Transcripts For CSPAN3 Samuel 20240704

Welcome to politics and prose. Im brad graham, a coowner of a bookstore along with my wife Lissa Muscatine and were very pleased to be hosting professor, author and journalist Samuel Friedman this evening. Hes here to discuss new book into the bright sunshine Young Hubert Humphrey and the fight for civil rights. Now sams journalism professor at Columbia University and formerly reported and wrote columns for New York Times as a reporter in the 1980s, he worked in the culture of the times. Then in the mid 2000 wrote the papers on education column. And then for ten years he was responsible for. The on religion column. Hes also written nine previous books on a wide range of topics from high school to american jewry to college football, to his mothers own story. In his new book, sam delves into the early life of humphrey, who spent three years in the us senate representing minnesota and four years as Lyndon Johnsons Vice President , but is largely remembered for losing to Richard Nixon the 1968 president ial campaign. Again, to George Mcgovern for the democratic president ial nominee. In 1972, humphrey disparaged for having dutifully supported johnsons conduct of the vietnam war and although once the nations preeminent liberal politician humphrey came to be regarded as as a political has been. But sam tells another story arguing humphrey actually left quite a consequential legacy earlier in his political career or as something of a beacon for genuine democracy. As mayor of minneapolis, humphrey pushed through reforms to end antiblack and antijewish covenants and. Other mechanisms of discrimination and he made some progress in dismantling prejudice in the citys police department. Then at the 1948 Democratic National convention. 75 years ago this month humphrey vaulted into national when he delivered a powerful speech advocating a robust civil rights plank for the Democratic Partys platform. This was at a time when conservative southern democrats dominated the party. But humphreys argument swayed enough delegates to win a majority and then so doing as sam humphrey stands as a singular figure in the Democratic Partys move away from, its white supremacist Southern Roots towards the cause of equality of racial equality and our sam has said his intention in writing humphrey was to place him in the contest most of his times and a good part of the biography does detail the shocking extent of racial prejudice and antisemitism in. 1940s, minneapolis and within Democratic Party. As such, of course, has particular resonance today amid all the attention being paid to ongoing Racial Injustice and violence in this country with minneapolis itself, once again, a focus in the wake of murder of george floyd and. Federal and state investigation that have faulted the citys police for racial bias. The reviews of sams book been very positive. The wall street journal called it a powerful and, captivating read, and the new york said the book is superbly a superbly written tale of moral and courage for present day readers who find themselves similarly dark times in conversation with sam will be julia sweig, who a couple years ago came out with a bestselling biography of another prominent figure, Lady Bird Johnson. And theres a documentary coming out this fall right about, you know, based on the book, julius other books have dealt with cuba, latin america and American Foreign policy. Shes the creator, host and executive of the podcast plain sight. So please join me in welcoming sam friedman and julia sweig. Hello everyone. Im so pleased to be here with you tonight and. Thank you, bradford. Stealing thunder of all of my notes here. Youre introduction. But i think that that sams book is so rich that well have lots to talk about, especially with your participation. I know many of you were sams students, and i. Im sure that ill try to call on you if you, you know, stick that hand really high. Well talk for about 25 or 30 minutes before we open it up to questions the audience. Let me say that brad skipped over something really quickly he mentioned sams nine other books. Thats nine other books. This is a very prolific writer and reporter whos written about contemporary american life. So many different facets. Im really honored to have spent the last three weeks in the mornings reading your book, sam. So congratulate shands for bringing this story really to life. A story that is full of surprises. I usually or we often ask an author what was the Biggest Surprise you . But im going to flip that before i hand the the mic over to you and tell you what was the most to me and. That is something we just heard at the very end of the introduction, which is the portrait of minneapolis, the minneapolis story sam brings out is that i think for those of us that dont know the city and i certainly dont really kind of ruptures lot of mythologies the play about place and the extent of the racism and the antisemitism in midcentury minneapolis really just i found shocking given that a Northern City northern cities are not aloof to this kind of phenomenon. But nevertheless, that was perhaps my Biggest Surprise about this book. The book features fashion and liberals and moderates and conservatives and mini biographies about maybe a dozen other individuals who make humphrey Hubert Humphrey. So with that, let me let me say congratulations, sam. And i will ask you the basic question, which is how did you come to write this story . Id be happy to that question. But first, i want to, in two pleasures and one kind of sacred obligation pleasure. Number one is to be at a store like this. Ive been at books and books think for three of my ive been in politics prose for three of my other books over the years and one thing i know is that independent stores like this are lifeblood for writers like me. And i truly. So even if you dont buy my book tonight by julius or by somebody elses, because all writers like us need these to flourish. The second pleasure is to be here with. Julia sweig. I was given a wish list by politics and prose by brad and his team here, whom i like to have a conversation partner and without a doubt i wanted it to be julia. I only knew her at that point from. Her amazing work about