Paul Stekler is a nationally recognized documentary filmmaker whose critically praised and award-winning work includes George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire; Last Man Standing: Politics, Texas Style; Vote for Me: Politics in America, a four-hour PBS special about grassroots electoral politics; two segments of the Eyes on the Prize II series on the history of civil rights; Last Stand at Little Big Horn (broadcast as part of PBS’s series The American Experience); Louisiana Boys: Raised on Politics (broadcast on PBS’s P.O.V. series); Getting Back to Abnormal (which aired on P.O.V. in 2014); and 2016’s Postcards from the Great Divide, a web series about politics for The Washington Post and PBS Digital. Overall, his films have won two George Foster Peabody Awards, three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Awards, three national Emmy Awards, and a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Dr. Stekler, who was RTF Chair from 2010 to 2017, has a doctorate in Government from Harvard University, where his work focused on Southern politics. He previously was a political pollster in Louisiana, while teaching at Tulane, and was the founder of Center for Politics and Governance at UT’s LBJ School of Public Affairs. His writing, on subjects like Hollywood blockbuster films, the greatest Texas documentaries, American politics and politics as depicted in documentary films has appeared in the Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, the International Documentary Association’s magazine, among other places, and in the book, “Killing Custer,” co-written with the late Native American novelist James Welch. Stekler was named film school Mentor of the Year in 2014 by Variety Magazine.
Guests
- Paul SteklerAward-Winning Documentary Filmmaker
Hosts
- Peniel JosephFounding Director of the LBJ School’s Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin
[0:00:07 Peniel] welcome to race and democracy. Ah, podcast on the intersection between race, democracy, public policy, social justice and citizenship. Mhm. Today we’re pleased to welcome my friend Paul Steckler, who’s the wool for Dennis Chair in entertainment studies professor of public affairs and radio, television and film at the University of Texas at Austin. Paul is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and founder of the Center for Politics and Governments Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. His films include George Wallace Setting the Woods on Fire. Last Man Standing Politics, Texas Style, Two Segments of the Eyes on the Prize to Siri’s on the history of the civil rights movement. Last Stand at Little Bighorn, Louisiana Boys. Raised on politics and getting back to Abnormal. His films have won the Peabody Awards, three DuPont Columbia University Journalism Awards, three Emmy Awards and a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Eso Paul, Welcome to Race and Democracy.
[0:01:17 Paul] Delighted to be here today, especially to talk about eyes on the prize.
[0:01:21 Peniel] Yeah, you know this film eyes on the prize, and there’s really altogether. There’s 14 parts of this film. Henry Hampton, you’re you’re one of the filmmakers this film really changed my life. I saw the first Siri’s when it premiered on PBS, and I was in junior high school and I saw the subsequent Syriza’s Well and the first goes from 1954 to 65. And then you go from 65 all the way up until Harold Washington’s 1983 campaign and now in 2020. In this context and climate of racial reckoning, those films just the power of those films, stand out even more in terms of the way in which those films talked about race, democracy, social movements, citizenship, dignity on and much more. So I’d love for you to talk about those you know, being part of that. Siri’s and Eyes on the prize is influenced so many generations of filmmakers who are investigating not just the civil rights movement but just racial justice.
[0:02:22 Paul] It’s really fascinating to look back on this. I watched our our film about Martin Luther King’s last year last night again, and I reread a piece that we did about the mountaintop speech as an example and you know something? If Dr King gave that speech that exact same speech today, it would be totally relevant. It’s all about social and economic inequality and how how a society like ours can can right itself from the wrongs of the past, its’s. It’s just amazing to me how relevant the Siri’s is and just the power of eyes on the prize. Still, you know, 30 plus years after after it was made, you know, by an incredibly dedicated staff led by a legendary Henry Hampton, whose vision it was.
