Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV Visits Fayetteville AR 20180203

Years and theyre strong and they kind of stick with us, no matter what we do, as you have seen you go outside this museum and you travel around northwest arkansas, theres fortune 500 companies, theyre a Major Research university, theres all kinds of businesses and industry and hightech stuff going on out there but those images, those stereotypes, will theyll stick with us and theyre kind of theyre part of our story. We begin our tour of the local Literary Community with a visit to the university of Arkansas Library. To learn more about the life and accomplishmented of jay William Fulbright. James William Fulbright was a longtime senator serving arkansas from 1944 until 1974. 30 years. Before that he was a representativea u. S. Representative from the north arkansas area. He was president of the university of arkansas, the Youngest University president in the United States at the time. From 1939 to 1941 and worked for the department of justice, rhodes karl, a distinguish el alum of the university of arkansas, star football player, president of the student body, writer, and he is an amazing guy. Also a native of fayetteville. He was a very distinguished guy. He really important stuff, stuff that has lasting implications. A leader in international affairs. He was the longest serving chair of the formulations committee for the u. S. Senate, which particularly during the cold war is one of most powerful position necessary United States and the world. You can a key in negotiations and development of diplomatic policy. So he had that role. He was also fierce advocate for the states and for the people of arkansas. So, as a representative he was a dynamic political figure, as u. S. Senator a leading figure nationally. Senator full bright gave his parents the university of arkansas lie flare 1972. Then we acquired different additions to the collection over decades. So, we have a selection of those. Its a very large collection and then associated archives to go along width. I with looked at everything related to senator fulbright and programs we would be here weeks and weeks and months and months. Instead well look at highlights in the papers as well as images and the books that the senator wrote. A couple of other thing toy height lows checks at the university of arkansas. So what we have here is one of the really important images that we were able to preserve and save withty fulbright papers and this one has what would turn out to have decades of significance. This is the senator full bright with President Trumpan and william benton, fulbright is witnessing truman signing the fulbright act. This is the act that establishes what question come to understand to be the foughtbright program later. Then sin thence school from around the world, more than 150 countries participate in the Fulbright Program. It is one of the most Impactful International Exchange Programs in the history of the world. So he was elected to the house of representatives for northwest arkansas, representing news d. C. In 1942. Just left his role as university pratt, university of arkansas, and he was only a rep from 1942 until 1944. But within that time he did some pretty impressive things. He started laid the groundwork for the Fulbright Program later and also was instrumental in the United States participation in what we have come to understand as the the unite nations and he encouragings the United States to help establish this International Body to resolve issues, to help nations get along to use Diplomatic Solutions instead of real to avoid another world world war. So he was a very young representative from his state in washington, presenting an idea, very forcefully making the argument for an idea of what would become one of the foundational institutions that shaped the rest of the 20th 20th century and 21st 21st century, which is the ununun, united nationsun, this is africa senators papers which is a Pivotal Moment in his career also and sheds light on what the u. S. Senate perhaps used to look like or what it could be at its best moments. So, right over here is senator green from illinois, republican, and he is hand over the gavel for the Foreign Relations committee to senator fulbright. And then looking onunder a couple of northworthy individual, you have the guy about to become president , john f. Kennedy and then the guy going to become three years after that, which is us is Lyndon Johnson so johnson is the majority leader in the senate because the democrats have taken control of the senate. And fulbright has become the chair of the Foreign Relations committee. This is 1959 and he remains chair the longest continuous run of anyone as chair of Foreign Relations, 1959 until his resignation forgot senate . 1974. This graphic is from 1963. Very significant scrapbook in that its the documentation and the official copy given to the senator of the sign offering the Nuclear Test Ban treaty. We have senator fulbright then the premiere of the soviet union, khrushchev right here in the middle. Khrushchev looks serious, always looks serious, full bright u. S. Pleased. One thing was helping diffuse conflict and helping diplomacy lead the United States and other nations to avoid very real nuclear annihilation. These are documents from the fulbright papers that show the complexity of his political position as a southern senator, also the compromises and maybe some of the maybe if you would term it, mistakes that even as distinguished leaders a senator fulbright make over a long political career. So, right here, is the southern manifesto, or draft of the southern manifesto, which several different senators signed on to gave remarks on the senate floor, basically opposing brown vs. Board of education, and the federal intervention into School Segregation in the south. Several of the senators would have said on a personal level they werent opposed to racial equality or school integration, but that their stance was, as many of us have heard before, its a states rights approach, states rights opposition. Didnt think the federal government or Supreme Court should be forcing integration. Senator fulbright signed on to the southern machine fess stow and throughout his keir next 1960s, as he became very well thought of and revered for his stances against things like the vietnam war, this would dog him hater in his career. After he left the senate, its something his career would be stained by. His opposition to full integration early on. He was a u. S. Senator from arkansas. And the state of arkansas does have a unique distinction in that some of our Smaller School districts embraced integration right after the 1954 and brown v. Board but as of 1957 and 1958 with the little rock crisis the state has come to an understanding the white majority was opposed to integration, especially in the way it looked like it was having with federal enter generalization, National Guard troops and all of that. So physical bright made a political calculation. Over here is writing he did to help shape the southern manifesto in a different way. In a way you could think of this as caveats. So he is softening the manifesto, didnt what it to be about racial equality or racial inequality. Wanted to just to be about federal intergeneralization and opposing force integration. Were looking at a photograph from our picture collection at the university of Arkansas Library of special collections. It and documents what former for raise youre back fans is one of this more important event happening ear, or one of the most disappointening, when the university of arkansas hosted what was called game of the center. A regular season game between the number one and number two teams in the country, texas and arkansas. So it was an important game and everybody wanted a ticket, and if you were a political powerhouse at the time you were able to get a ticket. And so actually we had some really remarkable people attend the game. In the stands rite here, all signature together, we have senator fulbright right here in his fine hat. Observing the game. Closely observing it. We also have the current president at the time in 1969, richard nixon, attending the game. And we have this gentleman over here, with the beautiful beat texas button, thats john paul hammersmith, a congressman, the person that bill clinton would lose his First Political race against. Future president s. George h. W. Bush is right there attending as well. Looking towards the camera, and then the guy our library is named after, who is president of the university at the time, david mullens. All right here watching the Football Game together. The proud moment at the university of arkansas, even though we did end up losing that game in a thriller of a game. So what we have hear are two letters of several, actually, in the fulbright papers from president johnson. Johnson was a long time leader in the senate, majority leader in 1950s and then became president after kennedys assassination, and he and fulbright, both as southern senators, had a very close relationship and were good friends and a lot of disagreements over their time together as two of the Major Political leaders in the country, and of the letter wed have a selected two that are really telling. This letter right here is on he white house letterhead from johnson, an official letter but you can see its a very long letter. A long piece, to senator fulbright, and what he is doing is explaining the state of asia as he sees it. So johnson hayed has been to asia and had met with World Leaders, met with people, talked with people on the ground and with the military and trying to don vince senator fulbright the people in asia really want us there, want us involved in vietnam, want us supporting cambodia and fighting communism he says the World Leaders in asia approve of the United States evers there. Of douser senator fulbright is quickly coming to the opinion that this is 1966 again thats not the case. The war is a mistake. So, this its a personal letter, dear bill, where Lyndon Johnson is asking well, really just explainingdo not even asking for fulbrights support. Saying this is what is going on for real, the i sigh