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A History of Free Speech from Abolitionists to Berkeley · The Real News Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hi, Mark, Hey Mike, how you doing. Good to see you.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Good to see you.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: What do you got for us today?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: All right, So, late last fall I visited this place
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: that I think you'll appreciate for this episode, Sprout Plaza
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: at the University of California campus.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I know exactly where you were.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: So it's a beautiful blue sky out, leaves are changing colors,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: it's a crisp bottomn afternoon. And in front of me
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: is this big, long stoic building marble, four big long
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Roman columns at the top of a row of stairs.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: This is the administration building here at the University of California, Berkeley.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: And this is called sprou Hall. And that is important
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: because this was literally ground zero for the free speech
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: movement of nineteen sixty four here at the University of California, Berkeley.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Like the plaza where I'm at right now is Sprout Plaza,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: was where you just had daily marches, protests, speeches just
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: constantly happening. I think it is really poignant that on
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: the ground in front of Sprow Hall someone has written
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: in Trump must go now, refuse fascism, and it's chalked
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: up in two different locations here people still staking out
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: their territory, demanding their right to speak their voice. So
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I was there to get a sense of the feeling
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: being there and kind of the legacy today. And of
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: course this was ground zero for the free speech movement.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: And Mark, that's something you know a couple things about
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: a little bit. So just to kick this off, how
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: would you define the free speech movement for those that
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: don't know or don't remember.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Well, for I think you got to take a step
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: back for the free speech with Mariosavio and the rest,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: because they came out of the civil rights movement. That's
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the roots of this. The roots of this is in
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana and Snick the Student on
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Violent Coordinating Committee and people putting their lives in a
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: line to end segregation in the South and to register
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: people to vote. So those are the roots of the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: people who created the free speech movement. And people came
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: out of that movement in the South with black and
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: white in different parts of the country and created things
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: that was spawned by their work in the South, as
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Mariosavio was as well, who was a philosophy graduate student
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: at Berkeley, and so that that was also all throughout
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the country at that moment, on the campus as I was,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: on the East Coast and around the country, universities were
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: clamping down on the ability for students and faculty to
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: speak out against the war in Vietnam, which was just beginning,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and to talk about civil rights and racism and more.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And so the locus of that central part of that
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: erupted on Berkeley's campus with his free speech movement. That
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: kind of gave birth to free speed movements, free speech
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: movements across the country. So it was it was the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: beginning of the volatical sixties, given birth by the civil
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: rights movement.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I was trying to make this connection to the past, right, like,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: what does it mean for people there today?
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's very impactful, you know.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: And so I spoke with this one student, Yessel Mendez.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: She grew up in Mexico. She's a third year psychology student,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: and I asked her, what, you know, what does it
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: mean to be studying here and to be on this
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: campus in this place that was so important for free
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: speech and for this movement around the country.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: So crazy.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: I was raised in Mexico, and you know, free speech
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: is not very tolerated there.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: It's very like there's a.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Lot of violence against speaking out and so being in
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: a country, specifically Berkeley, where it's like, wow, free speech
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: was born, it's very I feel very lucky to be here.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's as I spoke with another really interesting.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Student, Gabriel lou Ou.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: He's a senior history student, and he told me how
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: history is still so important. Clearly he's a history student,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: but not just for the free speech movement, but he
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: made this connection to what free speech means, but also
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: the history of struggle in the United States.
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: We talk about woman suffrage movements, we talk about Malcolm X,
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: we talked about Martin Luther King about like the black rights,
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: and also we talk about the fundamental human rights. I
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: feel like everybody has the right to like freedom speech,
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: everybody could express their ideas and thoughts.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: And he said, we still need freedom of speech, we
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: still need a free speech movement. It's something that he
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: still appreciates today. And he said something that I thought
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: was really interesting in that everybody should be able to
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: have their own political.
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: Opinions opinion, but you do not need to raise it
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: to a level of conflict, like our speeches should not
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: be something that's division or more of a unity. Yeah,
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: because United States a country of immigrants. Yeah, so the
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: ming goal of free speech is for us to have
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: different opinions from a different countries. We're coming together to
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: make the country better but not worse.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: But his analysis, I thought was really really powerful and
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: so important because he's talking about we should be coming together,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: we should be focusing on the positive. And I think
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: that's such a great segue for this episode, Mark, because
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of what we're going to be doing today
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: is talking about the powerful and the positive stories of
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: the past and how movements have stood up and lifted
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: up the voice and shared their voices and lifted up
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: and stood for free speech, you know, going back hundreds
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: of years.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things people have to recognize, though,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: is that the battle for free speech and the belief
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: in freedom of speech has been at the core of
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the fundamental debates on what democracy should be in this
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: country from the beginning, whether it was the differences between
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Adams and others and the founding father they call the
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Founding Fathers, or whether it's going down to Trump want
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: to arrest people and filling all these ridiculous lawsuits to
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: stop people from speaking with the Tradition Act of seventeen
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: ninety eight. I mean all throughout American history, this has
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: been a battle. And I think that there's precedence for
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: limiting speech and there's presidence for for expanding speech in
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the history of this country. And I think we are
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: now at the precipice in the beginning, not the beginning.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I think we're in the middle of the start of
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a major battle over free speech in America, and this
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: time being pushed to limit it by the right wing
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: in America. And unless they're criticizing you because you're black
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: or you're left And I think that that's why this
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: discussion is so timely and important, because we're in the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: throes of a battle to protect freedom of speech in
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: this country, and it's flying under the radar for most people.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: It's not being seen at all. I want to welcome
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: everybody to a special podcast series that I'm co hosting
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: with my colleague and dear friend, journalist Michael Fox, about
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: one of the core freedoms of our nation, our freedom
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: of speech. The right to speak one's mind is a
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: cornerstone of our democratic principles. That precious freedom is under assault,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: under threat, and This series is the Battle for Free Speech,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a new multipart narrative podcast series brought to you by the
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Real News. With your hosts, I'm Mark Steiner.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: And I'm Michael Fox. Over the coming weeks, will be
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: taking you on a journey to understand the important role
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: that free speech has played in US history and the
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: fight being waged over it today.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: And in our last episode, we looked at the attacks
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: by this administration of President Donald Trump on our free speech.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: People are being silentced, fired, even jailed for voicing their
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: opinions and their views. This is a threat today. Our
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: country faces the gravest threat of free speech in decades.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: And in this series, we'll cover the battles being waged
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: over free speech here in the United States, at home
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and abroad.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: In today's episode, we're diving into the past to look
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: at how the fight for free speech has been at
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: the core of organizing and struggle for change in the
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: United States.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: From the ablitionist movement to end slavery and the civil
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: rights to end segregation to the free speech movement of
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: So Mark, I'll be honest, I'm particularly excited to have
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: this conversation with you today because you actually lived some
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: of these moments actively. For those who don't know your
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: work or history, can you just give us a quick
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: sense of who you are.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I'm old. So I started my activism when I was
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: like thirteen, fourteen, nineteen sixty when I was first in
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the civil rights movement here in Maryland, in Cambridge, Mississippi,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: in the South with Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee. And
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: in sixty five when I went to college, I was
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: part of the Students for Democratic Society and leading the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: chapter at College Park in Maryland. And we were and
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: we were taking the message from and the struggle from
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the Berkeley Free feature movement and bringing it east to
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: have that same fight in College Park, Adam University at
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Georgetown and George Washington, to bring that fight to the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: East coast. That took place also in Columbia when the
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Club University was taken over by Mark Ruddy and the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: free speech movement there. So this is essential to what
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: developed the movement of the nineteen sixties, was a battle
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: of free speech on campuses and in the civil rights
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: movement and to end segregation. So the roots run deep,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and now we're facing it again.
