1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:03,003 --> 00:00:04,961 [waves splashes] 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 4 00:00:09,096 --> 00:00:10,010 [car horn honking] 5 00:00:12,229 --> 00:00:15,493 [ambulance siren wailing] 6 00:00:24,981 --> 00:00:30,160 [indistinct chatter] 7 00:00:30,204 --> 00:00:33,598 [Ira] I have, uh, always resisted coming back. 8 00:00:33,642 --> 00:00:35,296 [train rumbles] 9 00:00:38,690 --> 00:00:41,954 You have to understand, this was like a shrine to us. 10 00:00:41,998 --> 00:00:43,652 This was like a religious shrine. 11 00:00:43,695 --> 00:00:45,915 [railway rumbling] 12 00:00:46,481 --> 00:00:52,878 And it was as if you'd had a beautiful treasured gothic cathedral 13 00:00:52,922 --> 00:00:56,230 and they had torn it down and built a department store. 14 00:00:57,057 --> 00:01:01,409 ♪ I'm a man on fire Walking through your street♪ 15 00:01:01,452 --> 00:01:06,370 Behind bars and you see that little EFA, 16 00:01:06,414 --> 00:01:09,025 Ebbets Field Apartments that must stand for. 17 00:01:11,288 --> 00:01:13,769 So I used to say, "If you're a Dodger fan, 18 00:01:13,812 --> 00:01:16,598 you ended up believing in civil rights and civil liberties 19 00:01:16,641 --> 00:01:20,558 and if you're a Yankee fan, you ended up believing in oil depletion allowances." 20 00:01:22,256 --> 00:01:27,652 Aside from standing on the ground geographically where I know Ebbets Field was, 21 00:01:27,696 --> 00:01:32,831 uh, standing here really has no resonance for me with that experience. 22 00:01:34,006 --> 00:01:37,575 I mean, I see the sign out here, but, uh, it's not real. 23 00:01:40,100 --> 00:01:41,449 [interviewer 1] Ira, you want to tell her what this is about? 24 00:01:41,492 --> 00:01:44,930 Yes, they're doing a film about me. 25 00:01:44,974 --> 00:01:49,674 And... and I grew up in Brooklyn and I was an old Brooklyn Dodger fan 26 00:01:49,718 --> 00:01:53,113 and I used to go to Ebbets Field when I was your age 27 00:01:53,156 --> 00:01:57,160 and my first season of rooting for the Dodgers was 1947. 28 00:01:57,204 --> 00:02:01,164 You know what 1947 was in the history of the Dodgers? 29 00:02:01,208 --> 00:02:05,951 It was the year that Jackie Robinson first played in Ebbets Field 30 00:02:05,995 --> 00:02:09,390 which stood right over here where these building are. Yeah. 31 00:02:16,179 --> 00:02:17,746 Yeah, yeah. 32 00:02:19,226 --> 00:02:22,707 And, uh, that was really something. 33 00:02:23,534 --> 00:02:25,667 [soft music playing] 34 00:02:26,233 --> 00:02:28,365 [growls] 35 00:02:29,671 --> 00:02:32,935 I have to... I have to slide in. 36 00:02:35,981 --> 00:02:39,376 I... I always regard it as a form of sacrilege that 37 00:02:39,420 --> 00:02:42,074 on the ground where Jackie Robinson stole home 38 00:02:42,118 --> 00:02:45,513 there might be washing machines doing somebody's dirty laundry. 39 00:02:48,168 --> 00:02:51,301 [Ira] It's been a long time since I've been here. I don't recognize it. 40 00:02:52,868 --> 00:02:54,478 Yeah, that's exactly right. 41 00:03:01,485 --> 00:03:04,488 [Ira] That guy we met on the street, you know, he knew about it. 42 00:03:04,532 --> 00:03:08,405 But these kids, why would they know any of this history 43 00:03:08,449 --> 00:03:10,233 if somebody didn't teach it to them, 44 00:03:10,277 --> 00:03:11,887 if somebody didn't tell them about it? 45 00:03:11,930 --> 00:03:15,760 [upbeat music playing] 46 00:03:27,729 --> 00:03:31,820 ♪ Yay, come dance with me 47 00:03:33,517 --> 00:03:36,564 ♪ Over heartache and rage 48 00:03:39,131 --> 00:03:42,091 ♪ Come set us free 49 00:03:42,613 --> 00:03:45,616 ♪ Over panic and strange 50 00:03:48,097 --> 00:03:54,408 ♪ I wanna see our bodies burning Like the old big sun ♪ 51 00:03:57,324 --> 00:04:03,330 ♪ I wanna know what we've been Learning and learning from ♪ 52 00:04:08,291 --> 00:04:10,815 ♪ Everybody want... 53 00:04:10,859 --> 00:04:15,907 My first impression of him, Ira Glasser seemed to me to be a normal ordinary person. 54 00:04:18,083 --> 00:04:19,911 [Jay Nordlinger] Young people know who Ira Glasser is? 55 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:24,133 It would take a very special kind of young person, I would say, very special. 56 00:04:26,744 --> 00:04:29,573 Nah, of course, first impressions don't last very long. [laughs] 57 00:04:31,662 --> 00:04:37,538 A bald guy with a mustache and a firm handshake and a Brooklyn accent, 58 00:04:37,581 --> 00:04:39,844 Ira wasn't about to kiss anyone's ass. 59 00:04:40,497 --> 00:04:43,370 ♪ -Only one desire -One desire ♪ 60 00:04:43,413 --> 00:04:45,589 ♪ -That's still in me -That's left in me ♪ 61 00:04:45,633 --> 00:04:48,636 ♪ - I want the whole damn world -I want the whole damn world♪ 62 00:04:48,679 --> 00:04:54,772 ♪ -To come and dance with me -Come and dance with me, yeah ♪ 63 00:05:04,782 --> 00:05:07,959 [indistinct chatter] 64 00:05:09,134 --> 00:05:11,180 [Noam] Good evening, everybody, 65 00:05:11,223 --> 00:05:13,878 welcome to the Comedy Cellar Show here on SiriusXM Channel 99 66 00:05:13,922 --> 00:05:17,491 -and we have, uh, two pretty important comedians-- -[man 1] About time they-- 67 00:05:17,534 --> 00:05:19,710 [Noam] Now... now hold on, hold on. 68 00:05:19,754 --> 00:05:21,973 Wait, I'll introduce the guest of honor first and then we can get-- 69 00:05:22,017 --> 00:05:27,022 Mr. Ira Glasser, who is, was... was head of the American Civil Liberties Union, 70 00:05:27,065 --> 00:05:30,808 -from what years? -'78 to 2001. 71 00:05:30,852 --> 00:05:33,245 -Wow. -[Noam] '78 to 2001. 72 00:05:33,289 --> 00:05:37,554 Oh, I remember reading somewhere, uh, that you were credited with taking the ACLU 73 00:05:37,598 --> 00:05:40,427 from like a small-time mom-and-pop operation 74 00:05:40,470 --> 00:05:43,865 to becoming the national force that it is today, right? 75 00:05:43,908 --> 00:05:45,562 -You're... you're that... that Ira Glasser? That's-- -Well-- 76 00:05:45,606 --> 00:05:48,086 I'm that Ira Glasser. It was, you know, it was... 77 00:05:48,130 --> 00:05:53,004 it was pretty well established, uh, before... before me, but, um, but it grew a lot. 78 00:05:53,048 --> 00:05:54,310 Yeah, it grew a lot. 79 00:05:54,963 --> 00:05:59,097 [tranquil music playing] 80 00:06:09,151 --> 00:06:14,635 [Ira] Much of my political growth and development happened between the '50s and the '60s. 81 00:06:16,071 --> 00:06:20,815 The '50s were known, as I recall, as the silent generation. 82 00:06:21,468 --> 00:06:24,384 [man 2] The cafe lounge is a perfect spot to loaf a while 83 00:06:24,427 --> 00:06:28,692 and get acquainted while you enjoy a beverage or other light refreshments. 84 00:06:28,736 --> 00:06:34,306 It were, I remember, as a time of not only a political quiescence, 85 00:06:34,350 --> 00:06:37,092 but... but political intimidation. 86 00:06:37,135 --> 00:06:42,358 We're spending an awful lot of time, a lot of money, uh, 87 00:06:42,402 --> 00:06:48,408 investigating things other than the communists that we should be digging out of government. 88 00:06:48,973 --> 00:06:53,151 [Ira] People were forced to sign loyalty oaths and were fired if they didn't 89 00:06:53,195 --> 00:06:56,720 and it was a time when people were afraid to go to political meetings, 90 00:06:56,764 --> 00:06:59,593 when they were afraid to sign petitions. 91 00:06:59,636 --> 00:07:03,814 I don't remember there being any student activism. 92 00:07:03,858 --> 00:07:07,601 [man 3] While with half the world already under the yoke of communism, 93 00:07:07,644 --> 00:07:11,909 those nations still remaining free look hopefully to the U.S. 94 00:07:12,475 --> 00:07:18,394 That changed dramatically and I mean, really, it's a quantum leap in the '60s. 95 00:07:18,438 --> 00:07:21,397 [crowd cheering] 96 00:07:21,441 --> 00:07:26,794 There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, 97 00:07:26,837 --> 00:07:28,752 makes you so sick at heart-- 98 00:07:28,796 --> 00:07:31,842 [Roger] People were extraordinarily frustrated. 99 00:07:31,886 --> 00:07:37,544 Their kids were being drafted, the kids themselves were in the streets, uh, protesting. 100 00:07:37,587 --> 00:07:41,417 The civil rights movement had come to a stopping point 101 00:07:41,461 --> 00:07:44,551 with the passage of the Public Accommodations Act 102 00:07:44,594 --> 00:07:47,292 and the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act 103 00:07:47,597 --> 00:07:51,340 and, uh, yet, there still wasn't much equality. 104 00:07:51,862 --> 00:07:57,477 As the political climate heated up a lot in the country, 105 00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:01,568 I became less and less satisfied with sitting at a desk 106 00:08:01,611 --> 00:08:05,397 and editing a magazine about what was happening 107 00:08:05,441 --> 00:08:08,270 and I began to develop a strong desire 108 00:08:08,313 --> 00:08:12,927 to sort of get involved more directly in the political action. 109 00:08:14,450 --> 00:08:18,149 [man 4] Robert F. Kennedy, he wins the nomination on the first ballot 110 00:08:18,193 --> 00:08:23,111 and Mayor Robert Wagner, a principal backer, introduces the candidate to the convention. 111 00:08:23,154 --> 00:08:28,986 At the same time, uh, Bobby Kennedy had begun to emerge for me 112 00:08:29,030 --> 00:08:32,947 as a kind of a unique figure in American politics. 113 00:08:32,990 --> 00:08:36,646 Being a United States senator, I mean, seeing that in my own family, 114 00:08:36,690 --> 00:08:40,563 I think is a position, a very lofty position, 115 00:08:40,607 --> 00:08:42,870 in a position where you can accomplish a great deal. 116 00:08:42,913 --> 00:08:48,745 Somewhere in... in the middle of his brother's presidential administration 117 00:08:48,789 --> 00:08:53,794 and in the years afterwards when he was elected senator from New York, 118 00:08:53,837 --> 00:09:00,888 he began to be one of the few and certainly the leading white politician 119 00:09:00,931 --> 00:09:06,633 who became genuinely engaged with the civil rights movement. 120 00:09:08,504 --> 00:09:12,900 And I wrote him this letter explaining to him 121 00:09:12,943 --> 00:09:18,253 about why I thought he was a unique politician and uniquely positioned to implement 122 00:09:18,296 --> 00:09:22,518 and... and initiate the kind of changes I thought he wanted, 123 00:09:22,562 --> 00:09:25,390 I thought I wanted and I thought the nation needed. 124 00:09:27,697 --> 00:09:31,309 The idea that somebody, you know, completely unknown 125 00:09:31,353 --> 00:09:34,617 and without any public credentials at all 126 00:09:34,661 --> 00:09:36,924 could write a letter like that to the United States senator 127 00:09:36,967 --> 00:09:41,102 and actually get an appointment to see him was ridiculous. 128 00:09:41,145 --> 00:09:46,020 Whatever reason, uh, I finally got this appointment with Senator Kennedy 129 00:09:46,063 --> 00:09:49,153 and I trudged down to Washington to see him. 130 00:09:51,591 --> 00:09:57,118 So, I sit down with him and he asks me a lean in question of some kind 131 00:09:57,161 --> 00:10:01,644 and I proceed to tell him why I think he should run for president. 132 00:10:01,688 --> 00:10:05,648 And so he just said that this was, you know, at best premature, 133 00:10:05,692 --> 00:10:11,872 but he asked me to, you know, stay in touch, which I took as a great encouragement. 134 00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:15,353 [soft music playing] 135 00:10:16,833 --> 00:10:20,750 Then he said to me, "Well, so what are you going to be doing in the meantime, 136 00:10:20,794 --> 00:10:24,624 I mean, and if you don't want to continue to edit that magazine? What are you thinking of?" 137 00:10:26,016 --> 00:10:31,587 I said, "I do have another offer that a former colleague of mine at the magazine 138 00:10:31,631 --> 00:10:36,157 who was now the executive director of the ACLU in New York 139 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:41,162 and had just called me and said that they were expanding a bit 140 00:10:41,205 --> 00:10:45,470 and he was thinking of creating a position of Associate Director there." 141 00:10:45,514 --> 00:10:47,298 And Kennedy said, "And?" 142 00:10:47,342 --> 00:10:49,692 And I said, "I told him no." [laughs] 143 00:10:49,736 --> 00:10:52,042 For one thing, I was interested in working for you 144 00:10:52,086 --> 00:10:55,480 and for another thing, I hardly knew what the ACLU was." 145 00:10:55,524 --> 00:10:59,484 I thought it was all lawyers and I was not a lawyer. 146 00:10:59,528 --> 00:11:06,578 I told him that its agenda of issues focusing on litigation around the Bill of Rights 147 00:11:06,622 --> 00:11:12,280 was much narrower than my range of interest in the political life. 148 00:11:12,323 --> 00:11:15,631 Actually, he said, "You're wrong about the narrowness. 149 00:11:15,675 --> 00:11:19,809 I think, if you work there it will get you into all the issues you care about." 150 00:11:19,853 --> 00:11:22,899 He said, "You should consider that offer seriously." 151 00:11:24,858 --> 00:11:28,731 I was really sort of stunned by that response 152 00:11:28,775 --> 00:11:34,258 uh, because he was hardly a man of the left or of libertarian instincts. 153 00:11:34,302 --> 00:11:37,479 This is the guy who worked for Joe McCarthy who had wiretapped people. 154 00:11:37,522 --> 00:11:39,568 And I said, "Why do you say that?" 155 00:11:39,611 --> 00:11:45,269 And he says, "The ACLU is a really unique organization 156 00:11:45,313 --> 00:11:47,097 in American life. 157 00:11:47,141 --> 00:11:52,407 It's founded on a set of, sort of, root principles 158 00:11:52,450 --> 00:11:55,062 of what this country is about. 159 00:11:55,105 --> 00:12:01,111 Uh, values of liberty and all the range of values codified in the Bill of Rights." 160 00:12:06,247 --> 00:12:09,467 A month or so later after my meeting with Kennedy, 161 00:12:09,511 --> 00:12:12,993 I accept this newly created position of Associate Director 162 00:12:13,036 --> 00:12:14,516 of the New York Civil Liberties Union. 163 00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:17,780 Good morning. We are broadcasting this morning 164 00:12:17,824 --> 00:12:20,783 the announcement of Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York 165 00:12:20,827 --> 00:12:23,612 that he will be a candidate for the presidency. 