>> ladies and gentlemen of the convention, my name is geraldine ferra ferraro. i stand before you to proclaim tonight america is the land where dreams can come true for all of us. >> the 1984 vice president acceptance speech of new york congresswoman geraldine ferraro at the democratic national convention in san francisco. she was the first woman to be nominated for vice president by a major party. for the complete american history tv weekend schedule, go to c-span.org. now journalist and washington monthly contributor stephen rose discusses the upcoming presidential election. this "washington journal" segment runs just under 40

minutes. >> our ongoing series spotlighting magazines continues today with the recent edition of "washington monthly" online. steven rose our guest wrote this piece "miss placed no stat gentleman for the good old days," are largely based on myth. mr. rose, so explain the myth that it's based on. >> sure. there's two ways to look at it. number one is the kind of rose-colored glasses in which we look at the past. as they say, things are worse today than they were in the past. so a lot of people evoke the '50s and the '60s as a time when somebody did this and everything was fine. in 1960 the overall poverty rate was 22%. the elderly poverty rate was 35%. while women made half of what men did and blacks made half of

what whites did. so it wasn't so good old days. the comparable figures today is the overall poverty rate is 14% to 15%, the elderly poverty rate is 11%, and men -- women make 75% of what men make and blacks make 75% of whites. so the whole notion of how bad it is today relative to how good it was in the past has problems, especially when you think about if you go forward even in the '70s there was stagflation. so that's number one in the past it wasn't so great. >> so are you saying that we have progressed? that we are better off? >> well, there's no question we're better off today. and there are a variety of metrics that show you that. i gave you the poverty line and whatever. the choice isn't between we're wonderful and we're terrible. let's remember it's shades of gray. let's also remember when we poll

people, when asked, compared to your parents, do you feel you're living off better off at the same age? that's done every two years, and basically consistently 60% of the people say they're better off. 20% say the same and about 15% say worse. so the whole notion of that we're so much worse off just doesn't -- it just doesn't pass the smell test. people know, if you go back to 1979, people know that there weren't computers then, there weren't cell phones then, there weren't hdtvs then. we're living five years longer. if you reach 65 we're living four years longer. there's so many metrics that we've gone forward. the bottom line is, as we get richer, our aspirations get higher. and so this whole notion of that, you know, 85% of the people say they're dissatisfied with the economy, well, that must be really unusual. well, it's not.

it's usually about 50%, 60%. even in the best times, 1999 i was a member of the clinton administration, we had seven years of strong growth. and the unemployment rate was under 4% and we had added 20 million jobs. asked, are you satisfied with the economy or dissatisfied with the economy? 40% said they were dissatisfied with the economy. so we have this thing of just changing the bar and it's very easy to just look back. that said, today's world is a little different. i miean, it's much more disruptive. i've written about a thing called changing jobs and instability and anxiety. so while, yes, things are better and one should remember that right now we are on the tail end of the lodeepest recession we h since the great depression, and we've rebounded better than others. we haven't rebounded strongly enough, but if you look at the rest of the world, it's in much worse shape. obama gets no credit for that. >> we are talking about the good

old days and americans' no stall gentleman for them. stephen rose our guest this morning says it's misplace mtd wiflt want to know your thoughts on that. . you're looking at the most recent edition of "washington monthly." stephen rose's piece appeared online for the magazine. we want to know your thoughts on it this morning. let me just begin with, why are americans -- why have they been and why are they pessimistic? >> first of all, in some ways, psychologists have done tests and they basically say that in the notion of the fight or flee, it's better to make the mistoak to flee. we're a little more hard pif wired to pay tension to negative news than positive news. secondly, the media in general -- the media today is