Lady Bird Johnson, respectfully titled in plain sight and hiding in plain sight. The book is extraordinary podcast ive listened to twice. They have completely blown away and they really make you revisit this figure. And if you thought ladybird johnson was about planting bluebells on the exit ramp. Oh, youre really in for some discovery. So a great, great honor to be here. Thank. And then the sacred obligation. One of my friends in writing i met purely by being assigned to review one of his books before ive ever met him was a long time washingtonian named nick kotz. Great author, superb on the subject of civil rights, particularly his book judgment days, the alliance, rough as it sometimes was between lbj and Martin Luther king. And so id like to in talking tonight, think of nick and what an extraordinary writer and friend he was. Now on to doing the book. Part of it was that been looking for a number of years for some book to do in the period right after the end of world war two, because i felt there was this complacent view that we go from vj day to everyones in love, the town mowing the lawn. And there were two problems with that conventional. One is that the fifties actually had a lot of turbulence of both the and the unproductive kind there was the red scare or the Civil Rights Movement as a lot of remember it with the montgomery bus and brown versus board of ed and the other is that even if you had a more clear eyed view of the fifties, you still to account for all those missing years. How did get from vj day to even january 1st of 1950 . And id never quite found right subject for that time period. And a lot of my books have come back to race and civil rights as their narrative center and as topical center. And so those thoughts had been resting and agitating the back of my brain a long time. And then i luckily heard a good friend of my wifes in mind, the historian julian zelizer, do a book about one of his books about lbj putting through the Great Society legislation and my wife chris, who lived in minnesota for many years, like a good minnesotan, asked julian about humphrey. And in the course of answering that question, julian mentioned the unappreciated landmark Hubert Humphrey civil rights speech at the 1948 Democratic Convention and the proverbial light bulb went on for me, knew that speech. But theres something that julian that made me think as i told my at dinner afterwards thats the book but trying to be an ethical guy the next morning emailed julian and said the light bulb went off but if youre going to do this book, id never touch it. And he said, oh no, im really busy writing about, you know, jim wright and newt gingrich. So go ahead. So i went ahead and the result is a really tremendous and very prodigious act of research and writing and and those of you who know his writing know that he has an incredible turn of phrase almost on every page. So its a beautiful piece of writing as well. How long did you spend on the Research Side of this book . I spent a total eight and a half years on, the book and because of normally i would have wanted to be done with about 90 of my research before spending roughly a year or a year and a half writing. But the major archive or humphreys papers are shut for several years and i had to work around that. And so actually when i started, which was in july of 2021, i at that point was six years into my research and i was over write the first few chapters pretty much straight because i tend to research chronologically. But then as i got past the midway point of the book, id really have to stop with each chapter and back and fill the holes that id been able to fill. While the main archive and other sources and other places were inaccessible to me. So, you know, the last eight or nine months of producing the book were a mixture of research and writing. Im going to press point just a little bit more. Having spent eight years on the ladybird book to, are you saying that you generally and i said, i hear that you said you had to fill backfill with research once you had more access to the material but otherwise youre able to research straight through then stop and then write to the end. Thats the way i tried to do. I. Every author has their approach and i always say i never get between anybody and their own methodology, as i think even my book writing students here can attest. Yes. I mean, but the way i like to work is i really need to feel that i have a Critical Mass of the material before i can even begin to contemplate writing about it. Im worried, making ill informed choices if im writing before i really have that Critical Mass and again, everyone has their own approach and i tend to be someone who really maps out a book detail and i cant do that if. I dont have most of my at hand in this case ive point to was going chapter by chapter but im the kind of person who will make a 20,000 word outline for 15,000 word chapter and as my english teacher mother would say, just writes itself after that, well, it doesnt write so definitely not. But it gives you the freedom of that is the difference. Im not, you know, scrambling through my papers wondering wheres that anecdote was . Quote, i forgot to make that i find that it liberates me to have, you know, the blueprint laid out ahead of me. I compare it. Im a big jazz lover, and i compare it to a im not converting myself to john coltrane, certainly. But you know, when coltrane would play solos on television . Some people would think people would think that he came up with them on the spur of the moment. I remember reading accounts of, first of all, how much he practiced all the time. And then secondly, hearing the great engineer, tom dowd talk about how coltrane would get to the studio early on the day of a session and hed be trying out versions of his solo in the studio before the recording. So there was still the brilliance of his improvization, but he had a sense of where he wanted to go and David Maraniss is a Great Washington ian. In his book about Vince Lombardi talks this jesuit ical idea of freedom within discipline and i totally subscribe to that as a as a way of writing well maybe well get to come back to the writing because obviously im a writer, so this is what im very interested