June 23, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode, I chat with historian Peniel E. Joseph about his latest book, Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America's Civil Rights Revolution.
Joseph's storytelling prowess brings James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jn., President Kennedy, and Bobbie Kennedy to vibrant life, not as static icons but as complex humans navigating treacherous terrain.
Particularly fascinating is Joseph's exploration of the forgotten women who shaped the movement—Gloria Richardson, Lorraine Hansberry, Diane Nash—who confronted both racial oppression and patriarchal limitations within activist circles. Their stories provide crucial context for understanding today's intersectional movements.
What resonates most powerfully throughout our conversation is how the struggles of 1963 remain eerily familiar six decades later. As we witness contemporary battles over voting rights and historical memory, Joseph reminds us that reconciliation can only emerge through confronting difficult truths about our past, a lesson America is still struggling to learn.
Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution, Peniel E. Joseph
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a
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(00:33):
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You're listening to Episode 295.
195.
Peniel E Joseph is the BarbaraJordan Chair in Ethics and
Political Values, foundingDirector of the Center for the
(00:57):
Study of Race and Democracy atthe LBJ School of Public Affairs
and Distinguished ServiceLeadership Professor and
Professor of History at theUniversity of Texas at Austin.
He is the author and editor ofeight award-winning books on
African American history,including the Third
Reconstruction and the Sword andthe Shield.
He lives in Austin, texas.
Hi, peniel, and welcome to theshow.
(01:17):
It's great to have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh, thank you for having me, Mandy.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I learned a lot about American history from reading
your latest book, freedom Seasonhow 1963 Transformed America's
Civil Rights Revolution.
I've lived in the US since 1983and am constantly learning
about American history.
Freedom Season not only taughtme a lot about 1963, but it also
(01:43):
gave me hope.
So thank you for that.
It is much needed and it's anextraordinary book.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You have written and spoken about how your love of
history was built uponconversations with your mother.
Where did her passion andcuriosity for history derive?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, you know, it really came because she grew up
in Haiti.
She came to the United Stateswhen she was around 25, and she
was a hospital worker at MountSinai Hospital in New York City,
local 1199.
But she had always been aprodigious reader and writer.
From a young age.
In Haiti she was able to beeducated, she spoke and could
(02:22):
write in French and Haitian andEnglish and Spanish.
So she was very, you know, shejust was very, very, you know,
prodigious in terms of herintelligence and even as a young
person talking to her, she wasvery intellectually curious.
So you had a bunch of historybooks African-American history,
(02:44):
haitian history but she hadbooks of philosophy in the house
.
She was a Christian who wasinterested in religion and other
religions, so she had booksabout Judaism and other things
in the house and the Hebrewprophets, but she had books
about space exploration in thehouse.
She was really interested inscience.
She was a lab technologist andshe did the blood work for
(03:06):
people who had all kinds ofillnesses and challenges.
So she just was hugelyintellectually curious and that
started it all for me.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yes, I think one of the best gifts we can give our
children is the gift ofconversation and the gift of
books.
Children are naturally curious,so if there's books around
fiction or nonfiction they willpick them up and they will learn
.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Absolutely.
And in our house we just had alot of intellectual
conversations, mandy.
So it was that kind of house.
It was a house where we talkedabout history and music and
politics and elections, so itwas really a great education.
I learned only later that noteverybody grows up in a house
like that right.
So we really talked abouteverything under the sun and
were encouraged to explore anddo more research and study, and
(03:59):
those are the days ofEncyclopedia Britannica, and we
had all of that at ourfingertips.
We would go to the local publiclibrary all the time and we
just were a household that wasvery much interested in ideas
and put those ideas into actiontoo.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And, as parents, it's wonderful witnessing your
children growing up with thatcuriosity and that love of
conversation and that love oflearning.
Looking back, were there anypivotal classroom moments or
assignments or teachers who madeyou realize history could be a
tool for activism?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Oh, yes.
So I went to a local Catholicschool, st Joachim and Anne, in
New York, queens, new York, andwe had great teachers who showed
us Eyes on the Prize, whoshowed us different films and
documentaries during the 1980s.
I think certainly the mostpractical thing was my mom was
(04:57):
part of a union that haddemonstrations and pickets, and
when they were on strike wewould come to the city and my
older brother and I and her andman the picket lines, and so
that was a very, very excitingand open example.
(05:18):
And so I didn't grow up in NewYork City.
Ed Koch was mayor.
There were things like EleanorBumpfist there's a new book out
who was a 66-year-oldgrandmother who was killed by
the police in 1984 when I wasnot yet even 12 years old.
(05:38):
I remember reading that storybecause we read multiple daily
papers every day in ourhousehold, because we read
multiple daily papers every dayin our household.
And when I was a freshman inhigh school in 1986, a young man
, black man, michael Griffith,was really murdered by a mob of
people in Howard Beach, queens,who chased him and he ran out
(06:02):
into a highway to escape and washit by a car.
And that happened in Decemberof 1986.
And you know those are thingsthat were very much shaping and
indelible.
And then there were cool thingslike pop culture, like Spike
Lee's Do the Right Thing.
That came out in 1989.
School Days came out in 88.
But Do the Right Thing was 16years old when that came out.
(06:26):
That was really, reallyimportant.
You know, set in the hottestday of the year in Brooklyn, new
York, and race relations,blacks, italians, segregation,
you know, citizenship, dignity,democracy, that was all there.
And then, a few years later,the Malcolm X film came out in
1992.
(06:47):
And certainly the rise of.
You know, I was Generation X, Iwas born in 1972.
So hip hop was a huge, hugepart of growing up.
I was somebody who was goingall around the city doing a lot
of stuff and listening to music.
Listening to, you know, run DMC, but Tribe Called Quest, public
(07:11):
Enemy, poor Righteous Teachers,native Tongues, krs-one.
So all that was reallyeffective and impactful for me.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, the arts are a great way to research history.
What's sad to me is in theUnited States, there seems to be
a disconnect around supportingthe arts and creative people.
This country is full offantastic creative people the
music, the artwork, the dance,the theater, the literature and
poetry.
(07:41):
It's exceptional, and yet it'snot supported by a government,
which is tragic, and it'sextremely difficult to get
grants now because of the budgetcuts.
When I look back at history,one of the main things I
discover it is often artists whofight for change.
I mean, look at the music from1963.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I think, in fact, theperiod that we're talking about
63, is the period thatinaugurates the most public
support of art and literatureand culture in American history,
with the inauguration of theNational Endowment for
Humanities, national Endowmentfor the Arts, public
(08:23):
broadcasting, pbs and giving,and really the major investments
in higher education, inuniversities, for research and
technology and differentinvestments for funding.
So, yeah, I mean it's a veryrevolutionary time in that sense
and probably since the 1980swe've gone back on those
(08:46):
investments, which are very,very negative, and I also think
the arts reflected the activismof the time, right.
So sometimes people think theartists are ahead.
I think what's going on is that, even like James Baldwin and
Lorraine Hansberry, they'rereflecting the social movements
(09:08):
of the time, you know.
So that's what's going on,because certainly artists impact
history, but I do think thathistory impacts all of us more
than we're able to impact it.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
When we look at 1963, which global events do you
think had the greatestpsychological impact on people
living in the United States?
And also, I guess, the lead upto 1963, towards the middle and
end of 1962, there was a lothappening.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Oh, absolutely so.
When we think about 63 and theearly 60s, it's really a
revolutionary time globally.
There's African decolonization,there's movements for dignity
and citizenship happening allacross the world and, in a lot
of ways, the civil rightsmovement which really predates
(09:58):
even the Brown decision in 1954,there's these struggles for
dignity and citizenship thatcome out of the Great Depression
and the Second World War.
And during World War II therewas a double V campaign that
Black activists created victoryagainst fascism abroad and
victory against racism at home,and that was the double V
(10:20):
campaign.
And you have a very robustcirculation of Black newspapers
like the Chicago Defender, theNew York Amsterdam News, los
Angeles Herald, dispatch,california Eagle, pittsburgh
Courier.
It's just all over.
And so when we think about thecivil rights movement of the 50s
(10:40):
and 60s, it's initially a moreconstrained movement because of
the Cold War.
So the Cold War is what reallymarginalizes people like Paul
Robeson, web Du Bois, two of theleading figures of the book
James Baldwin and LorraineHansberry are very much impacted
by the Cold War.
Lorraine Hansberry is a Marxistwho is, you know, she's a
(11:04):
student of Paul Robeson and WEBDu Bois and Esther Cooper
Jackson and all these Blackinternationalist left women who
somebody like Maya Angelou wasgoing to become a part of in the
60s, but James Baldwin.
Really, when the Cold War hitshe's in Paris and initially he's
(11:26):
more in the Ellisonianindividualist camp, right in the
late 40s, early 50s, publishingwith Partisan Review being
funded by really center-rightliterary voices, right.
And so by the time we see 1962,63, what's happened is that the
(11:49):
civil rights movement and theBlack freedom struggle that has
already existed has been able to, through the Black church with
King and the MontgomeryImprovement Association, but
also labor leaders like A PhilipRandolph and ED Nixon.
They've been able to create amoral framework to push back
(12:09):
against racial segregation andalso prevent themselves from
being too tainted with the slurof being a communist right and
so things like the.
By 1960, the sit-in movement,the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, isfounded by Ella Baker in North
(12:31):
Carolina and that comes out of aFebruary 1st 1960 sit-in at a
Woolworth's lunch counter inGreensboro, north Carolina.
That is now a civil rightsmuseum and those four students
grow into over 60,000 studentsthe spring of 1960, including
white students who aredemonstrating in sympathy in New
(12:51):
York and Los Angeles and otherplaces to desegregate public
accommodations all across theUnited States.
By 1961, there are freedomrides between May and December
and those freedom rides go intothe Deep South.
There had been a Supreme Courtruling that segregation on
(13:12):
interstate travel was illegaland they go to test those cases
and John Lewis and others arebombed in Anniston, alabama, may
4th 1961.
And that becomes a crisis forthe Kennedy administration and
they're brutalized.
The whole deal and the FreedomRides which are sponsored by
(13:33):
CORE, the Congress of RacialEquality, had actually first
happened in 1947 through theUpper South, with Bayard Rustin,
who's Black queer, theorganizer of the March on
Washington that year, in 63, hadbeen imprisoned as a
conscientious objector but also,because of his homosexuality,
had constantly been fired fromjobs and shunned and humiliated,
(13:56):
arrested, all these differentthings.
