59 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/26752b39606ee1ffd92c2d8333d03c9e.m4a 09154d91ec02ab8d659dea8b2e8aa8d7 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 Ukrainian Oral History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright&nbsp; Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D.</span><br /><span>Heather DeHaan, Ph.D., Associate Professor in History</span> Description An account of the resource The Ukrainian Oral History project consists of a collection of undergraduate student interviews with immigrants from East Central Europe, particularly the lands of what is now Ukraine. Four interviews took place in New York City and record the memories of Jewish immigrants. A few interviews testify to specifically Russian identity and experiences, while the rest of the collection is comprised of interviews with members of Binghamton’s Ukrainian immigrant community. Relation A related resource <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a> 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 David Sanyshyn Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Kevin DeLuca and Kayla Jermansky Date of Interview 6 April 2016 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 59:19 minutes Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Biographical Text David Sanyshyn is a retired engineer and is a third generation Ukrainian immigrant who was born in the Binghamton area. He is a Vietnam War veteran, having served two terms in the Navy, and is active in the Ukrainian Catholic Church. He met his wife, a second generation Ukrainian, in the United States. They have 3 children together and 4 grandchildren, and reside in Binghamton. Digital Format audio/mp4 Material Type Sound Collection Ukrainian Oral History Project Subject LCSH Sanyshyn, David. --Interviews; Ukrainians--United States; Diaspora, Ukraine—History; Ukrainian; Migrations; Ethnic identity; Church; Ukrainian--music; Broome County (N.Y.) OHMS Object URL https://omeka.binghamton.edu/viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=DavidSanyshyn.xml 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>. Keywords Ukrainians; Immigrants; Catholics, Ukrainian; Veterans; Ukrainian diaspora; Interviews; Binghamton (N.Y.); Ethnicity ; Ukrainian Catholic Church 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 Ukrainian Oral History Project Interview with: David Sanyshyn Interviewed by: Kevin DeLuca and Kayla Jermansky Transcriber: Kevin DeLuca and Kayla Jermansky Date of interview: 6 April 2016 at 10:00 am Interview Setting: Sacred Heart Ukrainian Catholic Church, Johnson City, NY --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) Kevin DeLuca: Hello, my name is Kevin DeLuca, and this is Kayla Jermansky, and we are here today at Sacred Heart Ukrainian Catholic Church on April 6th to interview David Sanyshyn. David Sanyshyn is a 3rd generation Ukrainian immigrant. He has agreed to speak to us about his personal experiences growing up as a Ukrainian, and we are interviewing him in order to learn more his personal experiences and cultural identity. We will also be discussing his childhood, what he considers to be his national identity, what influenced his grandparents to come to America, as well as any other insight he chooses to share with us. Kayla Jermansky: So, you said you were born here in Binghamton. Specifically, you were born in this community? David Sanyshyn: Yes, I grew up two houses down from the church. KD: Is everyone in this community a Ukrainian immigrant? DS: When I was born it wasn't unusual to hear Polish, Slovak, Russian or Ukrainian anywhere in the community. There was a lot of households that actually spoke all of them. KJ: Do you still hear those languages today? DS: Not really, most of the immigration has moved out along with the jobs. KJ: Is there a reason you chose to stay instead of leaving? DS: I like the area and it's just a beautiful place to live. KD: What do you like most about it? DS: The scenery and the change of seasons. Also, the mountains. My grandparents came from a place very similar to this in geography. KD: Do you know why your grandparents came here? DS: Jobs. My mother's side came to work in Syracuse and actually went back to Ukraine which was uncommon at the time. Then he came here with the intent of working. This was around 1910 and she saw that changes in the political atmosphere was getting pretty bad. So, she wrote him a letter and said if you can work there and make enough money to live then maybe there is a better place to live. Then he sent her money to have her transported here. My other grandparents came during WW1 and settled in New Jersey. KJ: For more background info, can you tell us when you were born? DS: 1950. KD: What do you do for a living? DS: Right now, I'm a retired software engineer. KJ: What is your educational background? DS: I have a 2-year degree that I got after I got out of the service. KJ: How old were you when you joined the Navy? DS: 18. KD: What influenced you to serve in the Navy? DS: The draft. The war was going on; if I didn't join the Navy I would've been drafted in the Army. KD: Can you tell us a little more about your experience in the Navy? DS: I made 2 tours in Vietnam and learned electronics. I saw a lot of different sights, a lot of different places: Guam, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan. KJ: So, you are very well traveled. DS: Yes, well they say join the Navy, see the world. It was interesting to see all of the different cultures. KJ: How long did you serve? DS: 4 years. KD: Do you have any children? DS: Yes. KD: How many? DS: 3 children and 4 grandchildren. KJ: Did you meet your wife here? DS: No, she's from Utica. KD: Is she also Ukrainian? DS: Yes, she's also Ukrainian. She is 2nd generation, her parents came after WW2. KD: When did you start coming to this church? DS: Right from birth. I was baptized here. Actually, before this church was here, my grandmother used to have a little Chapel in her house and a Brazilian priest used to come around once in a while and have masses. KJ: How religious would you say you are? DS: Pretty religious. KD: Would you say this church helped you acclimate to Binghamton? DS: Yes, because we always had a very close tie to the Church and being Ukrainian we always had a close tie to the traditions also. We still carry out all of the traditions. I still host Christmas Eve at our house and we've had as many as 52 at a sit-down dinner for Christmas Eve. KD: How many brothers and sisters do you have? DS: I have 5 sisters and 2 brothers. KJ: How was that growing up with so many kids around? DS: There was always a lot of people around, so it was always good. Plus, both of my parents came from big families. There were 9 or 10 kids in both of my grandparents' houses so there were always a lot of festivities, a lot of music and a lot of get together. KD: Do you think having a big family is a Ukrainian tradition? DS: It was a tradition because back then you wanted more hands to work the fields. At the turn of the century that was how you lived; as soon as spring hit you were working from sun up until sundown. KD: What kinds of games did you play as a child? DS: You know, just the regular kickball or baseball or basketball. Some type of ball. KJ: Are there any specific Ukrainian games that your parents brought over? DS: Not really, my parents weren't big game players. There was always a lot of work to do with the farm. KJ: What was it like growing up with your parents, were they strict? DS: I wouldn't say they were strict. They helped instill important values. They always practiced what they preached. KD: How do you think your experience would be different if you grew up in Ukraine instead of here? DS: It definitely would have been more of an agricultural society. There would also be a lot of different cultures. KJ: We have learned that Ukraine is known as a "melting pot". DS: Yes, my mother's side of the family, I believe, are actually Ukrainians living in Poland. It actually used to be part of Ukraine at one point. KD: Did your grandparents always identify as Ukrainian? DS: Yes. KD: What would you identify yourself as now? DS: Ukrainian American. KJ: Have you ever visited Ukraine? DS: No. KD: Did you ever plan to? DS: I think it would be interesting just to see it. Of course, now you can just look on the internet. KD: Is there a reason that you didn't? DS: Well, for one thing, the border was closed for a long time. It wasn't until 1992 that they opened it up. We did have some visitors, though. My wife's cousin came from Ukraine. KJ: Was it difficult for your grandparents to find work here? DS: No, I don't think so. My mother's father worked here on the railroad and after he moved here the second time he was working in EJ. I don't know if you've ever heard the term "which way EJ". Both: No. DS: That was because Endicott Johnson employed people and he needed people to work in the shoe factory. So, that was the saying for immigrants once they got off the boat, they'd say "which way EJ". The idea was they were going to come here to work in this area; that's how a lot of people got settled here. KJ: How would you say your grandparents' experience was first coming here? DS: It was difficult but that's why they hung in different communities. My grandfather actually lived up on a hill here and he used to grow vegetables. They bought some farms up here and started farming, which is what they did best. They raised their kids and they all went off and did things. KD: Do you have any remaining family members still in Ukraine? DS: I'm not sure. From what I understand my grandfather was from a family of 16 and we haven't kept up with all of them. KD: Has your family brought over any Ukrainian traditions that you still practice today? DS: Oh yeah. Christmas Eve supper, a 12-course meal, and we put hay on the table. There's always a dish with barley or wheat and honey and nuts or raisins. Then, we had Barsch which is a type of fish. We had sauerkraut and some lima beans. And there are a couple of other smaller dishes. KJ: Are there any other smaller traditions that you guys have? DS: Well on Easter in Ukraine they would perform these dances and songs and the kids would all join in. They still do it around here but not as much, it's not as practical as it used to be. They also used to have water fights the day after Easter. The girls would go after the guys and the guys would go after the girls. KJ: Have your parents passed down any traditions to you that you still do? DS: We still do Christmas Eve dinner and on Easter we will have a big breakfast. There's eggs, ham, pasta, potato salad and stuff like that. KD: Are there any daily traditions or just ways of living that could be different from someone that isn't Ukrainian? DS: Well my kids have always told me that we were different because for one thing I have a large piece of land- I have 40 acres and I built my own house. Then they got to college and were surprised that nobody builds their own houses anymore. My father worked carpentry for quite a while and there are a lot of things that he showed me. As a matter of fact, when I got out of the service that is what I wanted to do. You know, build a house and sell it, build a house and sell it. I saved money up when I was in the service and then when I got out of the service my parents had built a house next to the one we have up here. My father came to me and said, "You see that house, you can't build it and sell it for enough to make money on it." So, I said, well I know electronics, so I got hired in GE and worked there for about a year then I worked for IBM for a while. They had this last layoff in 2009 and that's when I retired. KJ: So, you would say you had a good career path? DS: Yeah, it's interesting because now my sons are growing up now and working, and with all of the costs and student loans it's hard making ends meet. I don't mean to scare you but that's what a lot of people are experiencing. KD: Where did your children go to school? DS: Whitney Point. KD: Is that in the community? DS: Whitney Point is up I-81 about 20 miles. KJ: So, they stayed local. Did they ever consider leaving? DS: My son is still here, and my 2 daughters are back in Raleigh. Both of them are teachers down there. My older daughter was actually working at IBM when they started making the layoffs. So, then she went down there with my younger daughter. KJ: So that's Raleigh, North Carolina, right? DS: Raleigh, yes. KD: Have you ever thought about leaving Binghamton? DS: No, when I got out of the service I bought my aunt's share of my grandparents' farm and I got 33 acres out of that. Then my parents had more that they split up between me and my brothers and sisters. KD: Did all of your siblings stay in Binghamton too? DS: I have 2 sisters and 1 brother that stayed in the area. I have a brother in Ryder, New York and a sister in Queens. Then I have a sister in Cary, North Carolina, and I have another sister in Austin, Texas. My brother lives next door to me and my sister lives around the corner. KJ: Very close family. DS: Yes, we all experienced everything together. Even when we are apart we still remember our roots. KJ: Do you have any particular memories from when you were a kid? DS: Just the area. We used to go sledding around the roadside here, it's called Old Dale Hill Road. We would start up here at the Church and sled down the road. This area is loaded with fruit trees: plums, cherries, apples, peaches. Like I said my grandfather had tons of fruit, strawberries too. He would always get them out earlier than everyone else, like 2 weeks, and he'd always make out well on the strawberries with people, being the first one of the season. KJ: That sounds like an interesting childhood. DS: Yeah, I was a country boy because this is the outskirts here. This was all farm area around here still. I was an early riser, gone early morning, my mother would yell at me "Where'd you go?" KD: Do you think if your parents had settled in a bigger city your childhood would have been different? DS: Yes. We've had several different relatives that grew up in big cities and it seems like most of the kids got messed up. Maybe a couple of them were okay but most of them really had problems. KD: What do you think the biggest difference is living in the city? DS: It's hard to be as cultural in the city. You seem to have a lot less, I mean you have a small community here, where you knew the people and your parents knew who you were playing with and stuff like this, and in the city, you don't know where you're going. KJ: That is true, yeah. I think you could consider us both city kids, right Kevin? Do you consider yourself a city kid? KD: Yeah. KJ: Yeah, we grew up in the city. DS: Where did you grow up? KJ: I grew up in Brooklyn. D. Brooklyn, okay. I had relatives in the Bronx. KJ: Yeah, it's a different atmosphere. D. Yeah, we visited down there, somewhere in Jersey City, and the others are in the Bronx. KJ: It's a very different change coming to Binghamton from the city, I'll tell you that. DS: Yeah from Whitney Point, where you're driving a tractor to work. KJ: So, you said that there are/were multiple ethnic groups within the community, right? How would you say that affected your life growing up, or your perspective? D. Well, we were always aware of who we are, of who we were and who they were. And it was something that was respected too, okay you're this, you're that, and people identified with what they were. Today, everybody wants to mold it to a mold; you're not this, you're not that, you're not anything. KD: So, does that help you stay connected to your culture? DS: Yeah, and also a lot of the same interests. Music was a common interest, and we had close ties to music. My grandfather actually when he came to this country was a musician and all my--he played the cimbalom and the sopilka. The cimbalom, I don't know if you've ever seen it, it's like a trapezoid instrument, it's played with two sticks. And the sopilka is a flute, so he used to play the flute, and all my mother's brothers and some sisters actually played instruments, so that's why you could say there was a lot of music around. KJ: Are you a musician? DS: I played the accordion. I used to play in an ethnic band, a Ukrainian band from Syracuse. KJ: Do you still play it? DS: When I can. When my arthritis doesn't hurt. My brother plays too, and my sister played piano, and my mom, actually, two of my sisters, played piano. KJ: That's nice. So, music had a very big impact in your life then? DS: Oh yeah. KJ: Was that something that your parents brought over or was that just an interest of yours? DS: I think it was an interest because of how I was exposed to it, because they played, and I mean, my uncle actually, Geraldine, my uncle, he would, he played the piano and the accordion. He could play the piano at the concert level, I mean he could do show panel, you know what I'm saying? He used to just show her off because he was an appliance repair man, and he'd go to somebody and fix their refrigerator and there'd be a piano there and he'd sit down, and it'd be a show. [Imitates show music] And his family was a big influence, he influenced, that's where I got the accordion interest from, and he also turned out to be our choir director in Church. And now his son is the choir director, he died a couple of years ago. KD: How would you say your children's experiences have differed from your own here? DS: The children's experiences? Well they grew up in a different time, there wasn't that much. I mean they were tied here locally at the Church, but not as you know, because you know when this was local, all the kids you went to school with were your neighbors here. And now as we moved out, now you're in a country area. My son was the first group to ride the bus on our road, because it was originally just a field access road, I think there was barely enough room to get the horse and wagon through. And then they finally widened it when they opened the park up there, because the Binghamton Greenwood Park, is right down the road from us. My grandparents' farm went right up to the park, actually my father used to, I used to go there in the wintertime for the milk house. And so, they, they weren't as connected there, they were more just connected in the Church, but they had a different time like I said. They kind of grew up in something different because of the property and the fact that I built my own house, did all my own work. But now they're out on their own. KJ: So, you've seen Binghamton go through some pretty big changes from then, how would you say, what do you think are the biggest changes Binghamton's gone through? DS: Loss of jobs. Loss of jobs and the moving out, you know the children moved out. The people that had left the area, and the industries had left the area all by design. KD: So, if your grandparents were coming to America now, you don't think they would come to Binghamton? DS: No, what would there be for them? KD: Where do you think they would have gone instead? DS: If they were coming now, I don't know what, well for one thing it'd be a different reason why they were coming, right? Okay, things were very, life was very hard there. There was this idea of hey jobs, you could get jobs, you could better yourself, that's why they came. You're coming now, I don't know why they'd come. I mean although there is, there are people that are coming now, but I'm not sure, I don't know that many from Ukraine that are coming. KD: Is there anything about American culture that stands out to you? From all the places you've been when you were in the Navy? DS: Well my answer's quite different between here and like the Philippines. Totally different. Philippines gets a lot of rain, actually I was in some of the same places my father was during World War II. It was on in that there, the people are totting rice paddies, flood's going on. They're standing there with their little Coke, Coca-Cola, on the corner. You know there's this much water up there. KJ: That's really interesting. Is there anything specific that you remember from the War, like in any of the places that you've been to? Any good memories that you have? DS: Oh, they were all good memories. The only thing, I made two Westpac cruises to Vietnam, and the squadron I had, I was assigned to, had just came off of their training cruise. And I wish I could've done both, because it sounded like they had a totally different experience, because we were always going into ports and there was a ship you know, carrier coming in every week, 5000 guys. They had been talking to some of the guys that had come off the Mediterranean Cruise. They went on a cruise that no American ship had been on in like 5 or 10 years. And he says you go in there and the people would invite you in, they'd invite you right in their house. Certainly, a suburb. You'd drink, it was just totally different. Barcelona, Mediterranean, area there. It was quite different. KD: That's a really interesting experience. Most people, I would think, don't have as positive of an experience coming from the War. DS: I was on ship, I worked in the radio pool and I was actually in the Navy for two hours. That was the only time I actually spent on the thing, but we had planes coming up shot up, stuff like that. So there was actually a fire on our carrier one time, plane came in and the main mount broke, so when it landed and the main mount broke it tilted up, and when it tilted up it came loose from the cable that catches it, cause when it lands it catches the cable, and when it did that it reared off and crashed against a bunch of planes on the bow and started a fire. But, they had the fire out in 20 seconds. They had this guy in his vest suit, and he has this nozzle with PKB powder, wet water they call it, and they just go in there and just gut the fire out and push the plane through the other side. KJ: That's amazing. Was anyone hurt? DS: They lost 5 people, 1 was the pioneer on the plane that crashed. He had ejected, but when he ejected he was at an angle, so instead of going up and going down, he fell off that way. KJ: That's terrible. Are you still close to any of the men that you worked with during the War? Do you speak to any of them? DS: No, the only one I ever met, and this was years later, was actually in Owego. I looked over and there was my Chief that was my Chief on ship. I had a bench across from his office, and I looked over and he remembered me. Chief Chancy. He was preparing a training manual for the helicopters that they build here. That was about the only one I've ever met. KD: So, you weren't able to retain your ties with them? DS: No, at that time, I mean, I am buddies, but we weren't that close to where we corresponded or anything. Course there wasn't e-mail or anything like this, you know, so you don't know where in a couple of years, you know they're someplace. KD: So, you must have all came from different areas then? DS: Yeah. George was from, George Brown was from Texas, another guy from Nebraska, and there was a guy from New York here, Utica area. KJ: How do you think that changed your experience, meeting people from different areas? DS: It was, it gave me a great deal of, what's the word I want to use, confidence. That I could be myself, be with all these other people, and still be myself and my identity. You knew this guy and what he did, and they knew you and what you did and where you were from, and nobody says well I can never associate with you because you're from here, or because you're that. So, in that sense it gave me a deep set of confidence, and also learning because I was in Old Giants program, the aviation. That was a tough one. Because I had the, where I went to school in Memphis, after I got out of boot camp, they had the top 20, they would give you a test, the top 25 guys would go on this accelerated course. Well there was me and another guy were the only 2 guys that only had a high school education. There was guys in there that had Masters in physics or a Masters in Math. One guy had a Masters in sociology. So, me and this other guy, we were, they lowered the score to get us in the same class. That was tough. KJ: What would you say is one of your biggest life accomplishments? DS: Biggest life accomplishments? Probably building my house. Making it through. KJ: I would say that's a pretty big accomplishment. ` DS: And it continues on today now that I've retired, and I got a big orchard with over a 100 blueberry plants, 50 strawberries, not strawberry, blackberry and raspberry plants. Make my own wine, make my own sauerkraut. KJ: That's amazing. Did anybody teach you how to do that, or you learned on your own? DS: I looked online. I still can make some wine because I got all these blueberries, so I looked it up and okay, you know, they tell you to prepare it. Put these tablets in and you know here's the yeast, you got to get some yeast, you put the yeast in. Well I put the yeast in and it bubbled a few times and stopped. So, I said, oh, so I went online again, and it said 10 reasons why fermentation stops, and well, one thing was my temperature where I had the wine was too low. It's got to be between 70 and 75 so I kind of made this incubator so to speak, I had one of my electric thermostats, because I put electric heat around the house, I put it in there and plugged it all in. Set this for 75 and that blew up, then I also found out that the blueberries, or wild berries, everything about making wine is geared towards grapes. Grapes have natural enzymes and stuff, so I found out that you had to add these enzymes and also there isn't that much sugar, because you can't use just all berries, because you would get too much undesirables, so you diluted it. I think it was 5 gallons of berries that mashed down to about 2 gallons and I did the rest of it with water. So, you have to add these nutrients back in to get it to fermented. Once I did that and tried it again it took off and made a good batch of wine. So, every year for Christmas I have that wine. KJ: Do you sell it ever? DS: No, you can't sell it. KJ: Oh wait, do you need the license? DS: You'd need a license. In fact, in different years we have berries. I'm getting my own berries and so does my cousin, he has other plants too and the guy that lives across the street had 165 plants. But nothing had been done to them in 35 years, so they weren't able to grow. I mean his brother was 6 feet 6 and he couldn't reach them. He had to get in there and you couldn't walk through them. We actually, my cousin and I, went over there after season and we went in and trimmed them, where you couldn't even walk between the rows. We had them, so you could drive a tractor through. So that's, that I would inherit to my, well no I was going to say from a different point of view, that I attribute to my upbringing, doing don't worry about how to do it, go ahead and do it, you'll figure it out one way, some way or the other. I mean cause not only did I build my house; I did all of my own plumbing, all of my own electric, all the deciding, all that stuff. KJ: That's very strong values to have. DS: Yeah now my son's doing it. He's doing a little bit of stuff, actually I have a saw mill too, I cut my own logs. The addition I put on my house was all done in pine and I actually made the flooring for it too, done in ash. KJ: That's amazing. All the houses I see are brick so that's quite a different perspective. DS: Yeah that was an experience too because I had these logs and I had to get them cut up and then I saw an advertisement for a saw, but it was kind of small, so I expanded it after I bought it and then I expanded it again, so I could get a much bigger log out of there. But now I harvested quite a few trees and ran them through the still, not the still, the kiln. I had a solar kiln that I built, somehow, I had maple, ash, cherry, oak, spalted beech. KJ: So, what else do you spend your time doing, other than all of that? DS: I'm still doing some remodeling. I just finished the pantry and I'm getting ready to do hardwood floors on the rest of the house. KD: So, do you see your family living here for a long time in the future? DS: As long as they got something to do, some place to, you know, some place to, that's one of the problems you know as people move out, finding when they come back they have to have a place to stay, otherwise they won't visit. Okay it's like you, if you were back in your hometown and you could stay at your parents' house, you know even after you get married. Go visit them, you'd probably might visit them. KJ: So, what would you say that you value the most in life? DS: Value the most in life? My religion. KD: So, would you say you're proud of identifying as Ukrainian? DS: Yeah. KD: In what ways does that make you most proud? Like what are the specific? DS: Well I don't think it's a matter of pride, it's a matter of who I am. And I'm okay with that. You want to be something else, be something else. But you know this is what I am, you know I'm not, I'm not a mixture, somebody else is going to build their own house, plant berries, that's what I like to, that's what I do. Somebody else has different interests, that's them. KJ: It seems like you have a very strong sense of identity. How would you kind of categorize what your identity means to you? Like what exactly does being Ukrainian mean to you? DS: It's the Church practices, the religion, the traditions. There's many different, one of the things growing up as being Ukrainian is you have to know who you are and how you're different from everybody else. So, you have a more stronger sense of where you came from, why these things are your traditions, what they are. Why you have certain feelings, you know I have certain feelings. I mean one of them, I have a great love for mountainous area. I mean that was one thing when I went across country and you know everything's flat until you hit Ohio. When I drove home from the service, when I got out, being in flat land makes me nervous. It's like I'm on a big hill but I can't see the edge. But I love the mountains and you know when I look where my grandparents came from, my wife's father always talked about finding the mountains which are a lot taller than New York. But he also had the same thing, he loves mushrooms that was the other thing I, I have a dilemma when I go to the woods because I like to hunt, and I like mushrooms, and I did the logging. So, I'm in the woods and I go well that's a nice tree, I could make a, oh look at these mushrooms, oh wait you're hunting! KJ: Sounds like you have a very busy life going on. DS: Yeah, I just never was one to sit around and do nothing. KD: So, you mentioned that you have a strong sense of who you are and how You're different from other types of cultures. What would you say makes you the most different from any other culture? DS: The most different from any other, I don't think there's that much difference, I think in every culture you have people who are stronger, people that value time and are always producing something. You know I wouldn't see myself as being different, different in a sense that I'm different from everybody else. I just have these values that I worked towards, and some people have other values that they worked towards. KJ: So, we're coming towards the end of the interview. We have like 8 minutes left. KD: How do you think your opinions would be different if you came here by yourself? Like if you were the one that came to America? DS: How would my opinions be different? I don't know if my opinions would be different, what I would face would be different, and how I would have gotten here would be different. My grandparents faced what was going on in that time, and in this country isn't the same as it was 100 years ago when they came here. The situation's not the same as what they came under 100 years, it's a lot different from when I was born. I mean I could still remember my one channel on TV, no microwaves, and it was strange that we were cleaning out my mother's house, she died here on Easter, and we were cleaning her house and there was this thing. And my brothers and sisters didn't know what it was, and it was the floodlights they used to use for making video cameras cause your video camera now, you don't need it, but they used to have 4 big floodlights and they used to walk around to make a 50 minute, a 50-foot reel thing. So, there's a lot of things that are different there, but they're both different here and different from where I had come from, if I was to just come here by myself. KD: Did your parents ever tell you anything about coming over, travel wise? DS: My parents didn't come here, my grandparents, when you talked to them it was the equivalent of going from here to Philadelphia with whatever you had on your back or whatever you could carry. And maybe that trip to get to the boat and come over here, when you're on the boat. KD: Did they ever go back after they came here? DS: Well my grandfather did go back at the time, the one grandfather, my mother's father. The others they never went back. Of course, most of it was that they were from Ukraine, so it was closed up after World War I, after Stalin, Lenin, overtook Ukraine and they corresponded and it was very sporadic. KJ: Did they have good experiences, like do they remember Ukraine fondly or is it more of a bittersweet memory? DS: It's probably bittersweet. They liked some of the things, but life was hard over there, it was. You worked all year and all summer long, morning to night, to survive. KJ: Yeah, it's a very difficult lifestyle. Did any of your grandparents fight in the war? DS: I don't believe so. My father was in the war, my wife's father, he was in World War II. He actually fought in UFA, which was the Ukrainian army. He actually fought in most of the service, and the communists. Well they actually fought against the communists because Ukraine at the time saw communism just as bad, worse, than they say Nazism. There was a lot of guys that came over here that did fight for them and they were scared. They were scared for a long time that someone was going to come for them. KJ: I can imagine. So, we have a couple minutes left, so is there anything that you would like to add to the interview that we didn't already discuss? DS: It's good to see you doing this. I mean it's always good to share what you know. That's one of the things that I think, one of the worst things now is I built my own house, I have all these other things I've done, but there's not anybody really to take any of that knowledge. I mean either from there's nobody that has an interest, which is a problem. I mean we're looking at my parents' house and there's nobody that wants a fixer-upper. They want to go in, give me a TV and internet connection and let somebody else do the work. That's not a good attitude to have. KD: So, have you had a chance to share your story with anyone else? DS: Not directly like this, I mean I always shared with my kids, I mean they know a lot of the stories and stuff and they remember what they grew up with. And my son now, he's on his own, he's doing stuff to his house. He's picked it up and thought oh I want to do this and do that. So now he's doing it. He was just at my place making his own molding for his house. He told molding out and was exchanging it for pine molding. KJ: That's nice. I mean you could consider this your legacy, which is pretty cool to have. You know you're going to go into the records, people will be able to see what your life was like. It's very interesting. Well, thank you for speaking with us. KD: Thank you for your time. KJ: This was very informative. DS: Oh, you're welcome. There's lots of things that people used to have, even driving in this area and what used to be here and what isn't. (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 David Sanyshyn Subject The topic of the resource Sanyshyn, David. --Interviews; Ukrainians--United States; Diaspora, Ukraine—History; Ukrainian; Migrations; Ethnic identity; Church; Ukrainian--music; Broome County (N.Y.) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sanyshyn, David ; DeLuca, Kevin ; Jermansky, Kayla Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource David Sanyshyn is a retired engineer and is a third generation Ukrainian immigrant who was born in the Binghamton area. He is a Vietnam War veteran, having served two terms in the Navy, and is active in the Ukrainian Catholic Church. He met his wife, a second generation Ukrainian, in the United States. They have 3 children together and 4 grandchildren, and reside in Binghamton. 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 2016-04-06 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context David Sanyshyn.m4a Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-04-20 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Ukrainian Oral History Project Extent The size or duration of the resource. 59:19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/eaf304999555fcdf1079fa934f829ad8.jpg 7cd7ae6fe2625d7ac73826a19b2cf680 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/5e528dafd9a426e19ef47dd8fff116c4.mp3 89c3524d32d84328be162dadd5b3c8bd 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 David Underhill Date of Interview 2010-09-27 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 172:51 Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;David Underhill is a journalist, writer and activist. Underhill grew up mainly in the western United States, and was schooled mainly in eastern US. As a student at Harvard, he wrote for the Harvard Crimson. Underhill moved to Mobile, Alabama as a reporter for the Southern Courier, a newspaper founded in 1965, to cover civil rights news in the Deep South. He has held numerous positions including working on organizing and activist campaigns. Underhill has written about these events for various local and national, print and internet, publications. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7043,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,6710886],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">David Underhill is a journalist, writer, and activist. Underhill grew up mainly in the western United States and was schooled mainly in the eastern US. As a student at Harvard, he wrote for the <em>Harvard Crimson</em>. Underhill moved to Mobile, Alabama as a reporter for the <em>Southern Courier</em>, a newspaper founded in 1965, to cover civil rights news in the Deep South. He has held numerous positions including working on organizing and activist campaigns. Underhill has written about these events for various local and national, print and internet, publications. </span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Harvard University; Student from Democratic Society(SDS); Todd Gitlin; Cuban Missile Crisis; Columbia University; Red Diaper Babies; Communist Manifesto; Baby boom generation; Activism&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Harvard University; Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Todd Gitlin; Cuban Missile Crisis; Columbia University; Red Diaper Babies; Communist Manifesto; Baby boom generation; Activism</span> Subject LCSH Journalists; Authors, American--20th century; Political activists--United States; Underhill, David--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: David Underhill Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 27 September 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:04): Testing, one, two. Well David, thank you very much. It has been a while getting ahold of you, and that is my fault. But I finally did, and first question I want to ask is, how did you become who you are? Talk a little about your early years, where you grew up, your high school, before you went off to, I guess Columbia. Maybe some of the role models, the people who inspired you. And what led you to Columbia? DU (00:38): Well, I was born in San Francisco. SM (00:41): Okay, speak up. DU (00:42): I was born in San Francisco. But [inaudible 00:46] at the time, I never really lived, I have no recollection of it. I grew up mostly in Boise, Idaho. [inaudible 01:00]. Graduated, went to college, not at Columbia, but at Harvard. Because somehow, I got the idea that Harvard was the place where they had taken most of the world's knowledge captive and were holding it in the library. SM (01:23): Oh, wow. DU (01:23): So, I wanted to go liberate it. To take possession of it, I wanted− SM (01:29): What years were those? DU (01:34): (19)50s, early (1960s. So, I went from teenager in a small town in Idaho, [inaudible 01:42] this idea, I do not know. But I did, from the earliest age that I can remember, that was what I wanted to do. Once I got over the idea that I wanted to go to [inaudible 01:57]. SM (01:59): Speak up a little bit louder, too. Somehow, it is not coming through very good. DU (02:03): Once I recovered from the idea that I wanted to go to the state university nearby and be a football hero. SM (02:09): Mm-hmm? DU (02:11): Then I was determined, for some reason, to go to Harvard. That was what I did. SM (02:16): You must have done well in school. DU (02:19): I worked hard and found schoolwork congenial. So yes, I did. By the academic time and place, yes. And Harvard was a new and astonishing experience. I am glad I did it, and it launched me on the quest for the rest of my life. People used to ask me, "What do you do?" And my people answer was, "I read the newspaper." And that was what I did. Try to keep myself informed in the hopes of understanding why the world worked the way it is. But I had to stop saying that because nobody believed it. But it was true. I graduated from Harvard, I went off and did other things here and there, and then found myself back at Columbia for a while. But always [inaudible 03:31] earning a living. [inaudible 03:35] quest for understanding whatever I could find. SM (03:43): What was the gap between your years at Harvard and Columbia? DU (03:50): At Harvard I was on the editorial board of the student daily newspaper, Harvard Crimson it is called. SM (03:59): Mm- hmm. DU (04:03): And people at The Crimson mostly, and a few others, concocted the idea to start a newspaper. Give coverage to the then infant Civil Rights Movement. Which received almost no local coverage other than hostile. SM (04:22): Mm-hmm. DU (04:29): And just [inaudible 04:29] national coverage, [inaudible 04:32] Harvard Crimson and others. [inaudible 04:37]. Reported in Montgomery, Alabama, the Southern Courier. SM (04:43): David? DU (04:43): Yeah. SM (04:46): Speak up a little louder. Somehow it is cutting out. Keep getting- DU (04:50): Started a weekly newspaper called the Southern Courier. Reported in Montgomery to cover the civil rights. Not slavishly, but since then it was not a house organ, it was a regular newspaper, but its purpose was to give [inaudible 05:12] fair balanced coverage of the civil rights [inaudible 05:20]. The local press was not doing. And I went from connection with The Crimson Harvard to working on that weekly paper. Which brought me to Mobile, where I am now. I was the reporter and photographer and circulation manager and distributor and [inaudible 00:05:45] for that paper in Mobile. That was really by accident, needed somebody to go to this city and did not have anybody here. So, armed with a couple [inaudible 00:05:56] phone numbers I was sent off into the lower Alabama wilderness to create a Mobile outpost there. SM (06:08): What year was that? DU (06:08): That was in 1964, (19)65. SM (06:09): Wow. That was right in the heyday. DU (06:14): It was. There were demonstrations and deaths and marches and violence. Yes. SM (06:19): Did you ever fear, as a new writer down south, coming from the north, for your life? DU (06:25): Oh yes. SM (06:27): Explain that feeling. DU (06:29): Yes. It was not just a feeling. There was one time, you may remember James Meredith and his attempt to integrate the University of Mississippi. At one point was trying to march from the Mississippi border with Tennessee down to Jackson and got shot along the highway. SM (06:48): Yes, I remember that. DU (06:49): And that provoked the march to carry on from where he was shot to the rest of the way to Jackson. I went from Mobile over there to cover that for the paper, and I was a participant marching, newspaper reporter, when I got back here after being gone for several days some of the neighbors in the inner-city area where I lived, Mobile, came running up to me as soon as I drove up and told me what had happened in my absence. Which was that somebody with the rifle who did not belong in that neighborhood had been spotted on the roof of an old, abandoned building right across the street from my driveway. And they had called the law who came and looked up there and said, "We do not see nobody." And went away. And the neighbors kept insisting, the law came back. Finally, they made [inaudible 07:47] the fire department came with their ladders, and they climbed up there and brought down a guy with the rifle, just across the street. SM (07:58): And he was there to kill you? DU (07:59): Yes. SM (08:00): Unbelievable. DU (08:00): And put him in a police car and drove him away. And this is what the neighbors told me when I got back. So, I went to see the police chief the next day, who I had already known, as a reporter from other stories. Told him what had happened, and he looked puzzled that no such thing had ever happened that he had ever heard of. He would certainly know if that occurred. I said, well, if a man was put in a police car and taken away, that sounds like an arrest. Surely there would be a record of an arrest and that would be a public document, would not it? He did not think any such thing had happened. SM (08:49): Oh, so it was just like a lot of things in the south at that time. DU (08:51): Oh, yes. SM (08:51): They just let him go. DU (08:53): Or were implicated in it. SM (08:55): Oh, wow. DU (08:58): But I let him know I would pursue this. And either find out who that was and what they had done with him or reveal that the police department was somehow in cahoots. Somebody who was clearly on an assassination. So, then the police chief, he went away and came back a little while later with a scribbled note on the scrap paper with somebody's name and address saying, this was the man they took down from the roof and took away in a police car. [inaudible 09:32]. SM (09:34): Was he a white man or a black man? DU (09:36): White man. SM (09:39): Unbelievable. DU (09:40): Well, I presume. I mean I just curiously drove by the address. Which was out in the new white suburban area. SM (09:48): Now, did you go back to Columbia after you were down south for a while working on the paper? DU (09:53): I did not go back to Columbia; I had never been at Columbia. But I was here working on the paper and having experiences like that for over a year. About a year and a half, then I went, just in time for the uproar of the (19)60s. (19)66 at Columbia, I was a graduate student then. And I got to know and lingered on the fringes of the campus, The Students for a Democratic Society. Some of those [inaudible 10:41]. I had been familiar with all of that from the start, because it began largely among friends of mine and roommates at Harvard, named Gitlin. SM (10:56): Oh, Todd Gitlin? DU (10:57): Yeah. SM (10:57): Oh yeah, he is one of those really top professors in America today in communications. DU (11:02): That is right, that is right. He is what, sociology journalism professor at Columbia now, last I- SM (11:11): Yes, he is. Mm-hmm. DU (11:13): He was a close friend of mine and a semi-roommate at Harvard. At the time he was one of the founders of SDS. SM (11:25): Golly. Huh. DU (11:27): And actually, there was one time during our [inaudible 11:29] when both of us had interned, we were roommates in Washington. So, I was− SM (11:39): Speak up again, David. DU (11:41): I was closely acquainted with all of those folks at the founding of SDS. One of the early (19)60s movement, and because of that I gravitated towards similar activities at Columbia. I probably should mention to you that Gitlin and I and a few others created an anti-war. Actually, it was an anti-bomb organization at Harvard called Tocsin. SM (12:16): T-O-S-I-N? DU (12:20): T-O-C-S-I-N. SM (12:22): Okay. DU (12:28): It is a French word. Their creation not mine, a French word for some kind of community warning bell, a tocsin. For some reason they thought that was appropriate. Anti-bomb organization that created on campus. And had some little protests against, like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the near obliteration− SM (12:53): Oh yes, (19)62. DU (13:00): So that fright, and at one point had some sort of poster art manifestation on the streets of DC in front of the White House, as I recall. But it was mostly a campus educational anti-nuclear organization. SM (13:18): Mm-hmm, now you were- [inaudible 13:24]. DU (13:28): That then led to anti-war. The Vietnam war was just beginning then to escalate the American participation in it. SM (13:36): Mm-hmm. DU (13:38): [inaudible 13:38] but to my knowledge some new people in this Tocsin organization arranged the first anti-Vietnam war demonstration in America. Which was in Cambridge, it would have been spring of (19)64. There were about 10 or a dozen people that came to a meeting the night before. Something had just happened in Vietnam that revealed to the public [inaudible 14:08]. SM (14:07): Was that the Gulf of Tonkin resolution? DU (14:13): This was slightly before that. SM (14:15): Okay. DU (14:16): Something had happened that revealed burgeoning American entanglement in the [inaudible 14:25]. And about 10 or a dozen of us had a meeting to try to decide what to do. We decided we were going to have a little demonstration and pass out leaflets in Harvard Square the next day. It was one of my formative experiences. Because when I got there with the leaflets to pass out, instead of a dozen of us there was three of us conducting this anti-war demonstration. We did what we said we were going to do, and we were truly cursed at and spat at, and became a kind of urban myth later the returning solders were spit on, and questionable whether that actually happened. We were really cursed and spat at in Harvard Square. SM (15:14): By students? DU (15:14): Students, people coming in, citizens, people coming in and out of subway stations. Just everybody [inaudible 15:20] the response was of viciously hostile. Because we were openly opposing American policy [inaudible 15:32] commie enemy. SM (15:34): Wow. DU (15:36): To my knowledge that was the first demonstration in specific against the war in Vietnam. SM (15:39): Was that your very first experience ever, even as a high school student of standing up for something that you thought was unjust? DU (15:58): Oh no. That was the first time I went out and exposed in a public place and encounter an openly hostile reaction. Which was [inaudible 16:20] foretaste for what was to come. SM (16:22): Oh yeah. DU (16:25): Later in Alabama and later than that at Columbia. But that grew directly out of that Tocsin [inaudible 16:35] with Gitlin and those folk. [inaudible 16:44] but I did a few- SM (16:45): Keep that voice up, David. DU (16:47): I did a few things like that in high school. Actually, to my knowledge I am the only person who ever defeated Fidel Castro in an election. SM (17:04): Oh? Explain that. Because that we are talking (19)61ish, or− DU (17:04): Yeah, (19)59, (19)60, thereabouts. I was running for student body president of my high school. And nobody chose to run against me. But to keep the election from being a bore we decided to run Fidel Castro against me. And we got a− Hello? SM (17:33): Yeah, I am here. I am hearing it. DU (17:36): We somehow got some old− I am hearing an echo. What is that coming from? SM (17:42): I do not know, I do not have an echo here, but− DU (17:44): All right, then I will just keep talking. SM (17:45): Yeah. DU (17:46): Strange echo. So, we got some old army looking uniforms, some arrayed rifles from the ROTC unit that came trooping into the high school like Castro's revolutionaries campaigning for him to be student body president. SM (18:07): I hope you won− DU (18:10): It was close. But I won. SM (18:13): I hate to think what would have happened if he had won. DU (18:20): We unfurled Castro banners in the school auditorium during the election assembly and all sorts of stuff like that. SM (18:27): Well, how did the principal respond? DU (18:31): Well, we did not clear it with the principal in advance, of course. We just− But who knows what would prompt somebody to do something like that? But I did. And then I had a lot of help. But it was pretty much my project to run Fidel Castro against me. SM (18:57): Any other experiences in high school where you had to stand up for an issue? DU (19:03): There was a time at church where I decided, for whatever reason, that I was going to go around to all the other churches in town, including there was one synagogue in town, and there was one Buddhist church, because of the leftover Japanese when they [inaudible 19:32] from the West Coast, was still there. So, there was a Buddhist church in town, and there were Mormons and there were Catholics. So, I decided I would go around on my own ecumenical mission and visit each one of these congregations to teach myself what the other religions were about. And in the course of that− Also, there was a particular cute girl who I thought [inaudible 19:59] explorations to. And I thought she might be willing to go along. I think [inaudible 20:09]. And she did [inaudible 20:13]. But I got in, this was considered sort of cute. Maybe even appropriately educational, and I was not discouraged doing so by my own church or school or family until I went to a service at one black church that was in town and got to know some of the people there and decided, who knows why, that it would be a good idea to have a joint meeting between their high school Sunday school class and ours. And then the− you know what hit the fan. SM (21:10): Yeah, now, what was your church? DU (21:12): The Presbyterian church. SM (21:13): Okay. DU (21:14): [inaudible 21:14] and all my other strayings and inquiries were tolerated, but that one was not. And I will never forget, the preacher of the one black church, I do not even remember what denomination it was, I might not even have been aware of the denomination at the time, eventually made an embarrassing and regretful phone call to me regretting that he and his Sunday school class would not be able to come to the joint meeting with ours. I do not know what kind of pressure was put on him through what route, but these folks originally were receptive and willing and suddenly did not want to do it. And that never happened. SM (22:14): Wow. And no one ever told you to not pursue it? DU (22:21): I mean I knew from the reactions that I was not supposed to pursue it. And I mean I was inclined to, but I knew from what my preacher had told me that the pursuit would be fruitless because they were not coming. SM (22:37): Mm-hmm. Wow. Going back to that experience in Harvard Square where you said about 12 of you, was Todd Gitlin one of them too? DU (22:50): No, I think he was already graduated [inaudible 22:52]. SM (22:54): But your standathon, was that a onetime experience or did you keep going to Harvard Square? I have been up there twice this summer, so I know that area very well and− DU (23:05): It was a onetime experience going there to hand out leaflets to try to talk to people about the war that was brewing that America was getting entangled in. That was a onetime experience. SM (23:14): Mm-hmm. DU (23:17): The meeting that evening before to arrange this with about 10 or dozen people present, that was a onetime experience. SM (23:23): Right. DU (23:24): But there had been many such meetings of related issues, I think throughout, of that anti-war, anti-nuclear bomb organization. That was the connection. But the leafletting of Vietnam in Harvard Square, [inaudible 23:46] but we were deliberately trying to [inaudible 23:54]. SM (23:54): What was the− DU (23:54): That was a onetime experience. SM (23:54): What was the town you grew up, where your high school was? DU (23:56): Boise. SM (23:57): What? DU (23:58): Boise. SM (23:58): Oh, Boise, Idaho. DU (23:59): Yeah. SM (24:00): Okay. And were you at Columbia in (19)69 when Mark Rudd and all those students took over? DU (24:06): Oh yeah, I was right in the thick of all of that. SM (24:10): Yeah. DU (24:11): [inaudible 24:11]. Yes. SM (24:14): That is one of the top five protests of the entire (19)60s. Of course, Kent State maybe believe is number one. But what was it about that experience? What did you learn from that experience, and what did the university learn from it? DU (24:28): Well− SM (24:29): And speak up. DU (24:45): Oh lord. I mean I learned that even when you have what looked like a mass movement behind you it was almost impossible to make any headway against an entrenched system. SM (25:03): Mm-hmm. DU (25:06): When we shut down− SM (25:07): Are you getting another call? DU (25:10): I am trying to make it go away. We shut down the university. You know all of this. SM (25:18): Yeah, I know it all, people who are going to be reading this though are going to hear this firsthand from the participants. DU (25:27): And we raised questions that had to be addressed about the university's cohabitation with the imperial war security state. And people were paying attention, willing to listen and address issues. They shut down the school. Tried to alter that cohabitation. And in the end, we did not. Columbia reverted, along with the rest of the academic establishments to the same old ways. It is sobering and sometimes if you think about it, discouraging. Almost every day it occurs to me that despite all we did at that time, and everything that we pointed out, which the events proved true, still look at the news today and the same kind of thing is happening. SM (00:26:47): Yes. DU (26:50): On the opposite side of the road, as if we had done nothing. SM (26:54): You raise a great point, David. I have been saying the same thing for years, that when they try to look at the free speech movement at Berkeley in (19)64, (19)65, I love the way the media tries to portray it as an isolated incident in the early (19)60s somewhat separate from the anti-war movement in the later (19)60s. When it was all about Mario Savio and the students had had enough with the university and the fact that they felt, as students, that they wanted a university of ideas, not a university that was run by a corporate takeover, and corporate interests. DU (27:31): Yes. SM (27:31): And that was what it was all about, and Clark Kerr talked about the knowledge factory that the students were upset with, being just− You are right, and that was happening at Columbia too. And what we are seeing today, it is the same thing again. DU (27:52): And those urges, and those organized uprisings reinforced each other. The people from the campus began the Vietnam protests overlap a lot with those who showed up as activists in the Civil Rights Movement. Which then overlap a lot, began with, those who enlarged the anti-war movement to the point where it finally made that war stop. So, it did not make the imperial impulse stop, but it makes that particular manifestation stop. All of those things reinforced each other, created a condition of concern and recognized mutual [inaudible 28:57] over from one effort to another. That [inaudible 29:02] it feels even more lonely and futile to try to mount some kind of public awareness campaign and resistance now than it did then. Because you do not have that [inaudible 29:24] of others of similar motive, dedication, around you everywhere, like we did then. SM (29:33): Yeah, it also inspired all the other movements, the Women's Movement, and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, and the Environmental Movement, and the Native American Movement, Chicano Movement, they were all linked together in different ways. DU (29:52): I am glad you brought the American− SM (29:54): And please speak up again. DU (29:55): I am glad you mentioned the Native American, because early in, it came to be called, the uprising at Columbia, there was a steering committee, include Rudd and me and some of the folks who later blew themselves up in that [inaudible 30:20] townhouse. SM (30:22): Oh yeah. DU (30:23): [inaudible 30:23] those. SM (30:23): Mm-hmm. DU (30:25): We were all together on a steering committee, and in those steering committee meetings I brought up the Indian question. They were not called Native Americans then. Because [inaudible 30:37] the simmerings of what came, the Rosebud Sioux Rebellion and some others. And I wanted to make an explicit linkage with those folks and make common cause with them. Which was I believe the first incredulous mockery by Rudd and those folks, they thought it sounded like something that was in a Wild West movie? SM (31:08): Right? DU (31:08): They later came to recognize the importance, but it was a lonely issue to raise at first. But again, to my knowledge, the discussion about that at the Columbia steering committee− did not want to call it the [inaudible 31:31] committee, that sounds too Red Commie. But the discussions about that issue were, to my knowledge, first of an attempt to link those struggles, and it is commonplace now. But the beginnings of it were instances like that. SM (31:51): Right. DU (31:55): One other little vignette to illustrate [inaudible 31:59]. At Harvard when I was there was also Henry Kissinger. And he was not yet− You could tell he was on his way to being unofficially, he was [inaudible 32:21] under Secretary of State Rockefeller then, touring the world on their behalf. And he would disappear from class for spreads of time and then reappear having been to India or wherever else, pursuing what [inaudible 32:38]. But he was saying it even then that [inaudible 32:41]. At one point sociologist David Riesman wrote [inaudible 32:49]. SM (32:48): The Lonely Crowd. DU (32:52): Yes, Riesman arranged, I do not know why, he arranged a small dinner meeting with Kissinger. Kissinger was just returning from one of these ventures to Vietnam. And Riesman was dubious indeed about the burgeoning war in Vietnam. But Kissinger was a personal friend and college of his, did not want to be too cross with him. But Riesman knew that I did not give a damn about the thing. And that I had deep doubts about all of this. So, he seated me next to Kissinger at this little dinner party. And I got into a conversation with Kissinger, [inaudible 33:40] what he had disclosed [inaudible 33:43]. SM (33:51): I did not know Henry was in the room with you. DU (33:52): [inaudible 33:52]. And I, being a young [inaudible 34:05] I did not give a damn, I just told Kissinger. SM (34:08): Speak up again, David, please. DU (34:10): I told Kissinger he was wrong and said that if he and the others he was in league with continue the way that they were going that they would, in drawing checks from the bank of American political credit and military strength until they had broken the bank and would discover that they had lost [inaudible 34:40]. And Kissinger got pissed at me for not deferring to his superior knowledge. And he said [inaudible 34:51] turned his back on me, and refused− (Part 1 OF 5 Ends) [35:04] DU (35:03): − turned his back on me and refused to speak to me anymore. SM (35:05): Oh my gosh. DU (35:07): And [inaudible 35:08]. SM (35:14): You succeeded. DU (35:18): [inaudible 35:18]. And then several years later when Kissinger was Secretary of State and I had been in a demonstration in DC. Actually, I think it was the time of Nixon's second Inauguration. That would have been− SM (35:42): (19)72. DU (35:42): Well, he was reelected, this would have been in January of (19)73. SM (35:44): Mm-hmm. DU (35:48): And we were in a big crowd, freezing on the street in front of the justice department in January of (19)73. And then the police decided they were going to go home, and it was cold, and they were tired. So, they charged, tear gas out of the mounted police on horses and motorcycles [inaudible 36:06] and broke up the crowd and chased us through the streets of DC. I remember thinking, 1973, this is the beginning of the 10th year since (19)64 at Harvard Square where there first had been a demonstration against the war. This is (19)73. SM (36:33): Wow. DU (36:34): I was thinking, this is the beginning of the 10th year since I first came out in this war. And it is still going on and here I am chased down the street, running from the cops throwing tear gas on this cold January night and going past the state department building. And up on the top floor I could see the light, figures of the silhouette behind the glass up, where I figured that must be the Secretary of State up there. That must be Henry looking down on me running through the streets getting chased by the cops and the tear gas [inaudible 37:14]. SM (37:11): Wow. DU (37:15): After all those years ago at that dinner party Riesman set up in Cambridge where events showed I was right. Henry was wrong. But I was down on the streets running from the cops and he was the Secretary of State. SM (37:36): It is a great story. DU (37:37): Yeah. SM (37:39): One of the questions I ask everyone too, when you were either in high school, senior high school, or college, what books were important to you? You were probably a very big reader. Say any time in the (19)60s or early (19)70s what books really influenced you? By anyone. DU (38:11): Well, the autobiography of Big Bill Haywood did. SM (38:21): Mm-hmm? DU (38:25): Because he had been tried for murder for blowing up the governor in Idaho, not convicted. [inaudible 38:31] was one of the most famous cases. SM (38:37): Mm-hmm. DU (38:38): Maybe I am telling you what you already know. And then it happened in the town where I grew up. I knew nothing of it, there were two people in my [inaudible 38:53] included the participation in the organizing activities of the Wobblie. So, they were the IWW [inaudible 39:06], they knew about Haywood, and his trial. Heard about [inaudible 39:11] finding Haywood's autobiography and reading it. And that made a big impression on me. Because [inaudible 39:29] life and a way of doing [inaudible 39:35] different from anything I was told. SM (39:38): What did he do? DU (39:40): He was a minor- SM (39:43): Mm-hmm. DU (39:50): [inaudible 39:50]. SM (39:50): I hate to say it, but please speak up. DU (39:50): One of the early organizers of the IWW. SM (39:51): Mm-hmm. DU (39:52): The Wobblies. SM (39:54): Yep. DU (39:55): That came mostly out of the lumber camps of out west. Idaho, Nevada, Utah. Joe Hill, those folks came from that area. And Haywood was [inaudible 40:09] by his trial [inaudible 40:13] governor was in Boise. SM (40:15): Mm-hmm. DU (40:17): So, from looking at Haywood's autobiography I got a glimpse of this way of positioning yourself in the world very different, anodized, standard, acceptable history that I got. That made an impression. DU (40:35): Also, the Diary's of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Edited by a historian named Bernard DeVoto. Which made you, again, realize that everything you have been taught about pioneers struggling across the wilderness and populating this empty territory was an elaborate self-serving lie. And [inaudible 41:16] colonial theft of that [inaudible 41:19] from people who had inhabited it for millennia. SM (41:26): Native Americans. DU (41:27): Yeah. SM (41:27): Yeah. DU (41:28): All of that [inaudible 41:29] standard history, and to the extent that most folk just all they were [inaudible 41:36]. SM (41:36): What was the author's name again? DU (41:39): DeVoto. D-E-V-O-T-O. SM (41:41): First name? DU (41:42): Bernard. SM (41:42): Bernard DeVoto. Okay. DU (41:45): Historian of the era, but was editor of the journals of Lewis and Clark. SM (41:57): You honestly were born probably just prior to; the Boomers are classified as (19)46 to (19)64. DU (42:05): Yes, [inaudible 42:05] (19)64. SM (42:07): But we do not go with these guidelines here, and I have learned that by interviewing people. But when you look at the era that Boomers have been alive from 1946 to right now, 2010 and hopefully they will be alive 20 plus more years as they all approach senior citizen, although they hate that term. In your own words as a person who grew up in the (19)50s and then experienced all these things in the (19)60s and (19)70s and have been an activist through the (19)80s, (19)90s and the first 10 years of this century, how, in your own words, just a few words, how would you describe that period 1946 to 1960? In your own words. And again, please speak up. DU (42:56): For me that was a time of trying to learn the nature of the world beyond and contrary to the picture that was automatically presented to me. That is, it. SM (43:16): And what was the− DU (43:16): And I set out to learn what had been omitted or obscured or warped. And it was from a few things like I decided that I got a keyhole glimpse of something great big different on the other side that made me want to push through that crack and find out what was on the other side. That was what those years were about. SM (43:40): How about the years 19− DU (43:41): Trying to overcome the indoctrination that I suppose any society attempted to perform upon its youth to make them fit, carry on the legacy handed to them. And for me it did not sit very comfortably. So, I- [inaudible 44:03] out on my own. SM (44:04): How about that period (19)61 to 1970? DU (44:07): That was an uproar. Agitation, uncertainty, and there were many moments where you were not sure that you would be alive the next moment. Either because somebody with a rifle was on the roof across the street when you go into your driveway, or because some fool with his finger on a big red button was willing to summon Armageddon upon the entire Earth in order to make a macho point to his counterpart on the other side of the world. That is what the Cuban Missile Crisis [inaudible 44:51]. SM (44:53): How about 1971 to 1980? DU (44:59): Oh, what happened? Was there such a period? SM (45:05): I know there was disco in the second half− DU (45:10): To me, I know all of that was going on kind of as the downhill slope died of the (19)60s for the society at large, but for me it did not differ much from the time before. After I escaped Columbia, my education and formal progress were to be very badly spent by all of the uproar and uprisings at Columbia. I finally escaped from there with some kind of graduate degree but came back to Alabama and worked on a prison reform and community organizing project in the (19)70s. And then I was out in Washington state for a while, parts of my family were out there, and I got involved in some organized [inaudible 46:11] against a nuclear power plant financing boondoggle. I do not know if you are aware of that at all. SM (46:20): No. DU (46:21): It is called the Washington Public Power Supply. Formerly known as WOOPS. That sold multiple billions of dollars’ worth of bonds to unwary local community public utility districts and the like to finance this big, actually unnecessary and badly conceived nuclear power plant that almost [inaudible 46:49] but wasted billions of dollars of money [inaudible 46:52] never generated. But the bonds are still outstanding, all these hopeless public utility [inaudible 46:58] you have got to pay off the bonds, even though you have got no power coming. If you Google [inaudible 47:08]. SM (47:08): Right? DU (47:08): −spell that. [inaudible 47:11] there was a big uprising across the region, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, parts of Canada and Nevada against paying off these bonds for a derelict power plant that did not exist. I got very much involved in that, mostly around the city of, somewhere called Ellensburg, Washington state. Right between Seattle and Spokane. And there was a general public uprising against the bond boondoggle that I was in the thick of. I did that in the (19)70s. SM (48:01): How about the 1981 to 1990? DU (48:04): Well, in the mid (19)80s I came back to Alabama. I never [inaudible 48:08] got away from Alabama. And I had helped to create a new local community newspaper here in Mobile called the Harbinger. H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R. [inaudible 48:29] on the web if you care to look. [inaudible 48:38] from that I got working at a radio station. Because it was to do an audio version of this newspaper that was put on the radio. And I became acquainted with the button and [inaudible 48:53] pushing aspect of running a radio station. And spent around there for a while. Well, I needed a job, for one thing. I did a lot more for them than the value of what they paid me. So, it was a good arrangement for them. I infiltrated enough eventually I found myself as the host of an AM radio talk show in Mobile, Alabama. An unlikely outcome, but there I was. And it turned out, as I suspected it would, the sort of angle I wanted to approach local and world events from did have an interested audience within a place like this, reputedly derivative and backwards. But there was lots of [inaudible 49:43] jumping on the radio, like what I was offering. If you, by your own approach, gave them permission to hold and express such ideas then they would. And use of what contacts I could [inaudible 50:03] to try to get the prominent people from a national level on the radio here. Like I had Ralph Nader on for a while. He was scheduled to be there [inaudible 50:21] and stayed almost the whole hour and at the end when he finally tore himself away, he said, and he was not the only one who ever said this to me too, he said, "That is a really educated and an informed audience you have got." I guess he had not expected it. But that was the sort of audience you could attract. SM (50:43): Mm-hmm. DU (50:43): That gave me a chance to say, "Well, yes, of course. What did you expect? This is lower Alabama." SM (50:50): Did the Reagan era, what is your comments on that whole Reagan era? DU (50:54): Oh lord. SM (50:56): In a few words, you do not have to go in- Because a lot of people, when you think of the (19)80s, that is the (19)80s. DU (51:04): It was like just treading water, so you did not drown. That is all. SM (51:12): Mm-hmm. How about that period, (19)91 to 2000? Were you still with your radio station? That was the era of Clinton and President Bush one. DU (51:17): I mean that was mainly the time that I was at the radio station, in the (19)90s. SM (51:22): Mm-hmm. DU (51:25): And oh, then I got in some trouble with the people whose interest [inaudible 51:32] I had recruited, because they were all pro-Clinton and I was pissed at Clinton making such a mess of his presidency, and for actually for not minding the door, that was the way I put it. He was fooling around with Monica when he should have been minding his door. SM (51:50): Right? DU (51:52): Very unhappy with Clinton for that. And so, the Clintonites were unhappy with me. But I kept that outlook anyway. Then, when W and his [inaudible 52:09] came along I could honestly say that it was not partisanship pose what he was doing. And people had to believe it was not partisanship, [inaudible 52:23] but that brought the end of my radio career. [inaudible 52:30]. SM (52:31): Because the people were upset with your- [inaudible 52:33]. DU (52:34): End of the Iraq war if you were not pro-war and if you were not pro-Israel, you could not stay on the radio. It was just [inaudible 52:44]. SM (52:44): Wow. DU (52:48): And after years of running this talk show and doing much of the button and paper pushing to keep this AM station going, I was just merrily fired by the owner, who was very pro-Bush, pro-war, and pro-Zionist. SM (53:07): Wow. DU (53:09): Also, it did not help that I had broadcast back to Mobile from Radio Havana. Do you want to hear that story? SM (53:19): Yeah, I know you ran against Castro in (19)61, but I did not know you tried to go see him. Yeah. Go ahead and tell that story before we go on to another question. DU (53:33): Yeah, courtesy of a couple of quirky people, Mobile is officially the sister city of Havana. You know about the Sister City Organization, correct? SM (53:46): Yes, I do. DU (53:49): Mobile and Havana are officially sister cities and have been for many years. And one guys [inaudible 53:54] went to Havana or made arrangements [inaudible 53:59] go there and started poking around. And he was finding the long historical connection was true [inaudible 54:06] and Havana. But had to [inaudible 54:10] waterfront of both cities. For that reason and others, he said, "These ought to be sister cities." And he made it happen. So, there is a Mobile and Havana Sister City organization that has sponsored several trips back and forth between delegates from here and Cubans come to Mobile. Under W of the restrictions [inaudible 54:34] was almost bumped. In the late (19)90s under Clinton it was a little easier to travel and did that. There was no commercial flights or boats. You had to charter your own boat. Basically, did a little [inaudible 54:49] out in the ocean, Key West, bouncing along the ocean. [inaudible 54:53]. I went to Havana, about a dozen of us from Mobile. And at one point I decided that I was going to go to Radio Havana and try to make a connection there to broadcast back to the radio station in Mobile, and just do my radio talk show. So, I was lucky enough to meet the right couple of people and got into Radio Havana and arranged to use their studio and telephone link back and got the local people in their studio. And, had somebody running with a microphone and a switchback in Mobile and did my talk show while I was sitting in Havana at the headquarters of Radio Havana. And people in Mobile can call up and talk to me and these Cuban Commie folks I had in the studio. It was wonderful. And when I got back here after that the owner, I thought that I had done a remarkable thing. The owner was not happy that I had used his equipment to cover boy Commie Castro on the air to print propaganda [inaudible 56:16]. SM (56:17): Did President Bush make comments to him on this? DU (56:21): I do not know. SM (56:22): No? You do not know? DU (56:22): −how far the− SM (56:26): That is quite a story too. How important were The Beats? Did you read The Beats, and how important were they in your eyes in their writings about the influence they had on the Boomer generation? DU (56:38): Not very for me. SM (56:39): Right. DU (56:39): And I was aware of all of that, of course. SM (56:43): Many kinds of people believe they were the first nonconformists, and they were, and they did not care what people thought, and they were unique and different. But you do not think they were that important? DU (56:51): I was aware of that and influenced by it, sure. But it was not formative for me, I do not think. SM (58:01): Right. I guess I think I asked this next question− I have got so many questions here− DU (58:06): [inaudible 58:06] directly pertinent to add. I was at a meeting with all these Mark Rudd type on the campus of Columbia once and those folks, they got involved in a lot of intricate sectarian disputes with each other that derived from their personal and family connections and all sorts of [inaudible 58:29] dating back to the (19)30s and before. SM (58:32): Mm-hmm? DU (58:34): But I suppose you are aware of. SM (58:35): Yes, I am. DU (58:36): That I had no personal connection with and knew about only from reading his [inaudible 58:41]. But somebody in one of those meetings, when one of those cantankerous discussions were going on said casually and matter of factly, "We are all red diaper babies at this meeting. And that is why we are having fusses like this." And I looked at the one person who was in there with me that I knew was not a red diaper baby. Actually, she is the one who is name I gave you by email. SM (58:06): Oh yeah, I think I will contact her too. DU (58:10): Yeah, yeah. I looked at her and she looked at me, because we knew we were not red diaper. But to everybody else in there that was the norm. SM (58:23): Yeah- [inaudible 58:24]. DU (58:24): −I was a misfit [inaudible 58:27] always was a misfit. [inaudible 58:32] I know that much of formative motivation came from his church. SM (58:45): Mm-hmm? DU (58:47): That more than [inaudible 58:54] posturing of the (19)40s from these sectarian groups [inaudible 59:02]. I also should have mentioned, when I was just trying to explore how the world- [inaudible 59:11]. SM (59:11): Speak up again too, David. DU (59:12): −trying to find out how the world worked. And one of the things that experience told me were formative. And one of those was the Communist Manifesto. So, I started going into the public library in this little town in Idaho looking for materials, and I got educated. SM (59:29): Mm- hmm. DU (59:32): And at one point somebody, I do not know who, decided that this was bad for me and that I was no longer going to be able to check out material from the public library. SM (59:42): Unbelievable. DU (59:44): And so, when I tried to take back books, I was told no, and I had to go get something more normal and correct. I was not allowed to take back materials out of the library. So, I had to, of course, recruit friends to go in and get them for me. It just did not stop me. But there was an attempt to prevent me from those things. SM (01:00:08): Yeah, that is 1950s in America. Hold on one second here. You have got to bear with me in something, I have got to turn this light over here. [inaudible 01:00:15] all right. DU (01:00:15): But that [inaudible 01:00:25]. SM (01:00:29): Okay. You already talked about your experiences of standing up for that first time, several times, for an issue. And of course, whenever a person stands up for something they become vulnerable. That is why a lot of people are afraid to do it. As a follow-up to that question were there many times that this happened in the (19)70s, (19)80s, and (19)90s, and beyond, I think you have already mentioned it, you have already talked about that somewhat, your activism overall has been continuous and ongoing. DU (01:01:03): Yes. SM (01:01:04): Yeah. And in describing your career after 1970 how would you describe the David before 1970 and the David after? DU (01:01:19): The same character. SM (01:01:19): Mm-hmm? DU (01:01:22): The (19)70s were not a dividing line for me. Why would you pick that date? SM (01:01:28): Well, because I figured you were at Columbia in the (19)60s and you got your graduate degree and then once you get your degree people sometimes look at college as the protective years whereas the real world happens once you leave college. DU (01:01:46): No. SM (01:01:49): Is Mobile, Alabama- DU (01:01:50): I went back to doing much the same thing I had done before college and before graduate school, back in Mobile. [inaudible 01:01:59] this prison reform project. SM (01:02:00): You have been pretty consistent from the get-go. DU (01:02:05): For whatever reason, yes, it has been the main contour of my life. SM (01:02:11): In your own words define activism. DU (01:02:25): It is the refusal to accept− SM (01:02:28): And please speak up. DU (01:02:31): It is the refusal to accept the path that is laid out before you. SM (01:02:34): Mm-hmm. DU (01:02:36): That is, it. SM (01:02:38): One of the interesting things is how I got to know you first off is that essay that was in Marvin Serkan and Allan Wolf's book in 1970. I was a political science major, and I actually got that book in 1970 in my senior year, and I read it right before I graduated. It was coming out the summer and I got an advance copy through one of the professors. How did you essay end up in that book edited by these two great scholars? And what was the main thesis for your article? DU (01:03:17): You might be able to tell me better than that. I have not looked at that or thought about that in decades. SM (01:03:20): Oh, okay. So, you do not remember what the article was about? DU (01:03:26): If you still have the book the book it was the end of political science and how political science does or does not- [inaudible 01:03:33] the issues that it needs to address. SM (01:03:38): Yeah, well I read your article a long− Well, I re-read it. I read it a long time ago and then I re-read it for the interviews. So, I did not know if you had a purpose for writing it. I know you mentioned in the article some experiences at Columbia. How did you ever get in that book? DU (01:04:04): Well now that you asked me, I am trying to remember, and I do not. I knew those guys, and where I came across them or how I crossed paths with them I do not specifically recall. And they asked me to produce something for their book, so I did. But beyond that I have no specific recollection of how it came about. SM (01:04:41): Well, what I am going to have to do- DU (01:04:42): They approached me. I did not approach them. SM (01:04:48): Okay. I have not seen a lot of writing since you were in college. Explain your writing, and or teach it− Have you ever taught? Been a teacher at any community college or school? DU (01:05:05): Well, I was a teaching assistant in some classes at Columbia as a grad student. And I had a couple of brief teaching assignments at Long Island University in Brooklyn, one at Fordham in New York. SM (01:05:32): Oh yeah. DU (01:05:33): And one at William Patterson [inaudible 01:05:37] in New Jersey. SM (01:05:40): Oh yes, Mm-hmm. DU (01:05:40): I taught at all three of those places during or after the time that I was at Columbia. Those were the strange years when my contract was not renewed at William Patterson there was some sort of uprising on the campus. And [inaudible 01:06:05] student strike and marches and demonstrations and all. I do not know [inaudible 01:06:12]. SM (01:06:14): Well, they protested because you were not reinstated. DU (01:06:17): Yes, yes. SM (01:06:18): Oh, my golly. Do you think it was politically done? DU (01:06:24): Yes. SM (01:06:27): And why do you think they did that? DU (01:06:32): Well, I did not recite the party line. SM (01:06:42): Oh, and so that was it? It just did not become part of the in crowd, so to speak. DU (01:06:51): No, I did not. SM (01:06:51): And yet you were a very good teacher? DU (01:06:57): Well, opinions differ about that amongst students, as they are wont to do. But enough thought that I was. And enough they made a terrible fuss on the campus over that. But those were the years when any good cause would bring out a crowd on a campus. Late (19)60s, early (19)70s. SM (01:07:21): Right. DU (01:07:24): But it was pretty much a state university, a commuter college, largely blue-collar working class, Italian boys and the Mark Rudd and those folks, the downtown people that I dealt with said it was impossible to [inaudible 01:07:52] any kind of student rising on a campus like that, because those folks were the redneck regressives. SM (01:08:01): Oh. Or Richard Nixon's silent majority. DU (01:08:06): Yes. Yes, yes. SM (01:08:06): Yes. DU (01:08:07): And so, the downtown folks were astonished at what kind of uprising occurred on that campus. I was not. I expected it. I did not have any doubt. SM (01:08:22): What did you teach? DU (01:08:23): Political science. SM (01:08:27): Were they upset with the way you taught it? You encouraged students to protest, or− DU (01:08:33): All of the above. SM (01:08:35): It is interesting, David, in my junior year as a student at Binghamton my sociology professor got fired because he led a protest in downtown Binghamton next to the John Dickinson statue. I will never forget it. He was not asked to be back the next year. DU (01:08:53): Yes, this was that kind of thing. SM (01:08:56): Yeah, and then when I was in high school in the mid (19)60s a teacher was summarily fired because they called him a Communist. DU (01:09:07): Yes. SM (01:09:07): And that was a high school. DU (01:09:12): Yes. This was that sort of thing. SM (01:09:14): Yeah. When you think of the Boomer generation and the era of the (19)60s and (19)70s what is the first thing that comes to your mind? DU (01:09:31): There is too many [inaudible 01:09:35]. SM (01:09:33): And speak up, please. DU (01:09:33): Well, there is no first thing. There is a wealth of things that come to mind. SM (01:09:43): Just give me some examples. DU (01:09:44): If was a frightened and fruitful disorder. SM (01:09:55): Mm-hmm? DU (01:09:57): And there was a kind of careless bravery. PART 2 OF 5 ENDS [01:10:04] DU (01:10:03): There was a kind of careless bravery among people who thought what they thought were great wrongs that needed to be righted and maybe could not, but you had tried anyway. And so, they did. And often the effort came to nothing and sometimes great to grief. Still, there was a kind of careless bravery that people were willing to proceed anyway. SM (01:10:42): When you look at those (19)50s, the period when you were in Boise, I have always felt as a person who grew up in Cortland, New York in the (19)50s, that there were three qualities that most young people had until they went to junior high school and maybe went to senior high school in the mid (19)60s. And that is that they were weird to be very quiet. They were very naive. As someone said, "Well, are not all young people naive?" But I think they were especially naive. And there was a fear. The fear that many of them had was because in the early years, if they were young, they saw this man screaming on TV saying, "Are you, or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?" And subconsciously affecting people saying that, "I better not speak up, because if I speak up, I could be called a communist or afraid," and of course, living in the nuclear age and the threat of the bomb. And of course, television was very, basically I hardly ever saw a person of color. And Cowboys and Indians were a big thing. I mean, everything was hunky Dory. There were some serious shows like Edward R. Murrow and Dave Garroway, and Mike Wallace, but they were few and far between. And then naive is the TV helped the naivete. Just your thoughts, whether you think those are three characteristics that really− You agree? DU (01:12:22): Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, when I said careless bravery, that described the reaction to this fear. When you realized that instilled fear was preventing you from exploring the world you inhabited, then careless bravery would give you the courage to do so. Without that, you would succumb to the fear and accept the [inaudible 01:12:59] that had been prepared for you. SM (01:13:03): Yeah. Because we were talking about some of these books that were written in the (19)50s, The End of Ideology, by Daniel Bell, basically the Marxism is no longer a threat. It is dying, it is no longer important. Then you had the White Collar: [The American Middle Classes], by C. Wright Mills, The Organization Man, all these things that were− This is the way it was for the parents of the boomers. And boy, and lot of boomers did not want to have any part of that. What do you feel were some of the strengths and weaknesses of the boomer generation as you experienced via your own peers, knowing that no one can talk about 74 million boomers? But were there strengths and weaknesses within the group as you knew the boomers that you were with? Not only as an activist yourself, but as a teacher who taught in the classroom, some boomers as you were a graduate student. And you saw protests and, or many that did not go to protests. DU (01:14:17): Yeah. Well, that is always the majority. SM (01:14:22): Do you have any strengths or weaknesses? DU (01:14:33): I was impressed by the people who were willing to apply their own understanding what they observed and act on it best their knowledge, even if that conflicted of the truth that they had been taught. And the ones who were willing to do that were always available if you could find them and were always willing to take an unnecessary stand. But you had to look for them and you had to cultivate them. SM (01:15:35): Would you see any weakness? DU (01:15:39): I recognize even to the extent that you yourself possess those qualities, sometimes they would wane and falter, and you would be in danger of losing those qualities yourself. [inaudible 01:15:55] struggled [inaudible 01:15:57]. SM (01:15:58): Speak up again, David. DU (01:16:00): Was a constant struggle. So, alert and committed because the temptation is too otherwise great, and the rewards were great. But if you wanted to put yourself position where looking back, you could say, "If I had to do over, I would not do it different," then you had to take the approach I did. That is what I thought. I did not want to have to look back say, "I wish I had done this or that." [inaudible 01:16:36] greatly different. SM (01:16:40): It is like someone says, the philosopher says when you are on your deathbed and your life passes before you, you hope you− It is not all about the car, the money, the house. It was about what you have done with your life. DU (01:16:55): Yeah. SM (01:16:55): And I think what you are saying is that you are very comfortable with that. Do you like the term, "the boomer generation"? DU (01:17:02): I never use it. I never felt a part of it. I mean, I am not precisely demographically. I am born two years before, but also, I did not participate much in that a lifestyle encapsulated in that phrase. Boomer generation, the act of [inaudible 01:17:37] boomer generation was yuppies as much as anything else. SM (01:17:48): Oh yeah. That was a term in the (19)80s. DU (01:17:55): Never part of that, I hope. SM (01:17:58): Yeah. Lot of them thought they were the most unique generation in American history. Your thoughts on that? DU (01:18:05): No. SM (01:18:05): No? DU (01:18:09): No, everybody like think that about themselves, but no. I faced certain challenges and opportunities and just did what I thought my circumstances to my personality at that particular time and place required. At one point, I was something called the International Fellows program at Columbia, which was supposedly a select group of graduate students who were ushered off DC for meetings with important people in 50 agencies, and who have had the special seminars, some have dinners with important people back on the campus. International, it really was really a screening and recruiting of program for replacement part for the establishment. SM (01:19:30): Oh wow. DU (01:19:30): In the course that, I mean, it was if you were selected for this, I knew without being told that these opportunities were in front of you. You were being groomed for your place in the establishment. So, we went off to Washington and we were taken to the Pentagon [inaudible 01:19:59] and we were taken to the CIA. We were taken to the State Department, had a meeting with the Secretary of State Dean Rusk at time. SM (01:20:11): Wow. DU (01:20:19): About 10 of us, International Fellows program, one or two [inaudible 01:20:19]. And this was in, I do not know, (19)68, (19)69 there about when the country was in and up. Campus was [inaudible 01:20:30]. And it was a strange time of trouble and [inaudible 01:20:36]. And every day is filled, the horror as slaughter [inaudible 01:20:45] interpretated in your name and with your money on the far side world. And here you were inside the digital to the folks who were performing these things. SM (01:20:57): Wow. DU (01:21:04): Face-to-face with what are you going do? In these small group meetings, they were looking at on the table with the Secretary of State or with Peters with the CIA and the Pentagon. And I knew how you were supposed to behave. And I just would not, or could not, or did not at each of those places. So, the professor in charge of the program tried to avoid me. Could not forever ignore my hand once [inaudible 01:21:42]. And each of those places, I have made some kind of comment [inaudible 01:21:51]. SM (01:21:51): Speak up, too. DU (01:21:54): I made a comment or raised some kind of question, essentially, got our group thrown out of the Pentagon, CIA. And they [inaudible 01:22:06] brought those meetings to an end. SM (01:22:09): Just by your question? DU (01:22:11): Yes. SM (01:22:11): Oh my God. DU (01:22:15): Oh. And the meeting was quickly wrapped up. And the Secondary of State excused himself, and he was gone. SM (01:22:21): What were the questions? DU (01:22:24): Oh, I do not remember for sure. I mean, it was first designed to make them address things that they did not want to address. SM (01:22:33): Did you, by accidentally say, "Secretary warmonger, I mean, Secretary Rusk"? DU (01:22:40): That is not my [inaudible 01:22:42]. It was something oblique, but pointed and unmistakable. I do not remember for sure, but what I do remember one CIA. We were in a big room, not all that [inaudible 01:23:12]. Across one wall of this room was a big painting of China. Was done all up red China. The evil empire. And along one back wall of these one-way mirrors so you knew you were being watched, recorded. God, they were so creepy. Oh, when we get there, we walked down these long hallways where you pass doors and file cabinets that had combination locked rather than handles on the doors. And you had to sign in the beginning. And get one of these ID badges which not common at time [inaudible 01:23:53]. Got up the meeting at the big room to go to the men's room just around the corner, somebody appeared from somewhere and followed you there. That kind of setting. SM (01:24:04): Wow. DU (01:24:06): And in that setting, what they [inaudible 01:24:07]. And they had told us about all the wonderful things the CIA does and how abroad, and only in the gathering intelligence provides for the safety of the American system. And I told the story of something I had encountered in Alabama that gave the clear impression that somebody who worked for the CIA was spying on me and some of my companions and trying to sabotage our operations, contrary to what we had just been told by these people. Oh, and the whole room fell silent. And they brought that meeting to an end. And we went down this long hallway and everybody else in the group was shied away from, but I was a big, invisible bubble around. CIA, nobody wanted to be anywhere near me, all got on the bus and only half people [inaudible 01:25:12] out CIA compound. One of the guys [inaudible 01:25:15], "Yeah, thank you. I am [inaudible 01:25:17]." But until then, they did not know me. That was what happened CIA. SM (01:25:26): Wow. Who was the professor that ran that? DU (01:25:31): I do not- SM (01:25:31): Do not remember? And I think I know how you are going to respond to this, but how do you respond to conservative critics of the generation reared in the (19)50s and involved in the (19)60s and (19)70s activism that many of the problems in our society today center around the drug culture, the sexual freedom, the lack of respect for authority, challenging the system, rock and roll, long hair, clothes; counterculture, that kind of− And a lot of them, whether it be Newt Gingrich or George [Wilson's 01:26:07] commentaries, or even on Fox, you hear it all the time. There is Mike Huckabee. You hear it all the time, "back then," or "the (19)60s" and all this other stuff. What do you think of when you hear of that stuff? DU (01:26:22): Those are the fees of illegitimate authorities that cannot command respect by- SM (01:26:39): Speak up, and please speak up. DU (01:26:39): − Those are the fees of illegitimate authority that cannot command respect by deeds and [inaudible 01:26:48] vague or [inaudible 01:26:51] people to accepting their authority. Authority that worthy of respect does not have demand it, conferred without the request. Authority that does not deserve respect should not expect it. The way the American authority is played in their conduct [inaudible 01:27:24] abroad and in their treatment of fellow citizens, like in civil rights era showed them me as unworthy of respect. I did not respect them. Maybe on as individuals, maybe, but as legitimate authorities, no. And as for the rest of it, all those things you cited, [inaudible 01:27:56] whatever else you said, I never considered myself or hippy crowd- SM (01:28:04): Oh, the counterculture crowd. DU (01:28:06): − No. SM (01:28:07): Yeah. DU (01:28:08): But everybody in that era was affected by it. But I was never a participant. When I was at Woodstock, I went to Woodstock. SM (01:28:24): Wow. You were there? DU (01:28:25): Oh yeah. I mean, it was happening in the vicinity, and it was obviously a big event. And the governor of New York came on the radio and said, "This is a disaster. Do not go there." And when I heard that, I thought, "Well, damn. I got to go." SM (01:28:36): Were you there all four days? DU (01:28:43): No. For about two days. SM (01:28:45): You were there during the rains? DU (01:28:47): Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What I remember mostly is long before you see it and long before you could even hear it, you could smell it because of the rain, all the garbage and the [inaudible 01:29:00]. SM (01:29:00): Oh yeah. You remember the musicians you saw? DU (01:29:03): Well, you did not get close enough too much. It was so heard, smelled, could not get very close [inaudible 01:29:19] but I did not. SM (01:29:22): Yeah, you were not in that group that was sliding down on the mud and that- DU (01:29:27): Not purpose, I mean, some ways you slid in the mud, just could not help. SM (01:29:34): Some people's cars were parked five miles away. DU (01:29:37): Oh yeah. Mine, I mean, I was a long ways off and walk. I am glad I went, because I mean, it was a phenomenon. But I did not really feel like a participant. I was there. That was not my kind of scene. SM (01:30:00): Did you see a lot of spaced out people? DU (01:30:02): Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I did not like that. I did not participate in that. And I thought that was system's deliberate way of turning people off from activism. I agreed with the pretty much the old hard nose [inaudible 01:30:30] type about that. This was all bread and circuses and the opiate of the masses stuff designed to divert them from their [inaudible 01:30:44] ought to be their true cause. I was inclined to agree with that. SM (01:30:47): I know when I interviewed Richie Havens, Richie Havens said that it was a tremendous happening because they are finally listening to us. He said in 1969, referring to the people, the young people that were there and the musicians. "They are finally listening to us," and he thought that was a magic moment there. The media has played a huge role in− I can read my, I do not want my glasses here, in terms of "outlining and showing the extravagant and extremes over the norms of the 1960s." Knowing that 85 to 90 percent of the young people were not even involved in activism, I still feel they were subconsciously affected. The media is supposed to cover controversy and news, not create it with one-sided presentations. And I think what we are seeing, even with the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and all these anniversaries of Ken State, and the media seems to only go after the sensational. And what are your thoughts on the media? You were part of it for a while. DU (01:32:01): Oh yeah. I have been part of the media. And in my activist guises, I mean, I have relied on the media to publicize what I was doing, spread the word. And it took a mutually exploitive [inaudible 01:32:33] understood by everybody, all that you are providing them with a product, they sell of advertisers because they will [inaudible 01:32:50] interest and viewers and listeners. And in exchange, they provide you with some access for your ideas to people who otherwise would not counter. SM (01:33:08): And in your view, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? DU (01:33:17): (19)60s began in 1956 or there about. SM (01:33:27): About when? DU (01:33:28): In 1956. The (19)60s began with the civil rights movement, Brown versus Board of Education and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Those then showed that the existing system was not ordained forever. And that change was actually possible. That began in the (19)50s. And me, that is, (19)60s have not stopped. SM (01:34:11): Is there a watershed moment? DU (01:34:17): The assassination Martin Luther King of- SM (01:34:24): (19)68. DU (01:34:25): − the course of stream of time. About watershed, yeah. SM (01:34:32): Yeah. That year, (19)68. Where were you when JFK was killed? Do you know the exact moment where you were? DU (01:34:40): Yeah, I was on the campus at Harvard. And actually I was, I did a little announcing work for the Harvard student radio station. Soon as I heard Kennedy had been shot, I went to station. And I was the one who announced over the WHRB, that was Harvard radio that Harvard graduate, John Kennedy, had died. SM (01:35:18): Wow. But did you have the TV on right there with Walter Cronkite or the other channels? DU (01:35:30): Oh, that probably. I do not remember for certain what all the connections, the technical connections were in the radio [inaudible 01:35:41]. I was in the Harvard yard when word first read Kennedy had been shot. SM (01:35:50): Wow. DU (01:35:50): And went immediately to the radio station. I was one of the regular announcers did mostly classical music program. And the assignment of announcing Kennedy's death over Harvard radio. SM (01:36:10): Did you take any calls or did you just announce it and leave? Or were-were you on for a while? DU (01:36:19): We interrupted regular programming course. SM (01:36:23): Okay. DU (01:36:25): News bulletin as they arrived, I was helping do that and news of his death [inaudible 01:36:35] and I was [inaudible 01:36:36] a somber moment. I had- SM (01:36:39): Now on that campus on those four days, it was a Friday through Monday. So obviously somber all over the country. Were you in your residence hall room− Or you were probably watching all the students on TV or all the events from the- DU (01:36:57): Radio station. SM (01:36:59): − Right. But when you left the radio station, did most of the students watch it on their television set? DU (01:37:05): Remember specifically. SM (01:37:07): Right. DU (01:37:07): Probably. But I do not recall. SM (01:37:11): Did the university do anything? DU (01:37:15): I was looking to see even Lee Harvey Oswald got shot, remember seeing that. SM (01:37:17): Yes, that was on Sunday. Wow. DU (01:37:21): That was when you first began to think, "Oh, there is something going on here beyond what is acknowledged." SM (01:37:33): When the students at Harvard knew that he had died, what were you talking with each other as students trying to figure out why and how could this happen in America? Or what? It only happens in other countries? DU (01:37:55): I remember all of those speculations. There is such absurd welter of recollections that it is impossible me to separate actually what I thought, learned at one time or another about that from thought or learned at another. Any speculation or data that you have come across connect with that is probably something that I do and added to my fund of uncertain knowledge, which I still have. I do not feel I understand who did better, how that happened. I certainly do not believe Harvey Oswald all by himself went out decided that he was going change history by killing the president. SM (01:38:58): You already defined the term activism and talked about it with respect to university campuses. And we were talking about the influence that student protest had on universities, whether it was lasting or whatever. But the question I am coming up with here is, are today's universities, after− I guess what I am going to say here is− I read my words here. Define volunteerism in your own words. You have already divine activism, (19)60s activism compared to today's volunteerism. What I am trying to say is that I feel that the universities today are afraid of the term activism because it brings back memories of that period in the (19)60s where there were disruptions and certainly disruption of classes, and certainly more student power, as Tom Hayden used to said, empowerment, not just power. And it is very nice to have volunteerism because volunteerism is required in fraternities and sororities. And this is what all students do, volunteer work, and probably over 90 percent of the students are doing it on all campuses. But there is a big difference in my opinion between activism, which is 24 hours a day, seven days a week mentality, and volunteerism, which is only a couple hours a week. Am I right in feeling that today's universities are afraid of activism on college campuses? Of course, they say volunteerism is their activism. DU (01:40:46): I cannot address that much in relation to universities because I do not have regular [inaudible 01:40:52] at a university. But around communities where I have lived, and I do. And to me, by volunteerism is free labor on behalf of system. And activism is a challenge system. SM (01:41:19): And are you saying that people do not like to be challenged? DU (01:41:25): Some do, some do not. I have done both. Just this morning before talking to you, I was had a big meeting convened by the governor of a commission to supposedly plan and arrange for the restoration of the oil rec Gulf coast. Even though I was [inaudible 01:41:50] by the very establishment business sort of commission that the governor put together with a few [inaudible 01:42:00] came environmentalists on board. But not the likes of me, but I went anyway and just appeared there and participated in the sense of an activist, rather than a volunteer. In the discussions of [inaudible 01:42:23] and raise some question, brought up some issues that I do not think would have been on the agenda at all, otherwise. That is what activists does. And then they all went to a catered lunch without me. I was not invited. SM (01:42:53): Well, obviously, is this Harvard reincarnation? DU (01:42:59): Sort of, yeah. SM (01:43:02): Well, that is good. Because you go with your own drummer, so to speak. Your thoughts on when the anti-war movement turned violent out of frustration? We all know the history of Students for Democratic Society. They did have a lot of respect. But when it split into the Weathermen, everything changed and SDS really died. We had the Black Panthers who were carrying guns on university campuses at Cornell− Well, students at Cornell were carrying guns, but Black Panthers were always saying that they needed guns to protect themselves from the police because police were being brutal every day. And you had the American Indian movement in 1973, and the violence at Wounded Knee. So you saw, and I know that in the Chicano community and the Young Bloods, they copied the Black Panthers. This is my thought: to me, this hurt all movements, and is why the neocons and conservatives write are legitimate in their attacks on the period itself, because they look at those things that were really negative, even amongst liberals. And your thoughts on when it went violent? DU (01:44:20): When I first heard [inaudible 01:44:25] others who became and then Bernardine Dohrn and those folks who became the Weathermen talking that way. I was in many meetings with most of those folks, one time or another, around Columbia in Cortland, New York. By the time they pick up the gun, they were carrying on in that fashion. It was hard for me keep from laughing because they were talking of harming themselves in order to carry out the revolution that they knew was just on the verge- PART 3 OF 5 ENDS [01:45:04] DU (01:45:03): To carry out the revolution that they knew was just on the verge of break out. And it was so ludicrous, mistaken understanding their place. It was tempting to laugh, and I could not because they were obviously so serious about it. SM (01:45:27): Please speak up again. DU (01:45:29): And they are obviously so serious about it. SM (01:45:31): Uh-huh [affirmative]. DU (01:45:31): And some of them, like Ted Gold who'd dead because of it. And I remember saying to them, in some of these meetings, if you think you need an armed cadre to carry out the revolution of his ripe, you do not need to be picking up the gun belt and going off weekend encampment to teach yourself how to shoot. I said, this whole country is armed. You need to recruit those people who have guns and know how to use them, to your side. If you try, without them to do this, you are going to be the losers. In short order and big time, they were. They did not want to recruit to their side of the proletarian task of who were armed and might be ready for revolution. They wanted to reside over a revolution that they directed. And they were nowhere close to having historical opportunity or the political organization to help them− It is baffling to me, that they could have been so hallucinatorily deranged about this, but they were. SM (01:47:03): We all know about the Weathermen, and interesting, Black Panther's always used− It is so confusing. Black Panthers said they were not a violent group, and they had guns only to protect themselves. And some would say, well look what happened to the killing of Fred Hampton in Chicago. "We had to protect ourselves or they will come and kill us all." DU (01:47:24): Right. SM (01:47:24): And then of course we had the COINTELPRO, which did terrible things, infiltrating organizations. And some people have even gone to the extreme of saying that the reason why the Weathermen went violent is because of infiltrators that were from the CIA who encouraged them to become violent so that they would become illegitimate. DU (01:47:44): I am sure some of that happened. SM (01:47:47): I just, you see you have got all this stuff here, but most people are against violence. Dr. King was nonviolent protest. Then you get the Stokely Carmichael types and then Malcolm's, by any means necessary. And I think Malcolm was believing in taking guns to protect oneself, not to kill people. But this is a very, it is very confusing. You have to look at it in its context. But would not you say that whenever there is violence, it creates a negative image for any group? DU (01:48:25): Malcolm said that it is almost a criminal act to tell somebody under assault, he should not defend himself. SM (01:48:35): Say that again. DU (01:48:36): Malcolm said, it is almost a criminal act, to teach somebody who is under assault, that he should not defend himself. SM (01:48:43): Mm-hmm [affirmative]. DU (01:48:45): And I was inclined to agree with that. Right? And I think people like him and the Black Panthers, for the most part, were defending themselves. And in case by Fred Hanson, not successfully. SM (01:49:05): What did you think of that scene at Cornell University in (19)69 of students with guns walking out of the union? What was that all about? DU (01:49:15): A new guy from Mobile. He went to Cornell with a pistol, tried to get the education that he thought he deserved. SM (01:49:33): He was in that group? DU (01:49:36): I do not think he was in that group, but he briefly went to Cornell. And he believed that Cornell intended not to provide him with education. And that the whole system was set up to provide him with an education. SM (01:49:52): Right. DU (01:49:52): That if he did not threaten violence, he was not going to get an education. SM (01:49:56): Wow. DU (01:50:05): That was− SM (01:50:05): This is a question that, took a group of students to Washington DC in 1995 to meet Senator Musky. There were 14 of us. And the students came up with this question on the issue of healing. And the question was this, that they asked the Senator, due to the extreme divisions that took place in the 1960s and early (19)70s, between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war and those were against the war, and those who supported the troops or against the troops, and all the other divisions that took place at that time. Witnessing what happened in America in 1968, with the two assassinations and the convention and turmoil of police beating heads, a president withdrawing, burnings in the cities, talk that we were heading toward a second civil war. Do you feel that the (19)60s, or the boomer generation, is going to its grave like the Civil War generation as a generation that will never heal from the divisions that tore them apart? DU (01:51:20): No, because I do not think the divisions were anywhere near as a deep or grave as Civil War divisions. Civil War divisions are still here. What is Faulkner's famous quote about, the past is gone, it is even past? Something like that. SM (01:51:50): His what now? DU (01:51:53): Faulkner said, the past has been forgotten in the fact it is not even past. Something to that. SM (01:52:00): Okay. DU (01:52:05): That legacy is still with us every day. But you see that around Alabama, anywhere you look. So, this business of the Boomer Era, I do not think it is anywhere near the− SM (01:52:26): Yeah. DU (01:52:27): The sound of that. SM (01:52:30): The students thought that Senator Musky would talk about 1968, because he was the vice presidential running mate at that convention. And he mentioned nothing about (19)68. He basically said we have not healed since the Civil War and the issue of race. And then he went on to talk about that at length, and that we had lost 430,000 men in that war, almost an entire generation in the south. So, you are kind of right in your assumptions, or not right, but you agree with the Senator Musky. One of the qualities that often is labeled in this generation, is they are not a very trusting generation, because they all witnessed, including those that were not activists, so many presidents and leaders who lied to them. Whether it be the experience of Watergate, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which a lot of people knew was a lie by (19)65, by President Johnson. Then you had the U-2 incident where President Eisenhower lied on national television. You had so many other politicians who had lied. Nobody trusted the information coming back from Vietnam because they knew that the counts that were being presented in American public included animals and all kinds of things. So, the lies were conscious. So young Black Boomers did not trust anyone in positions of authority, whether it be a minister or a rabbi, priest, university president, vice president of student affairs, Congressman, Senator, any corporate leader, anybody in position of responsibility. But do you feel that is a negative quality or a positive quality, this lacking of trust? DU (01:54:19): I think it is a positive quality not to trust if the trust is untrustworthy. If you truly are being misled and misused by those in positions of authority, you had better distrust them. SM (01:54:35): Do you believe what a lot of political science believe? DU (01:54:40): What? SM (01:54:41): Do you believe what a lot of political scientists believe that the sign of a true democracy is when you do not trust your government? Because that means that liberty and democracy is alive and well? DU (01:54:54): No. In a democracy you would be able to trust the government. SM (01:55:02): Right. But if you do not trust it, that is okay too, isn't it? DU (01:55:06): No, that is not a democracy. SM (01:55:11): Explain the− DU (01:55:15): If you do not trust it, then you believe that it is effectively operating against your interest. That cannot be a democracy, unless you are some sort of autocrat. In that case, if it is not operating against you, it might be a democracy. But if you are part of the demos, and you do not trust the government, then it is not a democracy. Because you were rightly doubtful about it toward you. SM (01:55:54): I got about 10- DU (01:55:54): Oh, I think the need to distrust it is an unhealthy, not a healthy one. SM (01:56:06): Can we go 10 more minutes? Because I have got about 10 more minutes here. DU (01:56:10): Yeah. SM (01:56:10): Okay. What did we learn from Vietnam? DU (01:56:17): Next to nothing, near as I know. SM (01:56:22): What have we forgotten about Vietnam? DU (01:56:29): What was the story about the French regime, about how they had learned nothing and had forgotten nothing? SM (01:56:39): Who was