00:00:00.740 - 00:00:10.620

Okay. This is June the 11th, Shawnee 18. This is Rebecca Johnson, Melvin, and John Caldwell.

00:00:10.620 - 00:00:18.710

And we are here today with Philip Brunelleschi and we are talking about 1968. We are in the One Button Studio

00:00:18.710 - 00:00:29.610

in Morris library at Newark, delaware. So Philip, thanks for participating in this project and wonder if you could give us some background and tell

00:00:29.610 - 00:00:44.570

us what you were doing in 1968, bit of context of where you came from and you were doing well. What brought me to 1968,

00:00:44.570 - 00:01:00.830

as I would tell my students when I taught a course on the 1960s was the 1950s. I came from a Navy family. I was a Navy brat.

00:01:00.830 - 00:01:08.380

And so my father was a war baby, was born in 1944, and my father had been shot down in the early months of the war.

00:01:08.380 - 00:01:15.680

He was a distinguished pilot, war hero and test pilot. Spent many years at home during the war and then went

00:01:15.680 - 00:01:26.120

back to do rescue operations. Towards the end, his name was see Jay Belsky, commander CJ, but I'll see you when he retired at 62.

00:01:26.120 - 00:01:35.800

My mother was Ruth Elizabeth. Had the Du Bois been how ski Hadley being her adopted families name?

00:01:35.800 - 00:01:45.380

Du Bois being her birth mother's name. She's adopted. I've been asked. And they move her husband, the young cellular she had back

00:01:45.380 - 00:01:56.720

in the early 30s, California. So as a Navy brat and that meant I traveled around a great deal. And so I guess

00:01:56.720 - 00:02:05.210

what it gave me a predilection for seeing the world as there's no normal. There's no, This is the way everything is

00:02:05.210 - 00:02:10.490

your little town where everybody knows exactly how everything is. Although I went to a lot of places where that's

00:02:10.490 - 00:02:18.670

how people felt it. But for me, it's like I realized that every place was shaped by its own culture and

00:02:18.670 - 00:02:33.140

history and every place is different. One of the places I stayed was in 60 58. I went to segregated school in Memphis, Tennessee.

00:02:33.140 - 00:02:44.510

And I remember, I remember I was a bit appalled by the overt racism in that, you know, all white school. But at the same time, I enjoyed

00:02:44.510 - 00:02:56.060

a privileged existence of an officer's son and joined DLA, which is an organization sponsored by the Masons

00:02:56.060 - 00:03:13.220

roughly pattern on their rituals. Then finally, I recall in the early 606-96-0601, seeing these images of

00:03:13.220 - 00:03:24.220

the civil rights struggles happening on television. And comparing that with my experience of what I observed in Tennessee,

00:03:24.220 - 00:03:33.170

was somewhat drawn to it. The same time I was still, in a lot of ways, very conventional kid. I was patriotic or even a little

00:03:33.170 - 00:03:39.620

pious side at one point I wanted to be a priest. And then 17, I decided, well, maybe that wouldn't

00:03:39.620 - 00:03:49.150

work because they think I'm an atheist. So yeah, I didn't think I didn't go into good time, much better life this way, I think.

00:03:49.150 - 00:03:57.620

And so in 62, my father retired from the Navy. We came here, I entered the University of Delaware.

00:03:57.620 - 00:04:10.800

But my Constitution and my circumstances were always that good. I was a little bit of a oversensitive kid, little precocious, a little neurotic.

00:04:10.800 - 00:04:20.510

My family was falling apart. My parents got divorced about a year after we showed up here. So thanks again, brilliant,

00:04:20.510 - 00:04:31.420

stable and I spent several years really in depression and just kinda not totally normal, I suppose, which was normal for me, I guess.

00:04:31.420 - 00:04:42.510

Lifts and type in Philadelphia. I was even homeless for a short while. But it's just like was unsettled. They came back here.

00:04:42.510 - 00:04:51.260

And when I came back here, every everything had really opened up. No, I had had some experiences with civil rights people like medicine,

00:04:51.260 - 00:04:58.730

civil rights people through the Phoenix community. Reverend Bob Andrews was running the United Campus

00:04:58.730 - 00:05:10.190

Ministry at the time. He used to go to his international affairs for I was influenced certainly by that. But when he when he came back.

00:05:10.190 - 00:05:19.370

After my, you know, so during the Philadelphia SDS had just established itself and the war was

00:05:19.370 - 00:05:28.490

becoming a big topic of discussion. And the only thing I knew about the war, the time, my first impression of

00:05:28.490 - 00:05:39.260

the store ward was when I was hitchhiking in 1963 or four. And this guy picked me up and he said he'd been in Vietnam fighting.

00:05:39.260 - 00:05:49.670

He'd been on a killer caught. And he told me how they interrogated Viet Cong. They would have a couple of good

00:05:49.670 - 00:05:58.560

common the helicopter tied up and they would ask one more question. He would tumor and they throw him out the window.

00:05:58.560 - 00:06:09.050

And the other one would start talking. So it was like, oh, well, you know, how do I take this? I'm not sure the full import.

00:06:09.050 - 00:06:18.770

I mean, he told us so naturally sank in at the time. And then around roughly the same time, I got a job to my brother,

00:06:18.770 - 00:06:27.920

my brother Jim, but ascii at the bud company over there on Chapel Street. Where are they made of various kind of

00:06:27.920 - 00:06:38.540

polymerized material is press materials. One of the things mean we made was these, we made these to all these tubes and you would

00:06:38.540 - 00:06:48.580

just wrap this fabric. Residence is kind of a resin saturated fabric around this tube is hot tube.

00:06:48.580 - 00:06:54.650

And then you put it in an oven and you bake it, and then you take another device where you pulled it,

00:06:54.650 - 00:07:02.750

the mandrel, the bar out of the tube. We have a two and I did that was the first was the first assembly line

00:07:02.750 - 00:07:11.580

kind of work I've ever done. And I remember thinking, this is really awful, this is really, really, really boring.

00:07:12.850 - 00:07:21.600

Since I went to work or Chrysler. Later. He was too boring and you learn to find ways to occupy.

00:07:21.600 - 00:07:29.300

But what one of these tubes were making, they had a nickname for it. They call them bumper stickers. And I just thought

00:07:29.300 - 00:07:39.260

that's an interesting nickname. And then one guy told me, Well, this is what they do is they fill them full of napalm and they

00:07:39.260 - 00:07:48.100

put blasting caps in each end. And they wrap them together in packs of 100. And then they drop them over villages, Vietnam.

