Were thrilled that cspans book tv viewers are also joining us so welcome. Cspan will be herent throughout the day recording the events throughout the day. This stage has a long history of being one of the festivals most popular stages. Today youll be hearing from authors who delve deeply into the role women played in the civil rights movement, the improbable history of americas relationship with the bald eagle. A more complete accounting of the mexican revolution, and the strange history behind this search for the source of the nile river. Th the new bog fio of jim thorp. Please sit back, enjoy, and have a wonderful day at the library of Congress National book festival. The success of American Life and what it takes and what it costs. The second was robert clemente. He really was in the way he lived his life and the way he died delivering humanitarian aid to nicaragua. Quite the fast lead to explore the native american lead. Maybe in 1953 whereas you point out very important in the history of the policy. This is in your book. Born as one of the crucial parties in the government and the dawes act and the Communal Property and small part of the land and even then taken away and have over five years they deserve that land and so the nonprofit of sort of trying to like people in different ways and in so many ways luckily thats an approach. I didnt knoww wed be here till midnight. Yeah, black hawk, i spoke to the book with a parallelism and the same tribe, second facts nation and same band of the nation and second fox defender and its a little bit unclear whether jim thorp was actually a descendent of black hawk but some indications that black hawks great niece was jim thorps mother and they said he was the reincarnation of his mother. I want to explore how both of these famous men, native americans were treated by White Society. Black hawk Jefferson Davis worked under the president and taylor and took black hawk down to st. Louis after being paptured. Once captured. Once black hawk was captured, he was taken east and huge crowds would come out. Black hawk indiana and that was the motion of indians being romanticized and diminished at the same time and the parallel of that trip of black hawk owned to cincinnati and pittsburgh and washington dc and jim thorp was born in may of 1887. The story is that there was a thunderstorm on the night he actually he was a twin. Thats another thing people dont realize and he had a twin brother charlie that died at age 9 in a boarding school of a disease. The night they were born along the North Canadian River in onoklahoma, there was a thunderstorm and jim thorp was given the second fox name which shaven translated as bright path, but i also sought a more analytic translation and that e illuminates everything. Jim that were like many great native americans at that time of history. At carlisle industrial school. The first day sending to the second fox school and he kept running from everyone and at this point and all of that and the nation and only three years after the battle of little big horn, most of the first students were lakota sioux who fathers were partfa of the indian wars f the mid 19th century and he wrote a book saying he was going east to die. The model was kill the indian, save the man. That was the notion of the founder, Richard Henry pratt who thought he was doing good. He thought he was sort of saving the indians from the genocide and the only way they could survive was by being forcibly and thoroughly assimilated into White Society. It was a clear and traumatic process for many, many of the indians that were sent there of that first group and succeeded of groups that came in the early years of going up to carlisle. Indians wereer taken there agait their will mostly and died in the process. It was a haunting experience. Thats the school that jim thorp and about 8,000 young native americans over the course of the schools existence endured. It seems an odd place for a College Football team. Well, you know, it does. And, kevin, it wasnt really a college. It was an industrial school. Yet it had a fabulous Football Team that played against the big football powers of the era, which wasnt alabama and ls and you recollects oklahoma. It was harvard and princeton and quail and west point. But as part of the, i would say the acculturation process, they felt football hoped it was acculture rated even more and a brilliant football coach that had pop warner who was taking these really great athletes, many of these before they even got there and dividing this system and one of the early innovators of the forward path and legalized in 1905 and different formations in a single wing, double wing and all these formations and alsoo loved to develop trick plays and i love the fact that in the not early era of football, the football in that era and beating them thoroughly. The greatest act of retribution in american history. It is on the plains of west point before mikey stated them. It was a level Playing Field at last and it was jim thorp and just a fabulous Carlisle Indian team and the team that had Dwight Eisenhower playing linebacker and omar bradley on the bench. And the indians won. 276. Eisenhower in one of his teammates before the game, this is a i mean, football has always beene, a violent support andd even more violent then. Eisenhower would acknowledge he and a w teammate were plotting before a game started on how to knock thorp out of the game because he was the greatest player in america. And they actually hadad one play hitting him high and low and it was a collision and thorp was laid low h on the ground. He got up and kept playing and had knocked eisenhower out of the game. Eisenhower would say i tackled jim thorp once. That came a few months after stockholm. How did jim thorp end up in stockholm . Well, first of all, he was the greatest all around athlete. S so he was not only playing football for carlisle, but