Exploring the american story as we take book tv and American History tv on the road with support from our spectrum Cable Partners we travel to indianapolis. Coming up in the next hour, we will learn about the citys Literary History and speak with local authors including ray boom hauer on Robert F Kennedy and the 1969 indiana primary and in 15 minutes we visit the home of the hoosier poet James Whitcomb riley and following that in 20 minutes travel with us to the Kurt Vonnegut museum and library. We begin our special feature with Robert F Kennedyin indianapolis. [inaudible] could you lower those signs please . I have some very sad news for all of you. And that is that Martin Luther king was shot and was killed tonight. Martin luther king dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. Youre actually standing at the intersection of 17th street and broadway in indianapolis indiana, 46202. This is the spot where on april 4 Robert Kennedy gave his impromptu speech informing the crowd of Martin Luther kings assassination. I was in a position on this side so if you look at the picture up there of Robert Kennedy atthat time he gave his speech , put a collage but that was the angle from which i was looking and i was no more than 25 feet away so i was relatively close being here as early as i was. We did get here early, 24 years old at the time. I just got out of the navy the year before. I came home and indianapolis changed somewhat. This is still a predominantly black neighborhood. I had spentfour years in the navy and become a journeyman printer and i came home and i couldnt get a job. Based on the experience because it was 1968 and i was a young black man basically so i was here with a group of young age, some may be a little younger. I wanted to see for myself and hear for myself what he had to say. Kennedy was in indianato enter the indiana democratic president ial primary. Just a month before on march 16 kennedy in washington dc had announced he would be trying to win the nomination for the democratic president ial race. It was a pretty crowded field at that time. The incumbent president Lyndon Johnson was still in the race and another senator, this one from minnesota Eugene Mccarthy and also thrown his hat into the ring for the nomination and really the indiana primary was the first opportunity for him to test out his message and his campaign with voters. So although it was a long shot, indiana which was a more conservative state even among democrats didnt seem like the right state for kennedy to start his campaign in and it was a bit of a gamble but as kennedy himself said, my whole campaign is a gamble so were going to give it a try and indiana. Following his speeches in south bend at the university of no notre dame april 4 and the subsequent part at Ball Stateuniversity , kennedy was supposed to according to his schedule fly to indianapolis at the airport, from there to downtown indianapolis to open up his new campaign headquarters. After that event he was supposed to come out here to the Broadway Christian center , 17th and broadway street which was in the heart of an africanamerican neighborhood, his Standard Campaign speech, talk about what he was going to do if he won the nomination and they were also signing up voters, registering people to vote because they would need every vote they could when the may 19 primary came around and on the way to indianapolis when he was at the airport there were a couple reportsthat kennedy heard the news that king had been shot. Not the news that he had died yet, just that he had been shot so when he arrived in indianapolis at the airport kennedy finally learned that king had died. And there was a lot of confusion about what the Kennedy Campaign should do. Should they cancel the speech , should they go ahead with it . They knew they were going to cancel their appearance at the campaign headquarters, that was a given but they didnt know what to do and there were people here at the side got word back to Kennedy Airport that youre going to have to come out here and Say Something because if you dont, there might be some trouble. Already news was filtering out a lot of major American Cities and violence occurring when people heard the nose about kings death. So kennedy was thinking who could people directly and give them bad news and be counted upon to do the right thing. So it was decided that kennedy would come to 17th and broadway street to address the crowd that had gathered there. Kennedy had no prepared text from his Campaign Speech writers. He was with his key Campaign Aide fred douglas and there was kind of what am i going to say here in that car. What am i going to say to these people . Kennedy didnt know and they didnt have any advice to give him. This streetthey were standing on , it actually did not end the way it is right now before so it continued all the way through. Side the sidewalk would be just about where youre standing and a flatbed truck was maybe 10 feet, 10, 20 feet beyond thesidewalk. I dont think i could tell anything. It just seemed like normal hustle and bustle of getting something together except for the fact that you could hear him say do they know . Do they know about Martin Luther king . And of course the answer was no because the majority of the people hadnt heard so that was his first, first thing i could hearhim saying. Could you lower those signs, please . I have some very sad news for all of you. And that is that Martin Luther king was shot and was killed tonight in memphis tennessee. When i was here and listened to his speech, the