And we were not all progressive, believe me. But so, there was a real wedge between the generations, then. SM: 51:47 Could you talk a little bit, I want to make sure that the world knows at least, these tapes do not forget are going to be, people are going to listen to these 30 years from now. People yet unborn. Could you talk about the two students who died? I would like the world to know more about Philip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green. I know James was a high school student. And I know that Philip Gibbs was a pre, a pre-law student at Jackson State. TS: 52:16 Sure. Philip, in some ways, was the most interesting, he was older and-and had political inclinations, therefore. So that is what made it, made him interesting to me. And the New York Times published a story saying that Philip was non-political, and was not interested in politics, and did not get involved in that kind of stuff. In other words, the suggestion being that he was completely and wholly innocent of any responsibility for the, for the Jackson State killings. Well, I agree with that part. Yeah, he was, he was innocent. But the thing is, he was not so innocent, that he-he did not have strong beliefs, and even actions regarding racism in Mississippi, because he did. He was an activist student, a high school student activist up in Ripley, Mississippi, a town that was once run by William Faulkner's, I think, grandfather or great grandfather, cannot remember right now. But anyway, who was assassinated there in Ripley in a town square. But in any case, Philip was, sat in on, at pools and theaters, cafes. He took part in sit-ins to integrate his town. He was very much an activist. And he, to be honest with you, I was told he really did not like white people. Because, let us just say that he did not come into contact very often with white people who liked him. And so-so he was that kind of kid. He was very political. He was very interested. Not so political that-that in, he was a leader in protests, and organizations like Snick, and things like that, no. But, when he was younger, he took part, as so many children did, in the demonstrations and protests in their towns of Mississippi, and in another small southern towns at that time. So that was Philip, and he happened to be in the wrong place. He was on a date that night. He just dropped off this girl, it was just, pretty much a platonic relationship, friendly relationship. It really was. I looked into it pretty deeply. And there were rumors about it at the time, but he-he was just walking across the lawn in front of Alexandra Hall after dropping her off. And he drops her off. He turns around, he walks a little bit, not very far. He did not get far, and he was gunned down. So, that is really sad. And then, I cannot help but call him Jimmy. Jimmy Greene was still a child. I mean, I cannot remember how old he was, maybe 14. And he was in high school. Jim Hill, that was the name of the high school. It was a segregated high school. Jim Hill was and-and Jim Hill was the other Black lawmaker that I was trying to remember. Jim Hill was a reconstruction era Black lawmaker, and he was buried on Lynch Street, in the Black cemetery there. But he went to Jim Hill and-and not too far from the high school. He went, he worked at a store, a little tiny mom and pop store called the Wag Bag. And- and, you know, he did he did, you know, just sort of manual jobs and he would, he was a car hop, he would, they, white people would drive up on Lynch Street, park at the curb. And Jim, Jimmy would come out and hand them their groceries, they would phone up first. And he would hand them through the car, through the car window. And, you know, and he set up, you know, gathered all the-the coke bottles and stuff that were stored to be recycled and that kind of stuff. I mean that-that is sort of work, sweeping up. Well, he was walking home, he lived in a little tiny rickety shotgun house. He was one of those poor kids that I was referring to earlier, lived on a side street off, off Lynch Street, off Dalton street, I think it was. And, he was just walking home from work, that is all. And he stopped to see what all the excitement was about. He was on Lynch Street behind the officers as they stood with their weapons. Some of them were facing, probably most but I am not sure, a lot of them were facing Alexandra Hall. But some of them were facing, behind them to protect police officers from any, any kind of rock throwing or whatever. But anyway, they were facing behind them, Roberts Dining Hall. And Jimmy was in front of Roberts Dining Hall near the sidewalk. And when the firing started, he probably ran, and he was shot right there. He was killed. And-and Jimmy brought money from his job. I mean, his parents had a lot of children. I do not remember how many they had. They had a very big family. And he was, I believe the oldest, I am pretty sure he was the oldest. And he gave his parents most of his earnings every week. And boy, they needed it. They really needed it. Those, those shotguns were really tiny-tiny places with just three rooms. And I do not know, I think the books tells you how many there were. They were, it was abject poverty. And, after the funeral, Charles Evers the brother of the slain civil rights leader, Medgar Evers. He gave them, he gave the family money to buy a house. SM: 59:35 Wow. TS: 59:36 And I interviewed them in that house. And it was not a shotgun. It was a very-very modest house, that could not have cost all that much but, Charles Evers, I mean this was his money. He did not have a fundraiser or anything for them. He just, he just, you know, in Mississippi real estate was not, Jackson real estate was not all that expensive, anyway, but I mean, really, he bought them a house. And they needed it. They really needed it, very poor. [crosstalk] It is sad story, so very sad story. SM: 1:00:14 Now, I think you mentioned that there is a memorial to them on campus that students walk by, just like they have at Kent State now. So, the students, many students obviously, probably do not know, current students, unless they know their history but, is that forever there on campus for them? TS: 1:00:37 Well, there was a, I think so, there was a small monument that looked like a, almost like a gravestone, a good size gravestone, in front of a men's dormitory. And I used to remember the name of the dormitory. I cannot remember it right now. But it might have been Sterling Hall, I am not sure. But anyway, there was a small monument there when I was doing my research in the, in the (19)70s and 1980. But then, the college was terrified that there would be another terrible incident on Lynch Street, because of white people driving through, and Black students are crossing the streets. And, you know, if somebody got hit by a car, or if somebody jeered racial, you know, racial slurs or whatever. The administration was terribly afraid that it would happen all over again, another incident like the three prior ones. And so, in the (19)80s, I believe it was, the state appropriated funds to put up a plaza, a big concrete plaza, to obstruct traffic from both sides, it was sealed off the street. And so, people could not drive through the campus anymore. And in that plaza, there is an inscription on it, and I cannot remember what it says. But it memorializes the loss of, of Green and Gibbs. And-and it, you know it-it honors those who were wounded there as well, if I recall. And it is right in front of Alexandra Hall, where the shooting took place. And the extraordinary thing is that if you, if you are there, well, let me put it this way, before the plaza was built, most students I talked to, and I mean, almost everyone had no idea what the bullet holes and Alexandra Hall from, now, I do not exaggerate. And I wrote a piece for The New York Times about, about the tragedy and-and I had a sentence in there saying that-that they did not remember. And, the copy desk told me that they were not going to accept that. They did not believe it, they did not believe that there were students there who did not know about the killings. Well, when I was doing my research, was in that 10 or 11, year period, after-after the incident occurred. The administration wanted to hush it up. They would not cooperate with me. And when it was an interview, they really would not. The president of the college would not talk to me. He was the president in 1970. He was still in office, and he would not talk to me. SM: 1:04:02 [inaudible] TS: 1:04:03 That is right. And-and the administration would not cooperate. I felt very fortunate when the library at least would let me go in and look at a, a little memorial collection of photos, and telegrams, and stuff that came out of that incident. And I felt very grateful for that. But they gave me a hard time. And I was shocked when they put that clause in and turn it into a memorial, but I guess they felt safe at that point. Safer because, more than 10 years had passed and without, without another terrible incident. And-and the fact that you know that, I think it helped everybody a lot including me. I felt better about the school and the administration, when they did memorialize what happened there, with this plaza, with the construction of this plaza. SM: 1:05:10 I have some, just general history questions. You are a historian. And I just want, you do not have to, really long answers here. But this deals with aeration. TS: 1:05:21 By the way, I apologize if I have been winded, [crosstalk] I got the impression you wanted me to, sort of, free associate. [chuckles] Oh, okay. What-what I will try to do is keep my answers brief for you now, and- SM: 1:05:29 One thing I do not want, I do not want to have, I have less of me and all of you. That is the most important thing here. But I just want to, hear your views on this as a historian, and so. And this dealing with an issue that- TS: 1:05:44 -if you want more, just ask for more. [chuckles] SM: 1:05:46 -Yeah, this is, as a historian, could you describe the racial progress with respect to what our presidents have done since WWII, and I break this down into four eras. The 1946 to 1960 era is Eisenhower and Truman. TS: 1:06:08 Okay, so you want to take that part first? SM: 1:06:10 Yep, yep, I am just, there is four of them, I just want to know what you think of Truman and Eisenhower with respect to race relations in America. TS: 1:06:16 Sure, okay. Harry Truman made the first move to, the first moves to desegregate the armed forces. Harry Truman, in campaigning for reelection in, pretty sure it was (19)48, had a civil rights plank, in the party platform. And he-he although a southerner showed a side of the party that we were not accustomed to seeing, pro civil rights, very surprising. And-and so that was his move forward. And- and he got a lot of grief for it because of Strom Thurmond of South Carolina basically ran against him and the Dixiecrat party, and-and that made it hard for Harry Truman to get reelected. A lot of Democrat, Democratic votes went to, to Strom Thurmond, the southerner, the segregationist, the Democratic Party was a segregationist party. That is important to remember. SM: 1:07:41 Right. TS: 1:07:41 It is not today, but it was then. SM: 1:07:43 Right. TS: 1:07:45 Okay, Eisenhower. His big claim to civil rights progressivism can only be that he sent troops to calm the situation at, in Little Rock, Arkansas, at Central High School, when there was a move to send nine Black children to study at Central, Central High School. And the-there was utter chaos. I mean, utter, utter chaos, terrible, terrible. Protests and-and beatings, beating of newspaper reporters, beating of like, photographers and cameramen, and slurs hurled at the children, the nine kids. They were kicked, and spat upon, and pushed down stairs, and oh, it was horrible, the way those nine kids were treated by the all-white, the rest of the student body which was white. And-and so there were troops patrolling the halls, and the grounds, and the street out in front and-and the governor then, Orval Faubus, Faubus was totally irresponsible at the time and stoked that I mean, he was a demagogue. And Eisenhower brought assemblance of rationality and peace to that situation. Assemblance, in part because he was motivated by the embarrassment to the American democracy created by this terrible, terrible thing. In Little Rock, the Soviet press went bananas over it, they loved it. They, they, this was a big propaganda gem for them. And, this was in the middle of the Cold War and we, the country hated communists. And, so this was his contribution. But in general, Eisenhower was pretty hands off on civil rights. He, another contribution he made but not a winning one was he nominated, Earl Warren to be chief justice of the Supreme Court. And Earl Warren had been a guy who had imprisoned or in turn Japanese, in western states during the war, and that was a, you know, a real black eye to him. So, he when, when he became the Chief Justice, however, he turned rather liberal, and went along with Brown versus the Board of Education. I mean, he-he worked very hard to get a unanimous and succeeded in getting a unanimous decision from the Supreme Court, to issue a ruling, striking down state mandated school segregation. And that was, oh, that opened the door to legislation, and court decisions doing the same to, to break down segregation, and in voting, and public accommodations, all through the south and even in northern states. Where there were, there were impediments to voting, even in states like Ohio, and unfortunately, there still are today. And so, that was a, a thing that he could claim to fame in the civil rights area. But he would not claim it- SM: 1:11:48 Right. TS: 1:11:48 -because he really was ticked afterwards, after that decision was handed down, and really rue the day that he had nominated Earl Warren. SM: 1:12:00 The, that was beautiful, the years 1960 to 1975, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, and Nixon. TS: 1:12:08 (19)60, (19)75, Kennedy first, pretty lame on civil rights. He, like FDR, before him and Truman, I mean, he was a, he was a Democratic candidate for presidency in a party that is, very much a segregationist party. So, he was hamstrung if he, if he did very much. He might not be elected, if he did a little, he would not get the Black vote. So, he tried to do as little [chuckles] as he could to get some of the Black vote. The Black vote at that time in 1960, was not solid, Democrat. I mean, there were many Black Republicans. They regarded the Republican Party as the party of Lincoln. The party that helped place reconstruction and put reconstruction in place. [coughs] Pardon me. So, there were things that, the Kennedy people did later on, that were more progressive. Robert Kennedy helped a little bit. But Bobby Kennedy tried to discourage the Freedom Rides in (19)61, he really tried very hard to get the Freedom Riders not to take their anti-segregation crusade on buses through the south. Because he thought there would be violence and there was, there was violence. And those young people knew that there might be and, but they were very brave, very courageous. And they wanted the world to see just how vicious white segregationists were in the south, to see that the south was essentially a police state. That is what it was. And by Robert Kennedy, so this is trouble for his brother. It was, it was, and that is what the activists wanted, they wanted trouble. And because they want, they wanted segregation gone. And they wanted to see voting and-and they were right, they were right, but boy, they were courageous. They took big chances. SM: 1:14:50 Oh, Johnson and Nixon. TS: 1:14:55 Okay, Johnson, well, Johnson is to me, a heroic figure, in the sense that he, you know, he-he really fought for civil rights legislation. Paradoxically, he used the n word all the time. He was a southerner, he knew it. He knew that he had prejudices. He was very familiar with that. I think he was trying to live it down. I think he felt some guilt about that. But he wanted a historic place in history. And he saw it as gaining, going to bat for civil rights for Black people. He did that. He also knew, I mean, he was very shrewd. He knew that this was going to evacuate an awful lot of southerners from the Democratic Party. And he was correct, because today, they and their progeny are largely in the ranks of the Republican Party. And so, the Republican Party has become a, what I-I, a word that I-I like to use, I like to utter is neo, it is, the Republican Party is now a NEO-segregationist party. And it, it does not stand in the schoolhouse door, and block Black people from going to school or university. But it is, it is shutting the doors, in my view to the voting sites, trying to discourage Black people from voting, and it is an old story. So anyway, Johnson was successful with the Civil Rights Act of (19)64 and (19)65, which opened like public accommodations and voting rights. And-and he did lots of other things, too. That is to the good, to the bad, off the subject of civil rights, the Vietnam War. This was of his making, for the most part, the-he inherited a problem of Vietnam. But he vastly enlarged it, greatly and it is, that is to his detriment. I mean, it is a shameful episode, that more than a million southeast Asians lost their lives in that horrible, really-really racist war. SM: 1:17:43 Nixon and Ford. TS: 1:17:47 Nixon was trying to turn the clock back on civil rights, but not so abruptly that he was exposed for doing it. He was trying to, he was no friend of Black activists. Not at all. He-he developed a southern strategy, what-what was called the "southern strategy," to win the democratic votes from the escapees, from the democratic Party who resented the integration legislation that Johnson promoted. And he benefited from that, benefited from those votes as people move from the Democratic Party, as southerners moved from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, and-and he used a lot of what we call today, "dog whistles," a lot of politely demagogic rhetoric. He and his vice president Spiro Agnew, to endear themselves to the southerners at the expense of Black voters. And but, he did not want to do it so abruptly that he would lose those suburban white voters. You know, because that is generally you know, the racist, the n word, the-the race baiting, that is not the style of conservative suburbanites. And he wanted to retain them. And so that explains, I think, part of that southern strategy, that dog whistle strategy. SM: 1:19:42 Did Gerald, did Gerald Ford do anything during his tenure? TS: 1:19:47 Well, geez, you know, I-I, oh geez. One other thing. Nixon, big thing. There is much more that I could say but, but I, Nixon is the busing, busing for the purposes of school integration was one of the hottest issues in 1970s. And in late (19)60s, and when George Wallace, a Democrat started winning, started gathering primary votes, in the presidential primaries for the Democratic Party, by opposing busing for purposes of integration, school integration, then Nixon came out and called for legislation to have a moratorium on court orders to achieve integration through school busing. And so, he went right into the column of the, what I would call I would call Nixon, a NEO-segregationist, that is the NEO-segregationist tactic of not using the n word, of not screaming and shouting, "Segregation now, segregation forever” but taking moves to achieve the same, the very same, end. That was Richard Nixon. And Gerald Ford, you know, I think it was just pretty much the same hands off, just let it go. Daniel Moynihan, a conservative Democrat, worked for Nixon and called for benign neglect of Black Americans in social policy, just let it go. We have, we have had an awful lot of turmoil in this country, just-just set it aside, benign neglect. And I think that is pretty much the policy, or the attitude of Gerald Ford. I mean, he was a, he was a conservative, he was not an advocate of, of civil rights. SM: 1:22:08 The-the next two groups, and then, then this will be the last on these questions on presidents, but it is an act of the (19)60s really, but it is the years 1976 to 2000. And of course, this is the beginning of boomers being presidents, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush the first, and Bill Clinton. TS: 1:22:29 Okay, Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter had been I-I think, you could say a segregationist in his, in pretty much his orientation, as most, virtually all white southerners were. But he did make progress, growth, there was growth there in Jimmy Carter. And there were even dog whistles in his presidential campaign that were kind of chilling, and I believe there were dog whistles in his gubernatorial campaign as well. To say, hey, look, I am one of the good ol' boys, you do not have to worry too much about me. During his presidential campaign, he-he made a statement that he favored preserving the, quote, "ethnic purity of our neighborhoods," ethnic purity now, what could that mean? Sounds to me like a housing policy that was not going to integrate neighborhoods. That is what it sounds like to me. And he caught a lot of hell for that remark, as he should have. He was not an outstanding advocate of, of civil rights, not really. He did hire Andy Young. The aid to Martin Luther King, Andy Young was a minister like King was, and civil rights activist just as King was, he was King's right-hand man. And he gave him the job of the ambassador to the UN, which was a very, a real plum assignment. And but then because Young met with, on the, on, on the QT with Palestinians. At a time when we did not have relations with the Palestinian, Palestinian authority. Well, felt Carter felt compelled to fire Andy Young, and that really, in other words, when it whenever it came to push, and shove, and if you could lose Democratic southern votes, while you would do what you had to do. And-and that is, that is what Jimmy Carter did. So, he was a tepid, I would call him a tepid, moderate on race. He had other Black appointees in his administration, which was to the good. But was he a, you know, crusader, crusader for civil rights? No, I definitely could not, could not say that. SM: 1:25:24 Reagan and Bush. TS: 1:25:28 Reagan was just-just-just terrible, just terrible. Right from the very first day, he announced his presidential campaign in the Shelby County at the Nashoba County Fair in Mississippi. The Nashoba County Fair, was always, I mean historically, the place where rabble rousing, demagogic political candidates showed up to give their speeches. And that was its history. There were some like way in winter. Perhaps the first progressive, Democratic governor of Mississippi. He gave speeches there too, but he did not give the kind of speech that Reagan gave. Reagan went there. And he said that he was for states' rights. And a very clear sign that sort of like ethnic purity, a dog whistle, that, hey, I am one of the good ol' boys. I am on your side, do not worry about me. And Nashoba County besides having that history of political demagoguery at that fair, I have been there. It is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. And that county was where three civil rights workers were executed by local law enforcement officers who are basically working as Klansmen to get rid of civil rights workers, to get rid of people wanted integration. And they killed Michael Schwerner, Ben Cheney, I believe it was Ben Cheney, Ben, I think, Benjamin Cheney and-and Goodman, Andrew Goodman. And Goodman, and Schwerner were white, and Cheney was Black, and they were executed and their bodies were disposed of, in earthen dan, and their car was burned, and tossed into the water, and a, a shameful, one of the most shameful episodes in, in American racial history. And-and so for Reagan to go to that county, in that fair, and to invoke states' rights was just appalling. He did plenty more, he tried to get rid of the liberal and he succeeded largely, to get rid of the liberals in the Civil Rights Commission. And he stocked the commission with, with reliable Black conservatives, he did all kinds of things that-that just made it very difficult for the movement to move forward. And-and set the tone for the (19)80s, which was a period, in the (19)60s, under Johnson, you know, there were all kinds of books about civil rights, all kinds of memoirs and-and polemical books about civil rights and segregation. It was a fruitful time to buy books and read about our Black fellow citizens. That was really common. By the 1980s, man, it is like the whole publishing industry just locked right up. And it was sad, it was sad, although, you know, a wonderful book like Toni Morrison's "The Beloved," toward the end of that decade was published that-that is a great thing. But the whole culture, just Black issues, were just, almost non-existent, just ignored. It was a terrible time. SM: 1:29:29 George Bush, the first of his four years. TS: 1:29:36 Well, you know, more of the same, you know, it is pretty much a question of inertia when you are talking about Ford, Bush, and Bush too, I mean, it is really basically inertia. I mean, that party is pretty much running on the southern strategy, of endearing itself to, to the Neo-segregationists’ whites in the south, and the Neo-segregationists in the north. And-and Bush infamously gave, oh, gee, I am, I am blanking out on his name. Now, one of his, one of his surrogates, and political consultants from South Carolina, I may not be able to dredge the name up just now. He died of brain cancer- -supply the name, if you can supply the name. Anyway, he gave him his head to, to produce these political ads for his presidential campaign. And-and one of them used the-the case of Willie Horton, a Black man who I think, if I am not mistaken, was convicted of, I will just say crimes. It was convicted, and I cannot remember exactly what the charge was. He was convicted, and he went to, I believe, federal prison. And when George Bush senior ran against Michael Dukakis of the governor of Massachusetts, the Bush administration, Bush campaign ran an ad claiming that Dukakis basically supported paroling people like Willie Horton, who committed these vicious crimes. And this ad was so demagogic, it was very effective. It was devastating. And it had the imprimatur of George Bush. It had his okay. And it was produced by a southern Neo-segregationist, who later apologized for it, he was dying of brain cancer. And he, and he actually apologized for, for, for doing what he did, and some of the things he did of a, of a highly insensitive racial nature. And so, enough said about George, George Bush senior. SM: 1:30:38 Oh, yeah. Yeah, Bill Clinton, because he is the first boomer president. TS: 1:32:42 I am, on this subject, I am just ashamed to claim him as a boomer president, not only because of what he did with Monica Lewinsky, [laughter] and that whole sexual affair, I-I loathed him for that. I was one of the Democrats at the time, who said "No, this is not something we can, countenance, playing grab ass in the, in the Oval Office with a 21-year-old intern." This is beyond the pale, he needs to, he needs to leave and Mr. Gore needs to step in and take over. But on the issue of race, I am, I am just thoroughly ashamed of Bill Clinton. His first year in office was in foreign policy, just a disaster. screwed up every step he took. Some, we sent some, I believe, a boat with some, I will call them law enforcement officers or troops, limited, limited number to intervene in Haiti too, to assist in Haiti. And then apparently, the story was that there were, there were some, there was some opposition that formulated on the docks, I think in Port au Prince, but maybe some other city in Haiti, and there were weapons shown, maybe a knife or two or whatever. And he-he, he basically, his administration turned that boat around and hightailed it back for the United States. That was an example of, of one foreign policy screw up after another. So, what did he do? One of the Black appointments he made was Clifton R. Wharton Jr., a Black man to run the state department day to day. He was not Warren Christopher, the Secretary of State he was, Warren Christopher's right-hand man and running the store, keeping the store open. And so, Clinton trying to assuage his critics appease his critics, I should say, over his disastrous first year in foreign policy, he fires Clifton Warden, a Black man, one of his most prominent appointments. When he goes to try to, to appoint a new attorney general, he nominates among other people. He nominates Lani, Lani Guinier, a Black woman, a civil rights icon, in her time, very much an activist and-and very accomplished attorney. And, soon as the, she had written a paper, apparently, a law journal article, I believe in favor of racial quotas to achieve integration, and the Republicans started screaming and hollering about Lani Guinier being a quarter queen. Well, did not Bill Clinton backpedal right off and basically dump her nomination and, lightning quick. So, when it came to loyalty to his appointees, especially his Black appointees, Bill Clinton was just no good. I mean, just terrible. And- and also to try to triangulate, to curry favor with that Neo- segregationist white vote. He came out and made remarks about Sister Souljah, I believe a Black pop culture icon, music icon. I know nothing about her, except for she made some statements or had some lyrics that-that some white people, many white people took offense to. And did not Bill Clinton come out with a great big statement putting her down in a very big way. Why the President of the United States would lower himself to make a demagogic attack on a Black popular music figure is beyond me, is beneath the office. And it was a disgrace. And now, on incarceration. He-he was very much in favor of tough legislation, locking, locking away people who were involved in drug cases and other, other small crimes. I mean, this really fueled our huge incarceration rate among minorities that we have in this country today. I think in this, in the (19)90s, early (19)90s maybe, there were something like 1 million people in our prisons. Maybe I am wrong, maybe it was in the (19)80s, we had a million and-and by the end of the (19)90s, and into the 2000s, we had 2 million. There is no other country in the world that comes even remotely close to the-the numbers and proportion of its population in prison. South Africa, the union, the fascist Union of South Africa, gave us some competition for a while. But, we were number one, and we still are, and it is a disgrace. SM: 1:39:19 The, very well said on those presidents these are the final ones, of course, and you have already made a comment about the, this is 2001 to 2022. George Bush the second, and President Obama, President Trump, and the current President Biden. TS: 1:39:36 [laughs] Okay, I think we are first at Bush now. Bush Jr. I, 42, I think I already addressed- SM: 1:39:48 Yes. TS: 1:39:49 -with the inertia problem, the continuing use of the southern strategy. I mean, that just did not change. He courted the far right, as president and as a presidential candidate in ways that he did not court the far right, as the governor of Texas. An awful lot of Texans, progressive Texans were shocked to see his behavior in office, in Washington as president, because he did not show signs of that, as the governor of Texas. So, I think we can go put a ditto on his name. Now, the next is- SM: 1:40:37 President Obama, President Obama. TS: 1:40:39 -Obama. SM: 1:40:40 He is still, he is a boomer, but he was only like two or three years old. But yeah. TS: 1:40:44 Yeah, you know, I admire President Obama for some things. As a wonderful family man, father, as a brilliant man. But he was not a, he was not in the presidency, a figure of consequence on behalf of civil rights, is putting Eric Holder in the Attorney General's office to head that job. That is, that is great. I mean, that was wonderful, a good move. But many Black leaders of the Obama era and since, have really pretty clearly delineated the ways in which he fell short of promoting and supporting civil rights in his, in his administration. And, I can give you a couple of examples. One was again, the lack of loyalty to a, an appointee, I believe, well, no, I am not an appointee, appointee, I think, I do not think she was an appointee. Shirley Sherrod was a, a federal employee who is accused of making racially offensive or insensitive remark, by a right-wing outlet, I believe a website and it ran, the site ran a film clip of her giving a speech. And it made it, it was cropped or edited to make it sound like she was anti-white, bigoted against whites. But if you saw the whole thing she, she was not, she was actually very much the opposite. She worked in the agriculture department. And she was a civil rights activist in Georgia. A very ardent civil rights activist, a really good woman, decent, decent person. And his, he-he had basically his administration fired her, immediately. Almost immediately after that-that irresponsible demagogic report went out. And meanwhile, it took a day or two to see the whole film and it clarified that she was not guilty of anything racist or anti-white whatsoever. On the contrary, she was very much a great help to white farmers. She was a friend of the white farmer. Most farmers in Georgia are white and they liked her. And, but when all that was clarified, and that came out, and corrected, still, the Obama administration did not call her up, invite her back, gave her, and give her-her job back. She lost out. And it is, it is Obama did call her and we do not know what he said to her. Now another one was when Obama made a very good remark about Henry Louis Gates in Boston, Cambridge, being arrested for being in his own house. Black man, the foremost Black scholar of our times, a white cop goes and arrests him on his front porch for being, for trespassing on his own property, and he was not trespassing. [laughter] And Gates rightly got incensed, and so he was, he was charged. And Obama rightly said, "Look, this was really stupid." I think stupid was the word Obama used. And boy, did not a, white neo-segregationists go bananas over that, and give Obama hell. And so, what-what does he do? He has the cop who arrested him, with Gates, show up at the White House grounds for a beer so they can sit down and talk together. You know, I mean, what the cop did was beyond ignorant, I mean it was so ignorant to, to arrest a man in his own home. And-and Henry is the most, possibly one of, one of maybe 5 or 10 best known African Americans in the nation. And he arrests the guy in his own home. Now, if that is not the very definition of stupid, I do not know what is. And then to, and then to just charge this very-very tepid, moderate, middle course between them to have a beer on the grounds of the White House with them both outdoors, where the cameras could see them from a long distance. What a shameful, just a shameful moment. But I admire Obama. He was a good president, for the most part, the ACA was, the, Obamacare was a wonderful thing. He handled a lot of racist abuse with a plumb abuse from the Tea Party, rabble rousers, name callers of all sorts like that guy from I think South Carolina, who said he lied. During his State of the Union speech, the man who screamed out "You lie," to him. I mean, Obama put up with a lot of crap. And he did it, gracefully, with a lawn, and I admire him for that. But I think he-he could have been more progressive on the issue of, of civil rights. He tried too hard not to appear the angry Black man in the presidential office, I realized he was hamstrung, I understand that I understand the problem he had. I understood that to be elected and reelected, you really need, need not, you need to keep even some of those neo- segregationist votes. But still, I think he could have done more. In his last year, he began to speak out more forthrightly in the Trayvon Martin case where Trayvon Martin, a young Black man was slain by a man, a kind of vigilante, who was trying to keep his neighborhood safe. When he said that, you know, if I had, if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon that-that was a, that was a wonderful remark. And he took an awful lot of crap for that. But that was, that was a help. That was a good thing. So, Obama is not anti-civil rights. But he is not, you know, he is not an avid in office, pro-Black figure. SM: 1:48:27 How about Donald Trump? TS: 1:48:31 Donald Trump went well beyond the southern strategy. He threw, he threw away the dog whistle. And he just openly embraced bigotry, expressed and stated, I mean, he was just wide open with it. When he announced again, it is interesting how these people announced their candid, candidacy. When Reagan did it, he did it in Neshoba county, embracing states' rights. And when Trump did it, he did it on his golden escalator at Trump Tower. And he called for a, well he-he attacked immigrants from Mexico as being, rapists, thieves, and murderers. "They do not send us their best people," he said, and he then very soon afterward, not long after he was, I believe he was in office and that is when he actually called for a Muslim, a ban on immigration of all Muslims. I mean just-just deplorable demagoguery, the kind of demagoguery, demagoguery we used to expect from southern governors in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Men who used the n word. That is what we, I mean, he was giving us that kind of leadership. And-and what-what was the result? I mean, we have had shootings at synagogues. We have had, you know just-just a terrible four-year period, we had the, backlash from the Black Lives Matter, people with the executions of so many young Black men, usually Black men. And mistreatment of Black people and jeez, you know, talk to a cabbie, even talk to a cabbie today, as I often do, and a cabbie will tell you that the-the abuse that they take, if they are a Muslim, or a Black man. The abuse that they take from white riders in the back, you know they are, they are, this has just become so much a part of our daily lives now. It is intolerable. And it is, you know, I just did not realize, I did not fully appreciate the degree to which good, wholesome, moral leadership mattered to white adults. I thought, in the mass, in the great mass, white adults did not need a babysitter on the subject of race and morality. But Donald Trump proved that they do. They do. Donald Trump did one wonderful thing for us, all of us. He taught us who we are, and America is still a racist nation. And I think he proved it. SM: 1:52:02 Very-very well said and, of course, our current president, Joe Biden, he has been here one year he got an African American female vice president, your thoughts on him so far? TS: 1:52:15 Well, Joe, was a tepid moderate in the Senate. He was not a progressive. He was not an advocate of, of school, busing for the purpose of school integration. And as a matter of fact, he was an opponent. And I think that really pretty well delineates where he stood on civil rights pretty much, in his Senate years. Delaware is a border state. Delaware was a rigidly segregated state, it had segregated schools, racially segregated schools. It is pretty clear where he stood as a Democrat, right in the tepid center. And while he did campaign, in Black barber shops and do things like that, and he handled himself with dignity, in friendships, and in his discussions with Black people that he met, nonetheless, he was not going to take any chances, on losing white votes by staunchly, but by being a staunch advocate of civil rights, but he was a thoroughly decent man. And James Clyburn, whom I really-really admire, sensed that he was, Biden was the only white candidate seeking the presidential nomination in, in 2016, who could win it- SM: 1:54:07 Right. TS: 1:54:07 -and win the president and take the presidency. And so, he backed him. And that won for Biden, the Black vote. But when, in an interesting moment, is, the woman who is now his vice presidential, his vice president, challenged him in a presidential debate, primary presidential debate, campaign debate on the issue of school integration. Biden did backtrack, you know, he more or less stuck with where he had been. That is not for, I think, for the purpose of school integration. And he later made a statement that did not get a lot of attention. But he made the statement that you know, vice president, Ms. Harris, also, you will notice is not campaigning aggressively on integrate, for school integration, which was true, because she too, needed white votes on behalf of the team, to become vice president. And Kamala Harris is really not terribly, terribly progressive herself. And the thing is, she at least kind of faked a progressive stand on school integration with him, and challenged him to try to defeat him in that, in that high-profile moment. But- SM: 1:55:50 I know. TS: 1:55:51 -I do not know, I thought that situation really told us a lot about both Harris and him. SM: 1:55:57 I know that he took a lot of heat for the Anita Hill hearings, so- TS: 1:56:01 Right. SM: 1:56:02 -yeah, when he was head of the committee. TS: 1:56:05 Right, well, I