Annotations for Speakers: Zachary Suri

The Ghost of JFK.

The ghost of JFK yielded its head today as I spoke with my teacher of memory. As I spoke with my teacher of memory, he told me of the fateful day when he was to see JFK on the aged steps of the Capitol. On the aged steps of the Capitol, I stood on an afternoon in May and watched all the children play as we marched past to the Capitol door. As we marched past to the Capitol door, I thought of the man that day when he bled to death in a limousine and all hope went away. It was not like the oceans had parted. The seas were still stable that day and no Constitutions were carted away. No ceilings fell in and no highways collapsed. The army didn;t stop playing taps. It was youth that was killed from the book depository on the square in Dallas by the grassy hill. It was youth that was killed in Dallas and we're waiting again for it still.

My poem is really about trying to ask what made JFK such a symbolic figure in American history and what made him so important in the memory of his generation, even only having served a few years as president.

What makes JFK such an appealing presidential candidate, but also a congressman and a legislator? What can we learn from his rise about what kind of politician we should be nurturing today?

I think that John F. Kennedy is still universally, universally powerful to young people because of his youth and because of what he represents as a someone who believes he can use government to help people. I always find it very interesting whenever I ask people who their favorite presidents are. John F. Kennedy is always near the top of the list, which is very interesting, seeing that he only served for a couple years. And so I think that his short time at the forefront of American politics continues to inspire young people and will continue to inspire young people.

"Cross of Gold."

"Aristotle wrote of the golden mean in a land of Grecian fields, and so too did the centuries proclaim moderation, my underlings, my dears. A scale is never balanced if the masses are uneven, and the tide can never come here if it never pulls from there. If the water is never gone, it will never reach the pier. And so too did the sages write of living in the middle, and so too did the poets sing of overzealous love. But what is there to do in life if virtue is a dove? Sometimes is there not a moment for a sudden movement, a second for a second path? A period for a period of change, and a time for a time of shift and sin? For is it not that the scale is never a truly balanced ship, that the oceans are only calm because they often overflow, that the sages were radical in their steady consultation, that the poets could never leave overzealous love for moderation? The cross of gold could martyr the farmer. Aristotle will smother his innocence, and moderation will suffocate the truth."

My poem is really about the importance of radicalism and dissent in policymaking, but also in life and society in general.

Yeah, so this is a question for Kaetan. In other institutions in the American government, we often see that with new administrations, the dissenters become the ones in power in these institutions.

And that policy can really be shaped by political appointees. Why is it that in this sort of foreign policy and national security state, it's so hard for change like that to be enacted from above? Why do we need these whistleblowers? In a way, we really don't in other bureaucracies.

I do think we're doing a very good job at teaching young people to embrace this professional ethic. I think young people are wired to, not to be whistleblowers, but to appreciate whistleblowing and dissent. So in that sense, I think that it's a trend that will hopefully continue with my generation.

But I do think the real question is when my generation begins to get into the institutions of power, how much is it that the institutions shape them, or we shape the institutions? And so I think the real question in the next decade or so will be how do the institutions change within the generation, and less how the generation itself changes.

"Herbst ich erinnere mich," or "Fall I remember." Let's hear it.

"Fall, I remember. You sneak up on us from behind the orchard fence. You seem cold and distant until the signs at the gas station begin to freeze. Herbst, ich erinnere mich an dich, der alte Mann in dem Supermarkt mit kaltem Haar, zwischen geöffnet und geschlossen Hoffnung. Fall, I remember you like a blessing, a prayer for the lost souls in tandem with the damp leaves trodden underfoot. The air is burning now. The earth is burning. The fires are so hot they feel as if they could be frozen. Und dann von hinter der Regalen hat ein Mann deinen Arm berührt. And then from behind the shelves, a man has touched your arm. He is memory. Er ist die Erinnerung. And there are the eyes of your underlings, and the eyes of the mistreated ones, and the eyes of your fathers, and your mothers and your great, great forgotten ones. Es gibt die Schuld deines Land. There is the guilt of your country. Es gibt die Schuld deiner Hand. There is the guilt of your hand. Wie kommt das Ende der Geschichte mit dem Ende der Erinnerung? Wie kommt das Ende der Erinnerung mit dem Ende der Zeit? Wie kommt das Ende der Schuld mit Erbst, mit Zärtlichkeit?"

Well, so I'll answer the latter question first. So my poem is really about how we think about historical memory and guilt. And it's particularly about this moment we find ourselves in in the fall of 2020, right before the presidential election, sort of thinking about our history and how it's going to affect our future.

And the last six lines of the poem in German translate roughly as how does the end of history come with the end of memory? How does the end of memory come with the end of time? How does the end of guilt come with fall, with tenderness?

I think I may have come across it, but I was definitely going more T.S. Eliot.

So what about a personal, confrontation? I remember reading recently a book called Germany and the Germans by John Arda in from the 1990s. And he describes going to, I think it was at the University of Stuttgart, where they had like the grandfathers and grandmothers who had lived through the war, [talk] one on one with students who grew up after the war. And there was very much a sort of generational tension.

How much of the sort of Vergangenheitsalphabetung was personal? And why haven't we had that in the United States?

Yeah. So we also see you talked about this in your book a lot as well. Later on, particularly in recent decades, an effort by Germans not only to talk about their past, but to take actions, to atone for it, to accept refugees and to send aid to Israel and other such activities.

How big of a part of Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung is this? And has it been applied in the United States? And how could it be?

Yeah, I think that it really resonated for me because it's a very sort of understanding of American history and world history from a perspective, that is, that is deeply intellectual. And I think, the most accurate depiction of history that we can see.

And I think it's actually a very hopeful thing for young Americans like myself, because I think sometimes it's a little easy to be put off by people who want to be all negative about American history or all positive about American history. And I think that this book in the message of this book offers a great framework for how we can understand our history from a realistic perspective.

"Port Huron Revisited."

"We are people of this generation, housed now in, we are people of this generation, do not forget the oceans of incalculable transgressions and the memory of the maimed millions. We are people of this generation, housed now in absurdity and the phosphorescent orbs of radioactive civility. We are people of this generation, standing by obelisks we're not sure make any sense to us now in a sea of so many sanctimonious automobiles. Mark them as the godly idols of our time. We are people of this generation, housed now in, and the black-white haze of centuries of ambiguous certainty. We are people of this generation, sleep, float, remember. We are people of this generation, housed now in absurdity and the windswept deserts of parking lot dystopias. We are people of this generation, standing now on a bluff overlooking the harbor, observe the Lady of Liberty, wonder what oxidized horror she holds beneath the crown. Thus is the spirit of white giant at the reflecting pool, the names in white crawling along the black marble wall."

My poem is really about the sort of dissatisfaction with American society and the current sort of American political discourse that drove so many young people to the radical political movements of the 1960s. And I think what's so startling today is how relevant many of their concerns and their criticisms of American society are to young people like myself today. And...that was really what my poem was about, was connecting those two generations and those two time periods.

Well, and the first line of the Port Huron statement is, we are people of this generation, which is such a poignant and powerful statement in and of itself.

Why was this concept of participatory democracy so radical? What made it so new at this time?

So how did this relate to the anti-war movement of the movement against the Vietnam War in the United States? Was it a precursor or does the Port Huron statement sort of reflect an early anti-war sentiment?

