WEBVTT - Ep. 106: Conman - Asa Carter (Part 2) 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:07.880 I've started going door to door trying to find out 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:10.920 something about the most famous writer of this area, man 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:15.440 named Asa Carter Rolle under the pen name of Forest Carter. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.840 She said, get out of here and don't come back. 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.159 This is part two of our con Man series on 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.280 the double life of as of Forrest Carter. We're diving 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.760 into the gritty details of the violence, hate, and conspiracy 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:33.760 philosophies that theme the first forty five years of his 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.760 life and how in the last decade of his life 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:42.280 he transformed into an unrecognizable Cherokee Indian author who wanted 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.400 to be America's next heming Way and he almost did 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:51.120 it once again. Author of Unmasking the Klansman, doctor Dan T. Carter, 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.680 and Steve Runella of Meat Eater lead the way, as 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:59.960 my guests, brace yourself because our windy trail will be treacherous. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.120 As we'll talk about the beating of jazz singer Nat 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.959 King Cole read from the Unibomber's manifesto, and we'll begin 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.440 to understand how Asa Carter did what he did. We're 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.800 going neck deep into the mind of a con man 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:15.959 for real. 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:17.840 I don't think you're gonna want to miss this. 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:18.280 One. 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.759 If you were shooting for race to instill racial hatred, 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.760 you missed the mark. If you're shooting to make you 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:26.880 love for your grandparents. 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:37.600 Yeah, my name is Klay Nukem, and this is the 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:42.400 Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.480 search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.280 the story of Americans who live their lives close to 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:56.559 the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:00.320 hunting and fishing gear as designed to be as good 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.040 as the places we explored. 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:10.960 While I was in the middle of doing my research 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:16.320 on the Wallace biography George Wallace, I watched the educational 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.680 Little Tree Climb. From being a university press book with 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.799 five thousand printing of five thousand books, suddenly it was 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.720 one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, and it was on 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:32.839 the New York Times bestseller list. And as I considered it, 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.760 I was probably more indignant than I should have been. 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:38.160 I thought, this is the guy, this is a lie. 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.680 And I read the book. I thought, there's nothing wrong 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:43.840 with the book, but there is something wrong with claiming 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.240 to be some Native American, having an Indian ancestry and 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:53.240 using it to sell your book. So I contacted the 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:57.920 New York Times, and actually when I first contacted they 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:02.840 didn't believe me. They said, no, he has a long 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:07.280 record as a novelist. So I sent him a statement 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:12.280 from the ambulance driver who he died in nineteen seventy 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:17.160 nine in Abilene after a biblical death that I described 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:21.160 in the book, and he was shipped out of Abilene 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:26.520 by air as Forrest Carter and the herse driver I 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.160 talked to, who said, all I know is when he 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.840 arrived he was Forrest Carter, and when I buried him, 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:34.760 he was Acer Carter. 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:38.880 That was doctor Dan T. Carter. 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.880 He's no relation to Asa. And on episode one of 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.000 our Cotton Man series, we dove deep into the contents 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.760 of a book published in nineteen seventy six called The 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.640 Education of Little Tree, written by a man who claimed 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.240 he was a Cherokee Indian named Forrest Carter, and his 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:59.280 book was semi autobiographical. It's brilliant prose about an orphan 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.400 Native America boy raised by his grandparents while being taught 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.400 moral lessons about life through their connection to the land 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.040 and the people in their community. 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:10.920 It gives poignant insight. 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.640 Into empathy, love, and integrity towards all shades of people 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:21.200 except politicians, the government, and anything organized and institutionalized by man, 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.600 which all these things are inherently corrupt. This all sounds 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.919 pretty reasonable. Moonshine and deer hunting, fox hunting with hounds, 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:35.479 predator prey relationships, turkey trapping mules, whooper will lore, and 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.960 how to tell when a watermelon is ripe is all in. 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:40.080 The book too. 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.440 It teems with the rich mountain culture of the Great 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:49.000 Depression era impoverished Southern Appalachia. However, there's a catch that 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.920 was relatively unknown until nineteen ninety one when a New 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.280 York Times article by doctor Dan T. Carter, who we 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:01.240 just talked to expose the author as a Carter. And 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.279 he wasn't a Cherokee Indian, but he was an ardent 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.919 white supremacist, considered radical even by others in the movement. 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.200 He was a leader in the klu Klux Klan, under 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.159 constant surveillance from the FBI. He was involved in several 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.120 acts of violence, and he was a speech writer for 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:24.559 Alabama Governor George Wallace Asa. Carter was a con man. 