US National Archives: 'Hollywood Roundtable on Civil Rights (1963)'

Source:US National Archives- the 1963 March on Washington on the Washington Mall.

"On August 28, 1963, 250,000 people gathered in Washington D.C. to “March for Jobs and Freedom.” Better known today as the March on Washington, the famous protest took place on the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Though there were many prominent speakers that day, the march will always be synonymous with Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Coverage of the event was broadcast to Britain and France, and relayed to other countries around the world.

Since the world was already aware of the March on Washington, USIA directors had no choice but to embrace the event. In fact, the USIA produced multiple films about the march. All of these films focused on the advancement of minority rights through the inherently American principle of free speech. The most recognized of these films was a documentary titled The March, ( 306.765 ) , which focused on the planning and execution of the iconic rally.

I was particularly struck by another USIA film called the Hollywood Roundtable (306.1757). In addition to the popular masses, the March on Washington was attended and organized by many celebrities. Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Robinson, James Baldwin, Joseph Mankiewicz, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman and many others were in attendance. After the march, some of these men gathered in front of USIA cameras to share their thoughts about the March on Washington and the Civil Rights movement in general. That footage can be seen below." 

From The Unwritten Record 

"Find out more about this film, featured in "The Unwritten Record," the National Archives blog of the Special Media Archives Services Division:The Unwritten Record. 

In this motion picture film, Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Sidney Poitier, Joseph Mankiewicz, James Baldwin and David Schoenbrun discuss the Civil Rights March on Washington, August 28, 1963.

Title: Hollywood Round Table - Civil Rights, ca. 1963

ARC Identifier 48331 / Local Identifier 306-1757

Item from Record Group 306: Records of the U.S. Information Agency, 1900 - 2003 

Creator(s): U.S. Information Agency. (1982 - 10/01/1999)... 

Source:US National Archives- Frank Mankiewicz, Marlin Brando, and James Baldwin.

"Civil Rights Leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the crowd during the March on Washington. It was during this address that he made his “I Have a Dream” speech. NAID"

From the US National Archives

Hollywood played a key role in the American civil rights movement because of the attention that these entertainers could bring to this movement because of their fans and the money and attention that came as a result. Not sure without Hollywood would the civil rights movement of the 1960s had been as successful as it was. National news, TV, radio and print, didn’t really start covering the movement strongly until the massacre in Selma in 1963. Which is when President Jack Kennedy got behind the movement as well. It shouldn’t take a tragedy like that to get people, even the politicians to support the right causes.

This is exactly what the civil rights, or human rights, or freedom movement for all needed, was national attention. To get it national exposure, so Americans can see what exactly this movement was about. Fighting for freedom for all Americans and that we would all be treated equally under law. Not be discriminated against based on race, but be judged as individuals, people. And not be treated as members of groups. The civil rights legislation of the 1960s, never comes about without the media reporting on what they were about and trying to accomplish. And what their opponents were doing to try to defeat them.

And had it not been for the violent disaster in Selma, Alabama in 1963 where protesters were rundown, maybe President Kennedy doesn’t get involved the way he did and make that famous civil rights speech on national TV. I believe the night of Selma, because before that he was a passive supporter of civil rights officially being in favor of it, but not doing a whole lot to bring it about and push it through Congress. 

There are times when celebrity exposure can be a positive thing and when it can be negative. Its negative when an entertainer gets behind some cause, because they think it’s a fad and they need to be behind it, so they look cool as well. But it's positive when they get behind something that isn’t popular, at least yet, but it's the right thing to do.

Equal rights for all Americans was not popular in the early 1960s. It wasn’t popular after it was passed in 1964, 65 and 68. Perhaps contributed to Richard Nixon winning the presidency in 1968, with all the Anglo-Saxon Southern Americans voting for him and not Hubert Humphrey. But again America is not a majoritarian social democracy where we settle everything by majority rule. We probably settle less than half of our issues based on what the majority says we should do. And things like civil rights and equal rights shouldn’t be left up to the majority even if the majority supports them. 

None of our constitutional rights should be left up to the rule of the majority. Because a lot of times the majority is wrong and constitutional rights are not an issue where we can afford to be wrong. These Hollywood entertainers went out on a limb in the 1960s for a great cause. 