So when we think about 63, byfall of 62, james Meredith
becomes the first Black studentat University of Mississippi, in
Oxford, mississippi, andthere's three days of rioting.
The Kennedy administration hasto send 500 US marshals to
escort him.
(14:16):
Two people die.
So it's a huge thing.
It's a huge thing happening.
And then, along the way, youhave James Baldwin, in November
of 1962, who publishes thelongest essay in the history of
the New Yorker, wallace Shawn'sNew Yorker up until that time,
called A Letter from a Region inmy Mind which becomes the bulk
of the Fire Next Time January31st, 1963.
(14:40):
, 1963, and and so all thosethings are are are happening and
stewing in the air.
So 1963 is a very portentousyear, and the final thing I'll
say is that it also happens tobe the centennial of the
emancipation proclamation aswell and it's strange to think
about this now, but there wasthat hotline between the
president's desk and r.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
It's interesting how circumstances and relationships
between world leaders change soquickly.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Well, kennedy asked for that hotline at the American
University speech.
So that hotline is going to becreated, and that's after.
One thing I didn't say happenedin 62.
In October of 62 is the 13-dayCuban missile Crisis.
The world is on the brink of anuclear catastrophe between the
(15:30):
United States and the SovietUnion over placing missiles in
Cuba, and so, yeah, it's a very,very dangerous time, but it's
also a very, very hopeful timeas well.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
It sounds familiar, doesn't it?
During the research and writingprocess for Freedom Season,
what new traits did you discoverabout each character meaning
Baldwin, malcolm X, martinLuther King, jfk and Bobby
Kennedy, and do you see JamesBaldwin as the glue that held
these men together?
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Oh, certainly, I think Baldwin is a through line
to the characters in the bookand creates a moral and ethical
framework, very passionately,for these ideas of dignity,
citizenship, multiracialdemocracy and freedom.
Oh yeah, I discovered many newtraits in all these characters.
(16:24):
I think I've worked on King andMalcolm before and I think what
I discovered with them lookingat them through 1963, was just
the evolution.
I was able to look at them, youknow, day by day and week by
week, and you're able to see theevolutions, the strengths, the
weaknesses.
With King, you're really ableto see him coming more into his
own voice in 63, and he'sbecoming more and more combative
(16:47):
letter from Birmingham jail.
You're able to see what a deafpolitical operator he is really,
especially outside the halls ofpower.
And what I mean by that is thatwhen he's meeting with the
president, when he's meetingwith NAACP leaders like Roy
Wilkins, he's mostly silent,right.
(17:08):
He doesn't like confrontation.
He really is able to shiftthose institutions and those
power centers once he leaves themeeting and is articulating
from his perspective, purposely,what happened and what did that
meeting mean.
And when he's articulatingthese events, he's always the
(17:30):
leader and the protagonist,right.
And that's what you know, oneof the reasons Roy Wilkins hates
him Because you know he's goingto be silent mostly throughout
the 90-minute White Housemeeting and as soon as the press
comes he's saying.
Here's what I said.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Gosh, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Exactly, yeah, so he's immensely interesting.
When it came to Malcolm, Ithink you saw Malcolm just
further.
Traits that humanized Malcolm.
Malcolm's different from Kingin the sense that Mandy, the
chemistry and the charisma isthere always, so it's never off.
(18:11):
People can have a cup of coffeewith him and they're wildly
impressed.
One thing, too, is that Malcolmhas a wicked sense of humor.
That's never off as well.
Right, so he's an immenselypowerfully charismatic man, not
(18:32):
just when he's speaking on stage.
Right, he's, you know, andunlike King, he's not this, he's
not this private man in thesense of there's really not a
Janice face with Malcolm.
Right, he's able to let hisguard down because he's telling
(18:53):
you everything or a lot abouthimself, because he articulates
his time in what he calls theAmerican wilderness of racism,
where he was a criminal and hewas somebody who was taking
drugs and doing bad things.
Right, and so with him, he's avery interesting person because
(19:15):
once he joins the Nation ofIslam and becomes a Muslim, even
though he leaves the Nation ofIslam and becomes an Orthodox
Muslim he's a Muslim for 16, 17years.
There's really nothing.
He's running and hiding fromright.
So he's not drinking, hedoesn't smoke, he doesn't have
extramarital affairs.
So he's very liberated in thatsense.
(19:35):
But it was interesting.
It's interesting to see how, in63, how he's becoming much more
powerful and much more visibleand the more that happens, the
more alienated he becomes fromthe Nation of Islam.
In 63.
And I show that you know too.
But you see him beingphotographed by Richard Avedon.
You see him on the same show asBaldwin and King.
(19:59):
You see him, he's at the Marchon Washington.
He goes to Washington DC andbecomes the head of the Muslim
Mosque number four there.
So he's an extraordinary figure.
But in 63, I wanted to show howhe's impacting the narrative
and the politics of the time andhow the politics are impacting
(20:22):
him.
So you see, I think, a muchmore vulnerable Malcolm X than
you would think With the Kennedybrothers.
I think what was great aboutslowing it down to 1963 was
seeing their evolution right,their moments of doubt, their
reluctance, but then theirmoments of boldness and courage
(20:42):
right.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So we get a better portrait of the Kennedys, I
think in Freedom Season, for mymoney than any other previous
book, because I think what bookstend to do is either valorize
or demonize them right.
So books tend to say they werethe greatest thing since sliced
bread about the civil rightsmovement.
That's not true.
Or that they absolutely didnothing in support of civil
(21:08):
rights, and that's not true.
And so you're able to reallysee, and their evolution is
incomplete the spring of thespeeches of the president and
the March on Washington.
But then they're not great.
After the six children aremurdered in Birmingham and I
show that that's the whole thingI think for their own posterity
(21:30):
they should have went to thosefunerals, right.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yes, definitely.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And again it's politics be damned.
But they don't know it at thetime.
The president doesn't know he'sgoing to be assassinated in
November 22nd, 63.
Bobby doesn't know he's goingto be shot on June 5th and die
June 6th of 68, right.
But it becomes civil rights,does become the beating heart of
that administration,reluctantly, right.
(21:57):
And then there's people likeGloria Richardson and Lorraine
Hansberry who I thought was very, very interesting to see their
evolution.
Gloria Richardson is an activistfrom Cambridge, maryland, who's
a Howard University graduate,who's trying to desegregate the
city of Cambridge and is very,very powerful, very, very
(22:19):
no-nonsense.
And she's facing all thissexism.
She's facing all this deepskepticism about women and their
leadership.
She's unimpressed by theKennedys and has to go.
She meets JFK at the WhiteHouse.
She negotiates with BobbyKennedy the so-called Treaty of
Cambridge.
Malcolm X leads a standingovation for her at King Solomon
(22:41):
Baptist Church in Detroit inNovember of 63, and they go on
to have a professionalrelationship.
So I think she's endlesslyfascinated.
She was called the Lady Generalof the Civil Rights Movement.
And Lorraine Hansberry isreally, really important because
she's just so unbelievablybrilliant and she was a radical
before.
James Baldwin was a radical andthey were friends, she's six
(23:04):
years younger than Baldwin.
I mean, what's so interestingis the age of people.
Baldwin was born in 1924,malcolm and Bobby Kennedy in
1925, lorraine Hansberry in 1930, gloria Richardson is about 42
at the time, so 1921.
Jack Kennedy 1917.
People were very, very younghere.
(23:25):
You know, william F Buckley is36, 37, 38.
It's a very fascinating periodbecause so many of the leaders
are so young and theprotagonists are so young.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I love the way you wrote the book.
It's a storytelling of theevents that happened in 1963,
not just short snippets of factsand figures.
There are stories around thesepeople and you bring out their
humanity, which I enjoy aboutyour writing.
Was there a particular momentwhere Baldwin's voice felt
(23:58):
especially central or propheticto you?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Oh many you know.
So I think Baldwin and it's notjust the Fire Next Time I think
one of the things I wanted toshow and I'm working on another
Baldwin project now was to showhow he becomes an activist.
He calls himself a witness, buthe's in Louisiana and North
Carolina and Mississippi at thestart of the year with Medgar
(24:21):
Evers and then he does a WestCoast tour of Los Angeles and
Sacramento and San Francisco andhe's speaking before 7,000,
8,000, 9,000 students atBerkeley, standing room only in
gymnasiums in Stanford.
So there's a great picture ofhim at Berkeley in the book too.
(24:42):
So this is really unbelievable.
The impact that Baldwin has isunbelievable.
I think he's unbelievablyprescient about Birmingham and
what that means for the countryboth times, both in the spring
of 63, but also after the sixchildren are killed.
(25:03):
And one thing I tried to do isto show Baldwin and Baldwin with
the young people, and I want tojust say their names.
The young women who are killedis Carol Robertson, addie Mae
Collins, cynthia Wesley, deniseMcNair, and the young boys are
Johnny Robinson and VirgilPeanut Ware, and throughout the
(25:27):
book I named them.
And Baldwin is very prescient insaying that by the time of the
Kennedy assassination.
The country mourns Kennedycollectively, but we mourn these
Black children separately andwe mourned Medgar Evers
separately.
So he's extraordinary aboutwanting us to.
(25:48):
He's got these aspirations forthis grand American republic,
but he wants us to get therethrough confrontation with the
original sin of racial slavery,the aftermath of Jim Crow,
segregation, but also and thisis very prescient for our own
time in 2025, mandy.
He wants us to go beyond thelies that rationalized and
(26:11):
justified Jim Crow and slaveryand contemporary inequality In
1963, he's saying that, letalone 62 years later, where
folks right now are activelytrying to erase and efface
American history and ban booksand prevent us from talking
about all these things.
And again, it's paradoxicalbecause we are living in the
(26:32):
world right now where, in thehistory of the recorded world,
we have the most resources todisseminate information and
knowledge.