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.880 He was a professional white supremacist, dedicated to his craft. 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.800 He was a wordsmith, an orator, an actor. He had 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.680 an IQ of one hundred and thirty eight, and some 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.240 considered him a media and marketing genius. 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:46.520 And I say segregation now, segregation to Mara, and segregation forever. 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:54.000 Those famous words spoken by George Wallace were written by 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:58.599 Asa Carter. Today there is a one thousand page FBI 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.760 folder holding all all the surveillance done on Asa. He 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.559 was suspicioned to be a dangerous man? Is that why 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.120 he had to change his identity? But the latter part 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:14.320 of his life, his writing, did that evidence a changed man. 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.640 We're contrasting the two external data points we have on 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.680 his life. Number one a brilliant book of empathy to 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:25.680 Native Americans and number two, a professional life dedicated to 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:31.000 racial supremacy. Racism is typically rooted in a desire to 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.159 preserve one's culture at the detriment of another. It's the 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:40.040 manifestation of a fear and insecurity. But it's also misguided 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:44.840 love of one's own culture. But loving your culture isn't 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.480 necessarily a bad thing. I'd say most people of the 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.239 world appreciate their culture. But if we're trying to really 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.640 understand who Asa Carter was. I think we've got to 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.960 see and acknowledge the mechanics at play. In Ace's case, 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:04.040 he was very interested in preserving the Anglo Saxon South, 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.440 which he believed had been taken advantage of in the 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:13.000 post Civil War reconstruction, which isn't an outlandish statement. However, 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:17.360 the philosophy of his hate preyed on people's bitterness, weakness, 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:22.480 and fear. The rudimentary, carnal, corrupt ideology produced nothing but 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.960 more brokenness. What makes crazy men so dangerous is how 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:32.320 close they are to being incredibly normal. I'd also like 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:35.720 to say that I'm not telling this story to demonize 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.240 the South, nor suggests that we're a bunch of racists 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:39.840 down here. 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.040 On the contrary, this. 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.320 Story is so extreme it stands out like a strutton 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.679 gobbler in a wheat field. To say that the South 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.600 hasn't massively moved forward in racial reconciliation since the Jim 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:58.080 Crow days would be inaccurate, And it would be as 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.920 inaccurate to say that Rayism doesn't exist here in twenty 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.160 twenty three. And I think stories like this are important 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.840 to talk about. I think it helps us understand where 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.880 some of this stuff comes from and how to fix it. 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.040 It's important to remember that Asa Carter died at the 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.400 age of fifty four in nineteen seventy nine, the year 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.240 I was born, So we're just guessing about his motivations. 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:26.560 Here's doctor Dan T. Carter, who I'm gonna call Dan 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.760 to keep things simple on this podcast, who is now 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.000 eighty one years old and sharp as attack. He's going 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.800 to tell us about his on the ground research on 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:37.960 Asa in the nineteen nineties. 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:44.640 Well, the summer nineteen ninety one, when the posthumous book 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:47.640 Education Little Tree became so popular, I thought I gotta 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.840 fine something about this guy. So I had been in 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.360 Alabama doing a lot of research, and I drove up 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.680 to Aniston, went to the local library. They were very helpful, 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.760 but I couldn't exact actually find out where he lived. 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.440 I knew the area, Darmanville. It was called a rural area, 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.040 so I drove out there. My life was with me 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.280 and and I think, I'm I could be a con man. 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:19.240 I guess uh. I was never dishonest with anybody, but 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.400 I would always say I'd go up to doors or busy. 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:27.079 I went to several small businesses there and said I'm 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.280 trying to find out something about the most famous writer 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:33.880 of the area, man named Asa Carter Rolle under the 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:38.439 pen name of Forest Carter. Uh, and uh, everybody either 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.880 cleaned they didn't know anything. But then I started going 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:44.560 door to door and. 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.120 Uh, this is real journalism. 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.440 And some fair number of people didn't you know. They 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.520 were younger, they didn't know, but it was older people 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.320 without accept I started to say almost but without exception, 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.480 they either became hostile or they wouldn't talk to me. 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.920 And years later, when I got the FBI files, I 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.079 found out why the local community resented the fact that 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.720 when he was active as a right wing radio announcer 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.439 and everything lived there, he was under constant suspicion by 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.439 the FBI. They were constantly monitoring, They follow him, they 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.120 park at the end of his driveway. And this is 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.240 the middle of the Civil rights movement. These people didn't 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:29.800 like government people anyway, and they saw this kind of 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:31.719 persecution of their hometown. 