American Experience (1988) s26e07 Episode Script

ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentlemen
across the nation,
we're packed in here, a half
a million people I would say,
here in Times Square,
the village green
of little old New York town.
NARRATOR:
On December 31, 1963,
the usual collection of revelers
gathered in Times Square
to welcome the new year.
ANNOUNCER:
And in a matter of seconds,
it will be 1964.
The new year, a fresh start.
Two seconds, one
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year, 1964!
NARRATOR:
As they broke out the champagne,
Americans were full of hope
for the year ahead,
but their optimism was tinged
with a deep anxiety.
No one could forget the shocking
events that had occurred
just five weeks earlier
in Dallas, Texas.
[gunshot]
REPORTER:
Mrs. Kennedy cried out
when the shots were fired,
was weeping and trying
to hold up her husband's head.
ROBERT CARO:
The year 1964 really began
on November 22, 1963
with a tragedy of the
assassination of a president.
DAN CARTER:
It's difficult
unless you lived through it
to realize how traumatic it was
for Americans.
ROBERT DALLEK:
It shook the national
confidence.
Was the president
so vulnerable?
Is the country
that vulnerable?
From Dallas, Texas,
the flash apparently official,
President Kennedy died
at 1:00 p.m.
Central Standard Time,
2:00 Eastern Standard Time,
some 38 minutes ago.
REPORTER:
We just got the word
Lyndon B. Johnson
has been sworn in as the
president of the United States.
I know that the world
shares the sorrow
that Mrs. Kennedy
and her family bear.
I will do my best.
That is all I can do.
I ask for your help, and God's.
JANN WENNER:
That singular event
led to the '60s as we know it,
the letting loose of everything.
NARRATOR:
It would be the year
when change was inescapable,
the moment that
fundamentally altered
the kind of nation
America would become.
ROBERT LIPSYTE:
It was in 1964
that every kind of split
in American life
suddenly became open
and visible.
I must be the greatest,
I told the world.
RICK PERLSTEIN:
It was the kind of watershed
that you very rarely see
in history.
MARILYN B. YOUNG:
Things are cracking
and breaking and fracturing
and being, most importantly,
rethought.
NARRATOR:
It would be the year
when the future
of the country
would be fiercely
and passionately debated.
LEE EDWARDS:
1964 was the year
that changed American politics,
absolutely.
My fellow citizens, we have
come now to a time of testing.
DAVE DENNIS:
We set the stage for this to be
the greatest country ever.
We set the stage
whereby we could be
a showcase for democracy.
RICHARD VIGUERIE:
What happened in '64
was terrifying to us.
We saw America changing
right in front of our eyes.
LEAH WRIGHT-RIGUEUR:
It's just this explosive year
where people are forced
to say what they mean,
mean what they say,
and follow it up.
NARRATOR:
1964 would be the year when
institutions came under assault
and when generations
began to split apart.
WENNER:
It was the coming of age
of the biggest,
best-educated
and wealthiest generation
in the history of America,
and there's going to be trouble.
And there was.
[Bobby Vinton's "There!
I've Said it Again" playing]
I love you,
there's nothing to hide ♪
It's better
NARRATOR:
On January 1, the year ahead
did not appear to hold out the
promise of revolutionary change.
There! I've said it again
NARRATOR:
The new hit song on the radio
was Bobby Vinton's
"There! I've Said It Again."
Voguemagazine's
cover proclaimed
"The Look That's 1964"
and featured a modest sky-blue
blouse and jaunty straw hat.
I think a lot of people
would say
that we still weren't
out of the '50s completely.
America hadn't taken
its coat and tie off yet.
The thing was to have
a very narrow lapel
and have a very narrow cut
and to go out into the world
with quite clear circumstances
in which you advanced
in one place, and that was that.
You dressed like everybody else.
Nobody was particularly
noticeable.
NARRATOR:
On television,
Bonanzaremained one of the
nation's highest-rated shows.
Hello, Dolly!,
starring Carol Channing,
began its remarkable run
on Broadway.
There, you see?
You were jealous.
Of course I was jealous.
NARRATOR:
And in movie theaters,
Rock Hudson and Doris Day
starred in the romantic comedy
Send Me No Flowers.
STEPHANIE COONTZ:
As a teenager, I thought
that I would just get married.
Every boy I used to date,
I used to, you know,
put "Mrs. So-and-So"
in front of his name, you know?
PERLSTEIN:
Walter Lippmann, the kind of
marquee pundit of the day,
said that America was more
united and at peace with itself
than it ever had been.
I mean, 1964, we see
this great mass middle class.
People who grew up
with outhouses in their backyard
are taking their children
to vacation houses on the lake.
And the idea was that
America had figured it out.
COONTZ:
We came out of World War II
the most prosperous nation
in the world,
and there was this
tremendous sense
that we had defeated Fascism.
WENNER:
Our parents had collaborated
as a society
in one of the greatest
achievements ever--
you know, World War II
and the destruction of Hitler.
You know, there's every reason
to kind of get along
and feel comfortable
and not rock the boat.
And it seemed like it was
a period of quietude.
NARRATOR:
As the year began, despite
the outward appearance of calm,
Americans were still haunted
by the assassination
of their president.
HODDING CARTER:
Jack Kennedy represented
the future.
He was the dream president,
and here he was cut off,
and who succeeds him?
Lyndon Johnson.
Lyndon Johnson is not a figure
of great popularity
in the general public.
JOHN BRACEY:
Johnson has no legitimacy
in that job.
You know, he's there
because somebody got shot.
He wasn't elected;
somebody got shot.
JON MARGOLIS:
The Constitution says
when there is a vacancy,
the vice president takes over.
But he didn't feel
entirely legitimate.
It's not just political;
it's sort of psychological.
"I'm here, I'm the most
powerful person in the world,
"but the public
didn't choose me.
I didn't get elected."
NARRATOR:
Johnson's chance
to prove himself--
the 1964 election--
was only ten months away,
and in the meantime,
the new president faced
a daunting set of challenges.
John F. Kennedy had put forward
a progressive legislative agenda
to address the increasingly
volatile problem
of inequality in America:
a landmark Civil Rights bill
and a series of initiatives
to fight poverty.
Neither of them had made
progress in a divided Congress.
And on the international front,
Kennedy's policies
had drawn America
deeper into the simmering
conflict in Vietnam.
Now, on January 8, only seven
weeks after taking office,
Lyndon Johnson had to make the
case for his own administration
in his first State
of the Union address.
REPORTER:
It is now 12:30 p.m. Eastern
Standard Time in Washington.
Everyone is assembled.
Mr. Speaker, the President
of the United States.
[applause]
DAN CARTER:
Lyndon Johnson wanted to be
a great president.
And I think he understood
we had developed
this broad middle class,
but there were many groups
that were completely left out.
If he could do something
that had never been done before
in America,
and that was actually attack
the root causes of poverty,
transform America,
it would be a legacy
that no other president
would have had.
This administration today,
here and now,
declares unconditional war
on poverty in America.
[applause]
CARO:
What he spells out to that
Congress, it's unprecedented.
He says, "We're not just going
to try to alleviate poverty;
we're going to try and end it."
Let me make one principle
of this administration
abundantly clear:
all of these increased
opportunities
in employment and education
and housing
must be open to Americans
of every color.
[applause]
CARO:
Johnson understands
poverty and race
are inextricably mixed
in the great injustice
in America.
He is the president
who has this vision
of a vast domestic reform
of justice.
You know,
Martin Luther King said
the moral arc of the universe
bends slowly,
but it bends towards justice.
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson is
trying to bend that arc faster.
JOHNSON:
Join with me
in working for a nation--
a nation that is free
from want--
and a world that is free
from hate.
[applause]
MARK KURLANSKY:
For Johnson, the ghost of
John Kennedy was huge in 1964.
When Kennedy was killed,
it was felt that somehow,
this was a plot
to stop progress.
Johnson has to make people feel
that the spirit of John Kennedy
is living on,
although in doing that,
he would do much more than
John Kennedy actually ever did.
EDWARDS:
Johnson was going to promise
to do away with poverty.
He was going to educate
everybody.
And everybody was going
to have a house,
everybody was going to have
a TV set
and on and on and on and on.
Of course, the price tag
for all of this
would be billions
and billions of dollars.
For me, as a young conservative,
I had very mixed feelings.
VIGUERIE:
For the young conservatives,
LBJ was over the top.
It was terrifying.
We felt that we could see
our world slipping from us,
and we wanted to change that.
NARRATOR:
In early January,
the nation's press
assembled on the lawn
of a hilltop house in Phoenix.
Arizona's two-term senator,
Barry Goldwater,
was about to make
a dramatic announcement,
one that would not only reshape
the politics of 1964,
but transform the American
political landscape
for generations to come.
GOLDWATER:
First, I want to tell you
that I will seek the Republican
presidential nomination,
and I've decided to do this
because of the principles
in which I believe
and because I'm convinced
that millions of Americans
share my belief
in those principles.
VIGUERIE:
Goldwater told us,
he said, you know,
"Conservatives,
we can take this party over."
Before that, we didn't
have a voice,
we didn't have anybody
speaking for us
because the Republican Party
was establishment Republicans,
big government Republicans.
NARRATOR:
For years,
conservative activists
had been searching
for a presidential candidate
who would embrace
the ideals they cherished.
PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY:
Before 1964,
the Republican establishment
was picking
all of our candidates.
They had given us
two-time loser Tom Dewey.
They were "me too" Republicans.
Whatever the Democrats said,
basically, they said, "me too,"
and we were tired of that.
We wanted a real conservative
who would stand up
for real American
and conservative principles.
EDWARDS:
We believed that
we had the right ideas.
You know, limited government,
individual freedom,
free enterprise,
traditional American values,
a strong national defense.
These were all
not only conservative ideas,
but were American ideas.
