assignment for thursday because i know we didn't have anything passed today. so i will -- watch blackboard and you'll have more. so thank you all. thank you, casey, for giving us all those wonderful notes. thank you for taking each other on. that was good. that was great. >> yvonne brathwaite burke served in the u.s. congress as a representative from california in the 1970s. in this oral history recorded for the congressional black caucus foundation, she recalls among other things the work of the caucus, her own efforts on behalf of displaced homemakers and the unlikely political battle to save the capitol beauty shop for working women.

this is about 25 minutes. >> maiden name is yvonne watson. i grew up in los angeles. i was born here, born on what's the east side of los angeles. went to elementally school near usc. my mother came -- my mother and father came here from texas in 1921. and she had been a teacher in texas, but when she came here, she became a real estate broker and a seamstress. my dad had been a farmer in texas, but when he came here, he came here and he worked in the studios. he was a janitor in the studios, and he worked there for 28 years. but while he was there, he organized the service employees union within the studios. so i grew up really in the center of the labor movement. i grew up with parents who were very, very ambitious and aggressive, and had -- when i say ambitious, ambitious for me.

i was very fortunate that they made sure that even though we had very little money, we had opportunities, and i had a chance to take piano lessonses from the time i was 5. violin lessons. every kind of lesson that you can imagine. i had that opportunity, and my parents were very concerned that i would have the best schooling possible. i just got into politics by chance. i'm a lawyer. and that had been my ambition. i had been practicing law and in fact doing civil rights law and involved in the civil rights movement. when the 1965 riots broke out. and when those riots broke out, it just changed everyone's lives. i was a hearing office for the los angeles police commission. i was down in the police building when i saw all of the police in the agitated state.

i realized there was something really serious going on. so during that time, i organized a defense fund for some of the people who were arrested. and i was involved in a number of things, but after it was over the governor, governor brown, appointed a commission to investigate the causes of the 1965 watts riots. and i was hired as an attorney for that commission. while working for that commission, a number of the attorneys there, we did our own analysis separate from what the report said. and we decided what we needed is more young people in office. it happened that the assembly person in the district where i lived retired, and he had someone he had selected who was his administrative assistant to take his position. but all of us decided and they

decided someone needed to run, and they decided it was me. i ran, and it was a very interesting race because just the real power in california and he was supporting this person who was the administrative assistant to the assembly man, the white assembly man and he was, of course, white, and no one thought there was any possibility of an african-american being elected. it wasn't even on their vision until election day when the primary results came in. i had overwhelmingly won, because hi grown up in los angeles. hi friends. i had the ability to raise money because i had raised money for for the civil rights movement and the naacp and all sorts of other things. so i won the primary. i was suddenly involved. i had not been involved in politics nor in the democratic party, but i was there. and the interesting thing was

that there was only one woman in the california legislature at that time. there were two african-american men, but, of course, african-american women in -- they had never been in the state legislature. when i was elected, a chinese woman was also ielected, so suddenly there were three women in the california legislature. well, actually, i had been active at that point in national democratic politics. i had served on the platform committee. but what happened really in 1972 was that there was a big debate going on of whether or not there should be a vice chair of the convention who was a woman, or should it be a black, an african-american? and this debate was going on in the democratic party, in the rules committee and the higher echelons. what happened is that the

compromise was made that they would find a black woman. i had just been elected to congress as barbara jordan had just been elected to congress. somehow, they selected me and they agreed -- no one had called me or told me, they selected me. and when i knew anything, i walked out my front door, and nbc was there. and that's how i heard about it. then someone called me and explained to me what had happened, that there had been this compromise, and i didn't have any choice. i had to do it because they had all gone out on a limb. to say that this would be the compromise. now, i had just gotten married a month before. so this was really -- i wasn't even planning to get involved in any of this kind of activity, but i found myself chairing the democratic convention in the longest session that has ever taken place. you know, when i think back on it, there were so many

contentious issues. there were issues of seating, the alabama delegation. there were issues of vietnam that were going on there. i had always been someone opposed to the vietnam war since i generally had been identified as a liberal and a peace person over the years. and it was tough. there was such contention going on and difficult times, and it went on and on and on. and it was not easy and then the chairman, since it was going on so long and it was so difficult, he disappeared. so i ended up having to chair it for all of those 14 hours at one time. it was really exciting to me to go to washington. my dad fortunately was still alive. he came to washington to watch me be sworn in. i had just been married. that's 38 years ago.