166 00:12:23,655 --> 00:12:29,574 I am announcing today my candidacy for the presidency of the United States. 167 00:12:29,618 --> 00:12:34,666 And suddenly out of the blue, Martin Luther King is assassinated. 168 00:12:37,408 --> 00:12:39,149 [Robert Kennedy] Could you lower those signs please? 169 00:12:41,282 --> 00:12:44,807 I have some very sad news for all of you 170 00:12:44,851 --> 00:12:48,811 and I think, uh, sad news for all of our fellow citizens 171 00:12:49,856 --> 00:12:53,773 and people who love peace all over the world, 172 00:12:53,816 --> 00:12:58,081 and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight 173 00:12:58,125 --> 00:12:59,604 in Memphis, Tennessee. 174 00:12:59,648 --> 00:13:00,736 [crowd gasping] 175 00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:06,786 You get this news and everything just freezes. 176 00:13:08,483 --> 00:13:12,966 [Bryan Stevenson] I remember growing up in this poor rural segregated community. 177 00:13:13,009 --> 00:13:16,230 I remember sitting there and just sensing all of this anxiety 178 00:13:16,273 --> 00:13:20,277 and all of this fear and all of this, uh, outrage. 179 00:13:20,321 --> 00:13:24,368 Everybody in the civil rights community remembers King's death. 180 00:13:24,412 --> 00:13:26,196 It was the death of a dream. 181 00:13:28,416 --> 00:13:32,507 It was an assassination that rocked this country with civil disorders and violence. 182 00:13:32,550 --> 00:13:34,857 The cities were burning. 183 00:13:34,901 --> 00:13:40,602 There were lots of angry riots in black communities and burning of stores. 184 00:13:40,994 --> 00:13:44,040 [soft music playing] 185 00:13:44,867 --> 00:13:47,609 President Johnson declared a state of emergency. 186 00:13:47,652 --> 00:13:50,612 That declaration resulted in the virtually unthinkable act 187 00:13:50,655 --> 00:13:54,703 of armed regular army troops deployed to protect the capitol and the White House. 188 00:13:54,746 --> 00:13:58,489 [alarm ringing] 189 00:14:03,364 --> 00:14:07,629 [dramatic music playing] 190 00:14:26,735 --> 00:14:31,087 So it was in the spring of 1968, barely a year 191 00:14:31,131 --> 00:14:35,526 since I had started at the, uh... at the Civil Liberties Union, 192 00:14:35,570 --> 00:14:39,313 I was getting back in touch with... with Kennedy's staff 193 00:14:39,356 --> 00:14:43,795 hoping to... to... to reignite the connection. 194 00:14:43,839 --> 00:14:47,974 My thanks to all of you, and now it's on to Chicago and let's win there. 195 00:14:48,017 --> 00:14:51,891 [crowd cheering] 196 00:14:54,241 --> 00:14:56,025 [Ira] And then he was shot. 197 00:14:56,417 --> 00:14:57,461 [people gasp] 198 00:14:57,505 --> 00:15:00,334 [man 5] Lock the doors! Lock... 199 00:15:05,948 --> 00:15:10,692 [dramatic music playing] 200 00:15:30,016 --> 00:15:34,977 I still regarded the New York Civil Liberties Union as a temporary step, 201 00:15:35,021 --> 00:15:37,284 but I had nowhere else to go. 202 00:15:37,327 --> 00:15:42,376 I was having fun and fulfillment where I was, so I stayed. 203 00:15:43,029 --> 00:15:46,075 [soft music playing] 204 00:15:54,866 --> 00:15:58,958 Twenty years later, I wake up in a hotel room on some sort of road trip for the ACLU 205 00:15:59,001 --> 00:16:02,135 and realized, "Oh, my God! I've been here for 20 years." 206 00:16:03,179 --> 00:16:09,316 I really had no idea even then that would lead to a lifetime career 207 00:16:09,359 --> 00:16:12,449 and moreover, the career of my dreams. 208 00:16:12,493 --> 00:16:15,539 [slow beat music playing] 209 00:16:32,078 --> 00:16:36,038 My top priority when I first got to the national ACLU, 210 00:16:36,082 --> 00:16:39,476 I thought was going to be racial justice. 211 00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:44,873 Throughout its existence, the American Civil Liberties Union has defended unpopular causes, 212 00:16:44,916 --> 00:16:48,964 but now in Illinois, the ACLU is defending one that's too unpopular 213 00:16:49,008 --> 00:16:50,574 for some of its members. 214 00:16:52,446 --> 00:16:55,536 Actually my... my top priority turned out to be organizational survival. 215 00:16:56,102 --> 00:17:02,325 The first time I heard the name Skokie, Illinois, was probably '77 or '78. 216 00:17:02,369 --> 00:17:04,893 [soft music playing] 217 00:17:14,163 --> 00:17:20,300 Skokie is a suburb of Chicago and Skokie liked to call itself a village 218 00:17:20,343 --> 00:17:25,261 even though 70,000 people anywhere else would be called a little city. 219 00:17:26,436 --> 00:17:31,441 Mostly, middle-income families living in one-family homes, 220 00:17:31,485 --> 00:17:36,316 very suburban-looking, a lot of greenery, a lot of parks. 221 00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:39,101 I don't know what else to say, you ran a red light. 222 00:17:39,928 --> 00:17:42,322 -Drive carefully. -Okay, I will. 223 00:17:44,150 --> 00:17:46,717 After the Second World War, 224 00:17:46,761 --> 00:17:51,722 more and more American Jews moved into Skokie 225 00:17:51,766 --> 00:17:56,510 and that included about 7,000 Holocaust survivors 226 00:17:56,553 --> 00:18:02,429 among the, say, 30 to 40,000 Jews who were the total in Skokie. 227 00:18:02,472 --> 00:18:08,522 We saw with my... with our own eyes what did happen and it could happen. 228 00:18:11,307 --> 00:18:14,136 [woman 1] For months, American Nazi party leader, Frank Collin 229 00:18:14,180 --> 00:18:17,792 has been trying to hold a march through the streets of Skokie, Illinois. 230 00:18:20,577 --> 00:18:23,580 [man 6] Leader Frank Collin says he's inviting Nazis from all over the country 231 00:18:23,624 --> 00:18:25,713 to march on Skokie on July 4th. 232 00:18:25,756 --> 00:18:28,933 We can do it. This is only the beginning of dozens of marches. 233 00:18:30,021 --> 00:18:31,762 White power! 234 00:18:35,636 --> 00:18:38,552 [Frank Collin] I, uh, just see myself as a soldier. 235 00:18:38,595 --> 00:18:40,554 That's the way I look at myself, 236 00:18:40,597 --> 00:18:45,472 a soldier who is doing his duty to his fuehrer and his commander. 237 00:18:45,515 --> 00:18:49,954 Collin decided that he was going to demonstrate in the name of free speech 238 00:18:49,998 --> 00:18:52,435 because his speech was being interfered with, 239 00:18:52,479 --> 00:18:58,311 but he was also going to demonstrate, essentially, Pro-Aryan, he would call them. 240 00:18:59,529 --> 00:19:04,055 Collin said all these suburbs are white and they're all escaping Chicago. 241 00:19:04,099 --> 00:19:07,450 I'm going to demonstrate in the suburbs where a lot of these people live 242 00:19:07,494 --> 00:19:09,148 who are escaping the city. 243 00:19:09,757 --> 00:19:12,063 [man 7] Mr. Collin, do you condone violence? 244 00:19:12,107 --> 00:19:13,717 Uh, at times I do. 245 00:19:50,232 --> 00:19:52,974 [dramatic music playing] 246 00:20:10,818 --> 00:20:13,037 Mr. Stern, what does it mean to you, uh, 247 00:20:13,081 --> 00:20:18,565 now that we are seeing the apparent resurgence of neo-Nazism in this country 248 00:20:18,608 --> 00:20:20,219 and particularly here in Skokie? 249 00:20:20,262 --> 00:20:24,223 Uh, the symbol, obviously, has some meaning to you. 250 00:20:40,239 --> 00:20:44,286 [dramatic music playing] 251 00:20:55,602 --> 00:21:00,302 I got a call one night from Mr. Collin saying, 252 00:21:00,433 --> 00:21:06,439 "We had been planning to go to Skokie to march in front of the city hall 253 00:21:06,482 --> 00:21:10,138 and we've just been served with court papers to stop us 254 00:21:10,834 --> 00:21:13,315 and the hearing is tomorrow morning." 255 00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:17,493 I must have called seven or eight attorneys and one after another they each said, 256 00:21:17,537 --> 00:21:21,889 "David, my heart is with you, but not this case." 257 00:21:23,847 --> 00:21:28,025 I became the lead attorney in the Skokie case 258 00:21:28,069 --> 00:21:31,855 because in short, no one else would do it. 259 00:21:34,554 --> 00:21:39,428 The idea that people wearing swastikas were going to come to their streets was unthinkable. 260 00:21:40,342 --> 00:21:45,391 The passion with which some residents in the town of Skokie reacted 261 00:21:45,434 --> 00:21:48,394 was based on the fact that there were people there 262 00:21:48,437 --> 00:21:53,312 who had themselves been survivors of concentration camps. 263 00:21:55,314 --> 00:21:58,839 I'm a Jew. Well, this is my home. 264 00:21:59,405 --> 00:22:05,280 The sight of people marching with swastikas on their arms, 265 00:22:05,324 --> 00:22:10,503 again, was like a nightmare. 266 00:22:11,112 --> 00:22:14,550 [man 8] These people are part of a 500-member Skokie B'nai B'rith lodge 267 00:22:14,594 --> 00:22:17,423 of which all are survivors of Nazi camps. 268 00:22:17,466 --> 00:22:20,687 They lead the fight against the Nazis marching in their community. 269 00:22:20,730 --> 00:22:26,736 The Jewish leaders talking to the officials in Skokie made them understand 270 00:22:26,780 --> 00:22:32,612 that it would no longer be acceptable to the entire Jewish community in Skokie 271 00:22:32,655 --> 00:22:34,440 to have these people there. 272 00:22:34,483 --> 00:22:39,183 I called my general counsel, Ed Rothschild, who was a mentor 273 00:22:39,227 --> 00:22:42,491 and a fantastic human being 274 00:22:42,535 --> 00:22:46,582 and said, "Ed, we've just been asked to take this case." 275 00:22:46,626 --> 00:22:49,672 And he said, "David, I order you to take the case." 276 00:22:49,716 --> 00:22:53,589 I said, "Ed, I have the authority to take the case. 277 00:22:53,633 --> 00:22:56,200 Why are you ordering me to take the case?" 278 00:22:56,244 --> 00:23:01,205 To which he said, "David, you have no idea what's coming and if they come after you, 279 00:23:01,249 --> 00:23:03,469 they're going to have to go through me." 280 00:23:03,512 --> 00:23:07,211 I kind of choke up when I think of that because at the time I... 281 00:23:07,255 --> 00:23:09,692 I had no clue as to what was coming. 282 00:23:09,736 --> 00:23:12,391 We're going to continue to do what we've been doing 283 00:23:12,434 --> 00:23:16,612 and that is use every possible legal means at our disposal 284 00:23:16,656 --> 00:23:20,442 to see that they don't come because we don't want them here either. 285 00:23:20,486 --> 00:23:23,445 The Nazis will not march in Skokie. 286 00:23:23,489 --> 00:23:27,623 Should the Nazis appear, we will break their heads. 287 00:23:27,667 --> 00:23:29,930 There will be violence in the streets. 288 00:23:29,973 --> 00:23:32,411 [man 9] Chicago's Nazi chapter prompted angry counter-demonstrations 289 00:23:32,454 --> 00:23:34,151 and sometimes led to violence. 290 00:23:34,195 --> 00:23:38,417 [upbeat music playing] 291 00:24:05,269 --> 00:24:10,927 What happened next was that we went into court and, frankly, all hell broke loose. 292 00:24:11,624 --> 00:24:14,496 In symbolic terms and in real terms, 293 00:24:14,540 --> 00:24:17,934 uh, it highlighted the issue of... 294 00:24:17,978 --> 00:24:23,462 why would you ever want to defend the rights of people like that? 295 00:24:24,158 --> 00:24:29,424 It basically forced me to articulate reasons 296 00:24:30,033 --> 00:24:33,907 for the First Amendment position that the ACLU took 297 00:24:33,950 --> 00:24:38,346 in the most hostile and uncomfortable circumstances. 298 00:24:51,751 --> 00:24:56,451 I can promise this, that come hell or high water, 299 00:24:56,495 --> 00:24:59,236 Supreme Court or no Supreme Court, 300 00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:03,632 arrest or no arrest, violence or no violence, 301 00:25:03,676 --> 00:25:09,203 Rabbi Kahane or no Rabbi Kahane, we are going into Skokie, by God, this year 302 00:25:09,246 --> 00:25:13,337 and we don't care how much violence they're going to bring on our heads, 303 00:25:13,381 --> 00:25:15,731 we'll give it back to them three times as much. 304 00:25:21,563 --> 00:25:24,566 [upbeat music playing] 305 00:25:26,525 --> 00:25:29,092 [Ira] I grew up in East Flatbush, 306 00:25:29,615 --> 00:25:35,011 a kind of a working-class white, Jewish neighborhood. 307 00:25:37,448 --> 00:25:40,539 Growing up there, I spent a lot of time in the streets. 308 00:25:42,932 --> 00:25:47,937 There was no supervised play, there were no adults anywhere, there were no little leagues, 309 00:25:47,981 --> 00:25:49,939 we just went out and played in the streets. 310 00:25:50,418 --> 00:25:54,857 You'd sing doo-wop on the street corners, a cappella stuff whoever was there. 311 00:25:54,901 --> 00:25:58,557 Uh, you'd play stickball, punchball on the streets. 312 00:25:58,600 --> 00:25:59,949 There weren't a lot of cars. 313 00:26:02,212 --> 00:26:07,261 Your parents would give you a quarter and you go buy a Spalding, which was a pink ball. 314 00:26:07,304 --> 00:26:11,395 And that Spalding was your summer activity. 315 00:26:11,439 --> 00:26:13,310 And you would have to figure out: 316 00:26:13,354 --> 00:26:17,053 A, how do you not lose the Spalding ball, 317 00:26:17,097 --> 00:26:22,537 but, second, what can you do with this Spalding ball, punchball, stickball... 318 00:26:22,581 --> 00:26:27,281 stickball in the open street, stickball against the wall where you have a strike zone. 319 00:26:27,324 --> 00:26:33,635 That was where we learned how to mediate conflict and how to deal with bullies, 320 00:26:33,679 --> 00:26:36,638 how to handle disagreements whether it was about 321 00:26:36,682 --> 00:26:40,642 whether you were safe, or out on a play, or... or anything else. 322 00:26:40,686 --> 00:26:45,255 Uh, king-queen, box ball, hit the penny-- 323 00:26:45,299 --> 00:26:47,475 [Ira] Parents never got involved, 324 00:26:47,518 --> 00:26:50,304 there were no social workers, there were no coaches, 325 00:26:50,347 --> 00:26:53,699 there was just us on the street and I loved it. 326 00:26:53,742 --> 00:26:58,181 Uh, and the other thing growing up in Brooklyn, we had the Brooklyn Dodgers. 