Transcripts For CSPAN3 James Gaines The Fifties 20220819

Delivers a compassionate and insightful Group Portrait of singular men and women who spoke out on lgbtq issues womens rights civil rights and the environment in the 1950s, not the complacent era that we all think it is. So tonight jamess conversation partner is writer daniel okrent. And before i introduce the two of them. I just have a few quick notes for you first while the book is not released for a few more weeks. This is kind of a sneak peek. You can preorder it and we will put a link in the chat to the website of a local brooklyn bookstore the Community Bookstore so that you can do that if you so desire with just a couple of clicks. Second like all of our talks you have the option tonight to use closed captioning that features that the bottom of your screen life transcript and finally i want to invite you all to share your questions tonight for james type them throughout the program into the q a box at the bottom of your screen and dan will will take as many of them as he has time for towards the end of the program. Now, let me say a word about each. Our guests and i will happily hand it off to them. James our gaines is the former managing editor of time life and people magazines and the author of several books, including wits and days and nights of the algonquin roundtable evening in the palace of reason a study of Johann Sebastian bach in the early enlightenment, and for liberty and glory, washington lafayette and their revolutions. And daniel ocrants books include Great Fortune the epic of rockefeller center, which was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history last call the rise and fall of prohibition and the guarded gate bigotry eugenics and the law that kept two generations of italians and other europeans out of america. He was also the first public editor of the New York Times. Welcome to you both. Thank you so much for being here. Im excited to hear your conversation and take it away. Thank you very much. Marsha. Im very happy to be here and i want to thank the library and the bookstore for making this possible and i would say hello to my old friend jim. Hi jim. Hi, dan, jim and i met during the 1960s. Were very old. In ann arbor, michigan at a moment when people of our generation thought that we were changing the world. We didnt change the world that much but we did take a lot of selfcongratulatory moments to so how different were we were but what one learns from reading jims book and reading the 50s is that the 60s were the consequence of the 50s as marsha said when she introduced us the complacent fifties were not complacent for those people who are fighting enormous battles that had great consequences in the 60s and many of them still have consequences a very positive sense today. Jim why did you write this book . Um initially it was because my kids came home from school one day and said, why is our time not as exciting as the sixties. Yes, and i had to say you know, im well, i didnt say that. It was actually fraught it wasnt all fun and games they were talking about the music i think. Um, but then i started think i was looking for subject after i finished. The washington lafayette book and and i started to think. How was it that this black and white decade led to this polychromatic riot of the 60s history just doesnt work that way. You know, its its it doesnt work my decades. As you well know. So i started to think why you know, how did the 60s emerge . And as i was because i was reading it came to me that it wasnt the decade. I thought it was. Not at i say it wasnt at all. But it was different and more complicated than i had known. And that makes her good book. Could you maybe introduce where were going by reading the last paragraph of the introduction page . Yeah. Theres a theory that change happens not by winning hearts and minds. But by changing the law. After which harps and minds will follow among isolated people of the 50s. However, theres evidence of an earlier stage in the process of change. The moment when a singular man or woman sets out to confront other than evade some intimately personal conflict which inspires them and others to change the hearts minds of those who make the laws. So isolated by their personal histories, idiosyncrasies flaws and gifts. They have in common the courage the vision and a profoundly motivating need to fight for change in their time in the future. This book is about some of the best of them. And thats what were going to talk about tonight many of the people that jim writes about in this book several of them are familiar names and well talk about a few of them. But the great the one of the huge contributions that i think the book makes is it introduces us to people who were enormously influential players and our nations history and very few of us know who they were. And i thought we might start out for jim. Tell us a little bit about harry. Hay who was harry. Hay. Harry hayes started the first sustained organization for gay rights in the history in American History and he did so at the worst possible time. It was just after World War Two. A time when when the United States the soviet union and nazi germany shared the view that homosexuals were criminals and potential security risks. And the church thought were wicked and the medical profession called psychopaths and it was at this moment that harry. Hey whos then married with two . Daughters decided and a member of the communist party by the way, which will come back to decided that it was time to start a gay rights movement. And everybody told me it was crazy and he did it anyway because among other things he was incredibly stubborn. And he did it. It was called the matter Sheen Society and it was a sort