>> announcer: this his new book "talking to strangers" the author tells why he thinks people make inaccurate judgments about people they don't know. >> step out of the car. >> i don't have to step out of the car. >> she's imprisoned for resisting arrest and then three days later she hangs herself in her cell. a tragic and urinexpected resul. that exchange we saw that goes on and on and on. we saw a small snippet of it. that was the kind of -- when i first saw that online that's when i realized what i wanted to write about. if you break that exchange down moment by moment, you see multiple failures of understanding, of empathy of a

million things. >> announcer: sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. >> announcer: next an interview with abraham lincoln interpreter george buss. [ applause ] >> fellow citizens, since your last annual assembly, another year of health and bountiful harvest has passed. while it's not pleased the all mighty to bless us with a return

of peace, we can but press on guided by the best light he gives us, trust that in his own time and wise way all will yet be well. >> george buss, that's from c-span's video archives of you portraying abraham lincoln. what is the value of re-enactment? >> it reaches a population that might not pick up a book, but they want to come and have the experience and that's what they have reported over the years, that they're not readers. they're not picking up the written word, but they want the experience. >> how many years have you been portraying abraham lincoln? >> 33 this year. started extremely small, but i wish i could tell you there was

a grand plan. it's certainly not mine. >> how did it get started? >> i was on the board of the illinois education association. we were going to have the national convention in new orleans. one of the board members came up to the skinny man with a black beard and said if you dressed, we could all come on the floor of the convention and they would know illinois had arrived. i was intrigued. i said let's try this. that was the only thing i did in 1986. then worked at freeport with the debate site and way led on to way. >> people won't understand the reference to freeport. will you tell that story? >> the debate site in freeport, illinois of lincoln and douglas. my whole life was a parking lot with a boulder dedicated by teddy roosevelt and rich solkum

said at the coffee shop we can do better. a group assembled and we turned that into over an acre of green space and a life size statue of lincoln and douglas in debate. >> to set the stage for people in 1994 c-span went to all the towns in illinois that originally hosted the lincoln douglas debates and asked if the towns put on the debates we'll bring the cameras and televise the debates. how many debates did you play lincoln? >> two of the seven, freeport and jones borrow. >> what preparation did you need to do? >> the essential question that gnawed and gnawed and still gnaws, who were lincoln, who

were douglas and why was that so pivotal? you have to get right with lincoln according to senator paul simon. i did my very best. >> is portraying lincoln a full-time job for you? >> is it now. >> was it for most of the years you did it? >> as things could be scheduled. that was all word of mouth. marketing and such. that could work into other travel schedules and it was far enough in advance that it could be scheduled handlely. >> from that first experience at the illinois education meeting, how did you inhabit lincoln? how did you learn enough to be comfortable in your portrayal? >> as lincoln said, work, work, work. literally everything that's been published in the last 30 years. i've had good fortune to meet

the authors and ask critical questions. will y also go back to the primary source documents to understand why lincoln reacted, why douglas was bringing forward his own work and how those two met. how lincoln in his times and lincoln in his relationships. >> how much of his repertoire can you interpret? >> it started small with the lincoln/douglas debates. then i had calls will come talk about the war. will you talk about the indiana years? will you talk about the final months? so you find that written work and you consume it. then it comes forward. somebody said once it's a gift. someone else said if you don't share the gift in its pure form, it's not moral. i took that very seriously.

>> how did you become lincoln physically? how do you do it today? >> the coat fits. the vest fits. that voice, what is a central illinois nasal twang, i struggled with that. we climbed the hill and made it to the top. >> let's go back and watch a little more of that event and listen to the voice specifically. i would like to have people focus on that and have you talk about how you captured something that wasn't captured by any devices at the time. >> we shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. other means may succeed. this could not fail.

the way is plain, peaceful, generous, just. a way which if followed, the world will forever applaud and god must forever bless. december 1, 1862, abraham lincoln. [ applause ] >> so what did you have to work with to interpret his voice and how it might sound? >> i did undergrad at ball state. a number of my classmates came out of southern indiana, central indiana. i was in a hotel in springfield, illinois years back. the waiter brought coffee. it was 6:15 in the morning. he came to the table and said, you want coffee? i was stunned.