327 00:26:58,225 --> 00:27:01,315 [upbeat music playing] 328 00:27:09,192 --> 00:27:15,895 The Brooklyn Dodgers were, um, heroes to us and in my neighborhood, 329 00:27:15,938 --> 00:27:20,508 if you weren't a Brooklyn Dodger fan, there was something weird about you. 330 00:27:20,551 --> 00:27:25,121 [man 10] The Brooklyn Dodgers, the Ebbets fielders, the Bums, 331 00:27:25,165 --> 00:27:27,558 the most colorful team in the Major Leagues. 332 00:27:27,602 --> 00:27:29,996 [Ira] I didn't know any Yankee fans. 333 00:27:30,039 --> 00:27:33,869 They were... they were really like alien and they were, uh, uh... at the time, 334 00:27:33,913 --> 00:27:37,307 I didn't know any New York Giants fan either, um, 335 00:27:37,351 --> 00:27:40,310 they were the team from Manhattan or the Yankees from the Bronx 336 00:27:40,354 --> 00:27:43,270 and that was like you needed a passport to go there. 337 00:27:43,313 --> 00:27:45,185 [Norman Siegel] You know, I remember as a kid when I went on a Friday night 338 00:27:45,228 --> 00:27:47,448 to see the Dodgers play the Cubs, 339 00:27:47,491 --> 00:27:49,624 I don't know, I was seven or eight, with my father 340 00:27:49,668 --> 00:27:53,280 and I walked up the ramp and I saw this green, 341 00:27:53,889 --> 00:27:56,413 it was like, "Ah, I've never seen..." 342 00:27:56,457 --> 00:27:59,155 This is what heaven's supposed to look like, 343 00:27:59,199 --> 00:28:03,725 the lights were on, and green grass, the field, the white bases. 344 00:28:03,769 --> 00:28:07,686 Ah, I close my eyes, I still... I see it. 345 00:28:08,251 --> 00:28:13,126 [Ira] I had that kind of religious relationship with the Dodgers, 346 00:28:13,169 --> 00:28:15,171 that's who they were... and that's what Ebbets Field was. 347 00:28:15,215 --> 00:28:19,959 Ebbets Field was a shrine to us and it was our cathedral. 348 00:28:20,524 --> 00:28:23,353 [man 11] What other team could run the bases so nimbly, 349 00:28:23,397 --> 00:28:27,488 so adroitly, so alertly, and so much finesse? 350 00:28:27,531 --> 00:28:33,102 The real genesis of my passion for... for baseball and my interest 351 00:28:33,146 --> 00:28:34,930 came when I was about nine years old. 352 00:28:34,974 --> 00:28:38,107 Now, for a lot of kids, that is normal. 353 00:28:38,151 --> 00:28:41,371 I mean, they... they are aware of baseball, but... but, you know, 354 00:28:41,415 --> 00:28:47,726 it's not until they're 8, 9, 10, where they get engaged in rooting for a team, 355 00:28:47,769 --> 00:28:53,993 but for me, being 9 years old in 1947 coincided with Jackie Robinson. 356 00:28:55,385 --> 00:29:00,042 [man 12] Jackie Robinson, a trailblazer in the world of sports. 357 00:29:01,261 --> 00:29:04,612 [upbeat music playing] 358 00:29:07,571 --> 00:29:11,575 [Ira] Those teams from the late '40s into the late '50s, 359 00:29:11,619 --> 00:29:15,318 the Brooklyn Dodger team were a team of legendary players. 360 00:29:17,799 --> 00:29:23,674 These are five great, not just ball players but people as well. 361 00:29:23,718 --> 00:29:29,637 So, in the middle, significantly, in my opinion, is 42 Jackie Robinson. 362 00:29:30,333 --> 00:29:34,511 Every one of them was an outsized hero to us 363 00:29:34,555 --> 00:29:37,340 and a player of major accomplishment. 364 00:29:37,384 --> 00:29:43,303 And on that team of outsized heroes, Robinson comes in in 1947 365 00:29:43,346 --> 00:29:46,697 and for, certainly for me, but for many of us, 366 00:29:46,741 --> 00:29:49,831 I mean, he instantly becomes our favorite player. 367 00:29:49,875 --> 00:29:55,097 [Norman] Here comes this four-lettered man from UCLA 368 00:29:55,141 --> 00:29:57,404 who's telegenic, 369 00:29:57,883 --> 00:30:02,104 uh, who plays the game magnificently 370 00:30:02,148 --> 00:30:05,325 and he brings the team together to another level. 371 00:30:05,368 --> 00:30:12,201 I was really totally unaware of the racial situation in the United States. 372 00:30:12,723 --> 00:30:15,944 There was nobody black anywhere that I could see. 373 00:30:15,988 --> 00:30:20,688 As a matter of fact, I never saw anybody who wasn't white and Jewish. 374 00:30:21,297 --> 00:30:26,607 New York City had the reputation for being what sociologists at the time called 375 00:30:26,650 --> 00:30:32,004 a melting pot of racial and ethnic and religious communities, 376 00:30:32,047 --> 00:30:36,486 but the truth was, that was true only if you looked at the city as a whole. 377 00:30:36,965 --> 00:30:43,363 In reality, the city was a collection of very insular, 378 00:30:43,406 --> 00:30:46,192 segregated tribes. [chuckles] 379 00:30:46,932 --> 00:30:52,763 And I hear, by Red Barber, the baseball announcer in the course of the play-by-play 380 00:30:52,807 --> 00:30:55,854 that when the Dodgers are playing in St. Louis, 381 00:30:55,897 --> 00:31:00,728 Robinson and the other black players on the team cannot stay at the same hotels 382 00:31:00,771 --> 00:31:02,904 where the rest of the team is staying, 383 00:31:02,948 --> 00:31:07,778 cannot eat at the same restaurants, have to be put up somewhere else, 384 00:31:07,822 --> 00:31:14,829 often in private homes, black homes, and that is how I first learn. 385 00:31:14,873 --> 00:31:20,704 That's the first time I ever hear about segregated public accommodations. 386 00:31:21,531 --> 00:31:27,842 That's how I learn about segregation in hotels, segregation in restaurants. 387 00:31:27,886 --> 00:31:30,192 That's how I learn about Jim Crow. 388 00:31:31,585 --> 00:31:34,980 And that's where I come to hate it. 389 00:31:35,937 --> 00:31:40,115 And we don't hate it because we have any prior commitment to civil rights. 390 00:31:40,159 --> 00:31:41,812 We don't know anything about that. 391 00:31:41,856 --> 00:31:43,814 We hate it because he's our guy. 392 00:31:44,815 --> 00:31:50,343 When I went to Ebbets Field, then and a year or two later by myself, 393 00:31:53,912 --> 00:31:55,739 there were black people in the stands. 394 00:31:57,045 --> 00:32:01,136 I would sit next to a 35-, 40-year-old black guy 395 00:32:02,442 --> 00:32:05,097 and we were on the same side. 396 00:32:05,140 --> 00:32:10,450 So you grew up in an atmosphere of black and white together, we shall overcome. 397 00:32:10,493 --> 00:32:15,237 And that that was an experience, uh, that I don't think 398 00:32:16,021 --> 00:32:21,504 any 9-, 10-, 11-year-olds in the country had, 399 00:32:21,548 --> 00:32:25,030 ever had except in the confines of Ebbets Field, 400 00:32:25,073 --> 00:32:31,253 which I, years later, would describe as probably the only integrated public accommodation 401 00:32:31,297 --> 00:32:33,516 in the country at the time. 402 00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:38,478 So, this was the core, and as you can see two blacks, three whites 403 00:32:38,826 --> 00:32:44,571 uh, and, you know, it was... it was an era 404 00:32:44,614 --> 00:32:50,403 where young people like Ira and I, we grew up on this stuff. 405 00:32:50,446 --> 00:32:53,362 It was... it was what the world was supposed to be about. 406 00:32:54,015 --> 00:32:59,629 And... and then we found out... I, for sure, when I went to Mississippi and Georgia 407 00:32:59,673 --> 00:33:04,112 in the summer of '66, it ain't that way, so what are you going to do? 408 00:33:04,156 --> 00:33:09,639 So, we decided we make them live by all those words in the constitution about 409 00:33:09,683 --> 00:33:11,380 equal justice for all. 410 00:33:11,902 --> 00:33:13,643 That fight still goes on today. 411 00:33:15,906 --> 00:33:20,302 [dramatic music playing] 412 00:33:29,181 --> 00:33:30,834 [man 13] What happened in 1958? 413 00:33:31,313 --> 00:33:35,317 Well, in 1958 one of the three great villains of the world, uh, 414 00:33:35,361 --> 00:33:37,711 the other two being Hitler and Genghis Khan, 415 00:33:37,754 --> 00:33:41,497 Walter O'Malley took the Dodgers away and moved them to Los Angeles. 416 00:33:41,541 --> 00:33:44,065 [Ira] I was devastated when they tore down Ebbets Field 417 00:33:44,109 --> 00:33:47,677 after the Dodgers were kidnapped and stolen to the West Coast. 418 00:33:49,679 --> 00:33:55,033 I remember, you know, describing it as like losing a parent 419 00:33:55,076 --> 00:33:57,557 when you're, you know, when you're still a kid. 420 00:33:58,688 --> 00:34:02,866 It is a loss from which you... you never fully recover. 421 00:34:04,042 --> 00:34:07,045 [dramatic music playing] 422 00:34:09,351 --> 00:34:12,050 We were driving home from some party in Brooklyn, 423 00:34:12,093 --> 00:34:16,184 I make this left turn on the way back to Manhattan 424 00:34:16,228 --> 00:34:18,534 from where we... where we had been 425 00:34:19,492 --> 00:34:22,843 and there was Ebbets Field, half torn away. 426 00:34:24,410 --> 00:34:31,330 The car come to a jolting halt and, uh, my later-to-be-wife, Trude, 427 00:34:31,373 --> 00:34:35,638 sort of half asleep in the front seat, she just sort of startled to awakeness, 428 00:34:35,682 --> 00:34:42,384 and I am sitting there, sort of just stunned looking at this half torn away cathedral. 429 00:34:42,428 --> 00:34:43,777 And, um... 430 00:34:43,820 --> 00:34:44,778 Uh... 431 00:34:48,303 --> 00:34:50,653 It's hard not to be emotional even now about it. 432 00:34:50,697 --> 00:34:55,441 It... it was a... it was a... a... a unique place 433 00:34:55,484 --> 00:34:58,008 for those of us who grew up with it 434 00:34:58,052 --> 00:35:03,449 and, um, so yeah, it was... it was... uh, I've always rooted for the San Andreas Fault 435 00:35:03,492 --> 00:35:07,409 to take care of the Dodgers in Los Angeles ever since. 436 00:35:07,453 --> 00:35:08,802 [laughs] 437 00:35:08,845 --> 00:35:11,892 [upbeat music playing] 438 00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:25,123 [indistinct chatter] 439 00:35:29,127 --> 00:35:33,870 [Noam] You were the man behind the decision to defend the Nazis 440 00:35:33,914 --> 00:35:36,134 -when they wanted a march in Skokie. -No, no. 441 00:35:36,177 --> 00:35:39,572 Actually, at that time, I was, uh, not the National Head of the ACLU, 442 00:35:39,615 --> 00:35:42,923 I was the Head of the New York Civil Liberties Union. 443 00:35:42,966 --> 00:35:46,318 So, I was really, had no part in the initial decision. 444 00:35:46,361 --> 00:35:52,585 I had a large part in defending that decision, but... but not... not in making it. 445 00:35:52,628 --> 00:35:54,804 -And you defended it wholeheartedly? -[Ira] Yes. 446 00:35:54,848 --> 00:35:57,851 -And you would defend it again today, if you had to? -Yes. 447 00:35:58,417 --> 00:36:01,159 The Skokie case began in Chicago. 448 00:36:02,116 --> 00:36:04,423 It didn't begin in Skokie. 449 00:36:04,466 --> 00:36:07,991 There's a theme or a slogan which we in the party have used as regards Skokie 450 00:36:08,035 --> 00:36:11,038 and that is "The path to Marquette Park leads through Skokie." 451 00:36:11,081 --> 00:36:14,041 [soft music playing] 452 00:36:14,084 --> 00:36:19,220 The first time I heard the name Frank Collin was when they called the office 453 00:36:19,264 --> 00:36:24,791 and said the City of Chicago is not letting me use the city parks for my assemblies. 454 00:36:24,834 --> 00:36:29,709 I want to use Marquette Park which is several blocks away from my office 455 00:36:29,752 --> 00:36:31,798 on the southwest side of Chicago 456 00:36:31,841 --> 00:36:34,409 and I want to hold a public assembly there 457 00:36:34,453 --> 00:36:40,633 to protest the fact that African-Americans are starting to move into Marquette Park. 458 00:36:41,938 --> 00:36:47,205 [Ira] On one side of the park was a kind of a white ethnic community 459 00:36:47,248 --> 00:36:53,254 that was feeling severely embattled by school integration efforts. 460 00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:59,782 [Edgar Jackson] Children who have recently moved on the periphery of that area, 461 00:36:59,826 --> 00:37:04,134 they are going to school way back over here on 43rd in Indiana, etc., 462 00:37:04,178 --> 00:37:08,313 because they fear to go to school in their own district because of this racist climate. 463 00:37:08,356 --> 00:37:10,402 [indistinct chatter] 464 00:37:10,445 --> 00:37:12,578 [Frank Collin] This is our community. This is our neighborhood 465 00:37:12,621 --> 00:37:14,841 and we're going to keep it our neighborhood. 466 00:37:15,755 --> 00:37:17,757 You know, basically, he felt it was his turf. 467 00:37:18,671 --> 00:37:22,457 [Philippa] Collin tried to host a rally in exactly the same place 468 00:37:22,501 --> 00:37:27,201 that the Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition wanted to have a rally 469 00:37:27,245 --> 00:37:31,510 and that really is what became the problem for Chicago. 470 00:37:43,261 --> 00:37:46,046 [Philippa] Chicago wasn't any more welcoming, however, 471 00:37:46,089 --> 00:37:49,354 to the Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition. 472 00:37:49,963 --> 00:37:53,009 [upbeat music playing] 473 00:37:54,750 --> 00:37:59,364 Eventually, the city of Chicago in its wisdom decided 474 00:37:59,407 --> 00:38:02,541 to make it pretty impossible for any group it didn't like 475 00:38:02,584 --> 00:38:06,022 to hold a rally or a demonstration in Marquette Park. 476 00:38:06,066 --> 00:38:08,808 [chanting] 477 00:38:08,851 --> 00:38:14,074 They're using Marquette Park as a right to use that Park facility, the First Amendment. 478 00:38:14,770 --> 00:38:17,207 Wait a minute, man, this is freedom of speech, man. 479 00:38:17,251 --> 00:38:19,601 [Frank Collin] We are not allowed to speak in public. 480 00:38:19,645 --> 00:38:21,908 We are the only organization in America 481 00:38:21,951 --> 00:38:25,694 that's been banned our basic right to First Amendment speeches in the parks. 482 00:38:25,738 --> 00:38:28,349 We cannot pass out literature beyond Chicago. 483 00:38:28,393 --> 00:38:30,308 They try to close our headquarters. 484 00:38:30,351 --> 00:38:32,832 We are constantly harassed by the police. 485 00:38:33,485 --> 00:38:34,877 I'm asking you-- 486 00:38:34,921 --> 00:38:36,966 [screaming] 487 00:38:37,489 --> 00:38:39,447 All right, everybody-- 488 00:38:41,710 --> 00:38:45,410 First, the city, the Chicago Park District said you can't come and they lost that one. 489 00:38:45,453 --> 00:38:50,371 And then they said, "Well, you can only come if you use one of the four forums 490 00:38:50,415 --> 00:38:53,461 that we have designated in all of Chicago." 