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I want to continue where we started at
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: the top amid the free speech movement at Sprout Plaza
• 10:36
  Speaker 6: at the University of California, Berkeley.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: I want to go back to that moment. And I
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: don't know if you know this, but I got my
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: start in journalism over two decades ago just up the
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: street from there at KPFA. It's the Pacific Radio station
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: in Berkeley, and many many years ago they produced this
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: pretty incredible audio documentary about the free speech movement. They
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: were on the ground recording and I just want to
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: play clip or two for you.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Please do Yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 7: If you have the strength here which you have to
• 11:05
  Speaker 7: stand in the administration and say we want free speech
• 11:07
  Speaker 7: on the campus, you can have to the rest of
• 11:10
  Speaker 7: your lives, the strength to stand up whenever you say
• 11:13
  Speaker 7: whenever you see something you don't like. You don't believe
• 11:16
  Speaker 7: in segregation, or to stay to the government, I don't
• 11:18
  Speaker 7: believe in war, and you really have to do it.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: You could never believe such a thing could happen at
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the University of California. For this, many students were said,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: they're bad enough and they're.
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: Going to stand up right now.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Thank this university. It's so rough, it's so corrupt, and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: it's face a simple demonstration.
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: My students asking for free speech will cause this university to.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Collapse from out my pressure.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: What you can stand. There is a list of my
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: support for it.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: You know, Mark, you and I in af UC Berkeley
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: history professor David Hollinger, Yes, right, and he was a
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: student at the University of Time, and I asked him
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: to take us back to that moment.
• 12:12
  Speaker 8: Well, okay, the sprouholplaz where Alsatio and various other worthies
• 12:17
  Speaker 8: would be speaking, which is a complainant, will not Christ Charger,
• 12:22
  Speaker 8: Now you'd have several thousand. Of course, proud assessments are
• 12:27
  Speaker 8: often contested, but I can remember times when it was
• 12:30
  Speaker 8: shoulder to shoulder all the way from Bancroft, which is
• 12:35
  Speaker 8: the closest street to the south, all the way up
• 12:39
  Speaker 8: to say Their Gate, which is the part of the
• 12:41
  Speaker 8: campus that enters the other buildings, back to where the
• 12:45
  Speaker 8: stairwell goes down to the lower level. So I don't
• 12:48
  Speaker 8: know they were there are five or six thousand people
• 12:52
  Speaker 8: at those rallies. I think there might have been. But
• 12:55
  Speaker 8: it was it was this feeling that that we did
• 12:59
  Speaker 8: really did have this act together, and there were a
• 13:02
  Speaker 8: number of rallies like that. I would say the anti
• 13:05
  Speaker 8: war rallies were bigger than the free speech rallies, but
• 13:08
  Speaker 8: they were part of the same thing. The free speech
• 13:11
  Speaker 8: rallies began small and gradually increased over time, and among
• 13:18
  Speaker 8: the things that helped them, actually help them grow were
• 13:23
  Speaker 8: these faculty members that used to show up and speak.
• 13:34
  Speaker 8: The issue that brought it up was the remarkably myopic
• 13:37
  Speaker 8: perspective of the regents of the University of California and
• 13:41
  Speaker 8: the administration, which was to prevent speech on campus that
• 13:46
  Speaker 8: advocated political action. And so as a result, all these
• 13:50
  Speaker 8: rallies would occur right at the edge of the campus,
• 13:53
  Speaker 8: so you'd stand up like on the street, and then
• 13:56
  Speaker 8: you'd have a couple thousand people on the campus listening.
• 13:59
  Speaker 8: And so the idea was, this is absurd. We ought
• 14:02
  Speaker 8: to be able to speak on the campus about political advocacy. So, uh,
• 14:07
  Speaker 8: this is what triggered it, and more and more people
• 14:10
  Speaker 8: got involved. And it's true that the civil rights movement
• 14:14
  Speaker 8: experience of the South was very important. There were lots
• 14:18
  Speaker 8: of people, not only Mary Osamia but others who had
• 14:20
  Speaker 8: been involved in Mississippi Summer. So the connection was there
• 14:25
  Speaker 8: because what kind of political adequacy. Did you want, well,
• 14:28
  Speaker 8: we were advocating against against racism. I'm not.
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: I'm not here to descry something.
• 14:33
  Speaker 7: We're all here to try to build something.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: One of your house, Senate, I would. And then that
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: movement spread across the country. It was in Chicago, it
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: was College Park, Maryland, it was at NYU and Colombia,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: it was it was across the United States of America.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: That that that spread like wildfire, which is not often
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: reported enough. It wasn't just Berkeley. It took over campuses
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: across the country. And and that melded into uch is
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: free speech, but free speech when it came to standing
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: up against the Vietnam War. So all those things are
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: really connected. And there's one piece of this people don't
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: talk about a lot, which is when in the Student
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Non Violent according and Committee in the South and Snick,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: when Sophie Carmichael and some of the other leaders told
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the right folks who are in this il rats went
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to go back to your campuses, go back home and organize.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: And that's part of what gay birth all of this.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: And so it's a rich history and it's sadly relevant
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: to this moment more facing today.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: What you brought up, Mark, what you bring up about
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: how this spread other universities, campuses and people who were
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: protesting elsewhere is so profound. When you like saw this
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: kind of erupt from the East coast where you were,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: and you saw this kind of blowing up in Berkeley,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: what was the context? What did you feel kind of
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: on the other side of the country that this was
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: happening in northern California.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: It was an inspiration I think for people across America.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: It was the beginnings, not the really beginning, because the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: beginnings really were with the Civil rights movement, but it
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: was part of the explosion out of that movement, especially
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: in majority white campuses across the country in white communities,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to stand up to the war and to stand up
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: for free speech. And so it really was it was
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the birth of what we call the movement in the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: anti war movement. All came out of this, and I
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: remember as a young person just being enthralled by it
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and part.