[0:03:12 Peniel] And how did you get involved on the eyes on the prize? Siri’s
[0:03:16 Paul] You know, I was I was a young filmmaker in New Orleans, Andi. I was teaching a two lane teaching Southern politics of the focus on African American politics in the South, And I was about to do my second film about a mayoral election in New Orleans in the late eighties between two major African American candidates, which was very unusual at the time. And a friend of mine was working for Henry, and eyes hadn’t come out the first Siri’s, and she said that her boss and I had a lot in common in terms of our interests. I wrote him a letter just asking him for some help for fundraising and he sent me back this long, wonderful letter with all this advice, you know? And I thought, Wow, this is this Filmmaking is great, you know? E guess everybody’s really helpful. It’s also the one and only letter like that I’ve ever gotten. And, uh, I don’t know, Henry and I struck up, you know? Ah, relationship writing. And then when I finished that film, I brought it up Thio to Boston, and Henry said, Yes, I have a PhD in political science, but I like to be an adviser on a second Syriza’s he thought that I was on the prize might be successful when it was on TV later on that year, and I thought about it for a second. I said, You know, I’d rather be one of the filmmakers. Hey looked at me and he goes, That’s an interesting idea. And then, later on, he watched the film among brothers with John Else, the, uh, the chief cinematographer, the author of True South. The History. The two of them, I think late at night after a meeting and they were just drinking beer and they really liked the film, and eventually he offered me a job, and it really was my film school. And it was, and truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life and actually everybody’s life who worked on that. Siri’s
[0:04:57 Peniel] and talk talk to me about the two episodes that you did specifically. Could you give us the titles? Andi talk about getting the footage together, the process of making those those films and also the editing process because there’s always so much left on the editing floor.
[0:05:13 Paul] You know, I made those films with Jacqueline Shira, who unfortunately died back in 93 after doing a really wonderful film about the 54th colored Infantry, uh, in the Civil War, and was edited by Lillian Benson, who’s still editing out in California. And we made two films of The Siris of Second Siri’s. One of them is called The Promised Land, and it’s about King in 67 68 about his coming out in opposition to this the war in Vietnam and his increasing focus on economic inequality. You know, which leads to the poor people’s campaign. Andi the sidebars. He goes to Memphis Thio support the sanitation workers strike with the famous signs. I am a man, Um, and then is assassinated. Uh, and then the poor people’s campaign ends up in Resurrection City in Washington and, you know, for various reasons it doesn’t work, it’s plowed over. And the movement, you know, it’s It’s a turning point for the movement. You know. The other film was a film about the the segregation fight in Boston on Jackie had grown up in South Boston in a housing project. And so it was a very personal story for her, you know. But it was interwoven with the election of Maynard Jackson as mayor of Atlanta and his efforts, uh, to be able to use off his power to be able to bring in, uh, African American business folks to be able to help build the Atlanta airport. You know, the process, you know, was basically the ice team got together, you know, early on in a long production school where Henry would bring in scholars and participants. And by the way, one of the things to remember about the Siri’s is that on film, Henry’s dictate was, if you weren’t there, you’re not in the film. So as much as you know, I love scholars and I love academics and historians. You know, the people that were in the film where the people that were there, the people that I could say I remember that day on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, you know, in Selma Or, you know, I was there marching, you know, with the sanitation workers in Memphis. You know, I was there. Resurrection City. So part of our job was to develop treatments, you know, in stories to fit into the, you know, the the episodes that had been decided, we decided, and Henry would assign teams on. Then we would look for archival footage, you know, and we would look for people that we’re storytellers. And so a lot of time was spent on the phone, and this is pre pre Google pre internal, you know? So a lot of this was really you know, really, you know, foot, foot traffic, working to be able to figure out this stuff.
[0:08:09 Peniel] I wanna I wanna I wanna goto each film one of the time. Tell me about first the King film and King has become, you know, you all did these films in the mid eighties, the mid to late eighties and 85 to 88 King has become so much bigger if you can even believe it in our imagination, because certainly there was an MLK holiday then. But there wasn’t the African American National History Museum, the King Memorial. There wasn’t Barack Obama, right? So tell me about making that king film, and I teach that King film and it’s so powerful looking at 67 to 68 I would say that you know, the poor people’s campaign, the way I teach in the way I see it, I don’t see it as a failure. I actually see it as incomplete, unfinished, but it seems that he’s soaring. I see him a such a you know, monumental and prophetic figure, talking about wealth, inequality, trying to bring so many different people of color, including white people, together to get that universal basic income and, really, boldly speaking truth to power. In those years, King takes up the mantle of really Malcolm X in the sense of he’s It’s the unvarnished truth. It’s always Nonviolence, but he’s talking about racial slavery. He’s talking about white supremacy he’s talking about. We need that check that he had alluded to at the march on Washington. So tell us about you know, that film. It’s just so powerful.
