We will finish up our primetime programming at 11 00. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. Welcome to montgomery, alabama on booktv located on the alabama river, population of 200,000 making it the second largest city in the state. We explore the history of the city and state by local authors including a look at alabamas most powerful governors. Go around the entire south, louisiana had the laws, georgia had the challenges, South Carolina had pitchfork intel and strom thurmond. I would say we can say and put ourselves up against theirs. Later we will go inside the home of F Scott Fitzgerald to learn about the importance of montgomery. We show you a house that was the turning point for scott and zelda. You will find out F Scott Fitzgerald is more than just a writer. He is not a genius who can come up with everything on his own. He needed a partner, someone to give him a life full of ideas that he could write the Great American novel. That was elza. We speak with fred gray about the montgomery bus boycott changing the system by the system, the life and works of fred gray. Montgomerys pattern of segregation touched all forms of the citys life, long frustration with negro citizens erupted, riding in a bus, refused to honor the traditions of segregated seating was a protest movement headed by doctor king, then an obscure pastor of a Baptist Church, took the form of a boycott of the citys buses. If you look at the cases that i have handled since the montgomery bus boycott involving voter registration, employment, jury discrimination, desegregating the buses, education and voter registration, represented the persons in the city, freedom rides, the selma to montgomery march, all those things contributed the passage of the Voting Rights act of 1865 and helped change the landscape of america. We sit here in montgomery, alabama, across the street from the Federal Building where i filed most of my in bus ride to justice changing the system by the system, the life and works of fred gray. When i was growing up in this city, where Jefferson Davis took the oath of office as president of the confederacy. In the 40s and 50s, on the west side of town, nothing good could coming out of it, the ghetto area of montgomery, two basic things that young africanamerican males would be considered well respected. One is a preacher. And two is a teacher. You did both of them on a segregated basis. Quite early, baptized cats and dogs, i was sent to a boating school in nashville, tennessee, when i was 12 to learn to become a preacher. I did all my High School Work after going to Elementary School in montgomery. I went to high school, nashville, the president of that school, one of our society of preachers, a society, he needed to do two things for the school, one it was a private church school, and he had to solicit students. I was elected by him to be one of the teachers who would travel with him all over the southeast and southwest, recruiting students. I finished there. I knew a Little Something about preaching. I made a secret commitment i kept secret for 40 years and that is i was not only going to be a preacher, but i was going to become a lawyer. And would solve the problems and everything was completely segregated at the time so my commitment was finish Alabama State and finish law school some place, i knew they wouldnt accept me. Finish law school, back to alabama, take the bar exam. The book talked about rosa park and doctor king and all these others but the first civil rights case, a 15yearold girl who lived in a part of montgomery called king hill, the northeast part of the city, but there were three streets in that section surrounded by white people. To take a bus downtown, in washington high school, one day in 1955, tween 9 months before rosa parks did what she did, coming from school, she had to change downtown, when she went down doctor king hill where she lived, more white people than usual got on the bus. When they filled the white seats up, the bus driver asked her, she was sitting in the first seats to ask them to get up and she was not sitting in the white section and she didnt get up. As a result, she was arrested, mister nixon contacted me and i represented her before judge hill in the Juvenile Court of Montgomery County in early spring of 1955. That was my first civil rights case. Let me ask this question. What do colored people hope to gain by pressing the segregation fight at this time . What immediate results do you hope to achieve . We want to achieve equal rights for any human being. What do you think the prospect are for achieving that goal . It is essential. How long do you think it will take . I have no idea how long. Guest two or three things. She was a very good friend with ed nixon, was the secretary to the Montgomery Branch of the naacp, she was the youth director of that branch. I was interested in civil rights cases and met her when i was in college before law school so i was young so i wasnt far removed from the youngsters she was dealing with so i knew her and she encouraged me to become a lawyer and our church was only three blocks from where she lived. But more importantly, as she worked downtown montgomery at a department store, which was a block and a half from where my office was located, each day, five days a week, she would usually walk from her place to my office and we would talk about things, talk about the problems on the buses. We talked about the florida situation. We had done what we could. We didnt file a lawsuit at that time. We began to keep a record of it. Every day we would meet and talk about what a person should do if they were asked, she was well prepared and willing to do what was needed to be done to end segregation on buses. And i told her i was going to be out of town. When you get back in town, i had phone calls, i had a lot of messages from my secretary telling me mrs. Parks had been arrested and asked me to come to her house and talk to her about the case. And on thursday evening, she wanted me to represent that case. I told him that i would and also not only take care of that case but we need to do whatever it takes so we dont have this problem again. A teacher at Alabama State, had a bad example in 1948, she was now president of the Women Political counsel which is the organization of educated women in Alabama State, and when she was arrested, so did nixon, i knew we were interested in doing something permanently. When i talked to mister nixon mister nixon was not a plan who did a lot of planning. Mister nixon, let me go and talk to joann, see what she thinks and what we can do about permanently getting the community involved. And more people go to church on sunday morning. The announcements could be made, we need to get black preachers involved and they make an announcement at that church and people stay off the bus monday, that would be fine. We knew all the black preachers. And we concluded if we tell people, we need to have someone to serve as a spokesman. And the question is who should that person be . There was