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Speaker 1: I've started going door to door trying to find out

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Speaker 1: something about the most famous writer of this area, man

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Speaker 1: named Asa Carter Rolle under the pen name of Forest Carter.

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Speaker 1: She said, get out of here and don't come back.

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Speaker 2: This is part two of our con Man series on

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Speaker 2: the double life of as of Forrest Carter. We're diving

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Speaker 2: into the gritty details of the violence, hate, and conspiracy

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Speaker 2: philosophies that theme the first forty five years of his

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Speaker 2: life and how in the last decade of his life

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Speaker 2: he transformed into an unrecognizable Cherokee Indian author who wanted

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Speaker 2: to be America's next heming Way and he almost did

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Speaker 2: it once again. Author of Unmasking the Klansman, doctor Dan T. Carter,

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Speaker 2: and Steve Runella of Meat Eater lead the way, as

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Speaker 2: my guests, brace yourself because our windy trail will be treacherous.

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Speaker 2: As we'll talk about the beating of jazz singer Nat

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Speaker 2: King Cole read from the Unibomber's manifesto, and we'll begin

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Speaker 2: to understand how Asa Carter did what he did. We're

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Speaker 2: going neck deep into the mind of a con man

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Speaker 2: for real.

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Speaker 3: I don't think you're gonna want to miss this.

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Speaker 4: One.

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Speaker 5: If you were shooting for race to instill racial hatred,

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Speaker 5: you missed the mark. If you're shooting to make you

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Speaker 5: love for your grandparents.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, my name is Klay Nukem, and this is the

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Speaker 2: Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant,

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Speaker 2: search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell

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Speaker 2: the story of Americans who live their lives close to

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Speaker 2: the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built

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Speaker 2: hunting and fishing gear as designed to be as good

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Speaker 2: as the places we explored.

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Speaker 1: While I was in the middle of doing my research

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Speaker 1: on the Wallace biography George Wallace, I watched the educational

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Speaker 1: Little Tree Climb. From being a university press book with

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Speaker 1: five thousand printing of five thousand books, suddenly it was

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Speaker 1: one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, and it was on

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Speaker 1: the New York Times bestseller list. And as I considered it,

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Speaker 1: I was probably more indignant than I should have been.

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Speaker 1: I thought, this is the guy, this is a lie.

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Speaker 1: And I read the book. I thought, there's nothing wrong

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Speaker 1: with the book, but there is something wrong with claiming

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Speaker 1: to be some Native American, having an Indian ancestry and

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Speaker 1: using it to sell your book. So I contacted the

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Speaker 1: New York Times, and actually when I first contacted they

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Speaker 1: didn't believe me. They said, no, he has a long

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Speaker 1: record as a novelist. So I sent him a statement

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Speaker 1: from the ambulance driver who he died in nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: nine in Abilene after a biblical death that I described

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Speaker 1: in the book, and he was shipped out of Abilene

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Speaker 1: by air as Forrest Carter and the herse driver I

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Speaker 1: talked to, who said, all I know is when he

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Speaker 1: arrived he was Forrest Carter, and when I buried him,

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Speaker 1: he was Acer Carter.

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Speaker 3: That was doctor Dan T. Carter.

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Speaker 2: He's no relation to Asa. And on episode one of

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Speaker 2: our Cotton Man series, we dove deep into the contents

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Speaker 2: of a book published in nineteen seventy six called The

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Speaker 2: Education of Little Tree, written by a man who claimed

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Speaker 2: he was a Cherokee Indian named Forrest Carter, and his

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Speaker 2: book was semi autobiographical. It's brilliant prose about an orphan

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Speaker 2: Native America boy raised by his grandparents while being taught

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Speaker 2: moral lessons about life through their connection to the land

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Speaker 2: and the people in their community.

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Speaker 3: It gives poignant insight.

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Speaker 2: Into empathy, love, and integrity towards all shades of people

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Speaker 2: except politicians, the government, and anything organized and institutionalized by man,

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Speaker 2: which all these things are inherently corrupt. This all sounds

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Speaker 2: pretty reasonable. Moonshine and deer hunting, fox hunting with hounds,

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Speaker 2: predator prey relationships, turkey trapping mules, whooper will lore, and

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Speaker 2: how to tell when a watermelon is ripe is all in.

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Speaker 3: The book too.

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Speaker 2: It teems with the rich mountain culture of the Great

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Speaker 2: Depression era impoverished Southern Appalachia. However, there's a catch that

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Speaker 2: was relatively unknown until nineteen ninety one when a New

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Speaker 2: York Times article by doctor Dan T. Carter, who we

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Speaker 2: just talked to expose the author as a Carter. And

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Speaker 2: he wasn't a Cherokee Indian, but he was an ardent

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Speaker 2: white supremacist, considered radical even by others in the movement.

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Speaker 2: He was a leader in the klu Klux Klan, under

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Speaker 2: constant surveillance from the FBI. He was involved in several

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Speaker 2: acts of violence, and he was a speech writer for

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Speaker 2: Alabama Governor George Wallace Asa. Carter was a con man.

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Speaker 2: He was a professional white supremacist, dedicated to his craft.

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Speaker 2: He was a wordsmith, an orator, an actor. He had

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Speaker 2: an IQ of one hundred and thirty eight, and some

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Speaker 2: considered him a media and marketing genius.

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Speaker 6: And I say segregation now, segregation to Mara, and segregation forever.

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Speaker 2: Those famous words spoken by George Wallace were written by

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Speaker 2: Asa Carter. Today there is a one thousand page FBI

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Speaker 2: folder holding all all the surveillance done on Asa. He

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Speaker 2: was suspicioned to be a dangerous man? Is that why

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Speaker 2: he had to change his identity? But the latter part

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Speaker 2: of his life, his writing, did that evidence a changed man.

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Speaker 2: We're contrasting the two external data points we have on

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Speaker 2: his life. Number one a brilliant book of empathy to

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Speaker 2: Native Americans and number two, a professional life dedicated to

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Speaker 2: racial supremacy. Racism is typically rooted in a desire to

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Speaker 2: preserve one's culture at the detriment of another. It's the

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Speaker 2: manifestation of a fear and insecurity. But it's also misguided

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Speaker 2: love of one's own culture. But loving your culture isn't

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Speaker 2: necessarily a bad thing. I'd say most people of the

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Speaker 2: world appreciate their culture. But if we're trying to really

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Speaker 2: understand who Asa Carter was. I think we've got to

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Speaker 2: see and acknowledge the mechanics at play. In Ace's case,

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Speaker 2: he was very interested in preserving the Anglo Saxon South,

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Speaker 2: which he believed had been taken advantage of in the

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Speaker 2: post Civil War reconstruction, which isn't an outlandish statement. However,

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Speaker 2: the philosophy of his hate preyed on people's bitterness, weakness,

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Speaker 2: and fear. The rudimentary, carnal, corrupt ideology produced nothing but

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Speaker 2: more brokenness. What makes crazy men so dangerous is how

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Speaker 2: close they are to being incredibly normal. I'd also like

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Speaker 2: to say that I'm not telling this story to demonize

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Speaker 2: the South, nor suggests that we're a bunch of racists

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Speaker 2: down here.

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Speaker 3: On the contrary, this.

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Speaker 2: Story is so extreme it stands out like a strutton

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Speaker 2: gobbler in a wheat field. To say that the South

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Speaker 2: hasn't massively moved forward in racial reconciliation since the Jim

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Speaker 2: Crow days would be inaccurate, And it would be as

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Speaker 2: inaccurate to say that Rayism doesn't exist here in twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty three. And I think stories like this are important

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Speaker 2: to talk about. I think it helps us understand where

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Speaker 2: some of this stuff comes from and how to fix it.