00:07:48.100 - 00:07:58.790

But I missed them. It still, it was all seemed kind of abstract. It really is amazing the way you can kind of accept those things

00:07:58.790 - 00:08:09.830

without really making a moral assessment. So back to 67, 68 we're getting into when I came, when I came back to New York and I

00:08:09.830 - 00:08:20.420

start some of my friends I knew before some new friends and that Hoover part of SDS. I got to know them. And I remember first

00:08:20.420 - 00:08:28.160

being a little disturbed because I said it was kinda like patriotic. I haven't really dealt with this. And then listening some of these peaches

00:08:28.160 - 00:08:40.940

and sometimes sitting around smoking grass alone with some of these folks. Yeah, I'll begin to lie there and my dad and think like cheese,

00:08:40.940 - 00:08:46.880

you know, it's true. This is really messed up and then, you know, as it began to read it and you know,

00:08:46.880 - 00:08:58.800

Vietnam right here and these other things, reading about hundreds of thousands of people dying about this mass of bombing. And just like, Oh, no,

00:08:58.800 - 00:09:05.260

no longer can I really just think in terms of the, you know, those colder, Cold War Ethic I had

00:09:05.260 - 00:09:12.000

before at the United States was actually capable of something like this. At the same time, you know, you're looking at,

00:09:12.000 - 00:09:22.760

I'm looking at the civil rights struggles, dog, and seeing the profound injustice there and their connections at the same time,

00:09:22.760 - 00:09:35.180

I must admit there was also an environment of freedom, of adventure, of exploration, of things new. And this is really exciting for me.

00:09:35.180 - 00:09:48.290

It was fun. So let's sell more and more. I get deeper involved. Now I was never a liter of

00:09:48.290 - 00:09:55.760

SDS. Not in any way. It's a matter of fact, I wasn't even a student at the time, but they let me join and they

00:09:55.760 - 00:10:03.740

start to change their constitution. So if I get joy, I said Sharon Lim join or other non students who eventually joined to it.

00:10:03.740 - 00:10:22.550

But it also I wanted to be close to the university community and intellectual ferment their writing poetry. So remember about some

00:10:22.550 - 00:10:33.340

of the things that happened in the sixties. Well, I could talk a little bit about some of the leaders of the SDS at a time.

00:10:33.340 - 00:10:45.870

First, I was raised CC, Raymond CC, who was a little older than some of us. Older than us, but he had been in the Navy.

00:10:46.540 - 00:10:57.980

He had been on a board a ship that pulled into a harbor in Japan. And he knew that on this ship were nuclear weapons.

00:10:57.980 - 00:11:05.900

And this was a violation of our treaty with Japan not to be carrying nuclear weapons into Japanese territorial waters

00:11:05.900 - 00:11:13.580

or Japanese territory. And according to him, this is one of the things that really radicalized him.

00:11:13.580 - 00:11:24.080

He was very working class Catholic Italian family. But he was very, very smart. I mean, I've heard it

00:11:24.080 - 00:11:31.440

described as the one that everybody hated because he never studied and got straight A's, but still had a tough street added to it.

00:11:31.440 - 00:11:41.850

Pretty volatile, temporary to get really angry over these political issues. But again, it's very skillful or utter, very knowledgeable.

00:11:41.850 - 00:11:51.040

He ran for president in the Student Government as what they call the SGA, the Student Government Association elections.

00:11:51.040 - 00:11:59.030

They put together a ticket called the Susan power, take it, or I guess that was their slogan, student-student power.

00:11:59.030 - 00:12:05.860

I think I just read in one of my, one of my students papers that it was actually a split, both of them on the conservative side.

00:12:05.860 - 00:12:15.890

And he had a slate of SDS members were elected. And I think Steve, SAS, some others, I didn't know well,

00:12:15.890 - 00:12:27.510

but they got elected. And of course, this was really disturbing than jumping ahead just a little. I don't want to give away somebody

00:12:27.510 - 00:12:37.590

who doesn't need it, but I dated somebody whose father was on the board of trustees. And this person came from

00:12:37.590 - 00:12:47.450

a very distinguished Delaware family. Northeast had married into it. And actually over to one person, wrote it. He was in those days you had

00:12:47.450 - 00:12:53.390

some people who didn't have college degree on boards. On the board, you know about free opposite, we're all bonds or

00:12:53.390 - 00:13:02.690

related to them and somehow, but I get invited. She's before I go out with you again, my parents wanted me to

00:13:02.690 - 00:13:08.690

say we go out to their place. If it's just to me, it looked like Versailles. It was like it was shot TO copy.

00:13:08.690 - 00:13:18.170

It was very, very big place up there in Greenville. And at the dinner table, her father started to talk about

00:13:18.170 - 00:13:24.080

SDS and raise CEC. And he starts putting up this cotton boll story about Ray CC having been to

00:13:24.080 - 00:13:35.640

Cuba where he was indoctrinated, became a communist and then came to Delaware to organize the communist revolution.

00:13:35.640 - 00:13:50.780

Ironically now re CC did become a communist. He eventually join the worker ruling party. He along with his wife, Sharon, knee black insurance CC,

00:13:50.780 - 00:13:58.220

and then they divorced at a friendly divorced con radically divorced, might say. They eventually moved to Baltimore

00:13:58.220 - 00:14:07.880

where he died 0101213 years ago. Cancer. She continues to be a leader or the Workers Party in organized down there.

00:14:07.880 - 00:14:23.450

She'd been ran for city council. And so the workers, the workers World Party is very far left Trotskyite faction that split off from

00:14:23.450 - 00:14:38.690

the Socialist Workers Party that had a small presence in SDS that I'll talk about momentarily. So racy, see, yeah.

00:14:38.690 - 00:14:50.600

That's one thing to talk about all of these guys. The other one was dave Barnes, bonds, but also a little overlap, wasn't he?

00:14:50.600 - 00:14:59.780

He he, there was also his brother John Barnes, but Dave Barnes was really smart. Just a brilliant guy.

00:14:59.780 - 00:15:07.290

He eventually became an attorney to dark brain cancer. This is a brain cancer cluster, cluster, you know, here $1.