We would organize ourselves
into some kind of a youth group,
a political action group,
and coming out of that was
Young Americans for Freedom.
And really from the beginning,
we looked to Barry Goldwater.
NARRATOR:
The senator's philosophy
had been distilled into a book
entitled The Conscience
of a Conservative,
which quickly became a kind of
manifesto for the new right.
VIGUERIE:
He believed
in a balanced budget,
he believed
in limited government,
he believed in increasing
liberty and freedom
for individuals.
Finally, somebody is saying
what we've been thinking about.
EDWARDS:
So we bombarded Goldwater
with telegrams,
with letters, with telephone
calls and what have you,
saying, "You must run,
you must run.
You must run for the country,
you must run for the movement."
And finally,
at the last minute, he said,
"All right, damn it, I will."
I won't change my beliefs
to win votes.
I will offer a choice,
not an echo.
This will not be
an engagement of personalities;
it will be an engagement
of principles.
MALE CHORUS:
Goldwater, go, go, go
You're going to win,
we know ♪
ANNOUNCER:
Goldwater's ultra-right
supporters
aren't always middle aged,
by any means.
To these young Republicans
who wrote this ditty,
Barry Goldwater is the old
Wild Westerner come to life,
a bulwark against the welfare
state and Red tyranny.
SCHLAFLY:
Goldwater was authentic.
He said what he believed
and believed what he said,
and we liked that.
1964 was the birth of the modern
conservative movement.
[fans screaming]
NARRATOR:
At 1:20 p.m. on February 7,
Pan Am Flight 101 touched down
at New York's recently renamed
John F. Kennedy Airport,
and the Beatles arrived
in America.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the Beatles!
[fans screaming]
Close your eyes
and I'll kiss you ♪
Tomorrow I'll miss you
SUSAN DOUGLAS:
I remember watching them
on the Ed Sullivan Show.
I'll pretend
that I'm kissing ♪
DOUGLAS:
I am in our TV room,
hugging a Naugahyde ottoman
to help anchor me.
There they were
with their long hair
and Paul's eyelashes
and their heels,
and they sang about us.
They liked girls
and they also felt
the same pain that girls did.
I think that's one
of the big reasons
we all screamed our heads off.
All my loving
I will send to you. ♪
[fans screaming]
GITLIN:
The Beatles arriving
represent hopefulness.
They're just a whole lot of fun
filling stadiums.
She loves you,
yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
[fans screaming]
I was just blown away
by the kind of
the life, the spirit,
the enjoyment, the joy.
The music was wonderful.
FANS [chanting]:
We want the Beatles!
We want the Beatles!
MARGOLIS:
They did scare a lot of parents.
These kids, they were
the first generation
who had been brought up
in the well-ordered,
comfortable life of suburbia,
and therefore, many of them
were quite bored.
And so they were beginning to
rebel in sort of harmless ways.
And boys stopped
cutting their hair,
and there were fights
in households.
"You have to get a haircut."
"I won't get a haircut."
I mean, you know, that became
kind of almost a public issue.
Is that a Beatle haircut
you've got?
Yes.
How'd you work it out?
Well, I let my hair flop around
until it's all messy.
What do your parents
say about it?
They don't like it.
Then why do you
comb it that way?
Because I like the Beatles!
You don't care if your
parents like it or not?
Nope!
LIPSYTE:
The Beatles,
they were in the beginning
of their first American tour.
They were in Miami Beach,
so they went to have a picture
taken with Sonny Liston,
the heavyweight champion
of the world.
And he took one look at these
four little boys and he said,
"I ain't posing
with them sissies."
So the Beatles were stuffed
back into their limo,
and as second-best,
they were taken
to Cassius Clay's training camp.
Cassius Clay
was fighting Sonny Liston
for the heavyweight
championship of the world.
So I'm 26 years old.
I was a feature writer
sent down to cover the fight.
I go down to where
Cassius Clay trained.
I go up the stairs to the gym,
and there's this hubbub
behind me.
And I ask one of the guys,
"Some group, you know,
singers for girls."
And Cassius Clay
has not arrived.
The Beatles turn around
because they're not going
to wait for some Cassius Clay,
but the guards push them
right up--
in those days,
you could push the Beatles--
they pushed them
right up the stairs
and they pushed all five of us
into an empty dressing room
and locked the door.
The Beatles were raging
and they were banging
and cursing,
and then suddenly,
the door bursts open
and there is the most
beautiful creature
any of us have ever seen.
You forget how big Cassius Clay
was because he was so perfect.
And he was laughing and he said,
"Come on, Beatles,
let's go make some money!"
And they followed him out
like kindergarten kids.
LIPSYTE:
February 18, 1964.
It's an amazing moment,
the kind of confluence
of two of the great
cultural rivers of our time.
And afterwards,
the Beatles leave,
Cassius Clay goes back
into that dressing room
to get his rubdown.
He beckons me over and he said,
"So who were those
little sissies?"
NARRATOR:
The heavyweight
championship fight
between Cassius Clay
and Sonny Liston
was scheduled for February 25
at the Miami Beach
Convention Hall.
For the young challenger,
this moment had been
a long time coming.
Clay had arrived
on the boxing scene in 1954
and had captured the Olympic
gold medal in 1960.
Yet his professional record
wasn't all that impressive.
He had fought a string of weak,
hand-picked opponents
on the way to his matchup
with Liston.
By the eve of the fight, Clay
was a seven-to-one underdog.
But the greater the odds
against him,
the more outrageous Clay became.
15 times I have told the clown
what round he's goin' down,
and this chump
ain't no different.
He'll fall at eight
to prove that I'm great,
and if he keeps talkin' jive,
I'm gonna cut it to five.
If Sonny Liston whips me,
I'll kiss his feet in the ring.
[crowd laughing]
I won't get hit,
I won't get hit, I'm so quick.
He's gonna be so tired
in five rounds.
He just didn't shut up.
He just
He's rhyming all the time,
he's making predictions.
You're not supposed to make
predictions when you fight,
because you get in trouble.
He didn't care.
NARRATOR:
Clay was not a typical
heavyweight champ
in another respect.
A few years earlier,
he had begun flirting
with the Muslim faith,
but he had kept
his newfound spirituality quiet,
afraid that if it became public,
he would be denied
a shot at the title.
Now, Clay's moment had come.
[bell rings]
ANNOUNCER:
World heavyweight boxing title
on the line.
MARGOLIS:
Everybody who knew anything
about boxing
knew that Sonny Liston
would just wipe up the floor
with young Cassius Clay.
LIPSYTE:
I was sitting at ringside.
Once the fight began,
there was no question Clay
was in absolute control.
ANNOUNCER:
Another jarring right hand
that time, folks.
Another one!
Sonny wobbles!
Liston never came out
for the seventh round.
He had a deep cut.
[bell rings]
ANNOUNCER:
They might be stopping it.
That might be all,
ladies and gentlemen.
Clay won the fight.
ANNOUNCER:
Get up there,
get up in the ring!
[cheering]
LIPSYTE:
The morning after the fight,
he was uncharacteristically
subdued and polite.
He more or less said
that he had done all these
outrageous things,
said all this,
made these flamboyant actions
to sell tickets for the fight,
but that now that it was over,
he could be a polite and
responsible gentleman champion.
The younger reporters,
we were really disappointed.
And somebody said, "Are you
a card-carrying Muslim?"
And of course "card-carrying,"
even in 1964,
had some real resonance:
you know,
card-carrying Communist.
What do I look like I am to you?
Do I act like I'm the man?
REPORTER:
I don't know, Cassius,
you just
Like you say,
you're the greatest.
I don't have to be
what you want me to be.
I'm free to be what I want to be
and think what I want to think.
MARGOLIS:
He said, "I don't have to be
what you want me to be."
And in a way, it was
the same thing that the kids
who were not getting
their haircuts were saying.
It was the same thing that
people were saying in politics.
"You've had this role
cut out for me,
but I don't have
to play it anymore."
BRACEY:
"I'm not following the mold,"
whatever the mold was.
Like, "I'm not in it.
I'm going to be myself
and whatever that is."
NARRATOR:
The next day, Cassius Clay
put the rumors to rest,
announcing that he had, in fact,
joined the Muslim faith.
Why do you insist on being
called Muhammad Ali now?
That's the name given to me
by my leading teacher,
the honorable Elijah Muhammad.
That's my original name,
that's a black man name.
Cassius Clay was my slave name.
I'm no longer a slave.
What does it mean?
Muhammad means
"worthy of all praises"
and Ali means "most high."
LIPSYTE:
He made no apologies
for himself.
He said, "Here I am."
He just seemed like somebody
who had come out
of the neighborhood,
somebody who was going
to stand up to the man
and say what he believed in.
The Beatles.
Cassius Clay.
I mean, this was the toppling
of the order
that was my generation.
And it was thrilling.
COONTZ:
My mom was a homemaker
in Salt Lake City.
She had been a very
adventurous young woman.
She worked in the shipyards
during World War II
and was very proud of herself
and very resentful
when they were fired
as soon as the first boatload
of GIs came home.
But it was time
to start a family,
and she settled down
and eventually
got bored with it
but had been so
kind of brainwashed
by the women's magazines
and the TV shows
that even this woman who'd been
very kind of bohemian
and radical in her youth
began to feel that there was
something wrong with her
for not being totally happy.
The first time I learned this
about her was in 1964.
I was away at school
and we had a weekly phone call,
and she started telling me about
this book that she was reading,
The Feminine Mystique,
and how indignant it made her
and how it opened her eyes,
and then all this stuff
poured out of her.
I had thought she was
a totally happy homemaker.
She said, "Oh, my God,"
she said,
"I was going crazy
and I thought it was
something wrong with me."
NARRATOR:
The work of a magazine writer
and student of psychology
named Betty Friedan,
The Feminine Mystique
hit the bestseller lists
on March 15, 1964.
