Fall | Winter 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES Culture | Issues | Ideas
CITIZEN 2020 INFORMED & ENGAGED OKLAHOMA
PERSPECTIVE HUMANITIES CONTENTS Culture | Issues | Ideas FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CITIZEN 2020 FALL | WINTER 2020 | VOL. 13, NO. 2
This considerable, expanded issue CITIZEN 2020, which will be acces- 7 ELECTION DAY of our award-winning magazine is sible to Oklahomans in all 77 counties. A vote for hope. By Loren Gatch one programming component of a In addition to this expanded CITIZEN 12 WHAT COMES BEFORE “WOKE”? larger national initiative entitled 2020 magazine issue (the most On the history of sleep as a form of protest. Democracy and the Informed Citizen. substantive in our history), we’re part- By Franny Nudelman Humanities Councils in 46 states, nering with a large statewide coalition 20 A SHORT HISTORY OF CAMPAIGN Guam, and the Northern Marianas of public media entities, journalists, DIRTY TRICKS Islands are participating in this humanities scholars, and cultural Election meddling before Twitter and Facebook. By Elaine Kamarck collaborative project administered by organizations to examine compelling 26 IN PURSUIT OF PRESIDENTS the Federation of State Humanities questions about the shifting media AND PRINCIPAL CHIEFS Councils with funds from the Andrew landscape and how it affects our ability The arc of dual citizenship. W. Mellon Foundation. By Jay Hannah to access information, assess its credi- Across the nation, communities bility, and analyze its significance. We 38 LEARNING FROM THE PAST— are coming together to examine the ACTING FOR THE FUTURE look forward to your participation in Listen, learn, think, act. historical and constitutional founda- this vital and exciting project. There By Ben Alpers tions of a free press, the connection are multiple ways for you to engage in 44 LEADING THE WAY between journalism and the human- our conversations: The extraordinary accomplishments of ities, the critical role that humanities Ida B. Wells and Madam C. J. Walker. By Michelle Duster and A’Lelia Bundles and journalism play in shaping the • Tune in to free nonpartisan election judgments and opinions of citizens coverage, on-air or online, via 50 ON CIVILITY Looking for a sense of belonging. in a democratic society, and the a statewide partnership with the By Pamela Chew contraction of traditional media and collaborative journalism project 54 EDUCATING THE TROOPS CAROLINE LOWERY local news, particularly in small-town “Oklahoma Engaged.” Shaping consensus with Executive Director and rural America. • Listen to the CITIZEN 2020 “democratic propaganda.” By Stacy Takacs [email protected] Federation of State Humanities BrainBox podcast series, featuring Councils President Phoebe Stein initiative-specific episodes and 62 FIXING OUR REALITY PROBLEM The case for common sense. notes: “In response to the dynamic complementary online resources. By Thomas E. Patterson landscape of American journalism • Participate in virtual public forums 68 THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE and the mounting social and political with local journalists and media Exercising media literacy. polarization of the American public, experts to discuss aspects of By Kimberly Roblin the Democracy and the Informed gathering the news and analyzing 72 THE ASSAULT ON JOURNALISTIC ETHICS Citizen initiative supports programs it as consumers. What happened to trust in the media? By Andy Rieger and resources that examine the • Request additional copies of our 76 ASK A JOURNALIST essential role that journalism and the CITIZEN 2020 magazine to start humanities play to inform and engage Q&A about reporting the news. a discussion in your family, your By Our Readers and “The Press.” citizens at all levels of our democracy.” school, or your community. 88 POPCORN, POLITICS, AND THE PRESS Oklahoma Humanities is partici- Real to reel—Hollywood’s take. pating in this national work with Please join us! Dates, times, and By Kimberly Roblin
new programming on multiple details are posted at our website. IN EVERY ISSUE platforms—a project we’re calling okhumanities.org/citizen2020 2 Perspective From the Executive Director 4 Post: Mail | Social Media | Messages Johnson on trunk reading newspaper, 6 The Editor’s Desk Cover design by Anne Richardson, ca. 1920-1925, Bain News Service. 97 Noteworthy: OH News Spec Creative. speccreative.com Library of Congress 98 2019 OH Annual Report
2 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 3 OKLAHOMA POST MAIL | SOCIAL MEDIA | MESSAGES HUMANITIES OKLAHOMA Culture | Issues | Ideas HUMANITIES EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Caroline Lowery [email protected] ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR & EDITOR Carla Walker What a fabulous issue [HOME, Spring/ Reader Feedback [email protected] Summer 2020]. It’s right up there with the JUSTICE issue in my hall of fame. CITIZEN 2020 PROGRAM OFFICER Kelly Burns I immediately was drawn to the Guthrie MEDIA LITERACY [email protected] and Dust Bowl essays, but what most THANKS PANEL PROGRAM OFFICER delighted me were the pieces by Ayelet Christopher Carroll Tsabari and Seungho Lee. Congratulations [email protected] OKLAHOMA CITY on putting together such a timely and DICK PRYOR DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT emotionally/intellectually resonant issue! General Manager, KGOU Radio & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT UNIVERSITY! —Daniel Simon, Assistant Director and Chelsi Dennis and Editor in Chief, World Literature Today [email protected] ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES CELEBRATING A TEN-YEAR PARTNERSHIP I’m very proud to have contributed to the YVETTE WALKER MANAGER Gaylord College of Journalism HOME issue. The magazine is a treasure. Khylee Forgety & Mass Communication, [email protected] Oklahoma City University (OCU) is a valued partner of —Will Kaufman, University of Central University of Oklahoma Lancashire, UK Oklahoma Humanities magazine is published Oklahoma Humanities’ reading and discussion program, biannually (March and September) by Oklahoma Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma (LTAIO). Join us for an engaging discussion Humanities (OH), 424 Colcord Dr., Suite E, Oklahoma on how to find nonbiased news City, OK 73102, (405) 235-0280, [email protected]. 2020 Magazine Awards sources, techniques for assessing See page 97 for information on the OH organization, For ten years, OCU’s Dulaney-Browne Library has generously the accuracy of reporting, and board of trustees, grants, and programs. Our privacy provided a repository for the program’s 14,000 books that are how to contend with the nonstop policy is posted on our website. Great Plains Journalism Awards Oklahoma Humanities magazine is an award- loaned to Oklahoma libraries, prisons, and other nonprofits. bombardment of disinformation. Oklahoma Finalist winning collection of culture, issues, and ideas—a rich mix I really have enjoyed your latest of humanities scholarship, insightful narratives, informed Humanities Spring/Summer 2020 issue Magazine Page Design opinions, and beautiful images, for a read that is smart, LTAIO book discussions are transformational, fostering a safe on HOME. The articles’ perspectives on THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2020 balanced, educational, and entertaining. Subscribe space to express diverse opinions and offering opportunities the meaning of home are very interesting Society of Professional Journalists Awards online: okhumanities.org or call (405) 235-0280. Oklahoma Pro Chapter LIVE, VIA ZOOM 6:30 P.M. Oklahoma Humanities magazine is free of advocacy for personal reflection and growth. and thought-provoking. I was amazed and advertising, supported by donors (like you). It by the cover! I have never seen such a First Place | General Writing REGISTER: is distributed as free educational programming via unique portrait of Woody Guthrie, done “Losing Time—And Finding It” two-year subscriptions rotated annually to serve as OCU’s gift of on-site office space and use of the mailroom okhumanities.org/citizen2020 many Oklahomans as possible. To continue your in Sara Bowersock’s contemporary style. I By Kimberly Roblin print subscription beyond two free years, make guarantee the smooth circulation of books and helps loved the way she included Woody’s a gift of support (use enclosed envelope or visit Oklahoma Humanities continue to offer the program—for Third Place | General Writing This Oklahoma-specific programming is lyrics as part of his guitar. This was the okhumanities.org/donate) or contact us and request “Poetic Justice” part of Democracy and the Informed continued free mailings. Back issues of Oklahoma free—to Oklahomans across the state. most eye-catching, appealing cover your By Julie Ann Ward Citizen (DATIC), a national initiative Humanities are archived on our website. Reading administered by the Federation of State group and classroom use is encouraged. Other magazine has ever used. It was a great We are extremely grateful for OCU’s continued support! decision to feature Ms. Bowersock’s Second Place | Best PR Publication Cover Humanities Councils with funds from reproduction requires written permission. Contact: [email protected]. beautiful image (“This Land is Your Land”) Justice | Spring/Summer 2019 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Humanities councils in 46 states, Guam, Oklahoma Humanities awards include 44 Oklahoma of an Oklahoma icon on the cover about Third Place | Best PR Publication Cover and the Northern Marianas Islands are Society of Professional Journalists awards, including multiple first place honors for Best Writing, Best Cover, HOME. Her Oklahoma connections shine engaging in this collaborative project. Time | Fall/Winter 2019 and Best PR Publication; 9 Great Plains Journalism awards, through her paintings. Thank you for sharing Oklahoma Humanities is participating, including firsts for Best Magazine Feature Writing and her name and website with readers. Second Place | Best PR Publication and you can too, with new programming Best Magazine Page Design, and as a finalist for the —Sam Marvin, Del City Time | Fall/Winter 2019 on multiple platforms created for our Great Plains Magazine of the Year; 3 Central Oklahoma CITIZEN 2020 project. Find info on IABC Bronze Quill Awards; the State Historic Preservation OKLAHOMA I am a big fan of Oklahoma Humanities Third Place | Best PR Publication this event and other CITIZEN 2020 Officer’s Citation of Merit; and an Oklahoma Heritage Justice | Spring/Summer 2019 conversations on our website (above). Distinguished Editorial Award. HUMANITIES magazine. I wanted to thank you for your Opinions expressed by authors, and any views, recent HOME edition, and for the beauti- findings, conclusions, or recommendations do not fully written Editor’s Desk piece. It brought necessarily represent those of the National Endowment SEND YOUR IDEAS, opinions, and suggestions. for the Humanities, Oklahoma Humanities, its Board of tears of joy to one ol’ English professor. Comment via Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram or Trustees, staff, or donors. Copyright 2020 by Oklahoma —Pam Bracken, Oklahoma City email the editor, [email protected] Humanities. All rights reserved.
OKLAHOMA 4 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 HUMANITIES OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 5 THE EDITOR’S DESK melodious new-to-you language will deeded precious acres from one make you wish you knew it too, generation to the next. And it is a CARLA WALKER because surely it conjures something story of dual citizens who held fast [email protected] sorely lacking right now: civility to Native traditions (like the claiming and goodwill. and naming of tribe—at least eight If you haven’t guessed, Jay generations), using storytelling and is both native Oklahoman and Indigenous language to keep the Native Oklahoman; a citizen of the traditions alive, while also embracing United States and a Citizen of the citizenship in a shared America by Cherokee Nation. He takes great exercising and safeguarding “The pride in this, being a member of Vote.” (More on that in Jay’s essay.) Map of Oklahoma two nations in which his resi- and Indian Territories, There is more to the story. published pre-statehood by The American Invest- dencies converge in the same state. Removed to this red earth with a ment Company of Atoka, Indian Territory, one of At the outset of our plans for a many speculators dealing in tribal Allotment lands. treaty of promise from the U.S. gov- CITIZEN 2020 issue of the maga- ernment that tribes could maintain zine, I asked Jay to write about this sovereignty and self-determination, perspective of dual citizenship, a Let me tell you about my friend the Cherokee embraced Oklahoma, different kind of duality than what ELECTION Jay Hannah, whose writing you’ll find improving it with homesteads, and we assume is “of two geographically on page 26. schools, and thriving enterprise. Inev- different countries.” Before he deliv- Jay is one of those people who itably, others encroached, assumed, ered his text, he sent me a huge box never meets a stranger. In the first wrested, and cheated to co-opt Indian of documents and ephemera that five minutes of meeting, he will Territory lands. From the inception you’ll see in photos on the pages of DAYA VOTE FOR HOPE ascertain that you have some-thing of statehood in 1907, the state of his article. I was so busy working or some-one in common. Probably Oklahoma has imposed jurisdiction on other aspects of this issue that I LOREN GATCH a cousin. If he had a nickel for every over tribes within its borders. But let “The Box” sit in a corner, waiting cousin he claims . . . well, you know this summer the highest court in until I had time to sort out the rhyme the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, It’s the first Tuesday of November—Election Day. how it goes, he seems to know or reason for all the paper and determined in McGirt v. Oklahoma For nearly twenty years now I’ve voted in a church. It’s not everyone—or is related to them pins and old election ballots and (July 2020) that Congress has never a house of worship that I otherwise frequent, but the University by marriage or adoption or direct metal stamps. disestablished reservations (or lands descent, since he can trace his family Once I sat down to study the Lutheran Church is the polling site for Precinct 42 in the city reserved by treaty with tribal nations) back eight generations. documents, I began to weep. Sappy of Norman, Cleveland County. Almost all of the polling places In the next five minutes of conver- to say, but true. I was holding history and therefore those lands remain in my county are churches, which is neither here nor there, sation, Jay will have quoted no less in my hands. Agitated, I called Jay to “Indian Country.” though it does say something about the lack of public spaces. Just than three philosophers, as a man ask, “Why did you send this? These My poor attempt at recounting south of the University of Oklahoma campus, the area throngs of letters, and regaled you with sto- documents belong in a museum this Oklahoma history is akin to my with students rushing to classes. I know I’m getting near when inability (before now) to compre- ries that will double you over with or tribal archives, not in this box I can see the temporary VOTE HERE easel sign that springs laughter. Stories of politics (sans hend that my state is, as we once and certainly not in your attic!” up like a mushroom after a soaking civic rain. partisanship), gunfights (I don’t think announced on our license plates, Seemingly unaffected, he acted as After traversing a small parking lot, I skip up some steps and he carries a gun, but you never know), “Native America.” The collaboration though the collection was so much enter the church through stout glass doors that take me down and folklore from every corner of this memorabilia. “Just family stuff.” with Jay “schooled” me on the ideals a short corridor. To the right is the entrance to the chapel-sized state. Google him and you’ll find more It’s not just stuff. Among the of citizenship and my state’s dual worship sanctuary built in the A-frame style that Lutherans are than one source that declares him a documents and artifacts are identity as “Native” and “America.” known for. To the left, the space opens up into the church’s “celebrated orator.” (Now soon to be the story of Jay’s family—and by In one of our conversations, Jay celebrated writer.) extension the Cherokee Nation— summed up the lesson: “Oklahoma Fellowship Hall, where I encounter a set of folding tables staffed Likely as not, before the conver- and by further extension the State was Indian Territory before it was a by election personnel. But I know they are not for me; they sation ends Jay will find reason to of Oklahoma. It is the heartbreaking state—and it’s still that way.” serve voters from the adjacent Precinct 13, which shares the call upon a language that, to your story of “Allotment,” whereby vast Spend time with Jay’s essay. If you same polling site. (Lutherans are ecumenical, in that way.) ear, will be unfamiliar; yet, you sense, swathes of prairie and forest were chance to meet him, you will no I stride on by and the voting tables for the 42nd Precinct come he is at one with that language. piecemealed to the highest bidder doubt call him friend, as I do. And feel into view. I’m about to perform my very ordinary civic duty. The combination of his north- for pennies on the dollar. It is the lucky to know such a native/Native eastern Oklahoma drawl and this story of a Cherokee family who Oklahoma son. Illustration, N. Mendal Shafer, July 15, 1862. Library of Congress
6 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 7 One Justice One Vote, Nov. 6, 2018, Art Lien
If Election Day represents political renewal, it is counter- balanced by an ethic of responsibility for the consequences of our choices.
Election Day is the closest I get to politics Timing and frequency of those contests that it matters who I am. I step along the Forty years later, democracy is still as a going concern, and voting is my limited is critical. In our current political cycles row of tables to the next worker, the an exercise in risk and I am a bit more participation. Each time, the choices are (taking local, state, and national politics “clerk,” whose responsibility is to hand me sobered by the probabilities. My paper different in personalities and details; in together), I may be at my polling place a paper ballot (just one, from a stack ballot in my hand, I cross over to a set of sum, however, they comprise a ritual that is more than once a year; intervals of time amongst the cluttered tabletop display of cardboard voting cubicles set haphazardly central to the meaning of democracy. that brief give citizens the opportunity miniature American flags) and a pen with against the serving windows of a kitchen Ritual, as a form of action, brings the past to judge whether we think things have which to mark my selections. alcove. There’s a pretense of privacy in into the present, merging them into some- gone well or badly and to collectively do The first time I voted, the first year that the exercise of voting, but the format thing real and new. The ancient Greeks, something in response to our assessments. I was eligible, was in 1976—the nation’s feels more like an academic examination. when settling new communities, brought a One advantage to democracy as a form bicentennial—at a fire station on the south I have to complete my ballot by filling in sacred fire kindled from their home hearths of political order lies in the homey idea of side of Chicago. It was my first encounter with ink pen the boxes corresponding to which they used to light the fires of their new making a schedule and sticking to it. with a lever voting machine, an intimidating the names of the candidates of my choice, home, symbolizing the continuity across As a creature of political habit, being mechanical contraption requiring me to set and whether I agree with various proposed space and time. Likewise, upon arriving on there on Election Day matters to me. Once, a number of small levers representing my laws. It reminds me of the multiple choice a new continent, the New England Puritans on account of a scheduling problem, I had choices for various candidates. Once my tests I sometimes give to my students. The engaged in acts of covenant that not only no choice but to vote early at the county selections were set, I was to pull a larger format implies the spurious conclusion established their communities but also election board office. The experience left lever that would register them on counters. that there are only right or wrong answers recreated the very relationship between man me feeling shabby, like drinking at a bar For the machine to function, the privacy in politics and, if we’re careful enough, we and God that defined their Christian faith. well before happy hour. curtain had to be drawn around the booth. can ace this thing. Election Day, I believe, represents to the Given the time of day (early morning is There, alone, as a neophyte voter, my first At the top left of the ballot, a tiny citizens of a democracy a secular version my routine), there’s only a few people ahead civic experience was one of clueless panic drawing of a hand illustrates how I of this ritual. It offers them the opportu- of me in line and the precinct workers look as I stared at the face of this mute contrap- should vote: Fill in the box next to nity to reconstitute political community ready to play their parts. The first person tion that promised to inaugurate me into the your choice(s) like this—no check through a collective act that generates I encounter is the “judge,” a woman with mysteries of citizenship. Too embarrassed marks or x’s. (I’m bothered: The illus- power and transmits it to those chosen to long wavy gray hair who maintains the to ask for help (even if I had been allowed), trated hand is right-handed, but I’m left- wield it. Any stable political arrangement precinct registry book and checks voter I fiddled with my choices, gave a great handed.) Next, a box titled Straight Party needs to provide for that moment when identification. “Mr. Gatch!” she cries, as if grinding pull on the lever, and launched Voting pops up. I swat the thought away power is passed from one hand to another. it were about time that I showed up. My my vote with all the hope that a gambler like a gnat or a floater in my mental vision. Monarchies remain vital through dynastic conceit is flattered that she remembers might give to the slot machine upon which I feel the need to work my way through succession (“The king is dead. Long live my name. (It does her brain good to do he bestowed his fate. With that, my privacy the individual names of each competitive the king!”). In a democracy, the process is that, she once explained.) I sign on the line curtain sprung open, spitting me out into pair—the people who will make laws on periodic elections that do more than just tell next to my name and show the necessary the blinking sunlight. I no longer remember behalf of all of us. If elections are rituals us who’s going to be boss; they recreate the identification. Much as I disapprove of the who I voted for, but, lucky for me, that voting that reset political time, recreate our consti- time-honored communication of popular voter-suppression effects of tighter voter machine acted as an oracle, for it left me tutional beginnings, the results also renew will that endows those election outcomes I.D. laws, at this moment I’m glad for the with one certain message: Democracy is the tasks of public policymaking, opening with legitimacy. opportunity. It makes me feel important always about taking risks. wide vistas into uncertain futures.
8 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 9 I’m thrilled by this declaration of By page two, the ballot gives way to workers are too—and all we Boomers freedom, but a little leery of its con- state questions and here I return to firmer have managed to do is befoul our common sequences if we get it wrong—whether ground. Each of the questions involves a civic nest, which now reeks of squandered climate change or any other national story about policy and I enjoy preparing chances and unpayable debts. My gen- or global issue. “Society,” countered for those. I mark my votes and with that eration’s failure to ensure racial justice Edmund Burke, “is a contract . . . between I’m at the end of the ballot. I look around, (added to the failure of generations before those who are living, those who are dead, relieved to find that I’m not the last one us) has inflamed the body politic, evidenced and those who are to be born.” It’s not a there. The final step is to consummate in widespread Black Lives Matter contract that we can make or unmake, my role as citizen by stepping back to protests. There’s a horizon out there all but represents the very conditions of our the precinct table where a third election right, but the sun’s darkening and a storm existence. If Election Day represents worker, the “inspector,” gestures towards front is quickly moving in. Both Thomas political renewal, it is counterbalanced the optical scanning machine that will Paine (who championed progress) and by an ethic of responsibility for the transform my inked-in squares into an Edmund Burke (who nurtured tradition) consequences of our choices. I won’t electronic tally. would be mortified by the mess we’ve be alive when the full force of climate I’m proud that Oklahoma does voting made—past, present, and future. VOTER RESOURCES change hits the planet, yet my generation well compared to other states—a clear Perplexed by today’s partisan divides, would renege on its portion of the paper trail with an electronic record to I can’t bring myself to be either an optimist Register to vote, find your contract if it did not bring the concerns match, which can be compared if there’s or a pessimist. The theologian Reinhold polling place, see a sample rawpixel.com of the future into those of the present. any doubt about the results. I insert Niebuhr warned about the pitfalls of both. ballot: ok.gov/elections Though the future cannot vote, its my ballot into the scanner slot and the To be an optimist (to believe in progress, in Explore the election process premonitions do tug at our consciences mechanism draws the paper out of my the broadest sense) breeds complacency on national and local levels: Some of those policy outcomes are and weigh upon the scale of our hands, transforming my oblong colorings and even arrogance, because optimism vote411.org implemented quickly and look okay to me: deliberations. into digital code. The machine clicks and encourages you to believe that good things Key terms and topics relating I like the fact that I can now get my favorite As I toil down the ballot, the old registers the input: I’m immortalized as happen by themselves, and that time is to Oklahoma politics: Merlot at the local convenience store, okpolicy.org/category/whats-that kindergarten skills come back to me. a number. The inspector gives me an on your side. To be a pessimist breeds thank you very much. Other outcomes Color between the lines. I glance “I Voted” sticker and a lollipop for my fatalism, because pessimism discourages Citizenship and voter info, seem much more distant, unclear, and all furtively at the voters in adjacent efforts. All three precinct workers will be you from believing that anything good can Metropolitan Library System: the more ominous. For example, climate metrolibrary.org/explore/topic cubicles, not so much to cheat on my there for another twelve hours. My own ever happen. As a result, your inaction change is a looming reality that we may or little civics test as to get an idea of responsibilities as a citizen are complete becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. may not have the political will to address. how far along they are. The standard in ten minutes. To have hope, though, is something Even if we knew the fix and how to pay for executive and legislative posts, both Now I’m poised to step back into the different. Hope empowers you to try to it, the time involved may be beyond current national and state, are straightforward wider world, but I hesitate, conflicted by change the world, even if you don’t see election cycles. How can democratic as choices, but as I get to the outer competing thoughts. First, I’ve dispatched the results you wish for, and perhaps politics commit to solutions for problems echelons of Oklahoma government my civic duty with cheerful and compla- never will in your lifetime. As Niebuhr decades in the future? Thomas Paine, a (Insurance Commissioner, Corporation cent efficiency. My ballot choices, added put it, “Nothing that is worth doing can fervent democrat, wrote: Commissioner, etc.) my confidence is to everyone else’s, elect leaders that will be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, Every age and generation must shaky. Once I enter the region of judicial legislate the broad horizon of the future, we must be saved by hope.” On Election be as free to act for itself in all retentions, my composure collapses lit by a bright, ascendant democratic sun. Day, it isn’t just political will that’s being cases as the age and generations entirely. I understand the logic of these I crunch my lollipop in anticipation, impa- renewed, but hope as well—which we which preceded it. The vanity and choices: If you haven’t heard anything tient for that new and better world that in need now more than ever. LOREN GATCH holds a Ph.D. presumption of governing beyond bad about them, then vote for the some small way I’m helping to make. I really don’t know if anybody’s vote from Cornell University and is Professor of Political Science the grave is the most ridiculous incumbents forthwith. But it’s a choice My next thought is decidedly more matters. If I couldn’t figure out demo- at the University of Central and insolent of all tyrannies. Man strategy predicated on ignorance, and negative as that sugary lollipop dissolves cracy’s odds in 1976, I don’t know them Oklahoma, where he has taught has no property in man; neither has one that I find repellent. I scan the names, into a bitter aftertaste: Is civic engage- any better now. All I have is the certainty since 1998. any generation a property in the looking for any conceivable reason for ment a fraud that only chumps fall for? that I have an obligation to try, have hope generations which are to follow. casting my affirmative votes. I’m a Baby Boomer—those three precinct that my vote, our votes, matter.