very different. the media has become hyperpartisanized and therefore people get into these echo chambers. then politicians come and they promise things to people. we're going to do away with balmcare. we're going to get out of iran. we're going to do this and that. then they don't deliver. that makes people discontent. that makes them angrier. then of course you get into these echo chambers so it goes round and roun round. therefore, it whips up the energy and i wonder today whether this election which has really been dominated by outsiders and this anger and by high negatives for all the ka candida candidates, i wonder if we'll see that in the future going forward. in that when you think about who are the politicians that really inspire trust and whatever, i can't think of one in either party. and i think that's somewhat a sign of the times. in some ways it's a sign of our strength. you know, when roosevelt was

president, everyone rallied around him because we had these crises and, you know, when bush wasn't that popular in, 9/11 ca and we rallied around bush. right now we're kind of muddling through. people understand that they've been through a bad time. another pew poll said that 40% of people said the crisis really didn't hurt them and they're fine. 30% of people said that the crisis hurt them and they're back. but 30% and that's a lot, which also means you have friends and family, said that the crisis hurt them and they're still bad off. so it's a tough world out there. things change quickly. you're always -- even if you're established you worry about that you could lose your job. so there's this anxiety and then there's this hyperpart sanship and the media. therefore, it's reflected in no respect for really any institution or very few institutions and politics that is just very coarse. >> let's break down what the candidates are saying when it

comes to economic issues, trade, income inequality, this country's poor compared to china, et cetera. we'll go through all of that. you can pepper mr. rose with those questions. we'll go to carol first in salisbury, north carolina, a qu. we'll go to carol first in salisbury, north carolina. a democrat. >> caller: yes. i'd like to tell stephen rose what was so good about yesterday. yesterday men and women were married to each other and people were happy. mothers stayed at home with their children. they weren't raised by whatever society there is. industry. people had jobs because the industry hadn't been throwed out of this country into china. you talk about the clintons. well, the clintons did us no good, and neither did the bushes. that's when all this -- you know, you start back to where

all this trade was being done. i don't see how you can even sit up there and smile and think that yesterday wasn't better because people were happier. maybe we didn't have computers stuck in our ears or maybe we didn't have all of this. i spend my days at 72 trying to find a program on television where there isn't all this filth. and let me tell you, this health care, this is the worst year at 72 the health care has ever been for me. i am in a year and a half had six doctors because theft left practice because they're getting paid nothing by these insurance companies -- >> okay. carol, that is a lot of policy decisions and a lot of policy there for stephen rose to respond to. >> sure. in 1960 there wasn't medicare. so you wouldn't have had any insurance at all probably. in 1960 very few men were even retired because they had to keep

working. in 1960 women were, again, in the home for sure but a lot of them wanted to work and it's more interesting. i can understand how people look back in nostalgia on the two-family household and how things were wonderful. in appalachia the white poverty rate was 35%. yes, there were some people that were doing very well, and yes, the economy was growing. it felt so different. i grew up during those years, and my parents were immigrants, and they came in here in time for the depression. for them the '50s were wonderful because it was so much better than what came before. but today we are so much better. as i tried to say earlier. so you're 72 now. if you were 72 in 1960, you'd probably have a life expectancy of about seven years. if you're 72 today, you have a life expectancy of 12 years. by every metric we're much, much better. on the cultural issues there's just a lot of disagreement. there are people like yourselves who want women to stay in the

household, that believe in certain values, and today what you see is people, you know, there are homosexual rights now, there's transsexual rights. for people who have conservative values this seems very odd. and again, for people who grew up when blacks knew their place and 50% blacks -- black men were laborers, 50% of black women were maids in 1960. well, guess what. they're competing now for jobs and they're in all these positions. and most people think that's a step forward. >> princeton, new jersey. greg, a democrat. >> caller: hi. yeah. i think that you might want to think about your reference point year for different things. i think you did a good job with that elderly poverty rate and related things in 1960 because around that time there was a change in social security and medicare came along a couple years later, which massively reduced the elderly poverty rate. but with regard to wages and