491 00:38:53,505 --> 00:38:55,550 And we won on that one. 492 00:38:55,594 --> 00:38:58,640 And then, they added a bond requirement. 493 00:38:59,424 --> 00:39:02,035 [man 14] The Chicago Park District said the Nazis could come here 494 00:39:02,078 --> 00:39:05,038 only if they posted an insurance bond to cover damages. 495 00:39:06,126 --> 00:39:10,391 Now, the problem with the $250,000, uh, bond requirement 496 00:39:10,435 --> 00:39:14,482 in order to demonstrate in a public park was that 497 00:39:14,526 --> 00:39:16,266 no insurance company will sell you one. 498 00:39:18,268 --> 00:39:22,229 [David] The city and Mayor Daley was determined to try to shut him down. 499 00:39:26,451 --> 00:39:30,280 Those insurance bond requirements had been the classic mechanism 500 00:39:30,324 --> 00:39:36,374 by which white southern towns used to ban civil rights demonstrations 501 00:39:36,417 --> 00:39:38,288 throughout the '50s and '60s 502 00:39:39,464 --> 00:39:42,467 and that old bands had always been struck down 503 00:39:42,510 --> 00:39:44,773 as violative of the First Amendment, 504 00:39:44,817 --> 00:39:49,212 precisely because they effectively banned speech in public places. 505 00:39:50,388 --> 00:39:54,174 ♪ We shall overcome 506 00:39:54,217 --> 00:39:57,656 Because Frank Collin had been shut out of his home park 507 00:39:57,699 --> 00:40:02,574 down on the southwest side of Chicago, it was his position that he had to find a forum. 508 00:40:02,617 --> 00:40:06,055 He said, "If we can't demonstrate in Chicago, 509 00:40:06,099 --> 00:40:09,450 I'm going to go to demonstrate in the suburbs surrounding Chicago." 510 00:40:09,494 --> 00:40:14,760 So, he writes a letter to a dozen suburbs, 11 of these suburbs ignore him. 511 00:40:14,803 --> 00:40:17,980 Skokie reacted like a bull to a red flag. 512 00:40:19,852 --> 00:40:23,856 [woman 2] Residents have held protest demonstrations and the village has passed laws 513 00:40:23,899 --> 00:40:25,901 to stop the Nazis from marching. 514 00:40:25,945 --> 00:40:30,689 We don't want them here. If they don't come here, we'd be delighted. 515 00:40:30,732 --> 00:40:34,170 [upbeat music playing] 516 00:40:34,214 --> 00:40:38,479 The village of Skokie used several approaches 517 00:40:38,523 --> 00:40:41,569 to trying to prevent his assembly. 518 00:40:41,613 --> 00:40:45,268 The first approach was simply to get an injunction 519 00:40:45,312 --> 00:40:51,536 on the theory that his speech was akin to obscenity 520 00:40:51,579 --> 00:40:57,716 and it was so offensive that it wasn't protected by the First Amendment. 521 00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:04,200 If you were an ACLU lawyer this was what you were there for. 522 00:41:05,854 --> 00:41:12,731 Thirty years ago, we Jews stood and, in a sense, 523 00:41:12,774 --> 00:41:15,473 watched the Holocaust take place. 524 00:41:17,562 --> 00:41:24,133 We spit in the graves of six million Jews if we allow the Nazis to march. 525 00:41:24,656 --> 00:41:27,310 [clapping] 526 00:41:35,101 --> 00:41:38,147 [dramatic music playing] 527 00:41:49,898 --> 00:41:53,293 Uh, a week ago, one of my constituents came up to me and said, 528 00:41:53,336 --> 00:41:56,078 "I hear that you're going to make a speech at the ACLU 529 00:41:56,122 --> 00:41:59,734 and I hear those people go around defending communists." 530 00:41:59,778 --> 00:42:01,867 And I said, "Oh, no. You've got it wrong. 531 00:42:01,910 --> 00:42:05,566 They defend communists and socialists, fascists, atheists, racists, 532 00:42:05,610 --> 00:42:08,395 segregationists, members of the Ku Klux Klan." 533 00:42:08,438 --> 00:42:12,617 The fellow said, "Well, it... it sounds like a mighty nice organization." 534 00:42:12,660 --> 00:42:15,402 [laughing] 535 00:42:15,924 --> 00:42:20,146 People get up and say, "Norman Siegel, you're the lawyer for the Klan." 536 00:42:20,189 --> 00:42:22,148 And I say, "No, no, no. 537 00:42:22,191 --> 00:42:24,759 We represent the Klan, but I'm the lawyer for the First Amendment 538 00:42:24,803 --> 00:42:26,979 and the First Amendment is for everybody." 539 00:42:27,545 --> 00:42:30,809 The ACLU is supposed to defend the free speech of Nazis. 540 00:42:30,852 --> 00:42:34,160 They're supposed to defend the free speech of Black Panthers. 541 00:42:34,203 --> 00:42:36,510 Why else do we have an ACLU? 542 00:42:36,554 --> 00:42:40,383 [dramatic music playing] 543 00:42:42,777 --> 00:42:46,302 [man 15] Did you ever have to defend the rights of people that you disagreed with? 544 00:42:46,346 --> 00:42:49,392 -Oh, all the time. -[man 15] Or even found... even found repulsive? 545 00:42:49,436 --> 00:42:52,482 Oh, yeah. Uh, one of my... 546 00:42:52,526 --> 00:42:57,531 One of my, uh, most vivid memories, I guess you'd say, is 547 00:42:57,575 --> 00:43:00,012 we were, uh, representing the Klan. 548 00:43:00,055 --> 00:43:04,233 They wanted to use the statehouse steps for a demonstration. 549 00:43:04,277 --> 00:43:08,934 Well, the statehouse steps are used by pro-life and pro-choice, 550 00:43:08,977 --> 00:43:11,545 they're... I mean, they're... It is a public forum. 551 00:43:11,589 --> 00:43:13,721 They get to use it. I hate them. 552 00:43:15,114 --> 00:43:20,032 [Ira] Defending crazies who walk around with swastikas on their arms, 553 00:43:20,075 --> 00:43:27,126 was the kind of a case that every ACLU affiliate took once or twice a year, uh... 554 00:43:27,169 --> 00:43:30,042 You took them because... because if you didn't take them, 555 00:43:30,085 --> 00:43:33,872 the... the government would gain the power to restrict speech it didn't like. 556 00:43:34,437 --> 00:43:36,614 It means you can't make any exceptions to say, 557 00:43:36,657 --> 00:43:39,138 "Well, it's all right to have civil liberties here, but not there." 558 00:43:39,181 --> 00:43:41,619 That's a classic doctrine of civil liberties. 559 00:43:41,662 --> 00:43:45,318 This hazmat as Oliver Wendell Holmes says, "Freedom for the ideas we loathe." 560 00:43:45,361 --> 00:43:47,929 [Roger Baldwin] Yes. 561 00:43:47,973 --> 00:43:51,237 [man 16] And the case came up in Skokie, Illinois, where that principle had to be applied. 562 00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:54,327 They should have a right to parade however offensive it was. 563 00:43:57,417 --> 00:43:59,898 [Ira] The first violation of rights 564 00:43:59,941 --> 00:44:04,946 and the first target of the violation of rights is nevertheless. 565 00:44:04,990 --> 00:44:11,126 If you give the government the power to stop the right wing from marching in the street, 566 00:44:11,170 --> 00:44:16,654 they will acquire the power to decide who they think is dangerous enough to stop. 567 00:44:18,743 --> 00:44:22,224 No matter who you are, no matter what you believe, 568 00:44:22,268 --> 00:44:26,011 you are entitled to certain fundamental rights, 569 00:44:26,054 --> 00:44:29,405 merely by virtue of being a human being. 570 00:44:29,449 --> 00:44:35,629 And those certainly include equality of opportunity before the law, 571 00:44:35,673 --> 00:44:40,025 freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience. 572 00:44:41,113 --> 00:44:45,247 All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." 573 00:44:46,422 --> 00:44:48,773 [crowd cheering] 574 00:44:54,387 --> 00:45:00,610 If I lived in China or even Russia or any totalitarian country, 575 00:45:02,264 --> 00:45:08,401 maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. 576 00:45:09,576 --> 00:45:14,668 Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges 577 00:45:14,712 --> 00:45:18,933 because they haven't committed themselves to that over there. 578 00:45:19,455 --> 00:45:24,330 But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. 579 00:45:24,373 --> 00:45:28,247 Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. 580 00:45:28,290 --> 00:45:32,512 Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. 581 00:45:32,555 --> 00:45:39,519 Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for rights. 582 00:45:39,562 --> 00:45:42,130 [crowd cheering] 583 00:45:44,263 --> 00:45:47,527 When Dr. King wanted to march from Selma to Montgomery, 584 00:45:47,570 --> 00:45:50,486 they had to go to the federal court to get Frank Johnson, 585 00:45:50,530 --> 00:45:55,361 the federal court, a Republican, to then give them the permit to march. 586 00:45:56,536 --> 00:46:01,454 It is that power to single out disliked viewpoints 587 00:46:01,497 --> 00:46:06,633 which is what led Martin Luther King to constantly be prosecuted and arrested 588 00:46:06,676 --> 00:46:10,942 and convicted and to write his famous letter from a Birmingham jail. 589 00:46:14,423 --> 00:46:16,295 [Bryan] You can't understand civil rights in this country. 590 00:46:16,338 --> 00:46:19,777 You can't understand the effort toward justice 591 00:46:19,820 --> 00:46:22,257 if you don't understand that people had to stand up 592 00:46:22,301 --> 00:46:24,390 when others were saying sit down. 593 00:46:24,433 --> 00:46:27,828 That people had to speak when they were being told to be quiet. 594 00:46:27,872 --> 00:46:31,789 And these restrictions on speech, and on truth telling 595 00:46:31,832 --> 00:46:38,404 have been part of the great struggle for a just society. 596 00:46:38,447 --> 00:46:41,581 [Ira] I was on the Donahue Show once with Hosea Williams. 597 00:46:42,364 --> 00:46:44,540 [Phil] This is the Reverend Dr. Hosea Williams. 598 00:46:44,584 --> 00:46:47,413 You know him as a follower of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 599 00:46:47,456 --> 00:46:52,331 a civil rights leader, and you know we wouldn't do a show like this 600 00:46:52,374 --> 00:46:55,943 without a card-carrying member of the ACLU. 601 00:46:55,987 --> 00:46:57,858 Here's Ira Glasser-- 602 00:46:57,902 --> 00:47:00,382 [Ira] We were discussing the rights of the Klan. 603 00:47:00,426 --> 00:47:04,865 He was on that show ostensibly to debate me about it and he surprised everybody. 604 00:47:04,909 --> 00:47:07,302 --head of the, uh, United States Civil Rights Commission. 605 00:47:07,346 --> 00:47:13,047 Well, Phil, one thing we must understand, uh, a right is not a right in America, 606 00:47:13,091 --> 00:47:15,397 until it's extended to every American. 607 00:47:15,441 --> 00:47:18,923 And even though they beat and brutalize us in seeking that right, 608 00:47:18,966 --> 00:47:21,926 if they take the Ku Klux Klan off the cable today-- 609 00:47:21,969 --> 00:47:24,189 [Phil] The N... the NAACP is next, you think? 610 00:47:24,232 --> 00:47:26,365 -They're going to take the NAACP off tomorrow. -[Phil] You think so? 611 00:47:26,408 --> 00:47:29,194 He understood because he had been through it. 612 00:47:29,237 --> 00:47:33,415 I was Dr. King's field general. I organized a major march. 613 00:47:33,459 --> 00:47:37,767 The problem with the black struggle in America has been 614 00:47:37,811 --> 00:47:42,947 black leaders like King didn't have the ability to communicate with the masses. 615 00:47:42,990 --> 00:47:46,472 Once that ability to communicate with the masses, things changed. 616 00:47:46,515 --> 00:47:48,691 What you've got to be willing to do is to say, 617 00:47:48,735 --> 00:47:51,520 "If you're going to ban what he says because you don't like it, 618 00:47:51,564 --> 00:47:55,873 then when Dr. Williams goes to Forsyth County, where they threw rocks at him, 619 00:47:55,916 --> 00:47:59,877 and the majority in that county is going to ban him from speaking." 620 00:47:59,920 --> 00:48:03,576 Now, do you want... do you want every little town to decide which speech is permitted? 621 00:48:03,619 --> 00:48:07,667 There isn't a necessary apposition between the First Amendment 622 00:48:07,710 --> 00:48:10,061 and social justice goals. 623 00:48:10,104 --> 00:48:13,978 Whether you're talking about the civil rights demonstrations, anti-war protesters, 624 00:48:14,021 --> 00:48:18,330 gay rights demonstrations, labor union organizing, 625 00:48:18,373 --> 00:48:21,202 women's right to vote demonstrations, 626 00:48:21,246 --> 00:48:25,641 if banning hate speech had been in force on college campuses in the '60s, 627 00:48:26,164 --> 00:48:29,950 their most frequent victim would have been Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver, 628 00:48:29,994 --> 00:48:32,431 not David Duke. 629 00:48:32,474 --> 00:48:37,653 The First Amendment is what permits people to organize for social justice goals. 630 00:48:38,263 --> 00:48:41,919 [upbeat music playing] 631 00:48:49,665 --> 00:48:52,581 A court injunction by Skokie officials blocked the Nazi march, 632 00:48:52,625 --> 00:48:55,367 but the Nazis appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court 633 00:48:55,410 --> 00:48:57,978 after Illinois judges refused to hear their case. 634 00:48:58,022 --> 00:49:00,763 The issue is still tied up in the courts and the Nazis say, 635 00:49:00,807 --> 00:49:03,549 they will not march here until the legal hassle is solved. 636 00:49:05,333 --> 00:49:07,770 [whistles] 637 00:49:07,814 --> 00:49:10,251 There were three ordinances that the town of Skokie passed and went into court 638 00:49:10,295 --> 00:49:12,601 to try to enforce which was what started the case. 639 00:49:13,211 --> 00:49:16,692 We're comfortable with the ordinances and we feel that they are valid. 640 00:49:16,736 --> 00:49:21,871 The permit ordinance which has the $350,000 insurance provision 641 00:49:21,915 --> 00:49:26,528 is similar to that which was enacted recently by the Chicago Park District. 642 00:49:27,529 --> 00:49:32,404 If you allow the government to impose such an insurance bond requirement for anybody, 643 00:49:32,447 --> 00:49:34,232 they could impose it for everybody. 644 00:49:36,364 --> 00:49:41,935 One, I think was a... an ordinance that banned people from marching in uniforms, 645 00:49:41,979 --> 00:49:48,072 in military-style uniforms which was later used against the Jewish War Veterans in Skokie. 646 00:49:48,115 --> 00:49:50,596 There were three lawsuits all together 647 00:49:50,639 --> 00:49:54,295 and I think that one could go a little bit bonkers trying to keep track of them. 648 00:49:58,343 --> 00:50:02,564 A national organization espousing Nazi doctrine won an important legal victory 649 00:50:02,608 --> 00:50:04,349 in the Supreme Court today. 