But unfortunately, we also havethe most resources to
disseminate information andknowledge, but unfortunately, we
also have the most resources todisseminate misinformation and
untruths and falsehoods as well.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I just want to circle back to the children who died
in Birmingham and a quote fromJames Baldwin Carol Robertson,
addie Mae Collins, cynthiaWesley, denise McNair and the
two boys Collins, cynthia Wesley, denise McNair and the two boys
Johnny Robinson and VirgilPeanut Ware, on page 118, I
think it's you're in May in 1963, you share an eloquent quote by
(27:10):
James Baldwin those who bearthe greatest responsibility for
the chaos in Birmingham are notin Birmingham and while that
quote was for everyone to hear,do you feel it was directed
toward the Kennedys and do youfeel that quote of Baldwin's
resonates today through causeslike Black Lives Matter and the
(27:31):
political unrest within theUnited States today?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, I think he's aiming it at the Kennedys, but
he's also aiming it at theGeorge Wallaces and the
conservatives.
He's a vociferous critic of JEdgar Hoover and the FBI because
of their hypocrisy and theirlack of defending civil rights
activists, and he knows theirsurveillance of the movement.
He's not aware of the depth andthe lengths of them.
(27:56):
So he's aiming it at that wholegroup of folks and certainly
that continues today, becausewherever we see violence,
wherever we see impoverishment,where we see political division
and polarization, the folks whoare really truly responsible are
not in those locales themselves.
(28:18):
Right, it's going to be folkswho are misinformation oligarchs
and tech titans who are andthey're political cronies, who
are orchestrating these things.
And we've already seen it interms of this administration and
the tech folks who areconnected to this administration
(28:41):
and what's going on with ourboth domestic and foreign policy
.
So he's right on there and thepositive of 63 is that a lot of
people are listening to him andhe's eventually able to get at
least a sit-in with some of thebiggest people who are in the
corridors of power.
(29:01):
And Baldwin is part of the moralshaming of these folks,
alongside of the movement that'sgoing to compel Jack Kennedy
into action and again, peoplelike Bobby Kennedy when we think
about sort of the legend ofBobby Kennedy and I'm somebody
who actually admire BobbyKennedy but Baldwin shows us you
(29:24):
know, when they have the summitand you know Kennedy is
unleashing the FBI on folksafter the summit, including
King's attorney Clarence Jones,and that's how the FBI is going
to find out about Martin LutherKing Jr's extramarital affairs
that Baldwin is really about adeeper truth.
Bobby was never able in hislifetime to admit and apologize
(29:49):
for the stuff he did to theBaldwins and the Kings and all
that right.
So the only way we could get toreconciliation, baldwin argued,
is to admit all those mistakesand those lies.
And so you could only get toreconciliation.
The road to it was truth andjustice.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I'm sitting here soaking in all your words.
There's so much in what you'vejust said that I need to pause
and think about for a moment.
What do you wish more peopleknew about Medgar Evers?
That gets overlooked inmainstream civil rights
narratives.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah.
So with Medgar, it's really howbrilliant he was.
And the speech he makes in Mayof 1963, and what's so
interesting about that speech isis responding to Mayor Thompson
(30:45):
of Jackson, mississippi, sayingthat Negroes are treated well,
everything here is fine.
And what Medgar says in thatspeech is he talks about being a
veteran of the Second World Warfighting Hitlerism and fascism.
He talks about being a nativeMississippi, generationally
going back to racial slavery, sohe's not an outsider.
(31:07):
And he says that the folks inMississippi, black folks, love
the country.
They're patriotic, just like heis, and they're fighting to
transform the country.
But they understand what'shappening in Africa and the
decolonization movements and thefreedom movements around the
world.
So it's a panoramic,brilliantly cosmopolitan and
(31:28):
globally international speech.
And so what we don't get and Isay it's a very undersided
speech in the annals of thecivil rights movement is that we
don't get Medgar Evers alive asan activist who's helping to
transform what's going on inMississippi.
And see and I think we do inFreedom Season, see that even
(31:50):
shortly before his death he'sprofiled in the New York Times.
People know who he is.
He's a star and we're gettingto see how intelligent he is.
The relationship between himand Murley, his wife, his three
kids, the way in which he buildscoalitions, including with the
white and indigenous professorJohn Salter, who's right there
(32:11):
at Tougaloo sit-ins.
And I show Salter and JoanTrumpower, who I've actually met
and interviewed in real life,who's a white activist who goes
to Tougaloo 21 years old, blonde, blue-eyed, petite and just so
courageous and so resilient andindefatigable.
(32:31):
And so you know, when we thinkabout Medgar Evers, we have to
see all of that before justputting him down as a martyr,
right so, 37 years old, a formerfootball player, a veteran of
war, but this unbelievablycourageous figure, who Martin
(32:54):
Luther King Jr knows and admiresdeeply James Baldwin meets in
63 and deeply admires who's justa linchpin.
The students admire him.
You know students like DaveDennis and Bob Moses, and the
students who are part of SNCC,the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, and CORE, the Congress of Racial
Equality, the Masonic Temple indowntown Jackson, mississippi.
(33:18):
Medgar is the editor of his ownpaper, the Mississippi Free
Press, a four-page mimeograph.
So just truly a remarkablefigure.
Not just somebody who we say,oh, field secretary of the NAACP
who was assassinated in theearly hours of June 12th.
So much more than that.
(33:40):
I wanted us to feel that too andfeel how the Black community
reacted to his assassination too.
I wanted us to feel that,because Medgar becomes this
global figure and you see Murleyon the cover of Life magazine
and stuff and John Kennedysaying the morning after he's
killed that this has becomeeverything.
(34:02):
Civil rights has becomeeverything right.
And I wanted us to see, fromthe start of the year to June
11th, 12th, that for Blackactivists it had already been
everything right.
This was their lives.
And it takes all these series ofescalating crises and these
public humiliations, because,remember, birmingham's a public
humiliation for the UnitedStates because it's a different
(34:24):
America, only 18 years after theSecond World War.
It's America that can still beshamed, right.
It's the America that HenryLuce, the publisher of Time
Magazine, says it's going to bean American century, the
American century.
Right, we're going to bringpeace and prosperity to the
globe, and so it's important forus to see that.
(34:44):
I think to feel that the shapeand texture of that in 63.
And again, there's an arroganceto American power, because, even
as John F Kennedy is hostingMurley and two of her children
at the White House, he can'timagine that he's going to be
assassinated.
That's the power and theprivilege.
Right?
He can't imagine it.
(35:05):
Bobby Kennedy can't imagine it.
It's going to happen, but theycan't.
They feel they're protected.
They're not, bobby Kennedy.
Both those brothers are goingto be killed, right, both of
them?
But they feel they're protected.
They feel they've got it right,you know, but they don't right,
and Black people are trying totell them and ring the alarm.
None of us are protected andthat's why Malcolm X says
(35:28):
chickens coming home to roost'sthe intimate way in which you've
written that scene.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
It's heart-wrenching and it brings that death and
everyone else who has died for acause right back home, right
back to us.
You spoke earlier about GloriaRichardson and Lorraine
Hansberry, women who paved theway for the next generation of
female civil rights activists.
Women who paved the way for thenext generation of female civil
(36:08):
rights activists.
Can you speak about one or twowomen who reshaped your
understanding of how leadershipfunctioned?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
during that era.
Oh, absolutely, they do pavethe way.
And I show Diane Nash, who'spart of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee and alsoSouthern Christian Leadership
Conference, who's one of thearchitects of the Nashville
Freedom Movement of 1960-61, butalso of the Selma
demonstrations that are going tohappen in 65, how she's so, so
(36:34):
pivotal Diane Nash.
Ella Baker, who's the founderof the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, is inthis book.
Fannie Lou Hamer, who's asharecropper turned civil rights
activist.
Fannie Lou Hamer, who's asharecropper turned civil rights
activist, who's going to be,who's beaten in Winona,
mississippi, during this time,but who's going to be at the
Democratic National Conventionin 64, the credentials committee
(36:56):
and have her testimony livebroadcast where she famously
says is this America where weare home of the free land of the
brave, where we're beaten forwanting to exercise our rights
as free citizens?
So yes, they absolutely do pavethe way.
And what I wanted to showespecially we see how Black
(37:18):
women were not allowed to make afull speech at the March on
Washington was just to see theiractivism, but then also the
constraints, because you'rebeing active within a
patriarchal context and within apatriarchal context where there
were some other Black women whoacceded and believed in that
patriarchal context, whobelieved that liberation meant
(37:39):
having Black patriarchy that wasat the same level of white
patriarchy.
That was the paradigm and theframework.
So it's very, very complicated,right, it's very, very
complicated.
Some people are going to evolvepast that and say, no, it's
going to be.
We're going to be co-equalarchitects of this new America.
Some people remain there.
(38:00):
Some people remain there evento this day, right, some people
remain there and we've seen thatwhere you know, two women have
tried to run for president andboth of them have not received
the majority of women's votes,neither of them in 2016 and 2024
.
So I think the story of Blackwomen here is very, very key in
how they were pushing forfundamental change and how we
(38:24):
can reimagine these notions ofcitizenship, dignity, democracy
and freedom.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Can you talk about the Black Americans in 1963 who
perhaps thought I don't want torock the boat, we can live here,
this is where we've beenallocated and let's just stay
here.
I don't want to rock the boat.
Do you think they ever thought?
You know, segregation is nevergoing to happen, so let's just
cool it.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Oh, absolutely Absolutely.
There were moderates and peoplewho were pragmatists, who
didn't want to invite thatviolence.
One of the things I show isthat with Medgar Evers, before
his assassination, there areBlack neighbors of his who are
upset about the notoriety he'sreceiving because they don't
want their homes bombed, theydon't want their kids endangered
.
And look, medgar Evers wasassassinated.
(39:10):
But what if somehow a randominnocent bystander?
He was innocent too, but so, no, a lot of people felt that way,
a lot of people.
And then there was also a blacknationalist critique of racial
integration, really mosteloquently articulated by
Malcolm X, mandy, who's sayingwhy are we putting ourselves in
danger for these people?
(39:31):
And that's what's sointeresting, because Malcolm is
always for Black dignity, butuntil his last year he's
skeptical of the idea ofcitizenship.
And remember, citizenship ismerely the external recognition
of dignity.
That's what citizenship is.
So when you think aboutpassports, when you think about
voting rights, when you thinkabout what is citizenship, it's
(39:54):
really the external recognitionof dignity to the extent that
you get formal, legal andlegislative institutions to
ratify what is already yours,mandy.
That's what it is, you know,it's a ratification of what is.
And that's why Malcolm X isalways skeptical, because he's
saying, if we're going to fightfor this citizenship, he is
skeptical of white America'sintegrity in ensuring that that
(40:20):
citizenship would be permanentand institutionalized equitably
and fairly right.