• 16:48
  Speaker 7: Of it it is a possibility of reconciliation.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: You know what's fascinating, Mark, because it seems like sixty
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: years later, people are still grappling with the same question,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: kind of the same struggle. Students and tea on university
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: campus is blocked from protesting or being silenced and fired
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: over Palestine or Charlie Kirk. You know, like we looked
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: at in the last episode, Mark, what came out of
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: the free speech movement? What was one and what it
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: means for civil rights? The anti war movement that would
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: kind of explode across the country.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: It gave birth to a number of things. I mean,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the leading student force of the sixties late sixties, mid
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: late sixties was the Students for Democratic Society SDS, And
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: in many ways it was born out of uron statement
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: in Tom Hayden all that rest, but it was born
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: out of free speech movements. That's what That's what exploded
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the student movement across country. The part of the birth
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of it was a free speech movement that was deeply
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: connected to the civil rights movement. And I think that
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: the changes we saw in America in part came out
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: of that time and out of that movement. It all
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: so was the reason we have this reaction today to
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: fight back against free speech.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: We have breaking news just into our news from this morning.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Leaders at the University of Tennessee have fired a professor
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: for her social media posts saying something about the deceased
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: They wouldn't, they wouldn't say that directly on the right,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: But that's what's happening. So this is like taking America
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: back were baking America backwards as a reaction to what
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the free speech free speech movement Kate birth to.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: You know what, A of the things I've been grappling
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: with for this series, in particular this episode is the
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: definition of free speech? What does that actually mean? You know, today,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: while we're looking back at at at social movement and
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: activist organizing, the free speech movement, abolitionist movement, how would
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: you describe what would you define free speech as? Taking
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: this kind of historical look.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Back, we can see a lot of things about American
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: democracy and its flaws. It's always in a battle with itself.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Freedom of speech is one of those things, one of
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: those ideas, one of those principles that has unleashed revolutionary forces,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: not just in America but across the globe. The right
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to say what, to organize and stand up, the right
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: to say what you want to say, the right to
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: use that to build movements. And I think that it
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: is that really at the core part of The essence
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: of the early movements in the sixties was a concept
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: called participatory democracy that really galvanized both SNICK and SDS
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: and other movements of people in their teens and twenties.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: The idea that the core of our country is down
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: from It starts from the community, starts from the ability
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: for everybody to say if they want and participate in
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: this derecracy as an equal democracy. In the beginning of
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: this country was the democracy for white men of property.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: But the principles they believed in for themselves were universal.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, it inspired the abolition movement, it inspired the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: free speech movement, It inspired early union organizing in the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Those principles these
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: white men who kept for themselves were actually universal principles
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and gave birth to all the movements.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Who we see, Mark, let's dive. Let's dive into this past.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Let's dive further into this past. Can you take us
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: back to the eighteen hundreds, to the abolitionist movement. How
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: were people organizing demanding the end of slavery and what
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: did free speech have to do with us?
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'm not that old. I wasn't there then,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: but I fantasized that I was. And so the battles
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that took place, especially in from let's say the eighteen
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: thirties to the Civil War. Even earlier than that, free
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: speech was under attack, especially when it came to the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: enslavement of Africans in our country, and it led to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: real violence. When people stood up to talk about ending slavery,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: they were attacked, they were killed, they were beaten, they
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: were jailed. It was a free speech was dangerous to
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: your life being a person who stood up and talked
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: against enslavement. And I think though, that what the aboligent
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: movement did was take the words of the founding fathers
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: of America and made them universal. Didn't quite include women yet,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: but it made them universal. And I think people don't
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: realize that the movement to abolished slavery and the abolitionist
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: movement in America really changed democracy forever. It was one
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of the major turning points. We're still battling it in
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: some ways, but I think that look, I mean, newspapers
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: that came out to fight against slavery in America were
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: burned to the ground, people were tarred and feathered, people
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: were killed but it gave birth to something that changed
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: America fundamentally, and people, I think don't realize how deeply
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: important the abolitionist movement was to our democracy, to our future,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to our country.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Even in the North. And that's been something like researching
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: for this for this podcast. Mark, which was kind of
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: shocking to me, is that you even had situations where
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: people were in the North and they were still being
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: attacked abolitionists in the North calling for an end of
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: slavery all over. You know, I interviewed this woman recently
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: and I'll mention her several times in today's episode. Her
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: name is Mary Anne Franks.
• 23:16
  Speaker 9: I'm a law professor at the George Washington Law School,
• 23:19
  Speaker 9: and I'm also the president and the legislative and tech
• 23:21
  Speaker 9: policy director of a nonprofit organization called the Cyber Civil
• 23:25
  Speaker 9: Rights Finishative.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: And she talks a little bit about this. She wrote
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: a book in twenty twenty four called Fearless Speech, Breaking
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Free from the First Amendment, in which she talks about
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: how during the abolitionist movement, it was really abolitionists who
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: were pushing the definition of free speech. We're rethinking of
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: it in different ways because up until then, basically you know,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: the First Amendment basically said, well, Congress shall pass no
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: law prohibiting the freedom of speech.
• 23:57
  Speaker 9: So the assumption that everyone made based on that reading,
• 24:00
  Speaker 9: and that's a fair reading, is that it only applies
• 24:02
  Speaker 9: to the federal government, and it only applies in this
• 24:05
  Speaker 9: really narrow sense that Congress literally can't pass laws that
• 24:07
  Speaker 9: say you can't say that or you can't say this.
• 24:11
  Speaker 9: So that when you had states saying we don't like
• 24:14
  Speaker 9: this kind of activism or these kinds of expression that
• 24:18
  Speaker 9: suggests that slavery is wrong or bad, that was not
• 24:21
  Speaker 9: really seen as a First Amendment issue because it wasn't
• 24:23
  Speaker 9: even conceptually or not trimally possible.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: So that's why you had states, for instance, that we're
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: banning abolitionist literature. There's this the Great Postal Campaign where
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: abolitionists send hundreds of thousands of material to Southern states
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: basically you know, demanding the end of slavery, etc. And
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: then states started to ban this material. They were literally
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: prohibiting abolitions from sending abolitionist material in the mail. But
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: since it was the state and not Congress, then the
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: state said, well we can do this because it's you know,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: it doesn't fall under First Amendment, but then abolition were
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: like pushing it to this other level. And so Mary
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: and Frank's talked about this one story about Elijah Lovejoy. Yeah, right, abolitionist,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Presbyterian minister, newspaper editor, journalist.
• 25:12
  Speaker 9: He very firmly read the First Amendment as a protection
• 25:16
  Speaker 9: of his free speech. One of the most poignant things
• 25:19
  Speaker 9: about his story as he is continuing to move states,
• 25:23
  Speaker 9: move cities, because every time he establishes his newspaper and
• 25:27
  Speaker 9: writes about the horrors of slavery and advocates for abolition,
• 25:30
  Speaker 9: he's attacked and he has to move again.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: And so on November seventh, eighteen thirty seven, a mob
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: catches up with him at his home in Alton, Illinois.
• 25:44
  Speaker 9: And they are at his doorstep and they are saying,
• 25:46
  Speaker 9: you have to stop writing about slavery. And you know,
• 25:49
  Speaker 9: I can't remember the exact quotation, but he says that
• 25:51
  Speaker 9: he has the freedom to speak in this way and
• 25:54
  Speaker 9: he will he will use that freedom as he sees fit.
• 25:57
  Speaker 9: And he says that right before the mob shoots him
• 25:59
  Speaker 9: to death.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: This was the violent retribution for speaking out. But there
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: was this new vision of what free speech should mean,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: or what it could mean for others for change for
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: social justice in the United States.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: And I think that the newspapers that were printed at
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: that time, like The Liberator or Freedom's Journal, were attacked violently,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: they were abolished in news papers, but they aren't really
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: at the core of what really led to freedom of
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the press, really led to the battle for free speech
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: because they stood up against a horrendous violence and a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: horrendous nature of slavery to push the boundaries of free
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: speech to end enslavement of African people in our country.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: And I think that that people don't always get that
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: connection between free speech and the abolitionist movement, and you know,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and also what you described there are also the roots
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: of the Trumpian right in this struggle with facing today.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: What we're facing it is is like not so much
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: of a redux as it is the growth of both
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: movements in our country. And we're at that place, we're
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: head to head.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Mark. I want to bring us to just a year
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: after Elijah Lovejoy was killed, all right, Philadelphia, and just
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: to set the scene to remind people, Philadelphia at the
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: time just wasn't just another city on the East coast
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: before eighteen hundred, it was you know, the capital of
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: the United States. It's where the founders signed the Declaration
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: of Independence and the Constitution, and they did that all
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: in a place called Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania State House, or
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: what we now call Independence Hall. It's in downtown Philadelphia
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: and just two blocks away. In eighteen thirty eight, the
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania Anti Slavery Society built Pennsylvania Hall.