10 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 11 the importance of paying attention wondering whether or not they would to matters of power and privilege; in be arrested by daybreak. Their case a culture of rampant distraction and demonstrates the importance of reactive speech, it offers a kind of public sleep to movement history: mantra for reflection and vigilance. from the occupation of Alcatraz to Such vigilance, however, is never Occupy Wall Street, protest camps far removed from the vulnerability of have brought people together to the sleeping body: search online for resist oppression and reimagine Camping out for Tuesday’s abortion/speech argument, Nov. 19, 2018, Art Lien images of “sleep” and “protest” and communal life; as such, they are sites you will discover countless examples of disruption and struggle—targeted of demonstrators fast asleep—side by by state authorities and protected, in side or in large groups—as well as the often ingenious ways, by activists who “die-ins” that weirdly resemble these defend the right to sleep. WHAT COMES BEFORE sleeping congregations. Such images remind us that we cannot wake until The VVAW conceived Dewey we have slept. Canyon III as a total demonstration For activists, who agitate for that left no stone unturned in an altered modes of thinking and living, effort to draw public attention to the “WOKE” sleep is a practical necessity. In order war’s atrocities. Over the course of ? to congregate and resist, demon- the week, veterans lobbied their strators must often sleep outside senators and testified before commit- for days and sometimes weeks at a tees; they held candlelight vigils and ON THE HISTORY OF SLEEP AS A FORM OF PROTEST stretch, and high-profile demonstra- planted trees; they turned themselves From Vietnam die-ins to Occupied parks, stillness as dissent tions past and present have been in to the Pentagon as war criminals shadowed by legal contest over public and discarded their medals on the sleep. A case in point: in the spring of steps of the Capitol. At the end of FRANNY NUDELMAN 1971, the Vietnam Veterans Against each day, they returned to their camp the War (VVAW) fought the courts on the Mall, where they reviewed the ong before “woke” came to the utopian promise of a regener- for the right to sleep on the National day’s activities, watched films, sang, signify a new generation of ated society. To be asleep is to be Mall as part of their weeklong ate, and planned for the following day. awareness and activism, the apathetic—insensible to the cruelties demonstration, Operation Dewey It was this campsite that, somewhat language of sleep, dreams, we inflict or ignore—while in dreams Canyon III. (The demonstration took surprisingly, became the source of a and awakening infused social we enjoy a faint awareness of new its name from the secret raids into heated legal confrontation between movements, from the reli- realities. The language of sleep, Laos conducted by the U.S. military— veterans and the government. gious revivals of the eighteenth charged and motivating, draws its Operation Dewey Canyon I and II.) By the time the VVAW began century to the “dream” of racial power from the fundamental truth When the courts denied their negotiations for a permit to camp equality preached by Martin Luther that we need sleep in order not only petition, veterans decided to break on the National Mall, the question King. In popular movements for to flourish but also to survive. the law by sleeping anyway. Turning of whether and where demon- peace and justice, sleep has signified Popularized by Black Lives Matter, good rest into a form of dissent, strators would be allowed to sleep both a death-dealing ignorance and “woke” is now widely used to convey hundreds of veterans fell asleep, had already been politicized by
12 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 13 Two days before Dewey Canyon III was George Hart. Lawyers and witnesses for scheduled to begin, the government issued the VVAW focused on two issues. First, an injunction barring veterans from over- they argued that public sleep was a material night camping on the Mall. The VVAW necessity, appealing to the government’s appealed, and their case traveled through responsibility to take care of returning the courts at a breakneck pace. The injunc- soldiers. John Kerry, who testified as a tion was based on National Park Service witness for the VVAW, informed Judge Hart (NPS) regulations that defined “overnight that many of the veterans, already on their camping” as “sleeping activities, or making way to the D.C. protest, had no place else
Protesters and Chicago Police officers in Grant Park during protests coinciding with the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 28, 1968. National Archives
other high-profile demonstrations. For for practical reasons and were also alert Alcatraz Island, From example, the city of Chicago’s draconian to its symbolic value, as it allowed them to Prison to Occupation, Ryan Flores, June 17, 2018. approach to granting permits was one major reenact—or as they put it “simulate”—the (CC BY SA-4.0) Wikimedia source of the conflict between demonstra- daily routines of an invading army. Their tors and police at the 1968 Democratic approach was in step with other activist National Convention. When city officials groups that by the late 1960s had begun to refused to allow demonstrators permission experiment with occupation as a form of to stay overnight in eleven city parks, orga- political expression. At Resurrection City, nizer Tom Hayden was not sure the planned in People’s Park, and on Alcatraz Island, protests could succeed. He wondered, “How demonstrators did not march, but rather many people were going to spend four or five stayed in place, inhabiting symbolically days in Chicago with no assurance that they charged public spaces over a span of time. could participate in a rally, attend a concert, When Native American activists seized march to the convention, or unroll a sleeping Alcatraz Island in the fall of 1969, for bag in Lincoln Park?” example, they reclaimed one small, inhos- Alcatraz Proved a Point, Joseph Morris. Joseph Morris Alcatraz Occupation As it turned out, the nighttime struggle pitable piece of land, making themselves at Collection, GOGA 35283, Golden Gate National Recreation Area. nps.gov with Chicago police over the 11 p.m. curfew home for 19 months in the empty cells and provided the spark for days of police actions abandoned guards’ quarters of the island’s during which demonstrators and journalists defunct penitentiary. In a similar spirit, preparations to sleep (including the laying to stay because they were without jobs and were gassed and bloodied in the streets. If Berkeley activists had a few months earlier down of bedrolls or other bedding), or making could not afford to book a motel room. He violence in Chicago changed the course of claimed an abandoned lot that belonged to any fire, erecting any shelter, tent, or other explained, “We are bringing with us people U.S. political history, Mayor Daley’s decision the University of California and turned it into sleeping accommodation structure, or doing who by necessity for a five-day lobbying effort not to grant demonstrators overnight access a city park where people could gather and any digging or earth breaking, or carrying must find their abode outside.” to Chicago parks played a significant part in grow food. If militarism, racism, and colo- on any cooking activities.” The injunction The need to sleep outside was proof of provoking these confrontations. nialism infiltrated the most routine aspects would allow protesting veterans to engage the difficult material circumstances that We tend to recall the huge marches and of daily life—a perspective increasingly in all of their planned protest activities from many veterans confronted on their return street battles of the era, but not the tedious embraced by movement activists—it was 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day, but would not to the U.S. and their very presence on the negotiations with state authorities; preparing these habits, they maintained, that must be allow them to cook or build shelters at any National Mall dramatized the inadequate for events that would last more than one day, liberated. Protest camps allowed demon- time and forbade “sleeping activities” at night. services that they had come to Washington protesters required permission to sleep in strators to practice such reinvention and put The VVAW appealed the injunction and to protest. Veterans argued that the govern- public. The VVAW valued their campsite their efforts on public view. the case was heard by U.S. District Judge ment should let them bed down on the Mall
14 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 15 because they had no other place to go; The campaign requested permis- Judge Hart feared that veterans, or sion to construct a functioning city some other group that followed their on government land and was granted example, might make themselves at a generous permit that allowed up home there and never leave. to 3,000 people to live for 37 days Putting poverty and unemploy- on 15 acres of West Potomac Park. ment on display, the VVAW’s court Although camping was not ordinarily battle unfolded in the shadow of allowed in the park, an exception was the occupation of the Mall three made for Resurrection City. In West years earlier by Civil Rights activ- Potomac Park, demonstrators built whether or not public sleep should be speech. Petitioning to camp overnight, the ists: associating legal camping with homes made of plywood and plastic considered a form of free speech. As Kerry VVAW asked the court to defend both their permanent (or semi-permanent) sheeting and equipped them with put it, “We feel the campsite is part of our sleep and the late-night discussions that residence, Hart had Resurrection sanitation, electricity, and running freedom of speech. . . . This is the only way were integral to the work of organizing. City in mind. Resurrection City was water. The Department of the Interior, in which we feel we can adequately tell our After listening to arguments from both part of the Poor People’s Campaign, which had granted the permit, came story to the people in this country.” sides, Judge Hart enjoined against the conceived by Martin Luther King and to regret its decision. When the permit It is worth recalling that the First use of the Mall for “overnight camping,” others in response to the perceived expired, police violently expelled pro- Amendment protects not only freedom of and limited the VVAW to demonstrating exhaustion of Civil Rights movement testers from the park, and one year speech but also “the right of the people from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day. At this tactics. King felt that the move- later Congress voted overwhelmingly peaceably to assemble.” The contested point, the VVAW took their case to the ment’s focus on legal (in)equality to ban “sit-ins, camp-ins, and sleep-ins Washington campsite brought demonstra- Court of Appeals, which reversed Hart’s and constitutional protections had in the capital.” tors together in the evening to play music ruling. The government then applied to the run its course and was, in any case, The second major argument and watch films, discuss the day’s activi- Supreme Court to stay the decision taken
ABOVE: Resurrection City in the mud, ill-suited to the forms of discrimina- presented by the VVAW to Judge ties, and plan for the following day. It gave by the Court of Appeals, arguing, “To say May 24, 1968, by Marion S. Triksoko. tion taking place in northern cities. Hart was that public sleep was a them a chance to break bread together and that the First Amendment provides a right CENTER: Construction of Resurrection City, The Poor People’s Campaign hoped form of expression that fell under the to sleep side by side. In these ways, it was to occupy park property for a substan- May 14, 1968, by Warren K. Leffler and Thomas J. O’Halloran. RIGHT: Resurrection to build a multi-ethnic coalition protection of the First Amendment. vital to the First Amendment promise of tial period of time, with all the resulting City (Abernathy), Washington, D.C., by around the issue of poverty and The main question before the court, the right to assemble, which is allied in the hazards, including health, sanitation, and Marion S. Triksoko, May 22, 1968. Images: U.S. News & World Report Collection, expand calls for justice to include during this hearing and in the briefs Constitution and throughout the history of litter . . . is to extend the First Amendment Library of Congress the right to food and shelter. and hearings that followed, was creative dissent with the practice of free too far.”
16 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 17 sleeping veterans being cuffed and carted off to prison. Late Wednesday night, the cast of Hair arrived at their encampment for a spontaneous performance. Together, veterans and Broadway performers sang “Give Peace a Chance,” the song recorded two years earlier by John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their Montreal bed-in. Instead of going to jail, as they had anticipated, demonstrators had a chance to sing and dance and then to fall asleep on the National Mall. In the decades to follow, the VVAW’s legal arguments over the right of veterans to sleep on the National Mall continued to reverberate. In 1982, the NPS granted a permit to the
Protesters in front of White House, by Warren K. Leffler, Feb. 10, 1971. Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV), U.S. News & World Report Collection, Library of Congress. allowing for the erection of two tent cities as part of a protest on the Mall that would “demonstrate the plight of the homeless.” They refused, however, to grant protesters permission to sleep in these “symbolic tents.” The CCNV On Tuesday, April 20, Chief Justice slept, they would be subject to arrest. fought the courts over the right to sleep and Warren Burger, in his role as Circuit Clark counseled veterans to obey the eventually the Supreme Court ruled, once again, Justice for the District of Columbia, ruling and refrain from sleeping. in favor of NPS regulations, finding that camping agreed with the government’s position In response, veterans caucused regulations did not violate the First Amendment. In his dissent, however, Justice Thurgood and reinstated the injunction. The by state to discuss their plans. Debate John Kerry, spokesman for Vietnam Veterans VVAW then petitioned for emergency raged over whether to obey the court Marshall defended the expressive power Against the War (VVAW), by Warren K. Leffler, of sleep—which he referred to as “sleep- April 21, 1971. U.S. News & World Report consideration of the case by the full order and stay awake, or defy it by falling Collection, Library of Congress. INSET: Ribbon speech.” Comparing the public sleep of Supreme Court. On Wednesday, after asleep. As VVAW founding member Jan detail, “Return to Sender,” 1971, Library anti-homelessness demonstrators to the of Congress. Purple Heart Medal, photo by the protesters had already spent two Barry recalled, “It was real democracy in sit-ins of the Civil Rights movement, he argued Major Will Cox, Georgia National Guard, nights on the Mall, the Supreme Court action. It was astounding.” After various March 2, 2014, U.S. Dept. of Defense that in both cases a physical routine that is typi- agreed to reinstate the original injunc- speakers had voiced their opinions, cally “devoid of expressive purpose” is effectively tion “with full force and effect.” At this VVAW chapters caucused to vote, and transformed by protesters into a “novel mode of EXTRA! READ | THINK | TALK | LINK point, the case was decided. veterans decided, by a small margin, to communication” that merits legal protection. . “Soldiers for Peace,” audio documentary FRANNY NUDELMAN is Professor As the Supreme Court deliberated sleep. In this context, sleeping became of American Literature and Culture by Kate Ellis and Stephen Smith, 2019, behind closed doors, VVAW lawyer an act of civil disobedience. In the APM Reports at Carleton University in Ottawa. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, activ- . Interviews and chronologies Ramsay Clark met with Justice words of one Washington Post reporter, trace the evolution of the Vietnam War and She is the author of John Brown’s ists explored the roots of injustice in the routines Body: Slavery, Violence, and the Department lawyers in an effort to “Several hundred protesting Vietnam veterans’ political views. apmreports.org Culture of War of daily life and attempted to reform their society . “Life at Resurrection City,” National Museum and coeditor, with craft a compromise suitable to both Veterans Against the War defied the Sara Blair and Joseph Entin, of by remaking such routines. From King’s “I Have of African American History & Culture. Remaking Reality: U.S. Documen- the veterans and the Nixon adminis- full U.S. Supreme Court last night and a Dream” speech to John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Curated blog posts reveal daily life at tary Culture after 1945. This essay tration. Clark returned to the Mall late bedded down on the Mall.” bed-in, to the VVAW sleep-in on the National Resurrection City. nmaahc.si.edu . “We Hold the Rock,” Dr. Troy Johnson for is adapted from her most recent Wednesday afternoon to deliver the In the end, the Nixon administration’s Mall, the effort to politicize sleep—a daily practice, Fighting Sleep: The War for the National Park Service. Essay and photos book, Justice Department’s bizarre decision. Justice Department, which had pushed Mind and the U.S. Military, published necessary to survival—was one expression of a far recount the occupation of Alcatraz Island by Verso Books (versobooks.com). Clark informed the crowd that they hard to obtain and defend the original broader effort to resist violence and oppression. and the lasting impact of the “Indians of All Copyright © 2019 by Franny could remain on the Mall throughout injunction, declined to arrest sleeping For activists today, sleep remains indispens- Tribes” movement. . “When Sleeping in Public is an Act of Protest,” Nudelman. A version of this essay the night. They could hold meetings, veterans. The Washington police able. In the context of political protest, sleeping in originally appeared on Literary Hub Karen Frances Eng, Dec 13, 2018, TED. watch films, and play music. They could did not want to arrest men who had common out of doors continues to pose a threat to (lithub.com). Profiles Jasmeen Patheja, who shows women even sing and dance. But they would fought in the war, and the Nixon White social order as demonstrators clash with the law how naps in public spaces can help change a not be permitted to fall asleep. If they House did not relish media coverage of over the right to public sleep. culture of harassment. ideas.ted.com
18 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 19 ELAINE KAMARCK
IN AMERICA TODAY, OUTRAGEOUS LIES, Both the program and Willie Horton doctored videos, and impostors try to were real. The circumstances surrounding influence elections alongside legitimate the crime were accurately described, the news and direct campaign communications visual image was true to life even if sensa- from would-be leaders. But dirty tricks are tionalized, and there were numerous news nothing new. While the medium may be stories attesting to the facts of the case. different, the goals are as old as elections Now compare this ad to an incident in themselves. Thus, it is fitting to begin the 2016 campaign where nothing was working on the problem of defending real: Pizzagate. In the 2016 presidential democracy in the internet age by trying to campaign, social media outlets spread understand the world of dirty tricks in the the story (referring to his hacked email pre-internet age. accounts) that campaign manager John To do that, we should distinguish Podesta’s emails contained coded mes- between dirty tricks and negative sages referring to human trafficking and a campaigning, including attack ads and child sex ring run by high-ranking members contrast ads. The latter may be offensive, of the Democratic Party, including Hillary but they are based on something that is Clinton. This activity was allegedly based in true as opposed to something that is a a Washington, D.C., pizzeria called Comet wholesale fabrication. For instance, let’s Ping Pong. The conspiracy theory spread take one of the most infamous ads from the quickly, promoted by various right-wing 1988 presidential campaign pitting Vice websites and by the Russians. As the rumors President George H.W. Bush (R) against grew, so did harassment of the owners and Governor Michael Dukakis (D): the Willie employees of the pizzeria, culminating in Horton ad. It has gone down in history a shooting incident by a North Carolina as one of the more offensive and racially man who took it upon himself to come to incendiary ads ever. Willie Horton, a Black Washington and rescue the poor children. prisoner convicted of murder, was released Nothing about Pizzagate was real. There on a prison furlough program in Massachu- was no sex ring, no coded messages, and no setts. While out on furlough he kidnapped children being held against their will at the A Short History of a young couple, stabbed the man, and pizza place. All the supposed “facts” spread assaulted the woman. The ad features a in this story were completely fabricated. scary photo of Willie Horton and under a The incident illustrates how the difference photo of Michael Dukakis it says, “Allowed between dirty tricks and negative campaign- CAMPAIGN Murderers to have Weekend Passes.” The ing is that dirty tricks are complete lies. The weekend furlough program was created in political journalist David Mark makes a 1972 under a Republican governor as the similar distinction: “First, I want to distin- DIRTY TRICKS result of a court decision. Dukakis himself guish negative campaigning—charges and defended it. accusations that, while often distorted, Election meddling before Twitter and Facebook
CARTOON: “Political Trick-Box. Up they come again!” by Charles Jay Taylor, Sept. 25, 1895, Puck, c. Keppler & Schwarzmann. Library of Congress
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PHOTOS: 1. George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush at contain at least a kernel of truth— to affect the actual outcome by inter- the Bush campaign knew they had shire, the editor of the all-important For much of American history, Republican National Convention, Houston, TX, by Laura Patterson, Aug. 1992 (loc.gov). from dirty tricks or cheating.” fering with the counting process. to stop McCain. Using a tried and Manchester Union Leader received a being gay was a nonstarter for a 2. Bush-Quayle, Dukakis, and McGovern- To understand the world of true strategy, the phony poll, oppo- CANDIDATE CHARACTER letter from a New Hampshire citizen politician. As early as 1836, the hero Eagleton ephemera (Saffy Collection, Univ. dirty tricks, it helps to understand nents of McCain spread a complete accusing Muskie of using the word Davy Crockett wrote that presiden- of North Florida Digital Commons). 3. “The Sex has long been a favorite topic old man and the sea,” by Edmund S. Valtman, their function in the context of an falsehood. Phone calls to South “Canuck,” a derogatory term for tial candidate Martin Van Buren was Hartford Times of the dirty trick. In the early 1800’s, Oct. 31, 1972, . George election. Elections are fought over Carolina Republican voters asked French Canadians—a significant part “laced up in corsets, such as women McGovern as a fisherman battling high seas, politics was no less suffused with in- The Old a finite period of time—Election “Would you be more or less likely to of the New Hampshire electorate. in town wear, and, if possible, tighter alludes to Ernest Hemingway’s nuendo than today. Among the most Man and the Sea, the story of an old Cuban Day is the endpoint—and public vote for John McCain . . . if you knew Muskie never did any such thing. than the rest of them.” The famous fisherman who catches a giant marlin largely salacious stories were those penned interest increases as Election Day he had fathered an illegitimate black eaten by sharks before he returns to port. by the partisan journalist James (The letter was later discovered to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover spread McGovern’s campaign was undermined by approaches. Unlike a dirty trick child?” McCain and his wife Cindy have been written by a White House rumors that the 1950s Democratic a series of tribulations (loc.gov). Edmund Callender, who alleged in a series 4. against a corporation, which might Muskie campaign poster, 1968 (loc.gov). of articles that Thomas Jefferson had adopted a dark-skinned girl from aide to President Nixon, Kenneth presidential candidate Adlai Steven- 5. Nixon campaign bumper sticker, 1968 be remedied in time for a product had fathered several children with Bangladesh in 1991 and that child, Clawson.) At the same time, the son was gay; ironically, Hoover has (Richard Nixon Library/NARA). 6. “I want to to rebound, a dirty trick timed to Bridget, was campaigning with them editor of the Manchester Union been the subject of much rumor and make it perfectly clear that national defense his young slave, Sally Hemings. requires 18-cent oil,” by Edmund S. Valtman, occur before the election can have a For nearly two centuries this was in South Carolina. Leader insulted Muskie’s wife, calling speculation about his sexuality. New March 1, 1970, Hartford Times. President Nixon definitive impact, even if it is proven Confronted with attacks on their her unladylike for drinking too much York City was the first city which giving a speech. Liquid, shown as dollars, drips held up as an early example of dirty into a can labeled “Political Contributions.” to be false. The ramifications can be campaigning. In 1998, thanks to DNA wives and children, candidates have and telling jokes. Muskie gave a press stood up to this tactic. In the 1977 Nixon bowed to pressures of domestic oil enormous because U.S. elections a hard time defending themselves. conference where he was furious mayoral primary, placards appeared companies about quotas for the importation testing, it turned out that Thomas of oil (loc.gov). 7. U.S. Senator John McCain in cannot be re-run. Jefferson had indeed fathered illegit- McCain was distraught at this attack and appeared to cry. Whether there out of nowhere that read “vote for Phoenix, AZ, by Gage Skidmore, Oct. 21, 2016 A brief summary of some of the imate children with his slave. and his efforts to fight back only were tears or a melted snowflake Cuomo, not the homo,” in reference (CC BY-SA 2.0/Flickr). BELOW: “The happy effects of that grand system of shutting ports dirty tricks in American elections Two centuries later, the combi- made his situation worse. He lost on his face, the damage was done. to Mario Cuomo. Cuomo’s opponent against the English!!” Illustration by Cruikshank; shows that they tend to have the nation of illicit sex and race was still the South Carolina primary and the Muskie won New Hampshire, but Ed Koch won the primary and never Walker publishers, Oct. 15, 1808. President following objectives: to create doubt nomination. by a much smaller percentage than directly addressed the rumors about Jefferson defends his Embargo policy (loc.gov). the ideal fodder for the creation of a around a candidate’s character; dirty trick. In the 2000 Republican McCain’s emotional reaction was anticipated (especially given that his sexual orientation. These days to confuse the voters presidential primary, then-Governor to an attack on his family was not he was from a neighboring state). this line of attack seems almost about the election; George Bush of Texas was running unusual. In 1972, Senator Edmund The narrow victory devastated his quaint given the large number of to break into the against Senator John McCain of Muskie was the frontrunner for candidacy and he lost the Democratic openly gay elected officials, but being opponent’s sphere Arizona. McCain won the New the Democratic nomination to run nomination to George McGovern, who a closeted gay seemed a sure way and get informa- Hampshire primary and the race against President Richard Nixon. turned out to be the weak nominee to catch the ire of both the gay and tion on them; and went on to South Carolina where While campaigning in New Hamp- Nixon preferred. straight community.
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One of the many problems Sowing doubt about Kerry’s war only has to sow doubt, and the closer Russo (Italian). Kennedy’s father, Joe, sent out flyers telling his constituents with complete lies attacking the record was important to the Bush the race the more impact it can have. allegedly paid another Joseph Russo (a that they had to return their absentee candidate’s character is that they campaign. In the spring of 2004, a custodian with no political experience) ballots by November 6. The actual CONFUSING THE VOTERS PHOTOS: are sometimes so outrageous that group called Swift Boat Veterans for to also run in the primary in hopes of deadline was November 5 and ballots John Kerry holding a supporter’s Attempting to confuse the voters 1. the campaign refuses to take them Truth, composed of Vietnam veter- splitting the non-Kennedy vote. received after that were not counted. baby in Rochester, MN, by Alec is another tried and true character- Jacobson, Sept. 8, 2008 ([PD] seriously. Or, the campaign knows ans who claimed to have been with Another way to confuse the voters Democrats were suspicious that the istic of the dirty trick. Sometimes Wikimedia). Kerry campaign sticker they are a threat but doesn’t want to Kerry during the incidents he was is to populate the ballot with third-party “mistake” was meant to keep students (Wikimedia) and button (Saffy Collec- this is inadvertent but nonetheless increase the reach of the dirty trick awarded medals for, began to hold candidates who are recruited for the from voting, but Zeldin’s campaign tion, Univ. of North Florida Digital critical, the best example being the Commons). 2. Official White House by giving the lie even more publicity. press conferences and buy television express purpose of siphoning votes from denied any wrongdoing and provided portraits: President George W. Bush, by confusing “butterfly” ballot design However, even if a lie is too outra- ads questioning each of his medals. the major party. In 2010, a Republican a statement from the printer also Eric Draper, 2001; Vice President Dick that caused voters in the 2000 pres- Cheney, by Karen Ballard, 2001 (Wiki- geous for most people to believe, in A long-time critic of John Kerry (for dirty trickster in Arizona got friendly saying it was a mistake. The problem media). Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign a tight race only a very small fraction his later public opposition to the idential election in Florida to vote with a group of homeless people and was that the Zeldin campaign made sticker (George W. Bush Library/NARA). of the electorate needs to believe it. Vietnam War) wrote a book about for “Al Gore and Republican Pat recruited them to run on the Green Party the same “mistake” in 2016 as well, 3. “Mario Cuomo for Mayor” poster, Buchanan” or “Al Gore and Socialist 1977; “Ed Koch is our man for Mayor” And big lies remind people of the old Kerry called Unfit for Command. ticket for a variety of offices. Among fueling suspicion that this was a poster, ca. 1977 (loc.gov). 4. “Here we saying, “Where there’s smoke there’s The Kerry campaign’s reaction David McReynold”—thus invalidating them were: a tarot card reader, with dirty trick. go again,” by Edmund S. Valtman, their ballots. Sept. 12, 1960, Hartford Times. The fire.” A story that is not plausible on was slow and ineffectual. His top less than a dollar to his name, who was In 2012 Wisconsin Democrats, Democratic donkey and GOP elephant its face may still prompt some to consultants kept restraining him But at other times it is intentional. signed up to run for State Treasurer; a furious over Republican Governor as organ grinders with monkeys An early example of intentionally soliciting “Votes.” Organ-TV sets show believe that something is wrong with from hitting back out of fear that he homeless man, who went by “Grandpa” Scott Walker’s attacks on public-sector presidential candidates John F. Kennedy the candidate. would look angry and that it would confusing the voters comes from on the streets, who was recruited to run unions, mounted a successful recall and Richard M. Nixon (loc.gov). 5. Senator Nearly all of these problems sur- add even more fuel to the fire. And yet John F. Kennedy’s first run for for the State Senate; and a young street petition creating a new election. The John F. Kennedy greets a roadside crowd in Indiana, Oct. 5, 1960 (JFK Congress in Boston in 1946. faced with the “swift boat” campaign they sorely misjudged the impact the musician, who was recruited to run for 2012 recall election was contested Library). 6. Kennedy campaign sticker against Senator John Kerry. Kerry ongoing story was having on cable In Boston then (and now), the a seat on the Arizona Corporation Com- between Walker and Democrat Tom (docsteach.org) and button (Saffy two dominant ethnic groups were Collection, Univ. of North Florida had served in Vietnam and was news during the critical month of mission. Democrats and Green party Barrett. As the June 5, 2012, primary Digital Commons). awarded a Purple Heart, a Bronze August 2004. A review of Kerry’s war Irish and Italian, and the state was officials were furious and filed a lawsuit date approached, voters reported Star, and a Silver Star. In 2004, record was conducted by the Navy heavily Democratic—meaning that but failed to get the fake candidates’ receiving robocalls (a favorite tool his service and his heroism in war in September of 2004 and found winning the Democratic primary was names off the ballot. of dirty tricksters) that told voters stood in contrast to President Bush, that the medals were all properly tantamount to winning the general Another tried-and-true dirty trick is that if they had signed recall peti- who had not gone to Vietnam and awarded. And Bush himself even- election. Kennedy (Irish) was running to attempt to confuse the voters about tions they were not required to vote who got into the Air National Guard tually disavowed the group, but the in the Democratic primary against important election dates. In the 2018 in the recall election. Walker won through his political connections. damage had been done. The big lie a Boston City Councilor named Joe election, [Rep.] Lee Zeldin (R-NY) the race with 53% of the vote. KAMARCK | cont. p. 94
24 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 25 For me, the 2020 presidential elec- citizens until Congress ratified the tion year is more than a contest fueled Cherokee Allotment Agreement in by rhetoric and hyperbole between the spring of 1901. Allotment, the act political parties seeking the leadership of fragmenting tribal-held lands into reins of this country; it is about a citizen’s individually owned parcels, was the duty to circumscribe the bounds of trust primary focus of creating the Dawes and leadership. As an Oklahoman, I Commission to oversee land distri- am a citizen of two nations: the United bution to tribal citizens. This was the States and the Cherokee Nation. One final diminishment of the Cherokee has plenary power while the other, Nation, breaking up tribal authority even though much older and more into what is today fourteen counties in experienced in the selection of leaders Northeastern Oklahoma. as defined by the Supreme Court, is a The year 1901 would appear as a domestic sovereign. An election year is unique date for the Cherokee, as Section a touchstone of my past and a reminder 63 of the Allotment Act plainly stated: that being a dual citizen has an added Each Cherokee citizen shall, on set of challenges in reconciling the the date of the ratification of this parallels and proclivities in electing agreement, become a citizen of leaders. Election years remind me that I the United States and be entitled must choose wisely, whether voting for to all the rights and privileges Principal Chief of my Native Nation or thereof, but the same shall in President of the United States. no wise affect his rights as a While uniquely different, the two member of said tribe. voting responsibilities have remarkable similarities in the search for comple- By the stroke of a congressional pen, menting traits of leadership and policy. my Cherokee family transformed into Unfortunately, there are no tutorials citizen duality. In those days, the exten- or orientations to tease out an under- sion of U.S. citizenship to the Cherokee IN PURSUIT OF PRESIDENTS standing of how to be a responsible voter was more about terminating Native in either arena. Immersion is required. government than about expanding AND PRINCIPAL CHIEFS In the tableau of tribal, city, county, state, benefits to Native peoples. Allotment and national elections, one must literally and citizenship were simple ingredients vote “early and often.” in a formula of assimilation rooted in The Arc of Dual Citizenship the earliest years of American interac- JAY HANNAH I grew up within the historic bound- tion with Native peoples. By the dawn aries of the Cherokee Nation, where my of the twentieth century, the Cherokee people arrived on the Trail of Tears in Nation had been diminished by the It is 2020, a presidential election of all expressions of freedom. It carries 1839. My father’s parents were born as extinguishment of its courts, allotment year. And, as if out of the mist the weighty burden of civic respon- Cherokee Citizens before there was a of its tribal lands in severalty, and of Brigadoon, comes an event sibility. I would call it the greatest placed called Oklahoma. In some ways, I suspension of its citizens’ right to elect that awakens the voice of the people of all responsibilities. Presidential am a second-generation U.S. citizen. My their own Principal Chief.—But on the to choose who will become one of election years have, across our nation’s paternal grandparents and their parents, bright side, they were now eligible to the most powerful individuals on the history, vacillated between a contest of aunts, and uncles did not become U.S. vote in U.S. elections. planet. It is a time of consistency and a ideologies and a reckoning of societal
translation of change. Participating in conscience. It is a manifestation of the PHOTO: Jay Hannah, 2001, then-Treasurer of the Cherokee Nation, holds a portrait of his the vote is arguably one of the greatest people’s will. great-great-grandfather Ezekiel Eugene Starr, who also was Treasurer of the Cherokee Nation in the 1890s. Jay is seated in the Officers’ Barracks at Fort Gibson where Treasurer Starr officiated the Cherokee Outlet Payment in 1893. Photo by David Fitzgerald. More info: search “Ezekiel Eugene Starr” at visitcherokeenation.com
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I was born mid-century and office to take to the polling place, While it is still a family mystery the 1960s sitcoms Green Acres and in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, just four raised in Adair County just forty coordinates other precinct officials as to why or how both my father Petticoat Junction (without the train). miles east, was going to contract for years after the Cherokee Nation and completes necessary documen- and grandfather became involved I have often said that Moseley is a green beans next spring. barely escaped termination. The tation, then returns ballots to the in managing the elections in our place with two Baptist Churches, one Nor was I concerned with which county was named for one of my Election Board office at the end of communities, it was their honor and Missionary and the other Southern, of two men, simply referred to as 1. Allotment Deed for 125.35 acres granted to Jay’s great-uncle Hooly ancestors—a Scot trader—who Election Day. privilege to do their part to facilitate separated by Rod’s Shakin’ City beer Nixon and Kennedy, would win the Hannah (Hoo-ley, meaning “Bell” in intermarried among the Cherokee. The primary function of pre- the vote of the people. My father dedi- joint, where the congregations of all upcoming presidential election. I did Cherokee) by the Principal Chief of Adair County was carved from the cinct officials today is relatively cated almost thirty years to serving three might drift from one to another. notice that just the mention of their the Cherokee Nation, Nov. 1, 1907. 2. Quit Claim Deed transferring old Goingsnake and Flint Districts unchanged from those of a hundred as Precinct Inspector of Ballard II. Stinchcomb’s was not just a place names sparked the most impassioned allotment land from Hooly Hannah to of the Cherokee Nation prior to years ago. While technology has I am fortunate to have learned the of commerce; it was the community exchanges. Cherokee neighbors Jay’s grandfather William T. Hannah, March 14, 1925. 3. Red and green statehood. It was the place my entered the scene, elections are mechanics of how our country votes rally point for conversation, an open from the traditional tribal community deed stamps indicating payment family called home since their arrival still the domain of the human expe- from men I revered, trusted, and forum for dialogue where issues local of Chewey, just across the Illinois of property transfer tax. 4. General River, with names like Crittenden, Warranty Deed transferring land from on the Trail of Tears from their rience. The Precinct Inspector is loved. I was taught that voting and and national could be vetted, aired Hooly Hannah to William T. Hannah, ancestral homelands in southeastern sworn to serve voters and to make serving the community are honorable just short of debate, and perhaps Vann, Pathkiller, and Hogshooter, Sept. 4, 1924. 5. Dennis Hannah’s Ta na si (Tennessee), northern sure all properly marked ballots are endeavors—not only a privilege but consensus reached for the good of often admitted that they knew little of Application for Registration to Vote as a Citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Georgia, and northeastern Alabama. cast and counted. Anyone who has also a responsibility of citizenship. all concerned. As the fall season “that Kennedy fellow,” but he was a Oklahoma, indicating his family tree My interest in the electoral pro- voted in our state has interacted appeared, store proprietor Osie Democrat and that was all they really chart is complete to enrolled ances- tors William T. Hannah, his paternal Stinchcomb kept a fire in a large needed to know. Neighbors who were cess was ignited at an age when most with these local citizens-turned- My fifth birthday was in grandfather, and Cherry Starr, his kids are learning to read and taking election-officials, stepping through July 1960. The world is a dizzying, potbellied cast-iron stove in the center non-tribal seemed more interested maternal grandmother, and desig- up the challenge of penmanship. Both the tried-and-true process of voting. fascinating place at age five. Trips of the old rock building, where local in Nixon, the vice president under nating that he will vote at Precinct 1, Adair County. 6. “Vet for Ike” bumper my father, Dennis Charles Hannah, We do so in deciding a full array with my dad to Stinchcomb’s men gathered to take up topics of the “General Eisenhower,” as Ike was sticker, ca. 1950s, an example of and grandfather, William Thomas of city, county, state, and national Corner, the general store located on day. As a perennial tagalong with my known in my home community. Men campaign materials meant to sway military veteran voters, without Hannah, were Precinct Inspectors, offices, not to mention school Moseley’s Prairie, was a mercantile dad, I was a silent observer to a host of now in their 30s and 40s had followed regard to party lines, for Dwight D. responsible for officiating elections in boards and revenue initiatives, where you could purchase whatever conversations that meant little in the Ike across Europe just fifteen years Eisenhower’s presidential run. 7. Jay’s earlier to free the world from Fascism; maternal grandfather Si Jones (left) the precincts of Ballard I and Ballard with little thought as to the process was required—from a fifty-pound mind of a five-year-old who was more and Osie Stinchcomb, proprietor, in II, the two northernmost precincts in of diligence and preparation sack of flour to a gallon of kerosene. interested in the store’s inventory therefore, if Ike trusted Nixon to be front of Stichcomb’s Corner General Adair County. As precinct leader, the required. It is at this grassroots level Moseley’s Prairie, complete with inside the ancient oak and glass candy his vice president, that was the only Store on Moseley’s Prairie, ca. 1940s. 8. Dennis Hannah with his uncle Inspector picks up election supplies that the wheels of democracy’s bus three one-room schools within a case then hearing about the price of endorsement required. I was curious, Ezekiel Starr (left) and grandfather from the County Election Board go round and round. six-mile radius, was a cross between corn or if The Allen Canning Company but unaffected. Charles Lucien Starr (right), ca. 1950s.
