>> each week american history tv sits in on lectures with one of the nations college professors. >> man true -- major andrew forney talk about propaganda during world war ii. the class compares anti-nazi propaganda against a political messagesanti-japanese which often did not distinguish between combatants and civilians. the class depend how the distinction may have been influenced by jim crowe laws during the 1940's. this class is about 55 minutes. >> ok. i would like to welcome ,verybody to lessen the 19th society and culture. we will be focusing on the world war ii in the pacific, the

racial nature of the war. the last time i asked you, is it racial baggage? patrick, is going to be leading us off in session. what have you got? >> the main topic is the distances nation. in many ways to define it as a disregard of a prewar, moral or legal norms morning wore, usually as a result -- of legal norms during war. it is manifested and the pacific ,ar as a firebombing of tokyo targeting civilian areas. of thephy collecting individual soldiers and general transition from the goal of the war to be a military defeat toward racial stigmatization. my first question for the class

would then be, what is the purpose of laws of war? >> philosophy on this? >> whatever you want. laws of war. >> to establish, the expectations for soldiers in order to -- practical value and then who follows the laws. and more inclined to surrender and people when they are captured and what is interesting about them if you do not really see them on either side of the civil war as much as in other theaters. >> why? >> a good question, sir. >> that is why asked it. the rise of the international institutions that fund states to adhere to norms after world war ii.

>> you had the league of nations going on. to what degree did we adhere to those at the national institutions? for example, the notion of human rights not until after the holocaust. that was fairly sobering. >> don't we -- the things that are happening -- the things that guess thisng -- i leaves two and as i read this, one of the things, the lindbergh example. in the war without mercy, it talks about charles lindbergh basically traveling to the front in guinea. what is his take on what is going on? he has a very clear perception of how the war is being conducted in the south pacific. and what is his views on that?

yep? >> increasingly, the japanese were viewed as subhuman. it was not that feeling like in ,urope where these soldiers they were courageous and doing their duty. it was not the same outlook for the japanese, they were viewed as maniacal. if an american talked about dying for his country, they will be viewed as honorable. asa japanese was seen leaving a courageous charge of this americans, they would be seen as fanatical and the zealous. >> to draw a dichotomy, the war of the european front put into a cult -- put into a political construct. yes. from the epithets used to. ,embers of the united states whether the government referred to the germans was the nazis.

the japanese were the japs. the projection onto a whole population instead of a section. >> there was a video i wanted to show. and indoctrination film for the american for what -- public to describe who the japanese were. people at the time did not really know much about them. what i found most interesting is it started out describing images of the civilian population. they are trying to get your military to know who your enemy is. why is the civilian population even in consideration? >> of the points you brought up about not knowing the japanese, we had just fought the germans a couple of decades before it world war i. it startedh japan, with a clean slate. the public does not know a lot. they will get people fired up. a lot of war, atlanta japanese

atrocities were published for to much admittedly while the germans were during the holocaust. did we know what was going on? probably. a lot of soldiers did not know until they stumbled across it. when you publish things like the, the first seen american people had as the japanese as a whole of what they are doing -- this -- if youe -- the, i think he makes his comment. middle, theragraph, commission are you the conflict was inseparable from to fundamental development, westward expansion and racial. we have interacted in the

pacific since the 1800s. japan open in the 1840's. we may not be as familiar as the japanese as with the germans, but we had interactions for at least 100 years on a national level, cultural level. when you take that into consideration of the next not have a we or whatof the japanese they are prior to the beginning of the war? >> sorry. >> let's go to lucas. i was replying to him. >> and there are notions but not the groundwork we have from world war i. what the i, you have germans are doing in belgium. people referring to them as the hungs. dehumanizing the germans.

we are familiar with their culture, especially on the west where there are a lot of japanese-americans. you do not have a groundwork as someone as subhuman -- >> ok. chris? as --establishing them when he rolled into japan, he did not open up trade. he threatened them onto the capitulated and said we will trade with you. the first interaction we had was with a threat. >> ok. versusan look at justice a vengeance as far as the american people going back to the first question, rules of war and morality. when we start on page 68, the second paragraph says what is overlooked is out of jail -- japanese parish -- thousands of

japanese perished because they saw no alternative. that's something to look into. we sometimes have a biased perspective. i do not know if that ties into the original question, but where do we draw the line between what we are justifying? >> i was thinking the same thing. when you look at the involvement and the european theater versus the japanese by the americans, isolate the americans are able to look at the europe situation a little bit more objectively that i feel like the americans are able to look at the europe situation a little bit more objectively. japan, it is a vengeance thing. they came to american soil and bond pearl harbor. bombed pearl harbor.