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Speaker 2: It's important to remember that Asa Carter died at the

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Speaker 2: age of fifty four in nineteen seventy nine, the year

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Speaker 2: I was born, So we're just guessing about his motivations.

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Speaker 2: Here's doctor Dan T. Carter, who I'm gonna call Dan

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Speaker 2: to keep things simple on this podcast, who is now

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Speaker 2: eighty one years old and sharp as attack. He's going

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Speaker 2: to tell us about his on the ground research on

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Speaker 2: Asa in the nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: Well, the summer nineteen ninety one, when the posthumous book

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Speaker 1: Education Little Tree became so popular, I thought I gotta

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Speaker 1: fine something about this guy. So I had been in

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Speaker 1: Alabama doing a lot of research, and I drove up

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Speaker 1: to Aniston, went to the local library. They were very helpful,

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Speaker 1: but I couldn't exact actually find out where he lived.

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Speaker 1: I knew the area, Darmanville. It was called a rural area,

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Speaker 1: so I drove out there. My life was with me

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Speaker 1: and and I think, I'm I could be a con man.

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Speaker 1: I guess uh. I was never dishonest with anybody, but

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Speaker 1: I would always say I'd go up to doors or busy.

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Speaker 1: I went to several small businesses there and said I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to find out something about the most famous writer

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Speaker 1: of the area, man named Asa Carter Rolle under the

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Speaker 1: pen name of Forest Carter. Uh, and uh, everybody either

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Speaker 1: cleaned they didn't know anything. But then I started going

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Speaker 1: door to door and.

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Speaker 3: Uh, this is real journalism.

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Speaker 1: And some fair number of people didn't you know. They

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Speaker 1: were younger, they didn't know, but it was older people

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Speaker 1: without accept I started to say almost but without exception,

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Speaker 1: they either became hostile or they wouldn't talk to me.

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Speaker 1: And years later, when I got the FBI files, I

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Speaker 1: found out why the local community resented the fact that

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Speaker 1: when he was active as a right wing radio announcer

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Speaker 1: and everything lived there, he was under constant suspicion by

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Speaker 1: the FBI. They were constantly monitoring, They follow him, they

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Speaker 1: park at the end of his driveway. And this is

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Speaker 1: the middle of the Civil rights movement. These people didn't

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Speaker 1: like government people anyway, and they saw this kind of

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Speaker 1: persecution of their hometown.

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Speaker 3: Boy.

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Speaker 1: So I finally found a small engine shop and I

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Speaker 1: talked to the guy. He said, I don't know anything

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Speaker 1: about him, what he did. He just didn't want to

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Speaker 1: talk to me. And as I left, one of the

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Speaker 1: mechanics older guy walked out behind and he motioned me

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Speaker 1: over and I went over and he said, well listen.

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Speaker 1: He said, I wasn't one of Asi's boys, he said

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Speaker 1: boys part of his clan group. But he said, I

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Speaker 1: know a boy he said, who's real good friends with

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Speaker 1: ASA's son, Asa Jr. And I said, I'll tell you

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Speaker 1: how to find his house. So I drove up there,

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Speaker 1: went inside, talked to his wife first, and she got

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Speaker 1: her husband. She was cheerful in everything, and he came

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Speaker 1: down and I explained what I wanted in didn't sale word.

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Speaker 1: He went back upstairs. I could hear him on the phone,

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Speaker 1: but I couldn't hear what he was saying, and his

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Speaker 1: wife was kind of embarrassed. She said, I don't know

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Speaker 1: what's going So she walked up the stairs to the

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Speaker 1: top of the stairs for a minute. She came running

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Speaker 1: down the stairs. She said, get out of here right now,

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Speaker 1: and I said, what do you mean. She said, get

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Speaker 1: out of here and don't come back. And I don't

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Speaker 1: know what he was promising to do, but it clearly

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Speaker 1: was not a good idea to stay there. So I

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Speaker 1: left and he came running out on the porch just

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Speaker 1: as I drove off.

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Speaker 2: He was hot. Dan would later receive some veiled threats

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Speaker 2: of violence from others after or his New York Times

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Speaker 2: story broke neighbors standing up for the reputation of neighbors

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Speaker 2: is conceivable, but so was violence in the stratosphere of

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Speaker 2: as of Carter's. On April tenth, nineteen fifty six, jazz

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Speaker 2: singer Nat King Cole was attacked on stage in Birmingham, Alabama,

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Speaker 2: and members of ass klu Klux Klan group did it well.

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Speaker 6: They say that the reason I was man attack here

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Speaker 6: was because of a feeling against rock and roll of

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Speaker 6: music and Negro music so called.

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Speaker 4: Now what do you feel about that?

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Speaker 7: What I mean?

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Speaker 6: If that was the case, then I'm the wrong guy.

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Speaker 1: You're not rock and roll. I don't think so.

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Speaker 4: I think if you heard me before, I'm sure you

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Speaker 4: would ask me that.

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Speaker 1: If you heard me before, what do you know what

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Speaker 1: rock and roll is?

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Speaker 2: That was Nat king Cole being interviewed about the attack.

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Speaker 2: The Klan was very concerned about the racial crossover popularity

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Speaker 2: of black musicians and the danger craze of rock and

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Speaker 2: roll music. Six men were arrested for the attack, and

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Speaker 2: ASA Carter would set up a legal defense fund for them,

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Speaker 2: declaring them political prisoners. Asa was incredibly media savvy and

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Speaker 2: knew how to turn a story. In a non related incident,

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Speaker 2: Asa would be accused but acquitted of shooting two men

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Speaker 2: with a forty four magnum at a clan meeting in

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Speaker 2: downtown Birmingham. These men had accused him of stealing money

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Speaker 2: and he shot him. Lots of people saw it happen,

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Speaker 2: but nobody would talk against Asa, so they had no evidence.

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Speaker 2: But it's widely believed that he did shoot these men.

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Speaker 2: But let's get back to Dan being in Alabama in

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Speaker 2: the early nineteen nineties trying to learn about Asa. I

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Speaker 2: asked him how Asa could have pulled off this double

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Speaker 2: life so well.

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Speaker 1: It's partly the power of his skills. When he was

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Speaker 1: in high school, I interviewed one of his high school

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Speaker 1: friends and he was in a high school play. And

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Speaker 1: this classmate of his said it was embarrassing, and I said,

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Speaker 1: because he was bad. He said, no, is because the

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Speaker 1: rest of these were high school kids and he was

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Speaker 1: like a Hollywood actor. He was totally at ease.

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Speaker 3: On the stage.

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Speaker 1: His lines were delivered like a professional actor, and it.

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Speaker 3: Made the whole made it awkward.

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Speaker 1: To watch. You know, so from the very beginning he

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Speaker 1: had these skills. When he decided after he got out

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Speaker 1: of the Navy to go to the work to University

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Speaker 1: of Colorado. He had done his naval training there during

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Speaker 1: the war. He had graduated from high school, but it

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Speaker 1: was a rural high school in Alabama, and the entrance

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Speaker 1: person at the University of Colorado, well, I don't know

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Speaker 1: about this, so would you mind taking IQ test? It

243
00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:58,640
Speaker 1: was one hundred and thirty eight. So there was never

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Speaker 1: any doubt about how really smart he was. He made

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Speaker 1: a lot of political misjudgments, but in terms of intelligence,

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Speaker 1: he was very capable and a great performer.

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Speaker 3: He was like a Hollywood actor.

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Speaker 2: Asa was gifted with words, with reading people and had

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Speaker 2: instinctual insight into the way humans operated, what compelled them,

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Speaker 2: what scared them, what moved them. Most dynamic leaders have

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Speaker 2: this capability. He knew what people wanted to hear. Here's

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Speaker 2: Dan with some of Ace's deep background.