How can we inspire young people to think about democracy today? It's something that a lot of young people take for granted or quickly become dissatisfied with. How can we, how can we get young people as excited about democracy as those who wrote the Port Huron statement were?

Yeah, I definitely think that there are a lot of young people, really talented young people thinking about democracy and issues of our democracy today, but I do think there is a sort of lack of a willingness to think creatively and radically about how we can reshape not just policy but our democratic institutions themselves.

And I think that's kind of because our educational system has sort of failed to educate us about how our democracy has shifted and changed throughout its history and how often we've relied on the work of young people to change it for the better and to protect our democracy.

Twice gone from persecution, I crossed the sea in countless boats and discovered your humanity in '76's sacred notes. Far from the banks of promised lands, one came in chains, the other on the sea. And then you fought a long fought fight to make this stolen land more free. Blood dripped, the river sipped, and oceans touched the shores of Camelot. And now beyond the aching bones of ignorance, you've sat for thoughtless years and wondered at the power of the murmurs and the fears. Far from the arms of incapacity, you've turned the migrants from the door and hope to see our future still in sky-high department stores. Too far from vulnerability, you formed the pillars of cathedrals and found your gaze on golden heights above people tortured by the needles. Removed from truth equality, you've reached for automobiles and watched paper dancing elephants above emaciated squirrels. Your streets are always flooding with what remains of Mother Nature, sweeping back her poverty from the steps of your legislatures. Where, in '76's sacred notes, I see the reflection of the boats and the memory of your humanity, the promises from across the sea. Where, in the memory of '63, I find a picture less of you and more of me, the single portrait of the iceberg Atlantic that has hit your long-gone sinking Titanic.

My poem is really about the rise of the Republican Party in the late 19th century around shared humanity and success, and how that sort of deteriorated to the point where we find ourselves today very far from the founding ideals of the party.

One of the most interesting things that I think we've seen in recent decades is the switch from the Republicans envisioning themselves as the party of Lincoln to in many ways, the party of Reagan. How significant was Reagan's election and his term in office?

Where do you see the future of the party going? I mean, this this election cycle, we had John Kasich and Sidney McCain both endorse Biden and speak at the Democratic convention. Is the Republican party too far past that, that moderate moment?

I think Geoff puts forward the best solution to within our current system. I do think there is something to be said for a restructuring of our legislature and our governmental system to be more in line with countries like Germany or New Zealand or even the United Kingdom. I think our system definitely has benefits that those systems don't have, but I think it is about time that we start to consider whether the structures put forth in 1783 are still relevant in the same way today.

Well, let's hear it.

“It is a kind of arrogance that we think ourselves so sacrosanct that we build for our posterity, a temple of democracy, and hand any old fool a key. It is a kind of arrogance that we think ourselves so chosen that we steal votes from cities, for a slew of empty prairies, to send their any old Tom, Harry, Dick, and Larrys. It is a kind of arrogance that we think ourselves so holy that they can stand among the rubble that they burned right to the ground; and with their fist hollowed oaken desk of storied Asia's pound, and cry out for the freedom of ten hours for their mouths to sound. It is a kind of arrogance that we think are stars so well foretold to turn away the crying of a child for the banknotes, pristinely rolled. To rest our eyes on empty promises, where they rest in rot and mold, and wake up in a stupor, still in the middle of our speech. And sing to the great portraits about the horror to impeach. But the old poets of the tattered haunts, they know it all too well, and can recall of every second to you in a cafe with a screech, as their voices swell. Old men cannot solve our problems with a single speech.”

My poem is really about the irony that we consider ourselves such an important and original democracy. And we think ourselves so great that we don't actually need to maintain our democracy and perform the basic maintenance of democratic institutions. And even while we have these very archaic institutions, like the filibuster, embedded in our very houses of government.

Well, that's just a fantastic opening for our conversation. Sean, is the filibuster an archaic element of Congress?

There's been a lot of talk lately about how the filibuster has affected our democratic institutions, not just the Senate, but Congress as a whole. How has the filibuster in the past promoted majoritarian democracy, and how has it undermined that at the same time?

And what role, then, does the filibuster play in such a close Senate? Almost fifty-fifty?

How does the filibuster's role change when we get increasingly very close margins in the Senate, every Congress?

I do think that's the case. I think a lot of people in my generation are very dissatisfied with the slow pace of everything in the United States Congress. And especially those who feel aligned with the Democratic Party in particular, I think are very frustrated that many of the reforms that young people have pushed the hardest for are being stalled because of these legislative rules. And so I think that you will see a lot more attention to these issues from young people and young voters who are quickly becoming a very important voting bloc in our elections.

For sure.

Until Suddenly We Could See.

I can almost see the shore from here. Our raft is tattered and the remains of our luxury hang ironically halfway in the sea. Just like twelve years ago, we tried to make money flow radiant from the bathtub faucet and see through rock in the homes that had been built so we could glow in the dark. But from here, I can almost see tomorrow, and I long for it like the rest of my generation, as we stand up on the ragged pieces of driftwood and try to see our fate on the hiding horizon. Just like twelve years ago, we lay down on the cold ground and stared up at the ceiling, replaying our childhoods and our yesterdays in the imperfections of the stucco. And I can almost see it in my memory of that day, how chilling it was to see the dark waters envelop the globe, the sea unfolding like a blanket over the land. Just like twelve years ago, we could smell the prosperity at the end of our ordeal, and it made us jump so thick and yet invisible. And we covered our noses with our own hands before click. Someone with foresight found the light switch with their hands fumbling on the black wall, and we were blind, all still blind as the lights came back on, until suddenly, many months later, we could see.

My poem is really about the similarities between my experience post-COVID and during the COVID crisis, and right after the 2008-2009 financial crisis. And it's really about the emotional experience of those two events, but also the irony of those two events occurring amidst so much prosperity in our country.

But as I'm sure many of our listeners remember, the forthcoming years of the Obama administration were certainly rife with partisanship, particularly in Congress. What happened? Why did these efforts at bipartisanship in many ways fail?

So before we move on to maybe talk about the effects of the stimulus package in 2009 a little bit more, I just want to ask, what are the policy precedents and maybe historical background that informed these Republican positions beyond just the political expediency? Is there a historical precedent that they see as a better response to an economic crisis?

What's the Biden political strategy moving into 2022? I think it's pretty clear that the Democrats have in many ways a popular mandate to do this kind of very important economic work. But at the same time, they have a very, very tight margin in Congress.

I think that in many ways, government already has been the higher position of government has already in many ways been restored in the minds of young people by the Biden administration, or at least partially. But I think the issue is that there are so many restrictions being put in place now to prevent those very people from voting. And so I think, yes, that we need to convince people through good policy, that that’s the only way that that the Biden administration and future administrations that seek to help the American economy can convince the public. But we also need to open our democracy to more and more people instead of restricting it.

Well, it's called A Good Fight.

Ah, the start of a good fight. It's something we all seem to crave. That moment captured on the television screen as the two boxers stare each other down across the ring. The instant when first punch flies into nose and first blood breaks.