And what's so interesting abouthow we perceive that critique
of Malcolm X?
It shifts over time.
In 2008, when Obama was elected,people would say Malcolm got it
wrong.
You know like, look, we've gotBarack Obama in Grant Park.
(40:40):
And he was.
He was Barack Obama's electionvictory was in Grant Park,
almost 40 years to the day ofactivists, interracial activists
, being routed by the Chicago PD.
And this is happening live ontelevision Mandy, at the
Democratic National Conventionand outside.
(41:02):
And the slogan, the chant thatthey start saying is the whole
world is watching.
And the slogan, the chant thatthey start saying is the whole
world is watching.
And that chant becomes a globalchant about the hypocrisy of
American imperialism.
And there are senior citizensthere too who are being
handcuffed for protesting, usingtheir free speech rights,
protesting against racism, theVietnam War, and they're being
(41:26):
brutalized by the Chicago PD.
Dan Rather is brutalized liveon television.
Walter Cronkite calls theChicago PD a bunch of thugs live
on television, right.
And so the whole idea of thewhole world is watching.
Forty years later, barackObama's president.
So people think, hey, we've won, we've broken the arc of
history.
Right Now you ask people aboutthat Malcolm X quote and
(41:51):
perspective in 2025, they'regoing to have a whole different
perspective.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
In his election victory speech, did Obama talk
about what had happened in GrantPark 40 years before?
Speaker 2 (42:01):
He didn't speak about Grant Park.
He didn't speak about that.
That happened, but in thecontext of the campaign he did
speak about, you know, selma andcivil rights and suffragists,
but yeah, no, he didn't speakabout that.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
On page 46 of Freedom Season you talk about the
summit and I'm wondering whatdoes the lack of a recording say
about the level of trust amongthose gathered at the summit?
Because I was trying to figureout, and I did some research
about whether there was areporter or anybody there taking
notes, but I didn't seeanything.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
No, we don't know.
We don't know.
We only have recollections ofthe meeting.
But it doesn't seem like thatmeeting was recorded and if it
was, it's been lost to history.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Tell us a bit about the summit.
Who was there, and can youexpand on Bobby Kennedy's
request to have J Edgar Hooverand the FBI explore some of the
attendees?
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Well, the summit is really, really an amazing
meeting, a three-hour meeting.
That happens May 24, 1963, atthe behest of Bobby Kennedy, who
had had breakfast with JamesBaldwin at his estate, hickory
Hill, which, by the way, hadbeen Jack Kennedy and Jacqueline
Kennedy's estate in the 1950safter marriage.
(43:18):
And they actually sold that toBobby and Ethel after they had a
little girl who was bornstillborn, who's buried with
President Kennedy.
And so they have a breakfastmeeting.
It doesn't last very longbecause of their busy schedules.
But Kennedy says he's going tobe in New York and if you can
(43:39):
gather a list of folks who arein the pulse of the Negro
community, the Black community,and so Baldwin gets together
Harry Belafonte, lena Horne,lorraine Hansberry, kenneth
Clark, who's the most famousBlack psychologist in America,
(44:01):
very famous for the doll testwith the Brown decision, where
he showed that the little Blackgirl wanted the white dolls over
the Brown decision, where heshowed that the little black
girl wanted the white dolls overthe black dolls, and talks
about the effects of racialsegregation.
And Earl Warren cited Kennethand Mamie Clark's research in
the Brown decision.
And then they get, you know,david Baldwin, jimmy Baldwin's
(44:24):
brothers there they have some.
You know the actor Rip Tornmight be there.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yeah, I was fascinated that Rip Torn was
there.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Rip Torn.
It was one of Jimmy Baldwin'sbest friends, rip Torn and
Shelley Winters, you know, forthose of us who remember these
actors, you know he was, youknow, yeah, so he's very good
friends with them and Jimmy usedto hang out at the actor's
studio in the 1950s People don't, you know really incredible
person.
And so all those folks arethere and Jerome Smith becomes
(44:55):
the key person who's a friend ofJimmy, 25 year old black man
who is an organizer with theCongress of Racial Equality in
Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
And he's quite outspoken in the summit.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Very outspoken about what the Kennedys are not doing
and about how he's so skepticalof the country because of the
mistreatment of civil rightsworkers.
So it's a three hour back andforth.
Bobby's thinking it's going tobe a valediction and they're
going to love and sweat theKennedys and they're saying the
(45:26):
exact opposite.
And then both sides later leaktheir versions of the meeting.
Bobby's very, very upset andreally has all of them, the big
names investigated by the FBI.
So you start to see Baldwin's,j Edgar Hoover, everybody's
right on Baldwin, but soClarence Jones and others too.
(45:48):
But that meeting does becomepart of Bobby's evolution.
Both sides are going to leaktheir versions of the meeting.
They don't understand enough.
(46:10):
Baldwin's going to say you knowwell, he's still hopeful, but
Bobby still is unable.
It was Bobby and Burke Marshall, his special assistant in the
Civil Rights Division.
Baldwin's going to say theycan't recognize Black humanity.
That's the fundamental gap.
They can't recognize Blackhumanity.
They don't see.
Even later in the oralhistories Bobby says there was a
kid there and he's talkingabout Jerome Smith and they all
(46:33):
looked up to him like a hero orsomething.
But he's not able to recognizehimself in Jerome Smith.
That's the most a group ofBlack people ever mistreated
Bobby Kennedy or yelled at BobbyKennedy and that's why I say
that in the book that that's theclosest he ever comes to being
(46:53):
in a room with Malcolm X,because he's got these radicals
who are who are letting him know.
And what's so interesting aboutthe Kennedys and their
misunderstanding of the movementis that they can't stand the
young people of SNCC.
They think of SNCC and this is63, mandy, like SNCC is the
Black Panthers.
That's how they think of SNCCand SNCC is.
(47:15):
You know, these are youngpatriotic.
Some of them are going tobecome radicals and
revolutionaries, stokely,carmichael, all these people.
But I'm saying SNCC was achampion of the new frontier,
sncc was a champion of the mostsoaring rhetoric of the Kennedy
administration until seeing thehuge gap between rhetoric and
(47:37):
reality.
And we see that in freedomseason in Greenwood, mississippi
, where instead of coming to therescue in Greenwood, they make
a deal, even after theassassination attempt on Bob
Moses, and get all the peopleout of jail, but to stop the
movement for voting rights thatthey had been the ones who had
(47:57):
been pressuring SNCC to be apart of through the Voter
Education Project, the VEP, andsaying stop all the sit-ins,
just try to vote.
But there was even moreviolence once people tried to
vote.
And I show that with Selma too.
Selma, before we get Selma withMLK, we see Selma with SNCC,
and James Baldwin goes downthere and you know he tells his
(48:20):
first biographer, fern Ekman,that you know he's seeing
Sheriff Jim Clark and he's gotall these violent fantasies
against Sheriff Jim Clark andsays this guy's despicable and
deserves to die Right.
And now it's very interestingand I wanted to show that that
you know Malcolm X is not theonly one who's passionate about
this Right.
Baldwin is very much enraged bywhat he sees and I think we
(48:41):
have a right to be.
You know, obviously Baldwin isnever violent, but we, he, he,
he has a right to be.
Obviously Baldwin is neverviolent but he has a right to be
.
What he sees none of us shouldever have to see.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
In the book you write that Malcolm X was at the March
on Washington.
Were there any other times whenMalcolm X, james Baldwin and
Martin Luther King were in thesame room together?
Speaker 2 (49:02):
So the three of them being in one venue, so the three
of them being in one venue,that would have been it, the
March on Washington.
When it comes to Malcolm andBaldwin, they were in multiple
venues, especially in the early60s.
Malcolm is the one who sets upthe meeting at Elijah Muhammad's
house that becomes the setpiece for the fire next time
(49:26):
Malcolm and Martin are together.
Basically three times the Marchon Washington.
Meaning you know, like at themarch he's not on the podium.
Meet together on March 26, 1964at the U9th Armory, in the
audience, sitting next to AndrewYoung, who's one of King's most
(49:52):
famous lieutenants, now mayorof Atlanta and a United Nations
ambassador and a big eminencewho's still alive.
Malcolm is in the audience andlater talks about it while King
is being fetid coming back fromEurope and the Nobel Prize, and
they're both in London for oneday at the same time, in
December of 64 as well.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
And they were never in the same room having a
discussion.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Not a discussion.
They're at the US Senate andthey say a few words to each
other, but no.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
When you think about it, that's extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yes, absolutely, people have written plays about
it.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Gosh, they might be my three picks for an imaginary
dinner party.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Oh man, absolutely yes, that'd be a great dinner
conversation.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Okay, Peniel, what are you currently reading?
Speaker 2 (50:40):
You know I'm reading right now, really kind of
rereading Jason Roberts's EveryLiving Thing.
I'm also reading some of RyanHolliday's stuff from the Daily
Stoic on Stoicism and MarcusAurelius and all those things.
I'm working on a couple ofthings as well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
You and I are going to be in conversation in Santa
Barbara on Thursday, august 14th, at the Santa Barbara Club for
the Lunch with an AuthorLiterary Series event Tickets
are available atmandyjacksonbeverlycom forward
slash events.
I am really looking forward tothat event.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
Oh, I'm looking forward to that too.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Peniel, thank you so much for being a guest on the
show.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Peniel, thank you so much for being a guest on the
show.
I highly recommend Freedom.
Never did a book with so many,like you know, presidential
characters.
Like we didn't get a chance totalk about LBJ, but he's there
and Buckley's there and the bookI'm working on is 63 and I got
the Carnegie for it.
It's really just going to beBaldwin it's called Witness and
(52:02):
James Baldwin 63, but I'm alsogoing to bring him to 2025 too.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Well, you have to come back and talk about that
one too.
Thank you again, peniel, forbeing on the show.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Well, thank you so much, Mandy, and for the
Bookshop podcast, and for all ofthe support and your
encouragement of just writersand reading, because we really
need that now more than ever.
So, thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
You've been listening to my conversation with Peniel
E Joseph about his new bookFreedom Season how 1963
transformed America's civilrights revolution.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
(52:45):
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(53:05):
If you have a favorite indiebookshop that you'd like to
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The Bookshop Podcast is writtenand produced by me, mandy
Jackson Beverley, theme musicprovided by Brian Beverley,
executive assistant to MandyAdrian Ohtohan by Brian Beverly,
(53:28):
executive assistant to MandyAdrian Ohtohan, and graphic
design by Francis Farala.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you next time.