guess you could, you could argue that it was racially neutral, because what he did was to, you know, to the benefit of Clarence Thomas, who was also Black. And it was to the detriment of Anita Hill. And he has regretted and apologized for his behavior, and it was inexcusable. And, but that really does show you how conservative the guy was. I mean he was really quiet, Delaware is not a progressive state. I mean, in racial terms it, it was not. SM: 1:56:45 Some people, thank you for going through this. I think this is one of the most important parts of this interview was your commentary on our presidents because the issue of race today in the news is every day. You go into the Barnes and Noble bookstore, I have never seen so many books on the topic. And-and I think it is really very timely. Some people say the (19)60s was divided into two parts. The first part was 1960 to 1963. And the second one from 1963 to 1973, or (19)75, depending. And I think I know what they are referring to, they are referring to when John Kennedy was assassinated, that was the first half. Your thoughts on that? TS: 1:57:31 I-I, (19)60 to (19)63, I think there is some wisdom in that I would probably want to push the boundaries a little farther to (19)65. Because the legislation, that was the logical outcome of the early (19)60s, protests for civil rights came, did not come out until (19)64 and (19)65. But you could see that the tenor of the protests were growing more bitter, towards (19)65. There is no question about that, the rise of Malcolm X, for instance. But the (19)60 to (19)63, yeah, I can see some wisdom in that. But for me, I would expand the boundaries of that to (19)65 when the legislation that opened things like theatres, and swimming pools, and motels, and restaurants. I mean, this, really, you could argue that nothing concrete came out of all those protests until that moment in (19)64, when that (19)64 Civil Rights Act passed. And-and also, you know, the voting did not really, the floodgates did not really open until after (19)65, when the (19)65 Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act passed. So that is why I would push those boundaries that far. And then the other era, you said was what? SM: 1:59:22 It was the 1963 to 1973, or (19)75. You know, we have the new senator here at Binghamton, which is 1960 to (19)75. And that is because symbolically that is when the helicopters fall off the roof in Saigon. So, that gets kind of the end of the Vietnam War. But (19)73 was also the peace conference on Vietnam, which was not really. really that successful cause- TS: 1:59:47 Oh, so you are talking more broadly. I-I was talking specifically about civil rights, were you? SM: 1:59:57 -yes, I am talking, when I am talking about the six, the two breakdowns of actually, it was one of the people that I am going to be interviewing down the road, Dr. Josiah Bunting, the third, he said he has always looked at the (19)60s divided into two parts, the period up to (19)63, from (19)60, over the death of John Kennedy. And that period of activism, which is really from (19)63 to (19)73, or (19)75. TS: 2:00:23 I-I would not go with that part of it. From the point of view of civil rights, I think the, it was pretty much over, the civil rights movement was over by 1968. When Nixon was elected, it really is over. And, you know, you had that horrible, horrendous Detroit riots in (19)67. And then, the riots in (19)68. And, as the-the Martin Luther King, post King's assassination riots, the civil rights organizations were beginning to unravel. Stokely Carmichael's Black power movement, deprived Snick of white participants. And I-I, I think most people agree that the Civil Rights Movement dies with King in (19)68. It is, it is over, it is just over. And Nixon is in charge, and everything begins to reverse in civil rights, as I see it. At that time, so, now with the war, it is different. And-and I-I mean, from my point of view, I, the continuing war, and the continuing kind of hot resistance to the war. To me, that period ends in (19)71. Night you had, the turbulence of May 1970. And that, to me is the climax of the anti-war movement. That for me is the climax. I never saw anything like that, afterward. And it burned itself out, as I see it very fast. One year later, one in the spring, one year later, May (19)71. There was a-a big demonstration in Washington, major demonstration and-and carpet tacks where, the nails were spread on the bridges into Washington. Anywhere activists were trying to bring government to a halt that day. Nixon was basically wielding the city police as a bludgeon to, keep the- [silence] SM: 2:03:15 Hello-hello, hello? [silence] TS: 2:03:29 In May of I believe it was May, but maybe it was April, that-that huge Washington anti-war demonstration where activists were trying to close down government for a day. And Nixon brought in the police chief, and thanked him for basically beating up all kinds of war protesters, and that is what happened even innocent people just sitting on their front porches, adults not, not young activists, just sitting on their porch watching what was going on. I mean, police were going up, staircases, and onto porches, and beating the crap out of citizens. It was just unbelievable. And like the next day, Nixon has the-the police chief and to thank him for-for doing it. I think that is anticlimax. But still, I mean, it showed the resistance continuing. But boy after that, I do not know the anti-war movement- -to me, is pretty well shot. And it just, I think Nixon let the air out of that, anti- war movement with a couple of things. One big thing was the draft by having an all-volunteer army that made a lot of young people no longer fearful of dying. So, that removed a, a reason to fight for a lot of them. And, I think the whole tragedy of Kent and Jackson State had a real depressing effect on young people. I mean, the idealism was just, you know, it was just, awful, I mean, [crosstalk] hopes and dreams for a better country, you know. SM: 2:04:35 Right. At the times in the newspapers when this all happened, when the tragedies happened at Kent State and Jackson State, and of course, they were talking about when the war came to middle America, you knew the war was over. I mean, most of America is now going to, you know, be against the war. And there is some, there is some truth to that-that was in the papers a lot, at the time. TS: 2:05:48 It went pretty, it went pretty mainstream, but the heartbreaking thing is, that damn war continued. And we were exterminating all these Asian people every damn day with our bombs. You know, I mean, air attacks, week after week, year after year, I mean, even resuming bombing after, at Christmas time, the Christmas bombing of Henry Kissinger. Progressives of my generation today, think of Henry Kissinger as, a little better than a war criminal. But still I see our mainstream news media, genuflect to this-this 90 plus year old man is if he is some sort of sage. I just cannot believe it. That is how conservative the country is. SM: 2:06:46 I know it is hard to do this. And you can just, you can just, I got three more questions, and then we will be done. We are a little, but that is you, it has been a great interview. If you were to pick between (19)60 and (19)75, if you were to pick five individuals, male, female, I do not care what it is, that were either positive or negative towards the, this era, who are the five people that you would pick? TS: 2:07:16 Martin Luther King top, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson. So, that is what, three? Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King, wow. As the five most influential in that period, gosh I, it is not as if I cannot come up with names of that era. But those are the ones that really occur to me. Those are the ones that really-really grabbed me. SM: 2:07:30 Yep. Right. TS: 2:08:06 I mean, they there is just such towering figures. SM: 2:08:10 Yeah, I agree. I agree. I know, some people might say, Bob Dylan because of the music. And that is, that he has been a powerful person in the music world. There is no question about. TS: 2:08:23 Well, that is popular culture, I was thinking more in terms of, I was thinking more in terms of the political culture of the- SM: 2:08:32 Right. TS: 2:08:32 -of our society. Martin, I mean, my God, what an extraordinary man, and Nixon for the exact opposite, such an ordinary flawed man. And-and Johnson also in a way for the opposite, such an ordinary flawed man who had great aspirations, and did a wonderful, wonderful thing, and helping to encourage a second reconstruction. You know, that is, that is the, to me, that is his big, he gets a, a plus and a minus. You know what I mean? SM: 2:09:13 Yes. TS: 2:09:14 Nixon is all minus, all minus in my in my field. But we know, by the way, one thing I did not mention to you is that Nixon did decide to go on the Supreme Court case, in 1970, a Supreme Court ruling that forced the southern states, those that mandated segregated schools to stop immediately, before it was all delivered, speed, which was not very, which was all deliberation and no speed. Well, believe it or not, the Nixon administration, his ATW secretary, Fench I believe it was- went along with it. I mean, the administration was, went along with it. And the south integrated in the, by the 1980s, far more than the north ever integrated- SM: 2:10:07 Wow. TS: 2:10:07 -its schools. SM: 2:10:08 Yep. When you go to the Vietnam Memorial, one of the basic symbols of the (19)60s but, for all time, you know, that war, that unjust war that we all know about, that really is the watershed event along with civil rights, and for the boomer generation. When you visit the wall, and you look at that wall, what do you see? And what feelings are going through your mind, not just because the names are there, what do you see, sensing in your mind? What are you feeling? TS: 2:10:43 I am just speechless, like most people, speechless and heartbroken. And see, young bodies, dead bodies, corpses. I see a tragic pile, tragic waste, a pile of dead bodies. And I reflect on the uncounted, unnamed over in Asia- SM: 2:11:16 Yes. TS: 2:11:17 -because they lost about a million. No, actually, I think I read it was 2.1 million. SM: 2:11:25 Actually, you know- TS: 2:11:26 I think it was, I think I read it just-just like about a week or so ago, 2.1 million Asians. SM: 2:11:32 -yeah-yeah, I think you are right. And some people said up to 3 million because of the fact, we are not only talking Vietnam, we are talking Laos. [crosstalk] TS: 2:11:42 Laos, you know, Cambodia, North Vietnam, South Vietnam. Yeah, definitely. SM: 2:11:49 And another, another thing too. But when you hear people today, say, well the (19)60s have returned with today's protests. I have very funny feelings about this. I do not think it is the same of the (19)60s. At the activism of the (19)60s, we are going to- we are talking 70 percent of the people probably were activists, during that timeframe, and probably the same things happening today. But the bottom line is this, it was a different time, there were different issues. TS: 2:12:17 You think 67 percent of the young population were activists? SM: 2:12:22 No, that is I have gotten that from many of the interviews that I have had from- TS: 2:12:27 I sure do not. I do not, I do not think at all. SM: 2:12:31 -how many do you think there were percentage wise? TS: 2:12:33 Oh, much-much, much lower, much lower, you have to realize it is a big country. Well, I just think that when you think about those times, you have to realize the complexity. You there? SM: 2:12:56 Yeah, I am here. TS: 2:12:58 The complexity of American society, it is not all private elite universities in the northeast and-and public and-and distinguished public universities. I mean, it is a very diverse country. And I do not think you could say at all, most people were activist, nowhere near it, and I would not, nowhere near 50 percent. SM: 2:13:27 I-I was mentioning 7 percent. TS: 2:13:31 Oh, you said seven. I thought you said 70. SM: 2:13:34 No, I said seven, 7 percent. TS: 2:13:36 Oh-oh, okay. SM: 2:13:38 Yeah. And that is, and I have gotten that from a lot of including Tom Hayden and you know, other people. The key thing here is that when people say and I see these protests today, they have been going on for several years. And you know, of the whole, over the issue of race, it seems to be as, we have so many issues in this country, we take two steps forward and two steps backward. But the thing is, I, it is a different it is, I just cannot compare what happened to the (19)60s, and where people say we are back to the (19)60s. I do not, I do not buy it. And I do not know how you feel about it. It is a totally different thing. And today, it is even scarier than what it was back then. That is what, that is what I feel like. Still there? [silence] Oh my goodness, what is going on here? TS: 2:14:35 But, okay, enough-enough on that, on that subject. Is it like today, is today's Black Lives Matter? Well, in one respect, I think I have more respect for them. And the sincerity and depth of their commitment then for us, the boomers because those, those young people stuck with us and a lot of them were boomers too. There were a lot of boomers, I saw out in the streets. SM: 2:15:05 Right. TS: 2:15:07 They stuck with it for a year. You know, the whole Kent State, Jackson State furor that flamed out very fast- SM: 2:15:16 Right. TS: 2:15:17 -I mean, really fast. And an awful lot of it was very histrionic. An awful lot, the news media were new, back then. The broadcast media were new. And I think a lot of people in our generation really and-and some of the activists just a few years before the boomers, like people like Tom [inaudible], I think a lot of folks of his age, really enjoyed, Abbie Hoffman comes to mind, really loved the limelight, really loved to have the cameras on them. Very-very histrionic, very dramatic. And-and I have great doubts about their sincerity. I mean, not some, I mean, you know, some of them like Jerry Rubin went to work on Wall Street as a stockbroker, you know, who is another one. Eldridge Cleaver, he becomes a clothing designer, and he designs clothes with a big pocket for the testicles, to feature them in his- the pants line, and he was run. I mean, I do not want to caricature everybody as shallow, and histrionic. But there was a lot of that stuff in both the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. A lot of crazy ideas, a lot of silly nonsense, a lot of posing. But I get the feeling from these Black lives matter people hold a whole lot of sincerity and with the Wall Street group too, after the, with the Great Recession, protesting down in Wall Street. I think there was a lot of depth and organization, and sincerity there. I do not want to say that, I do not mean to suggest all (19)60s young activists were shallow, and histrionic, but there was an awful lot of that. SM: 2:17:20 Right. TS: 2:17:21 And I just somehow respect the young people who got so involved with Black Lives Matter. I really, I really do great respect for. SM: 2:17:31 One presidential candidate that I did not mention was the hippie's candidate, Pegasus and I wanted to [laughs] make sure you make a comment on that. TS: 2:17:41 I do not know anything about him. Assuming it is a- him, I-I never had the name. SM: 2:17:47 It is a pig, it is a pig. That was Jerry Reuben in Pegasus. TS: 2:17:49 Oh, it is a pig [laughs]. Well, I would not okay. I remember that. No, no, I did not know the name. But yeah, do not leave out the pet Paulson candidacy. [laughs] SM: 2:18:03 Oh, that is how can you do that, my goodness? Yeah. The one final question I have is I have been trying to do this the last couple interviews, I have done the last three or four. And that is, these interviews are going to be eventually heard down the road by people who are not even alive. TS: 2:18:19 Yeah you said that, you said that. SM: 2:18:21 10 ,20, 30, 40. If there is anything you want to say to those individuals who have listened to this tape, or have an interest in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and race relations, if there is anything you would like to say to future generations who are going to hear you, you may not be around anymore, I will not be. But they are going to be here, and they are the future. What would you like to say to them? TS: 2:18:48 If I can venture to offer some advice is struggle on. Do not give up. As you get older, keep on pushing for a better society. You too, are going to go the way of all flesh into the great beyond. Leave something behind for another generation, justice, social justice, fairness. That is my suggestion, struggle on. SM: 2:19:22 Very good. Tim, it has been great interview and I am going to turn off, hold on one second. Thank you very much. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Tim Spofford IIIF Item Metadata UUID 71f75c3e-6d02-4eda-8ccd-bb5fb721ed9a https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b30c89a5813b9d22d31c1eeaefa00516.jpeg 9ae9c7c486a266cfd0ecd9783b0f57e9 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1f1b722cee46c878573c33824a41b481.MP3 584c1cd4f2ae5cf6c812e5e9c9802a29 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2022-01-26 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Thomas Grace Biographical Text Thomas Grace, a native of Syracuse, NY, is an educator and activist. Grace was one of nine students wounded and four students killed during the Kent State shooting. He graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor's Degree in History. He also earned a degree in Social Work from SUNY Buffalo. He worked for many years as a social worker and union representative. After his retirement, Grace received a Ph.D. in History from SUNY Buffalo. He is currently serving as Adjunct Professor of History at Erie Community College. He is the author of Kent State: Death &amp; Dissent In The Long Sixties. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:36:15 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Kent State shooting; Student protest; Activism; College campus. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Thomas Grace Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Eden Lowinger Date of interview: 26 January 2022 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:03 Again, Tom, thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview. I would like to start out like I normally do with all my interviews, if you could kind of describe your early years before college, where you grew up, your parents background, some of your early adventures or any major happenings that kind of sent you in a different direction, life's path, your high school years. What was it like in those early years? TG: 00:31 Well, I was born five years after the war, March 2nd, (19)50. And I knew none of this at the time. But we were also just a few months away from the start of another war in Korea in June of (19)50. When I was born, I was the oldest of, as it turned out to be four children. The parents of Thomas V Grace, V as in Victor, and my mother, actually, her name was Helen Collette. And she did not like that name, Helen. So she dropped out or used to just sign her name H. Colette Grace. She is a Binghamton native; my father was a Syracuse native. They met at Syracuse University after the war, and I think in a biology class and were married (19)49 and I came along in 1950. He was the son of a disabled railroad worker, and an English teacher who was, who seldom taught. That was on my father's side, my mother's side, her parents were both immigrants from Slovakia. And he had worked on the railroad and her mother had been a homemaker in Binghamton. They, they went through, of course, the travails of the Great Depression, which was harder on my father's family than it was on my mother's. Binghamton seemed; they had a kind of a welfare capitalism that was practiced in Binghamton with a lot of the major industries there. They did not seem to have the unemployment that Syracuse did. And I mentioned this because it had a profound effect on my father's political values. He and his siblings and his parents saw the New Deal policies as having saved their family, providing work for his older brothers in the Civilian Conservation Corps. distributing free food on Saturdays, where they would go down and stand in line, pick up the free food. And like, like we see so common today, although now people just drive up in their cars to pick it up. But then you stood in line, there was a welfare caseworker that came to the house that would inspect my father's clothes to see how they were holding up and to see if there was enough coal in the bin. But they did not, they, the only home that they had they lost because they could not, could not keep up with the payments and the banks failed. So, whatever modest savings they had, they lost. And he just, oh, and-and after they lost the house, they-they wound up having to move all the time, because either the rents would go up and they could not make the rent, and then they would have to try to find some other place to live. So he actually lived all of his life in Syracuse. But while he was growing up, up until the time he was 18, I think they moved 11 times. Always on the south side of Syracuse, which was kind of a Irish American, African American neighborhood. He seemed to have good relationships with African Americans, went to an African American dentist, and then worked on the railroad while he was putting himself through school. He was 4F for the draft, his older brother did-did serve, was missing in action and was able to get back home okay. The other brother was also 4F as well. So he was putting himself through school working on the railroad. And you got to know a lot of the porters, they are known as red caps. And they were, that was the principal African American union in the country, A. Philip Randolph Union. SM: 04:43 Yes. TG: 04:43 And they he learned a lot from them. I remember a few years before he died, I asked him how he came to have such a deep and fairly profound understanding of the questions of race in the United States when, when so few white people seem to possess that, because he was not coming at it from an ideological perspective. He was coming at it from a class perspective, which, of course, has an ideology. But he did not, he did not. He was not an ideologue in any way. Although he was a partisan New Dealer. And asking him about this experience 50 years later, he proceeded to give me the name, so about half a dozen of these guys that he had worked with. And he had not seen them for 50 years. So, it is obvious that those relationships were meaningful to him- SM: 05:38 Wow, yes. TG: 05:38 -if you can, if he could remember all of that information all those years later. My mother was not, she was more of an emotional thinker, my father was, he was guided more by his intellect. They too suffered during the war, her brother was killed on, on Iwo Jima on George Washington's birthday in 1945. So you know, one time there was an M.I.A. in the family and another who had been killed. But as they said, my father's oldest brother was able to get back home, his pilot, his plane went down over China when they were flying on gasoline from India and China, flying over an area called Hump. So, I grew up with all these stories. I know, this is a long digression that I just gave you. But I grew up with a lot of these stories, and they kind of formed me. I also learned when I was about 10, or 11 years of age from my grandmother, this is my father's mother who I was close to, who had been the English teacher, that we had two of our ancestors who fought in the American Civil War. And I was coming of age during the Civil War Centennial, (19)61, (18)61. And, of course, the Civil Rights Movement was taking off. So, I am trying to figure out why the country could fight a war against slavery 100 years before, and we have all these unfinished issues. It did not, did not make a whole lot of sense to me as a preteen and adolescence. So, it is one of the things that caused me to start reading. And I mean, it was not until college that I really started to figure all this out. But these were things that I remember that puzzled me. And to some extent, my father could help me understand it, but he did not have a degree in history either. So it takes a lot of study to figure this out, as you know. So we grew up in a working class Italian American neighborhood, although no one in our family. My father was Irish, my mother was Slovak, so we did not have that background. But in other respects, and despite the fact that both my parents had gone to college, that was a rarity in our neighborhood, I think we were the only family on the block, the whole blocks that, where anyone not only graduated from college, but had attended college. I went to a Catholic grammar school, oddly called St. St. Daniel's school, SDS for short. SM: 07:07 Yes. Wow. [chuckles] TG: 08:10 Those initials would take on a new meaning once I got to college. SM: 08:12 Right. TG: 08:13 And then we did not have high school, in our neighborhoods. So the kids went all over the city to different places. So my parents selected a Catholic all Boys High School, it was college preparatory, it was about 10, 12 miles away. I would take a bus there every day. I did not really care for that experience at all. Although I had had all my all my schooling to that point had been in parochial schools. And I just wanted by the time I got to college, I wanted to do something different. I felt like I wanted to get away. You asked me about remarkable experiences growing up. I do not really think I had any I had a pretty ordinary childhood, I was very devoted to the game of baseball, which I still am today. I was a kid of modest talent, though, in terms of playing the game. But that did not dim my enthusiasm. And I went to the high school, as I told you and my father at that point had, by the time I was starting to get ready for college, he was a social services administrator at a facility that cared for the developmentally disabled in Syracuse and called the Syracuse [inaudible] school. And there was a great shortage of social workers in the country at the time. So, the federal government had a policy that if someone was had graduated from college that did not have a background, irrespective of what their background had been, they could have been a music major, they could have been a Phys Ed teacher, they could have been a sociology major, which would have been fine. Whatever their background, if they took a job up, working in social services. And that and applied, had applied and been accepted for a master's program in social work, then the federal government would, would pay for, for their two years of schooling with the understanding that they would return to their former place of employment over the summer, and then remain there for five years. And then the loan would be complete, or they, they would not have to pay back the cost of their schooling. So there was a guy such as that, that my father had hired who was a recent graduate of Kent State. So he told me about the school and that put it on my radar. SM: 10:43 Oh, all right. TG: 10:44 Three other places where I also wanted to study Civil War history, because I looked over the college catalogs, you know, when they came to get a sense of what their history departments were like, and Kent State was a large school, which I wanted to go to, it was, it was called coeducational. And it was the closest of the four schools that I had applied to. So that is where I went. SM: 11:11 It is interesting, when you talked about your father. You know, when you study the life of Dr. King, and what he went through in his 39 years, you know, he certainly fighting injustice and things like that, but he has brought up the whole issue of class, and poverty and all these other things. And so, he was often criticized for not just concentrating on the race issue, but on class issues. So your father was, well, he was a person that kind of was like Dr. King in a way. I-I, I would like to ask you this: did you ever feel during your first 18 years or even into your college years, that you belonged to a generation that was never before, it was, it was considered very unique. I can remember going to college right here at Binghamton, and I have talked with so many friends and they felt that there was this feeling that this youth of today, this 74 million that came out after World War Two, the sons and daughters of the boomer gen of the World War Two generation, were different. Especially the front edge boomers, those first 10 years between the- born between (19)60, excuse me, (19)46 and (19)57. Did you did you feel when you were young that you were part of something that was different and unique when you were, as a youth as a person, [inaudible] your peers? TG: 12:41 I do, I do not recall it. And oldest children are often the inheritors of tradition. And in that regard, I was no exception. And I took an interest in what had gone before. What, what my parents had been through, and I think may have failed to mention that my mother was a Binghamton native. No, I did not, I did mention that- SM: 13:09 Yes. TG: 13:11 -to the welfare capitalism that was practiced by the industries. But I was interested in what their lives had been like. And I was I was taken by the military experiences of men on both sides of my family and then on my ancestors. So, I was I was, I think through that prism of familial experience. I became interested in my own family's role and the development of the history of the country. And certainly learning that about my ancestors who had fought and both of them died in civil war. We recently discovered a third who did survive, he was with he was in the famous march through Georgia with Sherman. He was the only one of the three ancestors in the civil war that survived the experience. But all of those things were very formative to me. And in other respects, the things that I was interested in besides history and reading, you know, and just playing with my friends, was baseball. Play, I would play that all spring summer and fall. Just go down to the playground, there would be a bunch of guys there, we would choose up teams and you know, I played little league as well, but I played baseball from the time that I was about eight. I did have, when you asked before about adventures, but the biggest calamity that befell me when I was the young person is that I had something wrong with my hip, it was called a Legg Perthes, which my father had as well. And I believe it is not an inherited or genetic problem. But they had caused me to have to be in traction for a year. So you know, I got through with, with tutors. And when I, at the school I had to be on crutches for about a year while my leg was put in this kind of harness to keep some pressure off of it. So yeah, that was that was that was, that was something I had to kind of learn to get through, kids are pretty resilient. Not, and I was and I got by that. But I only mentioned that because I otherwise would have started playing baseball even sooner than I did. But as it turns out, I was not able to start playing until I was eight, because of this Legg Perthes, which kind of sidelined me for about two years. But in terms of the generational I remember thinking that maybe when I, it was in my very late teens, and start of college, because there were certainly other people that were saying that and-and there were a lot of stories about the effect of the baby boomer generation and-and then there was Kennedy's oration at his inauguration. SM: 16:10 Yes. TG: 16:11 So, I did feel in that respect, and is I think, a little further in response to your question that, that we did have an obligation, but I did not see myself as part of a, being so much special is I did carrying on a continuity that other people had carried before me. We all have a role to play here. And it is our, you know, it is, it is our time now. SM: 16:41 Right. TG: 16:41 But I did not see ourselves as separate and apart and distinct and better, any of that kind of stuff. SM: 16:51 Did you-? TG: 16:51 Later-later, I did feel that because so many people had had a formative experience by being part of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements, that that that generation would ultimately make its own mark and affect the generations that came after us. But that clearly did not happen. And I thought for maybe about when I got into my 30s or so that that still might occur. But then I realized that in some respects, we were different from those who went before us, and rather different from those who came after us. SM: 16:52 Right. TG: 16:55 And even our own generation. There was there was a generational divide within the baby boomers. SM: 17:43 I agree. TG: 17:44 There were people who had experiences that caused them to become left wing and-and sympathetic to people of color, and then later gender differences, et cetera, et cetera. But there were an awful lot of people who are born in the late (19)40s and (19)50s that do not think that way and seldom did. They may have adopted some of the cultural trappings of it, that our generation won the cultural war and lost the political and economic one. SM: 18:18 Well, you raised something, a question I did not even have here, the young Americans for freedom, which was a conservative organization during the Vietnam War. When I spoke to Dr. Harry, Dr. Edwards, Lee Edwards, in Washington, DC, he talked about the fact that when all the books are written on the (19)60s, what is left out are the conservative antiwar activists, and- TG: 18:44 Well, there have been books dedicated to that subject. SM: 18:47 Right. But the key thing I wanted to ask is that you brought up the fact that the continuity of understanding the generation that preceded you, what your parents did, and your responsibility to carry on, there was that term that we heard all the time that there was a big generation gap going on. Was there any generation gap going on within your family over what was happening in the (19)60s, especially the antiwar protests and civil rights and all the other movements? Was, was there any divisions I call it divisions within the family and, and divisions with your peers? TG: 19:26 I do not remember divisions really with-with my peers, the-the tension in our household was over the length of my hair. Not-not my politics, and I wanted to have longer hair and my father insisted that I keep it you know, kind of like, what they used to refer to as a Princeton haircut. So I was, there was always a big issue. I would go to the barber, and I would come home, and he would say, "You [inaudible] you did not cut off you know, you got to go." You know, so went through all of that. But in terms of my politics, I really inherited my-my father's politics. He did not really think a whole lot about the international situation. He was not, he was not pro- I would not say that he was pro-war. He was not, he was not all that anti-war. I do remember what a conversation that I have had with him, though that may help to answer your question. I remember saying to him, "Dad, I understand that the Black people have it really bad in this country." And I may, may or may not have used the word "oppressed," for a long time. But I understand now that a lot of them in this group SNCC, do not want to go into the service. And if they want to be part of this country, then they should help to defend it. That, that is how, so I had kind of a Cold War mentality, you might say, I did not really fully understand what Vietnam was about, and turn against the war, until I had been in school at Kent State for about five or six months. And that did not really come, that was complicated. I addressed it in the book that I wrote on Kent State. SM: 19:48 Right. [laughs] What a great book you wrote too. TG: 21:22 Well, thank you. SM: 21:23 The best book ever written on Kent State. TG: 21:25 Well, I appreciate you saying that, Steve. I worked at it a long time. So I always tell people, I better get it right when I spent over 10 years working on it. But I remember saying that to my father, and he looked at me and he said, "You know, they should be the last people to go to Vietnam," he said, "The country has done the least for them, that continues to do the least for them." He may have pointed out the disproportionate level of casualties that African Americans suffered during the first couple of years in the war. It was up in I think, in that high teens or low 20s, when they only represented about maybe 12, 13 percent of the population. He said, he said, "Let the rich kids' sons fight this war." He always look, his attitude was that a lot of white people are poor. Almost all Black people are poor. We, we need to band together to fight the rich that oppress us all. That was that was kind of his mentality. Again, he was not an ideologue, he did not, if he ever read anything about Karl Marx, I would be astonished. Because he never had those, he never came in contact with anybody that ever would have introduced him, you know, to those kinds of ideas. But what he did have was this "School of Hard Knocks" that he did, he grew up in poor and even though when he went to college, he always had that kind of class edge to him. And if he heard people putting down poor people, oh it used to send him off, really-really made him angry. Because he had been poor, he-he knew what it was like to-to, to-to endure, those, they are often invisible injuries. But I think he experienced them growing up and it never left him. SM: 23:34 I am going to ask this question, [inaudible], there is kind of divided into four areas, but it is just your overall perceptions of an era during the time that boomers have been alive. When you describe the era (19)45 to (19)60, what comes to mind in your view? TG: 23:53 Well, a lot of things I remember watching, used to be a program on television called the 20th century. And it was usually devoted to World War Two. So I watched, I remember watching that a lot. I remember as a little boy being taken down to the train station, when my cousin Dick was, he was in his uniform. And he was leaving for service during the Korean War, but he was being sent to Germany. But there was this sense. I could feel this like tension and unease when we were seeing him off at the train station like this is not good, that he is about to be departing on something that might be bad for the family. And, of course, he had a pretty ordinary experience in Germany. You know, nothing bad happened to him there. But when you are three or four and you at best, have an imperfect understanding of what is going on, I remember that that had quite an impact on me. I remember seeing President- well then Senator Kennedy, in a motorcade in Syracuse, New York, and this probably would have been in this springtime, of (19)60. And our family was really taken up with, with his candidacy. My father saw it as an opportunity for the, for Irish Catholic Americans to, to break through in a country that had been dominated by white Protestants. And, you know, we were just absolutely thrilled when-when he was when he was elected. We are going to keep this before (19)60? SM: 25:49 Yeah, I am done. The next the next part of this question is when you describe the era of (19)60 to (19)75 what comes to mind? And I, I want to state that this center here at what at Binghamton University, is dedicated to the (19)60s to the (19)75 era. TG: 26:06 Okay. Well, certainly, the presidential assassination was just a horrible, horrible event. It just, it just plunged our, the whole country but our family in particular, I do not think the TV was off for, you know, as long as we were awake for that bet that weekend of November 22, of (19)63. And I remember, one of the things that kind of helped lift that mood, a number of months later, when the English invasion occurred, and the Beatles just exploded. And if I felt like kind of a generational pulse, it was, we were just like- I remember my sister and I, my sister is about slightly less than two years younger than I am- Irish twins, as it were. We were both like, very taken with the Beatles. And I started like buying a lot of rock'n'roll albums. So I remember that, watched a lot of television as a kid, a lot of western movies. One author refers to it as the victory culture that we grew up with. And I certainly grew up with that as well. But I, I did pay a lot of attention to Civil Rights. I remember the horrible scenes of the Children's Crusade in Birmingham, in the spring of (19)63. That, of course, occurred months before the Kennedy assassination. I remember watching King's, some of King's speech in (19)63. And in the summer of (19)64, I remember the Civil Rights workers, quote, unquote, disappearing and Mississippi, and the efforts that President Johnson, then President Johnson was making to get the civil rights legislation passed. And I will add as a parenthetical here, that when I started graduate school in social work, I had a professor by the name of Fred Newton. And Fred's first job in social work was to take the position that Andrew Shriner, Shriner had, I am mispronouncing his name but- SM: 