Library and also bpl presents, which is the libraries arts and culture arm tonight. I am thrilled to welcome author james gaines whose latest book which comes out on february 8th is titled the 50s and underground history. Im going to tell you a little bit about what Publishers Weekly says, it says this revisionist history is packed with insights it goes on to say that gains delivers a compassionate and insightful Group Portrait of singular men and women who spoke out on lgbtq issues womens rights civil rights and the environment in the 1950s, not the complacent era that we all think it is. So tonight jamess conversation partner is writer daniel okrent. And before i introduce the two of them. I just have a few quick notes for you first while the book is not released for a few more weeks. This is kind of a sneak peek. You can preorder it and we will put a link in the chat to the website of a local brooklyn bookstore the Community Bookstore so that you can do that if you so desire with just a couple of clicks. Second like all of our talks you have the option tonight to use closed captioning that features that the bottom of your screen life transcript and finally i want to invite you all to share your questions tonight for james type them throughout the program into the q a box at the bottom of your screen and dan will will take as many of them as he has time for towards the end of the program. Now, let me say a word about each. Our guests and i will happily hand it off to them. James our gaines is the former managing editor of time life and people magazines and the author of several books, including wits and days and nights of the algonquin roundtable evening in the palace of reason a study of Johann Sebastian bach in the early enlightenment, and for liberty and glory, washington lafayette and their revolutions. And daniel ocrants books include Great Fortune the epic of rockefeller center, which was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history last call the rise and fall of prohibition and the guarded gate bigotry eugenics and the law that kept two generations of italians and other europeans out of america. He was also the first public editor of the New York Times. Welcome to you both. Thank you so much for being here. Im excited to hear your conversation and take it away. Thank you very much. Marsha. Im very happy to be here and i want to thank the library and the bookstore for making this possible and i would say hello to my old friend jim. Hi jim. Hi, dan, jim and i met during the 1960s. Were very old. In ann arbor, michigan at a moment when people of our generation thought that we were changing the world. We didnt change the world that much but we did take a lot of selfcongratulatory moments to so how different were we were but what one learns from reading jims book and reading the 50s is that the 60s were the consequence of the 50s as marsha said when she introduced us the complacent fifties were not complacent for those people who are fighting enormous battles that had great consequences in the 60s and many of them still have consequences a very positive sense today. Jim why did you write this book . Um initially it was because my kids came home from school one day and said, why is our time not as exciting as the sixties. Yes, and i had to say you know, im well, i didnt say that. It was actually fraught it wasnt all fun and games they were talking about the music i think. Um, but then i started think i was looking for subject after i finished. The washington lafayette book and and i started to think. How was it that this black and white decade led to this polychromatic riot of the 60s history just doesnt work that way. You know, its its it doesnt work my decades. As you well know. So i started to think why you know, how did the 60s emerge . And as i was because i was reading it came to me that it wasnt the decade. I thought it was. Not at i say it wasnt at all. But it was different and more complicated than i had known. And that makes her good book. Could you maybe introduce where were going by reading the last paragraph of the introduction page . Yeah. Theres a theory that change happens not by winning hearts and minds. But by changing the law. After which harps and minds will follow among isolated people of the 50s. However, theres evidence of an earlier stage in the process of change. The moment when a singular man or woman sets out to confront other than evade some intimately personal conflict which inspires them and others to change the hearts minds of those who make the laws. So isolated by their personal histories, idiosyncrasies flaws and gifts. They have in common the courage the vision and a profoundly motivating need to fight for change in their time in the future. This book is about some of the best of them. And thats what were going to talk about tonight many of the people that jim writes about in this book several of them are familiar names and well talk about a few of them. But the great the one of the huge contributions that i think the book makes is it introduces us to people who were enormously influential players and our nations history and very few of us know who they were. And i thought we might start out for jim. Tell us a little bit about harry. Hay