recent stagnation in wages the reference point really is the early '80s and late '70s. and that has a lot to do with public policy. public policy drives a lot of those things. a lot of those gains that you said occurred like in life expectancy, those are related to public policy too. advances in public health. advances made by government spending by the neh in research and those related things. so tie those to the causes. >> okay. okay, greg. mr. rose. >> fine. there is a thing called conventional wisdom, and then there's a lot of research on these issues about what's been happening at the middle -- in the middle class. so for instance, conventional wisdom is that incomes haven't increased at all over the last three to four decades. the congressional budget office uses the most comprehensive

approach. and i've written widely on this, and you can go and google and try and get some of my pieces. the congressional budget office, using a different year, 1979. you said start in 1980. i'll start with 1979 because that was the business cycle peak. the congressional budget office doesn't say that the median has been flat. it argues that in real terms it's up 35% since 1979. in terms of earnings, well, earnings is only one component of what workers get. there are compensation. they get all these benefits as well. again, i've done a separate paper on this that came out last march through the urban institute. and i showed that for women's earnings from 1979 to 2014 in real terms, real compensation terms, they're up 73%. and men are up 13%. so what you're really catching is that the men are the ones that stagnated as the women went forward and the average was up 38%. so all workers had a median gain of 38%. men stayed behind.

men were still ahead of women, but it still was they had a 13% gain. so what really happened is that men's wages are stagnated while women have done really well. and so i really do believe that there's no doubt that the living standards today, whatever year you want to pick other than maybe, you know, 2000 -- i can't even figure out what year you would pick that we are worse today. >> "wall street journal" front page. pay gap, "widest for elite jobs. women in white-collar careers see the biggest gender disparity, defying legislative remedies. wall street journal examination of pay in 446 major occupations found women in many elite jobs earn well below men with professions such as doctors, compensation managers, and personal financial advisers among those showing the widest earnings gap." they start out the same after graduating from college. women if they go to have a baby and they then miss out on that

time, not promoted, that's where -- that's where the "wall street journal" says the gap comes into play. >> there's no question that i would argue that the women's wage gap is actually larger than the 77%. and that is you really do want to look over the career. the 77% number is really based on full-time, full year, and one year. and that basically there's become this system engrained, we moved far away from it, that when there's -- raising kids has become -- has always been primarily a woman's job, and over and over again couples make their decisions based on what works best, and women interrupt their careers. there's no question that the family responsibilities of women have a much bigger impact than is given credit for. so yes, i would agree with those numbers. >> we'll go to david next. and while we listen to david, take a look at the top 15 major

occupations with the largest gender wage gap. again, this is the "wall street journal" this morning. david in oxenhill, maryland, independent. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thanks for c-span. thanks for taking my call. i think it depends on, you know, your perspective. i think if you're well off, i think maybe you would tend to think that things are going well. i guess my question or comment that i wanted you to maybe try to address is when bernie sanders talks about the income gab where all the wealth is going to the top 1%, how does that affect -- i don't seem to

see how that affects, you know, the daily lives of i guess most middle-class americans. because i mean, when we're talking about income wealth, are we talking about owning a home or just -- >> dave, i think we know your point. is the middle class losing ground? >> well, again, i've written on this, and you can google my name. i have papers on this. in terms of home ownership, home ownership is not at its highest rate ever. that is, it obviously peaked in 2007 when there was a lot of speculation. but we are at historically high levels. so people are owning homes at the same level, number one. number two, there's no question that the american economy is different than every other advanced country in the world in how we treat the bottom 20%. and this is no matter what year it is. we are much more you're on your own, good luck. and if you fall, we'll let you fall further than every other country around the world. in the midst of all this there's always been a bottom.