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Speaker 1: Asa Carter's had a background very much like mine. He

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Speaker 1: grew up on a small farm in northeast Alabama, near Anniston,

255
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Speaker 1: and there's no evidence at all during his high school

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Speaker 1: years from his classmates that he was anything other than

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Speaker 1: a typical white Southern boy. I mean, sure all of

258
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Speaker 1: us of that generation, his generation even up to mine,

259
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Speaker 1: were unconsciously racist, but there's nothing to indicate he was

260
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Speaker 1: viril und about it at all or even obsessed about it.

261
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Speaker 1: So there was nothing, you know, in his early childhood

262
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Speaker 1: that indicated this. And then he had some traumatic event.

263
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Speaker 1: He enlisted in the Navy in the officer training program

264
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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty three, and he flucked out, not because

265
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Speaker 1: he wasn't smart, but because he was. He went to

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Speaker 1: a rural high school that just did not prepare him

267
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Speaker 1: for the rigorous kind of program involving mathematics and other things.

268
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Speaker 1: He just didn't have the background, and it really embittered him.

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Speaker 1: And he was now eighteen, almost nineteen years old. He

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Speaker 1: goes in the Navy. He becomes a radio operator, a

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Speaker 1: very courageous one. He serves in combat. But while he's

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Speaker 1: on a ship in the Pacific, he meets a small

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Speaker 1: group of people who are studying a series of race acist,

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Speaker 1: anti submitted anti black writers. Gerald L. K. Smith names

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Speaker 1: that you might not be familiar with the day, but

276
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Speaker 1: were really big in the nineteen thirties and forties. Many

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Speaker 1: of them growing out of the fascist movement of the

278
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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, and they couldn't talk about during the war.

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Speaker 1: Obviously we were all in the war against it, but

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Speaker 1: secretly many of them really really supported Hitler and they

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Speaker 1: were fine with the war against Japan. That was why

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Speaker 1: Carter always said, I was glad to fight the Japs,

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Speaker 1: but I didn't want to fight my Aaryan brothers. And

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Speaker 1: he became obsessed with this during the time he was

285
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Speaker 1: the Navy, and that was a turning point in his life.

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Speaker 1: Think about it for most of us young people, and

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Speaker 1: I know this from studies as well, that your real

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Speaker 1: political outlook, if you have a political outlook, is often

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Speaker 1: shaped eighteen nineteen twenty, when you're becoming an adult. That's

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Speaker 1: exactly the time for him, and then from then on

291
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Speaker 1: he was one of these they what's the word for

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Speaker 1: auto dad act in which you teach yourself? He read,

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Speaker 1: He had a brilliant IQ. He read, but he read

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Speaker 1: exclusively in two kinds of literature. One was fascist literature,

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Speaker 1: adi submitic literature. The other was this veneration for the Confederacy.

296
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Speaker 1: He worshiped the Confederacy and saw in the in not

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Speaker 1: the fancy Confederates like Robert E. Lee and these, but

298
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Speaker 1: in the in the tobaccachewing kind of people like Nathan

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Speaker 1: Bedford Forrest who could barely read and write, but fought

300
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Speaker 1: like to maintain, you know, the white South in the Confederacy.

301
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Speaker 1: And these became his heroes, and he gradually developed a

302
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Speaker 1: whole way of appealing to people. He started out as

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Speaker 1: a radio announcer in Denver after the war. Then he

304
00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:09,199
Speaker 1: worked in Yazoo City, Mississippi a little while, and then

305
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:12,640
Speaker 1: he was hired and given a radio program that gradually

306
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Speaker 1: spread to a network.

307
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Speaker 7: In eighteen sixty five, this state right here, after the

308
00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:21,280
Speaker 7: war between the States, was occupied by a federal line

309
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Speaker 7: and one year they confiscated one hundred and ninety thousand

310
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Speaker 7: farms and homes from these bold ridden that great Grande advirus,

311
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Speaker 7: but they refuged in a great they refused to cooperate.

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Speaker 7: In eighteen seventy four.

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Speaker 4: They whipped them.

314
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Speaker 3: They whipped them. That was the voice of ASA.

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Speaker 1: I've listened to many of his broadcasts, and he was

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Speaker 1: really good. It's quite different from the broadcast many of

317
00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:55,560
Speaker 1: the broadcasters of the period who were stentorium and what

318
00:19:55,720 --> 00:19:58,320
Speaker 1: today makes you kind of cringe to listen to them.

319
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Speaker 1: They had this kind of booming voice which everything was

320
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:06,720
Speaker 1: overly dramatized. That's not the way he was. He acted

321
00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:10,399
Speaker 1: like he was your uncle who sat down and just

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Speaker 1: talked casually to you.

323
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Speaker 3: So it was different. It was a different frequency that

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Speaker 3: he could connect.

325
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Speaker 1: Tone. Yeah, and he was so good at a kind

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Speaker 1: of folksy style in which he would tell stories about

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Speaker 1: most of them made up, but about his past or

328
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Speaker 1: about other people, and then he would always link it

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Speaker 1: back to the threat. He was smart enough to realize

330
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Speaker 1: that any Semitism, particularly after the Holocaust and the news

331
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Speaker 1: about the Holocaust didn't play very well. That didn't mean

332
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Speaker 1: it wasn't there. There were a large number of Americans

333
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Speaker 1: who were still any Jewish, but he realized it was

334
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Speaker 1: kind of a third realm, so he didn't talk about

335
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Speaker 1: that much on his radio show. What he did discover

336
00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:02,359
Speaker 1: was the great weapon that white supremises had in the South,

337
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Speaker 1: any communism, because the anti communist fervor of the nineteen

338
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Speaker 1: forties and nineteen fifties explodes with McCarthyism, and what white

339
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:19,359
Speaker 1: Southerners immediately realized, because there were some savvy politicians for us,

340
00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:24,080
Speaker 1: we have to convince white Americans outside the South that

341
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Speaker 1: all the civil rights stuff is being formatted by the

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Speaker 1: communists in the South.

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Speaker 4: We have ninety eight percent a Globe Saxon rating. Not King.

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Speaker 4: He is the responsible people who are record free government

345
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Speaker 4: and who are good at and golden. You must operate.

346
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,479
Speaker 4: You might conduct your down from a different station. They

347
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:55,240
Speaker 4: can have any day, one world government, one world, one

348
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Speaker 4: world in.

349
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Speaker 1: One world rad.

350
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Speaker 3: Those are heavy words.

351
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Speaker 2: It's hard to reconcile that he's the guy that wrote

352
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Speaker 2: the Education of Littletree. The political play was to say

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Speaker 2: that the communists were behind the civil rights movement. Whether

354
00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:17,960
Speaker 2: he believed that or not, we don't really know. Some

355
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:21,440
Speaker 2: evidence would later suggest that he didn't believe that at all,

356
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:25,280
Speaker 2: but it was just a political strategy. What many of

357
00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:29,639
Speaker 2: since said is that Ace's public career in media was

358
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 2: him playing an exaggerated character that he believed the South wanted,

359
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 2: And therein lies the problem with political leaders and most

360
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:42,600
Speaker 2: media personalities. They've got to get ratings and votes, so

361
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:47,160
Speaker 2: they do what sells, and like a nasty social media algorithm,

362
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:51,200
Speaker 2: they give the people their base level desires of what

363
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:55,000
Speaker 2: they think they want. Do you realize how nasty and

364
00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:59,320
Speaker 2: dirty social media algorithms are they'll feed you and your

365
00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:02,920
Speaker 2: kids bill and tell you it's a favor In media

366
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:06,960
Speaker 2: and politics do the same thing. Do you see these

367
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:13,720
Speaker 2: reoccurring themes in American politics? Here's Dan on anti communism.