who was harry. Hay. Harry hayes started the first sustained organization for gay rights in the history in American History and he did so at the worst possible time. It was just after World War Two. A time when when the United States the soviet union and nazi germany shared the view that homosexuals were criminals and potential security risks. And the church thought were wicked and the medical profession called psychopaths and it was at this moment that harry. Hey whos then married with two . Daughters decided and a member of the communist party by the way, which will come back to decided that it was time to start a gay rights movement. And everybody told me it was crazy and he did it anyway because among other things he was incredibly stubborn. And he did it. It was called the matter Sheen Society and it was a sort of like a Alcoholics Anonymous group where you came and you talked about that issue, but it took him three or four years to even get someone. To join him in that effort and in that time he lost his family. Yeah. What year are we in jim . When he started that when he actually got to start the it was 1951. When he thought about it, it was 194647. And in the time between he lost his family. He lost all his friends except the gay men that he new and were her friend. Wheres his friends outside the home he lost his relationship with his daughters. Although he he tried to keep it up with by paying the you know, the Child Support he was supposed to through his job at a at a weapon factory. This was in los angeles and they lived in a neighborhood that was called the swish alps because it was a gay scene. And it was a scene he had to keep himself away from which was he had terrible dreams as he as he moved towards starting this organization that falling down mountain sides pushing his children down that sides, you know hurting them and his wife. Um, i dont i cant imagine a worse conflict. But he managed to do it and then as soon as he did it at their first convention, he was voted out of power. Because of his communist connections and by then it was 1953 and everybody was scared to death of mccarthy. And he and they were at every right to be scared of mccarthy because like the combination of communism and homosexuality was really not at the time. It was everybody thought that they were that they were spies. Derby there are being fired by the hundreds from the state department. Um a couple things jumped out of me reading about hey and the and the environment one, you know, just as a fact that i had no idea that when the American Army liberated the concentration camps in eastern europe. We did not set free the men who had pink triangles on their shoulders. They were just left there. They were returned to germany where whose courts had sentenced them to long prison terms and they got no credit for time served in the concentration camp. Incredible and we knew that when we handed them over. Thats 1945 1945 46. Yep. So no 1945. Yeah, moving forward a few years of phrase that comes up in the in the discussion of the Medicine Society is selfrespect as a radical demand. Can you elaborate on that . I think that does it says it all i mean, can you imagine a time when selfrespect would be considered a radical demand . I mean, its its infuriating honestly, but at the time that was the case, thats effectively what at that point. Hey and associates were not. Advocating changes in laws or anything. They wanted selfrespect. That was really the issue selfrespect, but they also wanted the the gale stuff to stop where cops would demand payment from bars for forgive from gay bars and also that they that you know that they were generally oppressed. Everywhere they went they were oppressed. They had to have they had to have sex in bathrooms. And so the police hung out in bathrooms. I mean it was. It was very sorry sight. So when harry hay is kicked out of the organization that he had labored and sweat for to found that doesnt end things who us about frank caminy. Before i get to canada, ill tell you where it went. It went to a guy who in. San francisco who . Who turned the organization inside out he made psychologists part of their routine meetings psychologists who told them they were sick and needed help. He actually told the fbi that he would help them find gay people in San Francisco. That didnt come out until very recent book, but it was it was it was terrible, but then frank hamady in washington. Who had never joined the vanishing . Was a perfect. He had got his astronomy from harvard. And was about to to start teaching at georgetown when he went to San Francisco for a an academic meeting. Presented a paper there, but was caught in a bathroom. Having sex with someone else and was arrested. And then he was he was he was outed to the Civil Service where he then had been had been hired. Because he couldnt teach at georgetown anymore, but they didnt know the Civil Service did not know this happened until sometime later when they called him in and said what happened in San Francisco. And he refused to answer refused to answer, but then he just he just told him it was none of their business. And they fired him. And then he on a diet of 20 cents a day. I mean a an allowance of 20 cents a day because he had no money. He