it. A three page document saying, im trying to understand it. I think what were doing is the right idea. And at the end of it he says, and i wish you could have been there with me. Wish you could have seen what saw. And then a couple years later, a letter dated november 18, 1968, and it begins with ill read it dear bill, congratulations on your reelection. You and i have had our differences of both foreign and domestic issues, yet we both served america in the best way we you now in a period of intense challenge, swift change and, i believe, remarkable progress. And so fulbright has been reelected yet again but johnson takes the time to write fulbright and this is full bright had opposed johnson on many key initiatives but saying, i know we disagreed on so many things but be were both doing the best we could nor country. These or two photographs really of many of senator fulbright with the other famous bill politician from arkansas, bill clinton. Bill clinton and bell fill bright had a very close and friendly and warm mentormentee relationship for decades. So, these are two photographs from fulbrights papers that show fulbright at the very end of his career, really the very already almost hundreds of life, after bill clinton has become the most powerful politician in arrrgh. The exterior fayetteville is defend craig mon fingerprint to him and he governor at the time, bill clinton is there is just sharing one of those warm moments on the dais with his mentor, bill fulbright, and then a couple years later, bill clinton has since become president , in 1992 and this is this travel is from 1993, and clinton has the honor of presenting the president ial medal of freedom to his idol and mentor, bill fulbright. Fulbrights record provides some incite in what nations can do to invest in the future, and he was somebody that really saw a long way, saw a long way beyond just fayetteville, arkansas, international conflict, conflict between nations, culture misunderstandings, these things are human history, will always happen, and nations like the United States and other nations round the world, dont want war, dont want conflict, fulbright is one of those people who shows you how you learn about the world and then how you use your talent and your gift, for him it was scorely research, writing wg and political aclu cue men. Up next we speak if author brooks believe vein to learn about the region and its inhabitants. Ozarkan, i pre the word ozarker, is well issue guess in its simplest put its someone from at the ozarks and but when year dealing with identity, person who is native of the region is more likely to identify themselves as an ozarker or ore sack ozarkan but the region covers most of the southern half of missouri, much of northern and northwestern arkansas, northeastern oklahoma, and the physical ozarks region, even laps over into the very tip of southeastern kansas so it actually covers parts of four different states. The culture ozarks doesnt necessarily correspond with the physical ozarks. There are people who live in the physical ozarks who wouldnt identify themselves as an ozarker or osackan and people who live out of the physical ozarks who would. The trilogy that im working on is called history of the osacks, published by the university of illinois press, and the first volume comes out this year, called the old ozarks and its a history of the ozarks before the civil war. So theres even a brief chapter on prehistory. Im not an anthropologist so thats why its a brief chapter on prehistory but looks at native American Life in the historical period in ozarks, the early settlement of the first europeans who came into the region, who were generally french, who came down the Mississippi Valley and kind of spread westward into the edge of the ozarks, and then, of course, the thousands of u. S. Citizens who poured across the mississippi beginning in he 1790s and continuing into the early 1800s. Were in the shilo museum of ozark history in springdale, arkansas, the premiere museum on the history of the ozarks, from prohistoric days to the 21st 21st century. The term ozarks actually is a kind of cobleding to term here in the Mississippi Valley. It has french and American Indian roots, and has been angelo sized, actually comes from old the old french practice at Arkansas Post on the mississippi river, which is certainly the different region than were good right now, in the delta, across the state from here, but french writers at the post would often sign off their letters aux arkansas, eventually they shortened that to ozarks, and when the british and the u. S. Born citizens started coming to the region they just angeloizeed the spilling into oskid mark but dates back to the arux arkansas auxark and the region is a Highland Region in the middle of the north mesh continent, the only real Highland Region between well, i should say the ozarks in combination with the wash tau mountains which are in oklahoma and arkansas, theyre on the south side of the arkansas river, those the ozarks and the wash taus make up the only Highland Region between the rockies and the appalachians and you get a lot of physical diverse within this Highland Region from prairies, the area that springdale, arkansas, fayetteville, arkansas, where we are today is, is kind of a prairie type area. You go 15miles the south, youre in a more of a mountainous area so theres theres a lot of subregions in the ozarks, like the Boston Mountain south of here and little subregions that give the ozarks region a lot of diversity physically speaking. My interest in the history of the ozarks really dates back to any undergraduate days. I went to school on the knowledge of the ozarks, a Little College called Arkansas College in fayetteville, arkansas and id grownup he ozark. Just didnt really know it. Identity is a funny thing. When i grew up, i associated with the ozarks with places that advertised themselves, kind of brands themselves as part of the ozarks. So we watched tv handles out after springfield, missouri, and always talking about the ozarks in springfield, missouri, so i thought thats where the ozarks must have been was around springfield, missouri, but i was an undergrad, in the library at lyon college and came across a book call the ozarks land alive, written by a gee graph er named milton, and there was a map, and i discovered im from the ozarks. Grew up in ozark but never really knew i grew up in he hills. We were pill people, but never really associate myself with this label, the ozarks and so i got really interested from that point. Thats been almost 30 years ago, and have devoted me life to studying the history and culture of the ozarks, and to kind of try to define what that means and trying to sort out myth and reality in the story of the ozarks. Most of the 19th century settlers and the precivil war settlers in the ozarks came from appalachia or at least came from the greater what we call the greater upland south, came from anywhere from the piedmont of North Carolina to middle tennessee, from Eastern Kentucky and southwestern virginia and what is now west virginia, and northern alabama and northern georgia and these kind of greater upland south area, really supplied the majority of settlers here, and so you transmit those culture practices and religious practices and everything thats kind of bundled up in culture gets transmitted from places like east tennessee and Eastern Kentucky, to the ozarks, and so you 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 war pros extent not just protestant but typically evangelical protestant, baptist, who were for the most part rural, with at least a few small towns in small cities and n the 19th century, and who kind of transmitted that culture, whatever you want to call that its really a sort of a its an american kind of culture that gets created in appalachia, in middle tennessee and maces like that from the scotch irish and people of english descent, people of german descent, a handful of scandinavians thrown in there, with cherokees and other native american groups. Slaves, free blacks, all those people kind of create this kind of upland south culture of free range herding of cattle and hogs, and hunting and trapping as a real crucial element of life along with their their religious practices that they bring with them and their music, which tends to be scottish and irish and with german influences and some african influences. All of that gets transmitted from that kind of hearth area in the upland south, eastern mississippi, over to the ozarks and so that is kind of the culture that you get and the culture that people have come to associate with the ozarks, just in the kind of national consciousness. Its the same culture that carries out, corn whiskey making traditions and moonshining, that kind of stuff, and its a culture that could be violent, and it could be very closeminded, but it was a culture that also kind of required a certain hardness and toughness to people to survive in a region like the ozarks, where much of it was a kind of a rough and unrewarding place, and then you did have these kind of oasis like northwest arkansas thrown in there. I think one thing that has defined the ozarks in at least in the late 20th century and the 21st century is that the region did stay somewhat extensive places in america, place that was still heavily evangelical protestant in religious orientation and part of that was that part of that stems from kind of a not a lack another but sort of a shortage of Economic Opportunity in much of the ozarks you dont get a lot of people moving into the ozarks. Theres not a lot of dynamic social and cultural stuff going on because theres not a lot of dynamic economic stuff going on. So, the region the people tend to kind of stay the same generation after generation. Not in term im not saying theyre not modernizing and theyre not driving model ts and listening to radios and stuff like that, but kind of ethnically and religiously and culturally theres this tendency to kind of stay the same over generations, and so by the time you get into the latter half of the 20th century, you have the preservation of oldtimey music, so the ozarks becomes a very popular for folkies in the 60s and 70s, and