368
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Speaker 1: And that became the theme, his theme and that of

369
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:21,640
Speaker 1: other right when radio broadcasters, not only southern but northern

370
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 1: as well, that the Communist Party is maneuvering these people,

371
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Speaker 1: that they're not smart enough to do it on their

372
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 1: own and in their publications as opposed to their sort

373
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Speaker 1: of inner publication is really the Jews that were behind it,

374
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Speaker 1: and there would be it would sort of be on

375
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Speaker 1: the periphery all the time, so that, for example, in

376
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: his broadcast and broadcast of many of these people, they

377
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:54,359
Speaker 1: would often emphasize the Jewish names of individuals who supported

378
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 1: civil rights because it was true as a whole Jewish

379
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: Americans were a group that were much more supportive of

380
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 1: African Americans than generally white Americans were. So he was

381
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 1: able to get away with it mostly. He did run

382
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 1: into a problem. In nineteen fifty five, he overstepped himself

383
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,640
Speaker 1: and on a radio broadcast he talked about the Jews

384
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: and their role informenting this. And actually it was a

385
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: group of white businessmen who were closely tied to the

386
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:32,920
Speaker 1: Jewish community in Birmingham who said to his sponsors, you

387
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: got to get rid of this guy. And they succeeded,

388
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 1: and that just reinforced his belief the Jews were behind.

389
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: They fired me from my job. He later ended up

390
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 1: doing other radio broadcasts, but never as successfully as he

391
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 1: originally was.

392
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:56,119
Speaker 2: Asa became so radical that he outpaced his peers, but

393
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 2: deep down he believed the Jews were behind the civil

394
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 2: rights movement and they intended to deconstruct the current South.

395
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 2: What's odd to me is it seems like a lot

396
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 2: of people were interested in deconstructing the South. Here's an

397
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 2: interesting observation from Steve Ranella about Ace's book The Education

398
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 2: of Little Tree. Some of this just doesn't make any sense.

399
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 5: Here's no one I stumbled over knowing about the presumptive

400
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 5: feelings of this clansman, okay, and their antipathy and hatred

401
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,439
Speaker 5: of Jews and religious persecution of Jews. Okay. So here

402
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 5: I'm reading the Education of Little Tree, and there's a

403
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 5: guy that there's a storekeeper. The Tree guys very well,

404
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 5: and one might look and be like, oh, of course

405
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:43,880
Speaker 5: they evade the jew the storekeeper. Okay, there's a storekeeper

406
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 5: who's Jewish. Little Tree overhears someone referred to him as

407
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 5: a Jew and mentions his stinginess. Little Tree goes on

408
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 5: to say, mister Wine was not stingy. He was thrifty

409
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 5: and paid his obligations and seeing that his money was

410
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 5: used in the right manner. Later, he says he's worried

411
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 5: about this, and he says to his grandpa, what is

412
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 5: a Jew?

413
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:09,879
Speaker 3: Okay?

414
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 5: So you're like, So, as the reader, I'm like, what's

415
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 5: the grandpa gonna say?

416
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 1: Now?

417
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 5: Knowing that here's this we have a clansman of spousing

418
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 5: as believes, what will Grandpa's answer be? Grandpa just says,

419
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 5: I don't know. Something is said about him in the

420
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 5: Bible somewhere as or other must go back a long

421
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 5: ways like the Indian I hear tell they ain't got

422
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 5: no nation either. End the story as political rhetoric, what

423
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 5: is that? Gaining the primary character, Littletree is introduced to

424
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 5: a person who stereotypes this individual he's a jewey stingy,

425
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:45,639
Speaker 5: and they spend a lot of time talking about the

426
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 5: difference between stingy and thrifty. Stingy, you just horde things thrifty,

427
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 5: you have things that matter, so you don't spend on

428
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 5: things that are frivolous because you want to focus on

429
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 5: things that matter. This is a conversation they've had. Guy's

430
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 5: not Stingy's thrifty. He just wants to know where his

431
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 5: money's going.

432
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 2: M It seems like it would have been an easy

433
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 2: spot to throw him under the bus if he wanted to.

434
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:14,199
Speaker 2: It's yeah, once again, we're conflicted with the first version

435
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 2: of Ace's life compared to the presumed life of a

436
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 2: man that could write The Education of Littletree. Does that

437
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 2: make any sense to you?

438
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 3: Donan to me.

439
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 2: Just to clarify the timeline. Asa Carter's life as a

440
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 2: professional racial supremacist media personality was in the nineteen fifties

441
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:37,679
Speaker 2: into the early nineteen seventies. Asa ran for governor of

442
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 2: Alabama in nineteen seventy against George Wallace on a platform

443
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 2: so radical George Wallace was the moderate candidate. He claimed

444
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 2: that Wallace had left the cause an Ace's message that

445
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 2: had been so well received for twenty years was now obsolete.

446
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 2: It didn't jive with the voters of Alabama and he

447
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 2: received one point point six percent of the statewide vote.

448
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 2: Here's Steve with an interesting tidbit on Ace's political career.

449
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:15,199
Speaker 5: This is another thing people got to go back to

450
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 5: their history books to study up on. These guys are

451
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 5: all Democrats, right. He was trying to get the Democratic

452
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 5: nomination for governor, and he was running. Uh, he was

453
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 5: running as being an absolutist on segregation. Wild Listen, I

454
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 5: keep like, as we're talking, I keep warming up to

455
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:37,680
Speaker 5: the idea that there's just like a like a an

456
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 5: unstable hand here. Yeah, but then you get into this.

457
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 5: How could you write so tightly and so beautifully.

458
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 2: It was after the devastating loss of this political race

459
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 2: for governor that Asa began writing the novels he'd always

460
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 2: wanted to write. He knew he'd never get published as

461
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 2: Asa Carter, so he changed his name to Bedford Forrest Carter,

462
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 2: which eventually just became Forest Carter and FYI.

463
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 3: Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first.

464
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 2: Grand Wizard of the klu Klux Klan, who would later

465
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 2: renounce his involvement in the Klan. We mentioned him before

466
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 2: on our episode about Holt Collier. Here's Dan with more

467
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 2: details of Ace's identity switch. So with that change of

468
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 2: identity obviously in public, like if he's talking to Barbara Walters.

469
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's gonna be He's gonna.

470
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 2: Star speak like Forrest Carter looked like Forest Carter talk

471
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 2: Like did he maintain that identity like throughout his whole

472
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 2: life during that period?

473
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 3: Yeah?

474
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: Absolutely?

475
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 3: Was he married? What about he was married to? His

476
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 3: wife's name was India.

477
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 1: That's right?

478
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 3: Is that correct? When when did he marry her?

479
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: He married her right out of the navy in nineteen

480
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: forty seventh.

481
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 3: Okay, so she was here for this whole Yeah, Yeah.

482
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: And she was. She was very much his supporter and

483
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: played along with the whole thing. Uh, she didn't even

484
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: she lived. They bought a house, as I describe it

485
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: the book, through a flukeish set of circumstances. He came

486
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: into some money and he bought a house down in St.

487
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 1: George Island, and she lived down there, but he spent

488
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: most of his time in Alleleen.

489
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 3: He came into some money.

490
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy two, Asa wrote his first novel under

491
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 2: the alias Forest Carter, which he titled Gone to Texas,

492
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 2: and the movie rights to the book were purchased by

493
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 2: Clint Eastwood, and he made it into his breakout movie,

494
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 2: The Outlawed Josie Weals, and this part is absolutely wild,

495
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 2: almost unbelievable. But knowing that he was being tracked by

496
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 2: the FBI, ASA went to the FBI office and told

497
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 2: them how to get in touch with him if they

498
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 2: needed him, because he was about to quote make some

499
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 2: money for the first time in my life, and I

500
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 2: don't want.