i said where are you from? he said springfield. i said how long have you lived here? my whole life. i thought this is -- this is what i waited for. it was in the -- it was from the descriptions of the letter writers at the time. when i met david donald at gettysburg, he wanted to hear it. i thought what do you say to an author of a lincoln biography that was just awarded the pulitzer? i thought about that for a while. i gave him the voice. he smiled that smile which is ever so david donald and said it's has i expected. don't ever change it. >> can you give us a full line right here in abraham lincoln's voice as you interpret it? >> if we could first know where we are and whether we're

attending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. >> it's very nasal. the descriptions of the time described it as being high and nasal. >> high pitched and nasal and a reedy twang. one of the other writers of the letters in those days, they would say dear cousin, heard lincoln today, most god awful voice i ever heard, but his message was pretty good. they said it was that falsetto voice. when you do it in quincy, illinois on the block of washington square, you remember that? we saw no grass from the plenty and somebody said how did that work in your day? so without microphone we spoke to 2,500 people on the square.

even the policemen on the other block could hear it. >> because the voice rose above the crowd. >> and it carries. >> what other physical characteristics do you share with lincoln, height, weight? >> 6'5", 174, 175 pounds. this beard doesn't do him justice today, but with a little work as we saw in the clip, and then i think when the hat comes on at the end and you're ready to go out the door, he's there as a channel. i've never had the experience that suddenly lincoln is among us because it's an academic assignment. what is it that we need to do? i'm constantly aware of that. when we're ready and the beard's right and the other set of

glasses is right, we see what it looks like. >> how long does it take you to become lincoln? >> an hour. i've tried to shave it, shave the time down. i just can't do it. there's a methodology there that it's step by step and it's going to be the same every time. >> what is the most poignant place that you've ever played lincoln? >> i've got to say since i've been asked to do gettysburg at gettysburg now, to stand on that dais and if you look past the crowd, you can see the stones of the cemetery and that is a consuming moment and you contemplate the death and all that that meant and it has to be right. it's not -- i greet the crowd.

i thank them for coming to the commemoration. it's not a celebration. it's not high fives and let's just have pictures taken, but it's solemn and we've got to get it right every time. >> just as there have been more books published about lincoln than any other president. there probably more interpret interpreters. approximately how many? >> there's an association. there are about 100 all about the country. that keeps that memory alive. >> when you gather together in your conventions, what do you talk about? >> getting it right and where the venues have been, what the next steps are, what the new publications are saying.

if there's issues that have been brought up in the past, how was it handled? it's kind of a collaboration, if you will, and everything is put on the table and hashed back and forth. then we go out again. >> when you do a question and answer as abraham lincoln, what's the most often asked question of you? >> they want to hear gettysburg and think about all that that means. i would say nearly every time in that q&a, will you give us gettysburg? >> would you say that over the course of the 30 years you've been doing this the interpretation of lincoln has changed or become more nuanced? any issues we're dealing with as a society that you had to rethink it as lincoln?

>> it's deepened it. in the current politics with division, it parallels those times prior to the war. i'm not suggesting we're on the cusp of that. when you talk about divided politics, it's the 1850s all over again. so, when folks say how did you do it in your time, what was that? we need to work together. we must not be enemies, but friends. >> we wanted to spend a few minutes with you on this president's day weekend. in closing as we think about abraham lincoln on his birthday week and president's weekend, what do you think his message for our time? >> let us bind up the nation's wounds and i think the population -- the anger we see

and hear -- i run into it like this, not necessarily lincoln. but that working together and that it's all right to reach across the aisle as lincoln did. team of rivals. democrats in the cabinet of a republican administration. those lessons, the quote to finish, an enemy is only a friend i haven't made. so if we agree to reach out to one another, have a discussion about what we agree on, work on what we don't agree on, that will take us to the next step. >> well, george buss, we have known you since 1994 when you helped us put on the lincoln/douglas debates. we've stayed in touch with you. thank you on this president's weekend for talking to us about abraham lincoln and how you bring him to life.

>> thanks for bringing me back. >> announcer: tonight on american history tv more from purdue university. with a panel on correlation between violence and u.s. political change, from the time of the american revolution to present day. watch american history tv tonight and over the weekend on c-span3. >> announcer: the presidents, from public affairs available now in paperback and e book. presents biographies of every president and features perspectives into the lives of our nation's leaders' executive styles. order your copy today wherever

books and ebooks are sold. >> announcer: c-span has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events. from the presidential primaries through the impeachment process. now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily washington journal program. c-span created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you by your television provider. ♪ ♪