of like a Alcoholics Anonymous group where you came and you talked about that issue, but it took him three or four years to even get someone. To join him in that effort and in that time he lost his family. Yeah. What year are we in jim . When he started that when he actually got to start the it was 1951. When he thought about it, it was 194647. And in the time between he lost his family. He lost all his friends except the gay men that he new and were her friend. Wheres his friends outside the home he lost his relationship with his daughters. Although he he tried to keep it up with by paying the you know, the Child Support he was supposed to through his job at a at a weapon factory. This was in los angeles and they lived in a neighborhood that was called the swish alps because it was a gay scene. And it was a scene he had to keep himself away from which was he had terrible dreams as he as he moved towards starting this organization that falling down mountain sides pushing his children down that sides, you know hurting them and his wife. Um, i dont i cant imagine a worse conflict. But he managed to do it and then as soon as he did it at their first convention, he was voted out of power. Because of his communist connections and by then it was 1953 and everybody was scared to death of mccarthy. And he and they were at every right to be scared of mccarthy because like the combination of communism and homosexuality was really not at the time. It was everybody thought that they were that they were spies. Derby there are being fired by the hundreds from the state department. Um a couple things jumped out of me reading about hey and the and the environment one, you know, just as a fact that i had no idea that when the American Army liberated the concentration camps in eastern europe. We did not set free the men who had pink triangles on their shoulders. They were just left there. They were returned to germany where whose courts had sentenced them to long prison terms and they got no credit for time served in the concentration camp. Incredible and we knew that when we handed them over. Thats 1945 1945 46. Yep. So no 1945. Yeah, moving forward a few years of phrase that comes up in the in the discussion of the Medicine Society is selfrespect as a radical demand. Can you elaborate on that . I think that does it says it all i mean, can you imagine a time when selfrespect would be considered a radical demand . I mean, its its infuriating honestly, but at the time that was the case, thats effectively what at that point. Hey and associates were not. Advocating changes in laws or anything. They wanted selfrespect. That was really the issue selfrespect, but they also wanted the the gale stuff to stop where cops would demand payment from bars for forgive from gay bars and also that they that you know that they were generally oppressed. Everywhere they went they were oppressed. They had to have they had to have sex in bathrooms. And so the police hung out in bathrooms. I mean it was. It was very sorry sight. So when harry hay is kicked out of the organization that he had labored and sweat for to found that doesnt end things who us about frank caminy. Before i get to canada, ill tell you where it went. It went to a guy who in. San francisco who . Who turned the organization inside out he made psychologists part of their routine meetings psychologists who told them they were sick and needed help. He actually told the fbi that he would help them find gay people in San Francisco. That didnt come out until very recent book, but it was it was it was terrible, but then frank hamady in washington. Who had never joined the vanishing . Was a perfect. He had got his astronomy from harvard. And was about to to start teaching at georgetown when he went to San Francisco for a an academic meeting. Presented a paper there, but was caught in a bathroom. Having sex with someone else and was arrested. And then he was he was he was outed to the Civil Service where he then had been had been hired. Because he couldnt teach at georgetown anymore, but they didnt know the Civil Service did not know this happened until sometime later when they called him in and said what happened in San Francisco. And he refused to answer refused to answer, but then he just he just told him it was none of their business. And they fired him. And then he on a diet of 20 cents a day. I mean a an allowance of 20 cents a day because he had no money. He sold his car to get that. He began papering washington with with this story. And and complaining about the legal and moral. I dont know insult that this represented not only to him but to other gay men. Who at the time were still being fired at a very fast rate because now mccarthy was really in his. It is high moment. So he graduated then to being perhaps the most successful advocate for sexual the lack of the the absence of sexual discrimination and and he including a an appeal to Supreme Court on behalf of a guy named bruce scott. That was not successful. But they actually they the chief justice is clerics. Thought it would be but they but he knew that the court would never take the case and thats what happened. Frank how many kept kept fighting and fighting and fighting for years until finally he was able to go to the Obama White House. And the Obama White House canceled repealed clintons dont act dont tell policy. I skipped over the fact that frank amity was a decorated soldier in World War Two an 88 millimeter. Motor crewman and was proud of nothing than his infantryman combat infantry, and its badge which he wore to that occasion . Just without his case. That was after. Half a century of his battling for his guests. Yes. Extraordinary weve got a lot of other administration. We have a lot of people to