sold his car to get that. He began papering washington with with this story. And and complaining about the legal and moral. I dont know insult that this represented not only to him but to other gay men. Who at the time were still being fired at a very fast rate because now mccarthy was really in his. It is high moment. So he graduated then to being perhaps the most successful advocate for sexual the lack of the the absence of sexual discrimination and and he including a an appeal to Supreme Court on behalf of a guy named bruce scott. That was not successful. But they actually they the chief justice is clerics. Thought it would be but they but he knew that the court would never take the case and thats what happened. Frank how many kept kept fighting and fighting and fighting for years until finally he was able to go to the Obama White House. And the Obama White House canceled repealed clintons dont act dont tell policy. I skipped over the fact that frank amity was a decorated soldier in World War Two an 88 millimeter. Motor crewman and was proud of nothing than his infantryman combat infantry, and its badge which he wore to that occasion . Just without his case. That was after. Half a century of his battling for his guests. Yes. Extraordinary weve got a lot of other administration. We have a lot of people to cover but before we leave the subject, could i ask you to read the last paragraph on page 47 . Yeah, frank how many harry hay . And theyre known an unknown core cohorts. Left the country a priceless legacy. They lifted the burden of shame for millions of people whom the medical profession called psychopaths. The Church Called wicked in the state called felons. And they replaced that bird with every citizens birthright selfrespect and respect of others. No one in the early Homophile Movement got more recognition in their lifetimes than harry. Hay and frank kammany, but what deserves celebration as much as the victories they and their compatriots one. Is the model they left behind . Compotecomings famously wrote to be nobody by yourself in the world, which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else. Means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight. That is what they did. Thanks, jim. The next section of the book is about. The origins of really of american feminism in the in the 20th century or i guess. Um american feminism post the the voting amendment the 19th amendment of the constitution the key figure in this chapter. There are many women in this chapter are really kind of thrilling figures, but the one who struck me was Paulie Murray, tell us about Paulie Murray if you would thanks to a new movie. Shes finally getting some credit for all she did but she began life. She was the she was the her mother died when she was three and she was sent to live with her grandparents. One of them was fought for the union in the civil war. And the other one was the child of a black slave and a white i mean she was the child of black slave, but she was also the mistress as it were but i dont think she was she was the rape victim of her owners, son. So she grew up with people on both sides of the south. And she was as a relative of their skin color of when she called in between race. Which was especially a problem in school when she was young. Because she was made fun of for that reason. And then when became a teenager. She thought she was missed miss identified. As a as a girl she was she felt she was a man. And she kept writing to doctors saying please help. I know theres been a mistake. So she was in between both racial and gender so that was her. That was her. That was her struggle, and that was her. Weapon against the world as she found it later. And as she helps form it to me this that part of the story really begins when shes in law school at Howard University can tell us about she was well educated. She went to hundred her background was middle class. Her her family were nurses and professional people an academics and so she she she was she was. She was going around the country trying to save a sharecropper named odell waller. From the news and i mean a legal news. He had been he had been convicted of murder. Wrongly but of course convicted in minutes by a white jury. That one stop she was she gave her spiel in front of Thurgood Marshall and leon ransom. Who was then the dean of Howard Law School and was given as a result a full tuition scholarship to howard. She was the only girl on only woman in her class of all black men. How it is a black university. And she found herself. Laughed at behind her back. She was not called in class as much of the other guys. As the other people and she was at the first the first instance aware of what she came to call jane crow. It was the combination of sexual discrimination gender discrimination and racial discrimination. It didnt it didnt or her final law school paper was about how the equal protection argument of the constitution could prevail over plessy versus ferguson the separate but equal decision of the 19th century. Her classmates laughed at her but she prevailed and wrote that thesis her professor spotters with robinson bet her 25 that that no 10 that it wouldnt be that plus he wouldnt be overturned for the next 25 