in. And you taught teach a legendary class on book writing. But lets get into the substance now, and i hope we can come back. I mentioned, sam, that there are many characters other than Hubert Humphrey who flesh out young hubert for us. Which character do you want to talk about first . I have five or six written down your choice. Okay, lets talk about and of. You will know each of these, not all of you and all of them. Lets talk about cecil newman. Cecil newman was humphreys tutor on racism in america. And let me just back up by saying, when i started this book, i made three promises to myself, this will be a cradle to grave doorstop. This will not be a great man or woman in history book, and this will not be a white savior narrative. And part of that was developing the people concentrated around humphrey and cecil newmans first among equals cecil woman was a former Pullman Porter who started work as a black journalist in minneapolis while also working trains. He would bring his typewriter on the train and when theyd get to the end of the sometimes it was fargo, sometimes it was he would then go the local Carnegie Library type his column for the week, and then it back airmail to the. He was then working for and cecil newman had lonely role he was not the only rights activist in minneapolis, the twenties and thirties, but there were very few them and he had this fundamentally lonely role of in his newspaper, the spokes, which is published to this day by his granddaughter, chronicling Police Brutality, chronicling discrimination by both management and labor against blacks who wanted job and who wanted to be in unions. Chronicling the kind of racist dog whistle terminology that would be used in the way the mainstream papers covered the black community in minneapolis on and on and on. And he would do what he could point to listicles you try to publicly shame someone. You try to call attention to a misdeed but the black population of minneapolis is maybe one or 2 of the whole city. They couldnt work up. It wasnt possible to work up the electoral muscle to at the say were here. You have to about our votes. So they were ignored and continuously oppress and new was in way i think he actually did know he was looking for a just white man he knew some white people in minneapolis but none of them had power. He needed someone who both had principles and power and Hubert Humphrey was very open for a variety of reasons to being taught on the subjects of race and antisemitism. He had begun his awakening before he got to minneapolis to start political career in 1940, but he needed to learn. And so he and cecil, i love this phrase from the playwright athol fugard. They had an appointment with other they didnt know they had an appointment, but they had an appointment with each other and the symbiosis of that relationship was vital to humphrey. And the other thing thats about newman is, he was fierce, you know, he dressed like this edwardian. Some people thought he was a moderate, like, hell, no, this guy in the thirties was writing editorials saying blacks should vote for roosevelt, we should vote for the communist party. The cp is the only white political that advocates for, and even when he became very supportive of humphrey, hes constantly pushing him pushing him, pushing him to go all the way with civil rights agenda and. It was just such a productive friendship and the last thing ill say is that after humphrey gives this amazing civil rights speech. In 48, i looked at every letter and every telegram he received, a lot of it was hate and it would be interesting to talk about the later or it was praiseworthy. The very first letter, the very first telegram. He got 23 minutes before his wife, muriel, centers was from cecil newman. And when Hubert Humphrey wrote back to cecil newman a handwritten letter later, he said, this wasnt my triumph. This our triumph. So he knew what that was all about, what cecil newman had meant to him. Im seeing a play about their relationship on stage somewhere. Okay another name you mentioned antisemitism. What about sam shiner sam shiner was jewish parallel to cecil newman and in fact sam, shiner and cecil newman worked together a lot on on issues of racism antisemitism. So sam shiner was a jazz pianist who had gone to law school in minneapolis. And none of the proper law firms would hire him because he was jewish. So for a while. He was basically supporting himself, his family, playing jazz, piano and ultimately because of the antisemitism was so fierce and so entrenched in minneapolis that when the neonazi or the not neonazi, the Pro Nazi Group in the 1930s, the silver shirts began to hold big Public Meetings in that a lot of the establishment go to. This wasnt just the riff raff the president of the board of ed would go the head of the Business Association would go the head of the real estate board would go, and the Jewish Community got alarmed enough that they decided they needed to someone to be kind of one man anti lee and that was sam and so sam scheiner like cecil neuman had this lonely, almost solitary battle against antisemitism in and he would try every thing he would get young nonjewish students from the university of minnesota to agree to attend these silver rallies and these workshops led by these flagrantly hating ministers and take notes they they didnt want jewish. They could get away with it. The shriner would have his people go to the silver shirts rally or one of these similar events and jot down the license plate numbers of who attended so he could track who there and keep a card file and favorite sam shiner, which is almost inadvertently humorous is he would subscribe to these anti magazines under slightly altered names like sam shriner or something else. And at one point i think was when he was fighting world war two, he was in the pacific. The publisher of one of these rags shows up in minneapolis has nowhere to stay and knocks on the door of the shiner household. And his wife who is, you know, your young daughter, susan with her opens the and this phil saying was this were sam shriner lives he subscribes to my magazine could i stay over and course she you know delicately got out of that one but shiner similarly became hubert freehs tutor on