that now, the French regime? DU (01:56:43): The ancient regime on the verge of the− SM (01:56:44): Oh, okay. DU (01:56:45): − the overthrow. That they were incapable of learning. The circumstances changed, but they had not forgotten any of their old resentments or loyalty. They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. I think the Vietnam experience is similar. Learned nothing, forgot nothing. My belief, it is one of the− The radio station anymore says this stuff. SM (01:57:14): And please speak up. DU (01:57:18): I said, one of the reasons I am not at the radio station anymore, because I said this stuff on the air. When these new wars are on it, I believe that the anti-war movement saved the world from World War III. Because without it, I think the pro war element in Washington would have pushed that Vietnam forward to the point where they brought China to war. Because China was never going to accept American victory, or even the approach of American victory. Vietnam, just sad not in Korea. So if pro-war folks had been able to have their way, and supply all of their resources, including even nuclear ones to that war, they would have pushed it to the point where they brought China in before. And that would have made World War III. SM (01:58:10): Wow. DU (01:58:10): Nuclear World War III. The anti-war movement prevented the warriors in Washington doing that. And in the process, I think saved the world from World War III. SM (01:58:30): Uh- huh [affirmative] DU (01:58:30): But that does not mean that those in command of the forces who could create World War III learned this lesson. I do not think they did. SM (01:58:47): Wow. DU (01:58:48): Which means that some anti-war movement may need to rise again, form the same active probation. Of chief difference now is that there is not booming over these current wars, prospect of another superpower able to challenge America in a way that could bring on World War. That is not apparent at the moment it could be. It could appear, as yet, but it certainly was apparent in Vietnam and the memory of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It instructed you about that every time you gave it a thought. So I believe the antiwar movement saved us from that, and that there was not the recognition of thanks for doing so. That does not get it. It is still a curse to call somebody a hippie. SM (01:59:49): Right. DU (02:00:02): In fact, when Bush started his wars, I was, for a little while allowed to be on the radio, there were people who detected the card of my anti-war, who were just puzzled. Many were furious and calling me a traitor and in a sense calling for a death sentence if you opposed. Some were just puzzled. And then− SM (02:00:30): Okay. DU (02:00:32): And they said, "How can you, you just oppose war? You are against war?" They were puzzle that anybody would think war was a bad idea. SM (02:00:55): Unbelievable. DU (02:00:59): Not only do I think it is bad, I think those who stood up against the Vietnam War save the world from ruin. They should be honored for it, as it is filed and said, those who ordered the war and those who carried it out are honored. And that legacy sets us up for more of the same. SM (02:01:28): It is interesting, it is just like it is a brand-new book. I buy everything on Vietnam that I can read. But in the Vietnam section, if you go to Barnes & Noble right now, and even Borders, there is a brand-new book out on Tet. We would have won Tet, and that is what the book is about. And this is about a guy from Vietnam who was there, and this is how we would have won Tet. I do not want to hear that. And that is again saying, we actually did not lose Tet, but in the eyes of our public, it affected us. And that is a lot of the reason why President Johnson withdrew. But when you learned, when you hear words, oftentimes there were slogans that were said at the time of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, just what did these few slogans or actually words mean to you? And the first one is, we already mentioned, "By any means necessary." What did Malcolm mean by that? DU (02:02:34): That is playing on his face. That is not that ambiguous, I do not think. He was saying that we are not going to accept the status that you have forced upon us. SM (02:02:44): And please speak up. DU (02:02:45): We are not going to accept that it is forced upon us. And whatever is required to alter that, is what we will do. Even if that means we must die in the trying, which he did. SM (02:03:08): How about JFK in his inaugural, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." So supposedly it was inspired by young people, and it was, at the University of Michigan. And then he had a great guy named Sergeant Schreiber, who kind of carried it down with a Peace Corps in one area. But it really inspired a lot of people, even to go into the service. DU (02:03:29): Oh, it did. It did. And it has often been taken in a plea for people to surrender themselves to the suffocating embrace of the state. But that was not what Kennedy meant and that was not how it was taken at the time. Rather, it was a call to set aside your private headache turn for a greater communal turn. Enacted through the machinery of the state, which at the time, was widely believed to me a magnificent and efficient operation that could actually enact higher ideals than individual personal satisfaction. SM (02:04:39): His other one that we all know is, "We will bear any burden, pay any price." And a lot of people believe that set the tone for the Vietnam war. DU (02:04:48): Yep. SM (02:04:49): Do you believe that? Because he was long dead after we had the advisors there, but it was Johnson who brought the troops in. DU (02:04:59): Who knows what Kennedy had signed, or Sorenson who probably wrote it. And that sounds like inaugural bluffery to me. So, Kennedy, he did pay any price, did not he? SM (02:05:30): Yeah, he did. And "Bear any burden, pay any price." Of course, that fall, the DM regime fell just about a month before he was assassinated. So there was a lot going on there. DU (02:05:44): It did not fall, it was [inaudible 02:05:44] SM (02:05:44): Yeah. DU (02:05:45): Right? SM (02:05:45): Yeah. DU (02:05:47): Yeah. SM (02:05:47): I believe the President was shocked though that they were killed. DU (02:05:49): Oh, okay. SM (02:05:51): Yeah. Robert Kennedy's favorite slogan was, "Some men see things as they are and ask why, I see things that never were and ask why not?" That was not his original quote, but he used it. I believe he quoted that in Indianapolis the night that Dr. King was− DU (02:06:08): That is right. SM (02:06:10): That is kind of an activist mentality, isn't it? It is kind of a− DU (02:06:14): Yes it is. Yep. SM (02:06:16): That is pretty inspirational. Would you say that is how see would some of your light? DU (02:06:26): Yes, I suppose. And I do not think those are a mark of his brothers. The way they are now, he talked through the histrionics of a bloated federal− I took them as a plea for a turn toward common rather than individual health values. And exercise to the coordination of state. It sounds quaint now to say that because they have lost a cluster of being in a capable institution. But those things were said by the Kennedys, at a time much closer to the New Deal than we are now to the time when Kennedy said those things. SM (02:07:46): Right. Yep. DU (02:07:52): And the apparent success of the New Deal in raising a whole stratum of the population out of destitution, to some hopeful life, was still very much on people's mind. SM (02:08:08): The one that, obviously you being in the south for a long time, "We shall overcome." Of course, the song is historic and you hear it all the time today. And certainly hear it on Dr. King's birthday. But how does that impact you? DU (02:08:30): It keeps you going when nothing else will. SM (02:08:36): Mm-hmm. DU (02:08:40): It did so during a movement era when you knew that you had some kind of mass and some kind of momentum with you, but also knew that you had stirred up a determined and even deadly persistence. So that song and the sentiment sustains you. And it also sustains you in times when that movement is gone, and you are operating much of the time, almost alone, and in the darkness. And you have to pause and wonder why. SM (02:09:18): Right. DU (02:09:18): And that song and its sentiments help carry on when nothing else will. SM (02:09:27): There was the one that, " Tune in, turn on, drop out," was Timothy Leary. Your thoughts on that? DU (02:09:38): Leary was not my favorite. I never ever was attracted to what he was doing. Diversionary at best, destructive at worse. SM (02:09:57): This− DU (02:09:57): I also thought that the sort of people he appealed to most were folks who had, somewhere in the privileged echelon, who had lots of cushions they could fall back on if they made any big mistakes in life. But others who did not have the cushion to fall back on, if they followed Leary's ways, and made one or two big mistakes, they were probably finished forever. But Leary and his buddy Albert came from an appeal who knew that they had lots of cushions that they could stop and they could bounce back. Most people could not, and they were going to be victims rather than liberated. SM (02:10:55): How about the women's movement and, "All politics is personal"? DU (02:11:07): I do not believe all politics is personal. But some politics are politics. SM (02:11:18): That was the slogan of the National Organization for Women, when they started, how politics was personal. DU (02:11:26): It is in line with a lot of these others we have been talking about. I did not participate in it, as much as the others. I have never called myself a feminist. Some men do. I cannot believe in calling myself a feminist, but I acknowledge that it has greatly altered society. SM (02:11:56): Then there was, on the Peter Max posters that were very popular in the early (19)70s, the hippie mentality. "You do your thing; I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." DU (02:12:11): Yeah. SM (02:12:15): You like that kind of mentality? DU (02:12:19): No. I mean− SM (02:12:20): Yeah. DU (02:12:21): And an activist does not believe that. SM (02:12:25): Right. DU (02:12:27): Activists are always speaking organization, and direction, and purpose. And what that requires, people become loosened from, if not separated, loosened from their familiar ways besides, so that they are willing to think about and do different things of, they won't become so loose unless they adopt some of that hippy attitude. But if they become the stuff of hippies, then they disappear from that active life. SM (02:13:05): How about the− DU (02:13:06): They are no help. SM (02:13:07): This was, there is actually two of them from Jerry Rubin, "Do not trust anyone over 30." And then he changed it to 40. And then, do it, which was the title of his book, Do It. They were kind of the yippie mentality, the yippies. DU (02:13:25): Yeah. SM (02:13:28): Any thoughts on that? DU (02:13:32): Abbie Hoffman spoke once at the State University here in Mobile, and offered to jump off the stage and into the audience and try to punch me out. He was restrained by some of the other professors on the stage who had invited him to speak. Because I had challenged from the audience, during the question period, about exactly these sort of things. The message he and Rubin said lured people away from activism and turned them off rather than turned them on. And in many cases, physically or emotionally wrecked them, affected them into a life of drugs, of the opposite of raising them consciousness activism. And he was more of a digressive than a progressive influence because of that. Ooh− SM (02:14:44): Wow. DU (02:14:46): He was pissed. He wanted to jump off the stage and have it out on the spot with me, he said. And made some motions like he was going to do that, but I think he would probably seized, some of the other jumped up and grabbed him. SM (02:15:02): It is amazing, because of the perceptions I have had from between Abbie and Jerry is Jerry was not a likable person and Abbie was. And Abbie lived a lifetime of activism, but Jerry went off to make money. It is an interesting story. I have interviewed a lot of his friends. Here is one, the last one here is, "One giant step for man, one giant leap for mankind," which is Neil Armstrong. Even though it was up in space, it still has, I think, a meaning to a lot of the (19)60s and (19)70s. Because if we actually accomplished something, we got, a promise was made by a President, and here we are on the moon before the end of the decade. DU (02:15:50): I think I remember being deliberately unimpressed by that. SM (02:15:55): Right? DU (02:15:59): I thought it was literally out of this world, other worldly. And it defected or deflected from rather than helped address things that needed to be addressed in this world. SM (02:16:15): Oh, okay. DU (02:16:15): And I, to the best of my ability, ignored it for those reasons. It was impossible to ignore it entirely. And it was an astonishing thing, but I thought it was irrelevant at best, and damaging at worst. SM (02:16:35): Considering that it was on a stage in Arizona too, was hard to− DU (02:16:38): Yes. SM (02:16:41): Some people tried to say that. DU (02:16:42): Yes. And listen, do not get me wrong about Rubin and Hoffman. And I thought some of the things they did, like making the stock brokers go crazy by tossing dollar bills off the balcony at the stock exchange. SM (02:16:56): Yep. That was Abbie. DU (02:17:00): Yeah, that was wonderful. Some of the stuff they did was. SM (02:17:07): Yeah, and Abbie's friends told me the differences that those two guys had. And they had friction from the get go. And Jerry was not, I cannot− He has passed away. All you have to do is go on the web, and on YouTube, and see every interview of Abbie Hoffman, and then you see the interviews of Jerry Rubin, and you see what a jerk Jerry Rubin is, and what a nice person Abbie is. So, you might have got him on a bad day. But I have only got three more questions here. The generation gap, did you have a generation gap issue with your family and parents? When you went off to college? DU (02:17:55): I do not, it was− Nobody in my family had ever done anything like that before. Neither of my parents were college graduates. SM (02:18:02): And please speak up again. DU (02:18:06): Neither of my parents were college grads. They graduated into the Depression and had to work. I do not know where, it was more than an obsession of mine to go off to get the most deeply teacher education I could, in the most demanding place I could get into or came from, but I had it. That was the generation, there was a gap of interest and ambition between me and the family and my surroundings. It was not generational. It was beyond that. SM (02:19:03): So were your parents against the war in Vietnam? DU (02:19:06): Yes, actually. SM (02:19:07): Okay. DU (02:19:08): Actually, before most any other adults that I knew, but I did not know that until after I had already launched a state of events about that. They were way out in the West. After I went to college, I had no regular connection with my family or this great part of my life. SM (02:19:35): Well you remember there was that Life Magazine that had that young man on the cover with sun and one eye shade, and the other eye shade being the father's pointing fingers at each other. So, there was a strong generation gap between the World War II and the Boomers over a lot of the issues, lifestyle, politics, but− Huh? DU (02:19:59): That did not happen for me, but it was mostly- PART 4 OF 5 ENDS [02:20:04] DU (02:20:03): − for me but it was mostly a function of the distance and separation rather than [inaudible 02:20:14]. SM (02:20:17): You did not see them at Harvard and Columbia with your peers? DU (02:20:24): Yes, I saw it. Yeah, but I did not relate to it. I did not have to deal with that intimately, like many of them did. SM (02:20:42): In a book called the Wounded Generation, there was a symposium in 1980 with some of the top Vietnam veterans from Phil Caputo and Jim Webb, Bobby Muller, a couple other well-known names. In that conversation, one of them mentioned that he felt that the generation gap was− Yes, there was a gap between parents and students, but the real gap was between those who went to war and those who did not within the generation. He was very critical of the generation and for those who say that the (19)60s generation was a generation that served, that is, i.e., went to the Peace Corps, Vista, did all kinds of things, served their nation in a time of war, he said it is anything but a service generation because when you are called to go to war, you go. It is like your parents did in World War II. Did you sense there was a generation gap within the generation between those who went to Vietnam and those who did not? DU (02:21:51): I have an older brother who was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. From the first time I went out there and I was there handing out leaflets against the war [inaudible 02:22:08] 10 years later, being chased down the streets of DC with teargas and mounted police. I was thinking I got to do what I can, as little and as ineffective as it may be, to try to bring this war to an end so my brother can get out of it alive. Even though, he was not [inaudible 02:22:37]. SM (02:22:36): When you had family get togethers, say, in the late (19)60s and (19)70s, after the− Well, after the war was over, did you and your brother have issues with each other? Because he went to war, and you did not. DU (02:22:59): He just would not speak of what happened and what he did there. He would not talk about it. [inaudible 02:23:08] but the Pentagon Papers had a big impact on him. When that book came out, when they appeared in book form, he bought it and read it cover to cover. Even though, he was not the most scholarly man. He was not pleased at what he found there. SM (02:23:40): Wow. DU (02:23:41): [inaudible 02:23:41] and he realized he had been deceived. SM (02:23:48): Wow. DU (02:23:49): He realized that he was lured into what he thought was patriotic duty under false pretenses. He also realized his little brother was right. SM (02:23:59): Wow. Did he ever talk to you personally on that? DU (02:24:03): Only obliquely [inaudible 02:24:07]. SM (02:24:08): Are you close to your brother? DU (02:24:10): Not particularly but [inaudible 02:24:17] our lives have gone on different paths [inaudible 02:24:21]. He just would not talk about his service. [inaudible 02:24:28] you were right after all. Some remark he made. We both knew that was so. SM (02:24:44): Yeah. DU (02:24:47): At some point, [inaudible 02:24:49] save the country and save the world from what I was sure was World War Three [inaudible 02:24:58] but also trying to save him. SM (02:25:03): I mentioned all those movements that evolved from the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement because the women's movement evolved in many respects because a lot of the sexism that took place in those two prior movements and women became− They had important− They did have important roles in the anti-war and civil rights movements but sexism was definitely there, and so the women's movement came about and, of course, the gay and lesbian movement in (19)69 at Stonewall. You had the Earth Day, the environmental movement in 1970, the Chicano movement, Cesar Chavez who worked closely with Bobby Kennedy and then, of course, you had the Native American movement that was going on in its heyday in the late (19)60s and (19)70s. It seemed like they were very strong movements. When there was an anti-war protest, it seemed like they were all there. Now as time goes by, it seems like whenever there is a movement, the movement is like− The women's movement is only women there. There is no anti-war groups. If there is a gay and lesbian protest, it is only them. It seems like they have become so special interest and so− They are not united anymore. At one time, they were united and now they all seem divided in their own little spheres. Am I correct in sensing this? DU (02:26:33): Yeah. I mentioned to you before that in those years, those movements all were− They were kindred. [inaudible 02:26:40] they grew out of and overlapped and nourished each other. If you moved from one of those realms, either in activity or geography, you would run into many of the same people. That is no longer true. You are right. SM (02:27:11): Even the conservative critics of those movements say they have become nothing but special interest. In other words, they only care about them. That is a very strong conservative, neoconservative criticism that all these movements, including civil rights, they are all special interest groups now and they have gone into the universities, as Phyllis Schlafly said, the universities today are run by people who were the protestors of the war. She says radicals have now taken over the universities. DU (02:27:51): I do not see that. I do not have daily contact of the inners of universities but what I do, I do not see that. SM (02:28:01): I think she sees− She saw that the women's studies, gay and lesbian studies, Asian American studies, Native American, African American studies, environmental, they are all run by liberal left people with their own agendas. DU (02:28:19): If you are talking about people with an identity politic outlook, trying to push their little plan forward, academically or otherwise, there is some truth in that but that is not the same as a liberal or a radical movement on campus. SM (02:28:38): Right. DU (02:28:40): Identity politic does not challenge or upset [inaudible 02:28:43] as I can tell. The imperial impulse that exists in the Vietnam War and is still as strong as ever and universities still are given more intellectual and other support to that imperial impulse as they did in the (19)60s and whatever radical counter there is to that is feeble on the campus. [inaudible 02:29:22] poor people's movement that Martin Luther King was trying to launch [inaudible 02:29:34] to the Civil Rights Movement, when he was assassinated [inaudible 02:29:41] as a result and the consequence of that poor people's movement failure are visible around you on the streets every day, of every American city, and universities are not addressing that. [inaudible 02:30:00] left behind by the failure of that movement are not prominent or influential [inaudible 02:30:05] people are talking about [inaudible 02:30:10] of the only thing they mean is some kind of identity politics and attraction in the universities, these people like Phyllis Schlafly do not like because they want to maintain a myth of the old unitary American identity and for that reason, they do not like it but other than that− SM (02:30:39): Would you agree, though− Again, you refer to this in the community as opposed to on the university campuses but I have been on university campuses for 30 years, and what happened with a professor being fired− I mention because he was involved in a protest or a speaker not being allowed to come to a college campus in the (19)60s for fear that money would not be given to the university because of a political point of view, that it has gotten to the other− It is really extreme today that because monies are tight on university campuses and the fact is that it is all about scholarships, it is all about fundraising, that they got to be very careful about who they invite to a university campus and if there is somebody that is controversial, it could threaten the bottom line and so they are really into that. The whole idea that Mario Savio talked about, about the world of ideas, which is what the university is about, is really today still about the bottom line and ideas play a secondary role. DU (02:31:56): Yeah. SM (02:31:56): Do you agree with that? DU (02:31:57): Yes. Yes. A few years ago, I was with all these people who had gone to bring a Palestinian speaker to the city and to campus venues. Among those promoting this were some Jewish groups advocating on behalf of Palestinian rights and [inaudible 02:32:28] moderate and polite way and that caused [inaudible 02:32:34] and on the state university campus here for exactly the reason you just said. SM (02:32:38): Yeah, it is interesting. DU (02:32:41): [inaudible 02:32:41] they might withhold who did not like any [inaudible 02:32:50] presentation [inaudible 02:32:56] be known that if this happened, financial consequences would follow. SM (02:33:03): Yeah. That is interesting. We did a conference my last semester that I organized with a couple of faculty members and students called Islam In America. We were packed every session, the whole theater was packed for 10 straight sessions from morning until about 10 o'clock, 10:30 at night, and I never saw so much criticism in my life of a successful event and it was all about educating about what it means to be in the religion of Islam. It had nothing to do with being anti-Israel. Oh my God. Everybody on the committee was looked at, studied, ridiculed, all the speakers, all the panelists were all ridiculed. I mean, people that I worked with− That is one of the reasons that I love the university. People I worked with who had never came to things, they were all in the audience and they were just there to try and see if anything negative happened. Nothing negative happened except people were upset that− They thought that we were promoting as opposed to educating. I only got two more and then we are done, because I know you have gone over, and I really appreciate it. Could you list some of the heavyweights in the lives of Boomers over the past 64 years? List the people who stood out− Actually, in your view, people that stood out in the following areas since 1946 that you feel had an influence on the Boomer generation. The first category is TV/radio personalities. DU (02:34:43): TV/radio personalities? SM (02:34:45): Yes. It could be news men, it could be talk show hosts, it could be anything. DU (02:34:57): Edward R. Murrow. SM (02:34:59): Okay. DU (02:35:00): Are you asking about people who have influenced me or who I think have influenced [inaudible 02:35:08]. SM (02:35:08): Yeah. People that you think − When you look at the last, what is now 64 years since Boomers were born, because they are now reaching 64 this year, people that you feel, you personally, who has lived the same time that they have lived, and you are not very much older, I mean, you are a year or two older, so you are really one of them and I have learned that, that people from (19)40 on, to me, are really Boomers in their mentality, in the way they live their lives, and everything. You know, TV personalities that you felt were major in their lives. You have said Edward R. Murrow. DU (02:35:50): Yeah. Yeah. SM (02:35:51): Anybody else? DU (02:35:54): I do not know. I never paid much attention to TV. SM (02:35:59): Okay. How about writers? DU (02:36:03): I mentioned [inaudible 02:36:06]. I was an early devote of Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings. A buddy in college [inaudible 02:36:21] and as a fable of perseverance in the face of difficulties, even [inaudible 02:36:41]. SM (02:36:52): Who's the person? DU (02:36:55): Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings. SM (02:36:57): Oh, the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien. Oh, yeah. Big time. Big time. Any others before we go− The next section is politicians. DU (02:37:07): Yeah. Lately, I have been reading and rereading Given. SM (02:37:16): Edward Given? DU (02:37:17): The Decline and the Fall of the Roman− SM (02:37:18): Yeah. We had to read that when I was a history major. DU (02:37:22): Yeah. It seemed pertinent. SM (02:37:31): How about politicians? There were a lot of them. DU (02:37:31): Politicians? I worked for Senator Frank Church of Idaho. SM (02:37:45): You are lucky. He was a great person. DU (02:37:47): Yeah. I mean, I knew him− When I was a cheeky teen, I just walked into his office, in the federal building in Boise one day when I knew he was there, and the Congress was in session. I introduced myself. I said, "You are my senator. I want to get to know you." He was sitting there by himself. He invited me home and I went and had dinner with him. SM (02:38:16): Oh my gosh. What an experience. DU (02:38:16): Yeah. You could do that in a small town like that. I kept up with him after that and I worked in his Washington office. [inaudible 02:38:30] one summer. I was working in Senator Church's office. SM (02:38:37): Oh, wow. DU (02:38:38): Did that for two summers. SM (02:38:43): Wow. He is historic because of the Church committee and, of course, his son Forrest passed away this past year. I interviewed him for the book. DU (02:38:54): Well, I knew Forrest also. Forrest was around the office the summers I was working. [inaudible 02:39:06] senator's wife and, of course, mother. She is still alive. [inaudible 02:39:16]. I was very impressed with Church in a rock star kind of way because he was young and a flashy senator and he hung out with the Kennedys and all that when I was an impressionable age, and I claimed [inaudible 02:39:40] but when I got to know him more politically, [inaudible 02:39:47] I was even more impressed with the caliber− SM (02:39:58): Yeah. He is in that− DU (02:39:59): [inaudible 02:39:59] Wayne Morris and a few others [inaudible 02:40:03]. SM (02:40:02): Yeah. [Ernest] Gruening. Yeah. Wow. DU (02:40:08): Morris, Gruening, Church, they were [inaudible 02:40:10] and when he ran for president in (19)76, I spent the summer volunteer working on his campaign. SM (02:40:19): Wow. DU (02:40:19): In the DC office [inaudible 02:40:21] Rhode Island and Ohio. SM (02:40:28): Yeah. What an experience, because I consider him a statesman. You know? Nelson was another one from that period who went against the war and, of course, Senator Church and Senator Nelson and Senator McGovern and Senator McCarthy were all ousted in 1980, also Birch Bayh in the anti-war, being against people who were in the anti-war likes. It is amazing. Anybody in the civil rights, women's movement, environmental movement stand out in your opinion? That you feel were very influential. DU (02:41:10): Well, because of what Martin Luther King did, the direction of my life changed, I would not be talking to you from Alabama− Civil rights came out of Alabama. SM (02:41:24): Right. I have got to get down there some time to see where the Montgomery bus boycott took place. How about any of the TV shows that you think were impactful? You said you did not watch TV very much. DU (02:41:44): Hardly. SM (02:41:46): How about newspaper journalists? DU (02:41:54): I loved Russell Baker. SM (02:41:56): Okay. DU (02:41:58): [inaudible 02:41:58] New York Times, because he was irreverent and offbeat and quietly radical. SM (02:42:18): Any magazines that stand out? DU (02:42:19): Not particularly, and I have written a few things for the Nation, so I guess I should say them. SM (02:42:31): How about the activists that you really looked up to? DU (02:42:42): [inaudible 02:42:42]. It was mostly the folks out in the trenches. SM (02:42:53): Not so much the big names. DU (02:42:56): Almost anonymous [inaudible 02:43:00] be there when you needed somebody there. SM (02:43:06): Right. Any scholars? DU (02:43:25): I paid attention to what [inaudible 02:43:27]. SM (02:43:28): Who? DU (02:43:30): [inaudible 02:43:30]. SM (02:43:31): Okay. I interviewed him for my book. I do not know if anybody in the veteran community you were linked to in any way but any veterans you admired? DU (02:43:53): [inaudible 02:43:53] Veterans for Peace− I consider myself a veteran of the Vietnam War, even though, I was never military. [inaudible 02:44:10] have a military− SM (02:44:15): You have a what? DU (02:44:15): [inaudible 02:44:15] military dog tag [inaudible 02:44:17] be a veteran. SM (02:44:19): Right. Yeah. DU (02:44:23): Some of those organizations, I admire. SM (02:44:29): You believe that those that were involved in the anti-war movement, like those who served in Vietnam were part of the Vietnam− They are Vietnam vets? DU (02:44:40): Yes. SM (02:44:42): My last question here is when the best history books are written, they are often written 50 years after an event or a period. You know, a couple years back, the best books on World War II were being written 50 years after the war. My question is basically when the last Boomer has passed away, many years from now, and there is no one around that will have experienced what it was like to live when we lived, what do you think historians, sociologists, writers are going to say about the generation that grew up after World War II or around World War II and the influence they had on America? DU (02:45:29): Well, the [inaudible 02:45:31] book. SM (02:45:35): Pardon? That would be nice. DU (02:45:36): Yeah. [inaudible 02:45:38] book and then you will know. SM (02:45:41): Yeah, because what is interesting, David, is that I want people to know the people for who they are, what they stand for, and to respect them all, because how one is raised, reared, and their life experiences are different. To understand the time, I truly believe that oral history right now is the best way to do it and so I got a long way to go but I am doing this because I have a drive within me t− DU (02:46:15): I can tell. SM (02:46:16): Yeah. It is like my work at the university. I did over 450 programs at Westchester University. I know a lot of people and those programs are not happening anymore. They are not doing any lectures, forums, debates and seminars. I am getting students emailing me saying the university is not the same anymore and it is because the finances are tough and all they want to do is party and program. There is some good quality things that faculty are doing but I did not go into higher education to just simply retire and not do anything more. My whole life is devoted to students and will continue to be so. Are there any questions that you expected me to ask you that I did not ask? DU (02:47:13): Well, I tried not to think about what you might ask me, because I did not want to have canned answers. I wanted [inaudible 02:47:25] the first thing that occurred to me. I did not have any expectations about what you might ask [inaudible 02:47:39] conversations are what I supposed it would be, but I had not formulated anything specific. SM (02:47:49): One thing is I do not know if you have a couple pictures of yourself, but I am going to need a couple pictures. I do not know if you have any recent pictures or even pictures, somebody is sending me a picture from− Caroline Cassidy is going to send me a picture of her when she was− 1970. Then a picture of her. She lives way up in Oregon, and I cannot get to Oregon. I have gone and interviewed everybody in person who lived in New York, Washington, Baltimore, I have gone up to Boston three times, going up to San Francisco, in a couple weeks just to take pictures of 14 people that I interviewed. I am not spending any time with them because I have already interviewed them but trying to coordinate that. I am going on vacation, and I am going to do it all in two days, drive around San Francisco, going from place to place, taking pictures of all these people. I have two interviews out there too. I am going to need your pictures. I am going to keep you updated because I am going to be hibernating at the end of October. My interviews end at the end of October. I have one in November and that is it. I am not doing anymore. DU (02:49:04): You want before and after pictures? SM (02:49:06): It can be before and after. It can be two pictures. It can be a current one. Whichever. You can mail it to me through the mail or on the computer. I prefer the mail because somebody sent me a computer picture from California that was terrible. I am taking a picture of him in person. Whatever. There is no rush, but I just wanted to let you know. DU (02:49:28): What is the mailing address? SM (02:49:31): My mailing address is 3323 Valley, V-A-L-L-E-Y, Drive in West Chester, and that is two words, Pennsylvania, 19382. You have my name. DU (02:49:49): 19382? SM (02:49:52): Yeah. I will keep you updated. Between November 1st and probably June, I will be transcribing them all myself. Someone says, "You have got a lot of work to do." I said, "Yup. I got the equipment here." I have already done 12. It is not that bad. I have been advised not to let anybody else do them, because I have got two authors that had nothing but problems when they were transcribed by others. When I am transcribing them, it brings back all the memories. They are going to be divided into seven sections with the pictures and then what I call magic moments, that will be under each interview that I pick as magic moments. There were several that you gave me today that were unbelievable. Then the rest of it will be the interview and you will eventually see the transcript and so the next seven months, I am going to be transcribing. I have one university press that wants to do it, but I have not tried to go after any other presses, so I have made no commitments. DU (02:50:57): You got one for sure? SM (02:51:01): Yeah. One for sure, without even−I did not even send them a proposal. I talked to them at a conference. I was at a higher ed conference this summer. They knew that all the people that I had interviewed and, anyways, long story. I have not approached any major book companies and I am going to send 12 transcripts, my introduction, and then go from there. DU (02:51:35): Okay. [inaudible 02:51:38] picture from me. [inaudible 02:51:48]. SM (02:51:49): Yeah. You can mail them to me− I want to get most of them before the holidays, because I want to be able to get the pictures and, so if you can think of trying to get those two to me before Christmas, that would be great. DU (02:52:05): Yeah. [inaudible 02:52:06] wrote to myself with your address. [inaudible 02:52:11]. If you do not get the pictures [inaudible 02:52:16]. SM (02:52:16): Yeah. I will. DU (02:52:16): [inaudible 02:52:16]. Okay? SM (02:52:16): Yeah. DU (02:52:17): You have my permission [inaudible 02:52:18]. SM (02:52:17): Okay. DU (02:52:18): If you come across any [inaudible 02:52:18] transcript and you want to [inaudible 02:52:33]. SM (02:52:35): Will do. DU (02:52:35): Okay? SM (02:52:36): Yup. I am going to contact that person too that you mentioned and if there is any other people that you feel would be good people to interview, let me know. DU (02:52:45): Great. SM (02:52:47): David, you have a great day. (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>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with David Underhill Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Underhill, David ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Journalists; Authors, American--20th century; Political activists--United States; Underhill, David--Interviews Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;David Underhill is a journalist, writer and activist. Underhill grew up mainly in the western United States, and was schooled mainly in eastern US. As a student at Harvard, he wrote for the Harvard Crimson. Underhill moved to Mobile, Alabama as a reporter for the Southern Courier, a newspaper founded in 1965, to cover civil rights news in the Deep South. He has held numerous positions including working on organizing and activist campaigns. Underhill has written about these events for various local and national, print and internet, publications. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7043,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,6710886],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">David Underhill is a journalist, writer, and activist. Underhill grew up mainly in the western United States and was schooled mainly in the eastern US. As a student at Harvard, he wrote for the <em>Harvard Crimson</em>. Underhill moved to Mobile, Alabama as a reporter for the <em>Southern Courier</em>, a newspaper founded in 1965, to cover civil rights news in the Deep South. He has held numerous positions including working on organizing and activist campaigns. Underhill has written about these events for various local and national, print and internet, publications. </span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-09-27 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.163a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.163b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 172:51 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/570210515a5dbbff1849665079a019c2.jpg ba3ae7be0d22a3c18f064646b5313221 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/f2d643a7eaeb9ace249ed52777f49cf4.mp3 ca2fac9da842b2308b8d7349d3bedde9 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 2009-11-06 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed David Harris Language English Biographical Text <span>David Victor Harris is a journalist, author, and activist. He was a leading opponent of the draft during the Vietnam War, which began during his college days at Stanford University. As a young college student, he became involved in the Civil Rights Movement where he joined students from all over the country in the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) 1964 voter registration campaign in Mississippi. In 1966, he became president of the Stanford University student body, and as a leading critic of the draft, he formed a group called the Resistance. Harris was </span><span>the first person arrested for refusing to register for the draft in </span><span>1968. In his later years, Harris has received journalistic praise for his non-fiction books on his experiences in the sixties and seventies along with other books connected to personalities or issues in those times.<br /><br />Harris died from lung cancer at his home in Mill Valley on February 6, 2023, at the age of 76.<br /></span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 86:58 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Role models; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Cold War; Nuclear warfare; Saigon; Army reserve; Mason-Dixon line; Civil War; Slavery; Women's Rights Movement.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Role models; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Cold War; Nuclear warfare; Saigon; Army reserve; Mason-Dixon line; Civil War; Slavery; Women's Rights Movement.</span> Subject LCSH Journalists; Authors; Political activists--United States; Harris, David, 1946--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: David Victor Harris Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 6 November 2009 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Good. Are you ready to go? DH (00:00:07): I am ready. SM (00:00:10): Okay. When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? DH (00:00:18): Well, it is too much territory to really have a specific thing that comes to my mind, but being out there on the edge, as far as the feeling, I guess. SM (00:00:37): Is there a specific event when you were young, because you are the front edge of the boomer generation, as they define it, from 1946 to (19)64? DH (00:00:47): Pretty close to the first. SM (00:00:50): Yeah. And actually, I think some people are eligible for social security this year. DH (00:00:56): I was born in February of (19)46. So right there at the start of the curve. SM (00:01:03): What was it in your particular life, at what point in your life did you know that you had to speak up about something, whether it be in high school? Because a lot of people never had the courage to speak up, and they always followed authority, but was there one specific incident, the first time that you knew you had to speak up about an issue? DH (00:01:26): Oh, I suppose when I attended a public meeting during the fall of my freshman year at Standford, where they were recruiting volunteers to go down to Mississippi and help the-the Mississippi Project, fall of (19)63. At that point, I heard a call. I did not go to Mississippi right at that moment, but within a year I was in Mississippi. SM (00:01:55): Yeah. Talk a little bit about that experience in the South, and being around those other young people who had the same caring attitude that you had. Did you feel that they were a rare breed within the boomer generation? DH (00:02:12): Well, certainly. I mean, at the time, Mississippi was an extraordinarily influential moment for the entire generation, and certainly for me. I think you are absolutely right when you describe it as a caring response. There really was not an ideology at that point. People were there because they thought Black people had the right to vote without being lynched. I mean, it was as simple as that. It was really a value based proposition, far more than it was a politics based proposition. And I felt like, when I went to Mississippi, that I was participating in the great adventure of our time, and I did not want to miss it. SM (00:03:07): When you were young also, who would you consider to be your, this might be an overused term, role models or people that inspired you? But most importantly, someone who may have been older, who believed in you? DH (00:03:22): It is a different category. As a political figure, given when I started out in the Mississippi Project, the man was Bob [inaudible]. And to this day, I still have enormous respect for that. And he was slightly older than me, but I had no contact with him. I would follow fish to the circles that he read from afar. I thought he was enormously captivating, and a lot of what I first learned about organizing, just came from listening to him. And so, I would list him as a big influence. The older people who had faith in me, from my experience, were teachers. I had three teachers that I would put in that category. One, who I [inaudible] from in high school, one from my freshman year at Stanford, and one from my sophomore year on. Those were the big persons that supplied me not only with the intellect stuff, but... SM (00:04:57): You want to list those names, just for the record? DH (00:04:59): Sure. Well, in high school was a man named Alan Amond, who taught the honors humanities program and world history at Fresno High School, which was a three-year-high school. And I took his world history course my first year at high school, and I was in his honors humanity class [inaudible] and it was one of these five... English and history. It was a big deal at Fresno. And Amond was a guy who had been, during the great Red Scare, had inspectors from school board sitting in classrooms, monitoring what he said [inaudible], and that is what he was, Quaker. But in any case, he rooted all things in me. And then my freshman year at Stanford, a man named Richard Grafton, was instructor in our [inaudible] history of Western civilization, freshman fourth. And he was also the faculty president of [inaudible] and he has been a lifelong friend. And yeah, really hope he makes the transition to president. SM (00:06:30): And the third? DH (00:06:32): Pardon? SM (00:06:33): Was there a third? DH (00:06:33): A guy named Charles Breckmyer. SM (00:06:35): Okay. DH (00:06:35): He was in the poly-sci department at Stanford, and ran the special honors program in social processes. SM (00:06:39): Very good. DH (00:06:39): I studied with him the last years at Stanford. SM (00:06:51): You have seen this over the years, particularly in the 90s, Newt Gingrich would oftentimes, especially when the Republicans came into power in (19)94, Newt had a lot of comments about the (19)60s generation and the boomers. And George Willis, whenever he gets a chance, he gets a shot at writing about him as well, and really cutting him in many different ways, in a negative way. What are your thoughts on critics of the boomer generation, who say that all the problems that are currently happening in our society today, with the breakdown of the American family, the differences between people of color, the confrontational victim type mentality, be blaming this generation for all of the excesses, the drugs? And just your thoughts on this criticism. DH (00:07:45): Well I mean, I think they are way off the mark. I think quite the contrary. As far as I am concerned, saved the country from itself, at a time when it desperately needs. America has become a far better fight by virtue of our country. The problem here, was not our country. My question to a lot of these guys is what are you so goddamn upset about? What exactly is it that make you describe us as a syndrome? And I think the fact of the matter is, is that we exposed the way of doing business in the United States that contradicted everything the United States is supposed to stand for. And that they do not think that citizens ought to have the power to do that, and we did it. And come on, we are the ones that put the end to desegregation. And we stopped a war in which more than two million people were killed for no good reason. And none of these critics of us, have come up with a good reason for having done all that stuff. Not yet. Not after all these years, they have not come up with something. We stood up in the face of power when somebody had to do that, because we were engaging in wholesale madness, and that was immoral. For my generation, you have to remember, the formative intellectual experience was the Holocaust and the aftermath of the West judgment of Nazi Germany, and the Nuremberg prescient. And the intellectual issue when I was a freshman in Stanford, was framed by Hannah Arendt. SM (00:09:34): Oh, yes. DH (00:09:34): A philosopher who wrote a book called Eichmann in Jerusalem, which was supposedly an account of the trial of Adolf Eichmann after, and hiding in Argentina, and whisked away by the Israelis [inaudible] And the basic question that grabbed all of us in all that, was not, "What do you do about the Germans?" That they were clearly evil and had to be addressed to set. The issue was, "What do you do if you are a German?" And I think my generation spent a lifetime trying to answer that question. And I think that a number of us answered the bell when somebody in the country had to do so. And so obviously, I think the critics [inaudible] which continued to do so. And I would remind you, that these were largely guys who got through this entire period of history without having to pay any price. Say what you will about my position, I did not hide behind anything. I ended up in... Spent most of 20 months in prison in a maximum security institution. Four months in isolation cell. I paid my price, and I know my veteran friends paid their price. And where was Newt Gingrich's price in all this? How did he escape that, and how can he stand back now and call on us to endorse more innocent killing? Come on. By all the basic rules of the (19)60s, he passed, or failed to pass the debt. He did not stand up for what he supposedly was for. Fine, you like the war? Go fight it. They all had that option, and none of them took it. And so for me, a lot of that is just bullshit. SM (00:11:55): David, you raised a great point, because you paid a price. And if you remember, Dr. King would always say, when he was alive, that, "There is a price one has to pay for your beliefs." And he paid it by going to jail and everything. And a lot of people that had his side, he would say that, "Well, you may go to jail for this. You may have to stand up for what you believe in, and then pay a price." Do you feel that the boomer generation understood that there is a price one has to pay for standing up, and maybe this is why so few did in their adulthood? Your thoughts on some of your peers who may have, when they were young, stood up, but have not stood up since? And then the majority that may have never stood up. DH (00:12:47): Well, I think what to say about the generation, is that we were all, at the very least, witnesses to people paying prices. It is impossible to go through that historical experience without having encountered that information. There was just too much was being played out in too many places. And I am not in a business to make judgment about people's responses during the (19)60s, but I set out to be in a position so that when I got to 63 years old, I can look back on it and feel good about what I did, and I do. And I did something, and that shaped me for the rest of my life, and I am good with that. I am glad. But I do think the lesson we ought to have learned in all this, is that democracy goes no further than the citizenry will take it. And you believe in something, you have to act on it. [inaudible] is what you do. So either Andy up, or you are not a player, as far as I am concerned. I think that failure, on the part of America, to maintain that kind of intensity about their democracy, is one of the reasons we have got the load of band that we have got. SM (00:14:28): Is there one specific event that you think may have had the greatest impact on this boomer generation? DH (00:14:34): I think the most seminal and formative, was the assassination of John Kennedy. That turned the world on... For me, that is the day that [inaudible] SM (00:15:01): Do you feel that... When did the (19)60s begin, and when did it end? DH (00:15:06): Well, it ended, as far as I am concerned, there are two possible end dates. One is 1973 [inaudible] and one is 1975, when [inaudible] was evacuated, and Saigon fell for inmates. In the beginning, I think... I would begin the (19)60s maybe with the emulation of Buddhist Monk in Saigon, somewhere in [inaudible] kind of the Jeremiah, or teller of things to come. Unbelievable event coming from a place nobody imagined much about, would tell us all what was coming. SM (00:16:16): What was it about the 1950s? Because a lot of times, when we look at the boomer generation, we concentrate on the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and when they were in high school and college, and early adulthood and their twenties. What about those (19)50s? What role did that did? What was happening in the world at that time, shaped their lives? Because when you look at the... And I am only about a year younger than you are, and when I look at the (19)50s, I know we went through the fear of a nuclear attack all the time, and we heard all about the Cold War and the nuclear bomb destroying us all in one shot. But as children, we grew up watching Howdy Doody, Hop Along Cassidy, all the Westerns. We learned that Native Americans were always the bad guy. Mickey Mouse Club. It seemed like there was a lot of happiness going on in America, and whether it was hiding the bad things, we all knew what was going on in the South, what was going on with African Americans. And the civil rights movement was happening at that time. But what about the (19)50s, and its shaping of the psyche of this group of young people, that as they went into the (19)60s, everything changed? DH (00:17:34): Well, I was born two aspects of the (19)50s. And one is, I do not know that I would describe it as a lot of happiness going all around. There was a lot of formulaic living going on. I mean, remember, this is... America in 1956, the country with no options. So if you were a young man growing up in Fresno, California, who I was, who had a choice in John Wayne or John Wayne or John Wayne. It was a remarkably singular culture. And so part of the [inaudible] exploded out of my generation, was just the desire for options, that we had to go out and make ourselves. There was not just one way to live, and that there were lots of ways to live. Some people had lived thousands of different ways. And to continue to participate in a culture which assumed that there was only one way to live, was an enormous mistake. And I think that was the breakout. And there was that inner hook for a long time. People wanted something more. And I think the second thing, was the degree to which our generation believed in the (19)50s. My experience was, most people I was in the movement with, were people who got A's in high school. These were not people who did not buy in. These were people who bought in enormously. We believed that America would never go halfway around the world, to kill people to no good reason. No. I mean, that was an article of faith. I grew up watching people [inaudible] on television. My father was off in the army reserve the entire time I was a child, and my brother was a captain in the second air force, so I bought in. When I was in the fourth grade, I wanted to go to West Point. When I was in the eighth grade, I wanted to be an FBI agent. And I think my experience proved the entire generation. And it was the process of discovering that the bill of goods you had been sold, was a bill of good. We had been told, and believed, and placed our faith in an America that did not exist. I mean, for me, then I crossed the Mason Dixon line on my way to Mississippi, and saw my first black entrance and white entrance, and all that rigmarole certification. It was just, I mean, instantly clear to me that I had been fucking lied to. And I was somebody in my generation who had more contact with black people than almost all my peers, because my father had coached a little league baseball team on the black side of Fresno. Black Fresno, just anywhere West of that. And my father coached a team over there, and I went over for the baseball. And one of three whites. So I at least had a working relationship with black peers, though limited, but far more extensive than by other people [inaudible]- SM (00:21:16): Do you feel... Yes. Again, I am only a year younger than you, and I can remember when my dad won a trip to Florida. We went three straight years in (19)57, (19)58, (19)59, in April. Took two weeks off in school. And I remember, I lived up in the Ithaca Cortland area, and we all had nice homes, nice streets and everything. Then as we drove farther and farther South, we drove on these two-lane highways, that the roads that were... I saw all the poverty. I saw a different America, and it was kind of shocking to me. It was shocking. And so I am talking about, we were given a bill of goods. Do you think that many of these boomers had this false sense of security? And then when they got into the (19)60s, the reality of what America truly is, really hit them in the face, and that is why they wanted to make it better? DH (00:22:11): I think everybody that went through the (19)60s, had eye-opening experiences. I mean, of all different sorts, but they all amounted to seeing an angle on life, and on America, that we had never imagined growing up. SM (00:22:33): What if you were to list some of the strengths and weaknesses of the generation, some characteristics and qualities that you admire and maybe do not admire, what would they be? DH (00:22:43): Oh, well I think that we possessed courage and openness. SM (00:22:55): And David, could you speak up just a little bit too? Thanks. DH (00:23:06): I think on the list, on the plus list, I would put courage and openness, altruism, imagination, sincerity, curiosity. Negative list, I would put... Well, one of the things I would put, would be narcissism as an episodic piece. I think [inaudible] people got enamored. SM (00:24:21): Yeah. A lot of the boomers felt that they were the most unique generation in American history. I am sure you have heard this before. Some of my peers who were boomers, still feel they are. Your thoughts on just an attitude that many of the young people back in the (19)60s and (19)70s had, that they were the most unique, because they were going to change the world and make it better. No other generation ever did. And then some attitudes as they have grown older. DH (00:24:48): Well, I do not recall at the time, being caught up in making historical judgments about the generation. To me, that was part of overlay. SM (00:25:07): How important were the boomers in all the movements? We are going to get in a little bit more about the anti-war movement, and of course the civil rights movement was really happening as boomers were becoming in their late teens and twenties. But how important were the boomers in all of these movements, as it really