years. In fact, it was overturned by Thurgood Marshall in the wellknown brown decision, which he won in part by reading her thesis which spot is what brawson robinson brought him because he didnt realize he was really going for it. So, but she didnt address gender discrimination until years later. When she wrote a paper called jane crow. And that was the argument that Ruth Bader Ginsburg used when she was still an attorney to argue to to write the brief that that one Supreme Courts decision. To declare sexual discrimination to be unconstitutional that was a huge breakthrough and it was because of polymerie and and ginsburg acknowledged that by putting her name on the brief. No her role as a figure in american legal history is enormous, but we know ginsburg and we know marshall we dont know her exactly and this we begin to see or ibmc reasons. That reasons why but i began to see the you know the nature of this discrimination very vividly around the time of the march on washington in 1962 by this point. Shes a wellknown figure certainly within the civil rights legal community. And the march on washington which we all know about is about to take place and shes not very pleased with the way. Its proceeding. So she rights to a Philip Randolph who was one of the organizers the labor leader who was one of the organizers of the march. Could you . Read what she said to him. Page 74 74 yes. And by the way, hey Philip Randolph. And his and his march on Washington Movement from the 1940s hired her he was her first real employer. And this is what she said to him when rosa parks daisy bates all the September Clark all the prominent women of the Civil Rights Movement were giving seconds on the podium at the march on washington. Certainly for not there. Sorry. The time has come to say to you quite candidly, mr. Randolph. That tokenism is as offensive when applied to women as when applied to. Thats the word. She always used. And that i have not devoted the greater part of my adult life to the implementation of human rights to now condone any policy, which is not inclusive. With any consequences no, in fact the day before the march he spoke at the National Press club which then consigned women to the balcony . I mean really it was it shows you just how a complex and really diseased the relationship was between the black Civil Rights Movement. And the and the when its right movement, but then three years after the march on washington. She plays a key role in a very important moment in american feminist history. She does she introduced she was on the president s commission on still rights and specifically on the issue of feminism, especially the equal rights amendment. And she was well, i forget exactly what what happened, but Betty Friedan reached out to her. I know it was a piece in the New York Times when she basically threatened action against in the half of feminism or womens rights. And Betty Friedan reached out and talk to her. And pollinary described to her what she thought of as an naacp for women. And Betty Friedan picked up that mantle and and went with it polly murray helped her introduce her to her network at the president s commission and the rest is history except that a couple of years later pauly murray quit now National Organization of women, which he helped to start because of a lack of diversity. She said it was just not the organization. She she wished to help she was looking beyond that to a movement of multiple discriminations against Indigenous People against against people from other countries against you know a class race and gender. Yes. She was not willing to sorry have a century ago half a century ago. Exactly. So she was a pioneer of whats now been called intersectional feminism. Right next subject of third section of the book is about Civil Rights Movement, obviously an enormous moment in American History what it might begin with a little bit of backstory on this the history of black men and their military service in this country. Yeah, this is a chapter someone different because it tries to rectify the imbalance between well, it tries to minimize the the effect that men coming home from the war had on the civil rights logan and how Important Armed defense was to the nonviolent movement. When medgar evers, for example, we we know a lot about mid rivers. But not everything. When he came home from service. But from he served from dday to the battle of the bulge. When he came home. He was on the bat on his way home on the back of a bus in uniform with his discharge papers and full of metals. And when the bus stops for people to eat lunch, he was left on the bus. I cant even listen. This is in the 1940s there. This is 1940s. Yeah late 4546 it was 46. And that year was a was a an Election Year midterm Election Year. And medgar evers and his brother charles decided they were going to vote. Which no one had ever done in their county. And they they went through the their parents were told dont let this happen because youre not gonna like what happens to them the parents told them what this white visitor had said. But they but they did not tell them not to go to the polling place and they did where they returned back by guns and you know. The threat of violence and they turned back and they got