Live. And for those of us joining us in person, welcome to the historic Decatur House and the White House Historical association. And my name is dr. Colleen hogan, a Senior Vice President at the White House Historical association, and the director of the David Rubenstein center for white house history tonight, a special episode of white house history live as we launch the book mourning the president s loss and legacy in american culture. This book was published by the University Virginia press in partnership with the center for president ial history, Southern Methodist university, and the Miller Center at uva. Mourning the president s brings together and emerging scholars to examine how different generations and communities of americans have eulogized and remembered. U. S. President s. This evening, were joined by several scholars that contributed the book on stage. And we have others in the audience, including chester and brandon robinson. Thank you for joining us this evening. Dr. Matthew costello is the Senior Historian at the White House Historical association and the Vice President of the rubenstein center. Matthew is one of the editors of the book and contributed the chapter on theodore. Dr. Lindsay stravinsky is a president ial historian and currently a clergy center fellow at the library of congress. She is also the senior fellow at the center for president ial history at smu. Lindsay served as the editor for the book and wrote the introduction dr. Sharon wilkins. Conrad is an associate professor at county college. Dr. Conrad contributed the chapter on John F Kennedy and how he was remembered by africanamericans over time. Our moderator for this episode of white house history live is acclaimed president ial historian michael beschloss. Michael serves on the associations of directors and is chair of our committee. He has written, edited and contributed to many. His most recent one. President s of war the epic story of 1807 to modern times was a best seller. Thank you, michael, for joining us this evening. We will be taking questions at the end of the program from our inperson audience and also from virtual audience. So if youre watching tonight on facebook or youtube just type those questions into the chat and well get to as many them as possible at the end of the program. We welcome you this evening. And im going to turn program over to michael beschloss. Thank you very much, colin. Just to make sure you know that youre in the right place. Morning, the president. Ill begin by saying that everyone buy a ten copies, read it ten times at least, and share friends and family. Its really a wonderful book and really appropriate that do this here for a number of reasons. One is stuart mcclure, who was too modest to say this himself, who was our leader, had a lot to do with the Ronald Reagan centennial and the fact that the up the honors that were given Ronald Reagans several years after that, that was 2011. And president reagan died in a little bit earlier than that, 2004. But he is very much involved in legacy, understands how to under honor a president not only at a time that a president passes, are our authors have been studying the subject for how many years you dont ever one step up at once a long time. But its an eternal subject and additionally important, not only because this is the White House Historical, but Franklin Roosevelts funeral procession went down the avenue just outside the carter house, where we are right now. And kennedys the people who walked for john kennedy from the white house to st matthews cathedral. Would you say maybe 200 yards from here . So, you know, were really in the site and the locus of where some of these things have happened. And as by far the most elderly member of this panel, i thought, i would bring in a distant memory, sort of like the you know, the last confederate widow tells. I was seven when john kennedy passed i was living in illinois outside of chicago. And two memories of that. One is that on television in chicago, needless to say there were no commercials for three days and local stations who were a little bit more primitive than they would nowadays were hours of funereal music and still photographs of jfk on his High School Football team, jfk leading with his when he went to be ambassador to london just over and over and over again. And you know, ive talked to friends of mine who remember this. You know, we all say was not a traumatic event that changed our lives. But for children who had grown in pretty uncomplicated circumstances. Suddenly to see this for a and to be in a world where a young president could suddenly be struck down. You know, we all agree that we were all changed by it in different ways and lifted by the fact that the ceremonies and washington largely because of jacqueline kennedy, the founder of our association in 1961, it said that, you know, she took a nation that had been shattered by what had happened and lifted us up by pageantry and enormous sense of history, which she had. The other thing i remember from that weekend was on sunday, my mother was in another and i was watching the tv, which even seven year olds were that weekend. And i saw the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on live tv, which means it was nbc because nbc was the only one that carried it live. And i ran into the other room and i said to my mother, oswalds just been shot. And she said, youve been watching too much tv. Im going to go. And im turning off. Now youre youre beginning to make things up. So even 60 years later this year, this was like an otherworldly event. You know, other such morning on ceremony, thank god its but not quite the same thing is that but one thing that really is captured in this book is the fact when you study it all the way back to George Washington tells us an awful about the way that we americans have changed as a people. And at the same time, you know how much these events even, George