antisemitism specifically in minneapolis. And we can talk more about that later. But again, he needed with power, not just ideals and humphrey was that guy and humphrey needed someone who deeply explain to him the way antisemitism worked in a very establishment maine stream american city. And again, they didnt know they had an appointment, but they had an appointment and and another that had an appointment and im thinking as im listening to that when ive come to events here that focus on fiction, the author and the person in conversation with have to work quite hard to not give away the story. And i want to make sure were not giving away story because you really must read book. But theres a person and then an incident that i also would love to touch on. And the person who never. First lady, of course is Muriel Humphrey. What kind of power did Muriel Muriel wield, who talk little bit about their appointment. Yeah. Muriel in so many ways rescued Hubert Humphrey, his life and you have to understand, humphrey grows up in this tiny little fly speck of a town in dakota. Hes the prodigy, sort of the egghead brainiac kid and Ghost University of minnesota valedictorian, a class of, i think, 12 inches a little town, and then the economy completely. His family had already their house. Nothing was their business. He had to drop out of college. He ends up his family moved to another town in south dakota to try start over and humphrey is told by his father, basically, youve to go and become pharmacist. We need a licensed pharmacist. He does that and. Then hes theyre giving up all of his potential to be the pharmacist in the small town drugstore. And his father imagines himself being the politician in the household. And he starts to date muriel at that time and muriel is the one who urges him to leave there is this amazing trip humphrey takes in 1935 to visit his also totally amazing way ahead of her time younger sister, but more like an older sister, frances here in washington, where shes gone to g. W. And become a protege of eleanor roosevelt. And thats when Hubert Humphrey sees congress in session and goes to the smithsonian policies mind. And hes to muriel. Theyre writing back and forth several a day. You think im crazy . But i this is what i should do with my life. And muriel is the one who says, your dream is my. But if youre going to have this dream, youve to leave your father. He can find someone else to work the drugstore. But basically, if you stay there, you will be crushed. And with her support. He prides lewis goes back school and he listened to muriel in all sorts of ways and she had great instincts. Politics one two of which have to do with his civil rights speech at the 48 convention. One is that a few months before that convention, as he was preparing to give that speech, was already known hed be point person to speak on behalf of that plank. He gives us a speech at the aflcio. No, they hadnt merged at the afl convention in san francisco, and it goes. Some of us remember humphrey this way on and on. And on and on. And humphreys convention was a great speech and says to him after it, hubert, speech doesnt have to be to be immortal immortal, which was a great piece of advice the other thing. Those of us came of age during, the second wave of feminism. Remember the phrase the personal is the political. And here is a really profound of it. So its the second week of july, 1948. Its like 9000 degrees in philadelphia with that kind of east coast, 110 humidity like today. And like today in washington and the put the democratic is heading for this boiler over on the issue of civil rights. Truman doesnt to engage the issue hes afraid south will leave the southerners the future dixiecrats are saying you make any move toward civil rights and were out the door. We have our Railroad Cars waiting to take us to birmingham to have our convention. And humphrey knows hes supposed to give the speech to sell the civil rights plank, but course, 37 years old, three years as mayor, hes terrified of what this means. One of trumans own leaders on the floor tells humphrey so many words. If you give that speech your career is over and hes waffle chewing on it, he knows its the right thing, but he needs for defecation. And during that week in philadelphia, when would go kids . This is what it was like back then mailed delivery would be like two, sometimes three times a day. So and muriel would write multiple times each. And muriel has been looking for, in true minnesota fashion, a cottage by a lake where theyll take a week vacation with their after the convention and before hubert starts its senatorial campaign. And she writes to hubert early in Convention Week and says, actually, a few days before Convention Week starts, hes already in philly and says, i heard that this place doesnt and im going to go up there and find out and so to sunday thats the start of Convention Week she drives up there she confronts the owners. They give her all of their pablum about well take a few. But if we took more, wed have to take all of them, you know, why dont the other people with cottages, you know, with the resorts on the way their share she comes back, she writes to hubert, he gets us slaughtered the morning hes going to give his speech when hes still uncertain. And she says to him, first of all, we cannot stay there. This is not what we believe in. And this is all so terrible politically. And i think hearing it from his wife his life partner and knowing how personal the stakes were, because thats civil rights plank wasnt only about black americans. It also explicitly, explicitly banned prejudice or called for an end to prejudice on grounds. This was very much addressed antisemitism and also anti catholicism. And i think getting jolt for muriel was just one more thing that put, you know, an iron rod in his backbone when he most needed. The the story of the partnership in president ial couples of course interests me greatly. It was the subject that book that i wrote that great book thank you. And muriel you know she shows up off ladybird johnson kept 123 hours of her own tapes in white house and and those tapes had been largely of bypassed by the johnson historians and what and muriel shows up very often in lady