pendulum of my emotions, i could see it swaying and it was in a matter of minutes because i think the speech lasted no more than six, seven minutes but it went from when he first made the announcement one of anger and revenge and the collective moans and sighs, it could not only be heard but to me it could be felt. I felt a wave of emotion that came through that crowd. For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, i would only say that i can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by awhite man. But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond or go beyondthese difficult times. The speech, like i said, didnt last six minutes but i could feel my emotions move from one of anger and revenge to remorse, feeling sorry for this country and this family andhis kids to one finally by the time he got to the end of the speech , the words thathe spoke brought me to another level of understanding. After his talk here, kennedy went back to the hotel. Hewas scheduled to meet with a group of africanamerican leaders. After his speech, that meeting went on. It was a highly charged atmosphere as you can imagine with kings death, but kennedy kind of smooth things over and made sure that they know that they had a friend in him and his Campaign Aides. They could always call on them if they had any questions or problems while he was going to be in indiana. I think they were very upset of course. They hadlost a beloved leader. They were upset about that and heres an establishment figure in Robert Kennedy and i think they took out a lot of their anger on him because he was there at the time you entity took it with good grace. He did point out he didnt want to be there. He was wealthy. He was an established person. He had his own family to worry about, he could have stayed home and his estate in virginia and he was out here talking to them late in the evening listening to their concerns so i think that really mollified most of theirconcerns at the time. Robert kennedy wins the indiana primary. He goes around the state. Hes very happy with the way hes treated by indiana voters. Felt that they gave him a chance. A listen to what he had to say and resonated with his message. From there kennedy went onto win primaries in nebraska, they go on , mccarthy and kennedy , out to western primaries. Mccarthy defeats kennedy in the oregon primary, the first time any kennedy and lost an election so it comes down to the california primary, the big prize for most delegates. Kennedy ekes out a narrow victory in early june. The evening after he wins the california primary he goes to the hotel in las vegas, takes a shortcut through the kitchen there and is shot i Sirhan Sirhan and is assassinated and dies a few hours later. Kennedy coming to indianapolis shows you the part that chance plays in history sometimes. You had all these things that had to come together to bring kennedy to indianapolis april 4 to make those remarks to the crowd at the Broadway Christian center telling Martin Luther king jr. s death. Words have power and if words , you spoke sincerely and with meeting people get. And i think that he had a way of the impromptu speaking it might have been was weaved together so well and like a needle, it appears the hearts and minds andspeaking personally , these souls to make me think deeper about what this was so that it was easy for me to see the change in my emotions from the first one of anger and revenge, moved to remorse to then finally to come to the understanding that doctor king realized. That the message that he was bringing was one that calls for sacrifice, ultimately, the ultimate sacrifice. He understood that. But he also understood that it had to be done. We must dedicate ourselves towhat the greeks wrote so many years ago. To tame the savage nest of men and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much. Known as the hoosier poet James Whitcomb riley is best known for works including little orphan annie. Next we learn about his connectionto indianapolis and visit the home where he spent the last 23 years of his life. James Whitcomb Riley was one of the most famous authors to come out of indiana really up until id say Kurt Vonnegut. He became known as the hoosier poet because he wrote so much about indiana and indianas people and i would describe him as helping to define the rest of the country what a hoosier was. Indiana was still considered the west. It was considered a frontier state so he helped introduce indiana to the rest of the country and indiana loved him for that. His most famous poems were probably little orphan annie which then became the basis for or i should say the inspiration for a lot of other popularworks like raggedy ann and andy , orphan annie, the comic strip and musical and that was one of the most wellknown poems in the country at that point. Little orphan annie has come to our house and to stay and watch the cup and saucers out and shoo the chickens off the porch and make the fire and bake the bread and earn her board and keep and all those other childrenwhen the supper things are done we sit around the kitchen fire and have the most fun. Listening to the witches tales that annie tells about and the goblins will get you if you dont watch out. When he became famous for was writing what he called the hoosier dialect which was his imitation of the vernacular of the people he grew up with in greenfield indiana so the farmers, merchants, people like that and thats what people would want to see. So he read his poetry, it would often get published in newspapers and then