It would become one of the most
popular paperbacks of the year
and one of the most influential
books of the century.
In its pages,
Friedan defined something
that afflicted millions
of American women:
she called it
"the problem that has no name."
CLAIRE POTTER:
The problem that had no name
was a strange stirring.
Today we would call it
depression,
but what Friedan describes
is a set of feelings
that women can't put into words.
That they are prosperous,
they have children,
they have husbands--
in other words,
they have everything
that they have been told
by commercial culture
that they're supposed to want--
and yet they're still unhappy,
and they don't know why.
INTERVIEWER:
Now, Ms. Friedan,
you feel then
that a very tremendous
problem with women
is not knowing
who they are:
a loss of touch
with their own identity.
Well, it's not being anybody
themselves, for so many,
and even feeling guilty.
You see, I've had letters
from over 1,000 women
since my book came out,
and a woman today
has been made to feel freakish
and alone and guilty
if simply she wants to be
more than her husband's wife,
her children's mother,
if she really wants to use
her abilities in society.
And so all women have suffered
by the feminine mystique.
POTTER:
Betty Friedan defines
the feminine mystique
as something that's invented
in popular culture,
and specifically by advertisers.
You know, it's a crime
not to have delicious coffee
like this all the time.
We will, now that I've
discovered "the mountains"!
POTTER:
Women are expected to be happy
by consuming things:
consuming houses,
consuming dishwashers,
consuming the right soap,
consuming the right clothes
and makeup and shoes.
All these reasons for being
happy come out of this bottle.
POTTER:
The feminine mystique is
something that doesn't exist,
that women can never be
and women can never have,
and thus it becomes
a trap for them.
Television, for instance.
You see, there are no
what I call heroines
on television today.
There are there's this
mindless little drudge
who seems never to have gotten
beyond fifth grade herself,
whose greatest thrill
and ecstasy
is to get that kitchen sink
or floor pure white
and who needs the advice
of some wise, elderly man
even to do that, you see
COONTZ:
At one point, Friedan says,
"A woman will look around
"and she'll think maybe
it's her husband's fault,
"maybe her house
isn't big enough,
"maybe she doesn't have
enough kids,
maybe she needs another child."
She said none of it's that;
it's that you're missing
the opportunity
to grow as a human being,
and that's a normal desire,
and when it is thwarted,
it's normal
to feel bad about it,
and so instead of allowing it
to be thwarted,
you should do something
about it.
ANNOUNCER:
A surer sign of spring
than the first robin.
Here are the hat fashions
that will star
in the Easter Style parade.
NARRATOR:
The spring of 1964 brought
with it familiar rituals,
but also signs that change
was in the air.
Visitors flocked past the tilted
globe known as the Unisphere,
as the World's Fair opened
in New York City.
Americans debated the surgeon
general's recent announcement
that smoking increased
the risk of lung cancer.
And a stylish new convertible,
the Ford Mustang,
hit the American highway.
MARGOLIS:
The Mustang was sportier
than any American car
that had ever been created.
It was designed for young
people, and in buying one,
a person was making a statement
about him or herself
as much as buying
a piece of transportation
to get from here to there.
FEMALE ANNOUNCER:
Albert's a Mustanger now.
He bought a beautiful
Mustang convertible.
All of a sudden,
his whole life changed.
[fast jazz music playing]
Put a few kicks in your life.
NARRATOR:
Americans were living
through a period
of unprecedented prosperity,
flooding into newly built
suburbs,
raising larger and larger
families.
MARGOLIS:
There had never been so many
young people in the world,
and they'd never had
so much money.
DOUGLAS:
Our parents came of age
during the Depression
and the Second World War.
These were times of sacrifice,
of privation.
Our generation, we were told
we were going to be different.
We were going to move
into the suburbs.
We were going to go to college
in record numbers.
We were told over and over again
that we were special,
that our lives were going
to be different.
We were being told that
we mattered economically.
They were selling us everything.
And once you start to think that
you matter economically,
you begin to think that
you matter politically.
NARRATOR:
On Friday, May 22,
the largest class in the history
of the University of Michigan
gathered to hear
its commencement address
delivered by the president
of the United States.
Lyndon Johnson
used the opportunity
to introduce a phrase
he hoped would embody
the far-reaching goals
of his presidency.
DALLEK:
Franklin Roosevelt
had the New Deal,
Harry Truman had the Fair Deal,
Kennedy had the New Frontier.
What is his administration
going to be called?
JOHNSON:
In your time,
we have the opportunity
to move not only toward
the rich society
and the powerful society,
but upward
to the great society.
The great society demands an end
to poverty and racial injustice.
CARO:
"A Great Society."
That is his vision:
a moral, just America.
When he said a great society,
he meant a greatsociety.
So will you join in the battle
to give every citizen
the full equality
which God enjoins
and the law requires,
whatever his belief or race
or the color of his skin?
It has this kind of aching
utopian energy
of the sort you can't
even imagine
a presidential candidate
speaking about now.
HODDING CARTER:
The Great Society,
and where I was,
and where an awful lot
of Americans were,
it offered such hope
for so many people.
It was the audacity of saying
we ought to be as great
as we say we are
and we ought to be a society
that makes good on its promises
to all of its people,
and we can do it.
We can do it.
NARRATOR:
The Michigan audience
loved his speech,
and so did the nation's press.
But back in Washington,
Lyndon Johnson knew
that no amount
of soaring rhetoric
would make his Great Society
a reality.
What was needed was legislation
that would use the power
of the federal government
to advance the cause
of equality.
This nation will rise up,
live out the true meaning
of its creed.
NARRATOR:
The March on Washington
the summer before
had thrust civil rights
onto the national stage,
but blacks in the South
were still subject
to pervasive and often
violent discrimination.
And mainstream
civil rights leaders
were finding it
increasingly hard
to manage the frustration
within their movement.
CARO:
You have this long
pent-up fight for civil rights
reaching a crescendo.
If this doesn't change,
if after all this sacrifice
on the streets of the South
They had fire hoses
turned on them and police dogs.
They were murdered there.
What's going to happen
if that situation,
if government
does not do something?
LEAH WRIGHT-RIGUEUR:
In 1964, race is coming
to a boiling point.
The civil rights bill
is on the table.
Republicans and Democrats
are arguing over, debating over
what will this mean
to the country?
DALLEK:
It was going to end segregation
in all places
of public accommodation.
Restaurants, swimming pools,
bus stations, train stations.
Cafeterias, lunch rooms,
lunch counters, soda fountains,
gasoline stations, theaters
It just was going to end
a way of life across the South.
It was a huge political gamble
because Johnson is running
for president.
Is he going to alienate all
those Southern segregationists?
Is he going to lose the South?
GITLIN:
Johnson had decided
to turn the corner,
and if that meant
that the Democratic Party
was going to forgo
Southern support,
so be it.
Chips were down.
NARRATOR:
By early June,
Southerners in Congress
had been successfully
blocking the bill
for more than two months,
and there was no reason
to assume they would back down.
DAN CARTER:
The problem for Johnson
in pushing through
the civil rights bill
was the same problem
it had been for Kennedy
and for anyone who wanted
to promote civil rights.
You had this solid
Deep South core of senators
solidly opposed to any
federal action on civil rights,
and a handful of other
conservative Republicans
outside the region,
which made it impossible
to move forward.
CARO:
The South in the Senate
has through the filibuster
and the threat of the filibuster
defeated every strong
civil rights bill
for almost a century.
There is no sign that
this is going to change.
NARRATOR:
To defeat the South's filibuster
and break their stranglehold
on the measure,
Johnson needed 67 votes
in the Senate.
That meant 23 Republicans
had to cross the aisle
and support the bill.
PERLSTEIN:
What Lyndon Johnson had
that John F. Kennedy didn't
was an unbelievable power
to sway legislators.
There was this thing
called the Johnson treatment.
He'd kind of plant his shoes
next to you,
he'd tower over you,
he'd literally grab your lapels,
his hot breath would be six
inches in front of your face.
CARO:
I mean, this is the other side
of Lyndon Johnson.
He doesn't just have the ideals;
he knows how to push the levers.
PERLSTEIN:
He had this politician's gift
for knowing exactly
what each person
he was trying to persuade's
vulnerabilities were,
and he would hit them
like a jackhammer.
CARO:
If the senator said,
"You know, that's going to kill
me with my constituency,"
he would refute,
he would cajole you
or threaten you or bribe you.
Anything he had to do
to get your vote.
Richard Russell,
the leader of the South,
says, flatly, "We could have
beaten Kennedy on civil rights.
"We could have stopped 'em
in the Senate.
But Lyndon Johnson," he says,
"will beat us.
"He'll tear your arm off
at the shoulder
"and beat you over the head
with it,
"but he will get this passed.
We're going to lose."
NARRATOR:
In the end, on June 19,
after the longest filibuster
in the Senate's history,
27 Republicans
voted for the bill.
Only six, including
Barry Goldwater, voted no.
[applause]
ANNOUNCER:
Congress passes the most
sweeping civil rights bill
ever to be written into the law.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
is signed at the White House
by President Johnson.
NARRATOR:
But even as Johnson
was enshrining civil rights
into what he called
"the books of law,"
he knew that the response
to the measure
would challenge
not only his presidency,
but the entire nation.
VIGUERIE:
It was a game changer.
The creation of a new America.
DAN CARTER:
The Civil Rights Bill,
it lays out all of these
divisions in American society,
whether it's social divisions,
cultural divisions,
racial divisions.
Suddenly, you can't escape
from them anymore.
PERLSTEIN:
It completely unravels
the entire social system
of segregation in the South.
The very foundation
upon which the quote-unquote
"Southern way of life" is built.
It's revolutionary.
HODDING CARTER:
90% of all the white people
in the Deep South thought,
"Oh my God, the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 means what?