• 28:13
  Speaker 9: Where you had all of these luminaries coming together who
• 28:15
  Speaker 9: were staunch anti slavery advocates, and they were also advocates
• 28:21
  Speaker 9: for women's rights, and those are two of the most
• 28:22
  Speaker 9: controversial positions you can take at the time. But you
• 28:26
  Speaker 9: had all of these people wanting to come together use
• 28:29
  Speaker 9: their own money to build this incredible building that was
• 28:32
  Speaker 9: supposed to become a communal hall for speaking freely, and
• 28:36
  Speaker 9: they referred to the freedom of speech in that way.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: And this was of course to be a place for
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: abolitionists to come and meet and debate because at the time,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: like what you were talking about there, it was hard
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: to find places to have large meetings because there was
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: so much backlash against the abolitionist movement. So this was
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: it was a big, three story building, several stores on
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: the first floor. There's no relitionist bookstore, another store that
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: sold products not produced by slave labor. There were meeting rooms,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: a large auditorium, and it opened in May eighteen thirty eight.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: And this is another one of those stories that I
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: talked with Mary Anne Frank's about, and.
• 29:16
  Speaker 9: That it was going to be for the first time
• 29:18
  Speaker 9: that the America would really speak freely. Black people and
• 29:21
  Speaker 9: white people would mingle together, women and men would mingle together.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: There would be lectures, they'd be discussions, they'd be a bookstore.
• 29:28
  Speaker 9: And it was such an incredible moment in American history
• 29:31
  Speaker 9: that I think most people never read about because what
• 29:34
  Speaker 9: happened when the people of Pennsylvania, and not just in Pennsylvania,
• 29:38
  Speaker 9: there was all of these white owned presses that were
• 29:41
  Speaker 9: speaking about the abomination of Pennsylvania Hall in their southern
• 29:45
  Speaker 9: newspapers and advocating for people to go and fight for
• 29:49
  Speaker 9: their rights against what was happening in Pennsylvania. And all
• 29:53
  Speaker 9: these flyers that were put up around Philadelphia by people
• 29:58
  Speaker 9: who were saying, you know that there are abominations is
• 30:00
  Speaker 9: going on at this particular hall, and you should do
• 30:03
  Speaker 9: something to stop it. And so for the first week
• 30:06
  Speaker 9: or so when they were having their incredible lectures, and
• 30:08
  Speaker 9: there were all of these this incredible progressive mingling of
• 30:13
  Speaker 9: society that these again kind of living up to the
• 30:16
  Speaker 9: aspirations that the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence.
• 30:19
  Speaker 8: The.
• 30:21
  Speaker 9: Bill of Rights actually articulated. And people were furious about it.
• 30:25
  Speaker 9: The white mobs were furious about it. White businessmen were
• 30:27
  Speaker 9: furious about it. And what happens is I recount, is
• 30:30
  Speaker 9: that they get so agitated that they burn the entire
• 30:33
  Speaker 9: building down and they break in. They're breaking in the stones,
• 30:38
  Speaker 9: they start pelting the building with stones as some of
• 30:40
  Speaker 9: the speakers are speaking.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: And in her book, Mary Anne Franks talks about this
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: one moment where Angelina Grimkey, she was an important abolition
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: in women's rights activist, and she was literally speaking as
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: mobs are trying to break in to stop her, and
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: she kept going.
• 30:59
  Speaker 9: And she just operates it into her speech and talks
• 31:01
  Speaker 9: about how we She says that we who are speaking
• 31:04
  Speaker 9: the truth have nothing to fear. They're the ones who
• 31:06
  Speaker 9: should fear and tremble. But when they leave, the mob
• 31:10
  Speaker 9: breaks in and sets and opens all the gas jets,
• 31:13
  Speaker 9: and before you know it, this incredible monument to true
• 31:17
  Speaker 9: free speech expression equality has been burned to the ground.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: This this like monument of free speech went up in
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: smokes at the hands of white mobs and white supremacists
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: and supporters of slavery. It's just this crazy moment where
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: you see, like this, this glimmer of hope of what
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: could be, you know, of people coming together to stand
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: for what we dreamed the United States could actually represent
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: literally almost two hundred years ago, and it's burned to
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: the ground within days of being a being built.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: And what was the consequence what happened of that act?
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, the abolitionist movement clearly continue to organize, but
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: there was fear around you know, speaking out, and I.
• 32:10
  Speaker 9: Think to some extent that was a very powerful kind
• 32:12
  Speaker 9: of dampening of this moment that free speech and democracy
• 32:15
  Speaker 9: were intertwined. I think it really did a lot to
• 32:18
  Speaker 9: erase that from memory or put such a scar on
• 32:21
  Speaker 9: that memory that that really wasn't the way it was
• 32:23
  Speaker 9: articulated for some time.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: And even when you saw you.
• 32:27
  Speaker 9: Know, the later abolitionist movements taking up the cause, and
• 32:32
  Speaker 9: I think they so much talked about it in terms
• 32:34
  Speaker 9: of free speech, as they just said, this is about humanity,
• 32:36
  Speaker 9: this is about evil, this is about a compact with
• 32:38
  Speaker 9: the devil, as they called the Constitution for its concessions
• 32:42
  Speaker 9: to slavery.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: What's so important is for us to remember these moments,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: to champion these moments, and also remember the backlash which
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: has been continual, but how people have continue to respond
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: and continue to organize and and and would not would
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: not bow down to the powers that be or the violence,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: you know, pushed by white supremacists and which is continued
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: to be pushed by white supremacist in the United States, right.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: And I think that you know, when you talk you
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: talk about Mary Anne Franks, it's interesting when you said,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: when you mentioned her name, I remember her book Fearless Speech, yep.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: And I think that is the battle of the moment
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: that we face in terms of fighting for free speech
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: in America. I mean, I don't thineople realize how under
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: threat it really is at this moment. I mean, I
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I think that we are in a moment where that
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: has happened before in American history, where freedom of speech
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: is under attack. And I think that this notion of
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: fearless speech is an important one to wrestle with.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: It is I want to take a second to dig
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: in a little bit deeper before we do what this
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: idea of fearly speech actually means. Right, So she got
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: this idea actually from lectures from Michelle Fuco in the
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighties where he talks about the Greek concept of paraca,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: which basically means saying it all right, it's freedom of speech,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: but also but speaking truth for the common good, and
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: speaking truth in a moment that it could potentially even
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: put myself into danger. So the idea is that an
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: ancient Greece mark this was the most important speech that
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: was needed to preserve democracy.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: It's not just that you get to say whatever you want.
• 34:40
  Speaker 9: The Greeks did have a word for that too, this
• 34:42
  Speaker 9: kind of idea that you could just say things about consequences.
