From the Archives: Filmmaker Stanley Nelson on ‘Freedom Riders,’ the news media, and civil rights

Filmmaker Stanley Nelson on ‘Freedom Riders,’ the news media, and civil rights
November 18, 2010 1:11 PM MST

"What the civil rights movement did,” reflected documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson, was to force people “to make a choice. You couldn’t ignore it anymore. It was stuff that was on the front page, it was in your face, you had to choose: which way are you going?”

Nelson, whose new film, Freedom Riders, was screened at the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville on November 5, made his comments in a panel discussion following the screening.

Other participants in the discussion were civil-rights activists Dion Diamond, Reginald Green, and Joan Mulholland, who were among the original “freedom riders” of 1961. The panel was moderated by Larry Sabato of the UVA Center for Politics.

Effective engagement of the news media

In response to a question from Sabato, Nelson pointed out how the civil rights movement’s strategy of engaging the news media was slow in emerging but eventually “incredibly effective.”

During the 1961 freedom rides, he said, “the media’s role really changed.”

When the freedom rides started in May of that year, “there was no media coverage except the black press,” such as the Washington/Baltimore Afro-American and Johnson Publications (Ebony and Jet), which each had a “representative on the ride.”

The rest of the news media, however, “totally ignored the rides and there was no media coverage at all,” Nelson said, which caused difficulty for him and his team of filmmakers, because there was a dearth of archival material from the early part of the freedom ride phenomenon.

What changed “by the end of the freedom rides,” he explained, was that there were “400 people coming in [and] that was a huge news story, so you had the nightly news and you have all the print journalists and camera people there.”

By mid-summer, the news media was reacting to the civil rights movement’s strategy “to hold the front page” for at least five days at a time, to keep people’s attention on the issue so that it became “impossible to ignore.”

Making a choice

In researching the freedom rides, Nelson explained, “one of the fascinating things that we found making the film was that” in the Deep South (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi), “there was a very small percentage of people of white people who supported integration -- a tiny percentage [of] 1, 2, 3 percent.”

At the other extreme,he said, “there was another small percentage of people who were violent racists, maybe 10 [or] 15 percent.”

That meant, he explained, that “the rest of the people, 80-85 percent, just were able to kind of go on, and ignore what was going on” – hence his remark that the civil rights movement, in general, and the freedom rides, in particular, forced people to make a choice about which way to go.

How ‘Freedom Riders’ became a film

After the panel ended, Nelson told the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner that the Freedom Riders project came to him while he “was working on a film for American Experience called Wounded Knee.”

The producers “called and said that they had purchased this book, Freedom Riders by Ray Arsenault, and would I take a look at it [because] they’re thinking of making it into a film.”

Nelson “said yes without even getting the book,” because he “knew a little bit about the story and realized it would be great, so that’s how that happened.”

Making the film took about 18 months from start to finish, Nelson explained. It will be broadcast on PBS as part of the American Experience series in May 2011, “which is the 50th anniversary of the freedom rides.”

Currently, Nelson is showing Freedom Riders at film festivals and also at schools, including a screening at Charlottesville High School earlier this month. In addition, some college students will be recreating the freedom rides next year as part of a fiftieth anniversary commemoration that will also promote the film.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on November 18, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Lee Harvey Oswald colleague recalls aftermath of Kennedy assassination

Lee Harvey Oswald colleague recalls aftermath of Kennedy assassination
November 9, 2013 9:34 PM MST


Wesley Buell Frazier drove Lee Harvey Oswald to work at the Texas Book Depository on the morning of November 22, 1963. That was a day that changed his life, he said in an interview at the 2013 Virginia Film Festival on November 9. “That young boy who went to work that day, he has never come home.”

Frazier spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner after a screening of a new documentary, The Kennedy Half-Century, co-produced by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He had participated in a panel discussion along with UVA political scientist Larry Sabato and another witness to the Kennedy assassination, Tina Towner Pender.

