Keep it from being too strong, but keep it from being weakened on the floor, and because they conducted debate in whats known as the committee of the whole, votes were not recorded by and large, and the only way to know how someone voted was to be there physically and watch, and except for reporters, no one could take notes on paper in the house gallery so the forces led by Clarence Mitchell and others devised a system of gallery watchers, the segregationists called them vultures, but they had to sit there and keep notes in their head who was voting how, what amendment, and in the precell phone era, had to round up family members to make sure enough were on the floor at any one time to defeat hostile legislative mischief, so a bunch of young activists led by a Woman Working for the textiles who is still alive fighting all the fights, would sit in a telephone tree and they heard something was happening on the floor, they would physically go run office to office, going come on, and after three days of this, they said, you dont have to come, im coming. She felt guilty when it was over, she stayed up baking sugar cookies with chocolate frosting and equal signs. Is it accurate to say this was maybe one of the first modern lobbying efforts . I think in that way it was a very much one of the first grassroots lobbying efforts and crucial part i did not talk about yet is the ground swell of religious interfaith support for the bill, and across all denominations, and it was applied not willienilly, but in a targeted way. The northern and eastern democrats knew that labor unions could play a role because politicians in those states were motivated by things like organized labor, but in the midwest and plain states, republicans disproportionally, those movements did not have the same, and, in fact, could have backfired, and those members had no large black constituenciecon but had methodists,p baptists, d they lobbied senators one by one, and, you know, day after day with their law School Classmates from notre dame or their bishops, and muttering in the cloak room one day after taking a vote to procedurely support the bill, i hope that satisfies the two bishops who called me last night, and it was saltier than that, and that was a remarkable application of strategic lobbying that, in some ways, continued the next year with the Voting Rights act. We have not seen it again. We tend to think of religious activism being the political right, but this was the last full firing of the religious left. Tickets to the senate, a lot of interesting characters too. Tell us about senator dirksen who you knew. Yeah, well senator dirksen is irresistible. He was known as the wizard of ooze. He had a magnificent his diet cigarettes male ox and bourbon. He once described the rub lickating lube lickating properties and he kept a clock in his office where a lot of negotiations took place and every hour was marked five so it was always an appropriate time for a drink. The Deputy Attorney general told me the challenge in negotiating in the evening was to get his agreement fons on any of the amendments because while legislative language could be redrafted once without changing its meaning to do it a second time was much harder. So that was one colorful character. But he comes along. He comes along. His interest was from the very beginning he said im for this accept for public accommodations and employment discrimination which is really the heart of the bill but his concern was he recented very deeply that he did not get more credit with black voters in illinois for having a civil rights record. He was always against the poll tax, lynching. Way back in the 30s when he was a freshman member of congress. His home state of illinois already had strong antidiscrimination statutes on the books. As a good midwestern conservative, he did not want a second layer of federal bureaucracy to go in and pester businessmen. He had a they of little changes but the big change he made was giving states that had their own effective antidiscrimination laws first crack at enforcement before the federal government would come in and the southern earns correctly surmised that this would be the affect of making the law focus almost completely on legal segregation in the south not de facto segregation like in philadelphia or chicago and also a it was a zrib ra drib raet effort to round up support. When we talk about grid lock and how difficult it is to get anything done in 1964 that you wrote so well about. The process was not so pretty in 1964. It wasnt pretty but it wasnt so visible either. I know it sounds strange as a journalist but this story is a great testament to the uses of secrecy a lot of these negotiations happen between closed doors. Because of the senate refused to consider the bill or take it seriously, they had to create a kind of ad hawk committee made up of lawyers, friendly senators, Interest Group whos could behind close doors hammer out a compromise. The interesting thing is several people who participated in those sessions most were in their late 20s or early 30s. The ones that were staill alive a glow comes into their eyes. People could test their assumptions and throw out a trial balloon without having to have a chart for csp a, n or repeat the tired old talking points to satisfy the base. I think theres a lot to be said for t for the smokefilled room. We should go back to reporters have to write things down. Its always better to see it yourself so. Very good. I this i were going to have some questions. So as we pull over the questions that the audience had do you want to tell the audience you were just telling me before about roger ails. On the occasion of the recent death of joe mcinnis. The president candidate nixon had a series of town halls that were taped for television and were shown on the air but ales described how the process would work which is that the audience members would fill out their question cards and come to