tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/1968-51868/articles1968 – The Conversation2019-10-03T11:32:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1243962019-10-03T11:32:27Z2019-10-03T11:32:27ZTrump’s bad Nixon imitation may cost him the presidency<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295288/original/file-20191002-49373-4iu2bj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Richard Nixon, left, and President Donald Trump, right.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-ELN-NH-USA-APHS479170-Nixon-Opens-C-/42f269bd2830447a89d29a40cd69cf76/30/0 and https://pictures.reuters.com/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2C0BXZS2TZHCFN&SMLS=1&RW=1379&RH=649#/SearchResult&VBID=2C0BXZS2TZHCFN&SMLS=1&RW=1379&RH=649&POPUPPN=19&POPUPIID=2C0BF1M5T8ZDN">AP//Frank C. Curtin; REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whatever Donald Trump does, Richard Nixon usually did it first and better.</p>
<p>Nixon got a foreign government’s help to win a presidential election over 50 years ago. Trump’s imitation of the master has proven far from perfect, and that may cost him the presidency. </p>
<p>Trump’s first mistake was soliciting foreign interference personally. As a result, he cannot deny that he urged Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden. The proof is in his own White House’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/25/us/politics/trump-ukraine-transcript.html">record</a> of their telephone call.</p>
<p>Nixon was a more cautious international conspirator, as I detailed in <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4886">“Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate.”</a> </p>
<p>When Nixon solicited foreign interference on behalf of his presidential campaign, he was careful to use a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cutout">cutout</a>, a go-between whose clandestine activities could, if exposed, be plausibly denied. Anna Chennault, a conservative activist and Republican fundraiser, acted as Nixon’s secret back channel to the government of South Vietnam.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295294/original/file-20191002-49397-vbspce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295294/original/file-20191002-49397-vbspce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295294/original/file-20191002-49397-vbspce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295294/original/file-20191002-49397-vbspce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295294/original/file-20191002-49397-vbspce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295294/original/file-20191002-49397-vbspce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295294/original/file-20191002-49397-vbspce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295294/original/file-20191002-49397-vbspce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nixon’s illegal interference with Vietnam peace talks helped win him the election. Here, he meets with President Lyndon Johnson in July 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.lbjlibrary.net/collections/photo-archive.html">LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto</a></span>
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<h2>Playing politics with war</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://library.duke.edu/exhibits/sevenelections/elections/1968/issues.html">Vietnam War was the biggest issue of the 1968</a> presidential campaign. </p>
<p>Nixon’s great hope was to hang Vietnam like an albatross on <a href="https://youtu.be/hM0CBfwI_Ck">Democratic presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey</a>, the sitting vice president. <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1MERAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aukDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7405,4942978">Nixon’s great fear</a> was that President Lyndon Johnson would start peace talks before Election Day, boosting Humphrey’s campaign along with hopes for an end to the war.</p>
<p>Nixon’s fear was realized when <a href="http://www.lbjlibrary.org/exhibits/the-president-announcing-his-decision-to-halt-the-bombing-of-north-vietnam">Johnson announced peace talks in the campaign’s final week</a>. Nixon watched his lead over Humphrey dwindle to nothingness. </p>
<p>So he turned to Chennault. She conveyed a secret message from Nixon to South Vietnam, urging it to boycott the peace talks. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1968/11/02/archives/thieu-says-saigon-cannot-join-paris-talks-under-present-plan-n-l-f.html">The South did just that only three days before the election</a>, thereby destroying any hope for an imminent peace. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/06/nixon-vietnam-candidate-conspired-with-foreign-power-win-election-215461">President Johnson learned of Chennault’s activities</a> from the FBI and other sources, but he had no proof Nixon himself was involved. Nixon’s use of a cutout worked. She was burned, but he was not. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295304/original/file-20191002-49350-dhza1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295304/original/file-20191002-49350-dhza1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295304/original/file-20191002-49350-dhza1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295304/original/file-20191002-49350-dhza1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295304/original/file-20191002-49350-dhza1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295304/original/file-20191002-49350-dhza1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295304/original/file-20191002-49350-dhza1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295304/original/file-20191002-49350-dhza1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On the eve of the 1968 presidential election, President Johnson asked his three top advisers on the Vietnam War – Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Adviser Walt Rostow and Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford – if he should expose Republican interference with his efforts to start begin peace talks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-/30fa32a237bb4e4081275ffbe8356bc7/68/0">AP/Bob Schutz</a></span>
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</figure>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="938" data-image="" data-title="Johnson phone call" data-size="22508758" data-source="Miller Center, University of Virginia, courtesy Ken Hughes" data-source-url="https://prde.upress.virginia.edu/conversations/4006128" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1744/lbj-combined.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
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<div class="audio-player-caption">
Johnson phone call.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="https://prde.upress.virginia.edu/conversations/4006128">Miller Center, University of Virginia, courtesy Ken Hughes</a><span class="download"><span>21.5 MB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1744/lbj-combined.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
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<figure><figcaption><span class="caption">President Johnson discusses with three top advisers whether to expose Republican interference in the Vietnam peace process. They all advised the president not to do so.</span></figcaption></figure>
<h2>False counter-accusations</h2>
<p>It’s too late for Trump to use a cutout with Ukraine, but in other ways his actions mirror Nixon’s. </p>
<p>One recurring Nixonian tactic was to falsely claim the Democrats did things that were just as bad as the things he actually did. For example, Republicans charged that Johnson played politics with the war by announcing peace talks right before Election Day. </p>
<p>The diplomatic record proves otherwise. Johnson set three conditions for the peace talks months earlier. He offered to halt the bombing of North Vietnam if Hanoi: (1) respected the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Vietnam, (2) accepted South Vietnamese participation in peace talks, and (3) stopped shelling Southern cities. </p>
<p>Hanoi, however, insisted on <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1969-01-01/viet-nam-negotiations">an unconditional bombing halt</a>. Johnson refused to budge. So did the North Vietnamese – until October 1968, when they accepted all three of Johnson’s conditions. The timing of the peace talks was their choice, not his. The partisan accusation was false.</p>
<p>Likewise, Republicans’ <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1177357844062097409">often</a>-<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1176156553692536832">repeated</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/23/politics/fact-check-trump-ukraine-hunter-biden-joe-biden/index.html">never-substantiated</a> conspiracy theory that one or more Bidens did something corrupt involving Ukraine is the <a href="https://www.cjr.org/q_and_a/new-yorker-hunter-biden-ukraine.php">opposite</a> <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/09/25/i-wrote-about-the-bidens-and-ukraine-years-ago-then-the-right-wing-spin-machine-turned-the-story-upside-down/">of</a> <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-09-29/former-ukraine-prosecutor-says-no-wrongdoing-biden">true</a>. But it does shift the spotlight off Republicans and onto Democrats. And it fosters the false sense that “both sides do it” when only one side did.</p>
<p>Another of Nixon’s favorite tactics was to suggest there was something shady about detecting his crimes. Just as Trump baselessly <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1178442765736333313">claims</a> that the Ukraine whistleblower got information about him “illegally,” Republicans like William Safire baselessly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/23/opinion/essay-clark-clifford-s-confession.html">claimed</a> that LBJ “abused the power of our intelligence agencies” to get dirt on Nixon. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rudy Giuliani, left, was President Trump’s unofficial emissary to Ukrainian leaders, whom he wanted to dig up dirt on the Biden family.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/a2fc4696b0db4f5391f123168699d63f/19/0">AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The records of the CIA, NSA and FBI prove otherwise. Like presidents before and since, Johnson used the CIA and NSA to collect <a href="http://theconversation.com/why-would-the-us-spy-on-its-allies-because-everyone-does-43807">diplomatic intelligence</a>. To provide him with <a href="https://prde.upress.virginia.edu/conversations/4006111">Saigon’s true, private position on the peace talks</a>, the CIA bugged the office of South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu and the NSA intercepted cables to Thieu from the South Vietnamese embassy in Washington, D.C. </p>
<p>Johnson did learn something about Chennault’s activities from this surveillance, but only because diplomatic intelligence is supposed to uncover attempts to thwart presidential diplomacy.</p>
<p>Based on what he learned, Johnson ordered the FBI to tail Chennault and tap the South Vietnamese embassy’s phone. Mere days later, the FBI wiretap overheard Chennault telling the South Vietnamese on behalf of “her boss (not further identified)” to “<a href="https://prde.upress.virginia.edu/conversations/4006123">hold on, we are gonna win</a>.” </p>
<p>Here was evidence that the Nixon campaign was violating the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Logan-Act">Logan Act</a> – which forbids private U.S. citizens from conducting “any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government” – by undermining the president’s diplomatic efforts to end a war that was killing hundreds of Americans every week. </p>
<p>In other words, Johnson used the FBI to uncover a crime that was also a threat to national security. </p>
<p>That’s not an abuse of the FBI. It’s <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/about/mission">why the FBI exists</a>.</p>
<p>Clearly, there’s one thing that can overcome Nixonian tactics: evidence. For this reason, House impeachment investigators will likely subpoena as much as they can, and President Trump will likely withhold as much as he can. </p>
<p>Withholding evidence is yet another Nixonian tactic, one called “stonewalling.” It was the basis of the <a href="https://watergate.info/impeachment/articles-of-impeachment">final article of impeachment</a> against him.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ken Hughes is a researcher with at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, whose Presidential Recordings Program has received grant funding from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.</span></em></p>President Trump solicited foreign help for his presidential campaign. So did presidential candidate Richard Nixon. The difference, writes scholar Ken Hughes, is that Nixon was more skilled at it.Ken Hughes, Research Specialist, the Miller Center, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1192642019-09-10T12:40:24Z2019-09-10T12:40:24ZThe strange connection between Bobby Kennedy’s death and Scooby-Doo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291750/original/file-20190910-190026-otnyex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C16%2C1317%2C943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!' was a funky, lighthearted alternative to the action cartoons that, for years, had dominated Saturday morning lineups.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i0.wp.com/geekdad.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/09/SCOOBY-DOO_9.38.26.jpg?resize=1748%2C1309&ssl=1">GeekDad</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scooby-Doo has appeared in a whopping 16 television series, two live-action films, 35 direct-to-DVD movies, 20 video games, 13 comic book series and five stage shows. Now, with “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3152592/">Scoob!</a>,” the Mystery Incorporated gang will appear in a CGI feature-length film, which, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is going to be released to video-on-demand on May 15.</p>
<p>The very first television series, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063950/">Scooby-Doo, Where are You!</a>,” was created by Hanna-Barbera Productions for CBS Saturday morning and premiered on Sept. 13, 1969. The formula of four mystery-solving teenagers – Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy along with the titular talking Great Dane – remained mostly intact as the group stumbled their way into pop-culture history. </p>
<p>But as I explain in my forthcoming book on the franchise, Scooby-Doo’s invention was no happy accident; it was a strategic move in response to cultural shifts and political exigencies. The genesis of the series was inextricably bound up with the societal upheavals of 1968 – in particular, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.</p>
<h2>More horror, better ratings</h2>
<p>In the late 1960s, the television and film studio Hanna-Barbera was the largest producer of animated television programming. </p>
<p>For years, Hanna-Barbera had created slapstick comedy cartoons – “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls029632227/">Tom and Jerry</a>” in the 1940s and 1950s, followed by television series like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255768/">The Yogi Bear Show</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053502/">The Flintstones</a>.” But by the 1960s, the most popular cartoons were those that capitalized on <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9i0yDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA434&lpg=PA434&dq=secret+agent+craze&source=bl&ots=kMYc6JU0AX&sig=ACfU3U2XAYMoeA24PqOGENx4oWMSi0RsXQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi0sKPqssTkAhWNVN8KHSI_YYQ6AEwCHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=secret%20agent%20craze&f=false">the secret agent craze</a>, the space race and the popularity of superheroes. </p>
<p>In what would serve as a turning point in television animation, the three broadcast networks – CBS, ABC and NBC – launched nine new action-adventure cartoons on Saturday morning in the fall of 1966. In particular, Hanna-Barbera’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060026/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Space Ghost and Dino Boy</a>” and Filmation’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060012/">The New Adventures of Superman</a>” were hits with kids. These and other action-adventure series featured non-stop action and violence, with the heroes working to defeat, even kill, a menace or monster by any means necessary.</p>
<p>So for the 1967-1968 Saturday morning lineup, Hanna-Barbera supplied the networks with six new action-adventure cartoons, including “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061262/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Herculoids</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061237/">Birdman and the Galaxy Trio</a>.” Gone were the days of funny human and animal hijinks; in their place: terror, peril, jeopardy and child endangerment. </p>
<p>The networks, <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/12/08/91244471.html?pageNumber=401">wrote The New York Times’ Sam Blum</a>, “had instructed its cartoon suppliers to turn out more of the same – in fact, to go ‘stronger’ – on the theory, which proved correct, that the more horror, the higher the Saturday morning ratings.” </p>
<p>Such horror generally took the form of “fantasy violence” – <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=owUIvAEACAAJ&dq=television+the+business+behind+the+box&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfzeagybzkAhXK1FkKHfPZBB4Q6AEwAHoECAAQAQ">what Joe Barbera called</a> “out-of-this-world hard action.” The studio churned out these grim series “not out of choice,” Barbera explained. “It’s the only thing we can sell to the networks, and we have to stay in business.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291575/original/file-20190909-109927-1xdg8r0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hanna-Barbera co-founder Joe Barbera poses with three of his studio’s most popular animated characters, Scooby-Doo, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, in this 1996 photograph.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/AP-A-CA-USA-OBIT-BARBERA/8d05636b91d64f668c5cf196d13a3eb1/5/0">AP Photo/Reed Saxon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barbera’s remarks highlighted the immense authority then held by the broadcast networks in dictating the content of Saturday morning television. </p>
<p>In his book “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ibxkAAAAMAAJ&q=entertainment+education+hard+sell&dq=entertainment+education+hard+sell&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwih2r62ybzkAhXBwVkKHah2AgEQ6AEwAHoECAEQAg">Entertainment, Education and the Hard Sell</a>,” communication scholar Joseph Turow studied the first three decades of network children’s programming. He notes the fading influence of government bodies and public pressure groups on children’s programming in the mid-1960s – a shift that enabled the networks to serve their own commercial needs and those of their advertisers. </p>
<p>The decline in regulation of children’s television spurred criticism over violence, commercialism and the lack of diversity in children’s programming. No doubt sparked by the oversaturation of action-adventure cartoons on Saturday morning, the nonprofit corporation National Association for Better Broadcasting declared that year’s children’s television programming in March 1968 to be the “worst in the history of TV.” </p>
<h2>Political upheaval spurs moral panic</h2>
<p>Cultural anxieties about the effects of media violence on children had increased significantly after March 1968, concurrent with television coverage of the Vietnam War, student protests and riots incited by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. As historian Charles Kaiser wrote in his book about <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-heat-and-light-of-1968-still-influence-today-3-essential-reads-108569">that pivotal year</a>, the upheaval fueled moral crusades.</p>
<p>“For the first time since their invention, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/1968_in_America.html?id=Wt1LOgmnlFgC">he wrote</a>, "televised pictures made the possibility of anarchy in America feel real.”</p>
<p>But it was the assassination of Robert. F. Kennedy in June 1968 that would exile action-adventure cartoons from the Saturday morning lineup for nearly a decade. </p>
<p>Kennedy’s role as a father to 11 was intertwined with his political identity, and he had long championed causes that helped children. Alongside his commitment to ending child hunger and poverty, he had, as attorney general, worked with the Federal Communications Commission to improve the “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-newt-minow-fcc-ae-0117-20170118-column.html">vast wasteland</a>” of children’s television programming.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291571/original/file-20190909-109927-1o9gd1x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Kennedy and his wife and kids go for a walk near their home in McLean, Va.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-VA-USA-APHS406926-Ethel-Kennedy-and-/88ca23037ec14851b89ed2d960cd7b5e/6/0">AP Photo/Henry Griffin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just hours after Kennedy was shot, President Lyndon B. Johnson <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-11412-establishing-national-commission-the-causes-and-prevention-violence">announced the appointment</a> of a National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. While the commission’s formal findings wouldn’t be shared until late 1969, demands for greater social control and regulation of media violence surged directly following Johnson’s announcement, contributing to what sociologists call a “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Ashgate-Research-Companion-to-Moral-Panics-1st-Edition/Krinsky/p/book/9781409408116">moral panic</a>.”</p>
<p>Media studies scholar Heather Hendershot <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=b6Iqh5umo3sC&lpg=PP9&ots=-M78k0n01U&dq=Saturday%20Morning%20Censors%3A%20Television%20Regulation%20before%20the%20V-Chip&lr&pg=PP9#v=onepage&q&f=false">explained</a> that even those critical of Kennedy’s liberal causes supported these efforts; censoring television violence “in his name” for the good of children “was like a tribute.”</p>
<p>Civic groups like the National Parent Teacher Association, which had been condemning violent cartoons at its last three conventions, were emboldened. The editors of McCall’s, a popular women’s magazine, provided steps for readers to pressure the broadcast networks to discontinue violent programming. And a Christian Science Monitor report in July of that year – which found 162 acts of violence or threats of violence on one Saturday morning alone – was widely circulated.</p>
<p>The moral panic in the summer of 1968 caused a permanent change in the landscape of Saturday morning. The <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/07/20/77179505.html?pageNumber=42">networks announced</a> that they would be turning away from science-fiction adventure and pivoting toward comedy for its cartoon programming.</p>
<p>All of this paved the way for the creation of a softer, gentler animated hero: Scooby-Doo.</p>
<p>However, the premiere of the 1968-1969 Saturday morning season was just around the corner. Many episodes of new action-adventure series were still in various stages of production. Animation was a lengthy process, taking anywhere from four to six months to go from idea to airing. ABC, CBS and NBC stood to lose millions of dollars in licensing fees and advertising revenue by canceling a series before it even aired or before it finished its contracted run. </p>
<p>So in the fall of 1968 with many action-adventure cartoons still on the air, CBS and Hanna-Barbera began work on a series – one eventually titled “Scooby-Doo, Where are You!” – for the 1969-1970 Saturday morning season.</p>
<p>“Scooby-Doo, Where are You!” still supplies a dose of action and adventure. But the characters are never in real peril or face serious jeopardy. There are no superheroes saving the world from aliens and monsters. Instead, a gang of goofy kids and their dog in a groovy van solve mysteries. The monsters they encounter are just humans in disguise.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on September 10, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Sandler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Demands for regulation of media violence reached a fever pitch after RFK’s assassination, and networks scrambled to insert more kid-friendly fare into their lineups. Enter: the Mystery Machine.Kevin Sandler, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1114192019-03-12T10:45:56Z2019-03-12T10:45:56ZBeyond blackface: How college yearbooks captured protest and change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263151/original/file-20190311-86678-nfkgq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">College yearbook editors in the 1960s juxtaposed pictures of traditional campus activities, such as Greek Life, alongside images of protests and marches.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt73xs5j9z6w?f%5Bsource_s%5D%5B%5D=University+of+Kentucky+Yearbook+Collection&f%5Bpub_date_sort%5D%5B%5D=1969&per_page=20#page/426/mode/2up">The Kentuckian, 1968</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever since a photograph surfaced of someone in blackface – and another dressed in a Ku Klux Klan robe – on the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/us/northam-yearbook.html">medical college yearbook page</a> of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in February, efforts to scour college yearbooks have focused on finding similarly racist imagery.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262981/original/file-20190309-86686-12kakpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262981/original/file-20190309-86686-12kakpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262981/original/file-20190309-86686-12kakpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262981/original/file-20190309-86686-12kakpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262981/original/file-20190309-86686-12kakpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262981/original/file-20190309-86686-12kakpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262981/original/file-20190309-86686-12kakpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262981/original/file-20190309-86686-12kakpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam speaks at a news conference after revelations that his medical school yearbook page features photos of a man in blackface.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Democrats-Zero-Tolerance/958d0b315e7b4e569feb0efbeb2ae3cf/1/0">Steve Helber/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>USA Today, for instance, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/02/20/how-we-tracked-down-blackface-kkk-and-other-racist-yearbook-images/2915964002/">sent 78 reporters</a> to page through more than 900 college yearbooks from the 1970s and ‘80s. The newspaper not only discovered photographs of students dressed in KKK robes and blackface, but also at mock lynchings and other blatant “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/02/20/blackface-racist-photos-yearbooks-colleges-kkk-lynching-mockery-fraternities-black-70-s-80-s/2858921002/">displays of racism</a>.”</p>
<p>This focus on the racist reveling of college graduates from yesteryear who are today’s power elite is justified. However, as one who has <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/10/24/supreme-court-confirmation-hearings-showed-yearbooks-can-be-documents-research-well">studied college yearbooks</a> – and who has written a book about <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/going-college-sixties">going to college in the sixties</a> – I believe this narrow focus on racist imagery obscures a similarly important element of college yearbooks that began to appear during a critical turning point for higher education in the United States.</p>
<h2>Black representation</h2>
<p>One of my biggest concerns with the current focus on racist imagery in college yearbooks is that in the search for images of blackface, journalists and others are overlooking the importance of the faces of black students. Black representation is important to consider because it wasn’t until the latter half of the 20th century that many of America’s colleges and universities began to accept black students.</p>
