Transcripts For CSPAN Cities Tour - Fayetteville Arkansas 20180223

But the next hour, a book tv exclusive. Our cities tour visits fayetteville arkansas to learn more about its unique history and literary life. For seven years now, we traveled to u. S. Cities, bringing the book seen to our viewers. You can see more at cspan. Org citiestour. Hi, we are standing here with jason, who will be providing us a driving tour of fayetteville. We are standing in front of the walkers stonehouse. We have a sculpture. That is one of the many public pieces of art we have here in fayetteville. What are we going to see today . , we are going to take a tour of the historic and entertainment district. We are going to head up to the university of arkansas. And we will also get a lovely view of the highest point in fayetteville. Are you ready to go . Lets get out of here. We are on our way. This is one of my favorite spots and all of fayetteville. It is a oneway street, pretty quaint. On either side we have gtx, we have we have boutiques, we have a few places for food. We have bars or nightlife locations, and it leads us to downtown fayetteville square. Why do they call this historic square . What makes it historic . It is on the historic registry. The Old Post Office here is another place in fayetteville at his home to a lot of different events. It is smack dab right in the middle of the square in downtown fayetteville. How many people live in fayetteville . 83,000 people live here in fayetteville and at the university, about 23,000 of those people are students. People big, eclectic of who live here. That is one of the charms of fayetteville, no matter where you are from, most people find something to love and find a place for themselves here in fayetteville. What we are coming into now, dixon street in northwest arkansas. It is not very far from the square. Those two areas make up the entertainment district. This is the walton arts center. Part of the fabric of northwest arkansas, and it is here in downtown fayetteville. There are multiple broadway here. That tour through they also do a lot of work in that the community. They have a jazz series. They feature local artists sometimes. The have an arts gallery that features both local and regional art. They are about the national and International Grand scope as all the way down to the local people. At supported and showcased walton arts center. And what we are on right now, this street is becoming a cultural cooridor. Library and it is in the middle of an expansion project. Withthe expanded library, artser square, with the center on one street, it is really expanding our arts district. I have noticed a lot of locally owned businesses here. Why is that . I think that the walton emily and walmart have a lot to do the Walton Family and walmart have a lot to do with that because they support the entrepreneurs. We have one of the highest per capita amount of nonprofits and that the nation, and that is due to the fact that the Walton Family, walmart supports that, the philanthropic efforts of that organization and those people have helped to lay the framework for local business, for nonprofits, and for this area. Handstive, holding vibe that we all feel. Does fayetteville connect itself to walmart or the university . That is a good question. I think bentonville would connect itself more wholeheartedly with walmart. However, we were just at walmart center. One of the things you get into is it feels more like a region than a specific city. Although all the cities in northwest arkansas have their own vibe, there really is just ridges between each others cities. The university of arkansas has a big footprint here with the student population and everything that comes with having a university in a town. But walmart also really works to serve northwest arkansas. Where are we now . We are on the university of arkansas campus. There are 27,000 students who go here to the u of a every year, which impacts everything with the economy of fayetteville and northwest arkansas in the general. The university, talk to me about the diversity. In northwest arkansas what you will find in the general and in fayetteville is, because of the university, it is eclectic. It is diverse. We have in washington county, just to the north, springdale has an enormous latino population. A lot of our efforts here in northwest arkansas are to figure out the bridges between the caucasian, the africanamerican, the latino populations, racial integration populations. Racial integration was in the 1980s. Again, it speaks to that hand holding hand kind of thing that fayetteville did then and still has continuing on to today. We are going to come up here and i will turn right and we will go past old main, which is the flagship building of the university of arkansas. It is on every postcard that goes out. Right in front of old main is our arbitrary hi arbortorium. Each tree from the state is represented on the lawn. One thing that is interesting and unique is that when you graduate, you have your name etched in the sidewalk. We are winding through the entire campus, our sidewalks have names on them. More sidewalks to lay names of future graduates. This goes back to 1905. Students voted that they wanted to make that a thing. Lets do something that is different, so lets touch our names lets etch our names into the sidewalk. They did it retroactively as well. And they have razorback stadium. What is the mascot and why . Have theas did not mascot of the razorbacks initially. One of the coaches told his team that he wanted them to get out there and get after the team like a pack of wild razorback hogs. That locker room speech stuck with the student body and they adopted the name arkansas razorbacks. Our cheer that we call the hogs. The Agricultural Department has certain ways they would call the hogs to come in and eat. It is feeding time, pigs coming in here and eat your slop. Can you do it . Oh yeah. Ohoh pig sooey ooh pig sooey ooh pig sooey razorbacks [applause] [laughter] you have to do it three times. People think it is one time and done. No. Dont wimp out after one, everybody. [laughter] three times. You have to go falsetto, and you have to go pig sooey. No turning back. We are going to the top of mount sequoia. See, we were just in downtown fayetteville and we are headed up to the mountains that overlook the city. If you could tell our audience a little bit about what it means to be in the ozark region. The ozark region is beautiful. Rock climbing,s it means streams, it means hills, it means outdoor activities. And there are cultural things. There is a style of music. There is a style of dress that you will find. Some people still adhere to that look. That the perception of a isnty bumpkin necessarily who we are anymore, and we dont want that to be rejected and have people think, arkansas, take your shoes off. There is such a rich cultural history with the storytelling, the music, the dress, and we want to celebrate those things at the same time. It is like either side of a coin here. We are up at the top of mount sequoia. We are overlooking the city of fayetteville. You can see everything appeared from the artse and entertainments district to the university of arkansas. We can see stretching up to springdale and rogers and bentonville and up to bella vista and eventually up into missouri, our neighbors to the north. This is mount sequoia. It is a beautiful overlook. It is inspirational, you know, to take it in. I prefer the word ozarker. It is someone from the ozarks. But when you are dealing with identity, certainly a person who is a native of the region is more likely to identify themselves as an ozarker or an ozarkian. But the ozarks region covers most of the southern half of missouri, much of northern and northwestern arkansas, northeastern oklahoma, and the physical ozarks region even lops over to the very tip of southeastern kansas. So it covers parts of four different states. Doesntural ozarks necessarily correspond with the physical ozarks. There are people who live in the physical ozarks who would not identify themselves as an ozarker for ozarkian. And there are people who live outside who would. The trilogy i am working on is called the history of the ozarks. It is published by the university of illinois press. It comes out this year. S. Is called the old oark ozarks. It is a history of the ozarks before the civil war. Theres a brief history a brief chapter on prehistory. I am not an archaeologist, that is why it is a brief chapter on prehistory, but it looks at native american lives in the historical period in the ozarks. Of thely settlement first europeans who came into the region who were generally french, who came down the mississippi to spread westward into the ozarks, and of course the thousands of u. S. Citizens who poured across the mississippi in the 1790s and continuing into the early 1800s. In the museum of ozark history here in springdale, arkansas. It is the premier using on the history of the ozarks from prehistoric days to the 21st century. Actually isrks cobbled together here in the mississippi valley. It has french and American Indian roots and has been anglicized. It comes from old the old french practice at Arkansas Post on the mississippi river, which is certainly a different region than we are in now. That is all the way across the state from here. But french riders at the post would often sign off their oux, arkansas. They eventually shortened that to ozarks. With the british and the u. S. Born citizens coming to the region, they anglicized the spelling into ozarks. Oux,t dates back to the ouxarks. Region in thend middle of the north american continent. It is the only real Highland Region between i should say the ozarks in combination with the watch a talk with the mountains, the ozarks make up theitas Rocky Mountains and the appalachian nonsense. You get a lot of physical diversity within this Highland Regions from prairies. Area thatt the springdale, arkansas, fayetteville, arkansas, it is a prairie type area. ,f you go 15 miles to