We love a good fight. In the kitchen cooking dinner, pumping our fists to eye of the tiger, stirring our boiling pots and staring down splotches of map like the lines themselves are inimical. Others get excited for the latest cure, the latest indecency, others the latest dream, but nothing makes our salutes to the flag and slurring pledges seem more meaningful than someone who wants to tear them down.

Someone who also stands up and salutes, but to a different flag. We love the start of a good fight. Sometimes we even love the climax when our tanks roll victorious through liberated cities, when our neighbors high five us on the street on the 4th of July, when our sons and daughters can find meaning in the not yet empty missions of their parents.

We love the start of a good fight, the beginning of a smack down, but we seem to forget how they always end, how we are always left aching that our son, our daughter is gone, how they are left aching that their son, their daughter is gone, how we get stuck with our own fists up in the air, swinging them round and round until our arms hurt and our joints ache and it all doesn't seem to matter anymore.

That's a good question. I think that the main reason I think that this sort of American belligerence is so relevant is that part of what motivates us as a society is having an enemy. And it's something that I think has been a key part of our history in the last 100 years or so. But I think it also means that we are very quick to find enemies and a lot slower to reach out to those on opposite ends of the global stage. And I think that's part of the issue we're facing with China. And that's not the whole story, but I think that's a very important part of it.

What about the developing countries that China, in the Indo-Pacific, but also outside of the Indo-Pacific, that China has invested heavily in? Where should those countries fit into the United States' grand strategy when it comes to China?

But how can the United States challenge Chinese aggression abroad when so many of our allies, for example, Germany, rely heavily on Chinese economic investment and trade? How can we balance the economic interests of our allies and the interests of ourselves and the world?

I definitely think so. And I think the Cold War analogy works to some extent, but it also doesn't because China and the United States, our societies and our populace are in many ways very connected, not just through trade, but through immigration and travel and other forms of business. So I think that the connection between our societies, people in the United States interacting with Chinese immigrants and people in China interacting with Americans, I think that in many ways, I think, allows for a framework where we can think about competition and challenging Chinese aggression without going too far.

Transatlantic Elegy.

Out of the dust, can you see it now, over there? The giant sits alone, a figure in a wrought iron chair. Arisen from the hole he himself has piled up, the giant looks around, wants your wine inside his cup. It is a lonely habit, overlooking all your friends. It is indeed a lonely hour when they retreat into their dens. But you, giant over there, you behemoth in your gold-plated lair, you have not been forgotten, only tastefully ignored. They remember all your blessings, and they remember how you snored. It is a solitary sport, this gallivanting hopefulness, the smile, the embrace, the recognition of your soulfulness. You sit as if in the impression of a painting on the wall, and they stand beside your picture frame, relating, recall, we believed you were arisen in Kabul before the fall.

No.

My poem is really about the ironic position the United States finds itself in as the former center of the transatlantic alliance that was in many ways the strongest alliance of the late 20th century, but now as someone who's seeking to reclaim that, but at the same time trying to make decisions like pulling out from Afghanistan without really consulting our allies in the ways that we have in the past, or at least aspired to.

So I often hear NATO spoken of sort of as almost analogous to the Warsaw Pact, but obviously there was much more of a back and forth between the countries. How much did internal relations between NATO members shape NATO policy during the Cold War?

So, Josh, how does this lead into the Trump administration's policy towards NATO? Where did NATO find itself in 2017 under Trump administration?

Well, I think at the very least, this history of NATO and maybe the recent events that have made the importance of NATO to American foreign policy more clear, show us at the very least, that there is no option to just bury our heads in the sand, that the that American economy, the American society is so deeply embedded in the world, that we have to interact with the world and we have to have allies. And I think that's so important, because alliances and actually like sticking with deals isn't very exciting, but it's so deeply important.

Exactly.

It is Hard to Build Utopias.

It is hard to build utopias when you burn their children in the jungle. It is hard to build utopias when you burn their children in the jungle, and your carpet bombings make whole nations synonymous with tragedy. It is hard to build utopias when you burn their children in the jungle, and your carpet bombings make whole nations synonymous with tragedy, and you shoot your own children smack dab in the middle of their righteousness. It is hard to build utopias when they are already covered in your own rusty tanks and pierced by your own bullets, when they have already realized they don't need to be saved by you, when your own children are blowing up buildings just so you'd turn around and care a little.

It is hard to build utopia, let alone democracy, let alone peace.

My poem is really about the very naive American attitude that we can go anywhere and build the greatest societies out of places that we've already destroyed, and we've already meddled in for long periods of time, and places where things are much more complex than peace and war and democracy and tyranny.

But there are a lot of people who, especially nowadays, who would argue that American intervention abroad was, if not purely self-interested, was motivated mainly by self-interest. Is that accurate?

Yeah. So you very clearly and convincingly laid out this idea of the end of ambition and the limits that it places on foreign policy decisions. But how do you square that with the rise in global connections and global awareness among young people and others during this period?

I certainly do. I think one of the lessons is that these issues are always complex and never just black and white, never easy or impossible. And I think part of the problem, and, I think particularly among young people is that foreign policy issues can seem so black and white and, and, and, and, and so easy, but they're so complex. And, and part of the problem is that. Our political conversations, aren't mature enough, uh, in this country to really be able to, to address those issues appropriately.

"Ode to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. " You worship your own sanity. You hold yourself so righteous. You draw the borders with a pen. Here the free world. Here the fight is. You leave us to the enemy for lacking the good sense. To have chosen the path of righteousness before Khrushchev built his fence. And yet we hold you dear. You hold us, too, with warmth. We cannot help but wonder at your missiles and your core. I would not trade your wide embrace even for a thousand Swedens. But this could be you that stands right now upon the cold street bleeding. And please remember, I know you do at night, that just because it's not your mother, not your brother, doesn't mean it's not your fight. You worship your own sanity. It's true. It is quite clear today. You have not forgotten the fire-bombing night, the storming beaches day. You have not forgotten the feeling at the crosshairs of their nukes. You do not feel any joy when it's the other man who pukes. But please, they are bombing my apartment block. Please, they are storming my beaches in the snow. The banks of my great rivers ache at every blow. But please, they took my son, they took my daughter. And please, sir, if it's not a bother, I stand in front of tanks in the center of my cities while you sit and sway to your peacetime ditties. You worship your own sanity. The sky shall not fall. Pray, you have not forgotten how the bombs dropped, how you sank their greatest fleets. Sir, today these are my countrymen, today those are my streets.

My poem is really about trying to understand NATO's role in global affairs from the perspective of those countries like Ukraine that have been left out to their great detriment from the NATO alliance in recent years and trying to come to terms with the fact that while NATO promises in many ways peace and freedom, it also restricts and leaves out so many others.

Why do you think that is? Why is it that Russia seems to find itself at constantly at odds with NATO, or at the very least, sees NATO as an inherently hostile force?

I think NATO is definitely something that is relevant and indeed increasingly discussed and and debated, but I do think it's important to note that even as NATO recommits itself to its principles and the threats it was founded to counter that there are also broader humanitarian concerns and and moral obligations that it has to countries like Ukraine in crisis and and under threat, even if they don't have treaty obligations or or necessarily legal obligations, so I think that the new rebirth, if you will, of NATO as relevant and deeply important to almost every policy discussion that we're having today, has to also come with a renewed focus on its principles.