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a
bibliophile.
Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast.
Each week, I present interviewswith authors, independent
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(00:33):
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podcast.
You're listening to Episode 295.
195.
Peniel E Joseph is the BarbaraJordan Chair in Ethics and
Political Values, foundingDirector of the Center for the
(00:57):
Study of Race and Democracy atthe LBJ School of Public Affairs
and Distinguished ServiceLeadership Professor and
Professor of History at theUniversity of Texas at Austin.
He is the author and editor ofeight award-winning books on
African American history,including the Third
Reconstruction and the Sword andthe Shield.
He lives in Austin, texas.
Hi, peniel, and welcome to theshow.
(01:17):
It's great to have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh, thank you for having me, Mandy.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I learned a lot about American history from reading
your latest book, freedom Seasonhow 1963 Transformed America's
Civil Rights Revolution.
I've lived in the US since 1983and am constantly learning
about American history.
Freedom Season not only taughtme a lot about 1963, but it also
(01:43):
gave me hope.
So thank you for that.
It is much needed and it's anextraordinary book.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You have written and spoken about how your love of
history was built uponconversations with your mother.
Where did her passion andcuriosity for history derive?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, you know, it really came because she grew up
in Haiti.
She came to the United Stateswhen she was around 25, and she
was a hospital worker at MountSinai Hospital in New York City,
local 1199.
But she had always been aprodigious reader and writer.
From a young age.
In Haiti she was able to beeducated, she spoke and could
(02:22):
write in French and Haitian andEnglish and Spanish.
So she was very, you know, shejust was very, very, you know,
prodigious in terms of herintelligence and even as a young
person talking to her, she wasvery intellectually curious.
So you had a bunch of historybooks African-American history,
(02:44):
haitian history but she hadbooks of philosophy in the house
.
She was a Christian who wasinterested in religion and other
religions, so she had booksabout Judaism and other things
in the house and the Hebrewprophets, but she had books
about space exploration in thehouse.
She was really interested inscience.
She was a lab technologist andshe did the blood work for
(03:06):
people who had all kinds ofillnesses and challenges.
So she just was hugelyintellectually curious and that
started it all for me.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yes, I think one of the best gifts we can give our
children is the gift ofconversation and the gift of
books.
Children are naturally curious,so if there's books around
fiction or nonfiction they willpick them up and they will learn
.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Absolutely.
And in our house we just had alot of intellectual
conversations, mandy.
So it was that kind of house.
It was a house where we talkedabout history and music and
politics and elections, so itwas really a great education.
I learned only later that noteverybody grows up in a house
like that right.
So we really talked abouteverything under the sun and
were encouraged to explore anddo more research and study, and
(03:59):
those are the days ofEncyclopedia Britannica, and we
had all of that at ourfingertips.
We would go to the local publiclibrary all the time and we
just were a household that wasvery much interested in ideas
and put those ideas into actiontoo.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And, as parents, it's wonderful witnessing your
children growing up with thatcuriosity and that love of
conversation and that love oflearning.
Looking back, were there anypivotal classroom moments or
assignments or teachers who madeyou realize history could be a
tool for activism?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Oh, yes.
So I went to a local Catholicschool, st Joachim and Anne, in
New York, queens, new York, andwe had great teachers who showed
us Eyes on the Prize, whoshowed us different films and
documentaries during the 1980s.
I think certainly the mostpractical thing was my mom was
(04:57):
part of a union that haddemonstrations and pickets, and
when they were on strike wewould come to the city and my
older brother and I and her andman the picket lines, and so
that was a very, very excitingand open example.
(05:18):
And so I didn't grow up in NewYork City.
Ed Koch was mayor.
There were things like EleanorBumpfist there's a new book out
who was a 66-year-oldgrandmother who was killed by
the police in 1984 when I wasnot yet even 12 years old.
(05:38):
I remember reading that storybecause we read multiple daily
papers every day in ourhousehold, because we read
multiple daily papers every dayin our household.
And when I was a freshman inhigh school in 1986, a young man
, black man, michael Griffith,was really murdered by a mob of
people in Howard Beach, queens,who chased him and he ran out
(06:02):
into a highway to escape and washit by a car.
And that happened in Decemberof 1986.
And you know those are thingsthat were very much shaping and
indelible.
And then there were cool thingslike pop culture, like Spike
Lee's Do the Right Thing.
That came out in 1989.
School Days came out in 88.
But Do the Right Thing was 16years old when that came out.
(06:26):
That was really, reallyimportant.
You know, set in the hottestday of the year in Brooklyn, new
York, and race relations,blacks, italians, segregation,
you know, citizenship, dignity,democracy, that was all there.
And then, a few years later,the Malcolm X film came out in
1992.
(06:47):
And certainly the rise of.
You know, I was Generation X, Iwas born in 1972.
So hip hop was a huge, hugepart of growing up.
I was somebody who was goingall around the city doing a lot
of stuff and listening to music.
Listening to, you know, run DMC, but Tribe Called Quest, public
(07:11):
Enemy, poor Righteous Teachers,native Tongues, krs-one.
So all that was reallyeffective and impactful for me.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, the arts are a great way to research history.
What's sad to me is in theUnited States, there seems to be
a disconnect around supportingthe arts and creative people.
This country is full offantastic creative people the
music, the artwork, the dance,the theater, the literature and
poetry.
(07:41):
It's exceptional, and yet it'snot supported by a government,
which is tragic, and it'sextremely difficult to get
grants now because of the budgetcuts.
When I look back at history,one of the main things I
discover it is often artists whofight for change.
I mean, look at the music from1963.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I think, in fact, theperiod that we're talking about
63, is the period thatinaugurates the most public
support of art and literatureand culture in American history,
with the inauguration of theNational Endowment for
Humanities, national Endowmentfor the Arts, public
(08:23):
broadcasting, pbs and giving,and really the major investments
in higher education, inuniversities, for research and
technology and differentinvestments for funding.
So, yeah, I mean it's a veryrevolutionary time in that sense
and probably since the 1980swe've gone back on those
(08:46):
investments, which are very,very negative, and I also think
the arts reflected the activismof the time, right.
So sometimes people think theartists are ahead.
I think what's going on is that, even like James Baldwin and
Lorraine Hansberry, they'rereflecting the social movements
(09:08):
of the time, you know.
So that's what's going on,because certainly artists impact
history, but I do think thathistory impacts all of us more
than we're able to impact it.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
When we look at 1963, which global events do you
think had the greatestpsychological impact on people
living in the United States?
And also, I guess, the lead upto 1963, towards the middle and
end of 1962, there was a lothappening.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Oh, absolutely so.
When we think about 63 and theearly 60s, it's really a
revolutionary time globally.
There's African decolonization,there's movements for dignity
and citizenship happening allacross the world and, in a lot
of ways, the civil rightsmovement which really predates
(09:58):
even the Brown decision in 1954,there's these struggles for
dignity and citizenship thatcome out of the Great Depression
and the Second World War.
And during World War II therewas a double V campaign that
Black activists created victoryagainst fascism abroad and
victory against racism at home,and that was the double V
(10:20):
campaign.
And you have a very robustcirculation of Black newspapers
like the Chicago Defender, theNew York Amsterdam News, los
Angeles Herald, dispatch,california Eagle, pittsburgh
Courier.
It's just all over.
And so when we think about thecivil rights movement of the 50s
(10:40):
and 60s, it's initially a moreconstrained movement because of
the Cold War.
So the Cold War is what reallymarginalizes people like Paul
Robeson, web Du Bois, two of theleading figures of the book
James Baldwin and LorraineHansberry are very much impacted
by the Cold War.
Lorraine Hansberry is a Marxistwho is, you know, she's a
(11:04):
student of Paul Robeson and WEBDu Bois and Esther Cooper
Jackson and all these Blackinternationalist left women who
somebody like Maya Angelou wasgoing to become a part of in the
60s, but James Baldwin.
Really, when the Cold War hitshe's in Paris and initially he's
(11:26):
more in the Ellisonianindividualist camp, right in the
late 40s, early 50s, publishingwith Partisan Review being
funded by really center-rightliterary voices, right.
And so by the time we see 1962,63, what's happened is that the
(11:49):
civil rights movement and theBlack freedom struggle that has
already existed has been able to, through the Black church with
King and the MontgomeryImprovement Association, but
also labor leaders like A PhilipRandolph and ED Nixon.
They've been able to create amoral framework to push back
(12:09):
against racial segregation andalso prevent themselves from
being too tainted with the slurof being a communist right and
so things like the.
By 1960, the sit-in movement,the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, isfounded by Ella Baker in North
(12:31):
Carolina and that comes out of aFebruary 1st 1960 sit-in at a
Woolworth's lunch counter inGreensboro, north Carolina.
That is now a civil rightsmuseum and those four students
grow into over 60,000 studentsthe spring of 1960, including
white students who aredemonstrating in sympathy in New
(12:51):
York and Los Angeles and otherplaces to desegregate public
accommodations all across theUnited States.
By 1961, there are freedomrides between May and December
and those freedom rides go intothe Deep South.
There had been a Supreme Courtruling that segregation on
(13:12):
interstate travel was illegaland they go to test those cases
and John Lewis and others arebombed in Anniston, alabama, may
4th 1961.
And that becomes a crisis forthe Kennedy administration and
they're brutalized.
The whole deal and the FreedomRides which are sponsored by
(13:33):
CORE, the Congress of RacialEquality, had actually first
happened in 1947 through theUpper South, with Bayard Rustin,
who's Black queer, theorganizer of the March on
Washington that year, in 63, hadbeen imprisoned as a
conscientious objector but also,because of his homosexuality,
had constantly been fired fromjobs and shunned and humiliated,
(13:56):
arrested, all these differentthings.
So when we think about 63, byfall of 62, james Meredith
becomes the first Black studentat University of Mississippi, in
Oxford, mississippi, andthere's three days of rioting.
The Kennedy administration hasto send 500 US marshals to
escort him.
(14:16):
Two people die.
So it's a huge thing.
It's a huge thing happening.
And then, along the way, youhave James Baldwin, in November
of 1962, who publishes thelongest essay in the history of
the New Yorker, wallace Shawn'sNew Yorker up until that time,
called A Letter from a Region inmy Mind which becomes the bulk
of the Fire Next Time January31st, 1963.