"What do you mean you're going
to tell me who I have to serve?
They're going to be
in the same place as me?"
JOHNSON:
My fellow Americans,
this civil rights act
is a challenge to all of us
to go to work in our communities
and our states,
in our homes
and in our hearts
to eliminate the last vestiges
of injustice.
REPORTER:
This is the demonstration
that was supposed to have had
some 600 or 1,000 people in it,
but now in addition to
this civil rights demonstration,
we also had a demonstration
by some young people
for Ringo Starr.
What is this all about?
This is Ringo's birthday.
He's 24, and this is
a Beatles booster club.
And Ringo is going
to be president, too.
You think so?
There are going to be
billions and trillions
of girls voting for him.
If Ringo is
not president,
we want Johnson,
nothing but Johnson,
because Johnson
is the best.
We want Ringo.
Ringo is gonna win, though.
DOUGLAS:
In 1964, we were literally
beside ourselves--
pop psychologists
and sociologists
trying to figure out,
what did it mean
that young women were willing
to violate police barricades,
ignore police authority
completely
so they could try
to touch Ringo's hair?
What adults were seeing
was a new youthful energy
just being unleashed
by thousands
and thousands of girls.
It was a kind
of a collective jailbreak.
NARRATOR:
The young girls at the
barricades were not alone.
ANNOUNCER:
Everybody's going
to Bikini Beach!
NARRATOR:
All during the summer
of 1964,
new forms of rebellion
were taking shape.
Frankie Avalon
and Annette Funicello's
sexy, skin-filled beach movies
raised eyebrows and packed
summer movie theaters.
Pop artist Andy Warhol
thumbed his nose
at the art establishment
with silk screens
of Campbell's soup cans
that would appear in a gallery
made to look like
an American supermarket.
And novelist Ken Kesey
and his band of Merry Pranksters
hopped on their brightly painted
Magic Bus,
setting off from California
on an LSD-infused road trip
across the country.
GITLIN:
In the summer of '64,
young people are proposing
that an entrenched way of life
be dismantled and superseded.
WENNER:
Young vs. old,
the new vs. the old.
It was about that.
You know, "What are you
rebelling against?"
"Well, what have you got?"
Because we were young,
and we knew better
than anybody else.
And it was about
our youthful ideals
and our youthful beliefs
and what we want society to be.
NARRATOR:
On June 15, about 300 students
and a group of veteran
civil rights activists
joined together for an
experiment in social change.
They had come
to a small college in Ohio
to prepare for Freedom Summer,
a radical new campaign
to increase voter registration
of blacks in the Deep South.
The new recruits
were young and idealistic.
They were also
overwhelmingly white.
ED KING:
I was there for training
as a minister.
The point of the project
was to expand the movement,
and here was this help
from college students
recruited through
college chaplains.
BRACEY:
They were going to spend
their summer in Mississippi
fighting for black people's
freedom.
And I think
they saw it that way.
They weren't radical,
radical kids.
They thought this was right,
this is something you can do,
it shouldn't take that long
because you're doing
something that's right.
NARRATOR:
The Freedom Summer
Project was run
by the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee,
known as SNCC.
GITLIN:
Those who had been organizing
for years conceived of a plan.
The idea, quite brilliant idea,
was to import students,
young people, to make
Mississippi front-burner news.
NARRATOR:
The new strategy was necessary
because despite the promise
of the Civil Rights Act,
organizers on the ground
were making little progress
towards equality.
PERLSTEIN:
When a black person
tries to vote
in a place like Mississippi,
there are all sorts
of obstacles,
both legal and illegal,
they face.
I mean, a legal obstacle
might be, say, a literacy test
in which they claim
that they have to recite
the entire Constitution.
Illegal, you might be organizing
to register voters in a church,
and the Ku Klux Klan
might burn your church down.
KING:
In Mississippi,
we had been having
one black man a month
murdered by the Klan
just to set an example
there will be no voter
registration work in this area.
People felt like
the government in Washington
lets these things happen.
BOB MOSES:
Those kind of events,
it was just utter silence.
Utter silence.
There's nobody knows,
and the media doesn't care.
DENNIS:
A lot of us were tired.
We had been in this thing
nonstop.
So there were
a lot of discussions
going on at that time.
"What's going to happen
if you bring in all these
young kids into the places?"
But we really felt
we had no choice.
The time was right.
You had to get America's
attention.
NARRATOR:
The students had come to Ohio
for a crash course
in nonviolent activism
and the voter registration laws
of Mississippi.
They were also warned
about what was waiting for them
in the South.
Most likely, a cop won't try
to chunk you in here,
but he will hit you
across here.
We want to get used to this,
used to people jeering at us.
Yell it out!
"Get out of here, nigger-lovers
coming from the North.
Go home, Yankee!"
MOSES:
The goal for me
was to help the students
understand
their job was just to be
in Mississippi and survive.
REPORTER:
Do you worry about
what's going to happen
to you in Mississippi?
Very much.
This is something
which I had to think out
before I even decided
whether to apply to the program,
and that is whether or not
I was willing
not only to face a beating
but whether or not
it was something
worth being killed for.
We all feel hopeful
that we are going to be able
to do something.
When we sing songs together,
I think a lot of us mean it:
that we shall overcome
and that something really
will come out of this summer.
With some knowledge
of what may await them
but with little protection
against it,
they set forth for a summer
in Mississippi.
POTTER:
It is a year of choice,
and these college students
are trying to decide
what they can do
to create a more just world.
REPORTER:
Yesterday, the first
200 civil rights workers
arrived in Mississippi
and fanned out over the state.
BRACEY:
I don't think
they sensed the danger,
because you can't comprehend
being in the United States
and having somebody
who wants to shoot you
because you want black people
to have the right to vote.
You know, we learned
in civics class,
everybody's a citizen,
they all have a right to vote.
What's the problem?
Well, you're in Mississippi.
REPORTER:
You've got a telephone.
I understand
there have been
quite a few people
calling you.
What do they say?
Well, we got a series
of phone calls
about two minutes after
the telephone was installed.
There is of course
incredible profanity,
numerous threats,
bomb threats,
personalized threats
asking for people by name.
RITA BENDER:
People throw around the words
"police state,"
but Mississippi was.
I guess I would call it
a Klan state.
One thinks of the police
as protectors.
The police were not
the protectors.
NARRATOR:
On June 21,
three members
of the Freedom Summer Project
based in Meridian, Mississippi--
Andrew Goodman, James Chaney
and Mickey Schwerner--
drove to the nearby town
of Longdale,
where a black church
had been burned to the ground.
KING:
The civil rights workers
went up to talk
to church people
who had been beaten
and attacked by the Klan.
And somebody reported to the
police that they were around.
NARRATOR:
Anxious not to be
on the roads at night,
the three young men headed home.
Outside the town
of Philadelphia,
they were arrested for speeding
and taken to the county jail.
Around 10:00 p.m.,
they were released.
Then, they disappeared.
Andrew Goodman had only been
in Mississippi for 24 hours,
having just arrived from
his training course in Ohio.
James Chaney was
a Mississippi native
working for an organization
called CORE:
the Congress of Racial Equality.
Mickey Schwerner,
also with CORE,
had arrived in the state
six months earlier
with his wife Rita.
BENDER:
Mickey and I
first went to Meridian
to establish
a community center there.
It would be a place where kids
could simply come and hang out
and talk about what was going on
in the community
and how they wanted
to affect it.
DENNIS:
When they first came in,
I was not very pleased,
to be honest with you.
They came in
this little Volkswagen
like little flower people,
so I didn't particularly like
the idea.
But then one day,
Mickey called me
and asked me to come over.
So I made an excuse,
he said, "Please come over,"
so I went over there.
When I got there, they had
the Freedom School set up,
they had books,
they had all this stuff,
they had all these kids there
and people coming in,
and I was just amazed.
And that's when I began
to get to know Mickey Schwerner.
He made a statement to me
at the time,
and I still don't know today
whether he was joking or not,
he said, "Sometimes when I'm
here and I'm with the people,
I don't know whether
I'm black or white."
And I sort of laughed it off
and told him, "You're white."
But I wasn't understanding
at that time
really what he probably meant,
you know,
and I wish I had
a deeper conversation with him
about that point,
because he didn't laugh.
REPORTER:
There is some mystery
and some fear
concerning three
of the civil rights workers:
two whites from New York City
and a Negro from Mississippi.
Police say they arrested
the three men
for speeding yesterday,
but released them
after they posted bond.
They have not been
heard from since.
DAN CARTER:
No one at the time thought,
"We're going to use them
as kind of sacrificial lambs,"
but when it happened,
that's exactly what it was.
All of a sudden,
instead of the three paragraphs
on page 19a of the New York
Times,it was front page.
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman,
and Michael Schwerner
Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman
Mississippi in the past few days
has become
a kind of giant amplifier
DAN CARTER:
Every news story
was dominated by it,
and the whole Freedom Summer
became a kind
of national exposure
for what was going on
in the Deep South.
I think it was pretty clear
almost instantly.
When there was no information
in the first few hours,
I think it was pretty clear
that they had been killed.
REPORTER:
Do you feel that your
husband has been murdered?
I don't know.
I don't want to say.
BENDER:
Since I was getting
this attention in any event,
I needed to draw attention
to what this was all about.
And it wasn't about three men,
although it certainly in
a personal way was about that,
but it was really about
what the violence was all about,
what the denial of just basic
human rights was all about,
and who were the usual victims.
As you know, lynchings in
Mississippi are not uncommon;
they have occurred
for many, many, many years.
Maybe this one could be the last
if some positive steps
were taken
to show that the people
in this country have had enough,
that they require
that human beings
be treated as human beings.
REPORTER:
Someone spotted a charred
blue station wagon in the woods
about 20 miles
from Philadelphia.
The station wagon was the one
in which they were last seen.
It had been burned,
but it had not been wrecked.