00:15:08.230 - 00:15:16.400

But he was just this brilliant guy. He and Jim Thomas, who was the founder of either adoptable voice,

00:15:16.400 - 00:15:26.480

wrote these articles by the University of Delaware Board of Trustees and just all these really brilliant article. So he was kind of like the mind.

00:15:26.480 - 00:15:39.290

So you've got the spleen and hidden racist. The mind and Dave winds. Terrific. I, and then for the heart, it was George Wallace who,

00:15:39.290 - 00:15:49.380

you know, is this very hand. I'd say, beautiful man, charismatic, real small binder. When he would speak, everybody

00:15:49.380 - 00:15:57.510

really caught up in the spirit. And the SDS had a certain kind of intellectual Elysium about it.

00:15:57.510 - 00:16:06.560

You know, people like to argue and talk politics and all this stuff from literature and movies and all this that I'd say that ray,

00:16:06.560 - 00:16:14.990

as I said, he was had more working class. You'd like to talk about sports. John was like, you know, today, excuse me, Dave, ours

00:16:14.990 - 00:16:26.920

was more of the intellectual type, although very well, very grounded, know, airy fairy thinking for him. And we'll kind George Waldstein

00:16:26.920 - 00:16:34.930

was really all hard. He was not, even though it's very bright and he can write very well.

00:16:34.930 - 00:16:43.760

Wasn't, he didn't indulge in this kind of intellectual, speculative stuff. He was talking about people and their experiences.

00:16:43.760 - 00:16:56.930

And he could really make you feel sympathy and solidarity with people in Vietnam, people in the civil rights.

00:16:56.930 - 00:17:01.370

And he would paint these very interesting pictures he had experienced in the civil rights movement in the South and things.

00:17:01.370 - 00:17:13.170

So he certainly made you maybe want to belong. And so he was very skillful. He missed the heart.

00:17:13.180 - 00:17:26.950

His father was an attorney, Jewish, his mother was Hawaiian. And so he had a culturally he had mixture routes.

00:17:26.950 - 00:17:36.800

If I say that definitely lead to a lot of us have been pretty heavy fights. Dad is it was difficult for him.

00:17:36.800 - 00:17:49.240

I knows his father got flack from his colleagues at work about George. So those are three guys. Another guy is, I've mentioned moment,

00:17:49.240 - 00:18:01.500

a moment ago was a gym Tom Morello, who founded the heterodox school voice, which operated for about a couple of years. Mostly SDS members, but not solely.

00:18:01.500 - 00:18:09.260

It was printed in the basement of the the United Campus Ministry of Defense Phoenix Center, which was over at 20 Orchard Road

00:18:09.260 - 00:18:18.120

in those days, again, led by Reverend Andrews who gave us some protection, support, a lot of flack for it.

00:18:21.520 - 00:18:31.880

And this this newspaper was really very good. I mean, you've got the archives here in the university, in microfilms and other places.

00:18:31.880 - 00:18:38.720

And I know that and the writing is really good. It's one of the best of the underground and alternative

00:18:38.720 - 00:18:50.690

papers that were around him. I certainly used to read a lot of them. And you had everything from arts criticism, movie reviews,

00:18:50.690 - 00:19:09.130

political analysis, investigative journalism, especially about written by people like Tom, a rally and end date Barnes. You had yeah.

00:19:09.130 - 00:19:19.310

So anybody that went on for a while after awhile, Tom rally, a little burnout on he and date recorded L took took over day was

00:19:19.310 - 00:19:28.940

a graduate student, marathon runner. Now he's run almost 200 marathons. He's older than I am. I don't know how he does it, but he's

00:19:28.940 - 00:19:42.740

about 66, very thin, thin. But he was a brilliant guy. And I guess towards the end of the era, Towards the end of the sixties era

00:19:42.740 - 00:19:53.090

and all this happened so fast. We're talking about late 16, 69 nanobots. Weatherman organization started. George ended up joining with

00:19:53.090 - 00:20:05.610

them. As he writes. It was, people were so frustrated with the horror of the Vietnam War and the inability to

00:20:05.610 - 00:20:21.170

end it that they, they, they got drawn into far-left sectarianism. I mean, that's my interpretation I made.

00:20:21.170 - 00:20:36.710

It's unfair because part part of the power of SDS was they would. We were also so dedicated to try to overcome racism and imperialism

00:20:36.710 - 00:20:48.950

and white skin privilege that it began to feed on itself. They'd have these criticisms, self-criticism sessions go on for

00:20:48.950 - 00:21:00.810

days where people would just look for deeper and deeper ways. And it was kind of a confessional process. It was a lot of social pressure.

00:21:00.810 - 00:21:08.570

And it would just kinda accelerate a movement that have kind of isolated from what's really going on in the world,

00:21:08.570 - 00:21:16.970

from everybody else until you decide you've gotta do something really serious about this war. Otherwise, you're just living

00:21:16.970 - 00:21:26.240

off your white skin privilege. So most of the violence they did, was it actually against other left wingers? They went bust up meetings and

00:21:26.240 - 00:21:37.910

you guys are all a bunch of blue flowers. Hello, pain in the asymptotes. But I'm, I'm absorbing all of this and I'm trying to be

00:21:37.910 - 00:21:47.160

sympathetic and seeing all this continent or part of an organic process. But I had no interest in that night. By that time I got really heavily going.

00:21:47.160 - 00:22:00.180

I was married to him announcing child. So this is going into like 69 were all dancing around 68 years. On the other hand,

00:22:00.180 - 00:22:09.620

some of the folks who were sort of around the heterodox bull voice, race, CC, and Corker deal. They they they moved

00:22:09.620 - 00:22:19.070

left and somewhat different direction. I'm a corporate veil, never joined the workers World Party, but the other ones eventually did about they,

00:22:19.070 - 00:22:30.410

they were also trying to be revolutionary, but these were people with intellectual and elite, elite privilege. Lot of people who ran SDS

00:22:30.410 - 00:22:37.550

actually came from wealthy families. Some of the people blew themselves up in New York. They have money when they ran up

00:22:37.550 - 00:22:48.650

brownstone in New York City. On stuff. Yeah. So so you had these folks sort of going off into other directions.

00:22:48.650 - 00:22:59.330

Meanwhile, also people get married at practical sense towards the, these lists also contributed and, and of course by then

00:22:59.330 - 00:23:10.970

the university had banned SDS. World dancing around what happened in 196-08-7608. So let's see.