cover but before we leave the subject, could i ask you to read the last paragraph on page 47 . Yeah, frank how many harry hay . And theyre known an unknown core cohorts. Left the country a priceless legacy. They lifted the burden of shame for millions of people whom the medical profession called psychopaths. The Church Called wicked in the state called felons. And they replaced that bird with every citizens birthright selfrespect and respect of others. No one in the early Homophile Movement got more recognition in their lifetimes than harry. Hay and frank kammany, but what deserves celebration as much as the victories they and their compatriots one. Is the model they left behind . Compotecomings famously wrote to be nobody by yourself in the world, which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else. Means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight. That is what they did. Thanks, jim. The next section of the book is about. The origins of really of american feminism in the in the 20th century or i guess. Um american feminism post the the voting amendment the 19th amendment of the constitution the key figure in this chapter. There are many women in this chapter are really kind of thrilling figures, but the one who struck me was Paulie Murray, tell us about Paulie Murray if you would thanks to a new movie. Shes finally getting some credit for all she did but she began life. She was the she was the her mother died when she was three and she was sent to live with her grandparents. One of them was fought for the union in the civil war. And the other one was the child of one of them fought for the union in the civil war. And the other was the child of a black slave and. I mean, she was the child of a black slave, but she was also the mistress, as it were. But i dont think she was, she was the rape victim of her owners son. So she grew up with people on both sides of the south, and she was of their skin color. Whats she called in between race. Which was especially a problem in school when she was young, because she was made fun of or that. And then as she became a teenager, she thought she was misidentified as a girl. She felt she was a man. And she kept writing to doctors saying, please help me. I know there has been a mistake. So she was in between both racial and gender. So, that was her struggle and that was her weapon. Against the world as she found it later. And, as she helps perform it. To me that part of the story really begins when she is in law school at howard university. Can you tell us about that . Yes, she was well educated. She went to howard. Her background was in middle class. Her family were nurses and professional people. And academics. So she was going around the country trying to save a sharecroppers named odell walter from the news struck. I mean, a legal news. He had been convicted of murder wrongly. But of course, convicted in minutes by a white jury. Struck that one stop she bergeron gave her steele in front of Thurgood Marshall and leon ran son who was on the dina powered law school. It was given as a result a full tuition scholarship to howard. She was the only girl, the only woman in her class of all black men all. Because howard is a black university. And she found herself laptop behind her back, she was not called in class as much as the other guys, as the other people. And at the first instance she was aware of what she came to call jane crow. It was the combination of sexual discrimination and gender discrimination and racial discrimination. Her final of school paper was about how the equal protection argument of the constitution could prevail over plus c versus ferguson, the separate but equal decision of the 19th century. Her classmates laughed at her, but she prevailed and wrote that thesis. Her professors better 25 that, no 10 that it wouldnt be, that plus he wouldnt be a return for the next 25 years. In fact, it was overturned by Thurgood Marshall in the wellknown brown decision which she won in part by reading her thesis. Which robinson brought him, because he didnt realize he was really going for. Bergeron but she didnt address gender discrimination until years later. When she wrote a paper called jane crow. And that was the argument that Ruth Bader Ginsburg used when she was still an attorney to write the brief that won the Supreme Courts decision to declare sexual discrimination to be unconstitutional. That was a huge breakthrough. And it was because and ginsburg acknowledged that by putting her name on the brief. Her role as a figure in american legal history is enormous. But we know ginsburg, and we know marshall, we dont know her. Exactly. And we begin to see, i begin to see reasons why, not reasons, but i begin to see the nature of this discrimination very vividly around the time of the march on washington, 1962. By this point, she is a wellknown figure certainly within the civil rights legal community. And the war march on washington which we all know about is about to take place. And she is not very pleased with the way it is perceiving. So she writes to a Philip Randolph who is one of the organizers. A labor leader will. Could you read what she said to him, page 74 . Yes. And, by the way, a Philip Randolph in his march on Washington Movement from the 1940s hired her. He was her first real employer. And this is what she said to him when rosa parks, daisy bates, september clarks, all the prominent women of the Civil Rights Movement were given seconds on the podium at the march on washington. 