came to fruition in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, and have been ongoing today? And I say not... We are talking about the women's movement, the environmental movement and the Native American, Chicano, gay and lesbian movements. Just your thoughts on the issue of movements, and how important this generation was in their creation. DH (00:25:48): Well, I think it is one of our signatures. SM (00:25:56): Want to go into any detail? DH (00:25:57): Well, we were all tested by the notion of organizing. And organizing was one of the things people did in 1960, out of those that organized. But to me, the word boomer, is one of the things that defined the 1960s. For the entire time, I was part of [inaudible] state of political opposition, that at the beginning, had entered the civil rights. And full wide crane of uprising. So yeah, I think that... I suppose, if I try to look to how that inherited, the thirties were, of course, a big movement time as well. And that was our current generation. SM (00:27:20): There was obviously a very big generation gap going on at the time between boomers and their parents, the World War II generation. Your thoughts on the impact that the boomer generation has had on their kids, and their grandkids. And we are now dealing with two generations beyond the boomers. We had the generation Xers, that seemed to really have a problem with boomers, in many ways. I worked on university campuses, and we actually had programs where we brought them together. And then the millennials, which are currently today's students, seem to be very close to their parents, and there does not seem to be any generation gap at all. Just your thoughts on the generation gap at that time, and the impact that boomers have had on the lives of their kids and grandkids, if any. DH (00:28:09): Well, certainly I pulled things on my parents, as I was going to. And there was a generation gap on some level. It was a transition between worlds. So I felt bad. I did not feel it in much of a personal sense, although my father begged me not to do what I was going to do about that. [inaudible] taking on the government was easy, the hard part was telling your parents. SM (00:29:02): How about the influence that, what have boomers done with their kids? I am basically leaning toward the issue of activism, and whether they are... DH (00:29:12): Well, I have kids. One, who is currently 40, and one is currently 26 [inaudible] And while both of them have good politics that they care about [inaudible] neither of them became political organizers. Son is 40, my daughter is 26. SM (00:29:36): David, could you speak up just a little bit too, so I can catch? Okay. DH (00:29:54): Anyway, both my kids got good politics, but they did not become organizers and had no interest in it. And in fact, my daughter kind chose not to, kind of feeling it out for a while. SM (00:30:14): What do you think would be the lasting legacy of the boomers? They are now starting to reach senior citizen status, and so they got a lot of years left to have an impact on America. But what do you think history books will say about that era and that time, and that generation? DH (00:30:33): Well, I can only say what I think they ought to say, which is, I think they ought to give us credit for significant things. Not all of the same. First, is the end of segregation. For our generation, it was an enormous accomplishment that [inaudible]- SM (00:31:06): David, you are being cut off. DH (00:31:08): And has meant, I think more, to the shape of modern America than almost anything else. Second, I think that we opened up the university in ways that it was not before. Are now far and more open and original and imaginative way they approach learning, than they ever were at our time. And I think that was largely because of criticism that those... That era brought challenges to it. Third thing, I think that we gave America options. Certainly, if you look around us today, there are 400 television channels. They were all upstairs on my TV. Where we had basically three television options, they were now enormous. And we introduced the notion of spirituality, the notion of insight, of enlightenment, of a different kind of cultural approach that was responsible for making the lives of everyday Americans far more rich, fulfilling than they ever would have been otherwise. Fourth thing we did is, at a moment of the greatest challenge, the ethos of our democracy and one of the greatest abuses of power ever conducted by an American government, namely the Vietnam War, and something that stands out in our history as an obvious war crime, again, that, we stood up and stopped. Three enormous assumptions. And in so doing, changed the relationship between government and citizenry forever. Hey, that is a lot. That is a hell of a lot. And most of that was done before we were 30 years old. So there is something special about that, our particular relationship. But it was a generational thing, and that was not our choice. That was the society, defined by the fact that the only people who were ever asked, who were ever forced to pay a price for that war that demolished out generation, were all under 26. They were not going into anybody else's neighborhood, grabbing people and cocooning them into the military. I think that is a defining experience for the entire time. SM (00:34:29): That is interesting, David. I like your thoughts on this. When people of my age and your age talk about the Vietnam War in a college environment, with the current administrators or current students, it is as if... All we are trying to do, is we are nostalgic and we can never forget the times have changed, and let us move on, kind of an attitude. And what is interesting is, a lot of the people that run today's universities, are boomers who may have not been activists in their time, but they know what happened in those times and may fear the rise of activism again, on university campuses. I have experienced this at all the universities I have worked at. Move on. That was part of history, but it was not now. But just your thoughts on that kind of an attitude that seems to be prevalent in America today, that when they criticize- DH (00:35:27): The [inaudible] is that... The implicit assumption there, is that somehow caring about the lives lived by your fellow human being, involving yourself, trying to minimize suffering, somehow a commodity that limited a certain period of history. Come on. These are what the culture called eternal truth, when we were practicing them. And I think... I am sure nobody is trying to make the (19)60s happen all over again. Good God, no. I had enough of the (19)60s when I was in the (19)60s. The real point is, how to take those values that motivated us then, that motivated people for hundreds of thousands of years of history, and how to take those and act them out in ways that address the dilemmas facing us as a people, and a civilization. God. What we need to have happen now, is addressing a far different kind of phenomenon. We are about to lose the planet. Civilization is about to flop, and somebody has to be able to step out and start making a sacrifice. It will be required for this to survive in anything we recognize today, as meaningful. All of it is talked over the horizon, but there are serious scientists who are saying things like, by the end of this century, the Earth's population will have been reduced from 9 billion to 1 billion, as a function of climate. Well, I do not know whether that is accurate or not. Maybe he only got it half right, but that is still... I mean, try and visualize half the people in your neighborhood are not alive anymore. That is catastrophic. SM (00:37:32): Wow. DH (00:37:33): And we are staring down the barrel of that, and paying no attention to it at all. The enemy here, is denial. SM (00:37:42): Yeah. It is interesting, because when you bring that up, and when people talk about Al Gore now, they talk about all the money he is making. I read about it. Oh, he is flying an airplane. He is not living his principles. They find any way they possibly can, to destroy an individual who may be trying to put his name out there to try to save the universe, or for a cause. They always try to find the Achilles tendon and the person who is making a plea, or being different than others in their thinking. DH (00:38:14): And I think it is also a function of a larger thing. Whatever political, whatever [inaudible] And that happened left, right, and sideways. SM (00:38:37): Right. This next question I want to ask, really deals with the issue of healing within the nation. Jan Scruggs, who was the founder of the Vietnam Memorial, wrote a book on, to heal a nation. That was the title of his book, When the Wall was Built. I am going to read this question to make sure I get it all correct, so that you hear it. Do you feel boomers are still having a problem from healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth? Division between black and white, divisions between those who support authority and those who do not, division between those who supported the tropes and those who did not. You hear that all the time today. Of course, what roles the wall played in... And I know it has played a lot with veterans, but I am not sure if it was done much for the rest of the nation. And do you feel that the boomer generation will go to their grave, like many in the civil war generation, not truly healing from these divisions? Am I wrong in thinking this? Or has 40 years made the statement, time heals all wounds, the truth? DH (00:39:46): No, I think there is all kinds of outstanding accounts in this war that we have managed to sweep under the rug, by labeling it as a mistake. Mistake is a genius way to talk about it, because it can be a mistake, because it violated [inaudible] precedent, or it can be a mistake [inaudible] when we had the chance. It covers everything, and allows us to kind of fluff it off without ever taking moral responsibility for what happened, and about ever going through the exercise of trying talk to each other about what exactly did happen. And so I think there is lots of stuff out there. We let ourselves off, and not digest the experience. So there has never been a format for us to talk about it, except these kind shots fired off from the right wing every now and then, about the syndrome. There is no serious discussion about the war and what communications of it were. And so that means all the divisions are still out there. SM (00:41:21): I can remember, during Reagan's presidency, his whole effort was to bring America back to what it used to be. And then when George Bush Sr. became president, he was the one that proclaimed that the Vietnam syndrome is over. DH (00:41:34): Well I mean, Reagan was certainly frustrated. [inaudible] So there was one war we saved the country from. I think that, certainly George Bush Sr. [inaudible] I mean, what really happened there, was not about any syndrome being recovered from. Really here, it was the kind of balance of power in the society, in which the forces of the military were being held at bay by the experience of Vietnam War. And I think, certainly that those forces got empowered by George Bush Sr. And he did not make the mistake of trying to extend them in place [inaudible] But his son, I think is absolute triumph of that kind of [inaudible] And I think that filter is going to become increasingly correct, by virtue of the forces. It is how it should be. SM (00:43:17): Dave, let me change the side of my tape here. Hold on one second. DH (00:43:20): Sure. SM (00:43:31): All right, we are back. It is kind of a follow-up to that question on the healing. I took a group of students, about five, maybe six years ago, to Washington DC, before Senator Musky died. And he had just gotten out of the hospital, and these 14 students were some of the best student leaders on our campus. And we had a whole series of questions that we had picked to ask him. And many of them wanted to ask this question about the healing from the 1968 convention, because they had seen it on black and white tape and everything. And they wanted to know if we had healed as a nation from that. And we were waiting. And he had just gotten out of the hospital and he had been watching Ken Burns series on the Civil War. And when we asked the question, he kind of almost gave us a minute of total silence, and it was obviously a very emotional question for him. And then he finally answered, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And then he went on for about a 15-minute lecture on the Civil War and how the divisions in America at that time, were still part of the American scene. He was very upset for the loss of life, that over 400,000 people had died in that war, and was almost an entire generation of children that would never be born because of brother fighting against brother. Just your thoughts on that, as a person who was young in the early (19)60s, who went South and saw some of these terrible things of injustice in America in the 1960s. But if you go to Gettysburg, you still see a lot of things left at the tombstones. I go there four or five times a year, out of curiosity, just to see what is left. And on the confederate sides, there is still a love for the Confederacy. So just your thoughts on that. DH (00:45:26): Well, obviously that Civil War did not get resolved, because I was a 19-year old in order to try and clear that up again. That bondage has not ceased exist. And I resist strongly, the description of the Civil War, simply as brother fighting against brothers. Certainly that happened [inaudible] but not some random act where brothers felt they had to fight each other. This was because one set of people insisted on the right to buy and sell other people, as though they were cattle. That is why there was a Civil War. That is why 400,000 people died. And I consider it tantamount... I have been to South Carolina, where they fly that fucking stars and bars. As far as I am concerned, it is like walking in and seeing a swastika flag. SM (00:46:34): Yeah, you are right. DH (00:46:37): This is slavery we are talking about here. There is no great romantic Southern life. And I certainly feel that most retrograde parts of America are in the old Confederacy. And I am sure they do admire it, and I think that is much to the detriment of the country and the species of humanity. And I have a lot of friends South, who I certainly would not put in a lump with them, but that is what it was about. And let us not glorify this thing here. They have enough perspective to know now, just how obscene the jury segregation was, how much... We talked about terrorists. I mean, terrorists are people who walk into somebody's house, drag them out in the street and lynch them, because they are black. That is terrorism. And all those states South of the Mason-Dixon line, and a whole bunch of other ones who are not South, they try and nourish that and glamorize that. And they can go down to all the racetracks they want, with their stars and bars, but it does not make it any different than what it was. SM (00:48:07): Yeah. That is what is always intrigued me about when I go to Gettysburg, because I see so many cars from the South, and I know they love America and everything. But I drive on both sides, and the majority of the statues and monuments are on the Northern side. But it is the Southern side where things are left, and I am amazed there is still something going on here. And I think we know, even with President Obama in the White House, that we still got a long way to go in this country. DH (00:48:42): Well, it is not the jury segregation anymore. We have come a long way. But absolutely, I think that there are a lot of people still in the country, who cannot accept the notion that people who are not white, are just as valuable and just as important as people who are not. SM (00:49:03): One of the qualities... Another other big issue, beyond healing, is the issue of trust. There were so many leaders that lied to us when we were young, and of course, the leaders have lied probably throughout our history. But we all remember Eisenhower lying about the U2 incident on national television. We know about the Gulf and Tonkin with LBJ. We know about Watergate and all the lies and the enemies lists and everything that Nixon did. I have even read in recent years, about Kennedy and Vietnam, even though Sorenson's recent book basically states that he had nothing to do with the coup there. He encouraged the coup, but he did not want them to die. But still, there has been so many lies that come through, just about all the presidents. Just your thoughts on the shaping of the boomers as a not very trustful generation, and whether they have passed this quality of lack of trust onto their kids and their grandchildren. And I preface this question with one other item. I can remember being in... I went to Binghamton University, (19)66 to (19)70. And I can remember in my intro class in psychology, the professor saying to us in a lecture on trust, that if you cannot trust, you will not be a success in life. You have got to be able to trust somebody. Trust is a very important quality in a human being. Just your thoughts on whether maybe a quality within the boomer generation, is that they do not trust. DH (00:50:37): Well, I would not make that generalization. I think it is not that people lost their capacity to trust, it just became quite clear that, that trust was not an automatic. Issue is not whether we are willing to trust government, and somehow become a character flaw that cannot get around the issue of the process. No. I think what has happened, is what the process of trust is doing to trust. You do not get trust, simply because you have got a majority of people who would show up on November, the first Tuesday in November, in your congressional district. Simply because you do that, does not give some kind of automatic way over what the country is supposed to be. And they cannot simply hand over power. There is some things that you do not trust anybody, other than yourself, but that you have to trust yourself. So I would define it a little differently than that. I do not feel like I am not a successful person, but I think once burned... How many times do you have to go through that process, before you assume that it has a given, and not the other. So how many times do you have to be lied to before you start worrying that people are doing? I mean, I think it is a totally rational position, not the incapacity to trust. Trust each other [inaudible] some of my closest friends from those days. SM (00:52:39): As a history political science major, which I was years ago, I can remember that trust being a quality that... Not trusting your government is actually a good quality, because it keeps them on their toes. So that kind of feeling. I got a question here, because you are a great writer, by the way. DH (00:52:58): Thank you. SM (00:52:58): You are a great writer. I first came upon your writing when I bought the book Goliath, way back when it first came out. And then of one of your recent books, Our War. And of course Dreams, the one on Allard Lowenstein. Yeah, great books. And I wanted to ask a question on these three books. How do the three books, combined in your own unique way, define the boomer generation in their times, when you were young? Everyone has quality. And to me, when I have read them... And I have to reread your, Dreams Die Hard, because I read it years ago. But when I lived... Actually, I lived out in California, and I lived in Berlingame from (19)76 to (19)83. And I remember I bought the book, I think it was (19)82 when it came out. So I brought it there, and I read it there. And of course, I had Goliath already. But those books are really classics. They-they should be required reading, to me, in the classroom, some of them. Just your thoughts on how all three of them kind of define your generation. DH (00:54:12): Well, I think that they certainly... first, thanks for all the kind words. I feel that they are all great books, and I think they should be required reading. And each of them was, for me, an attempt at different times, and in different ways, to come terms with what that experience was. And so Goliath was obviously contemporaneous. That was me writing from the middle of it all. Basically, I wrote the book in the last three months before I went to prison. And Dreams Die Hard was a book that I could not-not write, when I got a phone call saying that Dennis Sweeny had shot Allard K. It was like, oh, God. SM (00:55:20): Yeah. DH (00:55:21): There was a kind of triangle, a life triangle there, between me and [inaudible] I write for a living, and there is no way I could pass that one off. And I felt the kind of obligation to do so, that it should come to this so many years later, needed an explanation. Only explanation was to go back to where it all started. And Our War was a kind of conscious effort, at age 50, to look backwards at the war that had defined my life, and try to talk about it as clearly as I could. And I think all of them framed part of the kind of overlap play, part of that experience of the generation. Absolutely. SM (00:56:19): Do you feel... I would like your thoughts on today's university. You made a comment on it, and I want you to respond to something that I feel very strongly about. And that is, that universities today, whether they be state universities or Ivy League schools or community colleges, or technical schools, I do not care where it is, are afraid of activism. They propose and love volunteerism, they love... And most students are in volunteer activities. But I have always felt that activism is the step beyond volunteerism. Activism is 24/7, whereas volunteerism may be a requirement, or doing something once a week or once every two weeks. And I say this, because we had an activist series at our campus, and Tom Hayden came, and we had the Bergen Brothers and we had a really good series. And people above us, said that this is not what our university's about, and encouraged us to stop the activist lecture series. From that point on, I figured there is something going on here. And I started thinking that maybe today's universities are run by boomers, or young people that are younger than boomers, that are afraid of a revival of what could happen again on university campuses, which is protests against the Afghan War, or any kind of an issue. They are afraid of them, of bringing back memories of disruption of classes and the university shutting down, students asking more questions than they should be asking. As Tom said when he was on our campus, understanding the difference between empowerment and power, and the students were shocked, but the administrator’s kind of said, oh, he should not have said that. And so just your thoughts on the universities today, and whether they fear activism. DH (00:58:17): Well, I think volunteerism, first, is an admirable activity. I probably would not want to come down against it, but I think that activism, I associate with more, rather than exercising altruism. It was obviously a good thing to do. It was really an attempt to exercise power, which is a very different kind of thing. And anybody who is in power, is going to have problems with the people who think that, that power ought to be shared out. Nobody likes to give it up. And I think certainly that most... I assume, amongst college administrators, there is this boogeyman, which is the 1960s. [inaudible] authority of college administrators, which shall never before. And the modern university has become increasingly incorporated. And so I think everything gets determined on the basis, largely, of how it is going to affect fundraising. And retired political organizers are not doing great a source of funding for- SM (00:59:35): Yeah, you are darn right. DH (00:59:45): And so I think it is a character of the modern university. And on one hand, it has become a far better and more responsive institution, in that it has opened its intellectual horizon in ways... Were not the case when I was... I mean, nowadays [inaudible] can basically write their own majors, on any subject they can make a case on. God, you would kill for that in my era. That was one of the things I spent hours with administrators, screaming back and forth about it, disagreeing back and forth, when I was student body resident at Stanford. And hey, when I got elected, part of my platform was equal rights for men and women students. SM (01:00:35): Go into that a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your student experience at Stanford. DH (01:00:38): Well, I was there as far as Stanford pushed to open itself to the middle class, to take a leap from finishing school for California [inaudible] to Harvard and West. And to do that, they made an opening for the middle class [inaudible] For example, at my high school in Fresno, California, public high school in Fresno, they took seven members of my graduating class. That is unheard of. You never heard of people going to Stanford the year before that. All of a sudden, they started opening up. I was part of it, had the scholarship on there. And I felt that the university at the time, was a real high bound kind of institution. My election as student body president of Stanford, was remarkable on many fronts. First of all, I did not want to run for president, and someone approached me to run for president, saying I had all these things about education [inaudible] why do not I run for student body president? [inaudible] they gave me a guarantee that I would not get more than 500 votes. And we went out and talked about student regulations, about the University of Scholars. And there were [inaudible] administrators and faculty [inaudible] And cooperation for Vietnam, to get the legalization of marijuana in there. But we had a whole list of things, and right at the top, was the rights for students. Woman stayed out all night, and men stayed out all night. [inaudible] And so I ran for student body president, I talked about some stuff, and if I had won the election in Berkeley, nobody would have noticed. But a place like Stanford, from conservative, for someone... They called me radical, was what I was called, in work shirt and Levis, vest mock, barrel in my ear. If I could feel like Stanford National News. And I spent the next year having discussions with faculty administrators who were bizarre, to say the least. I can remember in the discussion with a group of faculty administrators, [inaudible] five faculty, five students all met. And we started arguing about women having the same rights as men. Essentially, the English department... And basically said, "Hey, if we do this, do not start having sex." And I said, I am sorry to tell you this, but that horse is already out of the barn. It happened. But can you imagine that discussion today? SM (01:05:10): Geez. Oh my gosh. DH (01:05:13): We have learned something. But by and large, the issue of empowerment and who are the legitimate members of the community, and how should their interest represented the decision making, has basically progressed not one width. Lots more options available, but students still do not make great choices. SM (01:05:45): David, what were the books that students were reading when you were a college student, and maybe in the early part of the movement too? Were there books written by authors that really influenced you and some of your peers? DH (01:06:01): Yeah, it is funny. I mentioned Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem. Well, for entertainment, we all read Fonica. SM (01:06:14): Right. DH (01:06:14): And Richard Brodigan, he had a lot of [inaudible] civilization. Yeah [inaudible]- SM (01:06:14): Yeah. DH (01:06:14): A big one for me, and a lot of people I knew, was also Gandhi, an autobiography. SM (01:07:20): Do you remember the books, the Greening of America, by Charles Reich, and The Making of a Counterculture, by Theodore Roszak? DH (01:07:26): I remember Theodore Roszak's book, and that was [inaudible] around the time. Greening of America was never a book that... SM (01:07:42): Right. DH (01:07:42): If I recall, right at the end of the 1960s. SM (01:07:49): Yep. DH (01:07:50): Oh, Paul Goodman [inaudible] SM (01:07:53): Oh yeah, that is a big one. Yep. Who were the favorite musicians, and how would you define how music defined the boomer generation, or vice versa? Because when we are talking about the music of this period, we are not only talking about rock and folk, we are talking about the Motown sound. They are all kind of combined here. But when you think of the (19)60s and you think of the boomer generation, who are the musicians that you most admired, and you think had the greatest impact on the generation? DH (01:08:29): Well, there is one, hands down. [inaudible] Dylan was a poet at the time. Not like that. SM (01:08:37): Who was that now? DH (01:08:41): Bob Dylan. SM (01:08:41): Oh, yeah. DH (01:08:42): And he was poet at the time. And so what he came close to... Influence that Dylan had on everything. All of us have grown up in [inaudible] The first concert I ever went to see was when Ray Charles came to Fresno. And part of the identification people had with black people, was the music and all the big [inaudible] SM (01:09:41): Yeah. I tell you. Was there a rock group that was your favorite? DH (01:09:45): Well, there was... I love the Beatles. How could I not? They were phenomenal. And I was on more intimate terms with the San Francisco band. And so when I was a freshman at Stanford, [inaudible] right off campus, and [inaudible] and one of his regular acts was this Jerry Garcia. SM (01:10:28): Oh, yeah. DH (01:10:29): Then became Warlock [inaudible] and then became the Grateful Death. SM (01:10:43): Yeah. DH (01:10:43): And when I ran for student body president, we had a rock concert, a local stamp stand, and to get the amplifiers speakers that we needed to do the concert [inaudible] SM (01:11:00): Oh my gosh. Great slicks. Yep. DH (01:11:05): That was all done. That was 1966, for that stupid, going to San Francisco with a flower in your hair song. SM (01:11:16): That is Lee Hazelwood. DH (01:11:19): Haight-Ashbury got discovered. SM (01:11:20): Right. DH (01:11:21): And that little episode got [inaudible] But before that [inaudible] when I got into it, in my first kind of... At the same time I was listening Bo Diddley, I was also listening to Joan Baez. SM (01:11:50): Yeah, of course, you were married to her. Yep. DH (01:11:52): Yeah. SM (01:11:54): Yeah, I got a lot of her albums. DH (01:11:58): Yeah. So all the music passed through me, but Bob Dylan was the man. I mean, he is the only guy who I was waiting. SM (01:12:12): What was really interesting, is that three weeks ago, my brother went to physical therapy over in Bucks County, and I just accompanied him. And I am sitting out in the hallway, and there is this old couple, older couple, they were in their (19)80s, that came in. And the gentleman walked right in, and I got to talking to the lady, and I was wearing a Kent State shirt. And she started talking about Kent State in 1970. And then she said, "Oh, by the way, my son was married to Grace Slick." I did a triple flip. Her son was married to Grace Slick for I think 11 years. And he was the sound person for that particular group. And now, I guess he is the sound person for a hotel in Atlantic City and the Wacovia Center here in Philadelphia. But he was the first husband of Grace Slick. What a small world. She said, "Oh, Grace was so nice. We had her over to dinner." So it is a very small world at times. You have obviously been to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, when you saw it for the first time, what feelings were going through your mind? DH (01:13:27): Say that again. SM (01:13:28): The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, what impact really, has that had on healing the nation, in your thoughts? And secondly, what was the impact when you first saw it for the first time, that it had on you? DH (01:13:43): Well, I do not think it healed anything, but the first step towards healing is recognition of what the experience was. And I think it is a remarkable memorial for that. Recognizing had a kind of fundamental [inaudible] I consider it beautiful, and extraordinarily impressive. SM (01:14:19): What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? DH (01:14:24): Well, probably less than they do to most people, because I was in the isolation cell block when Kent State happens. So word of it... And things like the Cambodia demonstrations and [inaudible] they were remote. SM (01:14:54): How about Watergate? And then when I say these terms, the influence you think they had on the boomer generation, you personally, but mostly the boomer generation. DH (01:15:07): Well, Watergate was enormous. And the experience of it, whether it impacted or not, is another question. But the experience of it, was that we had finally won one. [inaudible] And I was up, dealing with... Of course, tried for war crimes. And Henry Kissinger was one of the worst people ever. SM (01:15:38): How about Woodstock? DH (01:15:42): Another one of those really remote things to which I have become associated, basically because when my wife, in her song on Woodstock, dedicated to me off in prison. And that made... That cut made the movie. So to me, Woodstock was so far off, not a particular interest. SM (01:16:07): How about the year 1968? DH (01:16:09): The year (19)68? Well, I was here when things started to come apart. And that is when they really... Of course, dominated by the [inaudible] Particularly, Martin Luther King. SM (01:16:31): When you think of these two terms, what do you think of the hippies and the yippies? DH (01:16:39): Well, hippies, I think of Haight-Ashbury, and the first time I walked down Haight-Ashbury in late [inaudible] So that is what I think of hippies. Yippies, I think [inaudible] SM (01:17:00): Right. Students for Democratic society and the weatherman. DH (01:17:08): Well, I always have big feelings about SDS, on the one hand. And SDS is kind of an umbrella organization that was different at every campus [inaudible] But a lot of the SDS national organizers who operated in California at the time, had a real problem. [inaudible] So I have an unmixed feeling about the weathermen. SM (01:17:52): Could you speak up again, David? Because I cannot hear you very good. DH (01:17:54): The weatherman, I do not have mixed feelings about the weatherman. My feelings about them are very clear. I think the guys' full of shit. That they distorted the movement, and they represent... The worst part of that is, I resent them being somehow a symbol of any sort of the movement. It had nothing to do with it. SM (01:18:26): Yeah. Yeah, I know President Obama is getting criticized because of Bill Ayers and the links to him. The Vietnam veterans against the war? DH (01:18:37): Well, I organized with the PVA After I get out of prison, to put together several projects. One of our partners. I had a lot of close friends. SM (01:18:55): The Richard Nixon's enemies list. DH (01:19:02): Pitiful. SM (01:19:05): I have had some actual... A couple interviewees who said, "I am honored to have been on it." DH (01:19:09): Fine. SM (01:19:15): The last part of the interview is just responding to some of the personalities of the period. DH (01:19:21): Okay. SM (01:19:21): And some of the terms. Your thoughts on Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. DH (01:19:28): Abbie Hoffman was one of the funniest guys I ever met, and I thought he was the real deal. Jerry Rubin, con-artist, phony. SM (01:19:39): Timothy Leary. DH (01:19:41): Another con-artist [inaudible] SM (01:19:57): How about Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern? DH (01:20:04): Well, I think they are both terribly flawed, but in the right place. SM (01:20:12): John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. DH (01:20:17): Well, John Kennedy was my childhood, so associated with him. And Bobby Kennedy, I associated with 1968. SM (01:20:30): How about Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew? DH (01:20:38): Despicable pairing. SM (01:20:42): How about the Black Panthers? Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Kay Leever, Angela Davis, that group. DH (01:20:51): Well, I have the advantage, having covered them as a journalist, when I started working [inaudible 01:21:03] and I think that they were also phonys. And not that they could back up some of what they did [inaudible] Yeah, so I am not a fan of the black panthers. SM (01:21:30): How about Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey? DH (01:21:35): Well, I think of Lyndon Johnson as a big mistake, with a capital M. Hubert Humphrey [inaudible] SM (01:21:48): Robert McNamara. DH (01:21:50): Tragic guy, on the one hand. [inaudible] But having said that, my other feeling [inaudible] SM (01:22:08): I did not quite get that last sentence. DH (01:22:23): A lot of kids went off to dive, because he did not speak up at the time. SM (01:22:27): Yep. George Wallace and Ronald Reagan. DH (01:22:34): Well, George Wallace [inaudible] Ronald Reagan, second coming of [inaudible] SM (01:22:51): How about Dr. Benjamin Spock and Daniel Ellsberg? DH (01:22:56): Well, I knew both of the guys, and I think both of them were right on, and both of them were played incredibly [inaudible] in turning the country around. Take my hat off to them. SM (01:23:14): Daniel and Phillip Berrigan. DH (01:23:15): [inaudible] SM (01:23:16): What about Barry Goldwater? DH (01:23:27): Looking back on him from this point, he seemed like such a benign conservative, that I wish [inaudible] SM (01:23:35): What about Dwight Eisenhower? DH (01:23:35): Everybody's daddy. SM (01:23:42): And then the other two presidents, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. DH (01:23:48): Well, the last one was a loser from the get-go, and first one became more of a loser [inaudible] become a big winner as an expert. SM (01:24:05): How about the women leaders? Gloria Steinem, Bella Abk, Betty Friedan, leaders of the Women's Movement. DH (01:24:18): [inaudible] Yeah, of course. SM (01:24:22): Yeah. Couple other terms from that period, because they were important to youth. Tet. DH (01:24:30): Well, great moment. Revelation. SM (01:24:46): How about people like Walter Cronkite and the news media at the time? How important were they to the boomers? DH (01:24:55): Well, Walter Cronkite, of course, had all the information. [inaudible] As for the rest of them, they learned as they went along. By the time it came, printing [inaudible] SM (01:25:30): How important were the college students in ending the Vietnam War, and what do you think was the number one reason? I know the helicopters went off in 1975, and for all intents and purposes, in 1973, we were out of there. But what was the ultimate reason why the Vietnam War ended? DH (01:25:56): Because it became impossible to continue. That is why it did not. The combination of public sentiment and military collapse. Remember, [inaudible] one out of four were killed. [inaudible] SM (01:26:26): Right. DH (01:26:26): [inaudible] SM (01:26:50): If you were before an audience of college students today, and I am sure you probably still go out and speak. (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 David Victor Harris Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Harris, David, 1946- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Journalists; Authors; Political activists--United States; Harris, David, 1946--Interviews Description An account of the resource David Victor Harris is a journalist, author, and activist. He was an anti-war activist and the first person arrested for refusing to register for the draft in the late 1960's. He was the student government president at Stanford University. David Victor Harris is a journalist, author, and activist. He was a leading opponent of the draft during the Vietnam War, which began during his college days at Stanford University. As a young college student, he became involved in the Civil Rights Movement where he joined students from all over the country in the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) 1964 voter registration campaign in Mississippi. In 1966, he became president of the Stanford University student body, and as a leading critic of the draft, he formed a group called the Resistance. Harris was the first person arrested for refusing to register for the draft in 1968. In his later years, Harris has received journalistic praise for his non-fiction books on his experiences in the sixties and seventies along with other books connected to personalities or issues in those times. Harris died from lung cancer at his home in Mill Valley on February 6, 2023, at the age of 76. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-11-06 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.13 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 86:58 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2da27a67b2e9e15cd394a9ff307473bc.JPG ccbad31aab85b5d28d58c73d920d5f59 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1ad80d23a76d2e6aa6a12d0e5f8bb684.mp3 b454103bc863f1a8bb29a5d6ca4e9958 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-11 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed David Zupan Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text David Zupan is an activist and former English teacher studying how to make documentaries that make a difference. So far, films he has collaborated on through Daniel Miller's class at the University of Oregon's Journalism School include <em>Hashtag Revolution</em>, <em>We Refuse To Be Enemies</em>, <span><em>Houseless Not Hopeless</em>,</span> and <em>Creatively Maladjusted</em>. He is affiliated with the Occupy Eugene Media Group in Eugene, Oregon. David Zupan is the founder and director of Progressive Voices which is dedicated to promoting the diverse voices and ideas and solutions critically needed in our global community today. Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Civil Rights Movement; War draft; Vietnam War; Political activism; Baby boom generation; Generation gap.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Civil Rights Movement; War draft; Vietnam War; Political activism; Baby boom generation; Generation gap.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 229:06 Subject LCSH Political activists--United States; Radio broadcasting; Zupan, David--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with David Zupan Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Zupan, David ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Political activists--United States; Radio broadcasting; Zupan, David--Interviews Description An account of the resource David Zupan is a veteran media activist and English teacher. He currently works as an independent contractor for IPA doing broadcast media outreach and database updating. He is also director of the Speakers’ Clearinghouse, which helps progressive policy analysts find speaking engagements at schools throughout the U.S. and Canada. David Zupan is an activist and former English teacher studying how to make documentaries that make a difference. So far, films he has collaborated on through Daniel Miller's class at the University of Oregon's Journalism School include <em>Hashtag Revolution</em>, <em>We Refuse To Be Enemies</em>, <em>Houseless Not Hopeless</em>, and <em>Creatively Maladjusted</em>. He is affiliated with the Occupy Eugene Media Group in Eugene, Oregon. David Zupan is the founder and director of Progressive Voices which is dedicated to promoting the diverse voices and ideas and solutions critically needed in our global community today. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-11 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 McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.211a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.211b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 229:06 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/79185bb347e10e04e679d5a1ab12bcbf.jpg 85441262140cb0ea6d54bd2a0349c956 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ac14804b10bc7c6065d3852587be9d28.MP3 87e1e6256b1ed67b440c82946d4afd26 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 8/7/2019 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dean Kahler Biographical Text Dean Kahler grew up on a farm in East Canton, Ohio. In his youth, Dean received criticism because he was a pacifist and did not support the war in Vietnam. After high school, he attended Kent State University, enrolling in the teaching program. On May 4, 1970, Dean was shot in the lower back by Ohio National Guardsmen who were sent to quell the protests on Campus that had occurred days prior. Dean lost his ability to walk, however, that did not stop him from pursuing a career in teaching and becoming elected to public office. Since then, Dean has been a leading force in the push for handicap reforms all across the state of Ohio. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:35:41 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 Anti-Vietnam; Ohio; south; farming; Church; politics; 1960s; protest; gender roles; Vietnam War; Anti-War Movement; Kent State; pacifism; boomers; Kent State Shootings Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Dean Kahler Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Eden Lowinger Date of interview: 7 August 2019 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:01 All right. First off Dean- DK: 00:04 Before we start? SM: 00:05 Yes, go ahead. DK: 00:05 Before we get in, question for you. Have you ever run into a woman named Meg Benke? BENKE? SM: 00:14 No. DK: 00:16 She is an administrator I think at the SUNY. SM: 00:18 Oh, ah was she, now was she was she in the (19)60s? DK: 00:28 Well, no-no, no, she is a little later than that. SM: 00:33 Oh, okay. DK: 00:34 But, you know, she is probably 10 years younger than I am. SM: 00:39 Okay. Now I- DK: 00:42 I knew her down in, I knew her down in Athens. SM: 00:45 Oh, okay, very good. DK: 00:47 Yeah. SM: 00:48 All right, let me let me start this. Now. Before we start, let me let me just rem- do you remember when you were working in Athens, when the gentleman who wrote "Born on the Fourth of July”- I forget his name now, golly. DK: 01:04 Ron Kovic. SM: 01:05 Yeah. Ron Kovic. He was arrested. DK: 01:09 Yep. SM: 01:09 Yeah, he, it was between (19)73 and (19)76. And I remember he was protesting there. And I remember I, one of the students brought a newspaper back from the main campus to the Lancaster campus and they really, boy they really roughed him up, geez. Even though he is in a wheelchair, I could not believe what the- you know that he was up. I guess he was arrested a lot. He is a very close friend of Bobby Mueller who found that Vietnam Veterans of America. DK: 01:35 Right, yeah. SM: 01:36 And-and he and Ron were two of the leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War too. So, you know, yeah, they are very close friends. My very first question, Dean is, could you tell me a little bit about your growing up year years, where you grew up, what your what your family did where you went to elementary and high school, your early influences in life before going to Kent State? DK: 02:00 Okay. Well, I grew up in a- outside of a little village and township called the Osnaburg Township, OSNABURG. And the post office we got our mail out was a little village called East Canton, which changed it is name from Osnaburg to East Canton during World War One because some people came out and burned down some barns in Osterberg because he thought everybody that lived out there with German. SM: 02:27 Oh, my gosh. DK: 02:29 Yeah-yeah. So that is how it kind of went from Osnaburg to East Canton. But I lived in Osnaburg Township, though. SM: 02:38 Right. DK: 02:39 But a farming community, basically. My, where I lived was on one of the very early subdivisions in in Osnaburg Township. The house I was lived, grew-grew up in was made or built in (19)23. So, it was the same age as my dad. And we lived about four football fields away from the family farm. SM: 03:05 Oh, wow. DK: 03:06 And my dad, my dad sold his interest in the farm to his brother. And they all did basically all the siblings. And he is the one that had the farm, and it is still a farm to this day. SM: 03:19 My golly. DK: 03:23 [Inaudible] SM: 03:23 Now when you were a kid, did you like work for your dad on the farm? Like, for example, the haying season and that kind of stuff? DK: 03:32 I worked for my uncle on the farm. And yeah, I did not just work in hay season, I worked in the winter season, the spring season, the planting season, the harvesting season, you name it, I was there. You know, go up, get up in the mornings to go milk cows, take a shower and eat breakfast at my Uncle Ray's house or Uncle Ray's and Aunt May's house [crosstalk], go to school. And that was my life basically, from that time I was 12 or 13 years old. SM: 04:04 Now- DK: 04:04 We are also involved, but I was also involved in the Church of the Brethren. And that is the Church of the Brethren. Which are the old, the old Dunkers. And for a frame of reference, the church that that is that Antietam is an old Dunker church. SM: 04:22 I know it well. DK: 04:24 An old Brethren Church. SM: 04:25 Yes. DK: 04:26 And yes, I have been there for two services that they have held in period costume and in period practices, with Brethren historians. But yeah, even though we were all pacifists, they were there helping to tend to the wounded no matter what color uniform they had on. SM: 04:47 Yeah, I have been the Antietam about three times, when I go to Gettysburg then I drive over to Antietam and- DK: 04:53 Yeah. SM: 04:54 -and one day I was there, it was a beautiful day and that the building you are talking about was across the street from the tourist center. And, and some of those historic shots from the battle itself. And they were comparing the how it looks today without a looked back in at the in- the year the Antietam took place. And wow, that was something else. DK: 05:14 Yeah, certainly was, certainly was. SM: 05:17 Now what was your, how many kids are in your high school? DK: 05:21 Let us see, I do not know about the high school, but every class had right around one hundred kids in it. And that is K through, or 1 through 12. We did not have kindergarten whenever I was kid till later on. SM: 05:33 Right. DK: 05:33 But we, my graduating class was ninety-six kids, and most of us so we all had farm backgrounds in that class. So I grew up in that kind of environment, an agricultural environment, but also grew up in a religious environment, because I was involved in the youth group, as a junior high and then a high schooler and was, you know, chairman of our youth group for one year, then I was on the district chairman or district youth group, and I was the chairman there one year as well, I would work your way up from treasurer, secretary, vice president, president. That sort of stuff. And then, so I traveled all over northern Ohio, [inaudible] district working with other youth groups and planning activities for everybody along the way, having district wide youth activities as well. SM: 06:31 Well, now that was, that was when you were in high school, correct? DK: 06:34 That was all when I was in junior high in high school, yeah. SM: 06:37 You now, has-has this continued, I mean, a different way as you became an adult? And you know, I know you had the tragedy at Kent State. But as you have gone on later in life, has religion plays a very important part in your life? DK: 06:52 Well, the principles of religion have played a very important part in my life, but because of the transient nature of human beings these days. I go to church whenever I can. And I, you know, I enjoy the religious aspect of the religious community that is there. But you know, I have lived in Athens, I have lived up here. And, you know, in Athens there were no brother churches down there. The closest one I think, was selling coffee. SM: 07:23 I know where that is. DK: 07:24 About six miles away from Athens, so. But I did not have any real religious community there. I went to the church right on Main Street there, right behind beside the City Hall of Athens- SM: 07:41 Okay. DK: 07:41 -what is the name of that church? SM: 07:43 I know it because I worked at the Ohio University of Lancaster campus, but I was on the main campus a lot for meetings. I was involved in the Human Relations Committee, and we had to go down there once a month for those meetings. DK: 07:56 Oh, yeah. SM: 07:56 And then I love a lot of the faculty members I got to know at the main campus, and I brought them back as speakers because they were some pretty renowned authors there. Particularly in the philosophy [crosstalk], particularly people like Dr. Hunt, who has passed away, but he was in the philosophy department. In high school, what activities were you involved in? DK: 08:18 Well, let us see. I was involved in the junior play, the senior play, I played football in high school. I was involved in intramural basketball because I could not walk and chew gum at the same time. [laughter] We did not have a speech or debate team, but I was on what was it? Why hot, Wi Fi or Wi Hi? Or, you know, sort of like Junior-Junior, Junior Achievement type-type of people. So. SM: 08:51 I got to, [crosstalk] I got to ask you this. If you were a football player, how come they did not recruit you for Ohio State? [laughter] DK: 08:59 Well, let us see. I was when I graduated high school and when I was playing high school football, I was six foot two and weighed 150 pounds. SM: 09:07 Now I understand. DK: 09:09 And I could barely walk and chew gum at the same time. SM: 09:12 [laughs] Very good. Yeah, as a high school student in the late (19)60s. What year did you graduate? High School? DK: 09:21 (19)69. SM: 09:22 Yep. As a high school student in the late (19)60s, what were your thoughts on the issues of the day? And I am not sure if you are, you know, you are working on the farm, you got activities, but whether that was touching you before you ever got to Kent State, and I am just- DK: 09:37 Yeah, it touched me long before I get to Kent State. One because of my activities with the Church of the Brethren. And the issue of pacifism. Two, because of the issues relating to women's rights- SM: 09:52 Oh, yeah. DK: 09:52 -and probably most importantly, the issue of civil rights. Our church was involved in all three of those in a pretty heavy way. All through the (19)60s. And so, I grew up with a mixed marriage family. My father was a member of the Democratic Party and a union member. And my mother was a member of the Republican Party. And she did not work until, I think when I was 16, when she started working when my brother went to, went to high school, or elementary school, and so I, my parents, sort of were like the-the ideal of the (19)60s, you know, we sat down at dinner table every night, and discussed the issues of the day. And you better have something to bring to the table, as opposed to just picking on your sister or whatever. SM: 09:54 Yeah, yeah, you know Dean, it is amazing how much we are alike in many ways. My, my mother was came from a strong Democratic family, my dad was a Republican. DK: 10:53 Oh, wow. SM: 10:53 Yep. And we had all while growing up until we start going off to college, and we were away and everything we had, we always were there together at the dinner table, and we discussed everything. Sometimes, sometimes my mom wanted my dad to speak up more, because he was always eating fast. And he ate so fast, he would get up the table, say "No we want you to stay here awhile" [laughs] because he was a fast eater, but talking about the issues of the day, and that is interesting. That is very interesting. And I do not think I asked you this question about your parents, did they argue over politics or did they just, you know- I do not ever remember my parents arguing ever about politics. DK: 11:33 Well, they never argued, but they discussed it regularly. And there was no, there was no dissension amongst them other than disagreement. And so, you know, when they argued they were talking about a particular issue, and their belief in it, whatever, whatever that issue was that particular day. So that was that was how I grew up debating politics as a kid, watching my parents discuss those issues, pros and cons of each of those, their positions on whatever the issue was, whether it be, you know, the Vietnam War, or, you know, the issue of pollution, the issue of women's rights, you know, all that kind of stuff that was happening in the (19)60s. SM: 11:51 Right. It is amazing. When you think about it, all the movements that were, you used the Civil Rights movement as examples to, on how to do things and nonviolent protests by via Dr. King, but there were also those who created violence. But you know, when you look at the Vietnam War, and Civil Rights, the women's movement, obviously the Native American, the Native American movement too and the gay and lesbian- DK: 12:41 Yeah. SM: 12:41 -the gay and lesbian movement, and Earth Day from (19)70. These are like major issues, and they were all evolving, all in about the same time where people were speaking up. DK: 12:51 Oh, yeah. SM: 12:53 So, when you were in high school, you were really up to date and what was happening in the world. DK: 13:01 We sure were, we sure were. In fact, my government teacher took about 40 of us, 40 of us on a school bus up to the University of Akron to see Richard Nixon give his speech in (19)68, when he came to the University of Akron, and since then I have run into hundreds of people who were there, who went to Kent State, who were, you know, students of Kent State along the way, we all compare our notes about what we saw and what we heard, and how we interpreted those that particular event. SM: 13:32 Wow. DK: 13:33 So yeah, it is pretty amazing that I am conversing with people for three, four or five years older than me who were at the, at the Nixon speech at the University of Akron. SM: 13:44 What-what were your thoughts, what were your thoughts in high school way before you get to Kent State, about student protesters? In terms of, you know, people just protesting in general. DK: 13:59 I thought it was an important thing to do. I mean, the- our founding fathers protested. And I believed a lot in what President- Dr. King had to say about being peaceful and knowledgeable, not only on the issue, but on your opponent, the person who has a different agreement than you do, different understanding. SM: 14:20 Right. DK: 14:20 And so, to me protesting is, you know, goes right along with apple pie. Ice cream and apple pie, you know, as the American dream. SM: 14:34 You know, when the when, in the beginning of the Vietnam War, most people supported it. But as time goes on, particularly in the mid- probably about the late (19)60s, things changed. And, and, you know, when you look at our Founding Fathers, they were a minority amongst Americans who, you know, did, you know, they wrote the Declaration of Independence and they wanted freedom still the majority of Americans were afraid of the British and kind of looked at the Founding Fathers in many ways as radicals. DK: 15:04 Yeah. SM: 15:04 And as a young man, I used to compare that when I saw some of the people protesting the Vietnam War, because in the beginning, they were in the minority. And then then finally, they evolved into the majority. So, it is kind of kind of a linkage in two different eras. DK: 15:18 Exactly, but also in my environment, in Church of the Brethren people who protested the war were a minority. But I have to look back at some of the original protesters that were there for, say, like the Civil Rights movement, and the civil- and then the war, the anti-Vietnam War movement. A lot of those were church ladies who are writing letters, who were doing bake sales, raising money to say, sent to, to the NAACP, all that sort of stuff. And, you know, they were like silent protesters, they were doing something. And a lot of people forget about the very first protests of the war in Vietnam were not college students. They were church ladies who believed in pacifism, thought this war was crazy. So. SM: 16:07 Yeah, there was a strong organization in Philadelphia in the (19)60s. And that was Mothers Against the Vietnam War. And they were old, they were older women, they were actually in their 30s and 40s. That we brought a couple of them to Westchester University. And, you know, they have all passed on now, but that was a great revelation hearing from them. DK: 16:29 Right. Well, you had the Quakers, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and whoever else was out there protesting, the old church ladies who were against this whole war. So, yeah. SM: 16:41 In your, in your view, what has been the overall impact of your generation, which is the boomer generation, on America? And I can ask, and I would say, the (19)60's generation, because not everybody went to college. And there were a lot of young people who were not going to college against the war, what, are your feelings toward your generation positive, more positive or negative? DK: 17:05 I think a positive, though I do have some disappointment in the fact that a lot of people still have to then continue to stand up against the corruption and, you know, the-the abuse of power by public officials. And not supporting people who were out there on the front lines. So yeah, I mean, I still have a positive impact, or view of my generation that we did a lot of things, we made a lot of change. But our follow through was a little bit short. We could have been a little more involved as we got older. But then again, you know, you worry about all these things, you know, you are paying taxes, your houses, your children. SM: 17:52 Right. DK: 17:54 So yeah. SM: 17:55 One of the things, one of the opportunities I have had when I have interviewed so many people is hearing some tremendous insights from things I did not even thought and one of them was Richie Havens. When he, when I interviewed him, when I talked about the boomer generation, he became very sensitive because he says, "I am a boomer, but I was born in (19)41." And he was about the third or fourth person that I interviewed of all the people I interviewed who got very sensitive about these putting years into, the boomers are from (19)46 to (19)64. The generation- DK: 18:29 Right. SM: 18:29 -Xers are (19)64, to (19)80. And Richie, Richie said, just made a comment, and I and it will be in the interview if we can get his daughter to okay it. That the spirit, the spirit of the (19)60s, the spirit of the times, it is not in years. It is based on the people, and he was he said, "I am born in (19)41. And I am as much a boomer as you are." DK: 18:54 Yeah, I agree with him there. That is 100 percent correct. Because, you know, all through that time, it was not just us young people. I mean, I looked around and I saw people with gray hair. SM: 19:03 Yes. DK: 19:04 Throughout their lifetime. So. SM: 19:06 You know, there is, there is some great senators there against the war, the some of the older ones, but there were also a few remember Dean, reading about the (19)60s or even before you went to Kent State. I heard these stories about that the leaders on college campuses were the older students that were in graduate school, and that the undergraduate’s kind of looked up to them as mentors and role models. And when you look at all the, when you look at Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden- I know Tom Hayden's first wife, Casey Hayden, and- DK: 19:36 Yeah. SM: 19:37 -they were all born between (19)37 and (19)45. DK: 19:41 Yeah-yeah. SM: 19:43 So, it is kind of you know, there is some truth to what Richie was saying. And actually, Todd Gitlin said in the interview, he said he- you know, "I-I like the fact that you are talking about the generation you grew up in, but if I hear one more time, you mentioning [laughs] our generation I might-might end the interview." Because he-he is in that group of (19)37 to (19)45. If you were to describe the students and the overall youth of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, please describe in your own words, the qualities you admire the qualities you do not admire. And I am asking you some general questions before we get into, you know, more of the other things directly related to your life. But this is just being around your peers and your thoughts on them. DK: 20:34 Well, I admired their intellectual curiosity. And I admired the fact that the, although the lines between men and women were breaking down to the point where men did not expect the women just to do the copying, and the typing. And that we were growing in that sense of the word. And the fact that we were not afraid to speak up and, you know, point out the foibles and the injustices that our society was committing in our name. SM: 21:12 Do you feel that the some of the people within that generation were kind of naive? Because if you recall, it was even at Kent State, probably. I know it was at SUNY Binghamton and I know it was at Berkeley- I have talked to some people. Is that some are very serious and well-read, and others were naive and did not understand. Because there was, "We want to end the war," or "We want to stop this," but there was no alternative. They had no alternative except to criticize what was, they had no idea about what will become. DK: 21:45 Well, when you end the war, you know, obviously, you have got to take care of it, and deal with the country that is your you invaded. In this particular case, you are talking about Vietnam. And yeah, there was naiveite there, there is no doubt about that. But generally, people are willing to learn. So, you know, the naive, students, if they did anything, they learned a little bit as well, because there was so much to be learned around you. And it was easy to learn because it was in your face every single day. And if it was not in your face, you knew somebody who was in Vietnam. And so. SM: 22:29 Did you, did you lose any friends in the war? DK: 22:33 Well, I did not lose any friends in the war, but I had several who were wounded. And a classmate of mine, her brother was killed in Vietnam. He was about three years older than us. So yeah, I would say that would have been (19)60, (19)65 or (19)66. Because I remember what she was pulled out of algebra class. SM: 23:00 Oh, wow. That would have been, that would have been sad. Do you did you, in your family, what we heard a lot about back in the (19)60s and (19)70s was this generation gap. Was there a generation gap in your family at all about the war or any of the issues? And or if not in your family, maybe some of your friends and their families? DK: 23:23 Oh, yeah. I saw it all around me. Also, my father did not like the fact that I was [inaudible] I was a pacifist. He thought it was my duty to be involved in the military, get drafted and or join because he was drafted in World War Two. And, you know, he fought in the Pacific. And then, you know, my neighbors. Whenever they started hearing about my views on pacifism, they, you know, they would make comments about that. They did not think it was right. Some of my colleagues, my high school colleagues called me a coward or [inaudible] sort of stuff. SM: 24:06 Wow. DK: 24:08 Even though I played you know, I was starting tackle on the football team. [laughter] SM: 24:14 And you could not run if you are chewing gum, right? [laughs] DK: 24:19 Right. I can take four or five steps and knock somebody down, you know. SM: 24:24 Yeah. DK: 24:25 When you are farm boy, you do not have an ounce of fat on you, [inaudible] SM: 24:29 Right. Now, how did you choose Kent State? DK: 24:34 Well, it was a long-distance phone call from my parents. [laughs] SM: 24:40 Really? DK: 24:42 Well, no. I wanted to be a teacher. So, they had a real good reputation for being an education college. It used to be a formal school at one point. SM: 24:51 Right. DK: 24:53 They definitely know how to [inaudible] teachers there. SM: 24:57 Yeah, well, I cannot believe how big that school is growing right now if we get back into the questions, but I in the last couple of times I have been there, there is new buildings going up everywhere. And downtown. You are not going to recognize it eventually. With all the- DK: 25:11 Oh yeah, the downtown has been totally remodeled. [inaudible] SM: 25:17 Yeah, it is a growing university with more and more students attending as well. I [crosstalk] have a- go ahead. DK: 25:27 Okay. But good reason for that growth. What is Kent surrounded by? Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown? SM: 25:34 Yes. So, a lot of people. DK: 25:38 Yeah. SM: 25:40 What is that up to now in numbers? DK: 25:43 Well, on the main campus, they are right around 21, 22 thousand. But that is not including the-the branch campuses in East Liverpool and, oh God Tuscarora County, and Stark County and. There is another one up near [inaudible] up in Geauga County. SM: 26:04 Okay. DK: 26:04 As well, so there are at least four branch campuses with around 5000 students in each one. SM: 26:12 That is a lot of students. I know, you know, Ohio universities survived in the early (19)70s because of Lancaster and Zanesville, and I think Chillicothe. Ohio, the Lancaster campus, I think has 2200 students now I think they are pretty much 2200, 2500 students. But-but Ohio University in the early (19)70s, they were up close to 18,000. And I think they went down to about 12,500 or 13,500 after the (19)60s. And so- DK: 26:41 Right, they did for a while. SM: 26:42 Yeah, so there was a lot of things going on there. Now, this is just a general question here. And I know you may have already said some things on it. In high school and college that you support and participate in protests against the war in Vietnam and other protests. And just wondering, how did you feel about- you already answered that. How do you feel about protesters after arriving at Kent? DK: 27:04 Yeah, I went to a couple of protests, one of them was outside of the Student Union. And there was about 30, 30 of us there. I did not have any signs, but they had signs. So, I used one of their signs. But there was a group that was standing there about eight or ten guys, they were sorority brothers. And they will in their Izod shirts and whatever kind of golf shirts, they were wearing-wearing a gulf button up and shut, trying to shut us down. We are trying to, you know, march in and also to talk about the issues of the day. And I went to a couple others that were in the evening, and small protests of 15 or 20 people. And there was not any counter protesters. I have gone to those as well. So yeah, they were there. I wore a peace button or peace sign on my shirt every day. And people knew my position on that just by checking out the button on my shirt. SM: 27:29 Right. Yep. DK: 28:06 So, yeah. SM: 28:06 Yeah. Well, you know that that whole description of the-the fraternity guys with their Izod or polo shirts, whatever it might be. It is so true. It was the case at Ohio State when I was there in graduate school. It was the case of, at SUNY Binghamton when they were we- actually were banned from SUNY Binghamton. We did not have fraternities or sororities, when we were there, there was no way it was ever going to be passed. And of course, anybody who knows the free speech movement at Berkeley knows that the people that were those biggest threats toward the protesters were not the police. They were the [laughs] fraternity guys. So, when you, before you came to campus, you obviously were aware of some of the other major protests that were happening around the country. What, you know, the takeover at Columbia, the free speech, [crosstalk] the free speech movement at Berkeley at (19)65, (19)66. Certainly, the takeover by Native Americans of Alcatraz, I know Jane Fonda was there for that. And of course, the Cornell University in (19)69, when members of the Black Panther Party took over the union and they had guns. What was your thoughts on all these different protests? These were major happenings, some were peaceful, some were not. DK: 29:26 Well, I think it is important so that people would know that those people out there disagreeing with the White House policies in this particular case. And I thought it was great that they were doing it, it was important, it got a message out and let people know that there is a large portion of people who were going to be cannon fodder for the military who did not like this particular war. I mean, it is not that that they were against all wars. They were against this particular war, unlike my religion, which is against all war. And so up, you know, but it is important to realize that, you know, as young people are, who were studied, they were quick to learn. And they learned that there is this very [inaudible] what we were doing in Southeast Asia. That was important to let you know, the older generation know that we were not going to go peacefully into the night. And I agreed with them. I thought it was a good idea, I am not. I was always a person who believes in peaceful protest, but it was important to protest. And a little thing about Cornell, two years before the protests at Cornell, my church had their annual youth conference, which happens every four years nationwide, and I was on the Cornell campus for 10 days. SM: 30:48 Oh, wow. DK: 30:49 At that particular time. SM: 30:50 That is my neck of the woods. DK: 30:52 Yeah. And Bob Dylan was supposed to play there. But I think that was when he was still recuperating from his motorcycle accident. SM: 31:00 Oh, okay. DK: 31:02 Yeah-yeah. SM: 31:03 Here is a little tidbit. One of the African American leaders of that very serious protests at Cornell is now one of the most important alumni in Cornell's history. I think he is on the, I think he was on, he was on the Board of Trustees for a while. He has become a very successful person in life. And, and Harry Edwards, you know, the former professor at Berkeley, he was the advisor there at Cornell, he was a graduate student. And he come, [crosstalk] yeah, he was a graduate student there at the time. And he was involved in the protests, advising them. And of course, we all know what he did with Tommie, John Carlos and Tommie Smith in (19)68 Olympics. DK: 31:26 Wow. Yeah. SM: 31:49 [crosstalk] So a lot of connection there at Cornell. This is a question I would like your feelings on, and that is, how important were the student protests on college campuses on ending the war in Vietnam? Would you consider this time the closest, and also would you consider the (19)60s and early (19)70s as the closest we have come to a civil war since the Civil War? DK: 32:19 Protests on college campuses were like building a house, which culminated in say, the shootings at Kent State University, and then the marches on Washington that happened around that time as well. So, there was a whole building blocks, it was all, like, putting a putting a pot of stew on the stove, you know, you put your potatoes in first, but there they go the hardest thing, takes longer to cook. So those are important as steppingstones along the way. And the second part of that question was what? SM: 32:56 Oh, would you consider the period of the (19)60s and early (19)70s like the 19- like the Civil War, we came close to going at each other's throats. DK: 33:11 I do not think it was close to a civil war at all. Not at all. Mainly because people who were protesting the war were thinking about the union. They were thinking about this country, and the people that lived in this country. And so, I do not think there was any correlation to a civil war at all, because you had all through the (19)60s with Martin Luther King, talking about peaceful coexistence, and protesting peacefully. And many of the antiwar demonstrators felt the same way and use the same tactics along the way. So not anywhere close to a civil war. SM: 33:50 Did the-? DK: 33:51 Unlike the crazy extreme right. Now, just because they do not like some of the policies that are out there that are more humane and less discretionary. They are already starting to scream about a civil war, which is crazy. I mean, those people would nuts. And I hate to say that, but I know a few along the way, and they are already talking about Civil War, and I say, "what?!" How could you even say such a thing. SM: 34:21 Yeah. The think the media at times kind of built this kind of, is this, is there a possibility and what they would always use is that wall street scene where the hard hats would-would beat up the protesters, remember that scene? I forget what year. DK: 34:40 Oh yeah, oh yeah. [inaudible] SM: 34:42 And they always go there. They always go to that scene on, in New York, and it is the media trying to portray some of these things too. DK: 34:51 I must say I watch a lot of media because I am laid up right now. I do not feel [inaudible] doing that. What I do see on the Internet, going through various places like YouTube, the NRA chapters of an extreme [inaudible], people out there that have their own websites. They are the ones who are bringing up the issue of civil war. At this point in time. You know, they are worried about gun control, they are worried about Black people taking over. They are worried about people of different color, different nationalities who are American citizens who are born here that do not look like them. They are the ones who are stirring this up. The media has done a good job of keeping it off the front page, as far as I am concerned. [Inaudible] say, I am consuming a lot of media right now, because I am laid up. And I do not see it. What I am seeing is, it is crazy people out there, putting their videos online talking about, you know, how to prep for this type of thing. How much ammo do you need, you know, what kind of property you need to build. So that stuff is going on, those people are crazy. And there is like they are getting more and more hits, more and more likes, on their, on their, on their pages. SM: 35:37 Right. I know, it is more, I know, Morris Dees wrote a book, maybe 15, maybe six, maybe 15 years ago about the militia. And I think it is as applicable today as it was when he wrote it. Have you changed your opinion at all about boomers since you have aged? DK: 36:30 Just like I said, I see more of the areas where we could have done more follow through. And we have not. And so yeah, that is that part about me is a little disappointed in some areas. But I think in the, for it is time, we, we did a good job. And we made the country aware of what was going on. But I think at this point in time, what I am seeing is the boomer generation, the-the women who are involved, are the ones who are more active and more, more willing to be out there and in front and do leadership. You know, to me, that is important to see the women are picking it picking it up. SM: 37:10 I agree. I agree. And I hope I hope one day we really get equal pay. DK: 37:17 Yeah. SM: 37:17 Equal pay for equal work, I know that this has been a big issue, it is still is in some positions, because of the position everybody is paid the same, like in Congress. But the thing is, that they are still not being paid, what men are paid. And they still have to, you know, continue the battle. The-the, would you describe the youth of the (19)60s and early (19)70s as the most unique generation in American history? I say this, because back, you may have heard this from your peers back when we were both young, whether it be Kent State or SUNY Binghamton or another, any other college, students felt that they had this feeling that, a good feeling that they were going to change things and for the betterment of society, they were, that they were going to be the change agents for the betterment-betterment of society, they saw they would see it wrong, and they tried to right it. Your thoughts on that, that they, that this feeling that we are unique, we are different, we may be the greatest generation in history. They thought that in their youth, I am not sure if they think that now. DK: 38:27 Well, I never thought that my youth always thought that we were just part of these movements in this society that we live in, this country we live in. We were just picking up the mantle and carrying it forward. Now the generation that I attribute that is probably the most changed, did the most change in this world, would be my parents’ generation that fought in World War Two, that survived the Great Depression, and brought the prosperity to the world that we have out there. And that that, to me was probably the generation that had the biggest impact on society in this world, you know, in my lifetime, but I think we were just part of a, you know, part of the movement in this country to move forward. And you know, we did not have any big world war, but we had our own skirmishes in Cambodia, you know, and Laos. So yeah, I mean, I do not know I do not, I never got that feeling that we were, you know, major change agents in the world. I never felt that at all. SM: 39:35 I have about six other questions before we get to the Kent State, but I am going to go right into Kent State because I think it is important here. DK: 39:43 Yeah. SM: 39:43 These are the questions; I got a whole series here. Why did you why did you choose Kent State, and I think you have already explained that and your major in teaching. Were you a conservative or a liberal? How would you define yourself? DK: 40:00 Well, if I look back at what I was, in context of today's reality, I would say I was probably a liberal. But I just, I was still, in my mind at the time I was thinking about, you know, all these issues, how I, how I need to approach them, how I need to address them, and you know, how they affect me, and what can I do about that? You know so I did not really think of myself as a liberal or conservative. I was considering myself as someone who was trying to figure my way through this world at this point in time. Oh, yeah. So yeah, I would say, looking back, I would say I was probably a liberal but at the time I was just curious. SM: 40:41 On that, on that weekend, starting with the, when Nixon gave the speech, that we were going into Cambodia on April 30, it sent a wave around the country of protests. I mean, like, golly, I cannot even, you know, it happened on our campus. Did you attend and support all the events over those four-day periods, and on the 30th, and then the 1st, 2nd and 3rd? DK: 41:07 Well on the third, obviously I was in the, you know, the local tavern watching the speech and you know, [inaudible] to televisions, not television, televisions, remember back then we did not have huge TVs like we do now. SM: 41:20 Right-right. DK: 41:22 But I was, I was in there. And everybody was taking notes. I felt out of place. I felt like I went to a classroom out of Oakland. And it was quiet, except for whenever it was over with, there was a lot of booing. And then there was a long discussion on the way back to my dormitory, Tri Towers. And then the next day, I remember going to classes. And then I went home. I was home for the weekend. And the district youth were at our church while I was there, sort of facilitating the activities that were going on and discussions that was going in a small group, discussions about the war in Vietnam, what had happened, that sort of thing. So, I was gone Friday after classes on the 3rd, Sunday afternoon. So, I missed all that. But I was [inaudible] by Church of the Brethren, people I knew who were younger than me, year or two younger than me, helping facilitate the discussion that was going on during the district youth rally at the [inaudible] Church. SM: 42:31 When you left, Dean after the speech on the 30th and went back home, and then you came back to your campus a few days later, were you shocked to see National Guard troops there? DK: 42:43 I truly was. In fact, it was not just on the campus. I mean, it was clear up on the edge of town, South 43, the route 43 on my entrance into campus was I was driving north on 43. And we pulled up there and my dad said he saw what was happening. He said get your driver's license out your ID card out. And I will take, I will do all the talking. I said, "why?" He says, "Well, I used to be a truck driver in World War Two. I told you that. But I went through lots of checkpoints, I know exactly what to do." And he said, "just hope the guy that comes in the window is not a second lieutenant because I do not have a good respect for them. I hope it is a sergeant." And sure enough, it was some sergeant. [inaudible] had a little conversation with him about being a World War Two veteran and taking his son back to school, taking him back to, you know, Tri-Towers and the guy said, "Well, you are going to have two or three more check points before you get there. And you got to [inaudible] order here, sir." My dad said, "Do not call me sir." [laughter] SM: 43:51 Wow, I did not know about, all these checkpoints just to come back to your college? DK: 43:56 Yeah-yeah. There was a check point when we got to the edge of campus. SM: 44:01 What were they looking for? Troublemakers? DK: 44:08 Probably. [laughs] SM: 44:10 Yeah, that happened, that happened at Michigan State when I went to visit a friend of mine there and he said, "Well, you better have your ID" and I said, "why?" "Well, you will find out when you get here" and yes, they thought we were out of state agitators. DK: 44:25 Right. You got, there was not both your ID and your driver's license [inaudible] SM: 44:30 Yes. DK: 44:32 I was saying, our driver's license were paper if you were a member of Ohio. Yep. SM: 44:37 My golly. So, you got back to the campus and that, what were all the students thinking there in your residence hall? I mean, this is what the this is the third? DK: 44:50 Yes, yeah. SM: 44:54 What were they go- what was happening in the residence halls? DK: 44:56 Well, I do not know what was happening in the residence hall. I got there in time for, you know, evening meal and unpacking and that sort of stuff. But nobody was talking about it. You know, they were discussing what was going on there. People were discussing about what was happening in Cambodia. People were telling stories about how they had been stopped by two or three soldiers who had bayonets on their rifles, pointing them at them, telling them to drop their books, searching them and that sort of stuff. But yeah, there was all this uneasy feeling about what was happening. And, you know, there was a lot of discussion about that whole uneasy feeling, feeling to sum it up in a few words. SM: 45:40 Yeah, I have been doing enough of those remembrance events to hear you and Alan and all the others talk about the experience. And the fact is, I keep asking one question, where was the president? I mean, I am not talking about President Nixon, where was President White? DK: 45:57 Right. [crosstalk] SM: 45:57 Where, he was on he was in a conference waiting to get on a plane and get the heck back to the campus. I mean, I cannot understand that. DK: 46:06 Right. He was in Iowa, I think. And he came back Sunday. And that is about same time Governor Rhodes made that impassioned speech to the fire department. And I think President White just washed his hands of the issue, said the governor's been here, the governor's taken over and the National Guard have taken over and I think President White just washed his hands of the whole issue [crosstalk]. SM: 46:35 Wow, see that that is, I mentioned, I think I have mentioned that the Alan years ago, just in a conversation that is weak presidential leadership if I have ever heard one. And number one, he should have been fighting for the students. And he should have, he should have not allowed them- I well, I, you know, the governor can override him, but he should have challenged him more. DK: 46:56 Absolutely. SM: 46:57 And, and it is because he could have prevented a crisis. DK: 47:02 Yeah. SM: 47:03 And that is where you need the leadership. The next day, the day the day that really, I think, shook the world. I think you need to know this Dean that you know that the reason I am in higher education, the reason I changed my career goals. The reason it was it was because of what happened on that day. I wanted to I wanted to go into higher education as a career with a hope that I could be an administrator that could work for students, try to bring faculty, students and administrators together in harmony not in, you know, into battle. And, and I think my story is the story of thousands. DK: 47:46 Oh, yeah, [crosstalk] SM: 47:47 The loss of the loss of four precious lives and the wounding of four, or nine precious people is inexcusable. DK: 47:57 Yeah, absolutely. SM: 47:59 And as Alan and, and you, I think you all agree from a couple of conferences that it was murder. DK: 48:05 Yep. That it was. SM: 48:06 But can you explain, and this is important, because people down the road will hear this interview, and we will all be long gone. But Kent State will never be gone. And the [inaudible] the remembrance event, is going to be major. But I know right now, three people at Harpur College, who I do not even know, in their interview, said that the thing that changed their life was Kent State. DK: 48:36 Wow. Yeah-yeah. SM: 48:38 Could you desrc- could you describe that day on May 4th, in your own words? DK: 48:46 To follow up on what you were saying there, state sanctioned murder is basically what it was. You know, it was, Governor Rhodes made such derogatory remarks, he said that "We will do it. We will do anything to eradicate the problem." [phone rings] SM: 49:05 Do not worry about that noise. I am in a room here with the phone. Hold on one second. [banging] I cannot do anything about it. It is the phone. Go ahead. DK: 49:30 Basically, [inaudible] saying we have to do everything we can to-to eradicate the problem. They called us, said that we were the worst elements that we harbor in our society, that we were worse than the Brown Shirts, the Night Riders, the vigilantes. So, he was demonizing us and I think justifying his future actions that he thought might happen or maybe did not think that happened, sort of was setting the stage, being an agitator. And so that sort of gave, you know, gave people, you know, the green light to do whatever they needed to do. So yeah, something like this should never happened in this late the 20th century. SM: 50:16 Now what time, what time did you will walk over to the field? DK: 50:20 Well, I got up that morning. And although my professors’ offices [inaudible] I was not coming to classes this morning, that I would be in my afternoon classes. And that was back when you had to, you could not miss unless you were deadly ill, and you always called in to let them know you were not coming to class. That was Kent State. Because only the year before they finally allowed women and men to visit each other in our dormitory. SM: 50:47 Wow. DK: 50:49 There were not- yeah. And so, I remember getting up that morning, and walking over with a couple of my floormates to the area. And we all got [inaudible] we got lost along the way. I was planning on going to my 1:10 class. So, I had paper and a couple of pens in my pocket. So, I could put them in my notebook notes that I was taking that particular, the rest of the afternoon in my last two classes. And we were standing on the side of the hill, watching what was going on. There were a couple of people with a bullhorn, talking about the isms of the day. I was getting a little bored. And then I noticed that the National Guard, were moving around over by, in ruins of the ROTC building that were burnt down, and thought, "Well, something is going to happen here." And next thing I know there is an officer bullhorn who told us to disperse, we were illegally gathered that sort of thing. Even though there was no damage being done, there was no rioting being done. No anything other than students standing around and listening to these people with these bullhorns talking about the isms of the day. But them coming out and I have to say student, students threw lots of rocks and stones at the National Guard. But they did not get very close. They had a, they had a, I do not know if it was a security guard from the campus or, but we did have our own police department, you know [inaudible] department, or somebody from the city police, I cannot remember now, who was riding in the seat with a bullhorn. And then we went back, and students started chanting all the [inaudible] chants of the day. 1,2,3,4, we do not want your f-ing war. Pigs off campus, and the like. And then they came out with the National Guard and, you know, told us we were gathered illegally, read the Ohio Riot Act to us. And of course, students continued to throw stones, but they stayed, you know, good 100 yards away. Not too many people had the, you know, the arm of a centerfielder to play for any professional baseball team. So, there was basically no harm done there. And then I saw them go back and I saw them putting bayonets on their rifles and checking their rifles, I saw them getting out the grenade launcher that they were going to launch the tear gas canisters with, and then they all formed up in formation and poot-poot-poot. You know, half a dozen tear gas canisters went flying through the air. And of course, the area of the commons surrounded on, you know, three sides by hill- hills, I should say. SM: 53:41 Right. DK: 53:41 And it was a fairly, fairly windy day. So, there was a lot of a lot of swirling winds. So, the tear gas did not have the desired effect that they probably wanted to have because students were able to run away from the area and go up around Taylor Hall on the sides. The other side of Taylor Hall and they got out of the way, went down the hill on the other side of Taylor Hall into a parking lot where some kids eventually were shot. But I went past that and to another parking lot across the street, across midway drive. And I remember at that point in time, pulling out a baggie that I had for a wet washcloth and actually had two wet wash cloths, so I could wash off my face then rinse it off as well and, did not have anything to dry it off with but, you know, it was a windy day so it was going to dry quickly. But got the tear gas out of my eye. And I remember standing there watching them come down the hill from where I had just come and go into the practice football field, which was surrounded on three sides by a fence. And another four or 500 students were on the same hill where they had just come from, and basically formed a [inaudible] around them. So, they were totally surrounded by, you know, a chain-link fence and a group of students. And at this point in time, there were a lot of students who were throwing stones from the National Guard, but, you know, again there are 100 yards away. And so, nobody was hitting anything, the National Guard, we thought were just there to shoot tear gas at everybody. I remember one National Guard from picking up a tear gas canister and throwing it back at the students. And then I saw them huddled together. And after they huddled together, they got in formation and marched from where they had come. And then I sort of followed along, staying about 100 yards away, I was curious. I looked at my clock, and it was about 20, 25 after noon. And when they reached the top of the hill, they turned and fired. I mean, I grew up using firearms, and they are turning, and they are lifting their rifle, a very deliberate act. There was no hesitation. There was no, you know, thinking about it. As soon as they pulled those [inaudible] and pulled those rifles up, I said, "Oh, my God, they are going to shoot." I could not believe it. I was mortified. We were jumping on the ground because there was no trees to hide behind. And I was laying there hearing the shots. And all of a sudden, I heard shots landing on the ground around me, not landing but going into the ground around me. And then I got hit, and I said, "Oh, my God, what had happened." Shot me. And then I regained my consciousness quickly again, or my, my awareness, realized there was still bullets hitting the ground around me. And I thought, "Oh, my God, I hope I do not get hit again." And then all of a sudden everything stopped. But while the shooting was going on, I mean, it was chaos. People screaming and hollering. The shrill of their voice, it is just amazing. I just could not believe the noise that three or four thousand people were making, at that point in time, it was shocking to hear. Then there was a lull, a quietness. And then all of a sudden, there was more screaming, more shouting, more hollering. And then all sudden, there were people gathering around me with the look of shock and horror on their face. They were traumatized. These people were looking down at me lying on the ground. And I was not bleeding externally, my bleeding was all done internal and so there was a pool of blood that went through my-my back, it just went inside my shoulder blade, I can reach around and put my finger on the bullet hole. But it has damaged my lungs, and my diaphragm. And my vertebrae and my spinal cord, shattered three vert- three vertebrae, thoracique, 9, 10 and 11 hit me and ricocheted off of there. And the bullet is still in me, I have shrapnel all through my body. And my [inaudible] I should say and seemed like it took forever before an ambulance got there. And I remember [inaudible] the journey, putting me in the ambulance and driving off campus. And there was an odd sight I saw on my trip when I got out on Main Street headed towards Ravenna was the fact that every other telephone pole, there were telephone workers up on the poles and it is probably six of them that I saw. I thought, "Now that is an odd sight as I am going off campus here, why are all those guys up on those telephone poles?" Hospital found out later that they shut off the [inaudible] campus so there will obviously be some pre- planning going on if there was a catastrophe and, you know, they turned off all the phones then they ordered everybody to leave campus. But back to my story I remember getting to the Ravenna hospital, I remember being put on a gurney, you know, a regular hospital gurney and I remember hearing a nurse holler, "Get blood types on all these people!" and I said to myself, "I just gave blood at the blood bank last week so I got my blood donor's card and while I was digging around for it, I pulled out my other blood donor's card from Mercy Medical Center, where I have been giving blood [inaudible] high school and [inaudible] high school, and then, I thought [inaudible] need my insurance card. They are going to need my ID, my driver's license. And I had a card that I had typed up with my parents' phone numbers on it as well. Let us just go back because once I got shot and shooting stopped, I forgot to tell you this-that an African American student came over to me and asked me who I was, and did I know the phone numbers for my parents. And I gave them my parents, two work numbers because I knew they were both at work today, that day. And we went into Prentice Hall and called my parents within five minutes of me getting shot. So, they heard about it firsthand, from an eyewitness, instead of hearing about the news, and then waiting here to see if their son was all right. SM: 1:01:02 Right. DK: 1:01:03 So, my mother was the foresight that she had, she called our bishop, we do not we did not call him bishops, they were district secretaries. But they were the equivalent of a bishop, say like in the Catholic Church. And she called him, and he said, "You are lucky you caught me, if you had waited two or three more minutes, I would have been out the door on my way to Robinson Memorial Hospital [inaudible]. So, I will look him up as soon as I get there. So, he drove to Ravenna. And I was able to see him before they put me out to operate on me. And we had a little prayer and a little time together, talked a little bit. And then they gurney- wheeled me out to operate on me. So those were the things that happened to me immediately after the shooting. And then I wake up Friday morning with all kinds of [inaudible] stuck in me, and all kinds of [inaudible] and clapping and supplement breathing. Because this crazy computer aided machines, these were all mechanical machines running to keep me alive at that point in time, and when I was fully conscious, I remember like Saturday morning, the nurse came over and said, "There is an FBI agent over there who would like to talk to you." I said, “Okay, send him over." So came over, he identified himself, I do not remember his name. He says, "I got some questions for you." I said, "Oh, wait-wait, wait. Our family attorney is a guy named Harry Schmuck." And the guy sort of got a little white in the face. I said, "He is an old farm boy and I helped, helped him bale hay, and help him deal with animals. He is my attorney." And then I saw him sort of turn white, and I said, "why do you look so weird today?" "You mean, the Harry Schmuck?" "Yeah." [inaudible] He goes, "yeah, I have my [inaudible] in Cleveland," because these FBI agents were from Cleveland. SM: 1:03:19 Oh, wow. DK: 1:03:19 He worked, what was that famous murder case, the Sheppard case as it was? SM: 1:03:24 Yes-yes. DK: 1:03:26 He was. He was a young attorney on one of the, I do not know if it was the defense or in the prosecutor's office at that point in time, I think he was on the defense team. And so, you know, he was a rather flamboyant little farm boy. Harry was so [crosstalk]. SM: 1:03:46 Well, you had a good one. DK: 1:03:48 I apparently had a good one. I did not know. SM: 1:03:50 Yes, yeah. DK: 1:03:51 He was good. He It was just another farmer who was a lawyer. And every time I visited his office, the had his barn shoes sitting on a tray just inside the door of his office. So his office always smelled like horse shit and cow shit. SM: 1:04:07 [laughs] Well, he knows who his roots were. Now Dean, how long were you in the hospital? DK: 1:04:18 Well, I was in the hospital from May 4th to May 21st. In Robinson Memorial Hospital, then I was a part of this new program trying to get people from their initial spinal cord injury into a rehabilitation center as early as possible. It went from May 4th to May 21st. That is what, 17 days that I was in the [inaudible]. And then I was in the rehab center. They told me when I on my intake that I'd probably be there until February or March of (19)71 because of the seriousness of my injury, because they had to the break three ribs to get into me to manhandle all my organs to look for sharp metal, to repair the organs if they could, and they sewed up my diaphragm. And then they put me all back together. And so, I was really sore. And because I had a spinal cord injury, they could not put me on a frame with tension. So, I had to lay perfectly still on my back for four hours, then they would take six people to rotate me onto my stomach for four hours. And then they would rotate me on my side for four hours, and then my other side foot four hours. SM: 1:05:50 Wow. DK: 1:05:51 For three, three months until the hematoma the big pool of blood that was surrounding my three vertebrates finally went down. And they, you know, they then at that point in time that I was allowed to start sitting up a little bit at a time. SM: 1:06:11 Wow. DK: 1:06:13 Spent that time but I finally got out of the hospital, I defied all odds, I was being an athlete, I was motivated and know how to take care of myself. In fact, I do, I still do whatever I can, even in my horizontal space at this point in time. I do 50 Pushups every time I get into my cart, then I have a set of five-pound dumbbells that I use to exercise my arm to keep my muscle [inaudible]. So, I was able to get released from the hospital on October 25 (19)70. And I got out in time for Halloween and was able to go back to school in January, of (19)71, much earlier than expected. Yeah. SM: 1:07:04 And did you go full time for the rest of the time until you graduated? DK: 1:07:10 Yes, I did. Yes, I did, I did. SM: 1:07:13 And when did you get that degree? DK: 1:07:15 Well, because of my interruptions to my education from various things I had to do and learning how to live life as a paraplegic or a spinal cord injured person. It took me a little while, but I finally graduated (19)77. So, yeah, there was a lot of interruptions where I was part of the quarter but would not, would not be able to finish it so. SM: 1:07:42 And was that still in teaching? DK: 1:07:45 Yes, yes. It always was. SM: 1:07:48 And did you go out and become a teacher, when you left? DK: 1:07:51 I taught for 15 years as a teacher at the end of my career. Prior to that I was in politics and government. I worked for the, first my job was, my first job out of college was with the Industrial Commission, Division of Safety and Hygiene. There was a new program that was being started to help employers make their businesses accessible for their workers who came back disabled from work injuries or non-work injuries, but also to do an accessibility survey for the employers to make their businesses accessible for the disabled so that the disabled could get jobs. So, I did that for two years. And then I was approached by the Democratic Executive Chairman of Athens County and asked me if I would be interested in working for Tony Celebrezze, the newly elected Secretary of State of Ohio. And the interview had two interviews with them, and he asked me if I wanted to work for him and I told him I would. I would still be doing the same type of work, but I would be working with boards of elections and making them accessible in 18 counties in Southeast Ohio. But I knew these counties from my work with the Industrial Commission, Division of Safety and Hygiene because I was already working those 18 counties. And so, I worked for Tony Celebrezze for a couple of months, for four years. And then when he was elected the Attorney General State of Ohio, I continued to work for him. But I switched over primarily with lawyers, judges, that sort of thing. But I must say that one of the major accomplishments was when we left the Secretary of State's office, the facility we left the Secretary of State's office, 99 percent of the board of elections in the state of Ohio were wheelchair accessible. And I think that 80 percent of the polling places were now wheelchair accessible. And the last thing, last [inaudible] that he had, as a Secretary of State was, he started the process of computerized voter registration [inaudible] which I was able to facilitate by region. A lot of resistance that so I would bring the copies of the forum, leave the, there. And once I made all the stops at all eighteen counties. I started back again; I would spend the day sitting in their office. He tried to put me in some office, nope, I want to be right in the middle of everything. They set me up an office and I would sit right beside the big card catalog they had. And I would pull out the letter "A," start typing. So, I got these forms. And I think, I shamed them because by the second time around, they were already doing it. So, we started the process to get a statewide voter registration letter. And then to put it on the state computers, getting started to computerize legislation, which we now have, I think in all fifty states. SM: 1:09:21 Right. Wow, you were involved in some important work. DK: 1:11:24 I was doing some good work, I enjoyed it. SM: 1:11:27 My golly, and you know, what I really admire is that, you know, you had this setback in your, well, a major setback in your life, you never planned to be in a wheelchair, and you still went on with your life and you are doing good things. And you are giving back to is, it is, it is all about giving back to others. DK: 1:11:46 Yeah. SM: 1:11:47 And you are obviously, you know, the-the injury in terms of wheelchair accessibility, I look at campuses now. And I am sure, I even do it at Kent State when I visit, because that has been a big issue at where I used to work at Westchester, that all buildings needed to be accessible by wheelchair. And we still have one building at Westchester University that will not do it, because it is on the Historic Register. And if they had to do what they had to, they have to take some stones off of the-the outside of the building. I do not know where they are with that, but it is still wrong. The rest of the campus is all accessible, but one building is not. DK: 1:12:26 [inaudible] After I got hurt, and I was hauled away, even before I got home, when I was in the hospital. I mean, I was visited by people from I do not know how many states, but it was a lot of different states. It was all, it was in the summer, I was in the Rehab Center in Cleveland. And people would drop in out of the sky blue- professors, students and, you know, student leaders from various private and small colleges and big colleges. All came and brought me books, to spend time with them. And church leaders, many denominations came to visit me while I was in the rehab center. And so, you know, there is all this discussion about, you know, "What are you going to do next?" Well, "I want to go back and finish my education and be a productive member of society." And I got a lot of support for all of that. And I really never, never, I never had any other feeling. And the same with my family, you know, my mother heard that I would go on vacation and do something in society, whether it be, you know, working in a local community or whatever. So yeah, I mean, there was no hesitation by any of my friends, my colleagues, or acquaintances that I was not going to get up and go be a part of society. That was never even in my head to begin with that I would not withdraw from society-that I would withdraw from society, that would be a productive member of society. So yeah, there was just not there was no-no hesitation by anybody, or me. I knew I was alive. The thing here is I was thankful that I was alive. I could have been dead because you get hit with a 30-06 m1 caliber rifle. That is the same weapon my father carried in World War Two. And my father, now to the day he died, was so angry that I was shot by the same rifle that he carried World War Two. SM: 1:14:45 Wow. DK: 1:14:47 [inaudible] that the M1 Garand was used to shoot me, but he used it to help save the world from tyranny. SM: 1:14:53 Wow. DK: 1:14:54 Yeah, that is, that is- SM: 1:14:57 That is, that is something. I did not know that. DK: 1:15:01 Yeah, one sad part of his life he never overcame. SM: 1:15:06 Wow. DK: 1:15:07 Yeah. SM: 1:15:10 Over the years, when did you get to know the people that were also wounded at Kent State, and also the families of those who had died? DK: 1:15:19 Within a year, within a year, I got to meet them. Because, you know, there was lawyers who were representing all of us. All those lawyers got together, and all those lawyers got all the families together. And we started dealing with the strategy of how we were going to deal with this issue. We were going to hold the state of Ohio accountable for what they did. And so that is where I met them, I met them at a hotel in downtown Cleveland. But I had also met many of the students who were wounded at Kent State because many of them were still going to school- SM: 1:16:04 Right. DK: 1:16:06 -at Kent State. So yeah. That is how I met everybody. SM: 1:16:15 The remembrance events now, in linkage to this tragedy. This murder, as some of the programs have described what, there has been 49 years of, I believe in the very beginning, though, you were not allowed to have remembrance events? Or I do not know what was going on here that in the early stages, but this is-? DK: 1:16:41 Oh, [inaudible] SM: 1:16:41 Pardon? DK: 1:16:43 Yeah, it was a year later, they had a big commemoration. [inaudible] commemoration September of (19)70. Phil Ochs, Bang, I met the Reverend Ralph Abernathy there, I forget the other celebrities that were there as well. When you were talking about people who were, you know, baby boomers and Richie Havens. Richie Havens, I think of Phil Ochs at the same time. SM: 1:17:09 Oh, yes, definitely. DK: 1:17:11 Yeah. And so, you know, I met all those people as well. And there was a large contingency of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. And those guys were the ones that actually took care of me. When I went back in September of (19)70, they were there, and they were around me so that nothing would happen to me. SM: 1:17:41 How did your- how did your parents get through all this? Now, obviously, they were there for you as their son, but how- your mom and dad, how did they react to this the same or differently? DK: 1:17:55 Well, they both react differently. Yeah, my mother, being a being a woman, obviously, is very verbal. But the comparison I like to make is that my mother gained 50 pounds, my father lost 50 pounds. And when I talked to my neighbors later on, as I got older, I talked to my neighbors about the whole thing and found out that we had one neighbor that they went and talked to, and one neighbor describes my dad coming up there and just crying with his head on the table. And my and she would also then describe how my mother was just so anguished about what happened. And then then my siblings, you know, my sister when she got home from school, found out about it, and my parents were already in Robinson Memorial Hospital at that point in time. So, my sister basically ran the family. She was two years younger than I am. So, she was a Senior High School, and she was basically taking care of my other two siblings. I had three other siblings, I had two sisters and a brother. And she is just now in the last few years, started to talk to me about it about how [inaudible] it was and how frightening it was and how scary it was between mom and dad, the way they were reacting to what happened. And, you know, it really made a big impression on her. SM: 1:19:36 What did you personally learn from going through this tragic event? DK: 1:19:39 Well, I learned that, you know, we live in a participatory democracy and if you do not participate, you get run over. And I have, every speech I have given in my lifetime, I have always told people to register to vote. Fighting the issues, fighting the candidates and then vote. I also, I also tell people that they have to be involved. You do not have to run for office like the US Senate or whatever. You know, there is lots of kinds of things that you can do. You can either run [inaudible] Trustees, village council, you can also, you do not want to run for office, you can work on various boards and commissions, that public officials make appointments to. You know, children's services, MRDD, Alcohol and Drug Addiction committees, all kinds of activities out there that you can be involved in and be part of your government. You know, you have to, you have to be involved in making your local government thrive. [inaudible] Democracy [inaudible] like I said, it is a participatory sport. You have to be involved. You are not involved; you are not making a decision and it is important to be an active productive member of society. But I have included that in every one of my speeches. SM: 1:21:07 It is very important. Excellent. You know Kim Phuc, the girl in the picture from the Vietnam War? DK: 1:21:16 Yeah. SM: 1:21:17 Yeah, we brought her to our campus, and she talks about the whole issue of healing and so forth. I want to just; I wrote this comment down and from about her and linking with you and I want your thoughts. Kim Phuc, the girl in the picture, has devoted her life to healing and sending messages that healing is the best way to overcome tragedy. She forgives the, the, the pilots, who dropped bombs on her village where she was burned over 80 percent of her body, and she lost her brother. DK: 1:21:51 Right. SM: 1:21:51 A pain she has every day she lives with every day in her life. Have you been able to heal from a different tragedy in some way, knowing that the National Guard that did this committed a terrible crime, murder of four and wounding of nine, and will pay in the end, but you have moved on in your life and have, have you healed a little bit yourself? DK: 1:22:17 I had to work at forgiveness. And I think forgiveness is more than just saying, "I forgive," It is something you have to do regularly, almost daily, sometimes. Because I have a constant reminder about what happened to me. That reminds me of the four key students who were killed. But, you know, I am not going to forget, I wish at some point in time, one of them would give us a deathbed confession about what really happened. And, you know, it is important. And I think one of the reasons none of them have spoken up is because murder has no statute of limitations. And they are all afraid. The governor and their general were able to scare the daylights out of those people, so they are never going to talk. I just hope at some point in time, one of them will do a deathbed confession about what really went on that particular day. So yeah, I have moved on. But I have not forgotten. SM: 1:23:21 Yeah. And Dean, is it? Is it true that most of the, most of the guys that were in the National Guard have died? DK: 1:23:29 I do not know. They were not. There were not 18- 20-year-olds, like everybody talks about. [inaudible] were all close to 30 years old, so I would not doubt that they are getting [inaudible], several of them have died already. SM: 1:23:47 Right. Well, maybe, would not that be interesting if we could get one of those people to come to the event next year and tell the truth? DK: 1:23:57 Yeah. SM: 1:23:57 Would not that be and-and I think that person even though he committed to, he committed a crime, would probably get support from those in attendance. DK: 1:24:09 [agreement] SM: 1:24:10 Finally, being honest and truthful. Do you see anything in America today? How would you define the divide you see in America today in (20)19, in (20)19, are there any links to the divide in (19)70? DK: 1:24:26 Well, the only link that I see between the divide now and divide then is the fact that, to use modern terminology, they use of hate speech as continues to prevail in our society. Back that we used to call it radical rhetoric by the right or the conservatives or Republicans [inaudible] point, but I think that is the only real link that we have today. I think what we have here today is a want to be authoritarian or want to be dictator, who is frightened because he is such a corrupt person, that he does not know the consequences of his actions. Whereas Richard Nixon was very aware of the consequences of his actions and was a little more maniacal in the sense of knowing the limits of his authority, and the responsibilities he had with the office. This particular tyrant does not know the limits of the building [inaudible] knows the responsibilities that goes with the office. And then there is a small group of people out there who have no limits to begin with. And I think those are his ardent followers. So obviously, Nixon had his ardent followers, but, you know, they were they were quelled by the fact that Nixon knew the responsibilities and the job that he is after, where this guy does not know the responsibility of either. So. SM: 1:26:20 Got a couple more questions here that just give me the hi-sign here. I did not know this. I had to leave at 4:50. I thought was going to be here till 5. DK: 1:26:29 Oh. SM: 1:26:29 Let me go try to get, here is one. What do you think the lasting legacy of the (19)60s and (19)70s is? DK: 1:26:39 Well, I am not afraid to give credit where credit is due the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, you know, who sponsored those [inaudible]. The improvement of women's lives going forward a little bit as well. I think the improvement, the little improvement there is for the civil rights of African Americans and people who were different. The fact that, you know, people in society were not afraid to speak up about the war. There was a war, that we, that hasn't stopped our society from allowing it to happen. So, it is a mixed review. Obviously, some good things have happened. And the lessons have not been learned. Because we-we repeat some of those historical lessons that children learn. So yeah, it is an era and a time of turbulence, and education, and change. But like all eras, or generations, you never get 100 percent of what you want. SM: 1:27:50 Right. DK: 1:27:52 There will be forces out there that control the levers of power. SM: 1:27:57 Do you think we as a nation have healed since the Vietnam War as a nation, Jan Scruggs wrote a book, "To Heal a Nation." And when he wrote that book, it was about healing the Vietnam veterans who had served in that war, the ones who, obviously the families of those who died. And, and then, of course, and he and he knew he was his effort, when the-the wall opened in (19)82, that veterans are finally saying, we were welcomed home for the first time. Have we healed as a nation since the war? DK: 1:28:31 I think we have partially healed as a nation since the war. I still see the fact that veterans are dying because of their exposure to Agent Orange, getting those diseases that go along with it. And the VA's still struggling to take care of those veterans. And you have got the big chasm, the big polarization that is going on between people who were considerate and trying to make the world a better place and those who want to abuse and take advantage of the resources and the society that we have. You know, so. And is the fact that the rich keep finding excuses to deny equal pay to people of all economic status, status, statuses. But yeah, I do not think we [inaudible] heal but part of society has, some parts [inaudible] along the way. SM: 1:29:41 And then I will probably end with this, Dean because they just told me I thought I had till, I thought I had two hours here. 10 more minutes, but I am going [inaudible]. In a few sentences, or less, or even maybe a paragraph, describe the (19)60s and (19)70s in the way that only Dean can describe it. DK: 1:30:09 Well, for me personally, it was a period of growth and development. It is also a period of understanding responsibility of being a member of this great Republic that we live in. And learning the lessons that democracy only works if you participate and being part of the process of making government work. In the (19)60s, and (19)70s, (19)70s were a period of growth and development and learning to become a productive member of society. And also learning to live by life in such a way that I am proud of what I have done, and that other people can learn from examples that I, the way I have lived my life. I think that would be the probably the best way to describe. SM: 1:31:07 Do you ever, do you ever feel feelings like some people have, but others do not have. Why me? [crosstalk] Was I am in the wrong place at the wrong time? I mean, why do you ever have that feeling? DK: 1:31:24 I do not have those feelings now. But in the early days, [inaudible] after I got hurt was in and out in the rehab center and stuff, I felt that. But then I went through some good psychological counseling to deal with the issue of [inaudible] my disability, being a strong, strapping farm boy and an athlete, to understand that I can still be a strong, strapping athlete and a productive member of society through that counseling that I got, and no, I have not felt those feelings in, you know, nearly 50 years at this point in time. SM: 1:31:58 You know, it is amazing. Kim Phuc's story is a little bit like yours, but in with different circumstances. She is a very religious person, very religious. And if you have seen her, we brought her to the, well, I wish she could come to the, to the 50th anniversary, I just, it is about healing. It is about, it is about forgiving, and a lot of things but religion plays a very important part. She has got 80 percent of her body is burned. DK: 1:32:01 Right. SM: 1:32:28 But it has not deterred her spirit of healing and forgiveness. And you do not have to forgive people who have done things. But in the mere fact that you were paralyzed from the waist down by a tragedy, but you have used your experience to help the lives of others. DK: 1:32:49 Yeah. SM: 1:32:49 With your work and government with all these other things, you and Kim are two peas in a pod. You need to be in a room, you need to be in a room together and shut the door and just talk for four hours. I mean, I am serious because you have had different stories. Very serious tragedies. But you have moved on with your life and helping others. DK: 1:33:15 I have always admired her story. There is no doubt about that. SM: 1:33:19 Well, I am, I am in the process of getting a hold of her to okay her interview with me because I got pretty close to her when she came to Westchester. But in my email to her, I am going to say I would love to someday, if you can get a link up with Dean. I think I think if you could have just a conversation, just the two of you talking together. Maybe one day that can happen. DK: 1:33:43 That would be nice. That would be nice. I would enjoy that. SM: 1:33:46 Now, the last thing I am going to say is, is there any question I did not ask that you expect, you thought I might ask? DK: 1:33:53 Well, actually, you are pretty thorough. And if you have any future questions, do not be afraid to get a hold. SM: 1:33:58 Yeah, well, I have been cut about 20 minutes off my interview here, but I will let you know that Dean. And- DK: 1:34:04 Well, I will keep this phone number in my directory with your name, so. SM: 1:34:08 Okay, yep. Okay, will do and what will happen here as we will be after this interview, the Center here will get the tape, they will mail it to your email address. So, I need your email address. DK: 1:34:24 It is just my first name and my last name deantaylor@gmail.com. SM: 1:34:31 Okay. At gmail.com? DK: 1:34:35 Yep. SM: 1:34:36 Alright, I do not know when they are going to do it, but I just, you are the second interview I had today, and they will send it to you for you to listen to and okay it. And then I think I have a picture of you already that I took of you, so I do not have to worry about a picture. So. DK: 1:34:50 Okay. SM: 1:34:51 All right, Dean, thank you very much. May God bless and may you continue to be, you know, be healthy. I will be thinking of you as you are battling. I guess you are not feeling very good right now. DK: 1:35:05 I am feeling good. I just felt hurt myself two years ago, and I have had all kinds of complications related since then. But I am getting there. I am getting to the point where my body is healing, so I am in good shape. SM: 1:35:18 Well, you are very important person to be around. So, you know, I look forward to seeing you at Kent State. Definitely next year. DK: 1:35:27 Absolutely. SM: 1:35:28 And, and I will be in touch with you, you thank you very much. DK: 1:35:32 You are welcome, Steve. Take care. SM: 1:35:33 Yeah, you bet. Bye now. (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 Dean Kahler https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/390e22186feda6338593ba30d7ddeb6d.jpg 7f1ed828f33159b9f4ba67df87cc06f6 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/43219a78fde44011d65d82098672dfae.mp3 f2ea0c59b5507f4b50118fe109dde3dc 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. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Deanne Stillman Date of Interview 2010-03-21 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 83:45 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Deanne Stillman is a critically acclaimed author. She writes the “Letter from the West” column for the Los Angeles Review of Books and is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Low Residency Creative Writing Program. She authored several books and her work appears in many publications, including Los Angeles Review of Books, New York Times, and and Tin House. Stillman is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Low Residency Creative Writing Program.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:13311,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,4884200],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;9&quot;:0,&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Deanne Stillman is a critically acclaimed author. She writes the “Letter from the West” column for the <em>Los Angeles Review of Books</em> and is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Low Residency Creative Writing Program. She authored several books and her work appears in many publications, including <em>Los Angeles Review of Books</em>, the <em>New York Times</em>, and <em>Tin House</em>. Stillman is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Low Residency Creative Writing Program.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Timothy Leary; Rex Weiner; Woodstock; Anti-War Movement; Muslim; Socialist; Generation X; Native American; Battle of the Little Bighorn; Baby boom generation; Photographs; Kent State.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Timothy Leary; Rex Weiner; Woodstock; Anti-War Movement; Muslim; Socialist; Generation X; Native American; Battle of the Little Bighorn; Baby boom generation; Photographs; Kent State.</span> Subject LCSH Authors, American--20th century; Stillman, Deanne--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Deanne Stillman Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Stillman, Deanne ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors, American--20th century; Stillman, Deanne--Interviews Description An account of the resource Deanne Stillman is a critically acclaimed author. She writes the “Letter from the West” column for the <em>Los Angeles Review of Books</em> and is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Low Residency Creative Writing Program. She authored several books and her work appears in many publications, including <em>Los Angeles Review of Books</em>, the <em>New York Times</em>, and <em>Tin House</em>. Stillman is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Low Residency Creative Writing Program. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-03-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.162 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 83:45 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/d471ac9accda23d15b3696aa2683faf8.mp3 25e1c9da6dd44ef15384d4c1ed28dff5 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/d3ccc19f30787e329d91817cf322b2ab.jpg f7fe4994c9e9d607c621b422465bc181 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 2018-03-16 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Deborah Volkell Weinstein Year of Graduation 1969 Biographical Text Deborah Weinstein is the executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, an alliance of national organizations working together to promote public policies for low income women and children. Deborah has covered politics, crime, and healthcare policies for various news outlets including <em>Medical Marketing &amp; Media</em>, where she specializes in Obesity, Alzheimer’s disease and healthcare costs. Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in nonprofits; Harpur College – Alumni in nonprofits; Harpur College – Alumni in health policy; Harpur College – Alumni living in the DC area 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>. Subject LCSH Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in nonprofits; Harpur College – Alumni in nonprofits; Harpur College – Alumni in health policy; Harpur College – Alumni living in the DC area 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: Deborah Wolkell Weinstein Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov Transcriber: Oral History Lab Date of interview: 16 March 2018 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) IG: 00:00 Okay, so we begin by introducing ourselves and tell us who you are, where we are. So state who you are, where we are, what we are doing, DW: 00:25 Okay. My name is Deborah Weinstein, or Debbie Weinstein, and we are in the Capitol Hilton in Washington, DC, and we are about to do an oral history interview. IG: 00:40 Okay, so Debbie, tell us the years that you attended Harpur, how old you are, and maybe we can start. Where did you grow up? DW: 00:53 Okay, I am 69 years old. I attended Harpur from (19)66 to (19)69. I grew up in New York City, mostly Brooklyn, and then Manhattan. IG: 01:09 So, um, where- so where in Brooklyn, did you grow? DW: 01:17 Most of the years on Ocean Parkway. IG: 01:20 Oh, I know exactly. DW: 01:21 Um, couple of succeeding years before I went off to school in a part of Brooklyn called Mill Basin, but most of the years in on Ocean Parkway. IG: 01:37 And then in Manhattan, where did you- DW: 01:40 Well, my parents moved to kind of the outskirts of Greenwich Village, part of Greenwich Village, and I was already at school, but, of course, came home to visit. IG: 01:53 Okay. And so what we did not mention before is, what is your present role? DW: 02:01 Okay, I am the executive director of a group called the Coalition on Human Needs, which is a group of national organizations that are committed to making improvements or defending programs for low income and vulnerable people. IG: 02:25 So thank you. So when you were growing up, what were the expectations of from your family, of going onto your higher education? Who were your parents and what did they do? DW: 02:42 My parents, Shirley and Joe Volkell, were not college graduates themselves. There were other college graduates, aunts and uncles, but they did not go to college. But certainly the expectation was pretty clear, as early as I can remember, that I would go on to higher education. They did not know much about it themselves, so they could not, you know, offer guidance about where I should go, but that I should go was clear. IG: 03:19 Right-right. So-so you know, why-why did you how-how did you happen to-to select Harpur College rather than did you apply to other schools? DW: 03:31 I did. And as I say, somewhat ignorantly, I did not have any clear sense of where I should go, and I went to a large high school in Brooklyn where you were only allowed to apply to three places, and because they did not have the staff to support more transcripts or whatever. But so my family did not have a lot of money, and so we knew that one school needed to be a state school, and and my grades were good. I was not, you know, like the top of the class, but they were pretty good. And so, you know, we looked for a school that had a better reputation, and-and Harpur clearly was that. So I selected that for that reason, and I selected two other private schools. One was Brandeis because I had heard of it and-and the other was Vassar, and that was because I had an excellent but pretty crazy high school English teacher senior year who talked up Vassar a lot. I think it would have been a disaster choice for me, but at any rate, I was, I was accepted at all those schools, but I did not get adequate financial aid in the private schools to make that a possibility. So I went to Harpur. IG: 05:18 Why do you say I am just curious. It would have been a disaster, had you- DW: 05:22 Because my own, at that time, Vassar was an all woman school, and my own, in a sense, shyness, which I tried to overcome when I started college. It would have been harder you would have met young men in these very, I would guess, awkward settings of socials where people would troop in, you know, as opposed to the much more relaxed and integrated in your whole life. Atmosphere at Harpur, including my husband and I both were in Whitney Hall, which was our version at that very antiquated time of a co-ed door. But that meant that the two wings, one was men and one was women. But it did allow for, you know, much more. You know, on anxiety producing just inter regular interactions in the common areas and all that. IG: 06:34 Right-right-right. Okay, so you, did you go on a regent scholarship? DW: 06:48 I had a regent scholarship. IG: 06:50 So had you visited the college before? DW: 06:54 Yeah, we went on a tour. We visited. It is funny because I have absolutely no recollection of visiting Vassar, but I guess we probably did, but I recall visiting Harpur and Brandeis, so we looked around, but you know, it is very hard. I did not have any easy way of talking to people who went there, so I really felt like I could not have been more ignorant going into I did have a sense that I did not particularly want to go to a school with, you know, 20,000 or more students. Harpur at that time had 3000 which I know is very, very different from now, but that had a certain appeal, seemed about right. IG: 07:46 Right-right. So, what were your- by the way, did you have, I mean, do you have siblings? DW: 07:55 No, I am the- IG: 07:56 You are the only child. DW: 07:57 Right. IG: 08:00 So when you first arrived, what were some of the first impressions? Did you feel also, what were your feelings about being on your own, and did you enjoy it? Was it the first taste of freedom? DW: 08:16 Yeah, I was perfectly confident there, and have very good relations with my parents, but I- they just brought me up to have confidence, so I did not have very much homesickness. I did come- we had moved in Brooklyn when I was going to the 11th grade, and I was very unhappy about the change of high schools, and I sort of grumped around and wasted a year in high school, and sort of got into it a little more in my senior year. But all that did to me is it made me determined when I started college that I was going to jump right into things and not waste opportunities to meet people and do things. So, um, so I came very, you know, sort of primed for that it was crowded then, so they had triples in rooms. So-so I had two roommates, and we got along, and we reinforced each other in that regard that we were going to we were not going to sit in our rooms, we were going to get out there and do things. So I-I enjoyed that very much, and I felt that it was tremendous awakening of meeting people and having a good time and, you know, just kind of doing things, not being too nervous to do things. IG: 09:58 Right. You just wanted to take a bite. DW: 10:04 A large number of students did come from the New York metro area, and irritated the students from upstate or central New York, because, you know, we referred to the city. IG: 10:20 Right. DW: 10:21 And they felt that there were other cities in the state, but, but we were a pretty big cohort. IG: 10:29 Do you think that there were, you know, cultural differences that at first kept you away from the students from upstate New York or not at all?. DW: 10:49 No-no, I did not feel that one of my roommates was from like Dutchess County, I guess in the end, the other was from New York City, we got along just fine. It was really not an issue. And, you know, we did not have as much opportunity as people from other schools, perhaps, to meet people from all over the country. But there-there were some international students. And uh- IG: 11:24 Do you remember where they were from? Where they were from? DW: 11:29 I remember a young man from Iran, and I think he came from a pretty privileged family. So in a way, it is, I do not know how he landed in a state university, but, but that is one person I remember. And you know, there was a little bit of a gulf there between my experience and his, but we were friendly. So. IG: 11:58 Where do you remember whether any students of color at the time or? DW: 12:03 Not so many, but some. IG: 12:05 But some. Um, so what was the reputation of Harpur College back then? DW: 12:16 It had the reputation of being an academically good school. It also, I do not think I was, I know I was not aware of it when I went there. But after while, you know, it had the reputation of being a politically progressive school with, you know, very active anti war um. set of beliefs among the students and-and also a fair amount of at least marijuana use got known for that, I suppose. But that was pretty much it. I mean, when I went there, when I was choosing to go, I was not thinking about it is, you know, the political perspectives, particularly, I knew that it had a good reputation academically, and that is pretty much what I knew. IG: 13:19 Right. Were you involved in any of the political activity? Were you in any student groups? DW: 13:28 I was, interestingly, I came to that more slowly. I participated in demonstrations that were held, but I was not active in the groups that organized them. And I had a friend who was, you know, she, I am sure I had one friend, but I remembered that she was involved with SDS, for instance, and they were planning demonstrations. But I was freeloading and not organizing, but I would show up, but there was regularly. IG: 14:04 So what was that like? Where did you, where did you work? I mean, where did you protest? DW: 14:12 You know, this memory is pretty vague, but I was, but I would, you know, in common areas of the campus. It was on campus, as opposed to, say, going into Binghamton. But they were sedate, you know, demonstrations. There were teachings too, you know, people talking interminably about about the issues, IG: 14:40 But so there was no resistance from there were, there was no resistance from the community to these- DW: 14:49 Well, there were, I mean, there was that town gown type hostilities that the- there were. Lot of people in the general community that did not like the idea of anti war protest, but we, you know, we were protesting on the campus, and so they did not care. I mean, they might have cared, but they were not coming there to [crosstalk] I did not, and I have no recollection of that being done, but it certainly might have been done. I mean, if anybody wanted to prompt the, you know, sort of press coverage of conflict, that would be the way to do it. But I was not so engaged at that time that I was going to be in on, you know, the most conflict prone events. You know, if there was something that I could conveniently go to, I agreed with the anti war sentiment, but I was not, I was not a tremendous of- well, I was not any kind of leader or organizer in-in the anti war movement. IG: 16:10 I see. So you did not. Do you know that any of your friends went to Washington to protest or? DW: 16:18 Oh, yes, people did and I did not at that time that I- my parents were quite protective of me and that I knew they would just hate it if I went off and did that, And I was not willing to to cause that angst, I just was not so this was not my time for that kind of activism. For me, the awakening was more in a different direction, which was the beginnings of project Upward Bound on the campus, and- IG: 17:05 Tell us about that. What was- DW: 17:08 Upward Bound was part of the war on poverty--was a federal program that that reached out to high school students in poor communities, poor high schools called disadvantaged then and brought them onto the college campus for summer programs. They would live in the dorms. They had college students as counselors, tutor counselors, I think they called us and we both assisted in teaching in various ways, but there were also a combination of high school and college teachers who taught them things and-and then, you know, it was summer campus and having other kinds of activities for them. I wound up teaching guitar and singing, sort of, and I even assisted in-in teaching swimming, I have water safety, and so I was just under the supervision of somebody who did, but so did, and of course, was with the students in the dorms, and I did that for three summers, and there was follow up activity in the in the school year. And that was very, incredibly formative for me, because I met young people who- IG: 18:41 What were their ages? So there were seniors, juniors in high school? DW: 18:47 [crosstalk] I remember they were not all seniors. I think it was a mix of high school ages. And in fact, I know that was the case because I remember going to their high schools in the school year, intervening, they were not going right off, IG: 19:06 How ere they selected? DW: 19:07 A teacher in one or more teachers in the high schools recommended them for the program. That is how they did it and and so there probably was, there were probably a lot of things that were wrong with the program, and there still were not that many African American kids. In fact, they wound up, they were sensitive about that, and they wound up having a group of African American kids from Mississippi be part of the program because they were having a hard time getting the schools in the Binghamton area to recommend African American kids to the program, and there were not really Latino kids to speak of. At that time. So, but these were very poor kids. They absolutely filled the bill in terms of of that. And I, you know, I absolutely saw the lack of opportunity that they had and the promise that they had, so, the unfairness, you know, my-my family was not rich, but I had plenty more opportunities than they had and-and expectations as we started out, so I- that was the beginning of a lifelong commitment to economic justice issues which were more I played more of a role in than at the time I was in college in anti war efforts, although I was, you know, foot soldier, but-but, you know, I met one of, one of the girls in my group had false teeth. She was a high school student, and she had never, you know, been able to have any preventive dental care. And so by the time she was, you know, in high school, she had had to have all her teeth pulled, and that was pretty galvanizing. And this one young girl who was very, very smart, and she, was such a loner and an outsider in her school, and it was, this was the kind of program that was made for somebody like her, because she could go into a place and realize, well, there is a place I could go to. I am not just this weird duck that nobody likes. And so there was a young guy who wrote poetry, and you know, this was very much before the rap era. So nobody was writing poetry, and may was alive to be writing his poetry in terms of the attitude towards that. But so I just, you know, it was an opportunity to see what-what potential there was in all of these kids. And so that absolutely shaped what I did for the rest of my life. IG: 22:44 The rest of your life. So just I am curious, how long was this program? A month and a half, two months, three months. DW: 22:54 It was during the summer. So it probably was six to eight weeks, probably eight weeks. That they lived on the campus. IG: 23:05 Right. So did you mention that there was any follow up on these young people? DW: 23:13 There was some we went to the- their high schools during the school year, and I remember not too terribly much, but remember that it seemed their high school seemed like a really forbidding place, you know, you went in there and did not feel like this was a welcoming place or a place that was gonna inspire anybody to go on in school. So I, I do not, I really do not know what happened to the students. It was hard to track them long enough to know, you know, how many of them did actually go on to college. The one, the brightest one that I mentioned, I know that she did, and I sort of kept in touch with her longer than some, um, I even, let us see, I was rooting around. This will be quite useless, because I do not remember anybody's names, but these were, these were students who were in the program. That was somebody who was another counselor. Let us see some of these were. IG: 24:36 Have you kept in touch with any of them? DW: 24:39 For a while, as I say, I kept in touch with one, but I have not been for a really long time. IG: 24:47 Are there any photographs of them? DW: 24:50 Not in this group. This was a high school teacher where, you know now I know I should tell younger people to write the names down, because you think. You will never forget, but then you will forget, but then each and every one of them. But this was a dorky picture of me and my- IG: 25:10 Tthat is very cute. DW: 25:14 So-so these were, you know, it was a wonderful experience for me, and I hope it was useful for them. IG: 25:28 So you said that this was a formative experience. And did it determine what you were studying at the college to begin with? DW: 25:39 You know, it did not really, I was a lit major, and I did not change that, and I- in my experiences with social sciences, I felt that they were dry as dust and-and I actually felt that there was more, you know, sort of, if you were thinking about it, from the point of view of counseling. Because I did not initially think that my role was going to be in terms of the more systemic change. I thought in terms of working in, you know, more individually at school or other I was not so sure what I was gonna do but, but I felt that there were more human truths of-of-of how people behave and think through literature than through some of the social science films. Well, there was a role for both, but-but that is kind of where I was at the time. So I was a lit major, and I did go on. I got a master's in social work after- IG: 26:57 Where? DW: 26:58 In San Diego State. So I met my husband at Harpur. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and he, when he graduated, went off to study at UC San Diego, and we had a sort of a mail order correspondence romance for occasional get togethers while he was in California, and I finished school at Harpur and I-I finished in seven semesters, and we got married right afterwards. So I was 20 years old, and we- I got a job, you know, not in any area that I would particularly wanted to continue in, and that was motivating to want to go on in school. And at that point, I got a master's in social work. So at that point, I felt more that my schooling should have to do with what I might actually want to do as a career. IG: 28:09 And so give us an idea of your career trajectory. You lived in California for a number of years and- DW: 28:19 Right through the end of Mark's schooling, really, because he was in a PhD program; my program, but he was well into it. IG: 28:30 What did he study? DW: 28:31 Biochemistry, and he had a tremendously positive experience formative there at Harpur because of that, he- Professor Norcross [Bruce Norcross] was a much beloved chemistry professor there who he was very close with, and really helped him make his decision about whether he wanted to make that a career. So that was his thing. So he he got a PhD at UC San Diego and and I got my master's degree. And when he was done, and I was done, he went to a post doctoral fellow in University of Washington in Seattle, and then we decided after a while to come back East to families, but in terms of my work experiences, as I say, I did not initially think that it would be in the political direction. And so I did study. I had a field placement as a school social worker, because that did seem close to what I had experienced, but I could not get a job. Doing it right away. I wound up being a counselor in a college in San Diego briefly before we moved then, I was a counselor, sort of or a student activities advisor in University of Washington. So that was at the college level. And then when we moved to Boston, I was pregnant and I did not want to get a job right then, and so I started volunteering, and I had to make the decision, should I volunteer in something that was going to help me get a job, or should I volunteer in something that I thought I would never get a job in, but that I thought was interesting. So I thought I was choosing the latter, and I-I was volunteering with a group called Americans for Democratic Action, which was a progressive political organization. It still is, but at that time, it had more chapters around the country, and so ultimately I got to be the sole staff person for that organization. And then from there, I did transition to be the director of a Human Services Coalition in well, it was called the Massachusetts Human Services coalition is quite similar in nature to the work I am doing now. So again, you know, I thought what I was doing was just something I would be interested in that I would never be able to get paid for. But I was wrong about that. So I, so I, that was how I moved into more of the sort of systemic change political policy. IG: 32:08 Tell us about these organizations and how you managed to work at both, you know, organizing these people and also managing your child. DW: 32:25 Well, I was very different from an awful lot of people nowadays. I did take more time home with our daughter than many people have the luxury of doing now. And so I was at home with her. I did not start to work part even part time, until she was about two and a half. And, and that was part time. And then I, you know, as she got older, I transitioned to full time work. So that was wonderful that I could do that. And I feel I know that some people choose not to, wanted to stay home longer, but I know that a lot of people might choose to, if it was at all an option for them. So I was grateful for that. So that was how I had done the volunteering, you know, before she was born and and I am sure I did little bits of things when I could after she was born, but I did not go into paid employment until-until she was two and a half or so. IG: 33:43 So-so what was the nature of your volunteering? What did you do from day to day? DW: 33:47 Well- IG: 33:48 The first organization. DW: 33:49 With Americans for democratic action, we-we took positions on issues in the state legislature, and sometimes went and testified at hearings. I do remember being incredibly nervous about doing that, you know, and and the person who was guiding me sort of laughing, but being supportive, you know, bear in mind, you know more about this than they do, and all of that so and, of course, I have had- IG: 33:50 What kinds of things did you justify? DW: 33:59 I was more in the domestic well, of course, state legislature, so human needs, kinds of programs, you know, support for education and social services and cash assistance and those kinds of things. And helping with for Americans for democratic action, we could do a record of roll call votes. It was not a tax exempt organization. We could take positions on candidates so we were. We did, and we recorded their roll call votes. So researching what the votes should be, that was a part of what we did. And we had meetings with the members of the organization, and you get a speaker to inform people about this or that topic. And there was close collaboration with like minded members of Congress, excuse me, members of the state legislature. And in fact, you may know Barney Frank, who was a member of Congress for a long time. Well, he started out as a state representative. Well, he started other things before then, but he was a state representative for a long time, so I knew him quite well then. But anyway, so that is what we did there, and then moving to this Massachusetts Human Services coalition. IG: 35:55 How did you find that? DW: 35:58 Well, I think, well, you know, groups know each other, and I may have participated with them some as a as somebody who was with Americans for democratic action, I kind of forget exactly how I got involved with them, but there they were very small staff. There were, you know, I think three staff or something, plus volunteers. And so I did take the executive director job there after a while, and was there for about 10 years. IG: 36:46 What were the years that you were there? DW: 36:50 Not too good about this. Let us see. Probably about (19)83 to (19)93 something. Yeah, that would be about right. And, after that, we moved to Washington because of a job that my husband was taking, and his job was at the Food and Drug Administration. He was a biochemist, and he worked in research while he was in Boston, but he was getting kind of tired of that. I think he liked the idea of moving more into the regulatory area. There was a certain research component there too at the FDA, so-so he did that, and we came here, and then I got a job at the Children's Defense Fund, which is, I do not know if you have heard of them, but Marian Wright Edelman is their director--was then too, and founder, and so I worked for them for about nine years on a lot of policy and advocacy areas, with regard especially to income security areas, cash assistance programs, housing IG: 38:14 So, what would you do? Would you go and testify? Or would you- DW: 38:19 Occasionally, is more of not as much testifying, but cannot be too hot anymore. But I would go on visits to Hill staff to talk about our issues in when you get to the congressional level, you are not as often meeting with the members of Congress as you would meet with state legislators directly. There was a lot more staff work going on there. So we would meet with Hill staff and try to shape what they were doing. Um, and- IG: 39:07 How would you do that? I mean, to a novice, to somebody who does not know, would you, I mean, what form of, what was a form that you were lobbying? DW: 39:18 Well, you know, in our view, there was, there was a combination of things that have has to happen. You need the policy expertise to bring a specific set of proposals to them. And so we would, you know, be doing the writing and the evidence and all of that. But we also- IG: 39:41 How did you collect the evidence? DW: 39:44 Sometimes there was really just kind of like writing research paper, some we had on staff analysts who would be able to take a look at the say acensus poverty data and be able to show disproportionate poverty-poverty among, of course, communities of color, or point out how younger children were more likely to be poor than older children, and therefore we need to train a set of policies for the youngest children, or, you know, so the that, as well as policy experts looking at programs that work that might have been tried in a given area, and bringing that to members of Congress. So-so there was that, but there was also a keen understanding that you need constituents to be saying, we support this or we oppose that. So the other part of our work would be educating people around the country and encouraging them to take action. And so that was part of- IG: 41:01 So, educating people around the country, did you travel? DW: 41:05 I did more at CDF than in my work now, but so yes, we would do that. There was also a big concentration of effort among African American leaders and community leaders, faith leaders, at the Children's Defense Fund, and there was, and is what they called a black community Crusade for Children. And they had a lot. They had some offices based in the south, and they would have meetings in black churches or in group settings of various kinds. And I, as a staff person knowledgeable in particular areas would go, and that was an educational experience for me, and I hope for them too, but so that was fun and but that was way of bringing the information to people who were out around the country to say, you know, here is what is at stake. Here is what Congress is trying to decide. You have got to speak out and tell them you do not want this or you do want that. IG: 42:29 So what was the way that you measured your success? DW: 42:32 Well, did we stop a bad bill from passing? Did we get a good thing from passing? That was one way. But then interim goals are, did you reach more people? I mean, now nowadays, the metrics are easier. There was not as much internet when I was first at CDF. So now, of course, you really can measure pretty accurately how many people you are reaching, but we did measure it in terms of sometimes we could gage, because we would have toll free telephone numbers, how many people called Congress through a toll Free number, and if that number was up or even just gaging, we successfully got Reverend so and so to get an op ed in the local paper. IG: 43:30 I see, did you, did you help the Reverend pen this editorial, sometimes-sometimes? DW: 43:40 We tried a mix of maybe writing a first draft with holes in it for them to put in their personal stuff, and then they would edit it some more, I think, until they were satisfied that it accurately reflected them. IG: 44:00 So-so, and how did you come to form your current organization? DW: 44:07 Well, I did not form it. In fact, when I was at the Children's Defense Fund, I was a board member of this coalition on human needs, which was formed in the Reagan years to protest or try to fight against efforts then made to cut and block grant various human needs programs. Well, there are a bunch of social services programs that used to be separate with specific goals, and they were combined, for instance, into something called the Social Services Block Grant. And that, to us, was one example of why you never want to be block granting programs because, or often do not want to because while they would tout it as a wonderful way for states to have flexibility that first of all, they cut all the programs when they combine them into this thing- IG: 45:12 I see. DW: 45:13 -with the deniability they, Oh, you like this youth something or other program. Well, we did not cut it, you know, we just put it into this pot. But of course, the overall dollars were less than before. Some something had to give. And then the very diffuseness of the programs- IG: 45:36 How so? DW: 45:36 -of the overall block grant, because it was for a whole lot of things. It was not just for youth programs, so and so, caused them then to say, well, this does not have a very defined purpose. That was the whole point of it, not to have a defined purpose and to give flexibility to the states. But once it did not have that, then they did not make it a particular priority to fund it. So it was cut and then flat-funded for 20 years, 30 years and more than that by now. So-so it has eroded tremendously, and of course, in the current climate, both the Republicans in the in Congress and the President have proposed eliminating it all together. So-so that is just an example of the kind of thing that we wanted to oppose and did not succeed in every instance. But then the coalition, well as it was formed, it was a mix of faith groups and sort of umbrella organizations for human services providers and policy experts and labor and other advocacy organizations. Speaker 1 46:48 If you were to do it all over again, and what would have been a strategy to prevent some of the obstacles that you encountered early on? DW: 47:18 Sorry, some of the the strategies are right, in the sense that, again, you need a combination of message and messenger, so you need accurate information. We still believe in that and but you need a very active participation by constituents that-that is crucial, and so we do a mix of things. Now, for instance, we-we are a tax exempt organization. There is- we cannot spend all of our money lobbying, but we spend the allowable part of it lobbying and educating people out around the country about when various things are about to happen in Congress, and encouraging them to weigh in. So we- IG: 48:23 What do you do this outreach? Do you do it through writing, or do you actually visit? For example, you said faith based organizations. Do you visit places of worship and talk to communities- DW: 48:40 In my, in my current role, I do not travel quite as much because the organizations we work with often do not have the budget to pay for it, and we have not had the budget to do it. But we-we do a lot of webinars and conference calls and so ways of reaching folks around the country, we work through, to a great extent, advocacy organizations, and hope that they then funnel the information out to their own networks. And so we- there is a combination of writing and presenting in this way. We partner with organizations in states, for instance, every year when the census poverty data comes out, we partner with 10 or a dozen organizations in that many states to co write a report. In their state, it is going to be, you know, the. What the situation is in New York or in Ohio or someplace. And we write a national report as well. So then those groups release it there, and we try to encourage press coverage there. So, you know, we do multiple routes to try to get more activism on the part of state groups, and we reach out both directly through our own lists and because we are a coalition through all these different groups lists to encourage people you know straightforwardly to contact their members of Congress at the right moment, or these other forms of getting into the press, a response. And you know, sometimes we have been in times when we have been able to make real expansions in services, for instance, during the- after the Great Recession, Obama administration and Congress were looking for ways of making investments spending money that was going to boost the economy, and we played quite a role in bringing proposals from a lot of different human needs areas so that it was not all infrastructure, you know, building roads or something that kind of seen as the typical way. But we helped people to understand that when you give poor people money, for instance, or in kind like SNAP or food stamp benefits, they are going to go out and spend it right away. They are not going to save it the way a richer person will. And that moves the economy in. There were economists saying that so that helped, and so in those kinds of times, we could play a role in increasing the amount of money that was spent on food stamps, on child care, on unemployment insurance, on housing. Various employment programs, you know, quite a lot of programs. That was a big good time. And I mean, it was a recession, or that was a horrible time, but we were able to get some improvements that help people. And of course, there have been times when we have been fighting against cuts like now. IG: 52:46 So how has your strategy changed under the current administration? DW: 52:52 Well, we certainly we are not getting in to visit with them. They are not responsive at all, but we have just redoubled our efforts to include constituents in-in both meetings. We might have group meetings with representatives from a number of different groups here on the hill going to a congressional office, and we will have one or two constituents on by phone to demonstrate that we are connected to their constituents. And that is been really quite effective. And then more, you know, larger efforts of reaching out to get lots and lots of people either to send emails or call, and that is been working. And then the other strategy, we are a non partisan organization, but we recognize that by identifying those who are supporters and who are not Democrats, largely in this political environment, have been willing to fight for the issues that we fight for, and the extent to which they do have leverage, like when you need 60 votes in the Senate, and Republicans do not have 60 votes. So if they want certain things to pass, they have to go along with things. And even in this awful climate, we have been able to have some successes. For instance, an increase in child care dollars recently was approved that I never thought we would have in this climate, but that was terrific and as well as increased funding for opioid use disorder. So but an awful lot of what we are doing is just trying to stand in opposition. Addition to awful things that they want to do. And, you know, the Farm Bill has the SNAP or food stamp program, and I do not want to go on too much longer, but the- and they want to make cuts in that to deny millions of people assistance. And we are working with Democrats to refuse they cannot pass a farm bill without Democratic votes because they lose too many Republican votes for other reasons. And right now, our strategy is, delay, stop it, and we are making headway. So you know, sometimes the gage is, can you stop something awful from happening? And sometimes the gage is, can actually make something good happen, and so we have been in on some of both of that. IG: 56:07 So what are your biggest victories? Do you think with this organization, with the Coalition for Human Needs, I mean, experiences? What do you think? What are your fondest achievements? DW: 56:25 I would say that what I described during the recovery from the recession period where we were able to encourage the thinking that part of economic recovery required assistance to low income people and very concrete, tangible forms of assistance. The fact that so many of those things were incorporated, I would say, was one of our biggest successes, another big success we have interested ourselves in tax matters, both low income tax credits that put money in the hands of low income people, as well as the broader topic of not wanting to see revenues cut that where the benefits go, largely to upper income corporations, and therefore losing revenues that could be spent on investments. But at any rate, we-we worked quite a lot on expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, which are low income tax credits extremely beneficial to low income families, and we also have played a role in so far, but I do not know how long we can keep it up, preventing cuts in the child tax credit that will exclude some immigrant families. So on a number of times we have been part of an effort that stopped them from doing that. But right now, I do not know. We will see if we can keep it going. IG: 58:09 It sounds like wonderful work. I would like to know if, for the students who listen to these tapes now and in the future, do you have any messages about how to think about their undergraduate education? DW: 58:38 Well, I would say when served you, my advice is that your education includes many parts. It includes allowing yourself to blossom in all kinds of ways. And of course, it includes learning things academically. I think you do not have to, in many instances, make all your decisions too early. You know, as I say, I was a literature major. I never regretted that. I understand that if you want to go into a career in sciences, you really have to have that background. But even, you know, my husband took a lot of literature courses, and was not sure whether he should go in the sciences or literature. He never regretted the number of courses he took in areas that were outside of the sciences. I think there really is a reason to have a liberal arts education, and that it gives you a breadth of view that stands you in good stead in all your life. But there, there is, there are so many opportunities on a college campus to learn all kinds of things that you never were exposed to before, and people should take advantage of those because they do not know which of those things might open up worlds to them. And you know, for me, of course, I have described how the opportunity to be in an Upward Bound program. I wanted to be a singer when I was in started college, I had no thought of social activism or anti poverty, economic justice work, but my eyes were open because of an experience that I had on the campus that I will be forever grateful for. But also, you know, there are other experiences. We could the Guarneri String Quartet was in residence at Harpur in our days, and you could go to a concert for 25 cents. And and we went and, and I have a and my husband have a lifelong love for classical music, and we did not have so very much exposure to it before that. So, you know, I imagine there are still those kinds of opportunities for people to get outside of what they already know, and they should take advantage of them. IG: 1:01:31 Any concluding remarks. DW: 1:01:34 Well, you know, I thought you were going to ask more about what I, you know, experiences at the school, so, but what you said is, it is true the other part of it that I was there at a very interesting time when I started, women had a curfew. You may have heard this from plenty of other people, and men did not. And as I said, the the wing we were in the progressive dorm because it was co ed. But the wings were separate, of course, and only the common areas were together. And after the curfew, the men could not go down to the basement area where the food machines were, and so the women who could go down there would throw up, you know, a Snickers bar to them if they threw down the change. But by the time, by the end of my time, a lot of that had opened up. They were starting to build the sweet dorms and and the curfew for women was a thing of the past. So it was quite a time of transition in people's attitudes. And it is good thing, good thing, to get away from that. And so I was, you know, the study of the (19)60s is worthwhile because of all the, you know, that was only the little inkling of, of course, much more large societal changes going on. But I felt like I was kind of a part of it. IG: 1:03:17 Thank you very much. DW: 1:03:18 Sure. (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 Deborah Volkell Weinstein Subject The topic of the resource Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in nonprofits; Harpur College – Alumni in nonprofits; Harpur College – Alumni in health policy; Harpur College – Alumni living in the DC area Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Weinstein, Deborah Volkell ; Gashurov, Irene Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource Deborah Weinstein is the executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, an alliance of national organizations working together to promote public policies for low income women and children. Deborah has covered politics, crime, and healthcare policies for various news outlets including <em>Medical Marketing &amp; Media</em>, where she specializes in Obesity, Alzheimer’s disease and healthcare costs. 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 2018-03-16 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 Debbie Weinstein.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-16 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. 63:19 minutes https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/23524584dee5b79af310ed2565873d59.jpg d9ad341d22dc0207b629c7e158ba21dc https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/accae0f06a17ce0d13ab38bd3e21134c.mp3 42eaa93bcef6a24ac7a299d5046bd9f8 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 ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Denis Hayes Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Denis Hayes is an environmental advocate, proponent of solar power, attorney, educator, and founder of the Earth Day Network, which works with over 180 nations in order to build environmental democracy. He was head of the Solar Energy Research Institute and president of the Bullitt Foundation in Washington. Hayes also received many awards including the national Jefferson Awards Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Hayes received his Bachelor's degree in History from Stanford University and a Juris Doctor degree at Stanford Law School.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:13311,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,4884200],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;9&quot;:0,&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Denis Hayes is an environmental advocate, a proponent of solar power, attorney, educator, and founder of the Earth Day Network, which works with over 180 nations in order to build environmental democracy. He was head of the Solar Energy Research Institute and president of the Bullitt Foundation in Washington. Hayes also received many awards including the national Jefferson Awards Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Hayes received his Bachelor's degree in History from Stanford University and a Juris Doctor degree at Stanford Law School.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Civil Rights Movement; Eisenhower; Vietnam War; Drug experimentation; Baby boom generation; Civil disobedience; Nonviolent protests; Support for the Environmental Movement; Chemical/biological warfare; Vietnam War; Earth Day.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Civil Rights Movement; Eisenhower; Vietnam War; Drug experimentation; Baby boom generation; Civil disobedience; Nonviolent protests; Support for the Environmental Movement; Chemical/biological warfare; Vietnam War; Earth Day.