those bottoms have been stuck there. the poverty rate has not gone down. we have things that support them. but it's -- still it's not a good life. so yes, that's true. in terms of everything's gone to the 1%, again, there's another paper that i've written. a thing called itif.org. you can google my name and find that. using cbo data it is jut wrong that the middle class is stagnating. income inequality is up. i first released a thing on income inequality in 1983 and have been studying it ever since and have probably two dozen papers on it. so there's no question it's up. but the issue is how much? the issue that all of the growth has gone to the top 1% or top 5% is just simply wrong if you look at cbo numbers. cbo numbers does the most comprehensive thing. just go to cbo.gov and look under the income group and look at their papers. so yes, inequality's up but at

the same time a smaller slice of bigger pie is more pie. >> "usa today" money section millennials to buy or not to buy? their dreams of owning a home in peril is there. and then this morning on twitter a couple viewers, "i don't think we can compare history to now to give us any sense of the world. it feels like a different planet to me." and another viewer says "we have far less freedom. government has intruded every aspect of our lives." eric in fairfax, virginia, republican. what do you think? >> caller: well, thank you for c-span and thank you for having me on. i'd like to make a few comments. first the gender gap discussion i thought was really interesting. and what i'd like to contribute to the discussion is there are a number of factors that affect gender differences in pay and one of those is how we negotiate. so i don't want to belabor the point but just want to bring it up that legislation is not the only thing that we need to do to

fix that. the second thing is the republic of the united states of america is not a democracy. the founding fathers intended for the people that own this country to run this country. and that's what's happening. politicians from our so-called parties are delivering another round of sound bites and promises for a better tomorrow, and the things that they're promising, the powers of possibility that they're promising far exceed any benefit to our real lives. and this is why america is angry. i appreciate everything that we're talking about but i'm actually excited. i hope it doesn't end up being too violent, although i don't think we can stop that. when people are defeated by circumstances. this is what they do. and that's all i have to say. >> eric, i want to bring up something that you touched on there. politicians promising things. let's listen to bernie sanders last night talking about the cost of college education. here it is from an event we

covered in california. >> young people are asking me, how does it happen that when they do the right thing, when they go out and get the best education they can they end up 30, 50, 70 thousand dollars in debt. [ boos ] we should not be punishing people for getting an education. we should reward them. >> all right, stephen rose. so he's been promising free college education. when it comes to what college used to cost, weren't those the good old days? >> okay. we are at record numbers of people getting a four-year degree. so the notion that money alone has restricted access is just not proven. number two, this notion of $30,000, $50,000, $70,000 in debt. the debt, 35% of people with a four-year degree graduate with

zero debt. the numbers of debt you that hear which is the high 20s is the median income of those with debt. so it doesn't even count those 35% of zeros. number three, in terms of default rate you hear that they're high. well, yes, they are high. but the largest number of people it's higher for small loans that have gone to -- have gone to for-profit vocational schools that haven't led to good schools. the number of four-year people that have defaulted on their debt is very low. number four, college is expensive. someone's got to pay for it. so the notion that it should be free means that we are just subsidizing the cost. so a friend of mine went -- we were talking about debt, said that look, she went to law school for $500 a semester at bolt. i think that's how things should be. and i said, well, let's see, your parents are both lawyers. you went to yale. you went to law school for free. you had a 20-year law degree, and you've made a lot of money.

and we should have subsidized you? i'm sorry. that's wrong. that is not the best use of government money. the best use of government money is to increase pell grants, to talk about -- i mean, community college is very low and virtually free. but it is just incorrect to say that this is what's holding back attainment. what's really holding back attainment in my view is that people come out of the -- come out of high school with low skills. if you look at -- if you think about people who go to a four-year college who have an a and started at a four-year college, then their graduation rates are 85%. if they had a b their graduation rates are 75%. but if they had a c or less they had lower graduation rates. so really we have a lot of access, we have a lot of public options and what's holding us back is not money but it's actually the preparation of the students. >> we want to add this to the conversation. "wall street journal," "administration expands overtime pay eligibility. the rule will raise the annual salary threshold that generally