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:32.520 Boy. 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.800 So I finally found a small engine shop and I 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.160 talked to the guy. He said, I don't know anything 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.000 about him, what he did. He just didn't want to 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.440 talk to me. And as I left, one of the 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.920 mechanics older guy walked out behind and he motioned me 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.080 over and I went over and he said, well listen. 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.720 He said, I wasn't one of Asi's boys, he said 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:58.480 boys part of his clan group. But he said, I 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.760 know a boy he said, who's real good friends with 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.959 ASA's son, Asa Jr. And I said, I'll tell you 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:07.200 how to find his house. So I drove up there, 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:12.679 went inside, talked to his wife first, and she got 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.880 her husband. She was cheerful in everything, and he came 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.400 down and I explained what I wanted in didn't sale word. 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.520 He went back upstairs. I could hear him on the phone, 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:26.120 but I couldn't hear what he was saying, and his 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.720 wife was kind of embarrassed. She said, I don't know 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:31.040 what's going So she walked up the stairs to the 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.000 top of the stairs for a minute. She came running 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.720 down the stairs. She said, get out of here right now, 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:38.800 and I said, what do you mean. She said, get 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:42.960 out of here and don't come back. And I don't 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:45.679 know what he was promising to do, but it clearly 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.640 was not a good idea to stay there. So I 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.160 left and he came running out on the porch just 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:52.719 as I drove off. 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:58.319 He was hot. Dan would later receive some veiled threats 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.240 of violence from others after or his New York Times 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:05.400 story broke neighbors standing up for the reputation of neighbors 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:09.720 is conceivable, but so was violence in the stratosphere of 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:15.240 as of Carter's. On April tenth, nineteen fifty six, jazz 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:19.880 singer Nat King Cole was attacked on stage in Birmingham, Alabama, 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.000 and members of ass klu Klux Klan group did it well. 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:26.960 They say that the reason I was man attack here 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.199 was because of a feeling against rock and roll of 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.040 music and Negro music so called. 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:34.560 Now what do you feel about that? 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:35.480 What I mean? 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:37.280 If that was the case, then I'm the wrong guy. 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:40.520 You're not rock and roll. I don't think so. 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:42.280 I think if you heard me before, I'm sure you 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:42.960 would ask me that. 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.160 If you heard me before, what do you know what 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:46.079 rock and roll is? 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.800 That was Nat king Cole being interviewed about the attack. 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.679 The Klan was very concerned about the racial crossover popularity 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:01.320 of black musicians and the danger craze of rock and 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.320 roll music. Six men were arrested for the attack, and 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.000 ASA Carter would set up a legal defense fund for them, 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.920 declaring them political prisoners. Asa was incredibly media savvy and 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.720 knew how to turn a story. In a non related incident, 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:22.160 Asa would be accused but acquitted of shooting two men 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.920 with a forty four magnum at a clan meeting in 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.960 downtown Birmingham. These men had accused him of stealing money 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.960 and he shot him. Lots of people saw it happen, 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:36.400 but nobody would talk against Asa, so they had no evidence. 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:40.280 But it's widely believed that he did shoot these men. 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.120 But let's get back to Dan being in Alabama in 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.760 the early nineteen nineties trying to learn about Asa. I 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.440 asked him how Asa could have pulled off this double 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.240 life so well. 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:57.040 It's partly the power of his skills. When he was 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.640 in high school, I interviewed one of his high school 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:04.880 friends and he was in a high school play. And 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:09.600 this classmate of his said it was embarrassing, and I said, 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.480 because he was bad. He said, no, is because the 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.200 rest of these were high school kids and he was 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.640 like a Hollywood actor. He was totally at ease. 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:20.240 On the stage. 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:25.240 His lines were delivered like a professional actor, and it. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.800 Made the whole made it awkward. 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.520 To watch. You know, so from the very beginning he 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:36.040 had these skills. When he decided after he got out 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.800 of the Navy to go to the work to University 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.920 of Colorado. He had done his naval training there during 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.240 the war. He had graduated from high school, but it 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.800 was a rural high school in Alabama, and the entrance 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:51.880 person at the University of Colorado, well, I don't know 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.080 about this, so would you mind taking IQ test? It 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.640 was one hundred and thirty eight. So there was never 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:03.200 any doubt about how really smart he was. He made 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.600 a lot of political misjudgments, but in terms of intelligence, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:10.200 he was very capable and a great performer. 