26:56 Right, (19)64. Schwerner. TG: 28:36 Schwerner, Schwerner, thank you. Schwerner had held in New York. And, and that was stunning to me. At the time, I was about 23 when I when I learned this, but I had paid close attention to all of those developments. You and also in the summer of (19)64, President Johnson came to Syracuse, New York to dedicate the Newhouse School of Communication. And that was right around the time of the Gulf, Gulf of Tonkin incident. In fact, I think he was flying back to Washington to give his joint address or give his address to the joint houses of Congress. So the speech that he gave in Syracuse was kind of like a dress rehearsal for that. And I was, I think that was one of the things that had an adverse effect on my understanding of the war in Vietnam, because I saw Johnson as carrying on Kennedy's legacy. And here he was speaking so forcefully about the war in Vietnam, which I again, imperfectly-imperfectly understood, in fact I understood it very poorly, to be very blunt about it. And even though I read Newsweek magazine on a weekly basis, whenever it came to the house and looked at photos in Life magazine, we did, we did get a lot of magazines and newspapers in the house. So I had a rich childhood in that respect. I understood the military aspect of the Vietnam War, but I did not understand the political aspect of it. So that had a deleterious effect on my political understanding of Vietnam, until I got to college- SM: 28:47 Wow. Right. TG: 29:02 -and met some people who-who had fought in the war and other people who knew a lot about the history of French colonialism. And all-all of those things, helped open my- those experiences and those encounters with people helped open my eyes to what the Vietnam War was all about. Let us see, I mentioned the cultural and musical aspects of the (19)60s I, I did develop an affinity for rhythm and blues and rock and roll and, and blues music. So I started to, I had quite a record collection by the time I started Kent. Of course, then there was the experience of the (19)70s shootings. When, by the time Cambodia was invaded, I was I had been very, very deeply involved in the Vietnam War protest movement, both on the campus and attending demonstrations as far west as Chicago, up to Cleveland, which was about 35 miles to, from Kent. And had been to Washington DC, for several antiwar protests by the time Cambodia was invaded. I also had a roommate at Kent State, whose name was Alan Canfora, who I believe you interviewed as well. SM: 32:02 Oh, Alan is the best. TG: 32:03 And he, by being a year older than me, and much bolder, I tend to be a reticent individual, somewhat introverted. Introversion, I am sure does not come out in the course of an interview, because I am discussing things with a fellow, or my life with a fellow historian, I know how to impose chronological order on one's past. So, the introversion really does not come out. But Alan was, [phone buzzes] was a very extroverted individual, who is also a very bold individual. In fact, I think it is not too much to say that he was a truly audacious person. So it was impossible not to become immersed in what was going on at that time, when you had a person who had views that were similar, but was so willing to take action on what he believed. And he also came from a family that, in many respects, was a carbon copy of my own. While neither one of his parents went to college, his-his father had been a union, a union leader, and a very partisan, ardent Democrat. His mother had been a nurse, like my own mother, although she her training as a nurse came in the United States Army, whereas my mother's was, you know she, she got her training at Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University. And we, at that point, we were both against the war in Vietnam. And then, and Alan was also a year older than I was, and that it does not seem like a big difference. But there is a major difference between someone who is just starting college, someone already been in college for a year. SM: 32:11 Right, I agree. TG: 32:46 So, in, in a lot of ways he was he was kind of like my older, older, slightly older brother. And if, and if he, if he was the captain, I was his first mate. SM: 34:12 Yeah, very well said, I miss him tremendously. And, you know, I only saw him once a year when I come to the, to the remembrance events, but knowing that I will never see him again really upsets me. Because we always had some really good conversations. Since we are talking about Kent State now, I was going to ask this later on, but I got a lot of different questions outside of Kent State, but I want, since we are in it right now, could you talk about the atmosphere at the campus upon arrival there as a brand-new student? Did you sense right away that this was a lot different than any of my experiences before, that during those first five months on campus leading up to the terrible tragedy at the end of the year? TG: 35:01 Well, I started in the fall of (19)68. So, it was right after the Democratic Convention, which I have watched on television, and was horrifying, you know, to see people beaten that way. I was not necessarily in sympathy with what they were doing but it was appalling what the police did to the demonstrators there. And so that that was fresh in my mind, because that was the end of August, and we, Kent was on a quarter system. So we were starting school in late September. So it was approximately a month later. In fact, it was exactly a month later, I think. So we took, my father and I took the long drive out there, he dropped me off in the dorm, brought all my records in, and Alan may have told you the story. But I was I was playing John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. And I have been playing Cream. And he could hear this music from a couple of rooms down the hall. So he came down to see who was playing the music and came in and introduced himself. And that is how we-we met, and we became fast friends. And, and soon, we were doing everything together. So I remember that as being an important experience. And I also had a friend that I met during the summer orientation, who was from Cleveland, his name was Jimmy. And I introduced him to Alan, so three of us became friends. And that friendship only deepened over the course of the year, although we did not see him as much because he did not live in the dorm, he lived off campus. In terms of the wider campus, I mean, it was it was nice going to school with girls, for the first time since I had been 13, or 14. And I did not really have that much of an interest in girls when I was when I was, you know, in my very early teens, but I had girlfriends in high school, of course and all. So that was really nice. And I was enjoying the classes that I took, particularly the history and political science classes. And the English classes, I was a double major in history and political science and English. I remember two political experiences. SDS held a meeting soon after the start of the fall quarter. And I went to that it was very well attended. There were a lot of people that were still juiced up from the Democratic convention. And there were probably 12, 15 of the people who had been there and experienced, some of them and experience that violence firsthand, had been locked up and threatened with their lives in the police station. So it was, it had been a significant emotional experience for the people who went there. And they understandably enough, emerged as the leaders of the chapter. But once they started talking about New Left ideology, I did not really get that I did not really understand at all. And I do not think I stayed for the entire meeting because I eventually became bored with it, because it did not resonate enough with me. Shortly thereafter, with Ohio being such a political battleground, I had the opportunity to hear someone speak on the campus who was there on behalf of the Humphrey campaign. And it was the first time in my life that I ever heard an intellectual speak, it was Carey McWilliams. And I thought to myself, what a privilege it is to hear a man have such rich experience and such, possesses such a towering intellect speak. And I said to myself, this is the kind of experience that I want to have more of as a college student. And I was impressed too with how he handled a person who had been beaten in the streets of Chicago, who spoke against the Democrats and-and Hubert Humphrey. The, McWilliams was sympathetic to what the man had to say. But he also said that all of the different, despite all the differences that have emerged, and have fractured the party, we have to come together against the person who is really a threat to the to our entire order that we have, that we have come to know since the since the Depression and World War Two and that is the New Deal and everything that it is done for the American people. That made sense to me, you know, to put all of that in perspective. So I became involved with the Humphrey campaign, I went to a blood bank and gave a pint of blood and then to use the $25 that I was given and I donated that to the Humphrey campaign. I got to hear the vice president speak and shake his hand about a week before the presidential election, because, of course, Ohio is being so sharply contested. And I also, working with a political science professor, went door to door for Humphrey in some of the working class neighborhoods in Akron to try to get out to vote for him. You know, I had some tough experiences there, but I, you know, people threatening me, you know, you run into lawless people here and there. But, you know, I, it was unnerving, but I stayed with it. And, and then Nixon also came to Northeast Ohio. And along with Alan Canfora, I went there to protest against him with the Young Democrats. I was a member of the Young Democrats, I was not a member of SDS. But SDS showed up in large numbers there, there was a very small number of Young Democrats, and they disrupted Nixon's talk. So, Alan, I remember him saying, "Tom Grace," he said, "Let us go out with those guys." So, we left the Young Democrats, and we spent the rest of the Nixon speech with-with the SDS who are just yelling and screaming, protesting Nixon. And Time Magazine said it was the most significant disruption of Nixon campaign event during the entire campaign. SM: 40:22 Wow-wow. TG: 40:34 So-so I, you know, I had a lot of rich, excuse me, I had a lot of rich experiences, packed into a few short months. And that only takes us up till you know, the presidential election, which I watched and was still in doubt when I went to bed that night. Of course the next day we learned, you know, the outcome. And within a couple of weeks after that, the Oakland Police Department came to Kent State to recruit for their police force. This is the same police force that shot and wounded Eldridge Cleaver and killed 17 year old Bobby Hutton, around the same time as the King assassination was completely overshadowed, of course by the King assassination. But SDS and the Black United Students banded together and blocked the recruiting, which created this massive crisis on the campus because the university administration said that they would be moving to sanction all the people who participated and perhaps expel them from school. Alan had gone into the area where the recruiting was going on and helped block it. I did not, which says a lot about the two of us, you know, him being a year older, prepared to take bolder steps, not as interested in education at that time, as I was. I was more focused on getting a degree and having a career in history. Alan was in school largely, so he did not have to go to Vietnam. Like so many of his friends had from town of Barberton, industrial city of Barberton where he grew up. So, he participated, and I did not-I was sympathetic to it, I agreed with what the people were doing. But I figured if I go in that building, I am going to get arrested. As it turns out, no one was arrested. Because all of the Black students on the campus of which there were about 600, to about 650, left in mass and said that they would not return to campus unless, until charges were-were dropped, or the threat of charges were dropped against all the participants. The university said, "No, we are not going to do that." But SDS predicted that with regard to the university administration, that they were going to come under immense pressure. And a lot of the professors were going to say that they did not want to be teaching at an all-white campus. And that is exactly what some of the professors started to say. Either they adopted the SDS mindset and rhetoric or whether they came to it, that same position on their own, I do not know. But the NAACP, and-and other advocates for African Americans started joining the calls to just put this whole thing behind them. Whereas people on the right were saying "No, they should be expelled." So, the president of the university, Robert White was in a rather difficult position as he had been throughout his tenure of getting flak from both the left and the right. But he decided in this particular case that he was going to listen to those of his advisers that were, in effects saying that, that amnesty needed to be granted. They did not call it that, because they would have been too charged the term, all they said was that they did not have enough evidence to press charges against people, which was really ludicrous because they had taken photographs of everyone. But that is what they, that was their face-saving explanation. So as it turns out, no one was charged. And that had a profound effect, not only on me, but a lot of other people. Because we grew up, we tend to grow up in a country that that that insists that you cannot fight city hall, that if there is something amiss in the society that you are trying to overcome, it is very hard to do anything about that. But we knew differently, having viewed what the Civil Rights Movement had accomplished up to that point. And then we had this experience where Black and white students stood together, each drawing power from the other, and not only blocking the Oakland police from recruiting on the campus, but also being able to stand together and force the university to cede the possibility of any charges being filed against the participants. SM: 46:22 See, this brings up the- and I have been to the remembrance events for many, many years. And before I came to Kent State for the first time, you may have heard this around the country, especially the couple years after the tragedy of the murder, what I call the murders at Kent State. And that is, that why did this happen at Kent State of all universities? This, in this conservative state of Ohio, at Kent State, why did it happen? Well, I was at Ohio State, so I know there is a lot of protests going on there. But I also know that Ohio University in Athens had always been given the name as the most liberal of the schools, where there was massive protests, even when I was working there in my early career. And you have just given some of the greatest examples of the activism that was taking place at Kent State, basically, you know, stating the truth about that this was a high- because of all the, the information you just given, that activism was alive and well. And-and, you know, having the older student like Alan and the younger student coming in, it was like the whole perception of the (19)60s was, it was always the graduate students that were kind of the leaders, and it was the undergraduates who were learning from them. Your-your descriptions are, are fantastic in terms of what Kent State was way before the tragedy of May 4 of (19)70. And I would like to ask this too about the president, President White, when I was read the first book, which is not a very good book, James Michener's book on Kent State, which came out I think in (19)71 with so much misinformation. It is, it is not even good anymore. But however, there was some strong criticism of President White in the book. And correct me if I am wrong, was he away the weekend of May 4th at a conference? TG: 48:26 Yes, it was for the American College. It was it was the ACT- forgot, I forgot that the what the acronym stood-stood for fully, American college testing, it might have been. And he was there that weekend. But he- SM: 48:45 But yeah- TG: 48:46 -he also- SM: 48:46 -I always thought that was terrible leadership on the part of a university president when a crisis was happening, and he was not there. TG: 48:54 Yes, but he dealt with crises by absenting himself from, he would abdicate in effect, leadership. And I think he felt that if something bad happened, and he was not there, that the responsibility might fall on someone else other than him. Because, as I documented my book, there were- SM: 49:18 Yes. TG: 49:18 -several instances earlier in his tenure, where there was a brewing crisis on the campus, and he turned responsibility for that over to his Vice President Raskins and a few others, Barkley McMillan, and people like that. And then he would go to his home and stay in touch by-by telephone. So, I mean, there is a lot of ways that that could be characterized- cowardice is one of them. But and I think that that is a fair charge, you know, to make against him. I will say, I do not say this so much in his defense is I do offering it as an explanation, that when I worked on my own book, and reviewed his correspondence from probably maybe (19)64, right up through the (19)70s shootings, that he always had to navigate the shoals of both the right and the left. And that was very difficult for-for him. And if he had been the president of Kenyon University, and responsible only to the trustees in that responsible to a governor and the taxpayers, et cetera, et cetera, the Ohio legislature, he might have been- might. Might have been a little more courageous, and willing to provide some leadership. But instead, he tried to, he-he navigated that that very treacherous political world by seeking not to make a mistake, and if a mistake were made, to turn through responsibility, to push down the level of responsibility to someone else. So, the fact that he was away during that period and did not come back, and then, and then to leave the campus to go to lunch with his aides, when he knew that the National Guard was moving against the student demonstration on May 4th, that, that that crystallizes everything. SM: 51:36 Yes. TG: 51:37 His-his entire tenure was crystallized in that moment. But-but it has to be seen in this like, wider scope of conduct as, as the president of the university. SM: 51:55 I just want to men- this is something I was going to say at the end of the area, but I think it is the perfect timing, when we are talking about not only Kent State but Jackson State, and, and in being there and talking to Alan and then coming to all the remembrance events that this was a simp- this was protest, freedom of expression. And-and I wrote this down, freedom of expression is central for all Americans who live in a democracy. Yet, why have the basic rights been denied to many who challenged the status quo, and the injustice in our society wherever it raises its ugly head? Kent State and Jackson State, this never should have happened. And a democracy may be, as Franklin Frank said, at the in 1776 independent [inaudible] when he described the wooden sun on the Washington's chair, was it a rising sun or a setting sun? Franklin said, it is a rising sun, if we can keep it. And to me, let me tell you this, this event, at Kent State on May 4th, just change my life, forever. And I have empathized even emotionally, with the four students who died and the nine who were wounded, and this is never should have happened. And it changed my career. And I just, in your own words, I did it with Joe Lewis, in my last interview, I want to just on that particular day of May 4th, where you were and what you did, and I know you were wounded. Just explain it because the people that are going to listen to this tape are not even born yet. These are going to be forever preserved. And could you go through then that like that, that day of May 4th 1970 from your viewpoint? Sure. Although as I have mentioned to you in some of our correspondents, electronic correspondence setting up this interview, I have been through this many, many times. I know. TG: 54:08 And in in a lot of ways, I am kind of talked out on it. I will do my best. But I also want to alert and educate future listeners to the fact that in (19)85 I sat down with a man by the name of Bob Morrison, he and his mother wrote a book called "From Camelot to Kent State" and it consists of oral interviews with well, many well-known figures from the (19)60s and others that are like fairly obscure like me, because I was not a well-known figure of the (19)60s by any means. The only way that I have any notoriety at all is because of something that happened to me on May 4th (19)70, that I was hit. But it was not anything that I did. It was something that happened to me. So, when I am intro- when people introduce me sometimes as a person who got shot at Kent State, for years, I did not know what to say. And then I, I eventually came around to saying to people, yes, that that I was, and it was not an accomplishment. It was simply-simply, it was simply something that happened to me. SM: 55:08 Right-right. TG: 55:36 So, and, and none of us know that the future, we do not know what is going to happen an hour from now or tomorrow or next week. And when I went to the protest on May 4 (19)70, when I, when I left my classroom building, I knew that it was a very fraught, fraught situation. And I had promised a friend of mine whose brother had been killed in Vietnam, that I that I would not go to the protest. But I heard at the very end of the class, a woman get up and announce that there was going to be a rally on the Commons, which is the central area where this confrontation occurred, the central area of the campus where this confrontation occurred. And of course, I already knew that that rally was taking place, and it made a promise that I was not going to go. But I sat in the room for a minute or two after most people had left the classroom and, and kind of deliberated. What should I do? And I eventually came to the decision that I had been involved in and too much, that this expansion of the war was too wrong. And knowing what I know, and the kind of commitments that I had made over the last year, year and a half, that it was just too important. And I had an obligation to go, despite the promise that I made to my friend. So and there was something else that was at work, too. And I know that Alan, my friend, Alan Canfora would have discussed this. My roommate's brother had been killed near the Cambodia border with Viet- with Vietnam weeks beforehand, and we had attended his funeral probably the last week of April. And then, only a few days later, Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia. So this was a felt issue for us as well. Kent State was the kind of campus where it was not uncommon for a student to be there, and his brother being-being in Vietnam at the same time, or Kent State had about one out of every 10 of the male students in (19)70, were either reservists or veterans of Vietnam. And they had already fought the war and then on May 4th, there were dozens of them that were in the protests, they were at the rally, protesting a war that they had just fought. So I left my classroom building, it was a fairly short walk over to the rally site. When I got there, I saw hundreds of people, including several black flags that were being blown in the breeze. And I quickly recognized that two of my roommates were carrying them, so I gravitated to them immediately. The National Guard were off to the left. And the students were gathered around the base of a hill that is known as either Taylor Hill or Blanket Hill. It is a rather steep incline that forms almost like a natural amphitheater for that area of the campus. And there were maybe between three and five hundred active protesters. Another couple of thousand people that were onlookers, almost totally ringed this area of the campus known as the commons. And we were not there very long. Chanting anti-war slogans, many of them abusive. 1,2,3,4 we do not want your fucking war, 5,6,7,8 organize to smash a state, you know, stuff like that, pigs off campus. Et. cetera, et cetera. And Jeep came out with a campus patrolman riding shotgun. And I think two or three other Nat- and two or three National Guardsmen in the jeep. And they, and the campus policeman, Harold Rice, ordered us to disperse. I knew Harold a little bit. He was a nice man. And he was the kind of officer that would pick kids up who were sick on the campus and bring them over to the health center. And I will add parenthetically that about a year after the shootings, I was working a table to raise funds for a group of students, students known as the Kent 25 that have been charged for their role or their alleged role in all of the protests that occurred between May, May 1 and May 4. And he walked down the hall, made sure that no one was looking on either end, threw a couple of dollars down on the table, picked up one of the political buttons and attached that to the inside of his jacket walked off. So that gives you an idea of where Harold's sympathies lie. But on that occasion, he was trying to get us to disperse. And he was not doing it because he was trying to deny us our civil liberties. I think he was genuinely anxious and fearful for what was about to occur. But we did not know any of that. So it just whipped the crowd up into a further frenzy. And people were chanting, get the hell out of here, and cetera, et cetera, and someone threw either, it was probably a rock at the Jeep, and it hit the tire and bounced off and made a couple of passes. But I do not think they came as close as they did the first time. And then the Jeep returned to the National Guard lines. And they leveled their bayonets. They were given a command by their General Robert Canterbury, to begin firing tear gas and about 105 guardsmen leveled their- they all were wearing gas masks, most of them I should say were wearing gas masks and the gas dispersed the students and forced us up this steep incline that I referred to earlier. There was a large building at the very top of the hill called Taylor Hall, hence the name, Taylor Hill. And it was so large that to get up to the top of the hill and to safety and beyond, that students had to part ways. You either went to the left of the building or you went to the right, I went to the left of the building. And I had a handkerchief with me. So I kept that over my mouth and nose. But other people were rubbing their eyes from the tear gas, there was a- there was only one really clear picture that was taken of me at the protest that day. There was a close up, but you can see me yelling to a student not-not to rub her eyes, because that is the worst thing you can do. It just it just irritates the eyes. I have been tear gassed before in Washington and knew better than to do that. So when I got to the top of the hill, there was a girl's dormitory, Prentice Hall. That was to the left of Taylor Hall, the architecture building. And what a lot of the girls were doing, there were there were there was a first floor girls' bathroom with frosted windows. So they cranked these windows open, and they were moistening paper towels and passing them out to the students who had been tear gassed that were lying against the building on this grassy, grassy apron between the building and the Prentice Hall parking lot. So I spent most of the time there, either washing my face with these towels, or helping other people who had been gassed more seriously than me. So, while all this was going on, some students were throwing rocks at the guardsmen who had followed us up over this hill, and down onto a practice football field. There were not many people doing that, perhaps less than a dozen. Some of the guardsmen were throwing the rocks back at the students. I only know all of this because I saw photographs of it. I did not see that firsthand. But then I wanted to get a better look about what was taking place. So, I walked over to the-the very base of Taylor Hill or Blanket Hill, which on its reverse slope and the area of which I am now discussing was far more gentle, the one slope than the other side of the hill where the incline is very steep. And I stood there and watched these guardsmen leave an area where they had congregated about 75 of them on a practice football field, begin to march back in the direction that they had come from. And I was kind of pivoting to turn, turning my body to watch them as they were going. And when they got to the top of the hill, it seemed like I saw this quick movement, where you suddenly see 15, 20 men reverse course and stop their march and then turn around. And I heard one or two cracks of unmistakable, rifle fire. And I started to run. And within just a second or so, I did not get very far at all. I found myself on the ground, and I was not really sure what had happened it first. And then I looked down and I can, I could see what the bullet has done to my foot and ankle. And I was trying to in the process of raising myself to look at my lower body. I heard someone yelling, "Stay down, stay down. It is birch or it is buckshot," and he meant to say birdshot. He thought, and it was my friend Alan Canfora, who I really had not been with, since the rally had started when I first arrived on the campus, because when the tear gas came in, everybody got dispersed. So that caused me to realize that we were still under fire. And I needed to shield my body as much as I could. So I lay as prone as possible, while they gunfire continued. As it turns out, he wound up being hit too, although he had the shelter of a tree, a bullet, I do not know if it was a clear shot or a ricochet, but I went through his right wrist. And then after 13 seconds, the gunfire finally stopped. I discuss all of this in the book that I referred to earlier. SM: 1:06:59 Right, yes-yes. TG: 1:06:59 And also, another book that I also recommend to people because I think both of the books that I mentioned, are going to offer a superior account of what I am now describing, because they were offered years and years ago and my memory, memories of all this were much clearer than they are today. Now I am discussing it 52 years later. And in the earlier interviews I was discussing, when it was a 15 year old memory or when it was a 20 year old memory. Now it is 52-year-old memory. But I was, I remember when I was lying there, I was thinking, how are we going to get these guys to stop, we have we have no weapons of our own. If we did, if this were a real battle, we could return fire. We could. They were, they were, they were shooting and killing us. We could shoot back and try to kill them. But we did not have any arms. We were college students, we were just caught completely in the open. The only thing that was that stopped it was a major Harry Jones, who-who likely and oddly enough, is probably the one that gave the order to fire. But what-what he meant when he, if indeed he was the one that gave an order to fire, we do not know if he was saying, you know, fire-fire above their heads and people and the guardsmen misunderstood that, or whether some of them had who had hate and malice in their hearts, just wanted to kill as many students as they could, you know, started firing right-right into us. There were 60- between 61 and 67 shots that were fired, of that number 15 of those shots hit someone. So that means approximately one out of every four, four and a half rounds that were fired, actually struck someone so in that kind of an environment and from the distances that a lot of these guys were firing at us because people in some cases were hundreds of yards away from where the guardsmen, at their guardsmen firing line. These guys were pretty good shots because if one out of every four of your rounds, hit-hit the target, in this case a human target, that was, that was pretty good shooting. So it was it was it was terrifying being under fire and having being caught in the open and having no means of protecting yourself. Yeah, you mentioned something that I have heard before that you said that you went to Kent State to major in history not to be part of history and of course that was so true. When you look at the, when you were taken to the hospital, how long was the recuperation and-and when did you get back to school full time? Well, it was fairly lengthy recuperation. I was in the hospital in Ravenna, which is the county seat for Portage County where Kent, the town of Kent is located. I was there until the 13th of May. And then I was transported by ambulance back to my hometown in Syracuse, my father followed in his own vehicle. It was a time when a lot of college students were on the road protesting. There was a nationwide student strike. So here, you know, we would be passing all these cars on the New York state thruway, and on Interstate 90, and the ambulance says Kent on the side, and it has got a person in the back, you know, with-with long hair. So, it did not take a lot of imagination to figure what that was all about. And when we would pass a car that had young people, and it was long hair, they would be giving me a [inaudible] sign, you know, from their cars. So that that is something that I do not think I have talked about before in an interview. And that helped to kind of pump me up and to reinforce me because it was a very painful injury. And I had to go through a lot of surgeries. And I was in the hospital, in Syracuse until about, it was either June 28th, or June 30th when I got out. I remember what a great feeling it was just to see the sky again, and to breathe, you know, some fresh air because I had not been outdoors since May 4th, 1970. SM: 1:11:37 Wow. TG: 1:11:39 And, you know, at that point, I had a cast from my foot up to my thigh, or up to my hip rather, and had to keep that on until probably December of that year. Because you know, a lot of, my ankle was broken, had to be put back together. They had to fuse it, that was the only way they could do it. So that is why I have that, if you have ever seen me walking around with a limp, that is why, that is where that limp comes from. But it is not, all things considered, it is not-not too bad. I mean, I have a huge cavity in my foot. But I am for the most part able to walk fairly well and have led a normal life. So, while it was really bad at the time, and I have, you know, the [inaudible] red-red badge on my foot as it were, in other respects that led to very regular life since then, unlike my friend Dean Kahler, who is who was paralyzed and had a, his life was immeasurably changed. Whereas in my case, it was not. And I always like to tell people too that when I got back into coaching baseball, and I had a son, who played ball and then when he did not want to play anymore, I was able to get into an adult baseball league. It is called the Muni league. And we have some fairly good players, Joe Charbonneau who played with the Cleveland Indi- SM: 1:13:18 Oh, yeah, I got a baseball card of him. TG: 1:13:20 Yeah, he played in the Muni league here in Buffalo, although at a higher level than I did. Paul Hollins, whose brother was on the (19)93 World Series Phillies teams- SM: 1:13:33 Dave Hollins. TG: 1:13:35 Yeah. SM: 1:13:35 Yes. TG: 1:13:36 Yeah, he-he, he played. Paul, his brother, Paul, played in a Muni League. So I played in that for a couple of years in the (19)90s. Again, at a much lower level and on a bad team, and I was probably the wor- I used to tell people that I was the worst guy on the worst team. But I would still rather be the worst guy on the worst team than the best guy sitting on the bench. SM: 1:14:06 [laughs] Yeah. TG: 1:14:06 I was able to, you know, I was not able to run very fast I always used to tell people that I fielded like a DH and hit and hit like a pitcher and ran like a catcher. But I was still able to play. So, it could not have been that bad if I was able to go and play baseball for a couple of years. SM: 1:14:26 Who were the- I guess my history questions because I knew you are a historian too. So I had some questions strictly that, not even Kent State. But I have a que- who were the heroes of Kent State, if you can say there is a hero, who were the heroes of Kent State and who were the villains? TG: 1:14:48 Well, I think there was only one hero that that really stands out at Kent State and that was Glenn Frank. He averted a-a much wider slaughter. When the students regrouped immediately after the shootings, went back down to the commons, and sat down said they were going to refuse to leave. At that point, the general who had ordered the troops to attack us in the first place, encircled hundreds and hundreds of students who were seated at a compact [inaudible] says he was going to open fire into them if they did not leave. And Glen Frank and two other professors, all of whom are now deceased, and a history graduate student by the name of Steve Sharoff, pleaded with the National Guard general to give them time to get to convince the students to leave. SM: 1:15:45 Okay. TG: 1:15:47 And a member of the Ohio, an officer in the Ohio highway patrol was there as well. And you can hear some of the film footage and audio footage from that moment. And Sheriff is saying to them, "Can you give us five minutes" and, and then you hear the Ohio highway patrol officer say, "You got five minutes." At that point, Glenn, Frank goes over and he had a lot of standing on the campus. He was a geology teacher, World War Two veteran, wore a crew cut. I mean, he really looked the part of having been, you know, World War Two veteran. And he had enormous standing on the campus with the students, although he was a conservative man, and he was not at all in sympathy with what the students were doing necessarily, but he loved the students of Kent State, and his oratory, heartfelt, as it was, was able, was enough to convince the students to get up and disperse. Otherwise, there would have been a slaughter on the scale of Sharpesville in South Africa were something like 67 people were massacred during some of the first anti-apartheid protests of the (19)60s. So he, he was a true hero in other respects. And as a historian, I tried not to, and I use- and I adopted this approach, when I was writing the book, I did not want it to be a morality play. SM: 1:17:26 Okay, very good. TG: 1:17:29 That is up to other people who will hear this tape and study can stay on their own and read some of the interviews that I have that I have given and listened to all of the other interviews that you have done. That is up to them to decide. SM: 1:17:44 One of the things Tom is, when you look at the (19)60s themselves, and the divisions that were taking place in the (19)60s, many people at the time thought that there this could be another Civil War. I mean, this is like a general statement. I mean, we know what the Civil War was all about. But we were so divided as a nation, that there was a, there was commentary that, "Are we heading toward another one?" And now we are living in another era, right now, where a lot of people are saying, you know, the-the nation is so divided. Are we ever going to be united again? And so, so we are not, we are dealing with what happened in the (19)60s, you are a scholar of the Civil War. Can you put as a historian you know, I know you can write a book on this, but the divisions between America in the Civil War, the (19)60s and early (19)70s and now. TG: 1:18:48 Well, in the (19)60s, we saw this less in terms of being a Civil War and more in terms of being a Revolution. That is how I thought about it. That, that the people who were, had been disadvantaged and oppressed and made to fight a war that was immoral and illegal, that all these forces would rise up against the government and create a, just a more civil society. That was a complete fantasy. But that does not mean we did not think that at the time. And of course, when you have something like this happen to you, you want to have, you want to have a measure of justice or some type of retribution, you know, so. So the peop- the people who were responsible for inflicting this upon us are going to be made to pay for it. I never really had confidence that the government was going to do that, how that might take place, I really cannot say, but or I am not prepared to say in the course of this interview, but a lot of us were very angry about that for a period of time. So, so a number of us saw ourselves as being like radicals, revolutionaries, or what have you. Was not too many years after that, though, that I became involved in the union movement, which is how I spent the majority of my adulthood. And that is a very different kind of organizing, because you have to be elected to union office, you have to represent a constituency, you have to make sure that you are acting in accord with their wishes. So, you do not want to be too far behind where they are at politically, but you do not want to be too far out ahead of where they are politically. So, what you are doing is you are providing leadership, but you have to be in close contact with the people that you are representing. So that, basically, that kind of a mindset informed my politics, you know, probably from, from the (19)70s on, you know, right up to the present day, in terms of the tensions that now exist in American society, I see it as a very, very dangerous time. Not unlike the late, well not unlike the periods throughout the entire (18)50s. There was, there was a fair amount of border violence during-during the (18)50s, both on either side of the Mason Dixon Line, or on either side of the Ohio River. And, of course, it was occurring on the on the borders of the new states that were seeking to come into the Union, places like Kansas, and later, Nebraska. And then, of course, the combination of that was the raid that John Brown undertook, in mid-October of (18)59, where he and several dozen of his followers tried to take arms that they had gotten from a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and used that to start a slave rebellion. Of course, that was crushed, and they were either killed, and majority of them were executed. 