determines who qualifies for overtime pay when they log over 40 hours a week. it will likely have a sweeping effect on workers, employers, and industries including retailers, the fast food industry, universities and non-profits." kathleen in michigan, a democrat, you're next. >> caller: good morning. i just finished two days of substitute teaching in rural northern michigan, a second job that i have, and i can tell you we -- the poverty hasn't changed here in northern michigan. it's gotten worse. and every year when i go into these schools, and i keep saying it, the children look poorer and poorer. they're wearing used clothing, used shoes. 90-plus or 100% of the students qualify for the free lunch program. oftentimes it's just barely f d food. children that don't have

internet service. children who don't come to school prepared because the circumstances of life are you have these generations of poverty. >> okay, kathleen, i think we get what you're describing. stephen rose, is it accurate? >> well, certainly it is. and as i said earlier, the bottom 20% here don't do well here. that is, they are poor and consistently poor or near poor. a lot of the poor move in and out. a lot of the poor are young people. especially young single women who have children. and oftentimes before they remarry or before their careers take off there's a lot of poverty -- there's a lot of children living in low-income housing, and in point of fact today the people with the highest poverty rate are in fact children. in fact there are these problems there but as we've gone forward these problems have always been there. i don't think they're particularly worse today.

it feels worse because you see so much more around you. not only the middle class sees more around you but the upper middle class. you see all these commercials on tv for mercedes and audis and trips. why don't you take the voyager line here or there. so it feels worse because you see that other people have that much more. but i don't think they're worse condition. >> republican in birwin, pennsylvania. paula, you're next. good morning. >> caller: good morning. yes. i just take exception to his interpretation of better off. as far as debating this. just because you have money or you can buy a house or you can go to college, that doesn't make you better off. we have less freedoms. and as far as a mother staying home and not having a career, i think -- i don't think you have a right to decide about that, that it's more interesting.

most people think the most important job they'll ever have is being a parent. so i think that you're very misplaced in your ideas of what is better off. and the other thing is that in this society you are almost forced to do things that you really don't want to do because you're maligned if you -- you know, if you have the internet or you don't have a cell phone or you don't have this or that. you are forced to do this whether you want a simple life or not. >> okay. so paula, i'm going to have mr. rose respond to you. but first i want him to hear nancy who's a democrat in michigan city, indiana. nancy, it's your turn. >> caller: yes. thank you. good morning. i have a cute little beach town outside of chicago, and it's small and quaint. we've got a beautiful beach and a zoo. and we were a middle-class town.

we had a lot of factories and privately owned businesses. and in the '70s my friends moved to california for free college, and my dad could insure everybody at our business for $235 a month when health insurance was non-profit. and then walmart moved in, killed all our privately owned business, and then nafta all our small factories left. and now we have no middle class. >> mr. rose. >> okay. let me address the first question from that republican from -- >> definition of better off. >> better off. i just want to say that people just differ. i'm not going to impose my values on you. i'm just trying to say that certain metrics, i believe in people making a choice, in this world you're not forced to have

the internet. in this world you're not forced to have mothers go to work. many choose not to. i'm just saying that it appears that they've made this choice, it's kind of leveled off now, and we've come into the balance that goes with that. in terms of this disappearance of the middle class, i tried to figure out ways to explain this. we're a huge country. we're full of anecdotes. we're full of watching things where people aren't doing well and we see that. so if we look at trade, trade has become the synonym of everything that -- it's become the symbol of everything that's bad. that's caused everything. but of course then the lack of minimum wage, the lack of what government does to protect workers is a symbol of everything bad. you can't have it all ways and trade is. by and large, trade has helped people in the sense of having lower-cost goods, and many people go to walmart, if you go out there and say you really

want to stop the trade, they'll say, well, wait a second, we get great deals here. i mean, what you see is the factories that close. and what happens with trade is a few people lose out very badly. communities lose out. and many people gain a lot. and we still have a high level of employment to population. not the highest ever. in terms of your case of your father employer being able to afford health care in the 1970s, it cost a lot less because it gave you a lot less. as i already showed -- as i said earlier, in 1979 compared to that we live six years longer. elderly people live four years longer. that is because we have more medical interventions that catches diseases. >> let's go to barbara, bluff city, tennessee, republican. >> caller: good morning. how are you? >> good morning, barbara. >> caller: good morning. >> all right, barbara. question or comment here? >> caller: comment, please.