the south you are in more of a mountainous area. There are a lot of these subregions within the ozarks, like the Boston Mountains south of here. Lots of other subregions that really give the ozarks region a lot of diversity, physically speaking. My interest in the history of the ozarks dates back to my undergraduate days. I went to school in the age of the ozarks. At that time it was a Little College called arkansas college. Ozarks, in up in the just didnt really know it. Identity is a funny thing. When i grew up, i associated with the i associated the ozarks with places that ozarks,i just didnt really know it. Branded themselves as part of the ozarks. We watched tv channels out of springdale, missouri springfield, missouri. I thought thats where the ozarks must have been, in springfield, missouri. But i was an undergrad and in the library at the college, and i came across this book called the ozarks land and life, written by a geographer named milton rafferty. And there is a map of the ozarks. I am from the ozarks, i grew up in the ozarks. I knew i grew up in the hills. We were still people we were hill people. That i had Never Associated myself with the ozarks. I became fascinated with this point. I devoted my life to studying the history and culture of the ozarks and to try to define what that means and trying to sort and reality in the story of the ozarks. Most of the 19th century settlers, and especially the war settlers in the ozarks came from appalachia. Or at least came from what we call the greater upland south, that came from anywhere from piedmont, North Carolina to middle tennessee. From Eastern Kentucky and southwestern virginia, and what is now west virginia, and northern alabama, and northern georgia. The greater upland south area really supplied the majority of settlers here. You transmit those cultural practices and religious practices, and everything is bundled up in the culture and gets transmitted from places like east tennessee and Eastern Kentucky to the ozarks. We share a lot in common with that region. The culture of the region has been defined largely by people of Northern European descent who were protestant. And not just protestants, but typically evangelical protestant. Especially,aptist who were for the most part rural with at least a few small towns and small cities in the 19th who transmitted that culture, whatever you want to call that. Culture thatican and created in appalachia middle tennessee and places like irish and the scots people of english dissent, people with german dissent, a handful of scandinavians thrown in there with cherokees and other native american groups. Slaves, free blacks, all those people create this upland south range herding of cattle and hogs. And hunting and trapping as a real crucial element of life, along with their religious practices that they bring with them, and their music which tends to be scottish and irish with german influences and some african influences. And all of that gets transmitted the area and that the upland south, east of the mississippi, over to the ozarks. Get is the culture that you and the culture that people have come to associate with the ozarks, just in the national consciousness. It is the same culture that making out corn whiskey traditions and moonshining, that kind of stuff. It is a culture that could be violent and could be very close minded. Alsot was a culture that ss anded a certain hardne toughness for people to survive in a region like the ozarks, where much of it was a rough and unrewarding place. And then the you did have these oases like northwest arkansas thrown in there. Thatnk one of the things has defined the ozarks, at least in the late 20th century into the 21st century, is that the region did stay somewhat homogenous into the late 20th century. The region was one of the extensive places in america. It was a place that was still heavily evangelical protestant in a religious orientation, and part of that was part of that not a lack of, but a shortage of Economic Opportunities in the ozarks. You dont get a lot of people moving into the ozarks. There is not a lot of dynamic social and cultural stuff going on because there is not a lot of dynamic economic stuff going on. So the people tend to stay the same generation after generation. Im not saying they are not modernizing or driving model ts were listening to radios, but ethnically and religiously and culturally, there is a tendency to stay the same over generations. Into theme you get latter half of the 20th century, you have the preservation of old timey music, so the ozarks become very popular for folkies in the 1950s and 1960s, and there are folk festivals everywhere and banjos and fiddles all the time. It takes on that image of a place that time forgot. But even then, you were just talking about even pockets of the ozarks because you have other places like northwest arkansas that were quickly modernizing. But in the last couple of decades of the 20th century, and certainly in the 21st century, demographics have changed. There has been a tremendous migration of people who do not come that Northern European, protestant heritage. Whether they are of hispanic descent. Have aplus arkansas, you large percentage of people of hispanic descent now. You have the marshallese, you have people from africa and asia who are coming in. Some of them becoming farmers, chicken farmers in northwest arkansas and southwest missouri. Peoplee had an influx of who have certainly changed the demographics of the region over the last generation or two. In the same period, you have opened up the region to an influx of retirees from the midwest and from the north. So things, just in my lifetime, there has definitely been a hatever thetion in w culture of the ozarks is. I am not even sure what that is anymore. We hold onto that historical, like themodel, but rest of america, it is a place int is very much changing recent years. Fayetteville to me has always almost an away so inin many ways an oasis many ways and the ozarks. It is in the springdale plain, which is a prosperous region of the ozarks. From those earliest days, fayetteville was a beacon of progress. If you go back before the civil war, arkansas at the time of the civil war had three colleges, three institutions of higher learning. Two of them were here in washington county. One was in fayetteville and the other was a little outside of fayetteville. States a lot of the early leaders from the fayetteville area. Chairy who served as the of the secession commission in 1861 was a lawyer and a judge from fayetteville. Fayetteville has an outsized importance in the state of arkansas and in the ozarks in it is half a dozen years after the civil war that the state of arkansas decides to put its Flagship University in fayetteville. Happens, you can look at statistics today and will look at the process and look at the prosperity that comes with universities. That goes back into the 19th century. Ownuniversity created its bubble of prosperity around it. Beenyetteville has always ozarks and inthe arkansas. Theme of theg trilogy, and it has been my theme for most of the books i have done on the ozarks over the last now almost 20 years, is aat the region is more microcosm of the United States as a whole than it is strange, unique other that exists out there that we can come and marvel at and look and say, how point and unusual this is. How quaint and unusual this is. An academic terms we use the term exceptionalism. My argument for a long time is that the ozarks in the totality isnt necessarily an exceptional place. It is special to me. Hads my home and i have ancestors who showed appear to hundred years ago who showed up here 200 years ago. But it shares more in common with the general american historical narrative than it differs from that narrative. It is one of many regional on that big, broad American History theme. And people who read it and dont know anything about the ozarks will recognize a lot of the things we know from American History that happened. We have got our own little version of that here in the ozarks. Important the most thing that the American Population does not understand is that it has not always looked the same, especially in the American South. The penitentiary really didnt exist in the south until after reconstruction failed. And when the jim crow laws were passed, all the Southern States would the exception of tennessee passed statutes that if you were not in a labor contract, you could get 30 days imprisonment. These states were refilled with the same who wanted to secede and preserve segregation and slavery. And they built prisons to warehouse these slaves and put them on plantations and forced them to do labor there. They were slaves for the state. They were not paid for their labor. They produced tons of goods and services that had penitentiary labor, and that became a part of the economy of the states after jim crow was seemingly over. Between the 1920s after world 1960s,l the way to the you see the growth of those penitentiaries and the funneling of black labor into this informal state economy that is buttressing state power. When africanamericans started organizing into what we call the modern civil Rights Organization, which happened after run the board, you see tose new opportunities manage the black bodies that are not conforming to what the state wants to do, either as producers or consumers. So they start getting funneled into the prisons. But what i found is these civil right activists and black power activists went into the prison and learned a lot about the functioning of power, state power, local power, police power in the going into local jails and prisons, and they brought it act out and it helps them transform organizing and the relationships they formed. It had an effect where going into the prisons intentionally to fill the prisons as a way of resisting the state also then said mass incarceration. In the early part of the Civil Rights Movements, these preachers and housewives and local Business People and schoolteachers and