that is an american motive to pay them back. where as an europe with the exception of the jewish population of america, perhaps knowing about the holocaust they can a personal motive to fight to the nazis. other than that, not so much. they are trying to help out european allies. i know it seems simplifying it. when you look at it, it all adds up. a difference between stepping in into reacting. >> ok. and i want toclip talk about this idea of reciprocity going forward. [video clip] you to knowsurprise that conventional weapons could be just as deadly? is operationay meetinghouse. the u.s. firebombing of 1945.

the japanese attack on pearl harbor in december of 1944 left -- 1941 left4 behind americans railing. had anl 1942, doolittle air raid. however, his raid did little damage to japan itself. u.s. forces spent the first three years after pearl harbor island hopping in places like saipan. 1944, the united states had advanced far enough that the new u.s. bomber could reach tokyo on a regular basis. the first u.s. bombing raid did minor damage.

pilots developed new tactics. they flew low and began to use incident every bomb -- incendiary bomb against the japanese attacks. b-29's. a firestorm. anperatures reached estimated 1800 degrees fahrenheit. 15 square miles of tokyo, equivalent to half of manhattan, was burned down. nobody knows for sure how many people were killed. the estimates range from 90,000 to more than 100,000. a death toll higher than the atomic bombing of here were schumer and al-assad -- hiroshima and not the sake -- nagasaki. take the team for the next five months until japan's surrender in nagasaki.

what is the lesson of the firebombing of tokyo? the danger of nuclear weapons should not blind us to the destructive power of conventional weapons. the genocideught of 1994 killed more than half a million people. whenever victims died from machete attacks. 100,000 people died in the pilot is rocks iraq. of violence that has rocked iraq died in theeople violence that has rocked iraq. the fighting in the eastern congo has killed an estimated six many people. many of the victims died of malnutrition and disease. the destructive power of conventional weapons is not a reason to never use military force.

it is a reason to consider carefully and not to underestimate their consequence. the destructive power of conventional weapons wpons is te reason why countries have a responsibility to protect civilian operations where they can. here's the question to consider -- what more should the international community be doing to prevent political warfare? i encourage you to weigh in with your answer on my blog, which he defined at cfr.org. thank you for watching this installment of lessons learned. morewant to watch one club. it's contemporary to the firebombing. we will see. we'll take a look at what can did recklessly has happened. -- contemporaneously had happened. 9's, theirforce of b-2

noses pointed towards japan. ♪ north across the pacific for 1500 miles toward the heart of the enemy and there tokyo, 20,000 feet below. justicee that military are followed. the aircraft plan is the main target. and this height, results are difficult. the bombs landed far below, the depth had a closer view. but japan does not take a streamlined down. 29's blazon that.

blaise that -- blaze back. japs doug a hard blow. >> i think there's a lot of things. initially my thoughts as logan to the idea of reciprocity, ok, does the attack on pearl harbor allow us to do things differently in the context of the law of war? >> the idea that we can. not necessarily that we can ,ustify the cost -- -- because did you want to look at as a 1:1

trade-off. we have the right to attack one major military installation of theirs. that would reciprocate. a point brought up in the video oddly enough, they talk about \9'sthey have on these b-20 -- b-29's. and how many bones? -- bombs> >> about 200,000. >> and their main location is one factor. you do not need that many bombs. film, theyropaganda use the phrase that is hard to necessarily know what the clouds. they still dropped the bombs. what was most interesting is

of there were considerations to bomb civilian areas even before from harbor happened. opposite of the british side, it it had before while in the u.s. said we would do strategic bombing on industrial capabilities. book,ot find it in the there's a time that were considering bombing civilian areas before pearl harbor. yeah, the nazi blitz targets london. the british are very quick to go towards the bombing of civilian locations in europe. it brings up duality. the united states and the to be gunheater tends shy about this bombing of cities. consideration seem to enter into the same kind of [indiscernible]