74, i am not there, sorry. The time has come to say you quite candidly, mr. Randolph, that tokenism is as offensive when applied to women as of when applied to nigers. That was the word show is used. And that i have not devoted the greater part of my adult life to the implementation of human rights to now condone any policy which is not inclusive. Were there any consequences . No. In fact, the day before the mark he spoke at the National Press club which then consigned women to the balcony. I mean, really. It shows you just how complex and diseased the relationship was between the black Civil Rights Movement and the womens rights movement. But then, three years after the march on washington, she plays a key role in a very important moment in american feminist history. She does. She introduced, she was on the presence commission on civil rights and specifically on the issue of feminism. Especially the equal rights amendment. And she was i forget exactly what happened but, Betty Frieden reached out to her. I know. It was a piece in the New York Times when she basically threatened action on behalf of feminism, or womens rights. And betty for dan reach out and talk to her and, polyamory described to her which she thought of as a for women. And Betty Frieden picks up that mantle and went with it. Polyamory alter. Introducer to her network at the president s commission and the rest is history except for a couple years later, polyamory quit the organization which she helped to start because of a lack of diversity. She said it was not the organization she wished to help. She was looking beyond that. To a movement of multiple discriminations, against indigenous people, against people from other countries, against a class, race, and gender. And she was not going to sorry . Half a century. Ago half a century ago, exactly. So she was a pioneer of what is now being called intersectional feminism. Right. Next subject, the third section of the book is about the Civil Rights Movement. Obviously an enormous moment in American History. I wonder you might begin with a little bit of back story on this. The history of black men and their military service in this country. This isnt a chapter somewhat different, because it tries to rectify the imbalance between. Well, it tries to minimize the effect that men coming over the civil war had in the Civil Rights Movement and how Important Armed defense was to the nonviolent movement. When medgar evers, we know a lot about medgar evers but not everything. When he came from service, he served from dday to. When he came home, he was on his way home on the back of us in uniform with his discharge papers and full of medals. And when the best opt for people to eat lunch, he was left on the bus. I cant even imagine. This is in the 1940s . Yes this is late 40 5 46. I think it was 46. And that year was an election year, Midterm Election year. And medgar evers and his brother charles had decided that they were going to vote. Which no one had ever done in their county. And they, their parents were told, dont let this happen because you are not going to like what happens. The parents told him what this white visitor had said but they did not tell them not to go to the polling place and they did. Where they were turned back by guns. And the threat of violence. They turned back and they got their own guns and they walked back towards the polling place, and they were there to find more guns. And they said well we dont really want to get killed so they walked a home. They were not able to vote in 1946. And i mean, it is striking to me that we are still talking about voting rights. There is going to be a debate in the senate tonight. Maybe it is going on already, about voting rights. How can this be . Its disgusting. Its a historical precedent related to this about black soldiers returning from world war one. And there is a quote that, i could be the quarter do you want to read the quote . Either way. Okay, let me read this. This is a six Year Old Girl remembering when the last black veterans of world war i came home to alabama. And she never forgot sitting up nights with her grandfather who kept a shotgun on his lap waiting for the klan. She remembered him saying, i dont know how long i would last if they came breaking in here but i am getting the first one comes through the door. She stayed up with him, she remembered, because i wanted to see it. I wanted to see him shoot that can. Who was that sixyearold . Rosa parks. She already had the fire in the belly, as we say. I think that, Frederick Douglass urged blackmon to join the civil war on the inside because he was convinced that if they did their standing in the country would be as regular citizens. And w b devoid said the same thing and world war i. And neither of them got any credit. In fact, what happened was that they when they came home in uniform they were met by white terrorists who said wear that uniform again and you will die. And that happened to one of the people that i write about. Do you want to talk about isaac water at this point . Indeed, lets do. Isaac water was, he went in as a private and came home as a tech sergeant. He was working with a all black unit in, on the pacific theater. And when he came home he was on a bus he was going to North Carolina where his wife is waiting for him and when they made a stop the head of the bathroom and so he told the driver, and need to go to the bathroom. And the driver said no. In fact he said no god it. And Isaac Woodward said, tell it to me like im a man. Just like you. Which i think before the war he wouldve never said that. And so the driver, without knowing, without letting him know went to a phone, called ahead to and told the police there with somebody on has bus who is making trouble. Got to base bergh where he was met by the entire police force of mates burke which was two guys, the chief of police and a deputy. The chief of police, the drivers want to get on top the chief of police. He did. And before