28 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 29 That fall, my dad and his close son.” My mind whirled like the cogs the Benton County Courthouse, A pocket-size map of Oklahoma, dated 1909, advertising land for sale in Cushing, “situated in the friend, J.B. Morris of Chewey, shared of that grain binder. “I thought we folk would not fly the American flag most eastern part of Oklahoma.” Land speculators the cultivation of a large crop of sugar- were Cherokee,” I replied. His tone over the county seat until Democrat like Ira Stout trafficked in Indian Allotment land cane, now ready for harvest. In the trailed off as he said, “Well, we’re Grover Cleveland was elected Presi- after Oklahoma statehood. Selling points of the land, according to Stout’s little red book, included 1960s, sugarcane was grown for live- that too.” dent in 1885. its many crops (from wheat to gooseberries, which stock silage, a necessary supplement In that moment, I connected two Dad had been a paratrooper “grow to perfection in this climate”), good public nd schools, five churches, two banks, and three rail- to the prairie hay required to over- dots that continue to be part of a during WWII with the 82 Airborne roads. “To the man that wants to change his location winter herds through the cold months lifelong search for identity in culture and claimed to have seen General there is no section of this country that holds out so many advantages as this. It is good for the farmer, in the Ozark Plateau of northeastern and in politics. Eisenhower inspecting his unit on merchant and manufacturer.” Stout further claims Oklahoma. The harvest was epic. the eve of the D-Day invasion. Now he has 30,000 acres, which he handles “on commis- My dad drove my grandfather’s y mom, Bobbye, was White that the General was in the White sion.” The Office of the Commissioner to the Five M Civilized Tribes, U.S. Department of the Interior, Ford 8N tractor, pulling an ancient and had deep family roots in the House, I was more interested in how issued regulations for the first sale of unallotted McCormick-Deering grain binder northwest Arkansas counties of he was promoted to president. My lands on October 12, 1910. Hundreds of thousands of acres of former tribal lands were auctioned to used to cut and tie bundles of sugar- Benton and Washington. When my dad explained the office to me in tribal the highest bidder. When the Dawes Commission cane into shocks for storage. The maternal grandfather passed away terms that I could understand. “The ceased to exist on June 30, 1914, only 306 acres of old grain binder, a Rube Goldberg in February of the 1960 presidential president is like an Indian chief,” the Cherokee Nation remained. machine, had been adapted by my election year, Granny came to live he said. “Presidents are elected by grandfather from horse-drawn to trac- with us. She, too, was a Democrat the people to lead the country, just tor-pulled. Dating from the turn of the and talked of how President Roos- as chiefs are chosen by the people The need for a principal leader out of their ancient homelands to The diminishment of tribal sover- century, a single bull-wheel brought evelt (FDR) had saved the nation to lead the tribe.” In the Cherokee to parlay and/or defend against new lands in what is now Oklahoma. eignty and citizenship rights after the the mechanical behemoth to life. during the Great Depression. She language, the word u-gv-wi-yu-hi is an ever-encroaching tide of state In the West, he navigated intra-tribal Allotment Act in 1901 paved the way J.B. sat on the operator’s seat of was puzzled with how the country had used for both chief and president. It governments into Cherokee Country rivalries, built seminaries of higher for seventeen Principal Chiefs to be the binder, regulated its Wizard of “swapped horses,” as she described was all beginning to make sense. required a radical governmental education, provided for common presidentially appointed between Oz-esque analog controls, and fed the political pendulum swing to the makeover that ushered in the era of schools, and attempted (ineffectively) 1906 and 1970—mostly for signing twine into the spooling mechanism Republicans in the 1950s. “After all The Cherokee have been an elected Principal Chief. John Ross to steer a course of neutrality during over unallotted tribal lands to the that tied the bundled tops of cane that FDR and Harry Truman did,” “choosing” chiefs since time was the first and longest-serving the American Civil War. Though United States after Oklahoma state- cut down by the machine’s sickle. It she’d ask, “how could the country immemorial. Across millennia, the Principal Chief. Elected in 1827, beloved by traditional Cherokees, hood. These Chiefs were appointed in was both frightening and effective. I just head for the other ditch?” Her process moved from chiefs being he balanced the tensions and the Ross was often seen as an indecisive a curious mix of legal and ceremonial rode on the tractor with my dad and only rationale was that everybody selected by councils, to being chosen dichotomy of an expanding popula- impediment to progress by those who obligation that often provided a reign watched J.B. attempting to tame more liked Ike and, after all, he had been by tribal clan headmen, to ultimately tion of full bloods and mixed bloods. shared his mixed blood ancestry. His of only one day, as when President moving parts than a railroad-grade the General that led the combined being elected by of-age male voters. The Cherokee Nation of his era was a shifting stance on Removal to the Franklin Roosevelt appointed my pocket watch. He would often refer Allied Army to victory over Hitler. Tracing the selection process for culture moving from the “no longer” West, apparent lack of control over great-great-uncle W.W. Hastings for to the machine as “that damned old As Irving Berlin asked in his song, Chief of the Cherokee is a historical to the “not yet.” Full bloods nurtured post-Removal reprisals spawning one day in the 1930s for the express Democrat binder.” When I asked him “What can you do with a General, timeline of a Native Nation in evolu- traditional ways and practiced intra-tribal civil war, and his shifting purpose of signing over the title to why he called it that, he smiled and when he stops being a General?” my tion. By the 1820s, it became obvious subsistence farming; mixed bloods allegiance between the Confederacy Cherokee lands that would become said, “Well, Jadee, it is just like the Granny allowed that you could send that the Cherokee Nation required embraced enterprise, Christianity, and Union, paint Ross’s leadership the site of the Indian Hospital. It was Democrat Party that Mr. Kennedy him to the White House—no matter a singular voice of leadership and missionary-provided education. in a mixed palette. Still, he continued not until passage of the Principal is part of. It is a very old piece of his politics. rather than the fragmented voices This transition in the tribe’s economic to be reelected as Principal Chief Chief’s Act of 1970 that Cherokees machinery with lots of moving parts Granny grew up in northwestern of chiefs, headmen, and councils of and political profile served as the across conflicting eras of the were finally allowed to reinstitute that breaks down regularly and Arkansas in the post-Reconstruction easily divided, locally autonomous catalyst for cultural transformation. Cherokee Nation. He was as anoint- elections of their own. actually produces very little.” J.B. was Era after the Civil War in a county tribal towns. Creating a centralized With the mounting pressure of a ed as he was flawed. Serving until his a Republican at heart. That evening, I that had been occupied by Union Cherokee government came with federal doctrine of Indian Removal, death in 1866, his place in Cherokee M y first presidential Election asked my dad, “What is a damned old forces in 1862. After the 22nd the adoption of our first written it would fall to Principal Chief Ross history as the first constitutionally Day came on Nov. 3, 1960. The Democrat?” He said, “Why, we are, Indiana Infantry Regiment burned Constitution in 1827. to lead the remaining Cherokees elected Chief is well enshrined. night before, my dad made the
30 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 31 forty-mile roundtrip from our home unlocked and a fire built to stave Harless at the front door and pro- of field labor. Mom had fixed a lunch of The highlight of the day was when on Moseley’s Prairie to Stilwell to off the crisp November morning claimed that she needed to get her sandwiches and Mrs. Harless brought my dad handed me a sample ballot take receipt of the ballot box for air. Pads of ballots were arranged, Nixon electioneering out of the way, a cake—it was chocolate. I took a nap and said, “Son, it’s time for you to Ballard II. As the Precinct Inspector, counting tablets dispersed, pencils because once she stepped through after lunch on one of the church pews cast your vote.” He explained the OPPOSITE: A collage of election he was responsible for readying sharpened, and the precinct roll book the doors of Green Valley School that lined the walls, played among the various offices that were in contest. ephemera, including Adair County ballots and preparing the Precinct was placed on a big table just inside House, “No one is to know if we are old oak and cast-iron school desks, Incumbents like County Sheriff Fats sample ballots printed with icons of the rooster (representing the Judge and Clerks needed to offici- the front door. The Precinct Judge Roosters or Eagles.” That seemed and cautiously approached ancient Swepston and County Commis- Democratic Party) and eagle (repre- ate the decision of the people. At who was to check voter registration odd until I saw the sample ballot he playground equipment that would sioner Hungry Buffington were in the senting the Republican Party) and dinner that night, as my mom and cards and signatures in the large reg- tacked to the front door. At the top of cause an OSHA inspector to cringe in candidate lineup, along with a list square metal stamps bearing the rooster and “X” for marking ballots. dad talked about a nation on the istry book, and the Clerk tasked with the ballot were the images of a roost- horror. Green Valley closed its doors of Clerks for offices that tested my PHOTO: Election Day, 1976, at the cusp of a presidential decision, my dispersing paper ballots arrived chat- er to designate the Democratic Party in 1958 in favor of school consolida- attention. Then he pointed to the polling place on the Hannah Farm in Adair County. Pictured are Ballard II mom said something to the effect tering as though cicadas awakening ticket, and an eagle to designate the tion and a bus ride across the river to presidential candidates, Richard Precinct Officers (left to right) Lois of, “Take Jadee with you tomorrow from a thirteen-year hibernation. Republican Party ticket. All of the Watts, where all twelve grades were M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy. McGlothlin, Cecil Harless, Dennis Hannah, Sharon Boswood, and Carr and show him how elections work.” Then and now, state election law political talk stopped as soon as they relegated to one school building. When I asked whom I should vote Harless. ABOVE: Envelopes used to Dad agreed over a plate of fried po- requires the Inspector, Judge, and entered the door of the old one-room Watts was a railroad town nestled for, he said, “Well, son, as Precinct secure the key to a ballot box lock. A tatoes and while I was excited about Clerk to be registered to vote and schoolhouse-turned-church (and now alongside the Kansas City Southern Inspector I’m not allowed to tell metal stamp bearing a star and the number 46 (representing Oklahoma the opportunity, I had no concept of two of the three officials to be from polling place). With quiet hands they Railroad, on the west side of Ballard you who to vote for; but if you want as the 46th state), was used to what the day would hold. I just knew the two largest political parties in the moved with orchestral precision to Creek, where both voting precincts to vote a straight party ticket, just imprint the wax seal on the envel- ope, indicating the ballot box was I was going with my dad to watch state. My dad and Lola Anglin, who organize the ballot materials. took their names. At the community stamp the rooster until the feathers under “dual control,” meaning him do something important. went by “Babe” and served as the The day was long and tedious for building in downtown Watts, my fly.” I don’t think Mrs. Harless, my that two people had been present We were up early. Polls opened Clerk, were Democrats, leaving Pre- a kid not yet a first-grader. Folks trick- grandfather was replicating the same uncle’s mother-in-law and one of during the process to secure ballots in the box. Envelope for the Ballard at 7:00 a.m. and that meant that the cinct Judge Mrs. Harless as the lone led in, some dressed as though on polling place rituals for Ballard I Pre- only a handful of Republicans in II Precinct bears Dennis Hannah’s Green Valley School House, just Republican in the officiating squad. their way to a church social and oth- cinct that my dad was executing at Green Valley, was impressed with signature above the seal. north of the Illinois River, had to be I remember that my dad met Mrs. ers in overalls with the stained badge Green Valley for Ballard II. my dad’s political tutorial.
32 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 33 I marked my ballot and, even okee in the mid-1700s to engage in Dad’s old truck departed though it didn’t go in the big metal deerskin trade. Granddad Charlie’s gravel and met the pavement of ballot box with all the other voters’ great-uncle James Starr had signed State Highway 33 at Stinchcomb’s ballots, I felt as though I was part of the Treaty of New Echota in 1835 Corner. An eastwardly route toward something very “grownup” and much that would prove to be the point of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, stopped bigger than I could comprehend. It ignition for Cherokee Removal. By short of crossing the state line and was curious to me how a small piece 1844, James Starr had paid the blood we turned south. State Highway 59 of paper in Adair County could make law price of death for having signed snaked down the east side of Adair 4 a difference in deciding who would be away tribal homelands in exchange County, crossing the Illinois River President of the United States. for what he believed was a future in just north of Watts, crossing Ballard 1 2 the West, where the Cherokee could Creek, past Chewey Road, and then y mom fetched me in the continue without harassment by the on to Baptist Mission. It was here M 3 afternoon and I was home with my incursions of avarice by states which that our Cherokee Family arrived at granny when Dad came through the overlaid the old Cherokee Nation. The “Breadtown” in 1839 as one of the door after the polls had closed and loss of ancestral homelands and the terminus points and supply depots the counting was completed. He loss of four thousand Cherokees on established by the U.S. Army as the that no Cherokee ever saw outside was the source for strong coffee to told my mom that he was taking the the Trail of Tears signed and sealed final punctuation to the Trail of Tears. of a Western movie. The original fuel the ballot counting. We stopped ballot box to Stilwell and would not the death warrants of Treaty Signers, We drove past the old Baptist courthouse burned unexpectedly in at a large dark wood door with an be home until late. She said, “Don’t as they were referred to during “the Mission Church on the northeast 1928. My dad was eight years old at opaque crinkle glass window lettered you think that Jadee should see the troubled years” following Removal. slope of Bushyhead Mountain, where the time and would tell stories about with “Sheriff.” My dad took his finger courthouse lit up on election night?” Being “lighter-skinned” than my Sunday services were announced the night the courthouse burned and ran it up the door facing until his My dad looked at me and winked. We dad and grandparents, my dad was with a bell brought west on the Trail Jay Hannah seated on car hood with and that his parents let him stay up index finger found a small round hole. 1. bundled into his 1952 Ford pickup keen on explaining that I had the of Tears. From Baptist Mission, the his dad, Dennis Hannah, April 1958. late to see the spectacle. Terrazzo Sticking his finger in, he turned and 2. Pictured left to right are Grandmother with the padlocked Ballard II ballot same amount of Cherokee blood road leads to Westville, where my Gi-ta-ya floors echoed with our every footstep, said, “Boy, this is what happens when (Cherry) Starr Hannah holding box, containing all the decisions of as Chief John Ross who had led the Cherokee great-great-great-grandpar- Jay Hannah; Jay’s sister, L.D. Hannah; our community, in the bed of the Cherokees to Oklahoma. Indeed, ents rest in Foreman Cemetery, just blending with a cacophony of conver- you mix whiskey and pistols.” great-grandfather Charles Lucien sations and a wall cloud of cigar It would be years later before Starr; and great-aunt Mary Still Starr. truck and were off for the county seat. Ross was one-eighth by blood and north of the Dairy Maid. It’s not often 3. Jay’s mom, Bobbye Hannah. 4. Jay The trip to Stilwell was an od- served the Nation as Principal Chief you can get an ice cream cone and smoke. Men shouted out welcomes I learned the full meaning of his in front of one of the Moseley Baptist in both Cherokee and English and remark. In a story that appeared Churches (yes, it is spelled wrong on yssey. The rural road in front of our when tribal citizenship was not about see the headstones of your ancestors the building sign). | Document photo- modest farmhouse was the county skin color, but about which culture from one vantage point. We drove in teasing tones proclaimed, “Well, I in major newspapers across the graphy for this article by W. Michael line separating Adair and Delaware would define your life’s course. on to where Shell Branch and the guess the final box is here so now we country, on election night just four McShan. Ephemera scans coordinated by Adele Smith. Counties. Stilwell, where my dad Ross lived as a Cherokee, just as my Baron Fork intersect, past Peavine, can call in the dogs.” years before, Adair County Sheriff had been raised, may as well have family decided to do, in an era when and then south toward Stilwell. Dad My father handed over the large Chester Crittenden was in a heated been on the dark side of the moon it would have been much easier to kept me awake by pointing out where square galvanized metal box and the run-off race with former Under from our end of the county. I had “just be White.” Self-determination cousins lived and by watching for padlock’s key in a small envelope with Sheriff Robert “Bob” Alberty. Near th been to Stilwell with my Cherokee is powerful. Granddad Charlie was a deer crossing the road. a wax seal bearing the 46 Star to midnight on July 3, 1956, Sheriff grandmother to see her father, my leathery, somewhat scary connection Lights were ablaze on both floors prove that the contents had been safe- Crittenden and Bob Alberty were great-grandfather Charlie Starr, the to my Starr family that I would later of the Adair County Courthouse, guarded. As county election officials hanging around the courthouse patriarch of our mixed-blood family. learn was filled to overflowing with a 1930s Art Deco jewel of blond opened the box and began their inven- during the vote counting and the two The Starrs had played significant characters famous and infamous, brick with limestone casements. In tory of the ballots, my dad took me by opponents met in the jail kitchen. roles in the political and governmen- from senators and cabinet secretaries an architectural cliché, the heads the hand and we made our way up the Some said an argument erupted over tal workings of the Cherokee Nation to assassins and outlaws. He was my of Indian chiefs, carved in the lime- stairs to the jail on the second floor. how the ballots were being counted; since the intermarriage of a young living connection to pre-statehood stone over the front doors, were The kitchen, ordinarily relegated for some say that Sheriff Crittenden Quaker who came among the Cher- Cherokee history. bedecked in feather headdresses the preparation of prisoner meals, was going to arrest Alberty
34 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 35 1. Kennedy-Johnson and flag pins. “Welcome LBJ” poster distributed to attendees during President Johnson’s visit to Pryor, Oklahoma, in August 1966. 2. News Election Service form with instructions to collect and report election results to the media. The form notes that votes cast in the presidential election in Adair County, Number 1, Congressional District 2, 1 on Nov. 2, 1976, totaled 14 for Gerald Ford, 28 for Jimmy Carter, and 0 for Eugene McCarthy. 3. Small 3 shop building on the Hannah farm that served as 2 the Ballard II polling place for the 1976 elections.
for carrying a concealed pistol and for Nixon. A largely Democrat-pop- who had just celebrated his 58th birth- never heard before asked me if I knew top of the ticket when I went to cast when he came to Tahlequah to inau- being drunk. Those in the courthouse ulated county had overwhelmingly day. I was more impressed with the how to get to Oaks Indian Mission. I my first “real ballot” in a presidential gurate the community’s Habitat for that night agreed upon one thing: voted for a Republican presidential high kicks of the Rangerettes than pointed west and they drove away. election. In November 1976, my dad Humanity Chapter. A soft-spoken there was a flurry of gunshots. Crit- candidate. The numbers were reflec- the high talk of what seemed to be a Senator Kennedy, Chairman of was still officiating elections for man with a genuine heart for rural tenden staggered out of the kitchen tive of the entire state. Oklahoma, battalion of politicians in gray suits. the U.S. Senate subcommittee Ballard II. This time the votes were America, Carter would face the with wounds in the chest, stomach, with its majority of voters registered President Johnson pointed politi- studying Indian Education, remark- cast in a workshop building on our trials of gasoline shortages and the and one shoulder from Alberty’s as Democrats at that time, carried cal barbs at Republican Governor ed, “There ought to be more empha- family’s farm. Green Valley School hostage crisis in Iran that defined his Colt .32 automatic, making it only a Republican Richard Milhous Nixon Bellmon, but quickly moved to sis on Indian culture.” He was House had mysteriously burned administration. While his successes few steps before he collapsed dead. by 59.02% of the vote. My dad answering his own question: “Why right. Four months later, on June 5th, after an itinerate preacher leased in the White House were few, in 2020 Alberty was found on the kitchen blamed Mrs. Harless. Still, the tide are we in Viet Nam?” All the Way Bobby Kennedy was fatally wounded the building from the school board at age 96 he still teaches Sunday floor, dead from a single wound over of the national vote put JFK in the with LBJ buttons, Welcome LBJ post- only moments after claiming victory to hold church services. His brand of School class and swings a hammer his left eye from the Sheriff’s Smith White House by .02% of the vote. ers, and the chance to shake his hand in the California presidential pri- evangelism apparently crossed the for Habitat. & Wesson .38. The case was ruled made my first “in the flesh” presiden- mary. During the evening news, I bounds of acceptance for the com- I was not old enough to vote in a double murder. It was an election Other presidential elections tial sighting a memorable experience. saw film footage of his final moments munity’s traditional congregations. the tribal election that transitioned night to be remembered and its caught my eye across the years. I was Senator Robert Kennedy, brother lying on the hotel’s kitchen floor. Some joked that the old school- leadership from W.W. Keeler to Ross lesson on the hazards of mixing in the sixth grade in August 1966 of slain president John F. Kennedy, When I heard the news, I couldn’t house had succumbed to a fire and Swimmer. I was in the polling place pistols, alcohol, and politics was when my mom took me out of school made a cameo appearance at Oaks help but think of his big smile, brimstone sermon; some speculated line to vote for a young and vibrant duly noted. to travel to her birthplace, Pryor, Indian Mission on February 18, 1968. asking me for directions. Once it was lightning. My mom just said, Wilma Mankiller as the first female I awoke the next morning and Oklahoma, to see President Lyndon It was my first glimpse of (at the again the world changed. Earlier “God works in mysterious ways.” Principal Chief of the Cherokee ambled into the kitchen where my Johnson speak at the opening of time) a not-yet-presidential-hopeful. in April of ’68, Martin Luther King, Without the traditional polling Nation. Although Wilma had grown mom and dad were having break- the Mid-America Industrial Park. A His plane landed at a nearby Arkan- Jr., another voice seeking to reason venue, the County Election Board up in Adair County, our paths would fast. My mom pulled me to her lap who’s-who of Oklahoma politicians sas airport so that a car could easily with America’s internal turmoil over granted permission to conduct voting not cross until she had returned to and said, “Well, I guess your vote were the warmup act for the pres- drive Highway 33 past Stinchcomb’s an unpopular war and the strife on our family farm. My first official the Nation from California, where counted. John Kennedy is going to be ident: U.S. Senator Fred Harris, Corner on its way to the gathering at of racial inequity, had been struck presidential ballot was cast literally her family had been relocated in a President Kennedy thanks to you.” Governor Henry Bellmon, Lt. Gover- the Oaks High School Gymnasium. I down at a hotel in Memphis. Seeing in my own backyard. Cows near the federal plan to provide employment I asked how she knew how I had nor George Nigh, and U.S. Speaker was out in front of the old rock store, the country’s angst as a capstone barn bawled loudly at the sight opportunities to Native Americans. marked my ballot. She smiled and of the House Carl Albert. The Kilgore which my parents now operated, in lethality before my thirteenth of strangers coming and going She was not just an elected Principal said; “I saw the rooster’s feathers in Rangerettes provided entertainment when the black Lincoln slowed and birthday gave me pause. throughout the day. Jimmy Carter Chief; Wilma was a beloved woman, your hair.” and Anita Bryant, accompanied by pulled into the gravel driveway. The Democrat Jimmy Carter of carried the vote in Ballard II and great leader, and a good friend. Her Adair County cast only 1,903 votes the Pryor High School Band, sang backseat window rolled down and a Georgia and incumbent Republican across the country. I would later outlier approach to leadership was for Kennedy as compared to 3,655 “Happy Birthday” to the president, man with a Bostonian accent I had President Gerald Ford were at the meet President Carter in Sept. 1989 that of a listener. Wilma’s approach
HANNAH | cont. p. 96 36 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 Graffiti on the west side of the Berlin Wall offers a glimpse into East Germany, by SSGT. F. Lee Cockran, Nov. 14, 1989, LEARNING FROM THE PAST National Archives. RIGHT: Berlin Wall near the Brandenburg Gate, by Sue Ream, BEN ALPERS Nov. 9, 1989 (CC BY 3.0) Wikimedia ACTING FOR THE FUTURE
On November 9, 1989, I was in a restaurant eating pizza with a friend when German history from whom I’d also taken a course, had published a book I looked up at the TV behind the bar and saw something I never expected on German national identity, concluding that the two Germanies had become to see: Hundreds of people were standing triumphantly on the Berlin Wall. quite separate societies and would remain so for the foreseeable future. These Although the chain of events that led to that moment started months earlier, senior scholars were proven wrong within a year of the Wall falling. it still came as an extraordinary surprise to those of us living through I don’t mention their errors to denigrate them—both were brilliant. that moment. I learned an enormous amount from the seminar on modern Europe. And I was in my third semester of graduate school at the time. And though I was that book on German national identity is terrific (though a quite different doing a PhD in American history, that fall semester I was taking a graduate conclusion was added to a second edition). But the misinterpretations of seminar on modern European history. I remember my professor telling us, these two teachers taught me a number of valuable lessons, one of the most even after the Wall fell, that he thought German unification was unlikely. important of which was that it can be extraordinarily difficult to navigate That very year, another professor in the department, a specialist in modern one’s way through times of unexpected change.