another man in town named rufus lewis. Rufus lewis on the east side of town, and educated man, he was only interested in one aspect of civil rights, getting registered to vote, getting people elected and all of them responsible to get elected. He had a nightclub and it was the citizens club. To get in that club you had to be a registered voter. Beyond those two, who are we going to get . Joann said i tell you who. We need both of them. If we get nixon we lose rufus lewiss people and rufus lewis, a spokesman, we lose some of mister nixons people. Why dont we get that. Doctor Martin Luther king hadnt been here long, hadnt been involved in Civil Rights Activities but there is one thing he can do. That is fine. We decided what we would do to stay off of the buses for a day. As soon as i get through here i will get some leaflets made out. Then we assign each of us responsibilities to carry out certain responsibilities so there could be an official meeting called and when it was called in the living room, doctor Martin Luther king jr. Was selected to be part of the official meeting when he was not present. Mister rufus lewis was selected as chairman of the transportation committee. Nixon was selected as the treasurer, and out of law school, as the lawyer for the movement, in charge of legal activities. And after the appeal and after the official meeting when they met at the Baptist Church at the mass meeting, when doctor king spoke, and joanns living room was the right thing and the rest of it is history. That is how i became involved in its and between 40 to 50,000 africanamericans in montgomery and many have been used for Public Transportation and those who used it stay off of the buses, those who didnt cooperated to help transport people and for what . We stayed off of the buses and so we could return on nonsegregated basis and the Civil Rights Movement. It was an introduction of doctor Martin Luther king to the city, the state, the nation and the world. On booktv, a literary tour of montgomery, alabama with charter communications. We start with political commentator steve flowers to learn how past alabama governors have shaped the states politics. We had in the south unique political history. If you go around the entire south, louisiana had laws, georgia mississippi, South Carolina had pitchfork and strong sermon strom thurmond. We could put our cases against theirs. With George Wallace. Both of them had an impact. The last 25 or 30 years, not the first one had any legacy. Big jim thought the legislature, going back to an agrarian state, we were a rural state, everybody farmed. They were small farmers. Everybody on dirt roads. If you are a farmer living on a dirt road you cant get your crop to the market. Big jim paid every rural road in alabama, little mans big friend. Country folks loved him. I can make a speech in alabama and tell big jim stories, but at the end of the day i have someone telling me if big jim was running for governor i would vote for him, in rural geneva counties, another interesting story, running for congress as a young man. He was campaigning on a dirt road in geneva county. Got a big bond with a farm couple. No one talks about drinking buttermilk now. Big jim as big as he was, two quarts of buttermilk, he used to love to get barefoot, drink buttermilk, i am going to tell you if you ever get to be elected i want to ask you a favor. Anything you want, anything you want. He said i want you to pay my road. I cant get to the market. Big jim, 20 years later, the first road he paved, named it buttermilk road. In 1940s and 50s. A man who stood 6 foot 9, you put the word uninhibited in the dictionary you can put big jims picture by it. The best story that he penalizes big jim, big jim had a penchant for alcohol. He stayed drunk his whole second term. The governor got signed and served and every two weeks he would be sober around the capital, sober day. One day, alabama, one of the biggest textile manufacturing states, most towns had a textile mill. A lot were built on the textile industry. Us in South Carolina, the biggest textile states in the country. American textile manufacturers were meeting in montgomery. And welcomed to the capital and somebody had written a nice speech, bold big jim had not seen the speech. Someone handed me the speech, in mobile with his friends, got that reading the speech. I want to welcome you to alabama. One of every six jobs, i didnt know that. You dont want to hear that stuff. Really and truly, he tells farmers, you know big jim will steal a little bit. Big black belt plans, alabama is one of the most progressive states in america. You put congressional delegation, voting record and put the new york delegations to be identical. Southerners love roosevelt, the new deal helped the deep south in alabama, one of the poorest application states in the country. They transformed that area to one of the richest in the country, it is one of the highest per capita income. Having said that, there are new dealers, they fall into the new deal and alabamas congressional delegation brought home the bacon like you have never seen. What changed politics was when the race issue came to fruition in the mid1930s with brown versus board of education and the south was determined to resist integration. Politicians moved from breathing being progressive base, based on liberal progressive issues that were good for their people, became race haters just to get elected. In his heart, he was a progressive populist just like big jim was, but he became a race baiter because that was how to get elected. In the name of the greatest people that have ever lived, i draw the line in the dust and stand before the seat of tyranny and i say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever. Guest during my lifetime, to make the greatest politician in the state of alabama, George Wallace was born with a memory for names. I dont think anybody could cultivate. No politicians are able to cultivate that, to remember someones name. Wallace he could go to a group of people and speak to them ten years later. Stories abound all over the state, to meet someone in 1958 and see ten years later, how is your wife, susie. He would have been numb 100,000 people but he had a memory for names. I had been a page in the legislature when i was 12 years old. In his first term as governor, i met him as a young page, he had never forgotten that day, 20 years later i became his representative in legislature. Part of where he was from was my district. I became his friend and we saw a lot of animate stories close to wallace which i animate in the book. He had become a different man in the 1960s. Most people dont realize in 1982, the year he won his last term as governor he won for one reason. You know what that was . Africanamericans. Most people dont know that. He won with the africanamerican vote. He would not have won. Most white voters were tired of laws, tired of his rhetoric, knew he had not been a real governor, he had worn out his welcome. He went to dexter ave. Kings church, doctor