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John Aes Nihil: Charles Manson Interview

Source:Aes Nihil Productions- American Family Horror Movies, at least when they're about Charles Manson.

“MansonBlog.com had the distinct pleasure of spending a day with John Aes-Nihil. John directed (among others) a film called “Manson Family Movies (1984)”. If you haven’t seen it, you should.

Aes-Nihil is an archivist, collector and broker of all things Manson (among many other subjects). His Manson archives alone covers 3 buildings, so we only scratched the surface of this magnificent collection. Today we present you with a small taste of what we saw. If you are looking for a particular item you can contact him through his website.”

From The Manson Family Blog 

“Charles Manson John Allison rare San Quentin Interview taped from television in a (3) part series from 47 Eyewitness News 35 years ago.”

Source:Michaels Backporch- convicted serial murderer Charles Manson being interviewed in 1986.

From Michaels Backporch 

This is from a different Charles Manson interview, but the video is not currently available, but I still have the cover photo of it.

Source:Bernard Gibson- convicted serial murderer Charles Manson, being interviewed at San Quentin Prison.

As evil as Charlie Manson might have been or still is and he was clearly and evil man, whose responsible for the murders of a lot of innocent people and even seem to draw pleasure from them, that’s not the whole story about Charlie.

You don’t put together a crime family like the Manson Crime Family if you don’t have some leadership ability that not only draws people to you, but you can make them do things they normally wouldn’t do. Like good middle class teenagers, people who should be in college, going out and murdering innocent people, people who are complete strangers to you. Because you see them as part of some establishment that’s holding down the rest of the country.

Charlie Manson blamed his situation in life, on society and to a certain extent he was correct. Coming from a broken home, never knowing his father, barely knowing his mother, being shipped around as a kid. Doesn’t excuse the fact of all the people he had murdered, but he got off to a real bad start in life.

Once Manson became an adult and got out of prison for the last time in life, he decided that he was going to takeout his frustrations on society, as much as he can for as long as he can. Charlie Manson and his young Baby Boomer soldiers, against the rest of the world.

What we saw from Charlie Manson’s power was not only the ability for him to make people do things they wouldn’t normally do, like things as evil as murdering people, but people who basically fell in love with him. And saw him as a God or Jesus Crisis, people who idealize a murderer. Which is what we saw in this interview. Even though people who are doing life sentences in prison, partially for hooking up with Charlie Manson. Who see him for exactly what he is a cold-blooded murderer that would manipulate people to do what he wouldn’t do himself.  

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David Von Pein: ‘ABC News: JFK Assassination As it Happened- 11/22/1963’

Source:David Von Pein- from ABC News.

“Assassination of John F. Kennedy, mortal shooting of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. His accused killer was Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who had embraced Marxism and defected for a time to the Soviet Union. Oswald never stood trial for murder, because, while being transferred after having been taken into custody, he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby, a distraught Dallas nightclub owner.”

Source:Britannica- the last ride that John F. Kennedy would ever take.

From Britannica 

“Two hours of live, as-it’s-happening ABC-TV coverage of the news surrounding the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963.

This video begins at approximately 1:50 PM EST (12:50 PM CST in Dallas, Texas, which is where President Kennedy was shot at 12:30 PM Central Time).

The very first ABC-TV bulletin concerning the shooting in Dallas is, unfortunately, not included in this YouTube series, but some of the early bulletins are here (before all regular programming was cancelled).

A rerun of “Father Knows Best” was airing on many ABC-TV affiliates when the assassination occurred, and portions of that television show are included in Part 1 of this series.

This ABC news coverage seems quite primitive and antiquated by today’s 21st-century standards, and at times it almost appears as if the newsmen are reporting from somebody’s shabby-looking basement.

But it must also be noted that ABC, in 1963, was definitely the “number three” television network among the trio of TV networks that existed at that time (CBS, NBC, and ABC).

As a footnote to this ABC coverage, I received the following message from Ed Silverman in June 2013… 

From David Von Pein

ABC News, was such a small operation in the early 1960s. Sort of like the baby sister or baby brother of NBC and CBS News. They didn’t become a major operation at least until the late 1960s or early 70s, when Howard Smith took over as the anchor of the ABC Evening News. And probably not even a major competitor as far as first being in news when it came to the TV networks until the late 70s and early 80s. When Nightline with Ted Koppel came on the air and covered the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

ABC News, won a lot of rewards for their depth coverage of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. It made Ted Koppel a star and household name and if you look at this coverage of the JFK assassination, you don’t see a clear anchor of this coverage. It looks more like a news update or something.

