Me say how wonderful it is to see you all, you book lovers, here together in person for the First Time Since we gathered here last in 2019. [ applause ]. Host were thrilled that cspans become tv viewers are also joining us so welcome. [ applause ]. Host cspan will be here throughout the day reporting the events on this stage. This stage has a long history of being one of the festivals most popular stages. Today youll be hearing from authors who delve deeply in the role women played in the civil rights movement, the improbable history of americas relationship with bald eagle, a more complete accounting of the mexican revolution, and the strange history behind this search for the source of the nile river. And many other topics. You learn a lot here at the history and biography stage and hope youll visit us at the library of congress for subjects youre interested in to experience the beauty of the the opposite Jefferson Building or attend one of our live at the library events. On most thursday nights, we keep the Jefferson Buildings and all exhibits open till 8 00 p. M. And host dynamic free events for our visitors on september 15th Academy Award winning actress Francis Mcdormond and the kitchen sisters will join us for a conversation at the library of congress and on september 22nd, mosaic theater will present a preview of the upcoming series of plays titled the titt trilogies. Novelist ian mcguin talking about his novels. Undersecretaries from museum and cultures and conversations with twotime pulitzer price winner david about his new biography of jim thorp. S please sit back, enjoy, and have a wonderful day at the library of Congress National book festival. Thank you. [ applause ]. Host gym thorp has been ay bog fio before, why did you choose him for the latest book . Guest i thinkrp of him as the third book in the trilogy of sports figures that transcend sports. The first was Vince Lombardi who not only was a great football coach but the mythology of competition and success in American Life and what it takes and what it costs. Second was Roberto Clemente and called heros and very, very few are and he was in the way he lived his life and the way he died delivering humanitarian aid to nicaragua after an earth cake dying in a plane crash. The natural third part of the trilogy and stunning fast lead but also offered me the opportunity through his life to explore the native American Experience from 1887 to his death in 1953, such critical years in the lives of all native americans. First of all, kevin, im honored to have you be here and it means a lot to me. Host 1887 and 1953 were as you point out very important in the history of federal indian policy and you describe it in your book. Guest the government policy towards native americans and thats the passage of the dawes act that was an effort to take away the whole sense of Communal Property that native americans had and send them out to small parcels of land and then take it away from them and have to prove over 25 years that they deserved to have t that land. Trying to turn indians into light people in their way and jim thorp endured that throughout his life. Life. Host indeed and in 1953 the last benign named a termination policy was enacted. Guest right, it was the same thing. Trying to terminate reservation life and that whole sense of that. Luckily that one didnt prevail. Host if i started reciting all thehe things i did not know, wed be here till midnight. Black hawk. Guest t yeah, black hawk, i spoke to brooks with a parallel between black hawk and jim thorp. Theyre both from the second tribe, the second fox nation, theyre both from the same clan of the second fox defender, and its a little bit unclear whether jim thorp was actually a descendent of black hawk but some indication that black hawks great news was jim thorps grandmother and any case jim thorps mother often told him he was the reinocor ration of black reincarnation of black hawk and how both of these famous men, native americans were treated by white society. Black hawk in 1833 after the 1832 black hawk wharves called a really massacre of the second fox when black hawk tried to lead about a thousand members of the tribe back over the mississippi into their homeland and the military chased them back and killed many of them. Jefferson davis worked under tht Confederate States of america and worked under taylor and actually took black hawk down to st. Louis after he was captured. In any case, once black hawk was captured, he was taken east and a lightri hearted figure and hue crowds come out and black hawk ana they called it and that was sort of the notion of indians being romanticized and diminished at the same time. That trip of black hawk and cincinnati and washington dc and new york was parallelled with jim thorp after the greatest moment of the career wing the olympic gold medals in 1912 being taken on parades to new york and philadelphia and carlisle. He wasnt a prisoner of war and he was a prisoner of faith and romanticized and apologized. Host yeah. Path lit by lightning. Guest yeah, jim thorp was born in 1887 and the story isth there was a thunderstorm on the night and he was a twin. He had a twin brother charlie whos family died at age 9 in one of the boarding schools of a disease but anyway, the night they were born along the North Canadian River in oklahoma, there was a thunderstorm. Andto jim thorp was given the second fox name, which often is translated as bright path, but i said p a more poetic translation was the title of the book. Host jim thorp is like a great many native americans and eventually it was school. Guest it was the third boarding school he went to and the second fox school in strode, oklahoma and he kept running away from all of them and his father who was kind of a rough head arrived and all of the scores