kings church, in his wheelchair. The assassinations bullet, his body had been riddled six times. Most people would have died. But he survived six bullets to his body but his body was completely paralyzed from the waist down. He had no feeling and was on pain pills a lot. Probably put 16 pain pills it made him incoherent. It gave rise to him crying a lot. I might find him in the corner in his wheelchair with a cigar in his mouth talking about tiny stuff, telling the same story, he would say to me steve, when you were a little boy you were a pageboy, you had to be a page. I was a pageboy too. Those shepherds in the northern part of york county, i know, by the way, and he was also Hank Williams up there. He says steve, Jenny Wallace is my aunt, an old maid. He would tell me that same story over and over again. He would call me on the floor and tell me one day the funniest thing. He would tell me the story verbatim, called me six times that week, voting on one of his bills. I told the person the secretary who came to get me, the governor whats to see you. I am voting on one of his bills. Is there something he wants to talk about . I went down to the office and he was sitting there and there were five japanese industrialists in the office trying to locate a plant in huntsville. Wallace had run out of things to say. I was a pageboy and vocal pageboys, and in the north part of his county, she is my and, those poor japanese, what are they thinking . Are they going to locate in huntsville or not . They came to see the one time telling the same story. Started campaigns and he was also down there and had five or six children and a bunch of grandchildren. Back to that encounter, the reason africanamericans voted for him was he begged forgiveness, i made a mistake, i paid the awful price, i am sitting in a wheelchair and i want to tell you i am sorry i did this stuff. Alfred wallace was the ultimate politician. I thought that was demagoguery. This particular day after telling the same story, only one picture on his desk, a picture of an africanamerican girl. Who is that little girl there . You ought to have your grandchildren or something. He said steve, that is an old schoolgirl from birmingham. She came down and told me she loved me and he started crying. I could tell it wasnt like when he was doing it in press, whether he liked the girl or not. Hard to overcome. Still the image problem that was created, because of that, i tried to show the personal side of wallace, the whole south doing the same thing. Wallace was better at it, more vocal at it, ran for president , pretty much saying the same things trump is saying now. Wallace would have voted for trump. They said the same thing. Bombastic things, you know, on meet the press, i tell you what, if one of those pointyheaded liberals wants to ride his bicycle straight, lay down in front of my car, first thing i will do is run over them. That is what trump would say today, the same thing. Those stories should be told. I want that era captured. It is a colorful history. The south had a colorful history. You are watching booktv on cspan2. This weekend we are visiting montgomery, alabama, to talk to local authors and tour the citys literary sites with the help of our local cable partner, charter communications. Next we speak with Richard Bailey who explores the history of alabamas political process after the civil war. As i love to say, black officeholders were members of the Republican Party, they were not carpetbaggers or scalawags. Carpetbaggers is a derogatory term people used to denote whites who came to the south from the north and usually the intent was to show these people as persons who came for political and personal gain. A scalawag was a southern white who was here before the civil war began, who became a member of the Republican Party. The book begins to focus on what we call black migration, africanamericans in alabama knowing they were free, what did they do . The first thing they did was go to the nearest town, the nearest city. Those who did move, some remained on plantations. Also talk about some of the things whites did to persuade africanamericans to stay on the plantation. In alabama, a majority of the rural setting in 1865, in many instances, africanamericans who had been slaves were persons who remained on plantations because they did not know they were free. Everything in alabama was accelerated in march 18, 67 with the passage of some reconstruction acts in congress. One of the main differences from 1865, 1866, and 1867, black people, africanamericans became enfranchised, gave the right to vote. One of the biggest things that happened occurred in alabama on april 1, 1867, when africanamericans in that city marched to the polling places and cast ballots for the first time of all africanamericans in a Mayoral Election in that city that never had to be there in alabama. The first group of officeholders were registrars. One of the things the reconstruction act of 1867 mandated was we have an election in alabama so we have to appoint africanamericans and whites who had been loyal to the federal government as registrars. Believe it or not there was a lot of opposition to be africanamericans who serve as registrars and the states first black officeholders. The Constitutional Convention in the fall of 1867, first time we had blacks who served in a lawmaking capacity in the state of alabama. Opposition their too. What really came out, africanamericans saw for the first time that these republicans were not allies of black members of the party, if it were not to the disadvantage of democrats and the general white population, they found carpetbaggers and scalawags were not really their friends but members of the same political party, the Republican Party of alabama. Just about every essence, when black people, black officeholders, thought they would make a significant difference in their lives, white members of the party did one of two things, they said allow a subsequent legislative body handle this issue or they sided with white democrats. You can imagine the depression that over held these black officeholders. They called themselves republicans too but they found out they cannot rely on white members of the Republican Party to advance any issue that made a significant difference in the lives of former slaves. Everything was contentious. They knew the best they could but what began to happen was you notice factions in the Republican Party. In alabama, africanamericans, members of the senator, George Spencer, jane thomas rapier led the group adhering to the thinking of George Spencer or the spencer wing and Jeremiah Harrison led a group from dallas county, jane thomas rapier was from lauderdale, florence county, northwest alabama. Everything that happened in alabama followed along those lines. George spencer in my estimation, in my book, i hold responsible for everything that happened in alabama. I go so far as to say reconstruction would have materialized differently had the spencer wing of the party found reasons to incorporate