eisenhower quite closely so many years later and said why so many. why did he decide to intervene the way he did and why so many troops? >> permit me a personal privilege for a second. mr. green, have you my enormous respect, and your story is the real story about this. i've written about president eisenhower and i'll talk about that, but yours is the great story that my book doesn't pretend to address, and it's the story of great courage and great importance. >> thank you. >> and i have an african-american daughter who is better off because of what you did, and i appreciate that. [ applause ] >> so if i may, for people who need resources on this, pbs has just aired "daisy bates." it's an hour or a 90-minute documentary produced by sharon le cruz who was once an employee

of black side incorporated where i once worked on "with eyes on the prize" which is a very fine resource for this story as well. so there's a couple of -- there's many, many books on the subject so people can follow up. david nichols. >> the intervention. >> yes. >> you want me to talk about eisenhower's troop decision. >> yes. >> i talk about little rock as the tip of the iceberg and we already talked about the judicial appointments. eisenhower and his attorney general herbert brownell anticipated violence from almost the moment the brown decision was made. and they early on, the 101st airborne division that was sent into little rock in 1957 was trained in riot control. this was not for riots in europe. they anticipated there it might be an alternative to using the one legal out that he had which was to use the troops, hoping not to do it.

but he did. but little rock is the defense of the brown iceburg. and i would point out to you that eisenhower could have chosen not to send troops. people assumed he was forced to. he chose to. he chose to very quickly. he didn't quaver around about much of the commentaries say. the time line was very short. as you mentioned, ernie, faubus announced the national guard to patrol the school on the night of september 2nd. they there there in the morning of september 3rd. on september 4th herbert brownell held a news conference and indicated specifically with the president's approval that one of the options the president could use was to use troops to enforce the supreme court decision. faubus sent a hot wire to eisenhower who was on vacation in newport, rhode island. eisenhower sent a telegram right

back which was made public and said i will do whatever is necessary to uphold the constitution. very clear. now, they did meet and try to negotiate an arrangement on september 14th in newport, and that did not work out. and faubus did not keep his word. so eisenhower eventually on september 24th, when violence erupted again, mobilized the 101st airborne division, and he did -- he said to herbert brownell at that time. he believed in overwhelming the force. you don't do these kinds of things halfway. you send the message, and i think what you said was appropriate. it was several kinds of messages, but i would point out it's the tip of the iceberg because remember about these federal judicial appointments, the judge, the federal judge who issued the court order to faubus to cease and desist was ronald davies, an eisenhower appointee, who opened the door for the justice department to intervene, which opened the door for

sending troops to enforce the federal court order. eisenhower was a typical politician. in some ways he could be very cute about this and he would say later oh, i didn't send the troops to enforce desegregation. i sent them to uphold a federal court order. well, a federal court order about what? brown! that's what. and so ike would sometimes be cute -- too cute by half which was one reason why people looked at what he said publicly. sometimes they don't know where he's coming from because he'd be very politically cute about it. >> it is the first time that the troops were called in in this way. >> this was the first time -- first time that the federal troops were sent in to particularly a former confederate state since reconstruction after the civil war so this is not small potatoes. it's a big deal. but more important -- more important than the judicial appointments that lasted after little rock. >> all right. we've got some questions from the audience.

these are good ones. i'm dr. carol anderson. i once heard you say when you visited simmons college when you spoke of president truman and the conflict underscored when the naacp leaders such as a. philip randolph wanted to go to the u.n. and file human rights violations against the u.s. and mrs. roosevelt, and mrs. roosevelt force them not to, asked by truman. you said your friends can only go so far. can you say more about this? >> yes. and what i'm talking about there is as allida black has so wonderfully laid out, eleanor was an ally, but one of the things about these alliances, and that is absolutely essential in understanding movement, and understanding these -- these freedom strategies, is that your allies can take you so far, they can only go so far, and if you're relying upon your ally to go this far, because what the naacp was counting on, because she was a member of the naacp

board of directors, and w.e.b. dubois had pulled together a fabulous petition to the u.n. called an appeal to the world, where he pulled together top scholars, legal scholars, socialists, historians to document the systematic violation of human rights for african-americans since the founding of this nation, and because no government entity within the u.s. was willing to fully address these issues, the naacp took it to the u.n. this is 1947. this would be the beginning of the cold war, and in that cold war frame, eleanor roosevelt was not about to allow this dirty laundry to be aired before the soviet union because the soviets are sitting there on the commission of human rights seeing this powerful document from the naacp, a legitimate organization, right? and this carefully documented going sweet, i mean, just tears of joy. granted, these are soviets but they are like thank you, god,