I, obviously, I'm not going to pretend like I know enough to talk about that, but I think that it's important for NATO to to listen to people in Ukraine, and personally I think that probably should be more action in Ukraine, or at least greater efforts to make the Ukrainian people know that we're doing as much as we can.

In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, Who wakes up in cold sweats and worries silently. The sky will fall and no one here will notice it at all. In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, Who stares themself in the face, pieces in the wrong place, And sees in the mirror's trace a blurry line of missing lace. In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, Who sees the ocean from the pier, who watches fishes swim below. Couldn't we be freer like the tuna in the undertow? In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, Who writes poetry and imagines winter scenes, Who hears and sees and sniffs adventure in the breeze. But his poetry is in his head, the winter scene he dreams in bed. And I can say what I can hear and seek adventure without fear. In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, And all I can say is probably someday there will be peace.

My poem is really about the similarities, the societal similarities that can be lost when it comes to superpower rivalry, but also the cold realities that still define that world and the ways in which even though we may be more similar and have more in common than we think that these rivalries will continue.

So, Professor Beckley, it sounds like China, while portraying itself as the anti-imperialist power, is in many ways molding its sphere of influence on a sort of traditional imperialism.

But Professor Brands, I think we've also seen China reach out to other parts of the world, in particular developing countries, to try and increase its grip, which could be seen as an aspect of this imperialism, but does seem to show at least that there is a space for China, if not in the traditional centers of power, in new centers of power.

And Professor Beckley, how does the situation in Putin's Russia and the war in Ukraine fit into this sort of Chinese self-assessment of their position?

I think it is a potential area where we can come together and find some sort of agreement. I think the problem is often we see these geopolitical conflicts as inevitable, and we refuse to see the options that we actually have, the decisions that are are still yet to be made, and I do think that there is hope that this conflict can be avoided, and I don't think that we're going to have the same sort of entrenched social competition that we saw during the Cold War, namely because I think the United States, or at least parts of it, are much more connected to the Chinese people than we were to the Soviet people or to the Russian people.

Never Again the Same.

Never Again the Same. Let's hear it. Sometimes there are words when whispered they are meaningless, but they mean the world when you shout them in the shadow of a wall or on a football field under a hot sun which obscures the moon. Sometimes there are places when you see them on a map they seem hollow, a couple of old municipal buildings and a square in the town.

But you can see in the video recorded hazy from across the lawn how this was once for a few moments the center of the world. Sometimes there are moments when described to you they are meaningless, they seem so abstract, so absurd, unexplainable, a bullet flying unimagined. But you would have had to be there, had to have seen the way she held him as he was dying.

What would we give not to remember how it really was, to stay in that imagined moment when we all cried at the same time, to stay forever remembering the promise that was never fulfilled, the hope that was never realized, words and places and moments that never really were and would never again be the same.

My poem is about the huge mark that John F. Kennedy, his presidency, his assassination left on the American psyche, but also the ways in which he and his family have sort of become mythologized. And we remember them in hindsight perhaps differently than we experience them as a country.

Why do you think Kennedy was able to become such a unifying figure? I mean, in the years following one of the closest elections in American history, probably nearly every American who was eligible to vote in 1960 remembers voting for John F. Kennedy. How is it possible that he could have become such a unifying figure? It seems almost unimaginable today.

I think one of the biggest concerns that a lot of young people like myself have is that maybe the skills today that are required to run for political office, to win the presidency, to campaign so effectively and win so many people over are not the same ones that are best adapted for governments. How did Kennedy's skills as a communicator translate or connect to his skills in government and as a legislator, not as a legislator, but as someone with a legislative agenda?

I think so. And I think what's powerful about his analysis is that. It's very much aware of Kennedy's flaws. And I think we have to remember when we look back on our history, that it is not the story of a few perfect moments we've never managed to achieve again, but of a number of flawed and yet, and yet very successful, hopeful moments in our history. And we have to be able to learn from both the enormous achievements of those moments, but also also the failings

The Third Reconstruction

The Third Reconstruction. The first time I ever saw a voting booth, I voted for a black man. My father let me check the box in the basement gymnasium of a high school in Madison. I stood on his feet, probably at four years old, as I maneuvered the pen over the seemingly interminable names. As they fed the ballot into the great machine, I watched the digits advance on the little screen and held my breath.

The first time I ever heard the President of the United States, it was his voice on the radio. It was his face on the television screen. And when I first understood what it meant to be an American on a corduroy couch on January 20, 2009, they were his words.

The first time I ever saw my father cry, I was watching the same man from a pulpit in Charleston. I was hearing the same voice cry out the words of that ancient song. He was asking for grace. He was demanding our epiphany. He was saying that, in the end, they will always lose. And the first time I ever cried for a reason, it was his eulogy from another pulpit in Atlanta, singing the praises of John Lewis, a man I saw once in a giant auditorium from afar, just as, in the same auditorium, I saw that same man speaking to the stars.

And though I never understood his words, though what he was trying to say was never really clear, it made all the difference in the world, even if, in the end, they do sometimes win.

My poem is about how powerful it was for me, as a young person, born at the turn of the 21st century, to grow up with a black man as president, how important and how transformative that was. And I think that that's really the core of what we're talking about here in the Third Reconstruction. Absolutely, the promise and the peril of that. Indeed.

You know, I think it's really interesting the way you describe the sort of cyclical nature of American history and of this reconstruction at a societal level. But how do we understand it at the personal level? How can people who voted for Obama in 2008, 2012, and then turn around and vote for Trump in 2016, how do we understand that phenomenon, that those two conflicting ideas can perhaps exist in the same person?

I want to be careful how I phrase this, but how do we tell that unified American history? How do we come to one narrative of our country that acknowledges the many flaws, the many, I don't want to say mistakes, but tragedies in our history without splitting us into people groups, if you understand what I mean? How do we use this difficult reckoning with our history to create unity and not division?

I think what I would just say is I think there's an unwillingness sometimes among certain people to recognize the complexity of these issues, that it's not as simple as splitting people into people groups or to say that these are the oppressors and these are the oppressed. It has to be a nuanced understanding. And I guess my question is, how do we have that nuanced understanding, but also come to some sort of consensus about our history and what we need to do moving forward?

I wonder, though, how do you approach an issue like since it's Labor Day, labor unions, right? Where you have a structure that was in some cases created to try and keep Black people and people of color out of the workforce, but at the same time, in other cases, was created to help Black people attain greater rights in the workplace. I guess my question is, if we're looking at every issue of American history through this understanding of anti-Blackness in America, how do we avoid overlooking the economic, the otherwise social and political divisions that also shape our country and an issue like organized labor?

L'Chaim.

That's the title of the poem.

Quite cold and quiet, they are marching past the gates, crowding into subway cars and walking past the windows of department stores. The scene is stagnant, though they move together in some jagged step, as if ice were tearing at their mustaches and frost turning their long beards gray. Gray beards, they have forgotten whence they came, that they too once smiled at the old men in their trench coats, counting their steps and forgetting to look at the sun. There is a certain banal audacity in this little charade of life, in the slow turn of revolving doors, their grim faces reminiscent of the revolver that stared me awake on one of those grim deportation nights, or the small whip of fire that consummates their perverse burning cross bacchanals. Look me in the eyes, I will give you a real smile, because I know someday there really will be ice in their beards, one of those cold, eternal, nothing freezes that bring even kings to their knees. May it be so. And together we'll go dancing on their frosty lawns, singing some ditty about roses or the beginning of love.