650 00:50:04,392 --> 00:50:08,222 [Ira] Ultimately, we won the Skokie case in every court 651 00:50:08,266 --> 00:50:12,879 because the courts upheld the same principle in the Skokie case 652 00:50:12,922 --> 00:50:16,926 as the courts had upheld in many previous cases. 653 00:50:20,104 --> 00:50:23,585 Well, I said it's over, you know, the Supreme Court has made it clear, 654 00:50:23,629 --> 00:50:26,327 there are First Amendment rights here, it's over. 655 00:50:26,371 --> 00:50:31,289 And on the contrary, at that point, it became a national phenomenon. 656 00:50:31,332 --> 00:50:36,555 President Carter was asked about the case during one of his presidential briefings. 657 00:50:36,598 --> 00:50:39,340 The President deplores Nazi activity in Skokie, Illinois, 658 00:50:39,384 --> 00:50:42,474 but believes it best to let the courts continue to handle the matter. 659 00:50:42,865 --> 00:50:45,129 [upbeat music playing] 660 00:50:45,172 --> 00:50:48,349 [David] There was a show at the time, Phil Donahue Show. 661 00:50:48,393 --> 00:50:51,526 He invited me to talk about Skokie. 662 00:50:55,313 --> 00:51:00,187 People in Skokie have relatives who died in ovens, mothers, brothers, children, 663 00:51:00,231 --> 00:51:02,711 and you step forward, David Goldberger, to say 664 00:51:02,755 --> 00:51:05,323 that the First Amendment entitles these people, 665 00:51:05,366 --> 00:51:08,456 however repugnant their views to you to march? 666 00:51:08,500 --> 00:51:13,113 Well, steps forward, the ACLU steps forward, an American lawyer, 667 00:51:13,157 --> 00:51:15,333 and steps forward indeed a proud Jew. 668 00:51:15,376 --> 00:51:18,597 I suspect that's probably one of the reasons I have stepped forward 669 00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:24,081 is that it is a tradition, the Jewish tradition is a tradition that tells us all 670 00:51:24,124 --> 00:51:25,865 that we must protect free speech. 671 00:51:25,908 --> 00:51:29,564 Later, referred it to as one of his most important broadcasts. 672 00:51:30,739 --> 00:51:33,133 I guess I want to know why are you concerned, 673 00:51:33,177 --> 00:51:37,616 what... what is the... what is the ACLU concerned will happen? 674 00:51:37,659 --> 00:51:41,881 What we're concerned about is that what is... what is sauce for the goose today 675 00:51:41,924 --> 00:51:44,449 will be sauce for the gander tomorrow. 676 00:51:44,492 --> 00:51:48,061 What we will do to one group that we hate today, can be... be done so easily tomorrow 677 00:51:48,105 --> 00:51:50,150 and it's been done decade after decade. 678 00:51:50,194 --> 00:51:52,457 [Phil] Give me a gander. 679 00:51:52,500 --> 00:51:55,503 Well, look at the difficulty the Martin Luther King Jr. movement had going 680 00:51:55,547 --> 00:52:00,160 into the southwest side areas in order to protest the lack of open housing down there, 681 00:52:00,204 --> 00:52:02,728 for example, and we represented them. 682 00:52:02,771 --> 00:52:06,775 Look at the problems that the anti-war movement had in the '60s, 683 00:52:06,819 --> 00:52:08,690 where they were called traitors. 684 00:52:08,734 --> 00:52:10,997 People were accused of treason. 685 00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:13,695 It just doesn't make sense to cut these people off 686 00:52:13,739 --> 00:52:17,003 by changing the laws with for those that we hate. 687 00:52:18,657 --> 00:52:23,575 Because what he did was he packed the audience with people from Skokie without telling me. 688 00:52:23,618 --> 00:52:25,794 So it was quite a hot, you know... 689 00:52:44,422 --> 00:52:49,601 I don't believe that, uh... my position is not that anyone should hide. 690 00:52:49,644 --> 00:52:55,389 My position... my position is that there are many peaceable, very effective ways 691 00:52:55,433 --> 00:53:01,700 of communicating one's feelings and ideas much more effective than... than violence 692 00:53:01,743 --> 00:53:05,269 or the threat of violence by... by the people in Skokie. 693 00:53:05,921 --> 00:53:07,749 He'll be the first one to be shot. 694 00:53:08,228 --> 00:53:10,361 -By... by the... the... the-- -By the Nazis. 695 00:53:10,404 --> 00:53:14,756 But these ideas, I saw this and I can show you my number on my arm. 696 00:53:15,409 --> 00:53:18,847 -I have been through this. -We see this? Please, can you help me? 697 00:53:18,891 --> 00:53:21,328 Tell me what that means? 698 00:53:21,372 --> 00:53:25,463 [man 17] This mean I've been through Auschwitz, Buchenwald, in a dozen other camps 699 00:53:25,506 --> 00:53:29,945 and I saw this idea in the swastika what they do with the people. 700 00:53:31,686 --> 00:53:35,516 We never had any doubt that we would prevail legally. 701 00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:40,565 Legally, the Skokie case did not represent a noteworthy precedent. 702 00:53:40,608 --> 00:53:45,047 Politically and socially and in terms of public opinion, it did. 703 00:53:46,048 --> 00:53:49,095 [dramatic music playing] 704 00:53:49,878 --> 00:53:53,186 [Philippa] Jewish organizations outside of Skokie got involved, 705 00:53:53,230 --> 00:53:56,276 not officially organized people of Skokie. 706 00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:58,713 There was a lot of talk about a counter-demonstration. 707 00:54:34,923 --> 00:54:39,014 Their answer was, "This is what we did when the Nazis came in Germany. 708 00:54:39,058 --> 00:54:42,366 We pulled down our shades because we thought they would go away and they didn't. 709 00:54:42,409 --> 00:54:44,542 We're not going to make the same mistake again." 710 00:54:44,585 --> 00:54:46,761 He's not going to march anywhere. 711 00:54:46,805 --> 00:54:52,332 Nobody after Auschwitz is going to carry signs reading "Gas Jews" anywhere, 712 00:54:52,376 --> 00:54:56,118 not in Marquette Park, not in Skokie, they're not anywhere. 713 00:54:56,162 --> 00:54:58,686 We want the confrontations now. 714 00:54:58,730 --> 00:55:03,561 [crowd protesting] 715 00:55:08,435 --> 00:55:11,482 [dramatic music playing] 716 00:55:16,008 --> 00:55:19,054 [upbeat music playing] 717 00:55:20,882 --> 00:55:23,711 Welcome to a special Firing Line Debate. 718 00:55:23,755 --> 00:55:29,151 Our topic tonight is "Resolved: The ACLU is Full of Baloney." 719 00:55:30,718 --> 00:55:34,766 Now, it's not my place as moderator to comment on the wording of debate topics, 720 00:55:34,809 --> 00:55:36,158 I only work here. 721 00:55:36,202 --> 00:55:38,422 It's William F. Buckley's show. 722 00:55:38,465 --> 00:55:42,991 [man 18] William F. Buckley Jr., rich, sophisticated, 723 00:55:43,035 --> 00:55:46,038 a limousine kind of guy who wouldn't be caught without one. 724 00:55:46,081 --> 00:55:49,955 This son of a millionaire educated in Europe and later at Yale 725 00:55:49,998 --> 00:55:53,828 was the most articulate voice of conservatism in America. 726 00:55:53,872 --> 00:55:57,397 Before Reagan, before Rush, there was Buckley. 727 00:55:57,441 --> 00:56:01,183 Bill Buckley can properly be called the founder of the conservative movement. 728 00:56:02,315 --> 00:56:04,752 National Review, the conservative magazine 729 00:56:04,796 --> 00:56:07,625 founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in the 1950s. 730 00:56:07,668 --> 00:56:11,063 Bill and National Review were more or less synonymous for a long time. 731 00:56:11,106 --> 00:56:15,067 [man 19] And he's been the host ofFiring Line since 1966. 732 00:56:15,110 --> 00:56:19,245 [Jay Nordlinger] Firing Linewas a wonderful platform for Bill, a wonderful arena, 733 00:56:19,288 --> 00:56:22,901 sometimes a debate and sometimes a conversation. 734 00:56:24,293 --> 00:56:29,211 The over winning social problem in America is the loss of moral coordinates 735 00:56:29,255 --> 00:56:34,869 and the ACLU tries to clamp down on religion wherever it shows its public face. 736 00:56:34,913 --> 00:56:37,785 The need for civilized restraints has met with encouragement to people 737 00:56:37,829 --> 00:56:42,094 who want to parade in Skokie with their Nazi banners. 738 00:56:42,486 --> 00:56:46,098 The ostensible aims of the ACLU are admirable. 739 00:56:46,141 --> 00:56:51,408 It is a national pity that it has now become, to use Sunday-suited language, 740 00:56:51,451 --> 00:56:54,062 a bunch of baloney. 741 00:56:54,106 --> 00:56:57,936 The captain of the opposing team also needs no introduction to regular Firing Lineviewers. 742 00:56:57,979 --> 00:57:01,069 He's the master baloney chef himself, Ira Glasser. 743 00:57:01,113 --> 00:57:03,637 [applause] 744 00:57:03,681 --> 00:57:08,903 Well, Bill, uh, you warned me not to list what is commendable about the ACLU 745 00:57:08,947 --> 00:57:12,298 because you know as well as I do that there's so much more of it 746 00:57:12,341 --> 00:57:14,039 than the nonsense you were describing. 747 00:57:14,082 --> 00:57:16,737 The regularity and the constancy 748 00:57:16,781 --> 00:57:21,829 of my appearances on Firing Line with Buckley 749 00:57:21,873 --> 00:57:26,573 did sort of elevate my visibility and my persona 750 00:57:26,617 --> 00:57:29,881 in a way that it had not been before. 751 00:57:29,924 --> 00:57:32,884 I think it's a pity that an organization 752 00:57:32,927 --> 00:57:38,063 which ought to be limited to the enhancement of civil liberties 753 00:57:38,106 --> 00:57:44,199 is now embedded for a civil liberty every time they find a grievance group 754 00:57:44,243 --> 00:57:46,724 that they want to defend. 755 00:57:46,767 --> 00:57:52,904 The overwhelming bulk of the ACLU's work has been in the interest of most Americans 756 00:57:52,947 --> 00:57:54,862 and most Americans know this. 757 00:57:55,994 --> 00:58:00,738 You have to remember that there were many fewer stations at the time. 758 00:58:00,781 --> 00:58:04,045 We had the three big broadcast networks. We had PBS. 759 00:58:04,089 --> 00:58:07,614 ♪ Something special On your public TV station ♪ 760 00:58:07,658 --> 00:58:09,616 ♪ Tune in tonight Tune in tonight♪ 761 00:58:09,660 --> 00:58:12,619 [Jay] Anyone who was on television was a big deal. 762 00:58:12,663 --> 00:58:14,665 The week goes by, the ACLU hasn't discovered it, right? 763 00:58:14,708 --> 00:58:16,884 -You think of yourself as irresponsible and slothful. -Well, 764 00:58:16,928 --> 00:58:18,973 that's what eternal vigilance is about, you know, 765 00:58:19,017 --> 00:58:22,194 and as long as there's folks like you running around, God knows-- 766 00:58:22,237 --> 00:58:28,374 The jousting with a major, uh, public figure, uh, like... like Buckley. 767 00:58:28,417 --> 00:58:32,813 That's like saying that... that faster grass grows, the more people drown. 768 00:58:32,857 --> 00:58:35,207 Both things happen when it gets hot in the summer, 769 00:58:35,250 --> 00:58:38,689 but you would hardly enhance water safety by buying a lawn mower. 770 00:58:38,732 --> 00:58:41,256 -These things are not connected. -Ira. 771 00:58:41,300 --> 00:58:42,649 -I would... I would abandon that metaphor if I were you. -It's ridiculous argument. 772 00:58:42,693 --> 00:58:44,129 It... it kind of hurts that metaphor. 773 00:58:44,172 --> 00:58:46,697 Yeah, it hurts you. 774 00:58:46,740 --> 00:58:51,702 I would find people stopping me in the subways in New York, uh, which didn't happen before. 775 00:58:51,745 --> 00:58:57,446 Bill Buckley was the erudite conservative on race, on everything else. 776 00:58:57,490 --> 00:59:02,321 Ira disagreed with Bill Buckley and took him on. 777 00:59:02,364 --> 00:59:07,500 -You know-- -But Bill... but Bill, people were being shot and lynched 778 00:59:07,544 --> 00:59:10,068 for trying to vote because of their color of their skin. 779 00:59:10,111 --> 00:59:11,852 This was not an abstract issue. 780 00:59:11,896 --> 00:59:15,900 This was the leading moral crisis of your lifetime and mine 781 00:59:15,943 --> 00:59:18,380 -and you came up short, didn't you? -[Bill] [inaudible] 782 00:59:18,424 --> 00:59:20,469 [Ira] You came up short. 783 00:59:20,513 --> 00:59:22,167 -Now, wait a minute. -I'm astonished that you don't concede that now. 784 00:59:22,210 --> 00:59:24,386 -I really am. -I hope you don't suggest that 785 00:59:24,430 --> 00:59:27,215 anything I ever wrote, said, or associated with-- 786 00:59:27,259 --> 00:59:31,437 They were intelligent. They... they liked intelligent discussion and discourse 787 00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:34,701 and that's how Ira Glasser became friends with Bill Buckley. 788 00:59:36,355 --> 00:59:38,923 [interviewer 2] Asking you what your impression of 789 00:59:38,966 --> 00:59:42,840 Ira and William F. Buckley's relationship was. 790 00:59:42,883 --> 00:59:44,276 [Norman] It was strange. 791 00:59:44,319 --> 00:59:46,757 [soft music playing] 792 00:59:47,627 --> 00:59:52,414 Here you've got this kind of, uh, aristocrat from Yale 793 00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:59,073 dealing with this street guy from... from Brooklyn, Ira Glasser, rough and tough. 794 00:59:59,117 --> 01:00:01,032 [crowd gasp] 795 01:00:02,163 --> 01:00:07,255 I think part of the attraction we had for each other in that relationship 796 01:00:07,299 --> 01:00:08,866 was how different we were. 797 01:00:08,909 --> 01:00:11,477 Bill was interested in a great, great many things, 798 01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:14,567 but he was not interested in sports except for sailing. 799 01:00:16,351 --> 01:00:20,442 [Bill] It was a few years ago that I first sailed across the Atlantic on Cyrano, 800 01:00:20,486 --> 01:00:21,792 a passage I'm not likely to forget. 801 01:00:23,576 --> 01:00:26,927 Bill had lived a long full life and had never been to a ball game. 802 01:00:26,971 --> 01:00:32,367 Ira sort of insisted and further he insisted that Bill take the subway. 803 01:00:32,411 --> 01:00:34,282 [man 20] Subway, Buckley. 804 01:00:34,326 --> 01:00:36,894 Don't worry, you... you will be protected. 805 01:00:36,937 --> 01:00:40,811 [man 20] Next thing you know, he'll be hanging out with the head of the ACLU. 806 01:00:40,854 --> 01:00:44,597 By the way, that's Ira Glasser, the head of the ACLU. 807 01:00:45,119 --> 01:00:49,994 Taking Buckley to a baseball game was Ira's way 808 01:00:50,037 --> 01:00:53,562 if Buckley was taking him to the Metropolitan Opera. 