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President Barack Obama & Malcolm Gladwell: How Reconstruction Still Defines America · Revisionist History

• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Was Reconstruction America's greatest missed opportunity or the beginning of
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: a story that's still being written? When we were making
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Reconstruction the Unfinished Promise, I sat down with President Barack
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Obama and we had a conversation about the period after
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: the Civil War, exploring why Reconstruction remains one of the
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: most misunderstood chapters in in American history, from Frederick Douglass
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: and the Compromise of 1877 to voting rights, public education,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and today's debates over democracy. The series examines how the
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: past continues to echo in the present. It's a conversation
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: about history, progress, and why democracy is never a finished project.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy it and find it as interesting
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: and as prescient as I did. You can find the
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: full series, Reconstruction, The Unfinished Promise, on Audible or wherever
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: you get podcasts. Reconstruction is not a tentative step. It
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: is one step forward and then one like.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: A really big step back.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: A couple steps back. And it's the amount of violence
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: and it's like it's almost a second Civil War.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: What you see in the backlash to Reconstruction is the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: degree to which you never changed hearts and minds. coming
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: out of the Civil War.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: One of the things that motivated this project was the
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: people don't talk about, Reconstruction is the great forgotten era
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: in American history, and I'm still puzzled as to why.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't think it's that puzzling. The mythology of America,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: about us breaking away from the crown, declaring our independence,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: all men are created equal, the yeoman farmers, Walt Whitman,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: there's a whole narrative about who we are as Americans.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: And there's this inconvenient fact, which is that all this
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: happened at the same time as you had a economy
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: in the South based on slavery. chattel slavery. And a
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: bloody war was fought to, in part, end slavery, maintain
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the Union. And then there was a reconciliation between North
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and South that essentially reinstated or preserved a caste system
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and a hierarchy that the country didn't want to acknowledge.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: until really the second civil rights movement and the upheavals
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: of the 60s. And so it's not surprising that the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: narratives that emerged in school books or in Hollywood movies
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: were not focused on this glaring contradiction to how America
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: understood itself and how it wanted to present itself to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: the world and also to its kids.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Is there a moment when real– when does real democracy
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: begin in America? Is that a fair question?
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: It is a fair question. I think it's important not
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: to undersell the achievements of the American Revolution. The Declaration
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of Independence, a war against the crown, the establishment of principles–
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: embodied in the Bill of Rights. The notion of citizenship
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: as opposed to you are a subject. The notion of
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: representative government as opposed to some hereditary monarchy or aristocracy.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: The breakup of a feudal understanding of how societies are organized.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: That's a big deal. That's a seminal moment in human history.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And the American Revolution helps to accomplish that. And so
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you have a pretty radical experiment from the start in
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: terms of is it possible for people to organize themselves
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: and through some representative mechanism have a voice in their
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: collective lives. But what is absolutely true is that it
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: is a partial democracy. And it's not just because black
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: people are not recognized as we part of, we, the people,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: women are just sort of the people because they don't
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: get a chance to vote. Initially men without property are
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: not considered, uh, part of the decision-making process. You have
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a chamber, the Senate, in which there's no popular vote.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And so there are a whole range of elements to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: what we would now consider to be a true democracy
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: that are missing from that initial experiment. What makes Reconstruction
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: so significant is out of the ashes of this horrific
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: civil war. You amend the constitution and you begin to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: rebuild and reorganize how democracy is supposed to function in
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: ways that fill some of those holes, fill some of
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: those gaps start resolving some of those contradictions that were
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: there from the very beginning. The reason Reconstruction is such
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: a fascinating story is here's a moment, the first real
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: moment since the founding, in which this idea of perfecting
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the union is attempted in a fairly significant way. And
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it peters out. It doesn't get all the way there.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: But what it does is it leaves all these embers.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: It leaves all these ideas and possibilities and points in
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: certain directions that then allow future generations to draw on
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: and inspires others. And it gives us a sense of
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: how this process of perfecting the union, of creating a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: true democracy, is not this static project where, okay, we
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: got the words on the page, now it's done, but
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: is rather this continuous exercise.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: It makes me think sometimes that our expectations are too high. Like,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I remember having a conversation with someone about segregation, about
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: how the first generation and second generation results from integrating
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: schools are disappointing. And there's one answer, which is to
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: sort of wring your hands. The other answer is, well,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: why would you expect it to get better in 30 years?