folk festivals everywhere and mountain music and banjos and mandolins and fiddles all the time, and so it kind of takes on that image of a place that time forgot. But even then you were just talking about kind of even pockets of the ozarks because you had other plays, like northwest arkansas, what were quickly modernizing, the 20th 20th century 21st century, demographics have changed, theres been a tremendous migration of people who dont come from that Northern European protestant heritage, whether theyre hispanic descent in northwest arkansas you have a large percentage of people of hispanic descent now. You have people from africa and asia, who are coming in. Some of them becoming farmer, chicken farmers in northwest arkansas and southwest missouri so you have had a an influx of people who have certainly changed the demographics of the region over the last generation or two, and the same period you have also sort of opened up the region to an influx of retirees from the midwest and from the north and so things have just in my lifetime, theres definitely been a major evolution in whatever the culture of the ozarks is. Im not even sure what that is anymore. We kind of hold on to that historical culture model, but its like the rest of america, its a place its very much changing in recent years. Fayetteville to me has always been sort of almost a oasis in many ways in the ozarks. It is on the Springfield Plain which has traditionally been the most prosperous sub region of the ozarks, but from those earliest days, fayette veil was a beacon of progress. At the time of the civil war arkansas had three colleges, three institutions of Higher Learning and two of them were here in washington county. One was in fayette veil and one a little ways outside of fayette veil. The state of arkansas decides to put its Flagship University in fayetteville. And when that happens, i mean, we know, you know, you can look at statistics today and look at the prosperity that comes with universities and these Research Parks that surround them and all that kind of stuff, and that goes back into the 19th century. You know, the University Just sort of created its own little bubble of prosperity around it. And so fayetteville has always been sort of that, that oasis in the ozarks and arkansas. My sort of overarching theme of the trilogy and its been my theme for most of the books that ive done on the ozarks over the last now almost 20 years is that the region is more a microcosm of the United States as a whole than it is some strange, unique other that exists out there that we can come and sort of marvel at and look and say how quaint and how unusual this is. In academic terms, you know, we use the term exceptionalism. And my argument for a long time has been the ozarks isnt, in totality it isnt necessarily an exceptional place. Theres its special to me. Its my home, and my, you know, ive had, i had ancestors who showed up here 200 years ago. But i think it shares more in common with the general american historical narrative than it differs from that narrative. Its just, you know, its one of many regional variations on that, 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 that we just know from American History that happened. They just, you know, they just have their weve got our own little, little version of that going on here in the ozarks. Our visit to fayetteville, arkansas, continues as we hear from author Lisa Corrigan about her book, prison power how prison influenced the movement for black liberation. I think the most important thing the American Population does not understand about the prison is it has not always looked the same, especially in the American South. And so the penitentiary really didnt exist in the south until after reconstruction failed. And when the jim crow laws were passed, all of the Southern States with the exception of tennessee, passed loitering statutes. If you were not in a labor contract with a sharecropper, you could get 30 days to life imprisonment. So these Southern States were refilled with the same racists who wanted to secede and preserve segregation and slavery. And they built huge prisons to warehouse these former slaves, and they were forced to do labor there. Cummins prison is probably the most famous in arkansas, and it was a working farm. So they were basically slaves for the state. They had to turn a profit, they were not paid for their labor. They produced tons of goods and services for the state that had penitentiary labor, and that became part of the architecture of the economy of the states after, after jim crow, you know, was seemingly over. So, you know, between, lets say, the 1920s, you know, after world war i all the way to the early 1960s then, you see the growth of those penitentiaries as ways of funneling black labor into this informal economy thats buttressing state power. So when black americans start organizing into what we now call the modern Civil Rights Movement which starts, you know, after brown v. Board in 54, then you see, you know, all of these new opportunities for municipalities and states to have to manage black bodies that are refusing to [audio difficulty] so they start getting funneled into the prisons. But what i found is that these civil rights activists and later black power activists went into the prisons, but they learned a whole lot about the functioning of power, state power, local power, police power in going into local jails and prisons, and they brought that back out, and it helped them really transform political organizing and the relationships that they made as they built coalitions. So it had an effect where going into the prisons intentionally to fill the prisons as a way of resisting the state also then fed mass incarceration. But in the south in the early part of the Civil Rights Movement all of these, like, you know, preachers and housewives and local Business People and schoolteachers and janitors, they went into the prisons to save their kids futures. And so they saw how the prison functions in relationship to state legislatures and governors. And they came out with a higher degree of political commitment to the movement, and that really shaped the way that black americans in civil rights spaces related to, you know, both the movement and politics in ways that were totally profound and still have, you know, an influence on social movement organizing. And i was interested in prisons because theyve, theyve exploded so much since the Johnson Administration. Now we call it mass incarceration. But really the moment where the american psyche turned towards the prison as a way of managing its anxieties about new rights that were being given to women and people of color and students and finish those anxieties really found a place in the american prison system which grew as a result of activism. So the birth of what we now call mass incarceration really started during the Johnson Administration as a way to manage anxiety about all of these groups who are protesting a lack of rights in the United States. So i was curious about that relationship. So what were those activists writing about from prison, and how did prison shape them, and what did it teach them, and what did it teach us and what does it continue to teach us. Then as a result, how did the president s respond, you know . And how did municipalities respond to the fact that their local jails and then penitentiaries were being full of they were being filled with activists. And it did, it changed a lot of dynamics between the federal government, state governments and municipalities in thinking about, you know, how quickly or in reality, how slowly to grant more Citizenship Rights to groups that had been historically disenfranchised. So here you have mass incarceration of all of these black activists that are going into prison for activism as political prisoners, and theyre sharing time with people who have mostly, in the 1960s, were there for property crimes. And so, you know, the black power consciousness was one that really tried to resituate blackness in the legacy of jim crow and in the failure of reconstruction and in contemporary black life and its similarities to slavery. And that seems very important to me. The origin of the black power slogan begins in 1966. Its uttered by stokely carmichael, and carmichaeland Martin Luther kinged had marched together. And stokely had gone into parchman prison, its a penitentiary in mississippi. It was probably the most brute alp penitentiary in the United States at that time. And he had been beaten and whipped, and they put wrist breakers on the prisoners, men and women, there. And they clasped on the wrist, and then youd tighten the screw, and its meant to break the wrists. They, you know, so they he was tortured there. And coming out of that experience in mississippi during and after the mississippi freedom summer in 64, 65, stokely wanted a more radical positionalty for these sharecropping families. Like, they needed Political Rights, and they needed resources, and they needed em now. They couldnt afford or to wait for king to build this christian goodwill and to teach everybody nonviolence. And so as stokely and king continued to march together, stokely is constantly pushing king to talk about blackness instead of negro. And he says, you know, negro is a term that white people have given us, right . Its close to the nword. We disavow it. The problem is not that were negroes, the problem is that the color of our skin is black. So by the end of 1965, stokely has king talking about blacks as folks. And that linguistic shift that king makes from negro to black is very significant, because king then starts defending black power as stokely starts organizing in the cities and as new organizations across the country emerge like the black panther party. And king says, you know, these kids would not be saying these radical things and doing these radical actions if you would give them the formal Political Rights that theyre totally entitled to by virtue of their citizenship. And lbj feels like they have sold him out. He feels like he had this reasonable relationship with Martin Luther king and the southern Civil Rights Movement, but as the movement becomes more