he can get a word out, the chief of police beat him in the head with a special baton that was rigged for real impact. Spring loaded. He is in uniform, right . He is in uniform. And he finally manages to get the baton away from the guy, and started fighting, and the deputy came around and put his gun on water and told him he would shoot him if he didnt stop. So he didnt stop and the chief of police kept beating him. At one point, they can tell later that he had ground his baton into waters eyes, which indicates that whatever had made the mistake of looking directly at him. Would urge was blind for the rest of his life. What can i say . And truman took his case up. He was talked to you by the naacp. And you know truman, who was a real hero when it came to civil rights. He is really giving credit for it but he was the first president ial candidate ever to campaign. Truman said to his attorney general, youve got to look into this, and if necessary, and if right bring charges against this chief of police. That was just unheard of in the south in 1946. He that was about 1950. But yeah, he was the first to try. Its really happened then but yeah, it was the first to to make it a policy. Anyway woodard was was blind for the rest of his life and never knew. Truman had come in for him that that in fact the trial took place and the judge in the trial was absolutely on woodard side. And and actually set a bunch of precedents for civil rights law. In the time Going Forward was alienated from his from his town and and that and that and woodard never knew about any of this and that this judge who was in charleston had never particularly shown any interest in civil rights issues defending the rights of black people, but he was so horrified by this needless to say i guess for that period the jury acquitted the police chief. Correct course in minutes. Yeah, in fact, he took a walk. Needless to say for that period, the jury acquitted the police chief. Of course, in that. It took a walk around town, so they could not quite and fast. And his wife was in the courtroom, and he burst into tears. Woodward never forgot him. A incredible story. The last section of the book is about ecology. Aware that did not exist back then. It did actually. My fault. [laughs] we know a lot about Rachel Carson, who was a key figure in this, the great writer and naturalist, who was studying the what was happening to our birds. She wrote that, science in the spring, which is probably the one that comes closest to it as it is unsafe at any speed, it changes the worlds view of something. And in this case, ddt. There is a second character that you pair her with. That is nor burt weiner. And when he was 12 years old, the most remarkable boy in the world. I think page 1 49, you got it . Yes. Shall i read some . Read that, from the bottom of page 1 49. Gilbert weiner was 12 years old when Rachael Carson was born. But he was in the most tonight unlikely 12yearold. While he was the fifth or sixth grade, he was introduced your tufts university. In 1906, that was the article in calling him the most remarkable boy in the world. It is hard to imagine anyone who fit that title. He told the world reporter that he had learned much more from reading the riddle of the university in german and homer and drake, since homer was just telling stories. Yes, he said, of course he like to have fun, having fun as my forte, but i like studying too. When ive participated in the boys games, i turn to my huxley on my spinster. Suggestions for them which led my mind to greater things. And so these greater things. Weiner ends up at a mighty, extremely eccentric character. Widely knowledge as a genius. Peculiar life. I wish we had more time to learn about nor burt weiners peculiarities. But hes talking a 12yearold about the greater things in life. Where did nor burt weiner go with his life at that point. He got his doctorate in his post doctorate work at various universities in his post talk was with Bertrand Russell and john dewey. He was just a genius and not only with mathematics, but the logic of mathematics. It was a time when computers were being developed, in a time when the computer was a person with a slide role and a pencil. Literally, that was what they were called. It was put into the war effort in 1940 or 41. That was in order to deal with the lift off, which was reigning terror over britain at the time. That was much higher and faster than anybody had known before the war had started. He was famous for working in brownie in motion, which i will not go into, but he was really interested in the fact, and he came to this through his work, that you could put people and mechanical things, including Electrical Mechanical things, in a single task. And so he could see an antiaircraft as a combination of people on the ground, the gunner, et cetera, and a circle of causality between the airplane in the sky, the speed of the airplane, the maneuvers of the airplane, in the ability of the pilot to do evasive maneuvers. And put a round circle of information which was, there was no enemy in this process. There was just a circle of information which helped the guy on the ground bring that guy down. But i will push you a little bit, because i want to leave room for questions. But his relationship to the military changes radically, and this begins to be the place where he and carson, even though they never met, are coming together. Can you talk about that . The military was responsible for all kinds of horrible the military in Corporate America are responsible for some very serious implications on the environment. It was a time when science was accomplishing incredible things. Among those incredible things was the atomic bomb, napalm, as i call on the, which hitler