<p>Because of the topic of my book, I’ve mostly studied yearbooks from the 1960s – some 20 years before Northam graduated from medical school. During this time period, in the <a href="http://www.secsports.com/">Southeastern Conference</a> – where a <a href="https://ussporthistory.com/2015/06/29/confederate-iconography-and-southern-college-football/">Confederate legacy still loomed</a> – the first African-American student on a varsity basketball team was Perry Wallace of Vanderbilt during the 1967-68 season when he was a sophomore. Wallace appears on five different pages of the 1969 edition of The Vanderbilt Commodore, the college yearbook at Vanderbilt University. Perry majored in electrical engineering. He graduated from Columbia Law School and went on to become a distinguished law professor at George Washington University.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262982/original/file-20190309-86713-1nxhp56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262982/original/file-20190309-86713-1nxhp56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262982/original/file-20190309-86713-1nxhp56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262982/original/file-20190309-86713-1nxhp56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262982/original/file-20190309-86713-1nxhp56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262982/original/file-20190309-86713-1nxhp56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262982/original/file-20190309-86713-1nxhp56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262982/original/file-20190309-86713-1nxhp56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vanderbilt’s Perry Wallace (25) scoops the rebound down from the Kentucky basket, in 1968, in Lexington, Kentucky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-S-BKC-KY-USA-APHS88431-U-Of-Kentucky-/f403487c8ce24e71b4393c843d4a646e/5/0">H.B. Littell/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 1968 and 1969 editions of The Kentuckian – the college yearbook at the University of Kentucky where I teach – are also interesting case studies.</p>
<p>The University of Kentucky is home of the first African-Americans to play football in the Southeastern Conference: <a href="https://www.wymt.com/content/news/Greg-Page-A-dream-cut-short-but-a-legacy-that-shines-bright-367994241.html">Greg Page</a> and <a href="https://theundefeated.com/features/nate-northington-the-first-black-football-player-in-the-sec-finally-understands-his-place-in-history/">Nate Northington</a>, later joined by <a href="https://ukathletics.com/hof.aspx?hof=51">Wilbur Hackett</a> and <a href="https://www.owensboroliving.com/features/10022/">Houston Hogg</a>. The 1968 edition of the university’s yearbook – The Kentuckian – focused on a team <a href="https://www.wymt.com/content/news/Greg-Page-A-dream-cut-short-but-a-legacy-that-shines-bright-367994241.html">tragedy</a> – Page’s death. “Page had lain paralyzed for over a month due to an injury suffered in preseason practice,” an entry in the yearbook states. “But as it had to be, football continued.”</p>
<p>The appearance of black students in college yearbooks during this time period serves as a historical reminder that even though many colleges had become racially desegregated earlier, campus activities were still often racially exclusive. Black students were first admitted to the University of Kentucky in 1949 but were not allowed to participate in many student activities until much later – <a href="https://www.kentucky.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/mark-story/article176106916.html">1967</a> in the case of varsity sports. That’s a long delay. It indicates that admission did not necessarily mean full citizenship within the campus community.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263137/original/file-20190311-86717-gi41yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263137/original/file-20190311-86717-gi41yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263137/original/file-20190311-86717-gi41yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263137/original/file-20190311-86717-gi41yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263137/original/file-20190311-86717-gi41yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263137/original/file-20190311-86717-gi41yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263137/original/file-20190311-86717-gi41yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263137/original/file-20190311-86717-gi41yf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jim Green, the first African-American track and field athlete at the University of Kentucky, who went on to win NCAA championships, was honored in the 1969 Kentuckian as one of the university’s ‘Pacesetters’ for outstanding contributions in 1968-1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt73xs5j9z6w?f%5Bsource_s%5D%5B%5D=University+of+Kentucky+Yearbook+Collection&f%5Bpub_date_sort%5D%5B%5D=1969&per_page=20#page/5/mode/1up">The Kentuckian</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An era of protest</h2>
<p>My other concern about the focus on racist imagery is that it distracts from the fact that, particularly during the late 1960s, college yearbooks helped chronicle an era of student protest and campus activism. Sometimes, college yearbook editors deliberately put images of traditional campus events alongside images of demonstrations and protests.</p>
<p>That’s what Gretchen Marcum Brown, editor of The Kentuckian had in mind during her stint as editor for the 1969 edition, which is particularly noteworthy for the amount of material that reflects black culture and politics. For instance, the 1969 yearbook features speakers such as civil rights activist Julian Bond, The Supremes, and extended photo caption information about a black history course and the Black Student Union. In a recent interview for this article, Brown told me she wanted to document the intense political events taking place on and off campus during the 1968-69 academic year.</p>
<p>In her acknowledgments, Brown credited the influence of Sam Abell, her predecessor who went on to become a <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/contributors/a/photographer-sam-abell/">renowned photographer for National Geographic</a>. Abell had advised Brown to start the 1969 yearbook with a photo essay in which traditional campus events, such as a Greek life prom in which students were dressed in Confederate regalia, would be placed alongside or near images of student groups seeking to uproot the status quo.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263163/original/file-20190311-86690-12gmhlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263163/original/file-20190311-86690-12gmhlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263163/original/file-20190311-86690-12gmhlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263163/original/file-20190311-86690-12gmhlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263163/original/file-20190311-86690-12gmhlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263163/original/file-20190311-86690-12gmhlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263163/original/file-20190311-86690-12gmhlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263163/original/file-20190311-86690-12gmhlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A student shown in a 1969 University of Kentucky yearbook examines African art in one photograph, while in another photograph in the same book, a student dances while draped in a Confederate flag.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt73xs5j9z6w?f%5Bsource_s%5D%5B%5D=University+of+Kentucky+Yearbook+Collection&f%5Bpub_date_sort%5D%5B%5D=1969&per_page=20#page/5/mode/1up">The Kentuckian, 1968-69</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The yearbook included extended coverage of controversies within student government. This included the house speaker of the student government telling the 40 black students present to “protest his bill requesting that 'Dixie’ be played at athletic events, that the song was not racist.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263167/original/file-20190311-86713-1plp5qc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263167/original/file-20190311-86713-1plp5qc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263167/original/file-20190311-86713-1plp5qc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263167/original/file-20190311-86713-1plp5qc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263167/original/file-20190311-86713-1plp5qc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263167/original/file-20190311-86713-1plp5qc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263167/original/file-20190311-86713-1plp5qc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263167/original/file-20190311-86713-1plp5qc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A student government house speaker challenges black students to protest a bill he brought forth to have ‘Dixie’ sung before sporting events.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt73xs5j9z6w?f%5Bsource_s%5D%5B%5D=University+of+Kentucky+Yearbook+Collection&f%5Bpub_date_sort%5D%5B%5D=1969&per_page=20#page/5/mode/1up">The Kentuckian, 1969</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Imagining a better future</h2>
<p>At the end of a lengthy section on Greek life, the yearbook editor quoted fraternity leaders who invoked the importance of “brotherhood.” But she didn’t just let the brotherhood claim go unchecked. Instead, Brown broached the sensitive issue of racial exclusion. “Brotherhood is cheering together at a football game. Brotherhood is hanging together when the going gets tough. Brotherhood is borrowing your roommates’ clothes. Brotherhood may or may not be a ‘Caucasian only’ clause in your constitution.”</p>
<p>This wry observation showed awareness of both inclusion and exclusion in campus life. </p>
<p>The yearbook concluded with a photograph of a campus demonstration in which a student holds a placard that asked the University of Kentucky campus, “Will You Grow Up?” The editor’s final comment was, “This book is dedicated to those who have the courage and foresight for true reappraisal.”</p>
<p>The Kentuckian was not unique in its attention to social change. A review of yearbooks from Louisiana State University, North Carolina State University and the University of Mississippi shows a similar emphasis on student awareness of the political climate at the time, balanced by coverage of traditional campus life activities. </p>
<p>Yearbook editors challenged readers to reconsider what college education was about and what a university should be. For example, the <a href="https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/agromeck1969nort#?c=&m=&s=&cv=91&xywh=-369%2C0%2C5919%2C3509">1969 Agromeck yearbook</a> of North Carolina State University, stated: “N.C. State’s heritage is essentially like that of any other predominantly white, southern technically oriented institution. The virtues which the school extols are Discipline, Patriotism, Hard Work and Good Grades.” </p>
<p>However, the yearbook editor continued: “There are changes afoot. From the past comes a dual tradition of technical and liberal education and the factors have clashed openly in the present.” Its major photographic essay presented themes of conflict and change within the university.</p>
<p>College yearbooks were built to last. They were also meant to commemorate the worlds that students created. This means that in 2019 alumni, and now the public, can look back at the blackface parties of 1984, the year of Gov. Northam’s medical college yearbook – but also at the student protests of 1969.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John R. Thelin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent blackface scandals that involve college yearbooks have overshadowed how yearbooks also chronicled important turning points in the history of US higher education, a historian argues.John R. Thelin, University Research Professor, University of KentuckyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1085692018-12-19T20:25:05Z2018-12-19T20:25:05ZHow the ‘Heat and Light’ of 1968 still influence today: 3 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251600/original/file-20181219-45416-18aleoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters fill the streets outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: As we come to the end of the year, Conversation editors take a look back at the stories that – for them – exemplified 2018.</em></p>
<p>This year, The Conversation US marked the 50th anniversary of 1968 with our first podcast, “<a href="https://heatandlightpod.com/">Heat and Light</a>.” Hosted by journalist Phillip Martin, the show explored lesser-known stories from that pivotal year through interviews with scholars who have dedicated their lives to studying them. Here are three of my favorite episodes that revealed surprising insights about how 1968 changed the course of history – and how it still shapes our world today.</p>
<h2>1. The first interracial kiss on American television</h2>
<p>On Nov. 28, 1968, the right for interracial couples’ <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1966/395">to marry</a> in the U.S. was just over a year old. A majority of Americans still disapproved of <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx">marriages between whites and people of color</a>. On that day the science fiction show “Star Trek” broadcast the first <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RGxuU2vtBo">interracial kiss</a> on American television between William Shatner, a white man, and Nichelle Nichols, a black woman. Matt Delmont, professor of history at the Arizona State University, told us why this seemed so <a href="https://theconversation.com/tvs-first-interracial-kiss-launched-a-lifelong-career-in-activism-101721">far-fetched to the viewers of the day</a>, despite taking place in the future and on another planet, with the participants placed under mind control by aliens.</p>
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<p>However, as far as America has come toward normalizing interracial love, there is plenty of evidence that shows <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-americans-really-feel-about-interracial-couples-99173">these relationships are still not totally accepted</a>.</p>
<h2>2. The birth of Silicon Valley</h2>
<p>In the cascade of political and cultural milestones and anniversaries from 1968, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the year was a watershed moment for the technology industry. </p>
<p>Margaret O'Mara, a professor of history at the University of Washington, explained that 1968 can be thought of as the year the Santa Clara Valley in Northern California began its transformation into what is now known as the Silicon Valley. It was the year that saw the founding of microprocessor manufacturer Intel and the debut of the computer mouse at an event that would come to be known as the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-1968-computers-got-personal-how-the-mother-of-all-demos-changed-the-world-101654">Mother of All Demos</a>.” </p>
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<p>All of this innovation, however, came with consequences – including environmental degradation and rising income inequality – that still affect many residents of the former <a href="https://theconversation.com/silicon-valley-from-hearts-delight-to-toxic-wasteland-86983">“valley of heart’s delight.”</a> </p>
<h2>3. The protest movement … backfires?</h2>
<p>1968, much like 2018, was a year of protest. Across the country and around the world, people filled the streets to rail against the war in Vietnam and racial and economic inequality. <a href="https://theconversation.com/1968-protests-at-columbia-university-called-attention-to-gym-crow-and-got-worldwide-attention-102093">Students rose up</a> across the country. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-anti-trump-activists-can-learn-from-chicago-68-62741">Democratic National Convention in Chicago</a> dissolved into chaos and violence. Days of unrest followed the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/04/the-riots-that-followed-the-assassination-of-martin-luther-king-jr/557159/">assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.</a> in April. </p>
<p>However, despite its reputation as a year of liberal, anti-establishment protest, 1968 was also the start of two decades of nearly unbroken Republican control of the presidency. Arizona State University history professor <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/donald-critchlow-180542">Donald Critchlow</a> explained how, as the left filled the streets across the country, they may have driven many <a href="https://theconversation.com/politicians-have-long-used-the-forgotten-man-to-win-elections-103570">voters concerned with “law and order”</a> to Richard Nixon and the Republican Party. </p>
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<p>Critchlow, himself a former member of the 1968 protest movement who has since drifted from radical leftist to conservative historian, says that this is a phenomenon that may repeat itself in 2020. It’s a lesson – and a warning – that those looking to <a href="https://theconversation.com/resistance-is-a-long-game-103298">resist the Trump administration</a> in 2019 may want to take to heart.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This year, The Conversation celebrated the 50th anniversary of 1968 with its first podcast, ‘Heat and Light.’ These are some of the most interesting stories we uncovered – ones that still resonate in 2018.Jonathan Gang, Editorial Researcher and Multimedia ProducerLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1056402018-10-30T10:44:36Z2018-10-30T10:44:36ZThe soundtrack of the Sixties demanded respect, justice and equality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242768/original/file-20181029-76405-t6rnc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Supremes, with their polished performances and family-friendly lyrics, helped to bridge a cultural divide and temper racial tensions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-International-News-Ente-/0897f662ca564589975e8c01730f5ea4/10/0">AP Photo/Frings</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Sly and the Family Stone released “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/7lL2lMWNtzOcf5HnEudNgn?si=Iki3pMgHRYGigF5i_0reow">Everyday People</a>” at the end of 1968, it was a rallying cry after a tumultuous year of assassinations, civil unrest and a seemingly interminable war.</p>
<p>“We got to live together,” he sang, “I am no better and neither are you.”</p>
<p>Throughout history, artists and songwriters have expressed a longing for equality and justice through their music.</p>
<p>Before the Civil War, African-American slaves gave voice to their oppression through protest songs camouflaged as <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197495/">Biblical spirituals</a>. In the 1930s, jazz singer Billie Holiday railed against the practice of lynching in “<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/jazz-and-the-civil-rights-movement-2039542">Strange Fruit</a>.” Woody Guthrie’s <a href="https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/woody-guthrie">folk ballads from the 1930s and 1940s</a> often commented on the plight of the working class.</p>
<p>But perhaps in no other time in American history did popular music more clearly reflect the political and cultural moment than the soundtrack of the 1960s – one that exemplified a new and overt social consciousness.</p>
<p>That decade, a palpable energy slowly burned and intensified <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/01/1968s-chaos-the-assassinations-riots-and-protests-that-defined-our-world/?utm_term=.b71ae9680ebe">through a succession of events</a>: the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>By the mid-1960s, frustration about the slow pace of change began to percolate with riots in multiple cities. Then, in 1968, two awful events occurred within months of each other: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.</p>
<p>Through it all, there was the music.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.osu.edu/features/2016/the-music-man.html">Coming of age during this time in Northern California</a>, I had the opportunity to hear some of the era’s soundtrack live – James Brown, Marvin Gaye, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors.</p>
<p>At the same time, virtually everyone in the African-American community was directly connected in some way or another to the civil rights movement.</p>
<p>Every year, I revisit this era in <a href="https://news.osu.edu/students-learn-a-lesson-in-rock-n-roll/">an undergraduate class I teach</a> on music, civil rights and the Supreme Court. With this perspective as a backdrop, here are five songs, followed by a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/osuprezdrake/playlist/1glThKK9iTE9CRAQ0d9pC4?si=BJgzMNRVR42_cHgRtmhEMA">playlist</a> that I share with my students. </p>
<p>While they offer a window into the awakening and reckoning of the times, the tracks have assumed a renewed relevance and resonance today.</p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/18GiV1BaXzPVYpp9rmOg0E?si=zswsOON-Rqq1mWntenzr5Q">Blowin’ in the Wind</a>,” Bob Dylan, 1963</strong></p>
<p>First made a hit by the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, the song signaled a new consciousness and became the most covered of all Dylan songs. </p>
<p>The song asks a series of questions that appeal to the listener’s moral compass, while the timeless imagery of the lyrics – cannonballs, doves, death, the sky – evoke a longing for peace and freedom that spoke to the era.</p>
<p>As one critic <a href="https://www.npr.org/2000/10/21/1112840/blowin-in-the-wind">noted</a> in 2010: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There are songs that are more written by their times than by any individual in that time, a song that the times seem to call for, a song that is just gonna be a perfect strike rolled right down the middle of the lane, and the lane has already been grooved for the strike.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This song – along with others such as “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Chimes of Freedom” – are among the reasons Bob Dylan <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/lecture/">received the Nobel Prize in Literature</a>. </p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0KOE1hat4SIer491XKk4Pa?si=s_jCKsCDTV-MPBpQsOcQ4w">A Change is Gonna Come</a>,” Sam Cooke, 1964</strong></p>
<p>During a 1963 tour in the South, Cooke and his band <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/02/01/268995033/sam-cooke-and-the-song-that-almost-scared-him">were refused lodging</a> at a hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana. </p>
<p>African Americans routinely faced segregation and prejudice in the Jim Crow South, but this particular experience shook Cooke.</p>
<p>So he put pen to paper and tackled a subject that represented a departure for Cooke, a crossover artist who made his name with a series of Top 40 hits.</p>
<p>The lyrics reflect the anguish of being an extraordinary pop headliner who nonetheless needs to go through a side door.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Singer Sam Cooke stands next to a huge reproduction of his head on the roof of a Manhattan building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Entertain-/0856cfd19a274ac9a9df38a0520d601c/2/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Showcasing Cooke’s gospel roots, it’s a song that painfully and beautifully captures the edge between hope and despair. </p>
<p>“It’s been a long, a long time coming,” he croons. “But I know a change is gonna come.”</p>
<p>Sam Cooke, in composing “A Change is Gonna Come,” was also inspired by Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-unlikely-story-of-a-change-is-gonna-come">According to Cooke’s biographer</a>, upon hearing Dylan’s song, Cooke “was almost ashamed to have not written something like that himself.”</p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/307kcWJQNMdiYYKj1LgClU?si=gTWTLeaHTHGhJZTIHVfRCw">Come See About Me</a>,” The Supremes, 1964</strong></p>
<p>This was one of my favorites of their songs at the time – upbeat, fun and necessarily “unpolitical.” </p>
<p>The Supremes’ record label, Motown, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/arts/artsspecial/motowns-link-to-civil-rights-movement-on-display.html">played an important role bridging a cultural divide</a> during the civil rights era by catapulting black musicians to global stardom. </p>
<p>The Supremes were the Motown act with arguably the broadest appeal, and they paved the way for other black artists to enjoy creative success as mainstream acts.</p>
<p>Through their 20 top-10 hits and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_cBv3wzcGs">17 appearances</a> from 1964 to 1969 on CBS’ popular weekly live program “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the group had a regular presence in the living rooms of black and white families across the country. </p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/2rOyqEU3frual4yxJymr0Z?si=5zOXUWbKSv2ThFa7pFfbbA">Say it Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud</a>,” James Brown, 1968</strong></p>
<p>James Brown – the <a href="http://www.jamesbrown.com/bio/default.aspx">self-proclaimed</a> “hardest working man in show business” – built his reputation as an entertainer par excellence with brilliant dance moves, meticulous staging and a cape routine.</p>
<p>But with “Say it Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud,” Brown seemed to be consciously delivering a starkly political statement about being black in America.</p>
<p>The track’s straightforward, unadorned lyrics allowed it to quickly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/opinion/sunday/james-brown-say-it-loud-50-years.html">become a black pride anthem</a> that promised “we won’t quit movin’ until we get what we deserve.”</p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/7s25THrKz86DM225dOYwnr?si=WRIrWDZbRpKnMr9v-1aNqQ">Respect</a>,” Aretha Franklin, 1967</strong></p>
<p>If I could choose only one song to represent the era it would be “Respect.” </p>
<p>It’s a cover of a track previously written and recorded by Otis Redding. But Franklin makes it wholly her own. From the opening lines, the Queen of Soul doesn’t ask for respect; she demands it. </p>
<p>The song <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/08/14/how-aretha-franklins-respect-became-an-anthem-for-civil-rights-and-feminism/?utm_term=.0a5db56fd9be">became an anthem</a> for the black power and women’s movements. </p>
<p>As Franklin <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/8/17/17699170/aretha-franklin-2018-respect-song-otis-redding-feminism-civil-rights">explained</a> in her 1999 autobiography: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It was the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher – everyone wanted respect. It was also one of the battle cries of the civil rights movement. The song took on monumental significance.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, these five songs can’t possibly do the decade’s music justice.</p>
<p>Some other tracks that I share with my students and count among my favorites include Simon & Garfunkel’s “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/2LkaNhCrNVmcYgXJeLVmsw?si=FOV9PY_AS9qN2uqK8gh6Dw">The Sound of Silence</a>,” Barry McGuire’s “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1x95pWB3KeK3evKa1VrW6e?si=TllEVkaFSomi_tzqnXnqgQ">Eve of Destruction</a>” and Lou Rawls’ “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6lE3fTHyZgGtT2adZSLYxW?si=8UKuSQZ_ScyoFxJ8hUw0TQ">Dead End Street</a>.”</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael V. Drake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fifty years ago, Sly and the Family Stone sang ‘We got to live together, I am no better and neither are you.’ The words ring just as true today.Michael V. Drake, President, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/947142018-10-26T10:42:43Z2018-10-26T10:42:43ZIn the turmoil of 1968, music failed to seize the moment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241915/original/file-20181023-169819-18yvdps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">That year, the pillars of 1960s pop music released unfocused, confused albums.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/broken-guitar-neck-748856833">Thitkorn Krireuk/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While the first half of 1968 was a series of explosive moments – the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/29/580811124/military-victory-but-political-defeat-the-tet-offensive-50-years-later">Tet Offensive</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90330162">Paris protests</a>, the assassinations of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/01/15/kings-assassination-shaped-americas-identity-50-years-ago-and-continues-to-shape-it-today/">MLK</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-robert-f-kennedy/">RFK</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2018/aug/19/the-whole-world-is-watching-chicago-police-riot-vietnam-war-regan">Chicago Democratic National Convention riots</a> – the second half seemed like a car wreck in slow motion. </p>
<p>The pace of the news cycle slowed to a crawl, the shock and surprise followed by the dull inevitability of events already set into motion.</p>
<p>The music of 1968 mirrored its historical moment. </p>
<p>The trends and styles of the previous year – the psychedelic rock born of <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/lsd-drugs-summer-of-love-sixties">the Summer of Love</a>, the empowerment of Aretha Franklin’s demand for “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/5WndWfzGwCkHzAbQXVkg2V?si=NhW9m-jXRMibXO-vpvf05Q">Respect</a>,” a rainbow coalition of black and white artists collaborating – passed into instant obsolescence, creating a vacuum waiting to be filled. </p>