(14:40):
, 1963, and and so all thosethings are are are happening and
stewing in the air.
So 1963 is a very portentousyear, and the final thing I'll
say is that it also happens tobe the centennial of the
emancipation proclamation aswell and it's strange to think
about this now, but there wasthat hotline between the
president's desk and r.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
It's interesting how circumstances and relationships
between world leaders change soquickly.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Well, kennedy asked for that hotline at the American
University speech.
So that hotline is going to becreated, and that's after.
One thing I didn't say happenedin 62.
In October of 62 is the 13-dayCuban missile Crisis.
The world is on the brink of anuclear catastrophe between the
(15:30):
United States and the SovietUnion over placing missiles in
Cuba, and so, yeah, it's a very,very dangerous time, but it's
also a very, very hopeful timeas well.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
It sounds familiar, doesn't it?
During the research and writingprocess for Freedom Season,
what new traits did you discoverabout each character meaning
Baldwin, malcolm X, martinLuther King, jfk and Bobby
Kennedy, and do you see JamesBaldwin as the glue that held
these men together?
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Oh, certainly, I think Baldwin is a through line
to the characters in the bookand creates a moral and ethical
framework, very passionately,for these ideas of dignity,
citizenship, multiracialdemocracy and freedom.
Oh yeah, I discovered many newtraits in all these characters.
(16:24):
I think I've worked on King andMalcolm before and I think what
I discovered with them lookingat them through 1963, was just
the evolution.
I was able to look at them, youknow, day by day and week by
week, and you're able to see theevolutions, the strengths, the
weaknesses.
With King, you're really ableto see him coming more into his
own voice in 63, and he'sbecoming more and more combative
(16:47):
letter from Birmingham jail.
You're able to see what a deafpolitical operator he is really,
especially outside the halls ofpower.
And what I mean by that is thatwhen he's meeting with the
president, when he's meetingwith NAACP leaders like Roy
Wilkins, he's mostly silent,right.
(17:08):
He doesn't like confrontation.
He really is able to shiftthose institutions and those
power centers once he leaves themeeting and is articulating
from his perspective, purposely,what happened and what did that
meeting mean.
And when he's articulatingthese events, he's always the
(17:30):
leader and the protagonist,right.
And that's what you know, oneof the reasons Roy Wilkins hates
him Because you know he's goingto be silent mostly throughout
the 90-minute White Housemeeting and as soon as the press
comes he's saying.
Here's what I said.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Gosh, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Exactly, yeah, so he's immensely interesting.
When it came to Malcolm, Ithink you saw Malcolm just
further.
Traits that humanized Malcolm.
Malcolm's different from Kingin the sense that Mandy, the
chemistry and the charisma isthere always, so it's never off.
(18:11):
People can have a cup of coffeewith him and they're wildly
impressed.
One thing, too, is that Malcolmhas a wicked sense of humor.
That's never off as well.
Right, so he's an immenselypowerfully charismatic man, not
(18:32):
just when he's speaking on stage.
Right, he's, you know, andunlike King, he's not this, he's
not this private man in thesense of there's really not a
Janice face with Malcolm.
Right, he's able to let hisguard down because he's telling
(18:53):
you everything or a lot abouthimself, because he articulates
his time in what he calls theAmerican wilderness of racism,
where he was a criminal and hewas somebody who was taking
drugs and doing bad things.
Right, and so with him, he's avery interesting person because
(19:15):
once he joins the Nation ofIslam and becomes a Muslim, even
though he leaves the Nation ofIslam and becomes an Orthodox
Muslim he's a Muslim for 16, 17years.
There's really nothing.
He's running and hiding fromright.
So he's not drinking, hedoesn't smoke, he doesn't have
extramarital affairs.
So he's very liberated in thatsense.
(19:35):
But it was interesting.
It's interesting to see how, in63, how he's becoming much more
powerful and much more visibleand the more that happens, the
more alienated he becomes fromthe Nation of Islam.
In 63.
And I show that you know too.
But you see him beingphotographed by Richard Avedon.
You see him on the same show asBaldwin and King.
(19:59):
You see him, he's at the Marchon Washington.
He goes to Washington DC andbecomes the head of the Muslim
Mosque number four there.
So he's an extraordinary figure.
But in 63, I wanted to show howhe's impacting the narrative
and the politics of the time andhow the politics are impacting
(20:22):
him.
So you see, I think, a muchmore vulnerable Malcolm X than
you would think With the Kennedybrothers.
I think what was great aboutslowing it down to 1963 was
seeing their evolution right,their moments of doubt, their
reluctance, but then theirmoments of boldness and courage
(20:42):
right.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So we get a better portrait of the Kennedys, I
think in Freedom Season, for mymoney than any other previous
book, because I think what bookstend to do is either valorize
or demonize them right.
So books tend to say they werethe greatest thing since sliced
bread about the civil rightsmovement.
That's not true.
Or that they absolutely didnothing in support of civil
(21:08):
rights, and that's not true.
And so you're able to reallysee, and their evolution is
incomplete the spring of thespeeches of the president and
the March on Washington.
But then they're not great.
After the six children aremurdered in Birmingham and I
show that that's the whole thingI think for their own posterity
(21:30):
they should have went to thosefunerals, right.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yes, definitely.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And again it's politics be damned.
But they don't know it at thetime.
The president doesn't know he'sgoing to be assassinated in
November 22nd, 63.
Bobby doesn't know he's goingto be shot on June 5th and die
June 6th of 68, right.
But it becomes civil rights,does become the beating heart of
that administration,reluctantly, right.
(21:57):
And then there's people likeGloria Richardson and Lorraine
Hansberry who I thought was very, very interesting to see their
evolution.
Gloria Richardson is an activistfrom Cambridge, maryland, who's
a Howard University graduate,who's trying to desegregate the
city of Cambridge and is very,very powerful, very, very
(22:19):
no-nonsense.
And she's facing all thissexism.
She's facing all this deepskepticism about women and their
leadership.
She's unimpressed by theKennedys and has to go.
She meets JFK at the WhiteHouse.
She negotiates with BobbyKennedy the so-called Treaty of
Cambridge.
Malcolm X leads a standingovation for her at King Solomon
(22:41):
Baptist Church in Detroit inNovember of 63, and they go on
to have a professionalrelationship.
So I think she's endlesslyfascinated.
She was called the Lady Generalof the Civil Rights Movement.
And Lorraine Hansberry isreally, really important because
she's just so unbelievablybrilliant and she was a radical
before.
James Baldwin was a radical andthey were friends, she's six
(23:04):
years younger than Baldwin.
I mean, what's so interestingis the age of people.
Baldwin was born in 1924,malcolm and Bobby Kennedy in
1925, lorraine Hansberry in 1930, gloria Richardson is about 42
at the time, so 1921.
Jack Kennedy 1917.
People were very, very younghere.
(23:25):
You know, william F Buckley is36, 37, 38.
It's a very fascinating periodbecause so many of the leaders
are so young and theprotagonists are so young.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I love the way you wrote the book.
It's a storytelling of theevents that happened in 1963,
not just short snippets of factsand figures.
There are stories around thesepeople and you bring out their
humanity, which I enjoy aboutyour writing.
Was there a particular momentwhere Baldwin's voice felt
(23:58):
especially central or propheticto you?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Oh many you know.
So I think Baldwin and it's notjust the Fire Next Time I think
one of the things I wanted toshow and I'm working on another
Baldwin project now was to showhow he becomes an activist.
He calls himself a witness, buthe's in Louisiana and North
Carolina and Mississippi at thestart of the year with Medgar
(24:21):
Evers and then he does a WestCoast tour of Los Angeles and
Sacramento and San Francisco andhe's speaking before 7,000,
8,000, 9,000 students atBerkeley, standing room only in
gymnasiums in Stanford.
So there's a great picture ofhim at Berkeley in the book too.
(24:42):
So this is really unbelievable.
The impact that Baldwin has isunbelievable.
I think he's unbelievablyprescient about Birmingham and
what that means for the countryboth times, both in the spring
of 63, but also after the sixchildren are killed.
(25:03):
And one thing I tried to do isto show Baldwin and Baldwin with
the young people, and I want tojust say their names.
The young women who are killedis Carol Robertson, addie Mae
Collins, cynthia Wesley, deniseMcNair, and the young boys are
Johnny Robinson and VirgilPeanut Ware, and throughout the
(25:27):
book I named them.
And Baldwin is very prescient insaying that by the time of the
Kennedy assassination.
The country mourns Kennedycollectively, but we mourn these
Black children separately andwe mourned Medgar Evers
separately.
So he's extraordinary aboutwanting us to.
(25:48):
He's got these aspirations forthis grand American republic,
but he wants us to get therethrough confrontation with the
original sin of racial slavery,the aftermath of Jim Crow,
segregation, but also and thisis very prescient for our own
time in 2025, mandy.
He wants us to go beyond thelies that rationalized and
(26:11):
justified Jim Crow and slaveryand contemporary inequality In
1963, he's saying that, letalone 62 years later, where
folks right now are activelytrying to erase and efface
American history and ban booksand prevent us from talking
about all these things.
And again, it's paradoxicalbecause we are living in the
(26:32):
world right now where, in thehistory of the recorded world,
we have the most resources todisseminate information and
knowledge.
But unfortunately, we also havethe most resources to
disseminate information andknowledge, but unfortunately, we
also have the most resources todisseminate misinformation and
untruths and falsehoods as well.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I just want to circle back to the children who died
in Birmingham and a quote fromJames Baldwin Carol Robertson,
addie Mae Collins, cynthiaWesley, denise McNair and the
two boys Collins, cynthia Wesley, denise McNair and the two boys
Johnny Robinson and VirgilPeanut Ware, on page 118, I
think it's you're in May in 1963, you share an eloquent quote by
(27:10):
James Baldwin those who bearthe greatest responsibility for
the chaos in Birmingham are notin Birmingham and while that
quote was for everyone to hear,do you feel it was directed
toward the Kennedys and do youfeel that quote of Baldwin's
resonates today through causeslike Black Lives Matter and the
(27:31):
political unrest within theUnited States today?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, I think he's aiming it at the Kennedys, but
he's also aiming it at theGeorge Wallaces and the
conservatives.