Just 19 years old in November 1963, Frazier had to endure a brutal interrogation by the Dallas police, who accused him of being part of the assassination plot.

'Innocent until proven guilty'

The police interrogator, he said, “wanted me to admit to being part of the assassination and I told the guy, 'I'm not doing that.' I said, 'That's ridiculous.'”

He added: “In this country, you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty but a lot of times you're guilty until proven innocent and our forefathers didn't intend for our country to be like that.”

During the panel discussion, Frazier explained that he had often driven Oswald from suburban Dallas to the book depository. Oswald's Russian-born wife, Marina, lived near Frazier's sister, while Oswald rented a room in the city. Normally, they carpooled only on Friday evenings and Monday mornings, and Frazier had pointed out to Oswald how it was odd he would need a ride on Friday morning.

That Friday turned out to be “a day like I've never seen before. I hope I never see one [like it] again,” Frazier said.

“It's a day that changed my life. I've never been the same. That young boy who went to work that day, he has never come home. For many years I wouldn't talk to anybody about any of it because I was so scared about what they might do to my family. There's some evil people in this country and when it comes to power and money they will do anything.”

The police interrogator handed Frazier a pre-typed confession and told him to sign it.

“I started reading it,” he explained. “It said I knew about and was part of the assassination, and I said, 'That's totally false. I'm not going to sign that.'”

Police brutality

That response made the police officer angry, Frazier recalled.

“When I wouldn't sign he drew back his hand to hit me. Matter of fact, he was standing just like you're standing there, and I put my arm up like this” – he raised his hand above his head – “to block, to keep him from striking me.”

The officer “got so mad when I told him, 'I'm not signing that,' and I told him, 'There's [another] policeman outside this door but before they get in here, you and I are going to have a hell of a fight. I'm going to get some good licks on you.'”

Reflecting on that moment, Frazier said, “For one time in my life, I think I scared the hell out of a man because I turned the tables on him – because that's what he did” as a matter of routine.

That policeman, he said, “badgered and beat on people to make them sign confessions and he found a kid who wasn't scared of him. I think it scared the hell out of him.”

Even though Frazier was “a young 19” at the time, that interrogating officer “didn't know what I had been through before I got there,” which heightened the tension in the room.

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on November 9, 2013. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Virginia Senator Mark Warner assesses situation in Iraq and the Middle East

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 20, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner assesses situation in Iraq and the Middle East

On Friday evening, June 20, the University of Virginia Center for Politics hosted a screening of its Emmy award-winning documentary short film, “Out of Order,” followed by a panel discussion featuring former U.S. Senator John Warner (R-Va.) and his successor, incumbent Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.). Both Warners appear in the film along with Bob Schieffer of CBS News and other current and former Members of Congress.

After the two-hour, formal program, the current Senator Warner answered questions from the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about his re-election campaign and also about foreign policy issues.

The day before the interview, President Barack Obama had spoken to the White House press corps about the administration's plans to send military advisors to Iraq in an effort to defend that country against the army of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Learning lessons in Iraq
Senator Warner said that he supported the president's deliberate approach with regard to Iraq, saying that it is important to gather all the facts on the ground before taking action.

“Of all places in the world,” he explained, “Iraq is a place [where] we should have learned the lessons that we've got to get all the facts first.”

Noting that he is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, 'Warner said he believes “very strongly that we need to slow the rush of these terrorists into Iraq.”

At the same time, however, “I also believe that we need to support any Iraqi government that's going to be inclusive” rather than narrowly sectarian.

“Particularly since part of the Iraqi army melted away rather than try to defend their own country,” Warner said, the United States needs to gather and assess intelligence about who the “bad guys” are.

“Before we take action,” he explained, the U.S. government must find out whether the ISIS forces might be “in uniforms that used to be Iraqi army uniforms.”

He asked, “How do we get that intelligence?,” stating that “on this issue, I think the president is moving with the right deliberate speed in terms of getting information first before we take action.”

Corrupt regimes
Warner also commented on the nature of regimes in the region and the sacrifices made on behalf of the people there.