• 34:45
  Speaker 9: But the Greeks didn't seem to think that that was
• 34:47
  Speaker 9: a particularly valuable form of speech. They thought the most
• 34:50
  Speaker 9: valuable form of speech was the kind of speech where
• 34:53
  Speaker 9: you had to speak in your own voice. That was
• 34:55
  Speaker 9: the first qualification, which is, you can't pretend to be
• 34:58
  Speaker 9: a devil's advocate or take on a role or just
• 35:00
  Speaker 9: do it for rhetorical purposes. You had to commit to it,
• 35:04
  Speaker 9: and they said you also had to be speaking to
• 35:08
  Speaker 9: or about something that was more powerful than yourself as
• 35:10
  Speaker 9: the speaker, someone in power, some force and power, and
• 35:14
  Speaker 9: you hadn't and you could not be praising it because
• 35:16
  Speaker 9: praising it is possible. Of course you can do that,
• 35:19
  Speaker 9: but that isn't fearless. To be fearless about the way
• 35:22
  Speaker 9: you speak about power is to criticize it, And it's
• 35:25
  Speaker 9: fearless because that creates a risk to you, because once
• 35:28
  Speaker 9: you criticize people in power, you are in danger that
• 35:31
  Speaker 9: the people in power are going to hurt you.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: And so she says this is so important because usually
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: kind of like in society, we kind of lump all
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: forms of speech together. This is in particular we'll talk
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: about this in the next episode, but over social media
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: this is a big deal. Oh, everyone has their right
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: to speech. But what she says is that we need
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: to understand fearless speech juxtaposed with reckless speech. And what
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: she describes is reckless speech is all of kind of
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: the famous free speech cases. Could imagine the k KK
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: is right to spread their message, Larry Flint, neo Nazi speech,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: whatever it might be, it is not fearless.
• 36:07
  Speaker 9: These are not people who are taking a burden of
• 36:10
  Speaker 9: speech upon themselves. And actually taking a risk that they
• 36:12
  Speaker 9: will be hurt by the people in power because they're
• 36:15
  Speaker 9: reinforcing power.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: And often people actually get hurt from their speech, but
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: they're not the ones who are getting hurt. So one
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: example she gives here is the famous nineteen sixty nine
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court case of Clarence Brandenburg, the.
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: Honorable the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: Supreme Court of the United States.
• 36:34
  Speaker 9: Where he is full clan regalia, doing a march around
• 36:40
  Speaker 9: a burning cross, got the Bible in hand, talking about
• 36:42
  Speaker 9: how black people and Jews need to be removed from
• 36:44
  Speaker 9: the country. Now, that is not the kind of speech
• 36:47
  Speaker 9: I mean literally someone in a mask, right who is
• 36:49
  Speaker 9: proclaiming these things and stirring up dehumanization and rhetoric against
• 36:54
  Speaker 9: people who are objectively speaking more vulnerable in society. And
• 36:58
  Speaker 9: in the wake of those kinds of rallies, people did
• 37:00
  Speaker 9: get lynched, they did get attacked, right, And the entire
• 37:03
  Speaker 9: question of Brandenburg was how closely related to do his
• 37:06
  Speaker 9: words have to be to the attacks for it to
• 37:09
  Speaker 9: be illegal. And the answer that his words weren't close enough,
• 37:12
  Speaker 9: but forgetting the doctrine for a moment, that's reckless. You
• 37:15
  Speaker 9: are putting this out into the world fully knowing that
• 37:18
  Speaker 9: the people that it's going to hurt or the people
• 37:20
  Speaker 9: that it puts in danger, it's not you, it's someone else.
• 37:22
  Speaker 9: And there I thought that is a really important distinction
• 37:25
  Speaker 9: that I would like to emphasize.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: And so what her book really emphasizes, and what we
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: see time and time again is how fearly speech is
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: actually attacked or silenced or pushed aside or banned, whereas
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: reckless speech is then supported again and again. But her
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: book is interesting because she tries to kind of, you know,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: get away from from our understanding of First Amendment of
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: free speech as kind of First Amendment right, because there's
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: there's been a lot written. If you look at most
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: of the books that are written about free speech today,
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: and I have been reading many of them lately, Mark,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you look at most. But if you look
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: at most of the books that have been written about
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: free speech, they're all talking about, well, what's constitutional, what's
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: not constitutional, what's defended by the First Amendment, what's not
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: defended by the First Amendment. And what she tries to
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: do in her book is say, Okay, that's all good
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: and well, but let's actually talk about what free speech
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: should mean beyond beyond the First Amendment, and what we
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: how do we define this in a different way, and
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: how do that we then kind of support and champion
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: those struggles that are that are standing up for for
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: fearless speech.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: People kind of whittle down free speech. I mean, I can,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I can belittle you if I want to, right, It's
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: my right to do, you know, And I think that
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: not to go too far a field here, but I
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: remember back in the eighties, in my days and graduates,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: when I was still too old to be there, that uh,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: we're resting with, uh, with Michelle Fouquet's fearless Speech and
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: the lectures he gave at Berkeley, and how that really
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: is at the heart of her work and at the
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: heart of what it means to be able to stand
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: up and fight for human rights and justice and a
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: democratic and free world in Fearless Speech.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Were there were you having conversations about then, about Fuco
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: and his lectures in the nineteen eighties, were you were
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: you all talking about that kind of what that meant?
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, I mean, I'm not to digression
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: this too deeply, but my intellectual mentor back then was
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: a Holocaust survivor named Avram Engelman who founded Antioch here
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: on the East coast and who who lived with actually
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: lived in Paris uh and uh and was in one
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: of Stalin's camps as well. So he this was a
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: major part of his being and he actually studied and
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: worked with from co So he was like, I was
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: one step away, wow with my mentor Al Engleman. Yeah,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: so I'm very familiar with all that. Wow.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Amazing, Mark amazing. So I want to I want to
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: start to move us slowly in the timeline, the chronological timeline,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: because there's another important episode that happens. This is after
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: the Civil War that I think is really important in
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: terms of understanding this question of fearless speech, reckless speech
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: on how people have used free speech in the past,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: you know, to stand up. And so I want to
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: go to eighteen nineties Memphis, Tennessee, Okay. Population roughly sixty
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: five thousand people. A third of the residents are black,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: and there is of course incredible racism. This is you know,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Jim Crow laws are mandating segregation across the southern United States,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: and lynchings against black men are just so common, right,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: and just to put this into perspective during the eighteen nineties,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: someone is being lynched somewhere in the southern US every.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Other day, that's right.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: So it's just a terrifying moment. And one woman in
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: particular is pushing back. Her name is Ida B. Wells, right,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: And again I spoke with Mary and Frank's about her
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: story as well, because she was a black teacher turned
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: journalist and really a muckraker yep, and her focus was
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: on denouncing the lynchings.
• 41:33
  Speaker 9: She got really consumed by the horrors of lynching because
• 41:37
  Speaker 9: she experienced what had happened to people that she knew
• 41:41
  Speaker 9: in the neighborhoods that she lived in, and suddenly that
• 41:45
  Speaker 9: became what she really felt that she needed to communicate
• 41:47
  Speaker 9: to the public. And as you might imagine, this was
• 41:49
  Speaker 9: not perceived well. And it was particularly an editorial that
• 41:54
  Speaker 9: she wrote about the horrors of lynching, where she wasn't
• 41:56
  Speaker 9: just talking about how lynching was a bad thing, saying,
• 42:00
  Speaker 9: here's what I think is actually going on with the
• 42:03
  Speaker 9: problem of lynching. And this was something I think had
• 42:06
  Speaker 9: not really been expressed before, certainly not by a black
• 42:09
  Speaker 9: female journalist. But she says, you know, the story that
• 42:14
  Speaker 9: we keep hearing about these lynchings is that the men,
• 42:17
  Speaker 9: we're told, the black men who are usually the subject
• 42:20
  Speaker 9: of these lynchings, so that they've done something horrible to
• 42:22
  Speaker 9: white women, that they're raping white women. And she says,
• 42:26
  Speaker 9: here's what I you know, here's what my research has shown,
• 42:28
  Speaker 9: because she went and she would follow on these incidents,
• 42:32
  Speaker 9: and she would gather information about them and ask questions,
• 42:34
  Speaker 9: and she would say, and she said, what I think
• 42:37
  Speaker 9: is happening and what seems to be happening in these
• 42:39
  Speaker 9: places is that there's a problem of competition. And she says,
• 42:43
  Speaker 9: and it's not just economic competition, but that's a big
• 42:45
  Speaker 9: part of it. It just so turns out that many
• 42:48
  Speaker 9: of the victims of lynching are people who are black
• 42:50
  Speaker 9: men who are running businesses that were in competition with
• 42:53
  Speaker 9: white businesses. But then she suggests there's a much more
• 42:56
  Speaker 9: intimate form of competition when she says, it's not about
• 43:00
  Speaker 9: in many cases sexual violence against these white women. It
• 43:03
  Speaker 9: was consensual relationships. And that I think is really what
• 43:09
  Speaker 9: drove the mob around her at this time from being
• 43:12
  Speaker 9: very angry with what she was saying to being enraged
• 43:15
  Speaker 9: in a way that was an incredibly destructive is because
• 43:18
  Speaker 9: she said, I believe that black men are not raping
• 43:21
  Speaker 9: white women. I believe that their consensual relationships happening between
• 43:25
  Speaker 9: black men and white women. And that is why lynching
• 43:27
  Speaker 9: is actually happening. It's a sexual vengeance project. It is,
• 43:30
  Speaker 9: you know, is why so often, you know, we see
• 43:33
  Speaker 9: that these men are tortured in these ways that.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Are very sexual and very physical.