I think it's about trying to confront one of the seeming paradoxes of the John Birch Society, and of the far right in the mid 20th century in the United States, which is how they both embraced a sort of very conservative kind of American conformity in a post-war sense, but then also politically with these violent radicals. And trying to come to terms with how someone can both be, as we stereotypically think, a sort of typical suburban American, a corporate office worker, but also have this violent and terribly hateful streak at the same time.

One of the‚ whenever I think of the John Birch Society and of the impeach Earl Warren movement, I think of the scene in Slaughterhouse-Five, the great novel of the 60s, in which the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, who has seen the horrors of World War II, drives around with bumper stickers supporting the John Birch Society and the impeach Earl Warren movement. In what sense do you think that the society is born out of a unique mindset of the World War II generation and of that period post-war? And in what sense do you think maybe there are parallels between that generation or that moment and our own today?

What do you think then is the long-term legacy of the Birchers in our contemporary politics?

I do. I think that one thing that this moment has done for this moment in our politics, has done for young people, is it has laid bare these long threads of far-right hatred and bigotry in American history, and what I think makes that moment in Slaughterhouse-Five so powerful is the irony that a man who had lived through the dehumanizing trauma of modern warfare could do the same thing and be so virulently anti-communist only a few decades later.

I think one of the lessons that we can draw from this history and that story is that we who have lived, not necessarily through comparable trauma, but through a lot of dehumanizing trauma and political strife, need to come out of this moment committed to something different, not to a further extreme.

Exactly.

We came here on boats, as if hope alone floats, in big cramped quarters, we must have smelled so foul, we landed picked up the trowel and built your automatics. your John Forders, your all sorters. So we might taste this freedom of yours for a bit, boarders, if you will, in the grand boarding House of Liberty, where anything can happen for the right fee.

Now I'm told, they say, they'd like to see us reach the Jordan, so we might hold the whole of holy land. They say they'd like to watch us build a temple so someday they can burn it all to sand. They say at last they'd like to send me homeward so I can die in some fantastical last stand. But bury me and place the stones on a grave in Kalamazoo, fold my things and lie them there way down in Chattanooga. And when I'm old and tired, please let me die in Honolulu, for I shall never leave this God forsaken land if only for the sake of ruining such a stupid plan.

Well, this poem is about me as an American Jew who's often quite dissatisfied at this country, coming to terms with what it means to be a Jew in a country so dominated by Christianity or at least a particular version of Christianity. And at the very least, I think, if I'm perfectly honest, a lot of it comes from living out of spite or living in spite of perceived slights, et cetera. And I think that that's a part of the Judeo-Christian relationship, if you will, that maybe isn't explored enough. But also I think, connects to the ways in which these religious divisions influence our politics and the way that our, not just our worldview, but our ideology takes shape.

Not at all. It's very hard to find three city names in the United States that rhyme. I'm not sure I accomplished that still.

So, how does this belief system become merged or at least connected to a particular set of political beliefs? And in particular, how does this belief system maybe conflict or parallel American's principles or, lack of respect for a principle of separation of church and state? How do those two connect?

And do you see in this period as well, as dispensationalism becomes an increasingly prominent religious belief, if not widespread, politicians trying to appeal to dispensationalist voters or particular kind of social conservatism they display, and how do you think that this movement began to shape American policy as a whole?

So is it the politics then, which replaces the sort of traditional theology, as you describe it, at this moment in the 1990s, and early two thousands in which your book depicts a a decline in dispensationalism per se?

I think it's just what Dr. Hummel described, which is an intellectual engagement in questions of religion instead of a dogmatic insistence. And I think in that sense, I hope my generation is more willing to, not to ignore these questions or to simply adhere to one particular set of beliefs, but to interrogate our beliefs and to approach these bigger, broader questions about humanity, from an intellectual perspective. And also think critically about how that worldview should and does influence our politics. And I think that, I hope at least, that there's an opportunity for that. I think this third way, which at least in from my perspective, my third way, if you will, would embrace a sort of diversity of point of view and of background. I think that there's a space in that diversity to have real discussions about religion and the relationship between religion and society, that are much more productive, helpful and quite honestly interesting, than the polemics that we so often are bombarded with.

It's really not a discussion that we should have of religion versus secularism. It's more a discussion of what are the elements of religion that matter in our lives and how do we reconcile those with our commitments to democracy, broadly engaged. And it's a healthy exercise for democracy, I think, and for us as citizens of a democracy to be asking these bigger questions about humanity and our place in the universe, et cetera., and I think it's not that everyone has to agree, but I do think that there has to be an agreement that those questions are worth answering. Even if your answer is, there is no answer.

 So here we are, waiting on the picket line, for the world to change, for the times to rhyme. They sold us the lie that if we just worked hard the dough would fry and line our pockets with bread.

 Pretty soon we were left the only ones not caught up in the net or dead on a cot. They told us when we asked that they had nothing to say. Forget tomorrow. Clock out today.

 But we will not be told that our futures were sold in Washington or in Detroit where the rivers fold, and wash our cars out to sea.

 We will not be told to keep standing still, when the steels arrive from the mill, and we have the parts to rebuild the heart of what made this country go. We will not be told to accept our fate, to wait and say nothing forever. If anything yet we're far too late, but better too late than never.

 Hmm. What's your poem about, Zachary? My poem is really about, how, the ravages of the global economy in the past few years have hit at the heart of manufacturing jobs in the United States and have led to a lot of dissatisfaction, with, not just with government but also with big corporations, in Detroit and across the country. And how labor action can hopefully move towards solving those problems or at least, finding a better solution for workers.

 Zachary? And what has been the recent history of industrial unions in the United States? Where in the sort of long history of American labor do you see this particular strike fitting?

 Will, do you think that's why it appears that there is at least some kind of renaissance of unions in the United States? You see Starbucks workers, Amazon workers, and various others talking about unions in ways we hadn't seen before. Is that part of the story?

 In recent weeks, we've seen both the current president of the United States, and his predecessor visit UAW picket lines or at least speak with UAW strikers. How should we understand the role that this strike, will play and is playing in our national politics so close to a presidential election?

 I think so, and I think one thing about this moment that maybe is a little optimistic is that I think the attention from both parties to the issue of economic equality, albeit from two different perspectives and one often much more about cultural resentment than actual economic policy, I think that should be a positive sign that most Americans or a large number of Americans recognize that the future of our economy is not going to be in the same places and organizations that we've relied on in the last decade or so that we have to look back to the past but also look forward to find new ways of thinking about wealth distribution and economic prosperity in our country.

 I think so, and I think quite simply it's one of the places in American politics that is most exciting but also most accessible. I think it's a engaging, exciting, political movement as much as it is a very serious, critique of our economy.

Well, it's one that's very appropriate for fall, “If the leaves could speak.”

I am, yes. Well, I'm going to be feeling the brunt of winter very soon. I think I have a right to rub it in for a few days.