38 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 39 1 2 3
PHOTOS: 1. President Lyndon B. Johnson meeting with advisors on Detroit riot crisis, by Yoichi Okamoto, White House photographer, July 24, 1967, LBJ Library. 2. Copy of Los Angeles Times, “Looting and Fires Ravage L.A., 23 Dead, 572 Injured.” Posted by Dark Sevier (CC BY NC 2.0) Flickr. 3. Gulf of Tonkin Incident: John J. Herrick, USN, Commander Destroyer Division 192 4 5 6 (left) and Comm. Herbert L. Ogier, USN, Commanding Officer of the destroyer USS Maddox, on board Maddox, 13 August 1964. They were in charge of the ship during her engagement with three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats on 2 August 1964, photographed As I write this in early June 2020, resolved, we will doubtless face other But often, public discussion of George H.W. Bush the authority to present moment is to figure out which by PH3 White. Official U.S. Navy Photograph. 4. Richard Nixon our nation is going through two crises in the years ahead. So, how can history and current events turns into go to war against Iraq in Kuwait. historical story we find ourselves in gives his trademark “victory” sign, enormous crises. The first is the we better understand a moment like a game of “Find the Right Analogy”: Historical analogies seemed to and where we are in its unfolding. Paoli, PA, Ollie Atkins, White House photographer, July 1968, National COVID-19 epidemic. At least 1.9 mil- this? How can we be more informed Is the U.S. in 2020 becoming the dominate the discussion: Would Even if the analogy one reaches for Archives. 5. President George H. lion Americans have contracted the (and more involved) citizens in times America of 1968, when white refusing to pass authorization for the is an unhappy one, at least one feels W. Bush rides in a HUMVEE with disease; at least 110,000 have died of of turmoil? backlash against urban unrest helped use of military force against Iraq be sure of where one is going. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Saudi Arabia, David Valdez, White it. The nation is also being rocked by Great crises have deep roots and elect Richard Nixon? Are we in 1992, tantamount to Neville Chamberlain’s Narrative is a powerful tool histo- House photographer, Nov. 22, protests in the wake of the murder of the two that the nation is facing as I when civil disturbances following the attempted appeasement of Hitler in rians use to understand the past and 1990, National Archives. 6. Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler shake George Floyd. Though these protests write are no exception. George Floyd’s acquittal of four L.A. police officers 1938? Would passing such an autho- convey that understanding to each hands during meetings for Munich have been mostly peaceful, our presi- murder is rooted in four hundred charged with using excessive force rization prove to be like the Vietnam other and to broader audiences. But Agreement, 1938. Brazilian National dent has responded by threatening to years of white supremacy and the in the arrest of Rodney King led to a War-era’s Gulf of Tonkin resolution? the stories of history are, by their Archives via Wikimedia. quell them with the U.S. military. related shorter history of modern different series of political outcomes? There’s something comforting very nature, retroactive. Over time, By the time you read this, you will American policing. Understanding It is common for American about the notion that history repeats what we see as important in the past know much more about how these two these and other historical contexts for citizens and policymakers to think itself in such simple ways. We like to changes. And, as it does, the stories crises have evolved; it is possible that Floyd’s death, and the public and state about the present by relating it to think of history as a series of stories. we tell about the past change too. For neither will be over. And even in the responses to it, is essential for acting the past. In early 1991, Congress And it would be nice to think that example, from the 1940s through unlikely event that they have entirely intelligently and effectively. debated whether to give President all one had to do to understand any the 1970s, U.S. historians viewed
40 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 41 The scary fact that we cannot know how a crisis will turn out also holds
HwangMangjoo, rawpixel.com HwangMangjoo, within it the possibility that we can play a role in making the future better.
Black Lives Matter Rally, by David Geitgey Sierralupe, May 31, 2020. Eugene Police Department estimates between 7,000-10,000 marched during a pandemic to denounce racist police violence (CC BY 2.0/Flickr).
the 1930s as a period in which “modern from the vantage points of, say, the years Rather, it is the belief that, in the midst of that everything will turn out fine in the end. America” emerged. During those decades 2030, 2050, and 2100. And current events crisis, possibilities exist for a better country That “spaciousness of uncertainty” brings economic inequality shrank. Union member- have not yet played themselves out. Will the and a better world to emerge. As Solnit with it responsibility: to listen (especially to ship soared. The New Deal and Great wave of protests gripping the country end writes, “Hope locates itself in the premises those most affected by crises), to learn, to Society created a fairly robust social safety with the fundamental criminal justice reform that we don’t know what will happen and that think, and to act. How we act is ultimately net. And those developments enjoyed broad protestors want, or with an intensified show in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room a matter of choice. Nothing and nobody can (though hardly universal) public support. of force from the police, or will they end to act.” Part of that action, Solnit suggests, make that choice for us. But as the aspects of mid-twentieth- some other way entirely? Will the COVID-19 consists of the narratives we fashion: “Every When I saw those people on TV standing century America have changed over the last pandemic peter out or reassert itself? Will the conflict is in part a battle over the story we on the Berlin Wall, I was a distant observer four decades, historians’ views of the 1930s economy experience a “V-shaped” recovery tell, or who tells and who is heard.” to the events rocking Europe in 1989. I have changed as well. Rather than building or will the downturn drag on? The answers An understanding of history—in the don’t have that luxury in relationship to the a foundation for modern America, the New to these questions are all in our future . . . or sense of what happened and the stories crises facing our nation today. But I learned Deal now looks like, in the words of histo- at least they are as I write this. we tell about what happened—can play a a second lesson from my professors’ rian Jefferson Cowie, “the Great Exception.” From the vantage point of spring misreading of those past winds of change—a critical role in informing our hopeful action Those decades of decreased economic 2020, it would be comforting to know the lesson of humility. However knowledgeable in response to crisis. Crises, in turn, lead inequality stand in stark contrast not only answers to these questions. Indulging in we are about the kinds of crises we face, us to ask different questions of the past, to what came before but also to what came historical analogy—as comparing 2020 we are likely to make mistakes in analyzing to listen to voices that have been silenced after. Now historians ask different questions to 1968—appears to define the issues them. Along with the responsibility to act or ignored. It is no accident that The New of the middle decades of the twentieth and where we are going. Not only is that a comes a responsibility to admit to the York Times’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 century: What unusual circumstances comfort history cannot provide, it also comes mistakes that we will inevitably make, to Project, which attempts to center American made possible these unusual results? What at a substantial cost. The scary fact that we ourselves and to those around us. changed to bring this exceptional period cannot know how a crisis will turn out also history around the legacy of slavery, began to an end? In answering these new ques- holds within it the possibility that we can play in 2019, at the end of a decade in which BEN ALPERS is the Reach for Excellence Associate tions, the stories we tell about that period a role in making the future better. white nationalism had grown in power, even Professor in the Honors College at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of Dictators, have changed. In 2004, the writer Rebecca Solnit as Black Lives Matter and other attempts to Democracy, and American Public Culture and is The situation is even more fraught, when published a book about living through crisis address systemic racism emerged. currently at work on a book about Americans in the trying to understand the present. The events entitled Hope in the Dark. For Solnit, hope Solnit’s vision of hope cannot entirely 1970s thinking about the American past. He also of 2020 will almost certainly look different is not a faith that everything will turn out fine. tell us what to do any more than it suggests serves on the board of Oklahoma Humanities.
42 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 43 The extraordinary accomplishments of Ida B. Wells & Madam C. J. Walker c Ida was born into slavery in Holly Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1896. The Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. The common cause that had united Black and eldest of eight children, she graduated from White abolitionists like Anthony, Stanton, Shaw University (now Rust College) and Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth moved to Memphis where she started as during the 1840s and 1850s fractured a teacher, then turned to journalism and after the Civil War when the 15th Amend- activism. In 1895, she married attorney ment enfranchised Black men but not Ferdinand L. Barnett and settled in Chicago White women in 1870. Acutely aware of where they had four children together. the rift, abolitionist and NACW co-founder Madam was born Sarah Breedlove on Frances Ellen Watkins Harper told December 23, 1867, on the same Delta, delegates at the 1873 American Woman a thethe Louisiana, plantation where her parents Suffrage Association convention that as e and older siblings had been enslaved “much as white women need the ballot, before Emancipation. Orphaned at seven colored women need it more.”
and widowed at twenty with a young c WayWay daughter, she moved in 1888 to St. Louis The decades-long tension came to a where her brothers were barbers. She head on March 3, 1913—the day before MICHELLE DUSTER and A’LELIA BUNDLES was a washerwoman until 1906 when she President-elect Woodrow Wilson’s inau- c developed a line of hair care products for guration—during a parade for women’s Madam C. J. Walker in front of her Indianap- As we mark the centennial of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. olis home, 1912, at the wheel of her Model Black women soon after marrying her third suffrage in Washington, D.C. Parade orga- Constitution, the story of American women’s battle to secure T with (left to right): Anjetta Breedlove, husband, Charles Joseph Walker. nizer Alice Paul consigned Black women to Madam Walker's niece (in front passenger’s the right to vote is being rewritten. Hidden drama and missing While still a poor laundress, Sarah was the rear of the procession because Southern seat); Lucy Flint (Madam C. J. Walker Manu- details are being revealed as suffragists like Mary Church Terrell, facturing Company bookkeeper) and Alice embraced and mentored by the women of St. White women objected to their presence. Kelly (Walker Company factory manager). Zitkala-Sa, Lola Armijo, Mabel Lee, and other women of color now take their rightful places beside Susan B. Anthony and Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church. Ida, who had faced even more formidable Elizabeth Cady Stanton in new books, musicals, podcasts, and When the National Association of Colored opponents, defied the order and joined museum exhibitions. Women (NACW) met at St. Paul’s during its the otherwise all-White Illinois delegation. This more accurate historical account allows us to reflect on the 1904 convention, she observed the power of Welcome or not, Ida, Madam, and thou- roles our ancestors, Ida B. Wells and Madam C. J. Walker, played Black women organized around civic, polit- sands of Black women created their own in the fight for women’s suffrage. Ida B. Wells—Michelle Duster’s ical, and social activism. Ida, who already local groups. In January 1913, Ida founded great-grandmother—is best known as a journalist, suffragist, anti- was an internationally traveled civil rights the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, just a lynching activist, and a co-founder of the NAACP. In May, she was advocate, had been a founder of the NACW. few months before Illinois passed legisla- posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for her Although Black women had advocated tion granting women limited voting rights. courageous investigative reporting. Madam C. J. Walker—A’Lelia for suffrage even before the 1848 Seneca At the time of the March 1913 suffrage Bundles’s great-great-grandmother—was a beauty industry entrepre- Falls convention for women’s rights, parade, Madam was in the midst of neur who provided jobs for thousands of Black women and became members of the NACW were excluded a long-scheduled trip through South a philanthropist and political activist. from a meeting of the all-White General Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama
44 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 45 to recruit new sales who resented his political and economic town well. Three days after the riot, Ida took Wilson to task agents for her haircare influence. Madam’s eldest brother, who arrived to interview residents for firsthand over the segregation. company. But even was a Pollard ally, fled at the same time. accounts of the attacks. Her East St. Louis With American troops—
as she focused on c Massacre pamphlet documented the state including thousands of building her business, We don’t know exactly when Madam militia’s complicity in the destruction of Black soldiers—fighting in she realized the impor- and Ida met, though Ida’s recollection in her an African American community. (The France during World War tance of the vote and autobiography, Crusade for Justice, suggests national reaction to the devastation in I, he dismissed the legiti- women’s collective action. it was as early as 1906, soon after Madam 1917 was akin to the outrage that followed mate domestic concerns of In June 1912, she had hosted founded the Madam C. J. Walker Manufac- the murder of George Floyd in Minneap- African Americans as disloyal the Colored Branch of Indiana’s turing Company. Their paths continued to olis in May 2020.) and unpatriotic distractions. To Equal Suffrage Association in her cross at conventions during the next decade Among the strongest displays of force complicate the situation, suffragists Indianapolis home. Local teacher as each worked to advance the cause. In was a Silent Protest Parade organized by had been picketing the White House Caroline “Carrie” Barnes, a graduate of Chicago, Ida and the Alpha Suffrage Club’s the NAACP’s New York branch executive since January 1917. Two weeks after Columbia and Tuskegee, had organized push for Black women to vote led to the committee on which Madam served. The the Harlem delegation’s visit, National forty members, including Madam’s 1914 election of Oscar De Priest as the demonstration drew a multi-generational Woman’s Party members were brutally bookkeeper, Lucy Flint, and her attorney, first Black alderman and made it possible crowd of 10,000 marchers who processed beaten, arrested, and imprisoned after Freeman B. Ransom. for them to wield continued influence on up Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue holding unfurling a banner comparing Wilson to the The U.S.This House portrait of ofRepresentatives Madam Walker Ida and Madam considered enfran- local politics. In New York, during the banners that denounced lynching. A dictatorial German emperor. Ida B. Wells-Barnette, portrait was taken circa 1913 by well- by Sallie E. Garrity, ca. 1893. Ida and theknown Nineteenth photographer Amendment Addison chisement a means to combat the racial 1916 presidential election, the Richmond few days later, Madam joined a group of Madam and Ida’s affiliation with B. Wells sued the Chesapeake, Scurlock, Washington, D.C., and violence they both had witnessed. In Planet reported that Madam urged women Harlem leaders who traveled to the White Trotter, as well as their own outspo- Ohio, and Southwestern Railway appeared in Walker Company Memphis, three of Ida’s friends, whose to fight for the vote as a way to “bring about House with a petition urging President kenness, had drawn negative attention in 1883 after being dragged from advertisements for decades. her seat for refusing to move to The image was used on the grocery was in direct competition with a a better economic and industrial condition Woodrow Wilson to support legislation from the Wilson administration. During a segregated railcar. Her anger 1998 U.S. Black Heritage Series nearby White-owned store, were lynched for the race” and to allow them to confront to make lynching a federal crime. At the 1917 NERL meeting and at subse- spurred her to begin contributing postage stamp of Madam C. J. articles to Black-owned news- Walker. Photo here and page in 1892 on the pretext of a crime they did “the infamous Jim Crow cars and other the Madam Walker Beauty Culturists quent gatherings, both women were papers. She became part owner 44 courtesy Madam Walker not commit. In her articles, Ida exposed the unjust discrimination.” League’s first national convention that spied upon by Walter Loving, a Black and editor of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight Family Archives, A’Lelia Bundles. truth about lynching as an act of terrorism In September 1917, Madam hosted a August, the delegates sent a telegram agent for the War Department’s Military in 1889. BUTTON: Manufactured by the After three Black businessmen Whitehead & Hoag Company and political intimidation. She called for dinner in her Harlem townhouse for Ida to Wilson reinforcing the demand for Intelligence Division, which had also were lynched in Memphis in in Newark, NJ, this dime-sized boycotts of White-owned businesses and and the board of the National Equal Rights an anti-lynching bill, something Ida had been monitoring Hull House founder 1892, Wells launched a four- button announced support for decades-long anti-lynching cru- women’s voting rights. The gold streetcars. After a visit to the Oklahoma League (NERL), an organization led by spoken to President William S. McKinley and suffragist Jane Addams and other sade and published her ground- background was emblematic of Territory, she suggested mass migration Boston Guardian editor William Monroe about almost two decades earlier in 1898. Whites it deemed radical. In a classified breaking treatise on the topic, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law the suffrage movement’s primary from Memphis and even considered relo- Trotter. The NERL convention happened at Wilson was particularly peevish about report, Madam and Ida were labelled color, and the phrase “Votes for in All Its Phases, in 1892. Women” was one of its main cating there. As a child in Madison Parish, a particularly fraught time in America. Two matters of race and the rights of African “Negro subversives” for the transgres- Portrait and text, National rallying cries. U.S. House of Louisiana, during the 1870s, Madam months earlier, a White mob—resentful of Americans. The first Southern-born pres- sion of protesting racism, lynching, Portrait Gallery. BUTTON: Yellow Representatives Collections “Votes for Women” button, had seen the Ku Klux Klan and former Black men who had replaced them during ident elected since the Civil War, he had and discrimination. Missouri History Museum. Confederates reclaim control of local factory strikes in East St. Louis, Illinois— imposed racial segregation on previously Black suffragists were fighting on many government and the state legislature. killed more than three dozen Black men, integrated federal offices at the Bureau of fronts. Unlike their White counterparts, Curtis Pollard, her family minister who women, and children during a three-day Engraving and Printing shortly after his Black women faced legally sanctioned insti- had been elected a state senator during spree of violence. Madam, who had lived inauguration—sparking a highly publi- tutional racism that denied them and their Reconstruction, was chased at gunpoint just across the Mississippi River in St. cized clash when, at a 1914 White House families housing, education, jobs, health from the state by White supremacists Louis for almost two decades, knew the meeting, NERL leader William Trotter care, and adequate wages.
46 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 47 for Self Made, the recent Netflix series and that American democracy remains a starring Octavia Spencer. work in progress. During this centennial In the spirit of our ancestors, we, too, commemoration of women’s right to focus on work that brings equity to Black vote, we are reminded that Ida B. Wells women. We engage in truth-telling to and Madam C. J. Walker—along with document and give credit to the genera- hundreds of other women of color—never tions of women who paved the way for us, shied away from challenging America to A’LELIA BUNDLES is an author and and to support the activists who address live up to its ideals. Just as they inspired journalist. A former ABC News the unfinished business of voting rights, generations of activists, we strive to do producer and executive, she serves women’s rights, income inequality, and our part today. Along with our family on several nonprofit boards social justice. Because of Ida and Madam, ties to these visionary pioneers comes including the National Archives we know voter suppression when we the privilege and responsibility to make Foundation, where she is Chair Emerita. Her biography The Joy see it. We know that the literacy tests, their stories relevant in ways that inspire Goddess of Harlem: A’Lelia Walker grandfather clauses, and poll taxes that young girls and motivate today’s social and the Harlem Renaissance blocked our ancestors from voting have justice activists. will be published by Scribner Silent protest parade, New York City, against the East St. Louis riots, 1917, c. Underwood & Underwood (Library of Congress). been replaced today with purges of voter in 2021. Twitter and Instagram: Organized by the NAACP with community and church leaders, the procession down Fifth Avenue united an estimated 10,000 EXTRA! READ | THINK | TALK | LINK @aleliabundles | aleliabundles.com African American marchers. BELOW: “Votes for Women” sash (Library of Virginia Visual Studies Collection) rolls, shuttering of polling places, and restrictive voter ID laws. . “Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Despite past and current efforts to Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913,” Sheridan Harvey, Library of Congress. How Alice Paul stymie communities of color, we are worked to organize and execute the parade, energized by the political impact of the mistreatment of marchers by onlookers women—and especially Black women— and police, efforts to sideline Black women, who have staked a claim as a powerful and the subsequent impact on the suffrage movement. loc.gov
c voting bloc and consistently voted in . “Madam C. J. Walker,” Amber Paranick, th of her voting rights. In 1930, just one year When the 19 Amendment was enacted higher percentages than other cohorts in May 29, 2020, Library of Congress. How in 1920, it was intended to guarantee that before her death, she even dared to run for recent elections. Ida and Madam would Madam used her entrepreneurial success to “the right of citizens of the United States state senate. As Ida and Madam’s biogra- have been pleased that 102 women were employ Black women, improve her commu- to vote shall not be denied or abridged phers and carriers of their legacies, we feel elected to the U.S. House of Representa- nity, and provide a gathering place for Black fortunate that our ancestors knew each civic leaders. loc.gov by the United States or by any State tives in 2018 and that a quarter of U.S. . “100 Years Ago African-Americans Marched on account of sex.” For Black women, other and worked together. We cherish the senators are women, including California Down 5th Avenue to Declare that Black that franchise remained elusive. Legal chance to join forces and make our own Senator Kamala Harris, the first woman Lives Matter,” Chad Williams, July 25, 2017, The Conversation barriers were quickly erected in states history together. of color to be nominated to a major party . Events that brought MICHELLE DUSTER is an author, a multi-generational crowd of 10,000 to professor, and public historian. She with significant Black populations. The Michelle has led efforts to name streets presidential ticket after being selected as New York City to march in silent protest has written or edited six books fight for suffrage for many Black women and to commission historical markers, Joe Biden’s VP candidate in August 2020. against lynching riots in East St. Louis, IL. including Ida In Her Own Words and men would continue for another statues, and monuments to honor her Like Ida and Madam, we know that theconversation.com and Ida From Abroad which feature 45 years until the Voting Rights Act of great-grandmother and other history- the opportunity to have a voice in politics, . “Suffrage in 60 seconds: African American Ida’s original writings. Her book Ida Women and the Vote,” video series. National B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life 1965—and indeed continues to this day. making women. A’Lelia’s biography On both as voters and public servants, Park Service. Black women’s marginalization and Legacy of Ida B. Wells will be Madam died in May 1919 more than Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of should be available to all. Like Ida and and the efforts by activists like Ida B. Wells to published by Simon & Schuster in th a year before the 19 Amendment was Madam C. J. Walker was a New York Madam, we know that women of color advance the cause of suffrage for all women. January 2021. Twitter and Instagram: ratified, but Ida was able to take advantage Times Notable Book and the inspiration must continue to fight on many fronts nps.gov @michelleduster | mldwrites.com
48 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 49 ON CIVILITY PAMELA CHEW
nly now do I understand why my Chinese father wanted me to answer our phone or open the front door when the doorbell rang at our house in small-town Missouri. Even a professor who held an endowed chair still worried and dreaded a knock at the door. He constantly needed reassurance that his life in the Midwest in 1950—unlike the life he knew growing up in Chinatown in San Francisco during the ’20s and ’30s—would not be questioned, taken away, or jeopardized because of race, status, or documents. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited Chinese people from entering the United States, testifying in court, owning property, voting, marrying non-Chinese, or working in institutional agencies. The Act was still in place when my father and his six siblings were born. They were separated and placed in orphanages in the Bay area when their mother died during childbirth. All six were given English names by the nurses in the hospital. My father was now Harry Chew. Their limited-English-speaking father, a domestic cook, had no alternative other than remain employed in the home of an affluent female physician—without his children. This upbringing impacted my father’s way of thinking, conduct, and philosophy of life. He was reluctant to talk about his childhood or adolescence. I understood that his silence meant the pain he experienced never disappeared. He once revealed that he received a dime a week as an allowance from his birth father, which he carefully divided: one nickel for a fresh loaf of French bread that he ate sitting on the pier at the wharf; the other bought entrance to the Saturday matinee, where he could escape prejudice, hatred, and degradation, where he could be inspired and dream of what could be achieved in America. When the U.S. entered World War II with China as an ally, my father enlisted, becoming a cartographer in the United States Air Force. In December 1943, President Roosevelt signed the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, ending a period described as sixty years of Harry Chew legalized racism and discrimination. After his service, the GI Bill funded my father’s MFA at the Kansas City Art Institute. On graduation day, a fellow grad drove my father and mother to be married in Kansas, because Missouri miscegenation laws banned interracial marriage. My artist mother was of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage. After the civil ceremony, the same friend drove my newlywed parents to Cottey College, a two-year women’s liberal arts institution in Nevada,
The Fisherman, Harry Chew where my professor father would be respected and admired for the rest of his life by a community that embraced him until his death in 1978. Eventually, the civility of his neighbors helped my father find the security, peacefulness, and sense of belonging he longed for.
PAMELA CHEW recently retired from Tulsa Community College where she has taught since 1985. She was the founding faculty member of both the Italian and ESL Programs. She has also taught at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, as well as in Honduras and Colombia. IMAGE, RIGHT: Wedding portrait of Harry Chew’s parents, Shee Kwok and Ngan Chew
50 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 51 Discover the untold stories of the suffragists behind the movement for women’s voting rights through National Archives records, educational materials and downloadable posters, a virtual exhibit, and an online curator-led exhibit. DocsTeach Virtual Programs Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin Interact with downloadable, primary resource Engage with history through educational documents with classroom lessons and programming for children and adults Native American suffragist Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin student activities. streamed live online. was a prominent advocate for Native women, walking alongside White women in the 1913 suffrage march in Washington, D.C. Educator Training Sessions Presidential Libraries Help students understand the founding of our Learn from the records, artifacts, and online Mary Church Terrell democracy and key moments in U.S. history exhibits from fourteen Presidents. Mary Church Terrell was an advocate for women's with primary documents through our online suffrage who argued that the vote would be key for professional development program. African American women to achieve civil rights.
Records of Rights Founding Documents Mabel Ping-Hua Lee Discover America's founding documents Explore records documenting the ongoing Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was an outspoken Chinese immigrant with teaching resources and an infographic struggle of Americans to define, attain, and who joined the fight for women's voting rights, despite the on the Declaration of Independence, protect their rights with the online exhibit fact that the Chinese Exclusion Act prevented Lee from U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights. Records of Rights. becoming a citizen and voting. archivesfoundation.org/civics archivesfoundation.org/resources archivesfoundation.org/women Made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the support of Unilever, FALL | WINTER 2020 | OKLAHOMA 52 CITIZEN 2020 Pivotal Ventures, Carl M. Freeman Foundation in honor of Virginia AllenHUMANITIES Freeman, and AARP.53 PHOTOS: 1. General William Westmoreland and President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House, April 7, 1968, by Frank Wolfe (LBJ Library, NARA). 2. Young “hippie” and National Guard soldiers across the street from Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Aug. 26, 1968, by Warren K. Leffler U.S. ( News & World Report Collection, loc.gov). 3. Draft resistance rally at Yale Univ., by Robert Child, New Haven Journal Courier, March 4, 1968 (NARA). 4. Fleeing 1968 Tet Offensive, Vietnam, (DOD, Wikimedia). 5. Richard Nixon campaigning, Sept. 1968 (NARA). 6. Cpl. James E. Mull, 21, listens to election returns over Armed Forces Radio, Vietnam, Nov. 1968, by Cpl. P. Kratofil (Official USMC Photograph). 7. Aftermath of rioting following assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., IN 1968, A BATTLE WAS RAGING Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN), a local Washington, D.C., by Warren K. Leffler, April 8, 1968 U.S.( News & World Report Collection, loc.gov). 8. PVT James E. Stadig and company exiting in American political and cultural life. The subsection of the worldwide American Forces Viet Cong cave, Vietnam, Oct. 26, 1967, by Robert C. Lafoon (NARA). Tet Offensive, a series of coordinated attacks Radio and Television Service (AFRTS). by North Vietnamese troops on South Viet- At the time, AFVN consisted of six radio 1 namese targets, exposed the gap between and eight television stations, providing representations of the Vietnam War and ’round-the-clock information and enter- conditions on the ground. Anti-war protests tainment to troops “from the Delta to the sprang up on campuses across the country. DMZ,” as AFVN DJs were fond of saying. Draft resistance surged, and public support Programs transcribed onto vinyl records, for the Johnson administration’s policies cassette tapes, and 16 mm film were shipped dipped to fifty percent. A surprisingly strong every few days from the AFRTS office in Los showing for anti-war candidate Eugene Angeles, CA, while timely news and sports McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary were delivered via shortwave radio and the led President Johnson to bow out of the 1968 occasional satellite feed. Up to ninety-six campaign, and anti-war protests at the Demo- percent of the 500,000 troops stationed in cratic National Convention turned violent Vietnam could purportedly access AFVN as Chicago Police waded into the crowds, radio, and eighty-five percent could receive 2 3 beating protesters and bystanders alike. the television signals. To make matters worse, the assassination For the 1968 election special, AFVN of Martin Luther King, Jr., in April incited a newscasters painted special red-white-and- EDUCATING THE TROOPS wave of urban riots, and National Guard blue election sets, worked up profiles on members, many of whom had joined to avoid the major races and candidates, primed SHAPING CONSENSUS WITH “DEMOCRATIC PROPAGANDA” serving in the war, were called to keep the their audience using special spot announce- peace on the streets of America. Republican ments, then reported on the big race as STACY TAKACS candidate Richard Nixon won the Repub- well as all 435 House races, key Senate lican nomination on a promise to end the war and gubernatorial campaigns, and several and “curb disorder and crime in American special ballot initiatives. When the coverage cities.” The election, which pitted Nixon dragged into the evening hours, Saigon against Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) and segre- News Chief Randy Moody (1968-1969) gationist George Wallace (I-AL), was shaping recalled that broadcasters used “a videotape up to be a moratorium on the conduct of the of a weeks-old Notre Dame-Michigan State war and the direction of American society. football game and a Doris Day movie” as Amid this roiling domestic drama, U.S. filler and broke in to provide updates. At soldiers in Vietnam were encouraged to 2 a.m. local time, AFVN was finally able to register for absentee ballots and were kept announce Nixon’s victory. informed about political events at home The live election show was quite a via daily newscasts and hourly radio bulle- departure from AFVN’s usual programming, 4 5 tins. Most impressively, they were treated which consisted of “rip-and-read” newscasts to about eighteen hours of live television and a steady diet of diverting amusements election coverage presented by military like Batman, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, broadcasters associated with the American and Mission Impossible. In Armed with
54 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 55 6 7 8 We bring them in with Bing Crosby . . .
