Jay Siegel

SPEAKER_2: Okay, we are live. Let's do this. I am Brooke Brian. I am a faculty member at Antioch college and I'm here today in this virtual video interview platform with J. Siegel who is here to talk about his life and times at Antioch and especially his activism and experience with acre which was known as the Antioch committee for racial equality during his time at Antioch. So Jay, thank you so much for being here and being part of The Antioch archives looking to document the social action of Antioquia pne's can you please go ahead and say your full name and where you live and what years you were at Antioch?

SPEAKER_1: Sure. My name is Jay Siegel. I was born in LA Los Angeles in 1941 and my dad came this close to giving me a very cool name is original. Idea was just to use the letter J. Which I think would been so cool. But the nurse bugged him 00:01:00and said no, you can't have a letter J. So he spelled it out. It was so I would so close to having a very cool first name, but I still like Jay my parents divorced right after I was born in la la they had just recently come from New York City and they had brought my grandmother out. Lake because she was ill and the doctors told her to go to a warm climate and so I actually was raised by my grandmother for the first four or five years of my life my biological mother had moved to San Francisco and then when I was around four or five or so I went to live with her and that was very difficult informative. That was San Francisco just before the end of the war. And my biological mother was in the Communist 00:02:00party and that she then married a second time and her second husband was in The Merchant Marine and he was also in the Communist party. So that was a very volatile time. I can remember party meetings at our house. I was taken there was a general strike in San Francisco after the war I believe and I remember being in the parade. On that general strike and my biological mother then worked for a socialist Union newspaper and I used to play around the typesetting machines in the rolls of paper. So and my dad at that time lived in San Jose, which is about 50 miles south of San Francisco, and he was not a member of the party but he was 00:03:00he was extremely liberal and activist and he was part of the group that organized the teachers union in San Jose and his subject was electronics and because of his activism, he was fired and actually then open the first one of the first TV stores in San Jose. So there was a period of time when actually were very wealthy for a few years then he decided to go to Graduate school, he went to Stanford and he actually became within six year. He got his PhD in 18 months and Social Psychology and within seven years. He was a research professor in Psychology at Stanford. So even though I started out in a working-class environment, which actually I think if there's any nice part of my personality that comes from that time of being in the working-class environment as I became 00:04:00a teenager, we had moved into the middle class upper middle class environment. So I had a very sort of red diaper baby background, but at that time in the 40s and early 50s, you couldn't be public about it. That was the McCarthy year. So actually that was something that I learned not to talk about. In school or other things because I knew the result. I knew it would not be good. So it was a very strange thing to be living a set of values that you couldn't really talk about in your school. And that's probably one of the things that got me to A dia in 00:05:001957. My father was a fellow at the center for advanced study and Behavioral Sciences. Has at Stanford and the president of Antioch at the time, which was Gould I think Samuel Gould he came to the center to give a talk about education and my parents were very impressed. And there was a political scientist Hinds you law who taught at Antioch and he was also at the setter for that year. He went on to become president of the American political. so and he talked to my parents and they realized that that might be a very interesting school for me to go to so they talked to me about it my dad really wanted me to go to Stanford but which I was accepted to but Stanford was very much a gentleman see school 00:06:00and I wasn't particularly interested and when I visited Antioch in the spring of 1959 when I had to make my Asian I sort of knew instantly what I got on campus first we miss the canvas we were driving from Pennsylvania my parents taught at Penn State and we got to Yellow Springs that are car roared right through and when we went out the other side where you going hey where was the college we missed it and you know at that time there was just one little sign that said you know I had a college at the street where it met 68 so my first minute there I knew that this was a place I wanted to go and I had become interested in re interested in being active that year that we were in California I went to the Palo Alto High School for a year and in 1957 there you stood you did Civil 00:07:00Defense drills where the school the sirens go would go off and you would go home the idea is that you would practice getting home if there was a nuclear attack and it was so was it a civil defense part of the civil defense drill and of course California my group all went to the beach for a party we didn't go home we drove out to the beach for a typical California beach party and Joan Baez was in that school that year her father was a visiting professor in physics at Stanford and we rode the bus together since we both lived on campus It said I had a real crush on Joan Baez. And when I got the next day when I got back when we went back to school, I discovered that she had refused to leave the school and essentially did a sit-in puts it down protest against civil defense and I realized wow I believed in that and if I had done that if I had sat down I would have been with Joan Baez and sort of it gave me sort of an extra motivation. To get back into into being active and when I went to Antioch, I saw all the students that were like me again 59 there was still the Beat Generation. It was 00:08:00sort of the end of the beach iteration and most of the students were dressed in black and they were all being very cool. And so I figured okay, this is definitely where I want to go and when you do a little tour every college does a little tour for the kids who are interested in the That was leading. My little group said notice that this pathway cuts across the lawn. She said a lot of places they put the path the cement where they want people to walk but it had a shock what we do is we wait and we see where people are going to walk and then we put the pathway in the cement in so I said cool. So I started Antioch in the 00:09:00fall. I think September or maybe even early a October in 1959 and in my first year at Antioch, I grew a beard in support of Fidel Castro because the Cuban Revolution had just occurred in that period and also in my first Co-op job, then there were two divs do they and div B because you had half the roughly half the campus off work. And half the students on campus anak was about eighteen hundred students at that time, which was very full and I was on a div where my first six months were on campus than my I went to a four-month job. And then I was going to come back in the summer for the summer term. Then the campus went all year round because you went off and worked came. Back to campus. So there was no 00:10:00summer vacation in that sense. It was all either workers study. And when I so I went to New York City is my Co-op job because I wanted to I had read care wax on the road and the beach generation. So, of course, I wanted to go to New York City to go down to the village and participate in sort of stuff, but there was a ban the bomb rally while I was in New York City. And I went to that I tried very hard to get arrested because the point was to get arrested and fill up the Jail's that was very early on and part of the protesting and so I went my karma was never to be arrested. I always try so in that demonstration the paddy wagons would pull up and I would rush over but then the Paddy Wagon was full and we go away and then I'd look over there. And you know 50 yards away was another paddywagon I rush over to that Paddy Wagon to get arrested and it was full and pull away. So that was my first sort of active demonstrations

SPEAKER_2: with your first Co-op. This is when you're in New York City on your first

SPEAKER_1: in my first Co-op. Yeah, and I think I took a sick day or I didn't go to work that day and that again was a civil defense drill, New York City. Going to do their sirens and everybody was supposed to go to the designated shelters for like a half an hour or so and then a group assembled in the City Hall Park to refuse to take shelter which was a violation of the law and a sense because the law requires you to take shelters. So we were unlawful assembly violating the civil defense. So

SPEAKER_2: back me up just a little So you you arrive in the fall of 1959 to strike and block you had graduated high school in Palo Alto.

SPEAKER_1: No, actually I only went for one year in Palo Alto. I grew up in the 00:12:00Bay Area but my my dad married a fellow graduate student at Stanford and hit those days. She was a child psychiatrist psychologist. And in those days they have the you know, what is it? You couldn't hire people in the same family so they couldn't get a job. A job in a psychology department anywhere and but Penn State Child Development was in the College of Education and social psychology psychology was in Humanities and Sciences so they could each get a job at Penn State because they weren't in the same department. So my eighth grade, I went to Pennsylvania Penn State state college, but in 57 58 My dad was at the center for 00:13:00advanced study. So I did that my 11th grade in Palo Alto returned to Pennsylvania for my 12th grade and went to a detox from Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_2: Your father was pretty renowned in his own. Right? What was his name? And what was his area of research? His

SPEAKER_1: name is Sydney Siegel. His area was social psychology statistics, but actually it's Stanford. He done a lot of work on utility theory. He had developed ways of measuring utility and he and an economist at Penn State did the first experimental study of Economics. They tested various bilateral and bargaining fear. He's the Monopoly and bilateral bargaining. They actually tested the theories out that study one that the trip the American Association of 00:14:00advancement of science prize for the best experiment to the year when he was it in 1961. My mother was a fellow in child development. She was a fellow at the center for advanced study and my dad yet met a young economics. Professor Vernon Smith and talk to him about his behavioral Economics work and that got Vernon Smith interested in that field and Vernon Smith got was one of the group that got the Nobel prize in economics and he sent me his speech and in his speech. He said one of the people that should be here is Sydney Siegel the founders one of the founders of behavioural science. So that was a feel that he really Here unfortunately two weeks after meeting Vernon Smith. He died of a massive stroke at the age of 45 in 1961. So he was on this really fantastic Arc of a career which really had a very dramatic impact on economics, but unfortunately died young and so, you know that never had never happened in that so both my parents. 00:15:00Were really very known academics and when we haven't when my wife and I talked about white privilege, you know, I emphasize my working-class background and she keeps pointing out. No, I had all this white privilege which I did because when it came time to go to graduate school, I was accepted at MIT and Stanford but a big chunk of that was because of the privilege I have of having to renowned academics as parents.