809 01:00:53,606 --> 01:00:58,611 [man 20] Bill Buckley who works in New York hasn't set foot on a subway there in 30 years. 810 01:00:58,655 --> 01:01:03,747 So, what's going on here? Mr. Limousine conservative with Mr. ACLU liberal? 811 01:01:03,790 --> 01:01:08,752 [Ira] I had this... this crazy theory that, you know, if you could take somebody like this 812 01:01:08,795 --> 01:01:12,886 and expose him to real people, it might change how he saw things. 813 01:01:12,930 --> 01:01:15,889 He's been sealed off from reality for a long time 814 01:01:15,933 --> 01:01:19,153 and this is, you know, we're... we're bringing him out. 815 01:01:19,197 --> 01:01:24,245 For Ira to... to sort of bring him down, you know, 816 01:01:24,289 --> 01:01:29,598 to... to a... a working person's level was a victory. 817 01:01:29,642 --> 01:01:32,601 Everybody has a lacuna and this is mine. 818 01:01:32,645 --> 01:01:34,778 -This is your lacuna? -Yeah. 819 01:01:34,821 --> 01:01:39,347 [man 20] That's right. Lacuna, it's a gap in one's knowledge. 820 01:01:39,391 --> 01:01:41,175 I knew that. 821 01:01:43,395 --> 01:01:47,791 While the game was going on, Ira was explaining to him all the nuances of the game 822 01:01:47,834 --> 01:01:51,272 and Buckley was as gracious and as nice. 823 01:01:51,316 --> 01:01:53,492 I always thought it was like a fish out of water. 824 01:01:53,535 --> 01:01:57,452 [Cora] It was just remarkable that this relationship 825 01:01:57,496 --> 01:02:03,241 that grew up around controversy and arguments in the public eye 826 01:02:03,284 --> 01:02:06,723 ended up with a kind of evening of the playing field. 827 01:02:08,289 --> 01:02:15,209 [Ira] The central goal in talking and working with people who you don't agree with 828 01:02:15,253 --> 01:02:21,302 is to persuade them that there is a common interest between us 829 01:02:21,346 --> 01:02:25,480 in the rights that we have and the rights that we depend on. 830 01:02:27,352 --> 01:02:29,615 There were issues that Buckley and I agreed on. 831 01:02:29,658 --> 01:02:34,533 We agreed, uh, that the drug prohibition was a disaster 832 01:02:34,576 --> 01:02:37,449 and was a violation of personal rights. 833 01:02:37,492 --> 01:02:41,322 I was one who suggested, you know, "If we both have the same position on this 834 01:02:41,366 --> 01:02:44,195 that would really astonish our enemies and amaze our friends 835 01:02:44,238 --> 01:02:46,545 and maybe we should do one of your shows on it." 836 01:02:46,588 --> 01:02:51,289 Politics make strange bedfellows and so do drugs for that matter. 837 01:02:51,332 --> 01:02:53,334 Tonight, we've got William F. Buckley 838 01:02:53,378 --> 01:02:56,076 teamed with the head of the dreaded American Civil Liberties Union. 839 01:02:56,120 --> 01:03:00,428 [Ira] He had a show with Charlie Rangel, a die-hard liberal congressman, 840 01:03:01,168 --> 01:03:05,651 and I don't think I disagreed with Charlie about anything except... except the drug war. 841 01:03:06,434 --> 01:03:11,309 And I think he came on the show thinking that, uh, I was going to support him 842 01:03:11,352 --> 01:03:13,659 and Buckley was going to attack him and we both attacked him. 843 01:03:13,702 --> 01:03:16,488 Would we grow it or would we import it? 844 01:03:17,184 --> 01:03:20,535 Whichever... whichever, um, is cheaper. 845 01:03:20,579 --> 01:03:24,975 I see. And that goes for... it goes for the opium as well? 846 01:03:25,018 --> 01:03:27,760 -Sorry. -Opium as well? 847 01:03:28,326 --> 01:03:33,200 It is our position that our policies will do better for the drug addicts, 848 01:03:33,244 --> 01:03:38,771 better for innocent people and better, uh, to reduce crime than your policies will. 849 01:03:38,815 --> 01:03:40,729 [Charles Rangle] I respond to him since he's identified-- 850 01:03:40,773 --> 01:03:43,123 [announcer] All right, all right. 851 01:03:43,167 --> 01:03:45,169 -Let me explain something to you in a way that's-- -But it's got to be a question 852 01:03:45,212 --> 01:03:46,823 -and a brief one. -You have no idea how many... 853 01:03:46,866 --> 01:03:48,433 -Answer, yes or no. -...how many bills have-- 854 01:03:48,476 --> 01:03:49,564 [laughing] 855 01:03:52,176 --> 01:03:57,877 I had a heart attack in... in... in 1998, uh, 856 01:03:57,921 --> 01:03:59,966 and, uh, it was only a coincidence that 857 01:04:00,010 --> 01:04:04,884 it happened the day after we had dinner at his house, I think. 858 01:04:04,928 --> 01:04:09,628 Uh, but the next week, you know, he called Trude, not his secretary. 859 01:04:09,671 --> 01:04:13,980 He called Trude at home here to find out how I was 860 01:04:14,024 --> 01:04:17,897 and, um, I often wondered, you know. 861 01:04:17,941 --> 01:04:21,292 I wondered if I would have done that if he had, had the heart attack. 862 01:04:22,249 --> 01:04:26,732 He was always very charming and... and very solicitous 863 01:04:26,775 --> 01:04:30,388 and, you know, he was the perfect gentleman. 864 01:04:30,431 --> 01:04:35,262 [Ira] So this was a letter that Bill Buckley sent after my retirement dinner 865 01:04:35,306 --> 01:04:37,438 to which I had invited him. 866 01:04:37,482 --> 01:04:41,181 I think the next day or two, he writes me this cute short letter. 867 01:04:41,747 --> 01:04:48,058 "Dear Ira, I have been to a lot of tributes but never to one that matched yours on Friday. 868 01:04:48,101 --> 01:04:51,931 Everything about it was festive, except maybe the Constitution." 869 01:04:51,975 --> 01:04:54,760 "The beautiful hall, the exuberance of the speakers, 870 01:04:54,803 --> 01:05:00,418 I can't imagine how much time was required to do it with such art and wit. 871 01:05:00,461 --> 01:05:03,943 I had to force myself to remember how awful you and your influence are. 872 01:05:04,683 --> 01:05:09,557 It was very generous of you to place me at your table and Trude looked simply wonderful. 873 01:05:09,601 --> 01:05:11,995 Bless you and any time it is convenient, 874 01:05:12,038 --> 01:05:15,912 think of Stamford as a waystation for points east, Bill." 875 01:05:17,739 --> 01:05:19,089 Um... 876 01:05:20,742 --> 01:05:22,788 I... I remember the end of an essay that was part of a book 877 01:05:22,831 --> 01:05:26,313 written by a French theorist that I read at Yale and... 878 01:05:27,836 --> 01:05:33,277 two men are sitting sipping coffee in a coffee house in... in Paris 879 01:05:33,886 --> 01:05:39,848 and one turns to this stranger and said, uh, "Excuse me, do you like Jews?" 880 01:05:41,024 --> 01:05:42,112 "No." 881 01:05:43,026 --> 01:05:44,723 [cackles] 882 01:05:44,766 --> 01:05:49,554 -"Well, do you like Catholics?" "No." -[man 21] Yes. 883 01:05:49,597 --> 01:05:54,776 "Uh, well, who do you like?" "I like my friends." 884 01:05:54,820 --> 01:05:56,430 [laughs] 885 01:05:56,474 --> 01:05:59,868 I thought that was a marvelous way to cut through 886 01:06:00,608 --> 01:06:06,005 categorical qualifications for friendship. I like nice people. 887 01:06:06,440 --> 01:06:09,487 [dramatic music playing] 888 01:06:41,998 --> 01:06:44,174 Good morning, everyone. 889 01:06:44,217 --> 01:06:47,916 There will be no march by American Nazis this Sunday in Skokie, Illinois. 890 01:06:47,960 --> 01:06:54,488 Because we agitated for free speech and won our right to free speech back completely 891 01:06:54,532 --> 01:07:00,712 that the demonstration scheduled for Sunday in Skokie is henceforth canceled. 892 01:07:01,495 --> 01:07:05,238 In the end, after we won the case finally, uh, in Skokie 893 01:07:05,282 --> 01:07:10,026 and the Nazis had the right to go and demonstrate, they never did. 894 01:07:11,114 --> 01:07:15,161 [soft music playing] 895 01:07:19,078 --> 01:07:22,473 [man 22] Nazi leaders said all along that Skokie was not their real objective 896 01:07:22,516 --> 01:07:26,738 and that they would probably cancel Sunday's march in the largely Jewish community, 897 01:07:26,781 --> 01:07:30,002 if they could rally instead in Chicago, closer to their headquarters. 898 01:07:30,046 --> 01:07:32,439 Federal Judge George Leighton ordered the Park District 899 01:07:32,483 --> 01:07:36,400 to let the Nazis march in a Chicago park on July 9th without any bond. 900 01:07:53,025 --> 01:07:57,116 This means that free speech for the white people on the southwest side is restored. 901 01:07:57,160 --> 01:07:59,075 It's amazing how fast democracy goes-- 902 01:07:59,118 --> 01:08:01,207 [interviewer 3] What would have happened had he did march? 903 01:08:04,602 --> 01:08:07,431 Well, I think there would have been some bloodshed. 904 01:08:09,172 --> 01:08:12,218 [dramatic music playing] 905 01:08:13,176 --> 01:08:17,093 By the time he wins the right to demonstrate in Skokie 906 01:08:17,136 --> 01:08:20,792 and in Chicago, in Marquette Park, he doesn't go to Skokie, 907 01:08:20,835 --> 01:08:26,058 but he does decide to do it in Marquette Park in Chicago because that is his turf. 908 01:08:26,102 --> 01:08:30,193 That's where it all started. That's really what the Skokie case was all about. 909 01:08:32,151 --> 01:08:33,761 [man 23] They know where the bullhorn is? 910 01:08:37,113 --> 01:08:42,161 [Ira] The same thing that was about to happen in Skokie did happen in Marquette Park. 911 01:08:43,684 --> 01:08:46,731 [suspenseful music playing] 912 01:08:49,821 --> 01:08:52,040 No, it's not a march, it's just a rally. 913 01:08:52,084 --> 01:08:53,303 Where... where are you gonna be? 914 01:08:53,346 --> 01:08:55,087 Over at Marquette Park. 915 01:08:57,263 --> 01:09:00,397 With an enormous amount of police protection because by that time, they're worried, 916 01:09:00,440 --> 01:09:03,922 you know, he's going to go there with his dozen people and there's going to be a riot. 917 01:09:04,488 --> 01:09:09,188 -Down with the-- -[screams] Down with the fucking Nazi! 918 01:09:09,232 --> 01:09:11,408 [man 24] I wonder if the Reds are going to try anything today. 919 01:09:12,191 --> 01:09:14,672 -It's a good-sized crowd. -Where's our... where's our banners? 920 01:09:14,715 --> 01:09:16,369 -I don't see. -You tell us. 921 01:09:16,413 --> 01:09:18,676 -Where are the banners? -They're out there somewhere. 922 01:09:18,719 --> 01:09:21,026 Where are our people? I don't see our... we should see our white victory bash. 923 01:09:21,069 --> 01:09:24,899 -It should have gone up about 15 minutes... -Don't worry about it. 924 01:09:24,943 --> 01:09:27,815 -What the hell? Is everybody here now? -[man 24] Yeah. 925 01:09:27,859 --> 01:09:30,166 We need an extension cord. They didn't bring it? 926 01:09:30,209 --> 01:09:32,907 -No, they didn't bring it. -Oh, shit. 927 01:09:32,951 --> 01:09:35,388 -Do you know where it is? -Do you know where it is? 928 01:09:35,432 --> 01:09:36,650 Do you know where it is? 929 01:09:38,304 --> 01:09:40,698 He starts his little demonstration and he gets drowned out 930 01:09:40,741 --> 01:09:46,051 by these thousands of demonstrators, who in effect, he created. 931 01:09:49,315 --> 01:09:50,751 This is ridiculous. 932 01:09:53,014 --> 01:09:54,712 They can't even see us. 933 01:09:54,755 --> 01:09:57,802 Look at this pathetic situation here. Look at this. 934 01:09:57,845 --> 01:09:59,891 Well, they can't even see us. I hope they can hear us. 935 01:09:59,934 --> 01:10:02,154 All right, can you put the truck over it? 936 01:10:02,198 --> 01:10:04,461 No, no. We gotta wait for the extension cord. 937 01:10:04,504 --> 01:10:05,679 All right, we'll have to just wait. 938 01:10:06,637 --> 01:10:08,726 What a pathetic... Goddammit! 939 01:10:08,769 --> 01:10:11,468 Isn't this pathetic though? They can't even see us. 940 01:10:13,687 --> 01:10:15,950 -Isn't that really pathetic? -[man 24] Oh, bullshit. They should-- 941 01:10:15,994 --> 01:10:19,824 [Frank] Look at this. They can't... Nobody... No one will see-- 942 01:10:23,784 --> 01:10:26,961 [man 25] Scuffles broke out and the police moved in quickly 943 01:10:27,005 --> 01:10:29,790 taking some of the combatants to nearby police vans. 944 01:10:29,834 --> 01:10:31,227 Hey! 945 01:10:33,272 --> 01:10:36,623 [Ira] So, when we finally win everybody's right, not just his, to free speech, 946 01:10:36,667 --> 01:10:40,105 he is so outnumbered by people who oppose him 947 01:10:40,148 --> 01:10:46,720 that he gets vanquished in a way that attempting to ban him couldn't possibly have done. 948 01:10:49,767 --> 01:10:53,988 He slinks away and that's the end of the Skokie case. 949 01:10:54,859 --> 01:10:59,690 The guy was crazy and he was followed around by at most 20 people. 950 01:11:01,257 --> 01:11:05,435 There were never very many members. It had no resources. 951 01:11:06,392 --> 01:11:11,049 Collin himself lived in an apartment right above their offices, 952 01:11:11,092 --> 01:11:13,051 lived there with a couple of other people. 953 01:11:15,488 --> 01:11:20,276 It's fair to say he was a little bit confused about his identity. 954 01:11:20,319 --> 01:11:24,105 He actually was Jewish by birth. 955 01:11:24,149 --> 01:11:29,023 The family changed its name once his father, who was a survivor of Dachau, 956 01:11:29,067 --> 01:11:30,895 came to the United States. 957 01:11:30,938 --> 01:11:34,638 The name had been Cohen and it was changed to Collin. 958 01:11:36,074 --> 01:11:38,685 The family didn't like what he became, 959 01:11:38,729 --> 01:11:41,906 so he was an outlier even in his own family 960 01:11:41,949 --> 01:11:46,998 and then he certainly became an outlier in terms of American Values. 961 01:11:48,391 --> 01:11:50,567 All right, let's see. 962 01:11:50,610 --> 01:11:52,395 Why don't we just take it on the paper cutter and cut it off here. 963 01:11:52,438 --> 01:11:54,048 Then it'll look... no, it looks good. It looks like-- 964 01:11:54,092 --> 01:11:57,487 Frank Collin's father supposedly is Jewish. 965 01:11:57,530 --> 01:12:00,316 Why do you think he's turned Nazi? 966 01:12:00,359 --> 01:12:01,839 I'm not a psychiatrist. 967 01:12:03,406 --> 01:12:06,626 [Philippa] Collin got a lot of attention out of this. 968 01:12:06,670 --> 01:12:10,587 I suppose one could say in that sense he succeeded, 969 01:12:10,630 --> 01:12:15,766 but not really, because shortly thereafter, 970 01:12:15,809 --> 01:12:18,595 he was actually kicked out of his own party. 