Potential retreat. American history tv. History bookshelves, the biography of influential conservative writer russell kirk. This was recorded at the 2016 Chicago Tribune book fest. [applause] good morning, everybody. I love the smell of books in the morning and its great to be around a bunch of friends who feel the same way. Its my pleasure to help kick fest. Days day of lit its my great pleasure to rzer, theradley j bi russell kirk famous american conservative. Bradley came over this morning from southcentral michigan, made the journey, and is here to talk about his book about russell kirk. One of the first questions for lots of people is who is russell kirk . The man undoubtedly cast a very large shadow over american political and intellectual thought in the latter half of the 20th century. It could be argued he still does. Yet, russell kirk is not a name that is much known these days or much invoked these days. Your book does many things but marvelousd serve as a bracing introduction or reintroduction to russell kirk. For starters, please give us a quick overview of this man. Thank you, john, and thank you, everybody, for coming here. Thanks to cspan tv. Russell kirk was born in 1918 in michigan into extreme poverty. It was something he experienced the first 35 years of his life to varying degrees. Yet, he was always very bookish, became interested in all kinds of things. If the stores are to be believed, he had read the collected works of karl marx as well as Thomas Jefferson by the time he was about 11. Certainly he had read all of jameson were cooper and no doubt there was a certain genius in this very unusual man in plymouth. He ended up going to michigan state. Afterwards, he served in the military for about five years during world war ii. When he came back from his military experience, he ended up getting his graduate degree at a scottish university, the university of st. Andrews, earned that in 1952, came back in 1953. Strangely enough, his dissertation became this millioncopy bestseller, this book called the conservative timing was just right. It hit the market from a chicago publisher, ended up going through seven editions over its lifetime, and it really did give there were a number of disparate voices that i would say were not leftist. They might be conservative to some degree, libertarian to another degree, but there were a number of voices that i think his book allowed some kind of forum for all of these voices to be able to speak right at the end of world war ii, right at the end of the korean war, so he becomes very important. We would never have had a very goldwater Movement Without kirk. We also would not have had a reagan Movement Later on. He did represent that strain of conservatism. Coalesce helped conservative thought. What is interesting and what most people might not imagine is that the mill you the milieu in which the conservative mind came out was very different than we kind of offer for political shorthand at this point. We think about conservative and liberal and we think about these things on the opposite extremes. We have pretty entrenched ideas about what those terms mean. They are convenient shorthand at this point that often lead to at the time but the conservative mind came out, conservatism really was not a thing in america. Thats right. Part of what kirk had to do was bring together these disparate strands and give it some kind of coherence, so what he decided to do in his this occasion when he wrote the dissertation, he longed to be a well published author. He never anticipated he would have the kind of success he did. The timing was perfect and he was a good writer a very good writer, and amazing stylist and a good anger as well, but he certainly did not project this was going to change the world. Even though and i think you are absolutely right that we have kind of forgotten in this day and age from about 1950 three to about 1964 and once goldwater fails in that horrific 1964re and the president ial election, kirk fails as well. He lives for 30 more years and it takes him those 30 years to rebuild his reputation that to what it was. Kirks conservatism was not political. I think it is fundamental to understanding the original conservative movement. It became political with goldwater movement, but when kirk writes the conservative mind, he is not thinking in terms of a political movement. He is not thinking a large defense and free market he is in favor of all that, but his main idea of conservatism is really presenting a kind of western face against the soviets. It was not just that we were not soviet or we were anticommunist, but he actually wanted to try to figure out a were something that was its own thing, and, yet, he did not want to be ideological, either. A lot of his conservatism is very poetic, very literary. It has to do with art probably more than it has to do with tax subsidies on military policy. Again, to set the stage, pre1953, you think about conservatives not really having a place at the table. Really a firm, cemented part of the spectrum with a definition he hide them. Keep in mind, the country is coming out of the great depression. The country has been forriencing the new deal quite a while. You have radical ideologies germinating abroad. You have a giant war that had taken place abroad. There was probably a general feeling that government control in ways bigger than ever before was perhaps a little bit necessary and that modernism was the inevitable path for mankind. Kirk, who comes presents a different path. Yes, and very antimodern. Hes very leery of this. One of the things we often forget, and your question leads beautifully into this, is that modern conservatism comes out of two impulses number one, the fear that there is a notectivization going on just in government, so theres no doubt