birds tapes and she shows up always with sort of great sympathy, you know, im jumping ahead now in time. Hubert, is is is constantly being berated by lbj for in order to get hubert to rise to many occasions and keep hubert aligned on vietnam. And then theres the game. Will he even select him as his Vice President . But the ladybird muriel has a long history, and you can tell from way ladybird talks about her that, that muriels role for hubert was similarly vital. Absolutely. And these were two people. I mean, humphrey was faithful in his marriage by every evidence ive seen lbj, we know not. But there were parallels to what you showed so brilliantly in your book. They trusted these women. They had. Yeah. In not in every single way, but in many important ways companionate marriages when that was not the norm and really disarmingly modern when you get exactly why theres a great part in julias book and in 64 no sooner is lbj president when hes you know gripped by one of his depressions and thinking, i shouldnt run again and. Part of muriel, i mean, part of ladybird is thinking, oh, yeah, sure sure. But in other parts, like, okay, if thats what you think, then im going to write the speech youre going to give at that. So thats how much he relied upon her. And hubert with muriel. And i know how i got one little detail of their closeness it does involve politics, but just the personal friendship and the affinity. The house that hubert and muriel built basically for their house years in a small town called waverly, minnesota, was from blueprints for one of the out buildings on the lbj ranch that when muriel and hubert would go to visit lbj and ladybird. She really admired particular house and got the plans from lady bird had it you know constructed there in waverly. Ill have to and look at that. Okay. So the issue i want you to talk about without totally giving away the story is when we spoke on the phone before this evening, you mentioned you wanted to talk about a very significant event. And i described that significant event to you as something i would have loved for the book to open. Was so you share a little bit about that was and youll see why opening with it could have one choice but of course the hardest thing writing a big book like this is making a choice. You have to start. You have to make millions of choices throughout. The process. What was your what is the story and and why the choice. Well, let me let me set it up first. Humphreys years as mayor of minneapolis taking on the city that was nationally in a way similar to what it became after George Floyds murder, as the example of a. C. And racism. And humphrey takes it on and makes it this National Example of progress on civil and human rights. And thats very controversial. He builds a political majority and wins election twice, but he has lots prominent enemies. And one of them is a proto donald trump named gerald l. K. Smith, who is the founder of the America First party and who was a minister and selfproclaimed populist, who is also a raving racist antisemite. He wanted to ship blacks back to africa and in turn and then sterilize. But all the good white were going to get a social safety net. He wasnt going to cut their Social Security and medicaid or medicare so to speak. Right. The past is present. Humphrey is a series of confrontations with him and there is a young follower of smiths named Maynard Orlando Nelson, who is furious at humphrey taking on his hero. So one night in february 47, right as humphrey is really beginning, roll out a civil and human rights agenda minneapolis hes coming late at night as Police Escort drops him off outside his home near the university of minnesota campus. Hes walking to the front door once when the streetlights is out. Thats odd. And hes fumbling for the key and the door because he cant see. And two shots whiz by him and that was a serious assassination attempt. And lot of the accounts of it misrepresent it easily. They treat it as some kind of a warning. No one really wanted to kill humphrey or its ascribed totally incorrectly to the gangsters downtown in minneapolis. They would have done it. A lot of them were jewish. And humphrey was a hero to the Jewish Community, even though the gangsters were upset that he was busting up thereafter hours, liquor and bookmaking. They would never have done that would have been bad for business. But this was what Maynard Orlando Nelson did. He was the one who tried to kill humphrey. So humphrey almost lost his life. This is a year, more than a year before Convention Speech for taking a stand on civil rights just in one city and he and just to tell you how this was when hubert a mural that night saying like what the heck just happened and did he miss thank god they realized that their pet dog tippy had barked right before they heard the shots and they filled out must have unnerved the shooter two weeks later, tippy disappeared. A bunch of letters start to show up to hubert, to muriel, to the newspaper was town purporting to be from who said i overheard two jewish gangsters saying how they were going to kill humphrey. So nelson smart. Hes evil, but smart. And he knows how to draw attention from himself. Ultimately, the police do arrest. He has knives, guns, pronazi propaganda. The whole terrorism toolkit. And interestingly, humphrey i think partly not to give him the pulpit a trial doesnt press charges and i think also hopes nelson will leave. He doesnt leave right away, but he actually turns up in the sixties with, the American Nazi Party on the south side of chicago. Well, im going to let you off the hook about ask talking about where you located that story of the book because i want to give all of you an opportunity to ask your own questions. We have a microphone up here, if you wouldnt mind. Coming up to the microphone. And would you please say who you are when you ask your question. So sam can know his. My name is nathan and and i graduated a few years ago from Montgomery College here in the washington area. Im im very much enjoying reading reading your book. Friedman and i also and i and im and i also read your book about Lady Bird Johnson and found it very and found a truly meaningful and important and my question. What i was wondering