SPEAKER_2: I would love to come back to that idea. Definitely definitely a lot of things you take in implicit lie around around your world and your 00:16:00understanding of higher ed and how it works that you certainly don't have if you're a first gen student or someone from a different background. So that's an interesting idea when you

SPEAKER_1: know, it's at fact in 1963, my mom stayed out at Stanford. So I arranged for a co-op what I love. I mean, it's still True. I'm sure of that. But in my time what I loved about it is you could do anything you want by a petition. In fact, we used to we figured out you could actually graduate from Antioch to have only gone to six classes because you could do independent study coops, but you had to go to your first sort of three classes in your last three classes before graduation. But as part of that I petitioned I arranged for my own. Co-op six-month called at Stanford where I was the research assistant to Ken Arrow who went on to get a Nobel prize in economics. And then the I was a 00:17:00research assistant on blocking out his name of another Economist who also solo Robert solow and he went on and got a Nobel prize in economics and of course with those two without work experience. I got accepted and graduate. All at Stanford and MIT so, you know, that's a sort of a that was clearly White Privilege. I could do that because of my parents and my

SPEAKER_2: oh, yeah, I would like to back up and stretch out this discussion around coops, but would you say that in your era many students were going on to preeminent graduate programs. Was there some antiochian privilege there as well?

SPEAKER_1: Oh, no question. Darwin Susie is great name. I love it. He was a couple years ahead of me. He went on to study on chemistry at Stanford. He had 00:18:00good co-op jobs and chemistry came to went to Stanford under guy was a Nobel Prize winner. Then he was able to be a fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Germany the Steve Barr. Who was very active in in acre and it's wife Barnett on blocking on her name at the minute. They both went to University of Chicago. He got a PhD in cultural anthropology and did his fieldwork in India. She got a PhD in political science, and she was on track. She was Chancellor of the University of Washington and st. Louis she was chance. Slur that, and then she was president of the University of Texas and instituted the fundraising. She's black. She was black. She died young. She was on track probably be to the first woman and African American woman to be president of but ivy league college, so 00:19:00she was on a very strong career path. And of course Steve Gould went to Antioch. So at the time Antioch, Was a source of a lot of Science and also art the filmmaker. Of course you had Serling Rod Serling then you have the filmmaker. 00:20:00I'm very important documentary filmmaker who lived in Marin and he actually had its own studio in the 60s and Lucas and visited his studio and got really interested in it. Art of computer stuff. So an Act was that there was there was a lot of and all of those people who were white not all from privileged parents background, but Aniak at that time and I think with the work study program contributed to that because it gave I was surreal experience connected with the academic that was unique and Then other colleges so it in many ways. It was a time where the program I think integrated very well and also academics was just beginning to grow so like they had at that time. They had five math professors 00:21:00all of which had their phds and one was publishing papers in game theory in math journals. I was taught economics by John Fay. Who then went on to Yale hides you law and political science went on to Stanford and being an important political science Professor EV Wilson who I took sociology went on to the University of North Carolina. So it was a source of of activity for both faculty and students at the time. Which is an interesting interesting aspect

SPEAKER_2: it is so you essentially you came to the orientation and you kind of knew that this place was for you. So when you arrived you did six months of study and then you did a four-month co-op and that first call is the prophet took you to New York City where you have this first kind of demonstration experience and then your second Co-op. Maybe we could just run through them briefly and then we'll try to talk campus. Audience and how you first came to learn about acre. But let's let's kind of hash out your coops first so we can get me timeline. Okay?

SPEAKER_1: We're not that year. I was in high school and Palo Alto was the year of a Sputnik and that generated a special science seminar in California and you test it in and I tested in and that seminar had Stanford professors come and talk and then in so I had a polio who was about the petition talked but George McCarthy who founded the She founded the computer science department at Stanford came and gave a talk about computers. It's talked about the language and software and computers and how they worked and then that summer I was an intern 00:23:00on the linear accelerator the Stanford linear accelerator, which was really good because I worked for a professor and we I was interested in physics. And so I thought oh man, I'm going to physics is going to be great then I Eli's the professor I worked for who I thought was brilliant. Was it the third team of researchers there and at the seminars I realized holy shit. This is really a hard subject. And so I realized man the chances of mice really succeeding and physics are going to be not so great. So that really I turned to the social sciences then so that was really a very important experience. Then I wanted on my second Co-op job. I wanted to be at Penn State. So I'm walking down the street at Penn State and I look and I see the Penn State Computer Center. And so 00:24:00I walk in and I say you should I say you should hire me as a programmer because I know what a bit and the bite is and they kind of looked at me and said who is this guy? But then they said, you know, he does know would have been in the bite is so they hired me. Me as a programmer. So for three months essentially they taught me program it and I don't think I ever really did anything that meaningful but at that time they knew they needed more programmers. That was the time where ran Corporation set up a program to train women to be programmers to 00:25:00fund the radar defense systems because the radar defense systems was Driven by computers and they realize they didn't have enough programmers. So ran trained a whole bunch of women to go off and become a computer program. So Penn State train me to be a computer program programmer. And of course now that I had actually worked at a computer center. My third job was the NYU Medical Center's computer center to do programming and I learned Fortran there. And I actually did real programming. They're programmed. I wrote a statistical program for a medical Professor that was interested in certain. It's very specific sort of statistical tests. And that was a real job. It was it was you know, it was 9 to 5 in the upper Bronx. I lived in Midtown Manhattan, and it was a great job. I got paid pretty well. Suppose

SPEAKER_2: you probably finest about two years of school under your belt. You probably were a junior at the time of year. Third.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, that's right. And then I had gotten married the hand. She 00:26:00graduated ahead of me. So in art so she got a job teaching in the art department for year. And so we were going to so I stayed I think in my Fourth year, I think I stayed on campus and I got a job at the Yellow Springs instrument company. My first major was in mathematics and I was that's what I did for the Yellow Springs. It was working on mathematical formulas solving certain formulas for the instruments that they were doing for calibrating instruments. And that was really nice. I really like working. They

SPEAKER_2: focus on water quality back then Yellow Springs instruments. You know, I don't remember

SPEAKER_1: what the instruments I remember working on formulas to help calibrate 00:27:00them, but I actually don't remember what they were for and Antioch had like 40 own 40% or some of Yellow Springs instrument company and a few years ago when it was bought. I think it brought seven to ten million dollars at 20 million dollars into a detox endowment. So that was great, but it was still sort

SPEAKER_2: of incubated by the Le Jour had it grown out into its own full. It

SPEAKER_1: was founded by thinking Antioch student after graduate school. So it was founded by an a/d hokey. And I think and then he would they would have jobs there. I mean they were sometimes I think my job was a make-work job. They were in that sense. They were supporting the college but I liked it. It was it was very nice and then my last Last two jobs were the six months of my senior year that I was out in Stanford. In fact, that's where I was when Kennedy was 00:28:00assassinated because Stanford and I think I was at Stanford on the march of Washington. I'm not sure there. I know I didn't go but I think that's because I was out in California. So the coop might Co-op stance was really important. The stint in New York was my first participation in a demonstration, but also I was Very involved in arts I went to a lot of theater Productions. I saw a very important production of la mama on the called the connection. I went at my high school friend was in a trying to be an artist. And so I went to a lot of openings and I think I went to the famous flag painting opening there. I 00:29:00remember I I was going to go I'm blocking on the sculptures name but there's a sculpture who built moving sculptures it always collapse, they destroyed themselves and he was going to have a he was going to have an event at the Museum of Modern Art and I went there and they say I said, okay I'm here for this event and they said it costs $25 which was a lot of money then and I said no no. No, this is a happening. You need me. I'm Part of it. I'm actually part of the event. I don't pay and we argued and I refuse to pay $25. So I never saw that