used in the concentration camps, as well as synthetic fertilizers, and synthetics of all sorts which poison the atmosphere, poison the crown for fires. And it was a time when, during the war, los angeles thought they had a chemical attack because the fumes from newlymuscular cars were choking people. After that, the military started experimenting on the American Public with dropping radioactive materials to find out what dose actually caused a problem. And they experimented on all kinds of people. Hospitals, over schools, over suburbs, and it was extremely irresponsible behavior. We still dont know the extent of it, although a lot of us come out in the clinton administration, actually. And where it is weiner come in . Weiner, when the war was over and he saw some of the stuff happening, in the environment, but also the militarization of american society, in american science, they refused to have anything to do with military science. And at a mighty, it was almost completely subsidized, almost completely subsidized by the military. That was an incredible position to take. He was thought to be crazy for taking it. Everybody thought he was just being nor bridge, but he never worked for the military or military science again and he wrote a book called cybernetics, which was impossible to understand for most people, and there was a book called the human youth of human beings. It was incredibly radical for its time. It talked about the necessity of treating labor fairly at a time when the great strike wave of 1940, six 1947 had made basically workers into communists. Winner, by taking this very strong in public position against the military misbehavior, in domestic life, the parallel if i may read something from your book, i think you very eloquently stated what is similar between heat what he is doing, and what Rachel Carson in her campaign against ddt, and the other places of the environment, what is she doing. You write, by confronting the effects of science, practice mainly in the pursuit of power and profit, and by calling for scientific innovations to be accessible and understood by politicians, policy makers, and the general public before they were deployed, carson in weiner advanced a compelling argument, namely that nature was neither a thing apart from human time or was not even holy natural since anointed masters were ever more assertively rearranging the earth. As evidence of the dangers inherent in that mastery, they shined a very bright light on the masters at work. It changed our life in many ways. We want to go to questions, if you have questions, please put them in the q a, but before we do that, what a better way to end the discussion then by your reading the last paragraph of the epilogue on page 205. Okay. Im going back to the way you started the conversation. That is the idea what . That is the idea. [laughs] my generation had our victories to, but looking back, i cant help it feeling that people like those in this book would be more authentic rebels. In part, because they did not think of themselves that way. In a decade, right here than ever before, they defied the most powerful forces and conventions of their time, just the people that they were in the country and ive always promised to be. Thanks so, that they have lit a path for the rest of us, to a somewhat less perfect union, which is about the best thing any citizen can do. A great way to in the book, and the formal part of the evening. I would like to turn to questions from everybody who is listening, if you have something, as i said, please put it in the q a. And here is a question about polyamory. Did she ever resolve her gender confusion . Im not sure. Because of her feeling about who she was, the middle part of herself, she was disappointed in love. She was only attracted to heterosexual women. But she did get over to the extent that she was a hero. How much more can you do with that conflict then what she did . At the end of her life, she went to seminary, because they had never had altar girls in the church. She went to the seminary and became a priest knowing that she would only have three years before a mandatory retirement. That speaks wonders, but she also had a companion at the end of her life, when she, loved into loved her. And so that, she did overcome her conflict. Thank you. Heres a question all the way from providence, rhode island, from someone named allison pell. She, obviously, this is a different take on this time in various individuals impact on change. Would most of all should we take away from the book . In what does this teach us about the way history is written. I think more than anything, it is about extraordinary people. Who stubbornness, and conflict teaches them every day how to make change without their taking any lessons from anyone. It just because they wanted to be who they were. They want to have the rights that they were due, including self respect. I think is about that simple. Isnt that kind of a variation on what has historically been called the great in theory of history. Individuals not theory obviously, their leaders of nations and such. You are kind of saying the same thing, but you dont have to be the leader of a nation to be able to make this change if you are the right person at the right time. Or at least to get change happening. I would argue, that a president United States or senator, as joe manchin and sinema are not, is the one who conveys to the president of the United States or the senate, the in justice of the position that they have been given and i think they gather the people around them, the start from what theyve done and i think what theyve done and those people power dont come up those ideas themselves. And heres a question for, jane with the dumbing down