janitors, they went into the prisons to save their kids futures. They saw how the prison functions in relation to state legislators and governors. That really shaped the way that black americans and civil rights spaces related to both the movement and politics in ways that were profound and still have influence on organizing. I was interested in prisons because they exploded so much since the Johnson Administration. Now we call it mass incarceration, but the moment when the american psyche turned toard the prison as a way manage anxieties about new rights given to women and people of color and students, those anxieties really found a place in the american prison system, which grew as a result of activism. The birth of what we know as mass incarceration starts during the Johnson Administration as a way to manage anxiety about all these groups who are protesting a lack of rights. Activiststhose writing about from prison and how did prison shape them and what did it teaches them and what does it teach us and what does it continue to shape to teach us . And as a result, how did the president s respond and how did municipalities respond to the fact that their local jails and penitentiaries were being filled with activists . It changed a lot of dynamics between federal and state governments and municipalities in thinking about how quickly, for in reality how slowly to grant citizenship to the disenfranchised. You have mass incarceration of all these lack activist going all these black activists going into prison. The consciousness was one that tried to reassociate blackness in the southern penitentiary and the failure of reconstruction and contemporary black wife similarly black life similarly to slavery. It begins in 1966. Carmichael and Martin Luther king had marched together. Stokely had gone into parchman inson, a penitentiary mississippi, probably the most brutal in the United States at that time, and he had been eaten and went and they had he had been beaten and whipped. Meant to break the wrists. He was tortured there. And coming out of that experience in mississippi after the freedom summer in 19641965, stokely was more radical. They needed resources and they needed them now and they could not afford to wait to build this christian goodwell and teach everyone christian good will and teach everyone nonviolence. They continued to march together, constantly pushing king to talk about blackness instead of negro. They say that negro is a term that white people have given us. It is close to the n word. By the end of 1965, stokely had king talking about blacks. And that linguistic shift that king makes from the growth of gro to bl ism ne fromficantack cash negro to black is significant. Stokely says these kids would not be saying these things if you would give them the formal Political Rights they are entitled to by virtue of their citizenship. And lbj deals that have sold him out. Reasonable had this relationship with Martin Luther king and the Civil Rights Movement, and as the movement becomes more urban and vocal and fed up with the lack of progress, they have to find other ways to articulate what they want. Black power fills that space and begins to radicalize not just black youth in the cities, but kids. Ng about newriti ways to define lack experience, all the backdrop of the war of the war in vietnam. Black power has nowhere to go except back into the cities to organize black youth. Instead of they start organizing around Police Brutality and the war in vietnam and the fbi. At that point, lbj has lost control of the civil rights message and it collapses. The idea of protest collapses into crime. The fbi says, you are protesting for workers rights or a civil rights protester, all of that is criminal activity. And that is out new conservatives saw civil rights activism all the way through the nixon administration. I am particularly interested in two parts of activism. What kind of documentation were produced inside of prisons and reflects the prison experience by activists . Those are things like kings letter from birmingham jail and the memoirs written in a prison or after prison that are circulated about that experience. What i am also interested in is the way activists talk about that experience as ways of intervening into public consciousness. As olm x autobiography massive bestseller. It goes out of print and is reprinted. It is the Gold Standard in terms of memoir. In 1965, assassination dozens of activists use that template to write about their experiences in prison and to think about the relationship between being black and being imprisoned. In those thatd tells about black consciousness thetell us about criminalization of poverty and they tell us about black networks and they tell us about how black americans viewed the political system and how they operated within political structures. They tell us all kinds of interesting, important things about how black people have survived under Surveillance Police states for so long. As i am interested in how they talk about their relationships within the movement. ,elp they talk about resistance having families as an act of resistance. How they think about closeness with other activists, how they think about collective shared trauma. These are spaces where they invent new ideas and for an vernacularsnd new and words. It is all new ideas. Those are new ideas that have a ton of value in organizing. I think one of the Biggest Challenges for creating a new generation, for just for the emergence of a new generation, is the privatization of prisons. Because they are not public, they also dont have accountability or transparency. It is hard to get news crews and because they are not part of the state system. There is no public accountability for them. See any possibility and the future for there being any kind of transformative prisoner activism within the private prisons that leaks outside the prison because they have so disappeared inside of that private, enclosed, gated, surveilled space. It is very hard to do. Concerned citizens, privatization should be eight red flag should be a that people and information disappear from public view in ways that consolidate power for the ruling class. In ways that privatization is articulated, whether it is in the context of education, that should be eight red flag that should be a red flag. They are being stuffed into a state economy with no oversight. The story of this interracial couple is a story that began sometime in the early 1880s. Sheriffs a very popular who had been elected to five consecutive terms. Landowner, was married to a woman who was white named martha, and had two children, isaac junior and laura. Was ari as far as we know housekeeper. The census revealed she had a daughter, but at the time she met isaac, i am not sure that daughter was still alive or with her. There is no record of her. The daughter was not reported in the newspaper in the series of articles that they mention isaac and missouri. The story of this interracial couple would have been a story that would have been fairly common in the American Southern interracial sexual history. A white man meets a much younger black woman and they have a sexual relationship and they go on about their business. But it did not go that way. Their relationship grew stronger, closer, and at the point, they crossed state lines into memphis, tennessee and this couple married. They had a child at that time, and we know this because of eyewitnesses that the newspaper reported on. The minister who married them was the principal witness of the child they had together. Isaac was going separate families, one black and one white, and keep them apart. His problem, he had many problems. One is it was a legal to marry across the color line in tennessee as it was in arkansas. He was already married in arkansas. Will explain it later. He thought he was going to keep it secret, but it became public knowledge. To the public that had elected him to be a sheriff, they were very angry with him when this story came to their attention. When first asked about it, he denied it. But as more evidence came, it became something that was hard for impossible to deny. The arkansas gazette published a copy of the marriage license. Again, this was something that was a real problem for any white man in the American South at this time because of the laws and the customs that for paid this type of that forbade this type of relationship. It went on. Isaac bankston is eventually andcted by tennessee court, the state of tedeschi seeks extradition the state of tennessee seeks extradition for violating the law. Upon hearing that the state of tennessee had a warrant for isaacs arrest, arkansas city, desha county officials arrested Isaac Bankston and placed him in jail to be held until police could come and retrieve him for court. Isaac bankston was not about to wait to be extradited. Instead, he broke out of jail and headed to greenville, mississippi, which was very far away from arkansas city. He broke out of jail because he had helped construct that jail, so i am sure he had very practical awareness of that jails limitation. It was in greenville that another sheriff recognized a poster that was seeking Isaac Bankston, now a fugitive from justice, and arrested isaac inkston and he was held greenville, mississippi until the tennessee captain could come and take him to memphis to stand trial. At this time, missouri had been arrested as well and they were both going to be tried for violating the tennessee miscegenation law. There was a special prosecutor that was brought in from arkansas city. A man by the name of james coates, who knew Isaac Bankston for simile. He would lead who knew Isaac Bankston personally. He would lead to prosecution. Isaac bankston represented himself. He defended himself. Men, 10 were of 11 white, one of them was africanamerican, a Police Captain at the time. I mention that because i think that is an important part of this story. 