<p>The three pillars of 1960s pop music – Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Motown hit machine – certainly didn’t rise to the occasion. Each put out music that was adrift and directionless, and each would lose its momentum and see its influence wane. </p>
<h2>Drifter’s escape</h2>
<p>In the last days of 1967, Bob Dylan quietly released “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/2KzCDxKpgLqBffHu1IZ7Kn?si=DNmxv0A3TOCp-pSmsgTKSA">John Wesley Harding</a>.” </p>
<p>The prior year, <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/bob-dylans-motorcycle-accident-1322021">Dylan had been in a motorcycle accident</a>, and his condition was shrouded in mystery. An 18-month period of silence followed, during which Dylan wrote and recorded “John Wesley Harding” with a trio of Nashville musicians. </p>
<p>But the long-awaited album contained none of the piercing anger, wit or wordplay of his white-hot classics “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1lPoRKSgZHQAYXxzBsOQ7v?si=lO9wPjqhT9umbi_G7zMSMw">Bringing It All Back Home</a>,” “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/6YabPKtZAjxwyWbuO9p4ZD?si=FYXa15ipTbaApf00hlXzWQ">Highway 61 Revisted</a>” and the 1966 double-album set “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/4NP1rhnsPdYpnyJP0p0k0L?si=MBSClttbQ5OEgVkn4bPRdQ">Blonde On Blonde</a>.” </p>
<p>“John Wesley Harding” lacked the incisive social commentary of tracks like “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6k9DUKMJpWvu6eFG3O64Lg?si=Q68uFBTXQB-UWYVfzYuUZQ">Subterranean Homesick Blues</a>” (“You don’t need a weatherman / To know which way the wind blows”) or the razor sharp character studies found in songs such as “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/3AhXZa8sUQht0UEdBJgpGc?si=Kt_LNGJnTV6wvdK1ord0Pg">Like a Rolling Stone</a>” (“Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the street / And now you’re gonna have to get used to it”). </p>
<p>Instead, Dylan wove perplexing parables couched in biblical imagery in songs such as “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1cbLvt7UrsbVnljXttWUip?si=0p0I8yENTzeIrJv7ozuxfg">I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine</a>” and “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0Fnb2pfBfu0ka33d6Yki17?si=llliBaF_RV6tO_Gzz5Wbaw">All Along the Watchtower</a>,” in which he sang, “Outside in the cold distance, a wild cat did growl. Two riders were approaching; the wind began to howl.” </p>
<p>The album’s darkly mysterious nature set an ominous tone for the year to come.</p>
<h2>The forlorn four</h2>
<p>Like Dylan, the Beatles seemed to be in the midst of an existential crisis.</p>
<p>Following the death of their manager, <a href="https://www.momentmag.com/brian-epstein-the-man-behind-the-beatles/">Brian Epstein</a>, in 1967, the Beatles headed to India, where they studied transcendental meditation with Indian guru <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/maharishi-mahesh-yogi-india-guru-the-beatles-meditation-a8543666.html">Maharishi Mahesh Yogi</a>. When they reconvened in London a few months later, they were no longer bright-eyed youths but four disillusioned men seeking answers and finding none.</p>
<p>After the tumultuous events of the first half of 1968, the group returned to the airwaves with an anthem to the power of positive thinking.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241904/original/file-20181023-169828-gra93q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Harrison and John Lennon sit on rocks by a river in Rishikesh, India, where they studied transcendental meditation in 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-India-Enter-/73970b4964e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/5/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Released in September of that year, the single “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0aym2LBJBk9DAYuHHutrIl?si=B1FwJkhbQBy1_eOugtYOiw">Hey Jude</a>” sat atop the charts for months. The song’s first half urged the listener to take a sad song and make it better, while the second half – four minutes of nonsense chanting, slowly fading into infinity – offered only the notion that “though we may be lost, we are all lost together,” a hymn for a community that defined itself more by grief and resignation than by a belief in a better future.</p>
<p>The double album that followed in late November – officially titled “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1klALx0u4AavZNEvC4LrTL?si=p2VaoAKhR5GWcCkdNLXnJA">The Beatles</a>,” but forever referred to as the “White Album” – brought together splintered fragments of the group’s experiences. It contained none of the audacious discovery and very little of the exuberance found in their previous work. </p>
<p>The track “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/3UDmHZcBTQp8Iu8droNtUl?si=5ES_BfHxRmOovpXIP2YPTg">Revolution #1</a>” was the Beatles’ most direct engagement with the politics of the moment. But it was decidedly ambivalent, arriving at the muddled confusion of “count me out in.” It seemed to urge the listener to take up arms, even as the lyrics urged acceptance: “Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright.”</p>
<h2>The widening racial divide</h2>
<p>In the mid-1960s, Detroit’s Motown Records had issued a string of singles that rivaled the Beatles for chart supremacy. </p>
<p>But with Detroit in flames <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-detroit-exploded-in-the-summer-of-1967-81065">during the riots of 1967</a>, the label lost its mojo: The upbeat cheer of the Motown sound was at odds with the violence erupting just a few blocks from the studio. </p>
<p>In 1968, the label’s two biggest acts – <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/thetemptations_islanduk/playlist/1KmAgq98r2vUcHrxUdNdLA?si=nc6_dOfAT52guKvyzG90fg">The Temptations</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/57bUPid8xztkieZfS7OlEV?si=5UwmaYvjTuyH4fVEi1cQSg">The Supremes</a> – barely managed to make the charts, and the few releases that did were dim shadows of earlier brilliance. </p>
<p>The events of 1968 would even more directly effect Stax records, Motown’s biggest rival. </p>
<p>Based in Memphis, Tennessee, Stax artists like Otis Redding and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/2BVYdY4PyfCF9z4NrkhEB2?si=itIAYwifQem-8PUBZGQ-0w">Sam and Dave</a> proudly wore their rough edges and black identity, unlike the polished acts Motown fashioned for The Ed Sullivan Show. </p>
<p>Redding, however, died in a plane crash in December 1967 – an ominous portent for the new year.</p>
<p>On the night of Dr. King’s assassination, just a few blocks from the Stax offices and studio, its legendary integrated house band, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/2vDV0T8sxx2ENnKXds75e5?si=NiDt8UzTRU2MuKfxJWq8hg">Booker T and the MGs</a>, came face-to-face with the racial divisions their very existence had defied. </p>
<p>Fearing for the lives of the two white members, the musicians and staff formed a caravan to escort them safely out of a neighborhood soon engulfed in flames. Though the band continued to work together for another year, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/may/15/booker-t-mgs-donald-duck-dunn">the bubble had burst</a>: A community fell apart, and the hits dried up.</p>
<p>James Brown was one of the first stars to directly address the year’s racial tumult in his music, issuing “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1sYRkVKdT2ize1HSDCwbEF?si=FCpi_txxTVinsBMGJ4Sayg">Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)</a>” in the late summer of 1968. </p>
<p>For a moment, he would bridge the gap between black and white, soul and pop, <a href="https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2017/04/05/james-brown-saved-boston-king/">famously holding Boston together with a concert performed</a> the day after King’s assassination. </p>
<p>This night, however, would prove the high water mark for Brown, whose increasingly political music caused him to lose much of his white audience, relegating him to the niche of soul music.</p>
<p>Sly Stone met a similar fate. His 1968 breakout hit, “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1MQWtVcs0PKsY4PA6ZvLiy?si=GiAxBHy2Q-WB9qWYQp5U7A">Dance to the Music</a>,” featured a multiracial band of men and women, creating a musical rainbow coalition.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241908/original/file-20181023-169834-1dthivu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the 1970s, Sly Stone seemed to succumb to cynicism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-United-St-/69241b44a01c4447a6626929ed4dce93/2/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But within a year, Sly’s message became considerably less rosy. His 1969 album “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/7iwS1r6JHYJe9xpPjzmWqD?si=dUc555gZQm-0KqD4jBoUCw">Stand!</a>” contained the song “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/7EpNtcFGd3yJl0sjgJgqEe?si=rhND2g0FSjWzAK7rcz5IMg">Don’t Call Me Nigger, (Whitey)</a>” while his 1971 follow-up, “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/29f2cOueckYE8Nc1pkJjrU?si=zj1iCmQtSqetPeMj_5VkQw">There’s a Riot Going On</a>,” depicted a dystopian view of the future. Like Brown, he would fade from the mainstream.</p>
<p>After the hopeful days of <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-swinging-sixties-london-changed-the-world">Swinging London</a> and the Summer of Love, the events of 1968 triggered classic fight or flight responses. </p>
<p>A few musicians metaphorically took to the streets. </p>
<p>But most fled for cover, going back to the land or looking to God. </p>
<p>Compared to the more radically charged music of 1969, the resigned hymns of 1970, and the escapist fare that dominated the following decades, 1968 serves as a kind of still point, an extended moment of hesitation after a gunshot, just before the fight-or-flight reflex kicks in.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A few musicians metaphorically took to the streets. But most fled for cover.Alan Williams, Chair of Music Department, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/955842018-10-05T10:41:13Z2018-10-05T10:41:13Z‘Coming of Age in Mississippi’ still speaks to nation’s racial discord, 50 years later<p>Most memoirs are soon forgotten.</p>
<p>A rare exception is Anne Moody’s “Coming of Age in Mississippi,” which was published in 1968. It spoke to the day’s pressing issues – poverty, race and civil rights – with an urgent timeliness.</p>
<p>Fifty years later, the book still commands a wide readership. Read each year by thousands of high school and college students, it remains a Random House backlist best-seller – a title that continues to sell with little to no marketing.</p>
<p>As I research Anne Moody’s life for my upcoming biography, I often wonder what her memoir’s continued popularity means. Does it signal dramatic progress on race relations in the U.S. – or does it instead show us that, as former Sen. Ted Kennedy wrote in 1969, “If things are somewhat different, then they are not different enough.” </p>
<h2>Till’s death opens Moody’s eyes</h2>
<p>Written when Moody was 28 years old, “Coming of Age” is a gripping story. In spare, direct prose, she takes readers into the world of African-American sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South. As a child, she chopped and picked cotton, cleaned houses for white people, and wondered why whites had better everything – better bathrooms, better schools and better seats in the movie theater. </p>
<p>That mystery remained unsolved when, in 1955, Moody learned that white men had killed a black boy her age just a few hours’ drive north. The killing felt personal. </p>
<p>“Before Emmett Till’s murder, I had known the fear of hunger, hell, and the Devil,” <a href="http://users.soc.umn.edu/%7Esamaha/cases/moody_10-11.htm">she wrote</a>. “But now there was … the fear of being killed just because I was black.” </p>
<p>Closer to home, whites ran her cousin out of town, brutally beat a classmate, and burned an entire family alive in their home. Amid such horrors, Moody feared a nervous breakdown.</p>
<p>But she resolved to resist.</p>
<p>In 1963, Moody became infamous in Mississippi after she challenged racial segregation in what would be the era’s most violent lunch-counter sit-in. At the Woolworth’s in Jackson, Mississippi, white men shoved Moody off her stool, dragged her across the floor by her hair and, when she crawled back, smeared her with ketchup, sugar and mustard. </p>
<p>Photographer Fred Blackwell captured a now-iconic image of this day, with Moody seated in the middle.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239384/original/file-20181004-52669-1as8j2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239384/original/file-20181004-52669-1as8j2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239384/original/file-20181004-52669-1as8j2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239384/original/file-20181004-52669-1as8j2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239384/original/file-20181004-52669-1as8j2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239384/original/file-20181004-52669-1as8j2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239384/original/file-20181004-52669-1as8j2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239384/original/file-20181004-52669-1as8j2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anne Moody endures harassment from a crowd of whites at a Woolworth’s in Jackson, Miss.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/02/22/arts/22OBITSMOODY1/22OBITSMOODY1-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp">Fred Blackwell/Jackson Daily News, via Associated Press</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In the early 1960s, Moody worked tirelessly as an organizer for the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/congress-of-racial-equality">Congress of Racial Equality</a> in Canton, Mississippi. But after facing daily death threats, she fled to the North, where she moved from city to city, raising money for the movement.</p>
<p>At each stop, she described what it was like to come of age, as a black woman, in Mississippi. At one, she shared a stage with baseball great Jackie Robinson, who urged her to write down her story. </p>
<p>So she did.</p>
<h2>Readers react</h2>
<p>After “Coming of Age in Mississippi” was published, the response was split.</p>
<p>Some readers viewed the book as – in the words of one reviewer for The New Republic – a “measure of how far we have come.” To them, the worst of racism was over, and Moody’s account served as a stark reminder of how bad things once were.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239396/original/file-20181004-52691-6nialy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239396/original/file-20181004-52691-6nialy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239396/original/file-20181004-52691-6nialy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239396/original/file-20181004-52691-6nialy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239396/original/file-20181004-52691-6nialy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239396/original/file-20181004-52691-6nialy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239396/original/file-20181004-52691-6nialy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many readers praised Moody’s story. Many in her home state, however, spurned it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/58392869-d9cf-40ef-bd18-54f4c1181933_1.ba861969fbc957f41e5a220c486acf01.jpeg?odnHeight=450&odnWidth=450&odnBg=FFFFFF">Dell</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Others, however, read Moody’s experiences of racism as simply one chapter in a current and ongoing struggle – “the sickening story of the way it still is for thousands who are black in the American South,” as Robert Colby Nelson wrote for The Christian Science Monitor. </p>
<p>Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy read it both ways. </p>
<p>He called the memoir “a history of our time, seen from the bottom up, through the eyes of someone who decided for herself that things had to be changed.” Still, he regretted that the book did not mention recent advances, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which enabled the election of several black public officials in Moody’s own hometown.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, for decades, Southern media outlets and public institutions shunned “Coming of Age in Mississippi” and Anne Moody herself. Hostile whites in Moody’s hometown of Centreville, Mississippi even threatened to kill her if she ever returned.</p>
<h2>How much has really changed?</h2>
<p>By contrast, today, “Coming of Age” shows up on high school and college reading lists throughout the South, and Anne Moody appears among 21 authors pictured on the <a href="http://msreads.lib.ms.us/mslitmap/">Mississippi Literary Map</a>. Her crumbling childhood home sits on the recently renamed Anne Moody Street, and <a href="https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/04/02/mississippi-highway-honor-civil-rights-pioneer-anne-moody/479152002/">Anne Moody Memorial Highway</a> now connects Centreville and Woodville, the town where she graduated from high school.</p>
<p>In Moody’s day, local public officials were all white. Now they more closely reflect the county’s 75 percent black population. </p>
<p>In 1963, Moody mourned the assassination of her beloved colleague, Medgar Evers, president of the state National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and watched in horror as local whites refused to convict his murderer. Thirty years later, Byron De La Beckwith was finally convicted of homocide and imprisoned for life. Today, visitors who fly into the Mississippi state capital, land at Jackson-Evers International Airport.</p>
<p>These shifts make “Coming of Age” seem, to many readers, an inspiring account of survival, resistance and victory. </p>
<p>But to others, the book is anything but a triumphalist story. Instead, its lessons are grim: In retrospect, civil rights victories seem superficial, while the brutal poverty and racism Moody described endures. </p>
<p>Compared to whites, black people in the U.S. are more than twice as likely <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/black-women-infant-mortality-rate-cdc-631178">to die in infancy</a>, three times more likely <a href="https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D">to be poor</a>, three times more likely <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/fatal-police-shootings-of-unarmed-people-have-significantly-declined-experts-say/2018/05/03/d5eab374-4349-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?utm_term=.e80d6742c435">to be killed by police</a>, five times more likely <a href="https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/">to be imprisoned</a> and seven times more likely <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/race-and-homicide-in-america-by-the-numbers">to be murdered</a>. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96">was gutted by a 2013 Supreme Court decision</a> that emboldened states around the country to create <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/how-shelby-county-broke-america/564707/">new restrictions that prevent black citizens from voting</a>.</p>
<p>Anne Moody was one of the lucky ones. She graduated from college, moved north and published a best-selling memoir.</p>
<p>But despite the accolades, television appearances, radio interviews and speaking engagements, she could never really escape Jim Crow Mississippi. It had deprived her of her family and a place to truly call home.</p>
<p>“Coming of Age” ends with Moody listening to civil rights workers sing the anthem, “We Shall Overcome.”</p>
<p>“I wonder,” she wrote. “I really wonder.” </p>
<p>Fifty years later, many of us are still wondering.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leigh Ann Wheeler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Does Anne Moody’s memoir represent how far we’ve come as a society? Or is it a stark reminder of how far we need to go?Leigh Ann Wheeler, Professor of History, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1023032018-10-03T10:33:10Z2018-10-03T10:33:10Z50 years old, ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ still offers insight about the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238387/original/file-20180927-48653-1d2wlhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even 17 years beyond 2001, spacesuits are bulkier than this.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/scarywardrobe/8999720714/">Matthew J. Cotter/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Watching a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2001-a-space-odyssey-movie-50th-anniversary/">50th anniversary screening</a> of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” I found myself, a <a href="http://neukom.dartmouth.edu/people/rockmore.html">mathematician and computer scientist</a> whose research includes work related to artificial intelligence, comparing the story’s vision of the future with the world today.</p>
<p>The movie was made through a collaboration with science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke and film director Stanley Kubrick, inspired by Clarke’s novel “Childhood’s End” and his lesser-known short story “The Sentinel.” A striking work of speculative fiction, it depicts – in terms sometimes hopeful and other times cautionary – a future of alien contact, interplanetary travel, conscious machines and even the next great evolutionary leap of humankind.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The opening of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’</span></figcaption>
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<p>The most obvious way in which 2018 has fallen short of the vision of “2001” is in space travel. People are not yet routinely visiting space stations, making unremarkable visits to one of several moon bases, nor traveling to other planets. But Kubrick and Clarke hit the bull’s-eye when imagining the possibilities, problems and challenges of the future of artificial intelligence.</p>
<h2>What can computers do?</h2>
<p>A chief drama of the movie can in many ways be viewed as a battle to the death between human and computer. The artificial intelligence of “2001” is embodied in HAL, the omniscient computational presence, the brain of the Discovery One spaceship – and perhaps the film’s most famous character. HAL marks the pinnacle of computational achievement: a self-aware, seemingly infallible device and a ubiquitous presence in the ship, always listening, always watching. </p>
<p>HAL is not just a technological assistant to the crew, but rather – in the words of the mission commander Dave Bowman – the sixth crew member. The humans interact with HAL by speaking to him, and he replies in a measured male voice, somewhere between stern-yet-indulging parent and well-meaning nurse. HAL is Alexa and Siri – but much better. HAL has complete control of the ship and also, as it turns out, is the only crew member who knows the true goal of the mission. </p>
<h2>Ethics in the machine</h2>
<p>The tension of the film’s third act revolves around Bowman and his crewmate Frank Poole becoming increasingly aware that HAL is malfunctioning, and HAL’s discovery of these suspicions. Dave and Frank want to pull the plug on a failing computer, while self-aware HAL wants to live. All want to complete the mission. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Man versus machine.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The life-or-death chess match between the humans and HAL offers precursors of some of today’s questions about the prevalence and deployment of artificial intelligence in people’s daily lives.</p>
<p>First and foremost is the question of how much control people should cede to artificially intelligent machines, regardless of how “smart” the systems might be. HAL’s control of Discovery is like a deep-space version of the networked home of the future or the driverless car. Citizens, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0267364909001514">policymakers</a>, <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7167238">experts and researchers</a> are all still exploring the degree to which automation could – or should – <a href="https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/internet-of-things/fbi-warns-public-on-dangers-of-the-internet-of-things">take humans out of the loop</a>. Some of the considerations involve relatively simple questions about the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/22/self-driving-car-uber-death-woman-failure-fatal-crash-arizona">reliability of machines</a>, but other issues are more subtle. </p>
<p>The actions of a computational machine are dictated by decisions encoded by humans in algorithms that control the devices. Algorithms generally have some quantifiable goal, toward which each of its actions should make progress – like <a href="https://theconversation.com/computers-to-humans-shall-we-play-a-game-77383">winning a game</a> of checkers, chess or Go. Just as an AI system would analyze positions of game pieces on a board, it can also <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/interview-brad-porter-vp-of-robotics-at-amazon">measure efficiency of a warehouse</a> or <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/05/google-data-center-ai/">energy use of a data center</a>.</p>
<p>But what happens when a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-everyday-ethical-challenges-of-self-driving-cars-92710">moral or ethical dilemma</a> arises en route to the goal? For the self-aware HAL, completing the mission – and staying alive – wins out when measured against the lives of the crew. What about a driverless car? Is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/safe-efficient-self-driving-cars-could-block-walkable-livable-communities-103583">mission of a self-driving car</a>, for instance, to get a passenger from one place to another as quickly as possible – or to avoid killing pedestrians? When someone steps in front of an autonomous vehicle, those goals conflict. That might feel like an obvious “choice” to program away, but what if the car needs to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-everyday-ethical-challenges-of-self-driving-cars-92710">“choose” between two different scenarios</a>, each of which would cause a human death? </p>
<h2>Under surveillance</h2>
<p>In one classic scene, Dave and Frank go into a part of the space station where they think HAL can’t hear them to discuss their doubts about HAL’s functioning and his ability to control the ship and guide the mission. They broach the idea of shutting him down. Little do they know that HAL’s cameras can see them: The computer is reading their lips through the pod window and learns of their plans. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">HAL reads lips.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the modern world, a version of that scene happens all day every day. Most of us are effectively continuously monitored, through our <a href="https://theconversation.com/7-in-10-smartphone-apps-share-your-data-with-third-party-services-72404">almost-always-on phones</a> or corporate and government <a href="https://theconversation.com/snowden-a-picture-of-the-cybersecurity-state-65310">surveillance of real-world and online activities</a>. The boundary between private and public has become and continues to be increasingly fuzzy.</p>
<p>The characters’ relationships in the movie made me think a lot about how people and machines might coexist, or even evolve together. Through much of the movie, even the humans talk to each other blandly, without much tone or emotion – as they might talk to a machine, or as a machine might talk to them. HAL’s famous death scene – in which Dave methodically disconnects its logic links – made me wonder whether intelligent machines will ever be afforded something equivalent to human rights. </p>
<p>Clarke believed it quite possible that humans’ time on Earth was but a “<a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Space-Odyssey/Michael-Benson/9781501163937">brief resting place</a>” and that the maturation and evolution of the species would necessarily take people well beyond this planet. “2001” ends optimistically, vaulting a human through the “Stargate” to mark the rebirth of the race. To do this in reality will require people to figure out how to make the best use of the machines and devices that they are building, and to make sure we don’t let those machines control us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102303/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel N. Rockmore is Associate Dean for the Sciences, Director of the Neukom Institute for Computational Science, and Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Dartmouth College. He is also on the Science Steering Committee of The Santa Fe Institute and a member of its External Faculty. </span></em></p>People are still wrestling with what artificial intelligence could and should do, half a century after the debut of the Kubrick-Clarke classic.Daniel N. Rockmore, Professor, Department of Mathematics, Computational Science, and Computer Science, Dartmouth CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1042102018-10-01T20:03:27Z2018-10-01T20:03:27ZThe Left’s Gift to Nixon<p>1968 is often remembered as a time of revolution, when liberal activists stood up to the powers that be and established progressive movements that endure to this day. However, 1968 was also the year the GOP’s Richard Nixon won the White House – and the start of more than two decades of nearly unbroken Republican power in the executive branch. Arizona State University’s Donald Critchlow explains that this didn’t necessarily occur in spite of the left-wing protest movement – it may have happened directly because of it. As the unrest on campuses and in inner cities was beamed into Americans’ living rooms through television, millions of voters embraced Nixon’s promise to bring back “law and order.”</p>