SPEAKER_2: I think that I

SPEAKER_1: used to go go down and I used to love it like to go down to Union Square and then that time all the political people were arguing and Union Square. So I used to love to go down. So that time in New York was was both 00:30:00politically really interesting artistically really interesting. I mean it was I had an apartment on 23rd Street between 9th and 10th. And if you ever walked the high line now when you get to 23rd Street, you can actually see the building I lived in and that was just down from the Chelsea Hotel and we knew about the Chelsea Hotel, but I was again more political than sort of druggie. And so I never went into the Chelsea Hotel, which I regret as I went by it all the time so that that Co-op job. But New York was was really important to me on sort of creating who I am. I mean then and I think now one of the objectives in Antioch was the full realization of who you are and really being able to develop all those aspects so that job in New York City really important. Was very important to me. And of course then the computers is affected my whole rest of my life 00:31:00because all of my professional activity the corner that has been computers that's been sort of the foundation graduate school. I didn't have I was always a research assistant because everybody wanted me to be their computer run so I did that and in fact as a Student this is the 60s the Vietnam War. It was mainframe computers than and you ran everything as a deck of cards and their the control language IBM had a control language and control language says, you know, this is a program in the name of the program. It's going to use this tape. It's going to do it. Does it puts all the control language organizes all the resources, but then you have to execute The program and usually I was doing this running their data out of Statistics program. So my wife sort of gets me for this being not cool, but I think it was cool. The last statement in the control language was an execution State you sort of executed your program. So I call the program Johnson. So the people would have to type in a card execute Johnson now now 00:32:00Being not on idle time but immediately so I you know, I use my computer to have a little bit of fun and I made good money as a graduate student many ways. That was the peak of my standard of living for maybe 20 years as a graduate student. So the coop was was very fundamental.

SPEAKER_2: You definitely have lived through such an interesting period of Antioch history and Co-op the Antioch experience with Co-op. Specifically just through you right into the the early days of computation through you into hot spots geographically where people were, you know, definitely, you know in periods of great Innovation. This is really interesting and I think still what we imagine Co-op can do today. So let's talk a little bit about curricula and campus experience. I'd like to get just kind of a sense of the lay of the land that campus and what some of the Sort of what were some of the conversations 00:33:00like on campus? I know it's always interesting at Antioch because different divisions of people are coming and going no matter what decade you attended Antioch. There's a certain amount of transients. That's common to the Antioch experience. But what do you remember about just Campus Life? What do you remember about? What was important? You know chi chi faculty or keep discourses that seemed to sort of surround students and How you negotiate at the Antioch experience and maybe kind of leaning towards Community governance. I think that that's still, you know, the curricula the community governance in the coop are still imagined as part of this tripod of what makes the Antioch experience. So what was campus life like for you?

SPEAKER_1: Campus life was actually very very nice. I liked it very very much. I 00:34:00lived in Rookery. I think North Hall. I can't remember with your back to main building. It would be the dorm. That's to your left. So I don't know if that's North or South. I always I forget now and Rookery was the was the fourth floor of that and it was a very cohesive group of kids. We really really formed. Very cohesive unit. We used to stay up all night are talking about politics. It's so ironic. We were convinced that the Democrats would rule. This was 59. It was leading into the the election. We all were convinced that Kenny was going to win and it's so ironic because we have these long all night discussions about Democrats controlling and what kind of progressive relation you can have and it 00:35:00was very social to and I really like the social there was a nice element of egalitarian male and female egalitarian not as much as there is now but relative to the rest of society. It was too much more egalitarian. There are no sororities no fraternities. Div dance was fun. But you know, there was no feeling that you if you didn't go you'd be left out or you'd be second-class as sexual the sexual Revolution hadn't occurred then but Antioch was a very sexually liberal place, which was nice. So it's a nice combination. I think as I reflect back on both being sexually liberal. But being egalitarian, even though 00:36:00you had met male dorms and female doors the rule then which we all got a kick out of the rule then was you had to leave you could have opposite sex in the room, whatever it is that same sex, but you had to leave the door 6 inches open. So the door had to remain 6 inches open and the honor code said you had to keep one foot on the floor. So what that That was great. We had a wonderful time thinking of all the positions you can have keeping one foot on the floor. So, you know, it was and that sense. It was it was a very invigorating social environment. The library had just been built the new library and I love studying in the library and I would love taking a little nap and waking up and hearing all the activity and campus then going to the seashore. Chop the Student Union was brand new when I visited it was being built. The Student Union was in a 00:37:00quonset hut so the Student Union was brand new Mills was new so it was an exciting campus because there were new buildings the tradition of the step. The stoop was really there on the news God established on the student you Hanging out was just wonderful and easy the cafeteria that everybody a cafeteria. They were meal tickets and women would sell their meal tickets at half price. So I would buy the meal tickets even after I got married. I ate on the calf because the meal tickets were cheaper than than buying food that you're buying them on the why didn't you? Some students Italy Needham and also that was the social thing. So even after Mary I ate all that we all the time in the cafeteria 00:38:00because I was the social Center and my first Thanksgiving my first year I didn't go home and that was actually one of the best weekend's I've had of all my college career because it is beautiful fall weekend in Yellow Springs is just the trees were lovely. There was a Thanksgiving dinner in the cafeteria where 00:39:00the faculty attended there was a small relatively small group of students. Some of the faculty came. I was I love my sociology course and we were signed a book Mill hand and preachers which was about the unionization around Northern North Carolina and South Carolina it was and so that weekend I read that book. And it was just it really got me back a little bit into politics and sociology. It was faint. So I found Antioch really things calms was great place to go for chicken and beer comms was in the black area. I don't know if comms is there now but Goldie ran calms and calms was really the only integrated sort of place at Antioch in the 50s and early 60s. You know, I don't remember. I remember if 00:40:00you're going downtown and head off to the left I think but it was definitely in what was a predominantly black African-American neighborhood because Yellow Springs, even though Yellow Springs was still segregated in a way. I mean, it was culturally segregated. It was sort of geographically segregated. And of course Gagner was segregated, so But you know when you went to the tavern it was mostly whites. I don't know if there still is a Tavern but if he went to the tavern, so if you went downtown, it was mostly white but calms was a great to restaurant fabulous chicken. Great. You pox the Jukebox is marvelous it calms and again that was 59 was also the beat time so that be poetry readings. It calms would be where the poetry reading is and The other thing I think you could 00:41:00drink at 18 then and but Ohio had you three percent beer which you could drink when you're eight forget, but everyone always served the students 7% beer, you could buy wine at the liquor store. I mean, the the liquor laws really weren't enforced. And again, then you could do whatever you wanted on campus since so social. The environment on campus was really exciting. I love the Glenn one of the reasons why I could have gone to Stanford and have the High Sierras but that's a four-hour drive when I visited and saw the Gwen. I'm n whoa, that's right on campus right on the edge of campus. And I and I love the little Art Theater that time when we went to visit they were showing one of the trilogy's the Indian. Trilogies it was I think that were showing the first one and on my 00:42:00visit I went and so on I said I love this this theater is wonderful and I realized I'm going to see interesting films and anak had the app pack Society the Antioch Move Motion Picture Society all kinds of interesting Friday night. They be interesting movies shown at am pack and the old main building and then There'd be red square folk dancing and root square. So you had an active sort of folk dance Friday night on Red Square. You had the interesting independent movies being shown their fourth floor of Rookery on the other side. There was this young kid who never came out of his room and just listen to rock and roll and we were all worried about him. What's he going to do and he dropped out came to San And it was Jorma Kaukonen who was the bass guitar for the Jefferson 00:43:00Airplane. He senses gone back to Ohio and runs of music camp in Ohio. So you had your mcalpin. Oh and I'm forgetting it. There's a guy on blocking out his name he and his brother went to Antioch, but he played the blues guitar and he got blood. And lemon Johnson, I've blind lemon Johnson to come to campus and play there was active jug bands playing so there was an act of music scene. So and Bob Dylan actually came through campus once I saw in the student union and you know why so it just gotten started up in the new student union. So so it there was so much happening all around that it was it was a very invigorating very Place and you know, you kind of burn out after three might be a great thing about the coop is you get tired of it after three months of you go off to your job and it's exciting then you burn out at that and so it's great to see all man campus was great. I can't wait to get back to campus. So I like that The Grass Is Always Greener aspect of the mix between Co-op