conservatives from the beginning were fearful of big government. What we see radically abroad in the kind of terrorist ideological regimes we see in russia, germany, italy, portugal, and other places prior to world war ii and we see them during ways decline world war ii and in others we see them decrease. It was not just a fear of that abroad, but that at home through what we call progressive is him, that there was a desire to solve all problems through colossal institutions. For,hich kirk had no love huge universities, which kirk was fearful of huge universities, or government. He was fearful of the cult of the colossal around anything that seemed to be antihumane. That was one of the impulses that i think was important for all conservatism and libertarianism at that time in the 1950s, but the other impulse, which again we have gotten and we have even seen modern conservatives i will quotes, but we have seen modern conservatives lambast this. Believe very strongly that our true voice was the force of socrates and plato with cicero and augustine, and they saw that long line and believed and i think probably correctly that these things were being attacked, and it makes sense. National governments get involved in funding universities, they are going to want things like science, which science is great, but they will use science for making larger bombs. Questionf round this out, hopefully, it is tied to both the fear of what is colossal as well as the loss of liberal arts, that we are pursuing power without virtue. Kirk was absolutely horrified. In the book, im not sure how well i explain it, but i try to explain kirks feelings about this was horrified about the dropping of the atomic bombs. Those two of events, one isnt put together, but the dropping of the bomb first of all, the development of the bomb, that physicists would even consider this thing. This was just too much for him. I go into this in detail and i kirkpeople dont take as crazy, but he saw this as a very old stoics response, but he wondered as a member of the u. S. Military if it was his duty to commit suicide, not because he was depressed or suicidal, but because our honor as americans have been so tainted by the attack on these cities that maybe it was the duty of a good havecan to actually recompense to pay for this in a kind of purgatorial way. Very interesting. Its obvious he did not commit suicide, but his letters and diaries were just horrified by this. I want to talk in a little bit more detail about kirks brand of conservatism. When we think about liberals and conservatives these days, we almost cannot help but fall into the trap of stereotypes and caricature. Cartoonish pop conservatism or liberalism on tv. You write that conservatism for kirk was a means, a mood, or pass on to conserve, to to future generations the best of the humane tradition rather than to advocate a particular philosophy, party, and agenda. Very different than our shorthand version of conservatives right now. Could you talk about what his brand was of conservatism and why it set lots of mines on fire. As you said so well, there were not any conservative voices there were not many conservative voices. They were not unified by any means. A lot of these people were not coming out of the ivy leagues, which was interesting, too. A lot of these people were people who had been educated in smaller schools. I dont want to take this too far, but there is a bit of animosity towards not only corporate america, but towards east coast elitism and the ideas s as well. The ivy i dont want to suggest that as a prime motivating factor, but they were kind of proud they could jab the east coast universities as well. The word conservative is first used in the american tradition in the modern sense by a person out at one of the Seven Sisters schools. He uses it in an article in the atlantic and you would not get from reading this that it is political. Hes really talking about t. S. Eliot and remembering the great things in music and opera and so forth. Its not conservative in a political sense. Its not until after world war ii that the term starts getting bantered around. Its really kirk that does give that label some kind of gravitas , some kind of real strength. Its not a rallying cry for a party because eisenhower, it takes him a while, for example, to call himself that. Robert taft takes it on pretty quickly. Really, for kirk, that conservatism, he gives us six in the book the conservative mind, and he uses the term intentionally. His kind of a quasiatheist at this point. He will convert to roman catholicism but not until august 1964. This is a long journey for him. When he converts to catholicism. His really kind of an atheist agnostic for most of his life up to that point, and yet, if you read those cannons in 1953, they sound deeply religious. They start by arguing we should believe in a higher power, we should believe in the author of the natural law. We should believe in the dignity of every person. In his second canon, he actually sounds like vatican, too. What he says could have easily been written by someone in rome 1962 and i can 65 during the vatican council. Its all personal and humane in the way he thinks about this, but i stress, and i think it is important to note that he uses the term canon because that meant a truth that was not easily defined. Avoid a marxian program or fetishistic fascistic conception of the state. It is a way of thinking and that way of thinking is what we might call a stoic, almost agnostic judaism or christianity. Good enough to have the ethics of socrates, really to have this as a way of moving forward, and window conservatism from its beginning is very catholic and very jewish. It is not protestant really until you have the revival of the new right in the 1970s, so the Great Movement is kind