>> okay. >> caller: i want to express what the good old days means to me. the good old days is when we were one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. we've become a society of no morals. god has been taken out of everything. and he's not even mentioned. and i want to hear your comment about that. >> okay, barbara. mr. rose. >> as i said, we can just disagree about what is the most important things in people's life. that's what's nice about america. i don't -- again, there were lots of things that were going on. your friends -- most people live in communities that are very much like themselves. and therefore, they have common values and they see that and they have -- they see that america is much different than ever before.

so the whole notion of -- it's not like there weren't gay people before in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. they were in the closet. and they weren't happy about it. it's not like black people liked being -- having -- making 50% less than white people. but that doesn't matter because that was the community you were in. i think that we're a very uneven country and many people have moved forward. and some people want to go back to the past. i don't think that was a past we'd want to go to. >> by the way, if you're interested in the data that mr. rose is giving to you, you can find it in his piece online, washingtonmonthly's website. he has links to many of the numbers that he has brought up and others in case you're interested. let's go to new york. ahn, an independent. welcome. >> caller: hello. thank you, c-span, for your program. and thank you, stephen, for this effort on this book. it's full of facts that you point out that are much needed

when pointing out specifics. the -- i believe in this society and in most societies we have a tendency, the people have a tendency. some of them want to move forward and progress, and then some want to go back. there's always that pull in society, it seems. and there are some that kind of like the status quo in the middle and they're okay with that. so there's always this dynamic, it seems, in society. i believe also, and i think you're correct, that we have improved and there has been progress made through the years in all those aspects, the social aspects and the economic aspects. but of course there are warning signs that are occurring, and we can't close our eyes to that. >> okay. ahn, give us a warning sign real quick. >> caller: the woman in michigan saying the poverty has increased. obviously the poverty in michigan has increased. we have to be careful with that.

the wars that we get involved with. we've got to be careful with that. the walmart family owning all that wealth. that's also a problem. so we have to look at those things that are specific that need to be addressed so that we can continue to progress. >> okay. clarence in frederickton, ohio, a democrat. what do you think, frederick? or clarence, excuse me. >> caller: that's all right. thank you very much for c-span. i'm listening to this man. i'm sorry, i don't remember your name. i think it's stephen. >> stephen rose. >> caller: all right. i completely don't know where you're coming from on the way we're living today compared to what it was when i started growing up. you bought a loaf of bread for a quarter. our wages have not increased to keep up with any of this. you're talking about progress and the internet and all that stuff. that's good things. but people don't realize they can't afford all this stuff on what they make. you're talking about the health care.

>> clarence, i want to stick to what you said about wages because obviously that's something that the candidates are talking about, hillary clinton tweeting out for too many families paychecks aren't stretching as far as they used to. and she says hard-working middle-class families need a raise, not a tax increase. >> well, again, they haven't kept up with growth. so in a new paper i'm working on i'm trying to show what would the world look like if growth had been evenly distributed. so a lot of things are just more requirements. so compared to other countries we have a very bad public transport. so therefore, you have to have a car. you have to have a cell phone. you have to have this and that. yes, there are certain requirements. i would argue that if you look at food and clothing, for instance. food's so expensive. well, food and clothing are like 40% of what we spent in 1967,

and now they're 29% of what we spent. what people don't understand is today food is remarkably cheaper than it was in the past. the data are overwhelmingly clear on this. not only do we spend less of our money on food, we eat out more. the whole notion that there's so many people in starbucks and things like that, yes, it's uneven. i want to emphasize that the people in the bottom 20% and then maybe the next 20% feel a little bit more left out. but lots of people are consuming a whole lot more than ever before. and this is reflected in earnings. as i said, there's this common sense way of looking at earnings using the cbo approach. i want you to remember that a lot of people don't include health care. that is, the employer pays for your health care, and that has gone up a whole lot. and by the way, we've gotten goodies out of that. i've tried to show you that our life expectancy -- i've shown you how the life expectancy is up. andhat's not counted.