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Why shouldn't we be asking these questions in 75 years? Like,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: these things take time, right? Maybe we should be interested
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: in how the children and grandchildren of the people who
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: first went to integrated schools, how they fare.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I think you are exactly right. That there's a way
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: to look at Reconstruction that is shocked and despairing. And
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: you say, oh, look what happens. You have this moment
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: in which America might have gotten it all right, and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: then suddenly it all went to hell. And from our
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: vantage point, that is the way I obviously see it.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: That's how you feel it, right? The incapacity for people
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: in the South, white people in the South, essentially, to
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: embrace this new possibility of a multiracial democracy. On the
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: other hand, what we know of humans everywhere, what we
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: know of human history— is that this idea that a
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: group of people have been utterly defeated in a savage,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: bloody war and their entire lives have been upended and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: their conceptions of themselves and their status and their role
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: in the world has been shattered. And the notion that
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: they would suddenly go, oh, okay, and that this would
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: be an easy process that you could complete in 10
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: or 15 or 20 years, well, that defies everything we
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: know about people. And so what is remarkable to some
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: degree when I look at Reconstruction is how radical the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: experiment was. Mm-hmm. The fact that you had essentially a
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Northern occupying army backed by radical Republicans in Congress who
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: are willing to consistently override the racist sentiments of Johnson,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the president, and push through legislation and constitutional amendments that
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: offer the promise of citizenship and equal rights to people
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: who just three or four or five years earlier were slaves,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: or if they were freedmen, according to the Supreme Court
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: under Dred Scott, did not enjoy any rights that white
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: people We're bound to respect. You have the highest court
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: in the land just a few years earlier saying black
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: people in America have no rights that the courts or
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: white people generally are bound to respect. And now suddenly
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: you have a victorious union that is trying to impose
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: on a big chunk of the population we're entirely rewriting
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the rules of your relationship between a group of people, which,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: by the way, we think of as a minority with
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: respect to the entire U.S. population, but in places like
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Mississippi and South Carolina, we're a majority. And throughout the South,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: constituted 35 40 of the population and and white folks
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: are sitting there they're aware how badly these people have
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: been treated they're aware of what they've done to them
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: they're harboring uh memories of of the cruelties that have
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: been perpetrated on these folks and now suddenly they're seeing
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: them in congress and they're seeing them open up stores
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and they're on the streets and and and so in
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: that sense what i'm i actually always think of reconstruction
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: as yes a tragedy but also.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: A hopeful sign a necessary tragedy a necessary tragedy and
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: one that Of course it wasn't finished.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Of course it wasn't completed. It was inevitable that there
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: was going to be this massive backlash and a violent one.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And that in turn, you'd then see an ongoing struggle
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: that would continue for decades.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Is there a case to be made that the intensity
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: and the regularity of the backlashes that we see in
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: American politics is something distinctive to our political culture and
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: social culture?