11 men who would judge a white man, or a man who was believed to be white, on the case of having a black lover who he married. Isaac bankston did not refuse the fact of the marriage. The marriage license revealed the fact of the marriage. What Isaac Bankston did was challenge a lot from the basis of the prohibited groups for marrying. Served histon country, which was the American South, during the civil war as a white man. He decided that in his defense that he was no longer white, that he was in fact a native american. And there was no prohibition against native americans and parenting an africanamerican marrying an africanamerican in tennessee. And he was right, there was no prohibition. And he made his case by the testimony of the minister who married them. The minister said he thought that Isaac Bankston was a man of color. The county clerk who issued the marriage license says he thought isaac banksston was a man of color. Personal men had reasons why they would want to argue this, because it was against the law for a minister interracial couple, and it was illegal for a county clerk to issue a marriage license for an interracial couple. But maybe they really thought he was a man of color. Bankstonne is, isaac won his case in one day, without much fanfare. Again, a wonderful story. Lots of things we can learn about these laws, about southern norms, and the story itself is interesting and also informative to readers. But it goes on. The next part of the story involves notions of southern honor. Students of southern history learn that in the south, southern men had a responsibility to defend the name, the family name. The higher your social rank him of the more important that responsibility was. They also had a responsibility to defend women in your family from any insult, any type of scar, mark on their mutations. Mark on their reputations. The social condition of his white wife and his children, his been children, had all ofpromised by the publishing the fact of his marriage and also this court case. And so, he needed in his own mind to have been this light to his this slight to his family owner. The person he found to find retribution against was the special prosecutor, james coates. Day, ht june day, hot coates was an attorney in arkansas city. They met him on the steps of the courthouse and began cursing him. Isaac had a stick in one hand and a side arm, but he pulled out his stick and began hitting the special prosecutor. Special prosecutor tried to get away, but isaac cap beating him t beating him. He longed for the knife and stabbed bankston, and coates died immediately on the steps of the courthouse. Isaac bankston would died two days later. This is how the story of isaac and missouri ended. Decidingnstead of which family to go back to, he decided that he had to avenge his southern honor, and he did so in his own mind, but he also cut short his life. I think there are many lessons we can learn from this story. We like to throw the word around common people. And yet their story is an important one with life lessons. We get a better understanding of the tenor of the times, how rice played itself out in the civil war period, the reconstruction era. I mention other interracial couples in this book so they can see the challenges other interracial couples had when they attempted to cross the color line. The end of the day, that great story to me needed to be written so that people would know that this actually happened in American History. It is not a fictional account. It is a factional it is a factual account that is extraordinarily interesting and important. I had experienced right after ana was improved i had experience right after daca was approved. There was a woman i profiled. I asked her to come speak to my class about being undocumented. She showedd up up. It was a small class. The professor had shown a movie, so all the lights were off. Spotlights on a table in the front of the table. She came in and was dressed professionally. I remember she puts her purse up on the table and she reaches in her purse and pulled out her and says, i am going to pass this around because it is worthless. A few seconds later, she reached into her purse and pulled out a Social Security card. Ship gotten that the night before and not told me she had gotten that the night before and had not told me. And then she pulled out her authorization card so she could work legally. What we saw was a young woman who had a life, who had a future, who had a hope. I think that is the motivation for many of us involved in the dreamer movement. We have educated these young people, we have invested in them, they are part of our communities, they think of themselves as americans. Yet we deny them opportunity. The dream act was passed by congress in 2001 to deal with the growing problem of undocumented youth. Dick durbin, a democrat from the state of illinois, and orrin from, a republican senator utah, introduced a bipartisan bill to provide the means to provide undocumented youth additional, lawful status here in the United States. But also an opportunity for them to get permanent residency status, which allowed them to get a green card and eventually citizenship. It had brought bipartisan support it had broad bipartisan support. 70 of americans are in support of the act. Yet it has been stalled in our congress for 18 years. Not ann attempt attempt, an executive order by that occurred in the year 2012. What daca refers to is deferred action for childhood arrivals. And what it did overnight was provide these young, undocumented people the removal of the threat of deportation. But they are also given work authorization. Hours,literally within one million young people were able to have the opportunity to apply for daca, moved out of the shadows, and become full participants in our society. Arrive pier 1rson imports six years of age and are now in their 20s. 65 of them are still in school. Met with a group in september right after president trumps announcement that they would get rid of daca, resending daca. Rescinding daca. They are married, they have children who are u. S. Citizens, they have mortgages, they have jobs and are pursuing the american dream. They are buying more, paying taxes, they have a much lower crime rate than the nativeborn population of this country. It is beyond my comprehension why we cannot recognize the contribution of these people and make them part of society. By the way, they think of themselves as americans because they were raised in our schools and worked in our neighborhoods and attend our churches and are part of our communities. 43. 7ve approximately million firstgeneration immigrants. Population. of our but when you add the number of children lauren in the United States with at least one foreignborn parent, one out of four americans is first or Second Generation immigrant. We have not seen these numbers since the 1890s, when we had about 50 of the population of foreignborn. In booklist arkansas, we have about half a million. 15 is foreignborn. When you add children born to at least one foreignborn parents, one third of the population is first for secondgeneration immigrant. We are in this period of profound demographic change, and it scares an awful lot of people. We are told immigrants suck money out of the economy, when the reality is hispanics make up 13 , 14 of our population. But when you look at the total spendable income of the United States, the university of georgia showed their spending trillion, 10 of the national economy. To economy is tied o hispanic spending. Make up 6 of the population, but they generate the same amount of spending trillion from immigrants alone, responsible for 20 of the spending in an economy like ours. It is actually amazing, and we dont hear about that, the thatt and Important Role immigration plays, not only in driving the spending in our economy, but also doing things like providing the labor or paying into medicare for which no benefits, or other programs we have occurring at the federal and state level. The argument is these young people came here illegally. We have a nation based upon the rule of law and they should be returned to their home country and apply and wait in line like everybody else. If you are in the United States illegally and you return to your own country, you cannot reapply for another decade. Lets say you are 18. You go back to mexico. You cannot even really apply until you are 28. It takes about a decade, 10 to 14 years to get a green card. You are not coming back. That is the reality. The second argument is it is very costly to our society to have these undocumented young people here. All these services we associate with raising young people. Most americans dont appreciate the fact that immigrants and undocumented immigrants pay taxes. Thirdly, it will change us. By ms. Will change our culture. By midcentury, it will change. I like to refer to it as we are no longer the majority. This change is unsettling to many people and it drives our current the measurable impact is 800 dozen junk people are able 800,000 young people are able to have not legal status, but the right to work. They no longer have to worry about going to walmart or the dry cleaner or restaurant, being stopped and being deported. So what i picked up in the young people that i work with is the remarkable improvement in their psychological wellbeing. That fear factor was gone. Education,s their they can use their degrees, they can be full participants in a society which they already thought they were members. So to me that was the immediate and important impact. For our society the most important impact is that we can use this Human Capital we have invested in. They can about it, we are squandering the talents of a couple of million young people who we have educated. We have provided health care, we have provided all the services needed for developing a child to age 18. Daca or the dream act is not religiously did come it is the word i want to use, is hundreds of billions of dollars lost to our economy. Unless you are of native american ancestry, you are an immigrant or the child of an immigrant or you have an