00:23:10.970 - 00:23:18.650

I might have my I know I have my times mixed up. So right at the heyday of SDS thing, they got some power or they got

00:23:18.650 - 00:23:28.010

elected to the student government. They were, they had done a lot of work in civil rights. They demonstrated against

00:23:28.010 - 00:23:42.620

the the Country Club because they had neighbors In this exactly kind of picking up on activities that had

00:23:42.620 - 00:23:50.900

happened before earlier when Reverend Andrews and his group had been members of the UAW. By the way, are URL Henderson,

00:23:50.900 - 00:23:59.540

who had been the president of the UAW, worked with Bob Andrews and they started agitating around the Deer Park, which was segregated at the time.

00:23:59.540 - 00:24:08.390

He had a lot of lot of restaurants, wouldn't serve black students here. And so they broke that up, but this is going back to 61, 62, 62%.

00:24:08.390 - 00:24:21.740

Okay. So back to 68. As a new Georgia success in breaking up the in loco parentis philosophy

00:24:21.740 - 00:24:30.930

here at the University of Delaware, which was just an awful system. Every, everything from dress codes to special codes for women.

00:24:30.930 - 00:24:41.120

And they were particularly restricted and their curfews were enforced with these with these courts that ended up really pitting

00:24:41.120 - 00:24:52.360

women against each other. And it was extremely painful circumstances. One woman I knew a very good friend of mine, her name was Patrice.

00:24:52.360 - 00:24:59.270

And she, her, her picture is actually in that heterodox school, had paradoxical voice where they talk about her and they had some

00:24:59.270 - 00:25:08.510

of her poetry there. But she had really been put through the grinder in by these women's courts and

00:25:08.510 - 00:25:14.660

things because you didn't you just use your punishments would, would, would escalate and become a more and more

00:25:14.660 - 00:25:23.690

restrictive and more and more impossible to apply with, you know, so she was under all this pressure. I wouldn't blame these courts and all

00:25:23.690 - 00:25:31.910

this specifically for what happened to her eventually, when she was she adds, you know, emotional fragility

00:25:31.910 - 00:25:49.010

and she visually committed suicide. Somebody else somewhere. Maybe early old trees. That stands out to me as

00:25:49.010 - 00:25:57.470

a particularly egregious example of the kind of awful thing. And so that was a real need for this student writes thing,

00:25:57.470 - 00:26:11.030

even though it's all about middle-class kids going to college. And the SDS turned to Razi ROTC, which was compulsory at that time.

00:26:11.030 - 00:26:22.130

Everybody had to take. So no, I was not going to school there. I had had a year-and-a-half or rhonchi. Actually they had two years of

00:26:22.130 - 00:26:35.090

Nazi but failed my last semester. Enters in Ruby. He had me, I had all these demerits backed up for whatever I

00:26:35.090 - 00:26:42.680

did because I just wasn't a good soldier. I guess. They had me do all the work off by

00:26:42.680 - 00:26:48.110

demerits via be clean all these rifles. This after I'd taken my tests and everything like that and then I find out I failed anyway.

00:26:48.110 - 00:26:57.620

So that was pretty dirty. So then when I went back to college, I wondered, after Razi was unlimited,

00:26:57.620 - 00:27:07.160

I wondered if my 40s take another semester abroad, see, but no, no. So serratia was a bone of contention,

00:27:07.160 - 00:27:17.620

especially around the war. I remember. There were a number of sympathetic could ask because everybody was a codec.

00:27:17.620 - 00:27:30.510

So we have certainly had numbers of STS who were involved in Roxy and in back in 67 we are sick late 67, 68 early.

00:27:30.790 - 00:27:44.150

There was a we decided to have a funeral for the class of 68. So we spent the night of drinking ripple or something and

00:27:44.150 - 00:27:54.530

building a coffin and painting. It was hollow on the bottom and all this and we we marched between classes. Classes tend to be almost

00:27:54.530 - 00:28:02.240

on the hour in those days. I recall maybe I'm wrong about this. So we would mark a little green there, the wall and have

00:28:02.240 - 00:28:12.250

our summit ceremony right in front of Holly and Hall. And I I think at like 12, everybody is marching up for the noon drill.

00:28:12.250 - 00:28:23.090

All the rod C cadets, everybody in uniform as marching up watching this ceremony. And they're up there having

00:28:23.090 - 00:28:30.800

the Razi drills, grinding their molars, thinking about all of these colonies who have an American flag inside,

00:28:30.800 - 00:28:38.830

you hear that you've got an American flag and saying, well, there's nothing inside. It wasn't even a bottom. With some sort of a secret ceremony,

00:28:38.830 - 00:28:47.420

denigrate the American flag. We just had a funeral for the plastics. The eight we're all going to get drafted, remind them they're gonna

00:28:47.420 - 00:29:00.800

be heading for Vietnam. So when the cadets come back a number, i'm, I'm really, really angry. And we're holding our little ceremony

00:29:00.800 - 00:29:11.550

and a number would come over and they grabbed the cough. Well, symbolism of this was terrific. Tug of war over black coffin.

00:29:11.560 - 00:29:23.360

Remember this one cadet who was in there? I got it these days I got and then he can sit back. And Rob wrestler who is

00:29:23.360 - 00:29:36.920

the one of the instigators of SDS. He was a professor and he was the sponsored faculty advisor. Rather, he comes out

00:29:36.920 - 00:29:45.020

there and then one of the deans is out there and they're having this big argument because they want us to stop and breast are saying no.

00:29:45.020 - 00:29:49.280

And universities placed with this supposed to be like in the tension and it's electric permanent Gilbert,

00:29:49.280 - 00:29:59.610

this guy, he's not buying it. But we decided we'd certainly made our point. Perhaps it was time to give up, not give up. We'd make our point.

00:29:59.610 - 00:30:06.590

And it's time to go celebrate our victory. We'd really made a big impression when you start things off. I guess. I mean,

00:30:06.590 - 00:30:11.420

that was always kind of an objective to really get things moving to raise the temperature a little bit,

00:30:11.420 - 00:30:19.430

whether that was really the best tactic, I don t know, but we certainly often felt that that, you know what,

00:30:19.430 - 00:30:26.810

the temperature went up a little bit. Then we've done our job. We want it to be a narrowed pinned in this whole policy

00:30:26.810 - 00:30:38.070

of federalism and racism and mandatory ROTC. Yeah, you mentioned both Ray CC, and George Wolfe kind being effective speakers? Yes.