and -- and eleanor is like, no, we must defend the united states. we cannot have our dirty laundry aired, and so part of that was the pushback in terms of burying this petition deep within the bowels of the u.n., but it was also then sending the signal to the naacp that all of this international stuff about human rights was not going to be tolerated, particularly in terms of human rights in the united states. we can talk about human rights that the poles aren't able to have democracy. we can talk about human rights that the east germans don't have freedom of speech, but we cannot talk about human rights in terms of what's happening in the united states, and so she resigned from the board of directors of the naacp, and it took all of walter white's efforts. i liken it to almost doing a james brown please, please, please. >> don't go. >> don't go. >> eleanor, please, don't go.

>> yeah. that's what i mean about your allies can only take you so far. there are things that she could do. there were things she could not do and would not do and the naacp needed to understand that as it was crafting its strategy. >> all right. are there any examples or any documentation of truman experiencing personal turmoil, threats to his personal safety because of his participation in matters of civil rights? >> oh, yeah. particularly in after his message to congress in february 1948, his state of the union address, and in it a state of the union address part of what he does is he lays out that this has got to be a nation that is committed to civil rights. this is a nation that has to be committed to fairness, to justice and to the bill of rights, and so he said in his message before congress i am going to issue two executive orders, one desegregating the

federal bureaucracy and one desegregating the military, and -- and i -- you know, it's almost -- the black community goes wild. i mean, this is what they needed to hear from the president of the united states. you read the black press, it's like tears ecstatic, just ecstatic. the southern democrats were like oh, oh, no, oh, no, and so part of what you see going through when you go through the document in the truman library, folks are like, you know, truman, you're going to have to die. you're going to have to go. we're going to have to get rid of you some way or another. you're going to have to go. for the southern democrats, the politicians themselves were saying, unless you get back on this track, we're going to bury you. you will not see the white house again. you see this then in the democratic national convention in philadelphia in 1948 in july where when hubert humphry gets

up and he makes a speech that says we've been in the shadow of states' rights for too long, and it's now time for us to walk within the bright sunshine of human rights, and the crowd goes wild and the southern democrats are sitting there going oh really. and they get up and walk out and form the dixiecrat party with the strom thurmond as the dixiecrat's presidential nominee. this was -- he faced -- when you read through, you get the sense of anger with him, the sense that you are a traitor, that you don't deserve to be in the white house, so he faced a lot of pressure for his stance on -- on trying to move the u.s. forward. >> could this -- could the same question be asked of eisenhower, but because there has been this long feeling that he was, as i said, operating behind the scenes for little rock, did he get the same kind of threats? >> i don't have documentation of threats against eisenhower's personal safety. those may exist.

scholars always have to limit what we do, and i didn't look at the secret service records that carefully. so i'm sorry. i don't have anything to share with you. i'm not aware of any specific threats to him. >> ernie green, and i know the answer to this, but this is going to be a great question for you to answer. someone saw the documentary we just referred to about daisy bates. what can you say about her? did you meet her? and yes, you did. but tell that story, please. >> well, i said that one of the great things about that documentary, daisy had great style. she looked good. she wore great sunglasses. her hats were impeccable. but she was also taking on, and i think the film makes a nice mark on that. she was taking on men in the african-american community asserting leadership. >> how did you know her?

you got to tell this. >> well, mrs. bates was president of the arkansas naacp. she was a state president. we knew her because the family had the weekly newspaper, "the arkansas state press." and it was a journal that we all read. so when time came, there were -- she had sued the little rock school board the year before we were admitted to adhere to the '54 decision. and when we were finally admitted to central, and mrs. bates sort of served as the mentor and the -- her house was the focal point where we gathered. she had the flow of information from all the journalists from around the world. she helped to keep us grounded.