ancestor who was an immigrant. Nation is based upon the immigration process and we have a long history, oftentimes unaccepting of immigration. But we have accepted people from all over the world, we have moved them into the fabric of our communities, in fact, we are very proud of our immigrant past. Most of us have built into our identity, i am germanamerican, or my family came from france, or whatever. So i think if we still be look to our past, think about our present in the transition that we are currently going through, i think we realize immigration will shape our future and a very, very positive way. William fulbright was a longtime senator from 1944 to 1974 serving arkansas. Before that he was a representative, a u. S. Representative from the northwest arkansas area. He was the youngest president of the university of arkansas, the end is universally present in the United States at the time, from 1939 to 1940 one. He worked for the department of justice. He was a rhodes scholar. He was a distinguished alum from the university of arkansas, star football player, president of the student body, native of fayetteville. As a senator he was a very extent with sky very extinguished guy. Internationalr in affairs. He was the longestserving chair of the Foreign Relations committee for the u. S. Senate, particularly during the cold war, but always its one of the popular positions in the United States and the world. He saw a lot of budgets and was key in negotiations and diplomatic policies. He had that role. He was a fierce advocate for the state and the people of arkansas. As a representative he was a dynamic a little i dynamic political figure and a leading figure, nationally. Senator fulbright gave us his papers to the Arkansas Library from 1972 and then we acquired several additions to the collection. Collection of those pooled, its a very large collection and we have associated archives to go along with it. If we were to look at everything related to senator fulbright and the fulbright programs we would be here for months and months. Well look at highlights from the papers, some images and a few books the senator wrote. What we have here is one of the really, really important images that we were able to preserve and saved from the fulbright papers. This one has what would turn out to have decades of significance. This is senator fulbright with president Harry S Truman and william benton. Fulbright is witnessing truman onning the fulbright act august 1, 1946. This act establishes what we have come to understand the fulbright program. Since then scholars from more than 150 countries from all over the world participated in the fulbright program. That is something he will hopefully be known for forever. Its one of the most impactful Exchange Programs in the history of the world. Ofwas elected to the house representatives from northwest arkansas, representing us in washington dc in 1942. He just left the university of arkansas and he was only there buddy already44 did impactful things. He laid the groundwork for what would become the fulbright alsoam, but he was instrumental in the u. S. Participation in what we have come to understand as the United Nations after world war ii. Whathis is a speech for became known as the fulbright resolution, where hes encouraging the United States to help establish this International Body to resolve issues, to help nations get along, to use Diplomatic Solutions instead of, and really to avoid, another world war. Fulbright as a very young representative of these state in washington, presenting an idea and very forcefully making an argument for an idea of what will become the foundational one of the foundational institutions that will shape the 20th century and 21st century, which is the United Nations. Photograph from senator fulbrights papers with shows a Pivotal Moment in his career, and also sheds light on what the u. S. Senate perhaps used to look like, or what could be at its best moments. Senator green from illinois, a republican. And he is handing over the gavel for the Foreign Relations committee to senator fulbright. And looking on our couple of noteworthy individuals. About to become president the next year, john f. Kennedy, and a guy who is about to become president three years after that, William Baines johnson. Democrats have taken control of the senate and fulbright becomes the chair of the Foreign Relations committee. He remains chair and the longest continuous run of anyone in Foreign Relations. This graphic is from 1963. Its significant in that it is documentation, and the official copy given to the senator of the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban treaty. We have senator fulbright over there and then we have the premier of the soviet union, nikita chris jeff, here in the middle. Khrushchev, here in the middle. One of the things he was doing is Foreign Relations Committee Chair was helping diplomacy lead the United States, and other nations around the world, to avoid nuclear annihilation. Here are documents from the fulbright papers that show the complexity of his political position as a southern senator, and also the compromises and maybe if you interpret them, mistakes. Even as distinguished a leader as senator fulbright makes mistakes over a long political career. Here is the southern manifesto, or a draft of the southern manifesto, which several southern senators signed on to. They gave remarks on the senate floor, basically opposing brown versus the board of education and the federal integration into school desegregation. Said theynators werent necessarily opposed to racial equality or School Integration but their stance was, as many of us are before, basis, atates rights states rights opposition to it. They didnt think the federal government of the Supreme Court should be the ones forcing immigration. Senator fulbright signed the southern manifesto and throughout his career, particularly in the 1960s, he became very well thought of and revered for his stances against the vietnam war, and this would dont him later in his career. After he left the senate, it was something his career would be stained by, his opposition to full integration early on. He was he u. S. Senator from arkansas, and the state of arkansas does have a unique distinction in that several of our Smaller School districts embraced integration right after 1954 and brown v. Board of education. The little rock crisis, the state came to an understanding, the white majority in the Democratic Party, and there was opposition to u. S. Opposition to integration and National Guard troops and all that. Right over here is some writing he did to help shape the southern manifesto in a different way. In a way you could think it is a caveat that he put in there. In a way it was softening the manifesto. He didnt want it to be about racially quality or inequality, he wanted it to be about forced integration. What we are looking at right here is a photo from our picture collection at the university of arkansas, and it documents what for razorback fans is perhaps one of the most important events that ever happened here, or one of the most disappointing events, anyway. Thats when the university of the Arkansas Posted what was called the game of the century, a regularseason game between the number one and number two teams in the country, texas and arkansas. So it was an important game in every but he wanted to take it and if you were a political powerhouse at the time you were able to get a ticket. So really remarkable people attended the game, and in the stands, sitting together, we have senator fulbright right here in his fine half observing the game. We also have the current president at the time in 1969, richard nixon, attending the game right there. Hereve this gentleman over with the beautiful beat texas button, john paul hammerschmidt, a longtime congressman who would lose his First Political race against a future president , george h. W. Bush, right there attending as well. Looking toward the camera. Then the guy our library is actually named after, the president of the university at the time, david mullen, all watching the game together. They did end up losing that game in a thriller the game. So what we have here are two , iners, several actually the fulbright papers that are from president johnson. Johnson was a longtime leader of the senate, majority leader in the 1950s, he came president after kennedys assassination and he and fulbright were both and had a goodrs relationship and were good friends. But they also had a lot of disagreements during their time together. Thats true of Major Political leaders in the country. Of the letters we have, to our very, very telling. This letter is on the white house letterhead from johnson, so its an official letter. Its actually a very long letter, he writes a long piece to senator fulbright and what he is doing is explaining the state of asia, as he sees it. So johnson has been to asia and met with World Leaders over there. He is talking with people on the ground. He is talking to their military. And he is trying to convince senator fulbright that the people of asia really, really want us there. They want this in vietnam. They want us in cambodia. They want us fighting communism. He said asia approved of the u. S. Efforts there, and of course senator fulbright is quickly coming to the opinion, this is 1966, again, that this is not the case, that the war is a mistake. The this is a personal letter, dear bill, where Lyndon Johnson is really just explaining, not even asking for fulbrights support. This is the way i see it, its a three page document on the letterhead saying, im trying to understand that what we are doing is the right idea, and at the end of it bill says at the end of it he says, i wish you could think that way, bill. Dateden theres a letter november 18, 1968 and it begins ,ith him and i will read it dear bill, congratulations on your reelection. You and i have had our differences before under mastic issues, yet we both served america and the best way we knew how in a. Of