These young men
have probably been killed
in the state of Mississippi.
When black civil rights workers
were murdered,
the country could live
with that.
But okay,
other people are in danger,
it looks like something else.
Goodman, 20,
a New York college student,
had never participated
in the civil rights movement
WRIGHT-RIGUEUR:
This is something
that affects people
who are sitting at home saying,
"Well, this could never happen
to somebody like me."
All of a sudden,
this is something that could
happen to someone like me.
BENDER:
Three days after
the disappearance,
I went up to Washington and
I met with President Johnson.
The major message of our meeting
was, you know,
"We want you to do what it takes
"to figure out what happened
to these three people.
"But Mr. President,
there has to be
federal protection
for civil rights workers."
I was really pushing the
president to make a commitment,
and he was trying to be
as evasive as he could be.
And so we left and we were
walking down this long corridor
with the press secretary.
He was obviously
somewhat miffed
and said to me, "You know,
you don't talk to the president
of the United States that way,"
and I was a little bit
miffed too, so I said,
"Well, I think I just did."
NARRATOR:
Johnson remained committed
to civil rights,
but worried about
antagonizing the South
by sending federal forces
into Mississippi.
Now with the three men missing
and the national media refusing
to let go of the story,
the president felt enormous
pressure to deliver results.
JOHNSON:
I asked Hoover two weeks ago,
after talking
to the attorney general,
to fill up Mississippi
with FBI men
and infiltrate
everything he could.
I've asked him to put more men
after these three kids.
DENNIS:
They were finding bodies
in Mississippi.
While they were looking,
they were finding bodies.
And so the press would come out
and say they found two bodies,
or they found a body,
and they're checking, going
to do an autopsy to see if
because it's decomposed,
to see if it's
one of the missing people.
And they'd come out and say,
"Nope, they were not one
of the missing people,"
and it was just like,
"Okay, it really wasn't them,
maybe they're still alive."
And you're like,
"Wait a minute,
you're finding bodies, people,"
you know?
"You're finding bodies."
But they were black bodies.
Still, America had not dealt
with this thing
about what really was going on
in Mississippi.
SCHLAFLY:
In 1964, I was the president
of the Illinois Federation
of Republican Women,
and I went all over
the state of Illinois
giving speeches for Goldwater.
We wanted the grassroots
to nominate the candidate.
And that's why I wrote my book,
A Choice, Not An Echo.
It started out as speeches,
and then I developed it
into a little paperback book.
I plunged with an order
for 25,000,
thinking that would
take care of it,
and I ended up selling
three million out of my garage.
NARRATOR:
When Barry Goldwater
announced his candidacy,
he was not considered a favorite
for the Republican
presidential ticket.
But his celebration
of individual liberty
and his attacks
on the federal government
had struck a chord
with the electorate.
PERLSTEIN:
The Goldwater folks
are these young, young
Americans for Freedom activists.
They're housewives.
DAN CARTER:
Small businessmen,
conservative professionals,
doctors, dentists,
simply middle-class Americans
who were, as they saw it, fed up
with what was going on
in American society.
NARRATOR:
Members of what came to be
known as "Goldwater's Army"
had fanned out across America,
knocking on doors,
raising fistfuls of cash,
and lining up delegates
to support his nomination.
Now, they jammed the aisles
of the aging, smoke-filled
Cow Palace in San Francisco
as the 1964 Republican
National Convention
was called to order on July 13.
VIGUERIE:
It just didn't get
any better than this.
We thought we had died
and gone to heaven politically.
It was Mecca.
I mean, if you were
a young conservative,
you just had to say,
"I was there."
SCHLAFLY:
We all marched around.
People were really revved up
about getting Goldwater
nominated and elected.
NARRATOR:
Finally, a true conservative
was poised to win
the Republican nomination,
and he had done it
by embracing positions
long considered too extreme
for his own party.
Goldwater was against
a progressive income tax,
believed Social Security
should be voluntary,
and in the wake
of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
even seemed willing to consider
using nuclear weapons
against the Soviet Union.
His vote against
the Civil Rights Act
had been yet another example
of the senator's determination
to go his own way.
DAN CARTER:
Goldwater was against
the Civil Rights Bill
not because he was opposed
to civil rights,
but because he was opposed
to the role
of the federal government
enforcing civil rights.
EDWARDS:
If you look at the Goldwater
record in Arizona,
it's extraordinary.
He helped to desegregate
the Air National Guard.
He hired blacks
for his department store.
He supported equal rights
and equality,
but he wanted it to come about
in a conservative way,
which is to say gradually,
which is to say
through states' rights.
WRIGHT-RIGUEUR:
Goldwater believes that states
should have the right
to decide what is best for them.
For black voters,
that's interpreted
as an open all-pass
for segregationists,
for racists,
for white supremacists.
REPORTER:
The largest civil rights
demonstration
since the March on Washington
last summer
is assembled before
the San Francisco City Hall.
40,000 people,
half of them Negros,
demonstrate against Goldwater.
WRIGHT-RIGUEUR:
At the 1964 convention,
there are these people
angrily storming the streets
outside of the Cow Palace,
saying, "We do not want
Barry Goldwater!
We don't want Barry Goldwater!"
because they're terrified
that the Republicans
will nominate somebody
that represents
this conservative brand
of Republicanism.
NARRATOR:
But for the true believers
inside the Cow Palace,
Goldwater was the leader
of a conservative wave
that would sweep establishment
Republicans aside.
At last, on the evening
of July 15,
South Carolina put Goldwater
over the top.
ANNOUNCER:
South Carolina casts 16 votes
for Senator Barry Goldwater.
[loud cheering]
REPORTER:
Bellowing and shouting begins
right then and there.
Barry Morris Goldwater,
grandson of a Polish immigrant,
senator from Arizona
and leader of the conservatives
is the Republican choice
to oppose Lyndon Johnson
for the presidency.
EDWARDS:
It was a delicious night
for him and for us.
The Republican Party had become
the Conservative Party.
[applause]
PERLSTEIN:
When he was nominated,
the first thing you would think
Barry Goldwater would want to do
is kind of heal
all the factions
so everyone can
kind of work together
and put their shoulder
to the wheel
to support the party
in November.
He does the exact opposite.
Anyone who joins us
in all sincerity, we welcome.
Those who do not care
for our cause
we don't expect to enter
our ranks in any case.
I would remind you
that extremism in the defense
of liberty is no vice.
[cheering]
Let me remind you also
that moderation in the pursuit
of justice is no virtue.
[applause]
DAN CARTER:
What Goldwater
wanted to say was,
"I'm a radical."
Extremism in the defense
of liberty is no vice.
HODDING CARTER:
When that phrase was uttered,
it was deafening.
The reaction to that,
that was it.
They were people on a mission
which was in the best
American tradition:
to be emphatic about
the redemption of our values
and to be immoderate
in advancing their position.
PERLSTEIN:
1964, both left and right
are ready to kill each other,
fighting over the meaning
of the same word: freedom.
For the right,
the greatest traducer of freedom
is the federal government.
For the left,
it's Southern segregationists.
There's no consensus
over what that key concept,
that key American concept
"freedom," even means.
NARRATOR:
In the summer of 1964,
in a small recording studio
at Detroit's Motown Records,
the singer Marvin Gaye
was laying down a demo
for a new song
when one of the label's
rising stars, Martha Reeves,
happened to walk
into the studio.
KURLANSKY:
Martha heard that Marvin Gaye
was singing a new song,
and she loved Marvin Gaye.
She used to sing backup for him.
The song was called
"Dancing in the Street."
Marvin Gaye saw her there
and said,
"Oh, why don't we
let Martha do it?"
So she sang it to the track,
and she just nailed it.
Calling out around the world
Are you ready
for a brand new beat? ♪
KURLANSKY:
An interesting thing,
"Dancing in the Street."
And then you have
this very strong black voice
saying, "Summer's here
and the time is right
for dancing in the street."
Philadelphia, P.A.
Dancing in the street
Baltimore and D.C. now
Dancing in the street
The song lists all these cities
and they are all cities
with large, volatile
black populations.
You know, the lyrics
are so right
for the political movement
that was coming.
Oh, it doesn't matter
what you wear ♪
Just as long
as you are there ♪
So come on
KURLANSKY:
In a way, people were being
called upon to rise up.
Everywhere
around the world ♪
NARRATOR:
Over the course of the summer,
"Dancing in the Street"
would become
one of Motown's biggest hits
and an unexpected soundtrack
for a nation in the midst
of radical change.
DAVE DENNIS:
I came to New York in July
to visit a friend of mine,
James Baldwin's brother,
David Baldwin.
I was going to spend
the night with him
and then leave the next day
and go back to Mississippi.
And all of a sudden
we heard all these sirens.
And we
"What the heck is going on?"
So it finally just kept going,
so we decided
to step outside to see what we
could see out there,
then there's just,
you know, lit up.
It was the Harlem riots
were going on.
NARRATOR:
On July 16, during an
altercation with the manager
of a Manhattan
apartment building,
a 15-year-old black teenager
named James Powell
was shot and killed by a white
off-duty police officer.
Two days later,
a protest over the missing
Mississippi civil rights workers
turned violent,
and Harlem began to burn.
Suddenly, the racial violence
that had been tearing apart
the South
was now flaring up
in a northern city.
JOHN BRACEY:
When I was growing up,
policemen walked around
communities--
white policemen,
single white policemen--
to walk around a neighborhood
and tell you to move off the
corner and so forth and you did.
You know, you'd be standing
there making noise,
singing doo-wop or whatever and
there'd be one white policeman
and he'd say,
"Okay, it's too late.
Why don't you all go home?"
And you went home.
It never occurred to you
that you would question the
authority of this policeman.
But when you shoot a black kid,
it's like wait a minute,
that policeman
coming around the corner
don't look the same anymore.
