taking place. we simply have no choice. >> "after words" airs every saturday at 10 p.m. and sunday at 9 p.m. eastern. you can watch all previous "after words" programs on our web site, booktv.org. .. in american history for 226 years. we are an independent nonprofit organization that offers training for educators, public programs and a wealth of material for researchers, looking at how we plan this evening's program, it is a year

in the making. brenda lawson, gary studds had been processed and was ready for researchers and also mentioned mark schneider, our speaker this evening with using this to research a book. i resend it to mark ended august 16, 2016, he agreed to speak here. 11 months later we are ready to go, quite some time in the making. research in our collection is the source of our public programs, we are lucky to have a world-class collection and it is worth acknowledging the collection of papers donated to us by dean harris who is in the audience this evening and we thank him for that contribution. a collection of material from this collection was on display in the dallas library upstairs. if you didn't see it, it will be

available after the program. as an independent nonprofit institution, holding collections like this, processing them and making them available to researchers is done through support of members and donors. if you support this work and enjoy public programs like this evening's i hope you will consider becoming a member of the historical society. tonight's talk, gary studds was america's first openly gay congressman, is notable for his fighting congress to allow gays to serve in the military, fund aids research and an act marriage equality. he was a champion of coastal and ocean environmental issues, to protect the american fishing industry. he was among the leading congressional opponents of president reagan's war in central america. he had a long and distinguished career. our speaker this evening, mark robert schneider, has written the fool biography of gerri

studds, in boston-area college and universities, also the author of numerous books including the journey from south boston to el salvador, why americans don't understand the world and how we can learn, boston confronts jim crow and others. please join me in welcoming mark robert schneider. [applause] >> i would like to thank the historical society for igniting -- inviting me and gavin. this is a magnificent place for historians to work and is a pleasure for me to work on the book. i would like to thank you for coming. as duke ellington used to say, i would add, would just give up if we didn't have a chance to

speak. okay. so three major themes in this book. the way i knew gerry studds, i never met him personally but i knew of him during the 1980s because i was an activist in central america and issues and gerry studds was the congressional champion of peace in central america. one of the themes i will be talking about tonight is that. he was most known in his district for being a champion of environmental issues and a voice for fishermen, especially in the early part of his career. finally, after he came out, the reason for writing the book is he is america's first openly gay congressman and after coming out he spoke out on the important issues of the time.

i will work my way through all of those. the book is informed by gerry studds's private life. early on in the process of writing the book, my first interaction with him was when i met jean, jean encouraged me to write this book and very early, gave me gerry studds's memoir. gerry studds was a terrific writer. his memoir was never published. my guess is that he felt uncomfortable writing about people who were still in the closet or with whom he had interacted, didn't know how to work out how to identify them and had a kind of new england reticence about things but he was quite frank about his private life. this is unusual for a politician. typical politicians memoirs, how we made the sausage in the back

room kind of thing and very little about the private life, gerry studds's book does quite a job at that. gerry studds -- i took him to be a yankee from a long-established family especially with a name like gary eastman studds. it is no accident, no fault of his own, on his mother's side, he is a catholic from new york and on his father's side they are southerners. he looked like a person of wealth, actually his family moved after the war. he never quite felt like he fit in with people in the upper-class surroundings. the happiest time of gerry studds's early life was when he went to school.

there, he blossomed academically and developed his love for languages, learned german and french while he was there and did advanced work for a high school student. i am going to let this extend for the last part of his academic career at yale. by the time he was 17 or 18 he began to come to grips with his sexual identity. this was very painful and difficult for him for the 1950s. he was born in 1937 and i would guess the 50s where a time of real repression on this issue as well as others as well. while he was at yale, he dated women. i interview people with whom he went to school at both places, none of them had any idea that

he was gay. grappling with this issue he began to try to find out what this meant and he went to the library one night to get a book on sex and turns to the pages on homosexuality to find they had been ripped out. this was a clue that there were other people wrestling with the same issues privately. during the 1950s, this was a poster, some of you may remember, this was the homosexual civil rights organization of the 1950s, gays and lesbians, sexual activity was criminalized virtually everywhere. they were condemned by the