971 01:12:18,638 --> 01:12:21,554 Probably the reason was that the party had discovered 972 01:12:21,598 --> 01:12:27,343 that he was sexually abusing boys in the party's headquarters 973 01:12:27,386 --> 01:12:32,826 and in 1980, Collin was convicted of doing so 974 01:12:32,870 --> 01:12:38,571 and was sent away to prison, stayed, uh, in prison for three years. 975 01:12:39,355 --> 01:12:46,013 When he got out, he became a new ager and saying very carefully to anybody who asked, 976 01:12:46,057 --> 01:12:47,537 "I'm not a Nazi anymore." 977 01:12:47,580 --> 01:12:50,670 [serene music playing] 978 01:13:01,899 --> 01:13:08,166 In retrospect, the Skokie case was a defining pivotal moment for the ACLU. 979 01:13:08,209 --> 01:13:12,779 The reason it was defining and pivotal is that... 980 01:13:12,823 --> 01:13:16,566 the reaction to the Skokie case threatened our existence. 981 01:13:16,609 --> 01:13:21,092 [woman 3] It is not the first time the ACLU has defended an unpopular cause, 982 01:13:21,135 --> 01:13:24,356 but this one has brought the organization financial trouble. 983 01:13:25,313 --> 01:13:29,361 The ACLU stood up for the principle of free speech 984 01:13:29,405 --> 01:13:31,972 that had always said it believed in 985 01:13:32,016 --> 01:13:36,803 at a moment when its viability as an organization was threatened. 986 01:13:36,847 --> 01:13:39,763 They accused the ACLU of selling out. 987 01:13:39,806 --> 01:13:45,508 We've got to protect people based on the right involved 988 01:13:45,551 --> 01:13:47,858 and not how we feel about the individuals. 989 01:13:47,901 --> 01:13:52,253 I feel that the ACLU should spend more time and energy 990 01:13:52,297 --> 01:13:55,779 protecting the civilized rather than the uncivilized 991 01:13:55,822 --> 01:13:59,478 and that things have turned upside down because of people like you. 992 01:14:00,218 --> 01:14:05,092 They accused the ACLU of racism because the ACLU was defending free speech. 993 01:14:07,747 --> 01:14:12,491 Turned out that the members were very persuadable 994 01:14:12,535 --> 01:14:18,410 by laying out the reasons the ACLU decided to oppose the city of Skokie. 995 01:14:19,759 --> 01:14:26,766 By the 1980s, the Skokie case enabled us to understand, explain, 996 01:14:26,810 --> 01:14:32,729 and rally, uh, people who agreed with us, uh, to the principle of free speech. 997 01:14:34,252 --> 01:14:36,689 This is a quote from Michael Dukakis, 998 01:14:36,733 --> 01:14:40,301 a card-carrying member of the ACLU, 999 01:14:40,345 --> 01:14:41,955 American Civil Liberties Union. 1000 01:14:41,999 --> 01:14:44,392 [applause] 1001 01:14:44,436 --> 01:14:45,568 Here it is. 1002 01:14:48,440 --> 01:14:50,268 This is the little piece of paper that 1003 01:14:50,311 --> 01:14:52,879 you've been hearing about that's caused all the trouble. 1004 01:14:52,923 --> 01:14:58,363 The ACLU functioned in a period of... of great upswing 1005 01:14:58,406 --> 01:15:00,408 throughout the '80s and '90s. 1006 01:15:00,452 --> 01:15:04,456 Anyone in power is going to violate civil liberties sooner or later, 1007 01:15:04,500 --> 01:15:07,285 some more than others and some less than others, 1008 01:15:07,328 --> 01:15:10,201 but we end up suing everybody, including our members. 1009 01:15:10,244 --> 01:15:16,729 So, it was a period of enormous growth infrastructurally for the ACLU 1010 01:15:16,773 --> 01:15:21,125 and, therefore, for our ability to defend civil liberties. 1011 01:15:21,168 --> 01:15:25,085 What you are talking about is when a policeman who has violated the Fourth Amendment 1012 01:15:25,129 --> 01:15:28,436 and violated the rights of innocent people, comes in and says, 1013 01:15:28,480 --> 01:15:30,787 "He thought he was doing it the right way." 1014 01:15:30,830 --> 01:15:33,572 -A judge can say, "Okay, we'll look the other way." -[host] No, wait a second... 1015 01:15:33,616 --> 01:15:36,923 And what that will do is encourage the police to do what they already do, 1016 01:15:36,967 --> 01:15:39,186 which is violate the rights of many innocent people 1017 01:15:39,230 --> 01:15:41,014 in order to catch a few who are guilty. 1018 01:15:41,058 --> 01:15:44,191 That is not our system and your proposal changes our system. 1019 01:15:44,235 --> 01:15:48,587 Let me go to Mr. Giuliani. Mr. Glasser says it would violate the basic premise 1020 01:15:48,631 --> 01:15:50,807 that people are innocent until proven guilty. 1021 01:15:50,850 --> 01:15:52,635 I've gotten the general impression that Mr. Glasser 1022 01:15:52,678 --> 01:15:54,898 is not enamored of these proposals. 1023 01:15:54,941 --> 01:15:58,031 Uh, I think maybe it's the perspective that he... that he comes from. 1024 01:15:58,075 --> 01:16:00,033 What counts in these struggles, 1025 01:16:00,077 --> 01:16:02,645 we have learned over and over and over again 1026 01:16:02,688 --> 01:16:06,213 is never how much power they have or what they do. 1027 01:16:08,041 --> 01:16:12,916 What counts is how much resistance we offer and what we do in response. 1028 01:16:15,571 --> 01:16:20,706 The tide of liberty and individual rights, and equal justice is clearly with us, 1029 01:16:22,142 --> 01:16:26,016 but only if we keep swimming. Thank you. 1030 01:16:26,669 --> 01:16:28,584 [applause] 1031 01:16:38,463 --> 01:16:41,509 [soft music playing] 1032 01:16:45,688 --> 01:16:49,169 [man 26] The chaos in Charlottesville had been building for months. 1033 01:16:50,301 --> 01:16:53,913 Since the city voted in April to remove the Robert E. Lee statue, 1034 01:16:53,957 --> 01:16:58,614 there have been three protests, counter protests, and now violence. 1035 01:16:59,789 --> 01:17:03,793 Surely, Charlottesville is a lot like Skokie. 1036 01:17:03,836 --> 01:17:06,926 This is clearly about white supremacy and we're not going to have it here. 1037 01:17:06,970 --> 01:17:13,716 The rally in Charlottesville supposedly was generated by the movement to pull down statues. 1038 01:17:16,719 --> 01:17:21,637 White supremacists wanted to demonstrate near a Confederate statue, 1039 01:17:21,680 --> 01:17:23,813 Robert E. Lee, one of the Confederate leaders 1040 01:17:23,856 --> 01:17:27,773 was in a very central position in that town. 1041 01:17:27,817 --> 01:17:30,907 [man 27] Organizers of Saturday's planned rally had said 1042 01:17:30,950 --> 01:17:33,997 it was meant to honor history and save the statute. 1043 01:17:34,562 --> 01:17:37,783 In fact, I think it's pretty clear 1044 01:17:37,827 --> 01:17:43,006 that white supremacists were looking for a way to flex their muscles. 1045 01:17:43,049 --> 01:17:47,706 At the very last minute, after the permit had been granted 1046 01:17:47,750 --> 01:17:50,578 for the August demonstration, 1047 01:17:50,622 --> 01:17:56,323 a member of the city council sought to move the demonstrators. 1048 01:17:57,673 --> 01:18:01,024 We are not backing down. We are going to be in Lee Park. 1049 01:18:01,067 --> 01:18:03,374 Of course, it stirred old memories. 1050 01:18:03,417 --> 01:18:07,595 These people are trying to replace us with Third World immigrants. 1051 01:18:07,639 --> 01:18:09,946 They are trying to replace us with Muslims. 1052 01:18:09,989 --> 01:18:14,254 They put propaganda out in the movies and in our school system 1053 01:18:14,298 --> 01:18:19,564 talking down to white people, trying to make us to blame for everything. 1054 01:18:19,607 --> 01:18:25,048 There was an attempt to get an injunction to stop the demonstration in Charlottesville 1055 01:18:25,091 --> 01:18:28,791 and on its face, that's really no different from the Skokie situation. 1056 01:18:28,834 --> 01:18:33,665 That's what led the ACLU together with some other organizations 1057 01:18:33,709 --> 01:18:39,671 to oppose that, saying that it was viewpoint discrimination. 1058 01:18:39,715 --> 01:18:44,241 It was only because of hatred of the ideas of the white supremacists 1059 01:18:44,284 --> 01:18:47,461 that there was this effort to move them away. 1060 01:18:48,854 --> 01:18:51,814 If you weren't already planning on coming out to Charlottesville, 1061 01:18:51,857 --> 01:18:53,685 you need to come out to Charlottesville. 1062 01:18:53,729 --> 01:18:55,731 We're going to be demonstrating in Lee Park. 1063 01:18:55,774 --> 01:18:59,343 I'm an American Jew. I'm a woman. 1064 01:18:59,386 --> 01:19:04,217 I feel very strongly that those are really horrible, horrible people with noxious ideas, 1065 01:19:04,261 --> 01:19:08,308 but there's no question in my mind that they had an absolute right to demonstrate 1066 01:19:08,352 --> 01:19:10,267 under the American constitution. 1067 01:19:10,310 --> 01:19:13,836 I was at a conference 1068 01:19:13,879 --> 01:19:18,841 and I saw news flashes constantly on my phone 1069 01:19:18,884 --> 01:19:23,802 about what was happening and that was extremely distressing. 1070 01:19:23,846 --> 01:19:30,853 [chanting] 1071 01:19:32,506 --> 01:19:35,379 [Nadine] White supremacists to the horror 1072 01:19:35,422 --> 01:19:40,732 and unpreparedness of all law enforcement agencies 1073 01:19:40,776 --> 01:19:43,866 showed up the night before the rally, 1074 01:19:43,909 --> 01:19:49,132 marching through campus brandishing lighted torches. 1075 01:19:49,175 --> 01:19:55,834 [chanting] 1076 01:19:55,878 --> 01:19:59,795 I woke up listening to the radio and hearing.... 1077 01:19:59,838 --> 01:20:03,015 it's the first thing I remember hearing when I woke up 1078 01:20:03,059 --> 01:20:07,019 was the chants of the demonstrators, 1079 01:20:07,063 --> 01:20:11,241 "You will not replace us. Jews will not replace us." 1080 01:20:11,284 --> 01:20:15,462 And you could imagine the chills that sent down my spine 1081 01:20:15,506 --> 01:20:18,378 as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. 1082 01:20:35,221 --> 01:20:39,095 What had happened in ensuing days, uh, is not the fault of free speech 1083 01:20:39,138 --> 01:20:41,532 or the people that champion free speech. 1084 01:20:41,575 --> 01:20:45,014 What happened in ensuing days was the fault of the police and the government 1085 01:20:45,057 --> 01:20:47,016 for not providing ample protection. 1086 01:20:59,550 --> 01:21:02,596 [soft music playing] 1087 01:21:04,120 --> 01:21:05,817 [clamoring] 1088 01:21:05,861 --> 01:21:08,385 [man 28] Police say Fields used his car 1089 01:21:08,428 --> 01:21:11,997 to intentionally mow down a crowd of anti-hate demonstrators on Saturday 1090 01:21:12,041 --> 01:21:14,695 killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. 1091 01:21:14,739 --> 01:21:19,875 When Heather Heyer was run down by an automobile, 1092 01:21:19,918 --> 01:21:24,096 there was literally not a single police officer 1093 01:21:24,140 --> 01:21:27,099 in that vicinity at all. 1094 01:21:27,665 --> 01:21:31,887 In our reports, we kept noting, I'm looking around, I'm not seeing any police here. 1095 01:21:31,930 --> 01:21:34,498 There... there was no police presence. 1096 01:21:34,541 --> 01:21:37,457 Now, in criticizing police, the Charlottesville police chief told CBS news, "Wait a minute. 1097 01:21:37,501 --> 01:21:39,807 I had officers and the help of the National Guard 1098 01:21:39,851 --> 01:21:41,679 and they moved in when the time was right." 1099 01:21:41,722 --> 01:21:44,769 [somber music playing] 1100 01:21:56,650 --> 01:21:59,653 I guess my question, and I'm not trying to be contentious for the sake of it, 1101 01:21:59,697 --> 01:22:01,394 it's... it's an honest question, 1102 01:22:01,438 --> 01:22:04,136 "If people show up with guns and clubs, 1103 01:22:04,180 --> 01:22:08,532 some of them wearing what looks like tactical armor and they're chanting, 1104 01:22:08,575 --> 01:22:10,926 "Jews will not replace us." 1105 01:22:10,969 --> 01:22:14,799 At what point is it fair for a Jewish person who comes from a culture that 1106 01:22:14,842 --> 01:22:17,889 people have been hunted and killed, at what point is it fair 1107 01:22:17,933 --> 01:22:19,847 for them to feel like violence is imminent? 1108 01:22:19,891 --> 01:22:22,111 Oh, no, no. They... they can feel that, 1109 01:22:22,154 --> 01:22:26,419 but the fact of the matter is is that a lot of that is symbolic. 1110 01:22:27,768 --> 01:22:32,904 When people burn flags, they got arrested for inciting violence. 1111 01:22:32,948 --> 01:22:36,299 When people carry guns in a demonstration, 1112 01:22:36,342 --> 01:22:39,258 in a society where they're allowed to carry guns, 1113 01:22:39,302 --> 01:22:43,045 you got to make a distinction between speech, 1114 01:22:43,088 --> 01:22:45,873 including symbolic speech, and conduct. 1115 01:22:45,917 --> 01:22:51,183 Now the difficult question is where does the speech bleed into conduct 1116 01:22:51,227 --> 01:22:54,360 and at what moment do the police step in? 1117 01:22:54,404 --> 01:22:58,974 Is it fair to have a concern that if hate speech incites violence 1118 01:22:59,017 --> 01:23:01,019 that you should control it? 1119 01:23:01,063 --> 01:23:05,589 Well, you know, the... the key phrase there is "incites violence." 1120 01:23:05,632 --> 01:23:09,506 You have to remember that in Charlottesville, the instrument of killing was a car. 1121 01:23:09,549 --> 01:23:11,595 [Noam] That's right. 1122 01:23:11,638 --> 01:23:16,208 The police did a poor job of anticipating and protecting speech 1123 01:23:16,252 --> 01:23:19,037 of both sides in a volatile situation. 1124 01:23:19,081 --> 01:23:21,822 All right, now. But we're going gonna have a little bit of a traffic tie-up when he's-- 1125 01:23:21,866 --> 01:23:23,476 I got three guys taking are of traffic. 1126 01:23:23,520 --> 01:23:25,609 Yeah, but what are we gonna do with the traffic? 1127 01:23:25,652 --> 01:23:28,046 If we send them this way, they'll likely get a brick thrown... 1128 01:23:28,090 --> 01:23:30,483 No diversion, just stop it until we're through crossing, then we'll let it go. 1129 01:23:30,527 --> 01:23:33,965 The police have to be good enough and competent enough 1130 01:23:34,009 --> 01:23:40,580 to anticipate a volatile situation and protect the rights of both sides to speak, 1131 01:23:40,624 --> 01:23:44,323 but keep them separate and have enough of a show of police force 1132 01:23:44,367 --> 01:23:46,847 to prevent the chaos that happened in Charlottesville. 