It's like, "Who are you
to tell me what to do?"
"Why aren't you locking up
these white people
that are messing
with these black people?"
I mean, that's the hypocrisy
that people see
and that's the hypocrisy
that people respond to.
People came out
in large numbers.
I walked downtown,
just walking downtown.
Cop come up to me,
"Hey you!
What you doing down here?
"Get up against the wall.
"Where's your identification?
Identify yourself."
What right he got to come up
to me like that for?
MAN:
You ain't white.
That's right,
that's right!
That's right,
brother.
BRACEY:
There was an increasing
skepticism about the commitment
of white Americans to any kind
of racial equality at all.
Younger people are saying,
"You're not moving fast enough,"
and Malcolm X is rising
as a counter-voice
to the civil rights movement.
We want freedom,
by any means necessary.
We want justice
by any means necessary.
We want equality
by any means necessary.
KURLANSKY:
Malcolm X made
a very famous speech.
It was this break
in the civil rights movement
that happened right there
in the summer of '64.
We don't feel that in 1964
that we should have
to sit around and wait
for some degree of civil rights.
KURLANSKY:
There was no more patience.
Black people had been left
behind in an era of affluence.
[gunshots]
REPORTER:
Just heard a volley
of shots ring out.
This happened after a policeman
was hit by a flying bottle.
Guns started to fire.
NARRATOR:
As the riots erupted,
more than 8,000 people
took to the streets,
hurling Molotov cocktails,
smashing windows
and looting local businesses.
[sirens wailing]
DENNIS:
I watched police as they
came in in trucks like that
as taunting people,
and Dave and I
were walking down.
There were some police
and this kid darted out.
And the cop just ran out and he
knocked over a can, a trash can,
but he was just trying to get
out of the way, a little kid.
And this cop just turned around
and unloaded on him.
Blew him away
right in front of me.
And so David goes over
and they tried to get David away
from him, poor boy.
And this cop
went over and made David
get on his knees
and he put his gun to his head.
And he said, "I'm gonna
blow you away, nigger."
And David looked at him
and said,
"You might as well kill me,
'cause you can't do me
no more harm."
Mickey and them are missing.
I'm questioning myself.
I'm questioning
what we're doing,
I'm questioning, is that
What is it that this country
really listens to.
I mean, what are they really
getting it, you know?
GITLIN:
In Harlem it wasn't simply
about police misconduct.
It was about low wages,
it was about bad schools.
It's about poverty.
It's about racial subordination.
There was something cooking up,
especially during the summer,
one more moment of brutality,
one more instance
of mistreatment,
and, uh, you know, there's a lot
of tinder ready to burn up.
NARRATOR:
By the end of July,
the Freedom Summer project
had nearly 900 volunteers
at work on voter registration
in Mississippi.
But hanging over everything
was the disappearance of the
three civil rights workers,
who had been missing
for almost six weeks.
REPORTER:
The hunt for clues,
or something more grim,
has reached
the river dragging stage,
with small boats being used
along the muddy,
shallow Pearl River.
DAN CARTER:
Johnson called up
J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI,
who was not terribly
enthusiastic about civil rights,
and he said, "You do what you
need to do, what you have to do.
"I don't care how much you
spend,
"I don't care who you bend,
but you find out who killed
these three young men."
NARRATOR:
More than 250 FBI agents flooded
into Mississippi,
such a large force
that local residents complained
of a federal invasion
of their state.
At first there was nothing
to go on but rumors,
but as the long summer wore on,
information began to leak out.
JON MARGOLIS:
The FBI went in there
with skilled investigators
and lots of cash to pay,
essentially, bribes to people
and they finally managed
to get enough people
to provide enough information.
They were told that the bodies
were probably buried
under this dam, and they dug
and they found the bodies.
REPORTER:
Two of those bodies
were firmly identified
as those of Michael Schwerner
and Andrew Goodman.
Authorities are all but certain
that the third body
is that of James Chaney.
NARRATOR:
A group of local Klansmen,
including the sheriff's deputy,
had shot the men at close range.
Here we are, the Freedom Summer
began the first day
with these three men
disappearing,
and it's just about the last day
of the summer
when we're having
the funeral for them.
The law in Mississippi says
blacks and whites cannot be
buried together
even if they've
been executed together.
So the New York families are
going to have services
in New York, but the service
for James Chaney was basically
a memorial service
for all three.
Dave Dennis is carrying
a very heavy personal load;
he was the nonviolent general
who had ordered them
to go into
this very dangerous place.
I feel that
he's got his freedom;
we're still fighting for it.
DENNIS:
Well, I had been asked by
the national office of CORE.
There was so much unrest
around the country
and what was going on
and bringing attention to this,
could you just take it easy?
And we can try to make a quiet,
low-key kind of eulogy.
And so I'd written some notes,
you know,
and I was going to try
to do this.
What I want to talk about
right now is the living dead
that we have
right among our midst
not only in the state
of Mississippi
but throughout the nation.
And I looked out there and
And I saw little Ben Chaney.
And he loved his brother.
And I was tired of going
to funerals, man.
I was tired of seeing it,
and I looked at Ben Chaney,
I saw this kid in Harlem.
He couldn't have been
much older.
And I lost it.
I lost it.
And I'm sick and tired
and I can't help but feel
bitter, you see.
Deep down inside,
I'm not gonna stand here
and ask anybody in here
not to be angry tonight!
Don't bow down anymore.
Hold your heads up!
We want our freedom now.
I don't want to have to go
to another memorial!
I'm tired of funerals.
I'm tired of it!
We've got to stand up!
DENNIS:
The ultimate aim for Freedom
Summer was to open the doors
to give black people
the right to participate,
the right to vote.
We felt the country could
really see what was going on,
that they were going to step up
to the plate.
"Look, we can't have this,
this is America.
"We are a democratic society.
These people need to be a part
of this government."
So we really believed that.
The tragic thing about it,
the young people who came down
believed that.
They believed in this country.
This country missed
a golden opportunity
with those thousand kids.
BRACEY:
And I think a lot of the hard
lessons learned
by young white kids
in Mississippi
that later got them
into the left
and later turned a lot of people
very kind of radical
was that their parents had been
lying to them
about what their country
was all about.
DENNIS:
When those kids left, they left
Mississippi disappointed,
they left Mississippi angry.
They went back to their
universities and colleges
and they began
to question everything
that this country was saying.
HODDING CARTER III:
By 1964 I was editor
of the family newspaper,
The Delta Democrat-Times
of Greenville, Mississippi.
Freedom Summer,
that stirred the beast.
All of a sudden,
these freedom schools and houses
are popping up
all over Mississippi.
And with them come burnings
and explosions.
The death of those boys was it.
It was the end
of the game for me.
I had been very careful
for a long time.
I wanted to stay in business.
At that point,
I said the hell with this.
I can't just sit here
and be an observer
at a time in which change
is supposed to be coming
and every lever of power in this
state is being used to stop it,
including violence.
And knowing
that there was not a thing
to be done about it
in Mississippi,
I decided to go where I thought
I could do some good,
and I went off to work
for Lyndon Johnson.
There's an old hymn,
"Once to every man and nation
comes a moment to decide."
And that was it.
NARRATOR:
As the November election
approached,
Lyndon Johnson could look back
on his first months in office
with justifiable pride.
He had steadied the nation
in the wake
of President Kennedy's death,
passed historic civil rights
legislation
and launched ambitious plans
for the Great Society.
On the campaign trail,
the president was leading
Barry Goldwater in the polls
and running on a platform
of prosperity at home
and peace overseas.
Then, on the morning
of August 4,
events on the other side of
the globe threatened to derail
Johnson's plans.
Good evening,
I'm Frank McGee, NBC News.
Today, for the second time,
North Vietnamese torpedo boats
attacked United States
naval vessels
patrolling
in international waters.
NARRATOR:
Reports claimed American
destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin
had been attacked twice,
and suddenly the Vietnam War
was front-page news.
Johnson had hoped to put off
the issue of Vietnam
until after the election
in the fall.
In fact, for years, the war had
remained a distant conflict
most Americans cared
little about.
President Kennedy had begun
sending military advisors
to Vietnam back in 1961.
By the time Johnson had
inherited the war,
the number had grown
to more than 16,000,
but the situation
in South Vietnam
had continued to deteriorate.
Now, news of hostilities
in the Gulf of Tonkin
meant the war
could no longer be ignored.
Johnson was running for election
as a peace candidate,
and all of a sudden there's
this incandescent war moment.
There's a hysteria about
our ships being fired upon,
and suddenly we were involved
in a shootout.
NARRATOR:
Although there was
considerable doubt
about whether the second attack
against American destroyers
had even happened,
Johnson took decisive action,
ordering air strikes in
retaliation and asking Congress
for increased authority
to prosecute the war.
Johnson avails himself
of the moment
to cash in on the avalanche
of support.
ROBERT DALLEK:
He goes to the Congress
with what becomes known
as the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution.
ROBERT CARO:
Johnson wants a free hand.
And it's relatively easy for him
to get it,
because people don't realize,
Congress does not realize,
the Senate does not realize
what we are getting into.
And here is a late development.
President Johnson will go
on live television
and radio tonight
with a statement on the
situation in Southeast Asia.
I shall immediately request the
Congress to pass a resolution
HODDING CARTER:
Tonkin Gulf provided
a blank check for the expansion,
which was of course going
to come apparently,
though God knows you didn't
know it at the time.
I mean, that wasn't what the
campaign seemed to be about.
We are not about to send
American boys
9,000 or 10,000 miles
away from home
to do what Asian boys ought
to be doing for themselves.
[applause]
MAX FRANKEL:
Johnson knew the right rhetoric.
He had to run as the fellow
who was not going to go to war,
and that was the burden on his
conscience and on his shoulders
because behind the scenes
he knows
people were proposing
a very significant escalation.