the fastest growing segment in the economy and one that's likely to grow in the future is health care. a very low percentage of that, something like 10 to 12%-s paid out of pocket by people. that is the benefit that people forget about. >> stephen rose, i'm going to try to squeeze in another phone call if i can. the house is going to be gaveling in. ron in mount vernon, ken kerngs a republican. ron, good morning. if you could make it quick. >> caller: good morning, stephen. thank you, c-span. i'd like to make two comments. one, we've wasted over $100 billion in afghanistan trying to rebuild the country while they let their minerals be leased by the chinese. two, we wasted over $500 billion in iraq and achieved nothing. if we spent that money in the united states, we'd be much better off. >> okay. all right. bill in connecticut, a democrat. what do you think, bill? >> caller: well, i think that unfortunately we are in worse times. i think that businesses have manipulated hours so that they don't have to pay benefits to

full-time employees. and i think that out of fairness to the situation i think there's a lot of people that are struggling. i understand you may feel that food is cheaper. but when you go to the grocery store and you walk out with three shopping bags for $120, you still have three bags and it's $120. and it's tough for people to make ends meet. >> okay. and bill, i want to grab michael if i can in kentucky, a republican. michael, quickly your thoughts. >> caller: yes, sir. you know, in the '60s and the '70s the wages when we started out was $100 a week. i could take and feed a family of four on $100. >> okay. stephen rose, we have to leave it there because the house is going to be gaveling in but i just want to tell our viewers go to washingtonmonthly.com. you can find stephen rose's piece there and look at the data that he provides. thank you for talking to our viewers. >> thank you for having me. on "american history tv" on

c-span 3, this september marks the opening of the smithsonian national museum of african-american history and culture. and on saturday morning beginning at 8:30, "american history tv" is live for an all-day conference with scholars from across the country discussing topics including african-american religion, politics and culture, historic preservation and interpretation. at 10:00 p.m. eastern on real "real america," the 1975 church committee hearings, convened to investigate the intelligence committees of the cia, fbi, irs and the nsa. the commission hears testimony from two fbi informants, mary jo cook and how she penetrated an anti-vietnam war organization, and gary thomas row, who infiltrated the klan and participated in violence against civil rights activists. >> you mean the birmingham policemen set up the beating of the freedom riders and you told the fbi that? >> that's correct, sir. >> and then were they beaten?

>> they were beaten very badly, yes. >> and did the birmingham police give you the time they promised to give you to perform the beating? >> yes, sir. we were promised 15 minutes with absolutely no intervention from any police officer whatsoever. >> then on 8:00 on "lectures in history" -- >> what that opportunity gave them was an opportunity to go to college. they saved some of that money. they sent themselves through college. they sent siblings through college. they became doctors and lawyers. one became the first female manager of any department at northrop airlines. they became principals, surkons, politicians, pilots. and they were able to do that because they had access to professional baseball. >> marshall university professor cat williams on how women aided the war effort in factories and military auxiliary units and the

rise of women's baseball leagues, including the all-american girls professional baseball league that was featured in the movie "a league of their own." sunday night at 10:00 on "road to the white house rewind" -- >> ladies and gentlemen of the convention, my name is geraldine ferraro. [ cheers and applause ] i stand before you to proclaim tonight america is the land where dreams can come true for all of us. >> the 1984 vice president acceptance speech of new york congresswoman geraldine ferraro at the democratic national convention in san francisco. she was the first woman to be nominated for vice president by a major party. for the complete american history tv weekend schedule go to