he was also thetb track star. Again, the carlisle track team was also dominant so much so that jim thorp who could compete in events of all sorts. The model of the olympics is it involves o jumping, rung, and throwing weights and he could develop those things. He and his teammate who was a Long Distance runner and could beat entire track teams by themselves and both of them competed in the tremendousouts to go to tryouts to go to stockholm and they were selected and they went over with pop warner, who was their coach. Jim thorp dominated there and the decathlon is 10 events and pent lon is shorter with five events and won two gold medals during that period and during one period of the decathlon competition, he couldnt find his shoes and the sort of mythology was they were stolen. I couldnt document that and he misplaced them probably. He had to find some shoes to wear to compete in the high jump and found this mismatched pair of shoes. One was bigger than the other and theres literally a photo of him wearing shoes and two extra thick pairs of socks on one shoe and after the olympics, can gustav iv of sweden and was handing out medals and trophies and when thorp came up, he said, you, sir, the most wonderful athlete in the world. Thorp responded thanks, king. Its funny but also a little bit condescending in a way he didnt know any better and really said thank you. Anyway, he was the beatest athlete in the world at that point. World famous. Indeed. Growing up in oklahoma, for one track meet, they arrived at the stadium and it was just pop warner and jim thorp. Yeah, thats oneover the myths and one is it was pop warner, jim thorp and torono. It wasnt true but might as well been. Talk about pop warner then. Yeah, they said he was incredibly innovative, brilliant coach but not a reputable human being. Going to carlisle and went to two National Championships and at stanford, hes in the College Football hall of fame. Some of you might know that youth football is the pop warner league. He when you study what he did at carlisle, its not so good. Thats putting it mildly and a congressionalon delegation in 14 of the91 school. Among the many things it found was that warner was betting on games and selling tickets in lobbies and mentally and physically having players that turned on him at that point. Then at the critical moment of jim thorps life after those olympics when his medals were taken away. Pop warner lied to save his own reputation. Yeah, early 1913, the not so secret fact that jim thorp would play Minor League Baseball comes to mind. He played fish League Baseball in Eastern Carolina league for two summers, 1909 and 1910. For about two bats a game or 30 a month and scores of College Athletes were playing Minor League Baseball but using ailouses to preserve their name. Eisenhower played in the Eastern Carolina league for the rocky mount railroaders and so many College Players playing under aliases and the pocahontas league was named john smith. Jim thorp played under the name jim thorp. A he never tried to hide it and his name in the papers from charlotte to raleigh and smoke hounds for those two summers. Several key factors here and one is that all of the powerful white figures who were involved in jim losing his models knew exactly what he was doing starting with pop warner, his coach, who had been sending indian athletes to play baseball for years. Whose close associate in pennsylvania was the scout that brought jim to his teammates to rocky mount and met with thorp twice in the period when jim was playing baseball and once in huntington, oklahoma, warner didnt ask why arent you at school right now . After the story broke, that jim thorp played baseball, the story broke in wooster, massachusetts, in the wooster telegram in january of 1913. There were papers in care lynna for years but a reporter in woos ere had one of jims former managers in town in wooster, massachusetts, and hadin talked about how he had managed jim thorp. Then it became he was a story and became a big deal and got to new york, warner was asked about it and denied he knew anything about itde and was just lying. James e sullivan was head of the American Olympic committee and on the board of advisers of the Carlisle Athletic Association and he knew and lied to save his reputation. Letters urging him not to play baseball. In it he made the argument that he was an ignorant indian and didnt know any better. In all of those ways pop warner was disreputable and disappointing and all ofd the other people that saw him as an easy target. The whole amateur part of it. One is technical that in the olympic rules, it said that to have a challenge to someones amateurs and the challenge had to be filed within 30 days at the end of the olympics. The story in the wooster telegram broke six o months aftr ward and it was too late. Sweden said when sullivan and warner and everybody sent the medals back, they said too late. It persisted in the International Olympic excite tee agreed and now took the medals away. Thats technical. Morally it was more reprehensible and not just for the people and motion of amateurs and the sham. The 1912 olympic team was george s patton, the future general and competed in the decathlon, which was a group of military events with target shooting, fencing, equestrian and paid by the u. S. Army to practice for those events and amateur and jim thorp played baseball and had nothing to do with the events he was in the the entire swedish team was on leave from their jobs for six months before the olympics to train for the olympics but theyre getting full bay from their jobs to do that. Is that amateur or professionalism . In so many ways, jim thorp was the victim of all of that sham of amateurs. That brings us to brunrich and something i never knew, avery brund ich competed in the o limb ticks. He was the future president of the u. S. Olympic committee and international Olympic