>> i want to go back to lindsay's point about calling the enemies jap versuss navis. -- nazis. the thing that happened was there was a huge matter made once someone attacked and kill someone, they sacrificed the right to life, basically. is a very strong version of it. the fact we looked at the entire japanese culture as the enemy versus nazi, gave us a subculture justification for what we do with the bombing. if we do not specify the what specific enemy like the japanese government a you have that every in your head, it makes it more ok in our minds to do what we did. we were allied with european countries and we talked about the lines between different european states, some had less

racial tensions toward them. given that the united states it will more than our european allies is founded by ideology, we typically conduct our foreign in the elitistch away. within our ideology supersedes others -- we think our ideology supersedes others. ii, japan and did not. we us some that provide a so -- and somen justification -- we believe that provides us some justification. importantcause it is a we have to debate in little more with germany bombing cities does not mean [indiscernible] , just time the war ended

because they debated it -- >> i want to go back to lindsay's point about the notion or democratic a brightness. self-righteousness. -- democratic rightness. ideal foundation for the government is still there where as in japan -- >> let's be clear. japan and the 1930's, parliament , they prided themselves on being a modern his country. prime ministers, those things existed. what we see is the creation of military state much in the same manner we see the nazi party with a one-party state.

we have to be somewhat careful when we try to characterize the japanese state in the 1930's as less than a modern, i guess. elitism is injected into the agency or and not -- asian sphere and not european. there is some european heritage. probably. >> absolutely. >> i want to come back to that. japs versus nazi ideology. nazi was the correct term. the first senate will likely to say was i am not a nazi. not a political grouping

every person from japan. just inherent in the language. >> i think you are right. the characterization, an extension of the manifest destiny argument were talking about. this idea of the civilized frontier that went on the other side of it. jeff, you're making a face. >> kind of a stretch but i see where you are coming from. we have to conquer what is further away. i do not know. i do not necessarily -- i do not buy it. i do not buy it, sir. >> it could be justified with more so tord or civilian casualties. in europe, somebody can correct me if i am wrong. -- they paid more

attention to make sure it was a military, you know. >> the united states as a whole, which is talking from the video about the different bombings in general. raid was supposed to be emotional and the rest were follow-ups, i guess. with the big bombings, not just killing soldiers, not just killing the people who planned the attack on pearl harbor. >> ok. at reasonsre looking why that is the case, that is uncertainty. we are used to dilute with conflicts in europe -- we are used to dealing with conflict in europe and that is then the

interaction between european nations and ourselves. we are not used to dealing with a real threat will stop the threat or actions on pearl harbor had enormous influence on our review of the japanese know, in the book, it talks about the kill or be killed psychology and how that becomes a vicious cycle. it plays into our interaction with the japanese. characteristic of a -- when you , your nationology feelked and you tend to more justified in the fact you are able to kill them. >> ok. i think we are -- as interesting as -- thank you.

when two nations go to war, are they wars of people -- people and cultures against each other? when we talk about -- most of the history majors out about. major league believes his society goes together. oft's why we crate rules war. it is subject. -- that's why we created rules of war. almost -- our society basically gave the military the ok to bomb betterns in the japanese when they created the concentration camps here for the japanese citizens. the internment camps. i cannot think of the word. >> is a normal term.

-- it is the normal term. crate to do that if that was made by congress. -- when we created that and it was made by congress. if they aref like doing that in america, we have to do whatever we can over there. >> i have a question. if the society is improving of all the things we are doing to the japanese, when isn't the fault of the government run propaganda? like the picture. you have congressman saying you cannot trust a third or fourth in generation japanese guy. he is to try to take out america. >> that is a really good point. what is it trying to get you to do? the view thatto

people are calling for complete annihilation. >> at its core, what is it telling you to do? look at it. >> galvanizing -- >> the picture -- [indiscernible] khartoumcture of the of the person say -- of the ofrtoum of the -- cartoon the person saying -- >> do not waste materials. is there not a sign that said do not throwaway? washed up early. -- do not rush out the door and take your time to clean up after yourself? when they make these, make a conscious effort, we could just say help the soldiers out and do not throw

