72 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/0c8848de3376827a12c5948050203bf2.mp3 c84fbc024164e2c82a6da5440831ec12 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/5bf812daa036adaec7594d4ea4c8ba5b.mp3 dfe6b0cabc4d858f37c0bad08841c7fd 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 Broome County Oral History Project Subject The topic of the resource Broome County -- History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Description An account of the resource The Broome County Oral History Project was conceived and administered by the Senior Services Unit of the <a href="http://www.gobroomecounty.com/senior">Office for the Aging</a>. Funding for this project was provided by the Broome County Office of Employment and Training (C.E.T.A.), with additional funding from the Senior Service Unit of the National Council on Aging and Broome County government. The aim of this project was two-fold – to obtain historical information about life in Broome County, which would be useful for researchers and teachers, and to provide employment for older persons of a limited income. The oral history interviews were obtained between November 1977 and September 1978 and were conducted by five interviewers under the supervision of the Action for Older Persons Program. The collection contains 75 interviews and transcriptions, 77 cassette tapes, and a subject index containing names of individuals associated with specific subject terms. One transcribed interview does not have an accompanying audio recording. In 2005 Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections Department participated in the New York State Audiotape Project which undertook preservation reformatting of the audiotapes, and the creation of compact discs for patron use. Several interviews do not have release forms and cannot be reviewed. See the <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">finding aid </a>for additional information. Acknowledgment of sensitive content Binghamton University Libraries provide digital access to select materials held within the Special Collections department. Oral histories provide a vibrant window into life in the community. However, they also expose insensitive, and at times offensive, racial and gender terminology that, though once commonplace, are now acknowledged to cause harm. 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Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Kuryla, Frances Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview O'Neil, Dan Date of Interview 1978-01-13 Date of Digitization 2017-03-27 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 33:42 Minutes ; 00:24 Seconds Collection Broome County Oral History Project Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE56074">Interview with Frances Kuryla</a> Subject LCSH Kuryla, Frances -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Immigrants; Italians -- United States; Binghamton (N.Y.); Stone-cutters; Grocery trade Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium Broome County Oral History Project Interview with: Mrs. Frances Kuryla Interviewed by: Dan O’Neil Date of interview: 13 January 1978 [This interview concerns Mrs Kuryla's father, Michele Gallo, and her Uncle, Nichola Gallo, hereafter referred to as Uncle Nick. The third voice in the interview on tape is Barbara Gallo, Mrs Kuryla’s sister.] Dan: Frances, will you relate to me the immigration of your father and your uncle to this country and their life and experiences in the community, and start right there in Italy where they were born? Frances: Well, they were born in a little town, Padula, in Salerno and my uncle, as an elderly brother, came to America first at the age of seventeen, ah. Dan: That was your Uncle Nick? Frances: My Uncle Nick. Dan: OK. Frances: And ah, the reason I suppose they did come was their trade, that they thought they would have more of an opportunity to practice their trade, which was stonecutters, and ah, my uncle came in 18— Dan: —87. Frances: 1887, and he settled, well, he settled in, ah, Glen Falls. I think it is very difficult— Dan: When did he come to Binghamton? Frances: Well, he came to Binghamton in 1897 on a job on the Courthouse. He was employed by Carlucci of Scranton, and he was foreman on this work on the Courthouse. In the meantime he met a young woman, widow woman, who had a business on Chenango Street in the Moon block, and they married and they started this business from then on. Dan: Now, what business did they start, Frances? Frances: Candy, candy business. Dan: Canning? Frances: Candy store. Dan: Oh, candy store, OK. Frances: And then he decided that, ah, to go into a bigger business—he opened up a wholesale grocery and, ah, then on he, ah, chartered his own private bank—the first Italian bank in the area and, ah— Dan: Where was that located? Frances: That was on 138 Henry Street. Dan: 138 Henry Street. Frances: And what I can remember of it, and it was there until 1926 when they liquidated it. Dan: And when did you say he started? Frances: In 1912 it was chartered, in 1914 actually licensed, and ah, I said he had a wholesale grocery, and he also was involved with the steamship agency and money exchange—that was all involved in his business. Then as far as my uncle, as I said, he kept that until he retired in 1926—he gave it all up and he retired to Italy, returned to Italy. He stayed there for a year and then came back to this country. He retired and he was fifty years old when he retired. Dan: When did he come back? Frances: In 1927. Dan: Well, he only stayed in Italy two years, then, and then he came back here and retired. Frances: He lived at 119 Henry Street. Dan: So until, 1897 to 1926, let’s see, that’s only thirty years he retired. Frances: Yeah—he was fifty years old. Dan: Now you say that he worked on the Courthouse as a foreman? Frances: Now I understand that he was a foreman, now, this was his trade. Whether he actually did the work there, I don't know. Dan: Now what building do you know that he worked on? Frances: Supposedly the Courthouse. Dan: Another building? Frances: No, what all I remember that my father and my other uncle worked on other buildings in the area. Dan: Oh, I see, OK. Frances: Then my father came in the 1900—he followed his brother here, and I, he, guess he landed in New York and stayed there a while with the family. Then also worked through Carlucci—they had this job to build the Press Building and my father came here as an employee of Carlucci contractors as a stonecutter. He did all the artwork on the doorway, the archway. Dan: On the— Frances: Of the Press Building—it took him months to do that. He also told me about the lion heads—there were six of them up on the top and he also told me that each lion had a tooth as long as your arm. I can remember these little things that he told me and how they had to make their own scaffolds—there was no rig, this carving, they also had to do their own scaffolding, you know, and I remember him telling me also, back in those days, in 1904, at that time as a stonecutter, he was making $7.00 a day, which was a big thing back then. Dan: It was good money in those days. Frances: In those days. Dan: Right. Frances: This is what he used to tell me about it. Then Dad, I guess he got what they call, almost like a miner's, you know, a spot on the lung. Dan: Yeah, yeah, a lung disease. Frances: Yes, so he had to give it up and he went back to Italy in 1909 or 1910—he went back to Italy, supposedly to get the cure or whatever it was. So when my Dad came back to America, which must have been about 1910—he was only there for about a year in 1910 and, ah, he gave it up and he went into business with my Uncle Angelo Sessani, they had, like a hotel. Then he met my mother and they decided that he would pull out of that and they got married, in 1915 he married my mother, and they opened up their own store on Fayette Street in the Serafini building. Then in 1921 my dad moved his little store to the building at 9 Fayette Street, you know, where they are now—where Mike was born in 1921. Then he went into the wholesale grocery business and dealt with all the Italian import business—he used to distribute to, like the Arlington and all that. Then when my Uncle retired in 1926, my dad took over the steamship agency and the money exchange—he expanded his business to that, and then Dad retired when—80 years old. Dan: Until he was 80. Frances: Yeah, he died in 1971. Dan: Ah, did this bank, now, that your uncle established—-what was the reason for establishing that? Now, this was an Italian bank, right? Frances: Yeah, it was a State of New York, but it dealt with the immigrants to be able to help them to speak English. They couldn't speak, you know. Dan: And then, also—what was the steamship end of it? Frances: Like the Broome County Travel. Dan: Just like the Broome County Travel Agency. Frances: Yeah, it was a travel agency by boat—there was no air. Dan: That was started in what year? Frances: I suppose along that time, too—I mean, I can't pin it down. Dan: He got out of that in 1926 and it just closed. Frances: He got out of that in 1926 and it just closed, the City Bank, the City Bank, what do you call it where they came in and checked up? And they closed up—you know, that’s when they liquidated his bank. Dan: Yeah—now, when he established the bank, I mean, did he have to have so much assets? Do you know how much assets there were? Frances: I don't know how much there were. Dan: You know, I checked some directories dating back to 1880, 1890, over at Roberson Library, and they had quite a few banks listed and they boasted of capitals of $100,000. Which is—that was a lot of money, you know. Of course, today it’s peanuts. Frances: Well my cousin Annie, Annie Sassani, I was talking to her yesterday—of course she worked for my uncle, you know, until they liquidated his bank—and she said that very day, that last day when the investigators or whatever came in, they checked it all out or whatever it was, and it came right to the penny—everything—you know, the license was removed as part of it. It had to be licensed. Dan: Do you know what was the reason why it closed? Frances: Because he retired. Dan: Oh, just retired. Frances: He didn't need to anymore—there was no other reason, he just retired. And then my cousin, she was over there, he took his daughter over there and she married over there. Dan: And then he came back here. Frances: And then he came back here. Dan: And then he was just in retirement after he came back here. Frances: Yeah. Dan: But your dad carried on the wholesale grocery. Frances: My dad—he did not start my father in the wholesale business, he had nothing to do with it. My dad only took from my uncle was the steamship agency and the money exchange, but as far as the business, the wholesale, that was my father’s establishment, not my uncle’s, see what I mean? Dan: What was your father's? The steamship was your father’s. Frances: The grocery store was my father’s. Dan: The grocery store was your father's. Frances: Yes, but when my uncle closed up all his business, my father took over his steamship agency and money exchange. The bank was not transferable—that was licensed. Uncle Nick had a grocery. Dan: But you say the money exchange—this was for—? Frances: Foreign exchange money orders, people who would send money over here. Dan: Yeah, yeah. Frances: Well, that’s about it, of course they were property owners, no doubt about that.  Dan: Yeah, yeah, but your dad, outside of his affiliation with the bank there, was primarily in the grocery business, right? Frances: Forty-some years. Dan: You say he worked on the Kilmer Building? Frances: The Press Building my father worked on. Dan: The Press Building. Frances: Of course there was a Kilmer building, too, but they, ah, they used to say the one up near the Arlington was actually the Kilmer building. They called that the Kilmer building—the Landers. Dan: The Landers, yeah. Frances: But the Press Building was actually a Kilmer building, he owned it and Dad actually worked on it, I know that for a fact. In fact to look is like, well, it will be there forever. I hate the thought of ever tearing it down. Dan: In essence, though, Frances, the reason that your uncle came to Broome County was because the contractor down in Scranton had the job for him here, and ah, your dad—having the same trade, he came over too. Frances: Yeah, you see, they were apprentices—my dad was, in Italy—to the trade. They actually came up from Pennsylvania, but when my dad landed in New York, he had a sister living in New York and he stayed with her for a while. Then he went to Scranton. Dan: So he did have relatives in the States already. Francis: Oh yeah, in New York—evidently they came before Dad, but Dad was younger. Eventually all the family resided in Binghamton. Dan: Yeah, and how about the language barrier? How did they overcome that? Frances: My uncle spoke fluently, English fluently. Dad still, he was, of course he was hard of hearing, so what—ah, when he first came, whatever he learned in the beginning, that sort of stood with him, so he still had the accent, but Dad read. Dan: Did he have to attend any schools here at all? Frances: No, but they were educated in Europe—they both had, like a high school education. Uncle Nick was more with the English speaking than Dad was—like, like he was a great friend of Harvey Hinman, the man who used to be the Chancellor of the State of New York, and Senator Clark. I've got pictures of my uncle with Senator Clark—they used to be buddy-buddies with Senator Clark in my day. You know the ones who had Senator Clark over on the old Vestal Highway, that had the farm there—well, ah, I have pictures of my uncle—he mingled more with the political element. He did quite a bit, like during the election time—took the Italian people to go out and vote—like a leader, like you know. People depended on him a lot for help in translations and stuff. He was like my mother. My mother did a lot of that—of course Mother was American-born. She was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but Mother did a lot of, for instance, my dad's trade or my dad's business. Dad didn't come in contact with the others in his earlier days, he dealt more with the immigrants. Like when they came, showing them the way to get around and handling a lot of stuff. Now my mother would do a lot of interpreting for these people who couldn't speak English, although she was American-born but she spoke fluent Italian. So this is what, their contribution toward, you know, the Italian community—helping the immigrant when they came, you know. They didn't know which way to turn and the store was there and they, it was like home to them—it was that area where the Italians all sort of settled. Dan: Right—that was down— Frances: —on Fayette Street. Dan: Fayette Street. Frances: I don't know whether my dad's store was actually the first store. I'm not sure. Dan: Now, in that neighborhood, of course you had not only Italians’ nationalities, but you had Irish and you had Jewish. Frances: Yeah, Irish, Jewish, and Italians, and that’s it. Dan: In that particular area. Frances: And there wasn't nothing else but that particular area where Dad’s store was, was of Italian extraction, almost everybody there. The only Italian church was there, most functions were right around, so—as I said, as far as my dad, Uncle Nick was more political, more social than my dad. My dad was more of the business element of Italian people, so he therefore spoke English, but it was broken, you know—he could write. Dan: But of course the clientele he dealt with, I mean, probably couldn't speak anything but Italian. Frances: Right. Dan: And of course your mother was an interpreter. Frances: Yeah, many of the new citizens. Dan: And you say what year your Dad retired? How many years was he in business down there? Frances: Ah— Dan: Just approximately. Frances: Wait a minute, when did Kennedy get shot? Dan: About fifteen years ago. Frances: That’s when Dad retired, so Dad would be 90, ah, he died in 1971. About 1966, he closed because he got sick. Dan: 1966. Frances: I think that’s when he quit. He opened his business in 1915. Dan: Now this bank that your uncle established, ah, that was the only Italian bank—there hasn't been one since, has there? Frances: I think there was, ah, I'm not quite sure. [To Barbara, her sister] Was Mr. Buono—? [Back to Dan] I don't think there was, actually. It might not have been licensed, actually, I couldn't say—Mr. Buono had something to do with savings or something like that, but Uncle Nick was actually a licensed, a private bank, you know, like First City. From 1912 to 1926. Dan: But he was a very, very astute businessman. Must have been—you figure coming here in 1887, coming to Broome County in 1897, and going back to Italy in 1926 is only about 30 years and he's made, he's made his fortune. Frances: He owned some property like my dad did, and buildings like that and investments, whatever they were. Like I say, he always said when he was 52 he was going to retire, and he did—actually, he was 50. Dan: He was 50 years old when he retired. Frances: And he lived to be what, about 82. Dan: No Social Security in those days, either. Frances: No, they did it all on their own. If they had anything, they worked hard for it and they saved for it. Dan: Yeah they must have, working at $7.00 a week—a day, rather, $7.00 a day. Frances: That was high pay, because I can remember my mother saying that she worked for $7.00 a week and my dad was getting $7.00 a day.  Dan: $7.00 a day, so you figure that times five, that was pretty good money. Because EJ, I mean, they were $4.00. $3.50 or $4.00 a day or something like that. Frances: In those days. Dan: Well, that was back in the early part, well, you know in about 1935, something like that, ‘36, they were getting about $35.00 a week—that would be about $7.00 a day. Frances: Mother said that she worked in a cigar factory for $7.00 a week. Dan: Your mother did. Frances: When she came from Pennsylvania. Dan: Oh yeah, what factory did she work in? Frances: It was down there near the old EJ factory there in Johnson City. Wasn't there one in Binghamton—a cigar factory? Dan: This was at one time the cigar factory of the world. Frances: Yeah, almost everybody worked there—she said they came up from Pennsylvania. They took the train down to Lestershire, they used to call it. Dan: Yeah, that was the forerunner of Johnson City. Frances: Yeah, I mean, you know, there's a lot of little details, like right now I could say—your mind is gone. We had one session before you started this and I went blank, really. Dan: Now, this paper that Barbara has here goes into detail. Frances: More in detail about my uncle. Dan: Your uncle, how he was knighted, etc. If I could take or borrow that, Barbara, and have it Xeroxed and return it to you and that would be sort of a memorabilia that would go along with this transcription—? Frances: Actually, my uncle was the head of the Italian community at that time. I mean like everybody has one person and he sort of was the overseer of a lot of Italian doings, like the Church—the beginning of St. Mary’s Church—my uncle was involved. Dan: Was he one of the founders of the Church? Frances: In fact, there was a lot to it that we don't go into details—the facts are, he was a trustee for a long, long time but he, ah, I think he had a lot to do with, actually, of the building of St. Mary’s Church and money raising, fundraising at that time, and being a man like you say, position, he had a lot of influence and social work like fundraising during World War I. See, Dan, I have this thing. This is, my mother had it all these years, ah, it was in the Binghamton Press. I kept it—I like to put it in a frame so it don't— Dan: Oh, it’s your uncle. You might get that laminated, Frances. Frances: I don't know the date that’s on it—19—what is it? Dan: 1923. Frances: He was knighted in ’22. Socially and politically, he was a very well-known man and I think he did great service. Dan: But your dad, you know, worked on the Courthouse. Frances: I know he worked on the Press Building, not sure of the Courthouse. Dan: But your uncle— Frances: Our uncle worked on the Courthouse. Dan: You don't know where, I mean. Frances: He was a foreman—he had men under him. Dan: He had men under him when it was built. Frances: Whether he actually worked on it, I don't know—whether that thing says anything. No, he was a foreman, now, whether he did actual, as he was engaged as a stonecutter on that building until its completion. Dan: Well then he did—probably a working foreman. Frances: Yeah, that’s probably what they had, more like, today you’re a foreman you don't do the—but I also remember my uncle saying that he worked on a house on Riverside Drive—supposedly over a doorway, and you know, to this day, I think I know the house but I never ventured up to look and see what kind of work is on that front door. Dan: You know there is a house on Riverside Drive that’s made out of stone, completely out of stone, and that was the Pratt mansion. Frances: Is it the lower part of Riverside Drive towards the bridge? Dan: Right, right, right. It’s on the right hand side as you're going toward Johnson City and it’s on the right. Frances: That might be it. He said he worked on, over the doorway of one of those houses and I never took the time. Dan: That’s the only one there to my recollection, the only one there that’s all stone. Frances: Does it have a porch on the right hand side? Dan: On the right hand side I think there is a porch and there’s a breezeway on kind of, you know, on the left hand side. Frances: I'll bet my dad—that seems to be the one, but he never showed me, he told me, so I can't really say that’s the one. Dan: That’s your dad? Frances: No, that’s my uncle. Dan: Your uncle, your uncle did more of the stonemasonry than your dad did, didn't he? Frances: No, I wouldn't say that. My dad was more of a tradesman. Dan: I thought he was more in the grocery business. Frances: No, no, my dad was more so, as I say, just working on that particular building, on the Kilmer, on the Press Building, was really the big thing because that took a number of years, 1904 to 1910—before 1904. Like he told me four months over the archway. No, I think my uncle was more of a businessman, rather, that was a trade and most of these, my father and his two brothers—that was a way of life in the area that they came from—it was something the whole people in that community, that they were all stonecutters—they were some of the best in southern Italy. Dan: Now this is the homestead of your dad? Original homestead? Frances: Well, we've been here for fifty-some years. You mean on Court Street? No, we used to live on Fayette Street. Dan: Oh, did you? Frances: Sure, when I went to St. Mary’s School, where did I go? Dan: I don't remember. Frances: Don't you remember the box of macaroni I used to have to bring to the main altar? Mother and Dad used to reside on Henry Street. The greatest part of our life was on Fayette Street and here. We've been here since 1928. So I would say that a good length of time. But Dad went into the grocery business, I guess, I mean his own grocery business, when he married Mother in 1915. Dan: 1915. Frances: And he built, saved his money and built that building in 1916 when we went into 9 Fayette Street, and that’s when really his business started to, you know, he went into big scale. Dan: In wholesale he probably sold to a lot of stores around. Frances: He sold Arlington, and he supplied a lot of restaurants around here with Italians and the Arlington. You see, Dad also had his own name brand—the Gallo Brand Macaroni, the Gallo Brand Olive Oil, tomatoes. So they used to come in big trucks and deliver macaroni like they do now and Dad used to go, like the Arlington Hotel—he used to be the salesman and my mother would take care of the store. Community Coffee Shop used to buy from him—remember that? Dan: Sure. Frances: But way back even, like I say, I don't know whether the Mohican, but oh, yes, I remember delivering, ah, one of my boyfriends at that time, we delivered some macaroni to the Mohican. They bought my dad's name brand, Gallo brand. Dan: So what did he have, a jobber that processed this stuff for him? Frances: He had his own seal on it—the rooster, which, that was the symbol. “Gallo” means a rooster. Dan: I see. Frances: So the sticker on it would show the rooster, a Gallo name brand, but Dad had his own wholesale. He was a good salesman and then, as I say, he always felt, he said he never wanted to work for anyone—he wanted to be an independent person and that’s what he did. After, you know, after years of wholesaling, of course his health didn't permit him to go on—he had that miner's lung, but that was his trade in Europe. They must have thought that Binghamton was the place for opportunity, because they remained here and all their ancestors came here. Dan: Well, that’s fine. Frances: I don't know how much we helped you on this. Dan: Well, you helped a lot and as you say— Frances: Well, I think my dad, more than my uncle, my dad's life was limited, I mean he was a businessman—he dealt in real estate. Dad had quite a bit of real estate. Dan: Yeah, but the fact that he did have the wholesale part of the grocery trade and sold the different places which we are all familiar with. Frances: Oh, they knew, my dad had, I have people in Endicott today, many with grocery stores, and they said, “Oh, I remember your dad, we used to buy from him,” because he had all the imports, see, like Italian cheese and that smelly dried-up—remember? You don't remember, I went to school smelling like crazy—but you know, that dried cod fish, you know, things like that, it was all import stuff and you couldn't get it anyplace else except from my father in those days. Now, maybe there was a man on Susquehanna Street. Milasi, now that was another businessman, really, but what they contributed, I don't know. Dan: Yeah, but he came after your dad, ah, long after—your dad was probably the pioneer. Frances: I guess they were, there were a few of them—you know, Danny, another thing, my Uncle Jerry Lombardi—when you think about it, he was even before my father, but God bless his soul, he's dead now but you know Susquehanna Street where they used to have the dog pound? They used to have a hotel there and they had a grocery store way back in those times. Mary must be seventy now, isn't she, and my uncle had this hotel, like a hotel and a grocery store and all that back in those days. Well, you could combine things—in those days you could do that, you know. But there were quite a few Italian people who contributed, you know, in the early days. I think my uncle was the one as an old-timer, and then there were a lot in the time of my father, you know, who contributed, and I said the only thing that my dad can stand out in my mind was, he was a good businessman but that’s all I can say. Dan: That’s good, I appreciate you taking the time out and coming all the way from Endicott. I hope the weather is good going back. Frances: Danny. Rights Statement This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information. 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 Frances Kuryla Subject The topic of the resource Kuryla, Frances -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Immigrants; Italians -- United States; Binghamton (N.Y.); Stone-cutters; Grocery trade Description An account of the resource Frances Kuryla relates the immigration of her father, Michael Gallo and her uncle Nichola Gallo from Italy. Kuryla's father and uncle believed that they would have a better opportunity to practice their trade as stonecutter, in the United States. Nichola Gallo arrived in 1887 and started as a stone cutter. He left this profession to charter the first Italian bank and was involved in assisting immigrants with his steamship travel agency and money exchange program. On his retirement he closed the bank. Kuryla's father immigrated later (1900) and also worked as a stonecutter. He then opened a wholesale grocery business and had his own line of food under the Gallo label. He later took over the steamship agency and money exchange program from his brother, Nichola. The two brothers often assisted Italian immigrants with financial and personal issues. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 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 Recording 69A ; Recording 69B Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kuryla, Frances ; O'Neil, Dan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-01-13 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-27 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Broome County Oral History Project Extent The size or duration of the resource. 33:42 Minutes ; 00:24 Seconds https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2e518e208d685ab02bf32ae0ed51a5a6.mp3 4ee989a8bf59c3494103a5622d242387 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 Broome County Oral History Project Subject The topic of the resource Broome County -- History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Description An account of the resource The Broome County Oral History Project was conceived and administered by the Senior Services Unit of the <a href="http://www.gobroomecounty.com/senior">Office for the Aging</a>. Funding for this project was provided by the Broome County Office of Employment and Training (C.E.T.A.), with additional funding from the Senior Service Unit of the National Council on Aging and Broome County government. The aim of this project was two-fold – to obtain historical information about life in Broome County, which would be useful for researchers and teachers, and to provide employment for older persons of a limited income. The oral history interviews were obtained between November 1977 and September 1978 and were conducted by five interviewers under the supervision of the Action for Older Persons Program. The collection contains 75 interviews and transcriptions, 77 cassette tapes, and a subject index containing names of individuals associated with specific subject terms. One transcribed interview does not have an accompanying audio recording. In 2005 Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections Department participated in the New York State Audiotape Project which undertook preservation reformatting of the audiotapes, and the creation of compact discs for patron use. Several interviews do not have release forms and cannot be reviewed. See the <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">finding aid </a>for additional information. Acknowledgment of sensitive content Binghamton University Libraries provide digital access to select materials held within the Special Collections department. Oral histories provide a vibrant window into life in the community. However, they also expose insensitive, and at times offensive, racial and gender terminology that, though once commonplace, are now acknowledged to cause harm. The Libraries have chosen to make these oral histories available as part of the historical record but the Libraries do not support or agree with the harmful narratives that can be found in these volumes. <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/digital/">Digital Collections</a> are created for educational and historical purposes only. It is our intention to present the content as it originally appeared. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright  Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ben Coury, Digital Web Designer Yvonne Deligato, Former University Archivist Shandi Ezraseneh, Student Employee Laura Evans, Former Metadata Librarian Caitlin Holton, Digital Initiatives Assistant Jamey McDermott, Student Employee Erin Rushton, Head of Digital Initiatives David Schuster, Senior Director for Library Technology and Digital Strategies Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1977-1978 Relation A related resource <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections, Broome County Oral History project</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 Tedeschi, Frank J. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Politylo, Nettie Date of Interview 1978-01-31 Collection Broome County Oral History Project Date of Digitization 2016-03-27 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 32:52 Minutes Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE56036">Interview with Frank J. Tedeschi</a> Subject LCSH Tedeschi, Frank J. -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Endicott (N.Y.); Grocers -- Interviews; Italians; Politics Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium Broome County Oral History Project Interview with: Frank J. Tedeschi Interviewed by: Nettie Politylo Date of interview: 31 January 1978 Nettie: This is Nettie Politylo, interviewer, talking to Frank J. Tedeschi of 327 Hill Ave., Endicott, NY on Jan. 31, 1978. Well, Frank, will you start with some of the recollections when your mother and dad came from Italy and reasons for coming for coming here? Frank: Ok, my dad, Joseph, came from Albrobello which is the province of body Italy back in 1908—back to New York City, of course, and went to a small community called West Winfield, near Utica, New York. And there upon hearing about the Endicott Johnson factories there, they came to Endicott where he got a job in Endicott Johnson in the early 1900s. Prior to that, he married my mother who had come from Italy about one year after he did and they had their first child in West Winfield near Utica, my sister, Florence. She was approximately year old when they moved to Endicott. After being in EJ for number of years they opened up their first business on front of Oak Hill Ave. and at that time was called Green St. which is now known as Watson Blvd in 1907 er—1917. From there they moved to Odell Ave, 215 Odell Ave., had a store there and then they bought the property where it stands now—corner of Odell Ave. and Watson Blvd. 101 Odell Ave, that was back in 1919, has been there ever since. My dad had his trial and tribulations same as any immigrant at that time—not knowing the language—and few miss and miss—some of them stories being kind of in the rough—awful time can't get started in this country. The family grew, they grew with the business, of course. In 1946 he retired. At that time I took over with my sister, Florence as a partner. He was a partner, also, but he was an inactive partner, he is what you call today a silent partner in the business. Now I can stop there—you want something else— Nettie: Now, tell us what you said about trial and tribulations—some of trials he had when he first came to Endicott Johnson, here in Endicott. Frank: Of course, not knowing the language they were picked on by some of the colleagues called the big Irish people at that time. They picked on the Italians, Poles, Russians, Slavs and they used them as a kicking stick, you might say, for doing all the dirty jobs and got credit for them. He had three or four different jobs and finally decided he'd go into business for himself. One particular instance, he said he was going to bite one of the fellow's nose off, because he bugged him so much, he wasn't going to get violent to the degree where he was going to hurt him physically just to bite his nose. One particular instance. Just that time were many instances but I can't remember all of them, of course, it's hard to say. Meanwhile, he started a business, kind of hard for him he didn't know the language very sparingly at that time. Most of the people on the North Side were either from the Italian extraction, Slavish [Slavic], Polish or Greek. He got so he could speak a little of each language he picked up as he went along—having got by. He raised a family of ten kids—5 boys and 5 girls. I'm the oldest of the boys and the other brother of mine is in business also, in Vestal Center, my brother Marty. The time he retired he wasn't feeling too well, that's the reason why he got out of the business. He liked the business, he enjoyed meeting the people, talking to the people. And it's a pity that sometimes people don't appreciate what you do for them especially when they're in business because many many people took advantage of them. The details, of course, are too long and complicated to go into now, something like that. [to wife] —want to talk? (laughing). Nettie: You are doing well— Frank: Now since my sister and I took over the business in 1946, of course, the old time type of business we changed to a degree because my dad opened the store 7 o'clock every morning—closed at 9 o'clock at night—closed Friday night at midnight—closed Saturday at midnight—Sunday up to 1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon. When we took over we closed early—we closed Sundays and holidays. We don't have that type of business. We feel it's not worthwhile sacrificing life. They had the business, they enjoyed it they worked, they enjoyed taking care of the people they knew as friends. Now our type of business today is also different what it was years ago, where it was strictly Italian, of course, now we take care of to specialities—to groups of people like Greek, Armenian, Lebanese, all types of people, Chinese, Italian, English— Nettie: Frank, can I interrupt right now? I know that's the thing I found interesting when I was in your store—I noticed you had so many different things in your store—I looked all over for a special kind of wheat and I found it in your store? What other things do you have in your store that the Armenians, Greek—specialty kind of things? Frank: The kind of wheat, I believe you wanted, was cracked wheat—called bulgur—OK—then we have buckwheat groats, also which for the Russian, Polish people, Slavic people, which not many people handling it in the area. Some of the other items that the Lebanese use is—mixture called—falafel which is a mixture of ground fava beans and spices—then there's the—tahini which is ground sesame oil and then there's the Greek shortening—called minerva—funny name for it—Greek shortening—came from Greece—special wild onions called—volvoí packed in oil and vinegar is Greek. For the Lebanese, also, we have the Lebanese spices called—mahaleb and za’atar—two special spices they’re always looking for. And pine nuts, of course, are the Greek and Italian—of course, they are going international now—pignoli nuts come from Spain. Some of the other foods, of course, are Greek cheeses—and and the Lebanese cheeses—are special cheeses in themselves. The Greek cheese is packed in brine—some of them—Lebanese cheese are a basket cheese—Russian cheese used at Easter time—used to put in their baskets to be blessed—yeah—ok—some of the other items I, of course, imported Italian foods that we have—which hard to find—the St. John bread, we used to call—dried bananas at one time, carobs—we call—real name—are from Portugal—3 or 4 varieties of figs—Turkish figs, Greek figs, California figs—dried form or string form—then we have a variety of many other foods such as dried garbanzo lentils, things like that are dried legumes. Mrs. Tedeschi: Greek pastries too. Frank: Yeah, of course, the Greek pastry—which are the phyllo leaves from the prepared Greek pastry, which is called tiropita, spanakopita. We have the dessert, the sweet stuff, baklava which is very delicious. We also have a variety of Far Eastern breads—leavened breads which is called ma’arouk—then we have sesame bread which is flat leavened bread which is Lebanese and Armenian type of bread—then we have the folded dough—folded dough used for pizzas. These are some of the items we have. We have some others, of course. Nettie: Sounds interesting! I didn’t realize you had that many. Frank: We have all types of imported kind of candy, spumoni, terrone—we have chocolates. We have imported cherries and brandy, butter cakes which are called qatayef—brandy or rum. Nettie: I didn’t realize you had all that. Frank: We also carry a variety of porcelain goods such as demitasse cups and sets (demitasse) and we have large spaghetti bowls of all sizes, have different type vegetable strainers, meat choppers and sausage makers for home use. Nettie: What are some of your recollections of the Italian People? You know, some of the customs—that would be interesting— Frank: As far as the eating habits are concerned? Nettie: Well, eating habits, maybe some of your customs—holidays— Frank: Well your Christmas Eve customs in the Italian line are the fact they have to eat, or not have to—but the custom to eat 21 different types of food. In other words—mostly non-meat items, Christmas Eve. Usually they have 7 or 8 or 9 varieties of fish, cooked different ways, different kinds of vegetables, nuts, cheeses, different kinds of wines, beverages of all kinds, of course, to get loaded—have to have alkaseltzer (Laughing). Of course, the traditional Italian fish which is a dried codfish, baccalà which comes whole, which it comes boneless or skinless which has to be freshened soaked day or two, soaked 3-4 days with the bone in—then there's a Swedish stockfish, also is original Italian dish mostly for people from Calabria—lower Italy—Calabria, town which is on lower end of the boot of Italy, they eat that fish—it is very expensive this time of year—$6.50 a pound—that what they asked for two weeks ago. Nettie: Is it a salty fish? Frank: Very strong aroma—some people call disastrous—has a very distinct odor to it. Those all traditional—people fish—that they eat—want. Also, there are English pilchard, called—aringa—which is a smoked dry sardine which is also a traditional type of fish and the dry smoked herring—(put a jug of wine) after you eat a couple fish which you would be thirsty. Something, like the Russian people have their pickled salt herring - the Italian people have their dry smoked herring called aringa. Of course, the Italian spaghetti sauces, numerous different kinds of spaghetti sauces with the Italian seasonings and cheeses from Italy, called romano pecorino— Nettie: What was that? Frank: Romano pecorino—which mean—made from sheep's milk—pecorino means sheep's milk—pecora means, means “sheep” in Italian. Now the people in northern Italy which are the Piedmonti's people, citizens of northern Italy they use the parmigiano cheese—parmesano—is strictly from cow's milk. They don't like the sharp violent cheese—that cheese is mostly for white sauces and cream sauces—types of spaghetti—made from piselli—for example use butter, use parmesano cheese, but to make piselli fettuccelle use romano cheese. Nettie: Never heard of those—that sounds good—though— Frank: Different types. And of course we have the variety of Italian olives—some consider Italian, some consider Greek, we used to have them in barrels, now they come in plaster tubs, about 30-40 each—they have a flavor of their own, don't compare with the ripe olive different taste to them—there is a Sicilian type, there is a Greek type. Nettie: Is that right? I didn't realize that. Frank: There are varieties of olives—those we specialize in them, also. Now the other strictly Italian food that we find in our place which I don't believe, of course, the English and American people, well I haven't seen the Russian or Slovak person buy, that's cornmeal—used for cornmeal mush, polenta—that's called in Italian. Nettie: I think I had that in Spain. Frank: It is cooked and boiled down in water and you put a sauce over it, with homemade meatballs or homemade sausage—my wife eats the corn and I eat the sausage—but that's also a strictly Italian. In this country they used to make, you know, muffins or fritters, things like that. There's strictly polenta—which is cornmeal mush—made with rich tomato sauce. Others, are of course, you know is pasta and beans and pasta and lenticchie which is lentils, pasta and ceci ceci which is chick peas. Nettie: All kinds of foods, I imagine you are a cook from what you are talking about— Frank: You know, I give lot of women a lot of recipes—I never cooked any in all of my life. Nettie: Is that right? Frank: I know the ingredients are and how to cook them, because I've seen them cook in our house. Alright, what else should we talk about? Mrs. Tedeschi: About hospitality— Nettie: I would say—all these things—all this is interesting. Mrs. Tedeschi: —the way they were. Frank: The way they are—they are—still are—the foreign people, the people coming from Europe, we also are a nationality, are a lot more hospitable—than the people of this country are. Nettie: Yes, yes. Frank: You walk in a Italian home, or Slavic home or a Greek home and if they are eating dinner they will insist you sit down and eat with them, otherwise they would be insulted. If they don't have anything, middle of the afternoon, they will insist on putting on a pot of coffee, take out some cookies or cake or something. Nettie: It's very true. Frank: Those are things we find that the active people, the Italian people, the Slavic, the Polish people are very, very famous for. They are also, very persistent, asking you to sit and join them. Nettie: Yes, very much so. Mrs. Tedeschi: Yes, they are. Frank: You know the traditions we had in the past every once in a while, I think about it. They're forgotten. The younger generation don't know anything about it.  Nettie: That's what I'd like to have— Frank: OK—back years ago, now we’re having Palm Sunday coming and Easter Sunday with Lent, our parish priest, at that time, would go around on Palm Sunday and bless the homes with his holy water—along and his assistant and a altar boy carrying the holy container to bless the homes. That particular priest that we had here, used to stop, how he did it I don't know to this day, stop and eat everyplace he went. He usually would go around, you know, at meal times, you know at about twelve to one o'clock, everybody—sitting at the table—eat something for about five or ten minutes—then they would question him all over again—you could tell by looking at him he enjoyed it. Those are some of the traditions that are gone—we miss—and back, even days before television, before radio, before restaurants, and beer gardens we have today—it used to be more of a family affair— Nettie: It's true. Frank: Families used to get together and enjoy themselves—sit, talk, chat, eat and drink, play cards—that was really happy occasions to play cards when you bring a bottle of wine—the old fellows, us kids used to watch and we were chased off to bed. Nettie: True. Frank: But those are missing now, now everybody has got their own new world, they live in. Now I come home, as tonight, watch television for two or three hours and go to bed. That didn't happen before—before you would talk with the family, I'd visit my sister, my brother would visit me—I'd visit my dad—that type of thing—that's missing today. Nettie: That's too bad, too. Frank: Then the old feast days are gone—the atmosphere is gone like when they celebrate St. Joseph's or St. Anthony's or St. Cosmo’s one of those things, St. Mary's. They'd have their procession down the street. Saints, bands—5 o'clock in the morning they'd wake you up with their fireworks—ups! it's time to get started you know, then they get end up for the affair, they had at night, food, drink and everything else involved. Those are all gone. Those are what everybody misses. As I say, things have changed, the world is changing, the people changing. I like to keep those traditions—I find, right now, though in our area here especially, we've got quite an influx of immigrants that had stopped for a while—there was a period for anyone to come in—they stopped for a while—they had quotas as they were strict to have anyone come in but the last few years they lifted—ooh—we have about 50 families, have come. Nettie: ls that right? Frank: Between the Italians, Slavic and some of the Russians—not too many of them—not too many Russians—guess they're not letting them out. (Laughing) They're keeping them there. But there's quite a few coming in—so traditions will remain as long as these people keep coming in the European tradition—they'll bring them here. I'm glad to see that. Nettie: I do too—I really like to see that. It's nice to be able to enjoy those things. Frank: Well, are there any other recollections—I do remember the parades collecting and all that—it was very interesting—of course, in those days, too, if you remember—you weren’t old enough— Nettie: Gee—thanks— Frank: Back, years ago before refrigeration—remember that? Nettie: Oh, yes, I remember. Frank: Before the 30th—the ice boxes? We had to open up the store—my dad had, in those days, anyhow, at 6 o'clock in the morning—for the factory workers who stopped to buy their lunch meat to put between two slices of bread, so that it didn't spoil during the day. They picked their lunch in the morning—that's right—walk down the street—were no such thing as cars in those days—nobody owned cars—very few people own cars—we'd walk—see all the neighbors, talked to the women—they'd have the coffee klatsches at 6 in the morning—got their washing done at 5—everybody greeted each other, everybody knew everybody else. I don't know my next door neighbors are now. Things are entirely different. Things were a lot calmer in those days. Now anybody screams—WHO CARES! Nettie: That's right. Frank: Before if you heard somebody yelling, you asked, “What is going on here?” So the comradeship is gone like it used to be. Now, this is what made it more interesting—seeing your neighbors—go out back—talk to them—make it interesting—get together—backyard—then you invite other neighbor—then the neighbors came over—I remember holidays—you got out—pay a visit to everybody and then you get home, you are ¾ loaded. (Laughing). Everybody has to give you a drink—all those relations are gone. Nettie: Well, Frank, now we can go into your political life— Frank: Well, my political life started by a fluke—really—I had no intention of ever getting involved in politics until 1956. And then again one of the village board came up with—which I thought very, very asinine idea of making the North Side—one way streets. Part being in business and being the fact we had the Fire Dept. next to the business, and the fact that our streets were narrow, I thought there isn't enough traffic to warrant one way streets. The other solution was to be—widen the streets one at a time—two at a time whenever we could afford it. Then one of the trustees came up to me and told me I was stupid—I didn't know what was going on—they were going to push it—they were going to push the one way streets. So at that time, I was head of a group of North Side Businessmen—there were roughly about 40 involved—40 Businesses. I happen to be President of the group so we went to the board meeting made—enough commotion and fussed—they forgot about the one way streets. But, directly after that, one of the fellows came home and asked me if I wanted to run for trustee—they needed somebody on the board to make a little noise occasionally. I said I was really green in politics, you know what I mean but they said I shouldn't worry about that, “we will take care of you. We'll do things for you." OK—do things.  Nettie: If you can have some help. Frank: Right. Then I appreciated my being in the primaries, something of 60-65 votes. The following year I ran again and I was successful in being elected—I was in for 14 years. Nettie: Is that right? I didn't realize it was that long— Frank: In 1968—I asked my party to run for mayor—ran against astute politician Mr. Caldwell—and I was beaten and then I ran the following year again for trustee and was elected two or three times. After that I decided I had enough politics—during the years—my wife was home alone—she missed her dolly—her husband. (Laughing). So that is enough for politics - 14 years is enough for any person to be a service to the community. Nettie: That's a long time—of course it takes you away from home too—quite a bit. Frank: Yes, home and away from the business, I didn't mind it—it was interesting work and I was instrumental in some of the changes in Endicott—successful ones— Nettie: Like what? Frank: Well, I pioneered originally for the soot control— Nettie: What was that—sud control? Frank: Soot control—air pollution. We were successful in getting that cleaned up. Then the pressures involved in the buying of the airport, the sewage treatment plants and some of the major improvements in the village, village parks—North Side park—swimming pool—those were all under my regime. I'm not satisfied or very happy with my regime—we made some good roads—I think the village is a good place to live. Of course, right now I could find some fault with it—some of the spots not too good—I'm used to that part of it. We've always enjoyed living in the village. In fact, we originally lived next door—next door to the store—when we first got married—my wife and I—like in 1935—we lived on 107—right over top of the EJ shoe store—at that time—we had two bedrooms—after the third child we didn't have enough room so we bought a place in Endwell—home on Hoover Street. We didn't like it up there—we came back down to North Side. After two years we sold it and bought this property right here. We're very happy with the North Side—own type of people—Italian people, Slavic— Nettie: It's right—once you've grown with your own— Frank: It's hard to get away from. Ever since—we will be married 43 years this year. Nettie: Is that right? Oh my goodness— Frank: Yep—five kids—oldest boy will be 40 years old—he's in the Post Office—second boy is out of town in Saratoga, teaching school—third girl—teaching school down here—she's married with 1 ½ kids—other daughter works in Endicott Trust Co.—Binghamton branch—youngest son is in school, yet. Nettie: Gee, you have a fine family! Frank: Yes, five very nice children— Nettie: Years go by fast. Frank: Well, in a couple of years—if you know anybody who wants to buy a good business—we'll sell it to them—I've been in it for most of my life—that's been quite a few years—will retire— Nettie: Looking forward to retire? Frank: Take a trip to Rotebella, maybe and see where our folks came from—where our roots began—OK. Nettie: That sounds interesting—Frank, do you have any more recollections that you would like to add to that? It’s very interesting—am really listening with awe. Frank: Really all I could say. Nettie: Well, this has been very enjoyable—and I want to thank you very much. Rights Statement This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information. 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 Frank J. Tedeschi Subject The topic of the resource Tedeschi, Frank J. -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Endicott (N.Y.); Grocers -- Interviews Description An account of the resource Frank Tedeschi speaks about his upbringing in Endicott, NY and later works as a local grocer, inheriting the business from his father. He describes the various types of exotic and imported foods sold at the grocery. He details traditions and recollections from Italian people, as well as, his political experiences on the Village of Endicott Board of Trustees. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 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 Recording 59 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/d54854200882301cc8f50655324b8c82.jpg 28b251168a69264da03d6a06378d0191 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/0edec070d060d883fec7d6245dfae393.mp3 095cb75bf43fc812ddabe63c2e59783a 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. <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 2012-01-04 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Frank Schaeffer Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Frank Schaeffer is an author at the New York Times who wrote the book \"Keeping Faith\" with his son. The book speaks about their father and son relationship during his service in the U.S Marine Corps. He is now a film director in Hollywood and he still continues to write books about life in evangelical households."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427},"12":0}">Frank Schaeffer is an author at the New York Times who wrote the book Keeping Faith with his son. The book speaks about their father and son relationship during his service in the U.S Marine Corps. He is now a film director in Hollywood and he still continues to write books about life in evangelical households. Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Entrepreneurial; Spirituality; Baby boom generation; Westward Expansion; Teenagehood; Divorce; Beat Generation; John F. Kennedy; Pro-choice; Boomer slogans; Activism; Civil Rights Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Gay Rights; Beat Generation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5053,"3":{"1":0},"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":0,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Entrepreneurial; Spirituality; Baby boom generation; Westward Expansion; Teenagehood; Divorce; Beat Generation; John F. Kennedy; Pro-choice; Boomer slogans; Activism; Civil Rights Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Gay Rights; Beat Generation. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 105:24 Subject LCSH Authors; Motion picture producers and directors; Schaeffer, Frank--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 Frank Schaeffer Language A language of the resource eng Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Schaeffer, Frank ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Motion picture producers and directors; Schaeffer, Frank--Interviews Description An account of the resource Frank Schaeffer is an author at the New York Times who wrote the book Keeping Faith with his son. The book speaks about their father and son relationship during his service in the U.S Marine Corps. He is now a film director in Hollywood and he still continues to write books about life in evangelical households. 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 2012-01-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.3a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.3b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-01 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 105:24 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/36442a9eeae91fecf5114d691b595705.jpg 29e1a602ee6115d8311087f606dfa258 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/71cf4fbac027db2f632143620b28443d.mp3 79aaa1991cd1dbcac5aec5c763534fdb 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. <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 1996-11-18 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Fred Grandy, 1948- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Fred Grandy is an actor and politician. Grandy is well known for his role as \"Gopher\" on the sitcom The Love Boat. He was elected congressman for Iowa’s Sixth District from 1987 to1995. In 1997, he became president and CEO of Goodwill Industries. He served as a speechwriter for various shows and hosted radio talk shows. Grandy received his Bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University and Master's degree from the Washington Shakespeare Theatre and George Washington University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5039,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,5099745],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Fred Grandy is an actor and politician. Grandy is well known for his role as "Gopher" on the sitcom The Love Boat. He was elected congressman for Iowa’s Sixth District from 1987 to1995. In 1997, he became president and CEO of Goodwill Industries. He served as a speechwriter for various shows and hosted radio talk shows. Grandy received his Bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University and Master's degree from the Washington Shakespeare Theatre and George Washington University. Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Feminism; Baby boom generation; Television; Activism; Vietnam Memorial; Civil War; Civil Rights Movement; Veterans Day; Robert McNamara; Generation Gap; Vietnam War. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Feminism; Baby boom generation; Television; Activism; Vietnam Memorial; Civil War; Civil Rights Movement; Veterans Day; Robert McNamara; Generation Gap; Vietnam War. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 60:47 Subject LCSH Actors; Love boat (Television program); Legislators—United States; Grandy, Fred, 1948--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. 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: Fred Grandy Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 18 November 1996 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:02): And I will double check here. Recently, within the past couple years, there has been a lot of criticism of the era of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s and for example- Speaker 2 (00:00:15): Peggy Archer, please call the operator. Peggy Archer, please dial the operator. SM (00:00:20): Part of the criticism is saying the breakdown of the American family, the increase of drug usage, a lot of the things that are the breakdown in America today are geared right back to the (19)60s and the early (19)70s and thus a lot of the young people of the Boomer generation. Could you comment if that is really a fair analysis of the Boomers and that generation? FG (00:00:42): I want to go back to what the analysis of the Boomers was, that somehow this is a misguided or failed movement? SM (00:00:50): Well, Boomers are the young people that were reared right after the war. And certainly within the Boomer generation there is a difference too. But they were in college, they were involved in a lot of the movements at that time, the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. The protests on college campuses, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, even the Chicano movement. A lot of the movements happened at that time. So when we see a lot of critical analysis today of America and the wrongs of America, a lot of them are pointing fingers right back to that era. FG (00:01:19): Oh, I see. SM (00:01:20): And I would like to know what your thoughts are on that. FG (00:01:23): Well, I guess I qualify as an early Boomer because I was born in 1948 and was participating, although perhaps not as [inaudible] as some of my classmates in school during my... I think what is frequently left out of these retrospective criticisms of the (19)60s and what is called the Spock Mark Generation, that is quite the phrase, although I found it somewhat repugnant. The fact of the matter is, this was, I think, a kind of golden era of progressivity in American politics and culture and social change. Net impact of this generation is that they looked at the thinking of this country. They certainly heightened awareness. They heightened awareness about American foreign involvement and what the real role of American... And I think it is safe to say that that generation ended the Vietnam War or certainly provided the catalyst to end the Vietnam War. In terms of sheer output, in terms of sheer accomplishment, find me another generation since that can make those kinds of claims. There is not. The late booming generation of the people that were born in the late (19)50s, early (19)60s, that supposedly technically qualifying in your analysis, in your survey, have they upon reaching their legal maturity, their late adolescence, their legal maturity, cohered into a group and created a kind of national consciousness raising? I do not think so. I would like to know what they have done. My view is that this is a group that is much more narcissistic and much less altruistic. Now having said all that, I think we sometimes became infatuated with our progressivity and with our idealism and to some degree did not stay on the case. We created, I think, or participated in an awakening of civil rights injustices, participated in what was probably the incipient movement towards feminism and consciousness raising for women to a lesser degree, gays and lesbians. But I do not think we accomplished the change there that we did with the war in Vietnam because you still have a rift in thinking about civil rights. Women you can say are more accepted at all levels of society, but I assume they are motivated by a gender movement as opposed to a generation. The Baby Boomers, to some degree, lost steam as a movement when they graduated and got a life. And I think the fact that they were so aggressive, so in your face, in some cases, so over the top, it was a movement that was defined by extremism, not by its center, that we lost credibility over time. And then it began to trickle out into these kinds of, I think in many ways, Aersot's consciousness raising movements like Guest and Scientology and a lot of things that basically were I think sanctified leads to narcissism. Lost our sense of a cohesive society and became more involved with our own success or failure within that society and the movement began. In a way, I equate the generation of the (19)60s, at least the early Boomers, with their motivations and commitment to the changing of country. The generation that entered World War II, they were conscripted. But I still think there would have been an enormous, and there was, an enormous outpouring of volunteerism into a kind of national goal. And really the only example of a national goal I have seen since Vietnam, was the rallying behind our efforts. And that was almost over before it began, it stayed for a while. Well, I guess wistfully, I look back and say, I wish we had a movement in this country that was causing the kind of social cohesion that we had back then. It was controversial. It pitted parents against their sons and daughters, a very political time. But the balance, I think the dividends were pretty positive. I have to give that generation, not just because [inaudible]. SM (00:06:33): I am going to check this. When you look at the critics today of that era, you do not agree with them in terms of- FG (00:06:45): Well, they tend to stress the excesses rather than the successes. There was another element though that I think cannot be left out of this discussion. This generation matured as a political force [inaudible] with the health of a tool that was maturing as a force itself and that was television. I am not sure you would have had one without the other. The ability to see these kids on TV, to basically broadcast and transcribe and transmit, really aided and abetted by a broadcast media that war of its capability. Obviously, through the (19)68, Kent State, places like that. And again, the serendipity of the awakening of this generation as a political force, the awakening of the media, a conduit for that force, but whatever it was, it provided that generation, I think, other the generations of either not taking advantage of or have not been able to take advantage of because now it is second nature. Inundated with information now, back in days it was exciting and you watched your television and you were not grazing... The focus, there was a kind of serendipity of focus that allowed our generation to perhaps get away with more than we should have. And I think what the critics now do is basically talk about the stuff we got [inaudible]. There was mischief, there was immaturity, there was a pandering to us. Clearly the media, I mean the media is struck gold with this generation. Having said all that, there is I think a forgotten heroism of this group. I do not see in present