Committee for decades and i envisioned him as a fat cat plutocrat and he was an athlete and competed against jim thorp and he was the advertiser of amateurism and competed and doesnt matter if you win j or what nation youre from. Brundich was so humiliated he quit after eight events. Anyway, that was the beginning of that relationship, which then as brundich rose to power for decades, he consistently denied jim thorp justice and refused to give back medals and records. Yep. Baseball player signed today for 240 million. Well, jim thorp after he lost his amateur status did sign to play baseball with the new york giants for 5,000. He later played professional football making about 300 a game. He was never able to make the same as modern athletes and that was a is it trueing l for him. Japan ando china and philippins australia and e i didnt want and europe. Theres a lot of famous american baseball figures on that tour, including the manager of the giants and charles the owner of white sox and a lot of hall of famers but the rest of them didnt know them. They knew one, jim thorp. Wherever they went, everybody wanted to see jim thorp, and he made even as he lost those medals and chased against them for the rest of his life, he never lost that fame and admiration from the world. 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, he wanted to join them. The army wouldnt take him because he wasnt great with rifles so here joined the mercht marines and saw the world again and went through the seuss canal far the second time through egypt for the second time. He lived, i documented 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 to working for the chicago athletic Youth Association to the most interesting period i think was when he was in los angeles and he was on the fringe of the studio industry and was an actor in about 70 movies. He was directed by john and frank. He was acting with all of the famousk hollywood stars of that era. O white people dressed in greasepaint. He became the spokesman for that, as well as fighting to get the stereotypes, the negative stereotypes in those movies, removed. Kevin in a phenomenon that has not entirely ended, actually. There was a line in your book that really rang huge for me. He pointed out the duality of honoring h you pointed out the duality ofor honoring his ancestry. While performing as a white mans version of an indian. The situation jim dealt with his entire adult life. Well, he certainly did at carlisle. The Carlisle Indian team was the most popular team traveling we didnt play it home played all the other places. So here you have these exotic indians playing its all of these teams for a school thats trying to rid them of their indians, right . And that in the professional ranks, he played two years for unbelievably there is an nfl team based in a small town in ohio. It would have to perform at halftime in these headdresses and different rope tricks in all of this. It was a constant in his life, the expectation of indians play thens stereotypes. And most of he and his teammates in college all understood that dichotomy. They would understand what was going on in trying to take advantage of it in different ways without people knowing what they were doing. That became clear to people like me seeing what they were doing and going why why would they do that. As she thought about it and know the circumstances in which they were living at the time and how people viewed indians, you begin to see it and understand it a little bit. I thought that was enormously insightful. We are going to run out of time before too long. Do you want to miss his question. How did lancaster end up playing jim thorpe . [laughter] bucks well, he is a movie star. Not an indian, right . This from 1951 movie was jim crow allamerican. It started Burt Lancaster and it was directed by michael better known for directing casablanca. In that era even today that starting to happen witho some others things that are organically native american. In that era they need a movie star. Thirtyseven years old but he was a good athlete i will give them that. He could not of the pole vault the pole vault would break. The athletic parts of it himself and trained for it. It is a sympathetic movie. Many people that i talk to each one of two things, i read about it in fourth grade or awaits all the movie. That got me fascinated in his life. Too that extent great. But the movie itself like most bio pics is completely wrong and almost every small respect. It had big bounce in oklahoma. [laughter] among many, many other things. But it is also wrong in one crucial respect. He is the white savior. He is the one that tries to shake jim out of his trauma. And had the notion if you had only listened to me thoroughly assimilated into White Society would not have had the problems later. It is just so wrong that i cannot get past that you see the other side of the movie at which a sympathetic prick works pretty every indian at the time who did not meet someone elses expectations heard that same thing. How did jim thorpes body end up residing in a Mountain Valley in pennsylvania . This is another unbelievable story. Died of a heart attack and age 65 in california. He was living with his third wife. He had told his children he wanted to be buried in oklahoma in the region. This brought back to oklahoma, his coffin was. There is the beginning of the ceremony, very important spiritual ceremony. It was unhappy how oklahoma was going to honor him. She essentially put him up to the highest bidder. Tried to get pittsburgh and philadelphia interested. It was in philadelphia watching television sought report about these two small struggling coal towns in the pocono mountains pennsylvania. She developed a scheme. She went up there and said if you emerged and we name r yourselves jim thorpe, pennsylvania you can have them. Just like harold held in the music man. Not only can