“If there are only corrupt, sectarian regimes in all of those countries' future, then the region and the world's future is going to have a real challenge,” the senator said.

Suggesting that the American people are disheartened by the situation, Warner asserted that “the challenge is going to be: will these countries step up” in their own defense?

He said that it “was sickening” to see Iraqi soldiers “drop and run” rather than fight, especially after “thousands of Americans lives were lost” and “trillions of dollars were spent” on behalf of Iraq by the United States, which spent “billions of dollars” on training and equipping Iraqi troops.

Senator Mark Warner's dialogue with former Senator John Warner, moderated by political scientist Larry Sabato, can be seen in its entirety on YouTube.

SUGGESTED LINKS

GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie sees 'energized, excited' party activists
'Proselytizing for freedom,' Robert Sarvis bids for U.S. Senate in Virginia
Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters
At Shad Planking, Virginia Senator Mark Warner says ‘budget situation is dire’
GOP can regain control of Senate in 2014, says strategist Grover Norquist

Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/virginia-senator-mark-warner-assesses-situation-iraq-and-the-middle-east

From the Archives: Senator Mark Warner defends his record against GOP challenger Ed Gillespie

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 21, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Senator Mark Warner defends his record against GOP challenger Ed Gillespie

At a panel discussion in Charlottesville on June 20, former U.S. Senator John Warner (R-Va.) explained his choice to endorse his one-time rival, incumbent Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) over Republican nominee Ed Gillespie. The two Warners had faced off against each other in 1996, when the senior Warner won re-election to the fourth of his five terms in Congress.

During the conversation, former Senator Warner paid a compliment to the Republican candidate challenging his successor in the Senate.

'A good strong opponent'
Acknowledging that his cross-party endorsement had “stirred up a few feathers here not long ago,” John Warner pointed out that Mark Warner is “on his own This state's going to have a good Senate race. He's got a strong opponent for a change, a good strong opponent. So they'll duke it out and the best man will win. That's the way it goes."

At that point, panel moderator Larry Sabato replied, "I think Ed Gillespie could use that segment in a TV ad. We'll see whether it shows up to balance things out."

After the program ended, Mark Warner answered questions posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about the political climate and his challenger.

Cantor and Brat
Warner commented first on the results in the GOP primary in the seventh congressional district on June 10, when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was upset by Randolph-Macon College economics professor David Brat.

Saying that the anti-incumbent sentiment displayed in that election does not concern him with regard to his own re-election prospects, the Virginia senator added that “there were special circumstances in that race” that resulted in Cantor's defeat.

He did, however, note that the loss was not good for his home state.

“I didn't agree with Eric Cantor on a lot of policy issues but I think he was important for Virginia,” Warner said. His loss, he added, along with the retirements of Frank Wolf (R-VA10) and Jim Moran (D-VA8), “hurts Virginia's position in the Congress.”

Returning to the theme of the panel discussion – comity and civility in politics – Warner stated that what he finds “around Virginia is that people actually want folks who are willing to work together and be bipartisan. He asserted that he is “happy to take my record of that to the people of Virginia this fall.”

'97 percent'
His challenger, Ed Gillespie, disagrees that Warner has a record of bipartisanship. Instead, Gillespie has emphasized a claim that Warner has voted with President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "97 percent of the time."

Warner denied this.

“If I had that kind of record,” he said, “John Warner wouldn't be endorsing me for the United States Senate. I've got a record that shows [that for] every major piece of legislation I work on, I have a Republican partner.”

Warner said that he differs with the President on issues like the Keystone pipeline, export of natural gas, and the U.S. government's reaction to Syria.”

He said that on the budget, “I had a much bolder plan than either the president or, for that matter, even the Republicans, for fixing our debt and deficit I'm more than willing to step out on those positions” as he defends his record to voters in the 2014 election campaign.

The entire discussion between John Warner and Mark Warner, moderated by Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics, is available for viewing on YouTube.