generations the desire to be part of a society as opposed to an individual player within it or in spite of it. This television changed... Happened to be back at Harvard a few years ago and of course Harvard was one [inaudible] student. Talking to some people at the Kennedy... About the time Robert Kennedy cranked this thing up. Now it kind of toddles along as a think tank and convener of seminars, but the problem is it does not act as a magnet now in discussion. You have got Asian Americans, you have got gay and lesbian Americans, you have got Harvard students who are interested in the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is back to being kind of an adjunct of academia as controlled [inaudible] of social discussion. [inaudible] kids do not get out of school and say, what kind of service do you want to want to fulfill before I go? SM (00:09:54): I want to check with... You have already reiterated some of the points in terms of the most positive qualities that you saw in the Boomers in terms of their activism and so forth. When you look... Have you changed your views over the last 25 years? When you were a young person and of course one of the characteristics of the Boomer generation is the late time we were going to change the world or we are the most unique generation in American history because we can do anything. We can stop the war Vietnam, we can hop out with the civil rights movement and all other movements are started. So there was a feeling that you can be change agents for the betterment of society, but you already reiterated as people got older, a lot of people as they had the job market, but they have the realities of raising a family and so forth and maybe there is still a few that are still idealists out there doing the thing they did 25 years ago, but it is in a minority. When you look at the Boomers again, what are the strengths, the weaknesses? Were they very positive for America in the long run and what are the things you most admire and things that you least admire? FG (00:11:10): Well, what I admired the most was the enthusiasm and the almost missionary zeal to exchange. What I admired the least was the frequent amount of self-awareness and self-serving and ego-driven activity that became, I think the product of that and probably an inevitable one. And that to they also kind of suppose inevitable swelling of the ego as the media began to embrace this movement as the new relative change. I mean I do not think there is a generation anywhere that has not thought of itself as the foremost generation of its era. I do not think you can not feel that. I remember actually saying that when I was a young, I guess I was a senior at Harvard or something, I mentioned to a professor of government named Louis Harts who was a guy who was basically taught about American government and democracy, good teacher, [inaudible] but anyway, I managed to try out on him this idea of being a unique generation. He came out of the depression and lived through World War. You have not lived through major depression, you do not know what it is to be in the bread line, blah-blah-blah. So historically, I do not think that really is important where we actually place on the spectrum of how unique we were. The fact was that we were able to kind of galvanize ourselves and create a movement that although it was kind of [inaudible] and in some cases and in other cases sometimes pernicious, on balance was a laudable effort and all of the people that I know now back upon that as a time when they were to some degree freed from the daily banality of earning a living and raising a family and mortgage payments or reconciling two income kind of commitment. That may just be a function of youth, but the interesting... This particular generation of youth had such more common goal in collective mission than the youth today does, which is seems to be much more individually oriented. And... SM (00:13:53): Yeah, I am from that era too. One of the common characteristics was the concept of passion. FG (00:13:59): Yes. SM (00:14:00): You got involved in issues, you were passionate about the issues. You really did care. It was not just a community case of altruism, it was just, I really do care. FG (00:14:08): Now, there was more passion than there was reason. I look back on some of the efforts that we before and had indicated for, and now that I have actually been in government and sat on the other side of some of those policymaking decisions as a public official, I can see that the pace at which we insisted on change was a much more accelerated rate than the country ever could have been doing. The converse of that is true now is that we are probably moving too slowly now and that we to some degree, I think go down to a snail’s pace because we are almost, I think, at this point victimized by our own success is that essential embodiment of capitalism and democracy and personal freedom, and there is really not much to complain about. As the last election indicated. I know from a corporate point of view now that the best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining and the tree that is I think somewhat complacent without crisis and that is somewhat vulcanized by its lack of universal purpose. But when it happens we tend to push ourselves in matters that deal with the nation. You can see that now in this is a nation that in 30 years has gone from being very internationally and globally focused to one that really could not care less about foreign loss because we are lulled into a sense of security now that the Soviet Union does not seem to show up on our screen. The things that we would... There is there is a lack, I think, of awareness to the global position, which was not true when I was brought up. We were obviously focused on Vietnam, but at the same time, Harvard was ginning out reams of activity against the war. Were also forcing the university to divest of its holdings in South Africa, the Harvard corporation held that had investments, low engagement, you do not see as much of that. SM (00:16:48): One of the comments that I try to raise with each of our guests is to look at the voting record of the Boomers and the voting record of their kids, which are now today's college age students. And to me it is a tremendous disappointment when you look at the voting records of Boomers as well as their kids, and here is a generation that was so committed to a lot of things and certainly the vote was something that he strove for and everything. I remember my first vote was 1968. I remember voting for Hubert Humphreys, my first vote, but what is the responsibility of the Boomers and how have they been raising their kids? In terms of, I think, this past election it was Bill Clinton won with a 23.7 percent of the electorate and only 48.6 or something like that voted. The voting trends continue to go down. This is the worst voting year in many, many years. Your thoughts on how the Boomers have been raising their kids in looking at the voting records of both groups? FG (00:17:47): I do not think the Boomers have insisted on the same passion and commitment or progeny that they insisted on in themselves probably because they are sadder and wiser and possibly a little bit of disillusionment has set in. Leave us not forget that the last chapter of Vietnam or the enthusiasm of the Boomers was not the fall of Saigon. It was probably the fall of the Nixon government. It was the collapse of confidence in government institutions and it is pretty hard now to find people of my era who will rigorously get up and defend every paragraph and subparagraph of the war on poverty, which is clearly a war that we lost. So the strategy somehow went awry and it was I think a collective withdrawal from public debate, which has now translated into the way we raise our kids. We are writing my kids a letter, my oldest daughter is apparently, but in 1991 when the balloon went up, so to speak, it occurred to me that my children had no knowledge of the war. They had no knowledge of risk for a nation. I had done nothing really, and I did not feel the need to do anything to apprise them of what it meant for this nation to be a war, to have various threat all, although it is a kind of little tinpot desperate over on the other side of the world, this was serious business. Personal delegation. I knew the guy's capabilities in terms of hardware alone, let alone his own... And I was not completely convinced that anything I had ever said or done could prepare these two children for the consequences of a war. Now, happily, that war did not have consequences beyond those that were in the aftermath of the chemical involvement in that war, which was not clearly [inaudible]. But would have never had to write a letter like that. My father had, he lived, would not have needed to write a letter like that to me in 1968. I had a better understanding of risk and dreams and losses, and I think the Boomers, once they started becoming parents, like most parents, tended to protect their children from the downside and the cynical side of the world as they saw it, maybe they had become sadder and wiser and maybe they did not think that their change was really lasting when they saw the Nixon government go up in smoke and out by various other scams. I have had great liberal impulse now kind of congealing into a rather stale bureaucracy that was spending more money than it could ever take in. So all lessons that I think have changed this generation from its original ideas. SM (00:21:14): Through the issues that is paramount to this project. It was about with was the concept of healing. That whole situation that I explained early on with Senator Musky was just one of the examples. Another one was I used to work at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and we had a panel with our top Vietnam veterans who put together memorial in Philly, Dr. Zuckerman, a well-known historian from Penn and Don Bailey, who was the Republican auditor general for the state of Pennsylvania. As the person who was just doing a program post-traumatic stress disorder, it became much bigger than just talking about the medical illnesses of our Vietnam veterans. He came to that event and refused to sit down with Vietnam veterans who were involved with Memorial and Philadelphia. So even though it was a non-political statement, he would not shake hands with them? FG (00:22:03): No-no. SM (00:22:06): This was Don Bailey, the auditor general of Pennsylvania around 1985 when they had this program at Jefferson and at that time again, it was just another member of the tremendous divisions over this war, even within the Vietnam veteran community. FG (00:22:20): And the guys that were involved in the memorial had attend, attended to what? SM (00:22:25): Well, they were just there to talk about the historical aspects of the war. FG (00:22:29): But were they tended to be vets who supported the US involvement in Vietnam- SM (00:22:35): Actually, they were split. I think there were some that were for and some that were against. It was a potpourri of mixed, it was mixed. Don Bailey was there just because he was, I guess upset with the Dutch Zuckerman, the historian who protested against the war and he was for the war and he was a Purple Heart and he said he felt we were treated poorly and he was one of the few people that was against the building of the memorial in Philadelphia. It was amazing because he thought it was a political statement. FG (00:23:02): No, I think that at least as I look at the aftermath of the war, if you factor out the public policy question of whether we should have been there in the first place, and the following question is whether we stayed too long and squandered assets, human and [inaudible], you still have the question of did we as a nation dishonor the people that served there and who did so because they thought they were committing an honorable act by obeying their call to go to service? If there is healing left, it is there. It is how we treated that era of vets because you got fairly prominent vets in this United States Center. Two of them are named Carrie, right, that were military heroes and [inaudible] critics of the war. You have got guys like John McCain that were prisoners of war, but I do not see him as some kind of defender of America's Southeast Asia policy in the late (19)60s. The real question is whether or not we pay tribute to a generation of mostly young men, got some young women, who got caught up in a political maelstrom and were essentially sacrificed to a bogus cause and some rebelled at the time, and some just put their heads down and did their job. Interestingly enough, the enthusiasm and support for American troops going into the Gulf acted as a home found for Vietnam vet groups that were to some degree vindicated by an American public that was finally acknowledging that it is important to bring what you believe in and that the use of force is not always a bad thing. A lot of these things got merged in the Vietnam question. It almost became that all American use of force is imperialistic and bad and a powerful military is merely a capitalist tool and a lot of, I think, notions wrapped up into the Vietnam War were over time, I think dispelled. The veteran groups themselves, because I am not a member of them. I do not know... It is hard to know what the level of post-traumatic stress will be in these generations, but I do not see us as a nation divided over our role in Vietnam civil rights. That is not where I think the healing needs to take place. SM (00:26:15): For example, that within a generation when Senator Musky talked about the fact that most of the people after the Civil War went to their graves with no healing and still hatred toward each other, even though there were things happening in Gettysburg ceremonies bringing back both sides, that many people in our generation... Some people have told me, Steve, you cannot win in this process, you cannot heal 60 million plus people and Vietnam veterans have their own healing, but there are still, I sense, still tremendous divisions between those people who fought the war, those people who were against the war and should not any effort be made to bring them together to try to create a better understanding that because of the passions of the time, that is the way they acted out their feelings. But that still, it was never against the Vietnam veteran. It was always against the government policymakers and to try to bring people together who were on both sides of the issue. That is where I thought when the Senator Musky the divisions within America, people go to their graves without any healing and now we have a possible another generation where there is no healing people going to their graves with still bitterness. I do not know. This gets beyond civil rights because I think you are exactly right about civil rights, the division is there, but still over Vietnam, I have gone to the wall the last four memorial days. I was at Veteran's Day on Monday. I have tried to get a feel and the hatred that still happens between those who oppose the war and those who have served is present. FG (00:27:53): Who is there a hater or a hatee at this point or is it mutual? I mean, is it on afar with the Serbians and the Bosnians in terms of the source of the animosity is almost lost in the intensity of it. SM (00:28:14): Again, I know that the wall's goal has been to heal the Vietnam veterans and their families. I think it is done a great job. I think Jan Scruggs and the memorial is right on there, but the healing is still not there because for example, they will make commentaries about Bill Clinton. I have talked to some of them. Many hate Bill Clinton because he did not serve and many do not... Jane Fonda and those people that were in Hanoi. So I sense it is still there that they have healed somewhat, but they are never going to heal toward those who hold- FG (00:28:46): See I see Jane Fonda and that movement, the people that were actively looking in an alliance with the NLF, there is an extreme fringe that did not define in any way, shape or form the spectrum of criticism of people. That is why I think that level of [inaudible] you are still talking about, that lack of healing, I think is happening more at the margins than in the center. A little of misunderstanding and denial about the lack of progress over civil rights is still very much very central issue. I was not sitting there with Edward Musky when he broke into tears, but if this is a guy that is replaying the Civil War, given his history, I would have to think about was the level of hatred that still exists between race and regions, and sometimes the legislative initiatives will change the concepts of the country. Principally the southeast become probably more progressive just by the nature of their economic growth as opposed to their cultural political growth but you still have these divides and that is still troubling. The Vietnam thing, I mean, I do not know how you ever make that hole because now you are almost down into a kind of reading exercise where you have to go back and relive all those hurts on a case level. There is no question that a tremendous injustice was perpetrated against a lot of soldiers that were over there. A guy that worked for me in my district when I was first offices and the guy was basically, he had been a grocer in a small town, without the need to become involved in politics at a kind of customer level, constituent level because although he had been in the military, he was one of those guys who were in the early (19)70s, this would have been the early (19)70s, he was on his way to Vietnam as a door gunner, which was the highest level of casualty of all of the professions that he could... His orders were cut, and he was sent somewhere. My impression from his discussions was my life was saved for some reason, and I do not know. This guy is not in any way a [inaudible] on the war or against the war. He was just one of those... He was just one of these mainstream Americans that reached draft age and went into the lottery and said, well, that is it. I am going. I got to do something. He did not come from any privilege or special status so that he could wangle his way out of the draft. So consequently, he was on his way and then it did not happen, and in retrospect, he said, I got to do something because my military service was essentially... I was able to avoid the contract, possibly serious. I cannot help... I think that there are a lot of people that came home and wanted to start over, although they might have a certain reverence and wastefulness, and I do not sense that vendetta. I may not be close enough to it. I do not participate in veterans’ groups, but there were a lot of vets in congress when I was there, and there were a lot of people that opposed the war too. For every Bob Dornan or Ron Dellums who might have represented two political extremes, there was a huge middle of people that had just kind of come to a quiet conclusion about what Nam was or was not and how we proceeded... SM (00:32:53): Were able to state emphatically that the student movement on college campuses is the main reason why the Vietnam War ended. In your opinion, why did the Vietnam war end and who were the people most responsible for ending it? FG (00:33:11): Well, I think, as I said, again, there was this serendipity of focus from students who opposed the war, and let us face it, these kids were at risk because they were the ones that were going out and peopling the escalation of the war, for the Tonkin golf resolution. A lot more kids were sent over. And that coupled with a national broadcast media that was beginning to understand its power, not just to record events, but perhaps influenced them themselves created a very powerful wedge from the American consciousness is to say that that guys like Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden and Mario Savio and others brought the war to a close. I think the one person that we have to thank for ending the war in Vietnam is Ho Chi Minh. He had a strategy for winning the war, and we did not. We had a strategy for engaging enemy and that strategy with the best and the brightest that began with the Kennedy administration and then was taken over by the inheritors of that responsibility administration, did not know what they were up against, did not have a strategy, took a military engagement, turned it into a political contest and it will be sustained. They were not going to commit the resources to win the war. Did not know how to fight. They did not know how to engage. There was no statement that people could understand. I would have to say that Lyndon Johnson, by his lack of understanding in Ho Chi Minh by his complete understanding are probably have more responsible for ending the war than Richard Nixon or Henry Kissinger, or... Well, you sat around the peace table in Paris who actually into... There was a myth about American might already unraveled by the time Kennedy sent the group into that had changed in such a way that we did. We were basically fighting military engagement using tactics that we probably employed in World War II, and for all I know Korea. Oh, it was... Forget the strategy for them. It was a tactical disaster, and of course that eroded confidence within the rank and file of the military, and that had to be terribly frustrating, particularly for those people that were the door gunners or the second Luis that were running those platoons up the hill. This is where I think our real collapse in government as a chameleon that Kennedy had kind really developed. SM (00:36:35): And the next question that is one of the unfortunate results of the Vietnam War was the lack of trust. Was under the leadership and not being told the truth on television in terms of body counts. I mean I read McNamara's book in retrospect and all the things that were going on then, and then of course that led it into Watergate, and so this business of trust to me is a very serious issue in America today, and it directly goes back to that era. As a person who is really committed to public service, which you are doing here, not only here at Goodwill, but certainly United States Congress and working for others and constituencies, how do we get back the trust that is been lost in government because people do not want to serve. I know students today on college campus, only 18... Latest statistics in the Chronicle higher education at 18.5 percent have an interest in politics, but they do want to volunteer with 85 percent caring about volunteer activities. So it directly goes back to the sense, well, I am not empowered. I really have no interest. My vote does not count. The Boomers who did not have trust, saw that concept of trust lack thereof in their elected officials and policies and being lied to, and now that is probably carried down into their kids. So I know you probably do not have an answer, but how do we get back the trust? FG (00:38:05): Well, first of all, it is not that we have lost trust. It is that we have defined the standard progressively downward probably from Vietnam through Watergate, through Irangate, Iran [inaudible] the present occupant of the White House has done nothing to kind of trust in public officials, but the guy was reelected handsomely enough so that people almost factor that in and they say, forget what the guy says, let us just watch what he does, and if the minimum raise... The economy remains solid. I do not feel particularly threatened in my workplace... That I am going to be drafted and sent to some forsaken place on the planet. My politicians are not that important to me. The answer to this question really is mercurial because this is really a discussion about leadership. Who are the leaders out there that can make us really the major questions affecting our age truth among other things, different racial gaps that are now developing widening over public spending, ongoing schizophrenia over... For reform as long as we do not have to change anything, our desire for expanding public benefits and lower taxes, I mean, we are still, although the Cold War is over and Cold Warriors are gone, we still have, at least in our political classes right now, the apostles of the Cold War myth that we can be all things to all people at home and abroad, and that there is no real day of reckoning and that should we confront the [inaudible] of middle-class entitlements. It just makes for friction, your father, we have just been through that. You would have thought perhaps a third party might be able to capture this new consciousness. I think the American people are very realistic about these things and have just basically withdrawn from the rest of their lives culminating about campaign finance reform. I am just cannot save my money. The real problem with government right now is not that it is becoming irresponsible, but it is becoming... People are saying to perform public service, I do not have to be in public office. I do not need to be on a public payroll. Right now, I am part of a group, the Goodwill being one of the largest human service agencies in the United States, along with Red Cross and Salvation Army and Boys Clubs and others are actively sitting down with groups like the National Corporation [inaudible] America Group and of [inaudible] Life Foundation and talking about whether or not we need to create a kind of ad-on service, what it means to be a volunteer, to basically focus on and sense private civilian environment as an alternative to... This became an alternative to politics. I will shed Mary a tear. Say, well, that will just leave you with a bunch of threats to run. But what will happen over time is your political jobs will [inaudible]. A lot of this will really, I think, be fixed or changed or modified at least by a new generation of leaders that can actually make us want to confront the truth about our... Grow with the inevitable personal and public sacrifice that it will take to kind of... Sacrifice is not something that either our public institutions or their counterparts in the media are set up to do. The whole era, the following from the Vietnam War and the participation with television and sources of media has been more promising and more promises shattered and more illusions and more illusions dashed. So I think what we have done is we have created a generation of Americans that not only like to be lied to, they expect it. You cannot ask a politician to not be a politician. I have always got [inaudible] why are there no more... Why are not politicians’ states being [inaudible] I am not sure if there are any... Are ex politicians for a variety of reasons. In a country like this with freedom of speech, movement and basically... People like to be pandered to, they like the salesman telling them that these products are better than any they ever had. So that is kind of the dark side of a pre-market society, but I am seriously talking about changing that. SM (00:43:38): It is a really good point because today college students, when you talk about leadership, it is like it is going in one ear and out the other. The term that seems to be most applicable. Now, to them, that raises their ears as citizenship because we have had a leadership program where students meet leaders and they are excited, but they get thrilled when they have an opportunity of the concept of citizenship or they see that it is the local communities now or though- FG (00:44:02): [inaudible]. SM (00:44:03): Right. FG (00:44:04): It is just what we do not have any more is that kind of national leadership. The thing that might be happening here, and this would be good, is that Americans, now that they are a little wiser to the constant assault of information that is barraging over television, radio, the internet, do not automatically associate leadership with celebrity, and quite honestly, politicians are celebrities and they are made to be celebrities and they are revered as such, and they are... At the citizen level very often, it is the quiet... It is a guy like Aaron Feuerstein who basically has a mill in Malden, Massachusetts that burns down and says they are not going to want these people, become another New England ghost town with an economy that used to be... That decision and then became a celebrity. I think most people associate politicians with the opposite reaction. Do something that will make you a celebrity. Supposedly get people to beat a patent to your door. So there is, I suppose the quick and dirty word for it is a kind of benevolent cynicism about these things and people are saying, I will make these solutions at my own level. Goodwill is an organization that has a national organization that I am the president of, but it is local community based, citizen driven organizations. It is not a new concept for us, but we are not an organization of celebrities. We have not been out basically. We may start doing that now because obviously there is a greater comfort with attention. But almost to me we are somehow kind of reached a point in our public consciousness that is somewhere between the preachings of Marshall McClellan and Andy Warhol. We are basically talking about the global village, balkanized around a set of information sources that are just coming right into your home. They are all saying everybody is famous for 15 minutes. Most people know that. Most people accept that, and most people know that when your 15 minutes are up, that is up. They have got to deal with the other 12 million minutes of their life. We have this particular focus... Couple of professions were becoming a celebrity [inaudible] itself, and that is how we got balance. I think people are pulling away from that. Solutions that lend themselves to show host or evidence that feel are pain. SM (00:47:07): There was one event when you were young that had the biggest impact on your life? Speaker 2 (00:47:15): When I was young? SM (00:47:16): By young, when you were in college of college age, during that time when you were at Harvard or either a junior senior in high school at Harvard or just getting started after... What was the most important... What had the greatest impact on your life? Was there a specific person, a specific event? I am just talking about Vietnam War now, but for example, for me, the event that turned my life around was the shootings of Kent State because I was a senior at that time and I had broken my arm and I was about two... I went to State University New York at Binghamton, SUNY Binghamton, and I was ready to graduate and I broke my arm two weeks before graduation, was in the hospital, and the shootings at Kent State happened, and the doctor that saved my arm that operated on my arm, came in and said, when he saw the front cover of the young woman standing over Jeff Miller, I wish they would kill and shoot all those students. Now, that is a moment in my life, and at that juncture I decided I want to be spend a career in higher education because of the lack of communication. But that was a moment for me. But was there any magic moment for you that sent you in the direction of public service? FG (00:48:27): At that point, no, because I did not pursue a career in public service. I had a quick interim stop when I got out of college working for a member of Congress as something in that experience that really kind of propelled me into my foray in politics several years later. Talking about a defining event... At that point in my life, no, I had a very serious accident on location in 1982 when I was... Television... And had period of convalescence where I was not sure just how rehabilitated I ever been and had more influence... But during that period, I found myself basically in the role that I carved out for myself during the anti-war movement, during the participant/observer and humorous because I was working in a small organizational and satirical comedy group in Boston that was obviously taking the stuff... I mean weekly on the campuses and turning it in... Speaker 2 (00:49:55): Steven please call the Operator. Steven please call the operator. FG (00:50:00): That I found was a very kind of valuable and a kneeling service to the community who would be laughing about something a week later that they had been screaming about. SM (00:50:13): And that was the week that was that- FG (00:50:17): That was the week that was, or the early Saturday night shows or... Penn City back before it became basically just a farm system for Saturday night, and I know that one of the things that did for me was always kind of forced me to try and get the perspective on the situation as opposed to just the passion... On this most of my plate. SM (00:50:48): Just a couple more minutes here on the tape, I want to throw out a couple names. People that were well known in that era, and I would like your thoughts on these individuals just with a couple sentences, whether you thought they were positive people or negative people, they had positive impact, negative impact for you and for the Boomers and the first of the people that I would like to list are the ones you mentioned earlier, the Abbie Hoffman’s and the Jerry Rubin’s. What are your thoughts on them in terms of that era? FG (00:51:17): I do not lump them all together. First of all, Hayden was part of that group and Hayden is pretty much as mainstream and liberal as you can be and put those two phrases together without creating an oxymoron. Jerry Rubin wound up becoming some kind of materialist, I do not know, and Abbie Hoffman just kind of became a fringe player. So again, they to me, fall under the Warhol theory of being famous for 15 minutes. Now their 15 minutes for glorious, but I think they represented a movement rather than ramrodded it and they were the celebrities, but I was