00:30:38.070 - 00:30:45.530

Can you describe some occasions where they were speaking more? Is it on the green or did you mean where did they have

00:30:45.530 - 00:30:57.210

a chance to be heard? I heard various times that I've made georgia still. He's come back to

00:30:57.210 - 00:31:04.020

Delaware and he's a friend of mine where we hang out from time to time. So I still hear his voice and feel his magnetism.

00:31:04.020 - 00:31:15.870

He's changed his focus in life considerably. Again, quoting from that time, but I remember I have an image of George at a university

00:31:15.870 - 00:31:34.050

building one time where he just speaking from the audience. And I look at the look on his face is one of, of strong empathy.

00:31:34.050 - 00:31:46.680

I mean, you could see he's feeling and empathy of the pain for the victims of racism and this genocidal war in Southeast Asia.

00:31:48.220 - 00:31:58.760

So as we talk about these issues, let me sometimes it can be funny to me, is very engaged. Just remember that was part of what

00:31:58.760 - 00:32:08.640

would draw him in his head. He had a kind of a very smooth mellow voice. I mean, actually has a kind of Hawaiian boys. He sings beautifully. He says center.

00:32:09.520 - 00:32:22.590

So you just sonorous. And it was just very, as I said, I'm very empathetic speaker. So that was, that was contagious.

00:32:23.260 - 00:32:43.350

Ray had a more raspy or rasp your voice. And he would, he would, he would really kind of challenge people.

00:32:43.720 - 00:32:53.000

Experience which you are putting up with, you know, what they're doing to you. So he would be talking more about rabble rousing people rapidly,

00:32:53.000 - 00:33:09.470

fanning the flames of discontents. Photos speak right, rounding my students. I remember him this was during the student student rights struggle.

00:33:09.470 - 00:33:19.040

But of course, in the meetings, there were, there were weekly meetings have STS rate and what is now

00:33:19.040 - 00:33:42.620

called the Perkins Students Center. Perkins was a time and that's where I heard, you know, barns and brother John, SAS Johnson, racy seen George Wolfe coin,

00:33:42.620 - 00:33:53.270

always hear them debating these various issues. And I guess some of the discussions got a little heated because

00:33:53.270 - 00:34:07.040

they're re re re would get really red faced and heated, you know. And I know that in the aftermath of all this, there are some hard feelings for me.

00:34:07.040 - 00:34:16.490

I didn't have to have those hard. I'm sorry. I was not that invested in dispute, so I'm just going to complain when ideas, I guess the blue in

00:34:16.490 - 00:34:32.720

your book and you have lots of photographs of students were frequently crowds like that on campus. Oh, well, okay. Rosie.

00:34:32.720 - 00:34:43.460

Okay. I'm trying to say got Palfrey other crowds. Well, you know, trying to think if I remember

00:34:43.460 - 00:34:55.550

crowds before the big rod seasoning. I'm not sure I remember crowds. I remember meetings where you had a good turnout in

00:34:55.550 - 00:35:03.050

ray would go to dormitories and speak to people. So he was a very active president. He would use his position to go

00:35:03.050 - 00:35:08.840

into dormitories and speak to people there. So he's oftentimes I mean, you know, most people in the dorm would be down there to

00:35:08.840 - 00:35:18.260

hear the president of SGA speak. And so he, you know, he's very effective that way. So it'd be talking right to their needs.

00:35:18.260 - 00:35:25.530

And so when you get back to what happened with the rotting thing, what happened was they decided to have a big,

00:35:25.530 - 00:35:36.700

big day to challenge Roxy and they work hoping to organize and big walk off. The rotting cadets would walk off and they thought it'd be a mass walk.

00:35:36.700 - 00:35:47.390

It turned out to be not so mass, but actually to have 26 cadets break ranks, walk away. That is really big. That is really big.

00:35:47.390 - 00:35:59.540

I guess it wasn't quite big enough, so, but there was a big crowd of people watching this. And so some people, a small handful,

00:35:59.540 - 00:36:08.630

I think just a handful, maybe less than a dozen decided to walk onto the field might have that wrong. It's probably a picture. Walked onto

00:36:08.630 - 00:36:16.950

the field In the sense running disrupt everything, but that was a disruption to come onto the field.

00:36:16.950 - 00:36:25.310

Then the disciplines started coming down. And then there were a couple of petitions were no problems. One of these, I am

00:36:25.310 - 00:36:41.180

Spartacus kinds of petitions, i2 walked on and they all got suspended until I might I might have some of these details wrong,

00:36:41.180 - 00:36:47.000

but it seemed like den, like lots and lots of people got involved. There was a big demonstration. You could see a picture where

00:36:47.000 - 00:36:55.100

there's hundreds of students come marching on Huntington Hall. I know at one point and I can't remember if it

00:36:55.100 - 00:37:05.840

was around the rod seat issue later, but I know there was an occupation and remember of it as kind of guess I

00:37:05.840 - 00:37:16.990

went in there something but I was kinda sitting it out and then there was a fast and remember my girlfriend at the time, she was pissed at you for not being involved?

00:37:16.990 - 00:37:27.100

She was right. But some of these details mixed up, but yeah, there was a big, There was a big march about that.

00:37:27.100 - 00:37:38.570

A lot more people started signing on faculty people started signing on, and then they started. And I heard told

00:37:38.570 - 00:37:45.180

us told me this and like I said, I sort of forgot it that Robert Andrew has had a big list of them all.

00:37:45.310 - 00:37:56.780

And I guess George thought it would have been much better. We really forced the issue by presenting this to the administration.

00:37:56.780 - 00:38:04.550

But the administration basically, you had relented on a number of the firings, but on the suspensions and expulsions and all of that

00:38:04.550 - 00:38:16.190

except for maybe one or two cases and whereby somebody who ended up being banned from campus and revenues apparently destroyed that.

00:38:16.190 - 00:38:30.200

If you're feeling I knowing Bob Andrews, I suspect he felt he was protecting more people from the wrath of retaliation by the administration

00:38:30.200 - 00:38:37.110

because he certainly felt that Ras and retaliation laws. Eventually they, they they've managed to work together with

00:38:37.110 - 00:38:44.900

local press portrayed and get him practically diffract just months before his rich. What do you remember about

00:38:44.900 - 00:39:05.100

April of 18 68 and Martin Luther King, class nation. Okay. I was not married yet.