church as sinners. psychiatrists believed they had a mental condition that might be cured by electric shocks. you were considered a traitor and therefore barred from government positions in civil service. that is the atmosphere in which gary had to work his way through his own identity. after college he got a job at the department of state. he had a strong inclination to work on public policy, he had done things like that when he was in college and strong in languages. his french skills got him what would have been an assignment in a french african country. he became disillusioned fairly

early on. although it was the kennedy administration, the bay of pigs and the beginning of the war in vietnam studds was opposed to both of those things, he was never able to get anywhere in raising these issues, extremely junior person. he took a side job and temporarily leaving his position, and interagency group planning volunteers and service to america. when he was done with assignment, was quite successful, he had to reapply for his position at state and the process dragged on and on. his friends were interviewed. he assumed he would get this job back, he couldn't figure out why but in his memoir he says it was beginning to dawn on me they had suspicions about my sexual

identity. very much shutdown, living very much in the closet. sure enough after he kept pushing to find out what happened, going to an office with a psychiatrist, realized they are not going to let them back in. young adults driven out of this job, they are mysterious to him, get the job through a fraternity brother at yale, in new hampshire and st. paul, now it is 1965, very good teacher, widely liked by his students, he taught history and what was becoming emerging field of

american studies which gradually acquired a masters when he was teaching at st. paul's. he was popular with the students but unpopular with faculty and administration. this was the period of the war in vietnam, participants in the antiwar movement, studds became advisor to antiwar students and counselor -- young people. this got him in trouble with conservative administration. this was also new hampshire so some of you, probably remember in 1968, hold on a minute. in 1968, the period of the

mccarthy campaign. mccarthy was making noises about running in november 1967. in early stages, did not contemplate he would run for president and when but that he would run for president and raise the issue of the war in vietnam and challenge the president in the primary. they limited scope and had not decided to run in new hampshire. so gerry studds with a colleague who wrote a good book about this, if you are going to look that up, persuaded mccarthy that he actually could do quite well, studds, i found in the gerry studds papers, had written down

in longhand, long before computers, every town, how it voted and noted the state was becoming increasingly liberal as mostly catholic working-class people from massachusetts were migrating into new hampshire so mccarthy decided he would run in the elections, as a result of this gained political confidence in himself, not everybody in mccarthy's campaign who convinced mccarthy -- so what happened next, bizarre turf. told him they pay for a year of

further study of harvard. not really knowing where his life was going he had two jobs -- while he is -- back at cambridge he gets the idea he can run for congress. his friend did that also, began to convince themselves they could do the same thing. is that quixotic? quixotic campaigns in the history of american politics none is more destined to fail than this one. thirtysomething with his parents, you got to remind yourselves here is a person who has not lived in this district as an adult. he doesn't know where all the

towns are. he had 0 contacts with working-class people and the democratic party bases in new bedford and working-class base. he has no machine, no money, gay man hiding a secret. how is this going to go? turned out because he was such a forceful rader, dignified human being, captured the democratic party primary, a seat held by long-term republican hastings keith, there's no use running against him. he won the nomination and to everyone's surprise almost won the election, this convinced is he would run again with the hope of winning. this time, next time around he had the support of ted kennedy,

kennedy could be very little help to studds. kennedy himself won a big victory in 1970 so he became a spokesperson for for gerry studds and he eked out a difficult victory, the incumbent stepped down. ran against a different person. crucial sitting in this story, he promised and did learn to speak portuguese which was spoken by many people in new bedford at the time and this got him a huge vote in new bedford and won him the respect of the fishermen and other portuguese speakers, this was a guy who despite the limitations of an

education in yale, the unfortunate circumstances of upper-class birth was able to connect with working people. the next thing in office was for the first time of any congressman anywhere conducted a vigorous campaign, two meetings per year in every town in the district, 45 of them. worked very hard while he was in congress. when he came back, going around meeting with people, we see him on the docks talking to fishermen. i am going to turn to the next issue that made gerry studds, solidified his base in new bedford and throughout the rest of the district. the technology of fishing globally transformed from the end of world war ii, by 1970 the