is. One thing that i found particularly interesting was about cyril king and how Hubert Humphrey escorted him to lunch in the Senate Dining room and. I know that cyril king, if im remembering correctly, cyril had a political career in the u. S. Virgin islands. Im. I was wondering if you might be able to speak some about cyril king and his connection humphrey to humphrey and the last thing i just wanted to quickly touch on is that i just wanted to note that Muriel Humphrey served in the u. S. Senate herself many years later. And i just wanted to note that and if theres time would you be able to speak briefly her about her senatorial legacy, ill try to cover that. There are several points, cyril comes up just in the epilog of the book, because mostly the book culminates with humphreys into the bright sunshine at the 48 convention, which gets the Democratic Party to fully endorse civil rights for the first time ever, something it had never done under fdr and reads harry truman run runs a civil rights candidate. It drives the dixiecrat out of the party, and it lays the groundwork for everything. Humphrey and lbj will do six years later, the voting act, civil rights act, fair. But civil king was the first black america and who was a senatorial aide to anyone. And hired him soon after getting to the senate in 1949. And when i talked, humphreys fantastic sister frances before, one of the things frances did with, eleanor roosevelt, was desegregate the restaurants at the Shoreham Hotel here in, the district, by simply showing up with a group of, i think was war mobilization workers of both races and daring the shoreham to turn away the first lady. And i think that francis must have told hubert that story because a couple of times he did that in his career, he broke color barriers by just showing up with a black dining partner. And he did that with cyril king in in the Senate Dining. By the way, this is part of the reason and you can read about this robert carrolls magnificent books about part of the reason the southerners just punished every conceivable way once he got into the senate. As for muriel, youre right, she served a term in the senate. She deserved it based on her acumen. It wasnt just some give away to the grieving widow and her one of her big issues was the rights of the disabled. And this is all before the americans with disabilities act. But she and hubert had a granddaughter who was born with down syndrome. And at the time when kids like that would just get shunted into the terrible for really the rest of their lives, they insisted on helping daughter nancy raise her home and. That gave muriel particularly a great sensitivity to issues of of the disabled. And that was big part of what she devoted her time in the senate to. Thank you. Given your attention to detail in writing all your chapters and preparation for them with, your notes, what is your relationship with ed and is it more or less involved than other authors have . I cant speak for the relationship other authors have with their editors, other than some of my friends and some of my students have gone on to become terrific and we trade stories about that i can just say that excuse me i learned hard way on my first book i had a great editor, but hes a recluse and im working on a book. Im recluse. And i handed and managed group that was incredibly bloated and course i thought was sure brilliance and we went through a lot of push and pull on the way to publishing the book because wed not read any groundwork. My second editor, the amazing alice mayhew, in whose memory ive written this book, allison ive worked with David Maraniss as editor Bob Woodwards editor, tony lucas doris kearns goodwin. Its an honor to have been edited by alice allison. I had a different way of working which was her way which really helped me which was that knowing im a recluse when im working on a book every three or six months, you would invite me to or lunch and we would end up doing all of the conceptual editing of a book just over the of those lunches. So that by the time i was handing in manuscript, we agreed on the big picture of the book. We understood the narrative of the book, and that made the line go much more smooth oddly. I also have to say this is the kind of editor alice was. She no detail escaped her. The last book i wrote for her was called breaking the line. It was about hpc, youth football, the Civil Rights Movement. And the book is all done. Its going into production. We chosen the photos for photo insert and i sent in my captions and im with my wife going to Kennedy Airport to go and visit our son in madrid, where hes doing study abroad. My cell phone rings alice and she reams out. She said, these captions are no, a caption cant just tell someone whats in the photo. Every caption has to be part telling a story and all the captions together have to tell one story. Its like, whoa, okay. So that was alices old school. And i was very fortunate alice has passed away to have a great editor, tim bent at oxford on this book, and he and i had a similar way of working the way i had with alice and it was real achievement tims part because we signed this contract not long before pandemic descended. So there was no going out to lunch with tim but by zoom and phone and other ways we had the same process of agreeing on conceptual outlines of the and then when things would change like would say, you know, i was thinking of writing whole chapter about the 1948 election but it takes the narrative too much away from humphrey. Do you mind if i just make that part of the epilog where he would to me . You know this chapter on humphrey as mayor is really long. I a way to break it into two chapters by splitting right here and we just had a baseline of trust with one another and hes just a great word person i got the good skinny on him from john quigley, whos there whod written a wonderful book called a small southern town about the Civil Rights Movement here in washington, edited for her. So those were my ways. And also you, my secret weapon, my wife is a killer editor. My wife edited all 160,000 words of this book before went to tim. Wow. So i had two great editors. You can hire her if you want, but by the way, the hubert household was located