SPEAKER_2: and definitely a nice a nice part of that transients you don't You 00:44:00maybe don't recognize what you have until it's gone, then you get to come back to it. So um, so

SPEAKER_1: but then so get in my first sort of two years first year my first girlfriend her father fought in the Spanish Civil War my second girlfriend, she's died, but she's was an African American. and so having a period of time where girlfriends African American sort of introduced me to the black students it campus. I would sometimes even eat then black students would send sit at their own table in the cafeteria were in the sea shop. So again, you know it even though it was integrated and spirit. It wasn't integrated in actual fact in 00:45:00in geography. It was not integrated, but that because But my girlfriend Carlotta I would often sit at the table there and that was really an eye-opener for me because that I could that gave me a sense of seeing the world a deck in the world through an African-American size. And these were all accomplished students one was majoring in chemistry and went off to graduate school in chemistry. So these were bright accomplished kids and yet get to see that the world was so different as seen through her eyes was was really at a big impact. I think that experience started slowly to pull me into civil rights, not quickly, but slowly pull me into the Civil Rights and there was a there was a big meeting in Dayton 00:46:00and I can't remember. I remember it for the Freedom Writers, but it that's too late. So I think That meeting was to support the sit-ins that were beginning then and my girlfriend Carlotta took me to that meeting and it was at that meeting that I saw that there was going to be a civil rights movement because they were students from Central State. There were people from Wilberforce Dayton and these were all people that are active and Progressive movements and change and so I realized wow. This is my this is my community. And this is what I want to get more involved in. So that's what started to pull me into civil rights. And in the beginning the Civil Rights, Ohio, Southwestern, Ohio, you know, I think an act is only like 60 miles from Kentucky. The Mason-Dixon line is 00:47:00actually pretty close to head area. So that part of Ohio is really conservative. So Beginning was around housing discrimination in housing retail establishments food establishments. So it was more a one-off on each area. And then Snick is later as I got involved in Snick. They had a thing called the Ohio project and it was to really focus on this area Southwestern Ohio really conservative. and to really desegregate Retail establishments. And also, how's your we talked also what what

SPEAKER_2: year of your Antioch experiences this approximately when sick well, what

SPEAKER_1: we're talking about is 62 and 63. So we're talking about 62 and 63. I 00:48:00think that meeting and Dayton was either late 60 or early 61 that was the trigger for me, but nothing happened immediately after that then I became active on demonstrations for Looking for housing projects that we're discriminatory for some retail establishments in Southwestern, Ohio how it was 62 and 63 housing.

SPEAKER_2: How was housing in general discriminatory at that

SPEAKER_1: time? Well, they would either have housing projects. Mostly that they would not rent two blocks. So it was it was mostly like redlining and exclusion. You know, it's the old case which we have today where a black shows up and no we don't were all full. We don't have any apartments available. and Retail 00:49:00establishments were not

SPEAKER_2: all retail establishments would serve African-Americans. This is prior to the public accommodations act. Yes,

SPEAKER_1: exactly. And then in 63, I got more involved with snack and there there was some training. I don't remember what but I remember what was important was the, Mississippi. Summer of 1963 that's organized. Mostly. I think I heard about it afterwards not before and the thing is that that's a really important summer. There's one movie I've seen about that summer. It's a black actor who 00:50:00actually went to San Francisco State and I'm blocking out his name. I think he was a producer of the movie and he acted in the movie, but the summer of III was an intensive attempt by snik for voter registration and it was a failure in the south in Mississippi predominantly and it failed I can hardly register any book and it really was and I remember being part of the discussions Antioch and Snick after that and I went became to realize is there was no publicity about Because who's going to talk if this is a black organization essentially with a few whites, but very small trying to organize black voters. The southern papers are going to talk about it. Right the northern papers are going to talk about it. So there was no there was no communication about it. So I remember in the 00:51:00discussion saying it's Nick realizing it's got to get Northern wipes involved they have to Get publicity after well, yeah, not publicity, but they have to get information out. And I think this is really then of course summer of 64 project has huge amount of visual communication huge amount of information coming out and also the you know the bridge the march to sell them. Emma I mean and the this is we're thinking about 63 to 64 is where I think about what's happening today, you know, the mother of Emmett Till insisted on the coffin being open and insisted that there be photographs of her son and that had a huge impact in the 00:52:00early 50s of starting the Civil Rights Movement. It's interesting that George floors family is going to have in Houston and open casket now. I don't I mean it's not going to have that visual dramatic, but it's I think a direct link to Emmett Till's open casket and you know the all of the visual images of the dogs and you know, the sheriff's and all of the violence. Since the blacks and the whites in the South had a big impact there. I think the visit the news coming out of Vietnam had a big visual impact. And I think the fact that now the murders of blacks by police being filmed is having the impact. So, you know, I 00:53:00think that shift from 63 to 64 is really important and it also relates to that the demonstration in March of 64, so I think my involvement Movement started slowly but got more intense as the response occurs you must into

SPEAKER_2: this period of time so you you are first involvement in you know, you grew up in sort of a political milieu. So you were oriented already towards social action and Antioch spoke to you in that way. But when you first when you first started to see that your call to Social Action might be around Civil Rights was really when you were dating. An African American woman who brought you into those first kind of sit-ins or meetings and Dayton and so this is you think around 1962 or so. Well,

SPEAKER_1: the my girlfriend Carlotta that was I think early 61. Oh, that was no that was 60 that was in 1960 my second year of early in my second year of college. And what were the end of my first year and I remember we went to New York City and weekend that I just It was for me just an amazing experience. Again, this is 1960. Right New York City in the subway in lower Manhattan and Manhattan and Brooklyn we would get these deaths tears, but people I mean we get really mean stares at us and I remember bringing Carletta to lunch at my uncle's 00:55:00and he was very Progressive and he had he had a long time. I made that cooked and who was African-American and she was a great cook. I we got along we were really got along very well, but I come in for lunch with Carlotta man. The whole atmosphere is icy cold and the next day when I go back by myself, I'm forgetting a name, but they may just Rip me up and down and that afternoon after lunch. We went up to Harlem and I figured to visit carlotta's uncle Up In Harlem and I said, okay. Well, at least we'll get the heart one and we'll be able to relax right but what happened Is On The Way of the Harlem and in the subway car is now 00:56:00getting more and more black and we get the same death stickers. Hostile angles stairs and I realized oh shit man. This is I mean, this is the world's in a really bad place. So to be on that day to be the receiving end for me was very that was a very emotional experience something I didn't expect again because of my white privilege because I figured well, I'm a nice guy, right? So I was really shocked when I saw how much hatred came from both whites and Manhattan

SPEAKER_2: really interested in what she felt about you bringing your girlfriend to lunch. But I'm also really interested in how you know, whether there was whether your Antioch experience was absence of such sort of questions. Yeah,

SPEAKER_1: no again on campus campus was an extremely the same is you could act out anything on campus and there would be no. Push back in a way. So I got none of that on campus that I can remember. I mean, so I don't remember any of that on campus so campus was and we weren't the only mixed couple in that sense black white couple there were a couple of other friends who were also black white. So on campus there was no There was no difference partly that's partly my own innocence and partly The Experience on campus probably why I was so unprepared for that experience in New York City and my feeling that New York City was Progressive. I was the other thing. So, let's go