00:39:07.390 - 00:39:16.550

But I was working at the state hospital. You know, it was a statistical park or something. We wouldn't do some data

00:39:16.550 - 00:39:35.090

crunching over there for some research and they were doing collaborations with Jefferson hospital. Was living in an apartment over browse,

00:39:35.090 - 00:39:46.090

which is no color indicates the browns part of supply. Some apartments above there. So I was living there with some folks.

00:39:46.090 - 00:40:01.850

And, you know, we got the news that he had Martin Luther King had been we knew that things were going to heat up.

00:40:01.850 - 00:40:13.490

Things started to heat up over that day. The next few days. In Wilmington, some of us in SDS, under the auspices of

00:40:13.490 - 00:40:26.150

a number of church groups, went into Wilmington with the past to set up a to assist a volunteer at Reference Center at one of

00:40:26.150 - 00:40:34.910

the churches where we had cots and things like that just in case people need a place to go because house got burnt out or something? No.

00:40:34.910 - 00:40:42.170

I think in the end, not much happened at night and things were going on in town and so we just spent that one night,

00:40:42.170 - 00:40:50.550

they're assisting that way, but there was a total lockdown all over the city number of unit when we came into town

00:40:50.550 - 00:41:01.380

in a van or a car or wherever it was, a couple of cars, you know, we went through a checkpoint. Apparently they had what we needed to get in.

00:41:04.200 - 00:41:13.910

There was a lock-down in the whole state. So I couldn't go anywhere. I know I took the day I I, I joined the national strike

00:41:13.910 - 00:41:29.660

in the day off, the next day. Didn't go into work. It was just you couldn't go in Wilmington. You could even for a couple days,

00:41:29.660 - 00:41:41.270

you couldn't get into anything anywhere in North. But then the the the guard came in, National Guard was called

00:41:41.270 - 00:41:58.710

in by Governor Terry. I certainly knew something about him and just call it a southern gentlemen. And they stayed for months.

00:41:58.710 - 00:42:10.100

The longest occupation the country. Certainly they could have gone down after a few days, things were settled down, but, you know,

00:42:10.100 - 00:42:17.570

he wanted to control everything there. So this is pretty devastating to the community. Was it in the right by some members

00:42:17.570 - 00:42:26.990

of STDs, you know, especially the ray CAC sort of been, you know, I grew up Dave, that was involved in

00:42:26.990 - 00:42:35.060

an array and it's involved in his own wife, Sharon. They were involved. They actually went into they were in Wilmington a name.

00:42:35.060 - 00:42:43.970

They had a demonstration and Rodney square root, which wasn't permitted. But that gave them a lot of credibility in the community because

00:42:43.970 - 00:42:52.410

they were insisting that people have or should have an opportunity to exercise their constitutional rights. This was during the occupation.

00:42:52.410 - 00:43:01.520

Of course, as you well know, Leo tally and a few others went into Wilmington and took all the supplies with a

00:43:01.520 - 00:43:12.770

great, great historical record. I think even beyond just comedies. First Name, crazy guy, really great photographer if

00:43:12.770 - 00:43:25.070

it weren't for these journal. That's part of your collection. I know. But Leo, Tammy took a lot of those pictures.

00:43:25.070 - 00:43:32.810

But I wasn't going to narrative that, you know, it was just like This is still going on, going on and going on.

00:43:32.810 - 00:43:40.400

I know my friend, Stephen Leech. I got to know him. He came back from Vietnam around that time and he,

00:43:40.400 - 00:43:48.120

you know, he comes home and this was like, Holy shit, it's his city is occupied by the military. You know.

00:43:48.120 - 00:43:59.460

He was one of those people. Stephen late, you came back really angry over what he had observed in Vietnam.

00:43:59.460 - 00:44:06.490

Cold waters and port and all that conservative guy when he just saw all this, that's completely changed his mind

00:44:06.490 - 00:44:19.040

about the American project over there as it did for many people. So late 68, 69, where things are getting really,

00:44:19.040 - 00:44:26.480

really radical. A lot of the g i's are coming back and they're very radical. They're really angry.

00:44:26.480 - 00:44:42.660

And they're looking for revolution. You know, there's this story There's heard later and narrative later about,

00:44:42.660 - 00:44:48.950

you know, GIs coming back and being treated really badly by the anti-war movement. I have no doubt some people would

00:44:48.950 - 00:44:55.370

do some things like that. But that was really pretty aware of what was much more common as people looking at

00:44:55.370 - 00:45:07.100

these guys is damaged goods. You know. They, you know, they had been whether they came back with

00:45:07.100 - 00:45:15.260

an anti-war attitude or not, and certainly only suspect of minority, but came back from that easily. But a substantial minority.

00:45:15.260 - 00:45:24.050

They were looked on, as, you know. People weren't ready to deal with their special needs. I mean, later on when I became

00:45:24.050 - 00:45:31.910

a union rep in Christ, I had a lot of Vietnam vets that I represented it and sometimes they had difficulties.

00:45:31.910 - 00:45:37.670

They have PTSD and working on an assembly line is a very difficult thing to do. And I didn't get

00:45:37.670 - 00:45:49.640

much sympathy for management about that. So this is what a lot of soldiers from. But that's not the narrative that's been that's been magnified.

00:45:49.640 - 00:46:00.700

But certainly the ones I was meeting, admittedly, I'm dealing with a selective cord there. They were really angry about the war.

00:46:00.700 - 00:46:09.660

Really serious business about we got to stop at, this is hold his peace and love and stop. That's not gonna fly.

00:46:09.660 - 00:46:23.060

You're going to have to really fight hard. So they come back. My friends see it comes back when he sees see occupy.

00:46:23.060 - 00:46:30.250

That rail. Really affected them probably as much as the war. You remember.

00:46:30.250 - 00:46:42.860

The SDS meetings, people talking about Martin Luther King? Well, even though I've talked about a lot of the unit root

00:46:42.860 - 00:46:49.890

far left wing stuff, or SDS, was basically kind of like a social democratic kind of even somewhat Libertarian organization.