he became wellknown after he joined what they called the lecture circuit back then which was went up on an author, humorist would go out and read their works in front of an audience. So he started off small around the indianapolis area where he got his start. This was his home audience and they loved to come hear him read his poetry in those dialects, it was almost like hearing an imitator to an accent and he wasnt the only one who wrote like that. Joel Chandler Harris also wrote in what he called a southern dialect and mark twain is probably the most famous dialect writer today that we hear a lot about because of finn and tom sawyer, he considered him a dialect writer as well. And in fact because of that mark twain and James Whitcomb riley became good friends and actually performed together in new york city a few times and he be selling out theaters every night area and he sold out five or 600 a night theaters and at the p of his theaters career in 1889 he was bringing in the modern about 25,000 a night for one of his performances so he had become one of the bestknown authors and entertainers in the country. So the James Whitcomb riley is located in riley square built in 1872 and whats interesting is James Whitcomb riley never actually owned the home. It was built by a man named John Whitcomb is for his family and then they lived here almost 20 years before ever meeting him. They met him about 1890 so really at the peak of his career and they became Close Friends area he almost famously became part of their extended family so three years after they met in 1893 eight invited him to come live with him because at that point he was touring so much he was living in a permanent hotelroom down in downtown indianapolis. This is the parlor of the James Whitcomb riley museum home. Almost i think of it like a victorian living room where they do all their entertaining and you see a lot of musical instruments. Riley is a multi talented individual. Not only could he write and perform his poetry he could also perform music b parlor guitar, thats his violin on the chair. The most important people in indianapolis would come into the James Whitcomb riley area including authors like marilyn mickelson , booth tarkenton, benjamin harrison, one time president of the United States would visit him and a lot of indianapolis, the biggest businessmen such as eli lilly basically anybody who was anybody in indianapolis would want to come meet mister riley and in fact he was so famous i the time that he moved into the home you could see postcards produced at that time thathad just the home in the background as the home of James Whitcomb riley. This is James Whitcomb rileys bedroom. He moved in here in 1893 and when he moved in it was already awellestablished poet. He brought a lot of his own furniture with them so some of the pieces in this room are older than the home themselves. This is his original writing desk here. This is where he composed many of his over 1000 works of poetry. He also like to write in bed. So theyd often come up and find him sitting in bed surrounded by scraps of paper where he had been writing deep into the Early Morning hours. At his original act and cane on the bed and up here where the fireplace is is a portrait he had commissioned of one of his best friends which was that little poodle lockerbie and he loved that dog so much he happy painting commissioned and hung up over his mental area James Whitcomb riley became one of the most popular authors and entertainers in the country and through his touring and his lectures and then by selling his poetry anthologies, he made about 3 million during his lifetime thats in victorian money and the modern equivalent is the equivalent of 60 70 million so he wasexceptionally wealthy. Which makes it interesting that he decided to stay here in this one room in this home in lockerbie and the reason he did that is twofold. The first is he loved his family that built this home and invited him to live here with them and he was close to them and the second reason is he loved this neighborhood. Back in 1880 before meeting the family, before ever meeting charles holstein, he wrote a poem called lockerbie street was basically about how much he liked to leave his office where he was working at a newspaper in indianapolis and come for a relaxing walk through Lockerbie Square and that poem became so popular and was so well loved by the people who lived in this neighborhood that the day after it was published they came to his office and found his desk covered in flowers sent by the people of Lockerbie Square. Such a little street it is nestled away in the heart of the city and the cool shady covers of whispering trees with their leaves shaking hands with the breeze which in all its wide wanderings never made meet with a resting place fairer than lockerbie street when they invited him to come live here not only was he excited to go live with his close friend, he was excited to live in this neighborhood that he loved and thats the reason he stayed here last 23 or so years of his life even though he couldve afforded to build a mansion of his own in indianapolis. James Whitcomb Riley is one of the most important authors ever to come out of indiana and to a certain extent i think in modern times that maybe has been forgotten slightly what were trying to do is really expand on what he did to put indiana on the map. Indiana was everything to James Whitcomb riley. He made the conscious decision not to move out to the east coast where all the literary powerhouses were because he felt so strongly