• 43:37
  Speaker 9: And it really did seem to just animate the worst
• 43:41
  Speaker 9: possible forces where she was in Memphis, to drive into
• 43:47
  Speaker 9: that same kind of mob rage that we saw with
• 43:49
  Speaker 9: Pennsylvania Hall.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: She's writing stories for her paper, the Memphis Free Press,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: and a series of white newspapers responded with editorials advocating
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: a violent response or calling for people to do something
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: about it, and in the end they burned the Memphis
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Free Press to the ground.
• 44:23
  Speaker 9: So again you see that same sense of all consuming
• 44:27
  Speaker 9: rage about the publication of this idea. And you can
• 44:31
  Speaker 9: certainly see it in the way that the white newspapers
• 44:35
  Speaker 9: talked about her editorial. They would reprint her editorial and
• 44:38
  Speaker 9: talk about how unbelievable it was that somebody would make
• 44:42
  Speaker 9: such terrific accusations. And it's so reminiscent in ways of
• 44:46
  Speaker 9: the Pennsylvania Hall reporting. After Pennsylvania Hall was burned, there
• 44:50
  Speaker 9: were a lot of editorials in southern newspapers where they
• 44:53
  Speaker 9: might say something about how well, it's a shame that
• 44:55
  Speaker 9: this incredible building was burned at the ground. But not
• 45:00
  Speaker 9: only were these radical ideas being stated in this hall,
• 45:03
  Speaker 9: but also white women and black men were seen leaving
• 45:07
  Speaker 9: together and sitting together, and you could see that this
• 45:09
  Speaker 9: was really something that was animating so much. So much
• 45:12
  Speaker 9: of a part of what was animating this kind of
• 45:15
  Speaker 9: mob hatred, this, you know, real censorship, was that sense
• 45:19
  Speaker 9: that you cannot speak to, that you cannot speak to
• 45:21
  Speaker 9: this idea that the black races and the white races
• 45:23
  Speaker 9: might be mingling voluntarily together.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: I think this is another such powerful message and reminder
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: of you know, regardless of the response and the violent backlash,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: people are standing up, people are speaking their voices, people
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: are demanding to be heard. And this is clearly fearless,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: fearless speech.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Now, you know, when you mentioned her, I just going
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: to throw this in as well. I mean, she she
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: was one of the most amazing Americans that ever walked
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: to the face of the earth. She was fearless. I
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: mean in what she wrote in the movement, she helped build,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: she helped found the NACP. She stood up with lynch
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: mobs tried to kill her, They killed people around her
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: and lynched them, but she never stopped. I mean, this
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: is a woman who I think most Americans don't know
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: but should know. She was one of the great heroes
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: of our entire history. And it just fearless a woman,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: a black woman in that period to stand up the
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: way she did.
• 46:34
  Speaker 7: So.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean she's one of those people. When I
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: ever hear her name id B. Wells, my next line
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: is say her name.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Mark. Bring us up in the decades, right, walk us
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: into the nineteen fifties into the nineteen sixties and the
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: civil rights movement. You participated directly. How important was free
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: speech for the civil rights movement? You know what did
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: this mean?
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Two things? I mean a A. The roots of the
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: civil rights when people don't really often give credit to
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: was World War Two and Truman announced the official surrender.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: This is a solemn but glorious hour. It was black
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: men coming back from the war throughout the South or
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: throughout the United States, standing up saying we just fought
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: for this country. We're not going to live in segregation.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Those are the roots of the movement. We're black veterans
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: of World War Two. We often forget that that led
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: to Little Rock in nineteen fifty four to start slamming
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: down racial hegregation of schools. When I was a kid
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, Baltimore had six we were all
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: segregated schools, and I remember the first time black kids
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: came into our elementary school. I was in the sixth grade.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: And and so I mean that it's it's it's it's
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: it's not ancient history. Well maybe it's maybe I think
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I'm ancient, but it's not ancient history.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: That's incredible for other generations that seems like that was like,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: you know, lifetimes.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and I was just very lucky to
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: have been living then and have the mother that I had,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: who stood up to racism and crossed the line early,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: and my father, who was the first white doctor in
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Baltimore to integrate his waiting room. And it was that reason.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: People made doctors made black patient white doctors made black
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: patients come in at the end of the day or
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: early in the morning and leave. So it's it's not
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a history that has defined this country,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: and the battle against it has defined this country, the
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: struggle for a different world. But I think that what
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: we're seeing in America now is really a pushback against
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: all of that. That's what that's what the Trumpian right is.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's a decisive pushback against free
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: speech and against civil rights and how those two worlds
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: are intermarried. As I said before, the free speech movement
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: in America was born of the civil rights movement. The
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: struggles are connected, which is why the battle against racial
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: equality and the battle against free speech are also connected.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Mark, I want to I want to dig just a
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: little bit deeper into this, because what is it about
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: free speech that was so important for the civil rights movement,
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: for the anti war movement?
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Is it?
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Is it the idea that that we we should be
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: allowed and to stand up and to speak for what
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: we believe, uh, we should be allowed to protest and
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: to change the structure, the inherently racist structure of the country.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: What is it about free speech in particular that is
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: so important to these movements at the time.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: That's a really interesting question. I mean that again, I
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: may go back to start wory. What I said a
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: little while ago, when America started with free speech, it
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: was free speech for white men of property. Yeah, that's
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: how it began. But it was such a universal principle
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: that everybody embraced it and fought for the right to
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: have free speech. And I think that's something we forget.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: What the founding fathers did was was unleash a democracy
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: for themselves. But what the unleashed was a passion for
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: democracy among everybody else, and that redefined It was a
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: long struggle, and I think that, and I think people
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: know how to make that connection. And I think that
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: what you talked about earlier, which was the violence against
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: those who really pushed it in the early part of
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: the late seventh late I mean the late nineteenth century.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Telling most people don't see or know the deaths that
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: came place for fighting for free speech. So I think
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: now we're in that battle again. We really are. I mean,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I you know this. For me, it's not a question
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: of Republicans and Democrats. It's a question of the anti
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: free speech movement, the anti free speech movement, the racist movement,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: capturing one of the America's parties and pushing this very
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: dangerous agenda for the future. Then let's not be confused.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: The Democrats are all good and Republicans are all bad.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: But we have to be realistic about what's happening to
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: us right now. It almost seems to me to be
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: in terms of free speech akin to when the right
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: wing in Germany sees power in nineteen thirty three, and
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I think that we have to look at that history
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: and understand what we're facing.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: When we spoke with David Hollinger, he had this really
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: interesting thing to say exactly about this is how Trump
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: today is using the narrative of free speech to censor
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: and using the narrative of free speech for his own means.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: It's attempting to derail our definition of free speech when
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: it's only for himself.