00:46:49.890 - 00:47:02.390

A lot of pacifists involved were Quakers, other people, conscientious objectors. The Governor Peterson son, was a member of SDS and

00:47:02.390 - 00:47:12.350

he was a conscientious objector. I forget his name. Not very nice guy. You know, you had

00:47:12.350 - 00:47:23.990

these people, people who were very principled, very courageous. I suppose the majority of the people in SDS were that philosophy.

00:47:23.990 - 00:47:30.860

They weren't, they weren't real, real ethological. We were new left. We were going to not make the mistakes the Old Left make before you,

00:47:30.860 - 00:47:42.250

even though some people eventually gravitated to. Kennedy was assassinated in the summer and tomorrow.

00:47:42.250 - 00:48:00.860

Oh well, 68 was a year where a lot of off things happened. It was one thing after another, that it was like things were fracturing.

00:48:00.860 - 00:48:12.230

You get these constant, you know, jumping back and forth between we're going to, we're all by herself in this,

00:48:12.230 - 00:48:16.490

we're going to have to throw our own bodies against the machine to like, Oh, well, there's somebody who's got to save it as

00:48:16.490 - 00:48:27.990

a Gene McCarthy era governor or a body Kennedy. And so the country at large was, was right for someone who would,

00:48:27.990 - 00:48:36.650

with a better visual. I'm not sure they were ready to accept the vision of SDS. Back matters exhaust.

00:48:36.650 - 00:48:44.140

Mostly it's a bunch of kind of what while privileged college students and there was a lot of truth to that and who,

00:48:44.140 - 00:48:59.160

who being irresponsible and just appreciate in enough of the privileges of being in college and that being American. But still, the country was

00:48:59.160 - 00:49:13.520

immensely unpopular war and the country was looking for some unifying envision that would resolve the Terrible instance

00:49:13.520 - 00:49:18.860

in the country and really put us on a better course. And I think people always interested in that. And I think people feel very,

00:49:18.860 - 00:49:28.930

very far from that right now. And I don't think people these days, especially my comrades on the left, you might say.

00:49:28.930 - 00:49:41.560

The current lab, focus enough on trying to put a vision for old people. Just how bad those people. But going back to 68.

00:49:41.560 - 00:49:49.130

So you had Kennedy killed somebody else who remain? Yes. Margaret Cain killed somebody

00:49:49.130 - 00:49:58.400

else who might unify the people. Bobby Kennedy. And of course then you had the Democratic Convention.

00:49:58.400 - 00:50:10.200

But I did go to so although actually I went there to visit a friend of mine, his name, it'll come to me in a moment.

00:50:12.520 - 00:50:21.390

Another friend of mine, and I went up there to Chicago where he was studying harmonica. Jim McCarthy. Jim McCarthy.

00:50:21.390 - 00:50:32.270

He was studying harmonica with your wealth. Great Chicago blues master. And Jim McCarthy was not a very radical guy and I don't

00:50:32.270 - 00:50:40.340

think it was ever a member of the SDS, but he used to write some music reviews of paradoxical voice. He wanted to, he

00:50:40.340 - 00:50:49.440

wanted to make money and stuff like that. He was not that interested in radical stuff, but he got sort of pulled into, hung around with this smoke weed.

00:50:49.440 - 00:51:02.510

Let us know that we're very talented musician. Will go visit now. We drove Chicago and other radio.

00:51:02.510 - 00:51:14.280

It's the Beatles Singing Revolution. On one side, this was a single, right? So on one side it's Revolution. And the other side It's hate you.

00:51:14.280 - 00:51:21.740

And that was the theme driving up to Chicago. Listen those two things. I mean, that's your payments. I really remember.

00:51:21.740 - 00:51:33.300

So we get to Chicago, we connect up with Jim McCarthy and we go to see him performing this club.

00:51:33.300 - 00:51:41.080

And this club is about as wide as this really warm. And so the only places to sit right in front of the speakers,

00:51:41.080 - 00:51:50.510

which are these enormous speakers in Chicago, Blues is very loud. I really could have Christ or damaged my ears,

00:51:50.510 - 00:51:55.610

but that certainly damaged my ears. It was huge. I think the only thing louder ever used to play as

00:51:55.610 - 00:52:06.590

a kid next to the fire Sirens, where we stand next to them. Vibrated. So that was fun to see

00:52:06.590 - 00:52:14.840

Junior, but I'll see him. And so I thought, well, I'm gonna go in town and see what's happening.

00:52:14.840 - 00:52:22.000

Because I know all this stuff and I knew a lot of my SDS polymers. We're going we're gonna be there. They were going in an organized way.

00:52:22.000 - 00:52:39.620

I was not really sagging. So a couple of images here, 33 images and they gave me three. Okay. First one time I'm sitting in there and

00:52:39.620 - 00:52:46.450

there's this crowded guys sitting around and there's some guy sitting in the middle of nice talking. And he's talking on bullshit.

00:52:46.450 - 00:52:55.440

He's saying like, yeah, I'm going to come back here and I've got some guns, guns and all this stuff. And people, nobody is willing to say, Hey,

00:52:55.440 - 00:53:01.030

you're full of shit, you know, although nobody's coming back that night to meet with him and get all of these guns.

00:53:01.030 - 00:53:09.430

It was like more I thought how is this like, oh man, this is stupid. I mean, the atmosphere of Mars mostly, you know, hippies,

00:53:09.430 - 00:53:23.770

antibodies actually was organized by the yet piece, right? Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman and paul Krasner, ozone,

00:53:23.770 - 00:53:37.990

realists and others. That was bad image. Another thing is my friends, we went to this thing called the

00:53:37.990 - 00:53:49.370

LPGA and birthday party. This place is packed. There's this band playing the biggest trap set,

00:53:49.370 - 00:53:55.910

trap kit I've ever seen. This band is called the Holocaust no dance band. And these guys are playing really

00:53:55.910 - 00:54:03.800

loudly Hard Rock Me. Jesus replaces rocky. And all of these freaks in there. Meanwhile, all these guys

00:54:03.800 - 00:54:11.860

from the progressive layer party, which is a MELAS organization where their crew cuts, selling. This magazine which was called

00:54:11.860 - 00:54:19.510

challenge or dislike deal with the Spanish. And so they're all saying, well, I challenged it's available or Revolutionary communist newspaper.

00:54:19.510 - 00:54:26.210

Well, I challenge this appeal, a revolutionary communist newspaper. Meanwhile, all these freaks, everybody have paper, stone and everything.