<p>Read more in this accompanying article from Donald Critchlow:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politicians-have-long-used-the-forgotten-man-to-win-elections-103570">Politicians have long used the ‘forgotten man’ to win elections</a></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236756/original/file-20180917-158222-1w998g0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Stitcher" width="268" height="80"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2pNAWvcME1HXB074Ys0dWM"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="268" height="105"></a></p>
<p>Also: <a href="https://heatandlightpod.com/feed.rss">RSS Feed</a></p>
<p><strong>Music:</strong> “Moonlight Reprise” by Kai Engel, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kai_Engel/Irsens_Tale/Kai_Engel_-_Irsens_Tale_-_04_Moonlight_Reprise">FreeMusicArchive.org</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/">CC0 3</a></p>
<p><strong>Archival:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mddG0hdgP0c">1968 Democratic Convention part 1</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtj7zfMaP0o">Preview - 1968 DNC in Chicago - CBS News Coverage</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?443976-4/washington-journal-matthew-dallek-robert-merry-discuss-conservative-politics-1968">Matthew Dallek and Robert Merry on Conservative Politics in 1968</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0Z3rWEcko8">Goldwater concedes to LBJ 1964</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8N_9ei8ncg">Future Pres. Nixon on Face the Nation</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPzOkUIYeK8">Election Shocks (1966)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQjdh-6tKeM">Inauguration of President Richard M Nixon 1969, Part 7</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iymTxj_825U">Gerald Ford: Swearing In Ceremony - Aug 9, 1974</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXtJ0uW10Ug">Inauguration of President Ronald Reagan 1981, Part 1</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfQBxBCptcE">President George H.W. Bush takes the oath of office administered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9YfnWG8mRk">USA: PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON GIVES ACCEPTANCE SPEECH UPDATE</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNkGL07b_G8">Bernie Calls Out Weak Centrist Democrats</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noCx808TvZU">Trump tells police officers “don’t be too nice” when arresting gang members</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezXIsOAHbQY">Hands Up Don’t Shoot/ Berkeley, CA</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEoiUt0KFCo">Arrests made in anti-ICE protest in Brooklyn</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGSAhNZnisk">“BUILD THAT WALL!” Donald Trump Chants After Major Endorsement</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTBxPPx62s4">Lindsey Graham erupts: Kavanaugh hearing an unethical sham</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAb2QMw9h_w">‘This is the beginning’: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory speech</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
1968 is often remembered as a time when protest galvanized the left. But it was also the year that Richard Nixon won the White House — which Republicans would control for most of the next two decades.Phillip Martin, Podcast hostLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1035702018-10-01T18:48:59Z2018-10-01T18:48:59ZPoliticians have long used the ‘forgotten man’ to win elections<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238753/original/file-20181001-195282-eokem7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Nixon, Republican candidate for president, is seen in August 1968.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since Thomas Jefferson’s time, candidates have put themselves forward as representatives of the so-called “forgotten man.”</p>
<p>As a scholar of American political history, I cover this subject in my book on presidential politics, <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15723.html">“Republican Character: Nixon to Reagan</a>.”</p>
<p>Perhaps the best modern example of this is Richard Nixon, who declared that he won the 1968 presidential election because he represented what he called the “silent majority” of voters.</p>
<p>Exactly what did Nixon mean?</p>
<h2>The ‘forgotten man’ is born</h2>
<p>In the 1932 presidential race, candidate Franklin Roosevelt <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=88408">used the phrase</a> “the forgotten man” in his campaign against incumbent Herbert Hoover. At the time, Americans found themselves experiencing the effects of a global economic depression, and incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover seemed unable to implement effective recovery measures. </p>
<iframe sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-popups" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="185" frameborder="0" src="https://embed.radiopublic.com/e?if=heat-and-light-WYDE55&ge=s1!97d30dbc85db45c57a20615cde48b8288187dbc5"></iframe>
<p>Roosevelt’s use of the phrase “the forgotten man” proved effective – he won a landslide victory.</p>
<p>Roosevelt took the phrase from Yale sociology professor William Graham Summer, who wrote about “the forgotten man” in a <a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Sumner.Forgotten.html">Harper’s Weekly article</a> published in 1883. Summer described the “forgotten man” as a “simple, honest laborer, ready to earn his living by productive work. We pass him by because he is independent, self-supporting, and asks no favors.”</p>
<p>Summer, an advocate for keeping government out of private enterprise, declared that the forgotten man sought “no paternal, undue government.” Roosevelt cleverly reversed the phrase to mean that the federal government needed to do more to relieve unemployment and promote recovery.</p>
<p>Since then the idea of the forgotten man, the little guy ignored by politicians, has loomed large in American political rhetoric. </p>
<h2>Law and order and Nixon in 1968</h2>
<p>In his early congressional races in 1946 and 1948, Nixon spoke of the forgotten man, whom he claimed to represent. Although his opponents depicted him as a tool of oil and big-money interests, Nixon <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Contender.html">portrayed himself</a> as representing the average American.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238752/original/file-20181001-195250-7e43n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238752/original/file-20181001-195250-7e43n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238752/original/file-20181001-195250-7e43n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238752/original/file-20181001-195250-7e43n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238752/original/file-20181001-195250-7e43n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238752/original/file-20181001-195250-7e43n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238752/original/file-20181001-195250-7e43n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238752/original/file-20181001-195250-7e43n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters demonstrating at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-IL-USA-APHS164877-Anti-war-Demonstrators/f84c7ea13bd94a26a61eced0adeb2320/9/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the time of the 1968 presidential election, the American electorate had become deeply divided over the Vietnam War and <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-killings-of-3-black-men-left-a-mark-on-detroits-history-more-than-50-years-ago-101716">race issues</a>. Republicans tried to frame this divide as one of patriotism and law and order versus the “lawless” anti-war movement and inner-city rioters. </p>
<p>Many Americans were shocked by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-anti-trump-activists-can-learn-from-chicago-68-62741">anti-war demonstration that disrupted</a> the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in late August 1968. For Republicans, these antiwar demonstrators became an easy symbol for the break down in law and order that was occurring in America at that time. Republicans such as Nixon appealed to voter concerned with what they perceived as the breakdown of order in their societies.</p>
<p>In late February 1968, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gh/article-abstract/36/1/154/4096498">a Gallup poll reported</a> that “crime and lawlessness” was the most important domestic issue on the mind of the American electorate. Voters saw riots, violent demonstrations, juvenile delinquency and street crime as a single problem in American society.</p>
<p>In 1968, Nixon defeated incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had received the Democratic Party presidential nomination with the support of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who had announced that he was not going to seek reelection. The Humphrey campaign fumbled the law-and-order issue. His approach was to come out strong for law and order while calling for more social spending to address rising crime rates. To voters who believed that liberals just did not have much to offer than more anti-poverty programs and welfare handouts, this was not convincing.</p>
<h2>Nixon and the ‘silent majority’</h2>
<p>A year after his victory in a speech given in November 1969, Nixon translated the “forgotten man” into “the silent majority.” In the <a href="http://watergate.info/1969/11/03/nixons-silent-majority-speech.html">televised speech</a>, he asked average Americans, “the great silent majority” that stands against the small vocal minority, to support his policies in Vietnam. </p>
<p>Nixon’s use of the “forgotten man” and “the silent majority” was not just good campaign rhetoric. It reflected a substantive reality that many average Americans did not feel represented by the media, which seemed in their eyes to spend more time on antiwar protesters than on average patriotic Americans such as themselves. </p>
<p>The silent majority spoke in 1968 and again 1972 by voting a Republican into the White House, just as they did in 2016 when they voted for Donald Trump. Perhaps these voters in 2016 were not the popular majority, but they were decisive, just as they were in 1968.</p>
<p><em>Our new podcast “<a href="https://heatandlightpod.com">Heat and Light</a>” features Prof. Critchlow discussing this story in depth.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=134&fit=clip" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=134&fit=clip" alt="" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236756/original/file-20180917-158222-1w998g0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=116&fit=clip" alt="Listen on Stitcher" width="116" height="34"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=105&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="105" height="34"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=86&fit=clip" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="86" height="34"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donald Critchlow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From Thomas Jefferson to Donald Trump, the idea of the little guy ignored by politicians has loomed large in American political rhetoric.Donald Critchlow, Professor of History, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1039012018-09-26T00:54:57Z2018-09-26T00:54:57ZWhy God Votes Republican<p>The white Christian left was once a powerful influence on American politics, in an era when faith did not dictate political inclination. Then came the 1968 declaration against the Vietnam War by the National Council of Churches. President-elect Richard Nixon would later eschew liberal Christian leaders – and become the first of a series of presidents who built their base on the anxieties of white Christian conservatives. Phillip talks with professor Jill Gill of Boise State University in Idaho, whose parents were a conservative evangelical and a secular liberal. She tells us how evangelicals became synonymous with conservatism in today’s political landscape.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236756/original/file-20180917-158222-1w998g0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Stitcher" width="268" height="80"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2pNAWvcME1HXB074Ys0dWM"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="268" height="105"></a></p>
<p>Also: <a href="https://heatandlightpod.com/feed.rss">RSS Feed</a></p>
<p><strong>Music:</strong> “And never come back” by Soft and Furious, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Soft_and_Furious/You_know_where_to_find_me/Soft_and_Furious_-_You_know_where_to_find_me_-_06_And_never_come_back">FreeMusicArchive.org</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a></p>
<p><strong>Archival:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U">Martin Luther King, “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGvcHIWIK6E&t=299s">Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Role of the Church Militant</a></p>
<p><a href="http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums741-b227-i004">Lecture by William Sloane Coffin on the Vietnam War, November 19, 1972</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQyLHi_X83s">They’ll Know We Are Christians Peter Scholtes 1966</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvW_w_MDiJM">NIXON TAPES: Vietnam is Kennedy’s Fault (Billy Graham)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YADvHEFAE28">LBJ and Martin Luther King, 11/5/64. 3.20p.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T4y1WDofK0">Ann Coulter - Godless: The Church of Liberalism</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN05jVNBs64">President Obama sings Amazing Grace (C-SPAN)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j06TTdKT64U">Obama links raising taxes to Christianity</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jNkSOe6dU0">Evangelicals turn on Trump over immigration</a></p>
<p>Read more: <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-war-protests-50-years-ago-helped-mold-the-modern-christian-right-90802">Anti-war protests 50 years ago helped mold the modern Christian right</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In 1968 the Protestant Left lost its political clout over their opposition to the Vietnam War – and opened the door for the rise of the modern Religious Right.Phillip Martin, Podcast hostLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1033962018-09-17T19:58:23Z2018-09-17T19:58:23ZThe Mother of All Demos<p>A computer may have been the size of room in 1968, but it was still a watershed year for tech industry. That year saw the founding of the Intel Corporation that would revolutionize microprocessors and “the mother of all demos,” a landmark event that featured the first public demonstration of a computer mouse. Our guest, Margaret O’Mara, a professor of U.S. history at the University of Washington, became fascinated with the story of the Silicon Valley through a circuitous path that involved time spent in the White House and a close encounter with the Little Rock Nine. She tells Philip how this place, once a pastoral agricultural community, became a technological and economic powerhouse – and what that meant for the people who lived there. </p>
<p>Read more in this accompanying article from Margaret O'Mara:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-1968-computers-got-personal-how-the-mother-of-all-demos-changed-the-world-101654">In 1968, computers got personal: How the ‘mother of all demos’ changed the world</a></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236756/original/file-20180917-158222-1w998g0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Stitcher" width="268" height="80"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2pNAWvcME1HXB074Ys0dWM"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="268" height="105"></a></p>
<p>Also: <a href="https://heatandlightpod.com/feed.rss">RSS Feed</a></p>
<p><strong>Music:</strong> “By Grace” by Podington Bear, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Inspiring/ByGrace">FreeMusicArchive.org</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a></p>
<p>“Motions” by Rafael Krux, found on <a href="https://freepd.com/upbeat.php#LinkToRevealHideComments">FreePD.com</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a></p>
<p><strong>Archival:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv85FSf_6vw">Mother of All Demos - The Mouse</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARJ8cAGm6JE">HAL 9000: “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that”</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARJ8cAGm6JE">The First Microprocessor TV Commercial</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgkyrW2NiwM">Deactivating Hal 9000 HD (COMPLETE)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSvT02q4h40&t=35s">Apple accused of failing to protect workers</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az6JMnyBKck">The 68’ Salute</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juwGJCTOSYQ&t=27s">It was my mistake’: Facebook CEO speaks out on privacy scandal</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM0KNvVGmkU&t=12s">Jeff Bezos: The $100 Billion Dollar Man | CNBC</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2LMEJgXE84">The Disruptors: The ‘Uber effect’ on the Taxi Industry</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufNNuafuU7M">New video shows moments before fatal self-driving Uber crash</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xERXusiEszs&amp=&t=141s">The Little Rock 9 - Arkansas 1957</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In 1968 computers were the size of a room. But after the founding of Intel and the introduction of the mouse that year they would eventually fit in a pocket – and change the Silicon Valley forever.Phillip Martin, Podcast hostLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1016542018-09-17T19:45:19Z2018-09-17T19:45:19ZIn 1968, computers got personal: How the ‘mother of all demos’ changed the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232180/original/file-20180815-2903-1l8mkct.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from Doug Engelbart's groundbreaking 1968 computer demo.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.dougengelbart.org/firsts/dougs-1968-demo.html#3">Doug Engelbart Institute</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On a crisp California afternoon in early December 1968, a square-jawed, mild-mannered Stanford researcher named Douglas Engelbart took the stage at San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium and proceeded to <a href="https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2015/04/from-the-vault-watching-and-re-watching-the-mother-of-all-demos/">blow everyone’s mind</a> about what computers could do. Sitting down at a keyboard, this computer-age Clark Kent calmly showed a rapt audience of computer engineers how <a href="http://dougengelbart.org/firsts/dougs-1968-demo.html">the devices they built could be utterly different kinds of machines</a> – ones that were “alive for you all day,” as he put it, immediately responsive to your input, and which didn’t require users to know programming languages in order to operate. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232179/original/file-20180815-2894-veevoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232179/original/file-20180815-2894-veevoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232179/original/file-20180815-2894-veevoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232179/original/file-20180815-2894-veevoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232179/original/file-20180815-2894-veevoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232179/original/file-20180815-2894-veevoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232179/original/file-20180815-2894-veevoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232179/original/file-20180815-2894-veevoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The prototype computer mouse Doug Engelbart used in his demo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Douglas_Engelbart%27s_prototype_mouse_-_Computer_History_Museum.jpg">Michael Hicks</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Engelbart typed simple commands. He edited a grocery list. As he worked, he skipped the computer cursor across the screen using a strange wooden box that fit snugly under his palm. With small wheels underneath and a cord dangling from its rear, Engelbart dubbed it a “mouse.”</p>
<p>The 90-minute presentation went down in Silicon Valley history as the “<a href="https://www.wired.com/2010/12/1209computer-mouse-mother-of-all-demos/">mother of all demos</a>,” for it <a href="http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3954.html">previewed a world of personal and online computing</a> utterly different from 1968’s status quo. It wasn’t just the technology that was revelatory; it was the notion that a computer could be something a non-specialist individual user could control from their own desk. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M5PgQS3ZBWA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The first part of the ‘mother of all demos.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shrinking the massive machines</h2>
<p>In the America of 1968, computers weren’t at all personal. They were refrigerator-sized behemoths that hummed and blinked, calculating everything from consumer habits to missile trajectories, cloistered deep within corporate offices, government agencies and university labs. Their secrets were accessible only via punch card and teletype terminals.</p>
<p>The Vietnam-era counterculture already had made mainframe computers into ominous symbols of a soul-crushing Establishment. Four years before, the student protesters of <a href="https://fsm.berkeley.edu/free-speech-movement-timeline/">Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement</a> had pinned signs to their chests that bore a riff on the prim warning that appeared on every IBM punch card: “<a href="http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/FSM_fold_bend.html">I am a UC student. Please don’t bend, fold, spindle or mutilate me</a>.” </p>
<iframe sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-popups" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="185" frameborder="0" src="https://embed.radiopublic.com/e?if=heat-and-light-WYDE55&ge=s1!d28fa9002b17ee1c91a07ef2450ba6954a597435"></iframe>
<p><strong>Hear Prof. O'Mara discuss this topic on our <a href="https://heatandlightpod.com">Heat and Light podcast</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Earlier in 1968, Stanley Kubrick’s trippy “2001: A Space Odyssey” mined moviegoers’ <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/01/09/hal-mother-and-father/">anxieties about computers run amok</a> with the tale of a malevolent mainframe that seized control of a spaceship from its human astronauts. </p>
<p>Voices rang out on Capitol Hill about the uses and abuses of electronic data-gathering, too. Missouri Senator Ed Long regularly delivered floor speeches he called “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/intruders-the-invasion-of-privacy-by-government-and-industry/oclc/468772015">Big Brother updates</a>.” North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin declared that mainframe power posed a threat to the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. “The computer,” <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/GPO-CRECB-1970-pt23/GPO-CRECB-1970-pt23-5/content-detail.html">Ervin warned darkly</a>, “never forgets.” As the Johnson administration unveiled plans to centralize government data in a single, centralized national database, New Jersey Congressman Cornelius Gallagher declared that it was just another grim step toward scientific thinking taking over modern life, “<a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/eureka-humboldt-times-sep-08-1966-p-47/">leaving as an end result a stack of computer cards where once were human beings</a>.”</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/thing-makers-tool-freaks-and-prototypers-how-the-whole-earth-catalogs-optimistic-message-reinvented-the-environmental-movement-in-1968-95915">zeitgeist of 1968</a> helps explain why Engelbart’s demo so quickly became a touchstone and inspiration for a <a href="http://www.dougengelbart.org/firsts/dougs-1968-demo.html#3">new, enduring definition of technological empowerment</a>. Here was a computer that didn’t override human intelligence or stomp out individuality, but instead could, as Engelbart put it, “augment human intellect.” </p>
<p>While Engelbart’s vision of how these tools might be used was rather conventionally corporate – a computer on every office desk and a mouse in every worker’s palm – his overarching notion of an individualized computer environment hit exactly the right note for the anti-Establishment technologists coming of age in 1968, who wanted to make <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3773600.html">technology personal and information free</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hXdYbmQAWSM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The second part of the ‘mother of all demos.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the next decade, technologists from this new generation would turn what Engelbart called his “wild dream” into a mass-market reality – and profoundly transform Americans’ relationship to computer technology. </p>
<h2>Government involvement</h2>
<p>In the decade after the demo, the crisis of <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/primary-resources/watergate">Watergate</a> and revelations of <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB522-Church-Committee-Faced-White-House-Attempts-to-Curb-CIA-Probe/">CIA and FBI snooping</a> further seeded distrust in America’s political leadership and in the ability of large government bureaucracies to be responsible stewards of personal information. Economic uncertainty and an antiwar mood <a href="https://scienceprogress.org/2008/01/science-and-the-2009-budget/">slashed public spending</a> on high-tech research and development – the same money that once had paid for so many of those mainframe computers and for training engineers to program them. </p>
<p>Enabled by the miniaturizing technology of the <a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/visiblestorage/1960s-1980s/ics-microprocessors-memories/the-microprocessor/">microprocessor</a>, the size and price of computers <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-how-computing-power-has-changed-over-time-2017-11">plummeted</a>, turning them into affordable and soon indispensable tools for work and play. By the 1980s and 1990s, instead of being seen as machines made and controlled by government, computers had become <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=35897&st=Moscow+State+University&st1=">ultimate expressions of free-market capitalism</a>, hailed by business and political leaders alike as examples of what was possible when government got out of the way and let innovation bloom.</p>
<p>There lies the great irony in this pivotal turn in American high-tech history. For even though “the mother of all demos” provided inspiration for a personal, entrepreneurial, government-is-dangerous-and-small-is-beautiful computing era, Doug Engelbart’s audacious vision would never have made it to keyboard and mouse without government research funding in the first place.</p>
<p>Engelbart was keenly aware of this, flashing credits up on the screen at the presentation’s start listing those who funded his research team: the Defense Department’s Advanced Projects Research Agency, later known as DARPA; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the U.S. Air Force. Only the public sector had the deep pockets, the patience and the tolerance for blue-sky ideas without any immediate commercial application.</p>