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I would say that there is, there's been a lack
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: of a full reckoning in the United States that makes
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: these issues come up again and again and again. And
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: that Some societies, at least, have done a better job
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: in looking at their past and saying, that did not work.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: And a national consensus is then built around, let's not
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: do that again. As Du Bois said, the issue of
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the 20th century, he said at the time, was the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: color line turns out the issue of the 21st century
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: is also the color line. It probably 22nd century. It
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: may be. Um, I don't know that it, I wouldn't
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: say though, that it's unique to, to the United States.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about, um, the experience of
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Indian democracy and, and, you know, you have partition and
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: millions are killed and it, Muslims and Hindus in India
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: are trying to figure out how to deal with this stuff.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And now you have, you know, a rise of Hindu
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: nationalism and struggles around that, uh, issues that once you
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: thought were resolved in India, you look at Northern Ireland,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: you know, the good Friday agreements have held, but anytime
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: you visit there, it's always interesting as, as a, African-American
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to visit a place like Northern Ireland and you listen
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: to the degree of segregation and continued bitterness, anger, suspicion
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: between people that to our eyes look exactly the same.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: They're living in an area the size of tiny.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, but the now self-imposed segregation that remains is as
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: powerful as anything we would see here. And it's hard
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to understand, right? Because it's not part of us.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: There's a difference between, in that case, what you have
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: are tentative steps. So you would say in Northern Ireland,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: there's no question that the country is much better off
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: today than it was in 1975.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Well, as we would say about the United States, there's
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: no question that you and I sitting here Yes. Having
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a conversation about Reconstruction would not have been happening in 1880.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: But Reconstruction is a slightly— it' s not a tentative step. It
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: is one step forward and then one, like— A.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Really big step back. A really— Several steps back.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: A couple steps back.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Like, the intensity of that is what's so— and it's the
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: amount of violence and it's like— it' s almost a second Civil War.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Well, it is the— What you see in the backlash
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to Reconstruction is the degree to which you never changed
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: hearts and minds coming out of the Civil War. There
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't the sort of not just defeat militarily, but also
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: a a restructuring of the understanding that Southern whites had
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: about what their privileges and rights were and how their
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: society should be organized. And so they effectively retreated for
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a while and then they waited out the federal government
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and waited until the occupation ended, essentially, and then they
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: reconstituted a version of their society that they preferred. And
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: this is where the role of history comes in, how
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Reconstruction was depicted, the stories that were told in school
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: books and in Birth of a Nation books, about how
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: terrible these ignorant Black people suddenly taking over government and
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: assaulting our women and running down our economies and how
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: we wrested it back. The whole lost cause mythology, which
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: we're even now still reckoning with because... You have all
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: these monuments to the valor of the Confederate soldiers, the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: romance of Gone with the Wind. These are all things
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: that we grew up in. but it had to do
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: with a very specific cultural project, which was to justify, solidify,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: rationalize the maintenance of a caste system. And that never
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: fully went away.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder... This is going to seem like a
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: trivial suggestion, but I feel there's great importance to these
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: symbolic things. Part of the problem is we say that
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: the Civil War ended with... We mark the end of
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: the Civil War with the end of the initial military phase. Really,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: the Civil War ends in 1877 with the collapse of Reconstruction.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: If we thought about the war that way, then we
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: understand it very differently.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Because essentially what you have is... An armistice. Essentially what
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: you have is in 1877 with the compromise that year,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that's the real peace treaty between North and South. And
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the North essentially says, okay, you guys are readmitted and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: fully redeemed. The union's been saved. the initial project that
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Lincoln called for when he initiated the Civil War in
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the face of succession. That problem's been solved. Technically, slavery
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: no longer exists. The 13th Amendment survives. And otherwise, we're
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: back to you guys running things how you want down there,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: and we'll run things how we want up here. And
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: that was the true peace treaty. And it obviously left
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Black folks in the South extraordinarily vulnerable and in part
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: prompted the Great Migration and it shaped our history. But
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: you're absolutely right that what had what it did was
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to allow for this obfuscation, this, this, this erasure of, um,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: what the stakes were and what the possibilities were. But,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: but that's what, um, that that's how our culture was structured.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: As I said, to justify, to reconcile, um, this glaring
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: contradiction at the heart of our self-conception. And the degree
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: to which these really hard questions were never fully processed,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I think accounts for the reason why you can still
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: get these fierce episodes of backlash. Because They've never really
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: been talked about, surfaced, resolved. There hasn't been both acknowledgement
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: and accountability, which means there also hasn't been the possibilities
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: of forgiveness and reconciliation. It all just washes around.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: The Compromise of 1877, I mean, it's such a Pontius
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Pilate moment. And it makes me wonder about the kind
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: of psychology of the compromisers. I mean, it's weird because
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: you just went through, a dozen years ago, this unbelievably
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: bloody conflict. I mean, you sacrificed hundreds of thousands of
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: your countrymen's lives. You devastated the entire country. And then
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: after 12 years past and you're like, well, kind of shrug,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: let's just.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Never mind?