“I wonder sometimes if the leaves could speak. What they would say of the glory they seek in learning to fly as they fall. If we should ask of them all, what right do you have to hope? If each one would be able to state and not for a minute hesitate. There is no reason or rhyme. I hope only because I remember a time when hope was illegal and wonder a crime. I hope sometimes for the world to freeze so I can ask of each hailstorm and autumn breeze what keeps you alive in the frost and the swift answer tossed. I keep going because I am going to keep the soil I plowed under my own two feet. The fruits of fields I've sown I shall reap. Wonderful is the coldness of this, the steely-eyed whisper that's almost a kiss that sees a truth that is most certainly true, but won't let them rest without paying her due. We are not eternal, but our hope can last and heal our wounds, a wonderful cast. Hold still so the dreams will be real.Hold still so the children can hear. Hold still so the gashes can heal.”

Perhaps.

My poem is about the power of hope and curiosity even in circumstances that not only seem to leave no space for those, but seem to actively try to suppress and undermine hope and curiosity.

Thank you.

How did this early experience of education shape your experience in higher education through college and graduate school and then later as an academic yourself?

I think that this is a vital reminder for all students, but also every learner, which I think is every one of us, about the importance of maintaining a love for learning, a curiosity, and also about the importance of education and of educators. I think it's very easy for students to forget that the secret to success is, as we've talked about, curiosity, always being willing to learn, to take new ideas seriously.

And on the other hand, we also need educators who will help inspire young people to be the best learners that they can be. And so I think those two reminders, the importance of educators and the importance of a love of learning, I think those are so powerful, especially in a moment where, and at a time in our lives when college students like myself, but I think also all of us are sometimes forgetting how much we love and enjoy learning and meeting new people and encountering new ideas.

It is an argument for the liberal arts, and I think it's also an argument for the importance of good teachers.

And I hope more of my fellow students will consider, as I have, and as my older sister Natalie, whom many of you will be familiar with, has also considered and will likely pursue a career in which is a career in public service. And I think that this story that Dr. Simmons has kindly shared with us is only a very poignant reminder of how important learning is and how important those early moments of education can be for a child's life.

Isaac Singer once said you were an encounter with the supposedly dead, and I suppose he is right. You're a land of old men and infants held tight and sandy ancient ruined coasts. All of them were always supposed to be ghosts. Few wars can be fought with history, but you have fought them all, have saved a generation from fighting back the fall. Yet, though you have somehow survived on promises that you revived, it must be said you've built yourself a cage. No war should be fought with rage

The grandchildren of the widower, the children of the hollowed, held in their tunnels underground, are lost and must be found. Your neighbors remain, to say the least, uncharitable, Lips smacking for the feast, break through the garden fence. Can there be any recompense? No, I am convinced all moral questions will remain unanswered. You are alive, and soon you must have peace. If only so, it might be said, all had a chance to count their debt.

My poem? It's hard to explain. I'm not sure I perfectly understand what I was trying to get at either. But. I think it's sort of an attempt to understand the place of Israel today, but also in particular from the perspective of the 1970s, a period when Israel was still led in large part by a generation which was defined by the Holocaust, but it was also beginning to really develop its own sort of distinct Israeli identity that still shaped by that, the sort of last exile to Israel from Europe and other parts of the Middle East, and in some cases from within the territory of Israel.

And to understand that mindset, but also to apply that to today and how that history informs this moment of violence. between Israel and Hamas and maybe the lessons we can draw from these many decades of conflict.

Why was the 1973 war, which you mentioned, so transformative for Jews, Arabs, Muslims, and also for, for many Americans?

Right. Right. Zachary. In this context of bilateral agreements, and a sort of cooling of the conflict during this period, why do these efforts fail to produce a Palestinian state and achieve a two state solution? Was that the point of these efforts or why do the sort of claims to statehood of the Palestinian people during this period fail to be represented at these, in these major agreements?

How should we understand the legacy of these sort of failed, but also to a certain extent successful peace agreements in the 1970s, and then also, of course, the war in '73, the developments that we've been discussing, how should we understand the legacies of these events today? I'm thinking in particular, of their legacy, in regards to the creation of Hamas and the situation pre-October 7th, which precipitated the current conflict.

I think it's very helpful, certainly, in pointing to places, lost opportunities, and hopefully, lays out a series of of mistakes that that cannot be made again. I worry, though, about the, I think that maybe one of the things it points to as well is a sort of dilemma that sort of maybe contradictory forces that are shaping the problem today, which is that in order for there to be a sort of viable, moderate Palestinian force with which Israel can make peace, there has to be a moderate sort of political force in Israel willing to make peace.

But in order for that to occur, there has to be a sort of cessation of radical Palestinian violence that enables those on the far right in Israel. And so, and I think, one of the key lessons that at least I will take from Professor Yaqub's, very, Yaqub's very helpful analysis and history for us is the importance of the role of the United States in maybe catalyzing that process in, at the very least, putting our thumb on the scales to sort of break out of that cycle and of that, sort of constant, sort of lost opportunity, if you will.

The world can shake, does often stand not still moves mountains just because it can And wants that we should see its sneers and hear its taunts Like raindrops beating on a window sill The world has hungers we can never fill Is gaseous, spews its steam from fiery fonts Remakes anew our mossy forest haunts, and never ceases maiming Waits to kill. Still, when one shouts from ruined city blocks Still are there others shouting in the dust Still do the voices echo off the rocks And help we shall for listening we must Build up the streets and salvage sunken docks Still Lady Liberty does shine in rust

I think the larger thesis of the poem is that an American commitment to, sort of, openness and liberty embodied by "The New Colossus," which is obviously Emma Lazarus' poem on the Statue of Liberty, that that spirit is part of what motivates our desire to help countries suffering from natural disasters, and the idea that even when this idea of liberty, or even when our country itself suffers from the effects of time, of weather, of change, of political stagnation, that we can find a way to help others who are in need and whom we are capable of helping.

How unique is the United States in seeing disaster response as a core part of its diplomatic work during this?

How do these countries that are provided with American disaster response respond to American help? Is it always welcomed during this period, or are there sometimes tensions?

I wanted to ask, how does the American public view foreign aid? It seems like during this period that the question of foreign aid becomes much more of a topic of public discussion with the creation of the Peace Corps, etc. How do the American, how does the American public during this period think of American foreign aid assistance?

I think, and people are very interested in disaster response, disaster aid, as I think they always have been, but obviously it's going to become even more relevant with climate change and the intense weather events that it will bring. I also think it's a great way to understand this "warts and all" approach to history. I think the topic of international disaster response from the United States is obviously one of a very mixed record, and it's important to be able to sit with those complexities, and I think studying this history offers young people practice doing that, but also a key example of where American presence isn't inherently good, isn't inherently altruistic, but can make a difference, and could make a difference.

Sometimes I am awakened in the middle of the night by the fear my imaginings won't turn out right. I toss and turn and think of nothing more than a coffee in the morning and the rain that starts to pour. Sometimes I am startled at the way the earth can turn, yet everything is standing still as ashes in an urn. I watch the time that passes by and wonder at its speed, knowing each who dies was but a planted seed.

Sometimes when the sun is setting, I wonder if a hope is nothing more than mud to scrub away with soap. I watch the darkness coming with its ominous smile, and the birds no longer humming are erased in single file. And yet each morning when it comes at last, I see a new world rising and it's rising fast. A world of peace that isn't stale, a world at sea, a world at sail. We are chasing Earth's still spinning tail, like birds who sing at every dawn. The hate has flown, the fear is gone, I spy your ports, you spot my shores, you sell my treasures in your stores. Each setting sun is now a kind of hoping that tomorrow will be in the harbours roping.