of it had those religious overtones, but its not blatantly religious in the way we will think of it with Jerry Falwell or oral roberts or pat later on. He puts out the conservative 1953. In it shows there is not only this other point of view, but that it also has this very proud angloamerican heritage that stretches back a couple of centuries, and he instantly became a spokesman for really what became a movement. What did the book accomplish and what was the reaction . It is still obviously in print at this point. Its very heady stuff, not your typical the seller material, and yet, that is what it became. Thats right. It went through seven additions during his lifetime. The last was published in 1986, just about eight years before he passed away. Even to the beginning, most likely, this would be the last revision. The revisions do matter. This is not just a change of a name here are there. In particular, each edition changes the last chapter so it kind of looks more at what is happening. The original title, interestingly enough, was called conservatives route, because kirk thought all conservatism would be a rearguard action. He could not imagine anyone stepping forward and using this as a way to move into the future. It would always be a way of stopping radical progressives, holding them that to a certain degree, but he thought we would lose. That was not a typical. Whittaker chambers, even though he leaves communism, is always convinced communism will win. Chicago,er here in which we identify usually with conservatism, he actually had translatingey by catholic theology in the late 1940s into english, so a lot of german scholars and a lot of , he hadcholars translated those and made his money that way before he before it became known as conservatism, but when kirk publishes his book, is in the englishspeaking world. The conservative mind is published in every major periodical, every major newspaper. Several newspapers review it twice because it becomes so big that they feel they have to go back and look at it again and make sure they did not get it wrong. Almost everybody is laudatory. You find a few criticisms. Is apeople will say kirk 19thcentury man thrust into the 20th century. He is a romantic, which he was. There is no question kirk is an idealistic romantic. He would have enjoyed walking tours with wordsworth or coleridge, theres no question about that. Easily and he was a very eccentric person. Just as eccentric as they come, conservatism, really brings in all of these. Isparate schools together a lot of people and one person who is absolutely taken with this book, strangely enough, is this pilot from arizona, barry goldwater, and that is a catalyst for him. Minde conservative pretty much begins with edmund burke and his thoughts. Talk about the importance of edmund burke and some of the other people in the book, the other litany of conservative saints, if you will. Thats a great way of putting it because the conservative mind is very much looking at roughly 29 people, looking at their lives and what they contribute. They do not all agree and that is important for kirk, that in the book, these 29 characters, some we know well, people like , known well to at least academics at the time, people like alexis de tocqueville. A lot of these people we do not remember very well. Laudatory ofes others that i think are great guys but nobody picks up on them. There are others we know well. Absolutely. He is the book with t. S. Eliot. He and elliott become very good friends and shape each others thought profoundly he and eliot become very good friends. I dont think we could have had conservatism in america without eliot, who really sanctioned kirk. Certainly, burke is important. Kirk gives his bookends for the conservative mind starting with burke and john adams, the cheat of great conservatives as he sees it. He is with t. S. Eliot. He has these 26 figures in between. Burke is important and is a great figure and i have the great privilege of teaching founding of the american republic. I absolutely love it, but i always make sure that as the students are reading John Dickinson or Thomas Jefferson, we also do a good deal of burke. Part of that is because i like kirk and i like burke as well, but part of it is because burke was the leading mind in parliament. He was actually treasonous, defending American Life and he did that his whole career. Believed that americans had inherited the very long tradition of common law, trial by jury, the right to be innocent until proven guilty, habeas corpus. Burke believed we were the true englishman. That was kirks idea as well. Theres a sense that is important for our modern servative calms conservatism, but it is equally important to state burke is not unique. He is one in a very long line of thinkers. Even though kirk starts his book with burke, burke is the inheritor of socrates, plato, and aristotle and all the greats through the western tradition. Forward,idea to come that is kirks understanding that we as americans for the audience a special for the audience especially and those watching cspan, look at ronald reagan. If you go back to his speeches in 1981 and 1982, he will talk about the greatness of america, but what he talks about so importantly is america defending the greatness of the west. Like kirk, he draws that in. Later, reagan becomes a little over nationalistic, but in his earlier years, he is concerned with his with the western tradition and really the best of the western tradition. Mind thevative conservative mind at the table for kirks career. He was a writer who out his life, helped found the National Review where he was a syndicated columnist, widely read across the country. Several other books, important book on t. S. Eliot among others. Proteanst, just a creative figure. If for nothing else, he would