have him you can have a college, hospital, i might open atp style up there. All the pro football hall of fame. None of which happen. But we did change the name to jim thorpe pennsylvania. And they did get jim thorpes body. I have nothing if people there, it is not their fault. It doesnt belong there. Its a nice will park on the side of the road. A place hes never set foot in his entire life. Went to court his sons filed suit based on the museum act in the artifacts back to where they belong. On the First Federal court than the Appeals Court overturned it. The legal part of it is over. Jim thorpe pennsylvania is taking some of its fame from him being there. They are going to give it back. It would take an active integrity and moral. I dont see that happening. Patient,. Lets hope so. Absolutely. The jim thorpe continues to make news a bird. I had nothing to do with that. But its pretty good timing. His metals are taken away from him and only last month in july of this year were all of his records finally restored after Long Campaign for many, many people in france on the Olympic Committee Robert Wheeler and his wife were the earliest chroniclers. A lot of native american activists were fighting but this forever and it finally happened. 110 years too late. The other way the story is in the news is thehe boarding scho. You have the pope going to canada only a few weeks ago to apologize for the way the Catholic Church had handled indian voting over the last years and the trauma that. Have a wonderful secretary of interior fluids made it one of her crosses to study both what happened in those schools in the intergenerational trauma that ensued fromm that. Most of boarding schools are now right and good riddance. Most remain around by tribes themselves. But it is a fascinating legacy because they were as you point out, the failings were obvious. And yet the students found a way to persevere and make something of it. Thats a lot of the students and their children became the awlawyers and activists that fought against that old system, right . Including kevinin dover. [laughter] talks i will say this, i went to a boarding school. But not one of these. No, that is right i had relatives went to boarding school. I will say the native people who survived this. Ur did what they had to do to survive this. And really did in so many ways lay the groundwork for current generations of native people who are doctors, lawyers, museum administrators, scholars of various types. We owe them a profound debts. One last thing, that the central thread of my book is perseverance personally the entire native population as well. Figure out how to survive through all about. That is right. I will ask if you could quote his daughter grace thorpe when addressing the question whether jim thorpe was great. She gave a speech in 1968 where she dealt with that question. First of all i just thought of him as a father not a mythological figure. But im terrible at remembering e things precisely. She basically took the dictionary definition of what it was to be great. In every possible definition of that, jim thorpe was. For all the obstacles they face, some of his own doing. He had trouble with alcohol. 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 that since he met the definition of greatness for. Remarkable in magnitude, degree, effectiveness, he was udgreat. David, we are at the end of our time. I just want to first congratulate you on a 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 sympathetic treatment of jim thorpe and that native people of this. It was particularly dark time in many respects. Too little known, too little written about so thank you. I cannot say how much that means to me, thank you. [applause] works recently on book tv Author Interview program after words George Mason University professor looked at six countries that experienced demographic changes in the past and spoke about how their experience may shed light on the next minority milestone in the u. S. Interviewed by Pew Research Center Mark Hugo Lopez this is a portion of that interview. Most important thing to recognize as there is going to be nativism. There is going to be prejudice. Prejudice and nativism are consistent human response to demographic change. Particularly approaching a majority minority milestone. That is true even in societies that cope really well. And to me that is really important to recognize. Its something obscene not to be celebrated. Try to mitigate the extent of racism, nativism and prejudice in our society. But so many people think we are not going to be able to properly adapt to this demographic change unless we eradicate racism. Unless we eradicate nativism. What i find is actually those sentiments among people who are experiencing that change, that is the turf and which change needs to happen the majority minority milestone are effectively governed. They are highly subject to management of government and Civil Society and businesses. How they respond to demographic change really matters. The prejudice is the natural reaction to change its how we cope with that matters were. After words is a weekly Interview Program with the relevant gas host interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. To watch this program and others visit booktv. Org after words. Hello, and good afternoon. Welcome to todays commonwealth book program but my name is Deborah J Saunders im pleased to be the moderator for todays program. Im a fellow with the Discovery Institute Chapman Center for citizen leadership and i am a syndicated column is pretty made see me previously onst s the clb Weekly Program which focuses on top news and current events. Im pleased to be herele today o discuss Jon Mcwhorter new book woke races in part how it betrayed black america. Me cameut out last week and its already making waves and inspiring debates for its
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