<p>Although government funding played a less visible role in the high-tech story after 1968, it continued to function as critical seed capital for next-generation ideas. Marc Andreessen and his fellow graduate students developed their groundbreaking web browser in a <a href="http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/enabling/mosaic">government-funded university laboratory</a>. DARPA and NASA money helped fund <a href="http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/422/">the graduate research project</a> that Sergey Brin and Larry Page would later commercialize as Google. Driverless car technology got a jump-start after a <a href="https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/-grand-challenge-for-autonomous-vehicles">government-sponsored competition</a>; so has nanotechnology, green tech and more. Government hasn’t gotten out of Silicon Valley’s way; it remained there all along, quietly funding the next generation of boundary-pushing technology.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FCiBUawCawo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The third part of the ‘mother of all demos.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, public debate rages once again on Capitol Hill about computer-aided <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/us/politics/mark-zuckerberg-testimony.html">invasions of privacy</a>. Hollywood spins apocalyptic tales of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/">technology run amok</a>. Americans spend days staring into screens, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/magazine/facebook-google-privacy-data.html">tracked by the smartphones in our pockets</a>, hooked on <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/6/25/17501224/instagram-facebook-snapchat-time-spent-growth-data">social media</a>. Technology companies are among the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-02/amazon-closes-on-apple-in-the-1-trillion-stakes">biggest and richest</a> in the world. It’s a long way from Engelbart’s humble grocery list.</p>
<p>But perhaps the current moment of high-tech angst can once again gain inspiration from the mother of all demos. Later in life, Engelbart described his life’s work as a quest to “<a href="http://archive.org/details/XD302_86ACM_Prese_AugKnowledgeWorkshopParts1and2&start=1">help humanity cope better with complexity and urgency</a>.” His solution was a computer that was remarkably different from the others of that era, one that was humane and personal, that augmented human capability rather than boxing it in. And he was able to bring this vision to life because government agencies funded his work. </p>
<p>Now it’s time for another mind-blowing demo of the possible future, one that moves beyond the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/technology/regulating-tech-companies.html">current adversarial moment</a> between big government and Big Tech. It could inspire people to enlist public and private resources and minds in crafting the next audacious vision for our digital future.</p>
<p><em>Our new podcast “<a href="https://heatandlightpod.com">Heat and Light</a>” features Prof. O'Mara discussing this story in depth.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=134&fit=clip" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=134&fit=clip" alt="" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236756/original/file-20180917-158222-1w998g0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=116&fit=clip" alt="Listen on Stitcher" width="116" height="34"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=105&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="105" height="34"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=86&fit=clip" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="86" height="34"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret O'Mara does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A 90-minute presentation in 1968 showed off the earliest desktop computer system. In the process it introduced the idea that technology could make individuals better – if government funded research.Margaret O'Mara, Professor of History, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1029722018-09-10T20:53:45Z2018-09-10T20:53:45ZDetroit is Burning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235699/original/file-20180910-123122-1g7zk0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Detroit police officer makes an arrest during the riots of 1967.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/File</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As 1968 began, the city of Detroit was dealing with the aftermath of some of the worst race riots the country had ever seen. That year, the Kerner Commission, appointed by president Lyndon Johnson, placed the blame squarely on the way the police and the city government had handled the response. In this episode, Jeffrey Horner, a professor of urban studies at Wayne State University, speaks with Phillip about how race and class divisions met with economic and social upheaval to shape the city as it tried to rebuild … and also how the city shaped them, as they themselves grew up in Detroit at the time.</p>
<p>Read more in this accompanying article from Jeffrey Horner:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/police-killings-of-3-black-men-left-a-mark-on-detroits-history-more-than-50-years-ago-101716">Police killings of 3 black men left a mark on Detroit’s history more than 50 years ago</a></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236756/original/file-20180917-158222-1w998g0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=300&fit=clip" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="90"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="300" height="97"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p>Also: <a href="https://heatandlightpod.com/feed.rss">RSS Feed</a></p>
<p><strong>Music on this episode:</strong> Something to save" by Komiku, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Komiku/Its_time_for_adventure__vol_2/Komiku_-_Its_time_for_adventure_vol_2_-_10_Something_to_save">FreeMusicArchive.org</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a></p>
<p>“This tuning is so dramatic” by Monplaisir, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monplaisir/Draft/Monplaisir_-_Draft_-_09_This_tuning_is_so_dramatic">FreeMusicArchive.org</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a></p>
<p><strong>Archival audio</strong>
<a href="https://keenerpodcast.com/?p=2713">WKNR Contact News - Detroit 1967</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoU4cmRULKY">Address to the Nation Regarding Civil Disorder, 7/27/67. MP594.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCW58RCgqOQ&t=1551s">Racism in America Small Town 1950s Case Study Documentary Film</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBsnDrp88Ak">Misconduct allegations mount inside Detroit Police Department</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYg3L_y1EhQ">Police misconduct costing Detroit millions of dollars</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKQxL1AOFgI">Ex-DPD officers charged with misconduct</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDYMpztd5uc">Detroit police officer charged with assault and misconduct in rough arrest at Meijer</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94e64G9ZFio&t=35s">Police brutality at Detroit Meijer 8 mile and Woodward</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/1967-detroit-riot-a-community-speaks/oclc/53865376">The Detroit 1967 Riots: A Community Speaks</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In 1967 race riots nearly tore Detroit apart. The next year, the Kerner Commission, appointed by president Lyndon Johnson, placed the blame on the way the police and had handled the response.Phillip Martin, Podcast hostLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1025462018-09-03T21:53:03Z2018-09-03T21:53:03ZAn Interracial Kiss – on Another Planet<p><em>Warning: This episode contains a racial slur.</em> In 1968 America, a country where interracial marriage had been legal nationwide for only a matter of months, the idea of romance between the races was still a controversial proposition. That made it all the more shocking when, in November of that year, William Shatner, a white man, kissed Nichelle Nichols, a black woman on the sci-fi show “Star Trek.” In this episode, Phillip discusses why the racial climate of 1968 made an interracial kiss seem so far-fetched that it caused a stir even when it took place on a show set centuries in the future with historian Matthew Delmont of Arizona State University. Delmont’s connection to the topic is more than academic – his parents, one white, one black, met in 1968.</p>
<p>Read more in this accompanying article from Matthew Delmont: <a href="https://theconversation.com/tvs-first-interracial-kiss-launched-a-lifelong-career-in-activism-101721">TV’s first interracial kiss launched a lifelong career in activism</a></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="300" height="97"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p>Also: <a href="https://heatandlightpod.com/feed.rss">RSS Feed</a></p>
<p><strong>Music on this episode:</strong> “And never come back” by Soft and Furious, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Soft_and_Furious/You_know_where_to_find_me/Soft_and_Furious_-_You_know_where_to_find_me_-_06_And_never_come_back">FreeMusicArchive.org</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a></p>
<p><strong>Archival Audio:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lThvEsP5-9Y">Star Trek_Kirk & Uhura kiss</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BI5jFyAdZ8">Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1/8) Movie CLIP - Pleased to Meet You (1967) HD</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfAxFgr8I28">Supreme Court Clips - Loving v. Virginia - interracial marriage</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvQ7X0gb30Q">Malcolm X in Speaks in Solidarity With the School Boycotts in NYC (1964)</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In 1968, the idea of romance between the races was still a controversial proposition. That made it all the more revolutionary when an episode of Star Trek featured a kiss between black and white characters, the first interracial kiss on American TV.Phillip Martin, Podcast hostLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1017212018-09-03T20:57:57Z2018-09-03T20:57:57ZTV’s first interracial kiss launched a lifelong career in activism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233938/original/file-20180828-86141-n2d8cy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nervous about how southern television viewers would react, NBC executives closely monitored the filming of the kiss between Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.publicdomainfiles.com/show_file.php?id=13498604414055">U.S. Air Force</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Nov. 22, 1968, an episode of “Star Trek” titled “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708443/">Plato’s Stepchildren</a>” broadcast the first interracial kiss on American television. </p>
<p>The episode’s plot is bizarre: Aliens who worship the Greek philosopher Plato use telekinetic powers to force the Enterprise crew to sing, dance and kiss. At one point, the aliens compel Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to embrace. Each character tries to resist, but eventually Kirk tilts Uhura back and the two kiss as the aliens lasciviously look on. </p>
<p>The smooch is not a romantic one. But in 1968 to show a black woman kissing a white man was a daring move.</p>
<p>The episode aired just one year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loving v. Virginia decision struck down state laws against interracial marriage. At the time, Gallup polls showed that <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx">fewer than 20 percent of Americans approved of such relationships</a>. </p>
<p>As a historian of civil rights and media, I’ve been fascinated by the woman at the center of this landmark television moment. Casting Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura created possibilities for more creative and socially relevant <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=list_works&authuser=2&gmla=AJsN-F5Tq3S07JaTym4ggipQ2ywifKwXWexcK4OKzMurZJvHMSp4Ay3a-7D2FrPLHlppsoEw7gbBOO8SRsu2uxvQ50GkEDmajw&user=tMLTqzcAAAAJ">“Star Trek” storylines.</a></p>
<iframe src="https://tunein.com/embed/player/t123871983" style="width:100%;height:100px;" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><strong>Hear Prof. Delmont discuss this topic and how it has influenced his life’s studies on our <a href="https://heatandlightpod.com">Heat and Light podcast</a></strong></p>
<p>But just as significant is Nichols’s off-screen activism. She leveraged her role on “Star Trek” to become a recruiter for NASA, where she pushed for change in the space program. Her career arc shows how diverse casting on the screen can have a profound impact in the real world, too.</p>
<h2>‘A triumph of modern-day TV’</h2>
<p>In 1966, “Star Trek” creator Gene Rodenberry decided to cast Nichelle Nichols to play Lieutenant Uhura, a translator and communications officer from the United States of Africa. In doing so, he made Nichols the first African-American woman to have a continuing co-starring role on television.</p>
<p>The African-American press was quick to heap praise on Nichols’s pioneering role. </p>
<p>The Norfolk Journal and Guide hoped that it would “broaden her race’s foothold on the tube.” </p>
<p>The magazine Ebony featured Nichols <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=6iZkedjSfZoC&lpg=PA70&vq=%2522Nichelle%2520Nichols%2522&dq=%2522Nichelle%20Nichols%2522&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false">on its January 1967 cover</a> and described Uhura as “the first Negro astronaut, a triumph of modern-day TV over modern-day NASA.”</p>
<p>Yet the famous kiss between Uhura and Kirk almost never happened.</p>
<p>After the first season of “Star Trek” concluded in 1967, Nichols considered quitting after being offered a role on Broadway. She had started her career as a singer in New York and always dreamed of returning to the Big Apple. </p>
<p>But at a NAACP fundraiser in Los Angeles, she ran into Martin Luther King Jr.</p>
<p>Nichols would later recount their interaction. </p>
<p>“You must not leave,” <a href="https://youtu.be/pSq_UIuxba8">King told her</a>. “You have opened a door that must not be allowed to close…you changed the face of television forever…For the first time, the world sees us as we should be seen, as equals, as intelligent people.” </p>
<p>King went on to say that he and his family were fans of the show; <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/gene-roddenberry-son-star-trek_n_1119119.html">she was</a> a “hero” to his children.</p>
<p>With King’s encouragement, Nichols stayed on “Star Trek” for the original series’ full three-year run. </p>
<p>Nichols’ controversial kiss took place at the end of the third season. Nichols <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hKKkGhEDoU">recalled</a> that NBC executives closely monitored the filming because they were nervous about how Southern television stations and viewers would react.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gRfRXcP1Gsg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Nichelle Nichols recounts the reaction to filming the first interracial kiss on television.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the episode aired, the network did receive an outpouring of letters from viewers – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRfRXcP1Gsg">and the majority were positive</a>. </p>
<p>In 1982, Nichols would tell the Baltimore Afro-American that she was amused by the amount of attention the kiss generated, especially because her own heritage was “a blend of races that includes Egyptian, Ethiopian, Moor, Spanish, Welsh, Cherokee Indian and a ‘blond blue-eyed ancestor or two.’”</p>
<h2>Space crusader</h2>
<p>But Nichols’s legacy would be defined by far more than a kiss.</p>
<p>After NBC canceled Star Trek in 1969, Nichols took minor acting roles on two television series, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053510/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Insight</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066645/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">The D.A.</a>” She would also play a madame in the 1974 blaxploitation film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072325/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Truck Turner</a>.” </p>
<p>She also started to dabble in activism and education. In 1975, Nichols established Women in Motion, Inc. and won several government contracts to produce educational programs related to space and science. By 1977, she had been appointed to the board of directors of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Space_Institute">National Space Institute</a>, a civil space advocacy organization.</p>
<p>That year she gave a speech at the institute’s annual meeting, “New Opportunities for the Humanization of Space, or Space: What’s in it for Me?” In it, she critiqued the lack of women and minorities in the astronaut corps, <a href="https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/30908/201302SH.pdf">challenging NASA</a> to “come down from your ivory tower of intellectual pursuit, because the next Einstein might have a Black face – and she’s female.”</p>
<p>Several of NASA’s top administrators were in the audience. They invited her to lead an astronaut recruitment program for the new space shuttle program. Soon, she packed her bags and began traveling the country, visiting high schools and colleges, speaking with professional organizations and legislators, and appearing on national television programs such as “Good Morning America.”</p>
<p>“The aim was to find qualified people among women and minorities, then to convince them that the opportunity was real and that it also was a duty, because this was historic,” Nichols told the Baltimore Afro-American in 1979. “I really had this sense of purpose about it myself.” </p>
<p>In her 1994 autobiography, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AbtNPgAACAAJ&dq=Beyond+Uhura&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiatNz-xpDdAhXCTN8KHdQ2AdwQ6AEIJzAA">Beyond Uhura</a>,” Nichols recalled that in the seven months before the recruitment program began, “NASA had received only 1,600 applications, including fewer than 100 from women and 35 from minority candidates.” But by the end of June 1977, “just four months after we assumed our task, 8,400 applications were in, including 1,649 from women (a 15-fold increase) and an astounding 1,000 from minorities.” </p>
<p>Nichols’s campaign recruited several trailblazing astronauts, including Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, Guion Bluford, the first African-American in space, and Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233939/original/file-20180828-86153-6dakin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nichelle Nichols speaks after the Space Shuttle Endeavour landed at Los Angeles International Airport Friday in September 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Space-Shuttle-Last-Stop/f4c443def09a428c91ddcc7d6e228dde/1/0">AP Photo/Reed Saxon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Relentless advocacy for inclusion</h2>
<p>Her advocacy for inclusion and diversity wasn’t limited to the space program.</p>
<p>As one of the first black women in a major television role, Nichols understood the importance of opening doors for minorities and women in entertainment. </p>
<p>Nichols continued to push for African-Americans to have more power in film and television. </p>
<p>“Until we Blacks and minorities become not only the producers, writers and directors, but the buyers and distributors, we’re not going to change anything,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7dgDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA150&ots=wbTFv3IH98&dq=nichelle%20nichols%20ebony%201985%20billy%20dee%20williams&pg=PA154#v=onepage&q=nichelle%20nichols%20ebony%201985%20billy%20dee%20williams&f=false">she told Ebony in 1985</a>. “Until we become industry, until we control media or at least have enough say, we will always be the chauffeurs and tap dancers.” </p>
<p>It’s an issue that, unfortunately, remains relevant today. In February of this year, UCLA’s <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/hollywood-diversity-report-2018-ucla">annual Hollywood Diversity Report</a> found that women and people of color continue to be underrepresented as directors and in studio board rooms. It concluded that “Hollywood studios are leaving money on the table by not developing films and TV shows with more diverse casts.”</p>
<p>Fifty years ago, Nichols’s kiss may have broken an important cultural barrier. But as Nichols well knows, the quest to secure opportunities for women and minorities persists to this day – an effort that requires relentless pressure.</p>
<p><em>Our new podcast “<a href="https://heatandlightpod.com">Heat and Light</a>” features Prof. Delmont discussing this story in depth.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=134&fit=clip" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=134&fit=clip" alt="" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236756/original/file-20180917-158222-1w998g0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=116&fit=clip" alt="Listen on Stitcher" width="116" height="34"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=105&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="105" height="34"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=86&fit=clip" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="86" height="34"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Delmont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The career arc of Nichelle Nichols – the first black woman to have a continuing co-starring role on TV – shows how diverse casting can have as much of an impact off the screen as it does on it.Matthew Delmont, Professor of History, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022452018-08-28T00:43:37Z2018-08-28T00:43:37ZFear of a Non-Nuclear Family<p>In 1968 the “Norman Rockwell” picture of the American family – the husband as breadwinner, the stay-at-home wife and mother, two kids, a white picket fence – was still widely accepted as the ideal. But things were starting to change. The feminist movement was encouraging more women to enter the workforce and protest traditional American ideals of femininity – including the 1968 Miss America pageant. At the same time, the manufacturing jobs that employed many men were starting to move overseas. For many Americans this wasn’t just a change in the structure of the typical family – it was a sign that essential American values were in danger.</p>
<p>In this episode, Phillip talks with historian Natasha Zaretsky about how worries about the state of the American family led to fears about the decline of American society – and how this continues to galvanize conservatives across the country to this day. It’s a phenomenon Zaretsky has been driven to understand since her childhood in liberal San Francisco after she discovered the disdain many people around the country had for people like her activist parents, a dynamic that continues to fascinate her today as she teaches conservative students in Southern Illinois.</p>
<p>Read more in this accompanying article from Natasha Zaretsky:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/red-state-politics-in-and-out-of-the-college-classroom-101299">Red-state politics in and out of the college classroom</a></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="300" height="97"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p>Also: <a href="https://heatandlightpod.com/feed.rss">RSS Feed</a></p>
<p><strong>Music on this episode:</strong> “How to Evade a Place With No Wall” by Komiku, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Komiku/Its_time_for_adventure__vol_3/Komiku_-_Its_time_for_adventure_vol_3_-_05_How_to_evade_a_place_with_no_wall">FreeMusicArchive.org</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1.0</a></p>
<p>“This Tuning Is So Dramatic” by Monplaisir, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Komiku/Its_time_for_adventure__vol_3/Komiku_-_Its_time_for_adventure_vol_3_-_05_How_to_evade_a_place_with_no_wall">FreeMusicArchive.org</a>, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1.0</a></p>
<p><strong>Archival Audio:</strong>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awCRaGkowjY">Ms. America, Up Against the Wall</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXhlTQJcgbc">Ward Cleaver Teaches Walley About A Woman’s Place</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bug6EyIb_AE">Women’s Movement 1960s-70s</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcepzEufGXM">Bob Hope Christmas Special (1966) – Miss America, Vietnam</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM1OJ_9s2mE">Equal Rights Amendment</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3kbZHryVvo">Crowning of Miss America 1969 – Judy Ford</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDIueebd12M">President Reagan’s Radio Address on Family Values on December 20, 1986</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8I065WZnms">Video rewind: May 19, 1992 – Dan Quayle vs. Murphy Brown</a></p>
<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/48621151">Moyers Moment (1980): Jerry Falwell on The Equal Rights Amendment</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB5H--b3Xho&t=30s">Anita Bryant - Save Our Children Campaign</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In 1968 the idea of the ideal American family was the father as breadwinner, stay-at-home mom, two kids and a white picket fence. But the women's movement and other forces were beginning to change this – and inspire a conservative backlash that persists to this day.Phillip Martin, Podcast hostLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1012992018-08-27T20:40:20Z2018-08-27T20:40:20ZRed-state politics in and out of the college classroom<p>For two decades, I have taught U.S. women’s and gender history at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, a blue town in a blue state, <a href="https://cola.siu.edu/history/faculty-and-staff/faculty/zaretsky.php">marooned in an ocean of red</a>. </p>
<p>Bordered by Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta and the Ozarks, Southern Illinois is surrounded by the country’s poorest rural regions.</p>
<p>Some of my students arrive from white farming communities and are the first in their families to attend college. They grow up on church, military, patriotism and traditional family, and they come from a world different from mine. I grew up in 1970s San Francisco, and my parents were leftists.</p>
<p>As I prepared to teach about abortion and gay rights for the first time in 2003, I approached the classroom with trepidation. I feared that our discussions would mirror the country’s culture wars and lead to tension among students. </p>
<p>One joy of teaching is when students surprise you, and I soon discovered that my fears had been unwarranted. </p>
<h2>Students surprise; teacher learns</h2>
<p>Classroom discussions of “hot button” issues turned out to be not so hot after all. </p>
<p>Sure, a student might declare that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but her declaration had no fight behind it. Most students simply did not get worked up about gay rights. By the early 2000s, almost all of them had a relative who had come out. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, where author Zaretsky teaches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Southern Illinois University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Regardless of what they might have been told in church, they asserted, who were they to stand in the way of the happiness of an uncle or a cousin? </p>
<p>Three decades after gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk had urged his brothers and sisters to come out, this tactic had borne fruit everywhere, <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300222616/harvey-milk">including the “heartland”</a> where I teach.</p>
<p>Thus, well before gay marriage became legal, I was telling friends back home that if my students were any indication, the question was not whether, but when.</p>
<p>It turned out that the issue that most angered my students was the Vietnam War. This was odd, I thought at first, because the conflict had ended years before they had been born. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fear-of-a-non-nuclear-family-102245">Fear of a Non-Nuclear Family</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But in one class, an older student who was the daughter of a Vietnam veteran recounted a story that had been passed down in her family since the early 1970s: Upon his return from overseas, her father had been spat on by anti-war activists. </p>
<p>Others chimed in that they had heard similar stories. These stories were mythical, not because such incidents had never occurred, but rather because opponents of the anti-war movement had overstated their frequency and intensity in order to brand wartime opposition as unpatriotic. When I gently suggested this was the case, <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814751473/">as one scholar has argued</a>, my students swung back, insisting that the stories were true.</p>
<p>It quickly became clear to me that these stories felt true to my students because they resonated with their own experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Those military interventions were not abstractions to them. Some were veterans themselves, a few suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, virtually all of them knew someone in the service and many came from military families. </p>
<p>The Vietnam stories struck a chord because they presented a portrait that my students found painfully familiar: loyal Americans who had served their country but who felt forgotten by U.S. institutions and the broader political culture.</p>