[0:09:38 Paul] Well, one of the things about documentary filmmaking is that what you’re always looking for is you’re looking for someone’s life to be able to use for metaphor for something broader, you know? And everybody thinks they know King, you know, King, the holiday King. The, uh you know, the speech of the march on Washington 1963. The king, they don’t Noah’s well is the king of 67 68 the king who breaks with the Johnson administration over the war. The king, who increasingly, you know, is is unbound in his criticism of economic and social inequality. You know, this is not the king of the holiday. This is the king that makes people uncomfortable, you know, because he’s shining a light on things that are are a lot harder to deal with than being able to get access to Busses into public facilities and even voting. Um, so that for us, you know, our job was to be able to take King’s journey, his internal jury journey without losing the fact that King is not the whole movement. That’s the whole purpose of eyes on the prize. Eyes on the prize is about those foot soldiers, many of them women, you know, in many cases, most of them women in the Montgomery bus boycott. You know who are the drivers of the movement. But take him and take that internal life that is not as well known and be able to broaden it out as a, you know, as a way to be able to take a look at where the movement was going, you know, and so that his life was interrupted in 1968 and you’re right, the struggle continues, and it’s continued all the way, you know, through so the poor people’s movement in many other ways than morphs and eventually ends up with black lives matter. You know, 30 40 50 60 years later. So our job was to be able to get inside of that king and make him a flesh and blood person as opposed to a Nikon. If that makes sense,
[0:11:35 Peniel] yeah, and tell us about April 3rd, 1968 because there’s you the last speech. But there’s so much great stuff in Memphis. He arrives in Memphis on March 18th of that year. And then he comes back, Ah, second time and there’s the violence on around March 28th returns on April 3rd toe lead a nonviolent march because he had been criticized. People said if he couldn’t lead Nonviolence in Memphis, what was gonna happen in D. C? So tell us about that. That last speech and have have you been able to ever put together the whole recording of that last speech? Does that even exist? The whole recording. Okay, Yeah.
[0:12:13 Paul] The last speeches. Ah, 40 minutes long. And the recording has always been available. The the problem for a filmmaker was that there was very little footage, you know, and most Americans are familiar with last minute of that speech, you know, I’ve been to the mountaintop, you know, you know, getting to the promised land, they don’t hear the rest of the speech, and the rest of the speech is pretty amazing. You know, it’s almost ah, sort of like a journey through his life. It’s a journey through his brush with death when somebody stabbed him, you know, Are you know, Layton late in the 19 fifties and he almost died you know, and his statement about businesses and their responsibilities, you know, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And so part of our job was to find a much footage as we possibly could. You know, now, much more has been found since. But back then, you know, for a year and a half we worked with archival researchers, and we found about 7.5 minutes of the speech. And one of the things I’ve written about is that we had a rough cut screening. You know, where we had to cut the film way down, and we had 7.5 minutes of a speech which you would never use, and people said, Cut this cut this. Nobody even mentioned cutting that speech. Now we eventually, you know, cut it, cut it down fairly, fairly significantly. But that was part of our search. And, you know, in terms of being able to make the film, you know, for the Memphis Sanitation strike, a lot of the footage that we used was actually dumped by local TV stations who had no use for it after the fact. And it was rescued out of garbage cans by a coalition of activists who eventually, uh, lent its Thio University of Memphis libraries. You know, the poor people’s campaign. You know, somewhere in the process, I was reading Garros footnotes and bearing the cross, and there was a reference to, Ah, a King in the march, and I figured it must be a film about 1963. And I called Garrow up and he goes, Oh, no, that’s a That’s a because the feeling about the poor people’s campaign, you know? And so I found one copy of a lending library at the University of Indiana. And that’s the film where we have all the material of King and you know, Andy Young and Jesse Jackson. Jose a Williams all debating the poor people’s campaign. And you may have seen the birthday footage where they’re singing Happy Birthday to
[0:14:32 Peniel] market I have. That’s
[0:14:33 Paul] birthday when he was 39. So, yeah, that all came out of that film, you know? So it’s it’s a you’re an archaeologist, your looking for everything. You could possibly fine, you know. And for that film, you know, we went to Memphis. We talked to sanitation worker. We talked to union folks. We talked to a city Councilor, You know who was on the opposite side? An alliance with Mayor Loeb And you put together a story and you know I’ll never forget Andy Young at that time was the mayor of Atlanta, and we went down to his office to do an interview with him. You know, he’s the mayor is the mayor of this major metropolitan city. They said they’ll give us an hour and we set up our cameras, Jackie share and I with Bobby Shepherd and his brother Sekou on sound. And we sat down with the mayor and we ended up interviewing him. I think for six hours he just stopped talking to anybody else. And I will never forget him talking about that last day, You know where he’d come out of court and he was able to get the injunction against another march, uh, knocked down. This is the night after the day after the the last, the mountaintop speech. And he’s so happy just remembering how happy King was the same and they had a pillow fight, you know, and he’s just beaming, and all of a sudden you can see his face changed because he’s in that moment And now he knows where this story is going. Uh, you know, and, you know, talking to Ralph Abernathy, Uh, you know about those last moments and holding Dr King’s head in his lap, You know, it’s This is, uh, it’s one of those astounding things is a filmmaker where you hear people tell these first person accounts of just unforgettable moments in American history? So