11 of those guys, by the way, were from Ohio, [inaudible] Brown, and four or five of his sons. And five of them were African American as well. So but now the tension in the energy is all coming from the, from the right, we have several recent public opinion polls show that somewhere around 10, or 15 million people in the United States feel that political violence is, is justified in terms of pursuing their means. You know, a dramatic example of that, that was January 6th, of course, and that energy is not dissipating. If anything, it was, it was as potent now, it was a year and a half ago. So, I do not know what is going to happen with all that. But it is going to either dissipate on its own or it is going to continue to gain momentum and, and lead to some level of clash that is worse than anything we have seen so far in the last five or six years. Beyond that, I cannot really make any predictions and I hope that it dissipates on its own but there is no indication that, that is, that is the case. SM: 1:24:01 Another thing we hear today, from those who are protesting is we guess we are seeing a return of the to the (19)60s with this kind of protest. I kind of react negatively to that. I like the fact that people are protesting and speaking up and being heard. However, I am not, it is, it is a different time, the issues are different, although some are still the same. You talked about race, the whole issue of race, everybody's talking about race. I have never seen more books in my life, in Barnes and Noble than I see right now on the issue of race. And it is like my graduate advisor used to say who I interviewed Dr. Johnson, he used to always say, "Well, we are taking two steps forward, but we are always taking you know, a step backward. When we should be taken three steps forward and no steps backwards." TG: 1:24:50 Well, that always happens with race in this country. Whenever there are gains, those people that have held down advances of African Americans in particular, eventually put up their hands and say enough, and then they try to take back what has been gained. That is the, that is the story of racial relations in the United States. And maybe-maybe what I can do is make-make a comment on this. In the (19)60s, all of the shootings on American college campuses happened at state universities, they did not happen at prestigious institutions. Some, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 16 to 18 people were killed by the authorities between (19)67 and (19)72. The vast majority of those people were African American, with the exception of Kent State, where two young women were killed, they were all male. So that, so that the, the repression and, and the use of lethal force, it was a class dimension involved, class and racial dimension involved in that as well. And for all of the tumult that existed in the (19)60s, the lethal violence was almost exclusively the purview of the authorities, rather than the protesters. Whereas, whereas today, we, the people who were protesting in the (19)60s, were trying to bring about a more racially inclusive and just society, and they were trying to stop a war that millions and millions of people saw as illegal and immoral. And for the most part, the-the tactics that were used to bring about those ends were, were not violent. And to the extent that force was used in in the protest, it was usually force and destruction against property, rather than against people. Whereas today, coming from the right, you, you see this, this angry impulse is being directed towards people. And there is almost like an indifference to-to human life. I mean, how else could we get to the point where we are approaching, for instance, 900,000 people dead from a pandemic- SM: 1:27:43 Right. TG: 1:27:43 -and you have people who refuse to get vaccinated and refuse to wear masks to protect the rest of the population and themselves, you know, so that there is, there is almost like a nihilism that is that has engulfed American society. And it is more afraid now than at any time in my lifetime. And probably more afraid now than it has been in over 150 years. SM: 1:28:09 I agree. I agree. Well- TG: 1:28:11 So, it is not a pretty picture. And it is not an optimistic forecast. But at the same time, someone is listening to these 10 or 15 years or 20 years from now, I hope that they are able to, to say, well, it was it was it was it was dim and dark then. But fortunately, we did not go over the cliff. SM: 1:28:35 When, when did the (19)60s began and when did it end? TG: 1:28:40 Well, I dated in my book from (19)58 to (19)73. That is how I understand what took place at Kent State. SM: 1:28:50 Right. TG: 1:28:50 Chronological period of about 15 years. I think there are different endpoints. I think one could say (19)75 when the, when the war ended. They did not. They did not end however, on a grassy hillside on May 4th (19)70. SM: 1:29:09 Right. TG: 1:29:09 As so many people believe it is just, it is just too neat. When people try to squeeze a tumultuous era into a chronological one. From my point of view, that does not work. SM: 1:29:25 One of the things that I have always been dealing with in all my interviews, you are going to if you listen to them, I always ask this question. I remember I was interviewing Gaylord Nelson, the founder of- TG: 1:29:37 The former senator from Wisconsin. SM: 1:29:38 Yeah, I was in his office and he, I get to know him quite well and he gave me over four hours. I interviewed him, cut back and forth. But the question was this: I care deeply about Vietnam vets, and I have been going to the wall since (19)93, Memorial Day, Veterans Day. Know, I know quite a few of them. I have interviewed some of them. I have always been asked, "Why did not you serve in the war?" And it was a typical question, and I have to tell them why. But the question is this, Jan Scruggs, the founder of the Vietnam Memorial wrote the book, "To Heal a Nation." That was his book, that was his first book. And if you read the book, it is the purpose of it was not only to pay respect to those who served and died, and give them the respect they deserved, but to help the families of those who died and to show reverence also to those who served with the opening of the Wall in (19)82. Now, the question I keep asking, and this is how Gaylord Nelson responded, "are we ever been to heal from this war?" The divisions were so intense, that it seems like we never have healed from the war, even today. And when George Bush the first was president, he said, "the Vietnam syndrome is over." I always remember he said that. TG: 1:30:52 [inaudible] I think. SM: 1:30:53 Yeah, and it was (19)89. And I said, "You are kidding me. And impossible." So Gaylord Nelson responded in this way. He said, "People are not walking around Washington DC, you know, with not healing on their sleeves. They are not doing that." But he said, "Vietnam has forever changed the body politic." I would like your thoughts on that. TG: 1:31:23 Well, it made Americans well, let me put it this way. It took the French two wars to get over their ideas as being colonizers. They had to lose both Vietnam, and or all of Southeast Asia for that matter, as well as Algeria, before they lost their taste for foreign domination. I think it is taken the Americans, maybe three wars. Two in the Middle East one, and actually, four. Vietnam, the two in the Middle East, and Afghanistan, before Americans really soured on it. So, I think in some respects, we are a nation of slow learners. And we, of course, just ended our-our longest war, and that was in Afghanistan. Of course, none of the wars that took place after Vietnam, were on that scale, and involved as many soldiers and involved as many casualties. But there are, there are really different ways of if you look at the long scope of American history, most of the wars that America has fought with the exception of the Second World War have been controversial. And as-as Vietnam was. I think the real question is, "When will the country learn that it cannot, cannot and should not try to dominate the world." We are not the policemen of the world as-as the is the popular wisdom often has it. But it does not have that, the popular wisdom is not prevalent enough to keep us from becoming embroiled in these kinds of, from initiating very often and becoming embroiled in these kinds of conflicts. SM: 1:33:41 I only got a few more questions, and then we will be done. TG: 1:33:44 I yeah, we are maybe one more Steven, and we are going to have to wrap up, SM: 1:33:48 This is the last one, then. This is about the issue of trust. I can remember being [inaudible] the same the same age, and being in college and going to a lot of speakers on campus. And in hearing about we cannot trust leaders and I, there was this perception out there in the (19)60s and (19)70s, that if a person was a leader, no matter whether it be a president of a university, a head of a corporation, politician, President of the United States, you know, they cannot trust him. There is just- TG: 1:34:22 I know where you are going with this. I did not feel that way. I felt that there were people who had earned trust. And I was prepared to give it to him. And then there were other people that I knew that I knew could not be trusted, and were clear adversaries. But-but I did not. I did not dismiss all people who held positions of authority. And let us let us keep in mind, too, that the leaders of not only the Civil Rights movement, but the movement against the war in Vietnam, were often 10 or 15 years older than many of the people that were the, you know, the rank-and-file protesters. SM: 1:35:03 Yes, you are right. That is true. All right. Well, I guess that is it. Do you have any, do you have any final thoughts on? TG: 1:35:15 No, I think we have, we have, we have covered-covered a lot of ground and you-you asked good questions, Steve. And I would like to thank you for persevering with this too, because this is I know, the third or fourth time you have tried to set this up. So, I appreciate what you are doing to help preserve the history of these times through these interviews. SM: 1:35:36 Well, I will be at Kent State in, I do not, I do not care if they are having a ceremony or not, I am going to be there. [crosstalk] TG: 1:35:41 Well, we will get a chance to meet then because there is a committee that is re-forming now to do in 2020 what we were not able to do that year and in 2021. SM: 1:35:56 Very good. Alright, Tom, well, thank you very much. You be safe, your family be safe and healthy and happy here in the year 2022. And carry on. TG: 1:36:07 Thank you, Steve. You do the same. SM: 1:36:08 Have a great day. TG: 1:36:09 Look forward to meeting you in May. SM: 1:36:11 Take care, bye now. TG: 1:36:12 You too, bye. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Thomas Grace IIIF Item Metadata UUID 5751f9f3-df7a-48bb-b029-b36a0f5f4c0f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bb54b1d4ace06d7f4432ffce6d5fc07c.jpeg de3e3236e2a0a1455ec83217c3f77d0b https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3033b341f86dac17d01b2dc260e7931d.mp3 b03afdd0b634be0c1f5ae078310990f7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2022-01-27 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Jeanne Marie "Sam" Bokina Christie Biographical Text <span>Dr. Jeanne Marie "Sam" Bokina Christie, a native of Madison, Wisconsin, </span><span>joined the American Red Cross after graduating from college and served as part of the Supplemental&nbsp;</span><span>Recreational Activity Overseas Program (SRAO) in Vietnam, circa 1967-70. She served in Nha Trang, Da Nang, and Phan Rang.&nbsp;</span><span>&nbsp;After Vietnam, Christie attended graduate school and received a Ph.D. from Walden University, and became a college professor at several schools including teaching Communication at Western Connecticut State University and Manhattanville College.&nbsp; She recently wrote her first book, Women of City Point: 1864-1865.&nbsp;<br /><br /></span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:23:21 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Military women; Vietnam War; Red Cross; Volunteering; Donut Dollies; Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Vietnam; Graduate school; College education. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Jeanne Sam Bokina Christie Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Eden Lowinger Date of interview: 27 January 2022 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:00 You kidding, Philadelphia's cold but not this cold [laughs]. JSBC: 00:03 And we are expecting two feet of snow on Saturday. SM: 00:06 Oh, wow. Well that is Wisconsin, anyway. But just when you went to Vietnam. Okay, first off, the one question I want to ask, which I have been asking everyone is in at any time with your family, did you have any kind of a generation gap on these issues? You had, obviously, you had the support of your parents to go to Vietnam. But was there any gap at all on discussions of for or against the war? JSBC: 00:32 Not really. I have two brothers and an older sister, my older sister was, you know, engaged and getting married and doing the woman things at that point, the two boys were still coming up through high school, they were 10 years and 12 years younger than I was. So, you know, it is like, that is my older sister type stuff. No, there was no real discussion that I remember. There may have been some conversation and, but nothing that stands out in my mind. You know, they pretty much, mom and dad said you can go, go type thing. And that cut the feeling they had. The boys were always curious. I did send home, my, you know, like poncho liners and my uniforms and things like that to them. And they played with them. So they were a lot younger at that point. And, you know. SM: 01:31 When you entered the Red Cross, what was, was there a training period that you had to go through? JSBC: 01:37 There was a training period, we had to report to Washington for two weeks. And we had to have our uniforms, we had to have our navy blue raincoats, we had to have our black handbags, we had to have our black loafers. We had, you know, a list of things that we had to have, and our foot lockers. And I had talked to a gal in Milwaukee who had come back from Vietnam. And she was telling me all sorts of stories. And it was just like, "I really want to do this, I really want to go." So, we had a list of things that we had to have before we went to Washington, when we got to Washington, we were put up in a hotel, I do not remember the name of the hotel at this point. And the very first day I got there, I was wearing my little navy blue suit with my red and white polka dot blouse with a tie [inaudible] on it. And took the elevator upstairs, and there was this woman on the elevator and we are chatting. And I said, "Well, I am going for the training for the Red Cross to go to Vietnam." Turned out to be the director [laughter]. SM: 02:43 Perfect timing. JSBC: 02:44 Perfect timing, I will never forget that and you know, she just kind of rolled her eyes and laughed. So that was my introduction to the Red Cross, it was a lot about and I did not know this at the time, about rank, organization in the military, things you can do, things you cannot do, things you should do, things you should not do. But a lot of the girls came, and we were all girls at that point still. A lot of them came from military backgrounds. I came from the quasi you know, Fire Department background. So there, there was some structure there, but I did not know the ranks and they did not know the you know, the different services and things like that where others people did. So they went through all that and they taught us you know, "This is, how many stripes? What does that mean? What organization? Is that army? Is that navy? How did you, do you drink? When do you drink? Do you? Are you in uniform? Do you drink? If so how much do you drink?" You know, things like that, that we needed to know when we hit the ground running. It was not a lot about the world at that point. It was about our jobs at that point. So again, there was no emphasis on what was going on in the world right now. It was there was a war you were going to go and this is how you are going to you know get through it. Basically they showed us how to do programs. As an art teacher I you know I could paint anything I draw pictures I can do that. So. SM: 04:24 They were actually taking, each of these individuals were taking your skills and how they were going to apply to this job. [crosstalk] Excellent. JSBC: 04:29 They were taking skills. Yep, as well as your willingness to go they would take your skills. I was, you know, everybody loved having an art major come because that made making signs and posters really easy. Yeah, it was it was a lot of that stuff. We got into mischief. We had fun we would go out at night as a group and if we would run into some soldiers of course we would start talking and you know, have a drink with them and whatever. But we-we ran as a pack and nobody got into trouble. So, there were a couple girls that really were questioning whether they want to go after the at the end of the two weeks. And you had the option, you could, you know, you could walk away. But most of us went, and then we had to get our shots at the very end, we had to had a whole list of shots we had to have before we got there. And then they finally gave you the GG shot. And we swore that doctor was just a, you know. But we, you know, they virtually shoot you in the butt and then they say, "See you later," and they put you on an airplane for how many hours and it is like, ohhhhh. SM: 04:40 Yeah. My gosh. JSBC: 05:46 But we all survived. And then we flew from there. And we went to the airport, and we flew out to California to Travis Air Force Base. And there were about 13 of us that went to Vietnam on the flight that I was on, all in our little blue uniforms and chitter-chattering away with all these guys that are, you know, giving the 20,000 mile stares because they were returning to Vietnam. And they were you know, "You guys have no idea what you are going to get into," that thing. But we were fine. You know, we were fine. And when we got close to Vietnam, they turned out all the lights, it was dark. And we all kind of looked at each other like "Oh my gosh," flew in in the dark. And when he opened the door, it was just this blast of tropical heat coming in. SM: 06:40 Yep-yep. JSBC: 06:41 And everybody started, the Marines or the military started yelling at all the recruits and the guys on board the plane and we kind of looked at each other and said, "What have we gotten into?" They took us off, isolated us, and took us to BOQ where we spent the night. Next morning, we got up and I saw the guards sitting in front with guns. It is like, "Holy moly." SM: 07:07 A lot different than being home. JSBC: 07:10 Yeah, a lot different than Wisconsin. So that that was kind of the rude awakening into to Vietnam, and we had to go get uniforms and they were, we were issued boots. You know, pants, shirts, caps, which promptly we put on took a picture, and then pretty much got rid of the gear because we could wear our blue uniforms. And we just had a lot of logistical things that we had to do. Then we have training sessions at the Red Cross headquarters there on how to do a program. I had a friend from Wescott, a friend I did not- I would not know his name at this point. A gentleman from the Red Cross from Wisconsin was there. And the phone rang and they said, “Jeanne, that is for you.” I was still Jeannie. And you know, I am in Vietnam, what the hell is calling me? Happened to be this guy from the Red Cross in Wisconsin, in Madison. He said, "I have a motor scooter, let us go, I will show you around the city." So I got permission. And we went out and drove all over Saigon at that point. I remember going to the zoo, I remember driving in traffic. And here I am on the back of a scooter. And just having a wonderful time. [laughs] SM: 08:31 My gosh. JSBC: 08:33 Totally different, you know, the training sessions were supposed to be at. And it was, you know, it was easy. They kind of assessed the group and decided who would go to which unit at that point. And after a couple days, they said "You are going here you are going there. The flight is leaving at, you know, in 20 minutes from the airport, you better get over there." There was no great farewell, a farewell ceremony. And I was sent to NhaTrang for my first duty station. SM: 09:08 Now did you go, when they broke the 13 up, how many kind of stayed together? Were there four of you, or two of you? Or how many? JSBC: 09:15 No, we all kind of went different places. I do not remember who went where. I know I was the only one going to NhaTrang. And it just depended on how many, you know, slots were open. And- SM: 09:30 Oh, okay. JSBC: 09:32 -where they were, you know, who was rotating out is what mattered. So they had to fill those slots. And I was the only one that went to NhaTrang. SM: 09:40 Now how long were you there? JSBC: 09:43 Oof, I am going to say about six months. SM: 09:48 So, half the time you were in Vietnam, you were there. JSBC: 09:51 Well, I was 13 months in Vietnam. So. I was there, I came in the end of January. [counting] February March, April, May June. Yeah, about six months, about July, and had a great time, learned a lot. We learned from each other at that point. You know, we were paired up with another girl who had been there obviously a long time or much longer than we had at that point. And, you know, we were shown the ropes. "This is who we, who you need to see, this is who you need to go to, this is where you have to go. This is oh, this unit over here, that is over there. Come on, we can go on to this group over here." So it was, it was a learning experience the whole time. They did, of course, do a little harassment. I had to pull guard duty the very first night. They made me sit on the front steps and our hooch was shared with the nurses, it was on the hospital compound. The separating factor was a roll of barbed wire. And the village homes right on the other side of the barbed wire, and there were kids playing over there. SM: 09:53 Okay. Wow. JSBC: 11:02 And the girl said, "Well, you have to do guard duty that night. So, we are going to give you a whistle. And we are going to give you a helmet, and we are going to give you a flashlight, and if you see anything, you have to blow your whistle." They had a horrendous time laughing that night. I was scared to death. [laughter] Somebody comes down the road, what am I do now, type thing. Well, it was, you know, just pure harassment. And it is funny now, but you know, it is, that is how you start. You pay your dues. And I had some really great roommates and I had some really good people to work with. Kathy Wickstrom, who has passed away now, was my roommate for many, many months. She was from Illinois. And oh, gosh, she was just great to me, I mean, she could charm the pants off a snake, you know, she could, she knew how to do it all. And she always wore her hair up on a, in a bun up top. And one of the funnier stories about Kathy is, of course, we are out programming and she walks underneath a branch and it catches on her hair. And she used to stuff it with nylon stockings, to keep it fluffy. And as she is walking away, the stocking is coming out of the back of her hair. [laughter] And the guys are in hysterics laughing and I was laughing and Kathy was like, "What is going on?" But she you know, she was just cool. And she knew the weapons, she knew how to get the guys to talk about the weapons. "Tell me about your, what is this rifle over here? Well, why is it different from that rifle?" She knew the banter that would go with it. So she was a great teacher. And we had a lot of fun on different things. And-and, you know, I cannot say, I am sorry she is gone. But she-she really taught me a lot about how to deal with everything. SM: 12:58 Now did you, but when you would go out to be with these, the troops, did we did, were you taken in a helicopter or a truck or both? Depending on where you were? JSBC: 13:10 Yeah, sometimes we would go out in a jeep. Sometimes if it was, you know, close by on the base, we would go out on the Jeep. A lot of times, we had a quarter ton truck and we had two drivers, Richie and gosh, can think the other guy's name right now. And then a lot of times we would fly, we would go by chopper, we would go by the, special forces used to take us out in a different plane. Cannot-cannot even think of the name of the plane now. But it was not unusual to you know, show up at the Special Forces location and they would say, "Okay, today we are going to do here, we are going to go there and, you know, get in that aircraft." So it just depended on-on where we were going. Sometimes we rode the duck, we went to [inaudible] Island, and they had this water duck, you know, ride the duck type thing. And we went out to the islands on the duck and did our programs and then got on the duck and came back. So it would vary from what they had available as to where you had to go in Nha Trang. SM: 14:20 Were the numbers of soldiers that were there, dd you, were they waiting for you? Or do they just, you were there doing things and they just kind of walked up? Or how did that work? JSBC: 14:29 A little of each. Sometimes they knew we were coming, sometimes if we were flying in, you would drop out of the sky and it is like, "Oh my God, they are girls." You know, and it was like wildfire. "The girls, the girls came on my helicopter." So it varied. There were occasions when we had a regular stop that they knew we were coming on Monday at, you know, 11 o'clock or whatever it is. So they would have a group kind of gathered around and, you know, nobody was required to stay there. They could walk off if they did not like what you are doing. A lot of guys just would stand in the background and watch. So it, it varied. It varied. You had to roll with the punches at that point. SM: 15:16 Did you, now were you were only there one day? Or did you sometimes be there two days? JSBC: 15:20 No, we would be there an hour. SM: 15:22 Oh, an hour? JSBC: 15:23 An hour usually. Yeah, you would do six or seven stops during the course of a day. SM: 15:29 Wow. That is a lot of stops. JSBC: 15:31 It is a lot of stops. And so we would go from one to the other. And again, it depended on how, your, what your transportation was. And then, you know, how long does it fly- Does it take to fly such and such a place? How long does it take to you know, get the truck to, when-when we left town in the truck, we had to stop at the White Mice Station? And they had to pay the-the Vietnamese guards off for safe passage. So that was that was kind of interesting. I was like, "Richie, what are you doing?" He said, "We are paying the guards off." So, you know, the White Mice knew that we were in the area, and they would, it is okay, the girls are coming out and blah, blah, blah, blah, type thing. So that was after staying in [inaudible]. So you know, it varied, it varied. SM: 16:23 In a typical week, would you be doing this seven day a week or five days a week? JSBC: 16:30 Maybe six days a week. SM: 16:31 Okay. JSBC: 16:31 You might have a day off, but let me clue you. If you are in a combat zone, as a woman, there is no time off. [laughter] Because anyplace you go, you know, you are drawing attention and the crowd is coming. But we technically had one day off. And I know, because I became very good friends with [inaudible] and she would take me shopping. And we would go into town, we would go shopping. So I know I had time off to do that. And we cook different food together. I went to her-her house at one point and met her children it was, I was very honored actually to be able to do that. And then her husband wanted to give me a ride home. And I weighed more than he did on the motor scooter. So [laughter] he was a little, a little embarrassed that he could not give me a ride home. They had to find a vehicle for me to ride in. SM: 17:31 Right. JSBC: 17:31 But, you know, it is- we genuinely had one day off. SM: 17:36 In those, and you did this for a year now, six months or a little over six months at this location, and then other locations. Were there some men or some of the troops that stood out, like in other words, that you are doing your programs, but they might want to, you know, I have not been able to talk to my mom or dad. I you know, did they ever kind of open up at all? JSBC: 18:04 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you would go in there you do you learn to do, we learned very quickly to read nonverbally, what the case was going to be. Sometimes you would show up and they had just lost somebody. You knew that you, kind of forget the program, there was going to be no-no giggles and laughs this time. We also learned to sit next to them instead of in front of them. We very quickly learned that so that they could talk to you without being threatened. And sometimes all we felt like were-were great big ears, because we listened to them. And that was one of the things we learned to do a lot of from the older gals. Just listen to them. Let them do the talking. And if they will not talk, again, get them to talk about their weapon. They will always tell you about, you could wake them up in the middle of the night. "Tell me about your guns." And you know, they'll rattle it off. So just to get them speaking was sometimes a major accomplishment. Sometimes we heard sentences that all started with f. And we knew the meaning of every one of them. We did not pass judgment, we just listened. SM: 18:56 Right. Were you, also were these protected areas where you were, in other words you were when you were when the troops, there was a group farther away that was protecting the area where you were. I say this because you know your very first experience on arrival in Vietnam was to have the lights turned off on the plane. Obviously you knew then that it was a different lifestyle there. You know your work, dd you ever feel worrying about, you might yourself be killed? JSBC: 19:53 You know, that was one of the things that we laugh about and we reflect back on the younger generation now. Then we, we were 21 years old, we were like the kids now, invincible. Nothing would ever get us. We knew there was danger, we knew there was a war zone going on. We know people are getting killed and dying. But it was not first thought on our mind. We could not go to work if we, you know, we worried about that. So it was it was a danger. It was situational. There were times that things did happen. There were times that, you know, several women did get killed while we were there. But it was, you know, it was not at the top of your list in your mind. You cannot do your job if, if you were worried about that. So we just did the best we could. We, our driver had a gun. So you know, we had an armed guard technically. You know, the men were very protective of us. If anything came up, we were the first ones they would grab and, you know, get out of the way. So, it was not anything we worried about at that point in our life. Now it is a whole different thing. I would worry about it. But back then, no, being 21. And, and you know, the world is your oyster type thing. We did not think about it. SM: 21:34 Do you know how many in, once the war was over how many in the Red Cross had died? JSBC: 21:40 Oh, gosh, I know, there were at least five. There were three in our program that died. And I just found out the other day that there was another woman whose husband was there. She was working for another organization. And she was killed during Tet. SM: 21:58 Wow. JSBC: 21:59 Yeah. SM: 22:00 You know, I reflect upon the-the wall in Washington DC, of course, the women's memorial in (19)93 that was opened, but I reflect upon the wall because I think there is only 12 names on the wall of women. JSBC: 22:12 Right-right. SM: 22:13 And are there any of them Red Cross? JSBC: 22:16 Red Cross has a plaque that has their names on them. But because we were not technically military- SM: 22:24 Right. JSBC: 22:24 -we could not be put on the wall. And that still to this day is one of those bugaboos. You know, I live in a community that has a veteran’s group, but I am not a veteran. SM: 22:38 Yeah. JSBC: 22:38 I am a veteran of Vietnam. SM: 22:40 Right. JSBC: 22:40 But not a Vietnam veteran. SM: 22:41 Right. JSBC: 22:42 And that, you know, that is a very fine line of distinction. And there is resentment when you get into a group and you are not a DD 214 veteran. SM: 22:53 Right. I understand that. I know there is, when the wall was built, all these restrictions about what other things that can be placed near the wall. Of course, the three man statue, that got through because of some power [inaudible] Vietnam vets. But, of course, the women's memorial was way overdue, way overdue. And thanks to Diane and all she did in her group. But, you know, there, I have gotten to the wall now, on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, except the last two years because of COVID every year since Lewis Puller died, because I got to know, I know, I got to know Lewis and I really felt I had to be there every year from that point forward. And-and it is interesting, because I know there has been men who had dogs that they love, there needs to be recognition for the dogs. And of course, they, no way are they going to be recognized at the wall and certain-. But people like you and who went over and we were with the, maybe there was a discussion down the road that that will change. JSBC: 24:01 I doubt it very truthfully. I really, I cannot see, they, if they did that there are so many things they would have to do. If we all die out, then somebody might recognize it. But then they would not have to give us medical coverage or, you know, Agent Orange coverage or anything else. PTSD. We all were exposed to the whole stuff. But because we are with a private organization, we are not covered under that. And if they recognized us, then they would have to do that. So once we all die off, it'll probably happen, but not until then. SM: 24:38 I think. Yeah, the things that were happening in America. During that time that you were there. Were you cognizant of what was going on in America itself? JSBC: 24:48 No. SM: 24:48 Because of the tremendous protests and divisions and everything else. The race issue racial issues, drugs, everything. JSBC: 24:56 No, I was not well, the drugs and the race issue were after I came home. And they were not that prevalent when I was there. Because I was there early. I was there (19)67. SM: 25:12 Right. JSBC: 25:13 So, you know, that that starts in afterwards and becomes a problem in the (19)70s. So I was not aware of that. I, we knew there were drugs. And if you wanted them, you could get them. But it, it was not a problem for us then. If that makes sense. I mean, it sounds crazy. SM: 25:38 And they always, they always say that the real heyday or the, when the real deaths were happening in large numbers was from (19)67 to (19)71 were the real crisis years. And I know Phil Caputo who wrote the book "A Rumor of War," he wrote the book because "Hey, wait a minute, I was there in (19)65 and (19)66. And there is a lot going on there too the-the Ia Drang Valley was very early." JSBC: 26:04 Yeah. SM: 26:05 So you know, I bring these things up. Because you see, so many books have been written and you know, the war was a long one and there was different periods of ups and downs, and, and certainly drugs. You know, what was happening in America was somewhat prevalent, what was happening in Vietnam as well in the early (19)70s. What, what did you do when you were after six months, where did you go after that? JSBC: 26:30 After NhaTrang, I went to Da Nang with the First Marine Division. And we were, we had quarters in a house that we lived in and in Da Nang proper. We had a driver who had a red and white Volkswagen bus [laughs] to take us back and forth. We had a center up on freedom hill, and we had a center on the flight line for the Marine Corps, which was blown up shortly after I got there. So you know, it was a very different. I had been with the army, and I had been with the Navy in NhaTrang, basically, in special forces. Now all sudden, I am with the Marine Corps. And that was an adjustment. That was an adjustment. Not a bad one. And you know, but it was a different way of looking at military service and your obligation and things. SM: 27:29 Yeah. JSBC: 27:30 Yeah. SM: 27:30 I can understand, I know a lot of Marines and- JSBC: 27:33 Yep. SM: 27:34 -to get to be a Marine is very difficult. JSBC: 27:36 Yeah. SM: 27:36 And you know, you can go through training and you do not cut it and then go into the army and but you are not a Marine. JSBC: 27:42 Yeah. SM: 27:42 And so, there is a pride and there is a call and I can see it the Vietnam Memorial every year, the pride is really there in being a Marine, and it goes from generation to generation too. JSBC: 27:51 It does, and you know, great guys. A lot of I mean, I knew some of the dirty things that were going on when I was in NhaTrang. For example, I am going to backtrack a second, I had two friends who were with Air America. And they used to come by the house, the house that had the barbed wire on the outside, and we would sit and chat and talk and everything else. And one of the guys was dating a nurse in town, not a gov- not a military nurse, but a civilian nurse. And, gosh he was good looking guy, good looking guy. And anyway, one day, the other friend came by and he said, "I want to tell you that so and so is no longer here." And I said, "what happened?" He said, "He killed himself." And I said, "Oh, why?" "Well, he shot the nurse. He killed the nurse. And then he turned the gun on himself." So we knew things like that were going on. But, you know, it was a much grander scale when we got to the Marine Corps. And they had a lot of dirty stuff. I mean, you know, I, the standing joke about the "Oh apricots for me." They showed me a string of-of ear. SM: 29:05 Wow. JSBC: 29:06 When I was out in the field one day, and I really thought they were apricots. I really did. And today I look at apricots and I see, you know, the same thing [laughs]. And I was like, "Hmm." And then seeing shrunken heads and different things like that, and some of the beatings and some of the other problems that went into it, that I did not see in NhaTrang a lot. I was more exposed to it when I was with the Marine Corps. They were tough. There was, there was no you know, leeway. You were, you either did it or you did not do it type thing. And great guys. I love my Marines, absolutely adore them. But their duty was very different from that of the Army or the Navy. And you know if anything happens, if I ever need protection, I am going to get myself a couple of good Marines. SM: 30:03 Yeah, I think I can remember when we had Jan Scruggs and Country Joe McDonald, they came to West Chester University back in, I think (19)99, we, we did the traveling Vietnam memorial at the university and, and-and they were speaking and Jan helped us get Country Joe. I remember we were at dinner one night and country Joe was just talking with Jan, Jan was talking to the students and-and then country Joe, just out of the clear blue says, "Well, you know why there were not any hostages, why there were not any hostage- North Vietnamese or Vietcong hostages, do not you?" And, "Because they were all killed." And I did not, I did not quite understand this, I thought there were hostages. And because what happened is a lot of the guys gave them, they gave them off to the South Vietnamese Army, and they did whatever they wanted to do to him or something. JSBC: 31:02 Yeah-yeah. SM: 31:03 So that and I, and Jan did not even say anything, this is all Country Joe saying it. Any he kind of, you know. So and it came up due to a question from a student. I wanted to ask you, since you were with, around these guys, you know, for an entire year and you know how America treated them upon the return home, this has really upset me for a long time, is how Vietnam veterans