northern and more urban and more vocal and really fed up with the lack of progress in civil rights, then, you know, they have to find other ways to articulate what they want with. And so black power fills that space, you know, and begins to radicalize not just black youth in the cities, but also king. And so they start writing in tension with one another about new ways to define black experience all against the backdrop of what is now this burgeoning war in vietnam that is commanding everybodys attention. And so once king comes out against the war in vietnam, he becomes total anathema to the white house. And black power has nowhere to go except back into the cities to organize black youth. And so they start organizing around Police Brutality and about the war in vietnam, and they start organizing against the fbi. And at that point, lbjing has lost control of the civil rights message, and it collapses the idea of protest collapses into crime. And so the fbi says, well, okay, if youre a student protester or youre protesting for workers rights or if youre a civil rights protester, all of that is criminal activity. And thats how new conservativism, civil rights activism of any variety all the way through the nixon administration. Im particularly interested in two parts of prison activism. One is what kinds of documentation were produced inside of the prisons and reflexive of prison experience by activists. So those are things like kings letter from birmingham jail, and those are memoirs written in prison or written after prison that are circulated about that experience. And then im also interested in the way that activists talk about that experience as ways of intervening into public consciousness. And malcolm xs autobiography, i mean, is a massive bestseller, its on every college campus, it goes out of print and then is reprinted dozens of times, and its sort of the Gold Standard in terms of memoir. But after his assassination in 1965, dozens of activists then use that template, right, to write about their experiences in prison and to think about the relationship between being black and being imprisoned. And so im interested in those because they tell us about black consciousness, and they tell us about the 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 informal political structures. I mean, they tell us all kinds of interesting, important things about how black people have survived under a Surveillance Police state for so long. And then im interested in how they talk about their relationships within the movement. And so how they talk about resistance, you know, having families as an act of resistance. How they think about closeness with other activists. How they think about collective of and shared trauma. So those are spaces where they invented new ideas and new vernaculars and new words to help describe their relationship to the police state and to Police Brutality and to the prison. And thats all new, new ideas. Those are new ideas that have value, that had a ton of value in organizing a tremendous number of black folks to mobilize. I think one of the Biggest Challenges for creating a new generation or for, just for the emergence of a new generation of prison activists is the privatization of prisons. And because they are not public, they also dont have accountability or transparency. And so they are, they are away from the publics view. Its very hard to get news crews in to document them because theyre not part of the state system. Theyre not theres no public accountability for them. So i dont see any possibility in the future for there being any kind of transformative, you know, prisoner activism within the private prisons that somehow leaps outside of the prison and builds so coalitional politics just because they are so disappeared inside of that private and closed, gated, you know, surveilled space. Thats very hard to do. I think that, i think for concerned citizens privatization should be a red flag, that information and people will disappear, you know, from public view in ways that consolidate power for the ruling class. So anytime privatization is articulated whether its, you know, in the context of education or with prisons or and, of course, they have a reciprocal relationship that is, that should be a red flag that, you know, the consolation of power is happening in black and brown mostly boys, but also girls are being sucked into a state economy with no oversight. The help of our partners at Cox Communications, for the next two with hours well explore the local literary life starting with author William Schwab and his recent research on the development, relief and education for alien minors or dream act. I had an experience right after daca was approved, and theres a woman that i profile in my book, right to dream, named garcia. And i asked her to come speak to my class about being undocumented, and she showed up. Relatively small class, there were about 40 students. It was tiered. The professor before me had shown a movie, so all the lights were off where the audience is. There were two spotlights on a table, and from around the classroom, cessna came in, and she was dressed professionally. I remember she puts her purse up on her table, and she reaches in her purse and says im going to pass this around because its worthless. And a few seconds later, she reached into her purse and pulled out her Social Security card. Shed gotten daca the night before and not told me. And then she pulled out her authorization card so she could finally work legally. What we saw in front of us that day was a young woman who had a life, a future, who had hope, who could have her dreams realized. And so i think thats the motivation for many of us involved in the dream movement, that we have educated these young people, we have invested in them, theyre part of our communities, they think of themselves as americans, and yet we deny them an opportunity. The dream act was an attempt by congress in 2001 to deal with the growing problem of undocumented youth. Dick durbin, a democrat in the senate from the state of illinois, and orrin hatch republican senator from utah introduced a bipartisan bill to provide a means to provide undocumented youth conditional, 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. So it had broad bipartisan support. If we look at gallup and other polling agencies, 70 of americans are in support of the dream act and a path to citizenship for young people. Yet its been stalled in our congress now for 18 years. Daca was an attempt not attempt, an executive order by president obama that occurred in the year 2012. And 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 were also given work authorization. And so literally within hours a million young people were able to have the opportunity to apply for cac ca daca, move out of the shadows and become full participants in our society. The average person with daca deferred action for childhood arrivals arrived here when they were six years of age. Theyre now in their mid twenties. 55 of them are still in school, 85 percent of them are in the labor market. I just met with a group of, in september right after President Trump ors announcement that he was getting rid of daca, rescinding daca, and they were there with their kids. So theyre married, they have children who are u. S. Citizens, they have homes and mortgages and cars and secure jobs, and theyre pursuing the american dream. Theyre buying more, theyre paying taxes, they have a much lower crime rate than the nativeborn population of this country. And its beyond my comprehension why we cant recognize the contribution of these people and make them part of society. And by the way, they think of themselves as americans because theyre raised in our schools, and they lived in our neighborhoods, and they attend our churches, and theyre a part of our communities. We have approximately 43. 7 million first generation immigrants. Thats 13. 5 of our population. But when you add the number of children born in the United States who have at least one foreignborn parent, one out of every four americans is either a first or Second Generation immigrant. We have not seen these numbers since the 1890s when we had about 15 of our population foreign born. Take northwest arkansas, a community of about a half a million. 15 of our population is foreign born, and when you add the children born to these one foreignborn parent, a third of our population is a first or Second Generation immigrant. So we are in this period of profound demographic change, and it scares an awful lot of people. Were told that immigrants suck money out out of our economy. Well, the reality is hispanics make up 13, 14 of our population, but if you look at the total spendable income in the United States a report done as the university of georgia showed that their spending power is 1. 4 trillion. 10 of our National Economy is tied to hispanic spending. If they were a country unto themselves, they would have the 15th largest gdp in the world. Now, asians only make up 6 of our population, but they generate the same amount of spending power, 1. 