1. Theodore R. Poston, [NARA record identifies as] head of the Negro Press Section, Office of War Information, ca. 1941-1945. 2. Components of the Information and Education Division, from “Why? The Story of Information in the American Army, Part I,” by Russell O Fudge, Armored Cavalry Journal, March-April (1950). 3. Soldiers listening to “Mosquito Network” Pacific Radio (radioworld.com). 4. Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby at war bonds 1 2 benefit, Hollywood, CA, 1944 (doctormacro.com) 3 4
Abundance, historian Meredith Lair has information and education (I&E) materials AFRS provided this information sand- As WWII wound down, AFRS staffers described such creature comforts—radio, TV, which were the main rationale for the service. wiched between a steady diet of jazz, jive, began planning for the postwar context movies, hot food, cold beer, air conditioning, As one AFRS alum put it, “We gather them country, and variety programs drawn by recalibrating the balance between and consumer abundance—as emotional in with Bing Crosby and then sell them their from commercial radio and featuring the information and entertainment. Staff “insulation” deployed by military authorities [anti-malarial drug] atabrine.” top entertainers of the day. As part of the Sgt. Jerome Lawrence (later co-writer to elicit compliant service from the tempo- information mission, the radio service ran of Inherit the Wind and Auntie Mame), rary citizen-soldiers who made up most of When commissioned in May 1942, news reports on the hour, emphasizing tasked with reviewing AFRS’s existing U.S. Forces in Vietnam. On the one hand, AFRS was situated within the Information the unbiased delivery of information. They programs in late 1944, recommended a such comforts connected service members Branch of the Army’s Morale Services transcribed series like America’s Town “gradual expansion of the use of orien- to home and reminded them they were still Division and tasked with delivering both Meeting of the Air and University of Chicago tation and educational materials in the civilians at heart, not lifers or military profes- entertainment and information. As such, the Roundtable for overseas distribution and content of AFRS programs.” Specifically, sionals. On the other, these luxuries “worked radio service straddled the philosophical created their own educational programs, he suggested AFRS better utilize the star to absorb soldiers’ discontent over the indis- divide between Army commanders who most notably an eleven-episode series by power of performers to push information criminate and sometimes pointless violence thought recreation and creature comforts Erik Barnouw entitled They Call Me Joe about post-war programs and plans. For they were charged, directly or indirectly, (Post Exchanges, movies, sports, and theat- which used the name in its many iterations example, he believed the program GI with creating.” rical shows) were sufficient to sustain morale, (Joseph, José, Giuseppe) to celebrate the Jive with Jill, featuring female DJ Martha “For soldiers desperately in need of a and those who believed some “mental diversity of American life. Perhaps the Wilkerson as “Jill,” could be cultivated pick-me-up,” Lair writes, “American pop training” in the principles of democracy, the most effective information vehicle during as a delivery vehicle for indoctrination culture became an instrument of war that evils of fascism, and the rationale for the war WWII, however, was the “spot” announce- materials, stating: “Many elements of shielded them from its demoralizing effects.” would better prepare soldiers for the rigors of ment. AFRS recordings and shortwave orientation would sit well in a program To suggest that AFVN served as a long campaign. AFRS founder Col. Thomas feeds did not carry typical commercials, in M.C.’d by a charming girl.” emotional insulation captures only half of the Lewis came from the world of entertainment part because commanders worried that ads When the war finally ended, the mission story, however. True, the initial rationale for radio, but he firmly believed in the informa- for the comforts of home would undermine of the I&E section shifted from explaining the radio service, established during World tion mission. “The soldier needs to know morale in the field. Instead, they carried “why we fight” to clarifying “what happens War II and spear-headed by commercial what it is he is fighting for,” why he is fighting, command information spots designed now,” especially for those charged with over- broadcasters and admen, was to provide and “what he may expect from the future,” to sell morale. These “commercials” seeing the occupations of Germany, Japan, distraction and a “touch of home” for troops Lewis explained to Army and Navy explained military life to its citizen-soldiers, and Korea. AFRS assumed its new duties serving overseas. Yet, the leadership of the commanders during a planning meeting in outlined the values of “Americanism,” and with gusto, producing spot announcements Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS), as it 1944. “He must know what he must fear generally reassured the troops that they to combat the twin problems of fraterniza- was then-called, used entertainment stra- from defeat; [and] what he must hope for were well-trained, well-supported, and well tion and venereal disease (“For a moment tegically, to build a bigger audience for the from victory.” on their way to winning. of play you may have to pay!”) and using
56 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 57 1. Soldiers listening to American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) radio network, Tuy Hoa, Vietnam (DOD, NARA). 2. AFVN Danang news cast in process, Vietnam (DOD, NARA). 3. and 4. AFVN sets for 1968 election coverage, by Randall Moody (loc.gov, R.J. Moody Collection). 1 2 3 4
short, informative programs to explain the between Americanism and Communism. opens by describing “the militant and threat- of Soviets and Chinese communists (they responsibilities of peacekeeping to troops According to Hannah these were: a belief ening thunder of Chinese communism,” were not). As an orientation to the conflict, hardened by war. The “GI Ambassadors” in individual liberty, the rule of law, the complete with sound effects. it was nearly useless, yet it was shown on series, for example: reminded soldiers that value of the truth, and the existence of God Throughout the 1960s, politicians AFVN into the 1970s. “It Only Takes One” bad apple to undermine or a higher power. Series like “A Primer on and AFIS administrators reshaped the the peacekeeping effort; taught democracy Communism” and “Behind the Bamboo policies and procedures of the American Finally, under Presidents Eisen- to the troops (and the eavesdropping locals) Curtain,” designed to explain what we were Forces Radio and Television Service hower and Kennedy, AFRTS was via programs like “Hideiki and Democracy” fighting against, supplied basic, though (television having been added in 1954) “encouraged” to collaborate more directly and “What is an American”; and encouraged heavily slanted, information about Commu- to assist in the broader psychological with the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) soldiers to provide for locals in need through nist philosophy and modes of governance. warfare campaign against the Soviet and other overseas broadcasters to ensure a episodes like “Operation Little Vittles.” “If Freedom Failed,” on the other hand, Union. Often this involved sacrificing more consistent voice for American public used counter-factual scenarios (what would the truth, as well as combat efficiency, diplomacy. Edward R. Murrow, head of the As the Cold War heated up in the happen to schools, churches, factories, and in the name of morale. At AFN-Europe, USIA under Kennedy, quickly cajoled 1950s, many in the public, as well as the newspapers under communism) to explain for example, officers curtailed political AFRTS into carrying the Voice of America’s Department of Defense (DOD), sought to what we were fightingfor (freedom of speech, reporting in an attempt to “make it diffi- nightly news roundup, without attribution, counter the influence of Soviet propaganda religion, and trade). cult for the Kremlin” to capitalize on bad meaning military listeners would be unaware with education. Among other things, Presi- This two-pronged approach—emphasizing news. A program called Army Informa- of the program’s status as propaganda. The dent Eisenhower called for the imple- what we were fightingfor and against—was tion Digest was given a primetime slot on practice violated the Smith-Mundt Act’s mentation of a more robust indoctrination in keeping with the prevailing philosophy radio and TV to maximize viewership for prohibition against directing USIA propa- program within the military. AFRS was, by of “democratic propaganda” that shaped indoctrination subjects. On TV, the Digest ganda toward American audiences and was then, part of the Armed Forces Information America’s initial forays into public persua- often showed the Army Pictorial Services’ eventually disallowed, but only after military Service (AFIS), a division of Manpower and sion. As lawyer and morale booster Ernest series The Big Picture, a public relations personnel complained to their congressmen. Personnel, run by Assistant Secretary of Angell described it in 1942, democratic vehicle touting the importance of a robust In Vietnam, mounting concerns about Defense John A. Hannah. Hannah described propaganda was a “propaganda of truth” Army to national security. Most notably, the free speech, propaganda, and censorship in the new Information Doctrine thus: “Briefly derived from the notion that “free people episode “Why Vietnam?” (1965) contained military media operations came to a head. stated, the Information and Education cannot be told what to think. They must blatant propaganda depicting South Viet- Despite an official Defense Department Program is in the business of combating be given the facts and permitted to do their namese troops as willing and able partners proclamation prohibiting “the calculated Soviet Communism.” own thinking.” At AFRS, however, the facts in the struggle (they were not), the South withholding of unfavorable news stories The education section of AFRS was were often delivered in the emotionally Vietnamese government as democratic from troop information publications” and tasked with providing “training in citizen- manipulative language of entertainment; for and devoted to the people (it was not), and broadcasts, AFVN reporters had to pre-clear ship” and the four “fundamental differences” example, “Behind the Bamboo Curtain #1” the National Liberation Front as puppets all news related to Vietnam through the
58 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 59 Military Assistance Command Vietnam Office MACV Office of Information have seen of Information (MACOI). Not only was the to it that all those newscasters who are arrangement inefficient, it left AFVN news vul- dedicated to their work are sent away to nerable to the whims of public affairs officers other areas. In some cases, off the air whose job, according to News Chief Moody, completely. . . . We’ve been suppressed “[was] to build a favorable image of the mili- and I’m probably in trouble tonight tary.” The mission of the news department, on for telling you the truth. I hope you’ll the other hand, “[was] to present a fair, accu- help stop censorship at AFVN and any rate and unbiased account of the day’s events American station under military rule. U.S. Army Sgt. Jennifer Casanova, broadcast journalist for Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Arthur Rosen, afternoon DJ at American for the American serviceman.” Whenever a Thank you and good-bye. the American Forces Network-Afghanistan and a native of Forces Network onboard U.S. Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia, reads off the Colorado Springs, CO, hosts the “Midday Madness with Cass.” latest command updates concerning COVID-19 during his show, April 16, 2020. U.S. news story “unfavorable or embarrassing to the Bagram Air Field, Dec. 8, 2011, photo by Spc. William Begley Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Carlos W. Hopper Good-bye, indeed. Within minutes Military military” appeared, the two missions came into Police descended on the studio and placed conflict, and AFVN news usually lost the battle. Lawrence under house arrest. The station was Among other things, MACOI maintained barricaded to prevent civilian reporters from a “Proper Terminology Determination List,” accessing AFVN staff members, all of whom nicknamed the “Let’s Say It Right” list, which were ordered to rebuff interview requests on the from one channel in both radio and TV, to ten STACY TAKACS is Professor of American Studies forbade mention of napalm or tear gas and matter. Lawrence was subjected to aggressive radio channels, a streaming radio app which at Oklahoma State University. She is the author of offered a string of euphemisms for some of the two books, Terrorism TV: Popular Entertainment in interrogation, threatened with a court martial, carries a variety of regional AFN stations, and war’s worst excesses (e.g., “search and clear” Post-9/11 America (University Press of Kansas, 2012) and reassigned as a Chaplain’s assistant for the eight TV channels including a dedicated news instead of “search and destroy” or “pre-cleared and Interrogating Popular Culture (Routledge, 2014); remainder of his tour. The sportscaster who channel featuring a balanced diet of programs co-editor of American Militarism on the Small Screen firing area” instead of “free-fire zone”). MACOI thanked Lawrence at the end of the broadcast from all of the major commercial news networks. (Routledge, 2016); and co-editor of a new series from also embargoed stories that might offend was also reassigned. In the aftermath of each AFN station personnel concentrate on producing University Press of Kansas called “War on Screen.” She is South Vietnamese President Thieu’s sensibili- working on a book about the American Forces Network. incident, the military investigated but found radio shows, spot announcements, and short ties and denied permission to broadcast stories no wrongdoing. According to investigators, video stories for delivery to the Defense Visual EXTRA! READ | THINK | TALK | LINK that might undermine discipline or morale, the correct term for “censorship” was “news Information Distribution System (DVIDS), a even when such stories were of vital interest to . “Jubilee,” American Forces Radio Service via Internet management,” and the “free speech advocates” clearinghouse for pro-military news and informa- soldiers and widely available in stateside media Archive. Listen to WWII-era recordings of “Jubilee,” at AFVN were really just “malcontents.” In tion items. Distinctions between public affairs, AFRS radio programming that showcased African- (examples include news of troop withdrawals, reality, the AFVN revolt may have been the journalism, and broadcast production have American singers, jazz groups, and performers. faulty armored vests, and Ho Chi Minh’s death). clearest lesson in democratic values AFRTS eroded, both in training and in assignments, and archive.org These censorship practices violated not . “G.I.’s Outburst Widens Censorship Issue,” James P. personnel ever produced. AFN station personnel view themselves primarily only DOD guidance but also the core belief of Sterba, Jan. 5, 1970, The New York Times. Recounts These incidents ultimately changed the as a command information tool. They concen- AFRTS personnel that servicemen and women accusations of censorship by Robert Lawrence and nature of news provision on AFRTS stations trate on serving base commanders and leave other military broadcasters, from WWII through the deserve the same news and entertainment as worldwide. The DOD quickly moved to central- concerns about the morale and well-being of the Vietnam War. nytimes.com their fellow Americans. Thus, AFVN news . Biographies of Vietnam War military broadcasters ized control over news delivery, using satellite troops to programmers in Riverside. personnel actively revolted beginning in 1969. who served in the MACOI, including Randall Moody distribution of commercial network newscasts Some things remain the same, however. The staff first petitioned MACOI for a written and Robert Lawrence. In “War Stories,” Moody to cut soldier-broadcasters out of the editorial With an important election coming up this year, list of the censorship policies. When that failed, recounts covering the 1968 elections for some process. The DOD framed the move in terms of AFN stations are busy plugging voter regis- 500,000 troops. macoi.net two AFVN news editors sent a letter to their efficiency and cost-effectiveness, but it was also tration as a democratic duty and outlining . “AFVN: The GI’s Companion,” Ken Deutsch, congressmen, and later gave public interviews April 18, 2016, RadioWorld. Article on and link to clearly designed to evade future accusations of procedures for successfully casting that in which they accused MACOI of censorship. 10-hour audio documentary, including contemporary bias and censorship. The only biases contained absentee ballot. On election night, the AFN Both men were reassigned. Then, on January interviews of former AFVN radio jockeys and vintage in AFRTS news programming today are those News Channel will bring live results to service 3, 1970, AFVN newscaster Spc. 5 Robert clips of AFVN broadcasts that were “the soundtrack built into our commercial media system. personnel, military contractors, and their of the war.” radioworld.com Lawrence ended the nightly newscast with the . civilian dependents around the globe. True, “AFVN (American Forces Network),” video clips following statement (abbreviated here): of Vietnam War military personnel watching and AFRTS was rebranded the American military newsmen will not be the faces of these listening to AFVN radio music and TV programming. I have found that a newscaster at Forces Network (AFN) in 1996, and all newscasts, but the network continues to hold “AFVN ‘Commercials’—That Is—Public Service AFVN is not free to tell the truth and, in programming functions are now centralized in to the morale maxim that “Only an informed Announcements,” audio of AFVN PSAs with photos essence, to tell it like it is. MACV and the the Riverside, CA, headquarters. AFN has gone America(n) can be a strong America(n).” of troops. youtube.com
60 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 61 Fixing Contemplation of Justice, June 2, 2020, Art Lien Our Reality Problem
Today’s information system exaggerates and inflames our differences while filling our news system. Their cumulative audience Columbia journalism school study concluded minds with nonsense and disinformation. Unless that system changes, and we change easily exceeds that of partisan outlets, and that “news organizations play a major role along with it, common sense will continue to be in short supply. most of those who follow partisan outlets in propagating hoaxes, false claims, ques- also get much of their news through tradi- tionable rumors, and dubious viral content.” THOMAS E. PATTERSON tional outlets, which also supply most of News outlets honor their commitment to the news links found on the internet. The accuracy by quoting their sources accurately, audience for traditional news has declined but that is a flimsy standard when sources but is still huge, which is an extraordinary are lying or peddling half-truths and rumors. we’re going to fix our information was nearly the whole of the news that asset in today’s “attention economy.” What If traditional media are to deserve their claim disorder, the traditional news people consumed. And consume they did. other institution has a daily following in to be “custodians of the facts,” they need to IF media will have to shoulder News was the only television programming the tens of millions? No church or polit- recognize that the larger media system is much of the burden. In an earlier time, available at the dinner hour in nearly every ical party gets anywhere near that kind of filled with propaganda and that transmitting Americans were closely attentive to what media market. ongoing attention. it in the name of “objective reporting” makes journalists had to say. Their words created Today’s media system is fragmented The traditional media also have another them part of the problem. an “information commons”—a shared set and includes partisan outlets that offer strength—a commitment to accuracy. of facts and ideas about the country and the one-sided versions of reality that appeal to BuzzFeed News analyzed the factual The traditional media need to do better. challenges it faced. Not everyone derived many Americans. These outlets are gath- accuracy of the internet political news They need to supply what a democracy the same meaning from the news they were ering places for the like-minded. Rather pages of three mainstream outlets (ABC most needs from the press—a steady supply receiving, and the reporting had its blind than provide a shared understanding, they News Politics, CNN Politics, and Politico), of trustworthy and relevant information. spots. But it was a politically balanced offer a picture of the world that’s rosy on as well as the Facebook pages of three “The point of having journalists around,” rendition of public affairs that helped one side of the partisan divide, dark on the major right-wing outlets (Eagle Rising, says NYU’s Jay Rosen, “is not to produce build a sense of national community. It other. The effect is polarizing. Freedom Daily, and Right Wing News) and attention, but to make our attention more didn’t prevent division, but it had a depo- Today’s media system also includes the corresponding pages of three left-wing productive.” larizing effect. Our news outlets did their nearly every imaginable form of entertain- outlets (Addicting Info, Occupy Democrats, We also can’t restore sanity to the public job well enough that we took for granted ment, everything from electronic gaming and The Other 98%). Only the mainstream sphere if our mainstream news outlets why a shared understanding of politics is to streaming video. If the old media system outlets demonstrated fidelity to accuracy. continue to be infected by what a Carnegie important. made it hard for the citizen to avoid news, A mere one percent of their original claims Corporation study called “the entertain- The information commons cannot be the new system is an invitation to indulge in were shown to be factually wrong, compared ment virus.” Some news outlets, including resurrected in its old form, built as it was fantasy. Although Americans are spending with 20 percent for the left-wing outlets and The New York Times, Washington Post, on media monopolies. The three broadcast more time on media than ever before, 38 percent for the right-wing outlets. and Wall Street Journal, have avoided the television networks and the local news- they’re spending less time on news. The problem is that the traditional media temptation to soften their news, but many paper dominated Americans’ attention, so Nevertheless, the traditional news have allowed themselves to become a mega- have not. An informed public cannot be much so that the sum of what they reported media are still the backbone of America’s phone for the falsehoods of others. A recent built on infotainment and sensationalism.
62 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 63 The media are fostering a public that is reduces them “to their worst stereotypes, and political distrust. It also makes the how democracy can work, does work, if we losing its sense of what it means to be people possessing no motive but political press an easy target for politicians. When don’t model what civil discourse looks and informed and, with that, its ability to fend advantage.” What conclusion can one journalists attack them at every turn, they sounds like and the progress it can yield, off false, baseless, and useless ideas. The draw from game-centered reporting other open themselves to charges of bias. then we can hardly be surprised if people best protection against being duped by than the impression that politicians spend And when journalism’s “bad news is don’t think [such things] matter.” ideologues and liars is having the facts. all their time one-upping each other? It good news” formula is applied to demo- Without news that is balanced, relevant, Information actually does trump deception would be one thing if the stories explained graphic groups, it’s destructive. Over the and trustworthy there’s not much hope and disinformation, but only if you have it. in detail what’s at stake in the competition, past decade, when immigrants have been that the public will anchor its opinions in When news outlets are criticized but that part is often left out. A University of the main subject of a national news story, reality. Such news is not beyond reach. for lacing the news with entertainment, Pennsylvania study found that competing roughly four of every five stories have been NPR produces it regularly. The type of they tend to blame the audience, saying policy proposals are often reported by their negative in tone. That’s true also of news reporting I’m proposing would require that they’re merely responding to public sponsors’ names without reference to what coverage of Muslims. And for decades journalists to have a fuller understanding of taste. But the public doesn’t necessarily the proposals contain or how they differ. Black Americans have been under- their subjects, spend more time away from know what it wants until it sees it, a point Game-centered stories displace cov- represented in the news except when it the centers of power, say more about the emphasized by Rueven Frank, who headed erage that could help voters better under- comes to crime, where they’re not only substance of our politics and less about the NBC News during the heyday of broadcast stand the nation’s policy problems. Such overrepresented but portrayed in ways horserace aspects, be as attentive to what’s that Whites accused of crime less often going right as to what’s going wrong, and are—handcuffed and in police custody. recognize that their stories affect the judg- Small wonder those with extreme views Journalists can shrug their shoulders and ments citizens make. have disproportionate power. They’re the say they’re not responsible for how people ones who take the time to vote. respond to their stories. That’s another Citizens also have to do better. We’re dope pusher’s argument. Negative coverage part of the reason that our politics have of immigrants, Muslims, Blacks, and other been going downhill. One could say, as did television. “This business of giving stories make it into the news, but not regu- marginalized groups fosters negative the philosopher Javier Goma Lanzon, “that people what they want is a dope pusher’s larly. Former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson stereotypes that activate prejudice and we are looking for the ideal of a virtuous argument,” Frank said. “News is some- put his finger on the problem when he wrote: allow ideologues to justify everything from republic composed of citizens relieved thing people don’t know they’re interested “You come out of a legislative conference lengthy prison sentences to border walls. of the burden of citizenship.” We’re not in until they hear about it. The job of a and there’s ten reporters standing around Positive stories don’t come naturally to committed enough to show up regularly at journalist is to take what’s important and with their ears twitching. They don’t want journalists. They lack the tension that jour- the polls, if we show up at all. The presiden- make it interesting.” Unless journalists find to know whether anything was resolved nalists seek and can lead to accusations tial election is still a draw for many. About ways to take issues of national policy and for the betterment of the United States. that the reporter is a shill. But without three in five of us get up and out for that make them appealing, they’ll continue to They want to know who got hammered, such stories the news media are failing contest. But turnout in many primary and underserve the public. Citizens, as Princ- who tricked whom.” Theodore H. White, to show us an entire side of the American local elections has fallen below 15 percent. eton’s Martin Gilens has shown, make who pioneered inside-politics reporting, story—the positive side. Success is one of The 2018 midterm elections drew the better choices when they understand policy said that so many journalists do it now that the most underreported aspects of politics. largest midterm turnout in more than half problems than when they don’t. Common there’s “no room left on the inside.” After the sharp economic downturn in a century. Yet the number of eligible voters sense doesn’t exist in a void. It requires Equally destructive is attack journalism. 2008, the media stayed on the story while who stayed home exceeded the number that we know what’s at stake. It’s not the same as watchdog journalism, the news was bad and then dropped it as who showed up at the polls. Small wonder Journalists’ obsession with the political which is rooted in careful factual inves- soon as the economy began to improve. those with extreme views have dispropor- game—who’s up and who’s down—is also tigation and is aimed at holding officials No wonder most Americans believed tionate power. They’re the ones who take a disservice. It’s the dominant theme of accountable. In contrast, attack journalism that government policies—TARP, the job the time to vote. political coverage and fosters political starts with the assumption that politicians stimulus, and the like—did little to fix the Nor are we committed enough to distrust. By portraying politicians as can’t be trusted and seizes upon any hint or problem and were a waste of taxpayers’ inform ourselves. We’re intent on amusing single-minded in their pursuit of power, suggestion that a politician acted improp- money. Nancy Gibbs, former editor of ourselves, and we do it well. Compared the press, as [Michael Schudson] noted, erly. Attack journalism fosters cynicism Time magazine, notes, “If we don’t show with the pre-cable era, news consumption
64 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 65 and conspiracy theories that we now their privileged position carried with so readily embrace did not always fill it a public trust. They differed in their our heads. Polls stretching back to beliefs, but they stopped short of destruc- the 1930s show that Americans have tive words and actions. When Thomas never been highly informed, but it’s Jefferson won the election of 1800 and only recently that our thinking has declared it a “revolution” of the common gone haywire. people, he refrained from demonizing his The difference in these periods opponents, knowing that to do so would can be traced to the behavior of our unleash the populist resentments that leaders. They can speak honestly and had been building against the wealthy. appeal to facts and reason, or they can Sensible leadership has been in short Art Lien dissemble, deceive, and appeal to our supply in recent decades, and it’s turned worst impulses. When they’ve acted us against each other. Citizens can be responsibly, the public has responded faulted for their lack of interest and sensibly. When they’ve behaved badly, embrace of cockeyed ideas. But citizens’ so has the public. “The voice of the response is invariably affected by the has declined in every age group, especially the character of our citizens than it does on people is but an echo,” wrote Harvard quality of public leadership. We can’t among young adults. Americans are not the strength of our institutions. We need to political scientist V. O. Key, Jr. “The move from tribal conflict to reasoned walled off from news because of its high restore, and deepen, Americans’ commit- people’s verdict can be no more than discussion unless political leaders THOMAS E. PATTERSON is Bradlee cost or inaccessibility. They suffer from ment to democratic values. That effort must a selective reflection from the alterna- exhibit it. When politicians fill the public Professor of Government and the insufficient interest. go beyond fostering the duty to vote. It also tives and outlooks presented to them.” sphere with partisan bombast, recrimi- Press at Harvard University’s Perhaps, as some have argued, we’re includes fostering tolerance, forbearance, Key wrote those words in the 1960s, nation, and claims of moral superiority, Kennedy School of Government. victims of an education system that doesn’t and a recognition that what’s good for the but they capture what has happened our politics has nowhere to go but down. He is author of several books, including: Informing the News; place much value on the teaching of history, individual is inseparable from what’s good since. Party polarization started at the The quality of leadership also affects The Vanishing Voter; and Out of the humanities, civics, or media literacy. for society. top, among political elites, rather than the news media’s response. We can, Order, which received the American It’s difficult to know how much weight to Citizens are more dependent on the at the bottom. Disinformation and and should, expect more of the press, Political Science Association’s Graber attribute to this tendency, but the kind of tone of our politics than might be thought. demagoguery are not naturally occur- but it will disappoint us time and again Award as the best book of the education that people receive does affect We have, as a result of scientific polling, ring phenomena. They are the result if we expect it to make up for defects decade in political communication. Patterson received his Ph.D. from their response to politics. nearly a century of reliable public opinion of deliberate choices made by political in our leadership. As journalist Walter the University of Minnesota. His The past decade or two have exposed data. What jumps out when looking at the and media operatives. When they Lippmann noted, the news media are research has been funded by the faces of America that appeared to have been history of the polls is the variation in public engage in name-calling, exploit our not equipped to give order and direction Ford, Markle, Smith-Richardson, receding. Perhaps the racism and other opinion. The political distrust expressed divisions, and put expediency ahead to our politics. For an institution to do Pew, Knight, Carnegie, and National Science foundations. This article is forms of bigotry that have been so apparent by today’s public is not how the public has of principle, it’s a green light for us to that job, it must have the incentive to adapted from How America Lost recently were always there but were merely always felt. There was a lengthy period do the same. How did Democratic and identify problems, propose solutions to Its Mind: The Assault on Reason less visible. If that’s correct, the downward where confidence in government was high. Republican voters learn to see each those problems, and submit them to the That’s Crippling Our Democracy turn in our politics and media have simply The hostility that many of today’s Ameri- other as enemies rather than rivals? voters for approval or rejection. Political by Thomas E. Patterson, published served to surface them. I’m inclined to think cans feel toward members of the opposing We didn’t learn that from our neigh- parties are designed for that purpose. by The University of Oklahoma Press. Used here with permission. otherwise, believing that recent political party is not how Americans have always bors. We learned it from our warring The press is not. The press has its role, ©2019 Thomas E. Patterson and media developments have intensified felt. There was a lengthy period when party leaders and the messengers but it is not that role. When operating and enlarged our worst instincts. It’s a Democrats and Republicans, though allied to their cause. at its best, the press’s role is to bring dangerous development. In the long run, they had their differences, viewed each From the nation’s earliest days, most to light the developments that can help the health of our democracy rests more on other with respect. The wacky ideas of America’s leaders understood that citizens understand their choices.