never particularly impressed by anything that they said or did. I always thought guys like William Sloane Coffin were the real kind of soldiers of that movement because they kept going back and making their statements and were not as interested in throwing themselves in front of a camera. SM (00:52:17): That would bring up people like Dr. Benjamin Spock, another individual of that era, the [inaudible] brothers, catholic priests who put themselves on the line. FG (00:52:28): Well, again, Spock almost had a second career in the anti-war movement after being our renowned writer of richer, he all of a sudden emerges as this anti-war guy and abide by the right wing and [inaudible] our children, ever since they came out of the wound. Again, was one of the celebrities that kind of orbited around the movement. I do not see him having a profound historical significance on the movement as much as just being one of the agents of it. I mean, this guy is not a Dr. Martin Luther King. He is not a Robert McNamara. He is not one of the people who is actually weaving the tapestry of history. SM (00:53:25): I said, hi. I interviewed him out of his house in Denmar. In fact [inaudible], I was thinking of implying for the National Service Corps this next year, but I am not sure yet because I love working in higher ed, but some of the other names would certainly be Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and John Kennedy. Your just quick thoughts on those three? FG (00:53:46): Robert Kennedy, yes. John Kennedy no. John Kennedy almost predates this era. John Kennedy is in the preamble, I think, to this movement that you are talking about, but not actually in the Constitution. Robert Kennedy. Yes, because Robert Kennedy was very much a part of it, was somebody that I think a lot of people identified with, certainly Dr. King, because this guy created the entire ethic of non-violent resistance, social change, and his like has not been seen since. I mean, all you have to do is look at the follow ones, the Jesse Jacksons, the Al Sharptons. SM (00:54:26): Not even the same league. FG (00:54:27): They are not giants. They are midgets and consequently difference between being a leader and a celebrity. SM (00:54:40): Dean McCarthy and George McGovern. FG (00:54:47): I think McCarthy... SM (00:54:50): Hello. FG (00:54:58): McCarthy I think is significant in that he was one of the first guys to really put this issue on the line. He was defined by this movement and he rose and fell with it and perhaps more successful in what he did then McGovern was. We were along [inaudible] I am not sure that is in the historical context, as valuable to the era as what McCarthy did. SM (00:55:30): We just had Senator McGovern on our campus two days ago. FG (00:55:33): Oh, really? SM (00:55:33): Talking about his daughter Terry. He has not talked about politics anymore. He was really out talking about the alcoholism issue. FG (00:55:39): Oh, so it is more meaningful. SM (00:55:40): Yeah. It talks about being a father and not being at home, so he is always reflecting all those years. Just a couple other people here. And then Robert McNamara again, your thoughts on him? FG (00:55:56): Well, McNamara McNamara has emerged I think only recently as one of the great influences of the era, because he has finally owned up to the... But to me, the great Darth Vader of all of this is Lyndon Johnson. Johnson escalated the war. Johnson believed in this guns and butter theory. Johnson took a kind of, I think, backroom cracker barrel politics about promise of anything, but cut your deals and put it on the national stage, and I think just rest of intentions devastated society. SM (00:56:35): When you look at the three presence, even though you talk about John Kennedy as being kind of the preamble, but still we were involved in Vietnam. There is a talk that the DM killings were... He gave the okay for those that, of course- FG (00:56:52): Killings [inaudible]. When were they? SM (00:56:55): They were just before he was assassinated in the fall of 1963 and all the things I have read about Lodge who was our ambassador then, and given the okay to go ahead and kill them. Then we have, of course Lyndon Johnson. Then of course we saw what happened with Richard Nixon. It is like our innocence kind of... We were supposed to be the good guy- FG (00:57:15): We just never had had the kind of public eye on it until the (19)60s. But I mean, [inaudible] Iran was obviously somebody we were ping around with in the early... Actively aiding abetting some of these pot dictators around the war. Kind of grew out of our Cold War mentality of forming alliances with people that would temporarily give us a tactical advantage and not... Plus, there was this uniform and loathing and anathema towards communists and the attitude was any alternative to communism is worth the US support, even if it is a vicious form of fascism. The first guy to blow that off was Castro who had the bad, kind of the manners to be right in our own backyard and is still there. SM (00:58:15): Probably die in office. FG (00:58:16): Oh, I am sure he will- SM (00:58:17): There will be a democracy there and eventually I have a belief that Cuba probably become a state by the middle of the next century, stranger things have happened. Richard Nixon. The next to last person, Richard Nixon. FG (00:58:30): Nixon, I do not equate Nixon with that era. I, Nixon came in and ended the war through a series of strategies that we can argue about forever, but Nixon was great contribution in opening of China and taking what had been any communist stance and refocusing it in the post war era. He actually is social liberal, although always be recognized for the war game, so he actually probably did more than the rest of these folks combined to discredit confidence in government and scuttle the euphoria of the baby Boomers when they ended the war. As a politician and global strategic thinker, he was without parallel and nobody was... He just [inaudible] of American politicians. Purposely gifted. Brilliant. SM (00:59:38): Last question and two minutes here, and that is going back to the very first question that I asked about looking at the Boomer generation, their impact on America, both then and now, what do you feel the lasting legacy will be of the Boomer generation? The 60 plus million that are now all entering middle-aged, Bill Clinton being the first one, although we know that many of the people who are 51, 52, 53, 54 still identify with that era. In your thoughts, when history books are written, what will be the lasting legacy of the Boomers? FG (01:00:12): Well, to go back to a term that you used earlier with the generation, this was a generation that actually managed to galvanize the best parts of leadership and citizenship are hungry for that. Now it seems to be a lost arm. It happened in small subgroups. It can happen in certain regions, but it does not seem to happen nationally. SM (01:00:43): Thank you very much. I- (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 Fred Grandy Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Grandy, Fred, 1948- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Actors; Love boat (Television program); Legislators—United States; Grandy, Fred, 1948--Interviews Description An account of the resource Fred Grandy is an actor and politician. Grandy is well known for his role as "Gopher" on the sitcom The Love Boat. He was elected congressman for Iowa’s Sixth District from 1987 to1995. In 1997, he became president and CEO of Goodwill Industries. He served as a speechwriter for various shows and hosted radio talk shows. Grandy received his Bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University and Master's degree from the Washington Shakespeare Theatre and George Washington University. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996-11-18 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.10.2016.126 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. 60:47 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e4f38486a3645fdc074329bdb0341a4e.mp3 4250a85d1d0aa18e91c9fec8f737afe7 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3326816391c47bf63770ea3f84865d36.jpg ba8814e0ae3c7aaa48a11bd005dc805d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Oral Histories Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories from 1960s Binghamton Alumni Description An account of the resource In 2019, Binghamton University Libraries completed a mission to collect oral interviews from 1960s alumni as a means to preserve memories of campus life. The resulting 47 tales are a retrospective of social, professional and personal experiences with the commonality of Harpur College. Some stories tell of humble beginnings, others discuss the formation of friendships; each provides insight into a moment in our community's rich history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Irene Gashurov Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-2018 Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/browse?collection=18">McKiernan Interviews : 60's collection of Oral Histories</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2018-12-21 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Fred Neil Peck Year of Graduation 1966 Biographical Text He spent first part of his career working for banks as a research analyst; in the second part he worked with the NYC public school system in Special Education Administration. He holds a PhD in Economics from NYU. 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>. Interview Format Video or Audio Audio 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 Fred Neil Peck Subject The topic of the resource Nineteen sixties; Harpur College; Alumni and alumnae Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Peck, Fred Neil ; Gashurov, Irene Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource He spent first part of his career working for banks as a research analyst; in the second part he worked with the NYC public school system in Special Education Administration. He holds a PhD in Economics from NYU. 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 2018-12-21 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 Fred Peck, PhD.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2019-01-17 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. 142:03 minutes https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/9671ac1c2c5282310cd827553c8f51a0.mp3 0253d71a205ff05105f5180224e433f2 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 Broome County Oral History Project Subject The topic of the resource Broome County -- History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Description An account of the resource The Broome County Oral History Project was conceived and administered by the Senior Services Unit of the <a href="http://www.gobroomecounty.com/senior">Office for the Aging</a>. Funding for this project was provided by the Broome County Office of Employment and Training (C.E.T.A.), with additional funding from the Senior Service Unit of the National Council on Aging and Broome County government. The aim of this project was two-fold – to obtain historical information about life in Broome County, which would be useful for researchers and teachers, and to provide employment for older persons of a limited income. The oral history interviews were obtained between November 1977 and September 1978 and were conducted by five interviewers under the supervision of the Action for Older Persons Program. The collection contains 75 interviews and transcriptions, 77 cassette tapes, and a subject index containing names of individuals associated with specific subject terms. One transcribed interview does not have an accompanying audio recording. In 2005 Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections Department participated in the New York State Audiotape Project which undertook preservation reformatting of the audiotapes, and the creation of compact discs for patron use. Several interviews do not have release forms and cannot be reviewed. See the <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">finding aid </a>for additional information. Acknowledgment of sensitive content Binghamton University Libraries provide digital access to select materials held within the Special Collections department. Oral histories provide a vibrant window into life in the community. However, they also expose insensitive, and at times offensive, racial and gender terminology that, though once commonplace, are now acknowledged to cause harm. The Libraries have chosen to make these oral histories available as part of the historical record but the Libraries do not support or agree with the harmful narratives that can be found in these volumes. <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/digital/">Digital Collections</a> are created for educational and historical purposes only. It is our intention to present the content as it originally appeared. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright  Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ben Coury, Digital Web Designer Yvonne Deligato, Former University Archivist Shandi Ezraseneh, Student Employee Laura Evans, Former Metadata Librarian Caitlin Holton, Digital Initiatives Assistant Jamey McDermott, Student Employee Erin Rushton, Head of Digital Initiatives David Schuster, Senior Director for Library Technology and Digital Strategies Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1977-1978 Relation A related resource <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections, Broome County Oral History project</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 Ondrako, Fred Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Dobandi, Susan Date of Interview 1978-04-19 Collection Broome County Oral History Project Date of Digitization 2016-03-27 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 29:43 Minutes Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE55989">Interview with Fred Ondrako</a> Subject LCSH Ondrako, Fred -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Forest City (Pa.); Binghamton (N.Y.); Cigar industry; Dunn & McCarthy cigar factory; St. Cyril & Methodius Church Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium Broome County Oral History Project Interview with: Mr. Fred Ondrako Interviewed by: Susan Dobandi Date of interview: 19 April 1978 Susan: Mr. Ondrako, could you start by telling us where you were born, something about your parents, and how you happened to settle here in Broome County? Fred: I was born in Forest City, Pennsylvania May 24, 1905. I went to school in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania schools there. My father worked on a railroad for about two dollars an hour. I mean two dollars a day and they're emigrated from Czechoslovakia. Well I never saw my grandmother or grandfather either. Susan: A lot of us haven’t—so continue. Fred: Well I don't know now where to go to.  Susan: Where did you go to school? Fred: I went to school in Forest City— Susan: —talk up. Fred: I went to school in Forest City to school in Pennsylvania at the No. 1 School. Susan: How many years? Fred: Well I just finished 8th grade then I went to work in a grocery store. I worked in a grocery store while I was attending school and from the grocery store I went a to work in a to help out in a silk mill for a couple hours in the evening and I was old enough to go to work in a in the mines in a breaker in the mines. I worked there for 10¢ an hour. That's about what I had there we a— We moved to Binghamton, NY, at 1920. I started I looked an ad in the paper, I got a job trying to sell some salves—salves and medicine which I worked there one day I couldn't make no sales and a I got a for that sale I made I come—I made that—I made that money I picked up for they sent me out for something to deliver that day when I got through there I quit that day. I got 10¢ for that one pick up there and then a I went—I went to work in a cigar factory on Wall St. in Binghamton, NY. I worked there and had a branch office at a by the theater—that theater over there— Susan: Continue, it's all right. Fred: I can't think of that street. I was transferred to a cigar factory up on upper Clinton St. and from there I got a job in Dunn McCarthy’s and I worked there for fifty-one years and one day and that was hard work. I a put on, I had a clock on me on my belt. There was days I walked 18-19 miles a day. I started out with 25¢ an hour and when I built myself up to 40-45¢ an hour I was the happiest man in the world. That was something that's the tops I thought I was doing good which everyone wanted to get that 45¢ an hour an average. That was something we a had slow times during the Depression and I worked about 2 or 3 days a week there made nine-ten dollars for a week for the two or three days we worked and I—I was married I had one daughter. We had a to get along with $9-10 a day (meant to say week). If it wasn't for a break from my mother-in-law, why I could never make it. Susan: Tell us what you did as a child for fun? Fred: When I was a youngster a boy this was when I was just a kid we used to go for in a—we used to go for strawberries first that was strawberry season we have to go for strawberries that was about a few miles out in the woods there get strawberries and then a blueberry season come in we used to go to get up I was seven years old we used to get up about 5-6 in the morning walk up the blueberry mountain there with our pails and a—a the mountain was pretty well infested with rattlesnakes there. Susan: I was going to say that there was a danger. Fred: There was danger there where a we went to when I'd kneel down and tried to pick some berries up I'd make sure I didn't see no snakes around and after we got through why we had to take a bath and a a take our buckets or pails about 2 ten quart pails—2 ten quart pails and take a street car it used to cost us 5¢ to go about 10 miles to try to sell them. We used to take the berries and leave them in a hotel there we asked them if we could leave them there and a we left them there and we tried to get some sales first before we went to pick and see how many quarts they want why we left them there by time we come back we there was a lot of berries missing—there was quarts of berries missing some people stole them on us we'd come back home again we didn't have enough money. My mother would say where the money was well I said, “a I don't know,” I said, “I come back there wasn't all my berries weren't there someone must have stolen them,” so then I—I got a 5¢ for all that work for going up berry mountains, washed up, take a bath and tried to sell some berries. I come back and then I got 5¢ to go to the Nickolet. About the way my parents were— Then a when we done anything—anything wrong my parents a punish us for that. We didn't get away with anything and my father was the protector. My mother wanted to hit us but my father (chuckle) said, “No don't hit them,” after my father didn't want to so my mother hit us—hit me and she a she pushed him on the side and I really got it. We had to obey just what we were taught. We had to obey that if not we got a licking for it. We didn't get away with nothing them days. Susan: How how about your children how did you raise your children? Fred: And a my children I raised my children up I think pretty good. They obeyed good they listened a to what I told them then a when I gave them an allowance. I knew the allowance I was getting. Some other kid might have been getting a dollar or so over a dollar a week and I was only giving my children only 25¢ a week. Susan: And they worked for it. Fred: They done the work my son done the cleaning of the house when we were working me and my wife were working they a my son cleaned the house there he took care of the house. Susan: What is he doing today? Fred: Oh now today he's got a real job. All he went was through high school and a he got a job in Vail Ballou and a they were all picking on him stuff like that. He didn't like the way they were picking on him because they told him he was too young to have the job he had. He was a printer there that was one of the best jobs you can get in a printing place so he had a man that worked in a Vail Ballou. He was a pretty well off there and he was a big boss there so he asked him to come to Vermont to try to get him up there so he went up there for a few months. He was going up there back and forth trying to get that job. He got that job up there and a he as soon as he come up there he—he a came back to see his wife and his two children. He come back to Binghamton here and he got sick so he had been in the hospital for a few weeks there and he wasn't even working and really you know he didn't do any work in that place where he was supposed to start and they paid his hospital bill without even working over $2,000 hospital bill. Then when he came back there well he started to work and they gave him a good job, a guaranteed job. They signed him up with a contract for a job. He got a really good job out of it. The man that gave him the job up there he was a the Vice President of the company. He was the general manager and he gave my son this a job as a superintendent of the place.  Susan: Why don't we go back a bit and tell us what you can remember about that a Mr. Kilmer’s medicine that we were talking about earlier. The Swamp Root, wasn’t it? Fred: Yeah but I didn't work for him. Susan: No but you knew of it when they were selling it? Fred: Yeah. Susan: Do you recall how much it sold for? Fred: No I don't, think it sold for about 10¢ or 12¢ something like that. It was there I remember I got to that was in the paper advertised. I went there before that was near a someplace—near a Symphony Theater, the place near Symphony Theater— Susan: —Symphony Theater— Fred: —there was— Susan: What other changes do you remember that have happened since you have been living in the community? You've been here a long time. Fred: Oh the changes here. Ah there was nothing I knew there was street cars here. Susan: Were you around when they had that big fire on a—? Fred: That was just before we came here. Susan: Just before you came here. Fred: About 1918 or ’19, we came here in 1920. Susan: Have you enjoyed living here in the Triple Cities? Fred: Oh yeah—yeah and I worked hard. Susan: Fifty one years you said. Fred: Fifty years and one day. Well I saved everything I could to have something.  Susan: Well you have a lovely home to show for it. Fred: I was buying bonds there I started first a buck or two for a week then I went up— Susan: Did you—did the war affect your life in any way? Fred: Oh I signed up for the draft but they didn't call me. Susan: They didn't call you. Fred: They didn't pick my number you see. They didn't pick my number. They didn't call me. —Clears as things oh I had this place changed everything is changed here. There used to be street car tracks. Susan: What about here on Clinton St.? Do you remember when they used to call it Russian Broadway when they had all the lights, those beautiful lights that they had? Fred: Oh they did call it—I think they called it Slovak Blvd. or something like that. Susan: Slovak—I always heard that it was Russian Blvd. Fred: I think they call it Slovak. There is more Slovaks down here I think than Russians. In our church why down in Pennsylvania we started going to church in Pennsylvania. We didn't have our own church. There was a Polish church a Polish church a— Susan: What church do you attend now? Fred: St. Cyril’s. Susan: St. Cyril’s. Fred: I've been an usher for 44 years. Susan: Forty-four years. Fred: Yeah Forty-four years. That's a lot of years 51 and now 44 years as an usher I quit, every week every Sunday for 44 years. Susan: That's a long time. Fred: Yeah. Everything is—you can't think of everything that I went through. Susan: No I realize that it is difficult. Fred: I went through and all that stuff I saw, my God, there was, we went down there, was around Easter, Palm Sunday it was. We went by the river. We went down to play baseball. It was nice and warm already and we were playing ball and there was a little girl on the bridge must have been about 5 or 6 years old on the swings you know kind of swings with plans to cross it so she said a little girl fell off the bridge there so we started running around along the side of the river. We saw her going down. We were going to catch up with her but the water was too fast and a that was in spring see so we're looking and looking around there and pretty soon we spotted that dress was caught on oh the limb in the river there you see and that's where we found her. Susan: And that saved her life, or was she drowned? Fred: Oh we didn't save her and we pulled her out and then we put her on the grass there and the way she laid on that grass where her hand and thing was. That grass where she laid down that all dried up— Susan: Strange. Fred: The poor little girl she laid on that grass that grass all they took her away that grass was just like she was like just the way she was laying on it one arm out and we couldn't save her going too fast and we didn't find her maybe about a half an hour later but we saw her dress stuck on the limb there then we got her out that way. Quite a while, I don't know this is a sometime—a you could get going and going with this sometime you're not in order you don't know what to start where to start there are so many things. Susan: Right—it's hard to cover a lifetime in a short while. Fred: Oh, I got more funny things I could tell you. Susan: Well Mr. Ondrako I—I want to thank you for giving us this time for the interview and perhaps— Fred: Well if you want anything else I can think of different things you want me to talk about maybe we'll do it again see like— Susan: Maybe we will when you have a little more time. Fred: This is - all this isn't too much and oh a lot of pranks and stuff we pull off but you can't do that they don't want this on there—(chuckle). We done so many things how we used to used to have wagons buggies you delivered your groceries by wagon—horse and wagon see— Susan: By horse and wagon.  Fred: Yeah—their—everybody had their things behind their store there—they had things where they put their wagons and their horses in there—Halloween we'd take the wagons out—we'd take this wagon from this—this grocery store place put it in and took the other one— Susan: —confuse them. Fred: Turn them around sometimes we let it go down the bank—we were good boys. Oh there’s different things right sometime when you get going it's like when I was talking to you but that's different here and there a part of this and part of that. If you can get it right in rotation everything in rotation— Susan: Right. Fred: That's nice, that's what I was thinking of. Susan: Well thanks for talking to us. Rights Statement This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information. 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 Fred Ondrako Subject The topic of the resource Ondrako, Fred -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Forest City (Pa.); Binghamton (N.Y.); Cigar industry; Dunn & McCarthy cigar factory; St. Cyril & Methodius Church Description An account of the resource Fred Ondrako talks about his short early childhood in Forest City, PA. He discusses working in a silk mill and a coal mine while living in Pennsylvania. After moving to Binghamton he went to work at the Dunn McCarthy cigar factory and remained there fifty-one years. He also mentions serving many years as an usher for St. Cyril & Methodius Church. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 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 Recording 46 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ondrako, Fred ; Dobandi, Susan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-04-19 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-03-27 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Broome County Oral History Project Extent The size or duration of the resource. 29:43 Minutes https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6cd4b77131dcdf17b0b6f0c0146ca42f.jpg e7737283c04b11c805ad5901475c625b https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/130de7a1e448abf58dc78ac2b06dde3f.mp3 6d304b90418958f211c2bf54a046bafe 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. <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2011-12-28 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Fred A. (Fred Allen) Wilcox 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="{"1":2,"2":"Fred A. Wilcox is an author of six books, peace activist, and retired associate professor in the Writing department at Ithaca College. He earned his Master's degree from the University of Iowa and his Ph.D. in English and Expository Writing from SUNY Albany."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Fred A. Wilcox is an author of six books, peace activist, and retired associate professor in the Writing department at Ithaca College. He earned his Master's degree from the University of Iowa and his Ph.D. in English and Expository Writing from SUNY Albany. Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Post-traumatic stress disorder; Vietnam War; Police brutality; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Eugene McCarthy; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; Black Panthers; Watergate Scandal."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Post-traumatic stress disorder; Vietnam War; Police brutality; Democratic National Convention of 1968; Eugene McCarthy; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; Black Panthers; Watergate Scandal. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 213:37 Subject LCSH Authors, American; Pacifists; College teachers; Ithaca College; Wilcox, Fred A. (Fred Allen)--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 Fred Wilcox Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Wilcox, Fred A. (Fred Allen) ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors, American; Pacifists; College teachers; Ithaca College; Wilcox, Fred A. (Fred Allen)--Interviews Description An account of the resource Fred A. Wilcox is an author of six books, peace activist, and retired associate professor in the Writing department at Ithaca College. He earned his Master's degree from the University of Iowa and his Ph.D. in English and Expository Writing from SUNY Albany. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-12-28 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.10.2016.209a l McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.209b 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. 213:37 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/aa6714ac1373e3e0291339a997b1fb26.jpeg b22dfcc2a2a1fc731506083d55ec02ec https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/20ebb2699282f659b6de50de5f8f96a7.MP3 2f0ec11b4235a21ed16da008d2d2a0b1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism. <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 25 August 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Frye Gaillard Biographical Text Frye Gaillard is a historian, educator, and author. He has been the writer-in-residence in the English and History departments at the University of South Alabama since 2007. He is the author of more than twenty-five books, including With Music and Justice for All: Some Southerners and Their Passions; Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award; The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina, winner of the Gustavus Myers Award; and If I Were a Carpenter, the first independent, book-length study of Habitat for Humanity. Professor Gaillard specializes in Southern culture and history. He graduated from Vanderbilt University. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 2:06:14 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Book; South; Thought; Joh F. Kennedy; Vanderbilt; Martin Luther King; 60s; America; People; Americans; History; Young generation; Issues. Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Frye Gaillard Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Oral History Lab Date of interview: 25 August 2022 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) FG: 00:00 All right. All right, we are ready. Okay. SM: 00:03 Again, thanks again for agreeing to be interviewed. My interview today is with Professor Frey Gaillard, author of the book, A Hard Rain: America in the 19(19)60s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost. Could you talk a little bit in the very beginning, I do this with all of my interviewees? Talk about- FG: 00:24 Sure. SM: 00:25 -your early life, your parents with their parents’ occupation, where you lived, and your high school years. FG: 00:32 Okay, sure. I grew up in Mobile, Alabama, was born in 1946. And so, I found myself coming of age as a- when I entered my teen years, during the Civil Rights' years in the Deep South. My family was sort of quietly part of the status quo. It was an old white southern family, my father was a judge, his father was a lawyer. They were not particularly wealthy, but they were prominent and, and did not really- they were not mean-spirited people in their support of the racial status quo and segregation and that kind of thing. But they were part of it. And, and did not question it. As far as I could tell, and I was raised not to question it, either. You know, there was interaction between Black folks and white folks, but it was always on a basis that was, you know, that was not equal. It could be, it could be kind and civil and polite, but-but, you know, white people just occupied a higher place an order of things. And, you know, all of us were raised to assume that was how it should be. I always, in the back of my mind was not comfortable with that. But I tried to push it away. And I was a kid and had other interests. Anyway, I was a big fan of Alabama football and, you know, love to play those kinds of games, myself. And then, but then, as I talked about, in-in the book, A hard rain. I just happened to be on a high school field trip in Birmingham, when I saw Dr. Martin Luther King arrested. And there was just something about that moment, that was deeply troubling. And I still- I have to confess, tried not to think about it very much, but I could not help it. And it just kind of not at the back of my mind until I went away to college at Vanderbilt in 1964. And got there were the first class of Black undergraduates. And they were just very bright, impressive young people. And, and so there was a lot of talk, you know, private, constructive conversation about these kinds of issues on campus for those four years. And, you know, it just, it was where my identity as a writer and as a human being really kind of formed. I think. SM: 02:30 Mm-Hmm. Mm- Hmm. I remember reading that part of the book where you are on that field trip. And you just happen to see Dr. King being arrested, I guess. And- FG: 03:39 Yeah. SM: 03:39 -you talked, I am remember reading it. You looked at his face, and- FG: 03:46 Yes. SM: 03:47 -he-he thought he was smaller than you thought he might have been. He was shorter man. But the mere fact- FG: 04:03 Right. SM: 04:03 -his face, could you explain that? Because that was very descriptive. FG: 04:07 Yes. So, I mean, I walked out of the hotel where we were staying, and there he was being shoved roughly up the sidewalk by these Birmingham policemen, and he could not have been more than five feet away from where I was standing on the sidewalk. And his- I do not know. And so, I just look, I found myself looking right into the face of Dr. Martin Luther King. You know, who I knew about but, you know, had not had, had been raised in such a way that I did not have any particular sympathy for him prior to that, but there was something in the sadness of his eyes. You know, there was neither fear nor anger, but I thought at least I did not think so in my 16-year-old mind, but-but I did- I think that I saw this deep sadness, and it just, it was just deeply moving in, and I felt later looking back on it, I felt like history had a face. And it was the face of Martin Luther King. And, and it was so human, you know, and so vulnerable and yet so strong all at the same time. So, there was such, you know, dignity and grace about it, but like, you know, I just thought, you know, he is so sad about the way things are, you know, and that is how it felt to me as a kid. And, you know, I do not know what was in Dr. King's mind, for sure, obviously. SM: 05:19 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 05:29 But you know, but we all you know, a lot of us in my generation had some kind of epiphany moment like that- SM: 05:52 Mm-Hmm. FG: 05:52 -if we grew up in the South, where we came face to face with the injustice of it all. And we were moved to think about it. And-and so that was the moment for me. SM: 06:03 Yeah, it is interesting that in close proximity to this experience, was the letter from Birmingham jail that he wrote himself on scrub paper- FG: 06:13 That is right. SM: 06:13 -in the prison. And I am going to have a question on that later in the interview. FG: 06:17 Okay. SM: 06:18 I-I, your book goes into a lot of these things in terms of your interest in history, your interest in journalism, and I know you were- I think you have worked in your high school paper. And then in college, could you- how did you become interested in history itself in journalism, and, and please give us those early experiences in high school in college, where that kind of grew? FG: 06:43 Okay. When I was in high school, my parents sent me to a private school for high school. That was all fight. They did not foresee, I do not think that that we would have some of the best teachers of history of- there was a course called humanities where all the, you know, those kinds of disciplines, literature, history, religion, science, all of these things were kind of woven into a sort of them, you know, this-this reflective course on just on mankind and stuff. And these were some really brilliant young teachers in their 20s, who were teaching us, and they just all happen to be there. And, you know, one of them went off and became head of the Russian department at Georgetown, another one became an English professor at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, and other one became the dean at the University of Alabama, so on and so forth, four or five of them went on to teach in higher education. SM: 07:36 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 08:02 And they were just wonderful. And so, it- you know, I just developed an interest in history because they made it a story, you know, and, and as I went off to college, I had, yeah, I had worked for the high school paper, and I worked for the college paper, but I did not necessarily plan a career in journalism, until, you know, it became a way to connect and think about all these powerful events and movements that were shaping the country in the (19)60s. And, and I just thought, you know, this is a way to, I mean, I want to, I want to be close to those- SM: 08:44 Mm-Hmm. FG: 08:45 -changes in those events. And yet, I did not want to be swept away by them. I have sort of never been a joiner, I do not think and, and so I just found I really liked writing about them. And, you know, being involved in discussions and you know, that kind of stuff. So. So, increasingly, that is what I did, you know, in and then, in college at Vanderbilt, I had some wonderful, wonderful professors also, I majored in history. There was no journalism major, and I am not sure I would have done that, anyway. So, I majored in history and took a lot of humanities and you know, other courses like that a lot of literature or religion, philosophy. And so, the, the unfolding story of history, kind of had a broad context based on my education. And then the other thing that happened was at Vanderbilt, there was a student organization that I became part of that that was free to bring any speaker we wanted to-to campus. SM: 08:58 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 10:01 It was totally student run. And that was an exercise in academic freedom that the Chancellor of the University a wonderful man named Alexander Hurd was very supportive of. And so, you know, we brought Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and, you know, in some people on the right to William Buckley and George Wallace, and but, you know, you know, we even brought Black Power advocates Stokely Carmichael. And so, there was a kind of engagement with the, with the great voices of the (19)60s that was-was pretty direct, you know, for students at Vanderbilt in those days. And so, all of that, you know, just what happened for me is that journalism and history became kind of the same thing. In my mind, it was like journalism is just the first cut at it. SM: 10:57 Mm-Hmm. FG: 10:57 You know, but if you are a journalist, you have a chance to come not in every story you write, but kind of overall to, to try to guide your own career and write about stuff that matters. And so that is what I wanted to do about how I got out of college. SM: 11:16 Well, I would tell you just-just these few seconds here, minutes of talking about the kinds of speakers you brought there when you were a college student. Have you ever thought yourself of writing? I know, you have written you were writing books? And have you ever thought of just concentrating on that college experience at Vanderbilt and the speakers you brought? I think it is amazing that you brought conservative and liberal speakers, and, and that the school was very supportive of academic freedom. That did not happen everywhere. FG: 11:47 No, it really did not. It was kind of a, you know, the opposite experience from-from Berkeley, for example, you know, where, you know, in in 1964, the reason there was a free speech movement at Berkeley was because students there could not do what we could do it Vanderbilt, you know. And so, you know, and that movement produced, you know, some amazingly eloquent voices like Mario Savio, who was the leader of that we can get into that later. SM: 12:06 Right. Yeah-yeah. I have a question [inaudible]. FG: 12:22 But Vanderbilt was the opposite. We did not have to push for it. It was just an opportunity that was there because-because Alexander Hurd was the Chancellor of the University. And he thought this was what education was all about. And, you know, there was a, you know, it would be good to write a piece about those, or maybe a short book about those-those-those years at Vanderbilt, because it was it was an extraordinary time, you know, and interestingly, despite the occasional spasms of controversy, it was a time when Vanderbilt sort of skyrocketed to national prominence in a way that was, you know, it became a national university based in the south- SM: 12:26 Mm-Hmm. Right. FG: 13:09 -during that period of time and raised a whole lot of money because people respected what Chancellor Hurd was presiding over. You know, there were some similar things. Emory University, defended the right of one of their professors, Thomas Altizer to write about the Death of God and, and you know, even during a major fundraising campaign, and it was controversial, but Emory flourish. So, it is interesting that some of these, and Duke University had some, you know, a lot of student activism. So, some of these southern- SM: 13:11 Mm-Hmm. FG: 13:33 -universities that were brave about this kind of stuff, made an important contribution, I think. 13:54 Yeah. And obviously, the school and the students involved in this are helping to prepare the youth of America in the South for their future. FG: 14:04 Yes- SM: 14:04 -Where all points are all points of view matter. FG: 14:08 Yeah-yeah. That is the that was the great lesson that many of us took away from those Vanderbilt years. SM: 14:15 Mm-Hmm. FG: 14:15 You know, it was, it was a, it was a powerful thing, a powerful moment. SM: 14:21 When you titled your book, A Hard Rain. What did you mean by how did you come up with that title? FG: 14:30 It is, you know, I -let us see, what would the cane phrase be? I borrowed it from Bob Dylan. You know, is his song A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall- you know, was such a was such a metaphorical look at the same kind of stuff that I was looking, you know, it was it was a, it was this poetic meditation on the times and I [inaudible] I was working on the book for two years, but I had the title, I had the subtitle- SM: 14:44 Yep. Mm-Hmm. FG: 14:58 -exactly as it is now. But I could not come up with the title. And then one day I just happened to have the radio on. And that song played on the radio as a as an oldie, you know, and I thought, "Ohh" if I am not poetic enough to come up with a title, I will let Bob Dylan do it, you know, and so-so, you know, with-with-with attribution, I, you know, I, although you cannot copyright a title, so I was really okay, in a way, but-but, you know, I just that that just became the title of the book, it just seemed to be a poetic way of phrasing what I was writing about. SM: 15:48 You do a great job and several year chapters on looking at President Kennedy. I think the one thing that struck me was early in the book where you talked about the ugly American, the book written by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, and-and how it really touched Kennedy, saying Kennedy felt that was very truthful about what was happening in America today. Because- could you explain why that book was that way? Why he was so touched by it, because I remember he gave books to most of his staff, please read this. FG: 16:04 Right. Yes-yes. SM: 16:15 Explain what the main- FG: 16:26 Yeah- SM: 16:27 -message was in that book? FG: 16:29 Yeah, it was a book that, you know, it has been a long time since I have read it. And I do not remember all of the plot lines in the book. But basically, it was about how Americans were behaving, you know, diplomatically, officially and unofficially, to and their engagement with the world, particularly in Asia in that book. And, you know, how we seem to arrogant and how we seem insensitive, and manipulative and all of those things. And so, I think that became part of Kennedy sensibilities, and, and was part of the reason that one of the first things that he did was, was to begin the Peace Corps, you know, where he wanted to put, you know, send young people out to represent the best in America. And, you know, it was even as it was, Kennedy was also a, you know, a product of World War Two in the Cold War. I mean, he was a young, a young naval officer, I think, and, you know, the, during World War Two, and was genuinely, you know, a war he wrote- almost was killed in combat. And so, all of that view of the world, you know, the cause the contest between communism and democracy, in his mind also was one of the defining things. And so, you know, he became caught up in the early years of [inaudible] in increasing involvement in Vietnam. SM: 17:50 Mm-Hmm. FG: 17:50 And I always wondered if he had not been killed, whether which would have prevailed in his instincts, would it have been the-the Cold War imposition of, you know, of communism versus democracy onto this little country in Southeast Asia in a way that did not really fit? SM: 17:50 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 18:41 Or would it have been the ugly American in wanting to avoid that and-and try to think about letting countries find their own way, you know, with-with those Peace Corps type sensibilities have restrained him ultimately, from what proved to be the futility of the Vietnam or in the deadly futility, that horrible tragedy of that, or in so many ways, you know, and we will never know. But, you know, Kennedy was a fascinating figure to me, certainly had his flaws and feet of clay. But, you know, had this amazing ability to inspire hope and idealistic commitment among people in my generation, for sure. SM: 19:35 You-you-you mentioned the in your book, also a little section where Kennedy is at Hyde Park meeting Eleanor Roosevelt. And-and I think it was the second visit in August of 1960, that she finally gave her support him, because she had always supported Adlai Stevenson, and she still had reservations about Kennedy but-but I just want to let you know I was there that day. FG: 19:45 Right. Oh, you were [inaudible]. Oh my gosh! Wow! SM: 19:59 Yes. Several ironies here. There is several things in your book where I was there to where I had met this person. And I had time with this person- FG: 20:11 Oh my gosh! Wow! SM: 20:11 -Julian Bond, I knew quite well. And this particular situation is we were coming back from her summer vacation. And my mom said, “Let us take the kids over to Hyde Park. We are not that far away.” And so, we got there, we got there. And [inaudible] was only $1 to get in. But my mom had a headache was staying in the car. So, my dad and my sister and I, we walked across the street, and there was a man for humanity, just walking in. And my dad asked what was going on John Kennedy was in the library with Eleanor Roosevelt. FG: 20:11 Oh wow! SM: 20:12 And so, and we were at the end of this group of people at the library and there was a limo up there on the end there, and we were there, not very long, and someone yells, he was coming up the side door. And then I split I am a little kid. And I split. FG: 21:00 Uh huh. SM: 21:00 And my dad was fast. My sister was on his shoulders. And he got into the car. And as he was getting the car, he only shook one hand, and I grabbed the hand of the man who was shaking his hand, he looked at me, and my sister touched his hair. And FG: 21:16 Oh, wow. SM: 21:16 And he got in. And that was it. They drove off. And, FG: 21:19 Oh wow. SM: 21:20 -and so, you know, we just happened to be there. And of course, as history proved, he ended up winning the election and becoming president- FG: 21:27 Right. SM: 21:27 -and he was assassinated. And it all goes back to me, you know, and the one thing- FG: 21:32 Yes, yep. SM: 21:32 -the one thing that always goes back to me is as a kid, why did not they go in the library and meet Eleanor Roosevelt? Because- FG: 21:38 Yeah. Yeah. SM: 21:40 -you cannot see her. But, you know, I was only I was only in fifth grade. So anyways- FG: 21:45 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. SM: 21:46 But I want to say that touched it. Now, you are interested in Kennedy, you touched on several times how you felt and some of your peers felt that they liked him. Certainly, when that book, The Ugly American came out to the one of the things that struck him was that these diplomats in that novel, had no interest in the [inaudible], the language, no interest in the culture of- FG: 22:08 Right. SM: 22:08 -the people they were serving. And Kennedy- FG: 22:11 Right. SM: 22:11 -did something different. And you brought up the peace score. But you know, that he also was involved in the Alliance for Progress and volunteers and service to America. Could you talk about all the things that he tried to do, where people were serving, trying to, you know, show that we cared about people and that they need the need to learn a language? FG: 22:19 Right. Yes-yes. And that was, you know, there was just something qualitatively different, it seemed to a lot of us in that stance that he took, you know, I mean, we, it was easy to believe him easy to believe that he meant it. And, and it just seemed, in a profound way, like the right thing to do. You know, it was, you know, and it was not that, you know, the Peace Corps, you know, instantly transformed the whole world or anything, but it, but that in the Alliance for Progress, and other things meant we were trying, we began to try to engage with the world in a different way, a less arrogant way, less insensitive way. And, and that, you know, those sensibilities went along with what was happening at home, too, with the Civil Rights Movement. And, you know, and sort of, you know, reframing that sense of privilege that-that a lot of white Americans had, and it is a long process, you know- SM: 23:39 Mm-Hmm. FG: 23:39 -kind of working through that and working past it. And I am not saying, Kennedy, you know, achieved the pinnacle of all of that. But, but, but clearly, that process was something that mattered to him. That is what we felt. And-and so it made it something we began to think about to as young people. SM: 24:00 You use, you mentioned, I remember the section perfectly where you said in your senior year, you felt he was leading the young people in the right direction. FG: 24:12 Right. SM: 24:13 He was he was a good role model. That says something. FG: 24:19 I am sorry. SM: 24:20 That says something when you in those times when a lot, he was a young politician, and he- FG: 24:27 Right. SM: 24:27 -he gave a great inaugural speech as not what your country can do for you and what you can do for your country. But still, he- FG: 24:33 Right. SM: 24:33 had he had the Creed the deeds. FG: 24:35 Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there were critics, and I understand this, who thought he moved too slowly on civil rights, you know, who that he did not, you know, embrace that cause as fully or as quickly as he should have. And, you know, I think you can certainly make that case. You know, he was also a very pragmatic politician and yet, you know, in 1963, when George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, you know, Kennedy gave a speech that night, embracing the moral validity of the civil rights movement. And, you know, and right around that time, you know, they introduced the Civil Rights Act that passed in 1964. And so, you know, we do not know how far he would have gone if he if he had not been assassinated. And, you know, certainly props to Lyndon Johnson for, you know, having the legislative skills to get that important legislation, and maybe the even more important Voting Rights Act of 65, through Congress on a bipartisan basis, you know, but Kennedy, you know, kind of set all that, in motion, I think, in terms of the sort of moral framework, in terms of the governmental response, the white response to the issues being raised so powerfully by the Civil Rights Movement- SM: 24:47 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 25:45 -Dr. King, but also the young people in snick, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, people like John Lewis, and Diane Nash, and CT Vivian and Bernard Lafayette. And, you know, just this remarkable cadre of very young people who, who were in their own way, kind of setting the moral agenda for the country in a way that you know, that people of power, like the Kennedys eventually had to respond. SM: 26:45 Mm-Hmm. FG: 26:45 And so, I do not mean that Kennedy, I do not want to take credit from the activist and give it to Kennedy. But-but Kennedy, there was something moral, I thought, ethically in tune about his- the instincts, he brought in his response, most broadly speaking to what the civil rights movement was saying, and then Robert Kennedy after his brother's death, and we can talk about this, too. SM: 27:15 Mm-Hmm. FG: 27:15 I think became even more viscerally committed to those kinds of those kinds of causes. And, and it was Robert Kennedy, who I would later actually have the good fortune to meet, personally. And so and so his humanity became a real thing to me because of the encounter with him. When he came to speak at Vanderbilt. SM: 27:41 He seemed to back to what we are talking about, but Bobby Kennedy seems to after the after the death of his brother, and I think you brought this up as well, that he became his own man. FG: 27:55 Right-right. SM: 27:55 He became his own man. And in the one thing he always stood for, was those that did not have anything the poor- FG: 28:02 Yeah. SM: 28:03 -the underdog. Everything was about the underdog. FG: 28:06 Yeah-yeah. SM: 28:07 You explain? Could you explain that? And that is why he was really evolving to the time of his assassination. FG: 28:15 Yeah, absolutely. You know, one, one theory of that, that some, some others have written, and I knew in Nashville, a couple of people who knew Robert Kennedy Well, and, and what they thought was that, you know, he was always sympathetic, but-but not. But-but was pragmatic on behalf of his brother, he was always sympathetic to the basic idea of civil rights. But he was also when he who is his brothers, man, almost his brothers, you know, I mean, political, you know, advisor almost like a fixer or- SM: 28:59 Mm-Hmm. FG: 28:59 -something. In those days, he was always very pragmatic about how that was expressed. SM: 29:07 Mm-Hmm. FG: 29:08 But after the death of his brother, people close to him, thought that his incredible pain that he felt over the over the loss of his brother, meant that he had identified powerfully viscerally with people who hurt with people on the margins. That is just how that that grief played out for him was, was a sense of what it meant to hurt in a profound kind of way. And so and so that is what he began to talk about was-was-was people who hurt wherever it was, whether there were, you know, as African American people in the ghettos or, you know, unemployed miners in in white miners in Appalachia or industrial workers in the Midwest who were- SM: 29:58 Mm-Hmm. FG: 29:59 -being laid off-off during rustbelt years or Native Americans on reservations, or Mexican American farmworkers in California, or, you know, he went to you went to South Africa and-and, you know, and created a profound response there among both whites and, and Blacks during, during the height of apartheid, you know, and he, he did not so much scold whites as to say, you know, we have to do better all of us who are caught up in this white privilege have to do better and-and, and you know, and with Black audiences it was like, you know, I see you I am here with you-you have my support, you know, those-those things, I think, you know, mattered profoundly in the sense that they were inspiring to so many people. You know, you look at the, the voting patterns when he ran for president (19)68, and just the turnout that he got, and- SM: 31:12 Mm-Hmm. FG: 31:12 -Black neighborhoods and, you know, I think on one Indian Reservation in South Dakota, or somewhere he got every vote that was cast, you know, in-in the, in the primary. But, you know, he also committed himself to reaching across the divisions and so at-at Vanderbilt, and at the University of Alabama, the same day in in March of 1968. You know, he talked about how the things we have in common go deeper than the things that divide us. SM: 31:21 Wow. Mm-Hmm. FG: 31:47 And so, you know, he was one of those politicians that did not want to exploit division, he wanted to heal it. SM: 31:55 Mm-Hmm. FG: 31:55 And, you know, that was a, that was a powerful thing, also. Now, all of that has to be translated into policy if he had won, and I am not saying that it would have been heaven on earth with Robert Kennedy is as president, but it would have sure been different than Richard Nixon is president. And, and so, you know, again, that that sort of moral inspiration that came from that family, even though the you know, even though all of the Kennedy brothers had their feet of clay, still, you know, still there, they were one of the richest- SM: 32:36 Mm-Hmm. FG: 32:36 -families in America, you know, caring, profoundly meaningfully about people on the margins. And for some, I was raised in privilege, that was a powerful lesson. SM: 32:48 And Teddy is probably the greatest Kennedys senator in history. When you look at Teddy- FG: 32:55 Yeah. Yes. SM: 32:55 -Kennedy's whole career when he did when his whole career stood for, I just want to get a couple more things on Bobby Kennedy, as you probably- we all saw this after King was assassinated. And the funeral was taking place at the church in Atlanta. And Bobby Kennedy was in the audience and the sun was coming through the side window, and it was shining on him. I do not know if you remember that. It was, it was on him and only him. And that- FG: 33:26 Yes. SM: 33:26 -that-that stood out. Like, I mean, I remember that watching that he could have the whole church and it is on him. And- FG: 33:34 Yeah. SM: 33:34 -just and then, of course, what he did in Indianapolis, the night of the assassination, the courage to go into the ghetto, and say- FG: 33:44 Right. SM: 33:44 -what you said, and it was off the cuff. FG: 33:49 Yeah, it was just an amazing, I mean, I wish I had been there and it was not, but I have heard the-the, you know, the tape of the speech, and I have seen the verbatim transcript of it and, you know, just the, just the, the spontaneous impromptu power of it, because, you know- SM: 34:07 Mm-Hmm. FG: 34:07 -he was not speaking from notes, he was speaking from his, from his heart and, you know, ending it with a with a quote from Escalus. You know, I mean, you know, and, and knowing, I guess he felt sure his audience would understand what he meant, what you know, and-and, you know, in the, just the fact that there were no riots in Indianapolis that night, in contrast, almost- SM: 34:16 Yes. Yeah. Yes. FG: 34:37 -every other American city, I mean, speaks to speaks to the power of one man's not only eloquence. But-but, you know, but just the massive the power of his massive goodwill on those kinds of issues. I mean, I just do not think you I see no reason to doubt the utter urgent sincerity of Kennedy in those years and what he was trying to do. And, you know, and then the next day he went to speak to and I think it was mostly an all-white audience, but business people, I believe in Cleveland. And he talked about the stain of violence on America. And, you know, the assassination, the riots, but also the violence, of a more subtle kind that having to do with the living conditions of the poor in America. And he cast that as part of the American violence that had to be had to be dealt with. So again, there was some, there was some profundity there in in the way he was framing issues that. I just feel is almost qualitatively different from most of the politicians that we have today. And I am not saying there. There was nobody who believes that but Kennedy had this way of not only saying it, but meaning it so obviously, that, that it just captivated people's attention. SM: 36:22 Yeah, I agree. Get just a couple more things on President Kennedy. And that is, you bring these up all throughout the book. In that first part of the book, some of the good things that he tried to do his-his speech at American University was very important because it talked about the Test Ban Treaty. FG: 36:40 Right. SM: 36:41 And it was, it was something that he wanted to do that was good for humanity. It was not going- FG: 36:46 Right. SM: 36:46 -to end the proliferation, but he wanted to have this. He was also when you look at the Bay of Pigs, he admitted he made the mistakes. I have always- FG: 36:57 Right-right. SM: 36:57 -thought how many people admit I blew it? He did? FG: 37:02 Yep. SM: 37:02 And he was very- FG: 37:03 Yep-yep. SM: 37:03 -honest about it. And he wanted to make sure he would not do it again. And then also- FG: 37:08 Right. Right. SM: 37:08 -of course, there are some things that you question because the coup for Diem and Nhu in Vietnam, a couple, you know, about a week or so before or two weeks before he was assassinated? We all thought I wonder, did he? It is my understanding. He did not he did not expect them to be killed. He thought they were going to be taken away from the country. Is that true? I do not even know. FG: 37:30 Yeah, I do not know, either. You know, there is all kinds of speculation and I confess, I do not know the answer to that. But, you know, it was, you know, it was a moment that I think just got us in deeper. And, you know, and so it was, you know, and it certainly you know, I mean, it shows the competing instincts that he still, that he still had, I mean, he was still kind of groping, I think, for yes. SM: 38:05 Right. FG: 38:05 -an understanding of that issue. And, you know, and we just do not know which way it would have gone head he had he lived because the, you know, the-the United States was being pulled deeper and deeper into it, you know, because of Cold War sensibilities that may have fit in Europe, but-but did not fit as well in, you know, in Asia, where, you know, in retrospect, it was clear that Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese, you know, had their agenda for national liberation, but not to be a stalking horse for any other power China or Russia or anybody they, you know. So, you know, the famous quote from or one that I had not known, but I read with, I think, from David Halberstam or somebody, but how Ho Chi Minh said something like, "One day the Americans will be tired of fighting, and then we will sit down together and drink tea." And, you know, and that is what happened, you know, when the- SM: 39:10 Mm-Hmm. FG: 39:11 -Vietnam War ended, you know, all of a sudden, you know, here you have, you know, Americans traveling freely to that place, John McCain, who was tortured- SM: 39:23 Mm-Hmm. FG: 39:23 -as a political, you know, pow going-going there. And, you know, and being treated with dignity and honor after-after the hostilities subsided. So, you know, it was, but we do not know how far-sighted Kennedy would have been about all of that. SM: 39:45 He-he-he did- FG: 39:45 I have hoped, you know, I mean, retroactively, retrospectively I-I think he might have been, if nothing else, more pragmatic than Lyndon Johnson, but who knows. SM: 39:58 You know, yeah, and of course, He-he knew when he was in Dallas for obvious reasons, because- FG: 40:04 Mm-Hmm. Right. SM: 40:04 -he knew that the that he needed to get the Democratic vote and the election, the (19)64. And that is why-he was going down south. So, he was pragmatic there too, as well. He knew what he was doing was right with his civil rights bills. But still, he was pragmatic, and he had to be pushed. FG: 40:22 Yep. SM: 40:23 And- FG: 40:24 Yep-yep. SM: 40:24 -one thing I want to say, too, I think Bobby Kennedy was very important for President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because- FG: 40:31 Yes. SM: 40:31 -all these views coming in from, you know, you go bomb all these other things. But if Bobby was a man, he could go with Bobby. And they go into a room by themselves with no one else around and [inaudible]. And so, I think part of the reason why this all worked out in the positive is that Bobby was by his side. FG: 40:52 Yes. SM: 40:53 I do not think there is any question about that, during that Cuban Missile Crisis? FG: 40:58 Yeah, I think, I think that is absolutely true. It was, it was a remarkable moment of presidential decisiveness, not to bomb Cuba. And it turns out, you know, it could easily really have triggered a nuclear strike, because some of those missiles were, in fact operative. And the generals, you know, who were urging Kennedy to-to, you know, to attack Cuba. I mean, they did not know that that Cuba already had access to nuclear missiles that would reach Miami at least. And, you know, who knows what would have happened, but Kennedy had the will to John Kennedy had the will to resist the generals. And I think- SM: 41:41 Yep. FG: 41:41 Robert Kennedy was was-was part of this of the source of that strength, you know, he, he more he just thought morally, it was wrong. Just queasy to him to have a country our size