process was complete. there is a terrific book, it shows you how the fish were being sucked out of the sea rapidly by big factory trawlers. americans did not have these. only international ships from other countries that had government backing could build these big vehicles and the american fishermen were losing out. gerry studds is mostly concerned about the preservationist conservationist aspect of this. he worked to pass the 200 mile limit for this man whose congressman john young, the longest-serving men, from alaska

and republican and similar issues facing fishing fleet, they got it built, in american waters. studs and youngest worked, staffers -- young studs. the second issue studds worked on in congress is shipment of oil. the merchant in 1976 off of nantucket, to despoil the beaches in nantucket only by good luck if you go in the opposite direction away from nantucket. to hold the owners responsible, so studds worked on this issue

without much success in 1976. this is a set of a comic setting. not until 1989 with the wreck of the exxon valdez they were able to craft an act that hardly did change the laws regulating shipping. in this incident the captain was drunk ran the ship aground, ran the oil into the sea and there were no double holes in the ships and we have legislation and since this time we have not had a big catastrophe, certainly not in american waters. and image for drilling, studds

did work on drilling regulations as well. he was less successful and because of it we had the 2009, it was, disaster in the gulf of mexico. new bedford was his base. the peculiarities of new bedford let gerry studds into the next aspect of his congressional work, that is quite odd. because new bedford was portuguese. in 1974 there was a revolution in portugal and an uprising in portugal's african colonies and it became a global issue. studs was the only portuguese speaker and the only person with a portuguese base. the foreign affairs committee asked him to join the committee and to portugal, advocated strongly the united states

should not assist in maintenance of a portuguese empire in africa. while he was on that committee a revolution broke out in nicaragua and el salvador in central america in 1979 and in 1980. this became a highly contentious during the reagan administration. reagan attempted to overthrow the left-wing government in nicaragua and maintain the right-wing government, sears military dictatorship in el salvador. use the archbishop romero who was assassinated in march 1980, everyone knew who did this and the assassins swept with impunity. the four american nuns being exhumed in december 1980 and the people who did this did it because they knew they could get away with, it was a big

celebration in el salvador. studs worked hard on this issue, to central america very early on in january just before reagan was sworn in and he wrote a report that set the template for the liberal critique of the voice in central america, somewhat detailed chapters on the subject. we are skipping ahead, 1989, january, studds, two labor leaders, one a singer, and the men in military fatigues, colonel rené amelio ponce, assuring labor conditions are good and there are no problems in el salvador. ten months later the jesuit priests were assassinated in el

salvador. it was ponce with some colleagues who had given the orders to do this. gerry studds went to the speaker of the house, tom foley, and said we have to investigate this and get this right. and he suggested joe moakley whose office was next to his as the right person for the job. i had written a book about joe moakley previous to this end it was one of the keys for me that decided to go to do this subject. i want to turn to the third major aspect of the career, this was his role as spokesperson for gay-rights. i gave some consideration to calling this book gerry studds:amerigas first portuguese speaking congressman but there might be more dramatic material.

here you see studds in july 1983 facing the cameras after being censored for having had an affair with a page ten years earlier. so explain how this transpired. in july 1982, two young pages came forward and said they were being homosexual he harassed by members of congress. and got into front-page news so the congress therefore passed a resolution empowering the ethics committee, the a 6 committee hired a former cabinet officer and high-powered washington lawyer to investigate, immediately came to the conclusion these kids were lying and there was no substance to their charges. however, during the course of the inquiry, other people came

forward and said a republican congressman is having an affair right now with a young woman. this puts congress in a difficult position, it would look like the democratic house was persecuting a republican. and somebody 10 years later had done something, something with page. they might have gone to portugal. someone testified in his testimony yet. they asked we are going to swear you in and if we find you committed perjury you are going to jail. so he said yes, we in fact did do this but it was consensual and i had no problems with it.