4 trillion. So immigrants alone are responsible for 20 of the spending in an economy like ours. Its absolutely amazing. And we dont hear about that. The important rule that immigration role that immigration plays not only in driving the spending in our economy, but also doing things like paying and providing the labor or paying into medicare for which they can reap no benefits or any of the other programs that we have occurring at the federal and the state level. Well, the major argument is that these children, these young people came here illegally. We have a nation based upon the rule of law. And they should return to their home country and apply and wait in line like everyone else. Well, the reality if you enter the United States illegally and you return to your own country, you cannot reapply for another decade. So lets say youre 18. You go back to mexico. You cannot begin you cannot even reapply until youre 28. On average it takes about a decade, 1014 years to get a green card or visa. And so youre not coming back. I mean, thats the reality. Thats one argument. The second argument is that it is very, very costly to our society to have these undocumented young people here, because we have to provide education, health care. All these other services we associate with raising young people. Most americans dont appreciate the fact that immigrants and undocumented immigrants pay taxes. And thirdly, they will change us. Theyll change our culture. And by mid century, well not have a majority in the United States. Some people refer to it as a majority minority society. Majority of our population would be black, hispanic and asian. I like to refer to it as we no longer have a majority. So this change is unsettling to many people. And it drives our current debate. The dream passed immediately well, the measurable impact is 800,000 young people were able to have not legal status, but the threat of deportation removed and the right to work. They no longer had to worry about going to walmart or going to the dry cleaner or going to a restaurant, being stop and held in a Detention Center and deported. And so what i picked up and the young people that i work with is the incredible improvement of their psychological wellbeing. That fear factor was gone. The other is that finally they could use their degrees, they could use their education. They could be full participants in a society of which they already felt they were members. So, to me, that was the immediate and important impact. But i think for our society the most important impact is that we can use this Human Capital that weve invested in. I mean, think about it, were scannedderring the talents squandering the talents of a couple million young people who weve educated, who weve provided health care for, who we have provided all the services needed for developing a child to age 18. The impact if daca or the dream act is not relegislated i guess is the word i want to use, is hundreds of billions of dollars lost to our economy. Unless you are native american in ancestry, you are an immigrant or a child immigrant, or you have an ancestor who was an immigrant. That we, our nation based upon the immigration process, that we have a long history often times unaccepting of immigrants, immigration, but we have accept ised people from all over the world accepted people from all over the world. We have moved them into the fabric of our communities. We think of ourselves in fact, we are very proud of our immigration, immigrant past, most of us have built into our identity i am germanamerican, or my family came from france or whatever. And so i think simply look to our past, think about our present and the transition that were currently going through and i think realize that immigration will shape our future in a very, very positive way. With the help of our Cox Communication partners, cspan is in fayetteville, arkansas, to explore the local literary scene. Well speak with author Charles Robbins to learn the history of an interracial couple in reconstruction south. The isaac bank son, missouri story, this interracial couple, was a story that we believe began sometime in the early 1880s. Isaac bankston was a sheriff of the shea county, very popular sheriff who had been elected to five consecutive terms. Land owner, married to a woman who was white named martha and had two children, isaac jr. And laura bankston. Missouri, as far as we know, was a housekeeper. The census in 1880s revealed she had a daughter, but at the time she met isaac, im not sure that daughter was still alive or with her. Theres no record of them the daughter was not reported on by 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 American Southern sexual, interracial sexual history. White man meets a younger, much younger black woman, decides that hes interested, and they have a sexual relationship, and they go on about their business. Separate ways at some point. But it didnt go that way. Instead, their relationship grew stronger, closer, and at some 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 witnesses, eyewitnesses that the newspaper reported on. A minister, the minister who married them was the principal witness of a child that they had together. And they, they it appeared that isaac was going to have two separate families; one black, one white and keep them apart. Now, his problem he had many problems. One was that it was illegal to marry across the color line in tennessee as it was in arkansas. He was already married in arkansas. One might say thats a bigamist relationship that he had established in tennessee but really not legally in arkansas, and ill explain that later. Plus, he thought that he was going to keep it secret, but it became public knowledge. And to the public that had elected him to being a sheriff, it was very, very angry with him when this story came to their attention. Isaac bankston, of course, when first asked about this denied it. But as more evidence came, it became something that was hard, it was impossible to deny when the paper published, the arkansas gazette, published a copy of the marriage license. So again, this was a real problem for any white man in the American South at this time because of laws and the customs that forbade this type of relationship. Again, if it had ended there, it would have been a really good story, but it didnt end there. It went on. Finish Isaac Bankston is eventually indicted by tennessee court, and the state of tennessee seeks extradition to memphis so that he could stand trial for violenting their antimissong nation law. Upon hearing that the state of tennessee had a warrant for isaacs arrest, arkansas city, due chain county officials arrested Isaac Bankston and placed him in jail to be held until Police Captain from memphis could come and retrieve him for the court. Isaac bankston was not about to wait to be extradited. Instead, he broke out of jail and headed to greenville, mississippi, which was not very far away from arkansas city. Now, he could break out of that jail because he had helped to construct that jail. And so im sure he had some very practical awareness of that jails limitations to hold prisoners. It was in greenville, though, that another sheriff recognized a poster that was seeking Isaac Bankston. He was now a fugitive from justice. And arrested Isaac Bankston, and he was held in 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 law. There was a special prosecutor that was brought in from arkansas city, a man by the name of james coats who knew Isaac Bankston personally. And he would actually lead the prosecution for that, for this case. And Isaac Bankston defended himself. He had no attorney. There is evidence that at one time he had been, had practiced, he had studied the law. And so he defended himself. And he, he had a jury of 11 men, 10 who were white, 1 who was africanamerican, a Police Captain at the time. Now, i mention that because i think thats an important part of this story. Eleven men who will judge a white man or man who at least was believed to be white on the case of having a black lover who he married. Isaac bankston did not refute the fact of the marriage, couldnt. The marriage license revealed the fact of the marriage. What i. C. E. An bankston did was challenge the law from the basis of the prohibited groups from marrying. Isaac bankston, a man who all his life had lived as a white man, served his country which was the American South during the civil war as a white man decided that in his defense he was no longer white. That he was, in fact, a native american. And there was no prohibition existence a native of american marrying an africanamerican in tennessee in 1884. And he was right, there was no prohibition. So he had to make his case. And he made his case by the testimony of the minister who married them who thought, the minister said he thought that Isaac Bankston was a man of color. The county clerk who issued the marriage license said that he thought that Isaac Bankston was a man of color. And now, these two men the county clerk and the minister had personal reasons why they would want to argue this, because it was against the law for a minister to marry an interracial couple, and it was against the haw for a county clerk the law for a county clerk to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple. So they had a vested interest in supporting Isaac Bankstons defense. But maybe they really thought he was a man of color. Bottom line is Isaac Bankston won his case. In one day, without much fanfare. Now, again, wonderful story. Lots of things we can learn about this, these laws, about southern norms and just the story itself would be interesting and also informative to readers. Doesnt end here though. 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 their family name. The higher your social rank, the more important that responsibility was. You also had a responsibility to defend women in your family from any insult, any type of social scar, mark on their reputations. Well, Isaacs Family name, the condition, the social public condition of his wife, his white wife and his children, his white children at least they were white, we thought, at one time had all been really compromised by the publishing, the publishing of the fact of his marriage and also this court case. And is so he needed in his own d to avenging this slight avenge this slight to his family honor. And the person he chose to find retribution against was the special prosecutor, james coats. So on a june day, hot day at the end of the day, end of the court date, coats was an attorney in arkansas city. Isaac met him on the steps of the courthouse and began cursing him, and he had isaac had a stick in one hand and a side arm. But he pulled out his stick and hitting the special prosecutor. Special prosecutor tried to get away, but isaac kept beating him. So the special prosecutor, james coats, brought out a knife that he had on him and turned, and they began fighting. And Isaac Bankston pulled out his gun and shot james coats. James coats lunged with his knife and stabbed Isaac Bankston. James coats dies immediately on the steps of the courthouse. Isaac bankston would die two days later. This is how the story of isaac and missouri ended. Because instead of, you know, deciding which family to go back to, he decided, Isaac Bankston decided that he had