My poem is about the ways in which, even in the points in our lives, and in our politics when we are the most cynical. That trade, and sort of physical connection across the vast seas of the world, can offer a real opportunity for peace and real hope, even when things seem sort of impossible abysmal around us. Right.

And how did this movement for free trade, the successful movement for free trade, in England, how did it change politics? Did it make political institutions more egalitarian in the direction that these groups hoped?

You mentioned in your previous answer that there's a connection between this sort of divvying up of the world's resources, and the beginnings of World War One. Could you maybe explain that in more detail? And also, maybe talk a little bit about, you mentioned as well that many leftists have taken this interpretation in particular to make a point about free trade. Could you talk about how that's been interpreted as well?

I think it does. I think it's also the last question in particular, last answer, was a really important reminder that oftentimes the questions that need to be asked or are not necessarily, like, ones of ideology, but of whose interests certain policies are serving. I think the sort of description of how the, at least the ages of free trade, was overtaken by neoliberalism in the 70s and 80s is a really important lesson about the importance of keeping in mind whose interests our policies serve, because, looking at it on paper, it can seem that the neoliberal policies are of the same tradition, but, in reality they were serving very different interests. And I think also this vision of left wing free trade is something that we should all take very seriously, especially at a moment when our, when the sort of liberal international institutions, which this movement created or the descendants of this movement created after World War II seem most threatened. And certainly when our, when the sort of free trade world order that developed after the end of the Cold War seems most threatened as well.

The Old Days.

Uh, no, definitely not.

Maybe the days when you left your house.

At times it's easy to miss the old days, when good men walked and spoke of true ideals, when all that they would ask for was a raise, perhaps a pair of presidential seals. At times it's easy to miss that sweet age, when only honest men were put in charge, when lies provoked a strong and public rage, and every single heart was twice as large. At times it can be easy to miss that place, where all was silent and all were at peace, where no one shouted or spit in our face, and we all drove fast cars on long-term lease. So it was never. Such a place t'was not. Each problem we face is an ancient rot.

My poem is about the temptation to become nostalgic for the politicians and the politics of the past, about maybe the kind of truth or at least representation of what we'd like to see in our politics that we can often find in looking back, but also the danger of believing that politics was ever easy, simple, honest, or good.

Yes.

I want to ask, what drew you to Humphrey in the first place? What made you want to write a book about these sort of formative moments in his political career? What do you find so fascinating about him as a political figure?

You mentioned that the impetus for this book was to try and rewrite or at least capture the historical moment after World War II when Americans were faced with the decision about what a post-war United States would look like. How do you think this story about Minneapolis, about Hubert Humphrey, should change our view, our understanding of that immediate post-war period?

Certainly. I think the point of the poem was not that we've never had political heroes, or that we've never had a politics of joy that's successful. The point was that all of those political heroes and all of the politics of joy required hard work and met with stiff opposition. I think the point of the poem was that politics is always messy and always difficult. It's more about how we approach it than about waiting for political tides to change and waiting for either abstract notions of polarization or partisanship to fix themselves. It's about actually getting involved.

Thank you.

"Trailblazer."

The one who breaks the ceiling, the one who's first to cross the line, they must make their own rhythm. They must beat to their own time. They find themselves quite often alone or in the dust. They find themselves quite often lest to wallow or to rust. And so they must know more than anyone else to take their own story right off of the shelf. The one who breaks the ceiling as glass shattered in their eyes, the one who makes the first move must break through all the lies. They find themselves quite often defeated or ignored. They find themselves quite often hated and abhorred. And so they must fight, more than anything still to make their way over the widening hill. And sometimes they fail, and sometimes they will, but always, they face it with a radical grin.

Thank you. Thank you.

My poem is about, as she just said, the contradictions and the nuances of having to be the first and not just the personal toll it takes on someone, but sort of almost impossible expectations that one has to (yes, yes) the level of resiliency and hope that one has to display.

What was her experience like in the state legislature in the 1960s, coming in on the heels of this historic civil rights moment? What was the Texas State Legislature like for a Black woman in the late 1960s?

How was Barbara Jordan viewed at the time? How is she perceived, in particular, by White political actors and and White politicians? You spoke about her oratory and the way in which she was able to articulate the Democratic Party position on Nixon, but how was she seen by White voters around the country. How was she perceived as a politician?

I think so. I think certainly the legacy of someone who used the political system to fight for change, who used real politics to fight for change, should be an inspiration for us. In particular, in a moment when it seems like a lot of us have lost hope in politics. I think it's important to remember that, sort of, the dirty business of legislative politics is where so much change can happen with real leadership.

Where the road ends, the line of trucks stops, and the barbed wire blooms like bougainvillea. You can still pick up the signal. You can still hear the voices whispering into the cold night. You can, when the night is still, walking by the fence, hear them on the other side, listening. On the borderline, someone is speaking in rhythms of red, white, blue, and America, and they are saying something simple. Perhaps it is true. This is freedom.

My poem is about the sort of power of radio and of listening to the voices of Americans and American reporters and journalists and all these American-supported programs across the many sort of political social boundaries that separate our world. In particular, it's a sort of imagining of what it might be like today if one were able to, in Russia or in somewhere in one of the sort of totalitarian countries of Eastern Europe, to listen to a sort of American radio program sort of, like, right on the border, and how it's a sort of, like, bastion or breath of one world in another.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like people abroad, and particularly in Europe, have a very strong impression of American media like Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. But could you explain for our American audience that maybe doesn't have the same sense of its importance what Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe and Voice of America have meant for people in these countries?

What is the state of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Voice of America today? I know they're increasingly under threat. What does that look like? What are they able to do now? What are they not able to do?

I think so. I do think that certainly the question of media bias and what are important sort of reliable sources of news matters, but I also think that so many young people aren't aware of this history of the important role of VOA and RFE and all of the sort of important American media outlets around the world. And I think the challenge is to inform people about all the important work that's being done and all the holes that are being left now in media coverage around the world.

Sure. Where the road ends, the line of trucks stops, and the barbed wire blooms like bougainvillea. You can still pick up the signal. You can still hear the voices whispering into the cold night. You can, when the night is still, walking by the fence, hear them on the other side, listening. On the borderline, someone is speaking in rhythms of red, white, blue, and America, and they are saying something simple. Perhaps it is true. This is freedom.

At Mr. Evers' Home.

Yes.

Medgar Evers was the first field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. He was a very prominent activist in the late 50s and early 60s in Mississippi, particularly around school integration and university integration. And he was shot, assassinated by a member of the KKK at his house in Jackson, Mississippi, which we visited a couple of years ago.

That's correct, yes.

The summer is here too at Mr. Evers' home, the cicadas bringing it in on their tapping feet, the soft sun shattering on the asphalt, and the blue sky almost making his blue house disappear. I wonder in that half beat of a moment when he turned his back on the magnolia, if he could see the same faint outlines in the driveway of dark shadows and a blood soil taking one last gasp of his shoes. And if he perhaps might have seen the gleam of the barrel as it glared him through the iron grating that winds its way like wisteria, or like the inner workings of a human heart blown half open in a June breeze. Or if I too had a chance to see that glint in the guns of prejudice flickering at me so young, if I too would still have stood in line at the county building with my back turned, or pose for that photograph with the Oxford pioneer, smiling with my back to the world. If I too would still have turned my back and held the door handle unflinchingly as mercury flew down from the Mississippi sun to swing me up on the wings of his shoes.

