Albert Gore Sr. Returns to MTSU

A conference on the political life of Albert Gore Sr. brought a distinguished assembly of authors, judges, politicians, historians and journalists to campus to examine the 32-year public service career of a Southern "moderate" and to probe the thoughts, attitudes and behaviors of post-war Tennessee. "Albert Gore, Tennessee and the New South: A Conference on the Senate Career of Albert Gore Sr." was held in the Business and Aerospace building Nov. 8 and was attended by the former senator and his wife, Pauline. The event was sponsored by the Gore Research Center, the Student Government Association and LaPaglia and Associates of Murfreesboro. are expected to attend the event. distin- James Neal , director of the Gore Research Center, said he was pleased to be a part of a conference with such guished academicians, jurists, public officials and media and literary figures. "From various perspectives, they provide us a fresh look at the political career of Albert Gore Sr. during one of the most exciting eras of modern Southern history. This retrospective of Sen. Gore and his times is long overdue," Neal said.

Albert Gore Sr. was born in 1907 in Jackson , Tenn., worked his way through what was then Middle Tennessee State Teachers College, and then taught school in rural Smith County. He entered politics at age 24, and he studied law while serving as superintendent of school. He earned a law degree in 1937, was appointed Tennessee's first commissioner of labor and, that same year married Pauline LaFon of Jackson, Tenn. Session one of the conference, "Albert Gore and the politics of Post-War Tennessee: The 1952 Senate Race," was pre- sented by James B. Gardner, a Washington consultant and former deputy consultant director of the American Historical Association.

The academic response was given by Otis Graham Jr., visiting professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The public response was given by Fred Graham, chief anchor and managing editor of Court TV. Graham, a former Fulbright Scholar, grew up in Nashville and was a reporter with "The Tennessean" from 1956 to 1959. Session two, "Albert Gore and Civil Rights," was presented by Anthony Badger, Paul Mellon professor of American

history at Cambridge University, England, and fellow of the Sidney Sussex College. Badger has written extensively on segregation, civil rights, modernization of the South and southern liberalism. The academic response was presented by Kyle Longley, associate professor of history at Arizona State University. He has written numerous essays on Sen. Albert Gore Sr., as well as on national security, Latin America and the American civil rights movement. Linda T. Wynn gave the public response. Wynn is assistant director for state programs, Tennessee Histori- cal Commission. "Albert Gore, Tennessee and the New South," was discussed by an eight-person panel moderated by David Halberstam and John Seigenthaler. Halberstam has authored nine best-selling books, including "The Best and the Brightest," "The Powers That Be," "The Reckoning" and "The Fifties." He has won every major journalistic award, including the Pulitzer Prize. His book "The

Children" is about the civil rights movement. "The Boston Globe" called Halberstam "This generation's equivalent of Theodore White and John Gunther."

Seigenthaler is founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment center at Vanderbilt University and holder of the Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies at MTSU. A former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, he was also an award-winning journalist. He began as a cub reporter in 1949, and when he retired, he was editor, publisher and Seigenthaler CEO of "The Tennessean". In 1982 , he became the founding editorial editor of "USA Today." In the 1960s, was administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Joining Halberstam and Seigenthaler for the forum were: Judge John T. Nixon, who was appointed U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Tennessee by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and became chief judge in 1991; Judge Gilbert S.

Merrit, former assistant dean and professor at the Vanderbilt Law School and circuit judge, U.S. Court of Appeals Sixth

district; Adolpho A. Birch Jr., associate justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court, who also teaches at Nashville School of Postal Service Board of Law ; Ned McWherter, former governor of Tennessee from 1987 to 1995, who was appointed to the

Governors in 1995; Cecil D. Branstetter Sr., founding partner of Branstetter, Kilgore, Stranch and Jennings , a Nashville law at firm ; and Forrest Harris Sr., director of the Kelly Miller Smith Institute on the African-American Church Vanderbilt Divinity School.

"The conference itself was an example of the kind of scholarly activity that will become much more commonplace on this campus at MTSU moves into the 21st century," Neal said. 146 Academics