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:13.400 He was like a Hollywood actor. 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.800 Asa was gifted with words, with reading people and had 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:22.440 instinctual insight into the way humans operated, what compelled them, 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.960 what scared them, what moved them. Most dynamic leaders have 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:31.800 this capability. He knew what people wanted to hear. Here's 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.680 Dan with some of Ace's deep background. 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.800 Asa Carter's had a background very much like mine. He 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:44.400 grew up on a small farm in northeast Alabama, near Anniston, 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:51.160 and there's no evidence at all during his high school 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.840 years from his classmates that he was anything other than 0:15:55.880 --> 0:16:00.520 a typical white Southern boy. I mean, sure all of 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.360 us of that generation, his generation even up to mine, 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:09.640 were unconsciously racist, but there's nothing to indicate he was 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.760 viril und about it at all or even obsessed about it. 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.240 So there was nothing, you know, in his early childhood 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:20.360 that indicated this. And then he had some traumatic event. 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.160 He enlisted in the Navy in the officer training program 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.960 in nineteen forty three, and he flucked out, not because 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.520 he wasn't smart, but because he was. He went to 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.480 a rural high school that just did not prepare him 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.400 for the rigorous kind of program involving mathematics and other things. 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:42.040 He just didn't have the background, and it really embittered him. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.120 And he was now eighteen, almost nineteen years old. He 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.960 goes in the Navy. He becomes a radio operator, a 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:54.280 very courageous one. He serves in combat. But while he's 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.680 on a ship in the Pacific, he meets a small 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.440 group of people who are studying a series of race acist, 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:05.080 anti submitted anti black writers. Gerald L. K. Smith names 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.600 that you might not be familiar with the day, but 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.560 were really big in the nineteen thirties and forties. Many 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.960 of them growing out of the fascist movement of the 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:19.800 nineteen thirties, and they couldn't talk about during the war. 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.240 Obviously we were all in the war against it, but 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:29.639 secretly many of them really really supported Hitler and they 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.359 were fine with the war against Japan. That was why 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.360 Carter always said, I was glad to fight the Japs, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:41.439 but I didn't want to fight my Aaryan brothers. And 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.720 he became obsessed with this during the time he was 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.800 the Navy, and that was a turning point in his life. 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.800 Think about it for most of us young people, and 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.120 I know this from studies as well, that your real 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.359 political outlook, if you have a political outlook, is often 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.000 shaped eighteen nineteen twenty, when you're becoming an adult. That's 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.480 exactly the time for him, and then from then on 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.119 he was one of these they what's the word for 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.639 auto dad act in which you teach yourself? He read, 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.879 He had a brilliant IQ. He read, but he read 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:23.640 exclusively in two kinds of literature. One was fascist literature, 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:29.320 adi submitic literature. The other was this veneration for the Confederacy. 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.760 He worshiped the Confederacy and saw in the in not 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.960 the fancy Confederates like Robert E. Lee and these, but 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:43.240 in the in the tobaccachewing kind of people like Nathan 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.280 Bedford Forrest who could barely read and write, but fought 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:53.720 like to maintain, you know, the white South in the Confederacy. 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:58.159 And these became his heroes, and he gradually developed a 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:02.000 whole way of appealing to people. He started out as 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:06.240 a radio announcer in Denver after the war. Then he 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:09.199 worked in Yazoo City, Mississippi a little while, and then 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.640 he was hired and given a radio program that gradually 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:13.879 spread to a network. 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.560 In eighteen sixty five, this state right here, after the 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.280 war between the States, was occupied by a federal line 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.480 and one year they confiscated one hundred and ninety thousand 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.760 farms and homes from these bold ridden that great Grande advirus, 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.959 but they refuged in a great they refused to cooperate. 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:33.960 In eighteen seventy four. 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:34.600 They whipped them. 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:40.600 They whipped them. That was the voice of ASA. 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.800 I've listened to many of his broadcasts, and he was 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:51.040 really good. It's quite different from the broadcast many of 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:55.560 the broadcasters of the period who were stentorium and what 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.320 today makes you kind of cringe to listen to them. 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.840 They had this kind of booming voice which everything was 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.720 overly dramatized. That's not the way he was. He acted 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.399 like he was your uncle who sat down and just 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:12.080 talked casually to you. 