connected to indianapolis and indiana, he thought that was the heart of his poetry and the heart of his writing so i think he is due for alittle bit of a renaissance. As people have started to appreciate him a lot more for what he did for the city of indianapolis and for the state of indiana. Join us the first and third weekend of each month as we take tv and American History tv on the road. To watch videos from any of the cities we visit go to cspan. Org cities tour and follow us on tour. The cspan cities tour, exploring the american story. Known for his bestselling novel slaughterhouse five Kurt Vonnegut in indianapolis, we learn more about his writing career and influence he had on his writing. All my jokes are indianapolis. My attitudesare indianapolis. My adenoids are indianapolis what people like about me is indianapolis. When we think about Great American writers, vonnegut is one of those. Steinbeck, some of the others. He is the Great American writer and being recognized and will continue to be recognized for years to come. Now we are on the first floor of our new building, 543 indiana avenue in downtown indianapolis. The purpose of our current Vonnegut Museum and library is not just to celebrate the life of Kurt Vonnegut, yes, we do that in a big way with vonnegut size and the night of vonnegut and other things we do throughout the year to educate people on Kurt Vonneguts life. And also to display his artifacts and give that type of experience to our visitors, but we think what matters the most is that we are doing programs that will benefit people. Where theyre having not only a cultural experience and educational experience a place to go. A Community Gathering place so were representing not just Kurt Vonnegut but other writers, poets, musicians and artists whose work has been censored in our country and telling those stories. Indianapolis meant so much to Kurt Vonnegut area he was born here in 1922. Indianapolis was a bustling city in 1922. His parents were pretty wealthy. They were from wealthy families in the city so they knew a lot of the notable artists and writers, the poet James Whitcomb riley was a worldfamous poet at the time. With was someone his family new. Is considered a postmodern writer but i think what is different about vonnegut that may not have been done at the time when he started doing this was he would sometimes stop a story and interject his own opinion about something and then go on with the story and stop again and say what he thought about that. Some people dont like that but other people love it and they think wow, this writer is talking to me hes having a conversation with me. He was best known as the author of the book slaughterhouse five. That book is based on his work, his experience as a privileged prisoner of war held by the nazis during world war ii he went on to write many other novels, essays. When slaughterhouse five first came out in 1969, it was immediately embraced by the antiwar, antivietnam war crowd. And vonnegut appreciated that. But also, he told such an honest story about the war experience that there were people who didnt like it because it was so honest. And those individuals were frustrated that there wasnt more of a nationalistic kind of approach to war writing, but he thought it was important to be honest about the war experience. After slaughterhouse five came out in 1969, that year and years beyond even up to present day, slaughterhouse five is being banned somewhere in the country and vonnegut personally experienced that in the 70s when his school in drake north dakota banned the book and not only did they benefit from the school, they went so far as to take copies of the book and put them in the school furnace. Vonnegut wrote a response letter to this that talked about what that meant to do that and how he thought of a war against fascism and that kind of oppression of people and thoughts and ideas and how damaging it is to do that. Even if you dont agree with what someone says, we have to protect our First Amendment rights to be able to speak it. We want thatdialogue , even if we know that our folks were probably going to disagree with something he said, the dialogue is where we can really start to think of each other as human and understand the background and why somebody might have an opinion a certain way. And we think kurt would really love that. Were in indianapolis where cspan is learningabout the citys literary scene. Up next we speak with professor Jennifer Juliano and on her book indian spectacle, mascot and the anxiety ofmodern america. Today mascots play a role where they serve ascommercial figures. Their brands for universities and it allows them to style what theyre doing to potential fans but also to potential students. Historically though mascots were not really that sort of role. So some of the first mascots were designed to be more like cheerleaders in the stands and they would lead cheers and help florida students engaged with what was going on in the field and make things understandable to those in the audience so this happens between sort of mascots are there for fans versus mascots who are there for brands in the early 20th century when colleges begin to expand a think about how they can get new students but also get alumni to donate so part of their message is to take on modern ways of advertising and so they create mascots, bakery team brands, University Brands to make that transition but its something people can buy and be part of all the time every day is just when theyre on campus. So when we think about how did