i mean we didn't know all this was swirling around us. we were trying to stay focused on our studies and make sure that we were going to finish out that year. >> and us is the little rock nine of which you are a part. >> yes. >> okay. here is a question. dr. martin luther king said we could pass all the laws we want. we could not legislate the heart. we still have biases and prejudice in america. how are we educating the heart to progress the humanity in all people? ernie green, i'll let you have that final word. >> well, i think we're educating the heart by events like this that really we begin to peel back the cover of the activity that has been going on among these presidents, among their administrations. and it's important for us to tell a story. dr. king's statue didn't just appear on the mall overnight,

that the number of people who contributed, who played a role, the unnamed faces and thousands and thousands of people, black and white, that had a vision about what this country could become. that it would be better than its history. and the future is hopefully going to be brighter than those of us who played a role in it. and i think it's really -- it really underscores the opportunity for this next generation. kennedy talked about passing the torch. the torch really gets passed because all of the players who played a role in it. that would be my last word. >> and that is the last word here. [ applause ] except let me thank our guest. ernie green, david nichols,

carol anderson. you can learn more about the presidents each weekend on american history tv through speeches and discussions with leading historians. every sunday morning at 8:30 eastern and again at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. here on c-span 3. to find out more about the series and our other history programing, including our weekend schedules and online video, visit c-span.org/history. this week we're featuring some of american history tv's weekend programs on c-span3. in a few moments, we'll continue to focus on the presidency and civil rights with a look at the legacy of president john f. kennedy. in a little more than an hour, more about civil rights then and now, the achievements of the past 60 years, and civil rights issues today. >> this is c-span3 with politics and public affairs programing throughout the week, and every weekend 48 hours of people and

events telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites. and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. more now from the john f. kennedy presidential library conference on the presidency and civil rights. the next panel, which is a little more than an hour, focuses on president kennedy's civil rights legacy. >> so if we could have your attention. we'll now good to our next panel on the presidencies of john f. kennedy and lyndon baines johnson. >> all right. so now it is good afternoon, so good afternoon. and remember that we're honoring two presidents, george wash and abraham lincoln. here is something from abraham

lincoln that seems fit for this afternoon. the probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. that seems to be very appropriate for our conversation about civil rights and the united states. we enter the conversation in the first panel, having looked at the double v victory, the world war ii, the cold war, the personal responses of people like ernie green of the little rock nine to what was happening in terms of the violence, and the movement by both truman and eisenhower, though they not be supporters of social equality, to do some things that move the country forward with regard to civil rights. and so now we come to the terms of john f. kennedy and lyndon baines johnson, typically regarded by people who think of the modern civil rights movement as two presidents that were very much associated with civil rights.

and the question on the program is to ask how legislation was moved forward. what were the forces that inspired the legislative process by these two presidents to advance actual civil rights legislation. and we certainly have the panel to do that. so let's start with -- because i like a little context. after we leave eisenhower and now it's john f. kennedy's time, what was happening in the country in terms of the naacp, in terms of what lawyers were doing. kenneth mack, in terms of the restlessness of the black community about where civil right was. because the little rock nine, that was considered a victory of sorts. but yet we were so far from legislation. kenneth mack, i think i'll start with you. >> okay. >> all right. put the context for us. >> what was going on in the

country? several things. first, the brown decision had been decided. it had been unevenly enforced. there had been the little rock crisis. but really, nobody knew whether and when or how school desegregation would really happen in the south. the justice department was trying to enforce existing civil rights laws, but there were holes in existing civil rights laws. it was mentioned earlier that under president eisenhower's watch, the 1957 civil rights act was enacted. the 1960 civil rights act that gave the justice department additional powers to enforce civil rights. but really still very, very significant constraints on what the justice department can do. the naacp is caught up with the struggle of trying to implement brown versus the board of education and then there was martin luther king who was catapulted to prominence with

the montgomery busboy cot. in 1955 and 1956. but king is also looking in 1960, '61 for ways to push the movement forward. so what the context was a lot had been done. desegregation of the military, brown versus board of education. president kennedy and robert kennedy were both racial liberals. they were actually comfortable with social equality. they were personally comfortable around african-americans, which was a -- which distinguished them from most of the predecessors in the office of the presidency, but still nobody knew what the next step was. the next steps were driven by things and people who were outside of the office of the president of the united states, outside of the executive branch. they were driven -- the next

steps were driven by african-americans and whites, segregationist whites in the south. >> so harris wofford, john f. kennedy first had to get the presidency. and part of his exceeding to the presidency, he had to deal with the pressures s os of civil ri. some of this that has gone on after eisenhower's presidency, how did he do that and how did he view civil rights at that point as a candidate before he actually got into the chair as president? >> one day shortly after i was hired by kennedy, i'd been campaigning for him on foreign policy grounds. even though he had supported the jury trial amendment in 1957 of the first civil rights act since reconstruction. he was in trouble, but i was ardently for kennedy on foreign

