WEBVTT - Our Existential Moment 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.760 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Book f Daily with 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:19.360 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker, Folks. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:25.800 Today's conversation is one that takes a deep dive into 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:31.800 American history through the lens of Hubert Humphrey. I sit 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:36.479 down and chat with author Samuel Friedman to discuss his 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:41.000 new book, Into the Bright Sunshine, Young Hubert Humphrey and 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:45.520 the Fight for Civil Rights. Why this is really interesting, 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.479 other than the fact that Samuel Friedman is an award 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.080 winning author, journalist, and educator and was a finalist for 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:56.120 the Pulitzer, is that the time that he outlines, the 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:01.360 timeline that he outlines in his book very much mirrors 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.840 the time frame that we are living in right now, 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:10.040 where you are seeing a lot of the rights and 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:16.760 protections and dissemination of equity that we have been participating 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:21.280 in over the last fifty years be rescinded, and in 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:26.440 his book he is looking at how those rights came 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:30.640 to be and who was pushing back and who was 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:35.399 upholding white supremacy. And again, what is old is new again. 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:40.480 History oftentimes repeats itself when we don't disrupt the patterns 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.759 of behavior and get to the root and the core 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:47.240 of the issues. And so in this conversation we talk 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:55.800 about how public schools came to be, how segregation transpired, 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:01.760 and what Hubert Humphrey's role was in all of this 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:06.320 in creating the progressive movement as we know and understand 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.040 it today, That's not the name that it went by 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.520 at that time. But essentially, the people that were pushing 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:17.640 back against Hubert Humphrey, the people that were wanting to 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:22.520 institute and did institute Jim Crow and uphold segregation, are 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.640 the same people that are banning books, and that are 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.800 intimidating school teachers, and are racing black culture and are 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:34.800 overturning affirmative action now right. We love to tell ourselves 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.399 the lies that, oh, well, racism will die out. Well, 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:43.880 no it doesn't, because the people white Americans who uphold 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.359 a racist ideology give birth to children for whom they 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.000 pass down that information too. And so that's how we 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:56.160 end up in this cyclical place. What's unfortunate, though, is 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.440 that I'll ask Samuel, you know, what do you see 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:04.040 different this time? Is there any hopefulness that you see 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.920 in this time that can signal that this may not 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.840 be the end of days how we discuss it, and 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.799 so we get into that conversation. I hope you all 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.560 enjoy this and that you pick up his book if 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.560 you were looking for some historical things to read, which 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.200 I always think is really helpful when we're in such 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.720 a period of upheaval. And again, his book is entitled 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.840 Into the Bright Sunshine, Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:40.600 for Civil Rights. Folks, I am very happy to welcome 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.560 to WOKF Daily Samuel G. Friedman, who is an award 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.560 winning author, journalist, and educator and had been a finalist 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.320 for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.040 has won a National Jewish Book Award and New York 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.840 Public Libraries Helen Bernstein Award in his new book, Into 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:03.280 the Bright Sunshine and Young Herbert Hubert Humphrey and the 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:08.400 Fight for Civil Rights. In this book, Samuel, you go 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:14.160 into it's almost odd that nineteen forty eight, it's almost 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:19.279 scary that the timeframe that you're covering and the rise 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:23.320 of Humphrey and the rise of I guess liberal politics 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:28.960 as we know it, where he was and where we 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.279 are now is almost as if we're looking in a mirror. 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.760 You're You're so right, Danielle. You know, when I started 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.839 working on this book in early twenty fifteen, we're in 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:44.280 the second Obama presidential term. Marriage equality was a few 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.320 months away from being enshrined by the Supreme Court, and 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.040 I thought I was working on a really important work 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:53.719 of narrative history about this overlooked chapter in civil rights 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.560 history that takes place during the nineteen forties. But then 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:59.120 once we got past November twenty sixteen and we know 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.599 what happened, I realized that what I was writing about 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.560 was a parallel set of experiences to what we've been 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.680 living with in this country for the last seven years now, 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:14.920 which is this battle between inclusive, interracial, interfaith democracy and 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.000 forces of authoritarianism. And that was the same battle Humphrey 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.920 was fighting. And the terms that were applied to his 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:27.080 foes are the same ones we apply to our foes 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:33.240 these days, white supremacist, Christian nationalist America firster. And I 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.480 don't think that the moral of the story is that 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:38.640 no progress has ever made. But I think the very 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.200 important moral of the story is that you can't get 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:46.200 complacent after you've made progress, that battles continue to need 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.719 to be fought and that every time there's been a 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:55.920 period of progress in this country towards progress on inclusive 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.880 democracy and greater social equality, is followed by a backlash, 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.240 and then you have to push back and turn against 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:04.360 that backlash. 