501
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 3: Anything to screw it up.

502
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 2: This is a direct quote from the over one thousand

503
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:07,719
Speaker 2: page FBI file on ASA. He then moved to Abilene, Texas.

504
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 2: At this point he called his son's nephews. He grew

505
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 2: a mustache, grew out of sideburns, wore a cowboy hat,

506
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 2: and became a new age Cherokee Indian writer. But he

507
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 2: had some help with this new story.

508
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: All of that was made possible because of one one man,

509
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 1: a man named Don Josie, who was a wealthy, wealthy

510
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: Texas hall millionaire who had given a lot of money

511
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 1: to George Wallace and Carter had met him and they

512
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: just became like brothers. And when Carter contacted him in

513
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:48,560
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one and said, look, I want to change

514
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: my identity and moved to Texas, and the two of

515
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: them came up with this background story. Don Josie would

516
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: meet when news man when he first started trying to

517
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: promote his book and say, yeah, he worked for me

518
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 1: for twenty five years as a bronco buster and Don

519
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 1: Josie owned several ranchers. He said, he was here and

520
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 1: there and wherever and that.

521
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 3: So he had an accomplice.

522
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: He had an accomplice who set up the background story for him.

523
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: And so when anybody asked about well, why didn't even

524
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: hear this? Guys, guys, you know all these years and

525
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 1: he came up with these stories about how he was

526
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: a storyteller to the Cherokee Nation. Well, it's just strange.

527
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: Nobody went back to here, to North Carolina, eastern Tennessee

528
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: and said, can you tell us about this? Nobody ever

529
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 1: checked in it. You know, it's partly the power of

530
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: his skills.

531
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 2: Asa had skills. The release of the book The Outlawed

532
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 2: Josie Wells and Eastwood making the movie was the beginning

533
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 2: point of his new life. What's interesting is that ASA's

534
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 2: life mirrors the plot of this movie almost to the

535
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 2: tee Wales. As a Confederate soldier who won't give in

536
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:07,239
Speaker 2: to the ideology of a reconstructed South. Asa made a

537
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 2: living talking about rejecting reconstruction and how the South got

538
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 2: the shaft.

539
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 3: Josee.

540
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 2: Wells leaves the South under persecution from the Yankee Army and.

541
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 3: Heads to Texas.

542
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 2: Asa, under the persecution of the establishment, left the South

543
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 2: and headed to Texas.

544
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 3: Jose Wales in.

545
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 2: The movie, makes a new life with the Comanches in Texas.

546
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 2: Asa becomes Forrest Carter, the Cherokee Indian and has a

547
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 2: completely new.

548
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 3: Life in Texas. Is that not wild?

549
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 2: It's hard to know if this guy is crazy or

550
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 2: a genius. Now we're gonna have to hold it together

551
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 2: and stay on track. We're talking about a lot of

552
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 2: different books and a lot of moving parts. It's a

553
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 2: complicated story.

554
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 3: Bros. This is Bear Grease.

555
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 2: Now we're going to talk to Steve about ASA's later book,

556
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 2: the nineteen six seventy six book The Education of Little Tree.

557
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 2: This book was even later in the progression of the

558
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 2: Forest Carter character. I have a question for Steve about

559
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:12,359
Speaker 2: how intentional the message of that book was, or was

560
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 2: he just writing the book he thought people would like.

561
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,760
Speaker 2: What I would ask too, is if he was writing

562
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 2: this book, would his value system just be found inside

563
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 2: the way that he would tell the story that he

564
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:30,720
Speaker 2: was that he was interested in or did he really

565
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 2: write this book with the intention of creating people that

566
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:39,760
Speaker 2: were deeply anti government? And you know, it's like, how

567
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 2: intentional was it?

568
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 3: If?

569
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:44,799
Speaker 5: When I hear, in my understanding of not being a

570
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 5: subject matter expert, when I hear a segregationist clansman, I

571
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,760
Speaker 5: think of someone who is deeply invested in racial hate.

572
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 3: Okay, that's what I get.

573
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 5: I don't think I'm going on on a limb here. Yeah,

574
00:34:57,960 --> 00:34:59,800
Speaker 5: if that's what he was shooting for in this book,

575
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:04,399
Speaker 5: I like he missed the mark right If for some

576
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 5: reason he had gotten where he was just anti establishment,

577
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 5: he just wanted to see the whole thing burned down. Sure,

578
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 5: if you told me that, If if you told me

579
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 5: the Unibomber wrote that book, Okay, what the Unibomber was

580
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 5: a radical environmentalist and he was anti establishment. Okay, if

581
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 5: you told me that the Unibomber wrote that novel. Now

582
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 5: a bunch of people are going to fly off the handle.

583
00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 5: They haven't read the Unibomber's manifesto. I've read the Unibomber's Manifesto.

584
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 5: So if you're feeling like insulted right now, or that

585
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 5: I'm saying something naughty, I know what I'm talking about.

586
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 5: And if you read the Unibomber's Manifesto, you'll see what

587
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 5: I'm talking about. If you told me the Unibomber wrote

588
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 5: that book, I would buy it. Really, If you told

589
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 5: me the Klansman wrote that book, even though we know

590
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 5: it's true, I would initially be like, I don't I

591
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 5: don't get it. If he was shooting for race to

592
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 5: instill racial hatred, he missed the mark. If you was

593
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 5: shooting to make you love your grandparents, Yeah, that's why.

594
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 5: The more I think about it, my wife's idea that

595
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 5: it's that maybe they I was just nuts.

596
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 2: Steve said he would have believed it if the Unibomber ted.

597
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 2: Kazinski wrote this book, The Education of Littletree, expounding on

598
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 2: this is a bit like chasing the distant gobble from

599
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 2: a bird you know you can't kill, but we're gonna

600
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 2: do it anyway. Kazinski terrorized America by sending bombs in

601
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 2: the mail to random people for twenty years. The FBI

602
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,720
Speaker 2: had over one hundred and fifty people working full time

603
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:34,479
Speaker 2: trying to find out who he was. In nineteen ninety five,

604
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 2: he wrote an anonymous thirty five thousand word manifesto, demanding

605
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 2: it be published or he'd send more bombs. He wanted

606
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 2: to quote overthrow the economic and technical foundation of modern

607
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 2: society and to protect wilderness, which is the antithesis of technology.

608
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 2: Here is an excerpt from his manifesto, which was published

609
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:00,360
Speaker 2: in The New York Times, in Washington Post, and eighteen

610
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 2: ninety five. Let me know if this sounds reasonable to you.

611
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 2: Modern man is strapped down by a network of rules

612
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 2: and regulation, and as fate depends on the actions of

613
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 2: persons remote from him, whose decisions he cannot influence. This

614
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 2: is not accidental or a result of the arbitrariness of

615
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 2: arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable. In any technologically

616
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 2: advanced society, the system has to regulate human behavior closely

617
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 2: in order to function. The result is a sense of

618
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 2: powerlessness on the part of the average person. It may be, however,

619
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 2: that formal regulations will tend increasingly to be replaced by

620
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 2: psychological tools that make us want to do what the

621
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 2: system requires. The system has to force people to behave

622
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 2: in ways that are increasingly remote from the natural patterns

623
00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 2: of human behavior. For example, the system needs scientists, mathematicians,

624
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 2: and engineers. It can't function without them, so heavy pressure

625
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 2: is put on children to excel in these fields. It

626
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 2: isn't natural for an adolescent human being to spend the

627
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 2: bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study.