the team of the campaign and rewritten and passed onto nixon and answered just the questions that his staff want him to answer but they looked like they were coming from the audience. I might put them in a certain order but i promise not to edit them. One of the questions we have is who the Civil Rights Act have passed if nixon had won in 1964 . I think it probably would have because, you know, in 1957 when the Civil Rights Act was pending on the senate floor and lbj scaled it back and dropped the provision and then promiezed on the jury trial provision, nixon was in tears and he was distraught. He was very close to Clarence Mitchell. He had a good regard on civil rights. In 1960 when john kennedy famously called, nixon didnt do it because he thought it would look like a grandstand play and he didnt want to be accused of exploiting it. Theres a scene of witnessing Jackie Robinson leave 96ons hotel suite in tears having to try to persuade him, no, its the right thing to do. Of course kennedy did the poll thing and got the credit for it. It might have made the difference in place like illinois because it flew under the radar of the white press t. Was seen as a huge gesture in the black community so much so that because of kennedys call he would vote for him. John kennedy understood about fathers. A different kind of question. Im so glad that one of our audience members wanted to ask you to tell us about Richard Russell and his role and what was his and also about his relationship with president johnson. Well, Richard Russell was from georgia. His father had been a justice and chief justice of the Supreme Court. He had been a governor. He had come to washington during the new deal. He was a basic supporter of Franklin Roosevelts releelect riffication but he was a segregationalist and a hopeless racist. He was raised in an era where he was taught by his ancestors to believe that the civil war was a noble lost cause and that it wasnt 2 00 in the afternoon on july three, 1963 and the confederacy might prevail. So he knew the world was changing. He knew he was fighting a losing battle. He made up his mind that he was going to fight it as hard as he could because he felt thats what he had to do for his constituen constituency. His relationship with president johnson was close. Johnson had made its his business to cozy up to russell. He called him the old master. Russell was a very shy and somewhat sad bachelor but the Johnson Family managed to entice him to a lot of sunday dinners at their house. He loved their daughters like his own. He gave one of them lucy when she got married he gave her an autographed copy of the gone with the wind as her wedding present. I guess the best thing you could say about him is after the fail buster was over and he lost, he stood right up and said its our duty to obey it. Its the law of the land. We have to comply with it and there will be no monkey businesses about trying to have action. I contrast that to he was not without class. Its so fascinating so there are three Senate Office buildings and one of them is named off dixon and russell. The third is named off philip hart. Who was a supporter of this bill and tragically died. Excellent. All right. Lets find another good question. So this is really a followup to something weve been talking about but its just so i know that people are thinking about it. Two interesting things politicians that allow their believes to evolve and the need for bipartisanship an the question is, of course, are these dead in todays environment. You live in washington d. C. , yes . You dont see many examples of it. And certainly dont see many examples of really political courage in confronting these questions or to put it another question, i mean, bill mucollec from ohio, his district was 2. 7 black. He just thought it was the right thing to do. He realized his leadership of the caucus would be in jeopardy was he was seen imagine this. Its aprn election year. 1964 is an election year. The Republican Party instead of saying to johnson, your problem is you have a bunch of hate filled people in your party and you cant resolve this issue. You have large majorities in both houses but its your own fault you cant fix it. Dont blame us. We will go to the polls and see which party they like better. Instead they removed civil rights as an issue by cooperating to pass the bill. I think it would be hard to believe that their consultants and pollsters would let them do anything like that today. I think i often look at Speaker Boehner and your heart goes out to him pause hes a thoroughly decent guy at heart. If it were up to him he would made a bunch of deals on a lot of topics but he as he said on jay leno a leader without followers doesnt have an interest to taking a walk. Doesnt he lose his leadership . He loses his leadership seat not because of civil rights narrowly defined but because they thought he was too highhanded and too willing to cooperate with the democrats without willing to consult with the party. An interesting story of courage but also some connection to today. He did in fact lose his leadership role. Yeah. So one of the many virtues of the book is you really master of arcane rules of the house and senate of that period. Weve had a hot of talk about the filibusterer lately. Can you compare and contrast on bipartisanship irk the main difference is when everyone threatened a filibusterer and in the Current Situation its usually the republicans, everyone collapses that heap and gives up an says were not even going to try to change your mind. In this case and a lot of the veteran aids whom i talked to from that era are going nuts when they watch cspan now because they say that harry reed should actually make the opponents conduct a real filibusterer and make them hold the floor and let all of their business grind to a halt and put pressure on them from the country to say what are you doing with this spectacle instead of having a kind of