are treated upon their return to America. I have locals’ stories of veterans coming home and not even allowed into a Viet Veterans of Foreign Wars office. And because a lot of it has to do with My Lai and this perception that they are all crazed, and they are all bad. And that affected the women too. JSBC: 31:46 Sure. SM: 31:47 Did you notice when you were with the, for that year, the mental health issues that were facing a lot of the young men and women who were serving in Vietnam, and we all know now cause of post-traumatic stress disorder. And-and you said the one gentleman killed himself and then his girlfriend or whatever, just-just the overall mental health of, you know, the Agent Orange and all the things they were going through? JSBC: 32:19 I am going to say no. As a general term, Agent Orange, we did not know about we did not understand it at that point. The mental health issues. Yeah, there were a lot of issues. And there were a lot of guys who were stressed out. But again, our job was to listen to them, and not debate the issues. And if they had a paragraph of all F words, we under, we listened to those too, and tried not to get into the debate if that makes sense. PTSD, nobody knew about at that point. You know, it, it was an emotional thing. I had, I had a Marine come into the center one day, and we had a music room where they would play drums and everything else. They were supposed to check the weapons. He brought us up, brought a weapon in with him, and all sudden, I am on duty. And I hear this, "Boom." And, you know, now what, you look. And they said, "Oh, in the music room type thing." I went into the music room, he had shot himself in the foot. So he could get out. And he left. I mean, he was gone before I even got there. "Where would he go?" "Well, he shot himself in the foot, you know, took off." So, you know, yeah, there were, the guys were under a lot of stress. And again, it was not our job to get into that finite portion of right or wrong with them. Listen to them. SM: 33:57 Right. JSBC: 33:58 Listen to them. So it was very interesting. You know, I do not know what I can tell you. I mean, laughter was best, the best medicine. And, and we knew that from again, the previous training from the older women that had been there before. If you get-get them to laugh, they cannot cry and they cannot laugh at the same time. If they can laugh at you, make them do that. If they can laugh at themselves, even better. You know, try and bring some humor and break that facade. If they cannot talk to you. You know if you are serving chow and you have got six of them sitting over on the other side just watching and you know, spill something on yourself or drop a dish and make them laugh. So, you know, you were always aware of that factor. I do not know if that makes sense to you. SM: 34:56 Yeah, it does. It does. I-I was not there. I think this- It is important because the people who will be listening to these interviews, you know, it is all about research and scholarship and trying to understand the times and that war. And it is, and believe me, 20, 30 years from now, generations will be listening to these interviews as well. And I just do not want this, the (19)60s and (19)70s and the Vietnam War, and the lessons learned from these times to ever be forgotten. That is one of the goals of everything we are doing. What- JSBC: 35:31 I can, I can tell you though Stephen. When I came home, I was accosted by women. I was doing a panel with Red Cross one night in Madison. And after I was all done, a couple of the women came up to me, and they were shaking their fingers at me. And they said, "We know what you did in Vietnam." And they were furious. You know, it is like, "You are, you are a whore. We know that." And I just looked at them kind of dumbfounded. And I sealed it off. I never talked about it for-for 10, 15 years afterwards. SM: 35:32 Yeah. JSBC: 35:32 It was just like, I am not going to deal with it. They do not, you know, nobody knows, as a woman, where I was for that year. It is no big deal if a woman disappears. For a guy, they were going to assume that they went over into service. But for a woman they would not. And so I just, I refused to talk about it. SM: 36:26 When now, when your time was nearing an end for 13 months, were you thinking about what you were going to do next when you got home or were you thinking? JSBC: 36:37 Oh, I knew. I knew already what I was going to do. I had applied to graduate school, from Vietnam. And I applied to NYU and I applied to Miami of Ohio. NYU accepted me, but did not give me any funding. And of course, I did not have any money. And so Miami gave me a full ride. And I said, I know where I am going. [laughs] SM: 37:02 That is a good school. I worked Ohio University my first job, that is a very good school. JSBC: 37:07 Yeah, yeah. So that, that made it very easy. But no, DaNang was a wonderful place. I learned a lot. I learned a lot about life. I learned a lot about difficult situations that men can get into. You know, I had wonderful opportunities to kind of expand my whole knowledge. We were, we had sniper fire at night into our house. Never knew I could get under a bed in hair rollers so fast in my life. As I said, our one of our centers was blown up. And I still have to this day a piece of shrapnel from that day. I you know, I used to see guys in the hospitals that look like somebody had taken the course pepper grinder to them. And I would stand there and look at them. I really did not know what at all was, it was shrapnel. And finally, after the center was blown up, it was kind of "Oh, that [laughs], that is what that is" type stuff. You know, oh gosh, going into the hospitals and I learned what burn victims smell like. We had one guy in there. He was isolated and kind of put off to the side. He was covered in patches. He had a little teeny tiny peephole, like a quarter of an inch of the bandage that he could see through. And we had gone into the wards, they had to leave him alone. So we did our thing. We talked to the guys on the ward. On leaving, we went past him. And I just could not resist. I said, "That is a nice peephole." Well, as soon as I said something, the corpsman grabbed me and decided that they were going to give me a shot, an injection, which was just water. But anyway, they got this guy who was just totally bandaged to laugh. And it was probably one of the best moments [laughter]. Here is his little itty-bitty peephole. That is all he could see is these corpsmen grabbing me. And, you know, it was it was a wonderful moment for him. It was a wonderful moment in the hospital just to give that relief to somebody. You know it-it was terrific. We had some very nasty things happen up there. We had some great things happen up there. The Air Force was up there as well. And we got to know a bunch of them. When they would do 100 missions over North Vietnam. They had a fire truck that you could, it was a water truck and you could hose anybody down within range. Well, we got to ride the fire trucks when they hosed people down [laughter]. A lot of people probably hated us. They had some music centers where we could go in and totally just decompress and just listen to music. On tapes, we all had tape decks at that point. Speaking of music, one of the great moments and to this day, I still get tears in my eyes, listening to music and Dvorak, New World Symphony. SM: 37:46 Wow. Oh, wow. JSBC: 40:25 When they started playing "Going Home," we had we had it playing in the center one night, or day. And when that got, I mean, it is noisy in the center. I mean, everybody's talking and people are moving around. And they were very noisy. And that piece came on. And I just remember absolute dead silence. SM: 40:45 Wow. JSBC: 40:46 And all these tough Marines just in another world of going home. It was beautiful. SM: 40:53 Is not that- JSBC: 40:54 Absolutely wonderful. And to this day, I hear that peace out. I just think that those guys just standing there. And how meaningful it was to them. God bless America was another thing that that would stop them. And so you know, you had wonderful things like that happen, as well. And very meaningful. SM: 41:14 I know that you know, those Bob Hope tours were very important to the trips too. JSBC: 41:18 Yeah. SM: 41:18 Every year and of course, the singers and the entertainers that came over. But the music is known "Good Morning, Vietnam." And there is truth to that, because you know, what, no matter what you are talking about, about the people that served in the war, the music was a very important part of their lives. JSBC: 41:34 It was. SM: 41:35 And, and just about all that music from the (19)60s and into the mid (19)70s. I mean, we are talking. Typically, Vietnam War, we are talking (19)59 to (19)75 is what you talk about, but you know, disco came in toward the very end and everything. But, you know, did you hear music a lot when you were going around these places, were they playing it on a transistor radios? JSBC: 41:58 If we were out in the field, no, not a lot of music out there. If we were in the centers obviously, we had the music. SM: 42:05 Right, which of the- JSBC: 42:07 And- SM: 42:07 -were there, were there groups that you felt were like the groups for the troops? JSBC: 42:14 We did not ex- I did not experience that. I am going to say I personally. We had Bob Hope with us at Phan Rang, which was my third stop. And that was meaningful. But for the most part you know, we did not go to the shows in Da Nang. They were too rough, they were too dangerous for the most part. Our center, as I said, the one on the flight line was blown up. The big center up and Freedom Hill, a couple times we were evacuated out of there because they would just throw us in jeeps and get us out there is because VC were on the other side of the hill. So you know, we kind of had to pace ourselves and see what was going on. But music, if they could, if they could hear it, they loved it. And they would play it. Not a lot of radios out in the boonies [laughs]. SM: 43:11 Now that, I am going to get into your post-Vietnam. But when you were in Vietnam, of course, you had the African American soldiers and you had the Latino soldiers and you had Native American soldiers, there was a couple books written right now, why I served. Native Americans and certainly Asian Americans as well. Did you see, was there a camaraderie between these groups during the time that you were there? JSBC: 43:41 I did not notice the difference. Believe it or not in (19)67 I did not see the Black or the Latino or the Asians or whatever group you want to call it. I just saw soldiers. They were all brothers back then. And we had Black, white, pink, polka dot striped whatever friends amongst the groups. There, this, as crazy as it is going to sound, I did not see that difference. And maybe that is part me. And maybe it is part them. But it was early. And we accepted everybody on the same level. SM: 44:27 As they should. JSBC: 44:28 Yeah. SM: 44:29 Yeah. And because you know, anybody I have talked to who has served in war, and I did not do it, so I cannot talk on it, but I have when I have talked to others is they were our brothers and sisters. JSBC: 44:39 Yeah. SM: 44:39 When we were in war, we do not think about this. JSBC: 44:42 Right. SM: 44:42 We think of survival and helping them survive. JSBC: 44:46 Yeah. SM: 44:46 And what happens beyond that is another story. JSBC: 44:50 Yeah. [crosstalk] I know some of the women that came after me in the later years, noticed a difference but when I was there, I did not. People felt the same. SM: 45:01 The last thing I wanted to mention on the what happening, was happening in Vietnam. Did you ever experience or hear about fragging? JSBC: 45:09 Oh, yeah. We know about fragging. [laughs] SM: 45:13 Yeah. Because- JSBC: 45:13 Sorry about that. I know. No, we knew about fragging. We also knew and again, we would hear things when the guys came in, and they were angry. You knew you know, the next time, oh, he was fragged. SM: 45:14 Because, uh you know, graduates of West Point in Annapolis and they had come to Vietnam and some of the young guys under them said, "Who are these guys?" Wow. JSBC: 45:38 And you knew what happened. So we knew that was going on. I did not know anybody personally, who was fragged. But there, you know, there were things going on. There were. SM: 45:53 On your flight back when you knew you were coming home. And were you going to just go home and visit your parents first and then go to the Miami of Ohio? JSBC: 46:02 [laughs] Oh, you are a dreamer. [laughter] Let us see, let me let me backtrack for a few minutes. I just want to say one thing about when I, my third assignment was Phan Rang. And that was with the Air Force. [inaudible] sit on the other side, the Aussies were in the middle, we were with the Air Force. And that was where I was a unit and programming director. And for the first time, I really became aware of the danger that some of the women were in. We had VC picked up, and they had photographed the women. So they were targeting them. We had one of the girls in the group, she had gone to the beach with a soldier, and which was fine with me, they got a motor scooter, and they were going to the beach. And they had some charcoal with them. And they had, somebody put a grenade in the charcoal. SM: 46:54 Oh, god. JSBC: 46:54 So, we, you know, I became very aware of some of the dangers. We had a lot of people peeping toms, we had VC that would be watching the house and we had a dog, the dog would, dog was our security. Dog would bark, and you would go to the door and you would see somebody run up the hill. So we knew, I knew, I should say I knew of some of the dangers at that point that were lurking out there. And I did not, I was not aware of them in the other two locations as such. So, by the time I would become unit and program director because, I would hear from the commanding officer, this is what has happened, you have got to be aware of this. So that is, that is kind of that story. But on to coming home. Came home. I knew where it was going. I flew into, well, it was during Tet, and I could not get out. So I was in Saigon, there were five of us who were rotating out. And I, you know, I wanted out at that point. I, I had a date. I mean, I knew where I had to be in XYZ days, you know, type thing. So I eventually, it was Tet, we went with to the top of the hotel I can never remember the name of, it had a bar on the top. And we could watch all the fireworks going on all the you know, gunships and [inaudible] the ground. And I found a pilot who had a bird dog who was willing to get me back to Phan Rang, where if I got Phan Rang, I could get to Cam Ranh, if I could get to Cam Ranh and I could get a C-23 or C-130 out of the country. So that was my route. And I had a flight suit at that point. So that morning, we left first thing in the morning and the fires were still going on-on the flight line. There were bomb craters all over the place. And he got the bird dog out. Took me to Phan Rang. I got there and they said, "I thought you left, you know, what you doing back here?" And I said, "I am going to Cam Ranh, get me on a flight to Cam Ranh" and got Cam Ranh, wore my flight suit and boots, and got all set to go. But because I was a civilian, I still did not have a stamped passport. Because of that. I had to go back down to Saigon and get somebody, anybody to stamp that book, that passport book, so I could get out of the country. I had orders, but I did not have a passport. I mean, I could get out of the country. I could not get into another country. SM: 49:38 Right. JSBC: 49:38 So, you know back and forth and down and I finally got out, headed towards Okinawa on a military flight, and in Okinawa, then I was able to eventually get to Japan and got a commercial flight home to San Francisco. Got to San Francisco and I did not, I was not ready to go home yet [laughs]. I went to see one of my buddies. And he was an old, I had, you know, it is hard for people to understand. I had so many good friends and buddies, men. And he was an F4 pilot. And he said, you know, on your way home come to McChord Air Force Base, let us go flying. I held him to it. So I had the flight suit. And I had short hair. So I went to, I went from San Francisco to McChord Air Force Base, and we flew T-33s. And just had a wonderful time. And, you know, eventually then I got another flight and went to Madison, Wisconsin. Saw my family, "Hello, I am safe," you know, whatever. And "Oh, by the way, I have to be over in [laughs] Miami at, you know, in Oxford Ohio in a few days here." So I, short stay at home and headed towards Miami of Ohio and got into mischief there, so [laughter]. I was a handful. So that was, that was my flight home. I mean, I you know, I did not really go home-home for any length of time, I spent my time seeing a buddy. I often wonder whatever happened to him, I know he is married. He was an awful nice guy just is the one that said, you know, you are 10 pounds overweight, your head is a mess, get your act together. And, you know, it took a good friend to say that. SM: 51:40 When you, when that plane took off, you know, I am going to ask, when that plane took off, and you were off the ground, and you were heading home to San Francisco. What was going through that mind of yours? JSBC: 51:51 Well, that flight was out of Japan. SM: 51:53 Oh, ok Japan. JSBC: 51:54 Out of Japan. And I had a very nasty dirty man sitting next to me and he wanted to give me a permanent gig, give me a job. He had a position for me. I said, "I have been through a year, you know, 13 months in Vietnam of all these men, and it was an extra dirty old man who was [inaudible] me?" [laughter] I could not believe it. SM: 52:15 Wow. JSBC: 52:16 So, it was a very quiet long flight. [laughter] SM: 52:22 Okay, so when you were going to Miami, Ohio, what were you going to major in? JSBC: 52:28 I was getting a master's in educational supervision. SM: 52:32 Okay. JSBC: 52:34 And I was working in the art department. Specifically in the ceramics lab. SM: 52:41 Is that a two-year program or-? JSBC: 52:42 No, it was a one-year program. And at the end of it, we had to do an exhibit. We had to you know, pass our exams. And then we took a bunch of kids and we went to New York. You know, so it was kind of fun. But it was an interesting year, and I had developed a very good friend, who I decided I was I was not going to stay in the American, in America anymore. I did not like American women at that point. They were snippy snotty, and they had no clue what was going on in the world. And that was just my bias. And so I had I had an opportunity to apply for the USO and become an associate director of the USO. And they offered me a job in Guam or back to Vietnam. And I said, "Well, I have been to Vietnam, I might as well go to Guam." And this other gal in our department, liked what I was doing, she decided she was going to apply but she was six months younger than I was. So of course, she got to go to Thailand. And that was where I wanted to go. And you know, we had many, many funny stories as that story goes on. But that was what I did afterwards. SM: 53:58 And how long were you there? JSBC: 54:01 My tour was almost two years. And I met my husband over there. So I kind of ended it a little bit early and my mother came over and my mother and I traveled around the world. SM: 54:15 Wow. JSBC: 54:15 Yeah. SM: 54:15 What what-was the- your job responsibilities with the USO? JSBC: 54:20 Well, one thing it would have been, it did not last that way. Our director heart attack and died. So two of us who were the associates became, you know, the surrogate directors. We ran a daycare center. We had a big facility on a beach. We did a lot of things, civic programs that were, we were involved. I took the guys what we call duney stomping, we would take them hiking up in the hills of Guam where they were still fighting Japanese from World War Two up there. So it, you know, it varied again but it was another tropical island. SM: 54:59 And after Guam you came home again? JSBC: 55:02 After Guam I came home again and I did get married. I was not 100 percent sure, as the closer I got to New York that I wanted to do that, but I did. SM: 55:13 Right. How did you get your PhD? JSBC: 55:19 Raised two children, went through PTSD did a bunch of other things in the community, and decided, well, why not? I have got a Master's degree. And so I applied, and I was interested in the adult learning program. And just did it on a lark basically, got accepted and cried all the way across town saying, "What have I done, what have I done? Oh, my God, what have I done now?" And anyway, you know, I had to live on campus for a while. And my husband moved in the meantime, down to Virginia for a job. So we were back and forth. And, you know, got all the way through all the exams and everything else. And working, this is just as computers were coming in. So I would send papers home, and it would take a week to get back up to Connecticut, and then 10 days to be read and, you know, back down, and it was not working out one might say. So, I took one degree and then decided that I was ABD at that point, that I still wanted to write the dissertation. And I was interested in women in the Iraq war and their communication patterns. And so I proposed it to another online school at that point, they accepted it, and I finished the PhD that way. SM: 56:43 Wow, that is a good story, too. My God. JSBC: 56:46 Yep-yep. So, I got to meet some of the girls from the Iraq war that that way that I am still in touch with, which is really neat. SM: 56:52 Do you stay in touch with any of the people you worked with in Vietnam? JSBC: 56:57 In Vietnam? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we have a whole group of us, a whole group of us. SM: 57:02 Do you meet? Or do you just kind of- JSBC: 57:05 We periodically try and meet, of course, COVID has not helped. And we are going to, a couple of us are in charge of a conference that will be held in (20)23, up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. So, we are getting that one in the in the works at this point, which is kind of fun. We try, it tries to move it from different places around the United States. So other people can go when it is, you know, closer by. SM: 57:30 I want to ask you about if you and your peers in the Red Cross, after leaving Vietnam, went through what we just talked about briefly here about how you were treated in in the United States upon your return, when people knew that you served. You know, Vietnam veterans are treated so poorly until (19)82, when the wall was built. JSBC: 57:53 Yeah. SM: 57:53 In fact, they were even I was in California at the time. And I, but I heard there were protesters outside on the streets, even when the wall was being opened, which I thought was ridiculous. JSBC: 58:04 Oh, yeah. SM: 58:05 What the heck-? But just that-that has been, it is not happening now. Because now we got the issue of people lying that they were Vietnam veterans. JSBC: 58:15 Yeah. SM: 58:15 You know, because they are, they are accepted. But at that time, they were treated poorly. Did you experience any of that? JSBC: 58:21 It still happens, it still happens. I will give you an example the other day, with a veterans group locally here, I kind of walked in, well, I backtrack a second. They have two libraries in two of the clubs here, one for each of the buildings. And there are a ton of books about war, and Vietnam and the other wars. There was not one book about women. And when I looked at the shelf, I said, "What, I can do something about this!" So I had a couple books, and I took them over when the group was getting together that they meet once a month. And I gave them to the guy who was running the group. And I said, "Here is the start of your woman's collection." And I said I was a Donut Dollie in Vietnam, and he was very receptive. He took me into the room and he introduced me. And [groans] not everybody is enthralled by you know, being a Donut Dollie in Vietnam. Because a lot of people still do not like the Red Cross. And it is a mixed review, let us put it that way. And they said, "Well, you can stay" and I said, "No, this is a veteran’s group." And again, I am a veteran of Vietnam. I am not a, you know, Vietnam veteran. SM: 59:41 Right. JSBC: 59:41 And I said, But I would be more than happy to help you and anything you need done, just call me, just let me know. So I left and about two weeks later, in a ladies group. I am sitting there and I am talking to [inaudible] some of the women and I said something. And the one woman looked at me whose husband-husband was a West Point graduate. And she said, "Oh, the Donut Dollie!" And you know, it has taken me several weeks to figure out, that was not the biggest compliment. [laughter] So her husband must have gone home and said, "Oh, and we have a Donut Dollie," you know. And she came through and it was not gracious. So, you know, it does still happen. They do not always accept it. And it was difficult for a woman to really say where she was, and to be accepted. SM: 1:00:43 Well, we all know what Diane Carlson Evans went through when the hearings in Congress and she was called everything. And boy, just like Jan Scruggs and creating the wall, it took a lot of courage and guts to get through all the battles to make it happen. But when what where, did you visit the, were you there the day the woman's memorial was dedicated, or? JSBC: 1:01:11 Yes, I was. SM: 1:01:13 That was in I think, November 11th of (19)93. JSBC: 1:01:17 I am not sure the year but yeah, I was down there. SM: 1:01:20 What, can you talk about that day, in terms of your feelings, being there with the nurses, Red Cross, Donut Dollies, I know Holley Watts, I know her well. JSBC: 1:01:33 Yeah. SM: 1:01:33 Just the feeling of being there on that day? JSBC: 1:01:38 Well, I think for most women, it has come a long way. And they are they are pretty darn accepting of one another right now. No, we were not nurses, we did not do what they did. They did not do what we did. It took all of us to make that year, go away for the you know, for the guys. And it was about the men, it was not about us. And so, you know, it, the recognition from one another as females has increased a thousand fold. At one point, we were each other's enemy. You know, in Vietnam, the nurses or the Donut Dollies, or the USO people or the special services. Everybody kind of protected their own turf. But afterwards, after the-the dedication to the wall, and specifically when the dedication of the women's Memorial, it really became more of a united group. And there, many of the organizations that if you were there, we do not care. You can be, you know, be a member of this. I did receive a Presidential Award for VV, from VVA at one point. And so, you know, that made me feel pretty good. Three of us were asked to show up in Springfield convention and they gave us an award. So this is very nice recognition. You know, there is still, a lot of doors are still closed, they always will be. Whose problem is that? Is that the other side's problem or ours? I think it is the other side's problem. SM: 1:03:22 I agree, I agree. JSBC: 1:03:24 And, you know, we have many generations that have gone past now. And that is kind of cool. SM: 1:03:32 I often ask people who have been to the women's Memorial, of course, have been to the Vietnam Memorial. The first time you visited the Vietnam Memorial. I do this and I am still doing it every time I go there I, when the when the remembrance events are over, I sit in a chair before they put all the- I sit there for about an hour. And I just, I look at the wall and I am not a veteran and [inaudible] to go through but I lived through it through a college student and all of all that stuff. I see so many things on that wall. I know Jan Scruggs, I told him about this, I see what you guys did to make this wall happen. I just still do not know how they made it happen. It took, because I know his story as well as Jack Wheeler, who sadly was killed in Wilmington, Delaware a couple years back and I see the faces of Vietnamese, I see the faces of the soldiers I see the faces of the nurses I see the faces of, you know, the Red Cr- I see everything there. I-I just kind of stare at it, and it is just me. But I am wondering what other people, when they see that wall, what they see? I do not know if you if you tend to spend time there you know, I know a lot of the women go to make sure they look up the names of the 12 nurses who were there. And, but and of course, the Vietnam vets you know the guys that died by their side, Jan Scruggs has a whole section where the guys who you served with died, so he would obviously go there. JSBC: 1:05:07 Right. SM: 1:05:07 The Ia Drang Valley guys go to another section. I mean, do you? What-what do you see? Or what do you think some of the other women see when they go to that wall? JSBC: 1:05:19 I think it is going to be very personal for each one that does it. More than the wall, the massiveness of it, because we did not know a lot of their, their names, when we went to see the guys, I mean, if we tried, it hurt too much to know that it was Steve Smith, or Joe Blow, it became hairy or slick, or what, we gave them nicknames. So, I do not know who those names are there, per se. But what I do is I see the faces of the people who are looking at the wall. And I see and sense their feelings. It has it has touched so many people in different ways. That it is, it is almost a gut feeling. If somebody's in trouble, you just go over and you have to put a hand on their arm or a shoulder or, you know, look at them in the eye and just say I understand, you do not have to say anything else. SM: 1:06:30 Right. I love it when I see grandparents with parents and grandchildren. I see it more and more. And now we are talking great grandchildren- JSBC: 1:06:44 Yeah. SM: 1:06:44 -because people are living longer. JSBC: 1:06:45 Yep. SM: 1:06:46 And-and when I see kids there and-and they are pointing to a name of a grandfather that they never heard of. JSBC: 1:06:55 Right. SM: 1:06:56 It touches me. It is about [crosstalk] history, it is about never forgetting. JSBC: 1:07:01 Right. SM: 1:07:02 And I, and when I when I see that wall I, it is about remembrance. It is like what Jan Scruggs originally said, to heal a nation but most importantly to heal the families of those who died in that war, who gave- JSBC: 1:07:17 Right. SM: 1:07:18 -their ultimate sac- who paid the ultimate price for service. JSBC: 1:07:21 Yeah. SM: 1:07:22 Plus, also, to pay respects for those who are still alive and served and were never treated you know, like they should have been upon their return and, and not make it a political entity. It is about service. JSBC: 1:07:38 Yep. SM: 1:07:39 And that has, Jan has done a tremendous job in making sure that happens. Politics always comes up, you know, at some of the remembrance events about you know, Tet and the soldiers' stories in the you know, everything- politics does come up and Bill Clinton went to the wall, obviously the booing took place because he did not serve. So it was that kind of thing. But I thought the courage of Jan Scruggs and Lewis Puller to bring him to the wall on that day was important. JSBC: 1:08:08 Yeah-yeah. SM: 1:08:09 It was so important. And I was there and, and I understood why the guys were booing, but I also understood the other side. That is why I like Lewis Puller because it was Lewis, I do not know if you ever knew Lewis. He was an unbelievable veteran who did not live long enough. He wrote the brunt, I think the greatest book ever written on, you know, "Fortunate Son." And he wanted to be up there and he wanted to introduce Mr. Clinton, and he did. JSBC: 1:08:41 Good job. SM: 1:08:42 And it was about healing. And one thing, Sam, that I want to mention to you, too, is something that has always been on my mind, I would like your thoughts. Do you ever think about the healing process in terms of not only our Vietnam veterans and their families, their survivors, but also the nation as a whole? Do you think, do you think about the healing process of that war and how it really still affects us? JSBC: 1:09:11 It still affects us and I am going to share an incident with you that we could not have done a while ago. When I was teaching at the University of Connecticut at Western. I had been in the department teaching probably 10 years. One of the fellow officers from their police department used to love to come to my class and we would do a course or, you know, a session on nonverbal behavior. He was a wonderful placement, he had first experience with nonverbal, was with a Native-Native American who would not give him eye contact. So, I knew the story and I knew how to act as he has told the story. And you know, the kind of shook the kids in the classroom. They say, "Woa, we had not thought about that" type thing. And anyway, as he was cleaning up that one particular day, he was muttering and sputtering, he had to go back to the office and his boss was a hardass Vietnam vet. And I went, "Hmm." And I, I did not say anything. I just kind of looked at him and said, "He is?" And he says, "Oh, yeah, you know," and I said, "Why did not you tell me this a long time ago?" Well, when I wrote the thank you note, which I always did, to the chief of police, I, you know, said what a wonderful job has his man had done and you know blah, blah, blah. I could not resist because I sent a box of doughnuts. And-and I signed it "DD Vietnam 67-68." Well, about three, I figured I would either get parking tickets for the rest of my life over on the campus, or I was going to, you know. And three days later, the chief of police called me. And he said, “This is Chief McLaughlin.: I am like, yes, waiting for the shoe to fall. And it did not. And we started telling stories. He said, when were- you were and I told him, I said (19)67, (19)68 He said, "I was there (19)67, (19)68. Where were you in [inaudible]." He was in Nha Trang when I was in Nha Trang. And one evening, I was going into a restaurant with an officer, we were going to dinner, there was a scuffle and a bang. I mean, it is a war zone. Not a big deal. And we went into the restaurant to obviously get out of the way. And we heard that a 14 year old kid had been shot. Nothing ever happened of it. I mean, nothing in Vietnam ever came of the whole thing. I am talking to the chief of police from my university. And he says as I am telling them the story about going into a restaurant and there was a kid shot. He said, "Stop, the hair on my arms is up." That kid was 14 years old. And I just stopped and held my breath. And he said, "I was MP on duty that shot him." SM: 1:12:08 Holy cow. JSBC: 1:12:11 And, I mean, it was, you know, it was like, "Ughhh." We met at a ceremony that they were holding a couple of weeks later, I still did not know who the man was. And I walked in, some of the cops are there and I said, "Where is the chief?" and they said, "He is out there." As soon as I walked through the door, and he saw me, he broke into tears. This is a huge burly guy. And he is just sobbing. And he grabbed me and you know, just sobbed and sobbed. And suddenly, you know, they finally got his act together again. And because they have ceremonies to do, he had to, to lead the group. So afterwards, we got talking. We became very good friends. And we were good friends for about four years and he developed cancer and then eventually he died. He left the campus and he died. When we went to the funeral, the cops are standing Color Guard [inaudible], and then walked down and they said, "No wisecracks from you, no wisecracks from you, no wise- [laughs] you know, this is a serious event." And I said, "No problem, no problem." I did my, you know, my honors, and got over towards his family, and his sister grabbed me. And she said, I want you to know that Neil McLachlan was a name, that Neil was a [inaudible] SOB until that day. And after he met you, and found out that he had saved lives, his whole life changed. SM: 1:13:43 Wow. JSBC: 1:13:45 And it was just like, I guess you never know when it is going to happen. But Neil was very special. And when he passed away then, we got him a memorial stone at the State Capitol in, in Connecticut and Hartford. And we have now moved to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Neil is buried 20 minutes from here. And it is just like "Do-do-do-do-do-do" so my husband and I for Veterans Day, drove down to the cemetery. And we went to see Neil, and we laid stones, and we laid, actually we laid coins on his grave to remember him. SM: 1:14:22 What a memory, what a story. JSBC: 1:14:24 Yeah, it is just like, you never know- SM: 1:14:27 Nope. JSBC: 1:14:28 -when it is going to happen, or what meaning it is going to have to somebody. SM: 1:14:33 Wow. JSBC: 1:14:35 So that is, you know, that is kind of a neat story about just that connection that you develop. SM: 1:14:42 Yeah. Wow. Have you put that in writing? JSBC: 1:14:47 I have not. I have not. I have told a couple people about it. And I have written a book about the Civil War women but it does not- [inaudible] SM: 1:14:56 Yeah, that is what my next question- JSBC: 1:14:58 -does not come up in that book. SM: 1:15:00 I am just going to- JSBC: 1:15:00 But no, several people I have told about that. And you know, it is just one of those profound life experiences that you have that I mean, it was so simple that night. It was a gunshot and he was EMP. SM: 1:15:15 My gosh, I only got maybe three more questions. When I was talking about the wall, what I, I kind of write down things after every time I visit the wall and, and Memorial Day and Veteran's Day. I also go to the World War Two Memorial for my dad who was not allowed to see it. JSBC: 1:15:37 Okay. SM: 1:15:38 The two things that came up to my mind every time I go to the wall in Washington is, American heroes. JSBC: 1:15:46 Okay. SM: 1:15:46 American heroes, number one, but then unnecessary death. Looking at the war, and-and I also feel sad for the Vietnamese who died, because I see a lot of Vietnamese lives were lost. JSBC: 1:16:04 Right, yep. SM: 1:16:05 And I have talked to enough Vietnam veterans now who have gone back to Vietnam. And they can empathize with Vietnamese soldiers, just like they can with the American soldiers. JSBC: 1:16:19 Yeah. SM: 1:16:20 You know, they were doing their duty, they were called to war and they were serving their nation. So I kind of leave it at that. I am going to maybe conclude here with, I would like to know about your book. "The Women of City Point, Virginia, 1864- 1865." JSBC: 1:16:37 Correct. SM: 1:16:38 And how that might be linked to Vietnam. JSBC: 1:16:40 Very easy. Back in the (19)80s, we were doing a peripatetic form for southern New England telephone. There were eight of us that the Veterans Center in New Haven, Connecticut had put together and we would go out and talk. This is when awareness about feelings and your family started. And we would go out and talk to the families of people from southern New England telephone, about the Vietnam experience. And one of the guys [inaudible], Joe Mariani ,was working for a bank, and they were cleaning out a vaul- vault one day, and he saw "Women in the War" by Frank Moore, it was a (18)65-(18)66 book. He asked if we could have it, they said, "Yes," he eventually got it and gave it to me. I opened it and like Neil, the hair on my arms went up. I said, I know these women. I know, you know, the sights, the sounds, the smells. I know these women. Long story short, Fred said, you cannot write about everybody in the Civil War, and one of those transfers to Virginia for his job, Civil War territory. We had, you could go out in the backyard and find bullets in your backyard. So I started to manage, I was still going to school, I managed to do a research internship with the National Park Service down there. We started with 12 women. When I left we had 177, then I did an exhibit for the park service. And I wrote an article for Virginia cavalcade magazine. And everybody kept saying, and it just kept snowballing. I mean, I could not leave the women alone. And I had hundreds of them. And so they finally said, you know, proverbial expression, you know, something or other get off the pot type thing. So I started writing the book, and I tell the stories, I could see the difference of the women's jobs and roles because of my experiences. And I understood not all of them were nurses, like women in Vietnam, we were not all nurses. And I started writing it like the stories I would tell people that would come to the park service, to city point. And so their stories, as well as research at the end of what happened to a lot of these ladies. I had approached a lot of different publishing companies. And finally, McFarland said, "Sure, we will publish the book," I nearly fell off my chair, but and so I wrote it. And there are no pictures in it because of copyright issues, we could not do that. So, it is just the stories, but it is of eight different groups of women basically. And frequently, I just did a lecture or presentation to the Civil War group here about the book and the different roles of the women. And it is, you know, they are just fun stories, there is sad stories, there is sweet stories they are you know, difficult stories for some people to tell. But I have done it and I am working on a couple other things. [Inaudible] lady that was from Connecticut, who is a courier for Judah P. Benjamin. And I will do another presentation in the spring, well April I think I am doing that one and throwing it out so that the guys from the group can put their input into, what am I missing? What-what I, do I not have in this? So, it is just kind of been a love of life that has gone from it. But it all started with a book from, you know, women in the war. SM: 1:20:29 Golly. I bet Diane Carlson Evans would love that book. JSBC: 1:20:33 Ah, I bet she would. Yeah. SM: 1:20:36 I might email or a let her know or whatever. I am not in touch with her. But I could certainly- JSBC: 1:20:43 And of course, it came out right as COVID started. SM: 1:20:46 Right. JSBC: 1:20:46 Went into lockdown. [laughs] SM: 1:20:49 My last. My last question is this, and this is I started this a couple of interviews ago. Since this, these interviews that I am doing are going to be listened to by people who are not even alive yet. The goal of the Center for the Study of the (19)60s is to create a really powerful digital center of its kind for research and scholarship, which is what Binghamton University is all about too and, and national scholars so that people will come here to not only listen to tapes, but to study and study this period. We hope to get PhD students eventually, they are going to be hiring a director, a PhD, who will be the director, but also work with Dean Curtis Kendrick, who is the head of the library, and I am running this whole thing. And-and so I am trying to, losing my train of thought here, you ever had that happen? JSBC: 1:21:43 Never-never, never. SM: 1:21:47 What, it is a message, it is the message that you would like to give to those who are listening to this 20 and 30 years from now, even the ones today, of course, but 20 and 30, based on your experiences in Vietnam, and what you have learned in your life, what message would you like to give to those who are listening to your interview 10, 20, 30 and 40 years from now? JSBC: 1:22:13 Oh, gosh, there is an inner strength in each of us, I think that most people never even tap into. And that strength will get you through a lot of difficult times. And life is going to be difficult. There are going to be some very difficult times in life. You can learn I mean, you have a choice, you can go forward. Or you can go backwards and being able to say, "Okay, things are not good today, things are wrong things are whatever it might be." And Heaven only knows what it is going to be 20 years from now. But we have a choice, we can go forward. And how are you going to do that? There is a direction that you can move in, and it is your choice to make that direction. I think that is one of the lessons I learned in Vietnam. SM: 1:23:08 Well, Sam, very, thank you very much for spending this hour and a half with me. JSBC: 1:23:12 No problem. SM: 1:23:13 And I am going to turn the tape off right now, and thanks again. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. 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Title A name given to the resource Dr. Jeanne Marie "Sam" Bokina Christie IIIF Item Metadata UUID 6a478c59-4f2b-4b54-85bf-8d0f015d5bb8 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/aff89c0c95737b1adf2f682f414abc68.jpeg bc9a3cc83f52724fa88bf04a6c0bf8de https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a6d855e2590026559808ffa0702c7171.mp3 8159f547db0b32427eff6745ceaff089 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Cleary Biographical Text John Cleary, a native of Scotia, NY, was a student at Kent State University when he was shot in the chest by the National Guardsman. After his recovery, Cleary received his Bachelor's Degree in Architecture from Kent State University and practiced in Pittsburg, PA until his retirement. Date of Interview 2022-01-26 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:20:39 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords "Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Kent State shooting; Protest; Activism; Architectural degree; College campus; College education; Life magazine. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: John Cleary Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Eden Lowinger Date of interview: 26 January 2022 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:01 All right, we are all set. I can put it on? Okay, I am going to put you on... All right. Again, John, thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview. I always start out the interviews with a question about your early years. Could you, could you describe your growing up years, where you were born, what kind of a neighborhood you came from, what your parents did for a living, kind of your hometown environment during your elementary and secondary school years? JC: 00:34 Sure. I actually grew up in a very rural area in upstate New York, near Schenectady, Albany. The actual name of the town was Scotia. And we actually live probably about five to six miles outside of Scotia. So we were really in a very rural area. My parents had a small Cape Cod house on probably about three acres of land. Actually, they were right near kind of an intersection. And on the one corner, the intersection was Centre Glenville Methodist Church which we went to, we attended. And so it was basically within walking distance of our house, even though we were in a rural area. And then on the other side of the intersection was Glendale Elementary School, where I basically went to, you know, first through sixth, you know, I spent, I was very much of an outdoor person and my younger years, spent a lot. I was involved in scouting quite a bit. And so we did a lot of camping trips and fishing trips. And I just really enjoyed that aspect of it. Trying to think here, oh and then we you know, these were the days when you kind of had pickup baseball games, no, no adults involved. Everyone grabbed their mitts and a baseball. And since we were within walking distance to the elementary school, there was a ball field in the back. And I just remember in spring and summer, after school, going over there and some of the kids did not have gloves. So when you, when you were in the outfield, and you got your turn at bat, you just dropped your glove on the ground where it was, and then people would run out and they would share your gloves but that was just kind of our upbringing. Probably in about fifth or sixth grade, I really got interested in skiing. And my parents, there was a golf course, probably within a 30 minutes’ drive of our house where they set up a rope tow in the winter. And so I would go over there, they dropped me off at eight in the morning and pick me up at five and I skied all day and have a great- -great time of it. Later, when I got into high school, we used to have a ski club and my parents had dropped me off. We would get a bus at like six in the morning and drive two to three hours. You know we were at the foothills of the Adirondacks and close to Vermont. And so we would ski a different resort every Saturday. And gosh I remember I think this is like, you know, it was not a school bus, it was pretty nice Coach bus and I think that the cost of the bus and the lift ticket was like $7. SM: 03:33 Wow. It is a little different today [laughs]. JC: 03:51 No, it is different today could not even get a, probably could not even get a hamburger and a coke for that. SM: 04:29 [laughs] That is true, when you were a kid were you a Pittsburgh pirate fan? JC: 04:34 Well I grew up in upstate New York so. SM: 04:36 Okay, who was your, who your favorite players? JC: 04:42 You know what I did not really follow the-the you know, well I followed the Yankees and gosh, you were going to, you were going to try to- there was of course Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford. There were you know some of the other major players. My dad was a huge New York Giants fan. So I remember on Sunday afternoons, sitting in the living room and watching football with my dad. SM: 05:13 Yeah. I am a big Giants fan. I grew up in Ithaca and Cortland. So that is, that Giant's country. JC: 05:20 Yeah, there you go. SM: 05:21 Yeah. When you were, how did your parents and your young peer friends feel about the issues in the news that were taking place during those early years, particularly in the early (19)60s, their thoughts on, you know, at the dinner table when you were with your parents or your, really your friends in school. Did you ever talk about the-the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement and some of the other movements that were taking place at that time, some for the first time? JC: 05:53 Well, I mean, I have to be honest here and say that really, I was not really political at all, I was kind of in my own little bubble in upstate New York. And basically, like I said, I was very much involved with the doing things outdoors and did not watch hardly any TV, did not watch or read any, any papers per se. We did not really talk politics at the dinner table. Usually, it was about the day's events, or, you know, when I say day's events, meaning what I had done, or what my parents had done, or you know, those-those types of issues. We really did not talk politics at all in our family. SM: 06:48 Did-did you ever, just as just as you now, this is not talking about, did you ever feel that you were something- this was way before college- that your generation was so different than any other generation? Because it was the biggest generation in history, because you were one of the children of the world war two generation- 74 million. And it seemed like everything in the news in the late (19)40s, (19)50s and (19)60s was all about these young boomers. Did you ever think about the, being a part of that generation that seems to be in the news every minute? JC: 07:26 To be honest, I really did not and, and, you know, probably in my own naïveté you know, I was just kind of cruising along with my, you know, friends that I hung out with and did things and did not really look at the overall picture nationwide, what was going on. It really was not until I went to Kent that I really began to be exposed to anything going on outside our little community. You know, we had one, one TV in the house. And basically, you know, we were watching Bonanza and Disney show. I do think my parents watched the nightly news. But, you know, I certainly was not involved in that. So, I did not really kind of piece together any kind of an overall picture what my generation was doing or, you know, I obviously had some brushes with the Vietnam War, especially. And then this was really more, maybe my senior year or my freshman at Kent, when they had the draft. I fortunately got a high number. And so, I really did not have to worry about the draft, but I did have some high school friends, especially those that I hung around with, who got low numbers, and one, one, one went into the Navy, and the other one enlisted in the Air Force. So, they-they were basically, you know, avoiding having to go into the army. SM: 09:32 Right. Now, why did you pick Kent State? JC: 09:39 Well, I was vacillating my senior years to what I wanted to major in and I started it started to gel that I thought architecture might be the right direction for me and at one time thought about going into the medical field to become a doctor. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that I was a little more of a creative person. And so I thought architecture would be the better route for me. And my dad worked, it was like, probably the only, it was the major employer in the area, General Electric. And he had a coworker, a friend of his, whose son went to Kent, and majored in architecture. And so, my dad said, "Hey, look, my, you know, my son, John is thinking about going into architecture and I know your son is going to Kent, would you mind if he came over and just kind of looked at what, what your son is doing at Kent?" And so we went over and visited them. And of course, he pulls out these presentation boards that he had done, and some models that he had done. And I was kind of blown away. I said, this is really cool stuff. And, you know, I loved what he what he was doing and what he was involved in. So, we-we decided to go out in the spring and check out Kent. I had looked at Syracuse University, which is the you know, it still is- it was pretty expensive, even for somebody who lived in the state. And Syracuse is a little more of an urban campus. And when I went to Kent, and we went for a weekend because a little bit of a drive, and they had an orientation, where they gave you a tour of the campus. And I just remember feeling really comfortable. And you know, on, I liked the size of the campus, I liked the layout of the campus, it was more spread out and just had a really nice feel for it, and that was really what would push me to go there. SM: 12:15 Now I know that I, I am from Ithaca and Cornell has a really good architecture program too. I believe their program was five years. Was your- a five year program? Or was it four? JC: 12:26 Yeah. It actually was, it was a five year program. SM: 12:29 Yep. And I thought that is pretty common now. And that is a pretty, it is a really good program to get into. It is sometimes very difficult to get into too. JC: 12:39 Yeah, I think we thought maybe Cornell might be out of reach for me. I mean, I was a fairly good school student in high school, but I was not outstanding. SM: 12:49 Now, when you went to Kent State University, what was your first impression? So that first year you were there, what kind of an environment was it? Was it one with a lot of activism going on? Was there good relationships between the community and the students? What kind of a feel did you get beyond the classroom? JC: 13:10 Well, the interesting thing is, I kind of felt this almost tidal wave of change, which I felt happened the year that I was a freshman. Because when I when I first arrived on campus as a freshman, you know, people were still kind of dressing up to go to classes. You saw boys with ties and women in, you know, skirts and dresses, and we have RAS. And they had like a kind of a freshman orientation. And we were supposed to wear these goofy hats called thinks. So that upperclassmen could pick on you, you know, it was kind of still that kind of (19)60s type of mentality. That kind of began to fall by the wayside in the winter. And by spring, I mean, really, everyone was dressing extremely casually, jeanies, hair was getting longer, you know, just really saw a tremendous change in environment there. I guess the other point I was going to make was because architecture is a little bit of a difficult program, you-you really needed to have study groups to kind of help each other along with homework and classroom assignments. So, you know, I immediately began to bond with about maybe five or six freshmen architectural students. You know, we would study together, we worked together on projects. So, you know, the friendships really began to form fairly early. And that was kind of specific to my architectural programs. I guess I like to say, you know, I probably missed some great times down on Water Street and the bars that first year- SM: 15:21 Right. JC: 15:22 -because I was I was a little bit too concerned about my grades and everything. SM: 15:28 Right. JC: 15:30 But and I suppose I was not a drinking age yet then either. But either way, I did not really discover much of the downtown life until spring. SM: 15:42 Yeah, what year you begin there? JC: 15:48 (19)69. SM: 15:49 (19)69. You know (19)69, you know, I was just, I just had an interview with another person and who was there at that time. And the political environment of about Kent State from afar was that it, you know, Ohio University and Ohio State, were the two that were more very activist oriented with a lot of protests and everything, did not realize how many protests took place at Kent State. And-and how big these Students for Democratic Society was on the campus, who were against the war. Did you see any friction between the students at that time between those who were against the war and those who were for it? JC: 16:35 I do remember. I mean, let us, let us fast forward to the spring. I do not really do not really remember any of that in the fall or the winter. I am not saying that it was not there. But I do not remember seeing any of it. And then in the spring, there were some more outdoor rallies. And I, you know, I began to see these anti-war protests. And the school of architecture was located on the top floor of Taylor Hall. So we oversaw the campus, so when there were rallies and you know, things going on-on the commons, we would overlook that, and we would see it, and we would hear it. But I will be honest with you, I did not really attend any, any of those rallies, but I was witness to them. I did not really see any clashes between regular students and activists, but I did witness the spring rallies that were going on-on campus. SM: 17:59 Did you get a feeling there at the time that there was a tension within the community toward the students? That is the city, the city of Kent, the people who were not students? JC: 18:12 Well, I have to be careful here. Because, you know, obviously, you know, we read it, you know, we have read things and you know, you know, I have read a lot about how the townspeople resented the students, and were concerned about the students. But for me, personally, I did not spend a lot of time in town. Like I said, I did not really discover Water Street or Main Street until the spring. So, I cannot honestly say that, that that myself personally, that I saw any of that. SM: 18:52 Leading up to that, the terrible tragedy that happened on the fourth of May (19)70. Can you describe that day? What, how that opened? What you were doing in the day itself? And then sadly, how you were in the line of fire? JC: 19:12 Sure. I do not know if you want me to or not, but I, I can kind of go over the entire weekend, if you want. SM: 19:21 I would like that because I have got five interviews I have done now. And I- what is important, John, is I just want people who are not alive today. These are going to be for research and scholarships for students, faculty and national scholars down the road. And in Kent, what happened at Kent State is the, one of the historic events of the (19)60s, no question, in fact, in American history, in my view. If you want to go over what happened maybe from April 30th when Nixon announced his speech or about going into Cambodia? JC: 19:56 Yeah, what I was going to do is pick it up from Friday. Because, you know, things really changed for me starting on-on Friday. I was once again haven't really [audio cuts]. SM: 20:23 Still there? Whoops. Okay, we are all set, we are back. JC: 20:48 I was talking about Sunday. And there was really kind of a real tension that you could feel between the students and the military on campus. When you walked around campus, there was military presence everywhere. And I think for a lot of the antiwar students and the activists, you know, this, this was a really upsetting thing, to-to have this strong military presence on their campus. And so everywhere you went on Sunday, there were National Guard, at campus buildings, parking lots, driving up and down the streets. It was really kind of a little disconcerting. And right around dusk, there was a curfew that went into place. And basically, what they told us was that no groups of students more than three could be out at any one time. And we typically ate dinner a little bit later, because we would be doing work or doing some stuff up at Taylor Hall. So when we were done with dinner, and trying to walk back across an open area to our dorms, they were threatening to tear gas us because there was like three or four of us. So we had to break into smaller groups. And I know there were some groups that came out at the dining hall later, after we did, that were tear gassed. And probably around eight in the evening or so there was an attempt to have some sort of a rally on Commons. Helicopters appeared, with search lights and bull horns. And the group was tear gassed. The tear gas drifted back into our dorm. And so, we-we ran out of the building, because we could not breathe. And the Guardsmen who were deployed outside, forced us back into the building. They did not want to hear any of our excuses. They said there was a curfew, we had to stay in the building. So, we finally went into the study lounges and kind of hunkered down, because they were not as bad with the tear gas. And we really did not get much sleep that night. There were helicopters hovering all over campus that were loud. They were kind of harassing anyone that was outside. So you know, it was a pretty tense night. And it was a long night. Like I said, we did not get much sleep. So then, Monday, classes were still in session. So that Monday morning, I went to, I believe it was my English class. And the-the building entrance had soldiers on each side of it. And our professor said, you know, that there was probably going to be a rally at noon and it was our decision whether we should attend it or not. And pretty much everywhere I went that morning, the talk was that there was going to be a noon rally. So when I was done with my English class, and I decided that I would borrow my roommate's camera, he had a little instamatic. I enjoyed photography but unfortunately at that point, I did not have my camera with me. So, I borrowed his camera and thought, well, I am going to go to the rally more out of curiosity to see what was going to happen, than really, to support any cause one way or the other. And so I did go to the, to the rally, I kind of stood off to the side. I watched it as it grew in size, I really felt there was kind of a hardcore group that were right around the victory bale of maybe 100 to 200 students that were really actively protesting. And there were probably a couple 1000 there around that were just kind of watching similar to what I was doing. Some of them were going to their classes. The, the commons area is kind of in the middle of campus. And it is really a crossroads for anyone going to class. So it is a natural point where people are going to be walking through to get to maybe the union or for-for lunch, or to, to go to class. So, you know, I saw a Jeep come out with a bullhorn. And they ordered everyone to disperse and said, this was an illegal rally, and you were ordered to disperse, which pretty much everyone ignored. And so they, there was a line of guardsmen that were down, kind of almost guarding the burned out ROTC building, which was at the end of the commons, kind of sitting there in ruins. And so they, they started to move out, the guardsmen moved out on file. There were two companies. I could be incorrect, I believe it was A and C. And one, one went to the right of Taylor Hall, and one went to the left of Taylor Hall. And they started to push students back with tear gas, firing tear gas into the students. Some of the students were able to pick up the tear gas and throw it back at the guardsmen. So you can kind of see this back and forth between the guardsmen and the students with the tear gas. I did take some pictures of the guardsmen as they walked up. I was to, as you face Taylor Hall, I was more towards the left hand side, near the pagoda. And the National Guards kind of walked by me, I was fairly close to them. You know, I felt these are professional soldiers. And I did not feel threatened by them. And I felt as long as I behaved myself and did not do anything, that there should be no issue with them. And so they did go by me. And I took some pictures as I went by. They went down to, there was a parking lot in front of Taylor Hall. And they ended up in a practice football field, which is no longer there. And at the soccer or football field, well, I do not remember exactly, there were some chain-link fencing on two sides of it. So they were kind of hemmed in just a little bit, and they kind of regrouped there and kind of huddled together. And the students, by that time had been pushed down into the parking lot. And there was a small group that were still pretty active. Kind of yelling obscenities at them. There might have been a few rocks that were thrown, but at the distance they were, they certainly were not reaching the guardsmen. At one point the guardsmen did kneel and aim their weapons into the crowd. And did not really discourage any of the protesters. And then at some point, the-the guardsmen kind of re huddled together, it felt like they were discussing what they were going to do next. And then they reformed into a line and begin to walk back up this hill towards the pagoda. And to what I was thinking, that they were going to go back over, they called it Blanket Hill, and to the, to the commons. And there, there was kind of a feeling, I think, at that point, that things were wrapping up. And I do know that some of the students were beginning to leave, heading to their classes. And I was going to go into Taylor Hall, I had a design class that afternoon, and I was going to go in and get ready for my class. And so, I walked up to the-the entrance of Taylor Hall, and there is a metal sculpture there. And I was standing next to the metal sculpture, and I thought to myself, I am going to get one more picture of them right before they get over the crest of the hill. So I stood there. And I was with this instamatic and I had to rewind the camera so that I could get to the next shot. So, I was rewinding, you know, the camera, getting it ready to take a shot and they-they reached the crest of the hill, and I was getting the camera ready to raise up. And suddenly, they just turned and fired. And without any warning. And it just seemed like there was this instantaneous movement in unison, where the soldiers all turned and fired. And I believe they were firing more towards the parking lot. But I happened to be in their line of fire. And I do kind of, before I was hit, I do kind of remember, Joe Lewis was in front of me, maybe by 50 or 75 feet, not a lot. I do not think there was anyone else. I do not think there was anyone else in front of us other than the two of us, because really, the bulk of the people were either off to the side or behind me. And I do remember thinking, he was giving them the finger, you know, he was, he was flicking them off. And seconds later, they-they fired, and I got hit in the chest. I like to say, it is like, I felt like I got hit in the chest with a sledge hammer. I dropped to the ground. And I really do not have any more recollection of what happened at that point. I do remember kind of coming to in the hospital. And they were, they were doing triage at the time. And I was out in a corridor, and I was in a fair amount of pain. And my concern was that I would be forgotten. And I remember kind of panicking a little bit. Because, do they know that I am out here in this corridor? And finally, a couple of nurses came out and the first thing they wanted to know was, "Do you have your parents phone number, do you have some contact numbers?" And it is like, "Why aren't you helping me?" and they are, you know, they are, "Well, you are going to go in shortly to see the doctor but we need to be able to contact your parents." So I remember reeling off a bunch of phone numbers, home phone number and office phone numbers, and they finally wheeled me in to see a doctor. And I think I almost immediately went into surgery. And the next thing I remember, was in a hospital room with Dean Taylor and Joe Lewis as, as roommates. SM: 35:18 Wow-wow. I know, the picture of, on Life magazine is a picture of you, I believe with- JC: 35:27 [inaudible] SM: 35:27 -students around you. And I had that magazine along with the one from, I think, Newsweek, hanging in my office for many years. I was reading about that particular picture. And it is my understanding that students were in a circle around you were kind of protecting you. And they were holding hands. So no further harm could come to you. JC: 35:54 Yeah, and I- the interesting thing is, like I said, I do not have any recollection after the point that I was shot. And I was not aware of that. And Howard Ruffner took that picture. I am sure you are aware of that. And about two years ago, Howard Ruffner was in Kent to promote a new book that he had written. And basically, it was a series of photographs taken on that day. And it was right before the 50th anniversary, before COVID had hit. And so I decided, well, this is be a great opportunity to see Howard because he lives in California. And so, we certainly do not have many opportunities to get together. So I went up to Kent, and we had a reunion of sorts. Unfortunately, the media kind of made a little bigger deal about it than I thought they would, but they did. But he was showing me pictures. And he had taken a picture of the students circled around me holding hands. And that really hit me, that was a very impactful picture. And in some respects, I liked that picture better than the one he took of me. Because it really shows, you know, at that point, they did not know if the guards were coming back or not. And they were putting their life kind of on the line to protect me. And not only that, but the students that were working on me, Joe Kolum, and some others, you know, really saved, I think, saved my life. So I am really in a debt of gratitude to them for doing that. SM: 38:10 I know, when I interviewed Joe, he said that when he was put in the ambulance, you were right by his side, in the same ambulance. JC: 38:20 That very well could be I like I said, I just do not remember the ambulance ride at all. SM: 38:27 Now, how long did it take you to recuperate from this serious injury so that you can get back to school? JC: 38:33 I was in hospital for about two weeks. I was intensive care for about a week. There was, there was some concern early on about infection and some other issues. Because of the extent of the injuries, but you know, you are young. I was 19 I think at the time, 18 or 19. So I did, was able to bounce back and after two weeks what they kind of quietly got me to the airport. I have to tell you this. I guess it is an amusing story. But when-when I was at Kent as a freshman, I bought a car there and it was an old car, Chrysler, 1957 Chrysler. It was like a limousine this thing was a boat. And after I was shot, my parents flew out and they were able to use my car and because it had Ohio plates on it, pretty much could go anywhere and not be bothered by the press because they did not know who they were. And I flew home two weeks later, and they drove my car home with all my belongings. And when they got to the driveway of our house, the power steering pump caught on fire. And the car, there were flames coming out of the hood. And they flung open the door and threw all my belongings on the lawn. And fortunately, the car did not. It was just a small fire and they were able to put it out. But my parents loved to tell the story how every belonging I had was thrown out on the front lawn. SM: 40:48 Wow. And now, of course, classes are canceled. And you did you start back in the fall? JC: 40:57 Yeah, I flew home. I flew home about two weeks later, and recuperated that summer. And the professors were really great. And they did it for everybody, not just me. They sent us homework assignments, they sent us classwork, and we are able to complete our semester. You know, this is before the internet and emails, everything was done through the mail, you know, US Postal Service. And they would mail me assignments, and they and they did not cut me any slack either. And I did the work and got grades for it. So I was able to complete my freshman year. And then the following fall, you know, I went back to Kent. SM: 41:59 Now, and you got your degree in five years. JC: 42:01 I did. SM: 42:02 And, and well, how has your career been? Yeah, you, and how did you end up in Pittsburgh? JC: 42:12 Well, my-my wife was originally from Pittsburgh. And when we graduated from Kent. It was (19)74. And the economy was not doing really good right then. And jobs are really scarce. And trying to go back to upstate New York, there was just absolutely nothing there. Like I said, I was in more of a rural community, small town. And really, for architecture, you need a bigger, you [inaudible] you need more of an urban town. So, we had looked at Cleveland, that was one of our thoughts. And we also looked at Pittsburgh, and I liked the lay of the land of Pittsburgh, it was a little more mountainous, and had the hills and the rivers. And it reminded me a little more of upstate New York. So we ended, up I got a job in Pittsburgh, it was touch and go. If I had not gotten a job in Pittsburgh, we probably would have ended up in Cleveland. But I did get a job in Pittsburgh and that is where we, where we ended up. SM: 43:37 Now, after the, what I have also noticed about coming to the remembrance events over the past month, not the last two years, obviously. But last, over the 50 year period, is the camaraderie between those who are wounded and the families of those who died. I know there are a lot of issues after the, after the initially because I know there was a, there was a trial for some of the activists and so forth. But how did who was responsible for the camaraderie between the nine that were wounded and the families of the four that were killed? JC: 44:15 Well, I think a lot of that had to do with the May Force Task Group. And, you know, I will be honest with you, I was starting out in my career and work was tough. And I really did not attend the trials the way that I should have. And I had a family that I had to support. And so, I could not really take the time to go up to Cleveland for the civil trials. So I was really only there when-when I had to be and so I really did not bond with the wounded students and the families until a few, quite a few years later, maybe 10 years later. My, believe it or not, my son was born on May 4th. SM: 45:13 Oh my God. JC: 45:13 And obviously that was not planned. And it just happened that way. And so I have a pretty strong faith. And I felt like God was telling me something, you know, you cannot, you cannot bury this, you cannot pretend it did not happen to you. You cannot put it behind you. It is something that you need to confront. So I started going back to the commemorations and the May Fourth Task Force would put on a breakfast on those mornings on May 4th, and at those breakfasts would be the other wounded students and family members. And so it just began a process of getting to know people casually at first, just sitting there and having breakfast with them, and spending a little time with their family and bringing my family and Tom Grace and Alan Canfora reached out to me. And both Tom and Alan are big baseball fans. And so I guess in Buffalo, where Thomas from, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a [inaudible] team. So we did, both Tom and Alan came down one time. And we went to a pirate’s game. [crosstalk] So yeah, we had a great time. And so, you know, it just began a process of getting to know one another. And I have tried, in the last four or five years since I have been retired, to try to reach out and get to know, some of the wounded students a little better. About two years, two and a half years ago, my wife and I were out. And we did a Northwest trip to Seattle and Portland. And Joe lives out there. And so we made a point to swing by and have lunch with Joe and his wife, got to see where Joe lived. And, you know, that was meaningful for us. And Tom and I have gotten together several times. And so it is just a matter of and-and Dean Kahler. We, about a year ago, Joe was traveling through Kent, he was actually moving one of his sons back to Oregon. And the three of us got together at a local, I cannot even remember if it was a Ponderosa or what it was, but it was a lunch place. And, you know, we commented on it was, you know, these were the three of us that were hospital roommates. And it was kind of nice to get together without the, all the noise and attention that May 4th typically brings. So the times that we get together when we can kind of be out of the limelight, and just be ourselves- SM: 48:57 Yep. JC: 48:57 -I think has gone a long way to establishing some, hopefully some long-term relationships. SM: 49:08 And that is very important, that whole issue of healing. One of the questions I have asked him a lot of the people that I have interviewed are dealing with the Vietnam War, and healing from that war and the divisions it caused in America. And, and Jan Scruggs wrote a book and I think it can apply to any kind of a tragedy, To Heal a Nation. And the basic premise behind the building of the Wall in (19)82 was to heal the families who lost loved ones in that war and not to make it a political statement, but to remember those who lost their lives, and so that they will never be forgotten number one, and then also provide healing within the family and the families of the veterans, but also to pay respects to those who fought in that war and came home and were treated so poorly by America upon their return. So, the one thing about healing, do you use have do you, it is a word that sometimes is overused. But do you have still any issues with healing from this tragedy? JC: 50:17 What I have found is going up to the commemorations I, I used to always kind of hang in the back and you know, kind of be anonymous in and not really want to, you know, participate. But the last five years or so I have kind of taken on the tact that, you know, we, you know, our numbers are dwindling, and we need to respect those that were slain on that day, and the other wounded students, and, you know, remember them. And walking around the parking lot during commemoration right before them, where the markers are where the students were slain. People have come to me that maybe they recognize me, or, you know, they might just say, "Were you there?" You know, obviously, I am in my 70s, I look the part, you know, "Where were you on May 4th?" And when I share my story, I find that there are a lot of people out there that were there that day that are hurting, and they, they need to share their story. And so, I find that many a time when I am out there talking to people who were there, they were filling in the blanks for me, when I was unconscious, and when I did not witness what they witnessed the hurt and the pain, that they went through seeing the carnage and seeing the bodies on the ground. You know, I was lucky in that I did not witness that. But they did. And I think it becomes a healing process for all of us, when we talk about it together, and we have these shared experiences of being there. Each of our stories are different. And yet they are kind of weaved together to make this one large picture. SM: 52:45 Very-very well said, I know that Alan, before he passed, a couple of years before he passed, he was adamant and brought in some great programs. He was always a leader, he was always he was always lead taking the lead. And you know, and making sure because it was all about the four that died and those that are wounded. He was all about them. And, and he did a tremendous job. But he but he and several others wanted to find out who, who gave the order to do the shooting. This is the whole issue. And they brought that man there that they said they think they had him on tape. And I know that Alan was up there in the front. And there were a couple other guests there too, who were, you know, supporting that concept that whoever gave the order. And-and so do you still feel that we need to find out who did it? I mean, we know that who that they were shot my guardsmen, but who gave the order? JC: 53:42 Well, I think there is some frustration out there. Because people are looking for justice. And they certainly do not feel that justice was served here. And yeah, it would be great to find out who gave the order. And it would also be great to maybe hold some of the guardsmen that shot indiscriminately into the crowd to make them accountable. But there is so much time that is gone by, you know, we are beyond the 50-year mark, that I am just [inaudible] that that we are never really going to get to the bottom of that. And it is just going to be something that is always going to be a question mark out there. And unfortunately, I do not think there is ever going to be an answer. You know, everyone kind of has this hope that there will be some guardsmen on their deathbed that is going to share the some story about what actually happened. But short of that, I do not think we are going to really get to the bottom of what actually happened. SM: 54:59 You were there. And you know some of the things that took place, [inaudible] you read the student newspapers, at Kent state the following year when school started again. When you look at the whole that whole period from the 30th of April till when Nixon gave the speech at 9pm, until the killings and the wounding, on the fourth. Who- is that, that is, that is part of