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 88:57 Subject LCSH Environmentalism; Lawyers; Earth Day Network; Solar Energy Research Institute; Bullitt Foundation; Hayes, Denis--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Denis Hayes Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: Not Dated --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:00): As I mentioned in my note that I have been working on this for a long time. I started it way back. In fact, Senator Nelson was one of my first interviews and I interviewed him when I was working at the university and we did this on the road leadership program and he had come to our campus twice to talk about Earth Day and one night we went over to the Holiday Inn and we were having a couple drinks and everything and I told him that I had been having difficulty getting a hold of William Fulbright, that I wanted to take our students down to DC to meet him. And he had just had a stroke, but he was getting recuperated and he was a close friend of the Senators. And he said, "Geez, I will get them for you." I said, "Really? Because I have been trying to secure him." And what happened is as a result of that, we ended up seeing nine senators. And I got pretty close to the Senator. He would always come into the Wilderness Society office. They would always meet in the back room there. I took maybe close to 200 different students there. In fact, that memory has stayed with so many of the students. I have a student now just became director of admissions at Southern Illinois University and Dr. Brandon Logan. And he was there with three of them, and when Senator McCarthy passed away and when Senator Musky passed away wherever he was, he sent me a note saying it was one of the greatest memories of my life. So I thank the Senator for that. Are you ready for the first question? And again, thank you again. When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? DH (00:01:51): Time of upheaval in basic American institutions. SM (00:01:57): Could you go a little more detail? DH (00:01:59): Sure. Stuff was going on in every dimension of American life in terms of political realignment. That is when Nixon launched the southern strategy initially attempted from (19)64 by Barry Goldwater, brought to fruition in (19)68, especially (19)72 by Nixon, to basically take what had been the solid Democratic South, put it into the Republican Party. Then in the course of doing that, putting the so-called Rockefeller Republicans, the Lindseys and Scrantons and Romneys into play. And you can make at least normally the argument that, at least in terms of the Senate, we were just discussing it now that group's pretty much down to one or two, maybe the two women senators from Maine. Fundamental realignment from Republican Party that in the Eisenhower years was actually better on civil rights and had the first Black senator at Brook out of Maine into one that took over the racist elements of the South and turned many of the worst from by-standpoint, progressive political figures from the South and to Republicans. It was a time when the generation that had been raised with much of the American value system close to their hearts began and cherished what was the end of the colonial empire and the independence of the great many of the states that had been subjected to European expansion. Found itself involved in a war in Southeast Asia, which many of us came to believe we were on the wrong side of. It was a war of independence and liberation by people that had been fighting off China for a long time, got off French for a long time and now we were fighting off the America. And so it led to this gigantic disillusionment carried over from the (19)50s was the overall nuclear weapons. It was amplified in the (19)60s with concerns about new weapon systems for space-based and or multiple independently targeted entry that significantly increased the destructive potential of any one missile, letting it target perhaps as many as 16 different places from one missile. And the response to that, the form of an anti-ballistic missile system called MX. Stuff was just escalating in ways that struck us as insane, was a sense of identity. Politics came into play for the first time where people began to view themselves in terms of social groups, a Christian coalition, racial identities, very strong and grew out of the civil rights movement. Began to become part of forming political bases, Black voting. And the same thing with Mexican American saying to a much lesser extent, a little with parts of the Asian communities. And then I am guessing for purposes of this conversation, this brand-new social course, first onto the scene on the form of concern for the quality of life, for sustainability, public health, protection of basic natural resources, a concern for endangered species, intactness of ecosystems, all of which had existed as issues for people who were worried the [inaudible] about pesticide, heard about air pollution. We formed the Wilderness Society of the National Wildlife Federation and the National Ottoman Society, Sierra Club decades earlier to work on nature, humans that now found themselves bound together in a movement that was concerned with human health, with energy policy, pollution, livable cities, lead paint, and lead in automobile costs. Somehow finding itself aligned with people who are worried about duck flyways but all coming to understand it or operating from a similar set of values. And they help far more powerful and it is frankly a set of groups that they had before. So the speculation of all those interests into an environmental movement. SM (00:07:12): How do you respond to those individuals who, over the past, well maybe 15, 20 years, continue to take shots at the boomer generation or the (19)60s and (19)70s as the reason why we have all these problems in America today? They are making reference of course to the breakup of the American family, the sexual revolution, the morays, the drug culture. Many of them will even go into the concept of the victim culture. Everybody is a victim and all these issues that they look upon as negative, they shoot right back to the (19)60s and (19)70s when boomers are young. George Willie is one of those individuals who at times will write articles and he will take his shots every so often at that generation. But I have heard other politicians do the same. What's your thoughts on that? DH (00:08:10): Well, George Will is of course a member of that generation and hence he knows because he was growing up at that time. That it was enormously diverse as all generations are. Certainly, the press has always tended to focus his detention upon things that were unusual, colorful. And so if you get a small sub moving out to the woods to try to live sustainably, it may involve a couple of thousand people in the nation, but it suddenly gets all of these write-ups and it makes it seem like the whole generation is doing it. Clearly, there was a fair amount of drug experimentation that went on, but there had been drug experimentation that was going on before it became more visible. What is the word I am looking for here? It became more common place in terms of people's expectations in the wake of Woodstock. But there was serious marijuana use and heroin use facing back to the earliest of the century. Be back. With regard to the breakup of family, I think something has gone on there and some of it was probably good. It was an end to a certain kind of hypocrisy and some of it was probably bad. There seems many instances now to be, in my view, to give up on relationships without putting as much effort into it. I had a friend just the other day, when he was growing up, he asked his grandfather, he'd been married to his grandmother 47 years, a few months after that he was deaf. Excuse me, sorry, one second. And he asked his grandfather, what was the secret? His grandfather said, "Well, it was a different era." And there is something to that. Some stuff did change and much of it was good. It brought us the environmental revolution. I mean, it brought us some formidable ways, the creativity that led to information. SM (00:10:54): When we talk about the boomer generation, we are talking depending on statistics you read, between 70 and 74, 75 million people. And of course, we are talking about different ethnic groups and gender and everything. But when you look at this generation, what would you consider to be some of their strengths and some of their weaknesses in your opinion? DH (00:11:19): That was the point of before I distracted myself, I was talking about George Woo as one of those students. I mean, on any given campus you always had Greeks and factions and they tended to bound themselves a little bit around disciplines, the school of engineering and the business club or conservative with exceptions there too. The credit school must be more progressive along with arts and science. And then you have all of these overlays of different genders and racial groups. When you talk about any of those issues that you brought up before, boy that just delays in different ways and what Will is now pointing at it got the most attention when they were happening. Go back and reformulate that question? SM (00:12:14): Basically, in your opinion, what are some listing of some characteristics that you find very positive about the boomer generation as a whole and at the same time after the positives, some of the negative characteristics as you see it? DH (00:12:32): Well, of course a fair number of characteristics are in the same characteristic [inaudible] Janus faced there. It seems to me not having been around in my parents' generation, but it seems to me much less reference to authority. It perhaps came in part out of learning that we had been lied to about the Tom King, that we lied about various aspects of American intervention in the politics of other countries. Lied to about any number of things. So I am not sure the politicians were ever held on an enormous, but people, the best of them give up many opportunities including solid life, their families and privacy and what have you, to try to survey a broader publication mostly held in this repute. So on the good side, somebody because he or she managed to achieve authority was not taken at face value anymore. But on the bad side of that temporary... It tends to be presumption, that skepticism. SM (00:14:02): You speak up just a little bit too please? DH (00:14:04): Oh, okay. SM (00:14:04): Yep, sure. Yep. DH (00:14:08): Among the good characteristics, I think, I will probably get in some trouble for saying this, but it may have been the most educated generation in American history. Really took a lot of science, a lot of technology, studied extremely hard, and I think came into it with a sounder background than the World War II generation and a better background than people who are passing to today's school for all kinds of reasons. I do not know why the American educational enterprise has deteriorated, as the last few decades. I think it is a true tragedy and out of that came... And again, it is two faces often in different people. On the one hand, ordinary technologies [inaudible] to the New York Bangalore, nanosecond, and at the same time the degree of skepticism of that technological salvation, the concept that our parents would have clinged to now and those parents have survived, cling to now that the answer to climate change will be the magic bullet. That somebody will invent something to take care of them. And that is not much believed by the boomers who think answer there is going to be producing emissions, turning to it. Maybe there are technologies, energy resources, investments in conservation, but there's not the nuclear fusion to something that is going to come in over the horizon and buy cheap power that lets us continue precisely [inaudible]... I think there is a degree of identity with myriad organizations that are outside the traditional ways that Americans organize themselves. It is to say we still obviously have Republicans and Democrats, so a huge number of independence. The former community based social organization, alliances, Kiwanis, are of really strongly declining importance among baby boomers. And we tend to be... Excuse me. SM (00:16:54): Bless you. DH (00:16:58): Excuse me. That is okay. We tend to be involved in organizations that do not necessarily involve our neighbors. So if you look at the memberships of the Natural Resources Defense Council, there are no chapters in the United States. There is an identity with an organization that has a few offices in various regions that have paid staff in it, but it asks relatively little of their dollars, their affiliation, and occasionally to write a letter to Congress. There are certainly no weekly meetings or Mondays or those sorts of... Have largely generationally disappeared at length, bowling alone. I think there is really something to that in terms of the new forms of affiliation and that is becoming even more true as people's more and more online. And now often somebody will have a stronger relationship with a computer friend who shares a set of arcane interests, who has located 3000 miles away and who he or she has never met and I may not know the name of the person who lives next door to them. And that is unique in human experience. But on the other side of that, it may help the very first time to begin to build a sense of world community to the one politically accept prejudice that endures is a person born one inch on this side of a line, arbitrarily drawn on a map, inherently worth far more than a person who was born one inch on the other side of that. And with problems like climate change, protecting the world's oceans, protecting the world's endangered species, dealing with population growth and immigration, they all have to be dealt, particularly as immigration comes forced immigration as a consequence, climate change. They all have to be dealt at global basis and we have to somehow begin to develop this global consciousness. I do not think there would have been a way to do that prior to worldwide web. Still not confident we will do it, but there is at least an attempt, some of that indicating work. SM (00:19:29): Yeah. When you look at the (19)60s, what do you believe was the watershed moment when the (19)60s began and when was the watershed moment when it ended? DH (00:19:41): I suppose the beginning was the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath. You had a subsequent president of Lyndon Johnson who was a master politician and a despicable human being, but a guy who as a political figure was truly extraordinary, as the Voting Rights Act, as the Civil Rights Act, took that thing to Kennedy, gets all of the praise for putting a man on the moon and actually made it happen. Built Houston Flight Control in Huntsville and the whole NASA enterprise. Created a series of programs as part of the great society that were potentially really revolutionary and hitter over some awfully conservative voices in Congress and was so saddled with the war in Vietnam. The primary way that he has thought of today is still, "Hey, LBJ, how many could kill today?" That any case, the alienation that came out of the aftermath, the assassination sense of hope and invigoration and generational shift that so many people challenged by it wanted to go into the space race and wanted to go into the peace for and wanted to get out and do things, suddenly turned into this thing that was set pretty bleak, during escapism into Woodstock, huge number of civil rights rallies, anti-war rallies, iron metals, women's rallies. At all. I think, some large measure after the reelection of Nixon in 1972 that was sent, the hopes of that generation had [inaudible]. SM (00:22:09): Do you think this generation was the most unique generation in American history, the boomers? Because it is a quality that some boomers stuff they possessed when they were young, that they were going to change the world, that they were going to make the world better for the human race. They were going to end, obviously racism and all the isms, bring peace to the world. Your thoughts on this feeling that many of them had that they were unique and secondly, part of this question as they have aged, because the early part of the boomers now are 62. They can now get social security and early retirement if they want to. Have you been disappointed? I know you obviously are an activist who has stayed the course and you know many in the environmental movement who have, but when you look at that generation, how many stayed the course? So it is a two-part question. And please speak up. DH (00:23:13): Sorry. SM (00:23:14): Okay. DH (00:23:15): Just a second. Why do not I just do this, this way. Again, enormous, complex, multifaceted, very diverse. But among those who were at the cutting edge of change, there was certainly a sense of uniqueness and even probably a bit of metaphor rebellion there. We thought we were inheriting the world, but in the wake of World War II, enormous opportunities have been [inaudible] coming into a world in which worlds still commonplace racism, extremely progress in which feature of additional progress, public health, plummeted environment deteriorate. I think there was essentially no doubt in the minds of my friends and I at least, but we would be passing on to our children a world that was far better than the one that became inherited. At least we were committed to doing that. There were Black moments, but God, there is no chance at all. And then you get one of these sweeping victories, you drive a sitting president out of office, [inaudible] Hampshire, you pass a clean air act over the brightened opposition of automobile in petroleum and coal and steel industry. You win it essentially 99 to 1, that there was a sense that, yeah, we really can make a difference here. And I think that there's still time worth the scales to tip a bit further in terms of those changes. Clearly, we now have made fundamental changes in all kinds of laws that affect how women are treated, how minorities are treated, patients are treated, how the environment is concerned. The wave of laws that were passed between 1970 and 1974 have caused multiple trillions of dollars to be spent differently than they would have been spent, but more concerned with clean air and clean water and toxic cases and the conservation of species. And by any cost benefit analysis, it is a hugely beneficial shift of priority. It got that money spent. So I do not want to underplay the degree to which there has been some success, but where I think the real shift may yet come is the brochure, some now sign up for social security. A great many are now CEOs of companies. They're the heads of everything from labor organizations, major hospitals, elected officials to what have you and many will deep at it until their (19)70s, partly as a result of having a whole lot of trades because the retirement program get vaporized. But in part also, because they really are doing stuff that they enjoy and are reasonably good at that. And that is where I have actually had, this is anecdotal, but some disappointment. People that I thought very highly of, their younger days have come to be the CEOs of very major companies and have made choices driven by the demands of Wall Street, driven by their board of directors, driven by all sorts of things. But nonetheless, were involved with the people who were most prominently identified with some really terrible choices. So to the extent that we thought it was a generational thing that encompassed everybody, I do not know that anybody ever thought that, but if they did, it was naive, diverse. But certainly there are people who have done magnificent things and the world is a better place for that. I guess what I would say in just a nutshell that where we succeeded and failed, where we succeeded most on things that directly affected the individual families and individual communities and their health somewhat less at the state level and somewhat less still at the national level. But still even at the national level, fundamental changes in direction and regulation and laws where we were completely unsuccessful was in international relations where the only significant global victories that I think of during that era is some strengthening of international campaigns on human rights. So it is still astonishingly weak and maybe the Montreal protocol on ozone depletion. But the other big global issues, war and peace issues, the rich and war issues, climate change issues, all of those are in worse shape today than they were up 21. SM (00:29:11): Obviously, Earth Day was so important. When you look at these, again 70 plus million boomers, what do you think was the one issue that defined their generation? Was it Vietnam? DH (00:29:30): No, I do not think I can answer that. It certainly was defining for a large number of people who either went for and came back changed or went to Canada, did not think they had not have done to avoid going. And I hope that in the most part that was because they did not want to kill for an unjust war, rather they could not die. Whatever it was, they were altered by it. But there were other people who were completely consumed by... I mean, for women, I do not think that the war was as defined as it was for the people. The men who would have been directly engaged and often we were caught up and defined by feminism. But are in some cases defined by changing standards for motherhood in various racial groups, fighting for social justice and literally for their lives in various parts of it. And for some of us, it was clearly a shift that came from a recognition of a different role for mankind within the environmental movement. There was this very powerful strength that says that you have in the era of fossil fuels from the steam engine, largely defined success by subduing nature. And that has not worked out so well and accomplished prosperity. But you can lead lives of comfort, dignity, and contribution by adapting ourselves intelligently to the principles of college cities and ministries that are compatible with and ecosystems you will continue function, do not undermine nature services, of course, our needs. SM (00:31:41): One of the characteristics of the generation is obviously it was a movement generation because there were so many movements. The Civil Rights Movement was already going strong as boomers are reaching the age of 18, and many went to the freedom summer when they were very young. But when you look at the other movements, including the environmental movement, the Chicano, the gay and lesbian, the women's movement, the Native American movement, and the anti-war movement. Your thoughts on their links to the Earth Day and all the other environmental movements, because there seem to be a sense... And I like your thoughts on this, you had just made some comments about the international community today and how important the sense of community should be that we all need to work together as one. There was a sense of community amongst many of the boomers. That is why they worked well together. And at many protests you would see many of the movements together. When you look at the environmental movement and you see all these other movements, was there a close working relationship between the movement you were involved in and all these others? DH (00:32:56): At the working level where the folks really are representing large numbers of people who share their guilt and respect them and think of them as leaders? There was a high degree of pragmatic interaction. To take just the Earth Day example, as you go across the country, you will find in various rallies, all of the major leading anti-war figures were giving talk, sometimes focused exclusively upon the raping and [inaudible] of the Vietnamese environment, [inaudible] and the night palm, what have you. But one way or the other, tying their issue into it. And then similarly with civil rights leaders who would talk about the environmental, the ghettos about blood paint and rats, toxic materials as environmental issues about the dominant one at that point, freeways cutting through inner city areas, decimating what had been intact neighborhoods. And so there was that level at the extremes of each movement. I mean, they are in the extremes of the environmental movement, and I hate to characterize groups by this, but there are extremes within it that have a racist element to it, have a nationalistic, almost dramatic element to it. In the extremes of the civil rights movement, there were certainly those that were mixing up the search for Black power with the condemnation of things that were not Black and beautiful. And that basically took an organization like the SNC, the Students nonviolent Court, which had been students in mixed race and a whole lot of people, and basically kicked the white folks out. This was all about building from within Black nationalism and in the anti-war movement, I do not know that it is particularly a radical worldview, but there were folks who I think almost had psychological problems. They thought that using a brick through the window of a random florist shop somehow contribute to the movement. Basically they alienated their fellow anti-war and everybody else's, some of the prisons. But at the level that I think you are asking it, there was a broad sense that there was a new agenda that was coming. It was a generational agenda. It was in some large measure, progressive. It had a desire to have a higher degree of equality among all people and opposed to things that treated some as second class. And I think all of that was extremely widely shared. I should say that that led to condemnations from the people because you have an environmental rally, but signs are on simple rights. Signs are about war and all of the stuff. And so they would say, well... And they say the same thing about all of the others. You would go to an anti-war movement and there would be feminist's signs there and they would contend that this is all just [inaudible]. People do not really care about the environment, care about the war, care about whatever the issue is. It is all just a front to pull, a broad base liberal agenda. And it is not entirely false. I mean, most of us cared about all of those issues at a primary identification, which had been all the different events. SM (00:36:42): I am sure that, and I think hopefully activists today, whether they be environmental activists or any of other movements we have talked about, should realize that violence gets no one anywhere and it creates a bad image for the effort that you are trying to work on. I mentioned this because you have already brought up the Black power issue, the challenge with the Black power and the Black Panthers within the Civil Rights Movement, even in the Native American movement, the aim oftentimes got involved in violence. And then of course, in the last 10 years I have read about environmental activists who were violent. I cannot remember the name of the one group. I think it is out in the far west. They are willing to confront people and with violence if they have to, it is that Malcolm X by any means necessary attitude. Have you seen any of that within the environmental movement that by any means necessary, not only in 1970, but as you have progressed through the Earth Day celebrations in 2000 and just your thoughts on that? DH (00:37:59): Well, once again, it is part of this vast diversity and what gets attention and what does not. When you have the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the NAACP and Urban League and others trying to build a broad-based movement across the races to end the Jim Crow laws that had oppressed people basically from the Civil War, the immediate aftermath. They had enormous support, but the support was very broad, but people did not do very much. And certainly some did. The freedom writers went to the South, Freedom Summer was important opiate brief because of them, but almost immediately to Black power fall. But a theory of change is you build a critical mass, you reach out to as many as possible and you try to move them to a state where they become a powerful force. That was the whole theory behind Earth Day. We wanted to get everybody engaged and pull together something where for a window in time, which we thought was going to be much longer but did last for four or five years, we were effectively unstoppable. But an opposite view would say that in almost any instance, it is a very small number of people who care passionately about an issue that drive change. And most of the time, the vast majority of people cannot focus upon that many issues and maybe they will watch the evening news. But in the evening news, a three-paragraph story is a pretty long story and it is going to be dominated by whatever has pictures and colorfulness. And so although the Black Panthers were never one 10th of 1 percent of what the NAACP was in terms of membership and had essentially no white engagement at all, got an enormous amount of headlines because they were prepared to carry [inaudible] in the streets of Oakland or Chicago. And because they were confrontational and sometimes confrontational to enormously racist entities. And so they dominated the press for a period. Whereas the early stages of the movement up through Martin Luther King, even Joseph Lowery, it was led by mostly southern religious leaders who preached a Gandhi esque code of passive civil disobedience and nonviolence. It shifted over into something that was more akin to urban thugs, but they got the coverage. It became the prototype how you move. A similar thing would happen in pretty much everything, right up until... I mean, when people think about Seattle, most of them think about Boeing and Microsoft and Weyerhaeuser and Nordstrom and Starbucks, Costco and RealNetworks. I mean, for a little tiny city, we have produced a whole number of things that are fundamentally changed. SM (00:41:22): Yes. DH (00:41:24): But for some set of people, particularly those that are involved in globalization trade, there is a pretty dominant image of the battle for Seattle. When the World Trade Organization got here and were formed by the group of anarchists on the streets, that was a couple hundred people and most of them were not from Seattle, most of them were from Eugene, Oregon Group that was down there. But they triggered stuff that caused police to react in a way because of the people to become engaged. It is all of the tricks that were done throughout the (19)60s and it worked. And a couple hundred people there had had an impact that has endured in people's consciousness. There's now at least two movies out about Seattle. There have been thousands of peaceful protests about the way the World Trade Organization has excluded from its consideration a true concern for the environmental attributes of products, the amount of energy that is embedded in products, the degree to which children are employed, the degree to which unions are forced out and on and on. The amount of pollution that is generated in the course of making a product that is then exported. The pollution remains behind. I mean, they get a little bit of attention for a few moments, maybe they educate some people, but nobody remembers any of the violent confrontations that endure. And it is true about what happened under apartheid. It is true about most social insurrections that take place around the world. And as a consequence, there is this genuine tension between two alternative ways of bringing change. My hope was- SM (00:43:19): Mr. Hayes, let me turn my tape here. Hold on one second. (00:43:26): All right, go right ahead. DH (00:43:31): Well, there was this great pivotal point in human history but over a brief period of time. Historically, we had Gutenberg who ironically developed this stuff for the proselytization of the Bible and bringing it for God to the common man. But it led pretty directly into the distribution of information rather broadly and the age of reason and the enlightenment where scientific dispersion method logic were applied to all kinds of politics and economics. Well, it looked like we had made each gigantic leap in terms of human consciousness. We now find ourselves in an era where people, huge portions of American society just pay little attention to people who devoted their entire lives to studying issues and are extremely highly regarded by their peers. They dismissed [inaudible] using intellectuals in a term of disdain and an endorsement of political figures, the ultimate caricature of which is Sarah Palin, who seems to have no agenda other than really, really wanting to be famous and powerful. And somehow the (19)60s and the boomer generation I think played into some of that. I do not have a very clear idea of what I mean by all of that, but I think in that period where the legitimacy of authority was increased in question because the authority had been accused. We came, and I had part of this as well too, do not have much confidence in professors, some of whom had obtained tenure 40 years earlier and had fallen way behind their disciplines. But out of all of that, for some people came almost a disdain for knowledge sense that what you know and what you can calculate reasonably predict in air boundaries is not as important as a deep emotional commitment to a particular outcome. And that is reflects itself a bit from the issue that actually triggered this fast out point of words for me, is to say the emotional types tend to say. And I do not give a damn if 80 percent of the people, I will create a situation in which society has to respond to me. And often violence is a part of that. And it is not so much a Black and white thing as it is a gradation. When people went in and sat in at lunch counters and said, "You do not want to sit next to me, you go sit someplace else." But I have got a right to sit here under the public accommodation clause. They were often met with violence and they knew that they would. And in the early days, they took it and accepted in a Gandhish way on the latter dates, touch me, man, I am going to take your head off it. And among the people in the Southern best writing campaigns you have, many of them were men and women who had affection for one another. And some guy is there and may be prepared to let the police beat him. But when the police start to beat and turn the fire hoses on her, and then suddenly a whole different center of protective genes comes into play and passing civil disobedience does not look so much honorable as it looks cowardly. And suddenly you find yourself giving birth to somebody who's going to strike back at those that were striking them. SM (00:47:59): What you have mentioned is maybe this quality came about from the boomer generation. DH (00:48:07): Well, it came up, it was there on the side of the oppressors. Bo Connors was not a boomer, but he prompted a response. SM (00:48:18): If we had a- DH (00:48:18): I think directly to the Black Panthers. SM (00:48:21): How important were the college students on college campuses and ending the Vietnam War? I have had different responses to this. Some say they were very important, some say not important at all. DH (00:48:33): Oh, I hate to utter these words, but I am confident that they are correct that the war was ended because we had a draft and part of it was a draft that reached into college campuses a bit. But mostly as long as you were in college, you were exempt. So everybody knew that it was coming as soon as they got out, unless they got into medical school or something. So there was an overhanging threat and rather than higher, but we now politely call it professional army, but some in sense can call it a mercenary army. People who are looking for a way to get an education, to get some discipline often to escape an unfortunate family environment. They go there and they go and fight our wars for us. If you were a member of Congress, you would like to be able to kick your kids out of the armed forces. There was a degree of randomness as to who was going to be called and that caused everybody in the country to think hard about that war and about its real consequences in a way that, for example, the war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan have not. They were on the news, but they were one of all of these period issues that were out there. During Vietnam, it was the war that could very well take your son or your nephew, daughter. And so although the students were the principal focal point for the demonstrations when you had the Vietnam moratorium, the march on the Pentagon fueled by people who were then my age, but what really ended the war was all of our parents and the political force that they represented that read large across the society. And then you finally got to the point for me, I think the turning point, if you were to define it, which may say more about my upbringing than anything else, but it was the day that Paul Harvey came on the radio that ultimately was convinced that this was a war that America should not be in. And that is like rush limbo coming out against a war in Afghanistan. SM (00:50:50): Is it Paul Harvey or Walter Cronkite? DH (00:50:53): No, I am talking about Paul Harvey. SM (00:50:54): Oh wow, Paul Harvey. Okay. DH (00:50:57): Yeah. No, Walter Cronkite coming back clearly is the one that got all of the attention. SM (00:51:03): Well, that is interesting. DH (00:51:05): But Paul Harvey just cut the undersides up to people that the military listened to every single time. SM (00:51:12): Oh wow. Yeah. I will never forget listening to that with my mom sometimes. Paul Harvey and Dave, he had that unique quality about him. DH (00:51:22): My dad came home from work every single noon, every day of his life for the type that I grew up with and to listen to Paul Harvey. SM (00:51:30): Well, he had a unique voice and yeah, that was a great show too. Before I get into some environmental questions as I really want to concentrate on and your background, I have two quick final questions here on general things about the boomers, and I want to read one of them. We took a group of students to see Senator Edmund Muskie about a year and a half before he passed away. And he had been in the hospital. He obviously was not feeling well, but he did it because Senator Nelson asked him and he was great. We had about two hours with him, and we asked this question that the students came up with because they thought he was going to respond, talk about the (19)68 convention, and he did not. And this is the question we ask, do you feel boomer generation is still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth, divisions between Black and white, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not? What role has the Vietnam Memorial played in healing the division says Jan Scruggs says in his book To Heal a Nation? Most importantly, do you feel that the bloomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation not truly healing? And are we wrong in thinking this or has 40 years made the statement, time heals all wounds a truth? So just your thoughts and I will tell you what Senator Nelson said because it was great. DH (00:53:03): Muskie? SM (00:53:05): Yeah. Well, Senator Nelson also responded to this question, but Senator Muskie said... We thought he was going to respond by saying, "Boy, we were close to a second civil war in 1968." He did not say anything about (19)68. He said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And then he went on for about 15 minutes to talk about the Ken Burns series and the Civil War that he had been looking at and how he lost over 400,000 men and almost an entire generation died because of that particular war and what a waste it was. And he said, "Just go to Gettysburg anytime and see the flags. And you will notice on the southern side, the flags are always there, but on the northern side you do not see any." So just your thoughts on whether we as a boomer generation have a problem with healing from all these divisions or is this not even an issue? DH (00:53:59): And of course, as you are in Mississippi, Alabama, there was not a civil war that was the war of Northern Aggression. SM (00:54:07): Right. Yes, you are right. DH (00:54:11): Well, in some great extent, and this runs some of our earlier questions together as well, we are trying to do with Earth Day that a couple of years after the convention. When the nation clearly had been ripped apart, and one consequence of that was Richard Nixon as president, was to bring those people with progressive views together. As long as you could buy into the agenda, there was a role for you. I mean, on our steering committee we had George Wiley of the National Welfare Rights Organization, and we had Dan Lufkin. It is worth a couple $100 million dollars when a couple $100 million meant something as the founder of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. And Stanley [inaudible] Wiley is this person who somebody should look at someday. I am not big on the national welfare rights organization, though he did so many things from that. SM (00:55:19): What is his name? His name is George Wiley. DH (00:55:23): He died in a boating accident in the early (19)70s, but he was an emerging civil rights leader. He was a powerfully built African American man with PhD in chemistry and a deep and abiding concern for poor people. He was one of the true intellectuals who could have emerged and played, I think a really powerful role. Unfortunately, he was moved off-stage early. But going back to the broader point, we were trying to bring people together and to the extent that an event could, I think we did just by aggressively going after any entity, any group that appeared to have potential interest in this saying, come and get engaged, going after women's magazines. And in fact, probably the most powerful constituent was married women with one or two children and single wager or households with college educations who just jumped on this movement with the passion. And we got to them through women's magazines, a huge number of which wrote articles about us and the environment. Many gave their telephone number and the street address to contact us back about that Vietnam era. Went after Boy Scouts, went after the National Science Teachers Association, went after a variety of companies that seemed to be doing something quasi green, huge amount of support from organized labor. The largest contributor by far was the United Auto Workers. Other unions with single largest block of support for us and consciously we were trying to build something that was inclusive and in which the middle class would feel comfortable because they had been so much excluded from so many of those other movements by the way that the movements had in the end clustered themselves. We thought that that was the largest block of Americans. It was the ones with the money and the education and the power and the votes, and we wanted to have something that drew them into this sort of concerns. And I think for a while that all worked, but the polarization that is out there today is really very much a right left polarization. And I do not think it has much to do with at least the early concerns, the (19)60s and (19)70s concerns of the boomer generation. It is just this visceral lack of ability of political leaders to build an encompassing vision around what they are trying to achieve. That consists of something other than condemning the other side, not a positive competition of, you said dumping as much crap as you can on the other's vision. Now there are thoughtful things that can be said about various kinds of market mechanisms called for by people on the right. And there are some really useful roles that are played by regulation and by public expenditures that are called broke by people on the left, but there is no ability to treat one another with respect. Political level, and as a consequence, we are just paralyzed. I was on a radio interview a couple days ago and somebody asked me, in all seriousness, if we are unable to get a relatively weak climate bill through the US Senate because of the threat of the filibuster and we just cannot muster 60 votes yet, how could we come up with a treaty that meet the demands of developing countries and the ambitious goals of our European and Japanese allies and get 60 votes for that? That was blown away when I had to remind him of basic civics, you need to get 67 votes to pass treaty. There was a time when we could enter into treaties, but the law of the seas has been out there for what, 35, 40 years now, get the votes to pass it. I do not know how you ever pass a climate treaty, and I do not know how you saved the world without getting us to buy into some sort of an international agreement, but part of that is that no one will pay that attention. You got the climate deniers, you got these crazy people that honestly believe that there's a conspiracy in them. Thousands of scientists and hundreds of research institutions around the world over [inaudible] people's eyes. It is hard to believe that they believe that, but they sure say enormous emphasis. And on our side, there is a tendency to say, well, we have got a complete agreement among all relevant scientists and people who publish peer reviewed articles about all the details of climate change. Because if you get into difficulties and the nuances from the other side will pick you apart. In fact, everybody agrees that the world's... Community agrees the world is warming up, but we will have horrible consequences for all kinds of things at different points. There are just some like tilting point, humans are contributing to it. But within all of that, there is a lot of stuff that is judgment. There is a lot of stuff where you have got conflicting figures depending on whether you are using tree rings or whether you are using ice course or using something else to try to measure what happened a hundred million years ago. I do not know it's just this level of tension that makes it impossible to find a common ground. And we have a country that designed it. Basically the age of reason was all about forcing people to find a common ground like creating these speeds for majorities and super majorities. SM (01:01:14): So in short, really the healing issue is not really the main thing here in terms of the divisions within the (19)60s, these divisions are part of the human condition more than just defining it within a generation? DH (01:01:30): Well, they are a consequence of shifts in the way that that public opinion is shaped. There was a time when people read learned essays and you found the Bill of Rights being debated and people eager to read the next set of learned comment that came out in the newspapers. But people would sit up in the hot sun for eight, 10 hours and listen to the Lincoln Douglas debates where we have a nation that was really designed by a group of intellect. And there's a tendency on the right to treat the founding fathers as people go out and have a beer with. But I do not think that is a very accurate view of Jefferson in Monroe and Madison. Paul, certainly not Washington. SM (01:02:32): Do you see a link here, because you had mentioned people do not trust each other and lack of respect that the issue of trust or lack of trust is another quality that might be within the boomer generation because of so many leaders that lied to them, whether it be Johnson with a Gulf of Tonkin, certainly Watergate with Richard Nixon, but a lot of other leaders and even back in Eisenhower in the U2 when he lied about that. But the lower generation did not seem to trust anybody that was in the position of responsibility or leadership, whether it be a senator, congressman, the university president, corporate leader, even ministers, priests, rabbis, anybody in leadership, they did not trust anybody and whether they pass it on to their kids and grandkids, is that a good thing to not trust? And then is that a quality of the boomer generation? DH (01:03:24): Well, I think it is a quality. In some limits, I think it is a good quality. I think the degree of skepticism emerged because skepticism was warranted. He did not trust people because they lied to us. But what is tragic has been the lies. But that said, and at that point then, because you do not trust anybody and do not trust evidence and will not pay attention to anything that anybody says, I tend to give some deference to a report of the National Academy of Sciences. And so if you have agreement among say, 15 to 20 different National Academies of Sciences from around the world, plus you throw in a bunch of professional societies and they all get to the same basic point, I tend to assign that a very high degree of credibility and a huge number of people do not give a damn, one way or the other. SM (01:04:25): That is bad. DH (01:04:27): And it is related to where I was starting to go, which is that there was a time when at least my view of the past was that leaders were prepared to pay and the public was prepared to pay attention to evidence and then to thoughtful skilled art. And today, there is much more attention paid to images, to commercials that are designed to influence you one way or the other, to the 32nd sound bite, to the emotional gushing of a radio host in an almost evidence free manner. And part of this has to do with advances in human knowledge and how they are corrupt purposes. I mean, the fascinating thing that was on the air the other night, again, it goes back to the old statement, "A dying child is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." There is something about that. When they were doing fundraising for one of these Save the Children and they had a brother and a sister from some African country, and when they would show ad the sister in it, they would get a very good response of contributions. When they showed an ad with the brother in it, they would get a very good set of responses. When they showed the brother and sister together in the ad, the contributions went down like two thirds. And if they showed 40 kids who were all in this terrible thing or a refugee camp or something that made it a bigger issue, everything just fell off entirely because people tend to think there is something I can do to save this person. There is nothing I can do to save the world. You take those kinds of basic emotional responses and instead of fashioning arguments about what we do to save the world, you play to those basic emotional instincts and it all become a science now. It is tragic. SM (01:06:29): How did you become who you are? In other words, what was the magic moment in your life that turned your light bulb on in your head and said, "I am going to devote the rest of my life to this cause or that cause or I am changing the direction of my life." It's a two part question here. Who were your mentors and your role models that inspired you? Not only when you were young, but it could be Senator Nelson too? Boy, he is inspired me just from working with him in a university. And what was that magic moment when you became an activist? DH (01:07:10): Well, for me it actually was pretty much a precise defining moment. I grew up in a very small town of lumbering and really did not think that there were things that I could do that would be of much impact. And as I read about form work, tragic things including the threat of nuclear weapons, fermentation with chemical and biological warfare down at the south, even the beginnings of the war in Vietnam, I basically went into a world-class belt and really could not see a path forward for myself. And I took off and went to tracking around the world for three years trying to see what was going on in various of society. By then [inaudible] the of the new plant of the fires of Algeria, I would read [inaudible] and wanted to find out what truly going on in. So I took the train across Russia. I had checked all over Africa, all over the Middle East, all over the southwest Asia. Spent a lot of time in Japan. When I was a junior in high school, long before all of this, I was invited by the National Science Foundation to go to an ecology seminar and did it. Anybody who was 15 years old, mostly chased girls, had a problem, the sun. But we also were studying the ways that dragon flies operated inside a pond community. And our academic portion was based on Eugene Odom's text, principles of Ecology. And I studied that for my final exams and did okay. And a lot of the material was really pretty [inaudible] to me. And then I went back and was a senior in the [inaudible]. Well, I was out hitchhiking around the world in Libya. I had an experience one night alongside the road where the road goes from Luderitz, right, intersects the road, goes down to Cape Town. When I went up over a hill at the close of the day, rolled up my seating bag and somehow stuff just came together for me. It was a little bit like conditions in which Old Testament profits had visions. I mean I had been out very alone for a long time by then. I have been basically by myself for a couple of years. It'd been a really hot day. It was a desert cold night. I did not have any decent food, had not any for a time. Somehow what popped into my mind was that ecology seminar and some of the basic principles that I recalled, and at the heart of it all being that life on Earth was driven by energy transactions. And that much of what Darwinian evolution is about is how to make everything just as efficient as possible for individual species and for the way that ecosystems functioned. And it was all dependent upon flows of energy from the sun captured through photosynthesis, released through oxidative possible relations, stored in various ways. And making those systems function as efficiently as possible, ultimately built what we have as most of the modern world except for human beings. Because we had found ways to tap into fossil resources that were unlimited supply. And we had emerged into something that was very different that a 100 years earlier, if you had shown somebody a photograph of an office in Atlanta, Georgia, an office in Phoenix, an office in Anchorage, we could tell you instantly where they were. And now we were in something where they all looked identical and they had this cheap energy being poured into them. And the insight that I had that night that turned me around, sent me back to the United States, got me into law school and tried to affect change was this recognition that this was likely to be a brief episode and that a great many of the problems that we were facing were from our efforts to ignore and even fight against the basic principles of ecology instead of... As Ian Marc wrote about it, and I learned later with Design with Nature and that if we could really do things differently, much learning with what we would now call biomimicry to build what we would now call on principles of urban ecology and industrial ecology. All of this being a vocabulary that did not exist, but which I am intuiting that night, but we could overcome a great deal and reproducing a world in which we cherished diversity on and on those sorts of things and use at least as metaphors within ecologic principles. I got up the phone, I did not sleep at all that night. I thought that this was just this blinding inside I intended to return home and among other things, right in environmental, [inaudible] that it is plain phone in terms, which I have actually tried to do a couple of times and success. But got up the following morning having gone, rolled out the Cleveland bag, was a guy that could not even much think of any reason to go on living and got up the following morning with a pretty clear direction for what I was going to do with my life. SM (01:13:05): Wow. Yeah. Your whole link to Earth Day and your meeting Senator Nelson, and then being the organizer, when you look at that experience of 1970, and can you talk a little bit about the teach-ins, which is a certainly important quality of anybody. It was a boomer that lived, they had to experience or be a part of some teach-in. How important were the teach-ins? Because I know that was part of your responsibility, and what was that feeling like of, again, just that you're young, you are being given responsibility at a very early age to organize this very important birthday event that you care so deeply about in working with people who felt like you are the same way. What was just your feelings of that 1970 and working with Senator Nelson and all the young people on Earth Day? DH (01:14:04): Well, it was an extraordinary opportunity to make a leap in a direction that I was slowly trying to plot my way to work. I mean, I flew down to Washington because I had not heard anything about an environmental teacher at Harvard, or I was at that time or at all until it appeared in an article that Claman Hill wrote in the New York Times based on a talk that Gaylord given down in early house. And since I had not heard of it, I figured nobody was organizing it since they did not mention anybody except Gaylord, just with all of the arrogance of you down to Washington too, even Senator. And my hope was to get the charter to go back and organize Harvard. And what was a five- or 10-minute courtesy conversation was changed by the fact that that New York Times article had been written and mail was beginning to pour into Senator Nelson's office from mostly schools across the country. At that point, from people who had read the article or had read an article about the article and wanted to know how they could become engaged. So we talked in for an hour, hour and a half, and I left with the commission to go up and organize Boston, which was way beyond what I thought of doing when I went down to Washington. Then it turned out that Gaylord had asked Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey to be his co-chair, so that be the Democratic Senator and Republican congressman and McCloskey turned out to be the congressman that represented Stanford, right. And [inaudible] president of the student body and deeply involved in a lot of political stuff. I did not know McCloskey, but when Gaylord asked him about this kid from Stanford, McCloskey, I heard of me and called from the Friends of Banford and took their temperature and basically got back saying, "He seems like he is a pretty soft guy." So I then got a call a week later saying, "Would you consider dropping out of school and coming down and organizing the United States?" That was not a career trajectory that I had. Figured it was just a really powerful new opportunity and really did not even think about it for more than that conversation. I accepted on the spot. It just seemed like in alignment of what I wanted to do. Called a few friends, got some people from Harvard who were my classmates to come down and join me, wish on it. And shockingly, by midway through the next month, it became clear. We began calling around to every university in the country and as a college and university thing. There just was not much interest on the part of the people that we knew how to bolt us together, people with their roots and these various other movements for us. And there were some college chapters in the National Wildlife Federation, what have you. And then there were some colleges where those schools of forestry, or there were no schools of the environment, but something that had to do with natural resources would want to do something. But it was viewed as an educational venture. And it's basically not much more than a seminar with maybe a couple of displays out the court garden. I suddenly had this horrible sense. But I would set myself up for a belly flop and we did this survey of all those letters that had come in and found that... Now, in addition to the letters from the K to 12 schools, we immediately set up a K-12 school coordinator, a guy named Bryce Hamilton did a fabulous job pulling all that together. The bulk of the remaining letters were from these women that I mentioned earlier. Basically between the ages of 25 and 35, college educated, one or two children had not much been involved in anything before that was political, but had a fair amount of talent that they were in homes where the husband was breadwinner and they were around home with their kids, but now their kids were sufficiently out of their hair, that they had time to do some other stuff in this environment that really appealed to them. But also in part because of the impact that would have on their children. And the unknown story of what became was the engagement of these women. I mean, if you did a survey around through some of them are young, hit your boomer criteria of people who went on to become members of city councils, members of state legislatures, members of public service commissions, members of the United States Congress, and asked those that came of age during that period, how many of you had birthday as your first political experience, that the percentages would be staggering. And I virtually never give a talk someplace where there is a female public official when she does not come up to me and say, the first thing she ever do was my first birthday. So there was this huge unexplored thing. Our staff was all kids, and our press coverage was all this, was this youthquake, but in fact, it was this woman's thing that was going on, this slightly older women that fit basic big urban organization. So at that point, while the teachings continued, they basically shifted mostly to K to 12 and then the educational excursions in a few colleges, including a pretty good one at the University of Michigan. But we ran a big ad in the New York Times and dropped the teaching stuff from everything, including our letterhead, and embraced this new name of Earth Day and took it into public demonstrations and things that you could do in various kinds of service organizations and cities would put together, transformed into something that was much more based upon the kinds of things you would see in the civil rights era and the anti-war era in their later digs. I mean, what triggered Gaylord is in the earliest stages of both of those things, there were not college teachings that dealt with racism on campus or dealt with whether the war was a good idea or a bad idea. And then it was firstly debated, 1963, (19)64, (19)65, but by the time he got to 1970, Chen was viewed as a little bit passé on college campuses, and we needed to have a different vocabulary that we could use. That is where our birthday came from. And I want to say on Wheeler's behalf, he was just incredibly flexible about all of this stuff. He wanted to have a bunch, he gave a high degree of deference to us that were trying to actually get out there and organize things. And he embraced the new name with gusto and shifted his own remarks. Although he still did a lot of things on college campuses, he began addressing a lot of community groups. And then the final thing that made it all come together, that is an overstatement, but a final thing that was a huge benefit to us related to Nixon's southern strategy. And the fact that suddenly the future of the Republic Party and the nature of American politics was going in void. And there was a very attractive young mayor of New York, John Lindsay, who decided to inhabit that void. And he was pretty ambitious, and he really liked the environmental issue, and he just jumped into it with us. He assigned principal staff on his staff in New York to work with our organizers in New York City. They put up police protection for free. They gave us the insurance for free. They gave us porta potties around Central Park for free. It closed down 5th Avenue. So the 5th Avenue, you close it down, you got to crowd there instantly. And we had this event in New York City that had more than a million people involved in it. And it was not a teaching, it was a rally. Like most of the things around the country, there was nobody there saying, "No, pollution is a good thing." And a Larry Summers, got to send all your toxic waste to poor countries because the value of human life, poor countries was less than the value of human. It was not that debate at all. It was stop the goddamn pollution now. And that took place in the city where NBC, CBS, and ABC were located, where Time and Newsweek and the New York Times, the United Press, the Associated Press, I mean, it was at that point, New York to a greater extent than any place in the world is today, was the information communications capital. If something did not happen in New York, it is very difficult to convince people that it was happening every place else in the country. But if you have got Central Park and Fifth Avenue filled with prominent political people and celebrities of various kinds and this huge diverse thing there, then suddenly you have the images and you have got the reality that you can peg all of the other stuff that is taking place. Thousands of cities and neighborhoods, villages across the country all became part of this one story. And Lindsey really thought that this was something that he would be able to use to help drive a wedge into a new kind of political future. And he also acutely aware that Ed Muskie intended to use it on the Democratic side. When I was practicing law in San Francisco, my paralegal for a period of some years, a guy named Tom Helic, who was the son of John Helic. John Helic got out of the slammer, came down and had dinner and drinks with us, and we were reminiscing about the [inaudible]. He told me a story that serves my interest, but it also serves his interest. So probably a suspect. SM (01:24:51): Hold on one second. DH (01:24:57): This is going to be probably entirely myopic, but my sense is, if I wanted to look back at the 18th century at the time, people would be caring about the seven years’ war and all sorts of stuff that I cannot even make an intelligent comment about. And today we think of it as it is when the American Revolution took place, began to have the Industrial Revolution curve without anybody thinking of it as great. My sense historically is that the two things that I think will be remembered toward is that it is the era when the Information Revolution was launched, which I think is one of those true transformational technical revolutions. Federally changes everything from commerce to privacy but not fundamentally shaking the world. And the other will be that it is a time when human beings began to recognize that their aggregate activities had acquired the impact of a geophysical force. We can change the climate, poison the entire ocean, and eliminate species. We can do the sorts of things that you typically attribute to earthquakes and volcanoes and asteroids hitting the earth. And that we hopefully, as a result of the work of this generation began to behave more responsibly with regard to all of those things. SM (01:26:39): The thing I am not going to have time to do is ask list names and terms from the period for your response, but I want to end with this very last question. What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you? And again, I am going back to that question that Jan Scruggs who wrote that great book, To Heal A Nation, it has done a great job of healing the veterans, but has it done any job of healing the nation in any way? But when you see the wall, what does it mean to you and how do you respond to Jan Scruggs's book title, To Heal a Nation? DH (01:27:31): Well, Myolynn is a good personal friend. We have served on a board together for several years. I think she has done a lot of things that are powerful, but as you could claim of me with birthday, I think she and I both peaked early, but we both aspired things a bit later. I mean, I think it is just most fabulous thing she has done. And I think it did a wonderful job of allowing a multiple sensory acknowledgement, banking and healing of the whole set of people, many of whom went to Vietnam against their builds and did things that were, in many cases, heroic and saved their lives. That was really important. In terms of healing around right, left tensions, Black, white tensions, environmental versus traveled growth tensions. I am not sure that it aspired to do any of that. I have never really thought of it in terms that are broad before. I do not mean that at all to demean of it, but I think it does what it is set out to do, magnificently. SM (01:28:52): Oh, very good. (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 Denis Hayes Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hayes, Denis ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Environmentalism; Lawyers; Earth Day Network; Solar Energy Research Institute; Bullitt Foundation; Hayes, Denis--Interviews Description An account of the resource Denis Hayes is an environmental advocate, a proponent of solar power, attorney, educator, and founder of the Earth Day Network, which works with over 180 nations in order to build environmental democracy. He was head of the Solar Energy Research Institute and president of the Bullitt Foundation in Washington. Hayes also received many awards including the national Jefferson Awards Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Hayes received his Bachelor's degree in History from Stanford University and a Juris Doctor degree at Stanford Law School. 