filibusterer like ted cruz in green eggs and ham which isnt a filibusterer at all. The other thing i did not understand is in a filibusterer itsibusterers who have the burden, its the people who are trying to break the filibusterer who have the burden because at any moment somebody can call and they have to produce 51 warm bodies in real time which meant they had to set up an elaborate system of on duty rosters and people would be ready to interrupt their dinner or get out of bed and come in and be present because under the rules of the senate if it could not be mustered there are all kinds of arcane procedural thing that would kick in but it would basically reset the clock on the whole debate giving them even more time and speeches to delay the tactics. So thats partly where humphrey knew that running the senate around the clock would simply exhaust the good guys in their view and make them willing to compromise with the southerners in a way they found no useful. But i think the huge difference is there arent really real filibusterers anymore. There are these threatened ones and everyone gives up. You had a great vignette about opening day of the senators game. In 1964 they all went to the opening day of the baseball game. You thought for one day they could enjoy the National Past time. The senator of florida noted the on sense of de core om and a close friend of tai cobb sat there watching the game because he didnt have to go back. Another question. How many people did you interview and what types of source materials did you use in writing this book . I think i probably intervi interviewed something on the order of a couple of dozen people because frankly it was a race against time and death to find some of them. Could you mention a few . One of the ones i was especially proud of fighting. Dirkson had a special aid named cornelious kennedy. Dirkson says papers are held in illinois in a library thats defvoted to him. Even the people at the library did not know whether he was dead or alive. Thanks to the internet and creative searching. I found that he was in fact alive at 91 living in virginia. He suffered a series of very severe strokes which impaired his short term memory and not his long term memory. He went to have a wonderful morning with him and he was very frail but very cleareyed of the times another one was a wonderful guy named jon stewart who worked for humphrey. Hes very much alive. Still thriving. H his son is in the tennessee legislature. The final one that i found everyone remembers john lynnind as the mayor of new york. I kept seeing references to a legislative aid of his named Robert Kimbal. My default assumption was that the people were dead because some of them were in their 40s then so i just did a Google Search of Robert Kimbal and john lindsey. Was that this was the Robert Kimbal better known to me as the leading historian and the executor of the complete lyrics of everyone who is very much alive and i called them and wed the most wonderful visit. He started ou as a young civil rights loyal and wound up being this dean of musical theaters scholars. Thats interesting. All because of the internet and you can track people down. Thank you. Another question. What was Barry Goldwaters role in opposing the bill. How did this opposition different from southern democrats. His opposition was really routed in the same kind of li libertarian stay out of my business philosophy which later led him to saying he had no objection to gays serving in the military. He was one of only six republicans in the senate to oppose the bill. He did so on Civil Liberties grounds saying the interference with private property that the public accommodations section could create a kind of National Police force and a culture of snooping and big brother and ratting people out. I think he was sincere in that. I mean, he dont think he was a racist as the final speeches were being made, the New York Times recorded that dirkson looked at Barry Goldwater in the eye to shame him but two weeks later nominated him. It was a paradox that one of the republicans that opposed the bill became nominated that year. So staying in arizona, youll see why i said that, what lesson can Immigration Reform advocated take away from the pass anl of the Civil Rights Act. This is something i thought about a lot when i was finishing up the book and beginning to talk about it with other people. I do wonder why religious groups, the National Conference of catholic bishops, and there is a big strain in that of feed of least of us kind of thing. I wonder why they have not yet coalesced into some kind of broader more active effort at highlighting immigration as kind of a moral issue and not just an economic and political one. I think that if there would be any hope of moving members of congress on that question it would be that kind of an effort. Ive been a little bit surprised that nothing like that has happened. The other thing that was both depressing and inspiring to for me about writing the book was 50 years ago we like to think of ourselves as living in a uniquely divisive and uncivil age. Theres nothing in the meanest internet flame war that cover be said and theres nothing that has been said with barack obama that wasnt said in some way about john kennedy or Linden Johnson or the supporters of civil rights. Its kind of eerie when you go to the library and you see these people taking the trouble to sit down women especially in their perfect penmanship and use the n word and say these hateful things to the president. I found a post card in the Kennedy Library on the night of the march on washington, that evening, there was post marked from huntington west virginia, a letter addressed john f. Kennedy, care of Martin Luther king, the white house, washington d. C. The letter read grab the vote, you just lost mine. People would put this on paper. Its well to remember that were not the only generation thats suffering with a lack of go