he served the country as president and garnered massive approval from the public, having won two landslide elections. his average approval rating for 65%. years was was 55% andsident ronald reagan at 53. >> watch american history tv on c-span three. sunday night on q&a, penn state history professor amy greenberg discusses her book lady first, the world of first lady sarah polk. >> the way she exercised power. she wrote letters to a supreme court justice and members of that were completely

competent, 100% about politics, and were not noticeably different from a letter a man would write. >> next, clare potter, history professor at the new school. she talks about the 1969 stonewall write it's -- stonewall riots. .he reflects on the legacy we recorded this 18 minute interview at the american historical association meeting. >> claire potter is someone who studies and teaches history at the new school and writes about it. let's talk about the stonewall riots. is comingnniversary up this june. what happened?

night, when the patrons of stonewall inn, who were on the margins of the gay community, not the people we now as being at the center of gay, lesbian and transgender politics. rather prostitutes, transgender people, drag queens, they were hanging out at stonewall in, thinking everything was going to be fine, thinking the payoffs had been made to the people who had picked up a money every week. busted theice patrons of stonewall and began a police car to take them to the station. the kind of thing that happened to lgbtq people all the >> what was motivating the police? >> the police having

gotten their payoff and they were trying to teach a lesson to the owners. nightarland had died that . everybody was very upset. andsomething snapped area the patrons of the stonewall inn decided they were mad as hell and they weren't going to leave. he began throwing things at the cops. inside, the patrons, many of them ran out. sudden it was a riot. >> was judy garland viewed as an icon by the community? -- judy gartland garland was an icon. it was only a guess that this was the thing that really flipped the switch that might read could have been the fact that it was hot, that it was summer, could have been the fact that it was the late 1960's and

all kinds of other groups were trying to get their civil rights. violent resistance against police repression was actually becoming a common thing. whatever it was the patrons decided they weren't going to allow themselves to be pushed around anymore just for being lesbian, gay and transgender. >> this was a civil rights marker for the gay and transgender community. the things that happened was people who weren't actually patrons of stonewall in , by that point west village became a gay place. students and activists and all kinds of countercultural people. they began to gather around. if you look at memoirs of the period, there are so many people as important figures in lesbian and gay history.

somehow they were all in the area that might going to another bar or sitting at a restaurant. they began to support the young people at stonewall inn. >> how hard was it for these people to come out? it was a very different time than where we are at today. to say you were gay or lesbian to your friends or family, your place of employment, what were the challenges? >> there were a number of challenges. it was illegal to bk in many places. it wasn't written into the law, but if sexual acts were illegal. sodomy is still a crime in there were other

kinds of things. there were laws against wearing the clothing of the other dress -- of the other gender. they could be arrested for not wearing the clothes of the proper gender, they would be taken to the station, shaken down. they would have to bail themselves out and come to court the next day. there were routine police harassments. it was also very difficult for gay and lesbian people to get served. if two men walked into a normal -- together and sat down, it if they were suspected of being homosexuals, the bartender would prohibit by law serving them. women would go into bars often until the mid-1960's. there are bars that could legally prohibit a woman

accompanied by a man from coming into a bar. bars played an particular role in the community. they also became a place where people acquired a solidarity. we may call a proto-political affiliation. give us a sense geographically of where it was community wasthe like back in the summer of 1969 and what you see today. stonewall inn is still on christopher street. there was a short period in the 1990's when it became a bagel store. it's a national landmark. across the street

from a tiny park that has a monument to gay and lesbian activists. now it's a pretty park with flowers in it. longtopher street is a street that extends all the way to the husband river. the 60's, 70's and 80's that entire street was lined with bars and stores and other kinds of establishments that only catered to gay people. stonewall inn was the heart of the gay community. >> the night after the riots, what happened? >> another riot. police were unable to make people stop rioting. one thing that is very interesting about this moment is that it's really the first time in the history of the city of new york that gay and lesbian

people did not accept the authority of police. was humiliating, you hope your name didn't get in the paper. you could pay a police officer to let you go or to not let you put your name -- or to not let them put your name in the paper. >> whether people involved in this? this is simply organic and word-of-mouth. people who really rose to the occasion and became leaders in this time period >> there are two people in particular who deserve mention. one is marcia, a transgender woman and sex worker. famous as anry organizer and political radical, actually ran for office once.