SPEAKER_2: go through antiox campus. We want to try to focus in on this period We're acre the Antioch committee for racial equality is starting to frame. I assume they're framing conversations on campus and that they had some role prior to the Gagner students, but we know that in March of 1964 there was sort of a final sit in that resulted in external forces being called in that National, you know news outlets called a riot, but prior to that there were a number of other students. There was a Number of ways in which Antioch students were involved in smaller demonstrations and organizing around Racial equality. So can we zoom into this period and you know, what? What do you remember about Snick coming to campus? And what's your first memory of the Antioch committee for racial 00:59:00equality? My

SPEAKER_1: first my first memory, I think a run acre was organizing demonstrations outside into the community. Okay around the housing and Retail and it was more also I'm going to say a bit of intellectual thing the it was to learn more to study more. Google and the bring speakers in like after the demonstration we bought May Mallory to campus to speak. So it was it was sort of half a seminar kind of thing and half action political action and I was interested in both of that. Like we read block a again on the author negroes 01:00:00with guns about Monroe North Carolina. And in the 50s a Korean War veteran blocking on his name organized gun club, actually an RA was very supportive of black gun clubs in the 50s, and he organized the gun club and talk. Others how to fire rifles and stuff and they did fight practice shooting and then the clan used to periodically come through the black community threatening violence and firing off into firing into the houses and he organized the protection group that fired back at the clan and they never came back into the black community after that so we read that book. Book we talked and we get action, but it it it 01:01:00didn't really get focused and kill 64 and that was the Gagner case had been going on for over a year and the community Yellow Springs Council had pulled out of the court case. So what had happened is, you know, there was a court case and it actually the earlier first judges threw everything out of appeal judge validated the discriminatory it was going through as a criminal case and then the council decided to withdraw its support is a criminal case And they were worried that they would be too much you can read our papers on it. But the worry was there would be a lot of discriminatory suits and they spent too much money. 01:02:00And at that time it was sort of a gentleman's agreement the Yellow Springs had this sort of gentlemen's agreement that racist could live as long as they didn't cause trouble like Gagner and blacks were fairly. Headed where they lived. So it was kind of a gentleman's agreement of peaceful. What I would say a peaceful segregated geography but a Athos of more integration they would emphasize the Underground Railroad aspect of Yellow Springs the long history of black businesses in Yellow Springs, but in fact and therefore I would call like a gentleman's agreement to not really raise this the issue of racism segregation with the what is that

SPEAKER_2: And you go ahead. Yeah,

SPEAKER_1: and so do you use the rock the boat it became clear to us a taker. He had to rock the boat that the boat needed to be wrong that there had to be there had to be a change that this sort of Gentlemen's Agreement status quo can't just continue and the faculty in some weird way the faculty. Was part of this Gentleman's Agreement because again, you can do anything you want on campus but not off campus. So the faculty didn't care who we brought his lectures didn't care what we did or said on campus didn't care what movies we'd show didn't get it, but they cared about what was going to happen in this Yellow Springs Borough 01:04:00and they didn't want it to be the rock the boat. So the faculty You know were to neutral in our and Acres Viewpoint and that was part of pushing. So it was definitely to push but individually the Antioch students new political action, but I don't think any of us at that time where that experienced in organizing and that's where Snick is an organizing. I don't know. It's hard to know now with Nick but Snick clearly viewed Southwest Ohio is important and as we were planning to do a sit-in in her a sit down in front of gag nur's Snick sort of took it more seriously, and they actually sent the freedom singers for and 01:05:00helped bring in Central State and Wilbur fifth Force. Students so the evening before the demonstration. There was a big meeting in the auditorium and Main Building and that was totally packed with students, but I would think 80% around 70 to 80% where black students from Central State and Wilberforce and I was sort of in the minority of that I think as I There and that meeting was really I think run by snag and by the freedom singers the freedom singers were extremely important in the demonstrations music was extremely important than I don't think 01:06:00it is as much now, that's an interesting sort of difference. Queen then and now music is you do see it. There was some music and dancing and some of the protests but now it's more signs. It's more chanting. One of the things is an aside. We all know we shall overcome. I don't know how many people know that it comes from unions and it was a song written to support union strikes. They're so something on the picket line. You could sing We Shall Overcome and it was so it was originally Pete Seeger and was usually written as a union song to support strikes in the picket line on a strike but it was a big deal in Snick when you say we shall overcome. You don't say someday. You say we shall overcome this 01:07:00day. And so the Snick version of we shall overcome puts into this day. And so I always listen carefully when I hear like it a demonstrators singing We Shall Overcome and they all everyone of course remembers some day not this day, but that was always said with a real there's a reporting otherwise

SPEAKER_2: do is digitized recordings from some of the some of the demonstrations, but I'm not sure if the we shall overcome is from the day. Of I'm not really sure what the date is. And so when you say this thing this meeting was in main building. This is the day before the party. I

SPEAKER_1: think tonight I think the night before I forget if it was a Saturday, I'd have to look Saturday or Sunday probably was a Saturday. So it's probably 01:08:00like Friday night the night before or at the most a day before, you know, it could have been Thursday night for Saturday, but it was very close. It was very close and I think the day before because it was the motion there was to action to get people really excited and motivated to action and the plan was always to shut down 68. As I remember, I think. I don't remember if it's the same day, but on the website, there's a picture of me and an African-American. Knocking on the Gagner door and the plan was he never he was going to come and we're going to ask for a haircut and they picked me because I had curlier hair then you know that there's some thought that Jews Mediterranean here is similar to 01:09:00African-American hair. So the I'd Gagner claimed he didn't know how to cut Black's here. So that was the plan and of course when the idea was then have the demonstration. I don't remember if that was done on Saturday. Then there was the meeting Saturday night and the demonstration on Sunday. I'd have to go back and look at the dates and see what day of the week is. So there was the attempted haircut. It was the evening meeting and there was then the demonstration and I don't remember exactly the chronology of Was three sort of so

SPEAKER_2: when you when you guys knocked on the window or we're trying to get service he were directly denied. Yeah,

SPEAKER_1: he refused to come to the to the door and I think it bothered some of to see so many black students on campus. That was probably the first time that there were so many black students on campus and I think that that was 01:10:00Troublesome. I don't know. I don't know what the word is, but I think the community reacted to that in a in a way. That was part of the don't rocking the boat. There's always this thing about outside agitators rocking the boat. Everything's okay until people from the outside coming in. So that's always you want to make a mark with definitely.

SPEAKER_2: So in March of 1964 the Yellow Springs police chief James McKee was an African-American and Yellow Springs had a even though I do but from what I understand, I think you're right that there was a soft Segregation in town. We might not have had large areas of you know that were geographically segregated. But but culturally and I know that you know certain institutions such as the littler theater, you know weren't integrated until a certain a certain time but 01:11:00it is interesting to note that Yellow Springs had this early culture of diversity because high-ranking black servicemen after World War II were located here. And this is one of the places where they weren't redlined and they were able to establish families. And so you do have this presence of African American Professionals in town and in March of 64, you have a black African-American, you know chief of police and I believe there was also an African-American on the school board. It was probably even more than I'm aware and yet still this presence of students from the rush of students from over for since eat and Central State you think made was provocative or cause some discomfort

SPEAKER_1: Well uneasy but that's the Don't Rock the Boat see I think you just expressed the don't rock the boat. Look we made a lot of accomplishments. We've made a lot of things Don't Rock the Boat. This is going to happen slowly. We're 01:12:00moving in the right direction. So you're right. Absolutely, right? And that's what I mean by don't rock the boat. And the the other thing is that The students knew that this really I view that demonstration is the first demonstration in the summer of 64. So I actually link that demonstration to Mississippi and I think all of us knew that this was going to be a hot summer and it was going to start here. So in a way it didn't matter that Antioch was more advanced quote-unquote that more in a good because that wasn't The goal was really to change the country and to change the South and this was and again I come back to how Southwestern Ohio is really part of the South and the you know, martial law 01:13:00was never declared. Actually. I don't think it at we say it was the clear but I don't think it was actually declared and it was the deputy sheriff's who came in from the surrounding Community. They're the ones I don't know who told the fire engines to turn on the hoses that that would have probably had been the chief of police but maybe not but he didn't he lost control. It was these I mean you see the pictures of these deputy sheriff's the right out of Juneau bull Connor's so he lost control. I mean he in a way was a casualty of horses of this situation. Tear gas tear gas was thrown by the deputy sheriff's who came in from the surrounding County and I think they tried the water hoses to see if they could 01:14:00break that up before the tear gas. And of course if you soak some tear gases is nerve gas. And if you've soaked people wet it's going to seep into their skin all over so it makes the teargas ten times worse and thing is no one only someone who's experienced teargas understands how horrible it is because since it's a nerve action, you can't control your emotions your movements. You can't so you stand up and you're stumbling and you're stepping on your comrades and you don't want to do that, but you can't control For a walk for five minutes or so. You can't really control your movements because your nerves and you know that we're having this conversation