[0:16:20 Peniel] and when you do when you talk about the second film you made Boston bussing, which I also teach, that’s an extraordinary story that’s so relevant in terms of racial segregation. Dorchester, Roxbury 1974 Things came to a head, but let’s talk about that film because it has. One of the heartbreaking moments is where you interview the footage, the footage of the little black girl who’s saying it’s not fair how how they’re being treated. I just think it’s not fair. They’re They’re calling us apes and monkeys and they’re throwing rocks at us. Eso let’s talk about that because Boston and bussing such an iconic, uh, moment in American history that, you know, and these these white parents who created Roar uh, in these local grassroots anti civil rights groups that were patterned after, uh, pro civil rights groups and and racial integration. They were successful, really, in defeating racial integration in public schools, both in Boston and the United States at large. So So let’s talk about the bussing film.
[0:17:22 Paul] Sure they don’t leave the anti bussing movement led by Louise Day Hicks, you know, from from the school board, you know, who eventually almost became mayor of Boston, defeated by Kevin White, who was interviewed in the film. This was a story that was incredibly close to Jackie. You know, Jackie sure had, uh, grown up in a housing project in the southern edge of South Boston. And so she had lived through this, you know, and actually Orlando Blackwell, you know, one of the major producers of the first eyes, Siri’s, who’s gone on to a really distinguished, careers documented filmmaker was attacked during this period of time in Boston. Um, you know, so that this was a story that she was close to. She found these folks Thio interview, you know, and you know, it was, you know, And since we’re in Boston at that time, you know, and over in black side, over in the South end. You know, it was something where we spent a lot of time, you know, finding people to be able to make that story work. And, you know, as you may know, South Boston has changed a lot. You know, it’s much less of, ah Irish Catholic enclave now with with, you know, with gentrification and sort of filling in all that area by the Children’s Museum, where you have now tons in miles of condos. But, you know, back then it was a very insular community. And I’ve got to tell you that just even driving around there on those very narrow streets you could you could feel and you could see where the archival footage was and how close those mobs were, you know, to the bus is full of young kids. So it was. It was a pretty amazing section to be able to make you know, and it’s very, very powerful, very, very powerful.
[0:19:04 Peniel] Now, when you think about eyes on the prize on, do you earlier alluded to black lives matter. What’s the connection and the rial through line? When we think about these movements, you know, because I was on the prize talks about civil rights. They have black power movements in their these black freedom struggles. And now we have this BLM movement that, in it’s first iteration in 2014, Paul was not necessarily embraced by the entire country, you know, including some veteran civil rights activists who weren’t kind of quite sure what they wanted. Um, and now in 2020 as we speak, this has become the biggest thing happening in the age of plague. So what’s the through line? You
[0:19:47 Paul] know, it’s interesting. There’s actually a visual through line and bear me out for a second. You know, the successes of the civil rights movement, you know, in Alabama, especially in the sixties, you know, we’re based on something that David Garrow writes about in a book called, uh, about Selma. Um, it’s about socializing the conflict, you know, in Albany, Georgia. They had been unsuccessful because, uh, the chief of police, Pritchard, refused to beat them up. You know when to treat them badly. And so there was no media moment. But in Selma, on in Birmingham, with Bull Connor, you know, and with Sheriff Clarke over in Selma, they were able to get people to abuse them on camera, you know, And those pictures in that media went around the world around the country and it mobilized people because it showed them you know what was happening, you know, under the cover of Dark in many places in the South. And so it’s socialized, that conflict for the people, you know, especially the white American majority outside of the South that this was unacceptable. And that led to the Civil Rights Bill of 64 the Voting Rights Act of 65. The analogous thing is that I think the difference is that, you know, with the ab ickiness of iPhones and people taking video, all of a sudden, people are actually seeing video of what happened. And you can’t escape that you can’t escape. What happened with George Floyd, You can’t escape. What happened to Mr Blake over in Kenosha? It’s kind of like there it is in front of you. Okay, How are you going to deal with it? And I think that’s the major step where all of a sudden you socialize the conflict by bringing in a large portion of the population that just wasn’t aware, or they can’t escape this video. They can’t, you know, they can’t explain it any other way. And so how do you deal with it? Okay. And you can’t just sit there on the sideline and say, Well, that’s interesting. And I think that’s what changed in terms of, you know, in terms of public opinion and public awareness, especially of what was going on. And that leads to a much different, larger public, uh, consciousness Visa vee, the black lives matter movement.