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 ND Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.198a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.198b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 88:57 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/79d496f0c5af508d2d1c28c99eb611da.m4a 09ec821dc466fa4700bc20f49a171e35 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 Ukrainian Oral History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright&nbsp; Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D.</span><br /><span>Heather DeHaan, Ph.D., Associate Professor in History</span> Description An account of the resource The Ukrainian Oral History project consists of a collection of undergraduate student interviews with immigrants from East Central Europe, particularly the lands of what is now Ukraine. Four interviews took place in New York City and record the memories of Jewish immigrants. A few interviews testify to specifically Russian identity and experiences, while the rest of the collection is comprised of interviews with members of Binghamton’s Ukrainian immigrant community. Relation A related resource <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a> 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. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Logan Bretz and Heaven Germann Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dennis A. Kalashnik Biographical Text Dennis A. Kalashnik is a Russian-Ukrainian Immigrant and business owner. He was born in Krasnodar Krai, Russia and came to the States in 1991 when he was four years old. Both of his parents are Ukrainian. He is currently married and resides in Endwell. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 52:20 minutes Date of Interview 2016-04-13 Digital Publisher Binghamton University Digital Format audio/mp4 Language English Material Type Sound Collection Ukrainian Oral History Project Subject LCSH Kalashnik, Dennis A. --Interviews; Ukrainians--United States; Diaspora, Ukraine—History; Ukrainian; Germany; Migrations; Ethnic identity; Borderlands -- Russia -- History; Church; Broome County (N.Y.) OHMS Object URL https://omeka.binghamton.edu/viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=DennisKalashnik.xml 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>. Keywords Interviews; Ukrainians; Russians; Ukrainian diaspora; Immigrants; Soviet Union; Russian-Ukrainian Baptist Church 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 Ukrainian Oral History Project Interview with: Dennis A. Kalashnik Interviewed by: Logan Bretz and Heaven Germann Transcriber: Logan Bretz and Heaven Germann Date of interview: 13 April 2016 at 3:00 PM Interview Setting: Starbucks, 904 W Front Street, Binghamton, NY --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) Logan Bretz: [Music playing in background throughout the interview] Hello Dennis, my name is Logan and this is Heaven. We are going to ask you some questions today. First, we would like you to introduce yourself. What's your name? Where are you from? What do you do for a living and what do you like to do for fun? Dennis Kalashnik: My name is Dennis Kalashnik. I live in Endwell. Here. Locally. Uhm. I ah came here to the States in 91 from Russia but I am Ukrainian. My parents are both Ukrainian. Uhm. I like to fix cars. Eat out. Pretty much. That's about it. LB: You said eat out-- DK: Make money [Laughter from all]. LB: Make money! Where is your favorite place to eat? DK: Uh, probably the Japanese Hibachi places. Either Fuji San, Fushimi or Kampai. One of those. LB and Heaven Germann: Ah okay. LB: Okay. So, where were you born? DK: I was born in what is now Russia. It was Soviet Union back then. Uhm. It's Russia, Krasnodar Krai, which is Southern Russia, near the Caucasus. Yeah, it's a little warmer than here. LB: Do you remember anything from growing up? DK: Yeah. A few moments uh because I was about four and a half when I moved here. So I remember some like highlights I guess, like you know, events, birthdays, stuff like that you know? Cute little scenes from my childhood. LB: Would you like to share any? DK: Uh, well I remember I had ah my appendix removed when I was little. So I remember that. I was like almost three years old. I remember having the surgery, going under and I remember, you know, family meeting us and getting gifts and stuff like that. And I remember ah, in ah where we grew up, we had a lot of people immigrate to the states so it was kind of like a tradition to go to the railroad station and you know, wave people off. And like. HG: That's really cool. LB: Yeah, that's really neat. DK: Yeah. So people would take the train to the nearest bigger city and then take the airport from there to Moscow and then fly out of there to JFK. LB: That's so neat. DK: Yeah. LB: Uhm. So what are your parents like? DK: My parents? LB: Yeah. DK: Ah, my dad is, ah, well he came here. He was 27 and my mom was about 24 years old so they were relatively young. Uhm. Really hardworking. I think they have a strong work ethic. I think that's probably what they taught me the most. Uh, my dad and mom are from ah, well we all go to the Baptist Church here so kind of the main reason why we moved here was because they used to have religious persecution during the Soviet Union so once the uhm, you know, the iron wall was removed, they were able to immigrate and they took advantage of that. ASAP, I guess. LB: Do you remember anything about your grandparents? DK: Uhm, well when I moved away, both of my parents’ side of their mothers passed away when they were younger. My dad was like twenty years old when his mom passed away, so his dad remarried and uhm my mom's mother passed when she was four years old. So I only got to meet my grandfather's. They came here to the states to visit us when we already lived here and I visited them as well, a few times when they lived there, so. It wasn't really a close relationship because they lived so far away. LB: Okay. Uhm. Which family member would you say influenced you the most? DK: Uh, hard to pick one. They're really. We are actually from a really tight knit family where family is like means a lot in our family, so. Uhm. I think they're, both parents were actively involved in our upbringing and you know, so I wouldn't be able to pick one I guess [He chuckles]. LB: And also, what part of Ukraine did you or your family come from, [correcting pronunciation] come from and who do they most identify with? DK: Uh well, my, both of my, my parents' side are uh from like suburbs of Kiev. So, kind of like this from Cherkassy. Which is uh, I don't know, maybe 100 kilometers South of Kiev which is the capital of the Ukraine now. Uhm, and by identify. What do you mean, like? LB: With Ukraine or Russia? DK: I think I would identify more with Russia. I think I'm more sympathetic toward Russia because uhm, I don't really speak Ukrainian. I only speak Russian. During the Soviet Union, everybody spoke Russian there, so only, like during, in small villages people spoke Ukrainian. All the central towns and cities is more Russian. HG: And that was one of our uhm other question was what language did you primary, primarily speak when you were growing up? DK: Russian. Yeah. So kind of more like eastern Ukraine. You know, like everybody there speaks Russian pretty much. Although, I got married. Now, my wife is from Western Ukraine and she learned Russian actually in the states, here. When she moved here, she did not speak Russian at all. HG: Oh, that's really cool. DK: So, I uh remember she said like when she was growing up she would have some visitors come from Russia and they were like looking at them like they were you know, totally aliens or something. They would make of their language because it was so odd for them. LB: Was your family originally from Kuban? DK: Uh, yeah. LB: And when did your parents migrate? DK: When? LB: Yes. DK: Uh, ninety, ninety-one. LB: Ninety-one? DK: Ninety-one. Yeah. It was October sixteenth or something like that. Ninety-one. LB: Did they, did they migrate back to Ukraine and then come back? DK: Uh, well, my dad got married and my mom already lived in uh, Kuban so they got, my dad got married for like a year together in Ukraine and then there's just better opportunity for them and in the Russian area so they moved there. LB: And what did your parents do? DK: Back there? LB: Yes. DK: My dad was a shoe smith. Back there. He owned his own uh, store. He'd make custom made like stilettos and stuff like that that he would specialize in, women's shoes. High heels and that sort of thing. He had his own little gig doing that. Uhm, he went to school for that then started his own business. It was really hard having your own business back over there because you had to pay off a lot of bribes and try to order supplies and stuffs to run your business. It's not like here you can just go and call any warehouse or what not and get what you need. There you have to like pay somebody off to get, you know, supplies for your business, taxes, and all that stuffs. It's hard to run your own business. LB: That's really interesting. I did not know that. Uhm. Do you remember any stories they told you about when they came to America and when you moved to America? DK: Uhm, well. That's, I would say is pretty fresh in my mind too, when we moved here. It was kind of just, everything was so new. You know, you were really, really like aware of what was going on. Uhm so, I mean I remember just from landing here in Binghamton uh, you know, all of our relatives were greeting us that were already here in the states before we were. Uhm, back then it was the only way to get into the states; was the immigration was first open up to Jews. So like our cousins, they had to prove that they had some kind of Jewish roots and they were able to immigrate through Italy and then come here. And we were the first, I think one of the first ones that were able to immigrate directly from, you know, Russia to these to the states without going through some kind of middle country or uhm. So I remember them meeting us here. I remember going to Chuck E. Cheese and stuff. That was like a celebration. That was fun. That was like totally different. You know, jumping in the, you know, big arcades there, and they have the balls of the, with the, all that stuff, that was, that was cool. LB: Uhm, do you have any classic family stories, jokes or songs? DK: Uhm. Well like I said, we are from a Christian family so we have a lot of us when we get together a lot of our uh I guess uh conversation and we would sing a lot of Christians songs, you know and a lot of Russian food. And uhm, so. The games we played as kids growing up here would be mostly like you know, American games, freeze tag and uh, you know, uh stuff like that. Soccer, basketball, even though that was more like we were kind of I'd say we were more like intertwined with American culture pretty quick. Because you go to school, public school and nobody wants to stick out, so [He laughs]. HG: Yeah, and that was uhm, going into that, can you tell us like your school experience here? DK: Uh, well, when I moved here I was four and a half so like within half a year I went to kindergarten. Basically the next following school year in September, I was started kindergarten. At that point I wouldn't, I wouldn't say like I had that much exposure to the American society here until I went to school. And I had I think a hard time at first uh because I had like, you come to school, you don't understand anything. Like what everybody is asking you. I mean like you know, you want to go to the bathroom, you can't explain yourself, you know you want to eat you can't explain yourself. You just hope they can figure out your sign language, I guess you know or you just get frustrated. My, my first, uhm first day of going to school. I was so excited to go and then I remember I came to school and I guess I didn't have the proper vaccination or something like that and they called me out on the speaker, pulled me out of gym class in front of the whole school like made me seem like I was like some kind of you know diseased kid or something like that. They put me in a taxi and sent me home. So, from that day on I hated school. They ruined it for me [He laughs]. L & HG: Awe! DK: First day in. So. Uhm, I mean I just kind of did what I needed to do to get by and. I remember I got lucky actually. There was one girl in my class who was Ukrainian and she was there I think a year before we were and she knew some English. So she would like kind of translate and because of her, I was able to pick it up a lot quicker. LB: That's nice. Did you have any memorable teachers? DK: Uhm, yeah. I remember there was some uh when I moved to Vestal. I went to vestal from second grade until I graduated. Uhm, I remember uh Mrs. Smith, Ms. Smith. Uh, she was really nice like when I just moved there, she was like, just welcomed me very well into that class that I was in. I remember making her project and stuff like that, and you know, dedicating it to her and then, what's funny is I moved to Endwell after I got married and she's my neighbor now. So [He laughs]. DK: So I got talking to her. I'm like oh she has a familiar name. So, we're actually next-door neighbors now so. Yeah, she was the nicest teachers that I had when I was growing up so, that was cool. LB: What is one of your favorite memories from your early schooling? DK: Well, like I said, that one getting kicked out of school. -- I don't know. My family, let's say like some families are very oriented toward education and they push their kids to you know; get a degree and what not. Our family wasn't really like that. They were more about I guess working hard and -- just being decent humans. You know, they would instill good morals in us. We were very --involved in church. -- That was -- that, I think that's the most centric thing in our family, is religion. I think. -- And if like school work or school activities took time away from that, that was supposed to be, I guess placed on, you know, a second priority. So we weren't really involved in too much -- after school activities or anything like that. Did our work. Did what was asked of us and went home. Helped out around the house. -- Went to church. I had a lot of friends around the church and, a lot of kids there, so. LB: What were your friends like? DK: -- There's all of us are pretty similar. Like to play American sports--. Like to, I personally like to fix cars. They all had hobbies around cars, being boys and all. -- Just very active. Just normal childhood. LB: And going back to your school experience, did being Russian/Ukrainian affect the way you were treated? DK: -- I don't, I don't know if it was. Well, we try to stick with our own I guess. When we went to school, at least because we're not even. Although I'd say we are kind of first generation American, but I mean we aren't really. Because--Just being like, kind of growing up in a really big like Slavic bubble protected us I think from too much American influence at once. So when we went to school we would have friends that were you know were just like us that knew our culture. We kind of hung out together so that kind of made us I think stick out a little bit at school so. Kind of, they protected our back you know in school fights and stuff. And nobody really messed with you because you had a group of loyal friends and stuff like that. So that was kind of neat in a way but I also think it's kind of not really good because you didn't really intertwine too much too. HG: Going back to what you said earlier how there was the one girl in your class that was Ukrainian. Did you remain friends with her? DK: --We kind of, lost track after I moved to Vestal, when we were little. But, I mean now, like, growing up I still see her around town here and there. I think she got remarried, got married to a Bosnian guy. So, I see her and I recognize her face but I just say hi or whatever. But not really close friends, yeah. HG: So, you said earlier that religion was very important to your family. Do you mind if we talk about your religious aspects now? DK: Mhm. Sure. HG: So what is your overall religious background? DK: -- Christian protestant which is -- a church that separated from the Orthodoxy churches. -- That being -- kind of based on Martin Luther's theses and stuff that he posted and all so basically that you're saved by faith. And it's not like an Orthodox church is when you're small you get christened into the faith and you're kind of a nominal Christian. Here, you grow up and you have to choose it at your own time. So, when you accept Christ, you get baptized in the church and then. You live, you know, based on your faith and not feel like, because of your parents were Christian and what not. So, that's kind of the basis of it, so. HG: -- Would you say that your religious beliefs have changed or adapted in any way to like American society or is it still? DK: No -- I would say they're probably the same as when people like used to live in the Soviet Union. Probably the same style church here. Hasn't changed much. All the values are the same, all the traditions are, I would say that pretty much all of the traditions back from Russia or Ukraine. Just, when I go back there to visit, I go to the churches there, it's, it's the same thing. HG: So, how many times have you gone back to like Russia since being here? DK: -- Five times maybe? Five times? Our mom would send us back there -- for the summer. So, we'd go there and visit our relatives. Hang out there in the summertime and that would help us preserve the language, the culture, traditions. HG: That's really cool. DK: For our parents, that was important for us to remember the language and so they tried and made an effort for us to go there and -- my mom taught me I think, how to read and write here. When we were at home, she would just take the -- alphabet book and I mean taught us how to read and practice our writing. We also have like a Russian school which is within our church -- on Saturdays. They have -- classes. They get all the kids together and they teach them how to read and write in Russian. So that helps too. LB: So when you would go back to Russia, is it, did it change over the years? DK: -- Well, it's more westernized. You know. During, when we just left -- the Soviet Union fell so there's a lot of poverty there and a lot of -- corruption stuff like that. And ever since the president there changed, it's kind of been normalized and things gotten, there's a lot more order there. Well, you see a lot of the style of shopping for instance, they used to be markets and stuff and now they have malls like we do here too. So, they got rid of all that stuff. And, so you go to the mall, there's ice skating rinks in the mall, there's carousels in the mall they have McDonald's they have, you know Asian restaurants, they have American food, you know. So it's very similar, you know. The transportation system is the same. Cars are the same. They import everything. So it's just like a normal place. The only thing different is you come there and everybody speaks Russian. That kind of startles you. First of all you're like oh that's weird! Everybody understands what you're saying and stuff like that so it's kind of. You get this homey feeling too when you go there. So, that's cool. HG: Do you have like any, like favorite memories from going back to Russia when you would visit your family or just being there? DK: -- Well, when we went there like the last time I went there was in 2009. I got married in 2010 so then it was harder to go and travel because it's more money now and you got bills to pay. HG: Yeah. DK: But in 2009 when I went, --, my mom's side is, --, the relatives that all live there and they're very hospitable so when we go there they make an effort to, you know, treat us to, you know, all kinds of places and take us to the, uh, Black Sea there for instance. We got to go to Sochi where the Olympics were, um, all the resorts there. And one of my uncles made uh like uh a euro trip sort of thing for us. He paid some guy to uh take a van and just take us down to the sea, he took us to Moscow, took us to Saint Petersburg. We got a lot of tourism done. And he kind of made it possible for us to experience the culture there so that was really neat and interesting. We weren't just stuck sitting at our grandma's house or something like that you know, something boring. We actually got to see the country so that was fun. LB: Mhm. Back there do they follow different traditions than you do here? DK: -- like it's just a different way of life. The people are different a little bit. -- Here, everybody smiles I would say, and but you leave maybe behind your back they would say something different. There they just say it straight up to your face if they don't like something. People are more blunt and I think up front; less political correctness there -- kind of like Donald Trump. [Laughter] So we can relate to him I guess. You'll go to a store, you know, if you want to touch something and just look at it they'll flip out on you. Why are you touching it? Are you going to buy it or--? That's one thing is like, customer service is like nonexistent there. They just don't want to waste their-- You know they see if you're wasting their time. Their actually, if you have money, they can tell by the way you're dressed or what not and they'll-- They, they judge you right automatically if they can make money off you or not or you're just going to waste their time and beat around the bush. They'll just tell you, you know, don't-- get along. LB: Going back to, going back to religion, can you describe a holiday mass at your church? DK: -- well, we have-- like I said, our-- our-- origins are from an orthodox background so there's some influence from orthodox churches. Like some of their traditions, for instance, we just celebrated Easter-- the Orthodox Church gets up really early and they go to-- go to church. -- celebrate their holiday-- like we still have that tradition too. Like we'll get up really early in the morning, and we have service at 6 am. You know, we get up with sunrise and go-- our typical service there would've been like-- like we have bands playing. We have a lot of kids programs and stuff. They learn a lot of verses for the holidays. They dress up-- everybody dresses up special. And -- so we even have like food afterwards, so. LB: What kind of food would you have? DK: -- well you get halupki which everybody knows that. So you get that. A lot of mashed potato -- different salads. So-- barbecue going on. Shashlik, which is like a chicken spiedie sort of thing. So a little grilling going on. HG: That sounds good. LB: As you were growing up, was the food different? DK: --, like right now I prefer more American food. Like when I go out-- I like to go out because at home I would eat Russian food and stuff like that and I kind of like American food more, because it's just variety. For me it just feels like if I want to go out somewhere I don't want to pay for something that I could eat at home. Although our food is good, I just want something different. LB: What kind of food would you eat that you didn't like as much as American food? DK: -- I like-- well I like steak and stuff like that like they have-- they cook meat on like barbs but it's not like steak. They do like pork and they'll chop that up and put it like on spiedie sort of thing which is good too -- and I like-- I like burgers too [Laughs]. DK: I like American classic cheeseburgers. Sometimes you want that and you can't get that at home. I mean you could cook it but I'm lazy to do that so. HG: You said growing up how your family would keep like the-- some of the traditional Russian like dishes and stuff. What were some that you remember like growing up? DK: -- We get a lot of canned-- canned vegetables and stuff during the fall. My mom would do a lot of canning like jam, and -- she really likes that. Mushrooms. I really like mushrooms and mashed potatoes and I like-- smoked fish, so. That's kind of-- like if I was to eat at home that's what I'd prefer. And then there's crepes too. You know, your Russian version of crepes with strawberries and put Nutella on it too and what not, so. HG: -- So going back to uh, religion and your church, are you like involved in like any of your church activities? DK: Yeah. HG: Because you were telling us about the Russian stuff on Saturday. DK: Yeah I'm actually a youth leader in our church so I get all the younger kids together and we organize camps. --We organize a lot of trips, like this weekend we are going to go visit another Russian church in Wilkes-Barre. So we do a lot of communication between our Russian network that exists here in the states. So I helped organize that. -- I'm also involved with the choir so I help conduct music. We learn choir music and um I preach in church too. So we have-- in our church we have a tradition where we have like 3 preachers so everybody gets a chance, in our church all the like-- all the men, young and old, so I'm involved in that. And I help out with cleaning and all that stuff in church too when need be. I cut the grass around the building if need be. I plow the snow because I lived the closest [Laughter]. DK: And everybody wants to borrow the key from me because I have it and people forget the key to the church they'll knock on my house to bail them out [Laughter]. HG: So um, is there any like maybe Ukrainian aspects you kind of hold on to or is it just more like Russian? DK: Uh well, you know, Russia and Ukraine are considered two brotherly countries, so. What I mean with that is, all the culture is so intertwined, uh, I really don't even know a difference personally, besides the language. It's just like a different dialect kind of like we have here in the states; southern and northern dialect. It's similar; theirs. All the culture is the same. The food is the same. Maybe they'll have a specialty dish that you know we don't have or something like that or vice versa but everything is-- I really personally do not see a difference. HG: Um, also when you travel, you said you've gone to Russia, have you ever gone back to like your hometown to visit there? DK: Yeah where we moved from all our, my relatives still actually live in that town -- so I got to, when I go to visit--. A few times, I went to see our house there where we used to live. Like, my dad built that house so it was kind of neat to go on that street and you know remember, a few memories come back. I mean you remember playing in the yard, because it has changed since we were. It was a new house when we built it and so the neighborhood was kind of vacant. It was just all new building lots -- now it's all developed. So it's changed a little bit over the times and it's interesting to see where you lived and walk around the streets, familiar places. HG: Yeah, I would agree that would be kind of cool just to go back and like-- DK: Yeah. HG: Look at everything and just see it now. HG: We are at a half an hour. DK: Yeah. HG: Help! HG: Okay, so which relatives or so would you have left like in Kuban, Ukraine, or Russia? DK: Uh like, well all my dad's side is from, while they lived in Ukraine. Umm my dad and one of his brother's moved to Russia. So all his side moved to the states, immigrated here in the 90s. My mom's side, she has two sisters that moved here and one brother. So she has another four brothers with big families there that refused to move here. So they're uhh nationalists, so they didn't want to come here. They consider us traitors for leaving. So, but just like in a friendly way. They're still very nice to us and all that, but they refuse to leave cause. Umm in Ukraine it was a lot harder, so anybody who lived there they tried to get out of there. Umm like Russia, had a little bit easier I think. They had a little bit more job opportunities, so a lot of the people were fine off there. Especially, after the 90s when umm Vladimir Putin became the President in the early 2000s. People the economy did better, umm granted they have more resources to thrive off of. But that did help develop the country, like economically and people just had more opportunity there and they were fine off there. Basically, if you have your own house there that's paid for you're all set, you know. And there's not as much taxes as you have here. Income taxes is like non-existent almost, real estate taxes are almost non-existent. The only thing you may have to pay is car insurance and that's kind of a new thing too. So if you have your home there you're all set pretty much. You don't have to worry about it. All you have to do is to make some money to put food on the table, its close. It's relatively doable. LB: So when you would go back and visit Russia. Where was one of your favorite places? DK: Well uhh, the town that I lived in is Kurganinsk, which is maybe like a 60,000-population town, so it's not that big, maybe like Endwell, here in New York. Umm so there's not much to do there except see your family. A week of that was good for me, then I'd try and split from there and go you know to the resort area or the beach. Places that were more busting and. Uhh so I think that Sochi was probably my favorite time spent. That was the best place to go. You can go skiing there and umm uhh go the beach. Like in the summertime you can go up to the mountains. 30, 40-minute drive from the beach and you got snow on the tops and then you go down it's just like 90 degrees' weather next to the beach, which is just kind of a cool place to see. And very beautiful. You got the mountainous area with like a bay and stuff like that. It's a fun place to go visit. You've got a lot of restaurants and you know beach life there. LB: Have you been back with your parents? DK: Uhh I went with my mom and dad, the first time, which was for a funeral for my grandfather and the second time I went with my mom. She really wanted to go and see her family. And the other times we left everybody at home and just went with my brother, because it was funnier that way. LB: When you would go with your parents would they reminisce with you? DK: Uhh. Not really. Everybody is. It's fun when you are visiting there but when you have something to compare like I mean I could live there if I had to, if I was forced to. I would be able to survive there, like I would probably have it easier than my parents, when they immigrated here because umm I know the language, which at least I can you know communicate with the locals there. Here they had to start from scratch, so I got that heads up if I had to live there. Umm but just the way of life here in America, everything is just more tuned in, for I think the way people live here is more comfortable. Just simple like shopping, like you go online and you can buy anything you want and they'll just like deliver it to your house. There if you want something specific you just got to scratch your head at where to get it. Like they have generic things but umm there's just so much shipping. Easier, the infrastructure here is uhh just more developed then there. They're a little behind in that. Like here you got UPS that'll come to your house you know, just drop it off. There you got to like wait for shipping forever and it's just easier I think here. LB: Interesting. HG: You said some more of your family also came over to America? DK: Yeah. HG: Did you stay in touch with them? DK: Yeah. HG: And have you visited them all around? DK: Everybody moved here first, initially to Binghamton. So uhh, my dad's brothers, my mom's sisters that were here before us. They lived here too and umm half of them moved away. Down South or to the bigger cities like Philadelphia, Charlotte, North Carolina, California. Umm I still have a few families that live here. We have a lot of cousins and stuff. I still have a lot of family that I keep in touch with. And my mom always made an effort for us to visit at least once a year all our relatives so we would keep in touch still. HG: Do you remember having any like big family gatherings while you were here? DK: Yeah. Well we have the Thanksgiving, like not that it's a Russian holiday or anything like that. It's just an opportunity to get together. Everybody has got those days off so, we took advantage of that, to meet up at one of our cousins' houses or our house. That was also crazy times, because you have so much people. Everybody has a big family and the houses aren't that big, so it was really crowded but it's fun. So we did that. And I think we occasionally get together with all the ones, all the relatives that still live here. Umm sometimes after church, for a BBQ or something like that. So we're kind of close, still intertwined and because we go to the same church too. I think that helps. We see each other all the time and I think every relative's family has you know somebody your age. So you got cousins your age and somebody to be friends with and you know it's when you get together, there's not a dull moment. LB: Mhmm. Who do you get along most with in your family? DK: Uhh. My immediate family? Well I have three brothers and I have no sisters. And all of us are like two-three years apart. I'm the oldest. I'm twenty-eight and my youngest brother is twenty-one. Uhh I work together with all my brothers right now so I get my social fill at work with them. I'll see them on the weekends too sometimes, when I go to my parents' house. So I'm very close with my brothers. LB: Within your family were there heirlooms passed down? DK: Uhh. No. Not really. Like when we moved away from there. We just kind of like traveling to the unknown sort of to America. Cause nobody's really been. We had one of our cousins, came here first. They were telling us how it was here. Don't bring anything with you. You don't need anything. They'll give you everything here you know. You got welfare, what-not. T' help you out the first time. So we sold everything we had. We left there. We just grabbed our clothes literally and we came here. So we didn't really bring anything. Just pictures from the old country, relatives and stuff. That's it. Nothing with real sentimental value, anything like that. LB: No. Do you remember what your house looked like? DK: Uhh, yeah, a little bit. It's changed a little bit over the years because we sold it uhh, it was almost done, but there were still a few places that weren't finished. So uhh when I went to visit I could see the changes. Garden in the back, a little bit gazebos, you know, stuff like that. We had an outhouse, when we used to live there and they made a bathroom inside, so those little things. So there is like uhh grape vines on, somebody planted that so. They got like a patio out in the front area and grapevines covering that so you can see like people set up outdoor tables and stuff there. So little changes. LB: And can you tell me about the floor plan on the inside? DK: It was a one-story house. There was like, walk-in, a kitchen. Uhh I think there was like two bedrooms. And there was like a living room-area. Umm we had uhh like a cellar, which was not finished. It was like a hole in the ground, where you could keep your canned food, there's some shelves. It' like different from our basements here. It's kind of like a third-world looking home. The ceiling or uhh the roof was uhh like made of metal sheets. It's not like, you have shingles here stuff like that. Just a little. Small little home. There was only two of us when, two of us uhh kids when we left there so it suited us fine. I remember the backyard had, like uhh big garden and so our backyard was connected to the neighbor across, who had a garden too, so they were adjacent to each other. Everybody lived like that. In the south people planted a lot of their own vegetables and stock up for the winter. LB: Hmm. Were you close with your neighbors? DK: Umm not really. Because it's kind of like when we lived there, we were uhh like Christian-Protestant and that was uhh looked down upon cause everybody, that country, the Soviet Union was based on atheism. And if you were Christian, you were looked at, like the enemy of the state. So all your neighbors kind of treated you bad. Cause they didn't want to kind of socialize with you. You were kind of looked at as outcasts of the society there. HG: So when you came to America, did you guys feel that you fit in better here and weren't like so out casted here, while still keeping in touch with your Russian roots and everything? DK: Well we felt, outcasted here a little bit because you were of a different culture, so it's just kind of a different umm segregation you could say. It's not like uhh you're going to get a hard time getting a job or anything like that but you couldn't get a good job, because you can't speak English and you're kind of weird. They put you somewhere in the back of the office you know. Less paying job. So, you couldn't get a good opportunity - you know good paying job unless you, you know had to get a, uhh you know go to school, get a degree in something. And that's like for my parents' generation that was kind of really hard to do. Because you know, you got two little kids in your arms that you just came here with. You got to pay the bills, so you ended up taking some crappy job somewhere. It's a hard laboring job and you work hard long hours to pay the bills and provide for your family. So we couldn't really move up. The only way to move up was kind of get your own business. Some kind of self-employed opportunity and then you could make some decent living. LB: Who did you get your hardworking attitude from? DK: Umm. My dad was hardworking but my mom's side is like more uhh. Well my dad had his own business there, so he came here with kind of entrepreneurial spirit. He had that. My mom's side is better at keeping money and managing it, so I kind of got a little bit of hybrid from both. So I got the work ethic from my dad but I'm more business savvy, I think from my mom's side. More strategic I think. My dad is just a hard-working guy. You know, try not to be a busy guy. Not to be a busy fool. You know, try to make money. LB: You said you brought over pictures. What was one of your favorite pictures? DK: Umm. I have this one album which is like only pictures of like uhh gatherings and just random day-to-day life. I think that's my favorite album. I have a wedding album that's brought. It's kind of cool to look at. I like the other one because it's got pictures of all our relatives. Umm like our dog we had there. My dad's motorcycle that he had. Just like cool little stuff like that. So I think that's my favorite one. LB: So in reference to weddings, how would they compare to weddings here? DK: Uhh well, for example from uhh if you're in a Christian background, you don't drink, there is no wild parties at your wedding. You have wild parties there too. Like people get drunk. You know make a big mess at the wedding. Or uhh the weddings over there are crazy, like if you are secular. So there's a lot of dancing uhh maybe wedding fights and stuff like that. It gets a little Jerry Springer over there. Umm but our weddings are you know more civil. So uhh like a typical wedding would be go to the cer- ceremony at the church. Then afterwards go to the reception. Umm you have a lot of songs, people wish nice things for you, bring you gifts, and umm we have the cutting of the cake and all that. Which is the same as over there too. HG: Umm going back to your religion, could you kind of give us a background on like your church? DK: Mhmm. Umm when our family immigrated here, there was one or two families that were Russian speaking. They were from the same uhh umm denomination as we were. And we used to visit American churches and uhh it was kind of hard for them to understand so they're like okay. Then a few more families started to move in here. And we were like okay why don't we start our own. So my dad was actually the one that organized the Russian-Ukrainian Baptist Church here. And he uhh him and our relatives and a couple friends, they joined up. And all the families had a lot of kids, like 8, 10 kids. So the church grew rapidly and you get families moving in. The 90s there was a lot of uhh immigration. The church kind of grew to a couple hundred members. And you know kids there, maybe up to like a hundred kids and stuff. So, like 40 to 50 people. So umm that's how it started. We were renting it first and for probably 15 years. Till we bought our own building, which was uhh Farmer to Market Road, across from Maine Endwell High School. The Spartan High School. It used to be Barrion Baptist Church, now it's the Russian-Ukrainian Baptist Church. There's a Presbyterian Church on the corner of Hooper Road and Farmer to Market. We're the second church. It's like that red brick building. HG: I think I've seen it because I've gone by that way before, so I probably have seen it. That's really cool. DK: We get uhh all the city gets together there to watch the fireworks and stuff on July 4th. So a lot of visitors. So uhh yeah that's how it started. Then we had people move to different places and then new people came moved from different states. We really-you don't really have a lot of immigration now. I mean we have a couple families that just moved from Ukraine. Uhh where Donetsk, Lugansk where the war is going on. So uhh they were uhh immigrated there as refugees. But otherwise there is no really big immigration going on anymore. Umm people uhh just kind of moving from different states, trying to look for a better opportunity I guess. Binghamton doesn't have too much opportunity here so people try to get out of here as soon as possible. My dad just moved here there was Endicott-Johnson it was in you know its dying days but it was still working. And he was a shoe smith so he got a job there. He worked there for a few years, then they moved to Texas. Umm, so just kind of, IBM was gone you know not a lot of tech jobs. You didn't have Locke Martin, BAE, umm but. Better opportunities elsewhere we're kind of stuck here cause family's here, the longer you live here, the more rooted you get, you know, you got a you got a house, you got a church, you got a business here. Umm so it's you know like the two lights on. HG: So you said earlier how you also went to SUNY Broome. DK: Mhmm. HG: What did you study there like get your degree in? DK: I was an aspiring dentist at first. Uhh I came here in 2005, I started to 2008 I got my Associates in Liberal Arts or Liberal uhh Associates in Science in Liberal Arts Degree. Did that and then I transferred to Binghamton University. Uhh I went there for one semester, then I got married, and then it was just hard to work and go to school and all that. So I quit that. Umm I wanted to be a dentist at first, like I said. And I think I just wanted to do that; it was to... I thought it was kind of a social status. Being a doctor here is cool. And they're respectable and they make decent money. And that's why I think, I wanted to go into that field. I started shadowing a lot of dentists, who worked in the dental office. And then uhh I kind of changed my mind on it. It wasn't the only way to make money. It wasn't worth all the student debt they're all in. I realized, you can make same digit doing other things. So I started my own business. Uhh I kind of fell back to dental laboratory. So I make uhh dental appliances, like dentures, crown-bridge, partials. Umm so it's kind of related to the dental field but minus the student debt. HG: Umm you also said earlier how you just you got married. Have you ever gone back to Russia with your wife? DK: No I would really like to but it's uhh kind of like a dream of mine. Umm it'd be really nice to, take my son. I have one son. To go there and just introduce my wife to my side of the family and meet her side of the family there. Her side's in Ukraine still. So uhh it would be really nice to do that. Yeah so, it's just a lot more money now. When I just left with my parents, you know you'd have to worry about the bills coming back and waiting for you. Uhh probably you'd just buy your ticket, which was like a thousand dollars and you know just some fun money. Because your relatives you know got everything else, you know the living expenses covered. Like 2 grand, is like more than enough to have fun there. Now it's gonna be like two tickets for my wife, for me, for my kid. So it's like 3 grand there, you know. Then we've going to have to travel to Ukraine and Russia now. LB: Hmm. DK: Uhh so. I need at least 5 grand to go there plus all the bills that wait for me when I get back. And all the time lost at work. You can't go for a week, you know. You need at least 2 weeks and that's Russia and everything. And that's not enjoying you time there. 3 weeks would be nice but working you can't afford to take 3 weeks off here and you might not have a job when you come back [Laughs]. LB: Can you tell us more about your wife? DK: Yeah she is uhh 5 years younger than me. Umm I meet her in New York. She's from Minneapolis. She uhh she moved there in early 2002 or something like that. She came here. I met her at one of the church events, one of the camps so. They came with their youth to our camp like I said our church network communicates. So they came here. Umm I met her after one of these typical camps. Started talking to her. We had a fairly quick wedding. I met her in our church and she left. Then in like two or three days later, I found her number on Facebook, started talking and chatting then texting, calling. Then a month later I went there, met her family. While I was there I figured I would propose while I'm there. LB: Aww! DK: So, I knocked it out in a month. And three months later, we had a wedding, which was here, in uhh Vestal. She moved here. And been married 5 and a half years now. LB: What was her family like? DK: Her family is very similar. She has a bigger family. We only have four kids in our family. They have seven kids. So she was one of the older ones. I'm the oldest in my family. She's the second oldest. So she had a lot of younger siblings still. Umm also very similar. Very hard, you know their dad's a painter, just typical trade work. Umm very close just like us. So she had a hard time moving away. She you know wasn't able to be as close with her sisters anymore because everybody is so far away. But her sister is getting married now, and moving here. LB: Oh wow. DK: Yeah, So she is going to have a buddy to hang out with. She can go shopping. I can do my guy stuff. HG: So you said you had, that one of your hobbies was that you like was working on cars? Why do you like working on cars so much? DK: Umm. Well one of the things is uhh my dad did them. For like that was one of his side jobs. He would fix cars, do body work. So I picked that up from him. Umm I don't think I-- I will correct myself, it's not really working on cars, it's flipping cars. Like buying and selling. So I like to buy cars and I don't know. I just like making money. And I think that's my thing. I found uhh I found my passion in life. Just so I can spend it and have fun you know? Get some enjoyment out of life. LB: I'm hoping I find that after college [everyone laughs]. DK: Yeah Yeah. HG: 12 minutes. LB: Is there anything else that you would like to add, that we didn't cover? Any interesting stories. A story about why your parents decided to emigrate? DK: Umm. Well, so I think my dad just got fed up with, the way of life there. Just the corruption, umm just wanted. Oh also now that I think about it everybody, all the guys have to go to the army there, when your 18 years old. So it was like a like a mandatory thing. Here you only go voluntarily if you want to. So my parents were kind of worried about that. My dad had a lot of brothers, and he knows how that life is. So he can, there is a lot of you know conflicts going on with Russia being involved militarily in campaigns, here and there. So they didn't want us to be stuck somewhere, and have to go serve, you know. Uhh so they kind of avoided that. Uhh nobody wants to raise their kids, to see them go die somewhere you know for some stupid cause. LB: Was your father in the military? DK: Yeah. He was uhh. Like I said when you're 18 you have to go serve for two years. But then basically every. You can, up until you have two kids or up until you're thirty years old or thirty-five years old. You can be drafted back in and be retrained and you have to update your knowledge. So there's always like you always get a letter. Come, go to the military post and go serve for another year or two. So like he was always trying to avoid that. Hiding out in relatives' house. And he moved from Ukraine, which helped. They kept sending mail there. So he was able to avoid that for a while. Till he had kids. Till he split from there. LB: Did he have any stories about the military? DK: Umm. Uhh. Like I said cause of religious persecution that kind of uhh. That that was affected in the military too. Like you were sent to the crappiest jobs there. You had to go like clean and like toilets or dig ditches and do the hard work. Nobody trusts you with a weapon anywhere. You were kind of sent to those kinds of jobs in the army. It's kind of more like a National Guard sort of style is where he was. Umm so, when you were there, people mistreated you, sent you to do hard work. But once he was there, after a while people realized you know, they're honest people, you can trust them and umm he had it fairly easily afterwards. He had uhh a good job where uhh he fixed boots and stuff for soldiers. He had it made afterwards. People would give him you know like gifts and stuff so he gives them nice boots, so they could go home and see their parents. He had a nice little sweet spot he found I guess. LB: Mhmm, he found his niche. HG: So did your dad only serve the two years that he had to? DK: Yeah. HG: Or did he serve longer? DK: Yeah he served the two years. Umm every time they sent him a letter, he was able to avoid it somehow. Some people try to get married early and have two kids before you're 18. I've heard stories about that. Avoid, find a loop hole. HG: It's like 9 minutes. So. DK: I'd say life in the states is good. Fairly. I like it here. Umm still have a sense of patriotism too. So it always kind of sucks when you see, you know, our government's conflicting. There is always this. Russia's trying to inspire to be a world power too and you know, America has its own interests. And it's always kind of worrying, when you hear rhetoric like that. So it'd be nice to get along [everyone laughs]. HG: It would be. Well thank you so very much for taking time to uhh let us interview you. We found it very informative. (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 Dennis A. Kalashnik Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Subject The topic of the resource Kalashnik, Dennis A. --Interviews; Ukrainians--United States; Diaspora, Ukraine—History; Ukrainian; Germany; Migrations; Ethnic identity; Borderlands -- Russia -- History; Church; Broome County (N.Y.) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kalashnik, Dennis A. ; Bretz, Logan ; Germann, Heaven Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource Dennis A. Kalashnik is a Russian-Ukrainian Immigrant and business owner. He was born in Krasnodar Krai, Russia and came to the States in 1991 when he was four years old. Both of his parents are Ukrainian. He is married and resides in Endwell. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-04-13 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Dennis Kalashnik.m4a Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-04-20 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Ukrainian Oral History Project Extent The size or duration of the resource. 52:20 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7c4d6ad283d879cd2c57695386e5a9c2.jpg 5860cda47a6008db0ab4d7656d49a7bc https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7ac91c723b5a74c28b90c505f681c241.mp3 29eaf9c7e8446999500c3a3ce4fde1f2 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. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dennis Peron Date of Interview 2010-08-12 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 88:23 Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dennis Peron (1945-2018) was an activist and businessman who became a leader in the movement for the legalization of cannabis. Peron served in the Air Force in Vietnam. After the war, he became a Yippie and he also supported gay rights. He sold cannabis from storefronts in the Castro and advocated for medical cannabis. Peron also co-founded the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club. Additionally, he co-authored California Proposition 215 which got passed in 1996. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:13311,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,4884200],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;9&quot;:0,&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Dennis Peron (1945-2018) was an activist and businessman who became a leader in the movement for the legalization of cannabis. Peron served in the Air Force in Vietnam. After the war, he became a Yippie and he also supported gay rights. He sold cannabis from storefronts in the Castro and advocated for medical cannabis. Peron also co-founded the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club. Additionally, he co-authored California Proposition 215 which got passed in 1996. </span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;San Francisco; Bay Area; Gay Rights; Human Rights Movement; Ronald Reagan; Vietnam Memorial; Medical marijuana.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">San Francisco; Bay Area; Gay Rights; Human Rights Movement; Ronald Reagan; Vietnam Memorial; Medical marijuana.</span> Subject LCSH Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Marijuana—Law and legislation; Gay rights; Peron, Dennis--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dennis Peron Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Peron, Dennis ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Marijuana—Law and legislation; Gay rights; Peron, Dennis--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dennis Peron (1945-2018) was an activist and businessman who became a leader in the movement for the legalization of cannabis. Peron served in the Air Force in Vietnam. After the war, he became a Yippie and he also supported gay rights. He sold cannabis from storefronts in the Castro and advocated for medical cannabis. Peron also co-founded the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club. Additionally, he co-authored California Proposition 215 which got passed in 1996. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-08-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.158a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.158b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 88:23