in a time of immense challenge and progress. So fulbright is elected yet again but johnson takes time to write fulbright, and fulbright had opposed many key initiatives at this point, but he said, i know we disagreed on many things but we were both really doing the best we could for the country. What we are looking at here are two photographs of many, senator fulbright with the other famous politician from arkansas, bill clinton. Bill clinton and bill fulbright had a close and friendly and very warm relationship for decades. These are two photographs from fulbrights papers that show fulbright at the very end of his career, almost at the end of his after bill clinton has ascended as the most powerful politician arkansas. Powerful politician in arkansas. He and bill clinton are sharing a war moment on the dais. Later,ouple of years bill clinton has become president in 1992, in this photograph is from 1993 and clinton has the honor of presenting the president ial medal of freedom to his idol and mentor, bill fulbright. , and what cancord nations due to really invest in the future. He saw a long way beyond his state of arkansas. Nternational conflicts, cultural misunderstandings, ande things always happen nations like the United States and other nations dont want war, we dont want conflict. We want a world for the future. Fulbright is one of those people shows you how you learn about the world and then you use your for him your gifts, and it was writing, research and political acumen. Had he you use your talents to shape the world how do you use your talents to shape the world . Im flattered cspan would ask me to represent what is a very talented, Creative Community in fayetteville. So much going on here, both at the university and in the community at large, and im gratified that the rest of the country will find out about that. Prisoners of hope in 2016. It was a followup to my autobiography of Lyndon Johnson. Programrns the domestic of the 1000 pieces of legislation johnson and Congress Passed the between november 1963 and 1968. Well, johnson has been getting much more attention than when i began writing the book. So he is beginning to get his otherut compared to reform president s, theodore roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, he is still very much in the shadows. People usually remember two things about Lyndon Johnson. War, which is justly regarded as a disaster, and civil rights, which is generally regarded as a triumph. But there was so much more. To theas, in addition 1960 four equal accommodations act and the 1960 five Voting Rights act and the 1968 fair housing act, there was medicaid, medicare, the first federalaid to education legislation, the war on poverty, Community Action, the first clean air and clean water legislation, the publicilderness act, television and public radio were created by legislation passed as part of the Great Society. The department of transportation, the immigration , whichch dramatically bill schwab writes extensively formed andh was modernized the immigration system in this country. Arguably, the Great Society legislative program that was enacted in the 1960s was the most significant, or among the most significant in all of American History. Conservatives denounced it. Liberals tended to retreat from it a bit in the 1980s and 1990s, but it has dramatically changed american life. There are a number of reasons the program hasnt really gotten its due. There is johnson himself. Most academics of my generation were part of the antiwar movement, and they have never forgiven johnson for thrusting us more deeply into that quagmire. The there is the all power thelot community tradition, country particularly, the cultural establishment, worships the kennedys and still regards johnson as a usurper, someone who came in and took credit for what john f. Kennedy really created. In looking at this program and looking at the Great Society, its somewhat surprising that you have a Reform Program of this vigor in the 1960s, because the country was then relatively peaceful, relatively the movement was a product of widespread resentment against farmers and robber barons on wall street. Were peopleives worried about being crushed by captains of industry and millions of immigrants. The new deal was a product of the great depression, massive unemployment suffering grade so why and how did this Reform Program appear . How did it come to be . Well there is a couple of obvious answer to that. Rights movements came to fruition, the modern Civil Rights Movement came to fruition, in the 1950s and montgomery after the bus boycott in 1954 the Civil Rights Movement became a truly mass movement. Previously, it had been driven by a leitz who tried to use constitutional law to achieve nondiscrimination any quality. And the southern christian leadership conference, young blackes and College Students became involved so you had a really truly, mass movement. Public opinion polls showed there was a dramatic turnaround in white attitudes toward civil rights in the south after the birmingham marches of 1960 three, which were widely televised. So johnson and his colleagues in congress were able to capitalize on that sentiment, on that kind of, took advantage of that window of opportunity. The cold war played a role. Are of, those of you who my generation will remember it and others read about the launching of sputnik. The soviets put a payload into firestormching off a of controversy here, widespread thenciation of administration, academia, the Scientific Community falling behind in the global struggle of communism. It touched off a wave of soulsearching and indeed, in reaction to that, in part with part jackdy in kennedy road into power. He ended the democrats promised a new frontier, promised to create a new national purpose, promised excellence in education and science. That certainly played a role, i think, in the Reform Movement that johnson presided over. And then there was a revolt of the youth in the 1960s. Magazine in 1960 predicted that by the quarter that by the end of the decade, one quarter of americans would be under 24 years of age. And use, working class lower middleclass youths in this country went about their business as usual but others, other students, more active students in berkeley started the free speech movement, conservative students, and then famously students for democratic society. Huron statement in 1962 was a statement by this new, activist, leftleaning coalition of students. On segregation, jim crow, it was an attack on the militaryindustrial complex, it was an attack on liberal capitalism itself. This energy,h, certainly provided some of the the greatenabled society, these reforms of the Great Society to take place. When americas socalled greatest generation was at the height of their power and influence, a generation that had survived the depression, defeated the axis powers, many had grown bored with the complacency of the 1950s and many of them embraced, if amporarily, the notion of raciallyjust society, a society in which there was equal opportunity for all. Hen there was johnson himself various programs and policies of the Great Society were germinating in his mind from the time he was a child. He was influenced by his grandfather and father, both of of whom were populists. His mother was a liberal baptist and a journalist. Influenced, when he was a senior in college, he was studented he was a taught at a community in south texas. Of an the principle allspanish Elementary School there and saw firsthand the blight of discrimination and segregation. Seniorn though he was a in college he became a champion in the community for social and Economic Justice. He went to congress as a new dealer, he was a disciple of Franklin Roosevelt and established a liberal record as a congressman from the district which included austin, the most liberal area in the state. He acted primarily in a conservative manner when he was in the senate representing the state as a whole. But then, after he became president , quite suddenly after Jack Kennedys assassination, suddenly he saw before him this opportunity to fulfill the reform dream, the dream of reformers that had been evolving throughout the 20th century. The idea behind the Great Society was to create not a society which featured equality of condition, but equality of opportunity. In a sense, it was fundamentally conservative in that respect. He built on Franklin Roosevelts idea of positive rights. Up till roosevelts time, liberals focused on limited government and negative rights, the right to free speech, the right to assembly, the right to worship what you wanted, whatever god you wanted. Roosevelt talked about positive rights, the rights of every american to good job, the right of every american to a decent education, the right of every american to have the children experience Decent Health care. And that was really what drove the Great Society. Johnson and his colleagues and supporters wanted to expand what the definition of american citizenship meant him a to include these positive rights. But also, he worked to extend it for citizenship to people who had not yet experienced it, which included hispanics, africanamericans, poor people peoplelachia, the south, who were, for example, excluded from Social Security because had priort employment, those kinds of things. Johnson, had prior employment, those kinds of overwhelmed. Goldwater in the election in had a conversation with bill moyers, one of his confidence and proteges. And he said bill, weve got 22 months to enact our program. And he said, what are you talking about . You just won the biggest landslide in American History. And he said, believe me, we have 22 months to get what we wanted done. He said there is the old conservative coalition, the lines between southern democrats and conservative republicans had been blocking progressive legislation since 1944. He said there may be enthusiasm among some whites for civil rights now, but there is going to be a backlash. We have a window of opportunity, i window of