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:09.120 Can you set the stage of where where we were 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:14.359 as a country when Humphrey gave his speech with regard 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.400 to the fact that we needed to move into what 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.120 we refer to now as a multiracial democracy. 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:25.719 Sure, that's a great question, Danielle. The speech you're referring 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.320 to as a speech, Humphrey gives it the Democratic Convention 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.880 July fourteenth, nineteen forty eight, so almost exactly seventy five 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.440 years ago. What really sets the stage for that and 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.640 sets the state for that battle over what a multiracial 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.920 democracy is going to be is very much World War 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:47.000 two actually, and the moral claim that black Gis and 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.920 also Jewish Gis have on the conscients of the United States, 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.000 because in that war you have people who were othered 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.440 in this country, who are treated as second class citizens 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:02.320 or worse, who go to war to defeat different forms 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.080 of fascism and racial and religious supremacy in Nazi Germany, 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:10.800 Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and the Black Gis formed this 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.360 term in this concept that they call double V double victory, 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.320 and it means we're going to defeat fascism abroad and 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.040 then we're going to come home and stake our claim 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.160 to defeating fascism in the United States. And the Jewish 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:29.440 Gis didn't have any phrase as eloquent and succinct as 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.200 double V. But they had the same idea that we're 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.600 going to fight on behalf of this country, which, although 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.800 it doesn't clinch us, treats us definitely second class citizens, 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:41.960 and we're going to come back and demand our equality 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.600 in this country. And so that really led to a 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.920 conversation in the United States during the latter years of 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.160 the war, when it was clear we were going to 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.559 win the war, and definitely in a couple of years after, 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.840 of America's unfinished agenda, and how do we make this 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.600 more inclusive society? And the reason it really telescoped into 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:04.000 the Democratic Party in the Democratic Convention is that at 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.880 that time we're coming out of four elections of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.560 thirteen years in office until he dies in office and 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.280 Harry Truman takes over. And of course, in many ways 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.440 Roosevelt is the great American liberal president of all time 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.120 because of the New Deal, the social compact that it created. 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:25.320 But in order at least as FDR saw it, to 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:27.680 keep getting elected and keep being able to enact New 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.680 Deal legislation, he made what I think was literally a 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:35.760 devil's bargain with the Southern segregationists in the Democratic Party. 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:38.959 And I know now we look at the Republican Party, 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.000 especially in the South, as being the party of white supremacy, 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:45.880 but actually back in the forties and for many decades before, 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.520 it was completely reversed the Republican Party because it had 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.480 been the Party of Lincoln and the Union was abhorred 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.160 by Southern bigots, and the Democratic Party was seen as 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:01.400 the protector of white supremacy. And Jim Crow FDR decided, 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.880 I need the electoral votes from the South to win 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.160 in November. I need the support of these Southern legislators 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:12.400 in Congress to enact my legislation. And so what I'm 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.679 going to let them do is implement New Deal legislation 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.440 on a segregated basis. And in some cases FDR went 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.440 so far as to have New Deal legislation written and 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.560 signed by him to really enshrine racial inequality. Just one 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.360 quick example. A lot of us are familiar with Social Security, right, 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:37.280 social Security was written to omit agricultural workers and domestic workers. Well, 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.680 guess what ninety percent of the working black citizens in 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.240 the South did agriculture work and domestic work. So that 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.560 was clearly a way to carve out black citizens in 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.679 the South from the provisions of the New Deal. And 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:56.000 so that created this unbearable tension within the Democratic Party 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.600 of are we going to continue to do that in 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.839 more but supposedly pragmatic system of letting the South have 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.120 segregation and the rest of the party being fairly liberal 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:12.640 organized labor or been Catholics or been Jews a significant 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.680 number of blacks in the North, although many still voted 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.400 for the Republican Party and the liberal intellectuals. Or are 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.560 we going to call the question and say you can't 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.000 have it both ways. You can't say you're the party 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:30.920 of liberalism and the social Compact and omit millions upon 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:35.360 millions of Black Americans and also tacitly tolerate a great 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:39.600 deal of anti Semitism as well. And all of that 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.720 comes to boil at the nineteen forty eight Democratic Convention 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:45.160 because Harry Truman, who has kind of gone back and 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:49.720 forth on civil rights, sometimes being rather bold and sometimes 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.840 being very timid, is at this moment in his timid phase. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.760 He just wants a quiet convention, pass a platform that 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:01.520 has very pallid, ambiguous civil rights playing collect ones for 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.000 FDR always did, and keep the votes of the South. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.040 And it's impossible. The Southerners already are threatening to mutiny, 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:15.360 and the liberals, led very much by Hubert Humphrey, are saying, 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.520 as he actually says in this convention speech, it's one 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.040 hundred and seventy two years too late to endorse equal 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.760 rights by race. We're way overdue on this. And that's 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:30.720 what comes to play for these four incredible, turbulent, sweltering 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:32.240 days in Philadelphia. 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:40.200 You know what's so interesting to me, right, as somebody 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:44.400 who follows and covers and analyzes current events and our 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.640 current political system, is how much of what is old 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.440 is always new again, right, And the fact being that 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:57.800 as a country, we have never reckoned with our founding, 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.560 We have never reckoned with the the policies that have 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.360 been applauded like the New Deal right that helped shape 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:10.040 the middle class, but in so many ways excluded purposefully 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.439 black people, people of color and indigenous people in this country. Right, 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.480 And so we find ourselves in this moment. You know, 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.240 we can go back to you know, pre Trump to 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:25.120 Obama years where many had said, well, we finally arrived, right, 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.400 we have finally we were actualizing the dream and the 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.560 vision of what this country should have been, right and 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:36.200 could have been. I often, frankly think about who would 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:41.120 America be now had Reconstruction been allowed to continue, had 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:46.600 Reconstruction lasted from when it started until this moment, what 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:49.400 would America look like? What would our GDP look like? 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:54.440 You're right, You're absolutely right. And this your point goes 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.320 to something I thought about a lot, which is these 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:05.479 repeating cycles in American history of Ussian resistance, emancipation, progress, backlash, 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.160 and that goes, rinse and repeat at various points in 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.120 our history. One you already named Reconstruction, which is cut 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:17.320 off by white terrorism and political cowardice after about ten years. 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.679 The second time is after the period of mass immigration 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.600 from Eastern and Southern Europe, when immigration gets cut off 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:31.760 in nineteen twenty four. The third time is after this movement. 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.000 The Freedom movement begins in the nineteen fifties with Montgomery 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.600 bus boycott and Brown versus Board of bed and you 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.320 have the policy in the South of what's called massive resistance. 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:43.160 And then the fourth is after the election of Barack 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:47.280 Obama and the sense the naive idea of being post racial, 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.680 which I never bought into, but certainly the idea that 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.640 we're now seeing a rising multiracial coalition which is the 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:57.560 future of this country. And what we get trump Ism 0:13:57.760 --> 0:13:59.079 as the ultimate. 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:02.920 Backlash, you know. And so here we are, right, all 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.160 of the policies, many of the policies, not all, but 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:10.319 many of the policies that Humphrey lifted up right are 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.440 being challenged at this very moment. Look, we can look 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:18.440 at this last session of the Supreme Court and watch 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.760 how the white lash wasn't just one that is based 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:26.240 purely in politics in terms of an election, but now 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.800 is a judicial backlash based on the fact of who 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.400 was able to see three Supreme Court justices and turn 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.520 and weaponize the Supreme Court of the United States to 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:40.440 erode the fifty years of progress that were hard to win. 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.400 Whether we're looking at abortion or we're looking at affirmative action, 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:48.440 we're looking at LGBTQ equality and access, and so when 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.640 you look at this moment that we're in, which is 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:56.240 clearly in the whitelash moment, right, that's clearly where we are. Yes, 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:02.760 do you see that they is sam an opportunity for 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:08.360 us to learn from this phase? Or is this like 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.480 are we I guess the question that I'm asking is 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.720 is this rinse and repeat cycle that we have always 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.360 that we continue to go through in America? Is this 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.200 one worse than what we have ever seen? 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:26.680 That last question is profound. It's hard not to feel 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.760 like trump Ism is worse. But that's just because it's 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:31.240 what we're living through right now. 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:31.720 Right. 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.160 You know, I was a little too young to have 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.640 firsthand memories of the worst of the church bombings and 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:43.600 other forms of white terrorism against civil rights workers and 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:49.000 long before I'm born. Is the terrorism that destroys reconstruction 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.080 and ushers in Jim Crow. So I don't know how 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.920 one could assess which is worse than the others. They're 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.600 all horrific enough in and of themselves. And there are 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:03.480 a couple of important lessons from Humphrey's example. I should 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:07.120 say that what happened in forty HS, so your listeners understand, 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.040 is over and against Harriet Truman's desire to avoid the 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.360 civil rights issue, and over and against the Southern segregationist 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.600 threat to leave the party in the convention, which they do. 