<h2>Developing a theory</h2>
<p>This classroom episode surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. </p>
<p>My students confirmed what I had discovered through my own research on the <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807857977/no-direction-home/">recent history of conservatism</a>, which revealed a deep sense of betrayal among Americans who had sacrificed their bodies on behalf of the U.S. military and felt that they had received little recognition in return. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family as he returns home from Vietnam in 1973. Zaretsky’s students believed veterans were treated badly by the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Sal Veder</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars argue that in the early 1970s the “culture wars” erupted <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo20063403.html">and divided the country</a>. And there is no question that both conservative and liberal actors mobilized around issues like <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2006/05/23/is-there-a-culture-war/">abortion and gay rights</a>.</p>
<p>But my research pointed to something else that fueled the nation’s rightward march: the rise of an aggrieved nationalism rooted in a sense of bodily injury.</p>
<p>I first detected this nationalism when I studied the families of American POWs and MIAs in Southeast Asia, many of whom believed that their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807857977/no-direction-home/">had been left behind twice</a> — first by a U.S. government that had failed to bring them home, and then by a libertine culture that had turned against the war. </p>
<p>These were patriotic families who felt let down by their country.</p>
<p>Years later, I encountered something similar when I researched U.S. veterans who had sustained radiation injuries during their <a href="http://natashazaretskyonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/RadiationSufferingPatrioticBodyPolitics.pdf">World War II-era service</a> and who later became ill with cancer. </p>
<p>By the late 1970s, these “atomic veterans” and their relatives were leveling the same charge. They were forgotten men and women who had served their country, but who had been betrayed by the government, which refused to acknowledge that it had <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/radiation-nation/9780231179812">endangered its citizens</a>.</p>
<p>The 1970s gave rise to the culture wars, no question. But it also gave rise to the accusation that the most loyal Americans had suffered through sickness, injury and premature death, and had been forgotten and let down. </p>
<p>This claim fueled a rising hostility toward big government, which championed liberal reform on behalf of racial and sexual minorities ostensibly at the expense of white, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809026746">hard-working, patriotic Americans</a>.</p>
<h2>Empathy in the classroom</h2>
<p>When my students became so angry toward Vietnam era anti-war activists, I was taken aback. I had to go beneath the surface of our debate and ask why this issue had stirred them. </p>
<p>Yes, the debate was about history, and I appealed to historical accuracy in order to challenge their assumptions about the past. That is, after all, my job. </p>
<p>But swimming just beneath the surface were their own experiences as young people who come from economically struggling rural communities whose members shoulder the burdens of U.S. militarism.</p>
<p>Simply telling them that they had gotten the history “wrong” would not have sufficed. </p>
<p>Instead, I had to pair my commitment to historical truth with a no-less-powerful commitment to empathy — an attempt to make sense of their anger historically and hopefully provide them with the tools to do the same.</p>
<p>My friends and relatives back home sometimes thank me for being out here in the heartland, “winning hearts and minds.” </p>
<p>But is that even my role?</p>
<p>Certainly, my students have changed my worldview, but how much have I changed theirs? That question is hard to answer, because my interactions with students are brief. They spend just over 37 hours with me over the course of one semester. That is not a lot of time. </p>
<p>But during those hours, we break away from the gerrymandered world of social media and encounter one another face to face. </p>
<p>Those encounters can be difficult and frustrating. Yet they have also yielded moments when the divisions and suspicions that dominate our political landscape fall away. </p>
<p>I am not here to win the hearts and minds of my students, but I like to imagine that I have opened some of them. What I know for sure is that they have opened mine. </p>
<p><em>Our new podcast “<a href="https://heatandlightpod.com">Heat and Light</a>” features Prof. Zaretsky discussing conservative reaction to the 1960s in depth.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="116" height="34"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="105" height="34"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="86" height="34"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Zaretsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar raised by leftist San Francisco parents in the 1970s ends up teaching in the heartland, where her students represent a very different kind of politics. What she learns from them is profound.Natasha Zaretsky, Associate Professor of History, Southern Illinois UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022432018-08-27T20:20:08Z2018-08-27T20:20:08ZRevolution Starts on Campus<p>The radical student takeover of Columbia University in 1968 sparked a worldwide student protest movement: From Eastern Europe to South America, students rose up against authoritarian governments, racial inequality and, most passionately, against the war in Vietnam. Host Phillip Martin talks to African-American studies professor Stefan Bradley about how the Columbia uprising inspired similar events at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 28, 1968, and to historian Michael Kazin, who was arrested for his activism at that DNC. </p>
<p>Both scholars were student organizers: Kazin orchestrated a takeover of Harvard University in the ‘60s, and Bradley combated racial discrimination at Gonzaga University. Bradley was also on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri, among the young people protesting the killing of Michael Brown. He reflects on what current movements can learn from the protests of 1968.</p>
<p>Read more in this accompanying article from Stefan M. Bradley: <a href="https://theconversation.com/1968-protests-at-columbia-university-called-attention-to-gym-crow-and-got-worldwide-attention-102093">1968 protests at Columbia University called attention to ‘Gym Crow’ and got worldwide attention</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="300" height="97"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p>Also: <a href="https://heatandlightpod.com/feed.rss">RSS Feed</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102243/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Fifty years ago, students rose up against authoritarian governments, racial inequality and, most passionately, the war in Vietnam. Two historians reflect on those momentous days in 1968 – and discuss what current movements learn from them.Phillip Martin, Podcast hostLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1020932018-08-27T20:17:57Z2018-08-27T20:17:57Z1968 protests at Columbia University called attention to ‘Gym Crow’ and got worldwide attention<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233695/original/file-20180827-75972-19v0afj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black power militant H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael (right) appeared at a sit-in protest at Columbia University in New York City on April 26, 1968.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-United-/1aea42ff04f2da11af9f0014c2589dfb/287/0">AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>“If they build the first story, blow it up. If they sneak back at night and build three stories, burn it down. And if they get nine stories built, it’s yours. Take it over, and maybe we’ll let them in on the weekends.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is what <a href="https://snccdigital.org/inside-sncc/the-story-of-sncc/">Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee</a> and Black Panther Party affiliate <a href="https://snccdigital.org/people/h-rap-brown/">H. Rap Brown</a> told a crowd of Harlem residents at a community rally in February 1967.</p>
<p>They were there to protest Columbia University’s construction of a gymnasium in Morningside Park, the only land separating the Ivy League university from the historic black working-class neighborhood. The gym, along with the discovery that Columbia was affiliated with the <a href="https://www.ida.org/">Institute for Defense Analysis</a> – a national consortium of flagship universities and research organizations that provided strategy and weapons research to the U.S. Department of Defense – stirred students to protest for more decision-making power at their elite university. </p>
<p>When considering the key events of 1968, such as the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/tet-offensive">Tet Offensive</a>, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/01/1968s-chaos-the-assassinations-riots-and-protests-that-defined-our-world/?utm_term=.3eae1a9710a2">assassinations of national leaders</a>, demonstrations at the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/protests-at-democratic-national-convention-in-chicago">Democratic National Convention</a> and the <a href="http://time.com/3880999/black-power-salute-tommie-smith-and-john-carlos-at-the-1968-olympics/">Olympics</a>, as well international events concerning democracy, the Columbia uprisings merit attention.</p>
<h2>Issues converge on campus</h2>
<p>As I detail in my book – <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/69erx5xt9780252034527.html">“Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the Late 1960s”</a> – all the issues of the 1960s and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-Left">New Left</a> collided on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia. Students contended with the war in Vietnam, institutional racism, the generational divide, sexism, environmentalism and urban renewal – all while trying to find dates and attend classes.</p>
<p>Everything came to a head on April 23, 1968 – just weeks after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. That was when members of the Columbia chapter of Students for a Democratic Society hosted a <a href="http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cs19680424-01&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------">rally</a> on campus to decry the war – and, what many considered the racist gym in Morningside Park. Members of the Students’ Afro-American Society, or SAS, and Columbia varsity athletes – known as jocks – were in attendance as well. SAS followers showed up to resume an earlier fight they had with the jocks who supported the construction of the gymnasium.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/revolution-starts-on-campus-102243">Revolution Starts on Campus</a>
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</em>
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<p>Some students had been working with Harlem community groups. They saw the gym as a symbol of the university’s “power” over a defenseless and poverty-stricken black neighborhood. They joined local politicians who opposed the gym for a myriad of reasons, including its concrete footprint in a green park and the inability of the community to have access to the entire structure once built.</p>
<h2>Troubled relations</h2>
<p>The situation was, of course, complex. Columbia had long been a contentious neighbor to Harlem and Morningside Heights. The campus gym was decrepit and prevented the university from competing with its Ivy peers effectively in terms of facilities and space. Regarding the park, Columbia had constructed softball fields that initially community members could use. By 1968, however, only campus affiliates could access the fields. Then, white faculty members had been mugged in the park.</p>
<p>The university, seeking to expand in the postwar period, purchased US$280 million of land, mortgages and residential buildings in Harlem and Morningside Heights. That resulted in the <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/69erx5xt9780252034527.html">eviction of nearly 10,000 residents</a> in a decade, 85 percent of whom were black or Puerto Rican.</p>
<p>Columbia acted in coordination with Morningside Heights, Inc., a confederacy of educational and religious institutions in the neighborhood that also sought to “renew” the area to serve their mostly white patrons. David Rockefeller, grandson of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, acted as MHI’s first president. Columbia was the lead institution.</p>
<p>Despite being close to a black neighborhood, the university admitted few black students and employed a handful of black instructors. For instance, as I report in my book, in the 1964-1965 school year, there were only 35 black students out of 2,500 students enrolled in Columbia’s College of Arts and Sciences, and just one tenured black professor. By spring 1968, there were more than 150 black students enrolled. </p>
<p>On April 23, protesting students attempted to take over the administration building but were repelled by campus security. Then, they walked to the gym construction site where they tore down fencing and physically confronted police. From the park, they returned to campus where they finally succeeded in taking over a classroom building, Hamilton Hall. In doing so, they surrounded the dean of the college, Henry Coleman, who chose to stay in his office with his staff. To “protect” Coleman, <a href="http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cs19680424-01.2.2&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------">several jocks stood guard</a> outside his door.</p>
<h2>Clashes with police</h2>
<p>What started as a racially integrated demonstration of students took a turn in the late night when H. Rap Brown and several community activists showed up at the invitation of the Students’ Afro-American Society. The student group, Brown and the community activists agreed that black people solely should occupy Hamilton Hall and that white activists should commandeer other buildings. The white demonstrators accommodated, leaving Hamilton and taking over four other buildings. That forced Columbia officials to contend with not just a student protest but a black action on campus at that height of Black Power Movement. Incidentally, the community activists removed and replaced the jocks as sentries of the dean’s office.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233697/original/file-20180827-75996-1t09zhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233697/original/file-20180827-75996-1t09zhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233697/original/file-20180827-75996-1t09zhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233697/original/file-20180827-75996-1t09zhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233697/original/file-20180827-75996-1t09zhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233697/original/file-20180827-75996-1t09zhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233697/original/file-20180827-75996-1t09zhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Participants of a student sit-in assist each other in climbing up into the offices of Columbia University President Grayson Kirk on April 24, 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-United-/e464d889dde6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/297/0">AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To the ire of many white university administrators of the period, Stokely Carmichael of SNCC and the Black Panthers fame showed up to explain – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/27/archives/facultys-effort-fails-to-resolve-columbia-dispute-protest-leader.html">through the press</a> – that the university deal either with the student activists on campus or militants coming from Harlem. This insinuated the tone of the demonstrations would change drastically. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated less than three weeks before. From offices in Morningside Heights, Columbia administrators had watched Harlem burn as residents mourned and reacted to the black leader’s death. The only thing that separated the elite white institution from angry black rebels was the park in which the university was building a gymnasium <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/69erx5xt9780252034527.html">against the will of many community members</a>.</p>
<p>In consultation with New York Mayor John Lindsay, Columbia administrators chose to end the demonstrations by calling 1,000 New York police officers to clear the five occupied campus buildings on April 30. <a href="http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cs19680430-01&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------">Chaos and brutality prevailed</a>. As the NAACP and other Harlem community organizations stood watch, black students vacated Hamilton, which SAS had renamed Malcolm X Hall, and were arrested peacefully. In the building that national Students for a Democratic Society leader and <a href="http://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/origins-of-students-for-a-demo/port_huron_statement">Port Huron Statement</a> author Tom Hayden occupied, police and demonstrators collided physically. One of the most iconic documents of the postwar period, the 1962 Port Huron Statement outlined the need for young people to be in the vanguard of the movement to eradicate racism and grind the military-industrial complex to a halt; it centered the notion of participatory democracy, which called for greater inclusion of the citizenry in decision-making. In other buildings, students found themselves on the hurt end of police batons when they resisted arrest.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233699/original/file-20180827-75978-mpc9p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233699/original/file-20180827-75978-mpc9p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233699/original/file-20180827-75978-mpc9p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233699/original/file-20180827-75978-mpc9p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233699/original/file-20180827-75978-mpc9p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233699/original/file-20180827-75978-mpc9p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233699/original/file-20180827-75978-mpc9p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police rush toward student protesters outside Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library on April 30, 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Columbia-Protests-Anniversary/76748e36da3c4dac84fd27e87105c29f/9/0">AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Worldwide attention</h2>
<p>In opening the door to violence, the university turned what was a local matter into an <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/03/the-students-behind-the-1968-columbia-uprising">international story</a> and radicalized moderate students and neighborhood residents. Young radicals abroad learned of “Gym Crow” and university-sponsored defense research. In solidarity, they supported the Columbia student activists’ causes and chanted “two, three, many Columbias” – a refrain that gained popularity among American student protesters.</p>
<p>After the demonstrations in April, ensuing violent demonstrations in May, and a <a href="http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cs19680501-01&e=23-04-1968-30-06-1968--en-20--1--txt-txIN-Strike------">six-week student strike</a>, the university did not build the gym in the park and <a href="http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cs19680920-01.2.11&srpos=8&e=23-04-1968-30-12-1968--en-20--1--txt-txIN-IDA------">renounced its membership</a> in the Institute for Defense Analysis.</p>
<p>In my view, elements of the 1968 Columbia rebellion are inspiring and instructional for today’s students, protesters and community residents. As <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/10/atlanta-super-gentrification-eminent-domain">gentrification threatens</a> the homes of poor black people in urban areas today, activists should recall that 50 years earlier young people believed they could cut their university’s ties to war research and prevent a prestigious white American institution from expanding into black spaces at the same time. They succeeded.</p>
<p><em>Our new podcast “<a href="https://heatandlightpod.com">Heat and Light</a>” features Prof. Bradley and Columbia University’s Michael Kazin discussing this issue in depth.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="116" height="34"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="105" height="34"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="86" height="34"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan M. Bradley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 1968 protests at Columbia University led the institution to abandon a gym project that residents considered racist and cut off its defense work – and generated worldwide attention in the process.Stefan M. Bradley, Chair, Department of African American Studies, Loyola Marymount UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920092018-07-26T10:36:26Z2018-07-26T10:36:26ZA conservative activist’s quest to preserve all network news broadcasts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229155/original/file-20180724-194143-1l0jvgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon smiles for the cameras during a 1968 news conference.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, in the middle of a typically hot and humid Nashville summer, a Metropolitan Life insurance manager named Paul Simpson sat with Frank Grisham, the director of the Vanderbilt University Library, in the rare books room of the main library building.</p>
<p>Using three <a href="https://www.ampex.com/ampex-history/">Ampex video recording machines</a>, three television sets and $4,000 of Simpson’s own money, they began what they thought would be a 90-day experiment: From then until election night in November, they would record the ABC, NBC and CBS evening news broadcasts, which usually aired at the same time.</p>
<p>The day Simpson and Grisham started taping, August 5, 1968, was an eventful one. The Republican Convention began, <a href="http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/campaign68/timeline.html">and Ronald Reagan officially announced his candidacy for the presidential nomination</a>, joining with liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller in an attempt to stop Richard Nixon’s hopes of a first ballot nomination.</p>
<p>The news broadcasts also included the era’s biggest stories: fighting in Vietnam, communist leaders meeting in Eastern Europe and the civil war in Nigeria. Other reports from that day sound hauntingly familiar: an Israeli strike into Jordan and a violent incident at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, in which an American and North Korean soldier were killed. </p>
<p>Such was the modest beginning of what Rutgers University historian David Greenberg <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7oQsWVsy6tkC&pg=PA185&dq=Do+Historians+Watch+Enough+TV?+Broadcast+News+as+a+Primary+Source&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLh6Dq-rXcAhVDGt8KHXjCDw8Q6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Do%20Historians%20Watch%20Enough%20TV%3F%20Broadcast%20News%20as%20a%20Primary%20Source&f=false">has called</a> the “preeminent video resource for scholars of TV news.” </p>
<p>Although legal and copyright issues continue to hinder access, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive – a repository of television news recordings from the past 50 years – is a national archival treasure.</p>
<p>But the archive’s beginnings are rooted in the political and cultural conflicts of the late 1960s. Simpson, the archive’s founder, first financial backer and chief fundraiser, was deeply conservative. <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Network-Television-News-Conviction-Controversy-Point/22707912691/bd">And he was convinced</a> that the network news broadcasts, with their executive producers living in New York’s “liberal atmosphere,” were contributing to social turmoil and unrest throughout the country.</p>
<p>For this reason, he sought to save the recordings for posterity – to be able to show, years later, that CBS, NBC and ABC were as much a part of the problem as the anti-war movement, drug culture and free love.</p>
<h2>The most trusted men?</h2>
<p>Although he later downplayed political motivations in <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?152200-1/television-news-archives">a 1985 C-SPAN interview</a>, Simpson had long been passionate in his concern about television’s malign influence over “the American mind.” </p>
<p>In 1964, <a href="https://collections.library.vanderbilt.edu/repositories/2/resources/1605">he wrote to CBS</a> to complain about Walter Cronkite’s coverage of the Goldwater campaign. He wasn’t necessarily wrong: Cronkite, who enjoyed his reputation as the “most trusted man” in America, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=XWv46Na-PIcC&lpg=PP1&dq=cronkite&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">did detest Goldwater</a> and was liberal in his politics.</p>
<p>Simpson also believed that television news unfairly blamed President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on the “conservative atmosphere” in Dallas, <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Network-Television-News-Conviction-Controversy-Point/22707912691/bd">and he recalled with particular disgust</a> a 1967 network interview with psychologist <a href="https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/timothy-leary">Timothy Leary</a>, who was encouraging young people to try LSD.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229293/original/file-20180725-194134-1bo0v1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Simpson was deeply suspicious of Walter Cronkite’s motives and beliefs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/charleskremenak/9399912564">Charles Kremenak</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On a business trip to New York in March 1968, Simpson toured each of the three networks. At each stop, he asked to see a broadcast from the previous month. They all told him that they weren’t available – they only saved their broadcasts for about two weeks because it was too expensive to preserve them.</p>
<p>Simpson was shocked. He viewed nightly newscasts as the equivalent of America’s national newspaper. How could they be held accountable if no record existed of their stories, segments and analysis?</p>
<p>When he returned to Nashville, Simpson found an ally in Vanderbilt librarian Frank Grisham. </p>
<p>Grisham didn’t share Simpson’s politics but did believe that the broadcasts should be preserved. The two took the idea to Vanderbilt’s chancellor, <a href="https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2009/07/25/alexander-heard-vanderbilts-fifth-chancellor-dies-85205/">Alexander Heard</a>, a political scientist <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Gone_with_the_Ivy.html?id=G5hlQgAACAAJ">whom historian Paul Conkin described</a> as a true believer in “an open society, one in which divergent views could find expression” and compete for public acceptance. Heard got the board of trustees to approve a short-term experiment, hoping that the Library of Congress might eventually take it over.</p>
<h2>Preserving bias for posterity</h2>
<p>The expensive project may have ended after its three-month test run were it not for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, held a few weeks after the Republican gathering.</p>
<p>On August 28, 1968, the night Hubert Humphrey was nominated, the news networks aired footage of the swelling crowds of protesters, the outbreak of violence in the streets and the demonstrators shouting, “The whole world is watching” as the police attacked them. It was dramatic stuff – and Simpson and Grisham preserved it all.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7_9OJnRnZjU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The dramatic images that emerged from the 1968 Democratic National Convention horrified a huge swath of the electorate.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although the protesters believed media coverage would create sympathy for their cause, <a href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/the-whole-world-was-watching/">a substantial majority of Americans</a>
– including Paul Simpson – sided with the police. When editing the tapes, Simpson realized that NBC had shown the same arrest of one violent protester from three different angles without acknowledging that it was the same person. <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Network-Television-News-Conviction-Controversy-Point/22707912691/bd">In Simpson’s view</a>, this exaggerated the scale of violence and discredited the police. </p>