628
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:15,240
Speaker 2: A normal adolescent wants to spend his time in active

629
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 2: contact with the real world. Among primitive peoples, the things

630
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 2: that the children are trained to do tend to be

631
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 2: in reasonable harmony with natural human impulses. Among the American Indians,

632
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 2: for example, boys were trained in active outdoor pursuits, just

633
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 2: the sort of thing that boys like. But in our society,

634
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:38,640
Speaker 2: children are pushed into studying technical subjects, which most do grudgingly.

635
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 2: Because of the constant pressure that the system exerts to

636
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 2: modify human behavior, there is a gradual increase in the

637
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 2: number of people who cannot or will not adjust to

638
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:57,880
Speaker 2: society's requirements. Welfare leeches, youth gang members, cultists, anti government rebels,

639
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 2: radical environmentalists, abboteurs, dropouts, and resistors.

640
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:04,800
Speaker 3: Of various kindness.

641
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 2: Wow, now I can see what Steve meant when he

642
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 2: said the Unibomber could have written The Education of Little Tree.

643
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 2: And now you can say that you've heard part of

644
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 2: the Unibomber's manifesto, and it caught you and me both

645
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:25,839
Speaker 2: by surprise. Remember what I said about the trouble with

646
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 2: some crazy folks is that they're often really close to

647
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 2: making rational arguments that make a lot of sense.

648
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 3: Yep, we said that.

649
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 2: Here is a throat punch question for Steve Ranella on

650
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 2: Ace's writing. What in the heck was he trying to say?

651
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 5: Man, knowing what we now know, I got two ideas

652
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 5: about it. You asked me how I became introduced to

653
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 5: the book. I was in a class about those political rhetoric.

654
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 5: We read works from people who had like an axe

655
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,760
Speaker 5: to grind okay, and one day he gives us education Littletary.

656
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 5: As far as I remember, he probably gave us two

657
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 5: nights to read it. We all come in and we

658
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:07,400
Speaker 5: talked about the book for a while. Everybody's kind of

659
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 5: blown away about the book. This is pre internet, so

660
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 5: you can't look stuff up good. And he says, what

661
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 5: would you think if I told you that was written

662
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 5: by a klansman? What does that change? Now to answer that,

663
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:19,720
Speaker 5: I want to point out a thing that I also

664
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 5: became aware of. In college, we were introduced to a

665
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 5: lot of theories of literary criticism. You can read a text,

666
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 5: a book. You could read this book and apply a

667
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 5: Marxist criticism to it, meaning you're going to read this

668
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 5: book and we're going to look at how money. How

669
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 5: does money influence behavior? M m okay, how does like

670
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 5: the big man eat up the little man? Okay, let's

671
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 5: say we're going to look at it from a feminist perspective.

672
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 5: What is the role of the grandmother?

673
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 3: Okay?

674
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 5: Why do when certain things are happening, the boy and

675
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:56,319
Speaker 5: the grandfather are going to them, but the grandmother doesn't participate?

676
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:58,879
Speaker 5: What does she do while they're gone? And we'll look

677
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 5: at this whole book just and gender. Okay, that'd be

678
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 5: like feminist criticism. But this other idea in criticism. It

679
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 5: was popularized by this guy rolland Barts, who is a

680
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 5: philosopher and critic, and he brought up this additional way

681
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 5: to look at a book, which is called death of

682
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 5: the author. To look at art or books or whatever,

683
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 5: meaning a text is only itself. It doesn't matter what

684
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 5: the author meant the author's biography doesn't matter. The author's

685
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 5: background doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. The text is itself.

686
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:33,720
Speaker 5: The text is its own, living, breathing thing. Don't burden

687
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:36,919
Speaker 5: it with what someone meant, right, right, When a song

688
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:39,480
Speaker 5: means something to you, Okay, let's say you listen to

689
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:41,319
Speaker 5: a song. A song means something to you, and it

690
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 5: feels a certain way, and then someone says, oh, no,

691
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:44,439
Speaker 5: that's not.

692
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 3: What it's about.

693
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 5: If you listen to the lyrics carefully, and then you

694
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:50,879
Speaker 5: watch this interview with the songwriter, you'll see that it's

695
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 5: not about heartbreak. It's about his mom, the death of

696
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 5: the author. Stuff will be like that doesn't change it.

697
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 5: When I hear it, that's how I feel. That's what

698
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:02,919
Speaker 5: it made me think of. I don't care what he thought.

699
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:03,920
Speaker 5: He has nothing to do with this.

700
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 3: It's a thing.

701
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 5: It's a piece of art, and it's my interpretation of it,

702
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:11,879
Speaker 5: and all that is just extra. So if we look

703
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 5: at this book that way, you can't help but think

704
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 5: it's about all the things you and I were talking

705
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 5: about earlier. There is a lot to be said about

706
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:22,759
Speaker 5: environmentalism and how you view and respect nature. There's a

707
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 5: lot to be said about the obligations you have to

708
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 5: the people around you. There's a lot to be said

709
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 5: by selfless giving generosity, right, tons of that stuff to

710
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 5: be said. But when we bring the author back into it,

711
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 5: which is kind of what you're getting at, we bring

712
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 5: this clansman, this segregation is clansman author back into it,

713
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:41,280
Speaker 5: and you're like, well, what was it all about.

714
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 3: There's three takes.

715
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 5: One is my wife's idea. I'm gonna tell it to you,

716
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 5: and I'm gonna leave it hanging. One take is that

717
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 5: he changed, he was wrong. This is his apology, right.

718
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:55,760
Speaker 5: One take is that he didn't change at all. And

719
00:42:56,320 --> 00:43:02,319
Speaker 5: he is a something of an anarchist. He despises the

720
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 5: US government, he despises Catholicism, has a real ax to

721
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 5: grind with organized religion, doesn't like the education system. He's

722
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 5: an anarchist. When I recently emailed with the teacher that

723
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 5: taught it, he pointed out, there's a lot to be

724
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 5: found in here around things that you might consider that

725
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 5: don't tread on me. Movement, anything organized, anything establishment should

726
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 5: be torn down. Okay, maybe that's what he meant. But

727
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 5: if that's what he meant, and this is a clan text,

728
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 5: there's some parts that are really hard to get your

729
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 5: head around. One of the first things that happens in

730
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 5: the book is there they get on a bus, the

731
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 5: grandfather gets the boy. They get on a bus. The

732
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:47,360
Speaker 5: opening scene, they step onto a bus and the bus driver.

733
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 5: Keep in mind this is in the seventies, and we're

734
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,240
Speaker 5: talking of about a bus. Okay, people getting on buses

735
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 5: and rolls of parks and the civil rights movement and

736
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 5: how you're seated on a bus, what you're interacting actions

737
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 5: with the person driving the bus is in here. Little

738
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:06,280
Speaker 5: Tree and his grandfather get on the bus. The bus

739
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,840
Speaker 5: driver makes a joke to everybody on the bus and

740
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:15,360
Speaker 5: says how, and everybody on the bus high a big, loud,

741
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 5: sarcastic Cherokee greeting of how directed towards the people on

742
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 5: the bus, who all laugh at the Indians and makes

743
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:27,360
Speaker 5: them feel very awkward to pay and makes it painful

744
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 5: for them to count out and pay the bus fare.

745
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 5: And that's like some load that's loaded. And it's not

746
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 5: about whites, it's about the treatment of Indians. What's more,

747
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 5: there's a part in the book where Grandpa is relating

748
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,720
Speaker 5: a story that happens to his father and his father

749
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 5: had it's like a parable about the reconstruction souve and

750
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 5: in it union soldiers, Union soldiers kill a black man.