instead of fight among themselves for patronage. Spencer wanted to determine who became a recipient in alabama, who became governor in alabama, he wanted to make certain everything in alabama followed along his line of thinking. If democrats had just sat back and noticed how republicans were fighting among themselves, they would have realized the opposition was not as potent as they were led to believe because they would have found out reconstruction was a moribund experience in the state of alabama. The Republican Party was not able to convince the general white population the Republican Party was not here in alabama to work to the disadvantage of southern whites. Democrats made certain the average white person viewed the Republican Party as a party that had come south to punish the white south, to advance the cause of africanamericans especially at the polls with total disregard to the wishes of southern whites. You are talking about a polarized society, that is what alabama was during reconstruction. Some of the major achievements during that period occurred in Public Education. The constitution of 1868 provided universal free education. That is to say any kid between the age of 5 and 21 was eligible to receive Public Education for the first time in alabama history regardless of race, color or anything. First time that had happened. Thomas lee who had been a slave in marion perry county, he and five other africanamericans walked up to the courthouse and incorporated the Lincoln School of marion. What thomas lee did was sign an individual who could not read or write to be concerned about the masses being educated, that was powerful for 1867. Then you look at schools like alabama and m. To help establish that school, powerful for that time period. When we talk about the history of alabama a and m. Some people forget ruben jones who served in Alabama Legislature and it was he who was the guiding spirit under the efforts to establish alabama and m. They were neighbors. You can see the kind of tie or relationship those two persons had. The third two instances of things that happened in alabama regarding black officeholders. Look at article xiv in that constitution. When a woman married in alabama before 1868 her property became the property of her husband. With the constitution of 1868, that was no longer the case. In addition, whatever debts her husband held before the marriage became hers also. In article ii, imprisoned in alabama for debts, that constitution democratized the state of alabama. We can applaud those black officeholders for having a role in seeing that the rights of women were large. Reconstruction wasnt a monolithic experience. Whites benefited and blacks did too. In 1883 the United States Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Reconstruction was drawing to a close. Whatever right or privileges white people might have enjoyed, the Supreme Court began to speak and struck down those rights. One of the things that grew out of reconstruction were the number of africanamerican oriented organizations that took up the slack, what reconstruction left undone. Across the nation, let me give you some examples. Public transportation, integrated Public Transportation or segregated transportation, integrated schools, segregated schools, the brown decision, these two instances in the 20th century, Reconstruction Legislature did not handle those matters because republicans refused to ally with black members of the party to significantly advance the cause of africanamericans. You are watching booktv on cspan2. We are in Montgomery Alabama with the help of charter communications. Next week toward the archives and special elections unit at Alabama State university to view books and manuscripts related to the Civil Rights Movement. We are at the campus of Alabama State university in montgomery, alabama. We are in the archives but the levi watkins learning center, the dean of the library envisioned it as a cultural learning place. Some people are confused if you walk around the first floor you are not sure if you are in the library or not but we have a number of exhibits and what we wanted to do was to bring the archives alive, bring the history of the area alive for students, faculty, staff. We have a timeline downstairs covering the Alabama State experience from marion, alabama, throughout 150 year history to today. We have a number of exhibits that speak to students so they hear the sound of the past, see the images of individuals that have walked these hallowed halls that made an impact on what is america today. We have two primary storage areas, primary and secondary storage area. We have almost 200 discrete collections in our holdings, we have an array of artwork, 1000 media items, cassettes, films, a variety of formats for a 60 year period that are collected here. The collections we look at today i chose because they really are a more impressive collection but they tell an interconnected story. A story of the Civil Rights Movement that played out in various parts of the world, various parts of the nation. It was the synergy in montgomery, alabama, the montgomery bus boycott, sit ins that occur, started in North Carolina but play out in montgomery and alabama and other parts of the state, the montgomery march, student protest movement, these episodes play out here in montgomery and alabama. We want collections that spoke through those major episodes, that give our patrons an understanding of how the university, the People Associated with the university, how the materials represented in our collection, tell the story of the modern Civil Rights Movement in interesting and tangible ways. We look at robert and jean gretzs collection. Reverend robert gretz came to montgomery in 1954. Had to make a decision, he and his wife prayed about whether to participate in the montgomery bus boycott. Reverend gretz was a white minister passing a black church, made the decision early on to participate and support the bus by cut. He is also participating in a variety of human rights activities. That is represented in his collection. One of the more interesting elements in the collection is these books. If you meet reverend gretz, and he is still alive, make an appointment with him, he will write down the appointment. Sometimes he will take notes. He started doing this in 1956. The bus boycott began in 1956. His notes, little books, start in the montgomery bus boycott and carry on through at the cell the montgomery march. All of these episodes, we have for this instance the first book. Turn the first page, the first address, fred gray is prolific attorney, he has his name, doctor Martin Luther king, his book is replete with these types of individuals. If you turn to his address book, to the dates, you will see he was involved in a variety of speaking engagements. On january 16th that numb 1 30 he had a meeting in doctor kings office about the project so all throughout this book you see his encounters with history, his activity that events that he participated in that intersect the