66 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 67 The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for
a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is Schwabe Bernd THE TRUTH that people are not informed. – Hannah Arendt IS OUT THERE Becoming an informed citizen requires an essential skill—media literacy—to distinguish WHAT IS FAKE NEWS? change, racism, illegal immigration, terrorism, and sexism. Nearly 70% believed it negatively fact from fiction. The Cambridge Dictionary defines fake news as “false stories that appear to be news, spread impacted Americans’ confidence in government. on the internet or using other social media, KIMBERLY ROBLIN WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? usually created to influence political views or as There are many individuals and groups respon- a joke.” Whether articles, photographs, or videos, sible for fake news, but the same Pew poll showed fake news traffics in misinformation and disin- ublic enlightenment is the forerunner of justice 57% of American adults believed politicians and formation, similar concepts separated by intent. and the foundation of democracy. Sounds very Jefferson, their staff generate a significant amount, while Misinformation is false information, while disin- or Hamilton, maybe even Lin-Manuel Miranda—but 36% believed journalists were largely at fault. Inter- P formation, also false, is deliberately disseminated the source of this statement is not from a broadside or estingly, respondents felt the news media had the to damage and deceive. Misinformation can be Broadway. It’s from the preamble to the Society of Profes- “most responsibility” in decreasing fake news. accidental, but disinformation is premeditated. sional Journalists’ (SPJ) Code of Ethics. A preamble to a As the production and circulation of fake news code of ethics. They clearly take their work and the role Unfortunately, some politicians, pundits, and has increased, journalists and other groups have it plays, seriously. As Information Age consumers, we members of the public apply “fake news” to any actively tried to mitigate its effects. In 2019, the should take ours equally so. report they find problematic. They have leveraged Duke University Reporters’ Lab recorded 195 fact- Technology has revolutionized how we generate, it into an effective label for any narrative they checking organizations, a four-fold increase since encounter, access, share, and process information. It is want to quickly dismiss or discount. But as U.S. 2014. As information consumers, however, the everywhere. It crawls along our television screens. It popu- Senator and Oklahoma native, Daniel Patrick public bears a responsibility as well. We can accept lates our social media feeds. We google it. We scroll it. It Moynihan famously noted: “Everyone is entitled every story that hits our inbox or Instagram, or we is never more than a click away. But the Information Age to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Facts can actively analyze it and assess it. We can be can be difficult to navigate. Not Bronze Age or Dark Ages are facts. The truth is the truth. Disagreement difficult, but tricky nonetheless. with, or dislike of a story does not make it fake. passive—or we can be a participant. The same mechanisms that make information so Resultantly, media literacy means investigating WHAT CAN WE DO? not only journalists, authors, and other content accessible have also made it easier to manipulate and Learn to read. Literacy isn’t just about reading st creators, but also those who comment on and fabricate. Although fake news is not a 21 -century inven- the words, but also understanding them. The same is share the stories. tion, technology has amplified its presence and potential. true of media literacy. Studies show that consumers Instead of enlightening, it infiltrates and exploits, most WHY DOES IT MATTER? of all ages (grandparents, tweens, teens, and, yes, often through social media. Media literacy—the ability to The untruths of fake news can undermine even millennials) can be fooled by fake news. The discern fact from fiction, bias and opinion from outright trust in journalism, influence opinion, and problem is so endemic that several colleges now untruths—has never been more critical. Information is reaffirm biases. Even if the stories or images offer courses on recognizing and rooting out fake good, but knowledge is better. The truth is out there. As are fake, the consequences are not. A 2019 news. For those of us not enrolling, we can turn responsible citizens, we must be willing to search for it. Pew Research study confirmed that many once again to the SPJ’s Code of Ethics. It’s not just Americans believe it is a significant problem. eloquent. It’s instructional, and its four guiding Half of survey respondents ranked fake news principles can help us navigate the Information Age a bigger problem than violent crime, climate and improve our media literacy. Here’s how:
68 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 69 If you want a society that is free and vibrant and successful, part of that formula is Democracy cannot survive the free flow of information, of ideas, with an ignorant electorate.
Gage Skidmore Gage and that requires a free press. —Walter Cronkite —Barack Obama archives.gov
HOW TO SPOT SPJ ETHIC #1: SEEK TRUTH AND REPORT IT REVERSE SEARCH PHOTOGRAPHS to deter- FAKE NEWS Get curious. Ask questions. We learned mine if they’ve been used in other instances NEWS QUIZ to read by sounding out the words. Media and if the context is correct. CONSIDER THE SOURCE. Click away from the Test your knowledge literacy is the same. Check that the story, of the week’s headlines PAY ATTENTION TO THE QUALITY OF VIDEOS. story to investigate the site, its mission, and video, or photo is sound. Learn how to distin- its contact info. Grainy? Slightly out of sync? Both are signs guish news articles from opinion pieces; ads of possible alteration. READ BEYOND. Headlines can be outrageous. AARP Weekly News Quiz | aarp.org from other types of info; false evidence from What’s the whole story? CNN Total Recall Weekly News Quiz | cnn.com PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. concrete evidence; fact-based statements from “Boost your CHECK THE AUTHOR. Do a quick search on the Pew Research, The News IQ Quiz | pewresearch.com opinion-based statements. Use these tips: news literacy know-how. Test your ability to author. Are they credible? Are they real? Slate, The Slate Quiz | slate.com sort fact from fiction, and score points The New York Times News Quiz | nytimes.com EMBRACE SKEPTICISM—truth is not manda- SUPPORTING SOURCES? Click on those links. for accuracy and speed across three USA Today News Quiz | usatoday.com tory, on social media or elsewhere. Determine if the info given actually supports levels of difficulty and four modes of the story. Wall Street Journal News Quiz | wsj.com APPROACH STORIES information” with Informable, an app Washington Weekly News Quiz | pbs.org that stir strong emo- CHECK THE DATE. Reposting old news stories tions, either good or bad, with extreme launched by the News Literacy Project. doesn’t mean they’re relevant to current news. Info: newslit.org/updates/informable caution. IS IT A JOKE? If it is too outlandish, it might be KIMBERLY ROBLIN, bio on page 93. SOURCES: Cambridge Dictionary (dictionary.cambridge.org). Enoch Pratt Free Library MAKE USE OF THE INFORMATION AGE satire. Research the site and author to be sure. ESTABLISH CONTEXT for sound bites and and (prattlibrary.org). “Fake News: How To Spot Misinformation,” headlines. Misinformation can be the ad- fact-checking resources—see the list at right CHECK YOUR BIASES. Consider if your own NPR (npr.org). “Fake News, Propaganda, and Bad Informa- where we’ve listed a few. beliefs could affect your judgement. tion: Learning to Critically Evaluate Media Sources,” Cornell dition of false information or the omission of University Library (guides.library.cornell.edu). “Fake or Real: relevant information. SPJ ETHIC #2: MINIMIZE HARM ASK THE EXPERTS. Ask a librarian or consult How to Self-Check the News and Get the Facts,” NPR (npr.org). a fact-checking site. “Fake Trump Video? How to Spot Deepfakes on Facebook ASK: WHAT’S IN A DOMAIN NAME? Websites If you think a report, photograph, or video and YouTube Ahead of the Presidential Election,” USA Today might not be accurate, don’t share it. Talk to (usatoday.com). “How to Spot Fake News,” International that end in dot-com (.com) and dot-org Federation of Library Associations (ifla.org). “Informable App (.org) are standard, but variations such as friends and family too about fake news and Helps You Build News Literacy Skills,” News Literacy Project dot-com-dot-co (.com.co) are a red flag. offer tips on how they can spot it. (newslit.org). “Making Media Literacy Great Again,” Michael Rosenwald, Columbia Journalism Review (cjr.org). “Many SPJ ETHIC #3: ACT INDEPENDENTLY CONSIDER THE CONTENT and who created it. FACT-CHECKING Americans Say Made-Up News Is a Critical Problem That Don’t rely on someone else to verify the truth RESOURCES Needs to Be Fixed,” Pew Research Center (journalism.org). Is the author identified? Does the site include SPJ Code of Ethics, Society of Professional Journalists (spj.org). for you. Take the initiative and start following an “About Us” section? “The Fact-Check Industry,” Columbia Journalism Review the clues. “The game is afoot!” (cjr.org). SLEUTH FOR INFORMATION about the author, Snopes | snopes.com SPJ ETHIC #4: BE ACCOUNTABLE website, broadcaster, etc. Ditto for any indi- Politifact | politifact.com The existence of fake news is beyond our FactCheck | factcheck.org viduals quoted in the piece. When you look at history, the ability to control. It is here to stay and FlackCheck | flackcheck.org first thing that dictators do is ASSESS THE OVERALL PIECE. Does it sound becoming more difficult to differentiate. Ulti- OpenSecrets | opensecrets.org shut down the press. like news or opinion? Is it an advertisement mately, however, we determine what we read, Fact Checker | washingtonpost.com —John McCain or a vehicle for promotion? consume, and share. Duke Reporters’ Lab | reporterslab.org Gage Skidmore Gage
70 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 71 The Journalistic Assault ANDY RIEGER on Ethics SKETCHES BY ART LIEN
What happened to trust in the media?
John Montgomery was excited prompts from ads, the grocer’s society. They play out daily on the to be publishing his own weekly customers shopped less and sales streets of America. newspaper just a few years out slumped. Generations of American journal- of the University of Oklahoma The ads were reinstated. ists have bucked up against elected School of Journalism. In Tisho- leaders, appointed bureaucrats, ETHICAL CHALLENGES mingo, he and his wife, Gracie, and corporate titans. Exposing did it all. They wrote local news, Ethical challenges such as wrongdoing and corruption took pictures, gathered ads from Montgomery’s are nothing new doesn’t make for friends at City Main Street merchants, billed and to journalism. Technology and Hall or at the Country Club, but collected from them. the changing nature of our fast- American citizens once trusted the It was all going smoothly until moving society only increase the news and respected the profession. the local grocer—John’s largest challenges. Respect and trust in My three children came of age press galvanizes a partisan’s base of are not monitored. Political candi- too, downsized by staff reductions, advertiser—got in trouble with the the news media have dwindled in during my twenty years as editor support and sows doubt in a story’s dates are not scrutinized. consolidations, and corporate law. The grocer suggested to John the past twenty years. Many in the of The Norman Transcript. They truth. The accusations against jour- Readers have fewer voices and takeovers. With fewer trained jour- that the newspaper not print news profession worry that the public has endured late-night telephone calls, nalists tend to increase the closer we fewer choices. nalists doing original reporting (as of his significant ticket and, if it lost sight of the role journalism has threats in the grocery store aisle, get to election day. opposed to aggregating or stealing did, not to bother coming by for in a democratic society. Even more and one simple assault. “If you want In a divided country, readers and NEWS—AT WHAT PRICE? what others have done) and pres- the next week’s ad. John needed troubling is the loss of high school everyone to like you,” I told them, “be viewers often side with the media Newspapers, where the majority sures from management to scoop the regular paid advertising, but and college civics classes where a firefighter. Everyone loves them.” that most align with their own polit- of all news begins, have taken the competition, fact-checking and he had an ethical streak learned journalism’s virtues are celebrated. Often, the watchdog role of the ical views. They judge a news story a direct hit. Daily papers—mere source development fall victim to from his OU professors. To many Americans, Watergate is press is undermined by those who by the originating source rather than shadows of their former selves with shortcuts. Third-party fact-checkers The story ran. The ads stopped. but an old hotel and office building are rightfully targeted. “Fake news” the facts presented. The number fewer journalists, dropped editions, are growing in popularity, but their “It was certainly a gut check,” instead of where reporting began has been a common cry in nations of those original big-media plat- and declining circulation—may work comes too late in the news said Montgomery, now the editor that toppled a president. with authoritarian leaders. The term forms continues to decline, further never recover. Declining circulation cycle. The days of gumshoe reporters and publisher of The Purcell There was a reason our nation’s made its way to America and is now shrinking the press’s ability to hold numbers mean those subscribers working for days to verify and then Register. “I walked back to the Founding Fathers made the First used by leaders in all levels of govern- government accountable. Fewer who remain are asked to pay more break a story are long gone. office with my insides all gnarled Amendment first. Freedom of ment—from mayors to the president. reporters means public meetings for less. Advertising costs are up. Publishers battle a growing up.” After a few weeks, the grocer religion, freedom of speech and of Some politicians seem to relish a are skipped. City, county, and school Published obituaries, one of the last mindset among younger readers learned that he needed the news- the press, and the right to peace- good fight with the press, thinking budgets go unreviewed. No one is expected services of a newspaper, that news should be free. That was paper just as much as the paper ably assemble and petition the they have good reason to cry foul at watching the taxpayer’s checkbook. now cost in the hundreds of dollars. possible when advertising carried the needed ad revenue. Without the government are hallmarks of our unflattering reports. Denigrating the Court hearings and police blotters Radio and television have been hit, bulk of publication expenses. Print
72 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 73 The very definition of a journalist is in question. The rapid change of news platforms makes the term malleable.
June 25, 2015 End of Term Opinion Watch During Pandemic, June 30, 2020
advertising doesn’t easily migrate to vital and should be preserved, even Nonprofit news sites, often stories for use even before the THE MAKING OF A JOURNALIST The SPJ Code addresses chang- a newspaper’s website. Classified if they can’t sustain themselves finan- founded by unemployed journal- newspaper was printed and deliv- University journalism courses ing journalistic practices, including advertisements, once the cash cow cially.” But that same study found ists, have gained some traction. In ered the next morning. stress professional ethics. Early on, technological changes: It teaches of newspapers, have migrated to only one in five Americans (twenty Oklahoma, Non-Doc, Oklahoma When paywalls (where custom- students learn the Code of Ethics put journalists that neither speed nor Craigslist, AutoTrader, and real percent) support local news by Watch, and The Frontier have ers pay to receive content) were forth by the Society of Professional format excuses inaccuracy. The rush estate websites. As fewer advertising subscribing to a news source, or by emerged as trusted news sources. introduced, readers balked. They Journalists (SPJ), whose four guiding to be first with a story does not sur- decisions are made locally, ad sales donating to or purchasing a member- All are funded by foundations, dona- sought out the stories on free principles are: seek truth and report pass the need to be correct. (adjusted for inflation) have fallen ship in a local news organization. In tions, and individual philanthropists. websites, even though those it, minimize harm, act independently, Journalism will survive this latest below that of the 1950s. National central Oklahoma, the number is just In some cities, startup news sites often pirated the stories. and be accountable and transparent. round of economic and ethical retailers have abandoned in-print thirteen percent. websites freely share their content Mark Thomas, executive director Journalists should (and most do) challenges. Technology will change ads in favor of cheaper inserts, A separate University of North with legacy media, giving those plat- of the Oklahoma Press Associ- recognize their special obligation to delivery platforms. What will not leaving fewer dollars and pages for Carolina study found that one in forms stronger content and helping ation, shares an analogy of the watch over our republic. They are change is the need to gather, news content. The industry stresses five newspapers have closed over to restore the lost watchdog role. paywall debate: “It’s like going often the only ones actively pushing assemble, and provide fair, unbiased the value of content at a time when the past fifteen years. Almost 200 Some have partnered with local to Wal-Mart,” he told an OU jour- for open meetings and ensuring that news to the public at large—who newspapers have less of it. As a counties have no newspaper at all. PBS and NPR stations to gather and nalism class. “The stuff on this public records are open to all. deserve no less than the truth. result, except for a few cities, local In Oklahoma, Harmon County has distribute news. Without significant side of the store has a price tag on The very definition of a journalist ANDY RIEGER is a retired editor and ownership of daily newspapers is no no local newspaper, instead served advertising revenue or deep-pocket it, but the same stuff on the other is in question, too. The rapid change reporter, who spent more than forty longer viable. Revenue is routinely by a newspaper in nearby Vernon, donors, startup sites remain under- side of the store is free. Which of news delivery platforms makes years working for Oklahoma newspapers swept out of local banks into corpo- Texas. The Edmond Sun, once a capitalized. If a thriving free press way do you think people are going the term malleable. Can anyone and teaching college-level journalism rate accounts. daily newspaper, ceased operations is to survive, readers who grew to go?” with a laptop and a Facebook courses. He is an adjunct instructor at the As that revenue stream shrinks, in early 2020. Since 2004, more up consuming news information Trust in online news sites, account be considered a journalist? University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism. so do jobs. Data from the Bureau than forty Oklahoma newspapers for free must now be trained to like confidence in all media, is a With fewer working reporters and of Labor Statistics found that, from have ceased operations or merged contribute towards the content. shrinking commodity. But, unlike editors, untrained citizens often EXTRA! READ | THINK | TALK | LINK with another paper. legacy media, online news sites 2008 to 2018, newsroom employ- attempt to fill the role. But as one . “Why Are Some Journalists Afraid TECHNOLOGY AND TRUST ment was cut by twenty-five Financial challenges impact often have no accountability. At of the “Ask a Journalist” panelists of ‘Moral Clarity’?” Masha Gessen, percent. The number of employees more than just newspapers. They The same technology that the four newspapers where I responded to that question [see June 24, 2020, The New Yorker. Fallout in newspaper, radio, broadcast affect television and radio, too, allows news platforms to build was employed over a forty-year “Ask A Journalist,” page 76], you from a NYT column reveals divergent journalistic approaches. television, and other information which routinely take their lead worldwide audiences also encour- career, readers reached out by wouldn’t accept a citizen surgeon newyorker.com entities dropped from about from print news. With less original ages thievery of original content. way of the front door or the tele- or citizen lawyer, so why would . “Journalists Should be Watchdogs . . . 114,000 in 2008 to 86,000 in 2018. content, Oklahoma broadcasters The push to be first with stories phone. Once, when I arrived at my you trust a citizen journalist? Many Views Vary by Party, Media Diet,” Mark turn to weather forecasts, car chases, and photographs online makes office on a Monday morning, there citizen journalists are, at best, Jurkowitz and Amy Mitchell, Feb. 26, LOCAL NEWS MATTERS and traffic reports—easy pickings it tempting for others to steal. were four unhappy subscribers advocates for causes. Conflicts are 2020, Pew Research Center. Public views of media performance. journalism.org Nevertheless, readers still value for a limited staff. One Oklahoma At The Norman Transcript, our waiting for me on the news- inevitable and, left undisclosed, . “The Loss of Local News,” After the hometown journalism: A 2019 Gallup City television station has two news stories were uploaded each room couch. That kind of direct, leave readers with a skewed view of Fact, The Pew Charitable Trusts. survey found that nearly half of Amer- morning meteorologists, but only evening. Often television stations personal interaction can’t happen the facts. Independence and trans- Podcast series on the decline of local icans believe “local newspapers are one news reporter. and news sites would copy our on the internet. parency are often lost. news. pewtrusts.org
74 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 75 Professional journalism is compli- cated and its role in a democracy is essential. Journalism (“The Press”) is the only profession protected by the Constitution of the United States—in the First Amendment. The work of journalists is just that important.
DAVID CRAIG, Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communi- cation, University of Oklahoma: In an age when anyone can take pictures and share information, ethical stan- dards are one of the key distinctives of professional journalists. Many MISSION—POSSIBLE citizen journalists are ethical, too, ANDY RIEGER but professional journalists have a special obligation to provide truthful Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . . The challenge information to the public. The Society from Oklahoma Humanities was an easy one. My job was to of Professional Journalists Code of round up a panel of Oklahoma journalists and pitch them several Ethics is widely recognized as an questions submitted by readers. I searched my contact file for five expression of the best standards of ethical journalists who understand the nuts and bolts of today’s media, are proud of their profession, and agreed to give their American journalism. It is built around valuable time to answer a few thoughtful inquiries. As you’ll read four principles: seek truth and report in their bios on page 87, these professionals are at the top of their it, minimize harm, act independently, field, represent a variety of news media platforms, and have staked and be accountable and transparent. some or all of their career right here in Oklahoma. Some other professional journalism Dick Pryor lives and breathes freedom and responsibility of the Ask a Journalist organizations, such as the National press. He routinely gives talks on why it’s important to be engaged CITIZEN 2020 Issue Sketches by Art Lien Press Photographers Association, in a community and state’s civic life. and individual news outlets, such as Susan Ellerbach knows the stress that comes with publishing a metro newspaper seven days a week. And she does it with fewer EDITOR’S NOTE: A generous grant NPR and The New York Times also What separates professional independence, and accountability in staff members each year than the year before. by the Mellon Foundation and its have codes. So do other news organi- : journalists from so-called reporting. Professional journalists David Craig, before joining academia, was a respected journalist Democracy and the Informed Q zations around the world. Citizen initiative inspired us to citizen journalists? Like the Hippo- normally have experience reporting for working on a copy desk—one of my first jobs in journalism. Craig invite Oklahomans to engage cratic Oath for physicians, is there a news organizations that require special- CINDY ALLEN, retired editor/publisher: now trains other budding journalists. directly with journalists. A dozen similar code of ethics for professional ized expertise, continuing education, Quite a bit separates professional jour- Cindy Allen is a rare breed of journalist who has worked both Oklahoma Humanities as an editor and publisher. She brings a balanced perspective that readers of journalists? and adherence to professionalism. nalists from citizen journalists, and the reminds us that the press is a business, too. magazine answered the call to turn In my opinion, the term “citizen main things are education and experi- the tables and take on the role DICK PRYOR, KGOU: Rich Lenz has a background in sports and news and is a tremen- Professional jour- journalist” is a misnomer, an oxy- ence. Professional journalists typically of reporter to pose questions to nalists typically receive advanced dous storyteller.—Deep down, that’s what we all do. five journalists representing news moron. One does not become a “citizen have at least an undergraduate degree Mission accomplished. entities across our state. These education and training in journalism or journalist” by virtue of having access to from a college or university. That engaged citizens deserve the byline a related field and follow ethical stan- a computer and the internet any more education includes not only journalism, CITIZEN INTERVIEWERS: Mary Lou Bates (Oklahoma City), and their names and towns are dards established by organizations such than they could become a “citizen statistics, journalism law, ethics, and noted at right. Their questions and James Buratti (Oklahoma City), Linda Burrows (Edmond), as the Radio Television Digital News surgeon” because they have a knife or a host of other great coursework that the journalists’ answers are frank Roxana Cazan (Yukon), William Hagen (Shawnee), David W. Levy Association and Society of Professional and thought-provoking—and well a “citizen lawyer” because they have provides them a well-rounded, liberal (Norman), John McBryde (Oklahoma City), Michael McShan worth the extended read. Give us Journalists. These codes establish stand- watched legal programs on television. arts education; they have also typically (Oklahoma City), John Odgers (Oklahoma City), Dory your feedback. Email the editor: ards for accuracy, fairness, conduct, Why should the standard be lower worked as an intern or have had experi- Thomas (Lawton), Desiree Webber (Mustang), Bill Woodard [email protected] transparency, conflict of interest, for journalism? ence through their university media. (Bartlesville)
76 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 77 Professional journalists learn the person up front: “You’ve been why, and how questions is a method from each other, members of a reluctant to discuss this, but what I to force an answer with elaboration newsroom lead and guide each want to know is . . .” This puts them and reasoning, rather than talking other. Professional journalists have in the position of knowing that you points. managing editors, copy editors, and know they don’t want to go there, but It is not unfair or inappropriate assignment editors that provide we’re going there! I’ve gotten some to ask an interviewee, “How do you guidance on coverage, and proof thoughtful, honest answers to tough know that?” to urge them to explain and check journalists’ work for questions that way many times. their rationale and the information accuracy, objectivity, context, etc. they relied on in making their state- DAVID CRAIG: Good journalists are When a professional journalist ment. In fact, that question should polite but persistent in asking writes a story, there are at least two be asked to seek the truth. The follow-up questions. In their writing, other gatekeepers who help make role of independent journalists is they are doing the public a service if sure the work is accurate. And, to seek the best obtainable version they insert facts in a story to correct professional journalists abide by the of truth, provide reliable news and false statements. The ethical prin- Society of Professional Journalists information to facilitate informed Code of Ethics. Bloggers and citizen ciple of seeking truth and reporting citizenship, and hold elected officials journalists likely don’t have degrees it means journalists have to do more and powerful institutions account- or education in journalism, and than repeating what a spokesman or able to the public. they don’t have that kind of backup politician says. They have to provide Journalists have an obligation from editors. factual context, whether that agrees to point out provable facts in their DAVID CRAIG: of a story, news consumers generally who work for such organizations with the statement or not. Stating stories, especially when those facts At responsible news outlets, an editor might suggest a prefer to blame the messenger (“The know the rules and why they were Politicians often avoid those facts without adding words challenge an interviewee misrep- focus or emphasis for a story, but Media”). Real journalists work hard hired. Employees in any business : answering questions directly of judgment helps to keep the story resenting the truth. Reliance on Q dictating a political slant would be to ensure their reporting is objective must deliver on their employer’s or essentially change the subject from becoming opinion. established, provable facts and questions informed by experience, rare. But bias is a more complicated and fair. They don’t always get stories expectations to keep their job. At in their response. How do you get DICK PRYOR: Faced with an increas- issue than it might appear. Language right (journalists are human, after all, some point journalists must decide answers to your questions without observation, and knowledge is not ing onslaught of dubious claims that the reporter considers interpre- and sometimes sources lie and facts whether they want to deliver what antagonizing interviewees? Please necessarily opinion, and placing the and self-serving statements by tation might appear to some readers change), but bias claims often result their employer demands or move on comment on journalists’ increasing speaker in an uncomfortable position elected officials, there is a growing when the story does not align with to another job. insertion of facts in news stories does not mean the questioning is or viewers to be bias, even if that is trend in journalism to utilize the “fact the news consumer’s own percep- News assignment editors and when a spokesman or politician says inappropriate. The journalist’s job not the intent. All reporters have sandwich” technique. This method tion or preferred view of reality. managers often have a general something that needs correction. is to serve the public interest by worldviews that shape what they of reporting begins with a statement That doesn’t mean the reporting is idea of what a story may be (that’s At what point does such correction providing reliable and true informa- think is important or troubling and of relevant, known facts, followed biased. Interestingly, journalists are why they choose those stories) and move the story to “opinion”? tion, not to be complicit in spreading leave them with blind spots that may by the statement of the speaker, and misinformation or disinformation. bias their coverage—again regardless among the few professionals trained discuss that premise with reporters. RICH LENZ, OETA: closing with a reiteration of the facts. Getting informa- of intent. News outlets with more and required to be unbiased; yet we In a professional news organization, Adroit politicians are generally tion out of a reticent subject is a Why do some news outlets liberal or conservative audiences are targeted for bias by people who whether the finished story fulfills very good at “pivoting” to reflect journalistic art form and it can be Q: appear to be partisan or may attract reporters with similar want a different result. the promise of the premise is not a the message the speaker wants to Some “news” outlets are biased; certainty. The reporter may see a accomplished in different ways. I biased? And why do their reporters worldviews. The perspective of deliver, rather than answering the it’s part of their business and different story approach than the one prefer to avoid interrupting someone (who hold varying viewpoints) audience members also plays a who is pivoting away from answering question asked. As a journalist, marketing plan. Some outlets direct originally contemplated or unfolding seem to follow a prescribed role. Scholars have identfied a a question—but I will if I have to. One I care less about “antagonizing their reporters to slant a story facts and other information may agenda? FOX News reporters “hostile media effect”: Partisan simple trick is easing into the things interviewees” than holding them a certain way or reach a desired push the story in a different direction, wouldn’t work for CNN, nor would members of an audience tend to see you really want to know about. Let accountable, getting to the truth, writers at The Washington Post conclusion. There are many ways as it should. news coverage as biased against the interviewee have their say, get and delivering a story on deadline. align with those of The National stories can be subtly biased. Some- Another factor that complicates their own point of view. them comfortable, and then move Occasionally, re-asking the question Enquirer—or would they? When times, the bias resides in the story viewer and listener perceptions is the toward the questions you are really in a slightly different way elicits editors give an assignment, do DICK PRYOR: In my experience, selection; it can also be caused by difference between news and talk. interested in getting answered. I a meaningful response. Asking they tell you what slant the story people who want to see bias, see bias. story placement, word choice, prom- Commentary, opinion, and analysis have also found it effective to tell open-ended who, what, when, where, should take? When disappointed by the outcome inence, and repetition. Reporters (talk) is not the same as news, yet
78 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 79 deliver accurate information (within newspapers I’ve been associated demeanor in the face of criticism. the margin of error). Consumers of with do a pretty good job of making The positive attitude comes from the polling information should always sure even submitted content is knowledge that the work you’re doing remember the margin of error and readable and conforms to style. is important, accurate, and credible. show greater trust in polls with DICK PRYOR: Remember media CINDY ALLEN: I try to look honestly larger sample sizes, [which] are more organizations are businesses. They at the complaints regarding the accurate, but also cost more. operate as best they can with the press. I think journalists and those resources they have and will not leading what we call “mainstream” Has the thinning of ad and survive if they are not financially news organizations today need to : subscription revenue (and Q viable. If people want journalism that recognize that some complaints the consequent thinning of reporting informs, empowers, and connects about the press are, unfortunately, staffs) changed what news is us, and helps each American be an deserved. We have to acknowledge published or how it is treated? engaged, educated citizen, they must Is “submitted content” from outside that the media has made some support it through their actions and sources published to fill space tremendous mistakes in the efforts their dollars. because newspapers lack the re- to be “first” with a story or to be sources to produce local content? DAVID CRAIG: It is a reality that having immediately online or to chase social fewer reporters and editors means media posts. CINDY ALLEN: The decrease in something has to change, whether We also have to acknowledge that newsroom personnel is very defi- that means stories going undone, the line between objective reporting many consumers can’t tell the differ- equally is not reality. Responsible DAVID CRAIG: Major polls sponsored nitely a detriment to newspapers being covered in a more superficial and “point of view” reporting has ence. News consumers get especially reporting provides context. Indepen- by newspapers and TV networks and, more importantly, to commu- way, or checked less closely for been blurred in news consumers’ frustrated and confused when news dent, professional journalists have typically come from work with nities. There are either no reporters errors. Submitted content is one eyes. Journalists working for today’s and talk blend together. It takes work an obligation to be fair. professional research firms or or very few reporters to attend and easy and cheap option that becomes mainstream organizations need to to discern the difference, and a lot of universities that understand scien- report regularly on school, city, DAVID CRAIG: It is vital to the truth- more attractive with cuts in staff. understand that news consumers people just don’t make the effort. tific methodology. For example, and county government meetings telling mission of journalism to have thousands of news outlets at CNN and NBC News-Wall Street or activities. That leaves very little present all sides, whether there are The free press as a core their fingertips, and we only have How do you effectively deal Journal national election polls are objective voice in telling the commu- two or seven. Lazy journalism seeks : democratic institution is control over how we provide cover- : with forces that want “both conducted by research firms. The nity what is going on with important Q Q out polar opposites and presents constantly under attack and the role age. I think we owe our readers sides” of a story presented equally? NPR-PBS-Marist poll is conducted entities that account for a great deal those as balance. If there are two of a journalist is routinely delegit- the most objective, balanced, My observation is people usually by a university. Candidates may of tax money. Just publishing press major sides, telling both of them imized. How do you maintain and accurate information we can believe one particular side, despite also use professional research releases provided by these govern- is part of giving the public what focus, unbiased perspective, and a provide. We have to think like a evidence. firms, but journalists should ment entities doesn’t give the full it needs to judge their views. But positive attitude—personally and reader. That means we do every- always watch for biases in the context of what is going on. There’s DICK PRYOR: Revered journalist professionally—when the media thing we can to vet our sources and presenting both sides doesn’t no one to ask follow-up questions wording of poll questions. Scien- is characterized as “dishonest” and to confirm the information we are Edward R. Murrow said, “I simply require giving them equal time. and hold those entities accountable. tific polling methods include seeking “the enemy of the people”? providing. We hold a story if we can’t cannot accept that there are, on If ninety percent of the evidence It also leads to less activity at “city representative samples, wording confirm the information properly. every story, two equal and logical supports one side, that side SUSAN ELLERBACH, questions neutrally, and reporting hall” if community members don’t Tulsa World: sides to an argument.” Indeed, there probably merits more attention— RICH LENZ: I never think of the media margins of error. know what’s going on and can’t ask As journalists, we are trained are likely multiple sides to every but even that judgment needs to be questions themselves. and educated to approach coverage as a monolithic entity, nor myself discussion or issue with varying made with a close look at the facts. DICK PRYOR: The proof of polls is I think newspapers are more with an unbiased eye. It is the basis identical to every other person who weight, credibility, evidence, and in the pollster, financial investment, likely to publish submitted content of our credibility as journalists. The lists their occupation as “journalist.” relevance. “Fair and balanced” is a As we approach national and purpose. Reputable public regarding events or the typical press confusion comes from the cacophony My approach is to ask for specifics: slogan. In my experience, fairness is Q: elections, how reliable are opinion research firms operate using releases from businesses, no matter of opinion out there that is labeled How was I dishonest? What did more important than balance. The polls conducted by newspapers versus strict industry standards for fairness, how newsworthy they are, in order “journalism.” Politicians have always I get wrong? If the answers are world is not all black and white or those by the major TV networks? methodology, and reliability. Regard- to provide local content. However, railed against journalists who expose thoughtful and legitimate, I try to right and left with no middle ground. What distinguishes a scientific poll less of which media organizations pay there still have to be editors to their faults or their misdeeds. But listen and learn. I’ve never considered Both sides of a story presented from a survey pushed by candidates? them, reputable polling firms should edit these submissions, and the it’s important to keep a professional myself an “enemy of the people.”