[0:22:03 Peniel] What do you think? Right now? The impact, the continuing impact on the eyes on the prize, Siri’s is especially in terms of it being taught in K through 12 education, but also its impact on a new generation of documentary filmmakers.
[0:22:18 Paul] Well, I think you know, first things first when it was, you know, when it’s taught in school, it has an incredible impact. I mean, there was a certain period of time when I can’t can’t tell you how many people told me they had watched eyes on the prize in school, made me feel very old. Uh, you seen it when you were in junior high school, you know, But that’s what you hope for is a documentary filmmaker that that that material is out there, especially for young people to remind them what the history actually was told. That a compelling, you know, way to be ableto have people you know, listen to regular people, not just famous people, but regular people telling you what it was like to organize the Montgomery bus boycott. You know, to tell you what it was like to be a sanitation worker in Memphis to tell you what it was like to be living, you know, in a small, small building built on the mall for Resurrection City. What was it like, You know, And that brings people in. You know, in many ways, the legacy of eyes on the prize is also in the legacy of just when Henry started, you know, introducing a generation of filmmakers, giving them an opportunity to be able to do other work. And in those filmmakers, you know, introducing mawr people. You know, Orlando back Bagwell, who made you know, some of the most incredibly moving parts of eyes on the prize. One you know, went on to found Raha Productions, which employed many, many young filmmakers of color and also doing this Siri’s Africans in America, you know, And Citizen King is film about Martin Luther King. You know, Sam Pollard, who had been working as an editor and, uh, you know, but not producing films was given an opportunity and eyes to be able to make films. He had been an editor with, uh with Spike Lee. But, you know, he’s done, you know, incredible amounts of films in the year since, you know, including co producing Four Little Girls with With Spike and biographies of Maynard Jackson. Frank Sinatra did an amazing film called Going Back to T Town about the riots in Tulsa. You know, Bennett Singer did a film brother outside. These were all people that worked with us. Uh, the life of Barrel Rustin. Ah, Jackie, share on my leg Co producer doing the Massachusetts 54th Color Infantry for the American Experience. Louis Messiah. You know, W E D V the W E B Du Bois of biography and four Voices and found to described Video Center, which is, um, uh, you know, again brought in many, many other folks, you know, in Philadelphia into into filmmaking. Nolan Walker, who’s now the vice president of content of I t b s, you know, was a production assistant, Maya Harris, who made banished with Marco Williams. You know, just the list goes on and on and on of filmmakers. When when Henry passed away in 1980 89 88. No, no, that’s sorry. 1998 at his memorial, the Arlington Church in Boston. Just It was an astounding collection of people that had worked with him and other documentary filmmakers. And so that legacy, you know, that inspiration, you know, lives on another. Filmmakers and all of us who made those films have tried to be able to help younger folks under us to be able to tell the same kinds of stories that deal with social justice, deal with stories of diversity and bringing in storytellers that were not always part of mainstream media in the United States, which is what documentary can do to be able to bring those stories to a larger audience. So that for me, Eisen the prize is just one of the most amazing Siri’s ever done, You know, a serious that every one of us was proud to be part of, you know, and that we carry on that legacy that Henry’s vision allowed us to be part of.
[0:26:10 Peniel] Yeah, I know the journalist, Callie Crossley was part of that, too. And she was always very, very, uh, admiring of Henry Hampton. And just just the whole experience. You know, I want to ask you about your you made a film about George Wallace. And I couldn’t have you this conversation with you and not say because you’re an expert on George Wallace. What? What do you think? What are the comparisons between Wallace and the current president? I’m not even gonna say the current president’s name, But are there any? I know there’s been these comparisons, but somebody who’s made a film or in George Wallace, Uh, and that time, are there any and if so, what? What are the ones that are that are actually effective comparisons? And in what way are they? Are they actually different?