of indian boarding schools and in 1879, only three years after the bit one of the first students were lakota and many of the areas and standing there was one of those experience and the model of boarding school was kill the indians, save the man. That wasar the notion of the founder Richard Henry pratt who actually thought he was doing good. Hed thought he was doing genocie succeeding in the early years of the boarding school many of them died. They did literally die at the school. The most haunting of experience of my research was going up to carlisle where much of the school is still there both now the Army War College and the Indian Cemetery and to look at those who died in the process and its a really haunting experience. Thats the school that jim thorp and about 8,000 young native americans over the course of the schools existence endured. Host it seems an odd place for a College Football team. It had a fabulous Football Team that played against the big football powers of that era, which you know wasnt alabama and lsu and oklahoma. It was harvard and princeton and yale and army and west point. As part of the culturation process and football was anst eastern elite sport in that time,s. And the football coach d taking these really great athletes, many even before they got there and devising this system he was one of the early innovators of the forward chaos and only legalized in 1905. Making a different formation and single win and double win and love to develop trick plays and i love the fact in that early era of football, hiding the football in there and nobody knew where it was. He also had a play, imagine this today where they lineup way on the sidelines and go around the opposition benchch and go around to the other side and catch a forward pass. That was the opposition of that era and carlisle was playing against the great teams of College Football in that era. Host including famously the team from west point. This is part of american history. Its on the plane to west point before the stadium was built and indians against army. Guest the indians won 276 and eisenhower and one of his teammates before the game, this is football has always been a sport and i would acknowledge that and they had one play hitting high and low and he wants in the whole game. More for stockholm and how did jim thorp end up there again . Host well, carlisle treft and he was also dominant and in event of all sorts and it involves jumping, running, and throwing weights and he can do all of those things and he and his teammate louis, a hoppe indian beat entire track teams by themselveses so both of them competed in the tryouts to go to stockholm and they were selected and imagine competing with the decathlon and it high jump and long jump and he won two gold medals during that period and during one period of the decathlon competition. He couldnt find his shoes. This sort of mythology is that they were stolen. I couldnt document that. I dont really anyway, he miss placed them probably so he had to find some shoes to wear to compete in the high jump and they found these mismatched pair of shoes. One was bigger than the other and theres literally photos of folks wearing those shoes and having to wear two extra thick pairs of socks on one shoe to make it work and he still won the event. At the end of the olympics the mythology with the thanks king and its funny and also a little bit condescending in a way and didnt know a little better and he just really said thank you. He was the greatest athlete in the world at that point, world famous. Host indeed. Brings this to mind and talk about some of the mythology. Growing up in oklahoma was that for one track meet they arrived and it was just pop warner and jim thorp. Guest yeah but in any case, its not true but might as well have been. Host lets talk about pop warner. Guest yeah, he was an incredibly innovative coach. Now a representable human being. In his coaching, he became so famous and where he went to a national championship. The congressional delegation of 1914 of the school and mentally and physically becausing his players and many of whom turned on him at that point. And then at the critical moment of jim thorps life after those olympics when his medals were take into accounten away from him taken away from him, pop warner left to save his own reputation. Host talk more about that in early 1913. The not so secret fact that jim thorp moved to Minor League Baseball coming to light. Guest thats no secret. Right. He played baseball in the eastern carolinas. Playing Minor League Baseball. But ive knot now played railroaders with so many College Players playing and jon smith. Jim thorp plaid under the name jim thorp and he never tried to hide it and one is that all of them powerful and he knew exactly what he was doing starting with pop warner and in doubt forou teammates turning io rocky amount and going from school play which they went funding into oklahoma together and warner saying why arent you at school right now . After jim thorp had played baseball, the story broke in wooster, massachusetts, in january of 1913 and had the papers in carolina for years but a reporter in wooster heard one of the former managers are in town and talked about jim thorp and he wrote the story and wern was asked about denying to know anything about it and he was just lying. The association and he was right about it for his reputation and the superattendant at carlisle and Melissa Friedmann and documents ofrs playing baseball and he didnt know about it and pop warner had thorps letter of concession and in it in the most condescending way he basically made the argument in jim thorps words that he was just an ignorant indian and didnt know any better. In all of those ways pop warner was disreputable and disappointing as were the other people