policy grounds. he picked me up on a corner in georgetown. he knew i had joined the staff by then. and hadn't known anything about civil rights background i had had with dr. king and promoting civil disobedience, talking about it at least, since writing a book with my wife on india and gandhi, et cetera. and he said now in ten minutes, tick off the things that i ought to do if i'm president to clean up the damn civil rights mess. so i had my moment. i had my ten minutes. >> what'd you say? >> well, among other things, i said with one stroke of a pen, you can sign the executive order eliminating discrimination in federally assisted housing that the civil rights commission had recommended and was sitting on

eisenhower's desk for six months or something like that. with one stroke of a pen. he said i like that. we talked about the problem of the southern legislatures filibustering. he jumped at the idea of executive action. and i had five or six other points. a few days later he called me in and said sergeant shriver has convinced us we should have a civil rights section of the campaign, not just a minority votes section, but a civil rights section that would have black and white leaders and hispanic leaders, walter ruthern and williams, all the black leaders that we could get to actually join the campaign. we've learned about your ties in those years. would you go down and work with sergeant shriver, who i had already gotten to know simply,

and knew that he was somebody that i enjoyed more than anything for the next ten years that i've had in my life. so night and day, we were in the civil rights section. a key part of it was the democratic platform which was the most far-reaching political civil rights platform that any party ever had even, the republicans and their abolitionists blooming. it was an extraordinary one that went even further than they wanted because chester bowles was the chair of the democratic platform committee, and he assigned several of us to -- on civil rights to have a maximum platform and then a minimum that we would fight for because he knew he would have to compromise with the southerners, and he wanted to have the maximum. and we had good two-runs, the

minimum maximum. that morning robert kennedy got up on a stare -- a chair in the caucus of the democratic leaders on the floor and said "today's the day for the platform." and the civil rights platform is strong, and we want the kennedy delegates, every one of them, to go all the way with bowles' platform. i went and reported to bowles that that was the command. he said my god, i don't know what will happen. and the southerners didn't balk, and the whole maximum got adopted, somewhat by accident, which kennedy avowed and campaigned on a number of times, and then came the call to mrs. king, and then in due course, i became an assistant to the president for civil rights, having first urged louis martin, our key colleague, who is african-american, a wonderful colleague in my lifetime, and

they wanted him in the democratic national committee. and twice on the edge of signing the executive order on housing, the southern legislators came to him and said, first, if you sign that, we will not support your housing and your economic plan. and then second time he delayed it. they came and said, we're all up for election. and if you -- we're going to lose the south if you sign it. twice when i was booked to go and explain executive order on a martin's radio show, he canceled at the last minute. and the pens started flowing from the civil rights movement decided to send pens saying one stroke of the pen. and allegedly when the

strokes -- when the pens came in, the first huge bundle he said send them over to wofford. he got me into that. but on executive action, he formed a subcabinet group on civil rights which he asked me to chair, and which every cabinet department had to have a member of the subcabinet committee on civil rights. we met regularly to find out and to move and support each other in how much each department could do. kennedy launched it, supported it, and then the freedom writers rode. >> so you would say he was good on civil rights? >> i'm just giving you a beginning of the story. >> i asked the question. i'm just trying to get you to characterize it. >> i came in due course to realize that what many thought

was weakness or unreadiness -- >> gradualism. >> gradualism, et cetera. al sharpton interview on chris matthews said your book has convinced me that i was wrong that he was just a gradualist and didn't have a commitment to civil rights. i would recommend his book because just looking at it cleanly now from the democratic platform to the call to mrs. king to the executive actions that were taken to the two weeks after the worst violence of the freedom riders, the order to the interstate commerce commission was to design regulations that would end segregation in interstate housing, which is a happy end to that story going

through the submission of the civil rights bill. >> so not gradualism for you. pretty good. let's let it sit there for just a second. i'm going to go over to roger. >> you're the moderator. >> i'm going over to roger for a second to talk about, if you could pull together the middle of this thread. so kenneth has talked to us about what is happening. there is an ongoing -- i would say persistent thought that kennedy came late to civil rights. despite what he may have said on the campaign trail. and despite what harris wofford has just told us about setting up the civil rights division. you worked for kennedy and johnson. i wonder if you could pull that middle together for us and give us your assessment of where he was, and did you see him as gradualist? >> you're asking me? >> yes, you. >> if i saw the president as a -- you