[0:26:57 Paul] You know, when when we picked this Siri’s originally it was sort of the the mirror image of eyes on the prize. Eyes on the prize have been about the people that made the civil rights movement. The Wallace film was supposed to use Wallace. His life is a metaphor for those people that opposed civil rights. You know what was going on in their minds, You know, how is it possible for somebody with the segregationist, you know, in reaction reviews of somebody like George Wallace to get millions of votes in the 1968 election, you know, was a third party candidate and almost put that election into the House of Representatives, where he would have held the balance between the Republicans and the Democrats. I think the into a certain extent the rhetoric is similar, You know, between George Wallace and the current occupant of the White House. The difference is that, um, you know, Wallace, you know, was actually a professional politician. He was actually somebody with him. He was in the Legislature was a policy wonk, you know, so that, you know, as aberrant as his views were, you know, he also in style, uh, you know, was part of the political, the cultural mainstream, You know, not the not the mainstream in terms of his political views. You know, Trump apes a lot of this stuff, you know, But he’s all over the map, and it z e. I think I was quoted, uh, Peter Baker’s article about Wallace, Nixon and the president saying that in comparisons to Richard Nixon, you were doing Nixon a disservice because Nixon was actually ah, political pro who knew what he was doing in terms of the political system, you know, the current occupant of the White House is kind of like a you know, like a wild animal in a China shop, you know, sort of, you know, hitting out whatever he possibly can. If you listen to his rallies, it’s their non sequitur after non sequitur and just bomb after bomb and hoping that something lands. You know, Wallace was much more much more focused. Wallace actually enjoyed having people boo and screaming them in rallies, you know, because he was able to deal with that. And, you know, he liked the back and forth and he thought that back and forth made him look good. Um, it’s also very entertaining, you know, in its strange conflictual way from making a film so on. It was also interesting to make a film about somebody who, you know, went further and further and off the charts until he was shot five times in 1972 and eventually comes around to asking for forgiveness. And in his last election for governor in 1982 he’s actually elected governor of Alabama, pretty much because of the solid support of African amount of American voters in Alabama. You know when, when Congressman uh Lewis passed away, I was reminiscing with Dan Carter, the Wallace biographer and also the man who rediscovered the Scottsboro Boys case that had been for gotten and brought to light in an amazing history that he wrote. And we were remembering the day we spent with Congressman Lewis in Atlanta toe. Have him talk about when Wallace had actually called him and asked to meet with him to talk about what he had done in the past. And, uh, John had gone back Detroit to visit his family, and Wallace came there, and he expected Wallace to be there with a bunch of people and news me that he just came by himself and he heals himself in, and as much as he, you know, he was capable of, he asked for forgiveness. He said he was sorry for what he had done, and he asked Congressman Lewis for you to forgive him on they held hands and the congressman did. It’s a very moving moment in our film, and it was amazing moment just to listen to. Can you picture the current occupant of the White House ever asking for forgiveness for anything?
[0:31:05 Peniel] No, No. Well, my my final question. Paul is based on what’s happening in 2020 and it’s somebody who has been a film maker and artist scholar of 20th century American history. What do you feel? Are you Do you feel hopeful about American democracy, race relations, civil rights? Based on what we’re seeing in 2020 where do you think we’re gonna be? Because obviously, what’s happening now? We’ve seen patterns, uh, in our in our history, echoes of this in the past. It’s even bigger scale now. Like you said, this media technology is allowing for socialization of these social movements. But where do you think we’re going to go from here?