be remembered for that, despite the fact that early on, he did not alk about conservatism as party, an agenda, as politics, he did get very much involved with politics, as you alluded to swith very goldwater candidacy in 1964. What prompted that shift and how did things play out . That is an awkward subject in a lot of ways simply because kirk really goes against his own principles. In many ways i will say in many ways, in every way i could find, kirk really was a man of integrity and im sure he had his faults. Ive seen he had a temper and so forth, but he really did try to live what he preached. He did make a lot of money but he gave it all away. We could talk about that. That is maybe a different story, but he had argued as early as 1953, and he takes this from one of the great writers. Politics is for the [indiscernible] not theight it was nicest comment to make, but he believed real change came by writing books, dealing with newspaper editors, by writing syndicated columns. He was truly a man of letters and that he believed a real intellectual presence, real change would take at least 25 years. We do not going to congress assuming that if we get one law passed, everything will change tomorrow. He took a long view. He saw how civilization had risen and fallen. He knew the greats of western civilization death people again, i know i have mentioned them already a couple of times, but the three greats of Greek Society socrates, plato, aristotle they came at the end of greece. They were all nostalgic writing about what they lost. The same thing with cicero and senate dustin saint augustin. Kirk thought we, too, were at the end of the west and therefore our job would be like medieval monks, to transcribe and conserve, but then this young senator who had a lot of charisma and even though only about 1 3 of the population like likedhat third really him. Im not a goldwater scholar, but bile accounts, its hard to dislike him. He met with people and was totally honest. People used to talk about when goldwater and nixon would meet donors, goldwater would never placate a donor. If it was gm and they wanted a subsidy of iteris, goldwater would say to the face, no, i would never do that, and nixon would say i think we could work something out if it was gm and they wanted a subsidy or trror subsidy or arriff. I dont think any of us would think old water lied. Hes just a guy who whatever he thought he spoke. I think kirk was pretty taken from that. Goldwater calling him from my twoon, d. C. , saying favorite authors are you and friedrich hayek. I need to know what to say to make this work. How will i convince people . I think a young kirk was pretty flattered by that. He became very involved. Goldwater called him all the time. They met at times in places like florida. They with William F Buckley strategized, how do we take out the birchers . We dont take out we dont want these people on our side. How do we take out the radical right . The goldwater movement then the goldwater movement took off in different directions. Involved muchet past 1964. He was not good at it. If you want a good politician, kirk is fantastic. If you want a winning politician, he is not your guy. Supported reagan, supported mccarthys run in 1976, pat buchanan later on. He loved norman thomas. I think he was much more concerned with personality and who he thought was honest. Theres obviously a lot of names and influences that kirk enjoyed. Its very enjoyable in your book paths ofn all of those all of these thinkers who influence his thought. This probably more ideas per page in this book than a years yearsf ted talks a worth of ted talks. Its fascinating intellectual history. By this am token, russell kirk, as you alluded to, was an interesting character. Not just a writer off in a room somewhere. Lots of eccentricities, a little bit of a prickly nature. Talk about the man himself and some of those peculiarities. Thanks. Its a great question and i dont think you could ever walk away from russell kirk without knowing his personality. He was bizarre. My favorite story about him, he upa bachelor all the way until 1964. He marries about a month before he turns 46. Mary is a beautiful woman. She had been a model in new york. Extremely intelligent. And they wereson a great team, but a year before he gets married, he always traveled the world, not as a young man, but once he went off and served in the military, became enamored with travel. He was a world traveler, throughout north africa, south africa, all of asia, all of europe. Usually we just live on peanut butter. He did not mind poverty at all. Always whatever he had, that is what he had. Money was only a means to an end. For kirk, that was another story. In 1963, he and a hungarians collar decide they are going to walking across north africa he and a hungarians scholar. , he alwayskirk goes carries with him a portable typewriter. That thing is everywhere and his 48. Ers im in all my years of research, i have never seen a body of letters like what he left. The guy never stopped writing. What haveeed to do you 20 words a minute, he had a photographic memory, just amazing. 