than a mile from where i up in the 1960s. And chevy chase in maryland. Right. Who i knew . Lived in chevy chase and right near George Mcgovern, with whom he ultimately did reconcile. I should say that my first memory of hubert was making of the president s 1960. I was a junior. My parents were humphrey supporters. And in that book is where humphrey is destroyed by jfk in west virginia, jfk runs around in private and humphrey runs around in a bus. My question is actually was actually raised by brad in his i knew about you that humphrey was from had been mayor of minneapolis is what saying that he was a mayor and very civil rights minded but that minneapolis was so racist that he really didnt have very much of an effect or his tenure didnt have very much of an on the city. I was shocked when george floyd was killed in minneapolis because Hubert Humphrey had been mayor there. While humphrey did have actually a great deal of success, humphrey as, mayor of minneapolis, put through one of the first serious within fair employment laws in the whole country. He it was precluded by Supreme Court decision was in the process of pushing a law outlawing restrictive covenants in housing and humphrey also did this amazing thing he brought in two black sociologists from fisk one of the two hbcu in nashville to oversee a study, a selfstudy conducted by volunteers that made minneapolis look at its own racism and antisemitism and produced this irrefutable record of in the city. And that gave humphrey leverage to move that for employment forward and to move forward on restrictive covenants. And the other thing humphrey was making great headway with in with his Excellent Police ed ryan was reforming the police force he had the police going the university of minnesota to take human relations classes. He would personally intercede in Police Brutality cases. So its not that his agenda failed on the police reform, he vaulted into the senate ned ryan also advanced and in his career and they never got to complete it and that does set up a Straight Line to the murder of george floyd. But it would be totally wrong to think he hadnt been a fantastic success. But what it means that success last forever. You have to keep these battles and also want to add one other missing link here. Its not the question you ask, but i think its important. So how does George Clinton of pfunk phrase, how does this vanilla guy from this vanilla place come care so much about blacks and . That was the question that motivated me doing. This book and the key the linchpin to understand that is humphrey went graduate school in baton rouge, louisiana tells us who for a year and in that year he lived in a Jim Crow Society and was appalled by it. He met jewish friends and classmates whose families were being exterminated by the nazis in europe. And he studied under an amazing professor rudolf everly who was an one. Hes jewish professor who was stripped of his job, left penniless, had to start over with his family at lsu. And humphrey studied him that whole year. He was there and released project as a scholar was to study to democratic societies, turn within a couple of years into dictatorial ones. He taught that from a scholarship. He talked about his familys personal experience, and he also mapped the experience of in germany and the experience of blacks in the jim crow south humphrey left that year with his eyes opened to racism and antisemitism because remember, the new deal was all about class. The new deals gap was that it wouldnt take on issues of discrimination directly because fdr felt needed the votes of the southern segregationists to get the new deal through. And you might think humphrey would go back north and say, like, ku, glad im out of jim crow. No, humphrey went back to minnesota. Just realizing theres such a thing as down south and theres such a thing as up south and theres a thing as de jure segregation. And theres such a thing as de facto segregation. And thats what he brought to minneapolis. And thats so incredible that he had insight because a lot of people wouldnt have had it. Thank you. So we have about five or six people in line and about 10 minutes. So heres what id ask everybody stay. But if you could keep your question to. 20 to 30 seconds so that sam can take 90 seconds to answer you. And be able to fit everyone in. And please introduce yourselves. Your question, whats the etymology yourself . Barry jacobs from the space agency whats the atom allergy of the title and . How did you use it throughout the book . Oh yeah. Oh okay, one at a time. It comes from his speech at the civil rights is civil rights speech at the convention. He says that its time for america, for the Democratic Party to walk out of the shadow of states rights and into the sunshine of human rights. And hed been toying with that phrase for a while. But i think what it traces back to is one whos the young man in huron, south dakota. And the dust storms descended. And he said he thought it was the end of the world. And i believe that when he had that image of the shadows, he was thinking not only in the bible the shadow of the valley of death, but he was thinking of what it meant when the sunlight disappeared and you couldnt see five feet in front of you. And it felt the end of the world. And then when mom brought you survived and the sun came out the next day, thats why that image of the bright sunshine was so potent to him. Thank you. Youre welcome. Beautifully captured in the book to hi my name is lisa socket and. I wanted to know if youre going to write next chapter after. 