SUGGESTED LINKS
Virginia Senator Mark Warner assesses situation in Iraq and the Middle East
James Carr assesses David Brat's defeat of Eric Cantor, plus Jack Trammell
GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie sees 'energized, excited' party activists
Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters
'Proselytizing for freedom,' Robert Sarvis bids for U.S. Senate in Virginia

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/senator-mark-warner-defends-his-record-against-gop-challenger-ed-gillespie

From the Archives: Monique Luiz, 'Daisy Girl' from controversial 1964 campaign ad, speaks at UVA

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on October 15, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Monique Luiz, 'Daisy Girl' from controversial 1964 campaign ad, speaks at UVA

On September 7, 1964, Lyndon Johnson's presidential campaign bought time during NBC's “Monday Night at the Movies” for a 60-second ad that showed a little girl plucking the petals off a flower, followed by a nuclear mushroom cloud and an excerpt from one of Johnson's speeches.

Long known as the “Daisy Girl” ad (although the flower was a dandelion, not a daisy), the spot – for which NBC charged $24,000 – was produced by the Madison Avenue firm of Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), which had not previously done political ad-making. It was tremendously controversial and, along with other DDB ads that aired in 1964, changed the style and substance of campaign advertising.

The little girl in the ad was 3-year-old Monique Corzilius, who had earlier appeared in print ads but had not acted on film. (She later went on to perform in commercials for products like Kool Pops and SpaghettiOs.)

Now known as Monique Luiz, the “Daisy Girl” participated in a panel discussion hosted by the University of Virginia Center for Politics on October 15, along with Robert Mann, author of Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater, and the Ad That Changed American Politics, and veteran journalist Sid Davis, who was a White House correspondent in the early 1960s, covered the 1964 campaign, and was present at President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

Red hair stands out
After the panel, Luiz answered a few questions posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about her role as the “Daisy Girl” and the reactions to it.

For more than four decades, Luiz did not acknowledge that she was the girl in the ad. In 2009, however, she discovered that another woman was claiming to be her and was trying to capitalize on the TV spot's notoriety. Luiz came forward with documentation that she was the authentic “Daisy Girl” and subsequently was interviewed by Mann for his book, which is how she came to appear at UVA this week.

When she auditioned for the part, neither she nor her parents knew that DDB was making a political ad. She stood out among the many little girls who tried out because of her red hair, and also because her father was persistent.

“I think it was my father who sold them” on the idea “that I could do it,” she recalled. “He pretty much said, 'I can't guarantee anything but she'll try.'”

Listening closely to her in the commercial, one can hear exasperation in little Monique's voice. That was, in part, because the final cut was taken from the 27th take in a long day of filming.

Surprise
Even after filming, Monique's parents did not know how the footage would be used. They found out by seeing the ad on TV.

Their reaction, as she remembered it, was: “'Oh my gosh, it's Monique! She's in a political ad!'”

After the ad appeared on TV for the first time, and it was repeated on news shows in the days that followed, there was a negative reaction, coming from the general public, causing her grandmother, in particular, to become “very concerned about it.”

As she was growing up, Luiz chose not to reveal her association with the ad, and she ended her modeling career at age 7 or 8, preferring to focus on school and normal girlhood.

“I knew about [the controversy] and I just avoided it. I remember my grandmother saying, 'Don't say you're the Daisy Girl! Don't say you're in that ad!' So I grew up not wanting to talk about it.”

For all the publicity that surrounded the “Daisy Girl” ad, Monique Corzilius was paid just one hundred dollars for appearing in it – which seemed pretty substantial in 1964.

As Luiz recalls now, with a smile, “I remember my parents saying, 'Wow! You made a lot of money.'”

The “Daisy Girl” ad is available in several forms on YouTube. Here is a link to one of them.