1963, he walks across the desert with this hungarian scholar and wheres the whole time a threepeace tweed suit across the moroccan desert. He carries with him not only his typewriter, but he has this huge kaine that has a sword in it. Tsa would not allow this now, obviously. Usually carried a revolver were ever he went. Hes just an absolute eccentric, and of course, bedouin children, they follow him everywhere. Just this bizarre character walking across, inns up in europe after this whole thing, gets to an opera in italy. I think he is in florence. At the opera after this journey. He had a count dracula cape he had won for one of his horror stories. He got the count dracula prize. Ray bradbury was one of his friends. He loved wearing this cave. He shows up at the opera. His late. The Security Guard will not let him in at all. No way commodore is not opening, so kirks friends do not doorstand no way, the is not opening, so kirks friends, this is the duke of the costa. HadSecurity Guard is like i no idea he was a duchy. It is like this sixperson village in michigan. It was his home and he rebuilt his home in a rather grandiose manner. This is the other story about kirk we dont forget. If any of you and if reading the book and i hope you do, of course, but if you do, i would ask the one thing to take away that i think is so brilliant about kirk, and i into the book with this because i figured if you start with this, no one will believe it, but kirk did make millions of dollars in his lifetime not just from his books but especially from his fiction. He did very well. He wrote these gothic horror stories. His horror who read novels to not know he was the author of conservatism and most people who read his conservatism do not know he was the author of horror novels. When he died, he was basically broke. He and his wife, anybody who wanted to come from cambodia, anyone escaping from communism or fascism, they opened their house to them. They have four daughters. The daughters would wake up every morning. They never knew who would be at breakfast with them. At times there were 13 ethiopians or 18 cambodians, vietnamese, all of these people. Friends, anosest economist, was brought out of the former yugoslavia. You dont often remember that about these guys. Kirk truly lived this in every way. Met washe persons kirk annexed con who was on parole from upstate new york who happened to be walking through , and his wife met him. It was a man named Clinton Wallace. Kirk loved this guy. It was fascinating. They invited him in for sunday brunch, they love him and invited him to stay, and they ended up living with him. He called the Parole Office in new york said, we will take care of this guy. He accidentally leaves the great to the fireplace open and burns down the home. They rebuild after that and it is this beautiful ornate structure. Heres the thing i think is beautiful in st. Michaels cemetery, they bury Clinton Wallace he died around 1978 his tombstone is right next , but it doesk not say hobo or homeless drifter exfelon, it road. Night of the this guy was interesting, so kirk like him. Eccentric, too, just not on the criminal side. Once i wonder what you might think about would whats going on these days. I dont mean to put you in his mind, but who better to ask that someone who has written this narrative . What would he think about todays political environment . He would be horrified. In every way, he would be horrified. Two things would have bothered him immensely, and he spent the last years of his life combating this. Right or wrong, he thought that george bushs Foreign Policy first george bush was just against everything america stood for. He was worried about the first gulf war. He saw this as our first forward into america foray empire. He was run out of the conservative movement for this. He thought bush had betrayed the entire reagan legacy. He was fine with a large military, just did not think you could use it. One of those things where you have a military so you dont use it. Should did not think you use it. The idea we have troops stationed in 150 countries out of roughly 196, something very different than what it would have been in 1991, he would have then wouldve been very upset about it. He would not have recognized any of the people that we call, pejoratively or not, neocons. This is and i think maybe even more important, and i dont want to necessarily name names, but the idea that you have radio shows that a kid to conservatism as art let me rephrase that, not as art but as entertainment radio shows dedicated to conservatism. His conservatism, what we are doing for we are having a discussion and you are letting me talk more very graciously, but taking 35, 40 minutes and actually thinking about an idea, that, for kirk, is what we should be doing. Disagreed with some, but that was the proper way of doing news. Like ime people manned like ayn rand going right at him, and he very strongly disagreed with her brand of individualism, kind of a social darwinism, he let her talk and answered very calmly. He was frustrated she was frustrated and he was fine. He actually got along very well with malcolm x. Same kind of thing. I think that was important for him. Soundbites, that was not his this discussion, exchange of ideas. In closing, we want to open up the floor to questions from the rzer ife for professor bi there are any about russell kirk, his thought, or this book. Going once. We had answered all the questions. And then westion will close. Really brief, Russell Kirks legacy. Yes. Im sorry, we do have one question. We will get to that. Two questions. One, what was his reaction to what happened in the 1960s . So much conservatism today seems to come from that. And this is off the subject, but it has been in the news lately about how conservative areessors on campus somewhat afraid to come out of as conservatives. Any comment on that . Thank you for coming and thank you for both those questions. Kirk, like many conservatives, was confused by the 1960s. He did attack some radicalism on campus but was also willing to debate and engage. , heof my favorite stories was asked to speak at the university of michigan, and he was to debate tom hayden. He got in front of this crowd that was predisposed to tom hayden, pretty radical group, question as without gentleman, and no matter who he was talking to, he treated people with respect, and tom hayden came late. Kirk, because the event had to get started and hayden had not shown up, they allowed