1948 and rob Robert Carrier like well those the two words robert caro and also you. Robert dallek has done fantastic work on which inevitably involves humphrey and their relationship. So you have two major historians who have weighed in on that. And one of the things i liked about writing about early humphrey is i felt that this was the last occupied landmass within his life. And i just really dont see that i would have enough to add to follow in the dallek and caro footsteps frankly thank you. I am no gunther, the husband of one of your former students who loved you. Who is that . Kavitha cardoza, whos here . Oh, wow. Yes. Hey, kavita. So i had a question about later, humphrey, just following up on the last person, which is you to his relationship with George Mcgovern really complicated. Apparently can you just talk a little bit more . Sure well, humphrey was kind of a protege. I mean, mcgovern was kind of a protege of, Hubert Humphrey. And in fact, francis humphrey. Howard, the sister of four to, was very instrumental of working on some of mcgoverns early for congress. But of course on vietnam completely split in 68 at the convention when mcgovern is entered as a peace candidate at the convention. John and humphrey gets the nomination. The blood spilled by the chicago cops of all the journals and antiwar demonstrators in 72. Humphrey and mcgovern go against each other for the nomination and mcgovern wins. And its a bitter fight. And humphrey up being an object of ridicule and scorn i found this amazing oral history that mcgovern had done in the midst of historical society, recalling a walk he takes with humphrey must have been in the midseventies and theyre walking and theyve reconciled a good deal by this time. And humphrey sys mcgovern you know, george, i know that everyone thinks that only supported the vietnam war because loyalty to lyndon but i want you to know i actually in it i knew now that the wrong decision but i dont you to think that i would take a stand that i didnt actually believe and its kind of amazing poignant moment thank you. Hi. Catherine wigginton, 26, book writing seminar student films. When i covered broadway, we call this papering the house. Yes, yeah. My question is about the emotional state of him as he thought of humphrey, as he thought about the progress that he was making on the civil front. Those in social justice often feel dejected. And its its a roller coaster. And as he said, success is not permanent. Do you have a sense of that . Its a great question. Humphrey was very psychologically astute and even in this great speech he gives the night before the Voting Rights act is passed that i have the epilog he can foresee that the advances in civil rights. And at that point i think lbj just given his great speech about affirmative action at Howard Humphrey can see theres going to be a divide in the black and that parts of it are going really advance socially, economically and educationally because of the breakthroughs and parts of are going to because other major obstacles that they face with the systemic racism and being now in hyper concentrated poor communities as the middle class blacks in the neighborhood out that that was going to be a much harder problem to solve. He was saying that in 1965 so he really understood that wasnt a magic wand of passing those laws and he up to the end of his life kept on trying to pass legislation kind of poignant and heartbreaking, but the last big piece of legislation he wanted to pass under the corridor administration would have guaranteed full employment. He wanted it to be like the wpa without the racial issue built in the way it was in the wpa as it was implemented. And that bill just got watered down and became and it passed. But it meant nothing. And by the end of his life, in spite of the happy warrior, the politics of, joy, all which was true, he was confiding to some of his closest political friends over his lifetime. How of broken hearted. He was at what hadnt come through and feeling that he was being sort cast aside at the end. So he know tears of the clown. My name is john dyer touching 1968. Given humphreys record oh why didnt civil rights establishment support him. I think the civil rights establishment support humphrey in 68. I think he through that campaign had tremendous support from, you know, ethel randolph, from king, from bayard rustin, from a lot of the leaders they knew humphrey had with them from 1948, from and really from before then in minneapolis i think that the attrition wasnt from the civil rights community, it was from liberals, young voters. Look, my parents voted for humphrey. Im glad to say they werent stupid, but i remember them. Canvasing for Gene Mccarthy and the young people who thought that rfk was exhilarating and didnt turn out in numbers. And mccarthy voters who didnt out in numbers, thats where it was. I dont think it was lost with with the black community as we saw. In 2020, the black knowing whats at stake if a hostile president is elected, tens, a very clear sense of what you do when youre in voting booth. And its not about perfection or about a long loyalty oath and thats my sense of were was in six eight. Okay im obviously well, it seems to me that jesse jackson, andrew young. Julian bond, they were all for kennedy vocally. So kennedy was not on the ballot, though when im talking about the general election sort oh in the primaries. No, its not. Im sorry, i misunderstood. Look, the primaries, you get to choose your person. The question isnt, why were they with him . With kennedy, kennedy had grown on civil rights. Kennedy was young. Humphrey was tainted with the idea. Hes part of the establishment. Hes part of the vietnam war. But when you get to the general election, i think that those ranks definitely closed up because then the choices and bobby versus Hubert Humphrey then the choice is Richard Nixon versus Hubert Humphrey. Okay well, id be very surprised if we could find out how they voted in 68, if theyre voting for nixon or staying home. No, im talking ill just its. Okay. I just. I saw why i didnt why didnt all the black community, the civil establishment, all of them of johnson and humphrey were. Well, i mean. Well, they were their allies that. May i suggest that i cant tell if theres somebody over here thats still waiting in line to ask a question, you know, not over here. Okay. Well, were actually a few minutes past eight, so i think its duty, unfortunately, to suggest you talk about this afterward and me all. Let me say to all of please, by sams book, please tell your friends about it. Please rave about it. I think you will love and thank you very, very much coming out tonight and congratulations and thank you, julia. Thank you, brad and the whole team of politics prose. And if you buy julias bo good evening. My name is arthur hessel. Im Vice President of the haberman institute for jewish studies. I want to welcome