our history, is-is an important part of our history. When you look at the (19)60s, what other big major events affected your life? Even before Kent State, and I say, when you look at the, when boomers were young, there was one word that kept coming up over and over again, in my mind, assassination, assassination, bullets, killing. What is the say about our democracy? We lose a President of the United States in (19)63. That is when [crosstalk]. Yes, go ahead. JC: 56:04 Yeah. I think that everyone kind of remembers John F. Kennedy's assassination. I think I was a little too young to totally understand the implications of what had happened, but I do remember my parents being a little fearful, and that the TV was on constantly with the funeral, and all the other proceedings going on. SM: 56:36 And then only- JC: 56:39 The only other highlight, and I am sorry, go ahead Stephen. SM: 56:42 I was just going to say that the course five years later, his brother gets assassinated, as well as the Martin Luther King. And when- JC: 56:49 Yep. SM: 56:49 -when you look at the Jackson State issue, which is important because Kent State students in the group have done a tremendous job of making sure that those who lost their lives there at Jackson State 10 days later are, there was camaraderie between them and the students at Kent State. I admire them so much for this, they are, thatis a lesson for America to reach out because they also had a tragedy. But to lose some- JC: 57:17 Yep. SM: 57:17 -it seemed like the people that our age when the boomers seem to see even when you talk about Jackson State, that was in Jackson, Mississippi and Medgar Evers was killed there in that same year. So it is,- JC: 57:35 Yes. SM: 57:35 -it is, so it is like, we grew up with assassinations, one assassination after another killings, and we are still having a lot of issues. But the tragedy, you know, it is like, I have learned one thing, and Alan said, you know, these were murders at Kent State, quit saying it is a tragedy at Kent State. They were murderers. JC: 57:55 Yeah, yeah. It took me a while to say that I felt that was maybe would turn people off when you discuss it. But Alan is absolutely right. What happened there was, when you think about Dean Kahler, who was shot in the back while laying on the ground, and Sandy Scheuer and others that [inaudible], were just going to class. It was just an indiscriminate shooting. And they are certainly, their lives were not in any kind of danger. And you know, it was just wanton or wanton shooting that which really cannot be explained. SM: 58:46 One of the things that I, I do a lot of reading, and I have heard this for years, and it is in so many books. I know, Tom Grace, I talked to him about this too, is that why Kent State? You know, of all the universities in America with all the major protests, you know, and of course, Ohio State had ma- I went to Ohio State to grad school. So Ohio State had major protests at the very same time, but no one died. And in Ohio University, where I worked in my first job, they were always considered the most liberal campus in Ohio. And they were actually purging students when I was there. Because they were up to 18,000. Then then they were down 1000s. That is why the branch campuses were helping their enrollment, but [crosstalk] but they could they get kind of tired. I think I said this to Alan, when he came to West Chester University, [inaudible] there twice. I am getting tired of hearing this in history books. Why at Kent State, because why not? It is worth I think all the major crises happened at state universities where there seemed to have been tragedies. So-so, you know. JC: 1:00:03 Well, I think I think that if you look at the governor Rhodes, and you look at the burning of the ROTC building, and the mayor of Kent, Mayor Satrom, calling in the National Guard probably prematurely. And, you know, it was just all these things kind of led up to this and the rhetoric that was said, by the governor prior to the weekend. You know, I just think that all of this kind of, unfortunately, fell in place for-for something like that to happen. SM: 1:00:46 I agree. It is the word that we use nowadays is the perfect storm, seemed like the perfect storm. JC: 1:00:54 Yes. SM: 1:00:54 Everything came in. And I, as I was saying to Tom when I interviewed him, you know, I my very first book that I read on Kent State was James Michener's book- it is full of misinformation, it has got, it is incorrect, it is not a very good book. But one thing- [crosstalk] Huh? Is that like, Kent is the hotbed of SDS? Yes. Yeah. And also, he talked about President White. And he is a culprit in this in my view, because I spent my career in higher education, and you have to have a strong president. Yet, not, every university and, and the person, and everything stops, anything that happens on your campus, you have to take responsibility for it, you are in charge. And Tom, Tom was great in terms of explaining what he has historically done in the past of not being there at the time when he needed to be there. And I blame a lot of it on him. If he if he had come- JC: 1:01:56 I am just [inaudible], I am incredulous that he would be out to lunch, off campus, when everyone knew that there was going to be a rally that- SM: 1:02:08 Yes. JC: 1:02:09 -day at noon. He had to have known. SM: 1:02:11 He did, I he should have gotten back. He was away. But he could have gotten back, he certainly could have gotten back before May 4th. And because everything was happening. JC: 1:02:21 You know, I have a feeling if that had been Dr. Beverly Warren, she would have been out there on campus, next to the guards. You know, talking to them, talking to the leaders, the guardsmen, he should have been out there, you know, talking to them and making sure that things did not get out of control. SM: 1:02:48 Yep. JC: 1:02:48 And with him gone. It just gave the military carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. SM: 1:02:56 Yeah, so it is a kind of a combination of everything coming to a head and unfortunately, sadly, it cost lives. JC: 1:03:02 Yeah. SM: 1:03:03 You know, do you have one May 4th comes every year, now I am thinking of involving the remembrance, but even those years that you were not going to the events, does that May four- obviously you have a child born on May 4th. But does that, you feel like it is like April 27, that you are only four, seven days away from that, that that day that help- really had an impact on your life? JC: 1:03:32 Well, it is something that I now that I am retired and I can dwell more on it, yes, I do think about it, anticipate what the significance of the day means and trying to make plans to be there. And, you know, if there is interviews or whatever, to make myself available for that. I think that is the other thing I am trying to do on retirement is there are some Ohio teachers who were teaching May 4th in the classroom to their students, and I have tried to make myself available to talk to these people. And so yes, when May 4th comes around now, you know, there-there is some anticipation towards it and-and what can be done to keep-keep the memory alive. There were times after I was first married and were struggling at work that may 4th came and went and I think about it over lunch hour and that, you know, that might be might be the extent of it. That is it certainly has changed here in the latter years. SM: 1:04:58 Have you had any flashbacks from that day? JC: 1:05:05 No, I cannot say that I have. I have always, like I said, I think, in a weird way, I was fortunate in that I do not recall what happened to me after I was hit. But no, I cannot say that I have any unpleasant flashbacks to it. Sometimes, you know, a lot of people ask me, you know, you were you were shot in front of the metal sculpture, and does it bother you when you walk by that place you were shot? And I guess my answer to that is that, you know, when I went back to camp- I would walk by that spot every day going into Taylor Hall. And if anything, it inspired me saying, Look, you, you were given a second chance here at life, and you need to take advantage of it. SM: 1:06:00 Yep, very positive attitude, that is excellent. Yeah, I have taken pictures of that sculpture, and it has got a hole through it and one spot. So you can see how powerful those bullets were. JC: 1:06:13 Yeah. Imagine that hitting a person. SM: 1:06:16 Yes, I know. The other thing I wanted to mention, because of the I am talking really about the boomer generation of which we are a part, and what the (19)60s were all about, is the fact that we lost so many good people, and but there were a lot of positive things too, along with the negatives. Do you, we are, we are reflecting on now what is going on in America today, with all the great divisions we are having, it is very- I do not think I have ever lived at a time like this. The pandemic does not happen either. But it is everything else has been going on in the news. But when you come here- JC: 1:06:55 Well, I think social media has a lot to do with that. SM: 1:07:02 In terms of what they are what they are-? JC: 1:07:06 Why we are so why we are so divisive, versus maybe 20 years ago. I mean, obviously, every generation, you know, we had the-the war protests and kind of a culture counterculture movement, where there was, you know, our parents, I think we were trying to comprehend what the heck we were doing. But yeah, this seems to be much more, I think with social media, you can kind of anonymously sit back and be very what is the right word, insensitive or cruel. And when you are not talking to somebody face to face. You can, you can say a lot more damaging words, and not feel guilty about it. And yeah, it is, it is very frustrating to see the misinformation. And the how things are taken out of context constantly on social media. SM: 1:08:21 How, there-there came a time with your children, when they probably put two and two together and "Dad, why were you shot, Daddy? Why were you shot?" Trying to explain to them and how do you explain that to a child? As they, and as they get older, what at what juncture did you tell the whole story? Because, you know, they are, when they are young, they do not kind of grasp things. JC: 1:08:47 Yeah, I do not think we really talked too much about it until they were maybe in junior high, or you know, about that age. And I think the other thing that kind of came into play was probably like, whenever there was like a pivotal anniversary, like the 10th or the 15th or 20th anniversary, the press tends to come out of the woodwork and want to interview you and they want to do newspaper articles and they want to do you know, maybe a little local TV segment or something. So obviously that became apparent to them. So, you know, we did explain to them what had happened. And, you know, it is interesting, we were going through my daughter's paperwork from you know, my wife saves everything she will not, you know, if it is kid related, she keeps it. And there was a paper she had done probably in eighth or ninth grade for English class about the Kent State shootings. And I was, I was pretty impressed with her insight and being able to describe the events and what-what had happened, you know, without, you know, from her point of view from a younger generation not being there. SM: 1:10:25 That is excellent. I only got a couple more questions here. One of them is the, what- two, it is a two-part question. What are the major lessons to be learned from the killings at Kent State and Jackson State? And what are the, and the second part of the question is, what are the lessons from the (19)60s and (19)70s in your opinion? As we pass on, we are now we are talking we are now three generation starting of the third generation beyond boomer that are being born today. JC: 1:11:05 Well, there is lessons to be learned. I guess the question is, are we really learning anything from it? You can draw some parallels, I think, when you go back to May 4th, and the rhetoric and I am talking about Governor Rhodes' inflammatory talk about students being worse than Brownshirts. And, you know, I think, that might have been in reference to communists, communist, I do not remember, but-but anyway, you know, this kind of inflammatory discourse, which then leads to violence. And I still, unfortunately, think we are seeing it today when people say things, to inflame groups, and then violence occurs. And so there is some frustration, because you wonder, are we really learning from these lessons? Are we learning that you know, gun violence, escalates, when followed by angry words and discourse? And so, the lessons, you know, are, I suppose, that you know, we need to pause and look at where we are going with some of this, and, and try to de-escalate situations, versus escalate them. And we are even seeing it today where rather than a calm voice, and trying to resolve a tense situation, things get ramped up, and then we have an unfortunate shooting, and it can even be police that are doing the shooting, because rather than try to de-escalate a situation, things are getting ramped. So, you know, unfortunately, I see some parallels to what is happening today, to what-what happened back there. Your second part about the (19)60s and (19)70s. I think that there was an attempt by our generation to try to break from the norm, and create a more loving and caring society, one that that takes care of its own. Unfortunately, I think that has not happened. And it is kind of fallen on deaf ears. And we have a lot of social issues today that if we showed more compassion and more understanding, I think we could start to resolve some of the- these issues, but instead, everything has become political. And it just seems like any issue today, even when we are talking about science, somehow, we end up with two sides to a story. And it baffles me on some of this. Where, where, you know, we are just trying to take care of people, or we are trying to do what is best for the common good and somehow this has to become a political issue, and it truly is sad that we have gotten to that point. So you know, I think we started out in the (19)60s and (19)70s, very idealistic, we were going to change the world. But here we are, you know, 40, 50 years later, and not much has changed. SM: 1:15:48 [inaudible] I am going to end with this. I am going to ask you to talk to someone who is going to be listening to this 20, 30 and 40 years from now, and this is January 26 2022. If there is any lessons that you yourself can give to the future youth of America, in terms of, based on the experiences of what happened at Kent State and Jackson State, what would that be in terms of advice? And one thing I want to add to this, John, you have already mentioned it, you cannot forget your history, you got to know your history and where we came from. JC: 1:16:29 Absolutely. SM: 1:16:29 Yeah, not and I am really worried about, and this has been not just my generation, boomers the generations that followed, their lack of knowledge of history is amazing. I am shocked, I work with young people. They do not know the Vietnam War. I had, we have had people tell me the Vietnam wars before World War Two, how do they get through high school that way? And so, it is the, it is the knowledge of history. But what would your advice be to future generations with respect to this historic event, Kent State and Jackson State? JC: 1:17:03 Well, I think my, my advice would be, is when you look at history, I remember, in my history classes, it is more than just memorizing dates and times and when-when these things happened, you have to try to put yourself in the time and in the place, and what people's mindsets were, I think it is more important to understand the events leading up to what happened at May 4th, versus, you know, trying to remember that it happened in the (19)70s, or whatever. And if you are a college student, and you are listening to this, try to imagine yourself being on a college campus, and being confronted with the military, with guns and halftracks, and helicopters, with them preventing you from saying what you are, what you want to say. So your freedom is being challenged by powers to be in and by your political system. And you need to just visualize what would you do as a student, if you were confronted with this, and this is what we had to face. That we did not ask for the military to be on campus. We felt that we had a right to be on our campus, our campus was open, and to be assaulted in the way that that crowd was, to be shot indiscriminately and then listen to the hatred and the vitriol that came out of the country as they came out of the state, towards the students who had done nothing more than congregate on campus, to present their political views, and think about how you would react if you were confronted in that in that type of situation. SM: 1:19:50 Beautifully said. Beautifully said. John, on that note, I want to end the interview. And I want to say thank you very much for taking part are in this. I will say this, I hope to meet you. I am going to be at Kent State on the fourth. I will be there probably the second through the fourth. I love the walk that walk. JC: 1:20:11 Yeah, I am going to, even if you know that from what I am understanding, there is some uncertainty as to whether they are going to do something because of COVID. SM: 1:20:21 Right. JC: 1:20:21 And but I have missed two years there. And I think I am going to be there no matter what, even if it is just unofficial. SM: 1:20:31 Same here. So, I look, we will be in touch and I am, I am going to turn this off. Thank you very much. Do not leave me yet. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Cleary IIIF Item Metadata UUID 54588851-e5d0-466b-886d-67416baa6cb3 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/413da5af9b25718fd861534ef0c6d4d3.mp3 0cc55d6f024d072cc538ad92ee73a332 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/5129bc3b154a1b81fedada515387a027.jpg 33662591b079390becc63ebbb7aa414c 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 Oral Histories Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories from 1960s Binghamton Alumni Description An account of the resource In 2019, Binghamton University Libraries completed a mission to collect oral interviews from 1960s alumni as a means to preserve memories of campus life. The resulting 47 tales are a retrospective of social, professional and personal experiences with the commonality of Harpur College. Some stories tell of humble beginnings, others discuss the formation of friendships; each provides insight into a moment in our community's rich history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Irene Gashurov 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 2017-2018 Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/browse?collection=18">McKiernan Interviews : 60's collection of Oral Histories</a> 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 2019-04-02 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Eric D. Weitz Year of Graduation 1974 Biographical Text Dr. Eric Weitz is Distinguished Professor of History and the former Dean of Humanities and Arts at The City College of New York (CCNY). Trained in modern German and European history, Weitz has also worked in international and global history. He is currently completing <em>A World Divided: A Global History of Nation-States and Human Rights since the Eighteenth Century</em>. Interview Format Video or Audio Audio 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. Eric D. Weitz Subject The topic of the resource Nineteen sixties; Harpur College; Alumni and alumnae Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Weitz, Eric D. ; Gashurov, Irene Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource Dr. Eric Weitz is Distinguished Professor of History and the former Dean of Humanities and Arts at The City College of New York (CCNY). Trained in modern German and European history, Weitz has also worked in international and global history. He is currently completing <em>A World Divided: A Global History of Nation-States and Human Rights since the Eighteenth Century</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 2019-04-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Eric Weitz.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2019-04-02 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni Extent The size or duration of the resource. 53:49 minutes IIIF Item Metadata UUID d5a68c98-d53f-46ee-8a9f-bbe3723fad90 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/75e4112a4f48ca3ef264ff49d6875ca4.mp3 5406d3167c66579b9a4fc73cd2c28538 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bbbda9cebd06cc1ca5f5fc188f61f092.jpg d6dc2c1b73b2c179a3ff7186caf1451c 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 Oral Histories Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories from 1960s Binghamton Alumni Description An account of the resource In 2019, Binghamton University Libraries completed a mission to collect oral interviews from 1960s alumni as a means to preserve memories of campus life. The resulting 47 tales are a retrospective of social, professional and personal experiences with the commonality of Harpur College. Some stories tell of humble beginnings, others discuss the formation of friendships; each provides insight into a moment in our community's rich history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Irene Gashurov 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 2017-2018 Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/browse?collection=18">McKiernan Interviews : 60's collection of Oral Histories</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2019-03-11 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Barry Schneider Year of Graduation 1964 Biographical Text Recipient of Distinguished Alumnus Award. Principal of Schneider Mediation. Avid athlete at Harpur College. (His nickname at Harpur was “Peanuts.”) Mediation judge in Phoenix. He (Ret.) served on the Maricopa County Superior Court for 21 years, from 1986 to 2007. He first practiced in New York City and moved to Phoenix in 1971. He was an associate at Langerman, Begam, Lewis, Leonard & Marks until 1977, when he formed the partnership Rosen & Schneider, Ltd. He has a strong background in Arizona civil litigation from the perspective of both a judge and a civil trial attorney. While on the bench, he served on the Criminal Department, in addition to serving as Presiding Civil Department Judge and Presiding Family Law Judge. His 18-month tenure on the Arizona Supreme Court’s Committee on Jury Reform led to groundbreaking changes in the rules and practice of jury trials in Arizona. Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium Alumni Interviews Interview with: Barry Schneider Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov Transcriber: Oral History Lab Date of interview: 11 March 2019 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) BS: 00:00 [inaudible] My name is Barry Schneider, graduated 1964 from Harpur College, and I am now a retired superior court judge in Phoenix, Arizona. Today is March 1, 2019. IG: 00:17 Where are we? And [inaudible] BS: 00:19 We are in my office in Phoenix I have as a retired judge. I became a mediator/arbitrator. I do not practice law, although my license is active and I have an office in Phoenix at 1313, East Osborne Road, Phoenix, Arizona, 85014. IG: 00:39 And what are you doing? BS: 00:41 And I am told that what we are doing is compiling some kind of an oral history of my wonderful time at Harpur College in the (19)60s. IG: 00:49 Exactly-exactly. All right. So, thank you very much for that intro. So maybe we can begin by your just tell me a little bit of by way of background, where did you grow up and who your parents were? What they did? Did they encourage you to continue with your higher education? BS: 01:11 Absolutely. I was born in the Bronx in New York, right near Yankee Stadium, and my family moved when I was 12 years old to the south shore of Long Island, to Woodmere New York, five towns on the south shore, and I went to high school at Hewlett on Long Island. I graduated high school in 1960 I had played varsity basketball and varsity baseball in high school, and my parents were off born in the United States from parents who had emigrated around turn of the 20th century from Russia and other countries around there. My father was a small businessman who owned a small manufacturing business that manufactured leather wedding albums and such. My mother was a homemaker. She-she was a brilliant card player. She is a life master in Bridge at a very early age, played poker in her later years, very smart woman. I had a sister that unfortunately passed away when I was a junior in college. She was 17. The family moved to Long Island when it came to applying to colleges, my high school limited us to three applications, and I applied to Cornell engineering, because I figured I could not get into Cornell otherwise, and I had an interest in math at the time. And I applied to University of Vermont, and I applied to Harpur College, which was definitely promoted strongly by my high school guidance counselor. He put it in terms of, economically, it is obviously a good deal, but scholastically, it has got an excellent reputation. It is going to be a growing, wonderful university in the northern part of the state. It is part of the state system. It is going to have funding, presumably, it was 1000 students or so when I applied, it sounded great, and I was accepted to all three and I chose Harpur. IG: 01:12 Why? BS: 01:58 For all those reasons, I liked the idea that it was small. I did not really want to go to an engineering school in Vermont. I did not really know anything about it, so Harpur seemed the right fit for me. And my parents are very encouraging. Fact, I still remember, finally, my father passed away in 2006, 92 I still remember fondly the trip that he and I took from our home to Binghamton from my orientation. It was just the two of us. It was a wonderful couple of days together. So, they were very supportive. IG: 04:27 Had you- thank you. Had you ever visited Binghamton before arriving on campus? BS: 04:37 I do not think so. I am not sure. I do not have a recollection of it. I do not think so. IG: 04:47 So, what were your first impressions your- BS: 04:50 I did visit. I did visit because I remember being taken through the dorm and knocking on somebody's door. I cannot remember who it was. It could have been somebody became a big director. No, he was here behind me. Was not Andrew Bergman. He was a year behind me. Was Andrew Bergman's good friend I was thinking about that was not them knocked on somebody's door. They showed me the dorm room. So, I was there for a brief time before I actually went there. And my impressions were, what did I know? 17-year-old kid from Long Island. I do not know anything. IG: 05:26 So, you know you-you had not experienced rural life before, right? BS: 05:33 No, Suburban. You know, Bronx in suburbia. IG: 05:37 Okay, so- BS: 05:38 Camps every now and then. IG: 05:40 Yeah. So, what were some of the first impressions that you had of the place of the students that you met on your first days? BS: 05:48 It is hard to remember the first impressions my first activities. I remember this. I do not know if it is of any interest, but I have an athletic interest. I went to college having no-no dreams of ever having any intercollegiate experience. I remember my high school basketball coach laughing at me. He says, “As soon as you hear that basketball bounce, you are going to be in the gym.” I am 5'6", (5')7", whatever, and I am a little tiny runt. I so the first thing I did was, I think I knew who my roommate was. I think we met before we went up there. We had a mutual friend. He got kicked out of the school in our sophomore year, but I went down to the gym, which was then the small gym, which I do not know if it is a women's gym now or not, it was not the big field house by any means, and there were on the outdoor basketball courts. There were a bunch of games going on. One of the players in one of the games was a junior at Harpur. His name is Jimmy Davis. I knew Jimmy pretty well because he was a star of the basketball team a couple of years ahead of me at Hewlett, and his younger brother was a year behind me at Hewlett, and we were teammates on the basketball team. And in fact, I remember talking to Jimmy before I made my decision about Harpur, because I would I knew that he had gone there, and he was very encouraging. And I saw Jimmy on the play on the basketball courts playing with his older guy turned out to be the basketball coach. And Jimmy says, "Hey, peanuts." So, peanuts was my name from orientation week until I graduated and I got into the game that the coach was playing, Jimmy was playing. I do not know if Mickey Greenberg was there. Probably was. And because of Jimmy, who the coach idolized, Jimmy was a God. He was a great player, because I was kind of part of his whatever I was seen by the coach as, hey, this is potential, whatever. In fact, the coach had told me that my JV basketball coach in high school had met him earlier that summer at some coaches’ conference, and for some reason he knew I was going to Harpur and mentioned to the coach, Frank Pollard, hey, this kid, peanuts is coming, you know, keep your eye out for him. That is my first recollection of anything during orientation week. Remember getting the beanies, and if you know when the beanie, they-they did an H in your forehead. And I was, I was always getting an H on my forehead because I was challenging these ridiculous norms, whatever, that is what I remember. I started off as a math major, and I think either after my first semester or my second semester, I said, "No, that is not for me." I had four eight o'clock in my first semester. It was freezing cold. I never could not get the you know; I did not want to go to class. And I have a good friend, Tony D'Aristotle, who graduated a year before me, who was also on the basketball team, local from Binghamton, still lives in Binghamton. Used to live Montreal, taught Montreal in McGill, taught at Stanford, taught and spent time down South America back in Binghamton, I stayed his house. When I am there. He was a math major; he was a professor of math. He was a PhD in math, and he remembers the conversation that I do not remember when I told Dick Wick Hall, who was a professor of math, I do not think this is for me. And Hall said, okay, he could not care less. So, I started as a math major, then I had to figure out a major, and I majored in economics. There was that a little bit of math in it. IG: 05:48 Yeah. How- what did you think of-of the students in your classes? BS: 05:48 I loved it. There was all this political, civil rights stuff going on, hippies, beats. On beatniks and dressing, you know, differently. I remember the fun we used to have, and I was kind of a part of that. I was, I went up to Buffalo to-to demonstrate against house on American Activities Committee, and I, I was part of that group, but I was not as fringed as they were. But I remember going into town wearing my Harpur jacket, carrying my communism textbook from social science whatever, just to get a reaction from the local people. I mean, we had fun, but we were but we will push. We were part of that generation, the sexual revolution, civil rights revolution. I remember Stokely Carmichael coming to the campus. IG: 10:51 When-when? BS: 10:53 (19)63, (19)64. IG: 10:55 I had not realized that. BS: 10:57 And John Lewis, I think, was with him as well. IG: 10:59 Oh, really? BS: 11:00 I think so. And I just kind of was on the background, just [crosstalk] IG: 11:06 We actually have their- we have John Lewis's interview for another collection. BS: 11:12 Okay, yeah, but I was very wrapped up in that social in the social political culture. IG: 11:18 I had not realized was that that early in the (19)60s. BS: 11:23 Before the Vietnam War, it was purely the civil rights movement. And I marched on Washington in 1963--there was groups that were being sent by Harpur College, and I did not really get a part of that. I go home, it is August, back home and talk about parents encouraging you. And my sister had died earlier that year, and I am home and the civil rights march, the March on Washington, and I said, I want to go and by myself. I got on a train, and my mother packed me a lunch, goodbye and good luck and Godspeed. She was proud of me. So was my father. IG: 12:05 How wonderful. BS: 12:06 It was, tearing up, but I mean to me, those four years were irrepla- irreplaceable. Girlfriends broke up with me, all that stuff. It was a real coming of age experience. IG: 12:26 Tell us a little bit more about the groups that you socialized with and- BS: 12:30 I was a member. I was kind of rushed by. We did not have they did not have fraternity news. Then they had social clubs. And one of the leading social clubs was Adelphi. I do not know if it is still there. This is where the President the senior class was a member, and all-all the Upstate waspy guys. And then there was SOS, which was much more ragged and much more rowdy. Then there was ITK, there was goal yards, and I was somewhat known on campus. I mean, I was six men on the basketball team in my freshman year. I started in my junior year, and I got rushed SOS rushed me. Some of my best friends were in SOS, and I chose Adelphi because that was, you know, that was the prestigious thing to do. And I got so tired of it. By my junior year, I basically dropped out. I got tired of things like the pledge, this pledges with pledge, and then we had sat down like we had this authority. No, yes, no, yes. It just bothered me. I said, I do not want to be part of this, so I dropped out and I became more of the hippie kind of- IG: 13:46 Well, tell me about the young people who were part of this hippie group. BS: 13:52 They were- IG: 13:53 Who were they? They were from Long Island in New York City- BS: 13:56 Mostly- there was mostly downstate, but some upstate as well. They dress scruff here they most of them were, well, a lot of them were literature majors, very artistic, very creative. Deborah Tannen, okay, big name in Harpur College was a good friend of mine. She was a year behind me, and I hung out. She one of her best friends was my girlfriend at the time, and we and her boyfriend at the time was also a year behind me, Mike Tillis, who is now in Israel with a long, Hasidic kind of a life for many years. And we would double date. I had a car. We would go out after games. Deborah Tennant and I were good friends, and we still are in contact with each other, although I am not, you know, she is Deborah Tannen and I am not. She is really a celebrity. I mean, she is, she is, she is amazing. The last reunion, we spent some time together, I have pictures of my phone with her. She is wonderful. And she was, really, she was an English major. She became, you know, a linguistics PhD. I guess they are related, but that is the kind of folks I was hanging out with. They were not really. Some of them were just hanging out in a snack bar. They were not. Some of them were not good students. Deborah was my girlfriend was and who is your girlfriend? Elaine Selling. I have no idea what has happened to her. She had broken up with a boyfriend before me. We went out. She dumped me to go back with him. That is all what I remember. I am just trying to think there was, who were these kids. I mean, I was friendly with the athletes and kind of this group, you know, I was, I was sort of a bridge between them, of sorts. IG: 15:58 The athletes were not politicized. BS: 16:01 Yeah, some of them were. IG: 16:01 Some of them were. BS: 16:02 Yeah, but not as much as these kids. IG: 16:05 Yeah. What kind of things did they talked about? What, what did you talk about when you were with them? BS: 16:10 Oh, what typically young men talk about? Women basketball exams in school? Nothing that I can remember that is, you know, particularly [crosstalk] IG: 16:22 [inaudible] on American activities. Did you talk about anything political or [crosstalk] when was in the air at the time? BS: 16:29 I think the Vietnam War. I cannot remember where that was starting to heat up. But, you know, there were draft issues. You know, we were concerned about the draft. Some of us, some of them, my classmates, went to pretty, not extremes, but went to medical school they could not get into us, and went to Bologna, just, you know, right, basically, to avoid the that is not fair to say, but I went to graduate school, I lasted a semester, and then I went to law school. IG: 17:07 Where did you go to graduate school? BS: 17:10 Rutgers in economics. I actually lasted a semester, and then I quit in the second semester. I did not like it. My economics advisor was a guy named John LaTourette. It was a wonderful guy. IG: 17:24 Yeah. So, you know, just, let us backtrack before you went to law school. So, you know some of the professors that made an impression on you. Can you remember some names? BS: 17:36 John LaTourette. He was my Economics professor. Took a number of courses with him. There was a guy named Hamilton, associate sociology professor. He was pretty left. He had a good relationship with a lot of these students. There was a guy who taught statistics, I do not remember his name, that I just enjoyed. We had a good relationship. I hate, I hate his statistics. I think I got to be in this, somehow, Van [Robert VanHadel] something. I kind of have an image of him, but he would not remember me. I do not remember him. I lived off campus since my sophomore year, starting my sophomore year, since I was able to, I did, and I lived with some upperclassmen, and I lived with guys in my sophomore year who were dirty, who were stealing exams. They all got kicked out, and I was not and I said, do not, I do not want to see it. Leave me alone. But I was in the house with these guys. It was very uncomfortable. But did not never I was, I always, I was, you know, what is that word Teflon? I was Teflon. About that me. I never got, nobody ever talked to me. But I never got pulled in. But I knew the guy that knew the combination to this, and then he was able to get the exams and go away. I do not, I do not want this. I do not want to do this. And I would, you know, I was pretty good student in economics. I was actually second highest in the class in that in that major. It is hard to say, but those guys got kicked out in my sophomore year. My roommate, I told you about, he was involved in that. There was about half dozen-dozen that did not graduate because they were shamed out of the school. And it was, it was a was scandalous, what was going on. And, you know, I did not blow the whistle on these guys. I just go away. I do not want to know about it. IG: 19:41 Right-right. Kennedy assassination. BS: 19:45 Oh yeah, our yearbook. I remember I was in the snack bar. You know, everybody remembers where they were. And there is a picture in my yearbook, which I have at home. My house burnt down, but that did not burn. And. Then whoever took I-I am in one of the pictures, and we are just like this, you know, totally morose and sad and looking down, and that was captured in the yearbook. Did you ever see the yearbooks back? IG: 20:16 Yes-yes-yes. BS: 20:17 Okay, there is pictures of the Kennedy the day Kennedy was killed. Very moving, but it was just I was I remember being in the snack bar. Snack bar was like the womb. It was where everybody went. And I will tell you a cute story. Perhaps I am now living in Phoenix. I have all kids who are about how old eight, seven, ten, eight and eleven, and a bunch of families going to the movies on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and we are going to see the In-laws. And I had no idea Andrew Bergman wrote this, and I am sitting in the movie, and I am laughing louder, harder than everybody else in the theater, and I said out loud, and my wife will swear to this, this feels like I am in the snack bar, and it was Andrew Bergman who hung out in a snack bar. This is same humor that I grew up with in Harpur College. Was in that movie, you know, the movie IG: 21:24 With De Niro. BS: 21:25 No Peter Faulk. IG: 21:27 Oh-oh [crosstalk] BS: 21:29 Go see it on Netflix. It is one of the it is, Peter Faulk and Alan Arkin. IG: 21:36 Yeah, they are great actors. BS: 21:37 And Alan Arkin is this dentist, and Peter Faulk is his, who knows? Why is his CIA agent? We do not know for sure. And he gets Alan Arkin, who is his most upright, prudish kind of guy, to go to South America to some banana republic. And they get into these scrapes and-and they are running because people are shooting at them. And the famous scene is, is that Peter Faullk is saying serpentine-serpentine so they have to go back. Serpentines means when we run like this. So, he has already run straight, has not been shot now he has to go back and sir. It is hilarious, but it was the humor that I knew and felt comfortable with from Harpur College snack bar. IG: 22:17 It comes from another place. It comes from another place. It comes from, you know, maybe New York City. BS: 22:26 Oh, yeah. Andrew Burton was from New York City. IG: 22:28 Exactly. BS: 22:29 Of course. IG: 22:29 