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Never mind. It's like a never mind moment. It's like
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: they wash their hands and they say, you know, what
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: does Pontius Pilate say? Take this from me? I've forgotten that. But, like,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: I struggle to kind of understand what's going through the
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: minds of those when they shrug.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things is.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Important to understand, we tend to look at all these
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: issues through the lens of race entirely. And the truth is,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: is that there are all these other factors that in
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the minds of these politicians at the time. Mm-hmm. are
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: just as important and as relevant and their notions of states' rights.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And there are notions of the limits and constraints on
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: federal government power. And there are notions of commerce and money.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: And all these things are happening in the midst of
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: a really wildly unregulated, fluctuating, wild west economic atmosphere. You're
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: getting these huge depressions and massive unemployment. And there are
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: debates about labor rights in the north as people are
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: getting into factories. And there's agitation among workers for better
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: working conditions and better wages. And And so you have
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: elites who have a whole host of interests. And some
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of them think how black people are being treated and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: how we restructure our democracy is of the highest priority.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And other people are thinking, you know what? We need
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: to stabilize the economy. And some are thinking, you know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to build a railroad here and I need
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: a deal with this other legislator. And some of them
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: are thinking we can't maintain taxes that are required in
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: order for us to keep federal troops occupying these Confederate
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: states in perpetuity because we have other expenses. And so
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: for us, looking back, we're saying to ourselves, what other
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: issue was relevant? But for them at the time, it
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: was one of the issues that was relevant. And I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: think that part of what also makes the Compromise of
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: 1877 so relevant bitter in some cases, certainly for African
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Americans when you know that history, is there is an
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: echo across American history of at some point even whites
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: who are sympathetic to the cause of equality and human
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: rights only being willing to carry out that principle so far. Yeah. Right?
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: You know, going back to this question of how inadequately
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: we have accounted for this period, if we're doing American
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: history over again, not only do we say the Civil
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: War ends in 1877, but Frederick Douglass is a founding father.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: He really is.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: He really is.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: You know, I... There is... And that's why it's so
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: interesting to see today, this contest over what is the
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: dominant narrative of America. And, you know, you have an
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: administration that is trying to change, you know, the plaques
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: at national monuments.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Like they don't have enough on their hands. Yeah, right.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: But it does speak to the power of stories. There
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: are figures that um because they hold political office because
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: they are men because they are white because they are
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: titans of industry because they hold traditional stations that we
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: understand uh have power um we think of them as
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the history makers right and you have all these people
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: who may not have occupied formal positions of power who
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: entirely shape or bend the course of our narrative.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And this is why I think he belongs in that
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: kind of pantheon of founding father, that he sees the best.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: And he also is clear eyed about who we are
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: and what we're capable of. And that's, if you read
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: the Federalist Papers, that's what they are. They are, Madison
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: is both, has a vision and he's also incredibly.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: He's aware of like, this thing could follow, you know,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: what's the favorite, what's the famous Ben Franklin? Uh, if, uh,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: We have a republic if we can keep it.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: If we can keep it. Exactly.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Same thing. This is a grand thing, but it's going
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: to be hard.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And that's what Douglass understands. And that sensibility is what
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: we want in our leaders. And it is a sensibility
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: that we want our kids to learn from history. at
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: least I do, right? And that is not some rosy-eyed,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you know, sanitized version of American history, but a clear-eyed
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: understanding of, yes, we stole land, we took land from
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: previous occupants. America was built on violence and subjugation. And
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: and chicanery, and confidence men, and shenanigans, and corruption. But
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: it is also this amazing expression of human possibility. Thomas Jefferson, yes,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: he had slaves. And, not but, and he penned some
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: of the most important words that were ever written in
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the annals of humanity. And being able to maintain those
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: two ideas at the same time is what both can
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: inspire you to keep going and make the world and
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: the country better and not sink in despair, but also
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: to understand the challenges, and the persistence that will be
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: required to overcome those challenges if you want to get
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: to where we want to go.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: I want to go back to something that we skipped
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: over that I've been thinking about as you were talking about.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Is it useful at all to wonder about what the
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: country looks like if Reconstruction had not been defeated? Is
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: that even a possibility?