SPEAKER_2: at a time when some 30 major American cities have have seen the likes of that gas in the midst of demonstrations around the very same issues racial 01:15:00violence racial Injustice, and I would like to reflect on that. But before we do, can you maybe play the day out for us? As slowly as you can, you know, do you do you remember anything about the organization of the event how the event was, you know planned or plotted to go down and then can you maybe start us like on that day? Just kind of unfold the day and a narrative way. What happened then? Yeah,

SPEAKER_1: as I remember we assembled on the campus and then marched walked to downtown and I think we made some demand to Gagner that and I don't even think he was there but we made some demand and then when nothing happened we formed we 01:16:00went across 68. Sat down linked our arms. So we sat down in the street linked our arms and sang songs. And then the police probably the chief of police came up and said we should disperse and we refused we just kept singing the cynic songs and it Who is a fair while that we were on the street? And it was a pretty big group crossing the street and our arms were linked pretty I mean, we were holding on pretty tightly then they brought out the fire hoses and put the fire 01:17:00hoses on but that didn't really that may have bowed the line a little bit, but I don't think anyone got Got up from the fire hoses. So that was not effective. Then the tear gas came and everybody that I've talked to myself included. So tear guess I'll just I won't breathe and I'll keep my eyes closed. I mean, we didn't no one thought the tier glass would really do anything and then it is this horrendous thing when it when it when it hits you. I mean you're burning you can't, you know, you can't really think you can't Control your emotions your feet. So at that point people got up and started to flee but in the process they're stumbling on each other. I mean, it's real chaos, and I went back with 01:18:00my wife at the time went back to the we were I forget what we were living may have been married students housing. They did actually build married students house. And I took a shower and got dressed and I went back down to the demonstration and by then people had been arrested and taken away. I think close to 200 kids got arrested I think and that's the number and it was pretty much over and people were Milling around and so that was the end. I realize nothing else was going to happen that day. Then a few days later. We had a meeting to talk about public meeting to talk about the arrest that people told their experiences of being arrested Steve Barnett, who's was my best friend during 01:19:00this period he be an interesting person to talk to. His wife was out is African-American. She died 20 years ago. So 20 30 years ago and they were both arrested again. I didn't get arrested. I try I sort of was there people were being arrested all around me. Whatever reason my karma is never be no matter how hard I try not to be impressed. Anyway, he and his wife got arrested and They were really at the arraignment they called them up to the arraignment and when they Margie Margaret, that's her name Margie Barnett when Steven Margie were called up to come down to see the judge for the arraignment. There was a lot of 01:20:00ridicule because they were black and white so they received a lot of sort of ridicule and reaction again it is Probably in Zinnia Zinnia doesn't exist anymore. I don't think did it happen

SPEAKER_2: to live in position where I'm sitting right now very very very closely to Central State. So Wilberforce is alive and well, okay. Right,

SPEAKER_1: right Central State used to be really important to the Michigan to Chicago black community. I don't know if it still is. Yeah, but it was an important school for Chicago middle-class blacks to go to and then of course all the arrangements I think were dismissed because the procedures were bad and the records were bad and they were overwhelmed by it again and Snick it was a very 01:21:00conscious strategy to overwhelm the arrest. It seems that funds increase the so dismissed. It

SPEAKER_2: seems that the students who were organizing in the beginning were calling on the public accommodations act and that's what they were demonstrating for. So Gagner was in violation of that act. I know that there was a couple of rulings even prior to the council sort of maybe stepping away as you But at the time there was some sort of injunction that only a certain number of people could demonstrate so the mass demonstration itself was already outside or against the that order and maybe that was what brought about such a response it may be right.

SPEAKER_1: Um, yeah, and of course 68 is a is a state road and that's I think 01:22:00how the chief of police lost his he in my view. He lost his position in a way partly I think because it is 68 and I think it probably was the county that came in and the deputy sheriff's from the county really The students at that time didn't care about all that. The point was if the point was is to have his big demonstration as possible to have his biggest impact as possible. So again, I think at that point we're beginning to look towards what's going to happen down the road and in Mississippi. So all of that, I don't think I even knew. Legal, but the processes was because we didn't really know what was going on. And in the borough of Yellow Submarine Yellow Springs on the council. So I don't think 01:23:00any of the students really knew any of that. We're really cared of any of that in a sense people who say it's just anarchists and outside agitators. There is an element of Truth to that. I mean that was sort of how we viewed ourselves. As this is our area. We know that there's segregation and discrimination in this area and we're going to say it can't continue period there were no there was no no one was interested in the nicest successful

SPEAKER_2: demonstration by that standard.

SPEAKER_1: Oh, I think so. Yes. I'm very proud of that demonstration. I think of it is the first demonstration of the summer of 64, you know, when the first snake demonstrations a number of students who participated went on to the went 01:24:00to Mississippi in the summer of 64. So I'm I I've you it as a very successful. Demonstration and it raised issues afterwards The Faculty it raised issues that were important to talk about and I think it it it it also shook up the complacency of the Antioch faculty and community that is so it was really a harbinger of the changes that we're going to come that. I don't fit Aniak did not Thoroughly read successfully. So I view the demonstration is successful in highlighting. What's going to come down the road, but I don't think Antioch or the society really dealt with the issues successfully that is coming down the 01:25:00wrong, but I'm very proud of that demonstration. I think I mean, I wish I'd gotten arrested and that's part of my cop Karma. I wasn't a very good public speaker at that time. So originally at the meeting afterwards I was going to speak because I was one of the acre leaders but I panicked and I had never done any public speaking. So Steve Barnett went up in my place and he did a great job speaking. So there are things about I wish I'd done better as I look back but it has nothing to do with whether we have the demonstration or not. It has to do with some of you know, naturally think of your inadequacies when you look back so it has more to do with ice in retrospect Cecil

SPEAKER_2: Avenue Station, but I think it was a very successful member how many antioxidants are how many students in total were arrested?

SPEAKER_1: I think 200 and maybe 98 where antioxidants actually it was interesting that a majority a significant chunk of the ones arrested were Antioch white students. Even though the majority I think of demonstrating.

SPEAKER_2: Why do you think that is

SPEAKER_1: so that that was interesting there? I think the whites were more innocent of what was going to happen. So I think box maybe have had more experience in this so, you know, I but I can't you know, they talk about the fog of War. Well at the point of the fire hoses and the tear gas. It becomes the fog of war that point so I can't I can't really remember who got

SPEAKER_2: away the clicking sounds or any particular things that you solved vignettes of moments as that chaos kind of unfolded.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, the sound people forget water hoses make noise. So and the tear gas makes noises it explodes and then people are screaming. So noise noise is actually very significant in that and it's partly part of the disarming confusing aspect because you have all these noises that that are serious. But you've never really heard before and then people screaming that's not singing when people are screaming. So that's not a unifying. I mean singing is a 01:28:00unifying force. It's bringing you together screaming with you know, with the tear gas going off. That's not and of course the crowd starts screaming to so I think so the noise is Is very destabilizing in a way that's that's part of the federal

SPEAKER_2: most clears and somehow arrested students and I imagine some community members as well. Somehow people make their way. We hope out of jail and some investigations or some inquiries might we say start to get kicked off on antiox campus what well tone and tenor you've mentioned that, you know prior to the demonstrations or around issues of racial Injustice Equity were perhaps You tepid, but what was the conversation like immediately following the demonstration at Antioch? Well,