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.399 So it was different. It was a different frequency that 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:16.480 he could connect. 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:21.760 Tone. Yeah, and he was so good at a kind 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.399 of folksy style in which he would tell stories about 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.359 most of them made up, but about his past or 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.760 about other people, and then he would always link it 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:35.920 back to the threat. He was smart enough to realize 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:41.119 that any Semitism, particularly after the Holocaust and the news 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.640 about the Holocaust didn't play very well. That didn't mean 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:48.280 it wasn't there. There were a large number of Americans 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.240 who were still any Jewish, but he realized it was 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.600 kind of a third realm, so he didn't talk about 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.600 that much on his radio show. What he did discover 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.359 was the great weapon that white supremises had in the South, 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:08.000 any communism, because the anti communist fervor of the nineteen 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:13.560 forties and nineteen fifties explodes with McCarthyism, and what white 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:19.359 Southerners immediately realized, because there were some savvy politicians for us, 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:24.080 we have to convince white Americans outside the South that 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.119 all the civil rights stuff is being formatted by the 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.280 communists in the South. 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:36.560 We have ninety eight percent a Globe Saxon rating. Not King. 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.200 He is the responsible people who are record free government 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.880 and who are good at and golden. You must operate. 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:49.479 You might conduct your down from a different station. They 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:55.240 can have any day, one world government, one world, one 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:55.880 world in. 0:21:57.320 --> 0:21:59.040 One world rad. 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:03.920 Those are heavy words. 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.240 It's hard to reconcile that he's the guy that wrote 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:11.000 the Education of Littletree. The political play was to say 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.720 that the communists were behind the civil rights movement. Whether 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.960 he believed that or not, we don't really know. Some 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:21.440 evidence would later suggest that he didn't believe that at all, 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.280 but it was just a political strategy. What many of 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:29.639 since said is that Ace's public career in media was 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:34.240 him playing an exaggerated character that he believed the South wanted, 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:38.600 And therein lies the problem with political leaders and most 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.600 media personalities. They've got to get ratings and votes, so 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:47.160 they do what sells, and like a nasty social media algorithm, 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:51.200 they give the people their base level desires of what 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:55.000 they think they want. Do you realize how nasty and 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:59.320 dirty social media algorithms are they'll feed you and your 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.920 kids bill and tell you it's a favor In media 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.960 and politics do the same thing. Do you see these 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:13.720 reoccurring themes in American politics? Here's Dan on anti communism. 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:17.359 And that became the theme, his theme and that of 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:21.640 other right when radio broadcasters, not only southern but northern 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:26.240 as well, that the Communist Party is maneuvering these people, 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:29.480 that they're not smart enough to do it on their 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:33.920 own and in their publications as opposed to their sort 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:37.680 of inner publication is really the Jews that were behind it, 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:41.400 and there would be it would sort of be on 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:44.560 the periphery all the time, so that, for example, in 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:48.119 his broadcast and broadcast of many of these people, they 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:54.359 would often emphasize the Jewish names of individuals who supported 0:23:54.400 --> 0:23:58.600 civil rights because it was true as a whole Jewish 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:03.080 Americans were a group that were much more supportive of 0:24:03.160 --> 0:24:08.080 African Americans than generally white Americans were. So he was 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:11.720 able to get away with it mostly. He did run 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:15.600 into a problem. In nineteen fifty five, he overstepped himself 0:24:15.640 --> 0:24:18.640 and on a radio broadcast he talked about the Jews 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:23.840 and their role informenting this. And actually it was a 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:27.760 group of white businessmen who were closely tied to the 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:32.920 Jewish community in Birmingham who said to his sponsors, you 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:36.800 got to get rid of this guy. And they succeeded, 0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:40.960 and that just reinforced his belief the Jews were behind. 0:24:41.000 --> 0:24:45.800 They fired me from my job. He later ended up 0:24:45.840 --> 0:24:49.119 doing other radio broadcasts, but never as successfully as he 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:49.960 originally was. 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:56.119 Asa became so radical that he outpaced his peers, but 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:59.200 deep down he believed the Jews were behind the civil 0:24:59.280 --> 0:25:03.080 rights movement and they intended to deconstruct the current South. 0:25:03.880 --> 0:25:06.560 What's odd to me is it seems like a lot 0:25:06.600 --> 0:25:10.800 of people were interested in deconstructing the South. Here's an 0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:15.200 interesting observation from Steve Ranella about Ace's book The Education 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:19.000 of Little Tree. Some of this just doesn't make any sense. 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:22.800 Here's no one I stumbled over knowing about the presumptive 0:25:23.560 --> 0:25:28.960 feelings of this clansman, okay, and their antipathy and hatred 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:33.439