When CBS News went on the air, with this story, Walter Cronkite was their number one anchor, broke in right away to report this story. And the same thing with NBC News with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, they went their main people their stars. You don’t see that with ABC News.

With what ABC News had to work with back then and again being in third place out of the three networks and being so far back it looked like fifth place, I think they actually did pretty well and we’re on top of the story. They were the so-called CW or My-TV, whatever that is, or even FOX. Being so small that they didn’t even have a news division, or weren’t interested in news at all. FOX, of course now has a news obviously. ABC, was a national TV network back then, but didn’t have the affiliates and ratings that CBS and NBC did. 

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CBS Sports: FBS 1982- Pennsylvania Nittany Lions @ Alabama Crimson Tide: Full Game

Source:CBS Sports- one of players for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

"October 9, 1982 - #3 Penn State @ #4 Alabama" 

From Football Fury

This game was played at Birmingham Legion Field, in Birmingham, Alabama (naturally) but this was essentially home game for the Alabama Crimson Tide. Birmingham is only about a hour north of Tuscaloosa where the Crimson Tide play most of their home games every year. The Pennsylvania Nittany Lions (as I call them) coming down from State College, which is just outside of Philadelphia, about 1500 miles from Birmingham. 

I give you this geographical information because I want to bore you into a coma. Actually, there's another reason. This was a road game (essentially) for the Nittany Lions and yet they go down to Alabama and beat an excellent Crimson Tide team on the road. 

Associated Press: Raw Video- 'Judge Denies Request to Stop Anti-Muslim Trailer'

Source:Associated Press- actress Cindy Lee Garcia filed this lawsuit and loss.

Source:FRS FreeState 

“A judge has denied a request seeking to force YouTube to remove an anti-Muslim film trailer that has been blamed for causing deadly violence in the Muslim World. The actress who filed the lawsuit calls the film ‘degrading’.”

From the Associated Press

If this actress in this movie was misled about this movie that she was in, then she probably has a good case, that she should take to court and sue the makers of this movie over that and be rewarded compensation for that. Assuming she didn’t know that she was going to be part of an Islamaphobic film and I don’t know if she was misled or not. But as far as getting the movie shut down, over that, that simply won’t happen.

We have a First Amendment in this country that protects Freedom of Speech, which movies would clearly come under, because they clearly have speech in them. And when they are in documentary form, they are delivering a message and perhaps intended to inform people about the subject matter that the film is covering.

Seeing speech that you love or hate, is part of sharing and living in a liberal democracy of three-hundred and fifteen million people. We can control what we see and hear, but can’t shut people up on our own.

Suing people might be part of the American Way in America, but free speech is clearly the American Way and has to be protected. Whether its peaceful speech, hate speech, accurate speech or inaccurate speech. It’s not the job of government to protect us from what they may see as dangerous speech. We have the freedom to make these decisions for ourselves.

Associated Press: Warren Levinson- 'Occupy Wall Street: One Year Later

Source:Associated Press- Pete Dietro used to be one of the activists for Occupy Wall Street.

Source:FRS FreeState

“To mark the one-year-anniversary of the Occupy movement on September 17th , current and former members talk to the Associated Press about the changes they see in the organization.”

From the Associated Press 

Occupy Wall Street started off as a I guess left-wing social democratic (even though there are Communists who part of OWS) movement a year ago, that was pissed off at Wall Street and corporate America as a whole. And seeing them get bail outs while they saw the rest of the country as they put it got austerity and decided that they were: “Mad as Hell and weren’t going to take it anymore.” Or perhaps even stronger language than that)

OWS was a very focused and fairly disciplined movement, especially for Socialists who aren’t known for discipline or even believing in it. And that’s how they were successful in its first few months: “This is what’s bad, we have the people with us and we need to stop this.”

And then OWS could go about fixing the problems, instead of making them worst and were successful in not only getting attention from the national media, but getting people behind them as well. Even Democrats not so much the leadership, but some Congressional Democrats in both the House and Senate who are so far to the Left as they are and also have a hard time seeing the center and perhaps center-left with a telescope, such as OWS. And they even managed to not only communicate what they believe is wrong with the country, as far as the economy, but we’re able to start to put together their own social democratic agenda.