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I think you can imagine scenarios in which somebody other
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: than Andrew Johnson is Lincoln's vice president. Either Lincoln doesn't
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: get shot, Booth misses, or his vice president is somebody
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: who is a wiser, more thoughtful leader.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: We should briefly pause on What a disaster, Andrew Johnson.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, Andrew Johnson is like— He's terrible. He's like— it' s
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: really hard to find somebody as bad as that. And
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: there is some stiff competition of late.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: There is, just generally. But he's terrible, right? He just— he' s petty.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: He's small-minded. He's a drunk. He is not particularly deft
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: in handling his own party, the other party. And so
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: he's a disaster. You can imagine a situation in which
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: a better leader, a better statesman, is working with a
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Republican Congress, being more strategic about how are we going
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: to institutionalize both the Reconstruction legislation that's been passed? How
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: do we make sure that the Freedmen Bureau efforts stick?
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: The 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments are carried out effectively. What
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: can we compromise? Because we know there's going to be
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: resistance down there. What can't we compromise? You can imagine
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: somebody working that through in a way that you did
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: not end up with a violent, brutal reinstitution of cast
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: and the restrictions on Black people's ability to just live
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: their lives and the lynchings and the horrors of that era.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: And had that process been less violent, even if it
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't as quick as from modern standards we would now judge.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Let's say that there was enforcement, but there were still
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: social codes about no racial mixing or we're not going
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: to take on anti-miscegenation laws. You can picture something that
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: ends up being more gradual, gentler, not perfect, but ushering
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: in maybe quicker the kinds of changes that we would
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: end up seeing come about in the 60s and the 70s.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: It would be less wrenching. But, you know, I mean,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: that's speculation. That's true about all of human history, right?
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are all kinds of junctures and moments
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: that we look at and say, if humans weren't so
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: stupid or so venal or so greedy or so cowardly
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: or ignorant... Things could have been better.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: There is this thing that like, it is so often
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: the case that at pivotal moments in history, we're blessed
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: with extraordinary leaders, right? We have FDR during the Depression.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: England gets Churchill, you know, and we're like, in this era,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: we're two thirds of the way there. We have Douglas,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: we have Lincoln. And then, you know, the third leg
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: of the stool is this.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it is always... It is a classic
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: example of this debate about history and how much of
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: it is determined by amazing individuals and how much of
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: it is determined by just technological trends or societal trends
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: that we have no control over. And I think this
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: is a pretty clear example that it's both. It makes
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: a big difference that Lincoln's not there post-war. There's no doubt.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: How do you... Curious about how you think about this,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: the kind of general project of multiracial democracy now. Like we're,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: you know, it's impossible to spend a lot of time
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: thinking about reconstruction without reflecting on the present day, right?