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:22.880 Humphrey gives this spellbinding speech which convinces the delegates to 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.360 vote in favor of a firm civil rights plank for 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.920 the first time ever. And the famous phrase which I 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:29.800 use in my book title is he says, it's time 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.400 for the Democratic Party to walk out of the shadow 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.600 of states rights and into the bright sunshine of human rights. 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.520 A couple of key takeaways from how he accomplished it. 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.160 This was a case at the forty eight Convention of 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.840 what I call mister inside and mister outside, and the 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:54.119 need for a symbiotic relationship between canny, savvy political maneuvering 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.080 and mass mobilization. Humphrey was mister inside. He and his 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:03.160 allies were inside the convention mention talking to delegates, getting 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.680 their votes in line, obviously making great eloquent case from 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:12.240 the pulpit, and meanwhile outside, the great labor and civil 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.120 rights leader A. Philip Randolph was literally outside the convention 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:19.119 hall picketing. Because Randolph had been threatening for months a 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.680 campaign of massive black draft resistance if Harry Truman didn't 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.640 desegregate the military. That was one of the key civil 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.480 rights issues of that moment, you know, desegregating the military, 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.320 fair Employment Practices Commission, and anti lynching laws were probably 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.600 the three biggest items on the civil rights agenda. And 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.639 Humphrey and people from Randolph's Union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.080 car Porters are writing letters back and forth after the 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.359 convention saying, I couldn't have done it without you. So 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:49.639 they recognized you needed pressure from the outside in the 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.600 form of the prospect of massive black draft resistance, and 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:57.200 he also needed political acumen and idealism from the inside. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.560 And I think that's the lesson now, it's not one 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.840 worthy whether you need both. I think another important lesson 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.359 of Humphrey in this era when some of us have 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.960 realized there are never trumpers who we never thought would 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.800 be our allies on certain issues but have become vital allies, 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.240 is that Humphrey was really adroit at finding people to 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.919 ally with on his civil rights agenda, especially when he 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.359 was mayor of Minneapolis, even before becoming a national level politician. 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.239 And he could find people who would disagree with on 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.159 other issues, but a if they had a fundamentally decent soul, 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.920 and b if they would agree with him on concrete 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.760 elements of civil rights, like fair employment practices and and 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:41.880 restrictive covenants and so forth, he would keep them as 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.160 his allies. He'd have people labor and management, people who'd 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.760 be on literally opposite sides of strikes, but would jointly 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.160 be working with him for civil rights. And I think 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:55.680 that ability to build issue based coalitions when you need 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:57.960 them is another good lesson, and I do think it's 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.120 one that a lot of us have been act really enacting. 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.880 And you know, you brought up the demolition of abortion 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.920 rights by the Supreme Court. We've looked at a lot 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.720 of women and probably some men too, who in elections 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.680 have voted on the basis of those rights being taken away. 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.639 And probably a lot of them were moderate Republicans, are independents. 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.800 It wasn't all progressive, but when they realized that the 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:25.960 constitutional right was being stripped away after fifty years, it 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:30.920 changed their thinking. And to some extent, even though I 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.040 think that the queer vote overall, you know, e skews 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.399 more progressive on the whold, but it's going to happen 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:41.000 with some moderate and conservative queers too. Now that you 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.040 know you can see where the decision on the three 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:49.399 h three creative cases going. It's going towards further decisions 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:52.760 in which businesses get to claim a religious exemption not 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:57.800 to do any business for in this point case LGBTQ. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.280 But as people pointed out, what if someone says I'm 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.560 against interracial marriage. What if someone says my religious beliefs 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:10.719 are racial inequality? It opens a gigantic Pandora's box. And 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:12.280 I'll just come back to one other thing you said, 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.439 because you packed so much great insight into your last comment, 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.680 You're right, somebod the achievements Humphrey was part of our 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.760 exactly the ones under assault right now. When Humphrey was 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.359 Lyndon Johnson's vice president. One of their great legislative achievements, 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:30.840 and again with righteous pressure from doctor King and the 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.800 mass movement as well, was the Voting Rights Act. And 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.760 we've seen this court whittle it down, even though they 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.440 threw a bone at it this past term, but overall, 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.639 really try to defend a strate the Voting Rights Act 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:50.960 affirmative action. Lyndon Johnson first really espoused to a firmative 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.959 action during the Humphrey Johnson administrative term in a famous 0:20:55.000 --> 0:21:00.159 speech at Howard University. And we see where that's going now. 