[0:31:55 Paul] Well, I’d like to think positively, Okay. And I say that with with the assumption that this is going to be the ugliest campaign in American history, you know that there’s liable to be more violent confrontations. This is gonna be a very bad couple of months. Okay, so but where do we get to at the end of these two months? Dan and I wrote a piece a month or two ago in which we said that what Wallace started by introducing this kind of racial rhetoric into national politics that perhaps Trump is going to be the end. Okay. And the reason we said this was first of all, that I still believe that Trump’s message is somewhat incoherent. Um, but secondly, this is a very different country in 2000 and 20 than it was in 1968. You know, the electorate is much more diverse, and it is only going to get more diverse Culturally, We’re a different country, you know, and you can you can appeal to your base. But this base again is maybe 40% of the population. Uh, and if that’s the case, you know, then Joe Biden, as he says, may very well be a transitional figure to a very different kind of politics, you know, and a much more diversified politics. It was kind of politics that I think many people expected when, uh, Barack Obama was elected president in 2000 and eight, you know, And you know, these first two terms and then there’s a reaction, you know, an inside straight of the Trump victory in 2000 and 16. But this is a different country. I mean, you know, we live in Texas. Texas is now a majority, a plurality minority state, you know, and it’s only going to get more. So, you know, especially as those younger Mexican American voters of potential voters registered to vote and so that the country that we have in 2000 and 20 is gonna be very different in 2000 or 30 and war in 2000 and 40. So the hopeful view is that this is kind of like maybe it’s like a fever, you know, fever is that they don’t kill you, you know, burn themselves out, you know? And maybe this is like, you know, the messenger in 2000 and 20 burns himself out and that this appeal after this time is just not a useful appeal anymore, and that people stop doing it now. Is this going to affect fringe groups Is gonna affect you know what Richard Hofstetter was talking about? But the hysteria of of extremist groups? No. Okay, but their powers in numbers, you know, and there’s powers and cultural change that’s not going to be locked away. I remember this is somewhat relevant. I remember going to see, uh, if you remember, I think was Bob Barr was a congressman in Georgia. Far fairly right wing. We’re making vote for me back in 1994 and he was he was giving a talk, a evangelical church, you know, it was, you know, was fairly extreme stuff. And we went outside of the church after he was done done filming his his his sermon and there were kids from the church and they were break dancing in the parking lot. I remember thinking, You know something, You can do whatever you want, but you can’t keep culture out, okay? You can’t keep culture out. You can’t turn back, you know, culture and society. You know, no matter what you wanna do, unless you put people in a bubble and America is just changing, you know, it’s partially what the role of documentary filmmakers are. I think the way we see it, the filmmakers that are interested in social justice to be able to tell stories that air compelling to a wide audience. And remember that Henry’s Henry’s mantra to us was that he wanted eyes on the prize to be able to be viewable to an audience in Peoria, Peoria, Illinois. He said this all the time. He didn’t want them to turn the camera off, turn the TV set off. He wanted them tow, watch these shows. You know, he wanted this to be accessible to a wide public. And that’s what I think you know, the most successful documentary filmmakers to They present history or they present issues in a way that reach a wide public, you know, And that wide public, then is able to, you know, in that process of socialization, see a world that they weren’t aware of. It’s like seeing videos today for black lives. Matter of what’s happened in the streets and people go, Oh, I didn’t know that kind of thing happened. I don’t really understand what I’m seeing. I need to understand this, you know. And as filmmakers you’re hoping to reach as large an audience is, you can to be able to either directly or indirectly begin to change people’s views of the world. And if you do that thing, you can be successful and there’s no more. There’s no greater example that than Henry Hampton’s, you know, amazing 14 parts. Serious eyes on the prize. Imagine what it’s done to change people perceptions of not only the civil rights movement but in American history.
[0:37:06 Peniel] Wow, thank you. That’s a great way to close. Thank you for visiting with us. We’ve been talking to Paul Steckler, who’s a nationally and internationally recognized documentary filmmaker on scholar who is a professor in the moody College of Communication Radio Television of Film RTF, where he holds the offer, Denny’s chair and entertainment studies. And he’s a professor of public affairs with me, one of my colleagues at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, and we were really talking about he’s many multiple award winning films. But we talked about eyes on the prize to where he was the filmmaker on two of the episodes of this classic documentary Siri’s about the civil rights movement, and we also talked about George Wallace setting the woods on fire. Paul, thank you for joining us.
[0:37:54 Paul] Thank you so much for not only allowing me to talk about this, but for me to be able to just sit and do a lot of thinking about what that Siris was about, it was, you know, one of the highlights of my life. And it just just thinking about the people that I work with and thinking about Henry and Jackie and Steve Fehr and all the people that have passed away. It was just amazing experience. And just it’s such an honor to be part of something like that.
[0:38:18 Peniel] Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode and you can check out related content on Twitter at Peniel Joseph. That’s P-e-n-i-e-l J-o-s-e-p-h and our Web site, CSRD.LBJ.utexas.edu and the Center for Study of Race and Democracy is on Facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you.