kirk to give a speech. Hayden came in from the back of the room at least as the story goes hayden came in and immediately started launching into kirk as this defender of corporate capitalism and a person defending the establishment, and the story goes ive not been able to verify all this, but even if its not true, i think it says so much about what we remember about kirk and explains a lot. There was a young africanamerican men in the front row who was a very convinced black panther, and as soon as hayden launched into kirk, the guy stood up and just started yelling and hayden and said, you have no right to do this. You did not listen to this man. This man has more respect for us than you are showing now. Kirk dublin the debate because whatever he said, he treated everybody well. It was not a show for him. This was serious conversation. I think it is really important to note that kirk in his life, whatever again modern has become, kirk was always a defender of people who would be called minorities in the 1950s. He believed the changes that happen in the 1960s were necessary. This would not go over well with libertarians or hardcore free market rights. He thought one of the ugliest things that had developed in roadsigns,lture were big billboards. He thought all americans should spend their time to facing billboards because they do not do anything for america. In his lifetime, he planted thousands upon thousands of trees because he said it was his duty to make up for the sins of his ancestors who had raped the environment. When we hear radio personalities who areedia today espousing conservativism, not generally what we hear. Asked your second question, i cannot really answer that. I know a lot of my friends who are conservative feel very oppressed in the academy. I teach at a Small College that is very open. I had thet year, great blessing of teaching at the university of colorado in boulder. I loved it. Im sure people thought i was weird, but i had nothing but good experiences. Worth, mikes anecdotal evidence, i have not seen that, but i certainly know my friends who are conservative or libertarian do not feel the way i do, that maybe i have just got lucky. Gotten lucky. We have come to the end of our time. I want to remind everybody, the book is russell kirk american conservative. The author, bradley birzer. Everybody enjoy the rest of lit fest today. Thank you so much. Thank you for attending todays program. Book will be sold just outside the door and your feedback is important to us. Please visit printersrowlitfest. Org and have a pleasant day. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] history bookshelf features the countrys bestknown writers of the past decade talking about their books. You can watch every saturday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern here on American History tv on cspan3. Week, American History tvs reel america brings archival films that provide context to todays top issues. Meets brown stream that lake erie, and industrial waterway, its banks populated by steel mills and factories, its. Hannels filled with ships the Cuyahoga River, as it reaches lake erie, after a 100mile twisting and turning , isney from its headwaters an exhausted stream, abused and. Isused by man and his machines without the cuyahoga, the slowing the sprawling megalopolis of cleveland would not exist. The stream was the reason for settling this portion of the western reserve. The river, called crooked of the delaware indians, provided the waterways of the interior of ohio, and so man came and continued coming. Until today, nearly 2 Million People live and work in the river basin. Life of any kind in its water. The cleveland plant as another 75 million gallons to the river alone. The river that is the only one known throughout the world us rolling. Were talking about lake erie. With got to clean up the sources and cemeteries. While we can report that at its source, the Cuyahoga River has been reborn, we must also report that by the time it ends, it is long dead. If there is a story of how the Crooked River dies, it is that men has multiplied too fast. If he does not stop polluting, eventually, like the cuyahoga, he will find there is nothing left and his space may soon resemble that of the Crooked River. This weekend, American History tv will mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire, an event that shed right on Water Pollution and help create the clean water act. Sunday, a historian and coauthor of where the river burned joins us live from along the river and cleveland to take your calls and talk about the fire, myths associated with it any campaign by then cleveland mayor stokes to find a solution. Our coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire. On cspan3. Im a white male and i am prejudiced. Its something i was not taught but kind of something that i learned. I dont want to be forced to like people. I want to be led to like people through example. What can i do to change . You know, to be a better american. That was a remarkable moment. I did not realize until i stepped off the set because they were more calls after that, how powerful it was. This something in his voice that touched me. You could hear it. As heso authentic searches for the words to say to a National Audience that most of us will not admit in our homes. Im prejudiced. Heather mcghee, public of president of a Public Policy organization was a guest in they received a color. She followed up with him. Racially this sort of charged summer with Donald Trumps campaign, with black lives matter, with police shootings, tragic events in baton rouge and dallas. It was a time when people felt like all they were seeing on tv about race was bad news, and here was first a white man admitting that he was prejudice, which for people of color, we ki