80 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 81 DICK PRYOR: Attacks on journalists RICH LENZ: Criticism of a story hap- distinguish the difference between and the “news media” are nothing pens all the time. It’s an old but very news sites and point-of-view sites. new. Throughout history, reporters true cliché in this business: If people Point-of-view sites vastly outnumber and media organizations have been a protest your story—from both the left what I call legitimate and main- target of ridicule to varying degrees. and right—you’ve probably produced a stream news organizations whose Harsh criticism and mockery come solid and fair piece of work. goal is to objectively and accurately with the territory. We are trained to report. Point-of-view organizations SUSAN ELLERBACH: As an organi- rise above attacks, remain ethical, stay are very good at marketing their zation, we trust our journalists to be focused, and do our jobs regardless of material to their own followers. factual. Editors question reporters how we are perceived, degraded, or I’m not sure journalists should try about information gained from assaulted. As difficult as it may be at to convince people to “believe” sources and the credibility of those times, we know we must maintain our anything. I think the only thing a sources. We do check facts and quotes professionalism and credibility. news organization can do, whether in stories when there is a question. it is a newspaper, online site, or We encourage reporters to check With the charges of “fake broadcast media, is to objectively back with sources to verify inform- : news” being leveled at news provide as much diversity in Q ation before publication if there is any media, has fact-checking helped build coverage as possible and provide question in their mind. We respond to a sense of reliability? Do you make space (opinion pages) for discussion criticism by listening in full to make a habit of fact-checking your work and conversation. sure the criticism is directed at a fact, DICK PRYOR: before broadcast or publication, or call RICH LENZ: We can suggest that for themselves. Convincing people to disprove claims often are seen as and not simply a matter of disagree- If we are honest, we’ll someone you’ve interviewed to verify people follow news outlets that don’t they benefit by being engaged, partisan themselves. I have seen ment with the story. If there is a admit more and more news reporting necessarily support their view of the discerning, and informed by truth news organizations successfully quotes? How do you respond to criti- is “agenda-driven.” It comes with mistake, we correct immediately and world because doing so helps them and logic more than emotion, falsity, take the topic of the day—which cism of a story you reported and what a built-in slant, particularly at the are transparent about the correction. become better-informed citizens. and ease is not just the journalist’s could be a conspiracy theory or do you risk in doing that? network and cable level. Perhaps DICK PRYOR: We can recommend that personal responsibility—it is the responsibility disinformation—and report on CINDY ALLEN: Journalists need to that’s the impact of social media, Yes, we must constantly fact-checking, discussing thought- those matters objectively without adhere to professional standards, I’m not sure. I strive to play it of each of us in a civilized society. fact-check our stories. I have never fully, seeking objective truth, and escalating the issue. That’s the including fact-checking, and be straight down the middle every been a fan of verifying quotes, particu- keeping an open mind are essential best way to approach it. prepared to confidently defend their time. People who want their infor- Why don’t journalists do larly if the quote is a controversial one. to a functioning society. We can work. The more journalists can cite mation delivered that way will Q: more to disprove wild RICH LENZ: I think it’s a waste of time It’s too easy for the source to say, “No, I urge that laying off social media and sources, explain work processes, and gravitate towards my/our work. rumors, disinformation, and con- reporting on rumors and conspiracy didn’t say that.” I think with quotes, we dubious “news” websites encour- exhibit responsibility and ethics, the If they don’t like that, they’ll go spiracy theories? theories. Our time is much better have to be extremely careful in making ages educated citizenship that is more the public will appreciate their somewhere else, but I’ll be at peace CINDY ALLEN: spent producing impactful, truthful, sure they are placed in the proper critical to democracy. However, the I don’t think jour- role and performance. either way. accurate reports that benefit our context. We have many tools now to lure of confirmation bias and the nalists accomplish much when audience and help them navigate verify quotes, such as cell phone audio SUSAN ELLERBACH: I wish I had a need to have one’s own personal they try to disprove rumors and The country is divided when through their day. and video recording. If the source viable answer to this one. I speak conspiracy theories. What journalists : it comes to political views perspectives, biases, values, and wants to record the interview as well, Q with people on a daily basis who can do, however, is find a way to DAVID CRAIG: Journalists’ primary and the news. People are selective in identity affirmed is powerful. I have no problem with that. question our reporting just because And, there are plenty of places objectively report on these matters job is to seek out truthful information. choosing which media outlets they will As far as responding to criti- it isn’t what they’re hearing on their where people can easily turn to get without the agenda of “disproving.” Chasing rumors, disinformation, and watch or read, so many do not learn all cism, there may be times when favorite cable news station. Many the news they want to hear without If a public official provides disinfor- conspiracy theories can create its sides of the story. How can journalists replying or explaining is relevant. With people want to read information that the inconvenience of being chal- mation about something and own set of problems by amplifying convince the people who only believe controversial and complex issues, agrees with their specific political lenged or learning they are wrong. it is widely reported, a news false information. Debunking those news reporting that agrees with I think providing additional articles view. Outside of our editorial pages, As journalists, we realize some minds organization should look at that things is also beyond the ability their party affiliation to watch or read about “how we covered this story” is that’s not our job as a news publi- just cannot be opened or changed, issue and objectively report of individual journalists because differing sides of a story? important in helping readers under- cation. We strive to be objective in nor do they necessarily need to be. on it with credible sources. disinformation is often driven by stand the context of the issue and how CINDY ALLEN: This question is defi- our reporting by presenting facts Much of our job is to equip people Unfortunately, more than persuade organized efforts that take advantage the reporting on the story occurred. nitely a hard one. I think we have to and giving context to those facts. to make better-informed decisions viewers of the truth, these efforts of social media platforms on a large
82 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 83 Using objectivity as an approach SUSAN ELLERBACH: Ida B. Wells there,” and of experiencing what is to reporting does more to lead to (1862-1931) would have to be one happening in real time. Being there presentation of accurate information of the standards for all journalists, to document the chaos makes a jour- than to highlight disinformation. particularly women. As a Black nalist a much better storyteller. It also woman who made inroads as an provides the best opportunity to put As you look back over the investigative journalist fighting for those stories into context for readers Q: history of American jour- others while she was discriminated and viewers. Thank goodness we still nalism, which journalist, in your against at every turn, her story is have good journalists willing to put opinion, is most worthy of our remarkable and her fight against themselves out there to bring us the admiration and remembrance, and injustice was groundbreaking. In news as it is happening. why? Do you think that journalist a more accepting society, I think DICK PRYOR: Journalists are among she would have set the standard would thrive in today’s climate, be our world’s foremost first respond- for journalists of all genders warmly received by the public or the ers. We are driven to question, learn, and colors. And, yes, I think she media business? report, and serve. Just as firefighters would be widely accepted by her CINDY ALLEN: are inspired and trained to rush Walter Cronkite peers. The public would probably toward a burning building and risk is an example of an exemplary be as skeptical of her as they are their own lives to save lives and broadcast journalist. He was seen about most journalists these days. as a trusted source of information, property, most journalists are willing and I think he worked very hard at to sacrifice and put themselves RICH LENZ: Internationally, journalists scale. But there is a place for news Do you believe that, for Edward R. Murrow has in danger to get the story. When reporting the news calmly and objec- : have always taken chances organizations to join in bigger efforts Q: most stories, there is only a famous quote that in some cases Q big stories happen, journalists rush tively. He was also humble. Though when reporting from places of foreign to uncover disinformation. one version of the truth? Does the there is one truth to be told and telling headlong to the scene, fueled by considered a celebrity journalist in conflict. But the protests following journalistic pressure for objectivity both sides of the story is detrimental adrenaline and commitment to the SUSAN ELLERBACH: We have smaller his prime years, he cared more about the murder of George Floyd put jour- (presenting more than one side of to sharing the story’s fundamental public’s need to know, to report the staffs and it’s sometimes a struggle to being a good reporter than a popular nalists under fire in our own country, a story) have a negative effect in truth. I don’t agree. I always opt to story, and worry about themselves report all of the legitimate news that’s reporter. I can’t really answer if he among our own citizens. Tell us fueling disinformation and disre- tell both sides of a story and let the later. Most of us are just wired that happening in our community. We do, would thrive in today’s 24-hour news about the drive within journalists that gard for facts? viewer decide for themselves. I’m not way and are determined to face sometimes, disprove information that environment, but I know I certainly makes them willing to risk physical wise enough to make that decision down the odds and do our job. We may be dangerous or unfair. But if we CINDY ALLEN: Journalists have to miss journalists like him. harm to report the news. for them. believe in our work and the role we be careful about who they select spent our time disproving every wild RICH LENZ: I love the previous CINDY ALLEN: It’s unbelievable to me play in civilized society. to provide differing “sides” to a SUSAN ELLERBACH: There are always rumor or “conspiracy theory” that generation(s) of news anchors: that in 2018, for the first time, the According to the Committee to story or issue. In order to report different perspectives to stories. comes our way, we wouldn’t have Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, United States was named one of the Protect Journalists, 880 journalists on a controversial topic like vacci- [For example], if you’re a business time for anything else. David Brinkley, Peter Jennings. world’s most dangerous countries for worldwide [were] murdered between owner who is paying minimum wage nations, reporters need to work Diane Sawyer, Jane Pauley, DICK PRYOR: journalists. And that danger has only 1992 and the end of 2019. Reporters There are not enough hard to inform themselves first. employees, you have a much different Connie Chung. They all had their been exacerbated by the rhetoric of Without Borders found that 941 jour- reputable and adequately equipped And you have to resist quoting the economic perspective than those private political beliefs, but you’d unscrupulous politicians and social nalists were killed from 2010-2019, news organizations, time, or jour- employees. But the fact remains most sensational narratives. You rarely see them revealed on-air. media. However, I can tell you that, many of them in war zones. A histor- nalists to chase down and refute you’re paying minimum wage. In can find physicians who work with (Cronkite criticizing the Vietnam yes, there is an internal drive and ically low number of journalists the plague of unreliable, dishonest, general, the facts represent the truth. their patients regarding the safety of War is an exception and one of a need to be a part of the action to were killed in 2019—only 49. By the or misguided misinformation and vaccinations and when vaccinations DAVID CRAIG: For most stories, there the reasons Lyndon Johnson document what is really going on— end of the year there were 57 jour- disinformation that, like a virus, are appropriate. And you ask for their is only one core set of facts, but some- decided not to run for re-election.) and the aftermath—to tell the stories nalists held hostage and 389 in quickly replicates, mutates, spreads, sources or experiences to back up times those facts are impossible to That’s old-school journalism and of perseverance and survival. prison. That was a good year. and grows in our modern high-tech what they say. Vaccinations is one fully learn and verify. Presenting the way I was taught to conduct My primary experiences in deal- Journalists also carry physical world. Much of this difficult work of those issues that is complex and more than one point of view—or myself. I dare say, none of them ing with danger were with chasing and emotional scars from their must be done by the people (the fraught with partisan perspective. presenting conflicts where factual would probably succeed in today’s tornadoes and storms. It is defi- work, and it takes a toll. But we governed) and requires commitment, People truly want to be informed so understandings differ—is part of television climate, for a variety of nitely an adrenaline rush. But more are trained to gather ourselves, vigilance, discipline, and courage. they can make their own decisions. telling the broader truth of the story. reasons. Different times. importantly it’s a feeling of “being focus, and meet the next deadline,
84 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 85 journalists go towards the news not happening in local government aren’t as apparent? What about how tax away from it. Even when we coach is lost. People know less and money is being spent or misspent? It’s journalists to put their safety first, less about what is happening in the whole watchdog role of the press. their instinct is to cover the news. It’s their communities, and if they That is what’s at risk of disappearing. a sense of purpose that really can’t depend on social media for the RICH LENZ is news DICK PRYOR: information, it may not be accurate. Journalism organizations director of OETA and June 18, 2018 be taught. Our job as managers is to have been shedding jobs for many anchor of Oklahoma’s only statewide take every precaution to keep them The loss of newsroom positions newscast, The Oklahoma News Report. years as a variety of forces (including regardless of the challenges and safe, provide them with the best gear makes it harder for the public to find Lenz is an Emmy-winning journalist with CINDY ALLEN is a changing consumer habits, rising costs, thirty-eight years of experience as a hostility we face. And that hostility possible, and to trust their judgment. accurate and relevant information. veteran communica- newscaster and sportscaster. Prior to tions professional having served as editor is growing. That the climate for and diversity of news options) have DAVID CRAIG: Reporting the news is DAVID CRAIG: Losing local jour- joining OETA, Lenz worked at KWTV in and publisher of community newspapers reporters is deteriorating in the forced many legacy news organizations Oklahoma City and KOTV in Tulsa. He also a job that takes a passion for truth nalists means important problems in in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas. Her to reevaluate their practices, reduce spent thirteen years as sports director at most recent newspaper position was United States should come as no some communities either do not get and public service. That is what WDSU-TV in New Orleans. managing editor at the Enid News & surprise given the frequent character- their output, or shut down. Smaller keeps conscientious journalists covered in depth or are not covered Eagle from 2002 to 2012. She has won ization of journalists as “fake news” start-up and nonprofit reporting organi- going despite the difficulties and at all. Partisan sources with one several writing and editorial commen- and “enemy of the people.” According zations have filled some of the void, but tary awards. She is currently the External dangers they face. point of view have a greater ability to the Reporters Without Borders they, too, operate on a thin margin. The Relations Director for Parent Promise/ to shape public opinion where these Prevent Child Abuse Oklahoma. She serves 2020 Press Freedom Index, the coronavirus outbreak and resulting Many journalists are among gaps exist. “News deserts” leave on the board of directors of Freedom of United States has slipped to 45th economic collapse in the U.S. acceler- Information Oklahoma. : the unemployed because blind spots in public understanding out of 180 countries in the degree Q ated the decline, at a time when news of COVID-19. Indeed, the move to of important topics, especially at the of freedom available to journalists, and information was especially critical. DICK PRYOR is general digital media and loss of ad revenue local level. manager of KGOU ranking one place ahead of Papua By April 10, 2020, The New York Times Radio. Pryor has more than forty years in the past decade (or longer) has RICH LENZ: I think a trend you’ll New Guinea. estimated that 36,000 journalists had of experience in television, radio, public led to the decimation of newsrooms. see is wealthy investors stepping either lost their jobs or had their pay relations, law, and government service. RICH LENZ: I personally know a What have we lost and what is at in to save the best newspapers. He earned a B.A. in Journalism and a J.D. reduced since the start of the COVID-19 few reporters here in Oklahoma stake when there aren’t enough Jeff Bezos buyingThe Washington from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he was chosen a Distinguished Alumnus DAVID CRAIG is pro- who were reporting in the thick of journalists to report the news? pandemic. When, or if, those jobs will Post is the first of what I believe of the Gaylord College of Journalism fessor and associate the protests and wound up being come back is anyone’s guess. CINDY ALLEN: The traditional busi- will be many examples of this. I also and Mass Communication at OU and is dean at the Gaylord College of Journalism tear gassed. It is a tough business In an April 29, 2020 story, the a member of the Oklahoma Journalism and Mass Communication at the University ness model of newspapers and media think this will lead to more activist for sure. I’m proud to know many trade journal Variety asked Emily Bell, Hall of Fame. of Oklahoma. His teaching and research companies no longer works. The reporting in those newsrooms. focus on media ethics. He is the author reporters who wouldn’t think of not founding director of the Tow Center of Excellence in Online Journalism: newspaper industry, in particular, SUSAN ELLERBACH: What we have being on the scene to report a signif- for Digital Journalism at Columbia Exploring Current Practices in an Evolving was slow to adapt to the changes lost in the decline of newsrooms Environment The Ethics of the Story: icant story. It’s just something that Journalism School, what happens if and in advertising. Traditional adver- across the country is virtually Using Narrative Techniques Responsibly gets in your blood and never goes journalism goes away. Bell replied, in Journalism tisers that produced a lot of revenue unfathomable. In many commu- . He is a member of the away. At its best, journalism is a fine “From studies, we know that corrup- editorial board of the Journal of Media for newspapers, such as classifieds, nities, they’ve lost the luxury calling, but if you hope to be great at tion increases and local, regional, Ethics. He earned a Ph.D. in journalism real estate, car dealerships, grocery of having information at their from the University of Missouri-Columbia. it, you need to be willing to pay the and national politicians get away with SUSAN ELLERBACH is stores, etc., no longer advertise in fingertips—of knowing what deci- price to get the story. more. It’s not a fantasy to say that the executive editor of print form or barely advertise. That is sions their local government and the Tulsa World. She began her career at journalism holds power to account.” SUSAN ELLERBACH: The very real why so many newsrooms have been local schools are making. Why is the World in 1985 as a business reporter and has served as state editor, Sunday risks that journalists in the U.S. cut, even before COVID. Journalism connects and enlight- their water bill going up? Why are editor, and managing editor before being ens the people, protects them face started long before the [2020] Newspapers, in my opinion, still schools going to four-day weeks? named to her current position in ART LIEN has been protests surrounding the death provide the best, most credible, Many people don’t know where from dangerous forces, and makes 2014. Ellerbach is a proud graduate of the sketching in courtroom of George Floyd at the hands of a and most relevant coverage for their to find answers to questions like informed citizenship in a free and William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. In 2010, proceedings since democratic society possible. Without Minneapolis police officer. I had a local communities. But, as news- that—or have the time to search she was inducted into the Oklahoma 1976 and his regular veteran photographer tell me that rooms shrink, the bread and butter out the answers—and depend on reliable, trustworthy, and independent Journalism Hall of Fame. beat is the U.S. Supreme Court. You can see his work on NBCNews.com, SCOTUSblog, journalism, the grand American exper- he felt more targeted at a 2016 polit- coverage of government meetings their local news sources. But what and courtartist.com, his website where he ical rally than at the recent protests and community news is being about those questions that aren’t iment would be severely threatened. archives drawings and links to news stories we covered in Tulsa. Regardless, lost, transparency about what is as simple and the answers that We lose journalism at our own peril. about cases and opinions.
86 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 87 MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) A young SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (1964) When the leader of the
, RKO senator defends himself against false accusations in an free world signs a peace treaty with the Russians, his exhausting filibuster that demonstrates his courage while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff leads the plot to exposing the corruption of elder statesmen. Starring: overthrow him in this Cold War thriller. Starring: Burt
Citizen Kane Citizen James Stewart, Jean Arthur Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Fredric March
HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940) Set to lose his ex-wife (and best THE CANDIDATE (1972) The Democratic Party taps the reporter) to her upcoming marriage, a newspaper editor former governor’s handsome son to run for the California suggests a final collaboration on a high-profile murder case state senate. No one is more surprised than him when he and investigation. Starring: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell wins. Starring: Robert Redford, Peter Boyle
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940) Unexpected guests 1776 (1972) John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and spark unexpected feelings in a young socialite, just days Thomas Jefferson sing their way through the humid before her wedding. With the threat of “bad press” in the summer of 1776 in this light-hearted movie musical air, will she choose her ex-husband, her fiancé, or a tabloid about the inception and adoption of the Declaration of reporter who is more than he seems? Starring: Cary Grant, Independence. Starring: William Daniels, Ken Howard, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart Howard Da Silva
CITIZEN KANE (1941) A young reporter pursues the THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974) A reporter sees a meaning of “rosebud,” the dying word of a mercurial news- presidential candidate’s assassination from a new and paper tycoon in this Orson Welles masterpiece, ranked dangerous perspective after his investigation leads to the the best movie of all time by the American Film Institute. corporation behind a larger conspiracy and incurs fatal Starring: Orson Welles, Ruth Warrick consequences. Starring: Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss
STATE OF THE UNION (1948) A reluctant candidate SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (1975-Present) Comedy and runs for president to assuage his girlfriend’s ambitions and current events collide in this 90-minute sketch show where reconnects with his former wife to fabricate a more whole- politicians are favorite fodder and frequent guests. Skits some image. Starring: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn are short, inspired by scores of talented comedians, and their impressions live forever. CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948) The mother of a , convicted killer places a want ad in hopes of gathering ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976) Carl Bernstein POPCORN information that exonerates her son. A Chicago news- and Bob Woodward become household names when their paper answers, investigates, and ultimately proves his Watergate investigation, aided by the anonymous source and THE innocence. Starring: James Stewart, Helen Walker Deep Throat, uncovers President Richard Nixon’s hubris POLITICS, and forces his resignation. Starring: Robert Redford, PRESS SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) An influential colum- Dustin Hoffman KIMBERLY ROBLIN nist wields the power of the press as his personal weapon when he promises a press agent publicity in exchange for NETWORK (1976) An aging anchor rages against ruining his younger sister’s relationship with a man he forced retirement in a series of unhinged reports. The deems unsuitable. Starring: Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster public can’t look away and as the ratings rise, so does his The Washington Post’s slogan warns of speech and resultantly came under widespread censor- blood pressure. He’s mad as . . . well, you know the rest. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962) American “Democracy Dies In Darkness.” Without ship from state and city officials who found them offensive. Starring: Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden soldiers return from the Korean War changed men in a free press and an informed electorate for It wasn’t until 1952 that the Supreme Court reversed its this classic story of suspicion, manipulation, and the FLETCH (1985) An oddball investigator goes under- illumination, a government of the people, by decision and acknowledged that “motion pictures are a unsettling realization that the enemy is not only without, cover to gather intel on local drug deals and stumbles the people, and for the people cannot survive. There is a significant medium for the communication of ideas. Their but within. Starring: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, into a far bigger story with international implications. darkness, however, where democracy can exist. Where importance as an organ of public opinion is not lessened we can explore, criticize, dramatize, and analyze it—the Angela Lansbury Starring: Chevy Chase, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson by the fact that they are designed to entertain as well as darkness of movie theaters and living rooms. to inform.” The Supreme Court understood that movies, A quick survey of film and television reveals the parti- as expressions of broader social interests and trends, Seven Days in May, Paramount State of the Union, MGM The Philadelphia Story, MGM cular popularity of the press and politics, but cinema’s connection to democracy is more than screen deep. Its reflected not only their writers, directors, and producers, very history is a civics lesson in the interpretation and but their audiences as well. application of rights. In 1915, the Supreme Court ruled So get comfortable, grab some popcorn, and get ready. that movies were a “business . . . and not to be regarded Silver or small screen, satire or serious, inspired by fact or as part of the press of the country or as organs of public fiction, these selections demonstrate our fascination with opinion.” Translation? They weren’t protected by freedom politics and the protections of the First Amendment.