GITLIN:
I think we smelled
very big trouble.
I don't know that we could have
imagined just how big
and bad and long
it was going to be.
But we we took it
very seriously.
I knew there was something fuzzy
about it and I also knew
it was an overreaction.
To retaliate in that form
was a didn't have to do
with what occurred in the Gulf.
I knew that.
And yet I firmly believed
he would end this thing.
Come gather 'round people
wherever you roam ♪
And admit that the waters
around you have grown ♪
And accept it that soon
you'll be drenched to the bone ♪
If your time to you
is worth savin' ♪
Then you better start swimmin'
or you'll sink like a stone ♪
For the times,
they are a-changin'. ♪
DOUGLAS:
By the time Bob Dylan is singing
"The Times They Are a-Changin'"
in 1964,
there was an emerging sense
of betrayal.
1964 exposed fault lines
around politics,
fault lines around race,
fault lines around gender.
RICK PERLSTEIN:
I think the story America had
been telling itself,
that it was united
and at peace with itself,
was an unsustainable story,
and it kind of cracks of
its own internal contradictions.
And 1964 is when those
contradictions come to a fore.
NARRATOR:
In the autumn of 1964,
after months marked
by racial violence
and echoes of war overseas,
Americans revisited the event
that had so shaken
the national confidence.
REPORTER:
The final verdict
on the fateful tragedy
which engulfed the nation
ten months ago.
NARRATOR:
On September 27,
the Warren Commission announced
that Lee Harvey Oswald was
the sole gunman responsible
for the assassination
of President Kennedy.
KURLANSKY:
Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone.
What's going on here?
This was a widely believed thing
that some kind of conspiracy
was involved.
The assassination of President
Kennedy was, inevitably,
a mystery story
on a grand scale.
NARRATOR:
In the days following
its release,
all three networks devoted
extensive coverage
to the Warren Report,
fueling the national obsession
with the assassination.
DOUGLAS:
Television had a huge impact
on people's sensibilities.
Television is now a major
fixture in people's homes.
It's delivering a half an hour
of news every night
and entertainment.
So it's all in there together.
[Mayberry theme playing]
NARRATOR:
At first glance,
the fall lineup that year
was a reassuring collection
familiar faces:
Andy Griffith, Gomer Pyle
and Dick Van Dyke.
DOUGLAS:
Television was still primarily
black and white.
You could see it
as a black-and-white world.
You could see it
as a very simple world.
But you also see television
representing what's going on
in the culture in a very
metaphorical fashion.
[theme song playing]
There's new shows
like The Addams Family.
They're creepy
and they're kooky "
DOUGLAS:
Here are these ghoulish,
monstrous, grotesque people
moving in, bringing in
difference to the neighborhood.
Welcome, honeymooners,welcome!
Welcome!
Aren't they thoughtful, dear?
Throwing rice.
That's not rice, old man.
It's lizard's teeth.
[laughter]
DOUGLAS:
It is this kitschy way
to work through
how to manage white-bread
neighborhoods
dealing with a very different
kind of family moving in.
I mean you're going
to have to learn
to be a suburban housewife.
I'll learn,
you'll see, I'll learn.
Now, you'll have to learn
to cook and keep house.
And soon we'll be a normal,
happy couple with no problems.
DOUGLAS:
People dismissed Bewitched
as the kitschiest,
most ridiculous show ever.
But this was very much
a kind of hinged show
around women's power
and women's desire for power.
I have to check my roast.
DOUGLAS:
Here is a show about a very
beautiful suburban wife
who happens to be a witch,
who has magical powers that her
husband begs her not to use.
You know, people think this is
just entertainment
Sam, now cut that out!
DOUGLAS:
But people in television are
members of our culture,
and they imbibe the zeitgeist
of the times.
I thought we could start
with a protest march.
I know one too.
DOUGLAS:
Change is everywhere,
rebellion is everywhere.
NARRATOR:
As the new school year
got underway
at the University of California
at Berkeley,
students flocked to the campus
from all over the nation.
In many ways they were typical
American undergraduates--
clean-cut, career-minded and
conventional in most respects.
But this year
there was a difference.
Some of them had spent
the previous months
working in Mississippi
as part of Freedom Summer.
COHEN:
By '64, Northern students
are being inspired
by the Southern freedom struggle
and using civil disobedience
to try to knock down all kinds
of discrimination
in their backyards.
COONTZ:
We would organize people
to go picket the Oakland Tribune
and other institutions
that discriminated
against African Americans
and we put our tables up right
at the entrance to the campus.
NARRATOR:
The center of student activism
was a row of tables
at the corner of Bancroft
and Telegraph streets
that had been traditionally used
for the distribution
of information
about a wide range
of campus activities.
COHEN:
They think that's
on city property.
It turns out they're partially
on campus property
and there's pressure put on
the university administration.
How can the university be used
as a center for social protest
and social change?
And they told us,
"You can no longer organize
"off-campus activities.
You can't have political tables
on campus."
And that leads to this huge
battle over free speech.
At this particular point,
we have been denied this,
and we think whether or not
this is true or not
as far as why they're doing it,
the effect of cutting this off
is to stop political activity
on this campus.
We told them they had to go back
on the streets,
where they've been traditionally
for this kind of activity.
And they then took the position
that we want to undertake
these activities
on campus property itself
and we said,
"This is not possible."
That was sort
of the crystallizing moment
at which the free speech
movement came into being.
The free speech movement
was organized
by veterans
of Mississippi Summer,
and if you had been
in Mississippi
and you were up against
the Ku Klux Klan
and the racists' leadership,
to have some university
administrator telling you,
"Ooh, boys and girls, you better
not go pass out leaflets"
That didn't go over well.
COHEN:
This is not the right group
to challenge or the right time.
Because by this time,
even though they're young,
they have a lot more
political experience
than the people who are,
you know,
these middle-aged administrators
who are trying to suppress them.
NARRATOR:
Angry at what they perceived
as a violation of their
First Amendment rights,
a diverse coalition of
student groups decided to defy
the new restrictions
and set up their tables even
further inside the campus.
In response, the administration
suspended eight students
associated with the protests.
COONTZ:
At one point, people were
sitting at a table
and a guy named Jack Weinberg,
who was a veteran
of the civil rights movement,
was at the table
and he was not a student.
And when they asked him
for a student I.D.
and he couldn't produce one,
the police told him
that he was trespassing and
he was going to be arrested.
STUDENT:You can't just
pick on one.
I am arresting you.
You're either going
to come with me
STUDENT:All of us, you arrestus all.
We're all manning
the table.
But instead of getting up, he
used his civil rights training
and just went limp.
They drove a police car onto
campus just about lunch hour,
when people were streaming
out of their classes,
and we see somebody being bodily
lifted into a police car.
And so people said,
"What's going on?"
And they surrounded
the police car, not on purpose,
but once we found out
what was going on,
it was like,
"No, that's not right."
CROWD [chanting]:
Let him go! Let him go!
Let him go!
COONTZ:
People start to argue
about what we should do.
Should we let them take the car?
What if we get arrested?
What should we do?
And finally somebody brings
a bullhorn and says,
"Why don't we stand
on top of the car
so that people can hear?"
So, that's what we did.
One person at a time who was
going to speak did that.
Every single one of them
taking their shoes off
so that we wouldn't damage
the car.
That was the kind of mentality.
And so there was
spirited debate.
What emerged was not simply,
"Let's go support civil rights,"
but "Let's have a university
that's sort of worthy
of our better selves."
The remarkable thing
about this entire situation
is that there's been a coalition
that I think is completely
unusual in politics.
There's been a coalition
from Youth for Goldwater
all the way over from
the Young Socialist Alliance.
And usually these two groups
don't even speak together.
This is an amazing thing to me
and a very happy experience
in my life
to see
so many democratic students.
CROWD:
Oh, deep in my heart, I
I just did what any
of my fellow students,
or my fellows in all these
organizations, would have done.
So I was just singled out.
Chance selected me;
I'm no martyr.
NARRATOR:
Jack Weinberg spent 32 hours
in the police car,
while more than a thousand
students protested around him,
and leaders of the new movement,
including a young philosophy
student named Mario Savio,
negotiated
with the administration.
Finally, on the evening
of October 2,
the university and the
demonstrators reached a deal.
MAN:
What's the word
now, doctor?
Well, there has been
an agreement signed.
Agreement signed?
Yes, by the student groups
and by me as president
of the university,
which has several points to it.
The first point is that
the student demonstrators
shall desist
from their illegal actions
protesting
university regulations.
We've also agreed to set up a
committee to examine the rules.
NARRATOR:
For weeks the activists and
university officials negotiated,
searching for a way
to end the crisis.
Then, the chancellor
abruptly announced
that Mario Savio
and three other students
would, in fact, be suspended.
Infuriated, Savio and the other
leaders raised the stakes,
calling
for an immediate occupation
of the administration building.
SAVIO:
There's a time
when the operation of the
machine becomes so odious,
makes you so sick at heart
that you can't take part,
you can't even passively
take part,
and you've got to put
your bodies
upon the gears and upon the
wheels, upon the levers,
upon all the apparatus and
you've got to make it stop.
COONTZ:
Mario Savio was this eloquent,
eloquent guy.
And I've never reread
the speech,
but it was just burned
in my memory.
JOAN BAEZ:
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
COHEN:
People are marching slowly in.
Joan Baez is singing
"We Shall Overcome."
It's not like a hijacking.
It's like a nonviolent
occupation of the building
that follows Mario's speech.
The sense of community
inside there was amazing.
People were holding
Freedom School classes,
poetry's being read,
films are being shown.
It's like they are doing
all this educational reform work
right in the building.
So the Bay Area
Civil Rights Movement
in the stairwell over there.
The door will be open for anyone
who would like to leave
and you may leave at any time,
but you may not get
back into the building.
COONTZ:
This was not a party.