1133 01:23:46,891 --> 01:23:53,376 [clamoring] 1134 01:23:55,291 --> 01:23:57,641 Can I ask you a very difficult question? 1135 01:23:57,684 --> 01:24:01,079 -Sure. -Which is, do you believe that those protesters 1136 01:24:01,123 --> 01:24:03,516 who were there in Charlottesville on that day 1137 01:24:03,560 --> 01:24:07,694 had the right or should again have the right to express their views? 1138 01:24:08,739 --> 01:24:12,699 I do, and that's not a popular view. And I will tell you why. 1139 01:24:12,743 --> 01:24:16,312 Uh, I'm not telling you why it's not a popular view, I think that's obvious. 1140 01:24:16,355 --> 01:24:22,361 But, um, I think once we take away 1141 01:24:22,405 --> 01:24:26,104 the right to free speech, we may never get it back. 1142 01:24:26,148 --> 01:24:31,370 My big concern with losing free speech is who makes the decision, 1143 01:24:31,414 --> 01:24:35,113 -what speech is allowable and what speech is not. -Right. 1144 01:24:35,157 --> 01:24:40,945 And once you set it up so that there's always one group deciding, 1145 01:24:40,988 --> 01:24:43,904 that group can change at any given time. 1146 01:24:43,948 --> 01:24:46,168 Well, what about when we represented the Black Panthers 1147 01:24:46,211 --> 01:24:49,432 and they would stand there with their guns back in the '60s? 1148 01:24:49,475 --> 01:24:54,393 What about the defense and justice team in Mississippi and Louisiana in the '60s 1149 01:24:54,437 --> 01:25:00,182 who had guns all the time on them and had them as a deterrent to the people in the Deep South? 1150 01:25:00,225 --> 01:25:02,880 You can't have a double standard. 1151 01:25:02,923 --> 01:25:06,579 Everybody's talking about the First Amendment and we have a preamble to our constitution 1152 01:25:06,623 --> 01:25:10,714 that is supposed to pro... uh, promote domestic tranquility. 1153 01:25:10,757 --> 01:25:14,196 So it seems so clear of what would be right and what would be wrong. 1154 01:25:14,239 --> 01:25:16,372 -[man 29] Right. What's wrong? -Because this is promoting hatred, 1155 01:25:16,415 --> 01:25:18,200 it is not promoting domestic tranquility. 1156 01:25:18,243 --> 01:25:20,202 So Mr. Stoner should not be allowed to say these things? 1157 01:25:20,245 --> 01:25:21,377 -Not on TV. -[Mr. Stoner] Excuse me, but I'm-- 1158 01:25:21,420 --> 01:25:23,335 No, he should... they should not. 1159 01:25:23,379 --> 01:25:24,684 -Hang on one second. -[Mr. Stoner] I'm the leading advocate 1160 01:25:24,728 --> 01:25:26,947 of peace and tranquility in the country. 1161 01:25:26,991 --> 01:25:28,993 I advocate a program where we'll only have a white Christian America 1162 01:25:29,036 --> 01:25:31,387 -and then we will have peace and tranquility. -[man 29] Okay. 1163 01:25:31,430 --> 01:25:32,866 -No more lawlessness. -[man 29] Now, the point-- 1164 01:25:32,910 --> 01:25:35,217 Nobody says-- 1165 01:25:35,260 --> 01:25:38,002 Let me ask you... let me ask you this question about domestic tranquility. 1166 01:25:38,045 --> 01:25:41,179 Thirty years ago, 25 years ago in the South, 1167 01:25:41,223 --> 01:25:45,270 what was disturbing domestic tranquility was civil rights marches. 1168 01:25:45,314 --> 01:25:48,186 -But that, no, to me that's, it's very clear. -[Ira] Well, to you. 1169 01:25:48,230 --> 01:25:49,535 -[woman 4] That is not. -But you're not the one who got to decide. 1170 01:25:49,579 --> 01:25:51,015 That is not domestic tranquility. 1171 01:25:51,537 --> 01:25:55,062 We condemn in the strongest possible terms 1172 01:25:55,672 --> 01:25:59,284 this egregious display of hatred, bigotry 1173 01:25:59,328 --> 01:26:02,679 and violence on many sides, on many sides. 1174 01:26:03,810 --> 01:26:10,165 It's probably too early to know what the impact of Charlottesville will be, 1175 01:26:10,208 --> 01:26:15,648 but I would hope given the state of American First Amendment law, 1176 01:26:15,692 --> 01:26:21,176 all of the law that was built before Skokie, that was built in part by Skokie, 1177 01:26:21,219 --> 01:26:25,702 that's been built since, I hope American judges would understand 1178 01:26:25,745 --> 01:26:30,837 that their obligation is to let speech be heard 1179 01:26:30,881 --> 01:26:36,843 and not to let what happens in a really mishandled situation in Charlottesville 1180 01:26:37,714 --> 01:26:43,720 prejudice their attitude towards the really important goals of the First Amendment. 1181 01:26:43,763 --> 01:26:46,810 [tranquil music playing] 1182 01:27:25,327 --> 01:27:31,115 Meeting Ben Stern was for me, uh, a surprisingly emotional experience. 1183 01:27:35,815 --> 01:27:41,908 I mean, this is a guy who was arrested by the Nazis in Poland when he was 15, 1184 01:27:41,952 --> 01:27:44,868 separated from his family whom he never saw again, 1185 01:27:44,911 --> 01:27:50,308 uh, survived, escaped from and recaptured and escaped from and recaptured, 1186 01:27:50,352 --> 01:27:52,484 a bunch of concentration camps. 1187 01:28:12,112 --> 01:28:15,812 [Ira] The first time we met, his daughter picked me up, 1188 01:28:15,855 --> 01:28:18,684 brought me to her house for lunch, met him. 1189 01:28:18,728 --> 01:28:22,645 You know, he's a short little 96-year-old man 1190 01:28:22,688 --> 01:28:28,433 and he had this kind of almost pugnacious bulldog, you know, jaw jutting out, 1191 01:28:28,477 --> 01:28:30,914 shakes my hand, smiles and says, 1192 01:28:30,957 --> 01:28:34,352 "I know we're not going to agree and we're not going to change each other's minds, 1193 01:28:34,396 --> 01:28:36,398 but we're going to be friends." 1194 01:28:36,441 --> 01:28:38,922 And it... and it happened that way. It happened that way. 1195 01:28:48,801 --> 01:28:54,677 He showed me all these pictures of... he had his family tree, uh, on the wall. 1196 01:28:55,068 --> 01:29:00,247 And he... he... he sort of drew an imaginary line three-quarters of the way down and said, 1197 01:29:00,291 --> 01:29:03,860 "Everyone on top of that line is dead. They were all killed." 1198 01:29:18,570 --> 01:29:22,357 [Ira] All the reaction of the Holocaust survivors themselves 1199 01:29:22,400 --> 01:29:25,664 was always to me very understandable. 1200 01:29:35,587 --> 01:29:38,851 [Ira] The town of Skokie was wrong on both counts. 1201 01:29:38,895 --> 01:29:42,681 On the one hand, it tried to ban the neo-Nazis' speech, 1202 01:29:42,725 --> 01:29:47,512 on the other hand, it tried to prevent people like Ben Stern 1203 01:29:47,556 --> 01:29:51,386 uh, from organizing speech in opposition. 1204 01:30:02,397 --> 01:30:06,139 After Charlottesville and Boston, 1205 01:30:06,183 --> 01:30:10,883 Nazis decided to rally in both San Francisco and Berkeley. 1206 01:30:11,623 --> 01:30:15,322 I asked my father what he was going to do. 1207 01:30:15,366 --> 01:30:16,889 He said, "I'm going to be there." 1208 01:30:17,499 --> 01:30:21,938 And he said, "I hope I will not be standing alone." 1209 01:30:23,113 --> 01:30:26,725 The mayor of Berkeley told us to stay home, 1210 01:30:28,161 --> 01:30:30,729 close the shades, let it pass. 1211 01:30:31,295 --> 01:30:35,691 The city council voted to stay home. 1212 01:30:35,734 --> 01:30:38,258 "All citizens should stay home." 1213 01:30:38,302 --> 01:30:41,174 The police commissioner said, "Stay home." 1214 01:30:42,132 --> 01:30:44,221 Ben Stern is not staying home. 1215 01:30:45,048 --> 01:30:48,921 When we got to the rally, he was not on the speaker list. 1216 01:30:48,965 --> 01:30:52,577 He asked to speak and he spoke for a few minutes 1217 01:30:52,621 --> 01:30:58,191 to thousands of Muslims, Arabs, LGBT, 1218 01:30:58,235 --> 01:31:02,413 blacks, Jews, whites, everyone. 1219 01:31:03,762 --> 01:31:09,638 You could have heard a quarter drop in those minutes that he spoke. 1220 01:31:09,681 --> 01:31:11,640 So, Ira's right. 1221 01:31:11,683 --> 01:31:13,685 We stay home at our peril. 1222 01:32:06,782 --> 01:32:08,174 I do hear you. 1223 01:32:08,218 --> 01:32:09,219 [chuckles] 1224 01:32:21,231 --> 01:32:25,496 [Ira] So, I come to you actually as a time traveler from the '60s. 1225 01:32:27,542 --> 01:32:33,417 I was mostly known for two issues 1226 01:32:33,460 --> 01:32:37,116 when I was at the ACLU in all those years. 1227 01:32:37,160 --> 01:32:43,035 I was known for being a near absolutist on First Amendment rights 1228 01:32:43,079 --> 01:32:48,214 and I was known for my advocacy for racial justice. 1229 01:32:49,389 --> 01:32:56,396 I was one of those small number of people who brought the issue of racial justice 1230 01:32:56,440 --> 01:33:01,358 into a high priority at the ACLU during the years I was there. 1231 01:33:01,401 --> 01:33:05,754 Were there conflicts between free speech and racial justice? Sometimes. 1232 01:33:06,363 --> 01:33:11,760 Uh, but there was never once where I thought 1233 01:33:11,803 --> 01:33:14,632 that we had to tone down our defense of free speech. 1234 01:33:14,676 --> 01:33:17,896 [light music playing] 1235 01:33:17,940 --> 01:33:22,858 That was the beauty and the power and the majesty of the Ira Glasser, 1236 01:33:22,901 --> 01:33:25,208 Executive Directorship. 1237 01:33:25,251 --> 01:33:30,909 He never allowed race to trump civil liberties principles or vice versa. 1238 01:33:30,953 --> 01:33:33,651 The ACLU was in good shape when he retired. 1239 01:33:33,695 --> 01:33:39,352 He was leaving a very healthy organization that, um, that... that as I've said, 1240 01:33:39,396 --> 01:33:42,791 that as I think a lot of people have said that he brought into the 21st century. 1241 01:33:42,834 --> 01:33:47,186 He didn't just stay in an office and... and sign papers and checks. 1242 01:33:47,230 --> 01:33:49,667 And he got out there and he was visible. 1243 01:33:49,711 --> 01:33:55,238 And he was vocal and he embraced an activist tradition. 1244 01:33:55,281 --> 01:33:59,808 And I think that kind of leader-activist identity is something 1245 01:33:59,851 --> 01:34:04,508 that will be his legacy and that has inspired a generation. 1246 01:34:05,074 --> 01:34:12,124 He's one of the Americans who protected and enhanced, uh, the constitutional principles 1247 01:34:12,168 --> 01:34:15,301 that are the framework of American democracy. 1248 01:34:15,954 --> 01:34:17,434 He's an unsung hero. 1249 01:34:18,217 --> 01:34:20,176 We cannot forget history. 1250 01:34:20,219 --> 01:34:24,702 We cannot forget what... what our... our leaders, our mentors 1251 01:34:24,746 --> 01:34:28,097 and... and champions did for society. 1252 01:34:28,140 --> 01:34:33,668 [Ira] I had certainly had my shot at it and I was happy to pass the baton on to others. 1253 01:34:39,848 --> 01:34:42,285 [soft music playing] 1254 01:34:42,328 --> 01:34:44,635 [interviewer 4] Could you read the "Ira at the Bat" poem? 1255 01:34:45,723 --> 01:34:48,204 -The poem? -Yeah, here it is. 1256 01:34:48,247 --> 01:34:50,685 [Ira] So, this was a poem that was written by a colleague 1257 01:34:50,728 --> 01:34:53,644 that was on the search committee of the board that selected me 1258 01:34:53,688 --> 01:35:00,085 and he was one of the ones who preferred and voted for one of, uh, the other candidates. 1259 01:35:00,695 --> 01:35:02,218 And the poem goes... 1260 01:35:04,394 --> 01:35:08,050 The outlook wasn't brilliant For the CLU that day 1261 01:35:09,616 --> 01:35:12,707 The deficit was rising The piper yet to pay 1262 01:35:14,447 --> 01:35:17,668 Then when Neier hit the road And donors turned away 1263 01:35:19,104 --> 01:35:22,629 It was as bleak as Brooklyn When the Dodgers went L.A. 1264 01:35:24,501 --> 01:35:27,678 The CLU went searching for A leader bold and true 1265 01:35:28,766 --> 01:35:32,509 For a leader its directors Would love and would not rue 1266 01:35:32,552 --> 01:35:36,034 For a liberties exponent Who could talk till he was blue 1267 01:35:36,818 --> 01:35:40,125 For a CEO most brilliant And a money-raiser, too 1268 01:35:41,083 --> 01:35:44,826 [serene music playing] 1269 01:35:49,178 --> 01:35:52,311 And when the dust had settled In September '78 1270 01:35:52,355 --> 01:35:56,228 With a smile upon his face 'Twas Glasser at the plate 1271 01:35:56,272 --> 01:36:00,058 The ACLU's whole future was Now tied to Ira's fate 1272 01:36:00,798 --> 01:36:04,367 The members, They could only hope That he would bat his weight 1273 01:36:05,847 --> 01:36:10,025 Somewhere EOs tremble And directors scream and shout 1274 01:36:10,982 --> 01:36:15,247 Somewhere programs falter And the future is in doubt 1275 01:36:16,205 --> 01:36:20,035 Somewhere the non-profits Have all but lost their clout 1276 01:36:20,078 --> 01:36:25,301 But they're all smiles On 43rd Street Mighty Ira knocked one out 1277 01:36:25,910 --> 01:36:28,652 He writes, "Congratulations on your successful reign 1278 01:36:28,695 --> 01:36:31,611 from the author of the search committee minority report. 1279 01:36:31,655 --> 01:36:34,223 Everybody can be wrong once in a while." [laughs] 1280 01:36:34,266 --> 01:36:37,313 [serene music playing] 1281 01:36:57,855 --> 01:37:00,858 [slow music playing] 1282 01:37:16,831 --> 01:37:22,184 Nearly 2,000 prisoners got the triangle, 1283 01:37:22,227 --> 01:37:24,403 not... no one else. 1284 01:37:24,447 --> 01:37:29,931 We were permitted only to go to second perimeter to go to work. 1285 01:37:31,149 --> 01:37:34,631 -What did they call you? -We were dangerous Jews. 1286 01:37:34,674 --> 01:37:36,285 -Dangerous Jews? -Yeah. 1287 01:37:36,328 --> 01:37:38,374 -Well, they were right about that. -Huh? 1288 01:37:38,417 --> 01:37:40,898 They were right about that. 1289 01:37:40,942 --> 01:37:42,508 -You're still dangerous. -You were a dangerous Jew. You're still a dangerous Jew. 1290 01:37:42,552 --> 01:37:46,077 [Charlene] You're a dangerous Jew. [laughs] 1291 01:37:48,036 --> 01:37:54,738 The title really describes the culture of the streets of Brooklyn where I grew up. 1292 01:37:54,781 --> 01:37:56,871 "Where... where did you go?" "We were out." 1293 01:37:56,914 --> 01:37:58,481 "What did you do?" "Nothing." 1294 01:38:01,876 --> 01:38:05,009 Hey, Jackie Robinson, my old bat because I can still fucking hit this-- 1295 01:38:05,053 --> 01:38:06,576 [laughter] 1296 01:38:06,619 --> 01:38:07,533 [interviewer 5] Go ahead, right to the camera. 1297 01:38:07,577 --> 01:38:09,013 [laughs] 1298 01:38:14,497 --> 01:38:17,500 [serene music playing]