and it was really beyond belief that all of a sudden i could find myself in the capital, in washington, d.c., in this position, and no one really knew, just as they didn't know how to treat me in the assembly because they weren't aware so much of women. but there was one african-american woman there who was shirley chisolm ,and barbara jordan and i were elected at the same time. and we came in and we were really very, shall i say, unusual. but somehow, i have to tell you, i was treated very well in washington. i had great opportunities. i had a chance to serve on appropriations. i had opportunities to get my legislation passed. and it was a marvelous experience. i have to say that as i look back on it, i had in regrets. it was tremendous. i came to congress in a very unique time.

i came to congress at the first time when it was not totally seniority. so i got on appropriations by election in the caucus, in the california caucus. i did not get there by seniority, obviously. and i did not get there by anyone selecting me. i ran for appropriations, and i won within my caucus. there is no question the fact that i was on that committee, had real implications for the district that i represented. you know, i represented a district that had a lot of air force contracts, that had a lot of defense. and i was able to help them tremendously. even though i wasn't on that subcommittee, i was able to help them. but also the very fact that i was on that committee made it possible for me to do so many things, because i was involved

in space, involved with housing, and i established relationships with people in the areas of housing, the areas of obviously satellites and all of those things that carried forward for me over the years. the experience that i had on the appropriation committee was really excellent. only one thing that was kind of unusual was that my time was up, and they were selecting subcommittees to go on defense subcommittee. i was the next person up, so i would have been appointed to defense subcommittee. at that moment, the chair of the appropriation committee adjourned and put the meeting over to the next week because the person ahead of me had said he didn't want to be on there. well, they talked him into it so that he would go on defense subcommittee so that i wouldn't go on defense subcommittee. but other than that, everything was quite -- it was really excellent. the beauty shop was really an

interesting thing. they always said in my district they were going to chair the beauty shop commission. they were going to close the beauty shop. it wasn't just the women in congress, because there weren't enough of us to take care of it. but it was all the women who worked for congress who said if they close that down, it means we have to go somewhere else. we have to leave the hill to be able to get our hair done. they never talked about closing the barbershop down. so everyone said we have to find someone who would be willing to fight the battle, to get the money. that's the first thing. to be able to maintain it, maintain the space. because you know they wanted to take the space. so i said, okay, i will do it. you know? i'm not embarrassed. it doesn't bother me at all if anybody says i chair the beauty shop committee, even at home my supporters said you don't want anybody to know that you're doing that because they think

you're being feminine back there. i said, i don't care. i took the chair of the committee so i could maintain the beauty shop and maintain the money for it. honestly, i didn't know there had never been anyone not having a baby as a member of congress. it just never occurred to me. it's not really one of those things you think about. i knew how old i was. i know that -- i knew that i wanted to have a child. i had just gotten married. and i knew that i intended to have a child, and it never occurred to me it would be impossible or difficult to do this as a member of congress. so i find out later that no one has done this before. and it wasn't the easiest thing in the world because i was commuting from california to washington every other week. and i was just very fortunate that i was a very strong person and physically very able to

carry on all my duties, all my responsibilities. one thing was very interesting. i had a bill on the floor that no one wanted to see passed because it was -- they said it was protectionalist legislation, saying that you had to have steel purchased within the united states on certain projects. they didn't know who was going to debate against me. they finally got wright who was then -- not the speaker, but he was speaker pro tem to debate me. he was the only one who agreed to debate a pregnant woman on the floor of the house. but i have to say that it was like having 434 godparents. everyone was just wonderful, and i was fortunate. you know, i was fortunate that i could go through that whole thing, and i stayed until just before the baby was born. and the most conservative republican was the one who made the motion to grant me maternity leave.