SPEAKER_1: I'm going to describe it a little bit extreme, but it was around. Loss of control and outside agitators sort of I'm being a little extreme but the issue was did acre really have control of the situation today Kerr really inform people was was procedures carried out and why did we invite people from Central State and Wilberforce? How much was this a snake thing that an acre had a thing and if it really wasn't Antioch? Formulated event. Why did so much happen on the campus? So that was really the inquiry was really it was in my view. Very 01:30:00bureaucratic. What did you do? When did you do it? Who did you tell did you do the preparation was this really democratically decided or not kind of theory are two

SPEAKER_2: I've rooted is red. This some

SPEAKER_1: sort of sanctions

SPEAKER_2: are going to come down or No,

SPEAKER_1: actually that's interesting I don't think anybody was ever worried that they would be expelled from A dia. That's about the only sanction you could bring down. I mean again Antioch had this thing that you could do whatever you wanted on campus and what they were concerned about is the communication between campus and the community that they were focused on the link to the community, 01:31:00but it wasn't that we sort of did Thing wrong on campus so I don't think no one was ever worried that that there would be any that's interesting because

SPEAKER_2: the these dip this demonstration in the later, you know continued action of Antioch students in the emergent, you know actions, you know from the rest of 63 and into 64, you know wasn't at the New York Times that in 1964 said that Antioch College was at the Vanguard. Vanguard of the Civil Rights Movement so you guys really put Antioch out front. This is no longer Antioch students sort of rabble-rousing on campus or no one can see demonstration that National connection you're making this demonstration really put Antioch out front. It really brought students out into public View. Well

SPEAKER_1: in a way yes, and in a way, I would say there were two things that reinforce that one the cutoff system because we had been we work outside so students see that Antioch is in a bubble. We work out into the world. So they see that connection. Like I saw what happened when I walked in New York City with a woman of color. We were holding hands. I saw what the reaction I got. So the very System links Antioch to the outside world. The other thing is so many are privileged with powerful parents like Joni Rabinowitz or it's Jo and I Joanie Rabinowitz. Her father was a very important Supreme Court civil rights union lawyer. So my first girlfriend's father fought in the Spanish Civil War so 01:33:00my dad organizes the teachers union. So all of us had not all Many of us have links had seen as examples that you link to what are the major movements in the world in the United States. So that was the other important part of that demonstration was to do exactly that the to make that linkage. So I think we all felt that that this wasn't just Antioch and Yellow Springs it really was. Have to be a change. What was your response? What's happening Administration? I

SPEAKER_2: I can't shock or what was your response to faculty at that time did faculty change their tone and tenor after this demonstration and what? I

SPEAKER_1: don't think so. My action was yet. My reaction was the reaction of a 01:34:00young kid. I thought the faculty were Smog and didn't weren't interested in changed like they're in life, you know, so I just dismiss them. I think they're irrelevant brighter. So it's you know, it's the reaction of a young

SPEAKER_2: well my magical locative for you to say but They were really thought this really thought that people

SPEAKER_1: can man. I really I really saw that in fact, every Wilson have Wilson who was a sociologist and I took a sociology course, I really liked it. This was a course of over a hundred students on the third meeting. He knew everybody's name. It was stunning and he gave the most interesting projects to do. He was a great guy and he came down really hard on the Traitors and and Ivo. I tried I 01:35:00missed I wanted to get back in touch with him to finish the conversation because you know, I've matured this is maybe 20 years ago 30 years ago. And by the time I found them it receive North Carolina had just died so there was no way so there were a couple that I would have Like to have a resolution with Evan Wilson Connie pellacutis was a young kid just started a year or two in economics. I don't know if you knew Connie pellacutis. He he hung in there in Antioch for a long time. And in fact, he died. He was still in Antioch professor and administrator and I don't know he and I had a little bit of resolution not very 01:36:00much one a little one, I think. He was originally opposed to what happened. I think he began to see the importance of that demonstration a little bit. But that went on when I left Antioch, I went to Stanford and then there was the Vietnam War and it was the same thing The Faculty were opposed to demonstrations. It was the free speech and they didn't want to have any one speech censored so that conflict continued for me as a graduate. A student with the faculty so that's always been so now as I think back it's there's something I don't know that there is an inherent conflict between the faculty and radical students who want to make change. There are very few for reasons. I understand now that I'm mature and older I mean they these they have their young families.

SPEAKER_2: You know that you murdered

SPEAKER_1: It's been our

SPEAKER_2: understanding of your motivation at that time with your Long View as to of course people are trying to you know, survive in their own ways by making a life for themselves and their family. What would you say to that radical student today? What would you say to that faculty member who is hesitant to radicalize and support of students because this is a very contemporary. Today and it's one that's happening any talk this week in response to National demonstrations. And so do you feel that your experience is given you a perspective on that? What would you do? What would you do differently? What would you do the same? What would you say to people on either side today?

SPEAKER_1: You know, I don't think I don't think I would say very much. I think that's a very natural conflict. I think what I would say is don't be afraid to 01:38:00talk and publish what you believe that conflict and discussion conflict. You you're not going to have her eliminate conflict, but the more discussion and the more interaction you have It's better and I think you know, I would try to which I think an addict does to some degree is have a little bit more interaction between students and faculty when I was there there wasn't very much interaction between students and faculty outside of class, but I think that's a natural conflict. I'm so I wouldn't try to change it in a way. I would say use that conflict. Figure it out. I mean because each time the issues are always a little bit different they may be core issues. But you know figure it out. So be 01:39:00involved is what I say to both of them and figure it out. I don't think there's anything that I could add to that. I would say that anyone's Behavior should be changed except I remain a fierce supporter of free speech. Each so I think there's very little that can't be said or published the current New York Times thing. Like I am I think it was perfectly right for the New York Times the publish Tomkins article that they maybe should have had a little bit of notation about it. But I think they were absolutely right to publish it. These views are held by people we have to know about them. So I think that's right.

SPEAKER_2: So since that you I'm thinking conflict. That's not really an answer your question to be resolved. It's something happens within that conflict that 01:40:00continues things, you know. Yes,

SPEAKER_1: yes. Yeah, now I'm not a Marxist at all. But the but sort of a dialectic is important there's revolutions and counter-revolutions. So you've got to have the conflict is always going to be there. I mean we are dealing with great failures after the Civil War. In other words. We failed to really completely take the flaws out of the Constitution the 13th. 14th and 15th amendments were important improvements but we failed on so we still have the conflict from this flawed Constitution. And the only way we're going to deal with it is to have the conflict where we see what they really are and that's actually what I'm very hopeful about today because today these issues are much 01:41:00more spoken out, right? We know what people think and believe in the 60s again don't rock the boat that they were we didn't they weren't spoken out, right? It was more implicit except in the obvious case of Mississippi. I mean the South but in the north, I mean so conflict is always going to be there and I the issue is how to deal with it. So you mentioned

SPEAKER_2: before you were talking about house Nick tried to organize in the summer of 63. Some some voting initiatives that pretty much failed and what do you think was Nick's main finding what did snake feel was going to have to happen in order to move things forward that then led us to you know, the summer of 64 and everything thereafter. white

SPEAKER_1: northern students in the front of the line Have white northern students get beat up that I mean to put it bluntly but it really really bluntly realization. It got to get white northern privileged students down so that their parents will see what life is like in Mississippi for voter registration

SPEAKER_2: in our view think that's turned out even more tragically perhaps than might have guessed because The Disappearance of you know arguably you know three people but arguably to people with families who needed to know to white families who had resources and that was how the FBI got involved in

SPEAKER_1: but you know I haven't gone to the Civil Rights monument in Atlanta I 01:43:00think it is but there's the names of 40 people who were killed I've gone to the when my daughter goes to Gettysburg College and we drove from Tulsa to Gettysburg and we took this sort of Southern northern southern route so we went Through the where was Martin Luther King shot the Lorraine Motel and it's that they've turned it into a Civil Rights Museum and its really instructive to go through the museum because it's sort of linear through time and you see how many people were killed and beat up. So yes, three four people killed but there's 40 People who killed in the Civil Rights so and you know, it's a terrible thing to 01:44:00say, but but people knew that it was going to be very dangerous and you know, I did not Snick wanted me to go on summer of 64 and I didn't go and I didn't go for precisely that I was worried. I was six foot one at the time. I'm Foot one Jewish pretty wife. The man that was not I was not looking forward to that at all. And I feel a little guilty. You know that I missed that but also for myself, I knew that when you take a branch you don't know where that's going to go and I figured if I go to Mississippi, that's probably going to change my life, you know, but way I'm out I'll end up just as well but at that point I didn't want to make that take the risk of that change in life. So and again 01:45:00snack, you know, you have to look follow snakes development and eventually linked up with the black power movement. So the snake development is very interested