Washingtons one, obviously, people didnt have television telegraph to learn about it instantly. It was a large event. And peoples lives as they testified in diaries and letters that have been read probably all of you. So i guess the first question i would ask, we discussed this beforehand. Im sure youre really sorry to hear that. Were not going to do this. A legal deposition where i asked matt, you know what really meant by what he wrote on page 78, you know, where the footnote instead know the more. This is a conversation, the better. So if people interrupted each other, its not in politeness. Its because were all mesmerized by the subject. I guess i begin by saying, what is the Biggest Surprise in what you found in the way that traditions mourning changed from 7099 to now . Matthew, to start. Sure. Before i jump into that, i. I also have a short id like to share related to president kennedy. My grandmother passed away a few years ago and was a devout Irish Catholic chicagoan and a good in all respects well checks all the boxes and. And i had no that she had had such such devotion to president kennedy. She kept that sort of a secret. And after she passed away, we found some of old lps from the kennedy funeral. And we turned one on its side and a letter fell out from the fbi. Oh, this is nothing. You did nothing that i did. And i opened it and i read it and it was a response letter. So apparently my grandmother had taken to write to the federal bureau of investigation and ask why they hadnt done more to prevent president kennedys assassination. She was this was her way ahead of her time. She was she a mother of five children of certainly had her hands full. But i contacted national archives. I was able to track down her original letter preserved in the kennedy records and. Seven pages in her handwriting. You wonder why hes a historian. And its i mean, the line of questioning. You want to talk about a deposition . Just only a mother of five. Yes. Is going i mean, going after j. Edgar hoover and and, you know, the fact she got a response, i guess, is is interesting. But i never seen that side of my. Okay. Now youve compelled to ask this. Here we are 60 years later in the year 2023. Why is a really germane question to ask . You say. Well, what the fbi did not do to protect how know that is a question that, you know, historians and contemporaries have been asking since 1963. And it was a question that enthralled all americans in 1963. And i just found its such a raw human moment to find her letters in, her handwriting and shes essentially picking apart the fbi statements. And the reason know, we were talking and this is almost a perfect answer to what i was asking, which is the world of 1963, as one of the last surviving members i can testify of, people were pretty resistant of conspiracy theories, which is not the case in 2023. And so if you look at polling, an amazingly small thought that there was anything other than one gunman or that the fbi or the cia or any of this, that there was anything amiss. And thats one way in which our country has changed. You agree . Yes, i would. Sharon . Yeah. I just wanted to say the one group and its the group that i focus on in my chapter in the book that did have a Conspiracy Theory approach to the in real time were africanamericans, because going to the letters at the kennedy library, the condolence letters were written to jacqueline kennedy. I poured through those for the voices of africanamericans just to try to document their response. And in those letters and in polling collected among African Americans in the week immediately following the assassination, there were indications that black people thought that kennedy was killed, not by a leftist, but by someone who was a white. And this is in the letters. This is in the polling data. They said again and again that you know he was killed because he was supporting civil rights and, you know, i dont know that i for many years at the six war museum at dealey plaza, you know, studying the assassination and legacy president kennedy. I dont know that there are many people who reached that conclusion, specifically that the president was killed for his stance on civil rights. The speech that he gave that june before his death, the televised civil rights address. But africanamericans then and now still will make the case that kennedy killed because he was supportive of africanamerican equality and killed southerner, becomes president with no record on civil rights, happens dallas, which was very anticivil rights you know makes and one thing you have there that that youve written about that that really came home to me is where, you know, you say he gave his life essentially for civil rights, which i agree as well, not intentionally. But remember what Jackie Kennedy said when. She heard that the accused assassin, oswald, was a marxist. She said he didnt even have he wasnt able to have the satisfaction of giving his life for civil rights had to a civil communist. Lindsey well, i think one thing to do you get to your question why . You know, my grandmothers letter and these reflections matter all these years later. And its because one of the contradictions that we capture in this book is sometimes the difference between commemorate action and the immediate mourning process. And then the more analytical, not quite objective, because i dont think as humans can ever get purely objective. But we try closer the more objective analyst ical legacy and the legacy piece really has to be built over time. It requires the preservation of documents like the letter at the archives. It requires us to delve into all of the elements of their presidency and their time in office many of which we dont have access for sometimes decades because of classification. And and, you know, things have to sort of come out in their natural way. And so thats one of the reasons that these things never really leave us, because we do have to