<p>In the heated atmosphere of 1968, it was enough to fuel suspicions of media bias. Simpson now had his smoking gun – and a potent fundraising tool.</p>
<p>Over the next two years, the tape of the Chicago violence played a critical role in the survival of the archive. Simpson argued that the only way to be able to study the media’s impact was to ensure copies existed for critics, researchers and academics to review. Two conservative Nashville business executives, one of whom sat on the Vanderbilt board of trustees, made substantial donations to keep the archive functioning. </p>
<p>Nixon’s election made the White House receptive to the project. Simpson sent the tape to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/249080/nixons-white-house-wars-by-patrick-j-buchanan/9781101902868/">Patrick Buchanan</a>, a Nixon speechwriter who shared the president’s deep distaste for the media. Buchanan even included a reference to the protest footage in Vice President Spiro Agnew’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQpQyJQm2Mk">famous 1969 speech attacking television news as biased</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229157/original/file-20180724-194128-16o7vkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Vice President Spiro Agnew laid into the press, citing the same footage from the 1968 DNC protests that infuriated Paul Simpson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-NM-USA-APHS437970-Agnew-Native-Americans/9778c5b3869c4c9f932504345e7ffd9f/58/0">AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>“Another network,” Agnew announced, “showed virtually the same scene of violence from three separate angles without making clear it was the same scene.”</p>
<h2>The networks fight back</h2>
<p>The networks had never been singled out by elected officials in this way, and they weren’t happy about the scrutiny. Operating as they did with government licenses, they saw Agnew’s speech as intimidation.</p>
<p>With a hubris that, in retrospect, was certain to invite further scrutiny, the three networks pushed back, arguing that they were objective and impartial watchdogs looking out for the public interest. They saw themselves as above politics. As media historian Charles L. Ponce De Leon <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo12345529.html">wrote</a> in 2015, “It was news from Olympus, presented in a tone that suggested the voice of God.” </p>
<p>NBC’s Reuven Frank <a href="https://collections.library.vanderbilt.edu/repositories/2/resources/1605">sarcastically dismissed</a> Simpson’s claim that he was acting in the “spirit of free inquiry,” remarking that “I have never known a self-proclaimed objective student who sought to evaluate my performance because he thought I was doing great.” </p>
<p>The networks also worried that if Vanderbilt continued recording their broadcasts, they would lose the ability to repackage and resell their footage. People could just go to Vanderbilt for it.</p>
<p>CBS accused the Vanderbilt Television News Archive of violating its copyright and sued in December 1973. Amazingly, CBS stated it would destroy the Vanderbilt tapes if it won in court.</p>
<p>Thankfully, Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker helped insert <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108">a clause in the revision of the copyright law</a> that protected the right of libraries to record the news. CBS dropped its lawsuit, but some of the restrictions it insisted upon were put in place.</p>
<p>While the entire collection was digitalized in the early 2000s, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive is only allowed to stream NBC and CNN to researchers. Examining ABC, CBS or Fox segments requires a trip to Nashville. </p>
<p>The recording of the evening newscasts of the big three networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – continues to this day. In 1995, the archive began recording an one hour a day of CNN, and in 2004, an hour of FOX. Over the years it’s been used by researchers to study topics as diffuse as political bias, gender stereotyping and even the evolution of television advertising, since the commercials during the news broadcasts are also recorded.</p>
<p>In recent times, the archive was used in the 2015 documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3518012/">Best of Enemies</a>” because it contained lost footage of the debate between conservative commentator William F. Buckley and liberal writer Gore Vidal. More poignantly, <a href="http://www.newsknowledge.today/episode-002/">it was used by the mother of an American soldier</a> who died in Vietnam; after someone told her that her wounded son had been photographed lying on the ground during a network news segment, she traveled to the archives to review footage and confirm the account.</p>
<p>Even if one thinks Simpson’s perception of deliberate political bias was misguided, his insistence on preserving the evening news in order to study and analyze its presentation was an extraordinarily important contribution.</p>
<p>The British writer Christopher Hitchens <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/boycott-the-gop/550907/">once remarked</a> that political partisanship makes us stupid. </p>
<p>But in the case of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, partisanship led to unintended, historically enriching results.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Alan Schwartz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fifty years ago, an insurance agent named Paul Simpson was convinced of rampant bias on the evening news. So he embarked on a project to record each broadcast and store them at Vanderbilt University.Thomas Alan Schwartz, Professor of History, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1000652018-07-17T14:09:43Z2018-07-17T14:09:43ZHappy 50th birthday Intel, you look a lot like the next Kodak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228014/original/file-20180717-44088-1jd61wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chipped china?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thedailyexposition/24646411287/in/photolist-DxVipD-5r7ZNB-KViyiE-6qg5GA-KgHu5S-KE19j9-dHGje7-9Ggp8b-7oie2b-iZdjeg-JLpgep-amZMq-9wQ6MM-eN14aW-iZe7r7-eegsDQ-aBDMuC-9ckAnv-6qg67s-8eHhPe-9D7M4y-bpwqhm-ygGej-6qbUwV-otaixG-5z3CoG-7yVudg-qKUSfG-4Wk6Kd-e81y6d-5yYjT4-6qbVmD-dKci48-oy6xAs-9GgyxA-4MoVB5-dKhN7N-7xbpVv-auVkQQ-e7UTJe-jTXHK-7FUuuR-5vooDy-e7UT9D-bjDbDH-27YYsG9-86DXrQ-bjDauR-yBe6U-5wuyjs">The Daily Exposition</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>I am easily a foot taller than Andy Grove. But whenever I was with him, I felt that he was the giant.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That’s what the bestselling Harvard business professor, Clayton Christensen, <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/03/clayton-christensen-what-ill-miss-about-andy-grove">wrote</a> about the former Intel chief executive when he passed away in 2017. Christensen, who <a href="http://www.claytonchristensen.com/books/the-innovators-dilemma/">coined the term</a> “disruptive technology”, said he would most miss Grove’s ability to understand how a complex organisation works, and to wield it to Intel’s advantage. </p>
<p>It allowed Grove, who started at the company the day it was incorporated on July 18, 1968, to famously re-orient the business in the 1980s. Intel shifted <a href="https://anthonysmoak.com/2016/03/27/andy-grove-and-intels-move-from-memory-to-microprocessors/">away from</a> memory chips for mainframe computers towards the microprocessor – the engine that spurs into motion when you turn on your computer. </p>
<p>Propelled by a deal with IBM to put Intel processors into all its personal computers, the company came to provide Silicon Valley with one of its most essential technologies. Intel Inside and the accompanying jingle became one of the most memorable advertising slogans of the modern era. </p>
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<p>Even after five decades of dominance, no other company in the world can produce a better and faster microprocessor. Intel is at the pinnacle of an industry that manages to engineer miracles like no other. We tend to perceive innovation as something uncertain, particularly where it’s so reliant on scientists to drive it forward. Yet Intel is anything but ambiguous. It has released successive advances in processor engineering like clockwork. </p>
<p>In 1965, future co-founder Gordon Moore <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/silicon-innovations/moores-law-technology.html">made a bold prediction</a> about the exponential growth of computing power. He predicted that the number of microchip transistors etched into a fixed area of a computer microprocessor would double every two years – and so, therefore, would computing power. Intel has since delivered on this improbable promise, immortalising “Moore’s law”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228011/original/file-20180717-44079-1ss2z7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Intel’s Andy Grove, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, 1978.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/intelfreepress/8267616249">Intel Free Press</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>It’s difficult for anyone to fathom the effects of exponential growth. But it is why a single iPhone today <a href="https://www.zmescience.com/research/technology/smartphone-power-compared-to-apollo-432/">possesses</a> many times more computing power than the entire spacecraft for the NASA Apollo moon mission of 1969. Without Moore’s law, there would be no Google, no Facebook, no Uber, no Airbnb. Silicon Valley would be like any other valley.</p>
<h2>The big miss</h2>
<p>And yet, the iPhone is also what Intel missed. Immediately after <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/431760/today-in-apple-history-steve-jobs-announces-intel-powered-macs/">the company won</a> Apple’s Mac business in 2005, Steve Jobs <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/paul-otellinis-intel-can-the-company-that-built-the-future-survive-it/275825/">came asking</a> for another chip for his smartphone. Intel certainly wanted to dominate this emerging sector but the price Jobs was offering was below its forecasted cost and it misjudged the size of the iPhone market. The company passed. </p>
<p>Apple had <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/19/how-intel-lost-the-mobile-chip-business-to-apples-ax-arm-application-processors">no choice but</a> to build its own chipsets by licensing technologies from <a href="https://www.arm.com">ARM</a>, a British-based company controlled by Japanese interests. If Apple and its iPhone had been the only competitors, Intel might have been able to gradually adapt. But Google came in soon after with Android, a free operating system that Samsung, Huawei and HTC all adopted. Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments, all licensed by ARM, became the phone makers’ go-to suppliers for energy-efficient, low-cost computing devices. </p>
<p>These American rivals are not trying to beat Intel. Qualcomm specialises in mobile phones and Nvidia specialises in graphics in video games. They all outsource production to third parties in Asia. But an Intel microprocessor sells for around US$100 while ARM-based chips sell for around US$10, and often less than a dollar. That’s how ARM-based designs are now found in more than 95% of the world’s smartphones. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228028/original/file-20180717-44088-1l0qwr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harvard’s Clayton Christensen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clayton_Christensen_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg#/media/File:Clayton_Christensen_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>In other words, Intel failed to compete in smartphones against those who have far less resources. It’s a great irony when you reflect that Grove once invited Christensen to the Intel HQ in Santa Clara, California, to explain his theory on disruption. Grove later <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/24/clay-christensen-explains-defends-disruptive-innovation/fmYOKIJXOSPPMquj8HQM1O/story.html">credited</a> the meeting as the main driver for Intel’s decision to launch the Celeron chip in 1998, a cheap product aimed at low-end PCs, which within a year captured 35% of the market. </p>
<h2>The new goldrush</h2>
<p>Now the big question is whether Intel is repeating its previous mistake with iPhones – this time in driverless cars. Last March it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/business/dealbook/intel-mobileye-autonomous-cars-israel.html?ref=business">purchased</a> Mobileye, an Israeli company that makes digital vision technology, for US$15.3 billion. It was a big bet in a sector that has huge potential: as autonomous driving takes off, vehicles are becoming computers on wheels. They will require more and more microchips and Intel hopes to dominate. </p>
<p>Except for one glitch. Everything Intel has done in the last 50 years is geared towards general purpose, high-end chipsets. Its integrated model – where the company designs and manufactures its processors – means it absorbs an enormous amount of fixed cost, in research and design as well as manufacturing. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/krzanich-ai-day/">only way</a> to offset these burdens is to sell a high volume of devices at high margins. The result is that the company is obsessed with technological progress, but has a rigid business model which limits what it can and cannot do. There’s a monster inside Intel with a ferocious appetite. </p>
<p>But what if autonomous driving doesn’t actually require the computing power Intel is counting on? This is the competing vision of Huawei. When I recently visited Shenzhen, executives from the Chinese telecom giant explained to me that much of the city’s infrastructure will be digitalised and that Huawei will saturate it with <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-5g-the-next-generation-of-wireless-explained-96165">a 5G network</a>. This will drastically reduce any speed and latency problems for computers. </p>
<p>This means the computing inside cars can be mostly offloaded to the city’s infrastructure. It is a radical vision, but clearly a viable alternative. The implication is that a BMW or Toyota doesn’t need that many high-end chipsets after all. It’s smartphones all over again. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228001/original/file-20180717-44082-1ye7e0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The future once.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/launceston-australiafebruary-2-2012-old-kodak-483403420?src=gO4387mUsXCGBcoqiimWhw-1-37">Steve Lovegrove</a></span>
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<p>Christensen’s insight was that successful companies die not because of complacency to change. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/">Kodak</a>, <a href="https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-was-polaroid-thinking">Polaroid</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/09/05/a-look-back-at-why-blockbuster-really-failed-and-why-it-didnt-have-to/#1c3b6cfb1d64">Blockbuster</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/2001/01/19/0915malone.html#53dbd1631f37">DEC</a> all understood the shifting landscape. </p>
<p>But in each case, their business model and the demands of existing shareholders formed an intractable nexus that even the most courageous executives found impossible to navigate. Grove once said, “only the paranoid survive”. Maybe he was right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100065/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Howard Yu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Silicon Valley’s chip supplier de choix scored a massive own goal with smartphones. If it has got driverless cars wrong too, it could be goodnight Santa Clara.Howard Yu, Professor of Management and Innovation, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/960902018-07-10T10:41:08Z2018-07-10T10:41:08ZA long fuse: ‘The Population Bomb’ is still ticking 50 years after its publication<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226788/original/file-20180709-122271-1ubedx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Slums like this one in Rio de Janeiro embody the problems Paul Ehrlich warned of in 'The Population Bomb.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/gRVAe7">dany13</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” Stanford biologist and ecologist Paul Erhlich declared on the first page of his 1968 best-seller, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb">The Population Bomb</a>.” Because the “stork had passed the plow,” he predicted, “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” </p>
<p>Ehrlich’s book identified dramatically accelerating world population growth as the central underlying cause of myriad problems, from a food crisis in India to the Vietnam War to smog and urban riots in the United States. It sold more than 2 million copies and went through 20 reprints by 1971. Ehrlich <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQxLJCjH58s">appeared more than 20 times on NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson”</a>, and became the first president of Zero Population Growth, a Washington D.C.–based advocacy organization, while remaining a professor at Stanford.</p>
<p>“The Population Bomb” created more space to hold radical views on population matters, but its impact was fleeting, and maybe even harmful to the population movement. By the early 1970s, many critics were savaging Ehrlich and the larger goal of achieving zero population growth. And the politics of “morning in America” in the 1980s successfully marginalized Erhlich as a doomsdayer.</p>
<p>However, as a historian who has <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo13590005.html">studied</a> debates about population growth throughout U.S. history, I believe that Ehrlich’s warnings deserve a new and less hysterical hearing. While Ehrlich has acknowledged significant errors, he was correct that lowering birth rates was – and remains – a crucial plank in addressing global environmental crises. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226791/original/file-20180709-122253-calowj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226791/original/file-20180709-122253-calowj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226791/original/file-20180709-122253-calowj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226791/original/file-20180709-122253-calowj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226791/original/file-20180709-122253-calowj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226791/original/file-20180709-122253-calowj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226791/original/file-20180709-122253-calowj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226791/original/file-20180709-122253-calowj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Ehrlich in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_R_Ehrlich.png">Paul R. Ehrlich</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A Malthusian warning</h2>
<p>Ehrlich drew on nearly 200 years of thinking inspired by British pastor and political economist Robert Thomas Malthus. In his 1798 study, “<a href="http://www.esp.org/books/malthus/population/malthus.pdf">An Essay on the Principle of Population</a>,” Malthus famously predicted that “geometric” population growth would overwhelm “arithmetic” gains in agricultural production, leading to wars, famines and societal collapse. </p>
<p>Fears of the potentially dangerous social and ecological effects of population growth intensified after World War II. Global population surged as public health improved greatly in developing nations, increasing life expectancy. At the same time, the new science of ecology demonstrated the fragility of Earth’s interconnected systems. And the Cold War promoted worries that <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25660">population-induced poverty would breed communism</a>. </p>
<p>Mainstream advocates of arresting population growth emphasized better access to family planning and education, but Ehrlich had no use for such baby steps. “Well-spaced children will starve, vaporize in thermonuclear war, or die of plague just as well as unplanned children,” he wrote. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PUwmA3Q0_OE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">It took 200,000 years for Earth’s human population to reach 1 billion – and only 200 years to reach 7 billion. But growth has begun slowing as fertility rates decline.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Technological optimists pointed to the “Green Revolution” in agriculture, which had vastly increased crop yields up until the late 1960s. But Erhlich, <a href="https://theconversation.com/farmers-and-cropdusting-pilots-on-the-great-plains-worried-about-pesticide-risks-before-silent-spring-91976">echoing a growing chorus of farmers and agricultural scientists</a>, warned that pesticides ruined the environment and would eventually backfire as weeds and pests developed resistance. </p>
<p>Erhlich never called population the only variable. With physicist <a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/person/john-p-holdren">John Holdren</a>, he proposed the <a href="https://e4anet.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/610_wk1-ehrlich-and-holdren-one-dimensional-ecology.pdf">I = P x A x T formula</a>, which describes human impact as the product of population, affluence (the effects of consumption) and technology. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Ehrlich believed that population was the key multiplier and massive reductions in global population were critical for human survival. He hoped that a combination of policy carrots and sticks would reduce fertility sufficiently and preserve voluntary family planning. But he held out the possibility that coercive measures, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499/">including compulsory sterilizations</a>, might be needed.</p>
<h2>Backlash and a new population politics</h2>
<p>Millions of Americans shared Ehrlich’s anxieties in 1968. Concerns about the ecological impact of global population growth had <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Malthusian-Moment-Population-Environmentalism-Environment/dp/0813552729">helped birth modern American environmentalism</a>. Feminists cited overpopulation to buttress the case for reproductive and abortion rights. Politicians on both sides of the aisle urged action to lower birth rates, and Republican President Richard Nixon signed into law a Commission on Population Growth and the American Future. </p>
<p>But the “culture wars” of the 1970s subsumed and reconfigured population issues. On the right, the “pro-life” movement that crystallized in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 1973 <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-roe-v-wade-changed-the-lives-of-american-women-99130">Roe v. Wade decision</a> considered any talk of population reduction anathema. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/02/01/465124337/how-chinas-one-child-policy-led-to-forced-abortions-30-million-bachelors">China’s one-child policy</a>, launched around 1980, led to serious human rights abuses that allowed anti–family planning conservatives to paint all population programs in a negative light. Conservatives subsequently ignored China’s significant reforms to the policy, as well as research indicating that slowing population growth <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38938.412593.80">contributed to China’s economic miracle</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, newly ascendant anti-Keynesian economists rejected an older consensus that slowing population growth would yield economic benefits. These market-oriented economists asserted that denser populations created economies of scale, and that individual fertility decisions would adjust to any temporary population problems. President Ronald Reagan, who once had dabbled with Malthusianism, tellingly labeled advocates who worried about scarce resources “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=F8V-YzywyaIC&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&dq=ronald+reagan+doomsday+crowd&source=bl&ots=EpxPTC-lbO&sig=MNQ7S3aX0s3EU8kdjP_R3eMNjWo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4qtzptIjcAhWqzlkKHSTiAGkQ6AEIcDAT#v=onepage&q=ronald%20reagan%20doomsday%20crowd&f=false">Doomsday prophets</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226792/original/file-20180709-122277-g2q5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226792/original/file-20180709-122277-g2q5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226792/original/file-20180709-122277-g2q5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226792/original/file-20180709-122277-g2q5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226792/original/file-20180709-122277-g2q5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226792/original/file-20180709-122277-g2q5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226792/original/file-20180709-122277-g2q5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226792/original/file-20180709-122277-g2q5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=638&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As nations develop economically, couples have fewer children and fertility rates decline.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After Congress <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/us-immigration-since-1965">eliminated national-origin immigration quotas</a> in 1965, immigration rose steadily and accounted for a growing share of population growth in the U.S. In this context, white liberals increasingly risked being branded racist for supporting population reduction. </p>
<p>By the late 1970s, both liberals and conservatives had bought into exaggerated talk of an “aging crisis” – too few workers to pay for the bulge of baby boomers headed toward retirement. This perspective bolstered calls for higher birth rates and further reduced the sting of the overpopulation critique. </p>
<h2>An unsolved equation</h2>
<p>Today Ehrlich is a largely forgotten prophet, although some small population-centric organizations continue to tilt at windmills and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/talking-about-overpopulation-is-still-taboo-that-has-to-change/2018/06/18/ca7c1838-6e6f-11e8-afd5-778aca903bbe_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cd1e5338d7c6">mainstream press occasionally dips its toes in the water</a>. After some very public rifts over immigration policy, mainstream environmental groups generally <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/science/earth/bringing-up-the-issue-of-population-growth.html">avoid or downplay the issue</a>. Meanwhile, the Right continues to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-population-bomb-was-a-dud-1525125341">dismiss talk of population problems</a>.</p>
<p>Looking back with the benefit of time, it’s clear Ehrlich was wrong to view population as all-encompassing. In addition, <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?">the global total fertility rate</a> has declined more than he anticipated – although the development and modernization that has helped lower birth rates, a process known as the demographic transition, comes at great environmental cost. </p>
<p>Ehrlich underestimated human ingenuity. And for now, one can reasonably argue that food insecurity remains <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/the-world-produces-enough-food-to-feed-everyone-so-why-do-people-go-hungry">primarily political rather than technological</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/22/collapse-civilisation-near-certain-decades-population-bomb-paul-ehrlich">In Ehrlich’s own words</a>, the book’s weaknesses were “not [focusing] enough on overconsumption and equity issues.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226794/original/file-20180709-122280-xsm8wf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226794/original/file-20180709-122280-xsm8wf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226794/original/file-20180709-122280-xsm8wf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226794/original/file-20180709-122280-xsm8wf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226794/original/file-20180709-122280-xsm8wf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226794/original/file-20180709-122280-xsm8wf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226794/original/file-20180709-122280-xsm8wf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226794/original/file-20180709-122280-xsm8wf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The demographic transition is a pattern in which countries tend to transition from high birth and death rates to lower birth and death rates as they industrialize.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Demographic-TransitionOWID.png">Max Roser</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But he got much right, even if many details and his timing were off. Global population has increased at a remarkably steady rate since 1968, and the United Nations projects that it will reach <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf/other/21/21June_FINAL%20PRESS%20RELEASE_WPP17.pdf">9.8 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100</a>. Scientists continue to extend his prescient warnings that efforts to feed all these people through <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aar3780">pesticide-intensive monoculture</a> may backfire. And although Ehrlich exaggerated the threat of mass starvation, <a href="https://www.unicefusa.org/press/releases/unicef-too-many-children-dying-malnutrition/8259">about 8,500 young children die from malnutrition every day</a>.</p>