their own guns and walked back toward the polling place and they were about by more guns and decided wait. We dont really want to get killed. So they walk home they were not able to vote in 1946. And i mean its its striking to me. That were still talking about voting rights. Theres going to be a debate in the senate tonight. Maybe its going on already about voting rights. How could this be . Its disgusting. Theres a a historical precedent relating to this order about. Black soldiers returning from world war one and theres a quote that i i could read the quote or do you want to read the quote the no. Other way, okay now let me read this. This is a six. Six Year Old Girl remembering when the last black veterans of world war one came home to alabama and she never forgot sitting up nights with her grandfather who kept a shotgun on his lap waiting for the clan. She remembered him saying i dont know how long i would last if they came breaking in here, but im getting the first one who comes through the door. She stayed up with him. She remembered because i wanted to see it. I wanted to see him shoot that gun. Was that six year old . Rosa parks she already had the to fire in the belly as you as we say. I think that. You know frederick douglass. Purged black men to join the civil war on the union side because he was convinced that if they did their standing in the country would be as regular citizens and w would be too boy said the same thing in world war one and neither of them got any credit. In fact, what happened was when they came home and uniform they were met by White Terrace who said where that uniform again, and you will die. And that happened to one of the people that im that i write about. Oh you want to write you want to talk about Isaac Woodard at this point indeed. Lets lets do Isaac Woodard was a he went in as a private came home as a tech sergeant. He was working with a with a an all black unit in in the on the pacific fit in the pacific theater. And when he came home. Was on a bus. Going home to winnsboro, south carolina, north carolina. Where his wife was waiting for . And he when they made a stop he had to go to the bathroom and so he told the driver i need to go to the bathroom. And the driver said no. And hes in fact, he said no it and and Isaac Woodard said talk to me like im a man. Just like you which i think before the war. He would never have said that. And so the driver without knowing without letting and letting him know went to a phone called a head to batesburg and and told the police there was somebody on his bus was making trouble got debates bird. Where he was met by the entire police force of batesburg, which was two guys the chief of police and deputy. The chief police the driver told me to get out and talk to that you least he did. And before you get a word out. The chief of police beat him in the head with a special baton that was you know, rigged for real impact of a springloaded. Hes in uniform right . Hes in uniform. And he finally he managed to get the baton away from the guy. And started fighting and the deputy came around and put his put his gun on on water and he told him he would shoot him if he didnt stop so he didnt stop and and the chief of police kept beating at one point. If they could tell later that he had ground his baton into woodards eyes. Which indicates that woodard had made the mistake of looking directly at it . What word was blind for the rest of his life . Ah, what can i say and and truman took his case up. He was talked. He was talked to by the naacp and you know, truman was a real hero when it came to civil rights. Hes really given credit for it, but he he was the first president or candidate to campaign in harlem. Truman said to his attorney general you got to look into this and if necessary and if right bring charges against this chief of police. That was just unheard of in the south in 1946 and was this around the same time that truman integrated the armed forces . Oh god, no. Well, i mean it was yes. It was the first time. Yeah, he that was about 1950. But yeah, he was the first to try. Its really happened then but yeah, it was the first to to make it a policy. Anyway woodard was was blind for the rest of his life and never knew. Truman had come in for him that that in fact the trial took place and the judge in the trial was absolutely on woodard side. And and actually set a bunch of precedents for civil rights law. In the time Going Forward was alienated from his from his town and and that and that and woodard never knew about any of this and that this judge who was in charleston had never particularly shown any interest in civil rights issues defending the rights of black people, but he was so horrified by this needless to say i guess for that period the jury acquitted the police chief. Correct course in minutes. Yeah, in fact, he took a walk. Around town so that they couldnt quit them too fast. And his wife was in the office was in the courtroom and first into tears. And what had never forgot . Great an incredible story. The last section of the book is about ecology a word that probably didnt even exist back then but i did actually yeah my my fall um, we know a lot about racial racial carson who is a key figure in this chapter the you know, the great writer and naturalist who moved from studying the seashore to studying what was happening to our birds and wrote silence spring, which i think is probably maybe the one that comes closest to it is ralph naders unsafe at any speed the book that changes the worlds view of something in this case ddt, but theres a second character that you pair her with even though they never met and thats Norbert Wiener the most as he was called in a newspaper headline when he was 12 years old the most remarkable boy in the world, i think page 149. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shall i read some or yeah, i think read that from the bottom pay bottom page for 149. Norbert weiner was 12 years old when Rachel Carson was born. But he was the most unlikely 12 year old. Well others his age were in fifth or sixth grade. He was entering his freshman year at tufts university. In 1906. That was the that was the article in in the world calling in the most remarkable in the world. And its hard to imagine anyone who better fit that title. He told the world reporter. He had learned much more from reading ernest heckles the riddle of the university in german than homer in greek since homer was just telling stories. Yes, he said of course. He looked have fun swimming is my forte. He said but i like studying too when i have participated in the boys games. I turned to my huxley or my spencer. Suggestions for them which led my mind to greater things. So these greater things we never goes to ends up at mit extremely eccentric character widely acknowledges a genius of peculiar life. Its actually i wish we had more time to read about some of Norbert Wieners peculiarities because they are really something but what you know, hes talking as a 12 year about the greater things you want. What were the greater things . Where did Norbert Weiner go with his life with that brilliance . He got his doctorate in his post doctorate work at. Various team universities as postdoc was with Bertram Russell and john dewey. He was just a genius that not only mathematics but the logic of mathematics and it was a time when computers were being developed. At a time when the computer was a person with a slide rule and a pencil. Literally, that was what they were called. He was put into the war effort in 1940 41. In order to deal with the luftwaffe, which was raining terror over britain at the time and which was much higher and faster than anybody knew before the war started. Um, he was famous for work in brownian motion, which i go into but he was really interested in the fact and he came to this through his wartime work that you could put people and and mechanical things including Electrical Mechanical things. In a single task so he conceived of of antiaircraft. As the combination of people on the ground the gunner etc. And a a circle of causality between the airplane in the sky the speed of the airplane the maneuvers the airplane the ability to pilot to to do evasive maneuvers. And around circle of information. Which was you know, there was no enemy in this process. It was just a circle of information which helped the guy on the ground bring that guy down, but he cant he changes and im gonna push you a little bit because i want to leave room for questions about but his relationship to the military changes radically and this begins to be the place where he incarcer though. They never met a kind of coming together. Could you talk a little bit about that . Yeah, the military was responsible all kinds of horrible. The military and in Corporate America were responsible some very serious. I imprecations on the i mean it was it was a time when science was accomplishing incredible things. But among those incredible things was the atomic bomb napalm cyclon b, which which hitler used in the concentration camps . As well as as well as synthetic fertilizers synthetic synthetics of all sorts, which poised in the atmosphere and poisoned the ground that farmers were to work on. It it was a time when actually during the war los angeles. Thought it had a chemical attack because the the fumes from newly muscular cars were choking people. And and after that then the military actually started experimenting on the American Public with like dropping radio radioactive materials to find out you know, what dose actually cause a problem. They experimented on all kinds of people in hospitals in you know. Over schools over over domestic over suburbs. It was it was extremely irresponsible behavior and we still dont know the extent of it. Although a lot of has come out in the Clinton Administration where does wiener come in . Weiner when when the war was over and he saw some of the stuff happening in in the environment, but but also the the militarization of American Society and american science. He refused to have anything else to anything to do with military science and at mit, which was almost completely subsidized at least this the rad lab was almost completely subsidized my military. That was an incredible position to take and he was thought to be, you know, crazy for taking it everybody thought he was just being norbert. But in fact, he never worked for the military and military science again. And he wrote a book after he wrote a book called