to avenge his southern honor. And he did so, i guess in his own mind, but he also cut short his life. I think there are many, many lessons that we can learn from this story. You know, we like to throw the word around common people. And yet their story is an important one with life lessons and then also wanted them to get a better understanding of the tenor of the times, i mean, understanding how race played itself out in this postcivil war period during the reconstruction era which i talk about. Of course i mentioned other interracial couples in this book so they could see the challenges that other interracial couples had when they attempted to cross the color line. And then i wanted them to have a good story. I mean, at 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. Its not a fictional account, its a factual account thats, nonetheless, extraordinarily interesting and important. As we continue our look into the literary culture of fayetteville, arkansas, we take you to the Fayetteville Public Library where author Randall Bennett woods gives a presentation about president lyndon b. Johnson and his impact on american society. [applause] im glad to be here and flattered that cspan would ask me to represent what is a very talented Creative Community in fayetteville. Theres 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. I published prisoners of hope in 2016. It was a follow up to my biography of Lyndon Johnson. It concerns the domestic program, the thousand pieces of legislation that johnson and Congress Passed between november of 1963 and 1968. Most people well, johnson has been getting much more attention than when i began writing the book. So hes beginning to get his due. But compared to other reform president S Theodore Roosevelt or Franklin Roosevelt he still is very much in the shadows. People usually remember two things about Lyndon Johnson; the vietnam war which is justly regarded as a disaster and civil rights which is generally regarded as a triumph. But there was so much more. There was, in addition to the 1964 equal accommodations act, the 1965 Voting Rights act, the 1968 fair housing act, there was medicaid, medicare, the First Federal aid to education legislation, the war on poverty, Community Action, the first clean air and clean water legislation, the first wilderness acts, Public Television and public radio were created by legislation passed as part of the Great Society. The department of transportation, the immigration act which dramatically which bill schwab writes extensively about which reformed, modernized the immigration system in this country. Arguably, the Great Society the legislative program that was enacted in the 1960s was the most significant or among the most significant in all of American History. Conservatives have denounced it, liberals have tended to retreat from it a bit in the 80s and 90s. But it, it has dramatically changed American Life. One of the reasons there are a number of reasons that the program hasnt really gotten its due. Theres johnson himself. Most academics of my generation were part of the antiwar movement, and theyve never forgiven johnson for thrusting this more deeply us more deeply in that quagmire. There is the allpowerful Camelot Community tradition. The country, particularly the cultural establishment, still worships the kennedys, and they still regard johnson as a juciper, someone who came in and took credit for what john f. Kennedy really created. The, in looking at this program, in 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 prosperous. The populist movement was a product of widespread resentment by workers and farmers against robberbaron capitalists on wall street. The progressives were middle class folks worried about being crushed by captains of industry and millions of illiterate immigrants, the new deal was the product of the great depression. Massive unemployment and suffering. So why and how did this Reform Program appear . Be how did it come, come to be . Well, theres a couple of obvious answers to that. The Civil Rights Movement came to fruition, the modern Civil Rights Movement came to fruition in the 50s and 60s after the montgomery bus boycott9 in 1964. The Civil Rights Movement became a truly mass movement. Previously, it had been driven by elites which used constitutional law to try to achievement and a nondiscrimination and equality. But with king, the advent of king and the southern christian leadership conference, the black churches became involved. And then young black College Students through snicc and c. O. R. E. , and so is you have a truly mass movement. The Public Opinion polls showed that there was a dramatic turn around in white attitudes toward civil rights in the south after the birmingham marches in 1963 which were widely televised. And so johnson and his colleagues in congress were able to capitalize on that, on that sentiment, on that kind of i kind of took advantage of that window of opportunity. The cold war played a role in 1957. Those of you who are of my generation will remember mothers read about the launching of sputnik, when the soviets put a payload into orbit touching off a firestorm of controversy here, widespread denunciation of the administration, of academia, of the Scientific Community for falling behind in the global struggle with communism. Touched off a wave of soul searching. And, indeed, it was on in reaction to that in part that jack kennedy rode into power. He and 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. Then there was the revolt of the youth in the 1960s. Time magazine in 1960 predicted by the end of the decade that onequarter of all americans would be under 24 years of age. There were now, most view most u. S. Went about their business as usual, but more active students in berkeley started the free speech movement, conservative students, and then famously the students for nonviolent students for democratic society. The port huron statement in 1962 was a statement by this new activist, leftleaning coalition of students and intellectuals. It was an attack on segregation, on jim crow. It was an attack on the military industrial complex. It was an attack on liberal capitalism itself. And this youth, this energy certainly provided some of the fuel that enabled the Great Society, the reforms of the Great Society to take place. The there was also, this was when americas socalled greatest generation had really reached their, were at the height of their power and influence. The generation that had survived the depression and defeated the axis powers, many of them had grown bored with the complacency of the 1950s. And many of them embraced, if temporarily, the notion of a raciallyjust society, a society in which there was equal opportunity for all. Then there was johnson himself. The 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 whom were populists. His mother was a liberal baptist and a journalist. He was influenced by when he was a senior in college, he was student taught at a community in south texas. He was principal of an allspanish Elementary School there and saw firsthand the blight of discrimination and segregation. And even though he was a senior in college, he became a champion in that 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, when he represented the state as a whole. But then after he became the 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. Now, johnson the Great Society, the idea behind the Great Society was to create not a society which featured equality of condition, but equality of opportunity. And in a sense, that was fundamentally conservative in that respect. What he wanted he built on Franklin Roosevelts idea of positive rights. Up to that time, up to roosevelts time liberals had 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 right of every american to a good job, the right of every american to a decent education, the right of every american to have his children experience Decent Health care. And that was really what drove the Great Society. Johnson and his colleagues, cohorts, supporters wanted to expand what the definition of american citizenship meant to include these positive rights, but also he worked to extend pull citizenship to people full citizenship to people who had not yet experienced it which included hispanics, africanamericans, poor people in appalachia in the south, poor people who were, for example, excluded from Social Security because they hadnt had prior employment, those kinds of things. Johnson, after he overwhelmed Barry Goldwater in the election in 1964, he had a conversation with bill moyers who was one of his great confidants and proteges. And he said, 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. He said, believe me, weve got 22 months to get what we wanted done. He said theres the old conservative coalition, the alliance between southern segregationist democrats and conservative republicans that had been blocking progressive legislation since 1944. He said there may be some enthusiasm among whites for civil rights now, but theres going to be a backlash. And so we have a window of opportunity, a window of opportunity there. He said, too, that there is calculus, the political calculus involved. We will in the next 22 months expend every dollar of Political Capital we have. And when that windows closed, its closed. There were also other factors that he did not anticipate, some of which were generated, were a product of 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 that the office of Economic Opportunity incorporated. It involved organizing poor people to participate in decisions about their economic and political welfare. And that sounded good to johnson. He didnt see any harm in it. But what happened was the oeo extended grants to create more than a thousand nonprofits which in chicago, detroit, boston began demonstrating against local and state governments, many of which were in democratic hands. Which created a firestorm, political firestorm which threatened the 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. Well, the purpose of the National Welfare rights organization, which e featured many lawyers, was to challenge restrictive regulations keeping people off the rolls. Their