He's a vociferous critic of JEdgar Hoover and the FBI because
of their hypocrisy and theirlack of defending civil rights
activists, and he knows theirsurveillance of the movement.
He's not aware of the depth andthe lengths of them.
(27:56):
So he's aiming it at that wholegroup of folks and certainly
that continues today, becausewherever we see violence,
wherever we see impoverishment,where we see political division
and polarization, the folks whoare really truly responsible are
not in those locales themselves.
(28:18):
Right, it's going to be folkswho are misinformation oligarchs
and tech titans who are andthey're political cronies, who
are orchestrating these things.
And we've already seen it interms of this administration and
the tech folks who areconnected to this administration
(28:41):
and what's going on with ourboth domestic and foreign policy
.
So he's right on there and thepositive of 63 is that a lot of
people are listening to him andhe's eventually able to get at
least a sit-in with some of thebiggest people who are in the
corridors of power.
(29:01):
And Baldwin is part of the moralshaming of these folks,
alongside of the movement that'sgoing to compel Jack Kennedy
into action and again, peoplelike Bobby Kennedy when we think
about sort of the legend ofBobby Kennedy and I'm somebody
who actually admire BobbyKennedy but Baldwin shows us you
(29:24):
know, when they have the summitand you know Kennedy is
unleashing the FBI on folksafter the summit, including
King's attorney Clarence Jones,and that's how the FBI is going
to find out about Martin LutherKing Jr's extramarital affairs
that Baldwin is really about adeeper truth.
Bobby was never able in hislifetime to admit and apologize
(29:49):
for the stuff he did to theBaldwins and the Kings and all
that right.
So the only way we could get toreconciliation, baldwin argued,
is to admit all those mistakesand those lies.
And so you could only get toreconciliation.
The road to it was truth andjustice.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I'm sitting here soaking in all your words.
There's so much in what you'vejust said that I need to pause
and think about for a moment.
What do you wish more peopleknew about Medgar Evers?
That gets overlooked inmainstream civil rights
narratives.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah.
So with Medgar, it's really howbrilliant he was.
And the speech he makes in Mayof 1963, and what's so
interesting about that speech isis responding to Mayor Thompson
(30:45):
of Jackson, mississippi, sayingthat Negroes are treated well,
everything here is fine.
And what Medgar says in thatspeech is he talks about being a
veteran of the Second World Warfighting Hitlerism and fascism.
He talks about being a nativeMississippi, generationally
going back to racial slavery, sohe's not an outsider.
(31:07):
And he says that the folks inMississippi, black folks, love
the country.
They're patriotic, just like heis, and they're fighting to
transform the country.
But they understand what'shappening in Africa and the
decolonization movements and thefreedom movements around the
world.
So it's a panoramic,brilliantly cosmopolitan and
(31:28):
globally international speech.
And so what we don't get and Isay it's a very undersided
speech in the annals of thecivil rights movement is that we
don't get Medgar Evers alive asan activist who's helping to
transform what's going on inMississippi.
And see and I think we do inFreedom Season, see that even
(31:50):
shortly before his death he'sprofiled in the New York Times.
People know who he is.
He's a star and we're gettingto see how intelligent he is.
The relationship between himand Murley, his wife, his three
kids, the way in which he buildscoalitions, including with the
white and indigenous professorJohn Salter, who's right there
(32:11):
at Tougaloo sit-ins.
And I show Salter and JoanTrumpower, who I've actually met
and interviewed in real life,who's a white activist who goes
to Tougaloo 21 years old, blonde, blue-eyed, petite and just so
courageous and so resilient andindefatigable.
(32:31):
And so you know, when we thinkabout Medgar Evers, we have to
see all of that before justputting him down as a martyr,
right so, 37 years old, a formerfootball player, a veteran of
war, but this unbelievablycourageous figure, who Martin
(32:54):
Luther King Jr knows and admiresdeeply James Baldwin meets in
63 and deeply admires who's justa linchpin.
The students admire him.
You know students like DaveDennis and Bob Moses, and the
students who are part of SNCC,the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, and CORE, the Congress of Racial
Equality, the Masonic Temple indowntown Jackson, mississippi.
(33:18):
Medgar is the editor of his ownpaper, the Mississippi Free
Press, a four-page mimeograph.
So just truly a remarkablefigure.
Not just somebody who we say,oh, field secretary of the NAACP
who was assassinated in theearly hours of June 12th.
So much more than that.
(33:40):
I wanted us to feel that too andfeel how the Black community
reacted to his assassination too.
I wanted us to feel that,because Medgar becomes this
global figure and you see Murleyon the cover of Life magazine
and stuff and John Kennedysaying the morning after he's
killed that this has becomeeverything.
(34:02):
Civil rights has becomeeverything right.
And I wanted us to see, fromthe start of the year to June
11th, 12th, that for Blackactivists it had already been
everything right.
This was their lives.
And it takes all these series ofescalating crises and these
public humiliations, because,remember, birmingham's a public
humiliation for the UnitedStates because it's a different
(34:24):
America, only 18 years after theSecond World War.
It's America that can still beshamed, right.
It's the America that HenryLuce, the publisher of Time
Magazine, says it's going to bean American century, the
American century.
Right, we're going to bringpeace and prosperity to the
globe, and so it's important forus to see that.
(34:44):
I think to feel that the shapeand texture of that in 63.
And again, there's an arroganceto American power, because, even
as John F Kennedy is hostingMurley and two of her children
at the White House, he can'timagine that he's going to be
assassinated.
That's the power and theprivilege.
Right?
He can't imagine it.
(35:05):
Bobby Kennedy can't imagine it.
It's going to happen, but theycan't.
They feel they're protected.
They're not, bobby Kennedy.
Both those brothers are goingto be killed, right, both of
them?
But they feel they're protected.
They feel they've got it right,you know, but they don't right,
and Black people are trying totell them and ring the alarm.
None of us are protected andthat's why Malcolm X says
(35:28):
chickens coming home to roost'sthe intimate way in which you've
written that scene.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
It's heart-wrenching and it brings that death and
everyone else who has died for acause right back home, right
back to us.
You spoke earlier about GloriaRichardson and Lorraine
Hansberry, women who paved theway for the next generation of
female civil rights activists.
Women who paved the way for thenext generation of female civil
(36:08):
rights activists.
Can you speak about one or twowomen who reshaped your
understanding of how leadershipfunctioned?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
during that era.
Oh, absolutely, they do pavethe way.
And I show Diane Nash, who'spart of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee and alsoSouthern Christian Leadership
Conference, who's one of thearchitects of the Nashville
Freedom Movement of 1960-61, butalso of the Selma
demonstrations that are going tohappen in 65, how she's so, so
(36:34):
pivotal Diane Nash.
Ella Baker, who's the founderof the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, is inthis book.
Fannie Lou Hamer, who's asharecropper turned civil rights
activist.
Fannie Lou Hamer, who's asharecropper turned civil rights
activist, who's going to be,who's beaten in Winona,
mississippi, during this time,but who's going to be at the
Democratic National Conventionin 64, the credentials committee
(36:56):
and have her testimony livebroadcast where she famously
says is this America where weare home of the free land of the
brave, where we're beaten forwanting to exercise our rights
as free citizens?
So yes, they absolutely do pavethe way.
And what I wanted to showespecially we see how Black
(37:18):
women were not allowed to make afull speech at the March on
Washington was just to see theiractivism, but then also the
constraints, because you'rebeing active within a
patriarchal context and within apatriarchal context where there
were some other Black women whoacceded and believed in that
patriarchal context, whobelieved that liberation meant
(37:39):
having Black patriarchy that wasat the same level of white
patriarchy.
That was the paradigm and theframework.
So it's very, very complicated,right, it's very, very
complicated.
Some people are going to evolvepast that and say, no, it's
going to be.
We're going to be co-equalarchitects of this new America.
Some people remain there.
(38:00):
Some people remain there evento this day, right, some people
remain there and we've seen thatwhere you know, two women have
tried to run for president andboth of them have not received
the majority of women's votes,neither of them in 2016 and 2024
.
So I think the story of Blackwomen here is very, very key in
how they were pushing forfundamental change and how we
(38:24):
can reimagine these notions ofcitizenship, dignity, democracy
and freedom.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Can you talk about the Black Americans in 1963 who
perhaps thought I don't want torock the boat, we can live here,
this is where we've beenallocated and let's just stay
here.
I don't want to rock the boat.
Do you think they ever thought?
You know, segregation is nevergoing to happen, so let's just
cool it.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Oh, absolutely Absolutely.
There were moderates and peoplewho were pragmatists, who
didn't want to invite thatviolence.
One of the things I show isthat with Medgar Evers, before
his assassination, there areBlack neighbors of his who are
upset about the notoriety he'sreceiving because they don't
want their homes bombed, theydon't want their kids endangered
.
And look, medgar Evers wasassassinated.
(39:10):
But what if somehow a randominnocent bystander?
He was innocent too, but so, no, a lot of people felt that way,
a lot of people.
And then there was also a blacknationalist critique of racial
integration, really mosteloquently articulated by
Malcolm X, mandy, who's sayingwhy are we putting ourselves in
danger for these people?
(39:31):
And that's what's sointeresting, because Malcolm is
always for Black dignity, butuntil his last year he's
skeptical of the idea ofcitizenship.
And remember, citizenship ismerely the external recognition
of dignity.
That's what citizenship is.
So when you think aboutpassports, when you think about
voting rights, when you thinkabout what is citizenship, it's
(39:54):
really the external recognitionof dignity to the extent that
you get formal, legal andlegislative institutions to
ratify what is already yours,mandy.
That's what it is, you know,it's a ratification of what is.
And that's why Malcolm X isalways skeptical, because he's
saying, if we're going to fightfor this citizenship, he is
skeptical of white America'sintegrity in ensuring that that
(40:20):
citizenship would be permanentand institutionalized equitably
and fairly right.
And what's so interesting abouthow we perceive that critique
of Malcolm X?
It shifts over time.
In 2008, when Obama was elected,people would say Malcolm got it
wrong.
You know like, look, we've gotBarack Obama in Grant Park.
(40:40):
And he was.
He was Barack Obama's electionvictory was in Grant Park,
almost 40 years to the day ofactivists, interracial activists
, being routed by the Chicago PD.
And this is happening live ontelevision Mandy, at the
Democratic National Conventionand outside.