cybernetics. Which was impossible to understand for most people he wrote a book called the human use of human beings. Which was incredibly radical for its time. It talked about it talked about the necessity of treating labor fairly at a time when the great strike wave of 1946 1947 had you know had made. Basically workers into communists so we know. By taking this very strong in public position against the military misbehavior in domestic life. The parallel if i may read something from your book, i think you very eloquently stayed. What whats similar between what hes doing and what Rachel Carson and her campaign against ddt another poisons in the environment. What is she doing and you write . By confronting the effects of science practice mainly in the pursuit of power and profit. And by calling for scientific innovations to be accessible and understood by politicians policymakers and the general public before they were deployed. Carson and weiner advanced a compelling argument namely that nature was neither a thing apart from humankind nor any longer even holy natural since its anointed masters were ever more assertively rearranging the earth. As evidence of the dangers inherent in that mastery. They shined a very bright light on the masters at work. And changed our lives i think in many ways. I agree. Um, we want to go to questions. If you have questions, please put them in the q a, but i think do that what better way to end the discussion the formal discussion of a book jim then by your reading if you would the last paragraph of the epilogue on page 205 . Okay. Im going back to the way you started the conversation. My generation however, the idea too what thats the idea. Yeah. My generation had our victories to were looking back i cant help feeling that people like those in this book were the more authentic rebels. In part because they didnt feel think of themselves that way. In a decade in a nation, perhaps ready or with the program than ever before they defied the most powerful forces and conventions of their time just to keep the people they were in the country and it always promised to be thanks to that they lit up half for the rest of us. To a somewhat less imperfect union which is about the best thing any citizen can do. A great way to end the book and the formal part of the evening, and id like to turn to questions from everybody whos listening if you have something that as i said, please put it in the q a. Heres a question about poly murray. Did she ever resolve her gender confusion . Im not sure. Um, she because of her. Feeling about who she was the male part of herself. She was just appointed in love many times because she was only attracted to heterosexual women, but she did get over it to the extent that she was a hero. I mean, how much more can you do with that conflict and what she did . And in fact at the end of her life she went to seminary because they had never had alter girls in the church. So she went to episcopal seminary and became a priest knowing she would have only three years before mandatory retirement when she was done. I mean that speaks wonders, but she also had a a companion at the end of her life whom she loved and who loved her. So, um, so that extent. Yes, she did overcome her conflict. Thank you. Heres a question all the way from Providence Rhode island from someone named allison pell. She asks, obviously this is a different take on this time in various individuals impact on change what most of all should we take away from the book and what does this teach us about the way history is written. I think more than anything. Its about extraordinary people. Whose stubbornness and conflict teaches them every day . How to make change without you know without their taking any lessons from anyone. Its just because they wanted to be who they were. And have the rights of that they were due. Including selfrespect i think its about that simple. Well, isnt that just a kind of a variation on whats historically been called the great man theory of history that individual. Individuals in that theory obviously, theyre their leaders of nations and such but thats exactly youre kind of saying the same thing that you dont have to be the leader of a nation. To be able to make this change if you are the right person at the right moment or at least to get the change happening. I would argue coming else. I would argue that. The book that a president United States or a senator has joe manchin and cinema or not is the one who conveys to the president of the United States or the senate the the injustice of the position. Theyve been given and i think you know they gather other people around them and movements start from what theyve done. But i think ultimately those people in power dont come up with these ideas themselves. Um, heres a question from jane with the dumbing down of sensible discussions with the advent of social media. What hope is there for genuine movements for social clinical change . Well just as its difficult not to be discussed by the lack of progress and so right. You cant ignore the progress weve made in gay rights. In feminism and and certainly ecology. We havent won all those battles. But were further ahead than we were then and progress as Martin Luther king said