modern Civil Rights Movement. We think this is an interesting dynamic, interesting artifact to maintain at the archives. The novelty aspect of it but also a very interesting way to observe history over time. Another part of our collection we have the Montgomery Improvement Association papers. In these papers, the Montgomery Improvement Association published this comic book which shows Martin Luther king, depicts the bus boycott. We have a number of these copies so you could see it is set up like a typical comic book and you see the story of the bus boycott told in comic book fashion so it is one of those items that is pretty interesting in the Montgomery Improvement Association collection. Then we have the nixon collection, a powerful and a force of nature, in the railroads providing services to patrons, labor organizer, the association for sleeping car porters. I know i misconstrued that name but the porters who works on the border car system had a union headed up by Philip Randolph and edie nixon worked with that union. He had encounters with eleanor roosevelt. He reached beyond montgomery to gain support for the association. We have a whole variety of pictures, a lady in montgomery, the project was named after her. This is a picture with edie nixon in the center and rosa parks to the left a meeting with young people. He had a close relationship with rosa parks, rosa parks served in the naacp. Some of the artifacts in his collection represent her also. There is a person named Reverend Richard boone and reverend boone worked with southern christian leadership conference. He was a graduate of Alabama State university. In the latter part of the 60s he was in another Organization Called the alabama action committee. Reverend richard blue works with us for a while, liaison to the civil rights community, but he was an important figure in the local Civil Rights Movement so he donated his collection to Alabama State. Created an oversized number of newspapers, his Organization Published a newspaper. He was arrested as a result of one of his protest activities. The paper like you had, free angela davis, relates to the black panther party. You have free reverend boone. He was incarcerated and accused of inciting a riot. He eventually was exonerated. He was a committed Civil Rights Activist. He worked on a number of campaigns and went to various states. A corollary to this artifact is another piece we have here, reverend boone was incarcerated and he wanted to write his story of his experiences and he did that on toilet paper. We have that toilet paper. A master student wrote a thesis on reverend boone and she had to roll out the toilet paper and translated what it actually said. We have that documentation also but this collection is an interesting collection that tells of the local Civil Rights Movement and connects the local Civil Rights Movement to the larger movement. When you think of these materials they give the blueprint for the Civil Rights Movement, the logistics of the Civil Rights Movement, how it was executed. The Montgomery Improvement Association papers you see how the organization was created and structured. It is informative for todays activists, students interested in protest come to the archives to understand student protests from years ago. How students organized themselves. What was the interaction with mentors. Did they do any training . How did they execute these episodes . I think the collection serves as a strictly historical document for people interested in understanding the past. It could serve as a template for people wanting to build on the movements of previous decades. During booktvs recent visit to montgomery, we spoke with jeffrey benton, author of respectable and disreputable leisure time in antebellum montgomery about leisure time in montgomery prior to the civil war. I have long been interested in history, but in school in formal situations, the history of someone of my generation has generally been political, military history, economic, religious, that sort of thing. As i grew older i became more and more interested in social history. This book is called respectable and disreputable leisure time in antebellum montgomery. It is about how people before the civil war in anteBellum America behaved with their leisure time in this city. Their respectability was the general term that describes middleclass values. Values of hard work, selfsufficiency, moral behavior, education, religious observation and liberal democracy. All that went together to say a person was respectful. The middleclass did not think that the elite or lowerclass es were respectable. world war i fighters in the Rainbow Division was the get rich quick. The southerners were getting rich quick off of raising cotton with slave labor and the northerners, there was a huge northern population here, were getting rich quick actually richer than the cotton farmers, as merchants. There was an enormous amount of money made here. Montgomery county was the seventh largest slave holding county in the country and the largest exporter of cotton for an inland southern city. We are in a house built by german although he never lived in it. He was middle class person involved in making gas lighting for the city. So the gas works. But it became the town house of a planning family. A family that was rich before the american revolution. The husbands part of the family, the wifes part of the family was from carolina. Life on the plantation was lonely for the owners so they came into town for that reason. Neighboring plantation had families visit but it was generally a lonely existence. So what they did was they came into the town for the social activities that are available, the leisure activities available in towns. The husband also had had a political aspirations. So they came into this town in the 1850s. They were rich. As you can see in shots of the house, it is not a grand house, it was really a middle class house that was lived in for five or six years in the 1850s. You can see the front parlor here. The lady of the house is here all of the time pretty much. Most outside activities were not acceptable for a respectable middle class lady. So in the Entrance Hall there is a tray that calling cards would be left. Women call on one another and talk. They are doing what people have done since the beginning of time; talking. But they are doing so in a setting that is elgent and polished and sophisticated. There is a center table behind me with a tea set. Ladies came and talked. There is a square grand piano in the room and a violin but ladies couldnt play it violin because they could not raise their hands that high. They were cinched in. In the former parlor for visitors there is a checker boa board. In the family in the evening they would sit in this room which is more masculine but more comfortable. They would read. There is a secretary bookcase over there. There are books around. There are sewings for the women. Women often sewed not just for practical reasons but for recreational as well like embroidery