751
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,760
Speaker 5: It is like, when you look at it, like stepping

752
00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 5: like never minding the death of the author thing and

753
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 5: just taking education a little tree as this thing, which

754
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 5: is very hard, admittedly very hard to do, knowing what

755
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 5: we know about the individual that wrote it. And it's

756
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:14,759
Speaker 5: a clan thing, it's a segregationist thing. It's very complicated.

757
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 5: If that's the case. My professor that I emailed with,

758
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 5: he pointed out, if you do look at it as

759
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 5: political rhetoric, he's not preaching to the choir right. He's

760
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 5: taking people from the environmental movement. He's taking people who

761
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 5: feel Native Americans were brutalized by the US federal government.

762
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:35,359
Speaker 5: He's drawing an audience here.

763
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: This was on.

764
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 5: Oprah prior to the revelation about the author. This was

765
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:44,760
Speaker 5: on like this sort of like formalized booklist library shelf

766
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:46,240
Speaker 5: of Oprah Winfrey.

767
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 3: In the early nineties.

768
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 5: Okay, is it so like seditious that it's taking an

769
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 5: audience of the environmental movement back to the landers, hippies,

770
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 5: people who sympathize with the Native American movement in the seventies.

771
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 5: He's introducing them to anti establishment. He's introducing them to

772
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 5: the idea that their government is evil. Like, is he

773
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 5: that shrewd? Can I do the third one?

774
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 1: Yeah?

775
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 5: My wife's like, maybe he's schizophrenic. Did you know in

776
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 5: real life he at one point in time had his

777
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 5: kids stop acting like he was their father. He wanted

778
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 5: them to treat him as though he was their uncle.

779
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:24,919
Speaker 5: He died in complications of getting into a big fight,

780
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:28,520
Speaker 5: physical fight with his kid. You look at the bio

781
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 5: and you see that there's a person who struggled with

782
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 5: mental illness.

783
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 3: Yeah.

784
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 5: Maybe we're trying to go like, well, maybe he meant this.

785
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 5: Maybe you know, we're playing checkers and he's playing chess.

786
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:41,719
Speaker 5: Yeah right, Maybe he was just straight up crazy. Maybe

787
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,399
Speaker 5: he's nuts, he's schizophrenic, he doesn't know what he thinks,

788
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 5: he can't hold his family life together. He's like, and

789
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 5: he's not the first insane person to be a great

790
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 5: writer at all.

791
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I guess this brings up the question of

792
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 2: what is the definition of being crazy? At an external level?

793
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 2: This guy was incredibly intact. However, we know that he

794
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 2: craved attention the limelight. He was an incredibly good liar,

795
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 2: but maybe his motivations were much more simple. I asked

796
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:18,680
Speaker 2: Dan the same thing, Steve and got an interesting answer.

797
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:22,840
Speaker 2: So here's here's the big question. This is the reason

798
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 2: I came to North Carolina. Why did Asa Carter write

799
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 2: this book?

800
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: That's a simple that's a simple answer. Asa Carter became

801
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 1: disillusioned with politics, and not only did he realize that

802
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 1: he was losing the battle against integration, but he realized

803
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 1: his brand of politics was never gonna, never gonna fly.

804
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 1: He made a very conscious decision, he told I interviewed

805
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: his lawyer and he said, you know, I'm gonna make

806
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:58,840
Speaker 1: some money. I've struggled a lot, and he had he

807
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:02,439
Speaker 1: had good page bad periods, but he said, I'm gonna

808
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:05,919
Speaker 1: make some money. I'm gonna be the next Hemingway. Well

809
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:10,800
Speaker 1: he wasn't the next Heimyway. But ambitions, yeah, it always

810
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 1: had ambitions. And so he had really clearly in his

811
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 1: mind the outlaw Josey Wales that grew out of his

812
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 1: research and writing about Jesse and Frank James, because he

813
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:30,879
Speaker 1: saw them as a Confederate heroes, because you know, they

814
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 1: were marauders and then became outlaws and saw and he tried

815
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 1: to claim they weren't outlays. So I understood that about

816
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 1: the Outlaw Josey Wales and the second Book. But the

817
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:45,919
Speaker 1: Indian thing, it was only as I began to dig

818
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: into it that I really began to understand. He was

819
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 1: drawn to Indians and cowboys for a lot of reasons,

820
00:48:54,040 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 1: but Indians in particular because he saw Native Americans their

821
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 1: struggle to maintain their way of life against a vicious

822
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 1: and murderous national government army as analogous to his struggle

823
00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 1: to maintain white Southern culture. And in some ways, it

824
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: was much safer to write about Indians being oppressed than

825
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: white Southerners being oppressed.

826
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 3: Now would that did he?

827
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:28,640
Speaker 2: Do you think he actually thought that that would translate

828
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 2: to people, because that wouldn't.

829
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:32,839
Speaker 3: Be no no, But to him, it's just deep some

830
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:34,480
Speaker 3: need somebody.

831
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: And I don't I don't think he thought most people

832
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:40,879
Speaker 1: would see it that way. The other thing is he

833
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 1: was always attracted to the whole story of Native Americans,

834
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 1: and I think it was part of that generational thing,

835
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: you know, and that that is true that Americans became

836
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:54,839
Speaker 1: much more attracted to Native Americans.

837
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:56,080
Speaker 3: Once they were gone.

838
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:58,919
Speaker 1: They were gone. It was just like this mythical thing

839
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 1: that they were. He somehow grasped that at a very

840
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:05,440
Speaker 1: early age. I was reading this interview. I mean I

841
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,799
Speaker 1: thought of it as something growing out of the sixties

842
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 1: or seventies, and Fred Berger the sky that I'm really

843
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:16,279
Speaker 1: indebted to. He died suddenly of a heart attack, but

844
00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 1: he had interviewed a lot of people. But he interviewed

845
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: one of his shipmates, a guy named Gordon Lackey, who

846
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: was closest friend when he was in the Navy in

847
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:29,120
Speaker 1: World War Two, And it turned out he told the

848
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:32,840
Speaker 1: whole story of Little Tree when he was eighteen years old.

849
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:35,320
Speaker 3: Just as a it's a story.

850
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:37,840
Speaker 1: He just said, I grew up with my grandpa was

851
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:41,879
Speaker 1: a Cherokee America, and he told the story of.

852
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:44,760
Speaker 3: Little Tree as if it was him, Like, yeah.

853
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:48,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, he lied to this guy and a Lacke said,

854
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 1: when Fred interviewed him, he said, you know, I thought

855
00:50:51,520 --> 00:50:54,479
Speaker 1: maybe he was a bullsher but he said then most

856
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: of us were in the Navy, you know, when we

857
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:58,840
Speaker 1: talked to each other. But it was fascinating to me

858
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 1: that it age eighteen, he already had the basic outlines

859
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 1: of that story, and it was just waiting. And he

860
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: didn't begin writing that until later. But his earlier stuff

861
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:16,800
Speaker 1: he began writing. He had piles of manuscripts. His friend said,

862
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen fifties and sixties he was writing.

863
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 1: So he was always he wanted to be a novelist.

864
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 1: It was just this break when he decided to break

865
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 1: from his political pass that it gave him an opportunity

866
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: to become that writer.

867
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 3: That's interesting, But I have a bigger question for Dan.

868
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,240
Speaker 2: So when you have a story like this, someone writes

869
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:44,280
Speaker 2: something later in their life, Like we know that George

870
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:48,719
Speaker 2: Wallace would later ask for forgiveness for a lot of

871
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:51,440
Speaker 2: the stuff that he did and go on this reconciliation

872
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:54,799
Speaker 2: tour and do all this stuff. Some people would read

873
00:51:54,920 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 2: into him writing this empathetic book towards Native Americans and

874
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 2: say that he was just a changed man. In the book,

875
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:06,840
Speaker 2: you say that he maintained being a racist his whole life. Now,

876
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:07,920
Speaker 2: how do we know that?