OWS moves from talking about what they don’t like about capitalism and corporate America, to preserving social insurance programs, especially Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But what they would do about the “too big to fail banks”, breaking them up or nationalizing them. As well as things like universal higher education, protecting organize labor and debt forgiveness for students and other things.

But now OWS seems to be about complaining about ever society ill that the country seems to be going through. Jump from one problem to another without any real focus or discipline and living up to one of the negative stereotypes that Socialists have. They’ve become like kids who when they get a new toy, they see something else that they want and now have lost all interest in their first toy. They’ve become like children.

That’s how Occupy Wall Street started out, but by the late spring and summer they had already lost whatever momentum they were able to build up from the fall and winter of 2011-12 and started looking more like rioters or anarchists and with all the arrests they started piling up. They were like fireworks that are lighted on July Fourth, that burn out with in minutes. And started piling up arrests at their rallies and events. And once a movement gets to that point, its hard for Americans who unless they are die-hard supporters of you, to take you seriously: “Why should I pay attention to them. They are just some whacked-out fringe: why should I take them seriously.”

And because of this, the Democratic Leadership, has never really gotten behind them. Because unlike Republicans, Democrats understand that there’s a certain responsibility to being part of a major political party. That you can’t afford to look like you are part of a fringe movement, because you are supposed to be the adults in the room.

Right now in America again unless you are a big supporter of Occupy Wall Street, they look like some whacked-out Far-Left socialist party, that are champions of big government and high taxes, which hasn’t played well in this country for a long time.

And even worst, OWS looks like anarchists people who are so out of their minds they aren’t capable of having an adult conversation, which is why they are struggling to be taken seriously.Even fringe movements need ties and have a base with reality and how the world works, so they can be as successful as possible. Even if it comes off as stale or old school to their supporters. 

Public Resource: President John F. Kennedy After Two Years (1963)

Source:Public Resource- President John F. Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts) talking to the network news White House correspondents, in 1963.

“ARC Identifier 52813 / Local Identifier 306.6613. U.S. Information Agency. (1982 – 10/01/1999) Made possible by a donation from John and Paige Curran.” 

From Public Resource

Jack Kennedy came to the White House in 1961 with a broad agenda that included civil rights for African-Americans, Federal aid to public education, health insurance for seniors and an economic plan to deal with an economy that was slowly coming out of recession from the late 1950s, that included a deep tax cut. And yet most of his domestic agenda stalled in Congress despite having large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. And spent most of the first two years dealing with foreign policy. With Cuba twice both involving Russia, the Bay of Pigs fiasco and of course the Cuban Missile Crisis.

President Kennedy, did have a foreign policy agenda as well and was a tough Liberal Cold Warrior that wanted to open discussions with Russia. But wasn’t prepared to be soft with them, but take them on. And spoke out for liberal democracy not only in America, but in Europe as well, but wasn’t looking for a war with the Soviet Union either.

And in the middle of 1963, finally took a tough stand when it came to civil rights for African-Americans and liberal democracy for them. Who were being discriminated and beaten in the South with the violent beatings that were happening in Alabama and Mississippi.

We’ll never know how successful of a President that Jack Kennedy would’ve made, one of the tragedies of his assassination. But he had all the tools of becoming not just one of the best Liberal Democratic president’s we’ve ever had, but one of the best president’s we’ve ever had as well. Just by what he believed in, but also how he handled the issues that came his way. The Cuban Missile Crisis and finally taking on Civil Rights as well in 1963.

The question is how effective President Kennedy would’ve been how he been able to complete his first term. And he been reelected, he effective he would’ve been at getting his agenda through Congress. Something he wasn’t very successful at in his first two years.

President Kennedy, was very popular when he died I believed, because of his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis and because he was very likable personally. Which are the advantages that President Obama has today. But wasn’t very good at making Congress go along with his agenda based on his personal appeal.

Had President Kennedy completed his first term, he would’ve continued to work on the issues, that he ran on as President. Across the board tax cuts, the health insurance program that later became known as Medicare, Federal Aid to public education, and civil rights. And then the question would’ve been how successful he would’ve been at pushing that agenda through Congress. 

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