and it was -- i got through it. i traveled with the baby back and forth from california, just like before every two weeks. fortunately, she was not a lot of difficulty or trouble or sickly or anything like that, and i was able to do it. my husband was very cooperative and helpful. an i did it for six years. but it did become a problem for me in terms of how she was going to go to school. i thought i was going to be able to work it out so that she could go to school and that every other friday we could come back, but i just was unable to work that out. so i decided i would come back to california and run for office. but it's incredible that it took all those years before there was a woman -- and then -- but the attitude among my peers was excellent. and among my district. i only had one letter from one constituent who said you shouldn't be back there having

babies. you should be working for us, but also, you know, i had a pediatrician, and i talked to the pediatrician about the fact that i was going to be traveling back and forth, and he said to me, you know, i think what you should really do is find some older woman to take care of your child. if you're going to continue doing this, going back and forth and rather than dragging her like that, you should find someone to take care of her so that you can go back and forth. i said, okay. i'll just get another pediatrician. the cbc was 19 members when i joined or rather during the time that i served. and it was really a very close-knit organization. we had gomes, and they were very easily defined, and even though we came from different parts of the country, we all had

primarily the same goals, and we had most -- most of us had come out of the civil rights movement. so that it was a very unified organization. well, we'll always have it, as ozzie davis said, similar interests, and our interests has to be primarily the african-american community. and when i say that primarily, i don't really mean that each one of us should have that as our top priority. but that has to be part of our goals. and today, it's probably much more complex because you have so many members, and they come from different backgrounds and different states and they come from many different interest groups. they're not necessarily as similar as they were when there were 19 members. but one of the things is the

received the kind of status that it has in this country, because the caucus has always been very, very dedicated to its purpose and its interests. the women of the caucus really represented women with very different interests, very different backgrounds. because you had shirley chisolm who was basically interested in education and who had come through that kind of a background. you had barbara jordan who was very heavily interested in the legal issues, but also was very -- had a very close alliance with her state caucus. and it was very important and for her to be part of her state caucus, they admired her, she admired them, and it was that kind of a relationship. cordies collins came from a state where had you strong democratic alliances and strong relationships with your caucus.

in my case, the california caucus was not one that demanded much of anybody, because we were very different. north and south of california are not the same. but it was not the same kind of approach. so each one of us was quite different in terms of our issues, but we all came together on those issues that affected women and affected african-americans. and there was an issue that came up as far as women in the south and some of the states that were having sterilization rules, so we decided we would have our own press conference on that. and boy, the caucus said now we've got a black women's caucus. so, you know, that was the only thing where there was ever any kind of contention, that there was a little sensitivity that we would come forward and have our own issues.

but the women's caucus grew out of the black caucus. they formed, and many of us were involved in the formation of the women's caucus. and also the foundation concept for the women's caucus came about as a result of some of us being involved on women's on -- issues. well, it was a very interesting experience i had when i was -- at the time i was not on appropriations. i was on the interior committee, which is the first -- first year that i was in congress i was on the interior. the transalaskan pipeline was a major, major project, tremendous amount of money. and i saw in this an opportunity to put in not just the idea of equal employment but affirmative action as it related to business, not businesses that

are contracted directly by the federal government but are by those who contract so i introduced this in the committee. no one said anything. it was never really debated. it passed the house without anyone realizing what it was. but when it was ready to go for regulations, all of a sudden people realized that here you had to have a whole new body regulation for all of those people who contracted with that project. i was fortunate that in alaska the representatives in the senate thought it was a great idea. because they thought, of course, we want to have more indians or alaskans of native-born alaskans who have contracts and women who have contracts with this project.

so when it got into the regulations, it was then that everyone realized what had happened. but that language went on to be part of first the economic bill that mitchell had and then went on with ron who put it in the defense bills and it was language that no one even realized was going into federal law that made a tremendous amount of difference. obviously, the role that nixon played during the time he was there -- i was there during his impeachment era, but the role that he played, which was one that was very divisive. it was divisive in the sense that he wanted to remove many of those equal opportunity statutes and organizations at the same time he was able to cater to small business interests with some of those things he put forward.