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Because these issues are.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Well, they're still there. If somebody is asking, why is
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: it relevant to talk about reconstruction? It... I have to
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: describe for them the degree to which we're having the
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: same arguments. The issues of how are we going to
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: help the freed people who've been enslaved? What are we
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: going to give them to allow them to have a
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: go at life? What does real freedom mean? You trace
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: that debate of 40 acres and a mule, and public education.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: And you can trace it all the way through to
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: debates about welfare and debates about now DEI. And, you know,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: do we as a society have an obligation to address
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: past injustices that have been, you know, institutionalized or left
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: a legacy of poverty? So we're having that argument. when
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: you look at issues of state versus federal power and
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: how do we protect the rights of all citizens, both
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: against states that may be abusing the people who live there,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: but also against the federal government that at any point
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: might decide it wants to bully people around it. Those
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: issues are still Obviously, more directly, we're having debates now
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: about voting rights, and you've got a Supreme Court that
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: has systematically weakened the possibilities of enforcing voting rights in
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: our democracy. And we have a politics now that, at
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: least one of our major parties, has been captured by
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: politics that is not that subtle anymore. about suggesting that
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: we the people means a certain kind of people. That
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: when you have the vice president, the current vice president
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: making a speech that is basically a blood and soil
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: version of we the people. That it matters who your
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: parents were and how long they've been here. despite him
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: being married to an immigrant, a daughter of an immigrant himself.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: You know, that echoes then ideas about who can be
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: a citizen, who belongs, who gets to make decisions. So
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: all these issues are still being debated, sometimes not as
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: bluntly and explicitly as they have in the past, but
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: they're still there. And What I would say, though, is
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: in the same way that we were talking earlier about
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: the Constitution, and you get that equal protection language in
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the Constitution, and it may not be observed, and we
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: may be shocked and appalled by the gap between those
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: words and the reality, and It may be frustrating that
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: we have to file lawsuits to vindicate those words, but
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: they still count. In that same way, I would argue
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: that the progress that we've seen over your lifetime and
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: mine in creating a multiracial democracy, that stuff sticks. And Yep.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: That's progress. And, and so I, I, I don't get
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: cynical and look back. I don't subscribe to the idea
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: that because this has always been a theme in America,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: because we will often be disappointed by how American society
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: responds to racial discrimination and injustice, uh, Because at any moment,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: you know, that kind of caste thinking can flare up
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: and be dangerous and violent and cruel. That doesn't mean
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: that we don't have evidence of.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: That.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Better version of America. We have evidence of it. We've
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: seen it.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: The example you gave is actually a lovely illustration of this.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: A hundred years ago, a vice president could not stand
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: up and make a nativist argument if he was married
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: to the daughter of an Indian immigrant. But today he can.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: So we move from malice to hypocrisy. That's progress.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: That is progress. Listen, hypocrisy is progress. It is. Because
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: it means that you feel guilty enough to either lie
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: to yourself or others.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: And that is better than not even being able to
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: even thinking about the idea that maybe you're doing something wrong. Yeah. Yeah,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: my mother, you know, she used to always say, oh,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I think guilt's a highly underrated emotion. And yeah, if
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I tell you to do something, you mentioned earlier, the
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: rule of parenting, if I tell you to do something
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: and you know it's wrong and you hide it and
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: then you kind of try to do it anyway, well,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: at least I know I've planted the seed.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: You've set the standard.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: And that's part of what part of the reason why
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I don't deem Reconstruction this complete failure. And somebody like
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: an Eric Foner, a great historian who resuscitated and re-evaluated
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: this story that Reconstruction had been an utter failure. One
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: of the important points he makes is all these seeds
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: are planted and not all of them grow. Some of
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: them are dormant for a very long time, for decades.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: But both you and I and our kids have benefited
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: from the fruits of trees that were planted during Reconstruction.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: You were saying earlier that the Civil War doesn't end
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: right in 1865. There continues to be resistance in the South.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: One of the best examples of something that was never
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: taught in school were the black coats. And I always
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: used to assign this when I was teaching constitutional law,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I would actually, you can read them. They're still available