a central discussions from social media, what hope is there for meaningful social political change . Well just as it is difficult not to be disgusted by the lack of progress in civil rights, you cant ignore the progress we have made in gay rights, in feminism, and in certainly ecology. We havent won all of those battles but we are further ahead than we were than. And as Martin Luther king said, the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It is very long sometimes. So these people are here among us now, and they are in the process of doing the things that these unknown figures that, mostly unknown figures from fairly recent American History they could move the world. Yes, that is the case. That is a very positive look on it. Here is an anonymous question. Do you think there are people. That is the same thing i just asked. Let me try this one, well i think we know the answer to this by gregory asks, David Iverson did a fairly comprehensive look at the 50s, why do you decide to look deeper into that decade . Another way of asking that, whats key way is you are booked different from david happenstance book in the 50s . His book on the 50s was very good, for one thing. Also it covered in depth of the things that we know about the 50s in. In shallow. And it didnt feel really with the people. Well, its a deal but fleetingly over the social issues that this book addresses. I dont have any other questions there. If youve got them, come with them. But i think it is always gotten any discussion of serious issues to take a moment where some humor with gyms permission i would like to read a little bit more about nor bird we mere. May i, jim . Okay yes. So this is weiner after hes establishes a very known well known figure. Jim writes that he was fluent in a dozen languages. Socially inept and all of them. As a colleague put its, a foreigner wherever he was. He got lost easily on his frequent meandering sweep through the m. I. T. Laps where he worked for 45 years. Some labs posted look outs to warn of his approach, because weiner was known to cut into ongoing conversations abruptly and holy out of context. While reading a book, or lost in thought, he would walk the halls with one finger chasing the wall. When he reached the open of a classroom or laboratory, he was known to follow his finger inside and around its walls back to the hallway. When he stopped to have a conversation, he sometimes forgot which way he had been walking. Once, he asked whether he had been walking towards the lunchroom, or away from it so he would know if he had had lunch or not. I just think that that is a nice. My favorite is that he swam on his back so he could smoke a cigar while he was swimming. Well the reason i didnt cite that is my father did the same thing. Did he really . Well, he did it with a cigarette. I mean he left the backstroke. We are moving a little bit far from the topic. I want to thank you, jim. We are running out of time. And thanks to the library, and thanks to the Community Bookstore, and thanks to all of you who have dialed into night to listen to this. Or those who will be watching it shortly the recorded version which will be posted tomorrow. So with that im going to say thanks, goodbye to gin, and turn it over to marcia. Yes, and im going to add my thanks to you jim and to you diane for orchestrating such a masterful conversation about the book. And all of the readings that we woke generally helped a lot. It is so important to tell the stories of individuals and elevate them and the power that they have to actually effect change because that inspires us all. I mean, there were some pretty shocking and awful things that folks were battling against that you described. So, anyway, i want to thank everybody who has come for being here. And to tell you that the program has been recorded and will be on our youtube page tomorrow. And, just tell you a little bit about what is coming down the pipe later this month and in early february, we will have a another program about a book. It is called the last last slave ship with ben rains who discovered that clotilda which is the last known slave ship that brought enslaved people here from africa illegally. He discovered that ship in the bayou of alabama, and he will be talking about, not only his experience. He is a journalist. But what it means for all of us. And what happened to the people who are on that ship. And then later in february, early february, monte power it will be here to talk about south america. So all of that is to say that i hope that, i see that we have the upcoming programs link in the chat and i hope that everyone explores that. And joins us for more programs later this month and into february and the spring. We are so grateful to both of you for, and jim, for this fantastic book. It doesnt get more pure than to talk about people, and their lives, and how, it has affected and changed things. And thank you for taking them up. And thanks to all of you for being here tonight. So on that note, i hope everyone has a wonderful evening and a good night. American history tv. Mark leg, a professor of American Culture the anniversary of michigan, recounts in the service about starspangled banner and how its meaning has evolved. At 10 pm eastern, author and professor, latrice donaldson reports on how black soldiers between the civil war and world war i use their military service to further civil rights exploring the american story. Watch American History tv, saturdays on cspan two. And find a full schedule on your Program Guide or watch online, anytime, at cspan. Org slash history. Greetings from the National Archives flagship building in washington dc which sits on the Ancestral Lands of the nokache tank peoples. Greetings from the national