work. There are representations in this room of how they use their leisure time. For example, here there is a print of middle class Family Gathering with children around the piano. Here is the collection of shells which makes several statements. One is we can afford to go to the seashore. So it is, you know, a show off in a way. It also says we are interested in natural history. This was the science that was of interest to most educated people. The outdoor activities, the activities that are primarily associated with men and all classes, would be gambling on anything you can imagine. On first fights, knife fights, horse racing, on pool they played pool, but primarily on cards. In fact the gamblers pretty much controlled the city until the 1830 when the state legislature made the condition of montgomery getting a city charter rather than a town charter to get rid of the gamblers. They were drive n out and went to texas and massacreed at santa anna before the alamo. Gambling by the rich thought it was acceptable. They thought it was fun for us to gamble. But when the professional gamblers took over the elite turned against it. You would think church would be an outside activity. Many people in anti Bellum America went to church but 15 members, 20 of the american public, were members of churches. It was difficult to be a member of church. The controls, thou shall not was extremely extensive and monitored and people were thrown out of church because they had brought discredit upon that church or denomination about christianity itself. So the membership was very low. Just in the teens or 20s and people are routinely thrown out. But they went to hear the sermons. The sermons were a form of entertainment. So when the north got rid of slavery or was getting rid of slavery they started becoming hypercritical about southern slavely so southerners stopped going to the northern and intermarrying with northern families. They started going to springs. There were a dozen Mineral Springs in alabama and they would go and hunt, fish, gamble, drink, and matchmaking. It was important as class began to solidify that upper class families started intermarrying and that was a place they could do that. When the cotton crop is coming in in the fall, money is appearing. They had money when the cotton was sold. They came back into the town and at that time that is when religious denomations had their denominational meetings, Political Parties had meetings and the legislature went into operation and that is when the circuses and theater and the state fair occurred. Then there were private parties as well. They adopted the mardi gras type activities. Mardi gras began in mobile and spread to new orleans. It came up here but it wasnt associated with the carnival season right before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of lent. It was associated with new years. There was an extended period of activities for this season. So that was when the town was full and very active. So it went from thanksgiving, which was a National Holiday for a very long time. It included christmas. Alabama was the first state to make christmas a holiday whereas in new england christmas was outlawed. It was pagan or associated with catholi catholicism or frivolous. Christmas was very important and then new years. Then Andrew Jackson was very important for this area because he increased the size of the state terrifically when he succeeded in the creak indiana war and that land was taken and the independents were shipped off to what is now arkansas and oklahoma. There was a whole nother set of activities and this ties in more are respectability. The northerners are running the schools here. There was no Public School system. Private schools were run by Northern School masters. They formed societies like the franklin society. It was a society for printers and it existed all over the country. There was a group that was supposed to educate people on practical things. There was a society for young mechanics. They were talking about science and machinery and how to improve themselves. All of these had to do with selfimprovement. That is what they existed for. But in reality, they quickly became a form of entertainment. There would be lectures on polar regions, on the holy land, on mount vernon. This was the period that mount v vernon, George Washingtons home was about to be demolished so there was national outcry. One of the leaders of the National Movement was yancie who lived here and lincoln said singlehandedly started the southern war. Some think it was heriot beacher stow and uncle toms cabin. He was one of the leaders in raising money and buying mount vernon for the public and preserving it. Dog shows, magic shows, hypnotist and all of these things came from the literary and scientific professional societies. So i find that, and i mentioned in my talk, that Queen Victoria is seeing the same circus that plays in montgomery, alabama. People in new york are seeing the same actors and hearing the same operas sung by the same stars that are here. They are all seeing the barmnam circus. They are all seeing the siamese twins. They are doing the same things and hearing the same lectures. There is a lot of commonalities in their chosen activities. This weekend we are in montgomery, alabama with the help of our local cable partner chartner communications. Next we visit the last home of the great gatsby author. This is montgomery, alabama and a neighborhood called old clover dale. This couple averaged five months a stop for 14 years. This house has been significantly expanded after they lived here. We use the downstairs as the museum and you will find am whereamfal 9 we will take you back to when the daughter lived here the last years of her life. We treasure the drebt artifacts from scott and zelda. When women moved her, and we have photos of zelda after moving her, sitting on top of her trunk. Zelda just go out of the most prominent hospital in the world and diagnosed schizophrenic. She has been told she is cured which is not possible and not her mental illness. This house was a landing pad and regrouping stage. Montgomery jumped out of princeton because his grades were so bad. Fi fitzgerald was probably remembering the stories his father told him. Ucaltttt she was staying at camp sheridan. It is no longer around. But two miles north of the capitol in downtown montgomery. It was a camp about 20,000 men came from between 19171918. We believe he met zelda at winter place which is a mansion where a lot of fancy part aeies happened. There was an ex change between scott and zelda, a bit of flirting, and it ended with them saying lets meet at the time Montgomery Country Club next weekend for the dance going on. L her personality created a firestorm because she wrote a review of the novel in which she was pulling letters. That summer show up in france. These are her initial forray and these are being done as scott is finishing the edits for the great gatsby. Fitzgerald believes the best vehicle to bring the paintings to the public is