attacks a country Cuba's size, he just did not like that whole idea. But then, you know, and then there was that moment when Khrushchev sent two competing messages. One that seemed to be coming from his heart and favoring a peaceful solution, and the other one very bellicose and really belligerent. And they were thinking, well, how do we respond? What do we do? And- SM: 42:21 Mm-Hmm. FG: 42:22 -Robert Kennedy was one of those who said, Just answer the one we would like. SM: 42:26 Yeah. FG: 42:27 I mean, it was such a simple human thing. But you know, his human instinct said, the first one, the peaceful one. Sounds like something Khrushchev really means. And it, it turned out to be to be right, you know, so it was. Yeah, it was, it was a pretty amazing moment. And you think about what might have happened in subsequent administrations and a similar moment and use your shutter you know. SM: 42:58 Yeah, he was very good, because he had gone to the Vienna conference with Khrushchev, and he was kind of, you know, he was young and not quite sure of himself. And so that was the time- FG: 43:08 Right. SM: 43:08 -that crew chat to really put the pressure on him. But then you learn from studying history that Khrushchev liked the bully people. However, he liked leaders from other countries who were adversaries who would make a decision. And Kennedy- FG: 43:22 Right. SM: 43:22 -made a decision not only on the quarantine and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but also what was happening in Berlin at that time. And thank- FG: 43:31 Right. SM: 43:31 -the Lord that the leader of East Germany decided let us build a wall, because that correct- FG: 43:36 Right. SM: 43:36 -because everything happened, and I think Khrushchev respected him for that. I- it is just like, so anyway, so is, so you did a wonderful job bring authors and musicians and artists into this book. I? I am a big right. I am a big reader. And you-you mentioned some of the great ones here. Could you talk about it? I obviously you are very well read. And you can see the importance about not only nonfiction, but fiction, great writers- FG: 43:44 Right. Right. SM: 44:12 -I can write books that really tell the times the temper of the times, but done in the in a fiction wet fictional way, could you talk about the Eudora Welty and Harper Lee and in those- FG: 44:27 Yeah. SM: 44:27 -times, especially during the what was happening in Mississippi. FG: 44:32 Yeah, well, you know, Harper Lee, was To Kill a Mockingbird, which came out in 1960. You know, that book retrospectively is- has been criticized, you know, for having a sort of paternalistic view of race relations. In some extent that is true, but it also gave us a in the south especially I think gave us a portrait in the person of Atticus Finch, of what decency might look like. And, and then that became even more sharply defined by the movie and Gregory Pecks interpretation of Atticus Finch which, you know, which Harper Lee is said to have, have loved. She and Gregory Peck became close friends. And so, you know, just that powerful depiction of an inclination to be fair, and just and, and believes that there should be equality in the eyes of the law. You know, those were powerful themes in 1960. Now, they may sound more like truisms today, but, but she was swimming upstream as a white writer from the south from Alabama, lower Alabama, southern Alabama when she when she wrote that. So, you know, I think that was a was a powerfully important thing. And then you had Eudora Welty in Mississippi who, when-when Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963, right in the same 24-hour period that George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door and John Kennedy gave his marvelous speech about civil rights. Medgar Evers, who is the leading civil rights proponent in Black leader in Mississippi is shot and is in the back and his own driveway by Klansmen named Byron de la Beckwith. And Eudora Welty wrote a piece for The New Yorker, in which she tried to get in, into inside the mind of, of that white assassin. She did not call him, Byron de la Beckwith, but she was, you know, but she was, she was trying to, you know, imaginatively understand that toxic hate, that would produce such a person. And, you know, this was, this was 23 years after, you know, she, she, she both burst onto the scene as a short story writer with-with a marvelous story in 1940, called "A Warren Pass," where the where the heroin is an elderly African American woman, impoverished, trying to take care of her severely injured grandson. And, and the humanity of this Black woman puts the white characters to shame in this novel. And here is, here is a white writer in the heart of Mississippi, writing this in 1940. And that had been Eudora as Eudora Welty his legacy of empathy and understanding through throughout her time as a, as a writer continuing on into those (19)60s with that short story that appeared in the I am pretty sure it was the New Yorker. SM: 45:56 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 47:46 I am saying that from memory, but I think that is right. And, you know, and so, you know, that is, that is kind of amazing. And then, you know, you had and you had Joseph Heller's Catch-22 about the foolishness of war that was published right on the eve of, of our escalation into Vietnam. It was, it was set during World War Two, but-but-but it marked the stupidity of war in a way that was hilariously funny, but also, but also profound, you know, and so, so you had those kinds of, you know, of-of, not provocative novels that were, that were appearing, you know, in the (19)60s. And you also had, you know, powerful other powerful works of nonfiction. You know, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962. And Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, about gratuitous violence in 1965 or (19)66. Whenever that came out. Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize winning the Armies of the Night about the protests at the Pentagon. You know, you had Willie Morris's Harper's Magazine without with Writer's Life, David Halberstam and others, putting a human face on. The dramas of the of the of the era. You know, all that was, I think was just so important in deepening the country's sensibilities during-during that time. SM: 48:41 Mm-Hmm. SM: 50:10 Yeah, I just open the book. That section that you have on Rachel Carson is just so well written with some of the quotes. And if you do not mind, can I just read a quote you have from her in the book? FG: 50:23 Sure. SM: 50:24 -yeah, it is on page 89. And there is a short one on page. I think it is 91. But I think these words from Rachel Carson 1962 are very important. FG: 50:34 Mm-Hmm. SM: 50:34 These, these sprays, dust and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes. Non selective chemicals have the power to kill every insect, the good and the bad, to steal the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger in the soil. All this though, though, the intended target may be only a few weeds, or insects, future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind. And then on the second page, here, I just have just a rubbery briefing, Carson- FG: 51:26 Mm-Hmm. SM: 51:27 -Carson was rushing to the finish the book, she knew she was dying, her body was ravaged by a rapidly with metastatic breast cancer, and who knew what poisons may have been the trigger toward her? And it is, it is like, she was such a great writer, but, you know, but that book came out in 1962, as well. And in rain, Kennedy read all her books. FG: 51:54 Right. SM: 51:55 All three of them. FG: 51:56 Yes-yes. It was sad that, that his copy of her earlier book, the sea around us, was next to Henry David Thoreau's book on Kennedy's bookshelf. So he was deeply impressed with Rachel Carson, and kind of in subtle, but important ways. You know, he took her very seriously. And I think he appointed a commission to study this kind of thing. And, and, you know, so she became, you know, for one thing she was, you know, silent spraying was kind of a polemic about, you know, the downside of the chemical, pesticide industry and all of that. But as you just read, it was such a beautiful writing as well, you know, she- SM: 52:48 Right. FG: 52:48 -had this sort of literary quality. And then, and then, you know, she pushed back and with-with support from Kennedy and some others, against the notion that, you know, gosh, you are only a girl, what do you know about science, you know- SM: 52:48 Mm-Hmm. FG: 53:02 -people who were literally saying that, and she just stood her ground and in-in this powerfully eloquent way. So in a way, she was kind of like a feminist figure, as well as an environmental hero early on, you know, who-whose writing kind of help triggered and environmental consciousness. So, you know, I mean, we have these amazing figures during that time that, and I am sure I left out, some- SM: 53:31 -you left that 1/4, one that sound the very same page. And that is Michael Harrington. FG: 53:35 Yes. SM: 53:35 And the he wrote the other America and- FG: 53:39 Right. SM: 53:39 -Kennedy- Kennedy read that book. And a lot of his policies were geared toward the poverty and the poor. But I just want it this is just a very brief quote. And I will not be quoting anymore, but this is a quote from Michael Harrington, in your book, "Here are unskilled workers, the migrant farmworkers, the aged the minorities, and all the others who live in the economic underworld of American life. If these people are not starving, they are hungry, and sometimes fat with hunger for that is what cheap foods do. They are without adequate housing and education and medical care. But even more basic, this poverty twist into forms of spirit, the American poor, pessimistic and defeated. And truly human reaction can only be outrage." And then he quotes here who did not wrote, "We must love one another or die." And that was Michael Harrington from the other American and I just remember when it came out that Kennedy was reading it. FG: 54:39 Yes-yes. He was apparently a voracious reader and, and in one of his very last cabinet member meetings that Kennedy attended, you know was part of before he was assassinated. There were there was the story about him sort of doodling on a yellow legal pad. and just writing the word poverty- poverty-poverty. SM: 55:03 Wow. FG: 55:05 And, you know, and so it fell to Lyndon Johnson to really try to get, you know, translate all of that into-into policy. But, you know, Kennedy was clearly, you know, changed in his understanding of that issue by-by Michael Harrington, who was, you know, who was a writer of great profundity and compassion? SM: 55:33 Could you talk a little bit also, as it is hard to say a little bit, because this is a lot of the musicians of that period of the importance of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan beyond the mere fact that they are saying music, they also wrote it. And they and writer- FG: 55:51 Right. SM: 55:51 -music became great hits for many of the rock groups of the (19)60s and (19)70s. But could you talk about the importance of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Nina Simone and Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, and- FG: 56:07 Yeah. SM: 56:09 -Mary and a whole group? FG: 56:10 Yep. Yeah. You know, it is music is, in the whole book that we are talking about music was a theme that I returned to, you know, from 1960 on up through 1969. I mean, I thought it-it very often captured, you know, what was what was what was going on, you know, the, the similar in 1960, just the similar musical sensibilities of Sam Cooke and Elvis Presley, one Black, one white, both from Mississippi. Elvis, being a huge fan of fan of, of Black music, and Sam Cooke actually being a fan of, you know, white music. I mean, love country music, you know, he was, he liked Hank Williams, he recorded great country song Tennessee Waltz, and did it in his own way. And so, that sense of, of music being our common ground that these two iconic performers had, you know, that was, that was important. I mean, they Sam Cooke later became, you know, more-more direct and his social commentary with the song like a change is going to come, which he wrote, and it came out in 1964, I think. But then Elvis, you know, in 1968 or (196)9 whenever it was, you know, did that really powerful song in the ghetto- SM: 57:49 Mm-Hmm. FG: 57:49 -which was actually written by a country singer named Matt Davis. But-but-but-but it was, you know, it was a powerful attempt at empathy by-by this white musical icon, so, you know, there, there is that, but then there is a sort of direct witness of, you know, Pete Seeger. And, you know, and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Odetta and Nina Simone, you know, singing about injustice and injustice, so, you know, the possibilities of justice and, and the, and the reality of injustice. You know, Peter, Paul and Mary, you know, during the, the Selma to Montgomery march she had Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary and interestingly Tony Bennett, coming to perform on the last night of the march to kind of the-the weary spirits of the marchers, you know, you know, in 1965, the birds recorded a rock-rock group cut folk rock group recorded Seeger’s [Pete Seeger] song Turn! Turn! Turn! which was mostly the just a quote or slight paraphrase of the book of Ecclesiastes To Everything There is a Season. Seeger, who always had this sort of dry, self-deprecating sense of humor said, but yes, I did add six words. SM: 59:33 [chuckles] Yep, yeah. FG: 59:35 And, and the six words were, I swear it is not too late. SM: 59:41 [chuckles] Yep. FG: 59:41 And that comes right after his right after the part of Ecclesiastes, where they talked about how it was a time for peace, you know, and so, the Ecclesiastes is-is this wonderful literary meditation. But as I say in the book, you know, Seeger added six words that made it more intentional and indirect, and-and then the birds beautiful rendition of it, you know, made it something that people thought about, you know, it was, you know, so again, all of that is, is so important. And then you have, you know, somebody like Johnny Cash, who, in 1964, has a top five country hit with, with the Ballad of Ira Hayes, which is about wretched conditions on Indian reservations. You know, that-that was, you know, so it was not just, you know, the folk musicians who were, you know, thought to be left leaning, but you know, who have Johnny Cash from the heart of the Country Music mainstream- SM: 1:00:59 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:00:59 -this powerful ballad of empathy. And then, you know, in 1969 cash has his own television show where he deliberately brings musicians from whoever identified with opposite parts of the political spectrum together on his show. So you- SM: 1:01:17 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:01:17 -have Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard, you know- SM: 1:01:21 Right. FG: 1:01:22 -Arlo Guthrie, you know, Judy Collins, people like that on-on this country music show. And then, you know, in 1969, at Woodstock, you know, the last song, played at Woodstock was the Star-Spangled Banner. But it was played by Jimi Hendrix- SM: 1:01:43 Yep. FG: 1:01:43 -on electric guitar. And, you know, there is something powerful about-about that, I mean, a very iconic rendition. But-but-but there it was, you know, right. So anyway, yeah, music is an amazing force, and that whole decade, so creative, and so heartfelt, and so intelligent. SM: 1:02:07 Yeah, very well said. I want to get into the area where Dr. King, we talked a little bit about him. We talked earlier about the time you saw him being arrested, and then he wrote the historic letter from Birmingham jail. FG: 1:02:23 Right. SM: 1:02:23 You said something very important in in that little section there you stated that he could. He was very good at kennel. And what is the word I want to use defining the debate, but he- FG: 1:02:41 Yes. SM: 1:02:41 -lacks strategy. And he had people behind him that worked with him like Andrew Young and James Bevel and Dorothy cotton. I met all these- FG: 1:02:50 Right. SM: 1:02:50 -people at my university. FG: 1:02:53 Yes, yeah. SM: 1:02:53 But-but-but he had these people that came up with a strategy. Could you talk about this is not Birmingham now with the protests after the killings of the four young girls at the church, the protest Bull Connor and everything and he wants a James Bevel came up with the idea of children. Let us bring the children out and protest and Dr. Golding hesitated. FG: 1:03:17 Right. SM: 1:03:18 -your thoughts on that. Yeah. FG: 1:03:19 Well, you know, if bevel in and others thought, you know, we are, we are running out of adults to-to who are willing to risk or who can even afford to be arrested and go to jail. So, so let us bring the children let us bring college students, let us bring high school students, you know, sometimes maybe even younger people than that, and let them be arrested and see what that if that does not grab the conscience of America. And it did. But you know, King's, you know, paralyzing hesitation was, yeah, but do we have the right to, to put children at risk, you know, and-and, you know, and then and then later, as you alluded to, for children were killed because they attended the church that had been the staging ground for-for-for this movement, you know, when that church was-was bombed, and, you know, so King felt all of that deeply and sometimes, you know, his-his-his gift was not so much decision making as it was, you know, framing the moral issue, not that he was not personally brave, he absolutely was and he you know, he, he sometimes took great personal risks and all that but-but he was surrounded by these strategists, and I think it is a good thing you know, Andrew Young and you know, bevel and some of those others. But-but kings great gift was putting these issues is in a way that you just even if you wanted to disagree with him, and you still could, but you could not dismiss him. And, you know, that was just his, you know, I mean, he used time honored principles as the anchor for this really quite radical change that he was calling for. SM: 1:04:55 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:05:21 He talked about, you know, our founding documents in America that we are all created equal, and the whole Judeo-Christian idea that we are all children of God. And if that is the case, then we are brothers and sisters of each other. And he evoked and invoked those things. to great effect is, you know, his-his whole, his whole, tragically short life. SM: 1:05:49 The Birmingham bombing of the church where the four girls are killed. He gave the eulogy. FG: 1:05:56 Right. SM: 1:05:57 And the basic premise of his eulogy was to forgive not to have the bitterness. FG: 1:06:04 Right. SM: 1:06:05 And then you, as a young reporter, interviewed one of the parents of the for one of the four kids that was- FG: 1:06:14 Right. SM: 1:06:15 -killed. Could you talk about that interview? FG: 1:06:17 Yeah, the-the person that I was honored to interview and it remains, maybe the most singular experience of my whole life as a writer, was getting to talk to Claude Wesley, whose daughter, Cynthia Wesley was one of the young girls who was killed in the church bombing. And it was a few years later, but what I always had wondered about was, if you were, if you were Mr. Wesley, and a few days earlier, your-your beloved daughter has been killed. And Martin Luther King comes to town and says, forgive, and do not be bitter. How does that land with you? You know, and-and so finally, in the interview after talking, you know, more historically and abstractly, I just went ahead and asked Mr. Westley that question, and-and I will never forget, I mean, I think I can quote it all these years later, almost exactly. But he said, you know, I said, "How does it feel to be called forgiveness when bitterness and rage would be a more natural instinct," and he said, "Oh, we were never bitter." He said, "We tried to treat Cynthia's death, in the same way we treated her life in bitterness had no place in that." And then he said, "There was something else we never did. We never said, Why us? Because that would be the same thing as saying, why not somebody else?" And he said, "A Christian cannot ask that question." SM: 1:08:03 Hmm. FG: 1:08:04 And, and it was just the most profound affirmation of the moral grounding of the Civil Rights Movement. I thought that I had ever heard. I mean, it was, I mean, yes, Martin Luther King put it beautifully, powerfully in into abstract concepts. But, but here was Mr. Wesley who just embodied it in his very, life, you know, I mean, it was humbling to, to see this, you know, this short, wiry, wispy, 70-year-old at that point, little man who had been a marvelous high school principal in Birmingham, but always done his part. But there he was just in just-just give just, you know, it is like that biblical idea of the word becoming flesh. I mean, Mr. Wesley just embodied all of this stuff in such a powerful, profound way that, you know, I just, I just sat kind of in quiet off for a few minutes. SM: 1:09:19 Wow. That is one heck of a story. And what became of him? FG: 1:09:28 You know, I do not know, he, I never talked to him again. I think by then he had retired as a principal and, you know, he got older and finally died. But, you know, he was just such an impressive person. And, you know, there were others too. I do not mean to say, you know, I mean, obviously, other parents who dealt with that same tragedy and horror and, you know, and others who were deeply influenced Little Angela Davis who later became the radical voice of Black power. You know, she was from Birmingham and some of those girls who were killed were her friends. And so it was this radicalizing moment for her different people did different things with-with that. But that is what Mr. Westley did. And, you know, it was there was something. SM: 1:10:25 In your chapter on Freedom Summer, a very historic event in 1964. In the summer, he talked about another book. And I know this book very well. Charles Silverman's Crisis in Black and White. Let me mention to you that I went to-I was a history major here at Binghamton University. I took a sociology course in 1967 68 with Dr. Liebman. He did not he did not last too long here. He was, uh, he got too involved in activism, I think but, but what happened is, that book was required reading. FG: 1:10:32 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:11:00 Yes. Yes. There was a line in there that I will never forget that Dr. King said it has stuck with me my entire life. And this came from Silverman it was the two sentences something like the fact that Dr. King said "I never feared the bigot." The people I [crosstalk] people- FG: 1:11:20 Oh, okay. SM: 1:11:21 -were the people that were the fence sitters. FG: 1:11:24 Yes-yes. Yes. SM: 1:11:26 And that has stayed with me my entire life because that is truth. FG: 1:11:32 Yeah. SM: 1:11:33 -there was truth. FG: 1:11:35 Yes-yes. Silberman's book, I thought was just a wonderful primer for some of us who were, you know, just beginning to seek a deeper understanding of that issue. And, you know, and that is what Silberman had done, you know, he was not Black, he was Jewish, but he, but he wanted to understand and so he just dove into it as a as a really gifted journalist, historian, writer. And, and, and, you know, there is a lot of wisdom in the book, but just that very deep attempt at empathy and understanding thought was one of the great legacies of that book as well. SM: 1:12:19 Yeah, I have a quote, I will do this. It is a brief quote you have in your book again, and it is from Dr. Sherman's introduction, and I am glad you put it in the book. "For 100 years, white Americans had clung tenaciously to the illusion that time alone would solve the problem of race. It has not. And it never will. For time, as Reverend Martin Luther King points out is neither good nor bad, it is neutral. What matters is how time is used. Time has been used badly in the United States so badly, that not much of it remains before race, hatred completely poisons the air we breathe, what we are discovering in the United States, all of it north as well as South West as well as East is a racist society in a sense, and to a degree that we have refused so far to admit, much let us face." And then I have one very soft quote here. From him, if I can read this, More than anything, I was struck by this as you were struck by the fact that he was fearless. Rather than cringing at the philosophy of Malcolm X. Silberman set out to understand its appeal, this emerging alternative in the minds of many Blacks to nonviolent message of Dr. King. And that gets sent to the fact that he was quoting a lot of Malcolm X here in this book as well. FG: 1:13:40 Right. Right. Yes. Yes. And, you know, and Malcolm X was, you know, was such an important figure also, you know, I mean, he was, you know, he was not an advocate of violence, he was an advocate of self-defense. SM: 1:13:58 Yep. FG: 1:13:59 But as, as, gosh, now, I am blanking, but when the great African American actor who spoke at Malcolm X his funeral. SM: 1:14:09 Ossie Davis. FG: 1:14:11 Yes, right. When did Yes, sorry. When-when did he, meaning Malcolm ever do a violent thing? SM: 1:14:19 True. FG: 1:14:19 Well, he, he, you know, he was very disciplined. And, you know, and his philosophy was very dynamic and was continuing to evolve. And, you know, one of the one of the best understandings of Malcolm X to me was, was, you know, Alex Haley, who co-authored the, you know, with-with Malcolm The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Alex Haley was from the south. He was from Tennessee, and he had slightly different sensibilities, but he came to love Malcolm X and respect him and in the afterword to- in the autobiography of Malcolm X, you know, Hailey just gives such an-an empathetic understanding of the humanity of Malcolm X. And I also write in there about what I think was Malcolm X is only real trip to the South, where he came to Selma, just before the Selma to Montgomery march and spoke in favor of- SM: 1:15:26 Yes. FG: 1:15:26 Dr. King's efforts- SM: 1:15:27 Yes. FG: 1:15:28 in Selma. SM: 1:15:28 Yep. FG: 1:15:29 And so although they were often pitted as, you know, intellectual adversaries, and, you know, people who propose different paths for Black America, and to some extent, may have even seen themselves that way. There is that indication that they also at heart viewed each other as allies. SM: 1:15:52 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:15:52 And, you know, in the broadest sense, and one of the ironies of history is that when Malcolm was assassinated in 1965, he was 39 years old, when Martin Luther King was assassinated three years later, he was 39 years old. So these were two very young men who were on the public stage for a relatively short amount of time. But because of their strengths of character that they brought to it, even with different and evolving philosophies, you know, they just had such a powerful impact in providing momentum to the movement for Black freedom and liberation and racial equality in America in the (19)60s. 1:16:46 There, well said, Dr. King, of course, won the Nobel Peace Prize. And- FG: 1:16:52 Right. SM: 1:16:53 -you talk about that in your book, I mean, your book is so you, you hit everything about, and anybody who grew up in this period, like I did, you know, it makes us think even more about those times. When you have a, I just want to quote this, and I want your thoughts on this very last thing, and its speech, and a union talking about comparing science and technology and all the accomplishments we have made as a people in this area. "Yet, in spite of the spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited wants to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance, the richer we have become material, materially, the poor, we have become morally and spiritually, we have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. FG: 1:17:52 Yes. SM: 1:17:52 And that is speech. FG: 1:17:55 Yeah. I mean, you know, what a way with words, but also what do I do with the ideas? You know, I mean, it, you know, he could speak with such towering eloquence, but there is substance there, you know, it is not just poetic fluff. And, you know, and he, and he was a prophetic voice. I mean, he was edgy, you know, we can sanitize him all these years later, and kind of sweeten up his message. And when we look at the “I Have a Dream” speech, only look at the Olive Branch, you know- SM: 1:18:02 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:18:33 -the dream of the day will, you know, racial harmony, but not look at the demand for justice without which that harmony cannot exist, which was present in that speech, too. And, you know, King, the longer his life went on, the more the more edgy, his demands for justice became, and, you know, some-some people who had been his supporters began to criticize him after his speech against the Vietnam War at Riverside Church in 1967. You know, even liberal newspapers like the New York Times, and The Washington Post, basically wrote editorials saying who this King think he is, you know, he should stick to, to what he knows. You know, the Detroit Free Press was one of the only papers under a great editor named Mark Etheridge, who, who understood what King was trying to do in the Vietnam speech and supported him. And it is also interesting that he was King was introduced at Riverside Church by Rabbi Abraham Heschel- SM: 1:19:18 Mm-Hmm. Yes. FG: 1:19:43 -who had marched with him and Selma and they became, you know, powerful spiritual allies. You know, this Jewish theologian who was a seventh-generation rabbi and this, you know, American Baptist from the From the southern part of the United States who felt this great affinity for each other, and again, it just speaks to the fundamental grounding and seriousness of purpose that that King had, but that others had too and then King had turned his attention to economic inequality. And that was where he was when he was killed. And, you know, and we are no better off on that front. I mean, income inequalities is bad now, maybe worse than it was then. So, you know, could King have made a difference on that front? I do not know. But he certainly intended to try and was willing to risk the claim that had come his way for more and more profound changes that he thought were necessary to make America what it should be. SM: 1:20:54 That is why I think having Byard Rustin by his side was really important because Byard Rustin was always trying to tell us about the king. And Dr. King believed this too, that it is not just race, it is about class. FG: 1:21:05 Yes. Yes. SM: 1:21:06 And-and Ruston was an that when Dr. King went north, he some of the critics in the South are saying, why are you heading to Chicago, weighing the weighing on North, because there is racism there as well. But there is also- FG: 1:21:20 Yeah. SM: 1:21:20 -a class issue, what was the, you know, where he was killed, was a strike over wages- FG: 1:21:27 Absolutely. for sanitation, [inaudible] yeah, absolutely. SM: 1:21:36 -for many years, and he was a great organizer to the-the teachings were very important. And this is another positive thing for Vanderbilt University. Because you talk in the book about the teachings that were taking place at Michigan, and then of course, the big one at Berkeley. But it also happened that your school, could you talk about the importance of the teachings, and they were a threat to Lyndon Johnson, he did not like him. Yeah, sanitation workers, so it was about class. So Byard Rustin was a very important person to be by his side. FG: 1:22:03 Right? Yeah, the antiwar teachings that began, where, you know, you had professors and students who, who were opposed to the Vietnam War, and the deepening American involvement, and who saw what it was doing, certainly to Vietnam, where, you know, where so many people were getting killed, including civilians, and were American troops who were sent there, many of them brave, determined, you know, admirable young men, and they were all men at that point. But they sometimes did not even know who the enemy was because of the broad opposition to us, among the Vietnamese population. And so the troops were in a terrible position as well. And so some of these professors, we had one or two at Vanderbilt, but also, you know, students set all of these places thought at first, well, if we can just use information about what is happening, what is really happening. We can change people's minds, you know. SM: 1:23:11 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:23:13 They have faith in the, in the basic goodwill of policymakers and Americans in general. And Lyndon Johnson, you know, who had been so played such a heroic role in terms of civil rights and, and in his very dramatic attempts to address the issue of poverty. But boy, he hated people who opposed him on Vietnam. And so he hated the [inaudible]. And you know, there was a lot of red baiting of stood in not [inaudible] is what I meant to say, hated that. And, and there was a lot of red baiting of the motives of people who were involved in all of that. So, you know, I treat the Vietnam War in the book as a great American tragedy. I try not to demonize the young man who was sent to Centrify and I tried to interview some about their experiences and the trauma that they experienced, sometimes physical, PTSD, sometimes moral horror at what was happening around them. And so in some, you