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:04.200 And so this is what I mean about you make progress, 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:08.480 but you can never be complacent about the marker, always 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.520 staying where it is and never being pushed back, because 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.080 history tells us there's always going to be a pushback. 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.400 Do you think that we are then now being pushed 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:25.199 back to the beginning right when you are because you 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:29.400 are a student of history, you are an examiner of history. 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.639 And here we are living in a moment that is 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.160 I mean, if we still have books will be written about, 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.120 if they're not banned, right, will be written about and 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:44.600 studied for generations and generations to come, if in fact 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:50.640 we're able to keep democracy in America. My thought, right, 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.320 we are three years away from the two hundred and 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:59.600 fiftieth anniversary of the founding the quote unquote founding of America, 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:05.280 and where I see us headed is, you know, back 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.639 to the beginning, right like back to the beginning of time, 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:13.520 where it is very clear who has power and who doesn't, 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.439 that the laws that were fought during the time that 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:20.840 you were writing about have all been eroded and erased 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:24.160 and yet we have more people of color, more young 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:28.640 people that have access to the ballot than have ever 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.960 before in our history. So for you, what is that 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.080 signal to what the future looks like? 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:39.000 You're right that it's an existential moment. And for those 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:42.000 of us who thought that the spectacles of January sixth 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:46.000 insurrection would be the end of Trump, isn't. Tragically we 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:48.199 found out that isn't the case. So you're right. The 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:51.440 idea of another Trump term, or of a Desantus term, 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:56.240 raises many of the pillars of democracy into question. And 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:59.919 we're seeing, as you said, book bannings, attempt to censor 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:05.479 school curriculum, all kinds of efforts at voter suppression. So 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.640 we're not literally going back to enslaved people, but we're 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:12.240 going back to a structural inequality that is like a 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:16.000 national version of Jim Crow. And just to point out 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:20.159 doing which the past does predict the present, kind of 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:23.720 Trump's evil genius, and this is something he's more skilled 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:28.040 at than DeSantis and other Trump wanta bees is he 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:31.000 understands that there's a lot of the white working class 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:33.880 that wants a safety net. They just want it only 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:37.560 for certain people. They don't want pure old fashioned republican 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:41.000 free market economics and one of the people Humphrey battled 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:44.080 against Gerald L. K. Smith, who was a minister and 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:48.200 political figure and created the here's the name America first 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:52.840 political party and was up there with Father Coughlin, as 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:55.680 you know, one of the most dangerous demagogues in America 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.040 in the thirties and forties. Gerald L. K. Smith had 0:23:59.040 --> 0:24:02.840 this idea that he called Christian economics, and Christian economics 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:06.080 was We're gonna have a social safety net, but basically 0:24:06.119 --> 0:24:10.200 only for white Christians. So that is what a lot 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:14.760 of demagogues and dictators over history, not just in this country, 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:18.800 have figured out, is you buy off the work, the 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:23.680 you know, working class of whoever tose the German were 0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:26.800 the vulk, whoever the true people are, with the social 0:24:26.840 --> 0:24:29.000 safety net, and cut it out for everyone else. You know. 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:31.800 Adolf Hiller had a great social safety net if you 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:34.720 were a non Jewish German or a non Roma or 0:24:34.760 --> 0:24:38.720 a non career German. He did public works building Mussolini. 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:40.840 If you ever go to Rome, the city is filled 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:45.359 with gigantic public works projects that Mussolini authorized so that 0:24:45.480 --> 0:24:48.480 his supporters would have a social safety net, would have 0:24:48.520 --> 0:24:52.359 good paying work, and that goes right up to you know, 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:54.359 Trump saying, on the one hand, we're going to close 0:24:54.400 --> 0:24:58.000 the borders, we're gonna do voters suppression, We're going to 0:24:58.040 --> 0:25:01.360 ban books on and on A, We're going to destroy 0:25:01.440 --> 0:25:05.680 all elements of wolfness, a term I'm in woodwoke. I'm 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:08.480 not never gonna I'm never going to let that term 0:25:08.520 --> 0:25:10.760 get taken away because I remember in the Clinton years 0:25:11.160 --> 0:25:14.760 when Democrats are afraid to say the term liberal and like, 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:18.520 don't be afraid of it. Own it. But anyway, and 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:22.920 Trump combines all that with saying social Security and Medicare 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:27.359 will be saved. But so that again goes right back 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.159 to the right wing playbook. During Humphrey's zero. 0:25:31.600 --> 0:25:34.560 You know, the last question that I have for you 0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:38.560 because I think again that your book is so extraordinarily timely. 0:25:38.840 --> 0:25:41.280 I think one of the reasons why we find ourselves 0:25:41.440 --> 0:25:44.760 in the predicament that we're in is because we don't 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:49.560 understand our past, because it is not it is not studied. Right. 0:25:49.680 --> 0:25:53.520 We are given a bunch of propaganda, which frankly, you know, 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:59.080