have a joint press run with his new novel and zeldas first paintings being sold in new york city. The problem is scotts novel is not wellreceived by the critics and only sells 2,000 copies and zeldas paintings are reject as being the work of an amateur painter. The tension in the marriage is her quitting to paint professionally but dedicating many hours to artwork at home. In the museum, these are from the collection at yale university. We have the earliest paper dolls zelda produced. They were done as gifts for children or for their own daughter to play with. However, the new itgirl of america by 19261927 was no longer the flapper. It was the actress. And in Hollywood Scott tells zelda you need to be more like this 17yearold girl who had a career in which she dedicated her artistic mind the to making money. Zelda doesnt find this flattering and has a fight and burns all of her artwork she had been producing in hollywood. And the couple, tail between legs, had to leave hollywood and move to a country where hopefully they would be better at damage control. As we continue, zelda dedicates herself to ballet under a woman who had been a prima bal rrina paris in the 1920s. There would be the relationship of someone like miley cyrus retiring from her career and taking up the career of a professional athlete. This is the first major showing of zeldas bipolar nature. She practices ballet as if meant to be a balrina. She has a mental breakdown in paris two years later and tries to take her own life. For the next 14 months, she is at a clinic in switzerland and after her time there she moved here to montgomery to this house we stayed in. They diagnosed her schizophrenic before and she was cured and when she moves to this house she wants to write a novel about what happened to a girl who decided to become a ballet dancer. She writes the majority of the novel and when fitzgerald is back he reads the novel and it becomes the major spat of their marriage. Fitzgerald feeling he is a novelist and should get the al colades for the writing and zelda thought this was her last cry at fame. Their time here wasnt very easy. Zeldas father died while living in the house and fitzgerald was giving his second contract job in hollywood. One he turned down at 750 a week but couldnt refuse the raise to 1200 a week. Zelda finishes her novel and has a soaked breakdown when scott is back causing them to leave montgomery and go to shepherd prat hospital which was an annex of Johns Hopkins hospital in baltimore, maryland. This photograph is taken after the novel is released. This picture was posed for and the expressions on their face is unmisstakab unmistakable. They are looking unhappy and nervous and the reason is these photographs are appearing beside reviews of her novel calling her a thirdrate writer and a woman only being published because of who her husband is. Her Mental Health continued to decline. For the rest of the 30s she spent 90 of her waking hours in mental institutionstitutions Le Fitzgerald with his only daughter alone. Scott sent scotty to bording schools and she would be in bording schools or college until the day fitzgerald died. He wasnt a man to leave no vestang of family life behind. He continued to work on a collection he began with her in 1928 when they were living in paris. In 1973, he wrote the pr she wrote the preface for the last collection. There were only five artifacts left in her possession and that is indicative of the transiance of this story. Scott and zelda making a place scotty could call home. These stamps were taken from post cards and letters they sent to their friends during the 1920s when money was easy and short stories paid a lot of mun skwae were able to sell and the family traveled at will. The 1930s were a different ball game for the two. But scotts dedication to maintaining a family life for scotty at time period when her mother was nowhere to be found and living hundred percent of her time in mental institutions and fitzgerald struggled to find work. As the 1930s went on, scott feared zelda would never be secured. The hospital bills were rising and scottys boarding school bills were breaking him. He was 46,000 in debt and had nothing to show for it. When hollywood came calling in 1937 and offered him a 1,000 a week contact he had no choice but to leave zelda behind in asheville, North Carolina in Highland Hospital and travel across the country and begin a new life. He worked in holiday over the next three and a half years and had one credit. He had a girlfriend named sheila gram. She was every bit his second wife but he would never divorce zelda. The night before he died they went to go see this movie. It was the own film of 1940 at the Catholic League put on their black list. It was a raucous and funny film and fitzgerald enjoyed it. However, when he stood up to leave the theater he experienced a fainting spell believed to be a heart attack. It would have been his fourth heart attack of the year. She wanted to call an ambulance but because it was the premier of the movie and the theater was fill with alisters he didnt want to be seen being carried out on oo gurney he he had sheila wait until the theater was empty and he could go home. The next morning they woke up and had lunch together and he died of a heart attack. He was 44. This is where they met in 1918, tried to live when they found out they were pregnant with their first child, where they came when the wheels fell off their relationship and zeldas mental state in 1931. But more and more what really seems to be the part of the story that visitors find the most poingnant is their daughter who grew up without a home, when she needed a place to call home later on in her life, montgomery is where we landed. If you come to the museum, you would find out scott was more than a writer. He needed a partner and someone to give him a life full enough of ideas he could write the Great American novels and that woman was zelda fitzgerald. He thought she allowed them to be the great verifies a new generation following in the footsteps of world war i. We spoke with Nimrod Frazer who recounts the history of the 167 infantry in world war one in his book send the alabamians. The 167th u. S. Infantry was made up of alabama soldiers. The Alabama National guard was created in 1912 and bill screws was sent here to train and build them up. Between 19121916 he built it up to 5,000 men and took them to the Mexican Border for advanced training. These were mostly poor guys seeking adventure most of them had never been outside of the state of alabama and knew they could go to the Mexican Bordered. Represented travel, paid well for the times, given a uniform. It was a very very serious combat situation once they got to europe. President Woodrow Wilson and his newly appointed secretary of war newton baker released permission from the government to pursue the bandit leader. President wilson was antiwar candidate but supported the creation of the National Guard. He saw war in europe and was afraid of our involvement. There were several