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: and you can see these laws that were passed by
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the Confederate States after having been defeated. And they were
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: give you a sense of the degree to which, um,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: the entire possibility for freed slaves to live, survive, have
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: a trade work was just completely blocked, right? So they,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: they would essentially say, um, if you want to practice
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: a trade, you know, you have to pay a $ 10 tax.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: If you, um, They would have vagrancy laws in them
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: where they said, if you don't have a job and
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: you're just hanging out listlessly, then the state has the
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: right to put you to work on a field because
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: you can't be a vagrant. Black folks can't practice a trade.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: They can't enter into contracts. Obviously, you can't serve as
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: a witness and you certainly can't serve on a jury.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: So what happens is that the ability of these so-called
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: freed people to function in any way, to not be
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: entirely vulnerable to the old system is completely blocked. And
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: the reason I guess that's important is just you were
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: asking earlier about how does things like the Compromise of
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: 1877 happened. We so underestimate, I think, look, I'm not
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: a materialist. I think ideas other than money and commerce matter.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: But the degree to which the economic underpinnings of the
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: entire Southern economy had been based on slave labor and
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the desperation with which elites, even post-war are thinking, if
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: we don't get that back, then the source of all
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: of our wealth, economic power status will be undermined. Um,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: that I think is something that oftentimes doesn't get talked
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: about enough. So that was one thing I wanted to say.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And then the other thing I touched on, but I
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: just want to emphasize, um, One of the things I
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: love when you read about Reconstruction is these narratives about
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: teachers starting schools and how much Black folks understood literacy
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: and education as integrally tied to freedom. That if I
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: can read, if I can write, if if I can
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: do my arithmetic, that unlocks for me freedom and power
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: in ways that can't be taken away from me. And
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the project of starting public schools, and you see these,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: we were talking about all these black members of Congress
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: and state legislatures, the degree to which They thought our
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: number one project here is let's start a bunch of
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: schools to make sure that our people have a chance
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: to learn how to read and write.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: It's the one thing that the white majority couldn't constrain.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Learning.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Can't block that.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: We can lock this in our heads. And they understood that. that. And,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it becomes HBCUs. But it also influences generally
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: this notion that then carries over to the broader society
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: of public education, that citizenship, equality— power, all of that
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: is tied to our ability to, to understand and, and, and,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: and communicate and, and analyze, uh, the societies that we're in. That,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: that's what gives us agency and that's what gives us power.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: And I, and I think that that's so important from
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: my perspective, both to understand, um, How much common sense
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: these folks had coming out of subjugation? They were paying attention.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: They had good instincts about what it was that they
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: should be striving for, what would make those words on
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: paper real. That was powerful. And what it also reminds
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: me is, today, the degree to which not just the
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: black community, but Americans generally will devalue education, the degree
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: to which you start getting an anti-intellectualism in our culture
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: and our politics, why that is contrary to citizenship and
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: equality and power. And, and, and, you know, you want
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: young people to understand there's a reason why folks who
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: had just been freed, they wanted land so they could,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: you know, grow their own crops and feed themselves. They
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: also wanted to be able to read. And so, you know,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: that's something that now is available to all of us. Yeah.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: We should try it.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Part of the Reconstruction Project is to populate politics with
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: black people.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: And when 100 some odd years later, you're the only
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: black person in the Senate when you first elected.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in 2004. 2004. And I'm still there. At that point,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: I was the only African-American out of 100 senators. Yeah.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: In 2004. Yeah, so. It gives you a sense of
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: how these issues that you talk about during Reconstruction, they
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: don't entirely get resolved, even by the modern civil rights movement,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Now, part of the Senate has to do
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: with the inherent weirdness of our Senate system, right? Where
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: Wyoming gets two senators and California gets two senators. That
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: it's not apportioned based on population, right? But having said that,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: it's still pretty striking that I was... one African American.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: There were two Latinos in the U.S. Senate in 2005
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: when I was sworn in, 2006.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Did you have the sense that it was, that your
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: election would make it easier for others to follow or
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: that this was a kind of, that you were a token?