.way old tools do not strike. wherever the effort to go back to the very first one -- we are making the effort to go back to the very first one. do not strike because we have to wipe out every murdering jap. >> as opposed to the soldiers [indiscernible] ause the people at home are striking and not doing their job well. it was the guilt on the american people as well. like, youot just cannot strike because they're japanese people out there. there are murderous japanese people out and hide you feel when you strike? [laughter] >> it plays into the fear of the japanese people. germans,ng occupied by

the idea is different then by being occupied by japanese. this asian menace has been conquering asia if they are coming after america next. something like this is playing into that fear. >> all right. lindsay? dress of demands on populations. -- drastic demand on populations. to act outside of their own individual self interests. by projecting self interests ,nto a nation and propagating existential threat makes it within individual self interest to act in accordance with the national and place demands. this wider threat of ubiquitous japanese who is threatening to wipe the united states off of

the face of the earth. betterle often respond to fanatical characters. the result would have a purple dinosaur telling people to tie their shoes. >> society going to war. , theseeing the government way i look at the government in the 1940's, kids get poured out of will to work for the do not have a lot of education. -- kids get pulled out of school to work and they do not have a lot of education. what is a group going to think about it? we are going to get attacked by japanese monsters. is getting the society to do what they wanted them to do. e-government is interpret -- the government is a representation of what the society wants.

elmendorf propaganda is just more of a continuation to help bonds.sides buying war but that is what is more all. , kindontinue to feel them of like a psycho. -- cycle. because we let our government officials, they are representation of our society. i would say the government within its locus of control can completely determine what society thinks by its message in propaganda, and messages it sends to the lower echelon of masses. onto that.o tack from the propaganda watch, we have what u.s. and one japanese. the u.s. bombing through cloud cover in a city. and the japanese lash back at a

bomber base. ok, so, that doesn't seem to be -- i do not want to get into a gocussion of it can only this far. that's not what i'm trying to do. those are not reciprocal in nature. we are explored a lot of things here. the notion of reciprocity and dealing with that. the idea of society going to war. would would know about society in the 1940's from what we read? racist. >> heavily charged racially. we talked about domestic service and labor management. like, are we bringing that into the the civil war? you had your hand up, andrew. go ahead.

breaking that. is since i every country have their own racial theory. some believes that house divine heritage. -- believe they have some divine heritage. >> what the japanese bring to the war. when i read that part. if you read the introduction, there is a clear japanese conception. anti-imperialism, divine -- the divinity of the emperor, and the purity of kind of the shuintuism. you're absolutely right. do you want to add onto that? >> not really. >> i was about to say. i know we're not going to read it.

the major restoration that took place during world war ii at what happened, the people doing it, they were not calling for building japan of the modernizing. there may rallying point was come to us. of japan was ade barbarian. not to say this made a right on our part. both sides but that element to the war. -- brought that element to the war. >> no one is safe? >> right. >> i was going to show -- the are describingey what the typical japanese soldier is like. the first characteristic the narrator talked about height and weight. how does that have any played it to the military capabilities? when you have the life magazine publishing the picture of the

blonde white girl -- >> that is in the book. >> i am seeing elements of distinguishing and finding scientific ways to distinguish yourself from the japanese from this other race when it's probably -- >> you are right. >> the letter opener to roosevelt. >> in the middle portion of the propagandais great and cartoons for both sides. i have the blown up color. pictures 13. barely -- as you read chapter four, we barely touched on the of somer sexual nature of his propaganda, right? we have this yellow peril taking white women.

there was literally no military campaigns with the japanese came and took connected white women away. white women away. if you look at the pictures in the middle of your book, you have -- i love this first one. , he very feral u.s. sailor is by a load can assess war without mercy on a treacherous t y\hug -- thug. talkedthe things we about when we watch "birth of the nation," the notion for the movie we must protect women's purity. is this thing wrapped up into all of this? >> with the whole japanese guy running over with naked white women, king kong, the video, the original movie, it was released

in 1933. that's what i am thinking they are trying to get at work. pitcher shows and the -- every other picture shows the japanese as apes. they can relate this guy to a big, british apes. >> i would make the point that something like this it did happen in china. >> you're absolutely right. fear of playing on the their sister and enemy over there and if they take -- it is playing on the fear of if they are the enemy if they take one. >> tags exactly what this picture is. the fact that our distinguishing this chinese woman from the japanese got a look at his hand holding onto her leg.'for color

difference. that's what we've been getting that. color difference. there were not german internment camps. heaterays the european t from japanese. >> i was cautious not to strain our racial epithets to the pacific. they are easily leveraged into the war on the european front. bear in mind, we knew about the atrocities in 1942. we did nothing until two years later. millions of jews died. and getn our butts nothing. -- and it did nothing. we could've saved jewish refugees. anti-semitism both at the government level and overall masses. you are absolutely right.