(41:02):
And the slogan, the chant thatthey start saying is the whole
world is watching.
And the slogan, the chant thatthey start saying is the whole
world is watching.
And that chant becomes a globalchant about the hypocrisy of
American imperialism.
And there are senior citizensthere too who are being
handcuffed for protesting, usingtheir free speech rights,
protesting against racism, theVietnam War, and they're being
(41:26):
brutalized by the Chicago PD.
Dan Rather is brutalized liveon television.
Walter Cronkite calls theChicago PD a bunch of thugs live
on television, right.
And so the whole idea of thewhole world is watching.
Forty years later, barackObama's president.
So people think, hey, we've won, we've broken the arc of
history.
Right Now you ask people aboutthat Malcolm X quote and
(41:51):
perspective in 2025, they'regoing to have a whole different
perspective.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
In his election victory speech, did Obama talk
about what had happened in GrantPark 40 years before?
Speaker 2 (42:01):
He didn't speak about Grant Park.
He didn't speak about that.
That happened, but in thecontext of the campaign he did
speak about, you know, selma andcivil rights and suffragists,
but yeah, no, he didn't speakabout that.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
On page 46 of Freedom Season you talk about the
summit and I'm wondering whatdoes the lack of a recording say
about the level of trust amongthose gathered at the summit?
Because I was trying to figureout, and I did some research
about whether there was areporter or anybody there taking
notes, but I didn't seeanything.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
No, we don't know.
We don't know.
We only have recollections ofthe meeting.
But it doesn't seem like thatmeeting was recorded and if it
was, it's been lost to history.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Tell us a bit about the summit.
Who was there, and can youexpand on Bobby Kennedy's
request to have J Edgar Hooverand the FBI explore some of the
attendees?
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Well, the summit is really, really an amazing
meeting, a three-hour meeting.
That happens May 24, 1963, atthe behest of Bobby Kennedy, who
had had breakfast with JamesBaldwin at his estate, hickory
Hill, which, by the way, hadbeen Jack Kennedy and Jacqueline
Kennedy's estate in the 1950safter marriage.
(43:18):
And they actually sold that toBobby and Ethel after they had a
little girl who was bornstillborn, who's buried with
President Kennedy.
And so they have a breakfastmeeting.
It doesn't last very longbecause of their busy schedules.
But Kennedy says he's going tobe in New York and if you can
(43:39):
gather a list of folks who arein the pulse of the Negro
community, the Black community,and so Baldwin gets together
Harry Belafonte, lena Horne,lorraine Hansberry, kenneth
Clark, who's the most famousBlack psychologist in America,
(44:01):
very famous for the doll testwith the Brown decision, where
he showed that the little Blackgirl wanted the white dolls over
the Brown decision, where heshowed that the little black
girl wanted the white dolls overthe black dolls, and talks
about the effects of racialsegregation.
And Earl Warren cited Kennethand Mamie Clark's research in
the Brown decision.
And then they get, you know,david Baldwin, jimmy Baldwin's
(44:24):
brothers there they have some.
You know the actor Rip Tornmight be there.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yeah, I was fascinated that Rip Torn was
there.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Rip Torn.
It was one of Jimmy Baldwin'sbest friends, rip Torn and
Shelley Winters, you know, forthose of us who remember these
actors, you know he was, youknow, yeah, so he's very good
friends with them and Jimmy usedto hang out at the actor's
studio in the 1950s People don't, you know really incredible
person.
And so all those folks arethere and Jerome Smith becomes
(44:55):
the key person who's a friend ofJimmy, 25 year old black man
who is an organizer with theCongress of Racial Equality in
Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
And he's quite outspoken in the summit.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Very outspoken about what the Kennedys are not doing
and about how he's so skepticalof the country because of the
mistreatment of civil rightsworkers.
So it's a three hour back andforth.
Bobby's thinking it's going tobe a valediction and they're
going to love and sweat theKennedys and they're saying the
(45:26):
exact opposite.
And then both sides later leaktheir versions of the meeting.
Bobby's very, very upset andreally has all of them, the big
names investigated by the FBI.
So you start to see Baldwin's,j Edgar Hoover, everybody's
right on Baldwin, but soClarence Jones and others too.
(45:48):
But that meeting does becomepart of Bobby's evolution.
Both sides are going to leaktheir versions of the meeting.
They don't understand enough.
(46:10):
Baldwin's going to say you knowwell, he's still hopeful, but
Bobby still is unable.
It was Bobby and Burke Marshall, his special assistant in the
Civil Rights Division.
Baldwin's going to say theycan't recognize Black humanity.
That's the fundamental gap.
They can't recognize Blackhumanity.
They don't see.
Even later in the oralhistories Bobby says there was a
kid there and he's talkingabout Jerome Smith and they all
(46:33):
looked up to him like a hero orsomething.
But he's not able to recognizehimself in Jerome Smith.
That's the most a group ofBlack people ever mistreated
Bobby Kennedy or yelled at BobbyKennedy and that's why I say
that in the book that that's theclosest he ever comes to being
(46:53):
in a room with Malcolm X,because he's got these radicals
who are who are letting him know.
And what's so interesting aboutthe Kennedys and their
misunderstanding of the movementis that they can't stand the
young people of SNCC.
They think of SNCC and this is63, mandy, like SNCC is the
Black Panthers.
That's how they think of SNCCand SNCC is.
(47:15):
You know, these are youngpatriotic.
Some of them are going tobecome radicals and
revolutionaries, stokely,carmichael, all these people.
But I'm saying SNCC was achampion of the new frontier,
sncc was a champion of the mostsoaring rhetoric of the Kennedy
administration until seeing thehuge gap between rhetoric and
(47:37):
reality.
And we see that in freedomseason in Greenwood, mississippi
, where instead of coming to therescue in Greenwood, they make
a deal, even after theassassination attempt on Bob
Moses, and get all the peopleout of jail, but to stop the
movement for voting rights thatthey had been the ones who had
(47:57):
been pressuring SNCC to be apart of through the Voter
Education Project, the VEP, andsaying stop all the sit-ins,
just try to vote.
But there was even moreviolence once people tried to
vote.
And I show that with Selma too.
Selma, before we get Selma withMLK, we see Selma with SNCC,
and James Baldwin goes downthere and you know he tells his
(48:20):
first biographer, fern Ekman,that you know he's seeing
Sheriff Jim Clark and he's gotall these violent fantasies
against Sheriff Jim Clark andsays this guy's despicable and
deserves to die Right.
And now it's very interestingand I wanted to show that that
you know Malcolm X is not theonly one who's passionate about
this Right.
Baldwin is very much enraged bywhat he sees and I think we
(48:41):
have a right to be.
You know, obviously Baldwin isnever violent, but we, he, he,
he has a right to be.
Obviously Baldwin is neverviolent but he has a right to be
.
What he sees none of us shouldever have to see.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
In the book you write that Malcolm X was at the March
on Washington.
Were there any other times whenMalcolm X, james Baldwin and
Martin Luther King were in thesame room together?
Speaker 2 (49:02):
So the three of them being in one venue, so the three
of them being in one venue,that would have been it, the
March on Washington.
When it comes to Malcolm andBaldwin, they were in multiple
venues, especially in the early60s.
Malcolm is the one who sets upthe meeting at Elijah Muhammad's
house that becomes the setpiece for the fire next time
(49:26):
Malcolm and Martin are together.
Basically three times the Marchon Washington.
Meaning you know, like at themarch he's not on the podium.
Meet together on March 26, 1964at the U9th Armory, in the
audience, sitting next to AndrewYoung, who's one of King's most
(49:52):
famous lieutenants, now mayorof Atlanta and a United Nations
ambassador and a big eminencewho's still alive.
Malcolm is in the audience andlater talks about it while King
is being fetid coming back fromEurope and the Nobel Prize, and
they're both in London for oneday at the same time, in
December of 64 as well.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
And they were never in the same room having a
discussion.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Not a discussion.
They're at the US Senate andthey say a few words to each
other, but no.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
When you think about it, that's extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yes, absolutely, people have written plays about
it.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Gosh, they might be my three picks for an imaginary
dinner party.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Oh man, absolutely yes, that'd be a great dinner
conversation.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Okay, Peniel, what are you currently reading?
Speaker 2 (50:40):
You know I'm reading right now, really kind of
rereading Jason Roberts's EveryLiving Thing.
I'm also reading some of RyanHolliday's stuff from the Daily
Stoic on Stoicism and MarcusAurelius and all those things.
I'm working on a couple ofthings as well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
You and I are going to be in conversation in Santa
Barbara on Thursday, august 14th, at the Santa Barbara Club for
the Lunch with an AuthorLiterary Series event Tickets
are available atmandyjacksonbeverlycom forward
slash events.
I am really looking forward tothat event.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
Oh, I'm looking forward to that too.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Peniel, thank you so much for being a guest on the
show.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Peniel, thank you so much for being a guest on the
show.
I highly recommend Freedom.
Never did a book with so many,like you know, presidential
characters.
Like we didn't get a chance totalk about LBJ, but he's there
and Buckley's there and the bookI'm working on is 63 and I got
the Carnegie for it.
It's really just going to beBaldwin it's called Witness and
(52:02):
James Baldwin 63, but I'm alsogoing to bring him to 2025 too.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Well, you have to come back and talk about that
one too.
Thank you again, peniel, forbeing on the show.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Well, thank you so much, Mandy, and for the
Bookshop podcast, and for all ofthe support and your
encouragement of just writersand reading, because we really
need that now more than ever.
So, thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
You've been listening to my conversation with Peniel
E Joseph about his new bookFreedom Season how 1963
transformed America's civilrights revolution.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
(52:45):
podcast.
To find out more about theBookshop Podcast, go to
thebookshoppodcastcom and makesure to subscribe and leave a
review wherever you listen tothe show.
You can also follow me at MandyJackson Beverly on X, instagram
and Facebook and on YouTube atthe Bookshop Podcast.
(53:05):
If you have a favorite indiebookshop that you'd like to
suggest we have on the podcast,I'd love to hear from you via
the contact form atthebookshoppodcastcom.
The Bookshop Podcast is writtenand produced by me, mandy
Jackson Beverley, theme musicprovided by Brian Beverley,
executive assistant to MandyAdrian Ohtohan by Brian Beverly,
(53:28):
executive assistant to MandyAdrian Ohtohan, and graphic
design by Francis Farala.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you next time.
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