That is where- BS: 22:30 But that, but we infected the snack bar, and that is, you know, that is how we sat around. And there is those that have, not jokes that we told, but those-those- IG: 22:41 Kind of humor. BS: 22:41 Yeah. IG: 22:42 Which is, how would you describe this humor? BS: 22:46 It is kind of little bit it is a it is a little screwy. It is not, it is not [inaudible] young men telling jokes. It is kind of a warp view of the world. The other story I heard about Andrew Bergman, who wrote Blazing Saddles. Now that you have seen, right? IG: 23:07 Yes. BS: 23:08 And Mel Brooks confirmed this about two or three years ago. He had this one-on-one interview on HBO for a couple hours. Was one of my- I was a big thing at Harpur College too. Was a 2000-year-old man? They just came out. Mel Brooks and Carl Erin is 2000-year-old man on record came out just before at that time, and we used to speak to each other from phrases from the record, I will never walk. I do not walk for a bus will always be another. You know, fear is the main compulsion, propulsion, whatever. The story I heard, and it was kind of confirmed by Mel Brooks, is that Bergman wrote this book Blazing Saddles. He went on to history at Wisconsin for post graduate. And it's, I never read the book, and a movie theater picked it up and says to Bergman, write the script. And this is a story I heard. Bergman had a lot of trouble writing the screenplay, and he was not producing, and he had writer's block, and he had all those problems. So, the studio says, "Okay, we will give you some help." So, Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor are hired to help Andrew Bergman write this script. And can you, I always say this, can you imagine sitting in a room with these guys? They are crazy. I mean [crosstalk] of course, everybody would have had a peak into that. So Blazing Saddles then gets published, I mean, produced, and it is incredible. And it is that humor. Also, it is the opening scene when Mel Brooks is Indian chief and comes up on these African Americans who are working on the railroad, and he goes schwatzers. IG: 24:54 [laughs] BS: 24:54 It is class, it is classic. That is classic. IG: 24:58 That is very New York. BS: 25:01 How much more New York can you be- IG: 25:03 No, you cannot. BS: 25:04 -than Mel Brooks, and it is just, I went to see Blazing Saddles. I had just it was early (19)70s. I moved here in (19)71 to Phoenix, and we went out with another couple, also from New York, who have been here a few years long, more than we have, and we went to see Blazing Saddles in the movies. And as we are walking into the theater, there is this family of cowboys and cow girls and cow, cow father, cow mother and five, five or six cow kids in their cowboy hats and their boots. They are thinking they go to see, going to see a shoot them up. And they go into a Wayne movie, right? They go in, they sit down in the theater and kind of watching them. And the opening scene, when Mel Brooks goes Schwartz, they on-on mass, get up and leave the theater. Phoenix is not New York, no, it is not. It is not, it is, it is more and more it is, you know, it is, it is progressing. This was a small Southwestern town. It is still conservative, but there is a lot more of that happening. liberal stuff happening anyway. So, I do not that is fine. I knew Andrew Bergman a little bit. And I remember when I went to see the movie with Bert Parks that he wrote about stuffed animals. They were killing these rare birds and rare animals. I forget what they are doing. It was, it was a ridiculously comic type of thing. Bert Parks played his Miss America role, and Marlon Brando had a role in that, in which he played, which he mocked himself in The Godfather. And I remember writing a letter to, I do not know if he ever wrote back, writing a letter to Andrew Bergen and say, “How did you ever get Marlon Brando to sit down and accept this role?” I forget the name of the movie, but it is a Bergman was good. He was he has not done anything in a long time. I do not think, but I think he was very successful. I think he had a place on Central Park, South or North, or whatever, and. IG: 27:26 Let us talk about you then. BS: 27:27 Okay. IG: 27:28 Okay, so, I mean, you obviously had an interest in comedy. BS: 27:33 Well, yeah, I like [crosstalk] IG: 27:35 Films? BS: 27:36 Yeah. IG: 27:37 Was that- was there an opportunity to do that at Harpur was- BS: 27:43 A little bit. IG: 27:43 Film Club, or- BS: 27:44 I have to go to the restroom. Can we shut this off for a while when we do that? Professor is the one that I remember was Sidney Harcave, who was a preeminent Russian history scholar. I took two or three classes with him. We used his textbook Russia, a history and I remember once I had three finals on one day, and I was freaking out, and I went to him, and his advice to me was, get a good night's sleep. I wanted to take it some other time, but he would not do that. He was really fantastic professor, and I really enjoyed his classes, walking around campus. I am remembering now things like Sid Arthur Herman has his novels, the kids walking around reading that stuff, part of the, you know, the evolution of-of these young people who are starting to sprout their own wings and separate themselves from their parents’ generation and from and changing the cultural surroundings that they were part of. There was a beehive of that kind of activity back in the (19)60s. [crosstalk] Yeah, I mean, I did not understand I was not the scholar they were. So, I was kind of listening to them talk about it. But I had a girlfriend who was a literature major, and Deborah Tanner was her best friend. I mean, I had, if I wanted to talk to these people, I had, I had to pick up the book that they were reading, kind of and but I enjoyed it. I mean, it was, it was a wonderful awakening coming, you know, coming of age kind of a thing. There was, you know, I still look back upon those days terribly fondly, and always felt very fortunate that I had that opportunity. But on the other hand, having gone to Harpur College, there was a little bit of a of a burden in that when I graduated law school and I went out interviewing for jobs, I put down Harpur College and all that stuff. The first question I got from everybody interviewing me, where is Harpur College? Nobody ever heard of it. This is 1968, (19)69 and it was a bit of a, you know, an obstacle. IG: 30:13 It was in you- BS: 30:15 It was founded in 1948 and it had an amazing reputation, but nobody knew about it. It was not known. And these high-priced lawyers in these large law firms who went to all the Ivy League schools and were snobs about that, their first question to me was, where is Harpur College? So, I would not answer, but I had this. It was, it was incredible. Every single interview I got that same question. They never heard of it. They have now. IG: 30:48 They have now, and they have- BS: 30:51 And, I am sorry, they changed the name because the name, you know, I understand, [crosstalk], yeah, they changed it two or three times. It was SUNY at Binghamton. It was Binghamton University. Harpur College developed a great name. I am sorry that it was not still not the name of the school. IG: 31:09 Yeah, because, as someone told me, you know it your generation got the end and the generation. Well, while Harpur College existed, that you got an elite education, liberal arts education for almost no money. BS: 31:34 Right. I think we had an incoming class. It was told student body was about 1000 our incoming class is about 300 something. 10 percent of those kids were valedictorians in high school. Mean, these were top students in each of their schools who could not afford to go to an Ivy League school. This was the their-their opportunity, and the school thrived because of not only the professors being like Sidney Harcave, this preeminent scholar in his field. There were others in geology, there were in in all different all different departments, but the kids were very active and creative, and they part of what created that environment, not just the professors. It was that it was this frenetic activity, the civil rights movement and the war in Vietnam, obviously was heating up things I was thinking about that one of my good friends who was a year ahead of me. He was on the basketball team, Kenny Hoffman. His name is on the Vietnam Memorial in DC. He was a pilot, and he was killed, and it was not much after we graduated, we needless to say, most of the students were very actively opposed to the war, and I was really was not sure I was one of them. And after I graduated, I marched in down Fifth Avenue. I was anti-war, and I really did not understand as much until I saw Ken Burns thing on-on public TV. IG: 33:28 Emily being your- you said, Emily. BS: 33:32 No-no, Ken Burns. IG: 33:34 Ken Burns. No. You said, somebody did not understand. BS: 33:39 I did not. IG: 33:39 You did not understand. BS: 33:40 I did not understand why I was so it was the- my friends were opposed to it. So, I am I did not really understand the gravity, the gravitas, the you know, that, you know, I hated Nixon and I hated the war and I did all that stuff, but not. It was not until I became a lot, until recently, really, when all came together with-with-with Ken Burns's incredible documentary on the Vietnam War. It was amazing. It was just a hell hole. Kick any deeper and deeper, and I did not really appreciate it at that time. I was not as knowledgeable. It was not as aware. IG: 34:21 And all the people that orchestrated it already knew that it was, BS: 34:25 I am not sure. They were kids. They were rebelling. They were revolting. IG: 34:26 The administration- BS: 34:28 Oh yeah, they knew Johnson knew he was caught me, lied about Tonkin Gulf and all that to get us in there, just like George W Bush did to get us into Iraq. IG: 34:43 So, there was Vietnam moving over. All of you did that create anxiety? BS: 34:51 Yeah, sure, the draft and the war and all that. I do not remember it exactly, but we were so opposed to it, we could never see ourselves carrying a gun in Vietnam. It did not make any sense. IG: 35:07 Did your professors support you? BS: 35:10 A lot of them did. BS: 35:11 They did not need to. They did not need it. We did not need protection. We did not need protection. We were not doing anything illegal. We were not doing anything that was going to get us in trouble. We were not, you know- IG: 35:11 Did they sort of protect you? IG: 35:26 Did they encourage you to go on to grad school? BS: 35:29 John LaTourette encouraged me to go on to economics. He gave me a reference letter. And actually, lots of rec, I think, was from Rutgers. I had spent some time there, and he got me a fellowship, which I felt badly about, but I said, it is not for me. IG: 35:51 So, what happened next? You dropped out of Rutgers. How did you become? I mean, give me sort of the arc of your career. How did you become a superior court judge? BS: 36:06 That is a very it is interesting to me. I am not sure to anybody else, but I am trying to think of whether I should, I should say this on the record, but I dropped out of graduate school in Rutgers after one semester, and I knew that I am looking at being drafted. I do not have any-any educational protection, so I applied. I had been accepted in graduate school at City University in New York, and I lasted. I went about a month, and I just stopped going. I never quit. I never announced it resignation letter. I just stopped going. So, I am knowing that in my mind, I got to, you know, I got to figure out something a lot of a lot of people I knew were signing up on in reserve units to avoid getting drafted, to delay it by a year or two, my best man at my wedding who was simpatico, and all the things that we felt at the time. He winds up going to officer candidate training school in the Marines, and he is now in Vietnam as a second lieutenant, which is the most dangerous position on the battlefield. He is the guy saying, follow me, and he gets shot in the back by his own men. He survived, thank God, but he went, he signed up in a reserve unit that got activated, and he is now in Vietnam. That is the kind of stuff that was happening that was after we graduated. So going to law school had a lot to do with figuring that piece out. I did not really ever dream of being a lawyer. IG: 37:47 What did you dream of becoming? BS: 37:49 Nothing. IG: 37:50 Nothing? BS: 37:51 I could not play professional baseball because I was not good enough and I was too short for basketball. So, I had no dreams. My father had a nice business. My father was such a wonderful man. He would have embraced the fact, if I would have gone into business with him, it would have been the happiest man in the world. He understood that I did not want to do that, and he encouraged me to do whatever I wanted. So, I went to law school. I applied late. I got accepted to Brooklyn Law School, St John's law school, and I think I was rejected NYU in Columbia, maybe because it was late, maybe because I was not good enough. A lot of Harpur graduates were at St John's, people a year ahead of me or two, and I knew them pretty well, and it was easy for me to get in, you know, to kind of be engulfed and protected by them. So, I went to St John's. I was living at my parents’ house, and on Long Island. I take the train every day from Long Island to Brooklyn. Was in Brooklyn, and now it is in Queens, and I did real well. I was like top five in my first-first semester, and I thought I flunked out. I went on a ski trip with some of these my friends from Harpur who were your head of me, and I told them, I am not even buying my books for next semester I flunked out. They laughed at me. I am telling you, I flunked out. We were at the ski trip, and my mother calls and she reads me my grades, and they sounded okay. And I tell these graceton, these friends of mine, they said, “My God, you are probably number one in the class.” I said “I was number five.” I made Law Review, which is a whole other world in law school, it is a you spend a lot of time with the elites of the elite students in law school, putting together a legal magazine, periodical. I scholarly, and you spend hours reading and editing and discussing and looking for it is, it is a whole other life. And I did that for the rest of my law school career. And I did, I did not study as hard because I had Law Review for one thing. And I thought it was a piece of cake now. So, I went from like an 85 average to a 77 average in my second semester, then I kind of leveled out. I did okay. I did not. Was not good enough to get a job in the big Wall Street firms because they never heard of Harpur College. For one thing, my first job out of law school- IG: 40:17 When was this? What year? BS: 40:20 I graduated law school in (19)68 if I would have graduated with my class would have been (19)67 but I spent that year screwing around graduate school, and I still had to worry about the draft, because now I was about 25 and 26 is the magic number, so one of the things I did was to apply. I got a job within what is called OEO, legal services for the poor, Office of Economic Opportunity, federal concept, and John-Robert Kennedy had a lot to do with that, bringing publicly funded law firms, in effect, into the ghettos to assist the people who live there. IG: 41:08 Is that a precursor of legal aid- BS: 41:10 Legal Aid in New York was criminal, so this was the civil side. IG: 41:14 I see, I see. BS: 41:15 And that is where I got a job and I applied to the to the Selective Service that I think what I am doing here is more important to my country than carrying a gun in Vietnam did not work, so I eventually did not, did not have to get drafted. It is a long story that I am not going to tell now, but a lot of what I did, and a lot of my-my-my friends, were doing this frenzy time was figuring out ways not to get killed in Vietnam. Trump does. Trump did the same thing. You know, my I never mind. So, I really took the law school, and I graduated in (19)68 I am working at Bedford Stuyvesant, legal services for the community center, whatever borrow legal services for the poor, going down every day with 10,15, files the landlord and tenant court representing people that were being evicted and it was not going anywhere. It was not a job that [phone rings] I will let Chelsea answer that. So, then I got a job in a small Wall Street firm does not exist anymore. It was like 12 lawyers, not a big they had some big clients, some big Israeli connected Bank Leumi, Israel was a big client of theirs and other Israeli connected businesses. And then my wife. IG: 42:58 How did you meet your wife? Is that your wife? BS: 43:01 That is my wife. IG: 43:01 Yeah, I thought so. BS: 43:03 We have a great first date story. But I guess, since I am revealing so much about myself, I will tell you that in a moment. But my wife said to me, this is now 1970ish, and I am working now at [inaudible] and Bookstein, no longer it in Bedford, Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. And she is from Connecticut. She went to NYU, that is where we met, and she is working in the city we have by the time we move; our daughter was eight months old. But before we had children, she was working at banker's trust thing, which is now Bank of America, and doing very well working on whatever. She was having horrible experiences on the subway with perverts on the subway, and she said, "I cannot I cannot stand this anymore. I- we have to move." So, the logical thing for any New Yorker like myself, she is not a New Yorker, was to move to Long Island or Westchester or New Jersey. And we looked at some houses, and then we kind of looked at each other, and we said, “Boy, if we get, if we move and keep this job, we are stuck for the rest. We cannot move. We are, we are just imprisoned by this system. We cannot afford ever, or buy in a house we cannot afford whatever.” So, we said, “Let us take a look at this.” I never heard of Phoenix. I heard of Phoenix. I never knew anything about it, and I was out of a law school friend of mine, we graduated, and we were at a party at his house, and we are sitting around, what do you want to move to? What do you want to do? I do not want to go to Miami. It is too it is too much like New York. It is too much the same. So, somebody says, What about Phoenix, Arizona? I said, “Where is it? What is it?” So, I had, we had from law school. We had these little two by four little diaries, pocket diaries that a large publishing house handed out. And they had an atlas, and they had all the states broken down by Northeast, Northwest, and there was Arizona, right next to New Mexico, next to Texas, and it was close to Las Vegas. This far from LA looked like a good place, and I started reading about it. They have not. They just established an NBA basketball franchise that is important. So, sight unseen. Basically, I came out here for an exploratory run. Nothing happened, and we packed up. Six months later, we packed without a job, we packed up. We just moved out here. Some connections. I had to take the bar exam in those days. You had to have a six-month residency, and then you took the bar exam. Not true anymore today, so I got a job in a firm because I was not licensed to just do Scrivener work for a couple $100 a month. I still had to look for a real job. And I finally got a job in a law firm downtown, a prominent personal injury law firm, which I knew nothing about. And I was there from (19)72 to (19)77 when I formed a partnership with an older friend of mine, and we were together from (19)77 to about (19)84 and we kind of split the sheets, and we kept the name, but I was on my own, kind of building a practice. Meanwhile, friends of mine, good friends of mine, are applying and becoming judges on the Superior Court or state court of general jurisdiction, and I am talking to my friends and, "Gee, that sounds like a nice gig. I mean, I like to do that. " And I am 42, 43 years old, kind of young, but it is- we have merit selection in Arizona. We do not have general elections. Least the three largest counties in Arizona, you go through a screening process, you make an application, there is a commission that is half lawyers, half lay people presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. You submit your application. In my day, there was like 75 applicants for two positions. They call through them, 15 or so are then interviewed, then they take five and they send it to the governor, and the governor must choose from that short list, and half of that short list has to be different political parties. So, depoliticize it is to bring it is called Merit selection, and it was kind of new at the time it came in, oh, maybe a few years before that, I would never run for election. It is not who I am. Bruce Babbitt was the governor at the time, and I did my application, got my interview, and I was appointed on the first shot, which was not remarkable, but it was usually it is two or three times when you to get it. I was very fortunate. IG: 48:16 What kind of cases did you try? BS: 48:18 Well, we have three departments. We have, well, we have more than that. We have a civil department, we have a criminal department, we have a probate department. Most of my time as a private lawyer was in civil. I did not do any criminal, really. I did some domestic relation. Domestic Relations was the other one. Domestic Relations, probate, civil and criminal. I did when I left the firm and joined with this guy. I needed business, so I did anything that came in the door, and I did some divorce work, which nobody wants to do. So, the- our court is a court of general jurisdiction, which means we are, we are not a local justice of the peace court. We are not- we do not hear small matters. We hear major matters, major felonies, murders, kidnapping and we hear major civil cases for millions of dollars as well as little cases. So, we hear, as a civil in the civil department, we hear everything that could be filed, medical malpractice case, lawyer malpractice case, products liability case, automobile accidents, partnership dissolutions, real estate fraud, transactions, everything that you ever learned about in law school is on your plate as a civil department judge, criminal is what you would expect in criminal. I had no, no background the criminal, but I took to it, and I need today, 10, 15, years, 12 years after I retired, I will run into one of the lawyers used to practice in my court, and they think of me as a criminal person, criminal, you know, and I am not. It took me six months to learn the language I. Had no idea what was going on when I was on criminal. I was scared to death. I mean, I look out on the morning. We have a morning calendar in criminal and that is when we do our sentencings, emotions for release, our conferences before we did our trials. And there would be maybe 12 inmates sitting there in the jury box waiting for their case to be called, and on that side of the room, maybe their family members are sitting behind them, and on the other side of the room is the is, is the victims, and then there is the prosecutors and the defense lawyers. And I used to walk out on a bench. I used to look at this array, and I say to myself, I know less than every one of these people in this courtroom about what I am doing, but it took me about six months, and all of a sudden, I had- IG: 50:49 You gained the confidence just by doing up and doing it. BS: 50:53 Reading it and figuring it out and understanding the lexicon. And it is not really hard. It is the easiest for me. It is the easiest. It was the easiest assignment. Criminal. There was some- IG: 51:04 What was the hardest? BS: 51:06 Civil was the hardest in terms of the difficulty of the issues. The hardest assignment probably was domestic relations, because you had to resolve unresolvable disputes. There was never enough money to go around, never enough time with the children. And you had people fighting it, you know, because they hated each other, and that was difficult on the toll it took on you personally, civil was the most difficult because the issues were the most, the most difficult. IG: 51:44 Like what issues did you- BS: 51:47 Just itis evolved. Now, you know, I have been gone 12 years, but I do mediation, so I see the cases at the mediation stage, and there is summary judgments, you know, 10 inches thick that you have to read through and prepare for oral argument to decide and on our court. We do not have any research assistance. We do not have any staff. We do it by ourselves. It is very, very time consuming, and it's, you know, every commercial case, they think they have entitlement to a summary judgment as a matter of law. So, they file one or two or more, and it is pages and pages and pages of stuff on. Could be economic loss rule. It could be on, you know, whatever legal doctrine is being bad need about, and it is constantly evolving and changing. You got to keep up. I got invited fairly often to speak at State Bar seminars on various issues, which was a challenge for me. IG: 52:50 What kind of issues Did you speak about? BS: 52:53 Motion practice, how to write motions, how to be more persuasive. I wrote about evidence, evidentiary things I spoke about number of times on some ethical issues the Code of Professional Conduct. IG: 53:11 Such as? BS: 53:12 Candor toward the tribunal. Point 3.3. Of the Code of Professional Conduct, you must be candid in front of a judge. You cannot be misleading or lie. And there are cases that are very interesting reads, and I would talk about that, you know, beyond the faculty, talking about things like that, oh, I do not remember all the things on my website, if you I do not know if you looked at my website. You might want to do that. I describe some of the things, you know, speech, speaking engagements, I have not had much lately. That is part of my problem. If it is a problem to where I am not as busy now, 12 years after I retired as it was three years after I retired, because nobody knows me anymore, I was a known item when I retired from the bench. IG: 53:59 Why do not you teach? BS: 54:01 I also taught at school. IG: 54:02 Really? BS: 54:04 I taught at ASU Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law. Taught for about five or six years. They had a very interesting civil practice. No, not civil practice, lawyering Theory and Practice class, which was basically a hands-on student. It was a lottery to get into those classes. They had to argue cases, try a case, and I was one of the faculty that took one of the little sections. And for about five or six years, I was a what is the word that you use for a professor? IG: 54:43 Adjunct. BS: 54:44 What? IG: 54:44 Adjunct. BS: 54:45 Adjunct at a new law school, which is now going out of business, Phoenix School of Law. I taught civil practice there for a few times, for a few semesters, while I was on the bench, because I was thinking of doing that when I retired being a law professor. But I did, fortunately, I did that on a full-time basis while still on the bench. I said, this is real work. I do not want to do this. The worst part of it was the grading. Was the creating the final exam and then grading it. I do not want to still hard. So, I just- IG: 55:18 Got a graduate assistant? BS: 55:19 No-no, I was the I was assisting the other professors in doing this. They were not going to assist me. IG: 55:29 No. Things, things run differently, actually, not differently. But, you know, you could employ a graduate assistant from the law department. BS: 55:38 Possibly. But I just, I like the I like the classroom. I like the interaction with the class. I am actually going down next this later this month, two young lawyers I know are teaching this class at ASU, and they invited me to be a guest for one of their nights, which I did last year. It is fun. I enjoy tremendously interacting with young lawyers. I enjoy interacting when a judge, when a new judge, is appointed to my bench, if I happen to have some connection, maybe through a friend or whatever, I try to reach out and say, here is some tips and whatever, I enjoy that. IG: 56:19 Have you considered speaking at Binghamton? I mean, there is no law school, but there is a pre law program. BS: 56:24 I have not considered it, but- IG: 56:24 You have not considered it. BS: 56:24 Well, it is a long trip. IG: 56:27 It is a long trip. BS: 56:33 I do. I go back. I went back to reunion on three, four years ago. I was there in 2008 which is when I got the Distinguished Alumni Award. So, I went back for that, and I went back once or twice after that, both times saying studying at my friend Tony D Aristotle's house on Carroll Street Downtown Binghamton, right next to the Italian American club. You know what that is? IG: 56:56 Yeah, I do. I do. Yeah. BS: 56:58 It has got this old house is over 100 years old. It is great. IG: 57:03 You promised to tell me about- BS: 57:06 My first date. People actually asked me to tell this story. My wife hates it every now, but last couple times, tell them how we had our first date. Okay, I am in my second year in law school in Brooklyn, New York, at St John's University. And a friend of mine from Harpur, a teammate named Roy Tompowski. He may have run across him. He is a pretty active alum. He is an accountant. Lives in Westchester, and Roy calls me, I want to be disparaging, because I am on the record, and says I got a girl for you. All right, Roy, you know what-what is the story? Well, she is at NYU uptown. She is a junior, she is very pretty, and she is very smart, and she is from Connecticut, okay, I will give her a call. So, I-I call once, and I do not roommate answers call another time, another time, and finally, we make this date for Friday night. What I find out later is that she had a boyfriend that she goes out with on Saturday nights, but she is trying to break up with him. So, she tells Roy at a party that she went to camp, the same camp Roy went to, that is the connection. And she was at a party of all the camp guys, and she went up to Roy, and she said, you know, you have a guy for me. So, Roy says, Yeah, but he may be too short for you peanuts anyway. So, she has worried about that. That is what she knows. So, we finally make this day for Friday night. And I figured I am living in Brooklyn. I had this new TR four that I got when I graduated. Sometimes I got somewhere along the way, and she is up in the Bronx, you know, the city at all, New York City. Okay, good. So I am in Brooklyn, Atlantic Avenue area by downtown Brooklyn. She is up upper she is right by, well, she is NYU uptown, okay, which is where the Hall of Fame was, Fordham Road, and about 200 and something street go up the West Side Highway. So, I decide to plan this evening for this first date for this hick from Connecticut. So, I decide the theme will be, I am going to show her how real New Yorkers live. So, I took up there, pick her up. I do not you know. First Date never met her, and the first stop was the Upper West Side to the Improv, okay, which was just opening at the time year or two. We do not remember what act we saw, but we think it was probably somebody like, was not Robin Williams, but it was Steve. What is his name? Could have been. Somebody? No, no, it was another guy. Used to be a school teacher in New York. Anyway, I have seen 1000 times. Cannot remember his name. He has been on Broadway a lot in the Wasserstein plays wrong. I cannot remember his name. Anyway, we do not remember what we saw. That was the first stop to about 10ish or so, and then I the next stop, I do not tell her, is to go from the Upper West Side down to the lower east side to catch this delicatessen. Okay, we are really, real New Yorkers. Hang out. So, we are driving down. We are making first date kind of conversation. What is your favorite color, that kind of stuff? Who is your favorite singer? What do you know, all that garbage? So, we drive, I drive, and I park, and she does not say anything. We go into cats' you ever been to cats? BS: 1:00:50 It is cavernous. It is huge, and you have a choice when you go in. You can either go to the left for waiter service, or you go to the right for counter service. Waiter service, a little more expensive. I am a poor law student. I cannot afford the waiter service. I tell her I would love to have a pastrami on rye, but I cannot afford that. So, I have what New York is called two with which are two hot dogs [inaudible] and sauerkraut. For those who are not initiated, she announces that she does not really like this kind of food. It is almost like Annie Hall. She does not really like this food, so she orders a turkey on rye. I go get my two hot dogs with we continue our small talk and in cats as you get this little ticket that you, they punch as to how much you owe, we are standing on line now to pay. We are about three or four deep, and at the cash register there is this older guy, probably 30 years younger than I am now, but an older guy, little bit of a palsy, a little bit of shaking, and he is obviously an owner. He is looking around making sure nobody is stealing any silverware, that kind of a look. So, we are getting closer and closer, and then we get about one removed, and this old guy says, "Hi Willa." She goes, "Hi, Benny." What is going on here? So, Benny, turns out he is a minority owner of Katz's delicatessen. The majority owner is her uncle, Willa's uncle, Lenny, who is her mother's brother, Willa is named after William Katz, her maternal grandfather, who pre deceased her. She is named Willa because her mother wanted to name her after her father. So, she is named after the founder of Katz's delicatessen. This is her family. IG: 1:00:50 Yes. IG: 1:02:40 And she did not tell you. IG: 1:02:41 What does your wife do? Did she continue working in a bank? BS: 1:02:41 No, she-she, dropped out of, I think she dropped out of graduate. I do not think she ever got her graduate degree. Children were born. We moved out here. She started working for me when I was in practice, and kind of like doing my books and stuff, not doing any reception in and then when I got appointed to the bank, she was without a job, so then she went to work for a friend of ours. Was a lawyer, kind of running his office. And then I think he retired, and then she basically stopped working in that kind of a situation. She does a lot of charitable work. Now she has got five grandkids, and all that back is not great. BS: 1:02:41 Never said a word, and Benny comped us. We did not pay. So, I am going, I could have a pastrami sandwich. And after we got married, we were still living in New York for those first three years. We used to get care packages from Katz. You cannot believe the pounds of roast beef that we would get hot dogs like an electrical wire. We did not pay for it. So that is my first date story I submit to you. It is one of the best first date stories you will ever hear. So, she never told me. She never she cut she was from Connecticut. She did not really, she said, this looks familiar. She knew it when she walked in there. But driving up, she never said anything, and certainly did not say anything when she walked in the Annie Hall thing, if you remember Annie Hall, Woody Allen in a deli with what is her name, Diane Keaton, and she orders like a roast beef on white with butter, and he goes, shiska. Was not quite like that, because she is not a shiska; so, but my wife, but she does not like this food. IG: 1:04:47 Well, she is beautiful. I you know, let us think about wrapping up this conversation. But you know, the final question that I ask. What lessons do you did you learn from the-the- this time in your life, that Harpur College? BS: 1:05:11 Lessons that I learned, the important importance of friendship, I made really good friends that I am so many. Some of them, I am still friendly with that. I am still the importance of having that warmth in your life, that support in your life, people who care about you, people that you care about. It was really a very nurturing place. In fact, when people graduate like Mickey Greenberg. You must know Mickey. Everybody knows Mickey well. One of me is very close friend of mine. We were teammates together. He was a great basketball player. He has died in the wool Brooklyn, New York. His parents were there. He lives in Binghamton. Since he graduated. He it is the womb. It was considered the womb, but there is that nurturing sense of the place that I carry with me, and I look back so fondly on, what did I learn? I mean, I learned what anybody does who becomes more worldly wise and on his own or her own, without parents constantly saying, do your homework, that kind of thing. You got to figure things out for yourself. But that is true in any that is true in any university, but in particular in Binghamton, I am not sure it was a learning thing as much as an experience of the warmth and the nurture and of the surroundings of the people that you were there with. It was an amazing experience for me. IG: 1:06:41 Well, thank you very much for this amazing interview. Been very wonderful talking to you. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Barry Schneider Subject The topic of the resource Nineteen sixties; Harpur College; Alumni and alumnae Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Schneider, Barry ; Gashurov, Irene Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource Recipient of Distinguished Alumnus Award. Principal of Schneider Mediation. Avid athlete at Harpur College. (His nickname at Harpur was “Peanuts.”) Mediation judge in Phoenix. He (Ret.) served on the Maricopa County Superior Court for 21 years, from 1986 to 2007. He first practiced in New York City and moved to Phoenix in 1971. He was an associate at Langerman, Begam, Lewis, Leonard & Marks until 1977, when he formed the partnership Rosen & Schneider, Ltd. He has a strong background in Arizona civil litigation from the perspective of both a judge and a civil trial attorney. While on the bench, he served on the Criminal Department, in addition to serving as Presiding Civil Department Judge and Presiding Family Law Judge. His 18-month tenure on the Arizona Supreme Court’s Committee on Jury Reform led to groundbreaking changes in the rules and practice of jury trials in Arizona. 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 2019-03-11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Barry Schneider.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2019-03-11 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni Extent The size or duration of the resource. 66:48 minutes https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/18f584fd4c9b11739b6519a2b8d49161.mp3 6c5cbfa59356777c6a744ce8e5bd9b5e 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 Oral Histories Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories from 1960s Binghamton Alumni Description An account of the resource In 2019, Binghamton University Libraries completed a mission to collect oral interviews from 1960s alumni as a means to preserve memories of campus life. The resulting 47 tales are a retrospective of social, professional and personal experiences with the commonality of Harpur College. Some stories tell of humble beginnings, others discuss the formation of friendships; each provides insight into a moment in our community's rich history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Irene Gashurov 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 2017-2018 Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/browse?collection=18">McKiernan Interviews : 60's collection of Oral Histories</a> 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 2019-04-02 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Barbara Kriegsman Espenschied Year of Graduation 1966 Biographical Text Barbara Kriegsman Espenschied, American Librarian. Certified reading specialist, New Jersey, New York; She worked as adult services supervisor for the Edison Public Library and as public relations officer for the I.L. Peretz Community Jewish School in New Brunswick before that. She is a member of the New Jersey Library Association. She enjoys reading, gardening and furniture refinishing in her spare time. Interview Format Video or Audio Audio 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 Barbara Kriegsman Espenschied Subject The topic of the resource Nineteen sixties; Harpur College; Alumni and alumnae Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Espenschied, Barbara Kriegsman ; Gashurov, Irene Description An account of the resource Barbara Kriegsman Espenschied, American Librarian. Certified reading specialist, New Jersey, New York; She worked as adult services supervisor for the Edison Public Library and as public relations officer for the I.L. Peretz Community Jewish School in New Brunswick before that. She is a member of the New Jersey Library Association. She enjoys reading, gardening and furniture refinishing in her spare time. 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 2019-04-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Barbara Espenschied_1.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2019-04-02 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni Extent The size or duration of the resource. 48:36 minutes IIIF Item Metadata UUID 5fb1c554-3bb5-46b6-b39e-ee9f6ed6c1db