• 52:39
  Speaker 8: Well, what happens is that Trump uses a lot of
• 52:43
  Speaker 8: generic ideals like merit and free speech and diversity, and
• 52:52
  Speaker 8: he claims that he represents them and that the academic
• 52:56
  Speaker 8: establishment has betrayed those ideals, and so free speech is
• 53:02
  Speaker 8: somehow that's not allowed unless it's enunciating the stuff that
• 53:06
  Speaker 8: he wants to advance.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: So free speech for my people is what Trump is saying.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: But if you're not one of me. You know, if
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: you're not with me, then you're against me, and you
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: don't deserve to have free speech. And of course I
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: think this is part of that same contradiction, the same
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: push and pull that you talk to at the beginning
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: that goes that his historic you know, throughout the history
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: of the United States. But I think it is fascinating
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: today how you know, Trump's attempts to take the universities
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: for himself and use this discourse around free speech his
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: own definition in order to you know, support himself or
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: bolster himself, weaponizing the different departments of the of the country.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: It is clearly terrifying moment. And another reason why this
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: moment of free speech, of trying to define what this
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: is and remember the movements that have stood up and
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: fought for everything that's made you know, the United States
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: great in our history and why it's so important now.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: You know, people have to realize also it's a constant struggle.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: It's never over and it never will be over, probably,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: and that the movements you raised here, like the abolitionist movement,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: was so key to expanding our democracy. It was such
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: a threat to people in power, and you know, the
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: destruction that movement. I always say the destruction of freedom
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: in the South and its roots in the abolitionist movement
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: in the eighteen seventies gave birth to ninety years of
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: sheer terror against the black world in America. And it
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: was the civil rights movement that went back to the
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: roots of America freedom and speech for everybody to break
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: the back of that and try to build new America.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: And what we're seeing now is reaction to that. So
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: you know, this was it was it in Spanish la
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: luta continua. It's struggling, is not over. It's never over,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: The Mark I have a question about like the legacy
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: of the free speech movement today and thinking about like
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: particularly around universities and campuses, would you say that we've
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: actually been rolled back like some of the gains the
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: rights to be able to stand up and speak out
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: at university campuses, which were one which were so important
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: clearly during like the anti war movement, anti Vietnam movements.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: What that's always meant up until now, But it almost
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: feels as though all of that has been rolled back
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: so much in terms of like the government backlash against
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: you know, pro Palestine protests on campus or or you know,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: saying anything about Charlie Kirk clearly, like would you say
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: that things have been rolled back to even before the
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: time of the free speech movement in.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: The nineteen sixties, I would say they are attempting to
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: roll it back. It hasn't been rolled back completely. But
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: universities are running scared. They're terrified. I mean, huge chunks
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: of money for universities comes from the federal government. That's
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: and that's what Trump is threatening them with, taking the
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: money away, and so the university systems either have to
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: stand up and fight it with a threat of losing
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: their money or cowtow to it and roll over.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: This is interesting because this is this is what you know,
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: one of the things that David Hollinger brings in. He says,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: this is the hill to die on.
• 56:56
  Speaker 8: Given what the Trump administration is trying to do to universeies,
• 57:01
  Speaker 8: to reduce them to vocational and technical institutions, to deprive
• 57:08
  Speaker 8: them of the critical role that universities have traditionally played
• 57:12
  Speaker 8: in fomenting democracy. They really are trying to do that.
• 57:16
  Speaker 8: So that means that this is the hill to die on.
• 57:21
  Speaker 8: The universities are right, this is the hill to die on.
• 57:25
  Speaker 8: This is the worst crisis that we've had since nineteen sixteen,
• 57:30
  Speaker 8: seventeen eighteen in terms of the political opposition to universities,
• 57:35
  Speaker 8: when Charles Beard resigned at Columbia and there were a
• 57:37
  Speaker 8: whole series of charls over World War One. This is
• 57:40
  Speaker 8: by far the worst thing that's happened since then. And
• 57:43
  Speaker 8: universities are much more central to American life than they
• 57:45
  Speaker 8: were at that time. They have a lot more authority,
• 57:48
  Speaker 8: They affect many more things. So it's important that we
• 57:51
  Speaker 8: take a stand. And I'm very glad to see that
• 57:53
  Speaker 8: many of them are, but not all.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: This is the tip of the iceberg because they Trump
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: and his minions on the right see attacking the university systems.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Not just its killing freedom of speech, which is which
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: is the subtext to it, but as a first savo
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: in controlling their power by limiting and shutting down freedom
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: of speech in universities. And I think that and it's
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: not really given enough play in the press. The danger
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: this is this is you know, when when when the
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: National Socialist Party took power in thirty three, nineteen thirty
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: three with a minority of the vote, I might add,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: but they built a broad coalition. Everything they did in
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: the beginning was subtle. It didn't. It didn't come in
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: one fell swoop and turned the whole place into a
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: dictatorship overnight. They built it slowly, and they and they
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: and they created that one of the most horrible societies
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: the world has ever seen, killing eleven million people in
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Europe in concentration camps. So what I'm saying that is
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: is that we have to be really very watchful and
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: carefubout what we're facing. This is just the beginning, it's
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: not the end. And I and people say it can
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: happen here, Well, it can happen here, and it has
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: happened here before, especially if you're black or indigenous and
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: uh and so I think we are, as I said before,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: we're on a precipice, and I think we cannot underestimate
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: the moment that we face.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: Mark. I want to I want to bring in Mary
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: and Frank's one More pays Do, And I want to
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: talk about the First Amendment because this is a for me,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: this was a really powerful It's a controversial point in
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: her book, I feel like, but it's I think we
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: need to discuss it, and I think it's important to
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: grapple with because in our conversation and in her book
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: she talks about how racial justice advocates and social movements
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: have succeeded in the history of the United States, have
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: succeeded in the past despite rather than because of the
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: First Amendment or First Amendment protections. And so she says,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: imagine an alternative America.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: Where from the beginning.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 9: We took the concept of free speech in the way
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 9: that that Elijah Lovejoy took it, which is to say,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 9: we have to recognize if freedom of speech means anything,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 9: it is the freedom to criticize what we are doing,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 9: what the powerful people are doing in our society. And
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 9: the most important thing for us to articulate at that
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 9: time is slavery, and close on its heels is the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 9: subjugation of women. Right. Imagine if that had really been
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 9: allowed to sort of take if Pennsylvania Hall had never
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 9: burned down, and it really did become a temple of
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 9: humanity where people began to see that things that they
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 9: were deeply wedded to, ideas that they had always grown
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 9: up thinking were correct, if they really had been challenged
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 9: by other ways of thinking, if that had been allowed
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 9: to flourish. I mean, think about how radical and revolutionary
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 9: that would have been.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: You know, could that and so many other experiences have
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: actually shifted the discourse within the United States enough to
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: stop the Civil War? She asks, Instead, you have the
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: Clarence Brandenburg version of what it means to be radical.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: So KKK neo Nazi, those are the guys who were
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: embraced and protected.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 9: We skip the part where it actually becomes the norm
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 9: that slavery and all form of racism and sexism are
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 9: evil and wrong, and said, it goes from becoming the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 9: way the world, the way that society is constructed, to Oh,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 9: he's saying something very edgy, that's probably making you uncomfortable,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 9: but for that.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: Reason we should protect it. And it's like there's nothing
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: in between.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 9: And so at that point you get it gets you know,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 9: quite literally, the KKK gets a second life, in a
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 9: third life, right, and it's partly because it's revitalized through
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 9: these perversions of the concept of free speech to say, well,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 9: we must be allowed to say these things. Now that