know, who were proud of what they had done, but, you know, and to also recognize that, that, you know, the horrors were, you know, not all just committed by Americans. I mean, the torture of John McCain was-was an example of that, and, you know, in his bravery is beyond dispute. But he also was, you know, on the impersonal mission of dropping bombs in you know, on the outskirts of, of Hanoi, and-and, you know, and so when he was captured, they hated him, you know. And so all of that, to me is part of the great tragedy you know of Vietnam tragic for the Vietnamese tragic for its divisive impacts on America tragic for the loss and suffering that American soldiers and their families experienced. Tragic for the moral standing of America, in the world. SM: 1:25:34 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:25:34 And finally, is how he men predicted we did just get tired of it and stop, you know- SM: 1:25:41 Yep-yep. FG: 1:25:41 -without achieving what we had set out to do and yet no direct harm came to us from Peace. Only from the war- SM: 1:25:51 -as the helicopters went off the Embassy in Saigon on that April day- FG: 1:25:56 Right. SM: 1:25:56 -what and then- FG: 1:25:57 Right. SM: 1:25:57 -a gross going then you see on the aircraft carriers, I am throwing the helicopters into the ocean. It was what a sad day. So several days, in fact. I You mentioned also in the book that there was a religious organization that came together when people would read bait or accuse people of being communists. They used to do this for a lot of the civil rights workers or any of the protesters and certainly a lot of the anti-war people. And I remember it was Father Barragan, Daniel Barragan, and Rabbi Heschel that were two of the leaders who- FG: 1:26:31 Yep-yep. Right. SM: 1:26:31 -responded to somebody who had made those kinds of charges. And they said, That is ridiculous. They are patriots. They are not communists. FG: 1:26:40 Right-right. Yep. Yep. Those were, you know, that is another theme that threads its way through the book is the is the power and the significance of faith and, and the ethical grounding. That faith provided some people from Dr. King to Rabbi Heschel to Father Barragan. You know, and a lot of others, and then there were other manifestations of it, too. I mean, Billy Graham was a was a very interesting figure during that time, who, you know, had more or less decent instincts on-on the issue of race, and yet he was a committed cold warrior, but also kind of timid about taking any kind of social stand. And then you had emerging late in the decade, the Christian right, led by Jerry Falwell. So, you know, that is another thread that you- SM: 1:27:43 Yep. FG: 1:27:43 -tug on during that during that decade. And it is, it is very empowering. It is very important. And I tried to catch a sense of its importance as best I could. SM: 1:27:56 In the 1964 elections, we all know, I will be Jade, the Goldwater in a landslide. I think Goldwater won six states, but a Goldwater changed the Republican Party forever. And Change Politics forever. Of course, that is when Ronald Reagan came when he gave that speech in favor of Goldwater and he came on the national scene as well. But then on the other side of the Democratic Convention, Johnson had more problems than we thought, because of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. And what was going on there. I mean, so (19)64 may have been a, a landslide for the Democrats, but in reality, a lot of history was happening. FG: 1:28:36 Yeah, that is right. And, and I think that it was an elusive landslide. You know, it was the, the sort of Lyndon Johnson consensus was starting to crack apart in (19)64. And the conservative forces and America conservative movement was-was taking shape and, and the spokesman for it, you know, the figure who embodied it, you know, first it was Goldwater, but then it became Ronald Reagan- SM: 1:29:18 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:29:18 -who was a politician we learned, some of us to our chagrin, have enormous talent, who really put an appealing face on the-the, on the conservative movement in this country. And, you know, and so it became a powerful force in the same decade, where, you know, a lot of historians including me, were inclined to write more about the liberal movements in the decade but you know, there was this-this-this powerful emergence of the American right, that began to take shape. During that time as well. SM: 1:30:01 Mm-Hmm. the and of course we in Buckley live formation of National Review. FG: 1:30:09 Right. SM: 1:30:09 And of course, the young Americans for freedom. I have had a couple interviews where people are upset that we never talked about the Young Americans for freedom and the conservative movement that was also against the war. FG: 1:30:21 Right. SM: 1:30:22 So-so that is. FG: 1:30:24 Right. SM: 1:30:24 Something for another day, but there is certainly no question that Buckley was a major figure in the (19)60s. FG: 1:30:28 Major figure. SM: 1:30:31 Yep. [crosstalk] go ahead. FG: 1:30:34 He came to Vanderbilt Buckley came to Vanderbilt in 1968. And debated Julian Bond. SM: 1:30:40 Yeah, what was the main thrust of that debate? FG: 1:30:43 It was, you know, we were talking about the role of dissent in American society. And the interesting thing is, I do not, it was so overshadowed by what had happened the day before they spoke in that debate the day after Dr. King was killed in Memphis. SM: 1:31:01 Oh, wow! FG: 1:31:02 And so there was a very somber mood at the, you know, there were 5000 people listening to them. SM: 1:31:11 Wow. FG: 1:31:11 And, you know, Buckley was more subdued in his sarcasm, then he, you know, that was his kind of debating trademark. And- SM: 1:31:19 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:31:20 -you know, it was funny, a little human aside, Julian Bond was terrified or die do debating Buckley. When I was getting bond to come, he said, Buckley will chew me up, "I am not coming to bite him." And I sort of jokingly said, "You have got truth on your side, Mr. Bond." And so anyway, he came in, I really liked Julian Bond, he was a funny, smart as a whip. You know, deeply committed guy. And William Buckley was, you know, just incredible intellect himself. So it was kind of the philosophical. They were sort of philosophical embodiment. So these two electrical currents running side by side and in American life, so it was a real privilege to get to see them together. SM: 1:32:20 Yeah. You mentioned about he made a comment that if we were going backwards in the area of race, he would like to own somebody. Well, I think that was. FG: 1:32:27 Oh, yeah. Julian-Julian. They were having a this is an anecdote. [crosstalk] I was told Ray Charles, she says that all the snick activists were sort of saying, you know, the white people are so racist, that they probably want to bring back slavery and bond in this right [inaudible] said, "Well, if it slavery does come back, I think I would like to own Ray Charles." I mean, it is just hilariously funny. It is I do not know what it means. I mean, he was, you know, I mean, he was just, he was just that irreverent and right, human. SM: 1:33:04 I brought him to West Chester University. And we are Martin Luther King speaker one year, and I picked him up to the Philadelphia airport. And I always got, well, I had already gone down. I- he invited me to his class, I spoke about oral history interviewing to his class at American University. I interviewed- FG: 1:33:22 Cool. SM: 1:33:22 him for the-the-the-the Center for the Study of the (19)60s A long time ago. So that interviews on site, but what happened- FG: 1:33:31 Right. SM: 1:33:31 -is this. We are getting off. We are walking out of the airport, and someone says, "Hi, Mr. Lewis," and he it without a strike. He kept going. He said, "You are right. I am John Lewis." And he just kept going. Like he was, you do not even know me between him. And that was the first thing, then riding- FG: 1:33:50 Yeah. SM: 1:33:50 -back to the, to the university. And I noticed he was smoking. Well, he was not a smoker. He had not been but occasionally he did. FG: 1:33:59 Uhm-huh. SM: 1:34:00 And we got to the back of the university, we always want in the back way, because of the fact that goes right up to the elevator. And so we were going in the back way. And he said, "You know, Steve, I spent my entire career trying to go in the front door, and here we are going in the back door." And then I got in the elevator and he said, "I need your opinion on this. Do you think my wife will know if I smoked? Because the smoke beyond my raincoat because, you know, she does not want me to smoke." He-he was unbelievable. And then when we took him to Washington when it took some more students to Washington to meet him. But one of our African American students said I am never going to vote in the election. So let us not talk about that issue. And they will somehow, he brought it up. FG: 1:34:45 Uh-huh. SM: 1:34:47 And "You are of course you will all believe in voting, no" to and she said "No." Would you know for the next 30 minutes the conversation was between him and her. FG: 1:34:56 Well, interesting, well. SM: 1:34:58 About importance I wish I had taped. It was about voting. And so anyways. FG: 1:35:03 Yeah. SM: 1:35:03 So he had a sense of humor. He was a great person when he died. I was very sad. Very-very sad. Yeah. Yeah [inaudible] [crosstalk] I want you to comment on of course, Mario Savio and Cesar Chavez. Okay. He is very important. And because he was part of Freedom Summer, and he was only 21 years old. And could you talk a little bit about what you said in the book about him? FG: 1:35:27 Yes, Mario Savio was a fascinating figure to me, because he was, you know, more or less a contemporary he was few years older than then I was, but not much. And, you know, he went to Freedom Summer as a volunteer in 1964. And was powerfully moved by the sense of community among African American people in Mississippi. And he had, Savio had been raised Catholic. And though he had become much more secular, in his view of the world, still, he, those some of those Catholic patterns of thought, remained, even if the content had changed. And he wrote that, that while he was in Mississippi, he felt like he was being held in the bosom of the Lord, as he said, I mean, there was something almost sacred to him about the sense of community and the struggle for equality that he encountered in the Mississippi, in Mississippi when he when he went there. And so he came back to Berkeley with that powerful sense of having been moved by the bravery of these of these African American people who lived with so much oppression, and were fighting back against it was such extraordinary courage, and then discovered that he was not allowed to talk about that, or pass out flyers about it on the University of California Berkeley campus because of limitations and freedom of speech. And so that was part of what helped trigger the free speech movement and, and some of Savio speeches, some of them impromptu that he gave as a as a spokesperson for that movement. And he-he never thought of himself as the leader of it. It was more diffuse and democratic than that, but he became the spokesperson because of his power with words. And, you know, it was almost in Martin Luther King territory. I mean, he was just amazing in the way, you know, he tried to frame all of that, and you know, Joan Baez, came in and sang and supported that movement. And, you know, Savio was viewed as an extreme radical by the Berkeley administration. But, but a lot of what he said, you know, holds up all these all these decades later. So, you know, he died relatively young. And, you know, and I was sad about that, I never met him, but, but I did follow him. And, and, and thought he was a pretty remarkable figure, you know, he studied with equal enthusiasm, both physics and philosophy, you know, I mean, it just spoke to the, to the depth and breadth of his intellectual interest to go along with his activism. And then Cesar Chavez, you know, and all this is the, you know, the sort of the, the California, the West Coast, contributions to the (19)60s, we have spoken about the emergence of Reagan and California. SM: 1:38:21 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:38:43 But you had Berkeley free speech, and then you had the farmworkers strikes, and, you know, say as our Chavez giving voice to the same kind of non-violence that Martin Luther King did and leading, leading essentially a labor strike on behalf of better wages and safer conditions, and making common cause sometimes with the emerging environmental movement, because of the use of pesticides and so forth in the in the fields. And so very powerful witness by-by this Mexican American man who found a powerful ally and Robert Kennedy who, who spoke up for the for the farmworkers. So, you know, if a lot of the (19)60s flowed out from the south and then from the, you know, universities in the Midwest during Vietnam, you know, here was, here was the West Coast- SM: 1:39:32 Mm-Hmm. Right. FG: 1:39:48 -know, another powerful tributary in this great river of events in the (19)60s. 1:39:52 He believed in nonviolent protests, just like Dr. King, and he was also not afraid to go to jail, and there is a scene. FG: 1:40:00 Right. SM: 1:40:00 You in Your book where you talk with his wife went on a protest. And they were told not to say a certain word. And he said, I" want all of you to yell at this highest as everybody can hear it, "and- FG: 1:40:11 Yes. SM: 1:40:11 -believe that they would be arrested. That that is kind of like the philosophy of Dr. King. If you if you are afraid to go to jail, but you should not go to the protest, if- FG: 1:40:20 Right. Right. SM: 1:40:21 -you know what it is, there comes a price for everyone eventually. And- FG: 1:40:26 Yes. SM: 1:40:26 -certainly, Cesar Chavez was in the same light as Dr. King. FG: 1:40:31 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I never met him either. But I wish I had, because he was a, he was a major figure during that decade. And we have not even really talked about the women's movement. SM: 1:40:45 No- FG: 1:40:47 That also gained so much momentum during that time. So it was- SM: 1:40:51 -Lesbian movement as well. And I kind of- FG: 1:40:54 Yeah. SM: 1:40:54 -just general questions here, and then we will end, I was wondering if I could interview again, sometime later in the year, to maybe do more of the second half of your book. I have read everything, but I wanted to get this first half really covered. And I have some general questions here. Of all the stories in your book, you may have already said this, but could you pick out two the standout in your view, all the things you described? FG: 1:41:24 Oh, my goodness. You know, it is, that is really, that is really hard. Or for me to do in a way, I mean, in a generic sense, they, you know, the assassinations of the (19)60s were so heartbreaking. And so history changing, you know, that I would have to talk about the assassinations of both Kennedys and Dr. King, not to mention Malcolm X or Medgar Evers or those others, but so that would be one thing. But on a personal level, you know, the two most important things to me that I sort of dropped into the book, were seeing the rest of Dr. King and Birmingham and, and meeting Robert Kennedy, when he came to Vanderbilt and- SM: 1:42:19 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:42:19 -confirming to my own satisfaction that he meant everything he was saying, you know, on the- SM: 1:42:24 Yep. FG: 1:42:25 -campaign trail, I just had that feeling. So those were the two most important things personally. But you know, but-but the assassinations, the, you know, some of the brave affirmations that, you know, King and the Kennedys made, you know, those were, those were powerful, too. So I know, I am not narrowing down as much as you [crosstalk] SM: 1:42:52 Mm-Hmm. That is very good though. FG: 1:42:56 Right. Yeah. SM: 1:42:56 All the assassinations. By golly, it is, you know, my next question is when you look at America of the (19)60s, the period (19)60s, (19)75, period, what are the issues that are still with us today that have not been corrected? FG: 1:43:14 You know, I think almost all of them. You know, I think race is still an issue in America today. You know, the backlash against President Obama proved that we had not driven a stake through the heart of racism in America, and then the, the ability of President Trump to appeal to the worst in people with, you know, whether it was, you know, defining Muslims or immigrants as the other, or, you know, or later, more directly, you know, demonizing the Black Lives Matter movement, whatever, whatever it might be. I mean, those kinds of racial divisions are still with us. So that is one thing. Income inequality is as severe and destabilizing in America as has ever been. You know, the women's movement, you know, the reversal of Roe v. Wade, a lot of women see as, as an attempt to push back on the ability of women to control their own lives, and they think that is, but it is actually the unspoken motivation of it. So there is that. And then, of course, the environmental movement, which was taking shape near the end of the decade. You know, now we were living on the edge of climate catastrophe. SM: 1:44:46 Right. FG: 1:44:46 So, you know, those things at the at the, at the very least. And then there were labor struggles during the (19)60s and the- SM: 1:44:55 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:44:55 -labor movement is, you know, there is little glimmers that it might be experiencing some revival after- SM: 1:45:04 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:45:04 -going pretty, pretty dormant for a while, although we do not know. But anyway, I think, you know, I think most of the things that we were talking about in one way or another police brutality, which triggered the hot summers of the late (19)60s- SM: 1:45:21 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:45:22 -and in almost every case, the riots were triggered by moments or allegations of police brutality, you know, we see again with George Floyd. So, so, so there it all is, you know, plus, plus the philosophical debate between the conservative movement and the- SM: 1:45:42 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:45:42 -progressive or liberal movement, I mean, all of it, all of it is, is still with us. The (19)60s, raised hopes and caused divisions and gave us people who wanted to heal, but also gave us people who wanted to exploit divisions, and we see a lot of that today. SM: 1:46:06 History is-is something we should all learn from. So the lessons learned are never lost. What are the- FG: 1:46:14 Right. SM: 1:46:14 -what are the lessons we have learned from that period that we were, we have been discussing today? And what are the lessons lost, if any, in your view? FG: 1:46:25 Well, you know, I think that, that one lesson is that we can ensure broaden the meaning of American democracy, that we should make a place for more and more people in it to live full and valued lives, whether they are people of color, whether they are women, whether they are, they are people who are gay, or transgender, or, or whatever. That that that is the fundamental. That is, that is the fundamental American story, if we want it to be, I mean, Thomas Jefferson raised that possibility that was sort of a guiding star for the country, potentially, when he said, We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And, you know, it has been a long journey in the direction of that and to expand it from men to women, as well. And- SM: 1:47:25 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:47:25 -you know, and so that is part of the American story, and in my view, needs to be the American story. But the opposite, the pushback against that hope, is also there, and the guy who wrote those words on slaves. And so, you know, that is the other sort of schizophrenic part of the American character. And that is still with us to the dark side. SM: 1:47:50 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:47:51 So-so, you know, so that is the, that is the, that is the warning of the (19)60s that our lesser angels are still alive and well. SM: 1:48:02 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:48:03 And, and so here we are, you know, SM: 1:48:07 I think one key word or two key words regarding this period is that truth matters- FG: 1:48:16 Right, yes. SM: 1:48:17 -matters. And when you look at a lot of the people that all these protests for all these causes, and all of the unjust strife- FG: 1:48:25 Right. SM: 1:48:25 -and inequalities and being treated poorly, all these things, the people that were doing, it knew that truth matters. FG: 1:48:34 Yes. Yes. SM: 1:48:36 That is a very important two words. Just three more questions on done for today. FG: 1:48:42 Okay. SM: 1:48:42 Jean Scruggs, the founder of the Vietnam Memorial, wrote a book called To Heal a Nation. FG: 1:48:47 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:48:48 And certainly the wall was built in 1982. The veterans came together for the first time really, where they felt like they were, you know, cared- FG: 1:48:58 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:48:58 -and cared about. So- FG: 1:48:59 Right. SM: 1:49:00 -but how can we heal as a nation from this war? FG: 1:49:05 From the Vietnam War? SM: 1:49:06 Yes. FG: 1:49:08 You know, we have not yet I do not think we need to, you know, I thought that, that we would, I thought when Jimmy Carter, in his first act as president granted amnesty to people who had left for Canada and said, "Come back home." I thought that was powerful. And then when the Vietnam Memorial happened and-and-and officially said to American soldiers who had fought during that era, we honor your courage and sacrifice. I thought that should have been those two things. Oddly, were kind of the book ends of what should have been healing from the war. At least from the American perspective, and, you know, but then, but then we did not, we did not learn anything from it on the po- on the policy level. And so, you know, along come, you know, you know, the-the, the first Gulf War in the 1990s. And then- SM: 1:49:33 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:50:25 -you know, and then George W Bush's- SM: 1:50:27 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:50:28 -foreign policy that destabilize the Middle East and proved once again, the limits of American military power. And so and so those, you know, and then and then the, the attempt to appropriate the meaning of the Vietnam War, and in, you know, and only try to retroactively view it as some kind of heroic chapter in American diplomacy or American history, you know, in taking nothing from the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers. But, you know, it was not a triumph. In-in any way. It was. It was a, it was a tragedy. And we have- we are not very good in this country, at-at an honest look at our own tragic mistakes. SM: 1:51:17 Mm-Hmm. Yeah, I know that a lot of the soldiers that came back from the Vietnam War, appreciate being, at least for a while, being told welcome home because they were not during that- FG: 1:51:30 Yes. SM: 1:51:30 -period from (19)75 to (19)82. No question about, but the thing. FG: 1:51:36 And-and they should be, they should be welcomed. I mean, that is, you know, that is part of the part of the healing. But anyway, go ahead with [crosstalk] Right. SM: 1:51:43 -are tired of having people tell them Welcome home, because they know they do not mean it. It is just a slogan to them. But then I have- 1:51:43 -My I go the wall every year for the last two years from Memorial, our last 20. Some years. I am a [inaudible] they have veterans, they I talked to veterans, and a lot- FG: 1:51:59 Right. SM: 1:51:59 -had a couple of them, tell me now that have reflected on it over a long period of time, that why would we be welcomed home? I mean, we lost the war. We came home. FG: 1:52:12 Yeah. SM: 1:52:12 That was an unpopular war. So why did we were not going to have parades like World War Two? Korea did not have any parades either. But- FG: 1:52:21 Right. SM: 1:52:22 -so why, why do you expect us to be welcomed home when it was such a catastrophe in the first place? So a lot of the veterans are thinking deeper now about this whole welcome home business too. So. FG: 1:52:35 Right. SM: 1:52:36 And of course, the main thing is they are all getting old. And-and they are- FG: 1:52:40 Right. SM: 1:52:40 now realizing like World War Two veterans that they are only going to be here so long. So they are, so what is happening in during this period needs to be told and needs to be recorded down for history. FG: 1:52:53 Right. SM: 1:52:53 There is a lot of going on there. FG: 1:52:57 Right. SM: 1:52:57 One of the things is, I am not going to add, I will just say this. I have gotten a lot of answers. When did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? Well, I do not think it was ever ended. I know, George Bush- FG: 1:53:07 Right. SM: 1:53:07 -George Bush said in 1989, the Vietnam syndrome was over when I heard that I just about laughed. You remember when he said that? FG: 1:53:17 Yeah-yeah. I do and, you know, I thought it was wishful thinking and off base? SM: 1:53:23 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:53:25 So, you know, yes-yes. No, I think I think it is the issues that the (19)60s represented. You know, and, you know, that were so apparent, then those issues are just absolutely alive and well, and all of the debates and struggles and so forth, continue. And maybe that is just the way of history, you know, it has it has never contained in-in, you know, in the way that historians would like to, you know, I could write a book about a 10-year period. But, you know, it did not really start those things in 1960. And they certainly did not end in 1970. So it is just an abstraction. That is a convenient way to start and end the book. But, but history does not start in the end and- SM: 1:54:15 Right FG: 1:54:15 -in, in those neat kinds of ways. Yeah. SM: 1:54:18 I have two more [crosstalk] FG: 1:54:19 I would be glad to talk to you. You know, later if you know about the other parts of the book. SM: 1:54:25 Oh yes, Certainly-certainly, I would like, having a second interview regarding the women's movement. Certainly the movements for the Native American movement of the gay and lesbian movement, and certainly a lot more to about the latter (19)60s. I want to end this by saying this make a comment and you respond to it. When I look at the year 2022. I see a nation and extreme divide, just like the (19)60s the people and the characters are different. What some of the same issues are still with us. In fact, some of the issues seem to be returning through an effort to return to an earlier time before so many, many battles for justice had been won. Are we going to read this? Are we a nation going forward or backward? FG: 1:55:15 I think that we will have a much clearer answer to that question within the next two years. I have recently written a new book with another writer appeal, it is a prize-winning columnist named Cynthia Tucker. SM: 1:55:35 I have the book. FG: 1:55:36 Call this other, yeah, and Southernization of America: Story of democracy in the balance. SM: 1:55:41 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:55:41 And we in that book by saying, it could go either way, you know, we were, we could go forward or we could go way backward. And, you know, the structural challenges to the very way of doing our democratic business in this country are being put in place, and if those carry the day, along with this very energetic set of, in my view, far right, way beyond conservative far right priorities. That, that, you know, that make it hard to have honest civil discussions of our, of our problems, and we could be in for a really dark and difficult generation in this country, if not more- SM: 1:56:39 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:56:39 -or, you know, we knowing that maybe we can stave off the worst, but in the meantime, the depth of division in America right now feels to me, at least as deep as it did if the end of the (19)60s. SM: 1:56:56 Mm-Hmm. Yes, I will end this by a quote that I think Barbara Tuchman said, but I think it is well known that the first casualty of war is truth. FG: 1:57:08 Right. SM: 1:57:09 And it is so true. And I end each of my interviews with a question. The people that will be hearing these interviews are many of them are not even born yet. At the center- FG: 1:57:21 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:57:21 I study the (19)60s, these interviews are put on to CVS and Aviva studied and researched. Our goal, I think, hopefully, is that we also finally will get PhD candidates who want to concentrate on that period between 1960 and (19)75, history majors- FG: 1:57:37 Right. SM: 1:57:37 PhD, right. So these are all important. And so that you your voice, your picture, and your books will be here forever. And so what you said, we will be having influence on people long after we are long gone. Could you if there is a word of advice that you would give people down the road that are no that are that we will be hearing this 50 years from now and beyond? What would you say to them? FG: 1:58:06 Well, you know, I think the (19)60s began as a period of time when people thought they could make a great country even better. That was the sort of idealistic heart of the (19)60s at the very beginning. And as it count encountered the intractable reality of our problems, the depth of our problems, whether they are economic or racial, or having to do with gender or the conflict between, you know, our, the engines of our economy and, and our environment, whatever it might be, that generated the pushback. You know, that that idealistic goal- You know, in some cases turned bitter, in some cases led to deep disillusionment, but the but the heart of it, that belief, that, that we have the potential in this country to be special, and we need to make it true. You know, that still, it seems to me has to be our north-north star as Americans- SM: 1:59:29 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:59:29 -and, and the (19)60s emphasize that. SM: 1:59:34 Well, thank you very much. I am going to turn the tape off and I will talk to you on the other side. Hold on. Thank you. Okay. All right. I am back. That was great interview. Great interview. Yeah, well, what will happen is, I interviewed six people about four weeks ago, and then I interviewed a person yesterday and you today. So there is going to be a new-new tapes that are going to be have to be digital. I think they are already. Yeah, they are already digitized, they just have to be sent to you by email. And then you will listen to them and approve them. And then once they are approved, then they will be placed on site with the other 100-238 that are already up there. And so that and-and I am going to be keeping-keeping doing this as long as I can. So I am going to keep adding and adding to the process that down the road. I am interviewing six more people in a month. So it would be a while a while from now to interview you again, would you be able to be interviewed in late October? FG: 2:00:40 [inaudible] what you are doing is important. Interview [inaudible] SM: 2:00:53 Okay. FG: 2:00:57 You know [inaudible] what we talked about is what I think [inaudible] SM: 2:01:13 You know, I believe, I have conservatives and liberals that I have interviewed. I remember I interviewed David Horowitz. And I brought David to Westchester. He is not liked by a lot of and, and he is kind of crazy in some of his ideas, but I have always liked them. And, and he agreed to do an interview with me and he said, You are the only one you are only a liberal. And I had an interview with I hate because I liked him because when he first came to our campus, some of the liberal professors were ready to go in his throat and we walked out of the room, I said that we are not here for that. He just heard David's here to give a lecture on this is about six. This is about 10 years ago, but-but I read his book, radical son, I do not know if you have ever read it. It is a great book to read because he was the world's number one leftist for a long time. He came from a leftist family. And I think he is kind of gone overboard now with his thinking, but, but I know what he has gone through. He has lost a daughter. He has had cancer. He has done a lot of things. He has written a lot of books, David [inaudible], and he has written books with and Mr. [inaudible] just recently passed. So I just, you know, he is on here, and he agreed to do it. So anyway, but I find that you-you are one heck of a writer, I-I could not put this book down and I underlined it-it is almost ruined with underlines. But the thing is, it is so well, it is, it is, it is history, and I kind of live that history. But I lived it up in New York state while you were living in I was born in 19- December 27, of (19)46. So we are the same age. yet and I admire your time at Vanderbilt, I spent my career in higher education. And I love any university that allows all points of view to be heard, no matter what era. FG: 2:03:10 [inaudible] SM: 2:03:25 Well, I, in my career in higher education, I have met just about everybody from the (19)60s because they all came to campuses. You know, I brought him I was at Westchester for 22 years. And then I was at Ohio State for a few years and I was at Ohio University. I brought David, I do not know if you ever heard of his name? Oh, my golly, people's Bicentennial commission from 1976. I forget the name. He was he was a radical now he is a multimillionaire businessman. But anyways, so I will get you will get this in the mail sometime in the next two to three weeks. And then make sure we have a picture of you that has been okayed, you can mail that to my email address so that we placed on site and a brief interview, then more extensive interviews will be coming forward down the road. And- FG: 2:04:21 [inaudible] very enjoyable [inaudible] . 