88 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 89 His Girl Friday, Columbia Universal M.C. Prods. M.C. Warner Bros. Warner
PRIMARY COLORS (1998) A charismatic governor with a southern drawl, a whip-smart wife, and a wandering eye runs for president in the early ’90s. Sound familiar? It’s based on the roman à clef about Bill Clinton and his first presidential campaign in 1992.Starring: John Travolta, Emma Thompson THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART (1999-2015) Specializing in satire and sarcasm, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart received a 2015 Institutional Peabody MURPHY BROWN (1988-1998; 2018-2019) A seasoned, Award for “its bracing media criticism, gleeful outing of investigative journalist returns to work after rehab and mendacity and unflagging mockery of the dumb and The West Wing, NBC Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Columbia must navigate her professional life, personal life, and every- asinine in American life.” Stewart made viewers laugh thing in between. Starring: Candice Bergen, Faith Ford and think as the show became a news source for many.
JFK (1991) An investigation into President Kennedy’s THE INSIDER (1999) The tobacco industry targets a assassination consumes a New Orleans district attorney whistleblower after he appears on a nightly news GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (2005) CBS JOHN ADAMS (2008) An early and ardent supporter of as he becomes increasingly convinced that the official program and tells a damaging story to millions of newsman Edward R. Murrow takes on Senator independence, a Massachusetts lawyer plays a pivotal explanation and subsequent Warren Report are flawed. viewers who are, more importantly, consumers. McCarthy, the Red Scare, and corporate pressure in Starring: Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Jack Lemmon Starring: Russell Crowe, Al Pacino role in the creation of a new nation, its governance, and this George Clooney drama filmed entirely in black and the great American experiment. Starring: Paul Giamatti, MALCOLM X (1992) Based largely on Alex Haley’s 1965 THE WEST WING (1999-2006) Even President Bartlet white. Starring: David Strathairn, George Clooney Laura Linney biography, this Spike Lee film provides an overview of and his staff aren’t immune from the politics, personal THE COLBERT REPORT (2005-2014) A fictitious MILK the activist’s life, looking at events not in isolation, but as conflicts, and daily dramas that plague every office—Oval (2008) Harvey Milk, a local San Francisco busi- ultra-conservative pundit rails against the liberal establish- part of a larger context and narrative. Starring: Denzel or otherwise. It might be the White House, but it’s still nessman, becomes a community activist, runs for city ment and champions “truthiness” in this satirical series Washington, Spike Lee just a workplace. Starring: Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, office, and ultimately becomes the state’s first openly starring Stephen Colbert, current host of The Late Show Bradley Whitford gay elected official in 1977, before being shot and killed on CBS. DAVE (1993) When the president suffers a medical emer- the following year. Starring: Sean Penn, James Franco, THE CONTENDER gency, his staff launch a desperate charade to keep the (2000) When the vice president CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR (2007) Afghans receive Josh Brolin vice president from power and promote an amateur imper- suddenly dies in office, the president nominates a female unlikely support in their fight against the Soviets when a PARKS AND RECREATION (2009-2015) Leslie Knope, sonator from temp office manager to Oval Office stand-in. senator, but the hearing devolves into a smear campaign Texas congressman, a Houston socialite, and an American Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation Depart- Starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella amid blatant and latent sexism. Starring: Joan Allen, spy coordinate stateside efforts to raise funds.Starring: Jeff Bridges, Gary Oldman ment, battles red tape and endemic apathy in her mission THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman (1995) In this romantic to beautify Pawnee, Indiana, and enrich the lives of THIRTEEN DAYS comedy, a widower president seeking reelection and a (2000) Thirteen days and ninety miles W. (2008) Oliver Stone’s unforgiving take on the some- its citizens. Starring: Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, prominent environmental lobbyist fall for each other. were all that separated the world from nuclear war in what surprising rise of George W. Bush from failed Nick Offerman, Chris Pratt But can their Oval Office romance survive the public and the fall of 1962, when an American pilot photographed congressional campaign to professional baseball, the THE IDES OF MARCH political scrutiny? Starring: Michael Douglas, Annette Russian missiles under assembly in Cuba. Starring: Kevin governorship, and finally the presidency.Starring: Josh (2011) A young Bening, Martin Sheen Costner, Bruce Greenwood Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, Thandie Newton campaign manager discovers firsthand how quickly politics can compromise char- WAG THE DOG (1997) When a scandal threatens the SHATTERED GLASS (2003) When something sounds FROST/NIXON (2008) Three years after his resignation, acter and must decide if his ideals are true president’s reelection, political insiders and a movie too good to be true, it probably is. A young journalist’s Richard Nixon sits down for an exclusive interview with principles or talking points. Starring: Ryan producer stage a false war and leverage the press into a sensational stories raise red flags and collapse under David Frost. Expecting to control the narrative, he finds Gosling, George Clooney, Rachel Evan Wood weapon of mass distraction. Starring: Robert De Niro, scrutiny when his sources are found to be largely fake. himself instead in a surprising and compelling exchange. Dustin Hoffman, Anne Heche Starring: Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard Starring: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen
90 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 91 Network, MGM All the President’s Men, Warner Bros. Malcolm X, Warner Bros.
MADAM SECRETARY (2014-2019) A secretary of SUPERMAN (multiple adaptations) Journalists are state uses her former experience as a CIA analyst to superheroes in this comic book series, with characters execute statecraft and negotiate the complexities of Clark Kent and Lois Lane as newspaper reporters. geopolitics while raising a young family. Starring: Téa Aided by intrepid photojournalist Jimmy Olsen, they Leoni, Tim Daly break stories and save the world. Adaptations are The Post, 20th Century Fox legion—from early radio broadcasts, the 1952’s black- LAST WEEK TONIGHT (2014-Present) With a team and-white TV series, and an appearance on I Love Lucy Milk, Focus Features of researchers at his back, John Oliver is a funny fact- to Christopher Reeve’s iconic movie performances and finder who delivers substantive pieces on timely topics an epic showdown in 2016’s Batman v Superman: each Sunday evening. He’s not a journalist—but he’s Dawn of Justice. not just a comedian either. HYDE PARK ON HUDSON (2012) Franklin and KIMBERLY ROBLIN is a writer, curator, and fourth- HAMILTON (2015) An immigrant orphan rises up to generation Oklahoman. She received her BA and MA Eleanor Roosevelt welcome King George VI and Queen become the “ten dollar founding father” in this Broadway from the University of Oklahoma and has worked in major Elizabeth to their country estate as Europe moves closer biopic of Alexander Hamilton. Written by Lin-Manuel museums since 2005. Her work has been featured in The to war and Britain tries to shore up allies in the summer of Journal of Gilcrease Museum True West STATE Oklahoma Miranda and filmed in 2016, the original Broadway , , , Humanities, History Scotland, and several books, including 1939. Starring: Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Colman production is streaming on Disney+. the 2009 Oklahoma Book of the Year for non-fiction, THE CAMPAIGN Thomas Gilcrease (2012) A polished incumbent takes SPOTLIGHT (2015) The Boston Globe’s investiga- . Sharing history, particularly Western, through publications, exhibitions, and research is more on and expects to take down a first-time, mild-mannered tion into sexual abuse allegations against the Catholic candidate in this comedy about the nature and nasti- than business—it’s personal. IMAGES: All black-and-white Church revealed a systemic coverup, earned a Pulitzer movie photographs courtesy doctormacro.com ness of political campaigns. Starring: Will Ferrell, Zach Prize for journalism, and inspired this 2016 Academy Parks and Recreation, NBC Galifianakis Award Winner for Best Picture. Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Veep, HBO EXTRA! READ | THINK | TALK | LINK THE NEWSROOM (2012-2014) The anchors are fiction, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams . “The End of American Film Censorship,” Kristin Hunt, Feb but not the news and events they cover in this Aaron THE POST (2017) To publish or not to publish the 28, 2018, JSTOR. A brief history of film censorship in the Sorkin series that explores the difficulties of reporting the Pentagon Papers? That’s the question in this Steven U.S. daily.jstor.org news amid divergent personalities and interests. Starring: Spielberg film about freedom of the press and a White . Browse the American Film Institute’s top 100 movies. Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer House administration’s attempts to restrain it. Starring: afi.com Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks VEEP (2012-2019) Senator-turned-Vice President Selina Meyer grows disillusioned with the Commander VICE (2018) Under George W. Bush, Dick Cheney in Chief and successfully runs for president. She has became the most powerful and influential vice president the power. She has the plans. Now she must convince in American history. Sometimes the office shapes the people to work together. Starring: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, man. Sometimes the man shapes the office.Starring: Anna Chlumsky Christian Bale, Sam Rockwell
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KAMARCK | from p. 25 and into the Clinton campaign’s lost the Democratic primary (that Hillary had Parkinson’s disease, that accountable, and the sheer email system. They released was all you had to win to win Texas she was involved in al-Qaida, that she speed with which a character BREAKING AND ENTERING 7 this information to Wikileaks, who in those days) amidst reports of had murdered political opponents, that assassination or a misleading bit of As we now know, breaking and released it to the world in time for widespread voter fraud. And so, as she used a body double, that she had information can travel makes these 1. Lyndon Johnson portrait, Oval Office, entering can be physical or digital. the start of the Democratic Conven- the story goes, when Johnson got the made a small fortune arming ISIS, and threats to democracy more urgent by Arnold Newman, December 1963 The most famous physical breaking (LBJ Library); LBJ campaign button tion. The information was damaging chance to run again in 1948 against that she gave the order to leave four than ever. and entering was at the Democratic (docsteach.org). 2. Richard M. Nixon enough to cause the resignation of former Governor Coke Stevenson, men in Benghazi. greeted by school children during National Committee Headquarters campaign stop, by Jack E. Kightlinger, the DNC Chair, Congresswoman he was determined to play the game Character assassination, no matter ELAINE C. KAMARCK is a Senior Fellow, on June 17, 1972, at the Watergate Governance Studies program, and Director, Aug. 24, 1972 (Nixon Library/NARA). Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and to as it was currently played in Texas. how far-fetched, has always found 3. “Don’t put up any resistance! Just Building in Washington D.C. This Center for Effective Public Management, keep in step,” by Edmund Valtman, spread discontent among supporters The race became humorously known its way into political campaigns. In began a two-year-long investigation at the Brookings Institution. She conducts April 13, 1973, Hartford Times. A small of Senator Bernie Sanders, just when as the “87 vote landslide.” That was this century “deep-fakes,” the use of research on 21st-century government, man labeled “Congress” is hustled from that revealed how President Richard the party should have been uniting Johnson’s margin, totally the result audio and video to make it seem as if a the role of the internet in political the Capitol by men with President Nixon’s Nixon’s CREEP (the appropriate campaigns, homeland defense, intelligence features. Nixon used all weapons at his for the general election. of a late-reporting precinct from the candidate is saying or doing something disposal in 1972 to force Congress to acronym for the Committee to reorganization, and governmental reform town of Alice, Texas. Apparently, that they didn’t do, will make char- accept his ambitious domestic program, Re-elect the President) used a wide INTERFERING WITH and innovation. She is the author of extending executive privilege and 202 voters, some deceased or absent range of dirty tricks to assure Nixon’s THE ELECTION AND THE COUNT acter assassination even more potent. Primary Politics: Everything You Need to refusing to allow staff to testify before from the county on election day, lined Know about How America Nominates Its Congressional committees, most notably re-election in 1972. Because the Fraudulent election activity Although the video making Speaker up at the last minute to cast their Presidential Candidates and Why Presidents the Watergate Committee. Many feared is certainly not new to American Nancy Pelosi look as if she were drunk these actions would erode Congress’s burglary was bungled and immedi- Fail And How They Can Succeed Again. votes for Johnson. The ballot box was quickly revealed to be doctored, it powers and increase powers of the pres- ately publicized in The Washington politics. In the era of big-city political This article was adapted from her FIXGOV from Precinct 13 has mysteriously had been viewed more than two million ident (loc.gov). 4. “Dis-Information,” by Post, we’ll never know what sorts of machines it was not unusual to “vote article, Brookings Institution, July 2019. Edmund Valtman, 1992. Hands labeled disappeared and is still sought after. information the burglars were after or the dead”—have someone go to the times by the time major news outlets brookings.edu “Russia” stuff “Human Rights in Estonia” into a “Dis-Information” meat grinder polls and vote using the identity of FAST-FORWARD were reporting it to be a fake. Facebook how they intended to use it in the fall EXTRA! READ | THINK | TALK | LINK as snakes with forked-tongues emerge campaign. But the unraveling of that someone who had died. And over TO THE INTERNET AGE refused to take it down in spite of admit- (loc.gov). 5. Donald Trump at campaign . “The State of Trust, Facts, and Democ- break-in revealed other break-ins— the years, candidates and parties Every dirty trick that was possible ting it was a fake. And as of this writing rally, Phoenix, AZ, by Gage Skidmore, racy,” After the Fact, The Pew Charitable June 18, 2016 (CC BY-SA 2.0, Flickr). we still don’t know and probably won’t including the break-in at Daniel have engaged in all sorts of voter before the internet is possible today. Trusts. Podcast on public confidence in Trump 2016 campaign logo (Wikimedia). 6. Hillary Clinton at campaign rally, Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office—and a fraud—from paying people to vote The biggest difference is that they are know who doctored the video. democratic institutions and civic life. Tempe, AZ, by Gage Skidmore, Nov. 2, plethora of dirty tricks carried out by who had already voted or who were cheaper, faster, and easier to hide. As Spreading information designed pewtrusts.org 2016 (CC BY-SA 2.0, Flickr). Clinton 2016 the “plumbers,” a group dedicated to pretending to be someone else to we saw in 2016, the Russians threw a to confuse the voters, breaking and . “John Kerry Reflects On Smear Cam- campaign sign, photo by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0, Flickr). “Hillary for Presi- finding dirt on Nixon’s opponents. reporting precinct totals with inten- lot of false information about Hillary entering, and interfering with the trans- paigns And Not Taking Anything For Granted,” Terry Gross (host), Fresh Air, dent” campaign button (Saffy Collection, mission of election results were all Univ. of North Florida Digital Commons). In 2016, a group of Russians tional “errors.” Clinton to the voters. In addition September 5, 2018. A candid discus- known as the Internet Research In his first run for the United to the aforementioned Pizzagate, invented long before computers were 7. U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sion about the difficulties of effectively at 2019 Democratic Party State Conven- Agency broke into the Democratic States Senate, Lyndon Johnson, they told targeted voters (especially invented. But now the low cost of a dirty responding to well-orchestrated and tion, San Francisco, by Gage Skidmore, National Committee’s email system who was later to become president, Bernie Sanders’ supporters) that trick, the difficulty of holding someone financed falsehoods. npr.org June 1, 2019 (CC BY-SA 2.0/Flickr)
94 FALL | WINTER 2020 | CITIZEN 2020 OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES 95 HANNAH | from p. 37 was refreshingly out of place Often, the remedies to long- act. McGirt underscored as fact that NOTEWORTHY compared to those who seek the standing, unresolved questions pave treaties hold both sides responsible. Oval Office or the robes of a tribal the way for new challenges. What Ballot boxes—both tribal and chief. More often, those seeking we witnessed this year in the U.S. state—are still the domain of the Upcoming episodes explore three exciting the highest of offices embrace a Supreme Court’s landmark McGirt people. For those of us who seek new Oklahoma museums: the First Americans leadership approach of “Talk first, v. Oklahoma ruling is conspicuous. more citizen-centric policies and Museum (Oklahoma City), OKPOP (Tulsa), and and listen maybe.” While the Court’s ruling resolved leadership at both the tribal and the Bob Dylan Archives housed at Gilcrease the question of whether Eastern non-tribal level, it is essential that we Double your BrainPower with BrainBox! Museum (Tulsa). We’ll also examine the S ince participating in my first Oklahoma is still Indian Country, each make our way to our own Green Our BrainBox podcast has doubled program- history of conspiracy theories, the legacies ming with two new episodes each month. and uncertain futures of Oklahoma’s small BOARD OF TRUSTEES tribal election, the rancor of new legal mutations are manifested Valley School House. Be it in person We’ll have conversations with some of Okla- rural communities, and innovative ways of politics and election mishaps have concerning jurisdiction over major Dr. Scott LaMascus, Chair or by mail, we must cast our vote homa’s most fascinating scholars as we use teaching and learning Oklahoma history. been present in my tribe as well crimes. The technical attributes of Oklahoma Christian (and perhaps our lot) for leadership the humanities to explore issues affecting BrainBox episodes are free and acces- University as my country. Hanging chads in McGirt are linked with jurisdictional who will protect our freedoms as American society and culture. Each episode sible through your favorite podcast library Valorie Walters, the 2000 presidential election, elements of the Major Crimes Act; features a webpage with info on our guests and on the Oklahoma Humanities website. Vice Chair/Secretary countrymen and as Natives, guar- Ada and the topics discussed. okhumanities.org/brainbox | While you’re added with vote recounts and but the Court’s decision relied upon antee all citizens the right to embrace Recently posted episodes delve into tuned in, give our podcast a rating, and email Cynthia Friedemann, election-eve candidate ejections in the fact that Congress did not dises- Treasurer self-determination, and act for the social justice and racial healing, the legacy of your comments or suggestions for future Oklahoma City tribal elections, have made for an tablish the reservations of the Five greater good of these United States slavery in Oklahoma, the history of women on episodes of the “Podcast for your Noggin.” Dr. Benjamin Alpers uneasy view of the susceptibility of Civilized Tribes at Oklahoma State- and Indian Nations. television, and the value of fantasy literature. [email protected] University of Oklahoma the rule of law to election chaos. hood and, thus, those lands should It is a balancing act at best and a Elizabeth Bass Claims of election tampering and be treated as Indian Country. Oklahoma Historical Society privilege at most. As my daddy would VIRTUALLY SPEAKING (AND READING) foreign influences in the last pres- No doubt there will be much Dr. Ben Bates say: “Vote early and vote often.” Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma, our legacy reading and discussion program, is going virtual Langston University idential contest are at parity with ado with regard to past and future this fall. Visit our website for info on how you can participate from home—or on the go! David N. “Chip” Carter, Jr. adopted strategies of dark money, criminal cases within the historical okhumanities.org Oklahoma City robocalls, direct mail campaigns, boundaries of the Creek, Cherokee, Suzette V. Chang Oklahoma City and the harvesting of absentee Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole GIVING, TAXES, & IRAS Dr. Dewayne Dickens votes in some tribal elections. All Nations. But across the expanse of If you’re aged 70 ½ and facing taxes or penalties Tulsa Community College associated with required minimum distributions from your have caused me to long for a more time, Indian Country in Oklahoma JAY HANNAH, a native of Adair County Ken Fergeson IRA, consider making a tax-free gift to support Oklahoma Altus earnest time when the precinct’s is still as it was before Oklahoma—a and Cherokee Citizen, is a banker and former Chairman of the Cherokee Humanities! The IRA Charitable Rollover allows you to Erick W. Harris votes could be transported in the real place. The Village Nation’s 1999 Constitution Convention, gift up to $100,000 per year to organizations like ours, back of a pickup truck without a The duality of the sovereigns Secretary-Treasurer of the Nation, and while also satisfying your required minimum distribution— Dr. Thomas Harrison avoiding potential taxes or penalties. Contact Executive Oklahoma City single ballot being lost or spoiled, a of state and tribe give reality to the Chairman of all Tribal Enterprises. He Community College serves as the Convener of the Cherokee Director Caroline Lowery for information or assistance. time when the people’s decision was duality of citizenship. The duality of Edna Mae Holden [email protected] | (405) 235-0280 clear and transparent. responsibility in choosing leaders for Tribal Community for Central Oklahoma Kremlin and President of the Descendants of the Don G. Holladay The responsibility of partici- both sides of the political ledger— Cherokee Seminaries. Norman pating in the vote as a dual citizen tribal and non-tribal—is weighty. My ABOUT OKLAHOMA HUMANITIES Oklahoma Humanities (OH) strengthens formats that best serve local communities. David B. Hooten has its challenges. Reconciling the tribal heart says that the Cherokee MARTHA BERRY (Cherokee Nation) began Nichols Hills creating traditional Cherokee beadwork communities by helping Oklahomans learn OH also administers programs that provide entanglement between policy of have been on this planet since the Dr. Thomas A. Kirk in the 1980s. She taught herself the art about the human experience, understand new free access to cultural humanities content, Norman and toward Indian Tribes and the Great Creator sent fire across the Oklahoma Humanities form by studying historic artifacts and perspectives, and participate knowledgeably including: magazine; Dr. Sunu Kodumthara Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma incursion of national party politics waters carried on the back of a spi- photographs. To the extent possible, she in civic life. As the state affiliate of the National , a reading and Southwestern Oklahoma uses materials, techniques, styles, and discussion series; the BrainBox podcast; State University into Indian Country is daunting. der. My Cherokee history reminds Endowment for the Humanities, OH provides designs authentic to early 19th-century and Museum on Main Street, a collaboration Dr. Susan McCarthy One has only to look at the tension me of the potential perishability of and supports programming for the general Oklahoma City Cherokee beadwork. In August 2013, with the Smithsonian Institution to provide that erupted between the State of amity between tribe(s) and state(s), public that uses humanities disciplines (such the Cherokee Nation designated Berry a traveling exhibits in small rural communities. Sarah Milligan Oklahoma State University Oklahoma and tribal leaders over singular and united. The term fed- Cherokee National Treasure for preserving as history, literature, ethics, and philosophy) to Visit our website to find an event near you, and perpetuating the art of traditional deeply explore what it means to be human. Dr. Andrew Vassar the questions of water rights and erally recognized tribe suggests read magazine archives, listen to the BrainBox Northeastern State University Cherokee beadwork. The beaded circles gaming compacts. Negotiation one’s tribe could just as easily be OH accepts grant applications from non- podcast, or explore OH programs and grant appearing in this article are details from her Alba N. Weaver profits across the state for programs that may opportunities. We look forward to hearing Oklahoma City impasse and legal malaise between federally un-recognized—or its bandolier bag titled “The Fourth Estate,” take the form of museum exhibits, film festivals, from you. (405) 235-0280 | okhumanities.org one’s state and tribe does not ease lands established by treaty could photographed by her husband, retired teacher institutes, oral history projects, or other [email protected] the confliction in choosing sides. be dis-established by congressional journalist Dave Berry. berrybeadwork.com
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Oklahoma Humanities Programs Reach All 77 Counties Oklahoma Humanities — The Year in Numbers
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$2,500 AND ABOVE Cathy & Kurt Leichter $100 TO $249 Matt Fong & Lacy Kelly Katherine McCraw HONORARY/MEMORIAL GIFTS In Honor of Steve McLaughlin FOUNDATION AND In Honor of Ann Thompson Ken Fergeson Phillip & Carol Norton Steve & Patty Armbruster Jon Ford Joseph McKenzie Joan Gilmore CORPORATE SUPPORT Cynthia Friedemann Jana Novak Rilla Askew & Paul Austin Dr. Andrew & Diana Frost Dr. W. Michael McShan Beverly & Don Davis In Memory of Perry Walters Dr. Scott LaMascus & Kimber Shoop III Burck Bailey Joh Gainey Dr. Patricia H. Capra Jeanetta Mish Brenda Walters $10,000+ Dr. Alice Mankin Rita Geiger Jay & Valerie Hannah Dr. Gordon Taylor Bruce & Courtney Baugher Connie Monnot Peter Pierce III Judge Paul Vassar Martin Belsky & Joan Gilmore Martin R. Wing In Honor of Gene Rainbolt National Endowment Melvin Moran Ms. Charlotte Lankard John Slay Jr. Ron Wright Kathleen Waits Dr. Mary Kay Gumerlock for the Humanities John Morris In Honor of Don Holladay Anonymous Tom Walker Sheryl Benbrook Dr. William Hagen In Honor of Carla Walker Steven Nell Dr. Patricia H. Capra Inasmuch Foundation Harbour & Mickey Winn Marian & Dennis Bires Jimmy Hahn Ms. Jeanetta Mish $1,000 TO $2,499 L. Nutter In Memory of David Jeffrey Kirkpatrick Family Fund William Woodard Colleen Bland-Flikeid Dr. George & Barbara In Memory of Janice Owens Hedrick Dr. Benjamin Alpers & Virginia Breeden Henderson Dr. Clark Osborn Jann Jeffrey Dr. Karin Schutjer Judy Cantrell $5,000 TO $9,999 $250 TO $499 Bob & Connie Bright John Hensley Phil & Sana Rettig In Memory of Willis Wheat Dr. Anita May In Memory of Carolyn McShan Catherine & John Armitage Kay & Terry Britton Dr. Dan Hobbs Dr. Bernard & Marcy Libby Thomas-Wheat Ad Astra Foundation Dr. Susan McCarthy ConocoPhillips Ken Brown Stephen Hopkins Dr. W. Michael McShan Chuck & Ann Neal Robinowitz In Honor of Andrew Vassar Anne & Henry Zarrow Foundation Susanna & David Fennema Bill & Mary Bryans Dr. Carol Sue Humphrey In Honor of the LTAIO Scholars Jason Pogue Bill & Linda Rodgers David S. Vassar Barbara Snow Gilbert Ken Busby Dr. James & Kathy Huston Phillip C. & Carol F. Norton McCasland Foundation James Tolbert III Nancy Goodwin Dr. James Rosenthal In Memory of Dr. James J. Yoch, Jr. Judy Cantrell Hannibal B. Johnson In Honor of Tracy Floreani The Pauline Dwyer Macklanburg Martin Wing Jay & Valerie Hannah Ronald Segal Nancy Yoch Dr. Scherrey Cardwell Barbara Klein Mr. Philip Caudill and Robert A. Macklanburg, Jr. Dr. Thomas & Kathy Harrison Frank Silovsky $500 TO $999 Dr. Cida Chase Robert LaFortune In Honor of Siobhan Morava Ann Sitz In Honor of Jeanne Hoffman Smith Foundation Patrick Alexander Edna Mae Holden Doris Chediak David Laney Lisa Wood & Lee Webb David & Whitney Hooten Ann Cloutier Charlotte Lankard Marsha Slaughter Harbour & Mickey Winn Lona Barrick In Memory of Alice DeGroote UP TO $2,500 Dr. Dian Jordan Dr. Bill Corbett Timothy Larason Dr. Andy & Sue Sullivan In Memory of M. Stuart Kirk J. Edward Barth Fund Rebecca Jacobs-Pollez Full Circle Bookstore Judy Burns Dr. Thomas Kirk Rita Crockett & Edwin Miller Donald Lauffer Dr. James Turrentine Dr. Thomas A. Kirk Philip & Heather Busey John Linehan Dr. Lena Crouso Amanda Lawrence Dr. Andrew Vassar & In Honor of Nicholas Hargrove Home Creations, LLC Lynn McIntosh Dr. David Levy Elaine McIlroy-Hargrove Philip Caudill Richard & Ruth Davidson Mary Ann Gardner NBC Oklahoma Jean McLaughlin Suzette Chang Dr. Richard Dayringer Diane Lewis Eddie Walker In Honor of Lynn McIntosh Mary Ellen Meredith Fran & Gary Derrick Robert Lewis The Springer Company Ed & Mary Clark Brenda Walters Valarie Kimble James Coburn Pauls Valley Friends of Duncan Public Library Leonard Logan IV Pete White In Honor of Kelly Burns Tulsa Community College Beverly & Don Davis the Library R. Eugene Earsom Love County Library Kathy Burns Foundation Linda Joseph Richard Small Linda & Drew Edmondson Bert Mackie Renate & Charles Wiggin Mrs. Judy Burns Don Holladay Ann Thompson Mr. Connie Fisher Dwayne Martin Teresa Willems The Kerr Foundation Dr. Sunu Kodumthara Martha Sue Thompson Juanita Fitz Claude & Roberta Matchette M. Winters In Honor of Judge John Amick George Krumme Valorie & Wade Walters Dr. Pamela Fly Dr. Don McCombs Jr. E. Lorene Yordi Mr. Burck Bailey
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NEXT UP: HOPE | SPRING/SUMMER 2021
From the beginning of human existence there has been devastation and innovation. Epic failures and victorious recoveries. But what moves us from tragedy to triumph? In a word, hope. Our Spring/Summer 2021 issue will publish as Oklahoma marks the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre—a terrible scar in state history which is still unknown to many. How do we find hope when despair is unacknowledged for generations? We’ll explore this and other perspectives on hope in our next edition.