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: That my election to the U.S. Senate, I thought that
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: it would be significant because Illinois is probably the most
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: representative of the country demographically. It sort of matches America's
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: overall racial makeup and even regional makeup. It's urban, suburban, rural,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: north and south. Southern Illinois is closer to Kentucky than
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: it is to Chicago. And so culturally are different. And
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: so I thought that by me having been elected to
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: the U.S. Senate from a big state that wasn't, that
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: had the same percentage of black folks as the country
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: in general, at least sent a signal to other countries
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: candidates who might be thinking about running in other states,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: that they could pull it off. And in fact, that's
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: what happened. We started getting more African-Americans in the U.S. Senate.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that it wouldn't have happened anyway. If
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: it hadn't been me, it would have been somebody. But
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: I think it's signaled to the political system to... Donors
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: and political operatives. Oh, just because if we have a
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: talented black person, it turns out maybe they can win statewide.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: We don't have to assume that they can't win statewide
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: or that they're a risky candidate.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: You know, we were talking, Edward Brooke from Massachusetts is
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: the first post-Reconstruction, but he is a false start in
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: a certain sense. He does not, you know, he's in
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: the 70s.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: And then nothing happens for.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: For a long time.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: For a long time. Yeah. All right.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Look, the truth is that the idea of not only
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: African Americans representing, having representation in Congress, but the idea
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: that African Americans could represent everybody, that takes a long time.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: That first step, which is the step that Reconstruction was about,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: was simply to say, can at least we be represented
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: by some of our own? And you get this huge
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: surge of Black members of Congress and state legislatures and
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: county commissions, et cetera. But that was always based on
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: this notion that we deserve to be, have a voice.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: One of our own.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It takes a bigger leap to then say, by
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: the way, I could actually represent white people too. And
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: I could represent Latinos. And I have enough empathy and
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: understanding and we have enough common concern. And, and, interests
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and aspirations that they can trust me to look out
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: for their interests also. That requires a whole nother set
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: of social changes that we don't end up seeing until
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the modern civil rights movement and the breakdown of Jim Crow.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: It's funny because no one ever had, on the white side,
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: ever had any trouble with the notion that a white
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: person could represent everybody. The last thing you want to
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: give up Is this idea that someone can speak for everyone, right?
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: It's a last bastion of privilege.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Correct. Because now what you're really saying is that my story,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: my vision, my capacities are universal in some way. They're
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: not qualified. There's no asterisk to them. Um, and then
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: that takes some time, right? I mean, that, that requires
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: social changes. Um, it requires Jackie Robinson and it requires
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Sidney Poitier and it requires Jesse Owens and it requires
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: John Bradley, John, exactly.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: My favorite.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But the, you know, and, and it requires, um,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: you know, Jesse Jackson and, and, uh, it, it, John Lewis.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: And so you get this over time a change in
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: social attitudes. And part of what I think we learn
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: from Reconstruction, the cautionary part of that is not assuming
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: all that stuff is permanent and that the battle is
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: won at any given moment, right? It is an ongoing,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: constant contest between their that are deeply rooted, and some
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: of which are not unique to America, right? The idea
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: of caste, hierarchy, pecking order, status, that is not unique
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: to America. Race is the dimension or the phenomenon around
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: which our whole caste thinking gravitates. But it's not. That's
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: something that was in the apple that Adam and Eve ate, right?
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: That's part of our original sentence is this idea of
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: we're separate. We're better. And But I think if we're
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: mindful of the fact that we have these warring ideas
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: inside of us in our cultures, in our politics, then
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: we can choose a better story.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: That moment when you were elected to the Senate, maybe
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: that's the moment that Frederick Douglass is like, I'm finally happy.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, but then, you know, the fact that I,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: it was, I was in the minority and I couldn't
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: get any bills through the Senate because the filibuster, then
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: you'd have to have a whole conversation about how this
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: mechanism called the filibuster, which was primarily used for, uh, defeating, uh,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: civil rights legislation and anti-legit, lynching, uh, lynching legislation and,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: and was the, uh, The mechanism whereby Southern Democrats, Dixiecrats
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: were able to keep Jim Crow in place, how that
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: became this honored, venerable tradition in the Senate that blocks
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: all kinds of progressive legislation.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: There's got to be a point. Poor Frederick is dead.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: over 200 years old at this point. He just wants
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: to get on with his life.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: He wants to go eat his applesauce.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he wants to. So maybe that's the moment he
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: was like, okay, all right, all right. I'll take it.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: I'll take it.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.