reasons for his committing us to the Mexican Border. One is three gorilla groups one being led by the famous pancho villa were trying to overthrow the mexican government. Villa went over the rio grand river and killed a bunch of americans. When he did that it was the trigger point for wilson making a decision to spend all of the army and the National Guard to the Mexican Border for training. The regular portion of it was led by general pershing and pursueed villa in the heart land of mexico but never captured him. There were four alabama regimens down there that were trained in advanced infantry warfare and came back to alabama in 1917 and we went into the war in 1917. They were immediately brought to long island, new york and made it part of the Rainbow Division. When the alabama regimen was created, secretary of war baker sent an order down here to montgomery and said you took 5,000 men to the Mexican Border you chose the best 3, 720 and put them in a National Guard regimen and bring them to long island and well have them assimilated into the Rainbow Division. August 1917, from there over the country, the division was opposed from 26 states and there District Of Columbia guards men. The many states of the union, the many colors and broad points of view brought together, inspired the name Rainbow Division. All of the ancillary units came from all over the United States. When the division was announced mike author was there and they said what should you call this division . And he said one of the reporters said it stretches like a rainbow across the United States and we will call it the Rainbow Division because it goes from one side of the country to the other. And that is what president wilson and secretary of war baker wanted. They wanted a representation so the War Department cherry picked these four divisions from the National Guard and the best four and when screws cherry picked the 5,000 for the best 3700. When they got to europe it was very welcoming. You must realize the british had sent a delegation to washington to see president wilson and said we want 75 battalions to put in the trenches under experienced leaders. The french sent a delegation saying we want a fully trained division to go into our army. President wilson who appoint the head of the european wor and they agreed they wanted americans there but only to serve as americans under americans. So when these divisions got to europe all of them needed more training. They were considered by the army to be not ready to fight. So they went immediately into training and trained januarymarch and then in march therapy rotated in to the trenches at a place called back rod. It was a quite zone. The germans were using it to bring soldiers out of the combat to let them rest. Our soldiers were twinged with the french. And after they integrated after a week or so they were operating alone under the french Senior Officers and stayed there for 110 days in eastern france. In russia, there had been a dramatic change. The cumins took over from the zar. The zar was an ally of the allies and that was no longer the case. This freed up 62 regimens of germans who were then sent to the western front 55 miles from paris. And the germans keyed up a big offensive to take paris and the alabama regimen was put in between the Rainbow Division and the alabama regimen were put in between two french divisions on one of the key accesses to paris and fought extremely well and saved paris. If we had lost that battle the fate of paris had fallen the fate of france in europe would have been sealed. The whole attitude of the french changed. But Supreme Commander was a french guy that commanded all of the allied troops in europe. He declared a counter attack and the Rainbow Division was sent down to chatue tier and rested three or four days and the 167th was sent by truck on the night of the 2425th july of 1918 to an another place and they went by foot six miles and on the 26th of july participated in an epic battle, the biggest blood landing of alabama soldiers that had taken place sits ge get tysberg with 163 alabama soldiers killed in a three and a half hour fight. They killed 283 germans in 48 hours. Blood was running in the streets. We had about a thousand wounded from alabama. My father was shot up in that battle. There was a battle on a hill that was a reinforced strong point with concrete bunkers and experienced germans there it was an extremely important place where the railroads cut through. In the fall, it meant it would connect the vital supply lines connecting the north and south german armies. We were successful there and the warm was tremendously shortened. It was a great piece of machine work done. Whether they used indirect fire over the heads of the soldiers and using a million rounds of machine gun ammunition. They fired 30 minutes of unin r uninterrupted fire and stopped for 30 minutes, raised the target and fired 15 minutes more on the reverse slope of the hill. It was a creative piece of machine gun work that was supported by these assaulting infantry men. It was a legendary success shared by the nation but it was very, very important in alabama. It really meant that these all of them were grandsons of con federates and participated in saving freedom and democracy and distinguished themselves in europe alongside the regular army troops. They came home as heroes. This building is located on the Capitol Grounds just across the street from here. It was the Biggest Assembly of people in alabama we have ever had on the grounds of the kaepernick patience. There were 75,000 people that welcomed them home. It was a hugely big outpouring of parades around in huntsville, mobile, montgomery. A huge outpouring of gratitud graditute. Then it was over. We might celebrate war while it is going on but then we want it over with. The legacy is it brought out the best in us. We were there as really good combat soldiers. We served the nation. We came out of the confederacy into the modern world. That was the legacy of this regimen. It gave us pride and people on the street knew we were equal to the new york regimen as a combat unit. Alabama has one of the largest National Guard units in the United States to this day. Soldiering is an honored profession in this state. It is not looked down upon. Volunteering for service is a big part of who we are. For more information on booktvs recent visit to montgomery and many other destinations on the city tour go to cspan. Org citytour. We will kick off the evening at 6 45 with tom rain right reporting on the 300 billion illegal drug business. At 8 15 we will explore a new u. S. Economy. Richard angle shares experiences reporting from the middle east. And on after words john yu looks at the growth of president ial power during the obama administration. And we will finish up with laura bush who talked about tr progress of women in afghanistan since 2001. That all happens tonight on cspan2. Crystal wright, con job, your new book. Who is doing the conning
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