Yes, I think it's really about the sort of seeming sense of inevitability in that kind of racial violence in the South and how it almost seems to become part of the landscape, even as like the humanity of someone like Medgar Evers becomes so real when you're at their house. It also, the violence sometimes seems to come out of the landscape.

Thank you.

Yeah, I wanted to ask if this system was so clearly designed not to benefit the average white southerner but instead the sort of very top of the planter class, why do you think, as you began your answer to the previous question, why do you think so many poor whites in the south did buy into this system of racial inequality? Why did it become second nature to so many?

Yeah, I wanted to ask that, do you think... Is part of the point of your book then that we should think of the development of Jim Crow and the racial restrictions on voting and participation in civil society as not just a system designed to keep a certain race down, but also a certain class as a way of embedding the planter oligarchy into the fabric of the South?

Yeah, I think so. I think it's particularly helpful in trying to think about what it means to create a politics that, or to create a political movement or a political message that can be interracial and can cut across class lines. I think a lot of our political polarization is driven these days either by racial or class distinctions, and it's really hard to break through one or the other. I think that this provides a vision of what a sort of interracial class solidarity politics can look like, and also maybe provides a more nuanced way of thinking about the politics of racism and of hate as a manifestation of deeper structural inequality, as opposed to a sort of hatred that one is born with, or a sort of natural quality of the American South as it's convenient for people who don't live in the South often to think as racist or as inherently more concerned with race.

I think I see more fragmentation. I think that's why this is a particularly important history to look at now.

Thank you.

Welcome to our latest episode of This is Democracy. I'm Zachary Suri. I'm hosting this week. We're mixing things up a little bit.

We often think about history in terms of pivotal years, 1776, 1848, 1989, and 1968 is often an entry in this list, identified by many historians as the key turning point in our democracy and democracies around the world in the 1960s. But our next guest, his new book makes the case for a different year, 1963.

Dr. Peniel Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin, and he joins us now. Thank you for joining us, Peniel.

In Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America's Civil Rights Revolution, Professor Joseph argues that 1963 marked the first critical successes and several important but tragic losses of the civil rights movement that would transform American democracy. 1963 was, he writes in the book, quote, "the defining year of the black freedom struggle." And because of the importance of this year and one of the documents it produced, a letter from Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., instead of a poem this week, we will be hearing Dr. King read a section of that speech and he will read what is perhaps one of the most famous sections.

So, Professor Joseph, Birmingham and this letter play a central role in the story that you tell. It's the site of some of the most brutal televised police crackdowns on peaceful protesters in 1963. It's where MLK is arrested and writes this letter, of course. Why Birmingham? Why were the events there in the spring of 1963 so critical to the cause of civil rights and to the history of our democracy?

I think that's a very helpful overview, and obviously so much of your book focuses on these literary circles and literary figures. It's very much a sort of intellectual history as well.

I wanted to ask the moment that I think, at least for most Americans, we remember most from 1963 is probably the March on Washington, that moment. We all know the images from the Lincoln Memorial of people gathered listening to speeches from sort of great leaders of the civil rights movement. What made that moment on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial so impactful? And how do you see that moment fitting into the larger story of 1963?

That makes a lot of sense. Of course, 1963 was also defined by two other tragedies in September of 1963, the church bombing in Birmingham that killed four little girls and the assassination of JFK in November of that year. What affected these tragedies? Also, obviously, public televised, what effect did they have on the movement and how in particular did the JFK assassination help change public sentiment around around civil rights?

Yes, I think you've provided us today with a wonderfully hopeful story, although realistic, one that I think makes the case for 1963 as a critical year, not only in the history of our democracy, but of global democracy, which, of course, is the topic of our podcast every week. The new book is called Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America's Civil Rights Revolution. We highly encourage all our listeners to get a copy and read it.

Thank you so much for joining us, Professor Joseph.

Yes, thank you, Jeremi, as well. And thank you to our listeners for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy. See you next time.

An adaptation of Allen Ginsberg's A Supermarket in California for a Nation on the Brink of War.

That's correct.

What thoughts I find of you these days, Frank Church, for we huddled in the bedrooms listening to our radios with a headache, self-conscious, looking at the end of the world. In our nightmarish haze and shopping for semblances, we all crawled into the neon fruit supermarket with you, dreaming of the broken ghost. What nuclear bombs and what assassinations, whole battalions shopping at night, aisles full of shell-shocked soldiers, ghostly Donald Rumsfeld and the avocados, Reagan and the tomatoes, and you, Lyndon Johnson, what were you doing down by the hot dog buns? I saw you, Uncle Sam, disheveled, lonely old optimist, fumbling with the paper towel rolls and eyeing the peanut butter with a blank stare. I heard you asking questions of each, whom did I really kill today? What price for world peace? Are you James Madison? I wandered in and out of the brilliant star-spangled stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the ghost of Montesquieu and Lafayette.

We strolled down the open corridors together in our solitary remembrance, tasting empire, possessing every forbidden delicacy, and never passing the eye of the cashier's congressional oversight. Where are we going, you lost Democrat? The doors close in an hour. Which way do your reluctant guns point tonight? Maybe in some future time I will touch the founding document in my pocket and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd. Will we walk through a war among the distant highways and software engineers, the trees add shame to shame, lights out in the houses, awaiting air raid signals that still seem so inevitable? Will we stroll dreaming of the lost democracy we left in a pickle jar behind the old folks' home back to our silent cottage, maybe Lincoln's mausoleum? Ah, dear father, tip your hat, lonely old vagrant, you can lose the false individualism with me. For what America did we truly have when we handed Sharon the coin and we got out on a sinking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the blackwaters of the Potomac?

Well, this poem, Supermarket in California, which was written in 1955, in it Ginsberg chases Walt Whitman through a supermarket and he's really critiquing how materialism and commercialism has undermined democracy in his view. And I am critiquing the ways that imperialism and war has undermined democracy in the U.S. today. And I think though they seem very far apart, I think both moments are very similar in the sort of aching for a more perfect union.

Yeah. How do we get to the current legislation that we're supposed to be operating under the War Powers Act of 1973? How do we get to that? And how does that how is that contributed and played out in the past few decades?

Yeah. So how have presidents reconciled clandestine operations with the sort of constitutional balance of powers between Congress and the executive? Because like particularly in the Reagan years, we see this giant growth of clandestine operations.

Yeah, I really think that especially in a moment where we're very dissatisfied with the trend that our politics are taking. I think Americans are paying much closer attention to what goes on in Congress and what goes on in this amazing legislative body.

I think also it's really important to remember that dissent in Congress and in other forums is really important that we need to have these discussions and have these debates. Even wars that--that history looks on favorably, they were very vehement debates. Going back all the way to World War I and Bob La Follette in the Senate, I think it's really important to remember that these debates, these public forums to discuss our country's role abroad are very important. I think that's something that younger people and all Americans are paying much closer attention to today.