when we look at, the next two lessons, we look at jim crow going to war. when you take the jim crow to war, you kind of have the ability to create the other. exists, whichady you are absolutely right. but a gets back to the question of dancing around have to answer , if society is going to war it would talk about how they have their hangups, do you fight to the society? the firebombs in tokyo appears to be we are fighting the society, not necessarily the war machine itself. they are trying to bomb a plant. when you look at some and other bombings, we're going to bomb tokyo. is that ok? >> it is not really depend --

>> and does it? >> there are some states that simply do not care. this would be unjustified. in a democratic state, that said, a democratic state is total war. someovernment is -- even it is egregious violation by the population. >> the strategic bombing survey after world war ii shows the strategic bombing really do not do anything to make anyone capitulate. the reality had the opposite effect to strengthen the resolve , the bombing of britain and germany. when it comes down to is these bombs are not effective and why are we still doing it? we are waging a war and the intimate. -- against the enemy. >> total war.

>> total war. lee had said, if , ourties are going to work wars against society? and if so, is it a slippery slope? it would be. there is an example right in world war ii. going to jewish society. that is a pretty slippery slope if you ask me. it can turn into genocide when you're going against society. >> where do you stop? that's kind of where you are getting two. at what point should be destroyed equity firebombing or destroy them the army and then try to change the society? >> andrew and then patrick.

rs are fighting society against society. mitigateules of war to that slippery slope. do try to maybe alleviate any guilt afterwards for the side that wins. , butstroy their society for,by these rules therefore it is ok. >> ok. patrick? >> maybe it's a possibility. military is a representation of everything that makes up society. your economic ideology, it istions of warriorness -- and that is why you place the two militaries against each other. realm of weter this

are both willing to lose our lives against each other. that is the moral laws of war limit the violence in effect of war. if you take that approach. that is why, yes, it is asked in june just said. isit is asked andrew -- it as andrew just said. >> at what point is genocide considered genocide? if you look at how the nazis were doing it, they were taken military forces and killing civilians. the americans were taking military forces and killing civilians in japan. concerned,umbers are how are we going to do fine? innocentll this many

civilians, it is genocide and if not this minute, it is not genocide. rules --n why the there has to be some type of limit to what you are allowed to do in war. --eel like a gets overlooked i feel like it gets overlooked. like the distinction between interment camps and concentration camps. their are a lot of similarities but for some reasons, they are not called the same name. above not nazis, we are that. it ties that judy leave is him. we have these higher pitch right and moral codes. elitism.s back to the >> i do not think it could be comparable to genocide because the ultimate goal of her actions as it relates to the

categorization of it. the germans wanted to extinguish jews and they wanted to get rid of a culture but we didn't wanted them to surrender, complete surrender. suggestions that were many military officials who do not care about surrender and the public. they wanted to eradicate. i am not saying purveyed an entire population, but it existed. every murdering jpa is wiped out? is that a strategy. -- every murdering jap is wiped out. -- is that a strategy? i just finished a book -- have you read that lindsay? it tends to take the versions

and nazi holocaust and put them into a political and strategic place. , nazi deaths notion camps all side of their killing people. it shows that there is a progression. movement, deportation, arrests and when the united states gets involved in the war, reverses in the german army in >>2, now hitler crates -- international jewishness -- creates international jewish to prevent the defeat of the war. it makes it less the idea of we

are just killing jews to this actually a strategic military b et. reconfiguretion what is well and the pacific? -- what is going on in the pacific. to bear in mind what our objectives were. we could say in hindsight, the nazis thoughts continental our world. the u.s. was reluctant. we have to ask are we defending democracy? that is far more elusive. japaneseer of the fueled and hatred or meant to defend democracy? we have to draw the narrative between one and the other.

how to construe this as a means to defend democracy and promote? up,he question you brought whether it is racial baggage we are building -- bringing. if you look at what happened after the war, there are no more calls for annihilation or whatever. japantarted rebuilding and in addition, some of the -- [indiscernible] that is true. with that, the book mentions unpleasant experiments on people soviets unit that the captured and and not have a good time. the ones we got had a much better time because we needed to research and after that, a lot of the went on to be leaders in society. it is interesting to look out

how the war is done once you do not need the element of race anymore, a difference in how different nations handle it. >> it is a good point. it is society going to war or government going to war? is raise political? -- race political? are we generating these others to a compass goals? -- accomplish goals? we an is trying to becom regional power. they are defend democracy reciprocity and stop the japanese expansion there. those are very strategic things we could say are colorblind. but the wars executed by both sides along racially coded lines. how do we deal with that?