he was faced with a dilemma. he could resign. this it happened to other congresspeople before they had been outed and a couple of quick under this pressure. he did not quit. he could have thought this. he had lawyers and the lawyers said you have broken no law, done nothing wrong and if you fight this you will win, staffer says that is probably to but you would probably lose and really president of the public eye so studds gave a defiant speech on the floor of congress saying i made an error in judgment but this was none of your business. results and said by congress. everything i told you so far has fallen on deaf ears, all this

was public. in the course of reading stan greenberg -- gerry studds's memoir, what happened next was gerry studds decided to run for congress again despite getting a lot of negative blowback from constituents and that same page, page x, volunteered to work on his campaign, became his driver and later they resumed their relationship. that lasted briefly, they went their separate ways but there is evidence that gerry studds never hurt anybody, not possible for him to do that. he didn't have that kind of thing in his heart and he never brought that into the public. he won the election during the

1984 campaign. he had one opponent in the democratic primary, sheriff flynn, bridgewater, fiercely attacked him and only had one issue which is we want to be representative a man with such low character, several contentious debates and gerry studds crushed him in the democratic primary. this is really quite -- in the general election his republican opponent someone who as a boy lived in his neighborhood and had dinner at his house on numerous occasions. one of gary's staffers told me, worked for him in 1984 said bobby, the mother, was furious that lou would run against gerry studds when he was 10 years old. he won the election, the year of the reagan landslide i remind you.

very few people noticed this, but it was a revolution. a gay person having been censored by congress, ran for congress and won. it indicated a change in the atmosphere. gay people had noticed this but it was lost to the public that there had been this change in atmosphere. there were two major issues i am going to talk to you about in gerry studds's career in congress now that he's out. the first with aids. we see the surgeon general who wrote a report, really quite good, saying we have to tell everybody that if you have sex you must use a condom if you don't want to get aids. this was buried by the reagan administration, conservative

advisers who effectively suppressed the report. gerry studds mailed that report out. had his staff do it. it started -- convinced some other congresspeople to do it and when they did that, ultimately the reagan administration after the death of rock hudson did the same thing as well. it helps to a certain extent. the other issue, the signature issue, was the question of gay people in the military. there was a gay ban before the don't ask don't tell. there was some courageous gay people, leonard came out and said i am gay, been in the military a long time, have a good service record, what are you going to do about it, he and

anyone else was expelled from the military. studds spoke publicly, we see him as parents and friends of lesbians and gays. he worked with kate dyer to convince gay people in the military that if you were outed in some fashion you could fight back you should try to do that. there are a lot of gray area issues, a couple of cadets who had gotten rotc scholarships who later when they were sworn in as officers had to answer truthfully what their sexual orientation was and they said yes. the military said you got to give us your money back for your rotc scholarship and i didn't

have sex with anybody so those cases were mostly won. it was an odd figure in this story. dick cheney, secretary of defense, you know the story, a gay daughter who helped on this oddly enough. during the bush administration and leading up to that, the issue of gays in the military surface to more because clinton had promised during the campaign, he would end the ban on gays in the military to gay people. gary became a champion in advocating the ban.

plans before clinton won the election. and among gay activists. aids was the big issue. and this changes the culture a little bit. demanding your rights in opposition to the government. there is an oppositional cast to it. gay activists assume the pose of we are loyal and patriotic americans too and we want the right to be brave and patriotic as you are. this became a central issue, we don't have that picture of gary

speaking. gary gave in my opinion the equivalent of the i have a dream speech. not anybody recognized this at the time, first person to make this claim but this was the big march, equivalent of 1963 march, central issue the right of gays to serve in the military, studds gave a speech, a brilliant, funny, moving speech, included it whole in the book. he didn't -- gary died in 2006, he didn't live to see that he said after he left congress is an end of policy is inevitable, i know it will happen. he thought overlong periods of

time and he got that you don't win every fight, something that seems impregnable 10 or 50 years later. massachusetts allowed the same gender to -- you couldn't, growing up being gay you couldn't imagine, and it happened and conclude talk by saying this story, a man who had a hide but lived, happy and free. during the censure told his

aides, it is july, bastille day but kept asking people what did he mean by that, will they cut off his head? he was released from the best deal. he was a prisoner and was freed and that is what happened. last thing i want to say is this story is human beings are capable of great change and even in places in the world where it seems prejudice against gay and lesbian people will never end it will. first -- [applause]

>> how many members of congress are gay? does the number go up and down? >> i googleed it, i think i saw 7. the second one was barney frank and the third was steve gunderson and after that, much tension, nobody really cares. it is a good question, does anybody know? i don't know. i am not a historian of this field, it was chancy for me to pick this up. i don't know. this book raises wider questions, i can't answer. >> what did he die of?