SUGGESTED LINKS

UVA Center for Politics commemorates 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates
Larry Sabato discusses Cuccinelli, McAuliffe, Sarvis in 2013 election
Lee Harvey Oswald colleague recalls aftermath of Kennedy assassination
Witness to 1963 Kennedy assassination speaks at Virginia Film Festival
JFK was 'cautious, conservative' says UVA political scientist Larry Sabato

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/monique-luiz-daisy-girl-from-controversial-1964-campaign-ad-speaks-at-uva

From the Archives: Barry Goldwater 'absolutely' was a libertarian, his son explains

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on December 30, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Barry Goldwater 'absolutely' was a libertarian, his son explains

Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) “absolutely was a libertarian,” explained his son in an interview this year, adding that as a libertarian he believed “in less government and [that] government should not be intruding into our personal lives.” These views were "consistent" with conservative values, he added.

Former Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr., participated in a panel discussion about the his father's presidential campaign in November at the Virginia Film Festival. The discussion followed a screening of Bombs Away: LBJ, Goldwater, and the 1964 Campaign that Changed It All, a new documentary from the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Moderated by political scientist Larry Sabato, the panel also featured former Minnesota attorney general Skip Humphrey, son of Lyndon Johnson's 1964 running mate, Hubert H. Humphrey.

After the presentation, which marked the 50th anniversary of the Goldwater-Johnson contest, the younger Barry Goldwater spoke with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about his father's presidential campaign and how it launched both the modern conservative and libertarian movements that came of age in the 1970s and '80s.

“He was in there with his paddle in the water,” Goldwater said, “working hard to change the Republican Party from the East Coast liberal establishment to more of a conservative-libertarian philosophy that Americans were looking for.”

Gay rights and abortion
Goldwater, who represented California in Congress from 1969 to 1983, explained that his father remained an icon of the Republican Party despite differing from social conservatives on contentious issues.

In the senior Goldwater's view (and his son's, too), “whether you're gay or a lesbian is a personal thing. It's no business of the government. And abortion, a woman who is carrying this baby – that's her decision, not the government's,” said Barry, Jr. “He was pretty consistent with his libertarian and conservative views when it came to such things as social issues.”

Like his father before him, Goldwater, Jr., attended high school at the Staunton Military Academy, just about 30 miles from Charlottesville. He has pleasant memories of his time there in the late 1950s, though his Arizona upbringing did not prepare him for Virginia winters.

“I remember how cold it got here, and the leaves turning in the fall,” he said. “I remember the warmth of the people of Staunton. I remember the Episcopal Church that I went to every Sunday for four years. It's a beautiful part of the country.”

He also recalled the late Karl Hess (1923-94), an aide to Senator Goldwater who later in life was an activist in the Libertarian Party of Virginia. (Hess sometimes gets credit for the famous line, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice … moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”)

“I remember Karl Hess as one of my father's key speechwriters,” Goldwater said. “He became a good friend of the family. He was somewhat eccentric, colorful, entertaining to be around.”

'Tea Party behaved'
Goldwater also offered some thoughts about the current state of the Republican Party, which just days before this interview had won control of the U.S. Senate and expanded its majority in the House of Representatives.

“The Republican Party is alive and well. I think we came together quite well in 2014,” he said.

“Even the Tea Party folks behaved themselves and, I think, their success was due to the fact that they pretty much stuck to their core values of less government, less taxes, less regulation, more personal freedom and responsibility, and a strong defense.”

Those, he added, “have always been the Republican Party's core values – my father's and Ronald Reagan's.”

Asked whether the new Republican-controlled Congress can deliver on its promises, Goldwater displayed a wry grin and said, “Probably not but we'll sure give them a chance.”

The complete Virginia Film Festival panel discussion featuring Goldwater, Humphrey, and Sabato can be seen on YouTube. It was recorded November 8, 2014, on the grounds of the University of Virginia.

SUGGESTED LINKS

Author David Lampo brings gay-rights message to conservative Republicans
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Attacks on free speech provoke author Jonathan Rauch to defend 'liberal science'
GOProud’s Jimmy LaSalvia talks about CPAC and gay conservatives

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/barry-goldwater-absolutely-was-a-libertarian-his-son-explains