is race -- what is race? it is something used politically ? isn't this something that is done to engender compliance? erica? >> race can be used as a scapegoat especially the fact that we can -- and the government can mobilize society in terms of painting a specific culture as enemy. if you look at the historical context of world war ii, were very isolationist prior to pearl harbor. moving thert in population towards innovation and military involvement. it was not until we were to that which change our. -- change our percent meant.

sentiment. japanese, withe the paints them as the enemy and -- government can picture painted their society as evil the cost -- because they were the ones who sent us over the edge. >> and that makes sense, but also, there has to be a baseline , underlying of racism pervasive in this country and in this case, the united states. any sort of government campaign to paint another enemy like the japanese as an inferior race that could be destroyed in order for us to survive, without the racial predisposition already in place, it is not going to work. soft --e some very unresolved racial issues in the u.s.

>> to your rebuttal? >> i think we were so braced against the japanese until pearl harbor. i think that's really energized those feelings of racism. [indiscernible] >> there has to be a predisposition to racism. it was the situation. they projected onto the japanese a painted their culture as evil. and they were racist toward people from the asian descent before. sending the roadway, let's 10 chinamen. that was their plan. no problems having age killed themselves to build it. we are ready giving stuff to china. there is racism. the government is not being

racist or creating anti-chinese racism. they are working, giving stuff to china. the racism is specific. >> it comes off as a little bit racist. they lookn we -- like. do you think it was easier for us to paint a japanese person as an enemy when everybody thought the chinese and japanese looked at the same? >> it comes up in a book. the united states makes clear distinctions between the japanese and chinese. through the contents of the war, they are separate entities. the ministers has to the much longer history with the chinese that at the japanese. we will explore that. i want to go to andrew and maybe where about out of time. >> to jump off of that point.

the book talks about how the japan are considered good ages when the japanese were considered bad asians. scene of different pictures of japanese, chinese, and other agents. the differences of how you could tell. -- another asians. stereo typical reasons like looking at their face. you need to be able to tell the difference because a japanese man is bad where a chinese man is good. >> i think you are right. i want you to think about this notion of society going to war. can we make assessments of i will tryd people to show it in class. see -- it is longer.

if you get to the chance, read p on it the debate about islam . we will talk about that going forward. that's all i got. i will see you next week. >> joins each saturday evening at 8:00 p.m. and midnight for classroom lectures on different topics and areas of american history. lectures in history is available at podcast. visit our website at /history ororg download from itunes. >> each week, american history amerco brits archival films to double stories of the 20th century. -- brings archival films to tell the stories of the 20th century. ♪

>> last heard -- owners of herbert hoover. the son of ae to blacksmith who rose to the highest office in the land and remained and public service to the end of his days in his 91st year. his body will rest in the rotunda, an honor reserved for a few men. humble.t, the it is reminiscent of last year when the body of president kennedy later of the same rotunda. is aresident's wreath simple one of carnations. tens of comes up people filed by in final salute to the man who overcame the faith of being a depression resident to gain new stature as a statesman and

humanitarian of international repute. mr. hoover is late to final rest and the town of his birth. ♪ farewell to herbert hoover. epithet could be that he helped feed the hungry naked.the the americao watch reel every weekend. you can view our archives of programs online at www.c-span.org. america" caneel browse the topics. sc-span's city tour traveling to u.s. cities to learn about their history.

went to colorado springs, colorado. >> she was sentenced to to the south was to explore the region -- he was sent to the south to explore the region just like lewis and clark. pike was sent to the south was part territory and from his prepared -- and from his areaective, he went to an that was unknown. 'when he first he thinks he will reach the top in a few days. it takes weeks to approach. they reached what we believe is a lower mountain on the flanks. they turned around. wrote in his, pike journals that given the conditions, the equipment they had at the time, no one could have summited the peak. pikes peak inspired the poem

that became "america the by katherine bates who came here to teach a college course in 1893. the view down to the plains from the top of the mountain inspired capturedy and images in that poetry of the united states. >> watch all of our events from colorado springs throughout the day on book tv and sunday afternoon on american history tv on c-span3. >> next on american history tv, maria varela, a former member of the student nonviolent cord knitting committee, shares her bruises from the civil rights movement of the 1960's and explains -- shares her experiences from the civil rights movement of the 1960's. this was the keynote