revisit them once we have more information in order to continue to evaluate them. And we cant just let that first passing sort of commemorate action or mourning be the full story, right . Lincoln when lincoln died, there was obviously no tv or internet, but there was a telegraph and thats been called the First National funeral. So what is the important importance in our National Memory of the way that lincolns death was observed and commemorate it almost simultaneously . The country . Anyone . Well, so theres a couple of things i would keep in mind with that. And martha hodes makes this point very convincingly in. The book that lincolns death was viewed very differently in the moment that it happened versus how we view it today. Obviously, over time, lincoln has developed a legacy of great emancipator, one of the greatest american president s savior of the union. But remember, there was a considerable amount of people in the country who did like lincoln, who had who had fought against the union, who had cheered that lincoln had been assassinated. So there was an outpouring of national. But i would say it was predominantly more in the north and west parts of the United States. So thats an instance where i think we today reflect upon lincoln as this Great National hero. And we assume in his time that that was how he was commemorated and remembered. But this just wasnt the case. The other, i think, is worth mentioning is because of the telegraph, because news could travel much faster than it did in George Washingtons time. Now, there was some National Mourning there. Over 400 mocks funerals up and down the country in 1799 and early into 1800, which today we find kind of weird. The concept of going to a funeral with an empty casket. But it was a very important part of the ritual at the time with lincoln, because that news could be shared so quickly, people could mourn in time with each other and. That was especially poignant because he was shot on good friday and he died on saturday. And then easter was sunday and at a time when most americans were pretty observant christians, most not all, of course, but most americans, that resonance of that time and the fact that they were able to have that mourning as they were going to Easter Service was shocking, added, i think an element to lincolns mythical status. Well, and i just wanted to add one of the things that lindsey matt challenged us as authors and contributors to do was to try to find connection between these stories and where they were they existed and they they really did prompt me to think deeply and make connections between my chapter and what was happening with the assassination. President kennedy and what came before. And there were so many connections that in the case of they made between lincolns assassination and kennedys assassination and again and again in the newspapers and magazines, there were people that said, this is just like lincoln. He died for us in 1865. Kennedy died for us in 1963. And so those connections were there. And in terms of the commemoration action of lincoln, one of the things that i was able find is that even in the wpa narratives, the slave narratives that were collected during the great formerly enslaved people telling their story about, you know, what that time was like, they would tell their interviewers that they had portraits of lincoln in their homes. The 1930s, and they say he was a great man. And so kind of connection that africanamericans had with with the presidency going to lincoln. But certainly a similar kind of memorial was happening with kennedy as well. Do we have evidence . I literally dont know. Guys have studied this. You were talking about the way that black americans, quite rightly were nervous when kennedy was suddenly killed in a hotbed of racism. Five months after he signed a big civil act to congress for the first time. Do you have records of africanamerican, the way they reacted to the assassin of lincoln and the news that lincoln was was being succeeded by a quiet retro southerner . I have not found that kind of documentation. And in fact, the polling that was done after assassination by the the university of chicago, they were really concerned that they had not collect polling data from after fdr staff and there was a sense that we have to do this real time. And so they were working immediately over the weekend and during the funeral, get polling Data Collected and the fact that they collected specifically African Americans, i think was still fairly unusual. But i have not seen any data on, you know, africanamerican responses to lincolns death. I dont know about polling data. But martha, the author of the lincoln chapter, does talk in about how while there was this division between white northerners, the copperheads and the more loyal union, and then, of course, in the south, there was no division among the Africanamerican Community because there was a recognition that even if lincoln hadnt gone as fast as they wanted from time to time or as far as they wanted, and sometimes did a mixed record with his statements on inequality had done way more than anyone else that had come before. And they were very savvy about who was going to replace him and, understood that it was going to be a monumental step backwards. And so i think that i dont i dont have any specific quotes. Martha does talk at some about the incredible outpouring grief in that community in particular with an awareness of what had happened during the civil war and, how pivotal lincoln had been. Sure. And if they had only known what was going to happen in next ten or 15 years would have been even worse. How about fdr . Can we bring back for, i think probably few if any of us were around an fdr as time how americans reacted to that, the first question is where they surprised by the news . Did they know that roosevelt was . Well, you know, roosevelt had already broken a precedent running for third term in of