who basically just focused on an easy target and the two other aspects to the whole amateur part of it. Target shooting and fencing and equestrian and paid by the u. S. Army to practice for the events and jim thorp played baseball, which had nothing to do with the seat he was in. Host something i never knew and every one competed in the 1912 olympics. Brundich was the future president of the u. S. Olympic committee and International Committee for decades and i always envisioned him as a fat cat pluto person traveling down the line and a mediocre one and competed in the 1913 olympics against jim thorp and overwhelmingly and the lead event. Generational and consistently and refused to give back the medals and records. Host you win the decathlon and making lots of money from endorsements and did that happen from jim thorp. Host its a million bucks; right . Guest jim thorp after losing amateur status signed up to playne baseball for the new york giants for 5,000. He never played personal football making about 300 a game and the money with the athletic stint that modern athletes do and thats famous. Famous deciding to play baseball for the new york giants and 1913 season and going on a world tour with the white sox, Chicago White sox and giants and white sox. Hi he lost the medals and chafed against him for the rest of his life and never lost the same admiration from the world. Host yeah, one of the things that struck me, i had no idea how mobile he was. He saw the world. Guest yeah, he d. He saw the world in 1913 and all those places and he said in world war ii, he joined the merchant marines and wanted to participate in world war ii of his four sons they were all involved in the military joining them and the army wouldnt take him even though he was a great with rifles. Discounting on a second time through the second time. The career was over and he was constantly struggling to find footing and he lived undocumented in 20 different states and took jobs ranging from at one point digging ditches in los angeles during the heat of the depression to serving as a greeter in bars and taverns in chicago and to the most interesting period was in los angeles and on the fringes of Hollywood Studio industry and an actor in about 70 movies and directed by john and frank. He was acting with all of the famous hollywood stars of thatf era. But most importantly and it was in that period that he found his identity as a leader of native americans and really helped organize them to get these jobs in all of the westerns as indians that were going to white people dressed in grease paint and said hire us and decided to get a stereotype in those movies removed. Host a phenomena that has not entirely ended actually. Guest no, youre right. Host there was a line in your book that really rang huge for me. You pointed out the due alty of honoring his ancestry while performing as a white mans version of india was a situation dealt with his entire adult life. Guest he certainly did at carlisle. Where these Carlisle Indian team was the most popular team traveling and they didnt play at home but at all the other places and here you have these exotic indians playing against all these teams for a school thatsay trying to rid them of their indianapolisness; right. And then in the indianness nkand then played two leagues fr an nfl team based in a small town in ohio. They would have to perform at halftime in all of these head dresses and just different rope tricks and all of this. They would play to it but understand what was going on and trying to take advantage of it in different ways without the white people knowing what they were doing. Host that was always that became clear to people like me that seeing what they were doing and going now, why would they you compared to to [inaudible] at one point. Why would they do that and think about it and compare to the circumstances theyre living in and how theyre viewed with indians beginning to see and understand it a little bit. I thought that was enormously inciteful. Were going to insightful and were going to run out of time before too long and i dont want to miss this question, how did Burt Lancaster end up playing jim thorp . Guest hes a movie star and not an indian. This is 1951 and a movie was made called jim thorp all american. In that era, even today its starring to happen with zeldon dogs and other things that are organically native american and hes 37 starring jim thorp at age 16 for starters and lancaster was a good athlete and he could do he couldnt do the pole vault and the focus was too big and the pole vault would break and did a lot f the athletic parts of it himself and trained for it. Its a sympathetic movie. Many people that ive talked to about studied one of two things and read about it in fourth good day and that got me fade patterns fascinated and the movie itself like most biopicks is completely wrong in almost every small respect. It has these big moments and its also wrong in one crucial respect, which is the narrator of the i movie is pop warner. He tries to shake jim out of his trauma was pop and jim, if only youd listened to me and fully assimilated into white society, you wouldnt have had the problems later in your life that you had. Its so long you cant see the other side of the movie, which is sympathetic to him. Host and pretty much every indian of the time that didnt meet somebody elses expectations heard that same to them. D how did jim thorps body end up residing in a Mountain Valley in pennsylvania . Guest so this is another unbelievable story so jim thorp died of a heart attack at age 65 in california. He was living with his third wife named patsy thorp and he had told his children he wanted to be buried in oklahoma in the second fox region. He was brought back to oklahoma, his coffin was, and at the beginning