opportunity there. There is also the political calculus involved. We will, in the next 22 months, expend every dollar of Political Capital we have. And when that window is closed, its closed. There were also other factors that he did not anticipate, some of which were generated, were a product of the very reforms that were passed during the 1960s. Part of the war on poverty was something called the Community Action program. This was the darling of the new left, something the office of Economic Opportunity incorporated. It involved organizing poor people to participate in decisions about their economic and political welfare. Good to johnson. What happened was, chicago and boston again demonstrating against local governments, many of which were in democratic hands, which created a political thestorm which threatened political consensus that johnson had created. One of the programs that the oao funded was the National Welfare Rights Organization. Johnson had promised that the Great Society would make taxpayers out of tax eaters, as he put it, take people off the welfare rolls. Purpose of the Rights Organization was to change lunch challenge restrictive relegate regulations. Their aim was to put as many people on the roles as possible. That undercut the Great Society. The new left960s, had turned on the liberal establishment. The Great Society did not go to as far and fast as they want they began to attack johnson and the Great Society reformers on the left, from the left. Rightwere attacks on the as well. Johnson and Martin Luther king are southerners. They knew about jim crow in the south. They knew about lynchings, segregation in the south. And that was their focus. They were ignorant of the civil rights the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in the north. A much different situation. See Northern City cities, occupied by millions of africanamericans, who had immigrated there after the second world war, to take defense jobs, did not experienced legal experience dissemination. They could vote. There were not lost mandating separation laws mandating separation. They were the victim of informal discrimination, market forces, public policy, and prejudices and prejudice, so that millions of africanamericans were isolated in decaying inner cities. Was whitesaw midwesterners and northerners acting to bring social and Economic Justice to blacks southerners while denying it to blacks who lived in their own community. And what you had to was what you had was a series of increasingly disruptive riots. A terrible right occurred five days after signing of the Voting Rights act, something johnson said he could not comprehend. After consulting with king and black leaders, he tried to associate problems in the nations ghettos. The violence only got worse and worse and worse. It provided an opening for conservatives. Campaign, the 64 argued that the war on par really was part of the war on crime. Juvenile the legacy and urban issue in theome an kennedy administration. And he argued the war on poverty as theay to fight crime urban writing and disorder increased crime. As the urban writing and disorder increased, conservatives turned it around on johnson. They were arguing that the war on poverty was facilitating violence in cities. This immediate needs with burning and looting. They denounced the war in court rrenprivileging the wa for privileging the victims of crime. And the idea that the new deal itself was creating an entitlement community, fostering dependency, a lack of discipline and selfcontrol. By 1966 the war on crime had become a war on the war on party poverty. And of course there was vietnam, something that johnson had sensed as a cloud on the horizon from the beginning. It was one of the things he mentioned in his discussions with moyers. He sensed it was something that he was not going to be able to control. Aitially, there was consensus, and johnson was driven by consensus politics. When he campaigned, he did not attack individuals or groups like doctors were immigrants. He attacked abstractions like disease and poverty, brilliant, i think. And there was in fact a consensus that supported both the war in vietnam. Ar warriorsl cow believe there is a connection between our acting in vietnam to save the nonwhite peoples and from scourges of communism. And what the government was doing in the south eliminate jim crow. Writingurban domestically rioting domestically, and the blunders the u. S. Made in vietnam, the free fire zones, the massive bombing, and our continued support of what was obviously a corrupt regime destroyed that consensus. So you got 1968. Johnsons abdication. Martin luther kings assassination. Assassination, the convention, and ultimately the election of richard nixon. But as i say in the book, the Great Society the house that was the Great Society may have gone to the ground, but the Foundation Still remains. But i tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that foundation is under assault right now, as it never has been before. As was the case with conservatives after the new deal. They denounced it rhetorically, but did not do anything substantive. During the reagan administration, it attack virtually every aspect of the Great Society, but except for regulations, not do anything about medicare, medicaid, federal aid to education. But that situation has changed, i think. Thank you for your patience. I will be glad to take questions, if you have them. I was wondering, i cannot remember, john kenneth galbraith, did he play a role in the johnson and administration . He was a great new dealer. I do not remember if he was an ok he was in the background. I love him because he wrote a blog for the fulbright book. [laughter] mr. Woods he was a prominent figure in the kennedy administration. He was one of the Charles River thellectuals that formed liberal base of kennedy constituency. He was ambassador to india. Johnson not have much to do with him because of his sort of postassociation with the kennedys. Albert was one of those people in 1964 dow breath was one of the people in 1964 who told liberal election rules that they needed to forget their prejudice against texas and johnson and focus on the ideals he stood for. He played a significant role in winning over or slow dividing johnsons support in 1964. I noticed that liberal is not a word that is used anymore, is it, because even liberals have been one of have run away from that. We are now progressives, right . Won his jorite william fulbright, and he had a tense relationship with johnson said johnson. Can you talk about their relationship . Mr. Woods it was a conflicted relationship. Fulbright was not intimate with the kennedys, was not a member of the hickory hill cloud crowd, but he was an intellectual, rhodes scholars, and forstablishment him, johnson was socially repugnant. He believed he was a wheeler dealer. He came to change his view on that. Wasjohnson came to believe but what fulbright came to believe was as the war in vietnam progressed and we continued to support a reactionary regime in the name of freedom, and johnson had sold out to the radical right in this country. And he was also angry that he was not named secretary of state. [laughter] johnson remarked his speech saying he was not going to run, he was talking, and said, we really mishandled fulbright on this. He we could have kept him in the tent, and it was a mistake not to have done that. Robert also told me magnet harry and dean rusk that vietnam was his fault and his fault alone. Something was absolutely wrong, but it was revealing about that. Edgar hoover appeared appealed to the worst in Lyndon Johnson. It has been repeated that Lady Bird Johnson appealed to the best. In formingr role some of these ideas that were a part of the Great Society . Mr. Woods thanks. She was not involved in policy. Manicdepressive he knew it. Depressive. He knew it. He could work himself into an absolute frenzy, and he would go to these long times of depression, he would not get out of bed, he became paranoid. Of 1964,e convention when the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was challenging the regular party and causing so bed stress, he took to his and declared he was going to take his marbles and go home. She was the counteraction. She was the emotional support, that kind that gave him context and balance. She appealed to his better nature, if you will. She has a story in her own right. She came to her father and her folks in alabama were hardline racists, hard, tough people. She had to experience her own epiphany in terms of civil rights, which she did. But it is an interesting relationship. Emotionally fraught relationship, because the daughters say they never saw lady bird cry. How many of you can say is that about your mothers . Do you do any firebreather is over there . [laughter] if you could comment on the level of bipartisanship that was required to achieve mr. Woods great question. Compared to the current climate, how the country club road, republicans work. Mr. Woods johnson was a consensus. Future created the Democratic Committee because he cannot Pay Attention to them. And he reached across the aisle. Look what he is dealing with politically. The Democratic Party is divided between northern and western moderates and liberals and Southern States segregationists. That is his own party, ok . So he has got to have republicans want. I mean, as much as 40 to 50 for many thousands of pieces of legislation. Johnson rossed the johnson treatment where people think he is threatening them or he is going to take their bridge away from that. It is much corn ear than that. Johnson was given to this patriotic address. Do you love your country . I know you can not vote for this issue if you are from south carolina, but by god, you can vote for federal education. Or you can vote for medicare. And he and at the height of the 1964 equal accommodations act, he had to have everett dirksen, and he says, ev, you got to decide whether you are the party of lincoln or not. It is time to put up or shut up. And he