We were so idealistic,
and I remember calling
my mom and I said,
"Mom, I think I'm going
to get arrested."
I have an announcement.
This assemblage has developed
to such a point
that the purpose and work
of the university
have been materially impaired.
[applause]
NARRATOR:
In the early hours
of the morning,
hundreds of state and campus
police entered the building
and began arresting
the demonstrators.
Almost 800 students would be
carted off to jail.
WENNER:
I could see the arrests going
on, you know,
and the cops they're dragging
people down marble staircases.
I actually got up and walked,
I have to say.
And then we were thrown into
paddy wagons and driven off.
We started singing
freedom songs.
WENNER:
Well, it just galvanized
everybody.
I mean it just riveted
the entire campus.
NARRATOR: And within days,
the academic senate,
composed of the university's
faculty, voted overwhelmingly
in favor of the students.
The undergraduates who had faced
disciplinary action
had their suspensions dropped.
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
Several thousand students
have gathered
for what has been billed
as a victory celebration,
a victory the students feel
is assured as a result
of yesterday's action
by the academic senate.
COONTZ:
In 1964, even those
of us who had
tremendous criticisms
of the government--
its burgeoning involvement
in Vietnam,
its failure to really enforce
the Civil Rights Act--
nevertheless, we were
we still had a lot of illusions
or hope that America
did stand for freedom,
would stand up for freedom.
And so there was the sense
that when things went wrong,
they must not understand.
You know, maybe if we just
explain to them
that this is not part
of our tradition,
we should be doing
something else.
And then when they
didn't listen,
it was a radicalizing
experience.
WENNER:
It was, to me anyway,
it was the precedent
of the modern student movement.
Student protest, as we know it,
as we came to know it,
started there, then.
This is a moment when that
sort of spreading
of that hyper democratic ethos
of the freedom movement
from the South,
is spreading nationally.
Soon it's going to be
about the war.
Later, it's going to be about
gender equality.
It's going to burst into lots
of other areas as well.
So it really reshaped a lot
of American politics.
It's not just something strange
that's happening in California,
this is something that's
going to be shaping
American politics for years
to come.
My fellow Americans,
your choice in this election
may be the most important
that you will ever make.
NARRATOR:
As the presidential campaign
entered its final weeks,
both candidates appeared to be
men with something to prove.
GOLDWATER:
I pledge that I will restore
to America a dedication to
principle and to conscience
among its public servants.
Government is not an enemy
of the people.
Government is the people
themselves.
NARRATOR:
As he crisscrossed
the country,
campaigning at a breakneck pace,
Lyndon Johnson seemed determined
to win a victory that would
vanquish any doubts
about his legitimacy, and
validate the social programs
that were the centerpiece
of his administration.
Barry Goldwater, on the other
hand, seemed less interested
in winning the White House
than in taking a stand
on the conservative principles
that he so passionately
championed.
The Goldwater people
and the Johnson people
saw this as a fundamental
kind of choice.
I suggest tonight that
the liberal approach
to America's problems has failed
miserably in every sphere
of activity.
[cheers and applause]
Everyone can have a job.
Every kid can have an education.
We can get these folks
off the streets.
In time, we can have
the great society
that we're all entitled to.
[cheers and applause]
We can prevent depressions,
we can have full employment.
I've heard these pipe dreams
for the last 30 years.
And I've never seen
one of them come true.
NARRATOR:
As the candidates
made their case to the voters,
a historic shift was underway
in the electorate.
Because of his support
for civil rights,
Johnson knew he was
too unpopular
to do much campaigning
in the Deep South.
His wife, Lady Bird, however,
offered to go,
convinced that Southern chivalry
would still prevail.
As it turned out, her reception
was barely civil,
and in South Carolina, she was
almost shouted off the stage.
Johnson is now thoroughly
identified
with integration,
with civil rights.
PERLSTEIN:
Because of Barry Goldwater's
vote
against the Civil Rights Act,
because he speaks of the South
as a class of people who
are victimized by the North,
this process of the
solid Democratic South
becoming a vehicle for the
Republican party begins.
And that really is the
most important realignment
in the way the party system
is structured
since the American Civil War.
NARRATOR:
If Goldwater's fortunes
were improving
throughout the South,
nationally his campaign
was in need of a boost.
It came from a surprising
source.
[applause]
REAGAN:
Thank you, thank you very much.
NARRATOR:
On October 27, just one week
before the election,
the Goldwater campaign
found themselves
with an unused 30-minute block
of television time on NBC.
At the last minute the campaign
chose to fill it with a speech
that had been recorded earlier
that fall
by an actor-turned-
Republican-activist
named Ronald Reagan.
For three decades we've sought
to solve the problems
of unemployment through
government planning
and the more the plans fail
the more the planners plan.
But now if government planning
and welfare had the answer
and they've had
almost 30 years of it,
shouldn't we expect government
to read the score to us
once in a while?
[applause]
SCHLAFLY:
The Goldwater people just went
bananas when they saw it.
Barry Goldwater has faith in us.
He has faith that you and I have
the ability, and the dignity,
and the right to make
our own decisions
and determine our own destiny.
Thank you very much.
[applause]
MARGOLIS:
The reaction was so favorable
that it was run again.
It was originally scheduled
to run once, and it ran again.
And it established Ronald Reagan
as a political factor
to be reckoned with
in the future.
CARTER:
People may not have thought
about him
as a political candidate,
but he was from '64 on
a serious political figure.
EDWARDS:
Without any question,
that without Barry Goldwater
there would have been
no Ronald Reagan.
NARRATOR:
On Election Day, November 3,
Barry Goldwater and his wife
arrived at their local precinct
in Phoenix to cast their votes.
The officials tried to wave
the candidate inside,
but characteristically,
Goldwater insisted
on waiting in line.
Lyndon Johnson kept campaigning
until the last possible moment.
He had left nothing to chance,
and by early that evening,
the results would show
just how completely
the Johnson juggernaut
had triumphed.
Lyndon Baines Johnson
has been elected president
of the United States.
And the landslide has carried
him in for his first term
in office on his own right,
by his own election.
["Hail to the Chief" playing]
PERLSTEIN:
Lyndon Johnson finally wins
his landslide.
He gets 61% of the popular vote,
he wins every state
except for a few in the South
and Arizona,
which Barry Goldwater
barely wins,
and the mandate for liberalism
and the Great Society
and civil rights
has been achieved.
NARRATOR:
Not only was Johnson's
presidential victory
unprecedented, he had carried
with him huge new majorities
in both houses of Congress.
Now the astonishing ambition
of the Great Society
seemed possible.
Bill after bill-- for Medicare,
federal aid to education,
voting rights,
environmental protection--
were all within reach.
And the conservative opposition
had been vanquished.
PERLSTEIN:
The pundits claim that
conservatism is dead,
it's that definitive.
But the thing about
it was, the only people
who didn't believe they
were dead were the people
who were supposed to be dead.
MARGOLIS:
The story they missed was
that this candidate,
Barry Goldwater,
who espoused policies
that were substantially outside
the national consensus
of the last previous 20 years
at least,
had gotten 40% of the vote.
EDWARDS:
That told us we were right.
Our ideas are not only right,
but they have a power.
They have an influence, they
have a great, great potential.
I have no bitterness,
no rancor at all.
KURLANSKY:
27 million people voted for
Barry Goldwater,
and this became the base
of a new Republican party.
[applause]
[Christmas music playing]
[cheers and applause]
JOHNSON:
The lights of Christmas
symbolize each year
the happiness of this
wonderful season.
But this year I believe
their brightness expresses
the hopefulness of the times
in which we live.
CARO:
At the end of the year,
Lyndon Johnson
is where he has wanted to be
all his life.
He has a vision for the country,
you really feel this vision,
it's starting to move.
He's a figure just
so immensely triumphant,
it's hard to believe that things
are going to change
so dramatically.
NARRATOR:
In the years ahead,
Lyndon Johnson's dream
of a Great Society would be
shattered by the long
and divisive war in Vietnam.
Embittered and unpopular,
he would decide not to run
for president four years later.
The activists that had conceived
of Freedom Summer
would fight on, some continuing
the path of non-violence,
while others turned towards
a new doctrine of black power.
Out of the ashes of the
Goldwater campaign,
young Republicans would regroup,
and finally make good
on their conservative
revolution.
A new generation would challenge
authority at every turn,
refusing to follow the rules,
and helping to bring an end
to the war in Vietnam.
And women awakened by the
Feminine Mystiquewould go on
to champion a movement that
would fundamentally reshape
the nature of American society.
The spirit of revolution
that would be sparked
by the tumultuous events of
1964, and reverberate throughout
the rest of the 1960s
and beyond,
was summed up in a song
by Sam Cooke,
released in the final months of
that transformative year.
It was called
"A Change Is Gonna Come".
I was born by the river
KING:
In '64, everywhere
people are saying,
"I can do something.
"Change is possible.
"Change is worth living
and dying for,
"and would we dare go forward?
Yes, we would."
VIGURIE:
It was the creation
of a new America.
It was a door to our future--
once we went through it
there was no going back.
COONTZ:
1964 saw a series
of events
that really did crystallize the
tension
between the tremendous
sense of idealism
coexisting with
the dawning sense of outrage.
DENNIS:
Here it is, America.
Here's the bad,
let's make it good.
That's what we're about.
We're Americans.
EDWARDS:
We were still on fire,
we were still feeling
what it was like to mobilize,
and I think I determined
that coming out of that,
that it is possible to change
the course of history.
HODDING CARTER III:
I would pay money to go back,
and just live through
that whole era again.
I would make all the same
mistakes, but I'd know,
as I knew then,
that I could never have asked
for a better time to be involved
in the affairs of my nation.
'64 was the propulsion
from the past into the future.
It's been a long
A long time coming
But I know a change
gonna come ♪
Oh yes it will