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 9: slavery has been abolished, we fix things in terms of
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 9: racial injustice. And now it's all gone too far. And
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 9: so we are going to be the old guard who
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 9: is going to be talking about how things used to
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 9: be and then immediately that's what gets so much protection,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 9: gets so much rhetorical resources and protection.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: And she brings this one other moment she talks about this,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: which I think is important. She talks about this the
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: white supremacist play and then movie, the nineteen fifteen movie
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: The Birth of a Nation. Right, Yeah, so it sparks
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: riots every place and leeching.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 9: Yes, and you get one of the first sort of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 9: showdowns between the NAACP and the ACLU, right where the
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 9: NAACP is saying this is going to get people killed,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 9: and the ACLU saying, you really need to understand that
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 9: if you're trying to advocate for censorship, it's going to
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 9: hurt you too at some point. And it's one of
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 9: those moments in the book where I'm trying to articulate
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 9: the expression on my face when I read this. You know,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 9: this idea of the NAACP being lectured by the ACLU,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 9: by the white director of the ACLU saying it's going
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 9: to come around and hurt black people. Right. The law
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 9: isn't going to work for you if you advocate for
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 9: restrictions now, and the obvious point being that the law
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 9: has never really worked for black people. Of course it's
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 9: going to be used against them. It has been this
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 9: entire time. That whole premise of the well, don't censor
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 9: the radical white supremacist speech because it's going to mean
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 9: that you will get censored too, completely erases the fact
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 9: that radical abolitionist speech, as we were just talking about,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 9: has always been censored, has always been suppressed. So it's
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 9: this kind of retelling of history that is so perverse
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 9: because it's also this kind of lecturing that says, if
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 9: you just had a sophisticated enough view of speech and
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 9: just enough confidence in the American people, you would understand
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 9: that we just need to allow this kind of material
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 9: to flourish so that you will be saved as much
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 9: as the white supremacis will be saved.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: And so I feel like this is such an important
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: point and really powerful because like she said this, and
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: it like, you know, how to take a double take.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: The fact that social movements abolitionist movement, you know, the
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: fact that these the civil rights movement, the fact that
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: they were successful not because of the First Amendment, but
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: actually despite the First Amendment, but because of free speech.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: But free speech is the way that we considers free
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: speech not free speech as according to you know, say,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: the Constitution and whatnot, and that white supremacy have always
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: gotten the benefit of doubt and everyone else has been,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: you know, gotten shut down, but people continue to stand up.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: That's interesting, it really is. It would take a lot
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: to explore what you just said and what she said,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: because the alternative theory is if you shut that down,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: then we're next to be shut down.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: It's really difficult. I mean, and I know that battle
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: around the a c l U and the NAACP, and
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's a core battle, and I understand both positions,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: the oppression of black people in America saying this has
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: to be banned and stopped because it's attacking us and
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: fomenting violence against us, and the a c LU saying
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: one of the bedrock rights in America is the right
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: to say what you want to say, even if it's
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: discussed and full of hate. So it's a difficult discussion. Yeah,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: we could do a whole serious just on that, really,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean totally. I've had this debate over
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: decades around the First Amendment. I mean, I mean, what's
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: the first one? I say, Congress shall make no law
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: representing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. That's
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: pretty broad. So it's a very difficult question. I've been
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: fighting racist in THEO fascists my whole life, since I
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: was a boy, since I was maybe eleven, twelve, thirteen
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: years old, and so I'm passionate about it. But it's
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: a really difficult enough to correct.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: What I come back to here is what you said
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: at the beginning about the contradiction at the root, at
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: the core of free speech in the United States, and
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: the conflict and the battle over what it means today,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: but what it's meant, and what it's always meant, and
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: and how there is there has always been this push
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: and pull. I think, what's what? What's What's the most
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: important thing for me now is for us to understand
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: what is at the root of this battle and for
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: us to be able to define it. Like when we
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: talk about fearless versus reckless speech, this is this is
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: not a concept that people understand. But it's a concept
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: that that we should understand because when we go out
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: and speak truth to power, or people are standing up
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: in the streets, they should understand and know that they
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: are participating in something that that goes back. This idea
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: of speaking out goes back thousands of years. It's not
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: just right now, you know, uh, and that they have
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: this support and this back and even if you know
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: the First Amendment hasn't always worked in their favor or
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: has often supported white supremacists at the same time as
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: it's silenced those fighting for social justice or those fighting
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: for you know, equality. So I think you're absolutely right
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: that this is a hard a hard hard not to crack.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, but it's yeah, but it's still a conversation
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: we have, we do.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: I mean it's because the reckless. I think they're fearless. Yes,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it really is of it really,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: So now I have to go home and think about
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: all this.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 8: Mark.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: I want to close with someone else I spoke with recently.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 10: The Parah du Boivla Well, I'm a historian at Princeton,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 10: but I used to teach at Oxford University in England.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: His book what is free speech? The History of a
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: Dangerous Idea was published last year. I'll be bringing him
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: in more in future episodes, but I really appreciate his
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: analysis for this episode and where we're headed. He told
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: me free speech has always been about power.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 10: Both in the theory and in practice. We see that
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 10: today what voices are silenced or elevated is about power
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 10: as a noble ideal because everyone can appeal to it.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 10: And throughout history, as my book shows, you know, those
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 10: without power and those who attempted to be silentced have
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 10: all so appealed to it, from abolitionists and early feminists
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 10: onwards into the present day. So that's the good side
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 10: of why it's a dangerous idea, and we should all
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 10: be shouting from the rooftops that right now free speech
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 10: rights are being trampled upon, the First Amendment as being
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 10: completely disregarded in the United States and the rest of it.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 10: But I think the real global battle here is about
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 10: how to deal with the communications revolution that we're living
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 10: through and how to deal with the power of media companies.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 10: The unfettered transnational power are basically of American media companies.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: And I'd say not just media companies, but tech companies,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: social media AI firms, and that's whe'reheaded next time.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: The next week, we go to Silicon Valley, Dookirth. The Internet,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: social media, artificial intelligence are transforming the way we communicate
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: and what it all means our rate to free speech.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: Hi folks, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today's podcast
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: and you like this series, please do us a favor.
• 1:11:14
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  Speaker 2: and leave us a comment or a review. It really
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: helps to spread the word about the show and the
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: state of free speech in the United States today. You
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: can find more of my work on my Patreon page
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: at Patreon dot com, forward slash Mfox. Also, please make
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  Speaker 2: link in the show notes if you'd like to find
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  Speaker 2: out more about the stories we talked about today in
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: this episode, we've added some links in the show notes
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: there as well. The Battle for Free Speech is a
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  Speaker 2: production of.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: The Real News. Thanks for listening, See you next time.