<p>Human-driven climate change is an overriding threat, and is unambiguously worsened by population growth. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that limiting warming in this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) would require cutting global greenhouse gas emissions <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf">40 to 70 percent by 2050 and nearly eliminating them by 2100</a>. “Globally, economic and population growth continue to be the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion,” the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf">panel observes</a>. </p>
<p>There lies an enduring flaw in Ehrlich’s approach. If impact equals people times affluence times technology, then reducing population alone is not sufficient to solve our ecological crises. But reducing affluence is neither possible nor desirable, since it would condemn millions to lifelong poverty. Ultimately, “The Population Bomb” offered no road map for transitioning away from capitalism without causing human ruin as serious as the environmental ruin that seems to be our destiny.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96090/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek Hoff serves on the board of the Utah Population and Environment Council. </span></em></p>Fifty years ago biologist Paul Ehrlich published ‘The Population Bomb,’ an apocalyptic warning that overcrowding would lead to wars and famine. Here’s what the book got right and wrong.Derek Hoff, Associate Professor, Lecturer in Business and Humanities, University of UtahLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956942018-07-09T10:28:27Z2018-07-09T10:28:27ZHow the Catholic Church came to oppose birth control<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226532/original/file-20180706-122265-1v4apf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pope Paul VI banned contraception for Catholics in the 1968 encyclical, "Humanae Vitae."</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jim Pringle</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This month marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s strict prohibition against artificial contraception, issued in the aftermath of the development of the birth control pill. At the time, the decision <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">shocked</a> many Catholic priests and laypeople. Conservative Catholics, however, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholic_Intellectuals_and_Conservative.html?id=LK51AAAAMAAJ">praised the pope</a> for what they saw as a confirmation of traditional teachings.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=8S1ydcsAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsN-F6AaDdh2HOAlzKGJw3Xk7ZwuHYTAvpym2jdDa8KTvuGKSxei-9Oix4I84Ka55hX765CxCjr35WrEqZX0DxcLADUp0HY8Q">scholar</a> specializing in both the history of the Catholic Church and gender studies, I can attest that for almost 2,000 years, the Catholic Church’s stance on contraception has been one of constant change and development. </p>
<p>And although Catholic moral theology has consistently condemned contraception, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">it has not always been the church battleground</a> that it is today. </p>
<h2>Early church practice</h2>
<p>The first Christians <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">knew about contraception and likely practiced it</a>. Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek and Roman texts, for example, discuss well-known contraceptive practices, ranging from the withdrawal method to the use of crocodile dung, dates and honey to block or kill semen. </p>
<p>Indeed, while Judeo-Christian scripture encourages humans to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A28&version=KJV">“be fruitful and multiply,”</a> nothing in Scripture <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">explicitly prohibits contraception</a>. </p>
<p>When the first Christian theologians condemned contraception, they did so not on the basis of religion but <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JbzwS6MzK1gC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=Christine+E.+Gudorf+%22Contraception+and+Abortion+in+Roman+Catholicism%22&source=bl&ots=5WJffub6wK&sig=rCNxnaAIZFq7tmfZ787O5KIePOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia_vX5savb%20AhXtHDQIHZuqBqwQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Christine%20E.%20Gudorf%20%22Contraception%20and%20Abortion%20in%20Roman%20Catholicism%22&f=false">in a give-and-take with cultural practices and social pressures</a>. Early opposition to contraception was often <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">a reaction to the threat of heretic groups,</a> such as the Gnostics and Manichees. And before the 20th century, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JbzwS6MzK1gC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=Christine+E.+Gudorf+%22Contraception+and+Abortion+in+Roman+Catholicism%22&source=bl&ots=5WJffub6wK&sig=rCNxnaAIZFq7tmfZ787O5KIePOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia_vX5savb%20AhXtHDQIHZuqBqwQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Christine%20E.%20Gudorf%20%22Contraception%20and%20Abortion%20in%20Roman%20Catholicism%22&f=false">theologians assumed</a> that those who practiced contraception were “fornicators” and “prostitutes.” </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1309.htm">purpose of marriage</a>, they believed, was producing offspring. While sex within marriage was not itself considered a sin, <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15071.htm">pleasure in sex was</a>. The fourth-century Christian theologian Augustine characterized the sexual act between spouses as <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360211064.htm">immoral self-indulgence</a> if the couple tried to prevent conception. </p>
<h2>Not a church priority</h2>
<p>The church, however, had little to say about contraception for many centuries. For example, after the decline of the Roman Empire, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_History_of_Contraception.html?id=9-R4QgAACAAJ">the church did little to explicitly</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Theology_of_Marriage.html?id=sASAQgAACAAJ">prohibit contraception</a>, teach against it, or stop it, though people undoubtedly practiced it. </p>
<p>Most penitence manuals from the Middle Ages, which directed priests what types of sins to ask parishioners about, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JbzwS6MzK1gC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=Christine+E.+Gudorf+%22Contraception+and+Abortion+in+Roman+Catholicism%22&source=bl&ots=5WJffub6wK&sig=rCNxnaAIZFq7tmfZ787O5KIePOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia_vX5savb%20AhXtHDQIHZuqBqwQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Christine%20E.%20Gudorf%20%22Contraception%20and%20Abortion%20in%20Roman%20Catholicism%22&f=false">did not even mention contraception</a>.</p>
<p>It was only in 1588 that Pope Sixtus V took the strongest conservative stance against contraception in Catholic history. With his papal bull “Effraenatam,” he ordered all church and civil penalties for homicide to be brought against those who practiced contraception. </p>
<p>However, both church and civil authorities refused to enforce his orders, and laypeople virtually ignored them. In fact, three years after Sixtus’s death, the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">next pope repealed</a> most of the sanctions and told Christians to treat “Effraenatam” “as if it had never been issued.” </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/como-vino-la-iglesia-catolica-a-oponerse-al-control-de-natalidad-99634">Cómo vino la Iglesia Católica a oponerse al control de natalidad</a>
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<p>By the mid-17th century, some church leaders <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">even admitted couples might have legitimate reasons to limit family size</a> to better provide for the children they already had.</p>
<h2>Birth control becomes more visible</h2>
<p>By the 19th century, scientific knowledge about the human reproductive system advanced, and contraceptive technologies improved. New discussions were needed. </p>
<p>Victorian-era sensibilities, however, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">deterred most Catholic clergy</a> from preaching on issues of sex and contraception. </p>
<p>When an 1886 penitential manual instructed confessors to ask parishioners explicitly whether they practiced contraception and to refuse absolution for sins unless they stopped, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">“the order was virtually ignored.”</a> </p>
<p>By the 20th century, Christians in some of the most heavily Catholic countries in the world, such as France and Brazil, were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JbzwS6MzK1gC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=Christine+E.+Gudorf+%22Contraception+and+Abortion+in+Roman+Catholicism%22&source=bl&ots=5WJffub6wK&sig=rCNxnaAIZFq7tmfZ787O5KIePOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia_vX5savb%20AhXtHDQIHZuqBqwQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=Christine%20E.%20Gudorf%20%22Contraception%20and%20Abortion%20in%20Roman%20Catholicism%22&f=false">among the most prodigious users</a> of artificial contraception, leading to dramatic decline in family size.</p>
<p>As a consequence of this increasing availability and use of contraceptives by Catholics, church teaching on birth control – which had always been there – began to <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">become a visible priority</a>. The papacy decided to bring the dialogue about contraception <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Devices_and_Desires.html?id=Im8RdEyDX8cC">out of scholarly theological discussions</a> between clergy into ordinary exchanges between Catholic couples and their priests.</p>
<p>Regarding his frank 1930 pronouncement on birth control, “Casti Connubii,” Pope Pius XI declared that contraception was inherently evil and any spouse practicing any act of contraception <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=John+T.+Noonan+contraception&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj55YrnnbPbAhXjIjQIHbfPAqcQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=John%20T.%20Noonan%20contraception&f=false;%20https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html">“violates the law of God and nature” and was “stained by a great and mortal flaw.”</a> </p>
<p>Condoms, diaphragms, the rhythm method and even the withdrawal method were forbidden. Only abstinence was permissible to prevent conception. Priests were to teach this so clearly and so often that no Catholic could claim ignorance of the Church’s prohibition of contraception. Many theologians presumed this to be an <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">“infallible statement”</a> and taught it thus to Catholic laypersons for decades. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">Other theologians saw it</a> as binding but “subject to future reconsideration.”</p>
<p>In 1951, the church modified its stance again. Without overturning “Casti Connubii’s” prohibition of artificial birth control, Pius XI’s successor, Pius XII, deviated from its intent. He approved the rhythm method for couples who had <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contraception.html?id=S-fBxgQoYQ0C">“morally valid reasons for avoiding procreation,” </a> defining such situations quite broadly.</p>
<h2>The pill and the church</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226537/original/file-20180706-122268-lwwtjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Museum of Sex, in New York, marks the 50th anniversary of the world’s first oral contraceptive in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the early 1950s, however, options for artificial contraception were growing, including the pill. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0PgkAAAAYAAJ&q=Bromley+Catholics+on+Birth+Control&dq=Bromley+Catholics+on+Birth+Control&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjumsaDurXbAhXdFjQIHRF0DeEQ6AEIJzAA">Devout Catholics wanted explicit permission to use them</a>. </p>
<p>Church leaders confronted the issue head-on, expressing a variety of viewpoints.</p>
<p>In light of these new contraceptive technologies and developing scientific knowledge about when and how conception occurs, some leaders believed the church could not know God’s will on this issue and should stop pretending that it did, as Dutch Bishop William Bekkers <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">said outright on national television</a> in 1963.</p>
<p>Even Paul VI <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">admitted his confusion</a>. In an interview with an Italian journalist in 1965, he stated, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The world asks what we think and we find ourselves trying to give an answer. But what answer? We can’t keep silent. And yet to speak is a real problem. But what? The Church has never in her history confronted such a problem.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were others, however, such as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani</a>, leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the body that promotes and defends Catholic doctrine – who disagreed. Among those adamantly convinced of the truth of the prohibitions was the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/John_Cuthbert_Ford_SJ.html?id=F8luZnjkVdAC">Jesuit John Ford</a>, perhaps the most influential U.S. Catholic moralist of the last century. Although no Scripture mentioned contraception, Ford believed the church’s teachings were grounded in divine revelation and therefore not to be questioned.</p>
<p>The question was left for consideration by the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control, held between 1963 to 1966. This commission by an overwhelming majority – a reported 80 percent – recommended the church <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholics_and_Contraception.html?id=31-_B3EaBskC">expand its teaching</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholic_Intellectuals_and_Conservative.html?id=LK51AAAAMAAJ">to accept artificial contraception</a>. </p>
<p>That was not at all unusual. The Catholic Church had changed its stance on many controversial issues over the centuries, such as slavery, usury and Galileo’s theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">Minority opinion</a>, however, feared that to suggest the church had been wrong these last decades would be to admit the church had been lacking in direction by the Holy Spirit. </p>
<h2>‘Humanae Vitae’ ignored</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226535/original/file-20180706-122271-16d09ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protest in Charleston, S.C., in 2012, against a federal mandate requiring employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control for workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Bruce Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Paul VI eventually sided with this minority view and issued “Humanae Vitae,” <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html">prohibiting all forms of artificial birth control</a>. His decision, many argue, was not about contraception per se but the preservation of church authority. An <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Catholic_Intellectuals_and_Conservative.html?id=LK51AAAAMAAJ">outcry ensued from both priests and laypeople</a>. One lay member of the commission <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">commented</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It was as if they had found some old unpublished encyclical from the 1920s in a drawer somewhere in the Vatican, dusted it off, and handed it out.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Much has changed in the Catholic Church since 1968. Today, priests make it a pastoral priority to encourage sexual pleasure between spouses. While prohibitions on birth control continue, many pastors <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Vatican_Diaries.html?id=i_aMPEpHpBkC">discuss the reasons</a> a couple might want to use artificial contraception, from protecting one partner against a sexually transmitted disease to limiting family size for the good of the family or the planet. </p>
<p>Despite the changes in the church’s attitudes about sex, the prohibitions of “Humanae Vitae” remain. <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2016/09/28/4-very-few-americans-see-contraception-as-morally-wrong/">Millions of Catholics</a> around the world, however, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5lf4xeSt5-AC&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=Ruth+Macklin+Cultural+Difference+and+Long+Acting&source=bl&ots=_OUwvw8IKP&sig=KyE41_vBGQXQ9rxGaQANdbSbayY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDmImKq6vbAhV0JDQIHVr9AusQ6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=Ruth%20&f=false">have simply chosen to ignore them</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa McClain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>July marks 50 years of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical prohibiting contraceptive use. For many years prior to it, the church had not been so explicit on its stance. How did it become such a thorny issue?Lisa McClain, Professor of History and Gender Studies, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/945442018-06-25T10:34:54Z2018-06-25T10:34:54ZHow Catholic women fought against Vatican’s prohibition on contraceptives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224300/original/file-20180621-137720-o2jmwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People dressed as sperm cells at Papal Nuncio building in The Hague for the sixth birthday of the encyclical, 'Humanae Vitae.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationaalarchief/3328265536/">Nationaal Archief</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago a fierce debate erupted in the Catholic Church over the papal document <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html">“Humanae Vitae,”</a> which reiterated the church’s ban on artificial contraception. Six hundred scholars, including many clergy, <a href="http://www.kha.at/downloads/statementbycatholictheologians.pdf">dissented from its teaching</a>, sparking a debate that caused a crisis over authority in the worldwide church. </p>
<p>While much attention is focused on the epic battle between theologians and the institutional church, which undoubtedly was significant, as a <a href="https://directory.roanoke.edu/faculty/160">historian of Catholic women</a>, I find the responses of Catholic laywomen even more compelling. </p>
<p>As theologians dissented, bishops raged and popes dug in their heels, Catholic laywomen and their partners made their own family planning decisions, as they had for many years before and would for decades after. </p>
<h2>What is Humanae Vitae?</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224297/original/file-20180621-137746-1heyc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224297/original/file-20180621-137746-1heyc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224297/original/file-20180621-137746-1heyc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224297/original/file-20180621-137746-1heyc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224297/original/file-20180621-137746-1heyc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224297/original/file-20180621-137746-1heyc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224297/original/file-20180621-137746-1heyc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pope Paul VI.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paulaudenece1977.jpg">Ambrosius007</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html">Humanae Vitae</a> was a papal encyclical released by Pope Paul VI in 1968. However, it wasn’t the first papal document to prohibit contraception use. Thirty-eight years prior to that encyclical, Pope Pius XI had released a <a href="https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html">document called “Casti Connubbi,”</a> barring Catholics from using artificial contraception. </p>
<p>There were some clear differences between the two encyclicals. The first insisted that procreation was the chief purpose of the sexual act. The second said that the “unitive” purpose – that is, the use of sex as a means of expressing love and strengthening the marital union – was equally important.</p>
<p>But Paul VI ultimately insisted that the unitive could not be separated from the procreative. According to the Catholic Church, each and every conjugal act must be open to life.</p>
<p>Even though Humanae Vitae largely affirmed an established teaching, <a href="http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/sex-violence-and-justice">it was still controversial</a>. This was because the debates among theologians and laypeople in the 30 years following Casti Connubi caused many to believe that the 1968 encyclical would overturn the Church’s ban on artificial contraception. </p>
<h2>Role of Catholic women</h2>
<p>What is important to note is that well before the 600 theologians expressed dissent, Catholic laywomen had already begun to reject this teaching. One major reason was what many believed to be a major flaw in the Vatican’s argument.</p>
<p>As early as the 1940s, large numbers of Catholic couples were encouraged to use the <a href="https://case.edu/affil/skuyhistcontraception/online-2012/Rhythm-method.html">rhythm method</a>, or timing sex to coincide with “the safe period” in a woman’s cycle, most commonly determined by charting a daily temperature reading. This was the accepted way to avoid conception, as they were not allowed to use a barrier method to achieve the same end.</p>
<p>Many failed to <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734122.001.0001/acprof-9780199734122">understand or accept</a> this logic. If the church was admitting that couples could choose to limit their family size, why wouldn’t it allow them a more effective means of doing so, is what many women asked. They were also not convinced every sexual act need be open to life if the couple was open to having children.</p>
<p>So, starting in the 1940s, Catholic laywomen and men began to publicly discuss the church’s teaching on contraception. By the early 1960s, <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/fertility-doctor">when the birth control pill came into common use</a>, these questions became especially pressing. Catholic laywomen regularly wrote in the Catholic press and elsewhere expressing their views as married women and <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100616460">fostering a conversation that called the ban into question</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100616460">They wrote eloquently</a> about their marriages, their sex lives, their struggles with endless pregnancies and, increasingly, their frustration with rhythm. The only method of family limitation allowed them failed over and over again while the necessity of denying themselves sex caused rifts in couples already stressed by the care of large families. </p>
<p>Those frustrations often included the priests who promoted rhythm. “To me and many Catholics rhythm is a manifestation of an attitude of many clergymen looking down from their pedestals, offering us glib platitudes and the letter of the law, without seeing our real problems,” wrote Carolyn Scheibelhut, an American Catholic laywoman, in a letter to the editor of the Catholic magazine Marriage, in 1964. </p>
<h2>Did the Vatican hear laywomen’s voices?</h2>
<p>Laywomen’s voices finally reached the Vatican through the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">papal birth control commission</a> assembled by Pope John XXIII, between 1963 to 1966, to study the issue of artificial contraception.</p>
<p>Patty Crowley, co-founder of <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Disturbing_the_Peace.html?id=SnslAQAAIAAJ">the Christian Family Movement</a> and one of the few married women invited to participate, brought with her the results of a survey of Catholic couples who overwhelmingly described their struggles with the teaching, despite often heroic attempts to abide by it.</p>
<p>She later <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">remarked</a>, “It just struck me as ridiculous….How could they be talking about marriage and birth control of all things without a lot more input from the persons involved?” Crowley <a href="https://www.wjkbooks.com/Products/0664222854/in-our-own-voices.aspx">testified before the commission</a>, telling them that, besides being unreliable, rhythm was psychologically harmful, did not foster married love or unity and, moreover, was unnatural.</p>
<p>In what was surely a first in this group of primarily celibate men, Crowley explained that the majority of women most desire sexual intercourse during ovulation, precisely when they were taught to avoid sex. “Any simple psychology book tells us that people who are in a constant state of stricture in an area that should be open and free and loving are damaging themselves and consequently others,” she insisted.</p>
<p>Collette Potvin, another married woman <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Turning_Point.html?id=0a2RAAAAIAAJ">who testified</a>, recalled thinking “When you die, God is going to say, ‘Did you love?’ He isn’t going to say, ‘Did you take your temperature?’”</p>
<p>Persuaded by these testimonies and others, the commission voted to overturn the ban. Leaked to the press in 1967, this decision raised the hopes of laypeople all over the world. These expectations fed the outrage when Pope Paul VI chose to disregard the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/encyclical-that-never-was-9780722034057/">majority report of his own commission</a> in 1968.</p>
<h2>Use of contraception today</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224302/original/file-20180621-137725-58uwac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224302/original/file-20180621-137725-58uwac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224302/original/file-20180621-137725-58uwac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224302/original/file-20180621-137725-58uwac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224302/original/file-20180621-137725-58uwac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224302/original/file-20180621-137725-58uwac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224302/original/file-20180621-137725-58uwac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Majority of Catholic women around the world use contraceptives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dioceseofsaginaw/14368610797">Catholic Diocese of Saginaw Follow</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, do the majority of Catholic women follow the teachings of Humanae Vitae on contraceptive use?</p>
<p>Available data show they do not. Their choice to disregard this teaching <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4682130">started well before the letter was released.</a> Among American Catholic women, for example, as of 1955, 30 percent used artificial contraception. Ten years later, that number had reached 51 percent, all before the ban was reiterated in 1968. </p>
<p>By 1970 the number of Catholic women in the U.S. using birth control hit 68 percent, and today there is <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states">almost no difference</a> between the birth control practices of Catholics and non-Catholics in the United States. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2016/mar/08/contraception-and-family-planning-around-the-world-interactive">Globally, as of 2015</a>, there is little difference between Catholic and non-Catholic regions. For example, the percentage of contraceptive use in heavily Catholic Latin America and the Caribbean was 72.7 percent, – a 36.9 percent increase since 1970 – compared to 74.8 percent in North America.</p>
<p>I would argue the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae is a moment to remember the laywomen who changed Catholic history before, during and after 1968. It was laywomen’s collective decision to disregard the teaching that truly shaped Catholics’ modern attitudes toward birth control.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary J. Henold is affiliated with Roanoke Indivisible.</span></em></p>On the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, an encyclical released by Pope Paul VI calling for prohibition on contraceptive use, a scholar describes the struggles of Catholic women, as well as their activism.Mary J. Henold, John R. Turbyfill Professor of History, Roanoke CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.