sophia individual is rivera, who became famous not for her political activities but for organizing homeless youth in the area. she developed an organization called star, which helps homeless youth get access to certain kinds of services. and trying to get them off the streets and out of sex work. are their oral histories, other people who were alive today he remember what happened? >> there certainly are. you can find them all over the place. martin,a great book by which is an oral history he did with five participants. one of whom was a guy named craig, who is now dead, he

started the first game lesbian bookstore, the oscar wilde bookstore. there's a gentleman who's a big activist at the time. he's still very politically active in new york, particularly on the behalf of elderly gay and lesbian people. >> your work is available online. started by another great person to talk to about the stonewall riots, who is a historian who trained himself. called gaybook american history, published in that was first history of lgbt people in the united states. at a certain point he wanted to a history spike that made

lgbt history available to everybody. as a wiki and was moved to a regular website. it has stories, research, we have a biographies birthday segment, so every day you can see what famous lgbt person was born on that day. the site is going through a big renewal now. >> from the stonewall riots to don't ask don't tell during the clinton white house years to where we are today, let's talk about the art of the gay and lesbian movement. >> it is astonishing how much has happened in my lifetime. at the time of the stonewall riot, a gay man or lesbian would not be allowed to have custody of their own child. today gay men and lesbians are

having their own children and interacting with other parents. in 1969 game lesbian people would sometimes have private weddings for places like the stonewall inn. they refer to them as weddings, regular weddings. now lesbians and gay men can go down to city hall or have a wedding in a church. is extremely important, if you look at the long arc, one of the things we saw is because lgbt people cannot protect themselves through marriage, oftenomebody became sick person was helpless to protect the person they love. the would take all

belongings of the apartment, regardless of the fact that another person lives there. the history has ended in full citizenship for lgbt people. >> i think of people like ellen degeneres, how important are they in terms of your movement? demo we think they are extraordinarily important. you don't have to be a political radical to be important to the lgbt community. people who, many of whom were in the closets, watching her towards edging -- towards coming out. whether they were out of the closet or not. all of a sudden there was some d.l. speaking for them on a national stage. would say the internet is really important.

the liberation of lesbian and gay people, because the internet created virtual spaces. you didn't have to go into a bar if you weren't the kind of person who hung out in bars. could go online, you could look for other people like you. you could have conversations for coming out, what your strategies for coming out. i think the communication between lgbt people has added to our visibility and the more visibility we had the more heterosexual people understand we are just like them. >> colorado has the first openly gay governor elected. would that have been possible 14 years ago? >> i have to say i'm 60 years old. just thrilled.

thrilled they had the nerve to do it. i think the young woman who is native american and lesbian elected to congress, that just blows me away. and then as they are mayors or so on the more we are going to see there are a range of views for the community about what social justice means and how it form ofts with the social justice important other americans. >> what are the challenges >> one, it was a very easy in 1969 to talk about a lesbian and gay community. people of different races and classes and professions.

the activist had an agenda that was pretty solid and clear to them. so for lesbians and gays who are democrat, it's incomprehensible to them you would be gay and republican. i went to cpac. why are they republicans? they are fiscal conservatives and christians. within the sort of place in the republican party, they can be all those things. think that's great, i think our identities contradict each other. identity, for people to have more complex andtities to say i'm gay republican, or i'm lesbian and a

fiscal conservative, i think that's hard to explain to people. it's a real challenge to explain why a liberationist identity from the past may not be liberation missed now. >> you kind of harken back and wonder what was happening in june of 19 69? >> absolutely. the mid-1970's i was hanging out in lesbian and gay bars in west village. i remember them vividly. they were dirty, they were exciting, they were full of smoke and all kinds of people to have adventures with. i can easily see how a group of people who were together and taking care of each other and loving each other, when all of a sudden they were challenged they

spontaneously decided they weren't going to take it anymore. >> the process of making this a historical site has been want to? >> i think it's taken a long time because when something comes to the historical society, you have to go through a whole lot of paperwork to make a case for it. when it actually happened in the secretary of the interior came to actually do the designation herself, it was the end of a long process of historians making that case to the federal government. it's also true the obama administration was emitted to creating gay and lesbian sites. claire potter, we thank you for your time. >> thanks for having me. , thee war in the pacific cure for the measles, and the life and legacy of dwight eisenhower.

today at 1 p.m. eastern, pacific war scholars on world war ii's first major pacific ally defenses. >> for the american public, it came to symbolize the first test of the manhood of the generation that had to fight the war. >> then on real america, with a rash of outbreaks of measles, a look back at the 1964 film on the history of measles and the development of a vaccine. >> the monkeys that were not vaccinated developed measles. ones like this one that were given an experimental vaccine shown no signs of measles, that they were given protective anti-bodies. they now know they have developed for the first time a vaccine which will provide safe protection against measles. presidency, university of virginia professor and author

william hitchcock on the age of eisenhower. >> dwight eisenhower was the most respected man, the most admired man of that period. he served the country as president and his average approval rating while president with was 65 years average. the next president who comes closest to that was bill clnten at 55% and after that ronald reagan 53. >> watch american history tv his weekend on c-span 3. >> up next, on american artifacts we go behind the scenes at the u.s. army in itage and education center carlisle, pennsylvania to see a section of world war i objects in their storage facility. we will see how they prepare,