mascots become something interesting, one of the things that is important to know is that mascots started as people. They started primarily as bad boys and back girls for professional sports. What changes the is that 20th century American Culture begins to use race as a way to advertise. So there are two cases that are famous. One is beacon hill illinois which is a high school in Northern Illinois area at a mascot was a racist character of an asian american. And they kept that mascots and still defend that mascot even though they dont have it anymore. Theres this great episode that a colleague of mine writes about about how clarence devol was the africanamerican mascot for the chicago cubs goes to egypt and basically performs as a mascot in egypt as part of their traveling a small game which is kind of interesting. But he writes about and talks about the fact that as part of that performance teammates basically put a chain around his neck and read him through the train station in egypt. Indians had been eradicated from the continental United States and so when you start reading mascots they do it under the rubric of honoring and remembering the past and embodying what they thought were the best characteristics of an indian person. The problem was that was a white fantasy of what an indian was. For example, they thought they were audible and they thought they were close to nature as a know from historical study indians were not just one thing. Natives were all different types of tribes and communities. In the 20s and 30s they take on native mask a treat as a way to honor people that were disappearing. Thats the convenient historical falsehood the lesson to feel better about the fact they taken weight land from indians all the cost investors. What we know is they are stereotypes of a stereotype and they are created to be generic and thats what makes it so problematic for people is they are generic. They dont benefit native peoples in the way they should and thats when you ask a football fan or as some whos a fan of basketry what can you tell me about the pottawatomie who were here in it yet, most of them cant tell you anything. Today its different. Mascots today theres a lot of people recognize theres a difference between a character of an indian and actual content related peoples. Thats what my work and activists are trying to show is him if he truly understand native people, this is that represented in a way they think is positive. Thats where the conflict between peoples notions of what native history is or should look like an actual native people today, they dont put the two together in a in a way that mas sense to them. They think its totally fine you have a character of a sioux indian performing on Illinois Land or you have a white man performing at Stanford University pretending to be a certain type of thinking that he really wasnt. Thats where the conflict is for us, is what we know historically and will place out contemporarily really dont have anything to do with native people today. Thats why think we want to fix to record and talked about why that is, why we are why we erase native people today from whats going on. The ncaa is headquartered in indianapolis. The incident at a few ago created rules about whether you could have basketry or not. One of the roles they grade was they create an exception and said if i tried comes forward and says it supports your team, you get to keep it. The only problem is just because one tribe says its okay doesnt mean another community in that tribe thinks its okay. They are not talking that doing away with mascots just to do away with indians. They are creating positive views but historically accurate. At the professional level the rule is whatever the law says works, but whats interesting is forcing a bit of a shift among nfl owners with their very much concerned about the Washington Team brand hurting the larger nfl franchise. We will see change at the nfl level it will be from the team owners, not from activists pressuring dan snyder or pressuring the Cleveland Team to do away with her mascots. Its going to beat owners who say will not allow this because we feel like it hurts a brand over all. This is an settled ground. How would talk to each other as human beings, as ethnicity, actual individual people really matters and that what may seem minor to you, to somebody else is really an affront to who they are as a person. Were in indianapolis were cspans learning about the cities literary scene. Up next we speak with iup ui professor kennedy honor book talking politics, what you need to know before opening your mouth. I realize that people say you should never talk about politics and religion. I think that more discussion would be a very good thing for the country right now, but that discussion has to be grounded in reality. It has to come if you say this s is a desk and i say its a chair, we cant talk about how to use it. If you want to disagree about something, you need to know what that something is. One of the reasons i wrote this book is in order to give people a foundation of which to disagree. I think a lot of the rather toxic disagreements that we have in this country are a direct outgrowth not just of partisanship but of the fragmented nature of immediate environment that we live in. When you have Media Outlets that engage, and on both sides of the political spectrum, you do, engage in what is really propaganda, its one thing to spend on behalf of your side of an issue or a problem spin that we have gotten to a point where we dont even see or occupy the same