so that there was an intent to really divide african-americans in terms of their interests, those who had small business interest, which we all had from those who also believed that you had to have affirmative action, you had to have economic opportunity on a much broader phase than just the financial ability to have small business programs. and we were able to work that out because i believe there were some people who felt very strongly that they could identify with the small business as all of us did. but we had to maintain that you had to have affirmative action. you had to have the war on poverty. you had to have those things that were very basic in terms of all lower income communities, not just african-american communities. displaced homemaker was a concept that i had pushed

because there are so many women who work all their lives in the home. and they do need an opportunity to move forward and they do need the kind of programs that are going to allow them. today we accept that, that, you know, a woman who is on welfare, when she has been there now for five years, the agreement is that she's going have training during those five years she's on welfare. she's going have help in terms of child care. she's going have transportation. all of those things today we accept. but at that time there was never really any concept of how a woman moves away from welfare, how a woman moves out of the home into the workforce. and that was displaced homemaker was just simply putting into law some of those things that are necessary in order for a person to transfer in their vocation from being a homemaker into a person in the workforce.

the hyde amendment is just like it is today. it's always with us. this idea that federal money should never be spent on abortion, and i don't know if we'll ever move to a time that it's not an issue. to me it was very tragic this was an issue in the health reform. it's there. and until we get to a point of where we move from religion and government having separate approaches and we have a total separation of law and religion and government and religion we're always going to be debating whether or not government money can assist women in choice. and none of us are promoting abortion. i definitely don't promote abortion.

but i recognize that there are many women who have no choices. there are women who are victims of rape, of incest. there are women who are just victims of their own lives. and they need to have a choice. at some point i hope we stop debating it. the legacy of the cbc is it's an institution of the united states house of representatives. and it is a legacy that shows that you can have ability to represent more than one constituency. you can represent the people that elected you, but you can also represent a constituency of your ethnic background. today everyone accepts that. they accept that there can be a latino caucus. there can be an asian caucus. there can be a blue collar caucus. the idea being that you

represent many different things. you represent those people that elect you, primarily because you have to get elected again, but you also represent the people that are part of your ethnicity or of your whole identification in terms of interests. the black caucus established that. before the black caucus, nothing like that existed. you're watching american history tv. all weekend every spnd on c-span 3. for more information, follow us on twitter. this bronze rendition of sciencetist albert einstein stands out.

even if it stands 12 feet tall and weighs four tons. here robert burks distinctive style, some crick labeled him bubble gum sculpture gives this. the famous scientist holds in his left hand a document listing some of his most significant theories. he holds a document listing his theories. the same bench contains quotes testifying to ooin stain's unwaivering belief in tolerance, equality, and the duty of a truth seeker to reveal his findings. the floor of the memorial features a map showing much of the universe as it appeared on the date of its dedication in april of 1979, which also coincided with einstein's 100th birthday. thirty years later visitors of all ages are drawn to the iconic figure of the grounds of the national academy of science. children especially enjoy climbing into the lap of the

scientific genius with the smile of a grandfather. astronaut john glen piloted into space 50 years ago this month. up next, roy neil interviews nasa's mission operations director gene kranz. he was acting flight director when the astronauts landed on the moon. he and his team played a significant role in guiding three astronauts back to earth after an explosion on that spacecraft. this is part 1 of an oral history interview conducted for johnson's space center. >> the third floor building of the johnson space center. mission control, as it once was,

it's been reinstated. that gentleman on camera right now is gene kranz, we're about to hear more of his remarkable history. in an earlier interview, we covered a lot of the beginning bases going back to the task group and early days of mercury and gemini. when we ended we were talking about apollo 9. you had said something about jim mcdibitt as the commander of that mission and i think that's a good point to pick up. what do you remember of apollo 9? >> well, there were many things, really. i think the principle change that we saw was the very long-term association we had with the crew preparing for flight. we were originally in the slot that the bormon crew took, we were shoved back in the schedule.