>> he died in 1960, he died at age 69, had an aneurysm, was out walking the dog, had an aneurysm which you can fix but he fell. a hematoma. cures for each work against the other but was going to make it, attend a period in between. his father died at that age, his grandfather on his father's side died younger, he had a sense it would be shorter. >> with transgender rights being the next frontier what is the same with that story. >> that is a good point.

to me everyone is outraged what trump just did but for me, i am the eternal optimist. most republicans ran away on this one. most military leaders feel like we have to deal with this. again nobody can predict where this is going but long-term seems unlikely to me this will be a long-term ban on transgender people. >> did studds influence bill clinton to take up this issue? seem to be the signature issue when clinton was first elected? >> this was a really good story, really complicated, did my best to tell it in the book, thanks. this was complicated. it was never clinton's signature

issue. it was -- it seemed that way because after he got elected the issue came forward to the front, the first thing he had to deal with. republicans did that, they moved the issue forward. bob dole was campaigning for 1996 and wanted what he perceived as a losing issue for clinton to get to the 4. i think in a way, the short-term strategy that wasn't a bad move. studds was now, the gay movement itself in a tough spot. a little story i tell, david mixon are, and activist very close to clinton really did push this forward, he and gary were in constant communication about

this. he would end the policy but at the same time had to deal with generals in a week to them. into battle in wars they didn't want to fight which were bosnia and somalia. he had been a draft dodger, the key person in this was colin powell. studds hoped colin powell would see, to the desegregation of armed services and the truman administration and hoped colin powell would get this and he never did and it hurt, spoke to

one of his aides emotionally. yes? >> in march 1993 an amazing event. through the lens -- you made reference to his memoir, talking about others who are not out over the years, whether it is a supportive network, was completely in denial, wouldn't make a public statement, more supportive behind the scenes and that left. >> very good question. earlier in his life when he was in their closet, lovers were

also in the closet, i could see he used the first names of people. and came out of print. that part of the story is harder for him to tell. it is mostly about his early life. there is nothing about how we sealed the deal in the subcommittee. it is mostly about how hard it was to grow up in the 50s. i think he lost touch with these people and felt, betraying a personal secret here, is somebody going to feel hurt,

things like that. later, he had a wide circle of friends, especially after he came out. the community was greatly sustaining for him. >> you mentioned his mother. how supportive was his family? >> they were very supportive. his father never found out. his mother told his father and he ran out of the room and said it can't be. this is the biggest issue for gay people who grew up in this time period. it probably still is. i don't know. he had a brother and a sister who were quite supportive. he had a sister-in-law who was

quite supportive. they stood by him, their pictures were around him in the 1984 campaign. of course he had a husband. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> thank you. but you know any -- do you know anybody? >> no. >> did you know anybody? [inaudible conversations] >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> this labor day weekend on booktv three days of nonfiction authors and books. we are live from the national book festival in washington dc, your chance to talk with pulitzer prize winning author's david mccullough and tom friedman. you will hear from former secretary of state condoleezza

rice, best-selling author michael lewis and many others. visit booktv.org for complete schedule. also this weekend, radio talkshow host mark levin argues against expansion of the federal government, joined in conversation by south carolina senator jim dement. booktv live on sunday for our in-depth program with. radio talkshow host eric metaxes, author of if you can keep it and many other books. he will discuss his life and career and answer your social media questions from noon to 3:00 eastern time. on monday, labor day, another full lineup of programs. watch re-airs of the national book festival and the mississippi book festival as well as an encore presentation of our recent program with just a physicist --