the ark of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. It is very long sometimes. So these people are here among us now and theyre in the process of doing the things that these unknown figures that youve mostly unknown figure some american not fairly recent American History. They could move the world. Yeah. Yep. Thats okay. Thats a very positive view look on it. Can you heres heres an anonymous questioner says do you think there are people . Well, thats the same thing. I just asked. Let me give try this one. Well, i think we know the answer to this but gregory asks David Halberstam did a fairly comprehensive look at the 50s. Why did you decide to dig deeper into that fascinating decade another way of asking that what the key way is your book different from davids halberstams book the fifties. He his book on the 50s was. A very good for one thing, but also it it covered. In depth the things we know about the 50s. In shallow and it didnt deal really with with the people. Well did it did deal but fleetingly over the the social issues that this book addresses. Um, i dont have any other questions there now if youve got them come with them, but because i its always good. In any discussion of serious issues to take a moment for some humor with jims permission. Id like to read a little bit more about Norbert Weiner. May i jim please . Yes. Okay. So this is wiener after hes established as a very wellknown figure as a genius. Hes at mit. Jim writes if he was fluent in a dozen languages and socially inept in all of them as of colleague put it a foreigner wherever he was. He got lost easily at his frequent meanderings through the mit labs where he worked for 45 years. Some labs posted lookouts to warn of his approach because wiener was known to cut into ongoing conversations abruptly and holy out of context while reading a book or lost in thought he would walk the halls with one finger tracing the wall when he reached the open door of a classroom or laboratory. He was known to follow his finger inside and around its walls back to the hallway. He stopped to have a conversation. He sometimes forgot which way he had been walking. Once he asked whether he had been walking toward the lunchroom or away from it, so he would know if he had had lunch or not. I just think thats a nice my favorite is that he swam on his back so he could smoke a cigar while he was swimming. Well, the reason why i didnt cite that is my father did the same thing. It was really did. He really well. He did it with the cigarette and only you know, he loved the backstroke. Anyway, we are moving a little bit far from the topic. I want i want to thank you jim we are running out of time and thanks a library and thank Community Bookstore and thank all of you who have dialed in tonight to listen to this or those who will be watching it shortly on on the recorded version, will be posted tomorrow. So with that im going to say again. Thanks, jim and turn it back over to marshall. Yes, and im gonna add my thanks to you jim and dan to you for really orchestrating such a masterful conversation about the book and all of the readings that you you wove in really helped a lot and you know, so. Um important to tell the stories of individuals and elevate them and the power that they have to actually affect change. Because that inspires us all i mean there was some pretty pretty shocking and an awful things that folks were were battling against that you describe. So anyway, i want to thank everybody whos come for being here and tell you that the program was recorded and will be on our our youtube page tomorrow and just tell you a little bit about whats coming down the pike later this month in an early february. We we will have a another program about a book. Its called the last last slave ship with ben raines who discovered the clotilda which is the last known slave ship that brought in slave people here from africa. Illegally. He discovered that ship in the bayou of alabama and he will be talking about not only his his experience. Hes a journalist, but what it means for all of us, um, and what happened to the the people are on that ship and then later later in february early, february and money. Perry will be here to talk about south to america. So all which is to say that i hope that i i see that we have the upcoming programs link in the chat and i hope that everyone, you know explores that and joins us for more programs later this month into february and the spring were so grateful to both of you for and jim for this with this fantastic fantastic that you know, it doesnt get more pure than. Talk about people. And their lives and how it affects it has affected and changed things and thank you for digging them up. And thanks to all of you for being here tonight. So on that note, i hope everyone has a wonderful eveninggreetingl archives flagship building in washington dc which sits on the Ancestral Lands of the nokache tank peoples. Im david ferio archivist of the United States as a pleasure to welcome you to todays conversation with kevin boyle and Suzanne E Smith about boyles new book the shattering before we begin id like to tell you about two programs coming up soon on our youtube channel
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