Role of first lady over 44 administrations. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend. Good evening, everyone. To all of our friends here and those watching by cspan and on Facebook Live. My name is stewart mclaruin and im the president of the White House Historical association. Its my privilege to welcome you to Decatur House and to the White House Historical association. Tonights program is very exciting and we are honored to partner with our good friends at the Richard Nixon foundation. We would like to welcome dr. Jim cavanaugh of the Nixon Foundation and his wife ester in the front row. Hugh hewitt the president of the Nixon Foundation you will hear from in a few moments. We have many distinguished guests with us here, many former officials from the nixon and other administrations and staff and friends of the Nixon Foundation and were honored to have you here tonight. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Patricia Nixon becoming the first lady of the United States.
Sarah polk was very up on diplomacy. Her strong suit happened to be intelligent political discussion. She made no bones about the fact that she took no interest in politics and she was her husbands partner. She grew up in a political household in tennessee. Her father was a local politician so she grew up loving politics. She married james after he won a seat in the legislature. She would not have married him had he been content to be a clerk. Unfortunately for james k. Polk, he died just three months after leaving the white house and sarah began a 42year widowhood. It became a shrine to her husband. She would invite anybody who wanted to to come for a visit to see the objects they had accrued over there long and illustrious career. She lived there for many years on her own and during the civil war, generals on both sides would visit her to pay their respects. It was very interesting commentary on what a beloved status she still held. She was earnest about her husbands work. She went t
Emphasize was the fact that ordinary people were becoming much more militant and aggressive in defending their civil rights. Im going to continue that theme tonight and, indeed, i think its even more so the case in the 1950s and 1960s that ordinary people became the engines of the Civil Rights Movement. We tend to think about the Civil Rights Movement as Martin Luther king, jr. , fanny hammer and largerthanlife figures. The Civil Rights Movement was made up by ordinary people including and youll find out tonight a lot of College Students. A lot of College Students. In fact, in some ways the driving force of the Civil Rights Movement came from people who were probably no older than you in this room. I want you to remember that. College students were the main force in terms of the Civil Rights Movement. Okay. I want us to keep that in mind when we talk of the evolution of this movement. Ill begin the lecture by discussing the decade of the 1950s because the 1950s really provide, i think,
They talk about proposals in their respective states. Jeffrey rosen moderated conversation. Welcome to the National Constitution center. It is a wonderful institution and lets be again lets the nationalting Constitution Centers mission statement. Centerional constitution is the only institution in america chartered by congress to increase awareness and understanding of the u. S. Constitution among the American People on a nonpartisan basis. That is exactly what we are going to do with todays program with two very distinguished attorneys. A series that we are doing with the National Association of attorneys general thei would like to thank center for excellence in government for helping us put together the program. These put your questions in q a box as we are talking. I will pass them along and i know we will have a great discussion. We have to very distinguished attorneys general who will guide us about central questions regarding the police and the constitution. Keith ellison was swo
Features a great friend. Someone is become very involved with us in the last year or so. James holland. Who last week published the second book in his trilogy. Before i get into the introductions, i want to follow a tradition we have here. I dont know if we have any world war ii veterans here with us tonight that i can recognize, do we have any veterans . If not i would like to recognize veterans from all eras of service. [applause] thank you for your service and sacrifice. This evening come we will have on stage together, two of the biggest names and most prolific writers in the world war ii field, i was just thinking to myself this afternoon, if this was like boxing, this ability paper view match we would have on the stage tonight. Historianr own senior who publishes his book this month and he will be interviewing james holland, a ,istorian, broadcaster, author he is written 19 books on world war ii. Mostly nonfiction but also historical novels and young adult titles. You probably re