SPEAKER_2: in June of 64. impactful voter registration and a summer that would you know see See history change, I guess on a national scene. So Andrew Goodman James Chaney James Earl Chaney and Michael schwerner Goodman and schwerner had connections to the college. I believe that shorteners might get this wrong, but I believe that shorteners brother was enrolled. I'm not sure how much any of the three spent time at Antioch or passed through Antioch, but when they disappeared 01:46:00on June 21 the 1964 that was what kind of led the FBI in and Andrew Goodman's brother in recent times has been really involved at Antioch and we actually have a picture of the three kind of hanging outside of the president's wing and sometime around there were the New York Times called Antioch at the Vanguard of the Civil Rights Movement but I'm inclined to think with you that really and I didn't see it before but I can see how the demonstration the Gagner demonstration and Yellow Springs really cleared a cleared an opening you know for further happenings and that's pretty special so you're proud of that movement and that you know the success and the the scale of what happened how would you say even after Antioch how would you say that this changed you as you went through your life and shows your your path

SPEAKER_1: Well after a day, like I went to Stanford Graduate School in economics and statistics got my PhD in economics with a minor in statistics it Stanford at Antioch can 64. I remember coming out of the Student Union on some day with there were a lot of tables with activity and I remember seeing the Vietnam there was a table about Nam so I remember in 64 reading this pamphlet on Vietnam and saying to myself oh shit. This is going to be the next thing and so when I went to Stanford 64, I was active in civil rights there there. There was 01:48:00Proposition 14 the the stand for an Oakland Congress. When the first black congressman state legislature passed a law Banning housing discrimination in 1963, 1964 the state legislature passed or they put an initiative on the ballot to return segregation to allow people to to have segregated housing that was Proposition 14. So I was active on Precinct level handing out information to vote. No on. Position 14 I went to several housing discrimination demonstrations, but then Vietnam starts to come and I get very active in the anti-vietnam movement and so my focus really shifts to Vietnam demonstrations. And also I got involved in sort of at that time graduate schools are starting to 01:49:00tighten up because of well Government funding is starting to diminish a bit and I was act I helped organize a union for graduate students local 1816. So I was active in in the union organization of graduate students anti-vietnam activities at that time in the beginning Berkeley was the leader and I'll be at the Free Speech movement at People's Park. Stanford was a little slower going and then the 68 I go on the job market. That's the year. I'm working on my PhD dissertation. So I go on the job market and it looks like Nixon is going to be 01:50:00elected in 68 and I figure holy shit. We're going to become a fascist country if Nixon is elected and so I accept a job at the University of Toronto and immigrated to Toronto. Canada is a landed immigrant. I could have gone and 4. Years as a I could have classified myself as a visiting professor and therefore I could avoid American taxes and Canadian taxes, so I could have avoided both taxes, but I wanted to have that count towards citizenship in Canada. So I pay taxes to Canada. I went in as a landed immigrant and on my way in August driving to Toronto was the Chicago convention and that's convincing me. That I'm done the right thing because I'm I camped out about every other day and after the convention there's these flood of students coming to California from democratic convention. So I live I was in Canada for a year that I took a leave of absence 01:51:00to come back to Stanford to finish my PhD and that was in 69 than in seven and I was active in anti-vietnam. oceans it Stanford and then there was a Kent State killings in May of 1970, I believe and there's all these teach-ins shutdowns and Stanford economics had their own teach in and since I was both a student at Stanford and a professor at Toronto assistant professor, I was a natural to lead that teach in so at that point, I was more comfortable with public speaking so I led that That teach in for the economics department and second 70 and then I went back to Toronto. And did not get tenure University Ronald they were in a 01:52:00very nationalistic stage that I was an American plus I was a left-wing American which funds not that popular in among there at the University. So I went into private practice of economic forecasting and ended up back in California in 84 and then I got active in groups in California. My I was on the board The economic conversion is Center for economic conversion. And that was worked on converting military bases to civilian uses. Our goal was universally when the Pentagon announced they're closing a military base the community gets up in arms and tries to say not our base and we would talk work with the community and say no this is actually an opportunity and we would help them develop. Anomic ways of utilizing the base in a productive way. So I did that for a few years and 01:53:00then more recently I've been involved in equity of Education funding, you know, we have such a segregated Society geographically segregated society that I view school board school districts is like Lining gerrymandered districts since schools are funded by property taxes, right the rich have their little school district that's well-funded the poor have their school district. So I've been very active trying to get work done on dealing with the inequities of public education and funding and I've I'm on the board of a group called all students matter and that deals In our area East palette, there's Palo Alto. I live in 01:54:00Menlo Park in the Bay Area and there's East Palo Alto which was traditionally an African-American redlined Community. It's now mostly Latino and their property values are low. And of course their school district is just their city. So their schools are terribly underfunded and I do volunteer reading with kids fifth graders. So I spend a couple of hours once a week reading to students who are below grade reading and I'm on the board. Does that so that so that's my activity now has shifted from racial segregation to sort of economic segregation and how that impacts School boards and school funding and I also did a stint a five-year stint on the local

SPEAKER_2: school was once a education is right. writing for the Yellow Springs news and I was covering the school board, which I took to be a very if not the 01:55:00most serious part of my work reading that entire board packet every time and Figuring out where the boilerplate policies were coming from and whether the board members were able to read them and connect them with you know, now it's a it's a it's a place incredibly deserving of people's, you know, intense focus and attention. It's a lot happens there and communities, you know can be made or I mean lives are made, you know made by their schooling Yeah,

SPEAKER_1: and the right-wing figured this out a long before us the right wing figured out 20 30 years ago that they need to get involved at the local level. I think one of the things I'm encouraged now is that now the progressive Wing is is realizing that the local level is important. So, I hope that they'll get more 01:56:00involved in school board School boards are really weird. It's a very difficult weird thing. The who was the president after Nixon, you know, what was who was the vice president that when Nixon resigned what was blocking on his name? Anyway, when he was president, he flew out to make a talk in in this area and thus the president of the school board when picked them up and so the driving him to his fundraising and he said to the president you must have a very difficult job of being president. The guy said well, what are you doing civil? I'm president of the school board. He said no your job.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that's a lot more difficult. Might be true. I think school districts are they're just a microcosm of everything that is bigger. So so what 01:57:00would you you know do did your experience early in the civil rights movement and later in Vietnam and through your life around, you know schools and districting, you know, do you do you have any major Reflections about you know, would you do things differently? Do you have any regrets and I'm curious around? You know, we find ourselves in a state of major Nationwide up people right now around, you know, racial violence at the hands of police officers and systemic racial injustices, which arguably many of that happens in the schools. What what what is the work to be done now?

SPEAKER_1: Well, actually my reflection is one of optimism because things have 01:58:00been a lot worse than they are now. So my view is I look back is those were really worse times than we are now. It was a lot tougher then more people were killed more people. People were told their lives were restricted and and diminish and we have now and then and the Mississippi of 64 you didn't have huge demonstrations in the north a lot of whites flew down for demonstrations in the South but you didn't have that many in the north. And in fact you had worst times the North had terrible demonstrations. Against busing and schools. So in many ways things were a lot worse than they are now and I've never I mean it 01:59:00would be so fantastic if in summer of 64 in the Voting Rights project, you had people turn out on the streets the way they are now, so I'm just really optimistic about the number of people who are protesting and continuing to produce. Next I mean, they're not these are not just people protesting the first day or the second day. So I mean there's there's an intensity and depth in what's happening today. That's very for me, very encouraging and very so in that sense as I reflect back. I'm much more optimistic. And again Vietnam was so terrible. I mean the 50 plus thousand fifty five thousand Americans killed three million at least yet.