goal was to put as many people on the rolls as possible. And so that certainly undercut the Great Society as far as conservatives and moderates were concerned. By the late 1960s, the new left had turned on the liberal establishment. The Great Society did not go as far and fast as they wanted, and they began to attack johnson and the Great Society reformers on the left, from the left. There were attacks on the right as well. The johnson and Martin Luther king, Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther king are southerners. They knew about jim crow in the south. They knew about lynching, segregation in the south. And that was their focus. Or they were ignorant they were ignorant of the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in the north, a much different situation. In the northern cities occupied by millions of africanamericans many of them who had immigrated there immediately after the Second World War to take defense jobs were not, didnt experience legal discrimination. They could vote, there were not laws insisting, mandating separation. But still they were the victim of informal discrimination, market forces, Public Policy and prejudice. And so that millions of africanamericans were isolated in inner cities, decaying inner cities. And the what they saw was white midwesterners and northerners acting to bring social and Economic Justice to black southerners while denying it to blacks who lived in their own community. And what you had was the series of increasingly destructive riots. The terrible detroit riot occurred five days after the signing of the Voting Rights act, something that johnson simply could not comprehend. He, after consulting with king and other black leaders, tried to accelerate social and economic problems in the nations ghettos, but the violence only got worse, worse and worse. It provided an opening for conservatives. Johnson had, in the 64 campaign, argued that the war on poverty was actually part of the war on crime. Juvenile delinquency and urban crime had become an issue during the Kennedy Administration. And he argued that the war on poverty was a way to fight crime. As the urban rioting and disorder increased, conservatives seized on that and turned it around on johnson. By 193 1966 they were arguing effectively that the war on poverty was facilitating violence in the cities. They equated nonviolent civil disobedience with burning and looting, they denounced the warren court for privileging the victims of crime rather than the criminals themselves. And they argued that the new deal in and of itself was creating an entitlement community, fostering dependency, a lack of discipline and selfcontrol. And so by 1966, the war on crime had become a war on the war on poverty. And then, of course, there was vietnam. Something that johnson had sensed as a cloud on the horizon from the very beginning. It was one of the things he mentioned in his cushion with moyers in his discussion with moyers. He sensed that it was something that he was not going to be able to control. Initially there was, there was a consensus. And johnson was driven by consensus politics. When he campaigned, he didnt attack individuals or groups like [audio difficulty] he attacked abstractions like disease and is poverty. Brilliant, i think. But, and there was, in fact, a consensus that supported both the war in vietnam, many liberal cold war warriors believed that there was a connection between our acting in vietnam to save the nonwhite peoples of that region from scourges of communism and what the government was doing in the south to eliminate jim crow. But the urban rioting domestically and then the blunders that the u. S. Made in vietnam the free fire zones, the massive bombing and our continued support of what was obviously a corrupt regime that destroyed that consensus. So you got 1968 johnsons abdication, Martin Luther kings assassination, Bobby Kennedys assassination and the Chicago Convention and, ultimately, the election of richard nixon. But they didnt do anything. So during the Reagan Administration with every aspect and did not do anything about medicare or medicaid or satellite education. But that situation has changed. Thank you for your patience i will take your questions. Did young galbraith play a role in the Johnson Administration . I just remember anymore. I love him because he wrote a blurb. [laughter] he was a prominent figure in the Kennedy Administration one of the Charles River intellectuals with the constituency and johnson didnt have much to do with that. But galbraith was a person in 64 that told liberal intellectuals they should forget their prejudice against texas and johnson and focus on the ideals that he stood for. And that was trying to solidify johnson and 54. That isnt a word that is used anymore. So with William Fulbright he had a tense relationship at times. Can you talk about their relationship . To make yes. It was conflicted. He wasnt intimate with the kennedys but he was an intellectual. A Rhodes Scholar and establishment and for him, johnson lost socially repugnant to change his view on that. So what johnson came to believe was that as the war in vietnam progressed with a reactionary regime with freedom and democracy and johnson had sold out that he was also angry he was not named terry estate. So after his speech he said if we wouldve told fulbright about this we kept him in the tent and it was a mistake. He also told mcnamara and bundy that it was his fault and his fault alone. Something was wrong about that. You said J Edgar Hoover appealed to the worst. It has been written and many times repeatedly deeper johnson helped about what was her role to help him form these ideas apart of the Great Society . She wasnt involved with policy but was a. He knew that and work himself into an absolute frenzy he would suffer from long bouts of depression and not get out of bed and become paranoid so when they were challenging the regular party and causing so much stress he took to his bed. But that was the counteraction with the emotional support to give context and balance to his better nature. That she has a story in her own right. So her father and folks in alabama were a hard line racist. And tough people. She had to experience her own of tiffany. And she did but it is interesting. And it was emotionally fraught relationship the daughters said they never saw lady bird cry. How me of you can say that . Can you comment on the bipartisanship required . Thats a great question. Compared to the current climate. [laughter] and what they used to call the country club republican. Johnson was a consensus builder but he would not Pay Attention to them at the Democratic National committee and reached across the aisle so look what he is doing. The Democratic Party is divided between the moderates and liberals in the segregationist because he left his own party. He has got have substantial public and support. Substantial public and support. So johnson gets his treatment and people think he is threatening them but he is much more coy than that. [laughter] is this patriotic address do you love your country you cannot vote for this particular issue or the Voting Rights act by god federal education. Or medicare and during the height of the accommodations act he said you have to decide if you are a party to or not put up or shut up. He got it done. He was a real person but he was spiritual to invoke the almighty more than all other president s combined including abraham lincoln. He told the 1940 constitution of the United Methodist church which served as a fundamental document for any good republica republican, he did take advantage of the fact there was a religious revival between 45 and 65 of unprecedented dimension. It is estimated 45 of americans identified themselves as a church or religion by 1965 it was 65 . Look at the Civil Rights Movement jewish, catholic, all brands of protestant really stepped up to the bat. Much different than today. If you did history comparing specific churches or a baptist that bill moyers was a baptist but if the stance on social issues and the transition has taken place and make that absolutely astounding. Congress was so much a different animal that because the senators met on a daytoday basis with the staff of three or four. So the congressman has a staff a staff of 20 but these people dont interact with each other. So they are segregationist in the cafeteria and said do you know what . I will make 50000 for the election campaign. So now the mayor of minneapolis who champions the phone champions a platform said this gets back to my people it will kill me. He said why . Because he is good for the Senate Humphrey knows what we are about and what the whole operation is about. And while we have lost our way in that regard it is long in torturous story. And not to preach at you but politics has become a dirty word that is the essence of democracy. So without them we have a dictatorship fascist and totalitarian and what is the alternative . We turn our back on the very process which make this country what it hoped to be. And enable that and how to get back to that i dont know. So the other thing about johnson as a great exponent of the vote he was talking to whitney young. You have people out there in rural alabama or mississippi so get down there to the polls. He said we will do that but the presences of strong lung presence is so strong it wont make a difference and johnson said thats not right. Particularly if we get a society somebody has enough to eat and a job to educate their kids they will vote in their interest and in the general interest unfortunately that turned out not to be the case. Because now people vote against their own interest that is a troubling element. So that has transcended liberalism or conservatives. I think hes wonderful but he is very conservative. He said i dont have a home anymore. This Republican Party now wants nothing to do with traditional conservativism. Individual rights, immigration traditionally was the champion with freetrade and International Initiatives and cooperation in White Supremacy and with the New York Times but my book is about liberalism i got a very nice review in the Weekly Standard so they had different