got it done. Person. Was a rough, raw but he had this kind of spiritual quality. He invoked the almighty more than all other president s combined, including abraham lincoln. You know, he told a group of journalists onetime at the 1940 constitution of the United Methodist church would serve as a fundamental document for any good republic, any help the public. He took advantage of the fact that the other damages, there was a religious revival in this country between 1945 and 1965 of unprecedented dimensions. It is estimated in 1945 and were probably 45 of americans identify themselves with some form of church, religion. Why 1965, it was 65 . By 1965, it was 65 . If you look at the Civil Rights Movement, the clergy, jewish, catholic, all brands of protestants, really stepped up to the that. Much different than today. Much different today. If you did a history comparing specific churches that spanned , andelical or pentecostal some baptists, although johnsons mother was a southern baptist, bill moyers was a baptists. But if you look at their stance on social issues and the transition that has taken place between 1965 and now, absolutely astounding, absolutely astounding. The congress was so much a then becausemal senators and representatives knew each other. They met on a daytoday basis. They had a staff of maybe three. R four now my understanding is the loneliest congressman has a staff of 20. She is on a committee, that staff that committee has a staff of 20. The art segregationist was talking to another senator in a cafeteria khamenei said im going to donate 50,000 to Hubert Humphreys election campaign, the mayor of minneapolis projected championed the civil rights platform. He said if this could gets back to my people, it will kill me. It was good for the senate. He has integrity. He knows what we are about what the whole operation is about here. And while we have lost our way long,t regard is a torturous story. I do not me to preach, but the republic compromise have become a dirty word politics has become a dirty word. Compromise and politics are the essence of democracy, the nutrients of republican government. Without them, we are a dictatorship, fascists, communists, totalitarian. What is the alternative . Turned ourmed back on the very processes which make this country at least what it hoped to be, enable it to really try to achieve its promise. How to get back to that, i do not know. Everything about johnson was johnson was he was a great exponent of the vote. He was talking to whitney young, and said you got to get your people out there in rural alabama and mississippi, you got to get them in their and get those people to the polls. And when he said, he will do that, mr. President , but, you know, their prejudice is so strong among poor white it will not make any difference. Johnson said, that is not right. We get particularly, if a society in which somebody has enough to eat, has a job, and can educate their kids from their going to vote in their interests and in the general interest as well. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case because now we have people who are actually voting against their own interests, which is for me i do not me to preach, but that is a troubling element. Has transcended liberalism or conservatism. I do not know if you heard max boot on npr. Max loot is a neoconservative. I think he is wonderful. He is very conservative. He said i do not have any hope anymore. What is supposedly a Republican Party now is nothing has nothing to do with traditional conservatives of. Individual rights, immigration, Republican Party has traditionally been a chamblee champion. Ronald reagan, free trade, International Initiatives and cooperation. And he said, White Supremacy is not a conservative value. So he said, basically, to david works in the new york times, a conservative, my book is about liberalism, and i have got a very nice review in the weekly standard, which is william kristol, and archconservative. These people are concerned that they had different views of human nature. They had views on how to create a free, open, and prosperous society. And in that debate is where we have lived throughout most of our history. That is not what the debate is about anymore. You had another question. I need to stop preaching. [laughter] since you opened the door talking about current politics, as it relates to this, how would you speak to the role of the had, that johnson operated there, as opposed to what we see today . Mr. Woods johnson had a terrible relationship with the press. He did not understand what the free press was. Was the relationship between texas politicians and texas newspapers and broadcast media. And it was you do me this favor and i will do you that favor. He wanted to have that relationship with the new york times, the washington post, and he could have had a very Good Relationship with the press. But the press then and the press now is different. That is not true. I think that the old core of immediate that existed then still exists, it has been whichin with new outlets, are now now, i do not know what anybody should be surprised by fox news it is owned by rupert murdoch. Word is an australian, is he not . In the british empire, traditionally objective journalism is regarded as ridiculous. Paper or an outlet is to take an ideological and policy position and drive that position. And so in that sense, fox news in that kind of tradition. But the key is you have to have some kind of counter. Caps on got to counterweight to that. Thein the other thing journalists write about, the sort of pornography of the press, the press obsessed with superficiality, with their to privilege fundamental issues and fundamental questions at the expense of gossip and namecalling. Know i am a historian. I do not know about the past. [laughter] mr. Woods i do not know anything about the future. And a a time now half do address with my and i have to address this with my students, cause they had their lives. Me, what difference does it make . But they have their lives to live. One of the ways to look at it is we are the cusp of change, and change creates a great deal of backwash. Many people feel threatened by change. And change is accelerating. So it may be that we are if there is not a chaos there he can you have these periods of chaos and a new order comes out of it. So that may be what we are experiencing. For our kids, maybe they will say,back in 20 years and that was the beginning of a new era. I hope that is so. I think it is. Having said i do not make traditions, [laughter] mr. Woods but i do. The people created the basic fundamentalist institutions in this country were pretty amazing, and the institutions are pretty amazing. It has occurred to me that coming out of world war ii, a lot of the people in congress were veterans of that conflict. There may have been a greater sense of idealism and obligation toward making democracy work. Mr. Woods yeah, absolutely. This is a point ive supposed to make and i did not. Orld war ii was the good war. There was good and evil. More or less. Moral boundaries were clear. The world war ii greatly enhanced Franklin Roosevelts moral authority and his reputation. In his domestic Reform Program was wrapped in that moral authority, its legacy benefited from that moral authority. The vietnam war diminished Lyndon Johnsons moral authority. Of enhancingead his repetition and influence of his Domestic Program and his philosophy, it undercut and damaged it. I am not sure that is the answer to your question, but it is sort of the answer i once again. I am not i wanted to give. I am not sure people are less idealistic now. I do not see it in my students. Justin uses a most people want to do good. Johnson used to say most people want to good. The issue is to sing pushing between what is good and bad, and that is not only always clear. One of the things ive talk about the book and the pair box paradox a reform. Of reform. Would you spare me five minutes on this. It is significant. The thrust of the Great Society programs were nondiscrimination and quality opportunity. The 1965 various groups were telling mr. Johnson that was not whites,that poor africanamericans, hispanics had started in the race to make, they had handicaps. So he delivered a famous speech at Howard University in 90s is high where he coined the term affirmative action. Are startingpeople a 100 yard race at the 50yard line, and others are starting at the 100yard line, to use his analogy. He meant by that soft affirmative action, commitment to not discriminate by federal agencies, programs, and businesses. Affirmative action can you have a life of its own. By the 1960s, there are those who are arguing for hiring coaches, arguing that quote is, arguing that ethic of a gender Makeup Makeup of the workforce should reflect the makeup of the community in which it resided. Created another problem, a dynamic, because the Womens Movement in this country, the Civil Rights Movement in this country, was based historically value, treat everyone the same, equally. So when hard affirmative action came around, it created a terrific dilemma. The whole idea of a home in of action was anathema to conservatives, but it also conflicted liberals as well. So and all these issues interesting today these issues, medicare, medicaid, federal aid to education, Voting Rights, all of these issues are on the table again or on the board again. Again, that seems to me an indication that we are undergoing a chaos before order. Hopefully, we are reexamining these values. Hopefully at least from my point, the values are will survive. [applause] our visit to fayetteville, arkansas is a book tv exclusive and we showed it today to introduce you to cspans cities tour. For seven years weve traveled to u. S. Cities bringing the book scene to our viewers. You can watch more of our visits on cspan. Org cities tour. And a look inside the national harbor, maryland just outside washington, d. C. Our live coverage of the conservative Political Action conference annual dinner will st