2:04:30 It is just, yeah, it is the Center for the Study of the 19(19)60s at Binghamton University. You can go on site. There is 238 interviews on site right now. A couple a couple of them have some damage to them. I know Ed Rendell when I interviewed him, the former mayor of Philadelphia. I was supposed to I was supposed to interview him in his office. Well, he got too busy and he says come with me. And so I am interviewing him in his limo going to a funeral. funeral of a fireman. And what happened is he never turned the tape on when I asked him the question he only put the [inaudible] he answered the question. So-so yeah, and we tried to get his family to okay the tape but he has got Parkinson's now and I cannot even be contacted. So we got him on site even though it is just him answering questions. Yeah, but anyways, at least we got so I kind of consider you the CBN Woodward or the south. FG: 2:05:31 Well, that is very flattering. SM: 2:05:34 Yeah, because you know, you are you really are on top of the (19)60s and everything you are right. I do have your new book as I did order it. I do not know what I am going to get a chance to read it. But, but I will be contacting you myself in terms of trying to set up the next interview. And you would be safe and continue writing. Thanks, have a great day. Bye. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Frye Gaillard https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/33a9c216b82c21e02c3e3c4aff1e1bf9.jpg 9f870e0d3b56957ada55b0993db27afc https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/dd8bdf27e8600331b3d0d308f9e407f8.mp3 6b8b78a2858911c85e96707f3471961e 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. <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 2010-09 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Gary Kulik 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="{"1":2,"2":"Gary Kulik is a decorated veteran of the War in Vietnam. Along with being an author, he also served as a deputy director of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library and was the department head and assistant director of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, and the editor of American Quarterly."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Gary Kulik is a decorated veteran of the War in Vietnam. Along with being an author, he also served as a deputy director of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library and was the department head and assistant director of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, and the editor of American Quarterly. Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Environmental Movement; Communism; Robert F. Kennedy; Black Panthers; Civil Rights Movement; Nineteen sixties."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Environmental Movement; Communism; Robert F. Kennedy; Black Panthers; Civil Rights Movement; Nineteen sixties. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 115:57 Subject LCSH Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Authors, American--20th century; Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum; National Museum of American History (U.S.); Editors; Kulik, Gary--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 Gary Kulik Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kulik, Gary ; 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; Authors, American--20th century; Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum; National Museum of American History (U.S.); Editors; Kulik, Gary--Interviews Description An account of the resource Gary Kulik is a decorated veteran of the War in Vietnam. Along with being an author, he also served as a deputy director of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library and was the department head and assistant director of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, and the editor of American Quarterly. 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 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.10.2016.201 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. 115:57 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/aee558c9ba7ec51ab55805db075aaaf7.mp3 b8210ff9bb2f11c31390f8bd395962de 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 Armenian Oral History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D. Description An account of the resource This collection includes interviews in English with informants of all ages and a variety of backgrounds from various parts of Armenia.  The interviews provide deeper insight into the history of the Armenian culture through personal accounts, narratives, testimonies, and memories of their early lives in their adoptive country and back in Armenia.   Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright.  Relation A related resource <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a> Language A language of the resource English 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 Gary Rejebian Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 41:08 Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Rights Statement This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as Armenian Oral History Project, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries for more information. Date of Interview 6/22/2014 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Gregory Smaldone Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Biographical Text <span data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Calibri","16":11}" data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Gary was born in Kentucky and grew up in Binghamton NY. His gradnparents immigrated to the United States during the Armenian Genocide. He went to Hamilton University and currently holds a masters in Journalism from Northeastern University. "}">Gary Rejebian grew up in Binghamton, NY. His gradnparents immigrated to the United States during the Armenian Genocide. Rejebian earned his Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing from Hamilton College and his Master's degree in Journalism from Northeastern University.  He currently lives in Chicago area with his wife and two sons. Keywords <span data-sheets-userformat="{"2":14593,"3":{"1":0,"3":1},"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Calibri","16":11}" data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Armenian; Kentucky; Binghamton; Language; Armenian Culture; Armenian Politics; Armenian Genocide; Armenian Church"}">Armenian; Kentucky; Binghamton; Language; Armenian Culture; Armenian Politics; Armenian Genocide; Armenian Church Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium Armenian Oral History Project Interview with: Gary Rejebian Interviewed by: Gregory Smaldone Transcriber: Cordelia Jannetty Date of interview: 22 June 2016 Interview Setting: Binghamton, NY --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   (Start of Interview)   0:02 GS: Okay. So ready to go, my name is Gregory Smaldone. I am working with Binghamton University in the Special Collection’s Library on the Armenian Oral History Project. Would you please state your name for the record?   0:13 GR: I am Gary Rejebian.   0:17 GS: Okay, Gary. Can you please tell me where you grew up?   0:23 GR: I was brought up in Binghamton.   0:25 GS: What year you were born?   0:27 GR: 1959 in Groton, Connecticut.   0:30 GS: Okay, who were your parents?   0:32 GR: My parents are George and Marianne Rejebian. My father George is a Binghamton native. He was born here in 1929.   0:43 GS: Okay, were your parents immigrants or were they born here?   0:47 GR: No, all four my grandparents came around the time of the genocide. The Rejebian grandfather came actually before the genocide. He was born in 1892 in Hajin, Cilicia/Armenia that is near Adana and so his family was aware of the massacres there in the 1890s and he came as a teenager. There was another Hajinsi by the name of Garig Manian whose family is very well known in California and he came with Garig Manian’s name in his pocket and was, he was a laborer in the Endicott Johnson Shoe Factory and then he eventually he opened Orthotic shop, not a shop, but a shoe repair shop, but he is specialized in orthotics in downtown Binghamton. My mother’s parents were both from the town of Çomaklı also in Cilicia, near Mount Archelaus. They have kind of a different trajectory that Grandfather Garabed came to New York and worked for about ten years before returning to Beirut to marry my grandmother Dikranouhi who was four at the time of the genocide escaped with her grandmother and her lame uncle. They wandered around, I believe even as far as Egypt before eventually settling in Beirut for probably almost ten years. The grandmother Rejebian was a teenager at the time of the genocide and really suffered the worst of the marches and the refugee camps. She also ended up in Beirut and then she was a relative of a fellow in Binghamton ̶  I am trying to ̶  Ketchoyan, and so Ketchoyan was good friends with my grandpa, Peter Rejebian and then he made this introduction at that time it was now 1928. The quotes were closed and Dikranouhi Zapabourian was her maiden name, made her way to Cuba. Grandpa went to Cuba on a gambling junket, married her there and brought her back to Binghamton in 1928.   3:53 GS: Okay, So let us talk a little bit about your childhood. Did you have any brothers and sisters growing up?   3:58 GR: I have one sister, Vivian, who practiced here. We both went through Binghamton high school and she practiced as an orthodontist in Binghamton for a number of years and that is ̶   4:12 GS: Is she older or younger than you?   4:14 GR: She is not quite two years younger.   4:18 GS: Now, did your parents speak Armenian?   4:21 GR: My parents, interestingly, both of them spoke the language but not insistently with us.   4:32 GS: So, they were both fluent?   4:33 GR: They ̶  my father, so my father’s mother, her dad was a school teacher and photographer. So she had a rather more educated knowledge of Armenian and Grandpa Rejebian came from a town that had a very, very idiomatic dialect which was probably about half Turkish. So he had an interesting mix of knowing his father’s dialect although he did not formally speak Turkish and yet every once a while he would come out with these million dollar Armenian words that he had learnt from his mother. So he was, you know, they were of course both were speaking fluent in the language, my mom ̶  I do not think my dad really ever read it fluently and my mom used to read it a bit. But they both communicated with their parents in a mix of Armenian and English.   5:48 GS: Now, did you and your sister grow up speaking Armenian in the household?   5:52 GR: No, no. Entirely English. I have moved ̶  I did my college at Hamilton in New York; I went to North Western for Journalism School for Master’s degree At North Western. My wife is born in Chicago but her family was both from Istanbul. He parents were college educated there. So, you know, the long and short of it was you have married into a Bulsetsi family and you have no choice you need to learn Armenian.   6:31 GS: So you had to learn Armenian later in life?   6:33 GR: I learned it. I learned to read on the L on the subway. I would take my flash card with me and learn a letter a day ̶   6:43 GS: So, your parents did not have you attend any Armenian Language School?   6:46 GR: There was not really that option. I mean I suppose you know there were old ladies who try to teach letters here and there in Sunday school ̶   6:57 GS: But there was never any formal?   6:59 GR: No, the community was not that big. I mean it was not so bad really, there were probably thirty to forty maybe even fifty of us, kids in my childhood, maybe closer to forty altogether. But it was still a small parish and, and we were lucky to get together socially. My mum and her best friend ran the church youth group. So, they had regular ̶  We had regular get together but we did not have any kind of a formal schooling program or anything.   7:40 GS: Okay, what were some ways in which your parents tried to maintain a sense of your Armenian identity and your Armenian heritage growing up?   7:49 GR: Well, they were, they both came from families that were very close to the church. My dad grew up on Park Avenue. Cross Street on Park Avenue within blocks of the church his elementary school, long fellow school; what is there now, I think a supermarket, um, was four blocks from the church. I mean that was an Armenian ghetto neighborhood around Saint Gregory’s. And um, so my entre childhood he was Parish Council or you know, we were in Church every Sunday, I mean within that has been my habit also, um, and my mother’s family was also very close to the church. So, I think it was more a matter of that was our nucleus of our closest nucleus of friends um, and that was our sense of community. We lived it in other ways, you know close to all of our grandparents I was lucky that I knew all four of my grandparents, um, what else would you be looking for, I mean ̶   9:16 GS: You said that, that was your closest sense of community, so your community was fundamentally an Armenian community growing up?   9:23 GR: Yeah, I mean it was very much a sense of one big family.   9:29 GS: Where was the central location for the Armenian community?   9:32 GR: Oh, it was definitely the church.   9:34 GS: And how frequently there would some sort of meeting at the church; obviously there were not weekly church service?   9:40 GR:  Well, actually my parents, yeah there were actually. By the time we got to, you know, grade school age, the people of my parent’s generation had made a commitment that although the Parish had not a regular ̶  It had you know you can check the church history there were periods of regular of Pastorship, but there had not been a pastor in the church for quite a while ̶   10:10 GS: So, you started going to church at the time when ̶  Because before you were growing up there had been periods where the community relied on visiting preachers or splitting preaches ̶   10:23 GR: That was the case but then, you know one of the things that was distinctive about a community like this is that many of the ̶  the founders were ̶  Their families remained in the church and their kids came back or never left and you did not necessarily have a huge influx of other new families that created other new generations in the church. So. it was like this one big long extended lifeline but what I meant to say before was ̶  People like my dad went away for education came back, established their businesses or their practices and, but when they sort all have ̶  we kids around the same age; give or take you know five or ten years in each direction, they made a commitment that they needed to have a full-time priest. And our childhood pastor, father Gorger Kalian who after seven years in the Parish moved back to his native California, was the first graduate of the Saint Nerses seminary and had a good long run here of seven years as the pastor of the church and so we had a very active community for a small community it was enough to keep going on a regular basis.   12:05 GS: Early you talked to me about an Oral History Project you did of the founders of the Binghamton Armenian community. Would you like to a little bit talk about the context in which you conducted it? Who you spoke to, somethings you learned?   12:22 GR: Sure, so the project was initiated by the Roberson Center for Arts and Sciences. The two curators, who landed the grant Ross Maguire and Michel Morison, created a project to do an ethnic biography of the community fourteen different ethnic communities. So, I after graduate school, came home for the Christmas break, my mother casually mentioned that “Oh, they are doing something with immigration history at Roberson.” I went over there, Ross told me just the beginnings of the project, they had maybe been about a year into it, and I did not even ask him when do I start. I said I will be back on Monday. And I did not leave for a year and I just sort of dug in and did the world history interviews in the Armenian community, collecting artifacts at that time they were tons of, not only photos but objects and all kinds of other memorabilia that really told the story of the community. So it was a great time to do work like that because although people like, I am trying to remember so that was (19) ̶ , it was shortly after my grandfather died but he still had contemporaries who were living and lucid, and certainly people like my dad were very aware of whatever they knew they shared. So we mapped out, how did we do it, we mapped out clans and arcs of different stories. I also did a project like this in Chicago and that was much more complex because you have many more moving parts. In the Binghamton community, you had a few outliers like Kevork ̶  who was from Istanbul but most people’s families were from different areas of Cilicia, they came from you know probably half a dozen towns and there was a high degree of inter-relationship. So ̶   14:57 GS: And now were the people you were studying what you had considered the founders of the Armenian Binghamton Community?   15:04 GR: Oh, yeah we definitely hit a number of them, but you know ̶   15:09 GS: What did you learn? What would you say was an important lesson you learned about the nature of how the Armenian community in Binghamton came to be?   15:19 GR: Well, it was interesting to me to see how it elucidated the other immigration patterns that we were studying, you know this is an area with a huge, had a huge Eastern European community, so the stories were, so there were patterns that were repeated but the significant difference for the Armenians was they came out of the necessity of saving their lives as a result of the genocide where many other communities like the Italians or some of the Eastern European communities came just out of economic opportunity.   16:12 GS: How did that difference manifest itself in the Armenian community do you think? What effects did it have on the trajectory that took on the ways, on the community that was built on the individuals who lived it?   16:26 GR: Well so, I mentioned the connections that people had across the ocean and so there was this magnetic pole of the clans of you know, grandpa knew this Hajinsi who was in Binghamton and had a name and had some body to go to, and then you know the next cycle might be the brother comes or the cousin comes or sponsoring the wife and the wife’s family. Let us see this aunt, that great aunt that I was visiting with just told me tonight that her dad supported her aunt, my grandmother for eight years before she finally got connected with grandpa and got married and got here. So, there were all kinds of different connections the compatriotic for very important in keeping people connected to one another. You could have called them in their day they were the internet of the community. The economic drivers of the patterns you know the fact that America was recruiting these legions of labor to work in the factories was a huge part of how the communities came together. And then what else did I learn, for these first generations there was much more a sense of putting down roots in the foreign land, a sense of the Armenian being the foreigner. What was tremendously different for the experience here was that there might have been, there was definitely some bias by you know the sense of the established society the Anglo-Saxon Protestant American you know white-bread society nobody was standing there with open arms. So there was a sense of adjustment, there was a sense of you know not every, these were families that did not necessarily come educated, that did not know the language, did not know the customs. So they had acclamation periods and there was a drive and a desire to start a new, especially when they really wanted to forget what they left behind. They were not people like the Polish in Chicago who would go back and forth, you know who were here in this country specifically just for economic opportunity. So they created a new Armenia in a sense here by planting down new roots and yet at the same time the distinct characteristic of even these Armenians from small towns and small cities in Cilicia that had previously been settled by, with Protestant missionaries that some of them were educated, valued education and strove to really get established, I mean when you think about my dad the son of a cobbler becoming an orthodontist and graduating from two Ivy league schools in one generation is really astounding in a way.   21:15 GS: Yeah, It is. So let us move on a little bit to your, a little bit more of your adult life. Do you have any children own your own?   21:23 GR: Yes, I have, my wife and I have two sons.   21:27 GS: Let us actually start with your wife because you were saying that her parents from Istanbul how did the two of you meet?   21:32 GR: So, we were [laughs] we were casually introduced through a mutual friend. I was, between college and graduate school went overseas and came to Chicago for the ACYOA sports weekend and when I told my friend Debbie that I was starting graduate school in the fall, she said oh I have a friend who is also in graduate school there. My wife, Sona was in the business program and we ̶  It was not really until halfway through the year that we started sort of socializing and so that was how we got to know one another. She was living in Evanston but she was bouncing between the day and the night program and so she had kind of free time and that was how we got acquainted. I came back to Binghamton. I did not expect to find this immigration history project. I wanted to do it. It really sung to me. I stayed a year, year and a half. My boss said at the end of the grant you know it is time to get a real job and he went off to the Fresno Art Museum actually, amazingly. Then I came back to Chicago where I had you know the opportunity to find a job and settled fairly quickly by June of 1984 then I was working in Chicago again. So, we dated for four years, we married in 1987. Our first born, Nicholas Arakel was born in 1994 and we subsequently adopted a baby boy in Armenia 2000, Andrew Artak. And so they are now 21 and 15.   24:03 GS: Okay, did your wife, does your wife speak Armenian?   24:06 GR: Yeah, she came from a family that wrapped her knuckles if they did not speak Armenian in the house. Her father was already a physician in Turkey. Her mom graduated from lise [Turkish: high school]  Her parents interestingly you know their private language between the two of them was Turkish which really is not much different than people speaking English here but they insisted that their kids learn Armenian fluently even my wife taught in the Armenian school in Chicago, one of the Armenian schools in Chicago. And they, because they were of that some different generation had a different take on things now, my father-in-law ̶  came to the US for residency in family practice. That was in 1953, right before the Cristal ̶  of the Turks [Istanbul pogrom, September events, 6-7 September 1955] against the Greeks in Istanbul. So they basically could not go home. And then you know he had come here with the assistance of a cousin in Washington D.C who helped, then helped him find a job in those days you know Americans were hiring foreign doctors as there was a shortage of physicians and, so he although, at the time did not really know much English at all. They knew French. So, they knew the alphabet but they really did not know the language. And started totally from scratch in fact their stuff was boxed up in Istanbul, you know they really came with nothing.   26:13 GS: So, let us go back to your children. Can you re-introduce them for us?   26:17 GR: Yeah, Nick is twenty-one. He is a third year at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. He is Economics and Political Science major. Andrew Artak was born in Yerevan. He is fifteen. He is a sophomore at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois, which is the largest Jesuit high school in the country. Both boys went, Nick also graduated from Loyola.   27:00 GS: And both boys grew up in Binghamton?   27:02 GR: Both boys grew up in Evanston. There is a home we bought which is the town just north of Chicago, we bought our home in 1989 and both kids were ̶  Both kids came home on Christmas Eve and you know, grew up in that home, that same home.   27:22 GS: Did your children grow up speaking Armenian?   27:25 GR: Yeah, actually I have remained ̶  I have become very active in both the church. The Evanston Church had a lot of connection ̶  My mother had a lot of relatives in the Evanston Church and there were a lot of Çomaklıs in the Evanston Church. And I lived all my ̶  the years that I lived in Chicago, I have lived in Evanston. So, that was my home Parish in the area. And So I was very active in the church. I also served as a Parish Council Chairman and a Parish Council member but we also have ̶  We were one of the few towns that has an AGBU center or building and I have been the cultural chair there forever.   28:26 GS: What are your responsibilities as a cultural chair?   28:28 GR: So, I plan community activities and we also have a small Armenian school there. Actually, it was not a small school when Nick was a student, we maxed out the capacity of the school at fifty student and you know it dwindled over time but I got private foundation support to do ethnic identity and cultural heritage programing.   29:03 GS: So, you said the school had about fifty students but fifty kids is about the size of the Armenian community that you said you grew up with. So, would you say a fair statement is that the Armenian community you were growing up in now has a larger population that was speaking Armenian than other Armenian communities at this time? You know at this time in history not over the course of the twentieth century but now well into the twenty first century? Would you say it is a goal?   29:49 GR: I do not know that is a right comparison you are talking about you know, a town, Binghamton had a number of families, Binghamton had you know there is a whole other disenfranchised Tashnag Community if you will that was not active in the church here ̶   30:14 GS: What do you mean by Tashnag community?   30:15 GR: The people who politically were nationalist and/or rather anti-Soviet in their political believes and that community was pretty strong in Binghamton ̶   30:31 GS: Can you explain the difference between the Tashnag and what would ̶  the other community be called?   30:37 GR: Well, I mean that is the name for the political party ̶  Tashnag is the name for the political party I do not know that, you know you could say that there were other political parties that were more sympathetic to the Soviet Republic whether they were Hunchakian or Ramgavar, you know, it was more a nationalist anti-Soviet and other you know. And I am, I am really of a younger generation that did not get involved or enmeshed in that politics ̶  it really did not matter in my generation ̶     31:25 GS: Let us get back to ̶   31:27 GR: But I want to get back to this whole like the idea of ̶  to have, first of all two Armenian schools in Chicago. The main differences that the Antelias Diocese, you could call them the Tashnags had one central Perish in the metropolitan area. So they are much large ̶   31:50 GS: In which metropolitan area?   31:51 GR: In the Chicago metropolitan area, so they had a much larger critical mask where the Diocese churches that were aligned with Etchmiazdin in Soviet Armenia, then Soviet Armenian, had you know, there is a total of eleven communities in the Chicago area right, and so the other, they are only four that were from with Antelias, the others were ̶   32:17 GS: What does this have to do with speaking Armenian now?   32:20 GR: What I was trying to say is that you are looking at this huge community and the fact that this one school had fifty kids does not necessarily equate to the fifty the total population of fifty children ̶   32:36 GS: In Binghamton ̶   32:37 GR: Like that school should have had a hundred and fifty kids right! The building only held fifty and we were happy and fine now we might have a dozen or twenty students.   32:48 GS: So, you would say that the portion of children speaking Armenian is about the same in the Chicago?   32:53 GR: No, no, no, it is gone down and it is much smaller. I do not think, you know the kids I grew up with very few of them really I mean I knew some words but they did not, I did not necessarily feel like I grew up speaking Armenian and my ears were full of it but I did not actually learn the language until I married into a family where there was no choice. So, my contemporaries here did not have that much of a base to build on. You know I am kind of an anomaly.   33:30 GS: Do you think it is important for the Armenian community that people continue speaking the language?   33:35 GR: I think it is a very traditionally held belief and you know sociologists like Anna Bakalian have done studies about, wrote a whole book about from being Armenian to feeling Armenian, what does that mean and how does the community identify and then you got you know other whole programs like birthright Armenian trying to reconnect people who do not have any sense of their Armenian heritage with their homeland.   34:10 GS: What do you think is the ̶  What for you personally is the most important part of your Armenian identity? Would you call yourself an Armenian, an Armenian American, an American Armenian, an American?   34:30 GR: Most important part of the identity is claiming it is your own. However you choose to define it and having affinity for any aspect of the culture that resonates with you personally. So the traditional way of identifying it is based from this perspective of, I am trying to stay focused here but, the traditional perspective is you know; oh, you are not Armenian if you do not speak the language because the language is the window to the culture and all that business. But it is all based on this idea that you are you know an Armenian growing up and an Armenian in an entirely Armenian community of some sort. Even if you were an Armenian in Beirut or Bolis or someplace else where you had a large critical mass and these people could sort of live only amongst themselves or they have so much of a community that their, that defined who they are which was definitely the case in major cities, diaspora cities. Clearly the great divide for coming, Armenians coming to America is that they no longer lived in a hostile land. So, how do I see myself, you asked you know, I mean I would probably say that I am Armenian American.   36:51 GS: And what do you think it is that makes you Armenian?   36:54 GR: Well, what I meant to say ̶   36:57 GS: Is it that you speak the language, is it that you grew up in church, is it that you grew up in Armenian family, is it the food you ate?   37:04 GR: No, it is really a lot of different things. For me, all those are indeed elements of my cultural identity but I still go back to the idea that the sense of claiming it is my own, is the most important element of, you know it matters to me that this is who I am and where I came from, and the part that is living vibrant and now here and now for me is that where I have the opportunity to ̶   38;07 GS: Let us move for a second. You said that you, you know, you raised your children to speak Armenian, you sent them to Armenian school, I am assuming you also raised them in the Armenian Church, what other ways did you try and give them the sense of Armenian identity? What other things did you do with them? Did you ̶   38:26 GR: Well, this is where I was going. I mean what is important to me is that they know some, what is important to me is that they relish living aspects of their cultural history and so I invested a lot of time in producing lectures, theatre, music, art you know anything that showed Armenian creativity or the Armenian story and, so I think an interest in that literature, an interest in that an ongoing interest in it and investing of yourself to keep that living in your community by producing another event, by helping promoted I mean probably people tell me that I am very well known in Chicago because I bother to promote whatever I hear is going on in the community to a larger audience and it matters to me tremendously when a major cultural institution like the Art Institute of Chicago, world famous cultural institution does some exhibit that involves an Armenian like Yusuf Karsh the photographer or you know the University of Chicago is producing a concert by Armenian musicians. And I think that you know, that is where I feel a sense of responsibility as an Armenian to seek out that kind of enrichment in my own life and to help promote it so that the world knows, the larger world, the first that my local Armenian community knows and then the larger world beyond that Armenian community knows the contributions of Armenians through the culture and the world they live in.   41:04 GS: I think that covers about everything, thank you very much for your time.   (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>. 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 Gary Rejebian