norman rockwell, that sort of thing. you've seen that. romantic lincoln, the rags to riches story. the great lincoln myth. i'm not going to argue with that. but here's the thing. if you had been a typical white person walking through the woods of indiana and you ran across this problem kid -- rawboned kid, he was well over six feet his hair was not home, not wearing shoes, working manual labor. you would not look at that guy and say there goes a future president if i ever saw one. on the right is a drawing from harper's weekly from about the same time of a stereotypical version of what a backwoods hillbilly looked like living on the edges of the american frontier. if i juxtapose those two images -- lincoln who, guys, has no money. no education. lincoln is scared to death of being perceived like that. why would need be, man -- why wouldn't he be, man? he is ambitious. but a culture that things in racial terms would not look at that and see norman rockwell. the earliest form i found was in a novel in 1818. guys, that is race just like black

. >> it was just a really american norman rockwell vision. >> but the trouble is there are all kindstensions. >> the civil rights movement is the seminal event of the 1960s that ignites so many of the changes in society. >> the day has come when racism must be banished. >> the civil rights movement was incredibly inspiring. but at the same time, the women in it were not recognized as leaders in the same way that the men were. it's said to us, if these movements we love still are not equal, then there has to be an autonomous women's movement. >> mr. president, the democratic platform promises to work for equal rights for women, including equal pay. what have you done for the women? >> i'm sure we haven't done enough, and -- [ laughter ] >> in 1961, president kennedy creates the commission on the status of women. that commission produced a report in 1963 that revealed things like the fact that women earned 59 cents for every dollar that men earned. that women were kept out of the most lucrative professional positions. >> women couldn't open a bank account in their own name. they couldn

as his friend steven spielberg once said, if norman rockwell were alive today, he would paint a portraittom. people have said that tom is hollywood's everyman that he is this generation's jimmy stewart, but he is just time hanks. that's enough. that's more than enough. for that, we honor him tonight. mr. tom hanks. [applause] so, reverend al green, patricia mcbride, lily tomlin, sting, tom hanks. charm, soul, spirit, spoke -- they have helped us better understand ourselves and each other and as president kennedy expressed, they have helped us center our purpose as a nation and together reflect the quality of our society. for that, we cannot thank them enough. we are so glad to be able to celebrate these extraordinary people. thank you for everything you've given us over the years and for what you are going to give us in the future. congratulations. god bless you all. pleased with me in saluting one last time our extraordinary kennedy center honorees for this year. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] w

of a culture that things in racial terms would look at this young man and they would not think norman rockwellthey would see that stereotype. there's already this white trash story about the guy. that is race just like how black is race. you cannot understand one without understanding the other. the way whiteness is uunderstood is that there are people who have whiteness but are still quote trash. what is trash? you can see a game on his belt is a big drugi __ jug __ i can guarantee that there is not water in the. there was a stereotype that they are all alcoholics. there is a stereotype that white hash is lazy. white trash is ignorant. there are all of these ugly racial stereotypes attached to the very stereotype the abraham lincoln grows up in. one important factor as to how he grows up is __ he runs away from the as fast as he can. he does not want to be that. if you made a clipboard that said __ how not to be white trash __ that would be lincoln's life. lincoln's hard work effort is legendary. very famously, this guy education self. white trash drinks too much __ he did not have a diary. h