of the ceremony. Very important spiritual ceremony. Patsy thorp interrupted and took his coffin awise because he was unhappy with how oklahoma was going to honor him. She developed this scheme. She went up there and said look, ifai you merge and renamed yourselves jim thorpe pennsylvania you can have him. She was sort of like an music man. She also said that only can you have him but we will have a college name jim thorpe, hospital. I might open ait td style of mol up there. We will have the pro football hall of fame, none of which happened. But it did change the name to jim thorpe pennsylvania and it did get jim thorpes body. I have nothing against the people there. Its not their fault really, but he doesnt belong there. Its a nice little park on the side of the road in a place he had neverla set foot on the side of life. But to this day they resist returning the body. It went to court. They filed suit, his sons, based on the museum act, bringing artefacts back to where they belong. They won the First Federal court and then an Appeals Court overturned it. Supreme court upheld the Appeals Court and so the legal part of it is over. No, i mean, jim thorpe, pennsylvania, is taking some off its fame from him being there. Theyre not going to give him back. It would take an act of real integrity and moral courage for him to be turned to where he belongs in oklahoma. I dont see itt happening. One thing we know about native americans is they are patient. Lets hope so, yes, absolutely. So jim thorpe continues to make news. I had nothing to do with it but it was pretty good timing. So his medals were taken away from him and then only last month in july of this year were all of his records finally restored after a Long Campaign from many people. I need a friend on the International Olympic committee, Robert Wheeler and his wife who were his earliest chroniclers. Many people, at a lot of native american activists were fighting for this forever. And it f finally happened. 110 years too late. The other way that the story is in the news is the indian boarding schools. Here you had the pope going to count only a few weeks ago to apologize for the way that the Catholic Church have handled indian boarding schools over the years and the trauma of that. We have this wonderful secretary of the interior deb haaland was made at one of her causes to study both what happened in those schools and the intergenerational trauma that ensued from that. And most of the boarding schools now are closed, and good riddance. Yes. Those who remain are largely run by tribes themselves, but it is a fascinating legacy because they were as you point out there were, the failings were obvious and yet the students found a way to persevere and make something of it. And a lot of the students and their children became the lawyers and activists have fought against that oldac syste, right . Including kevin gover. I will say this. I didnt go actually went to boarding school but not one of these. Thats right. I had relatives who went to boarding schools but it will say that the native people who survived this time did what they had to do to survive this period and really did in so many ways lay the groundwork for current generations and native people who are doctors and lawyers and museum administrators and scholars of various types, and so we owe them a profound debt. If i could tell you one last thing. Thats the central threat of my book in the end is that perseverance that jim thorpe emboli is personally and the entire native population did as well, figuring out how to survive all through all of that. Yeah. Yeah, thats right. Illig ask you if you can quote his daughter, grace the work, when addressing the question of whether jim thorpe was great. She gave a speech in 1968 where she dealt with the question. Firstal of all i just thought of him as the father, not this mythological figure, but im terrible at remembering things precisely but she basically took the dictionary definition of what it is to be great, and in every possible definition of that, jim thorpe was. For all of the obstacles he faced, some of his own doing. Yet trouble with alcohol, and he was constantly on the move, but in what he did he was the best at what he did for a long period of time. No one could match him, and the net since he met the definition of greatness. Remarkable in magnitude, degree and effectiveness. Thank you. He was great. David, we are at the end of our time but i just want to first congratulate you on your wonderful book. I would point out it was produced during covid, which is quite extraordinary. But also to thank you very sincerely for such an insightful and sympathetic treatment of jim thorpe and of the native people of this period because it was a particularly dark time in many respects, and too little known, too little written about, so, so thank you. I cant say how much that means to me. Thank you. [applause] cspan issue unfiltered view of government. We are funded by these Television Companies and more including charter communications. Broadband is a force for empowerment. Thats why charter has invested billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. Charter is connecting us. Charter communications supports cspan is a Public Service along with these other Television Providers giving you a frontrow seat to democracy. American history tv saturdays on cspan2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. At 12 30 p. M. Eastern on the presidency mark taber offer an collections director the George WashingtonMasonic National Memorial talks about George Washingtons involvement with freemasonry and its influence on his life and work from his book a deserving brother here at 4 4f world war ii miniseries band of brothers reflect on the historical and cultural significance of the show to de