00:54:26.210 - 00:54:37.310

And Dave Dellinger gets up there and he was this pacifists going back to the days of World War two. Real really important person

00:54:37.310 - 00:54:43.470

big organize her baby or movement in those days. Thank You. Know, Dan span and very high-pitched voice.

00:54:43.470 - 00:54:52.760

That was really funny. And they had Zhongshan, a, William Burroughs getting up there, the orange and a gets up there and

00:54:52.760 - 00:55:03.380

he says here now he's looking, he does his dreaming of the day when he can see Chicago in ruins, burned to the ground.

00:55:03.380 - 00:55:12.070

And I was Okay, that's cool. Great. William Burroughs up there condemning the cops were beating up everybody and

00:55:12.070 - 00:55:21.590

acting like fascists and stuff like that. Paul Krasner who bid up there and he said, Well, I just left. Hugh Hefner at the mansion. Yeah.

00:55:21.590 - 00:55:29.450

No. And we're all we're all lie on LSD and managed for you after is the embodiment of the American

00:55:29.450 - 00:55:42.730

capitalistic successful? Yeah, That was just to show. And then I think paul Krasner gift up there who was the editor of the,

00:55:42.730 - 00:55:54.500

the real is this anarchistic Magazine. And he says, you know, he tells the story about LBJ. And I'm not sure if it's true or not,

00:55:54.500 - 00:56:06.500

but it's quite possible from other things I've read about LBJ. Lbj made this speech about, you know, he's not there or

00:56:06.500 - 00:56:15.940

maybe I said something in the White House somewhere that he wasn't going to allow, you know, was it

00:56:15.940 - 00:56:23.060

wasn't gonna allow the United States to be defeated by some yellow on budget with a knife. He wasn't allowed some yellow measured with

00:56:23.060 - 00:56:32.090

a knife to say, Fuck you LBJ. Memory. So of course he says, Okay everybody, we're all going to wish that we j

00:56:32.090 - 00:56:46.170

a birthday and we're going to log in to yell, fuck you, elevate like cup around the last night's Tony's. So then another precedent.

00:56:46.360 - 00:57:01.640

That was kind of an amazing event. Another experience was I'll Ginsberg. I'd seen it once in a delicate tests and sitting there enough sandwich,

00:57:01.640 - 00:57:08.960

I didn't bother him. But in the park. And we're going to Lincoln Park and he's it's getting towards dusk.

00:57:08.960 - 00:57:16.570

And he's sitting there with a harmonious and he's doing, oh, and all these people are sitting around them.

00:57:16.570 - 00:57:26.160

Way off the other enzymes, all these blue helmeted cops. And you can just see from a distance, it's all guy.

00:57:26.710 - 00:57:33.770

So every all these hippies and Debbie's and yeah, because they're all going to live together. If you're going to piece out when

00:57:33.770 - 00:57:43.800

these Chicago cops come down, tear up. So now that Ginsburg, he's there and he does this.

00:57:44.320 - 00:57:56.870

He doesn't like escape. In slob. He's got his Harmonia me and all. All goes all the way up the scale.

00:57:56.870 - 00:58:05.240

Then it comes all the way back down. And he adds up, picks up his chair, moves over 10 ft. Everybody moves over with them.

00:58:05.240 - 00:58:14.630

He sits again. He's heading towards this tree. All. And finally, he managed to get

00:58:14.630 - 00:58:28.130

a few people out of the park. So I don't know. I guess. And I almost feel like I came back to that same type

00:58:28.130 - 00:58:39.420

of testing or something. And it's dark. Granted only because I forgot. I look across there and all hell broke loose.

00:58:39.420 - 00:58:49.190

I'm stating them. And, you know, people who are all running out and these cops have got people in there just beating the living shit out.

00:58:49.190 - 00:58:58.970

And there's these two cops who've got this report are underground. And one of them is beating his camera. The other one is beating

00:58:58.970 - 00:59:09.270

the report. Sudden there's this. I go running past me. It's almost knocked me down. Run across the street.

00:59:09.820 - 00:59:18.530

Wow. And you can just see that cops eyeballs flipped like a slot machine and goes right out cold and that guy

00:59:18.530 - 00:59:25.510

just disappeared into the night. And all I could do is, is, you know, something about the fascist cops that die alone.

00:59:25.510 - 00:59:40.430

This guy took action. So I also saw Dick Gregory. There was in the streets there after all this violence

00:59:40.430 - 00:59:49.220

that happened near closer to where the Convention Center was. As close as you can get. Lot of people making speeches.

00:59:49.220 - 00:59:57.210

But remember Dick, good grade getting, getting up there with a bull horn, standing on top of the Boston place, giving a speech.

00:59:57.210 - 01:00:04.520

By then everybody is feeling kind of bruised and worried and outrage. And all this is starting to show on television and we're

01:00:04.520 - 01:00:10.200

aware that stuff is going on with the convention. Sometimes you get a chance to catch a little TV.

01:00:10.960 - 01:00:20.770

I forgot who was like sat there, condemned the cops, right? To write to the mayor's face. Mayor Daley.

01:00:20.770 - 01:00:32.600

Who plays, aren't there too? Create disorder. They're there to preserve disorder. He said Mr. Love that people love daily.

01:00:32.600 - 01:00:42.510

But anyway, he was the mayor and he was this was his show. And we were we were really ruining it for him.

01:00:43.180 - 01:00:56.810

So yeah, I had this one friend, his name, but anyway, some people got got beat up, you know, bleeding, got

01:00:56.810 - 01:01:07.240

pretty bad day roost at all that I guess I eventually, you know, my friend we packed up, came back home, but that was that was quite an experience.

01:01:07.240 - 01:01:17.210

68. Yeah. So 1968. It'll start a fear route. Yeah.

01:01:17.210 - 01:01:22.880

So how long have we been not belong I've been talking this has been over an hour. Yeah. Well, no. I mean, how long has it

01:01:22.880 - 01:01:28.670

been talking without being recorded? Oh, no, it's the recording. Oh, it's still recording. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah.

01:01:28.670 - 01:01:36.500

Well, I mean, I guess, you know, those those are things that kind of impressed me, I guess. Yeah.

01:01:36.500 - 01:01:46.670

Anything else you want to I think if we do, we want to talk in another okay. Okay. All right. Thank you for today. Hey, my pleasure. I once I

01:01:46.670 - 01:01:49.200

got warmed up, I was like That was fun.