views of human nature to create a free and open and prosperous society. In that debate is where we have lived through most of history. You have another question . I better stop preaching. [laughter] talk about current politics as it relates how do you speak to the role of the press that johnson had operated there as opposed to what we see today . Johnson had a terrible relationship with the press. The relationship between texas politicians and texas newspapers with broadcast media that you must do me this favor i will do you that favor. And then to have that relationship with the New York Times and washington post. He could have had a very Good Relationship but it is differen different. That isnt true that the core media still exist but it has been overrun with new outlets. I dont know why anybody should be surprised by fox news if it is owned by Rupert Murdoch who is an australian. With the British Empire traditionally objective journalism you say the duty of the paper is to take the ideological position to drive deposition so in that sense fox news is at home and that type of tradition. But you have to have something to counter that. As a counterweight. But the other thing that journalist wrote about is the pornography of the press of seth with superficiality. The refusal to privileged under mental issues and questions at the expense of gossip. I am a historian. I dont know about the past. [laughter] but it is a time and i talked to this of my students. They have their lives to live. So we are just on the cusp of change. And change creates the back mom a great deal of backwash people feel threatened and it is accelerated. If you know anything about chaos theory, you have these periods of chaos and then a new order comes in. So maybe that is what we are experiencing. Maybe your kids will look back in 20 years and say that was the beginning of a new era. I think it is. Having set out not to make predictions but to create basic fundamental institutions they are pretty amazing. So with world war ii veterans of that conflict a greater sense of idealism to make democracy work . Sure. Absolutely misses the point i was supposed to make. World war ii was a good war. There was good and evil. The moral boundaries were clear world war ii greatly enhanced Franklin Roosevelts moral authority and his reputation and his mystic Reform Program was laughed in that moral authority the legacy benefited from that moral authority. The vietnam war diminished and instead of enhancing the reputation and influence of his to Mystic Program in philosophy im not sure that the answer to your question i dont think people are less idealistic now most people want to do good. Thats not the issue. The issue is what is good and what is bad. That isnt always clear. What i talk about in the book is a paradox of reform part of the if you just be me five minutes on this it is significant, the thrust was quality of opportunity. And then to tell mr. Johnson and that they started the race to late with too many handicaps and then calling that affirmative action. But he said we have some people who are starting a 100yard race at the 50yard line. And others are at the 100yard line to use his analogy. So he meant some soft affirmative action not discrimination by federal agencies or programs that had a life of its own and by the end of the 60s they were arguing the ethnic and gender makeup ought to reflect the makeup of the community. This created another problem. The Womens Movement the Civil Rights Movement based historically on equity value treating everyone the same. So when hard affirmative action came around obviously the whole idea was the conservatives. With medicare and medicaid with Voting Rights the indication that they were undergoing they were going chaos before order. Hopefully we are reexamining these values to survive. [applause] we are standing here with jason who is going to provide us a driving tour fayette felt like we are standing in front of the stone house one of the many public pieces of art we have here in fayetteville with the entertainment and Historic District with the arkansas campus also to get a lovely long a lovely view. Are you ready to go . Lets get out of here. We are on our way. And we have boutique with the bars and nightlife location and leads us right up. Why do they call this historic square . On the historic registry. The Old Post Office right here is another place but definitely right here in downtown fayetteville. 83000 people live here. But at the university 27000 of those are students at university of arkansas. It is a big eclectic group of people. That is one of the charms of fayetteville. No matter where you are from. But now what we are coming into is dixon street in northwest arkansas obviously not very far from the square and those two areas make up the Entertainment District of fayetteville. This is the Walmart Center that is a huge part of the fabric of northwest arkansas play here in downtown fayetteville as well as having a Broadway Series multiple broadway shows to do the work in the community with jazz series and local artist, and art gallery that features regional and national artists. So the national and International Grand scope as well as all the way down to the local people supported and showcased so what we are on right now, this street is becoming a cultural core door. Library, and in the middle of the expansion project on the side of the street as well so with theater square, the Community Creative center it is expanding hours here. A lot of locally owned businesses. I think the Walton Family and sam walton have to do with that because they support entrepreneurs in the community and nonprofit we have one of the highest per capita amount of nonprofit in the nation due to the fact the Walton Family, walmart supports that the philanthropic efforts of that organization and those people have helped to leave that framework for local business and nonprofits and supportive of holding hands. Walmart and the university . I think it would connect itself more wholeheartedly with walmart but we were just at Walmart Center and one of the things that you get into it feels more like a region than a specific city although they have their own five they are really just bridges in between each other. So the university of arkansas has a big footprint here with everything that comes with having a university in a town with all the positive but it really works to serve northwest arkansas. We are on the university of arkansas campus. 20000 students go here for numbers keep growing with every year everything to do with the economy with fayetteville and northwest arkansas in general. Africanamerican admitted to the law program at the university of arkansas. Us again, just speaks to the hand holding hand thing that fayetteville did then and has continuing on to today. Were going to come um here and im going to turn right and were going to go past old main, which is the flagship building of the university of arkansas. Its on everybody post card that goes out, and right in front of old main is the0 ash riot thumb. Theres one type of ash riot thumb. One tree from the state of arkansas is represented on the lawn of old main. Another thing that is really interesting, i think, and unique to the university of arkansas, is when you graduate you have your name etched in the sidewalk. So there are winding through the entire campus are sidewalks with names on them. Theyre even building more sidewalk space to alive the foundation for future names of graduates. This all goes back to 1905, students voted they wanted to make that their thing. They were like, yeah, lets do something that is different. Lets etch our names into the sidewalks. And they did it retroactively as well. As we pass the razor back stadium, and what is the mascot and why . Why . Arkansas did not have the mass so the of the razorbacks initially, and one of the coaches told his team that he wanted them to get out there and get after the other team like a pack of wild razorback hogs and so that locker room speech stuck with the student body, and they adopted the name, a razorbacks and the lro reis that our cheer is we call the hogs, the farm Agricultural Department at the university of arkansas had a certain way they called the hogs using in the program to come in and eat so its feeding time, pigs, eat your slop. You due it . Oh, yeah. Lets here it. Woo pig, woo pig, woo pig, razorbacks. Thats awesome. You have to do it three times. A lot 0 of people thing one time and its done. Dont whiff dont wimp out after one, everybody. Its three times, falsetto woo and then pig suiy. No turning back. Are we going the top. Were going up to the top of mount sequoia. You can see. We were just in downtown fayetteville were head up to the mountain that overlooks the city. You can tell the audience what it means to be in the ozark region. The ozark region is beautiful. For me it means rock climbing, streams, it means hills, it means outdoor activities, vibrant things to do and also cultural things with that. Theres the style of music. Theres a style of dress that youll find people who live here, you know, some people still adhere to that look. We know there are the perception of a country bumpkin is not necessarily who we are anymore and we dont want that to be projected and people to thing, oh, arkansas, take you shoes off. But at the same time, there is such a rich cultural history with the storytelling, with the music, with the dress and the square we want to celebrate those things at the same time. Its kind of like a the stay of fayetteville, you can see everything from the arts and enter Entertainment District. Ey can see north stretching up to springdale and rogers and its inspirational. Just to take it in. Youre watching booktv on cspan2, with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. Now, on booktv on cspan 2, its the Rancho Mirage writers festival. Now in its fifth year. Last weeks festival featured several authors including car roof, h. Brauns, don brinkley, Susan Eisenhower and more. First up, New York Times oped columnist Bret Stephens and his new book america in retreat the new isolationism and the coming global disorder. Please welcome to the stage, Bret Stephens. Well