reality. I tell my students, i teach a course in media and Public Policy as well as law and Public Policy and i tell my students if you really believe that the aliens landed in roswell, i can find you five internet sites that a picture of the aliens bodies. I mean, we are so good technologically at creating the realities that we believe in or want to believe in, that it is very difficult for people to make a determination about what is real, what is credible and what is not. If you do not have what i call Civic Literacy, if you dont really understand what our system is intended the way which our system is intended to operate, then you dont have the tools that you need to determine whats real and what isnt. We have terrible civic ignorance in this country. The last time there was a National Survey taken, by the way, credible source, 26 of americans know that we have three branches of government. I always wonder whether people who dont understand that and you dont understand federalism, which is the division of jurisdictions between local, state, and federal governments, where do they take their zoning problem, to the congressman . I mean, you need to begin with a foundation of American History and American Government so that when some website says oh, congressman x didnt do y, well, you know, congresspeople are not supposed to do y so im not sure i trust that source. If you come at all this without at least a foundation, you have no tools with which to determine the credibility of the source. I actually begin a center at Indiana UniversityPurdue University indianapolis called the center for Civic Literacy. I started it about eight years ago. Maybe ten, time flies. But the impetus for starting that was that in my undergraduate class online policy, i teach through a constitutional lens and when we come to the notion of original intent, i usually ask my students, what do you James Madison thought about porn on the internet . And the proper answer to that is to laugh because ive is a James Madison didnt think about porn on the internet. And then relaunch into of what James Madison did think and say and what got into our constitution. But it asked this young woman, junior in college, what you think James Madison thought about porn on the internet . She looked at me and said, whose James Madison . And i went home and drank. But this book, it was part of the work of the center for Civic Literacy at iupui. Its an effort to compile what every single citizen needs to know and understand about our government and our economy, and the difference between science and religion. One of the things that i am hopeful about is that we will reinvest in civic education. If we know what our constitution says, if we know what our history actually was, i am confident we can come to a lot of different agreement and put this country back on a path toward at least amnesty. If not, if were going to sort of huddle in our little filter bubbles and only believe what, going to the internet and have confirmation bias tell us where we are going, then the american experiment doesnt work. Then we are this collection of quarreling constituencies all trying to contend for power, and we are not really american anymore. Twice a month cspan cities tour takes booktv and American History tv on the road to explore the literary life and history of the selected city. Working with our Cable Partners we visit various literary and Historic Sites as we interview local historians, authors and civic leaders. You can watch any of our past interviews and tours online by going to booktv. Org and selecting cspan cities tour from the series dropdown at the top of the page or by visiting cspan. Org citiestour. You can also follow the cspan cities tour on twitter for behind the scenes images and video from our visits. The handle is cspancities. Heres a look at some of the most notable books of 2019 according to the new york times. In this room tonight my mother, a poet in her own right [applause] how as a child i watched her every move, seeing her eyes fall upon every word anywhere in town in the grocery store, on a bus pamphlet, the packet labeled my high school textbook, she was always working downwards insatiable which is how i learned the ways in which words were a kind of sustenance, to be a beautiful relief or a greatest assault. How i learned that words with the best math. Make me know my mother was always saying in between raising 12 humans. I am in this room, and so is my mother. [applause] in this room she left when she was only 19 which then felt like a lurching mission to plan and known. In this room tonight my love, a fellow artist, the most inspired accompaniment of my life. And the chorus, my siblings not here but whose voices exist, carl, michael, karen, byron, troy, eddie, deborah, thank you for telling me the stories in the first place and for trusting me to make something of them, for allowing me to call you names, because it is no small thing to recover the names. There are other names of my family who told me the history of myself, some of whom died for this book was finished. These absent presences, my antielite, my sisters my mothers only city, but uncle joe january this year and the biggest blow, my oldest brother simon junior the day after this book appeared in the world. Most of these authors have appeared on booktv and you can find their programs in their entirety at booktv. Org. Type the authors name in the search bar atnc the top of the page. Its with great pleasure that agreement and introduced to you three authors for this afternoon. Ibram k