877
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 1: Well, he had several friends in Texas who did not

878
00:52:13,320 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 1: know who who was. They knew him as Forrest Carter.

879
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:19,520
Speaker 1: One of them was a woman named Louise Green, who

880
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 1: had been a radio television personality there and it was

881
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:26,360
Speaker 1: a really interesting woman. I interviewed her at some length.

882
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 1: She was very close to Carter. She came to terms

883
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: with the fact that he was not who he said.

884
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:34,759
Speaker 3: He was after his death.

885
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: After his death, I was the one that told her

886
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 1: he was well. Yeah, And she said, what broke my

887
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:44,319
Speaker 1: heart about him was that in many ways he was

888
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 1: a fascinating individual and she loved to be with him.

889
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 1: I mean, he was just a great person to be

890
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 1: around when he was in the forest. Carter personaep But

891
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:58,880
Speaker 1: she said, what what happen with By this time, the

892
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:02,359
Speaker 1: time she knew he was struggling with alcohol and what

893
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 1: would happened was when he got drunk out it would come.

894
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: And the last time she saw him was very shortly

895
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:15,160
Speaker 1: before his death. They went out to dinner in Abilene

896
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:19,280
Speaker 1: and she was worried because he was drinking too much.

897
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:24,760
Speaker 1: And this black couple came in and he started raging

898
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 1: about he wasn't going to eat where a bunch of

899
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:30,960
Speaker 1: using the N word, and went on and onwn and own,

900
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:36,720
Speaker 1: and she kept trying to get him to stop. She said,

901
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:39,479
Speaker 1: you know, not only is it not the way I feel,

902
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 1: I live here and I'm here. You're saying all this

903
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 1: loudly so everybody can see it, and people will think

904
00:53:45,680 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: I believe this, And he wouldn't. She said, he wouldn't stop,

905
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 1: and she got up and left, and that was the

906
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:55,120
Speaker 1: last time she saw him alive. Well, And it was

907
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: just to her it was heartbreaking because it was to

908
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:05,359
Speaker 1: her it was an individual who had such incredible skills

909
00:54:05,760 --> 00:54:10,880
Speaker 1: as a writer, but also this personality which would have

910
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:15,240
Speaker 1: allowed him, as she said, to do such great things,

911
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: and yet something went awry at a very young age

912
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:21,839
Speaker 1: that sent him this way.

913
00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 2: Do you think that he would be classified as some

914
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:29,840
Speaker 2: type of mental illness today, schizophrenia or bipolar or something.

915
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:33,279
Speaker 1: I don't think it would. It'd be hard to classify it.

916
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:35,759
Speaker 1: It's a kind of fanaticism we see in a lot

917
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:39,240
Speaker 1: of people. It is interesting to me that his sister,

918
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: who loved him very much but who totally disagreed with him.

919
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: She was chief of psychiatric nurses at the University of

920
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 1: Alabama Birmingham Hospital, and she loved her brother. But she

921
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:58,359
Speaker 1: sat down with him on one occasion and tried to

922
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 1: persuade him to see somebody for psychiatric help. And he

923
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 1: never spoke to a game, he just cut himself off completely.

924
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:12,920
Speaker 1: So whether it was mental illness or a diagnosable mental illness,

925
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: it clearly was a kind of compulsion and the kind

926
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 1: of fanaticism that went to the very core of who

927
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 1: he was. And the interviews with his nephew and her

928
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:29,279
Speaker 1: niece were most useful because they spent a lot of

929
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 1: time with him and they talked about how he could be.

930
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:37,000
Speaker 1: It could be wonderful, He funny. He would play the

931
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:40,200
Speaker 1: guitar with his brother and sister in law and they

932
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:44,600
Speaker 1: would sing songs, and he'd tell stories, and then something

933
00:55:44,719 --> 00:55:48,040
Speaker 1: would like a switch would go off, and he would

934
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 1: particularly if you crossed him and you contradicted him, and

935
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:56,319
Speaker 1: he would become furious then And as both of both

936
00:55:56,360 --> 00:55:59,920
Speaker 1: his niece and his nephew said, he could be scared.

937
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:08,120
Speaker 1: As Forrest Carter lived a life of drama and violence,

938
00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 1: his death was even more so. For years, we knew

939
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:18,640
Speaker 1: that there were suspicious circumstances. I mean, this was common

940
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:22,759
Speaker 1: knowledge at the time that he died. In the official

941
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:28,239
Speaker 1: autopsy showed that he died of being unable to regurgitate

942
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:31,239
Speaker 1: food he choked to death on him. But there were

943
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:37,000
Speaker 1: also rumors that something terrible had happened at his son's home,

944
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:41,200
Speaker 1: but no one could tell exactly what happened. And in

945
00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, I'm not to do my own horn here,

946
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:48,640
Speaker 1: but I went out to Avlene and I met Judge

947
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:51,720
Speaker 1: Samuel Matta, and I told him what I was interested

948
00:56:51,800 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 1: in and written him ahead of time, and he got

949
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: the sealed police report out and which had been sealed

950
00:56:59,560 --> 00:57:04,959
Speaker 1: since no charges wherever bought, and he found away from

951
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:09,200
Speaker 1: me to get access to it even though it was sealed.

952
00:57:10,840 --> 00:57:12,359
Speaker 3: I had to read the book to find out.

953
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:16,840
Speaker 1: And if you want to find out this, uh his death,

954
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 1: which as I said, certainly has kind of biblical overtones,

955
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 1: just read the story of Cannon Abel you read the book.

956
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 6: Well, I am just an old rebel reckon, that is

957
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:33,640
Speaker 6: all I am. For this carpet bag of government. I

958
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 6: do not give a dad blame. I'm glad I fit

959
00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:39,160
Speaker 6: again it I'll keep fighting.

960
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:39,520
Speaker 3: Till we won.

961
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:46,000
Speaker 6: And I don't want no pardon for nothing that I've done. No,

962
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:48,480
Speaker 6: I don't want no pardon for what I was nor

963
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 6: what I am. And I won't be reconstructed and I

964
00:57:53,640 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 6: don't give a dad blame. This is a Sokarta may

965
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 6: God bless you, and I thank you for listen.

966
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:15,960
Speaker 3: Doctor Dan T.

967
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:20,200
Speaker 2: Carter's book Unmasking the Klansmen was published in April twenty

968
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 2: twenty three. You can find it on Amazon and just

969
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 2: about anywhere books are sold. I can't thank you enough

970
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:31,120
Speaker 2: for listening to bear Grease. Be sure to listen to

971
00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 2: the undercover agent who's been assigned to play the long

972
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 2: game on me, Brent Reeves and his new podcast, This

973
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 2: Country Life.

974
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:41,440
Speaker 3: It's on the bear Grease feed.

975
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 2: And one day, when I'm busted for crimes I've never committed,

976
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 2: it'll make a great story. In the meantime, check out

977
00:58:49,240 --> 00:58:52,640
Speaker 2: This Country Life, released every Friday on the bear Grease

978
00:58:52,720 --> 00:58:57,040
Speaker 2: podcast feed, and be sure to check out First Light's

979
00:58:57,120 --> 00:59:01,320
Speaker 2: new trace pant and jacket system for lightweight, breathable hunting

980
00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 2: gear for the South.

981
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 3: I look forward to talking to all the folks on

982
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:09,200
Speaker 3: the bear Grease Render next week. Talk to you soon.